How come tinkering is hard from T1?

[hisawat]

I have some tradeskillers, which includes a transmuter.   I know  tradeskills shouldn't be easy, but I think tinkering is really hard from tier 1.  This morning, I spent about two hours and used 8 stacks of lead loams and I gained from level 7 to level 20.  I couldn't even finish tier 1(level 50).  I would understand if this was tier 6 or 7, but I think it's too difficult to level for tier 1.  Almost all tradeskills are not that hard in early tiers. It just gets hard gradually.  Even transmuting is not hard up to 100. I know SOE reduced the number of the materials we need for tinkering, but I think it is still hard to level in low tiers.

[Jeger_Wulf]

Tinkering is a pain. I guess they wanted only a few people to do it.

[Finora]

<p>Gathering the supplies for tinkering was most definately painfully time consuming when I was leveling it up.</p><p>For T1 I actually made a newbie on the Queen's colony to harvest for me since the ore respawns so much faster there than anywhere else, and you know where it's going to be when it does pop.</p>

[Rijacki]

Oddly, T1 is harder than T2 for tinkering.  Mostly its because the recipes start out higher than for any other craft or side-craft (with transmuting you have an alternate means to get up to T3).  I don't know how the recipes are now, 'cause they were supposed to have lowered a couple of the entry ones, but many of us started with them red red.

[Valdaglerion]

<p>What exactly is hard about it?</p><p>All crafting materials are found from common harvesting. You can skill up on grey recipes and level all from T1 if you want to?</p><p>Tinkering may be time consuming but it is far from difficult....</p><p>Here is a guide, complete with silver platter-</p><ol><li>Roll an alt</li><li>Go to the noobie island</li><li>level your alt to level 8, this should take about 1 hour</li><li>Now that your alt is level 8, the entire zone is grey</li><li>Go to the river area found in the northern part of the zone</li><li>Stay in the river and harvest the stones and ore til your fingers ache from button mashing.</li><li>You only need to keep leaded loam, lead and tin. Destroy the rest, pass any Solidified Loam, Bronze Clusters, Lapus Lazuli and Copper Clusters to me for writing these instructions for you</li><li>Take your tinkerer to the tradeskill instance</li><li>Go to the fuel merchant and buy 2-3 stacks of coal</li><li>Proceed to the jewlers station</li><li>Grind out T1 tinkering recipes until your fingers ache from button mashing</li><li>Rinse and repeat</li></ol><p>Difficult? No...Time consuming? Yes</p><p>When secondary skills were introduced they said they wouldnt be for everyone...If you want it bad enough, be ready to either follow the instructions and either grind all on grey recipes at the very cheapest, work through the zones and spend more time harvesting and less time crafting, or buy all your materials on the broker and spend less time crafting (fastest but definitely the most expensive method)</p>

[Oakleafe]

