The Experiment - Skillups, Leveling, and the Arts

[Calthine]

So, besides me and Rijacki having to take a discussion to PMs (luv ya even when we are butting heads, hon) there's been a lot of discussion lately about skillups.First, lets agree that the current arts system, which forces you to use undesirable arts if you're concerned about skillups, is flawed.  That Arts revamp just can't come soon enough, IMO.Enough people are having problems keeping their skills up in the early Tiers that Rijacki challenged me to make a Tailor and level her up without doing anything special for skillups (like my grind-your-skillup technique for catching your cap).  I did, and so far she's not having any problems.  I should ding 30 tonight.Meanwhile in another thread several people chimed in that they had no problem keeping their skillups with grey arts.  This was surprising to me.  It was sometime in early 2005 that the community determined that those white arts got way more skillups.  That whole "grab your new arts" advice isn't original to me, some crafter who figured it out in Beta told me, lol.So, I've got this tailor, and I've proved at least to my satisfaction that it's quite possible to level up through tier 3 without having a problem with my skill slipping well below it's cap (I think elsewhere we decided "well below" was five levels, but only once have I actually been more than 5 points behind my cap).  I decided to see what using *no* white con arts would do.Unless I miss my guess my T2 arts will grey out when I ding 30, which means I'll have two sets of greyed out arts.  I'm gonna grind T4 with them and see what happens.  My prediction is that my skillups will come too slow and that by 40 I'll be way below my cap and starting to struggle to get Pristine.Yeah, I have too much time on my hands or something.Here's pics of my level/skill progress so far.<img src="http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a230/calthine/FifthStar-lvl-10.jpg" alt="" border="0" /><img src="http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a230/calthine/fifthstarlvl20.jpg" alt="" border="0" />

[Rijacki]

Yes, if you make sure to use white arts for every combine, not for every use of the arts but at least some, without regard to the actual merits of the art and how it is affecting your durability and progress, you will get skill-ups faster than if you only craft according to the process and use your arts proactively to increase and decrease progress and/or durability without paying strict attention to if they're white or grey and how many of what you use each combine.It's counter intuitive.  It doesn't reward using the arts on their merits, it rewards a different sort of "whack a mole" than only countering events.  Sadly, the crafter who can be very skilled in using the arts based on their merits might have a game-mechanic skill below his level because he didn't grind by the colours.That's the root of the disagreement between Calthine and I, actually.  I don't think it's fair to say someone who is player skilled doesn't know how to use his/her arts when their game-mechanic skill lags behind simply because they weren't grinding the colours.  It's a different approach.  Granted, in the games mechanic, the grind is rewarded, not the player skill... sadly.Then again.. I remember when the cross-crafting was put in game and Rijacki was a level capped (50) alchemist and I had to get geomancy up using only grey arts.  I also remember when there was no tier