Tinkering!  If they only wanted a few people to do it they shouldn't have made any tinkered items that could only be used by tinkerers (and I know some of these have been reversed now, so no need to update me).  I still think tinkering is a mistake, and I also think it should have really been a gnome-only profession (a bit similar to only certain adventure classes being able to portal).  Wouldn't have mattered if it caused everyone to roll a new gnome, cos they are tiny and they'd not take up too much room! Anyway, a bit to add to Valdaglerion's advice based on my own experiences: 1. Roll an alt and kit him out in the best gear and upgrade all the spells. No it's not absolutely needed but if you kit out your toon in mastercrafted and upgrade all spells to Adept III then your life on the isle will be soooooo much easier.  Personally I'd pick a character type with either killer AoE (Shadowknight works great on the Freeportian isle) or with a pet - pet has the advantage that you can kill and harvest at the same time (with a conj/necro you should have invisibilty so you can walk past aggro mobs, thumbing your nose at them, as an added bonus).  You don't have to kit out the toon right away, as you can let the toon harvest the rares needed to upgrade itself. 2. Probably best to choose the newbie island that corresponds to the good/evil allegiance of your tinkerer, just to make use of the shared bank without then needing to post items across zones. 3. Level your alt to 7 and then switch off combat XP.  The zone won't be grey, but it'll mean that you have plenty of opportunity to use the same toon for transmuting raws (either use or sell - I sell level 1-9 treasured items for 1g or less and they sell quickly - I also make adept III spells and sell for 1g50s, and the wise/rich transmuters snap these up too.  Just a guideline there, if you're gonna sell stuff choose the pricing that suits you).  Do all the available quests and also use any treasured rewards and drops for transmuting raws, as mentioned above.  Plus the added advantage of a level 7 alt is that you get a bit more life out of them if you ever bring them off the isle. 4. The zones aren't grey at level 8, they are grey at level 9.  Some level 6 NPC's aggro level 8 players (e.g. the skellies near the graveyard on the Qeynos isle).  Anyway, my advice is to stop at level 7 and then you have a dual purpose alt. 5/6. River area mentioned by Val, where there are waterfalls at either end (near the treehouse), are by far the best harvesting spot.  Not the only spot, but the best.  However, try and share whenever there are more than one of you trying to harvest in the same place.  Conflict on nodes helps no-one. 7. You need leaded loam, lead, tin <u>and malachite</u> to be able to do all the tier 1 tinkering recipes.  Don't send the tier 1 rares to Val, as his instructions are ever so slightly flawed. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  Tier 1 rares should, IMO, first be used to kit out your alt fully.  After that use them for transmuting (i.e. use or sell).  BTW, with my toons I also chose to harvest roots, which sell well (at reasonable prices!). 8-12. What Val said!  Only thing I'd add is, don't worry about trying to hit pristine level.  I'm sure that's what Val meant, but thought it should be said.  Just grind.  Personally I play all those silly card games that come with Windows, just to distract me from the awfulness of tinkering arts.  The benefit of "pristine level" is mainly returning some lead (in the case of tier 1), but you have an alt who can supply this so don't worry about it (I say mainly because some have reported that you have more chance of levelling if you hit pristine level - personally I've never noticed any difference and anyway, what's the rush!). A bit to add about transmuting raws, the treasured etc. drop items.  If you are going to go after these then don't bother haunting the few nameds.  Sure, take them if they are up and no quester is around, but remember that every mob that isn't grey can drop not only a treasured items but also ornate chest drops etc.  Not camping the named mobs means you won't be in conflict with other players. "Difficult? No...Time consuming? Yes"  -  When you get right down to it Val is spot on here.  What you have to accept is that tinkering (and transmuting without a huge budget!) is something for the long haul.  Find a way to fit it into your weekly schedule, rather than wanting it to take over as a day in day out grind, and it shouldn't be too painful a ride. One last word to add.  It has been said you can level all the way up just using tier 1 raws.  Just because it is true doesn't mean that you have to only use tier 1 raws.  Use any tier you like!  Some people like a bit or variety in their boredom!  <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />   But the advice given should see you supplied with plenty of tier 1 raws, if you decide to grind using that method.  Oh, and good luck and be patient. <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Jesdyr]

See my "broken game mechanic" post for more info ... Yes .. the first 5-10 levels are Very very hard. The "higher" con recipes combined with the massive failure rate for having a really low % of max skill makes starting tinkering a real pain.

[Lilj]

Jesdyr@Unrest wrote: <blockquote>See my "broken game mechanic" post for more info ... Yes .. the first 5-10 levels are Very very hard. The "higher" con recipes combined with the massive failure rate for having a really low % of max skill makes starting tinkering a real pain. </blockquote>I didn't think they were any harder. You don't need to complete the recipe to get a skill-up you know and yellow/orange recipes have a higher skill-up chance than greys. So what if you fail, so what if can't complete the recipe, it doesn't matter. I don't agree, tinkering is not hard at all and it wasn't harder in the start either.

[Snowdonia]

Tinkering isn't hard (and I'm starting my second Tinker now) but it is a <b>HUGE</b> PITA (Pain In The [Removed for Content]). The lowest levels are the worst for me because all of my chars have leveled out of T1 - T3 so I'm having to backtrack to get mats (and I don't have any char slots open to make a perma newb island lowbie). So, it's annoying to get through the first tier, less so the second, and from there onward it's a breeze! Like right now, I have over 1k Supple and Soluble Loam just waiting for my second Tinker to tear through... Now just to get through the beginning tiers... Especially with the change to loam usage, it's not NEAR as hard as it was when I leveled my first Tinker.

[Jeger_Wulf]

I'm not sure I would differentiate "hard" from "PITA". If the difference is important to you, then yes tinkering is a PITA.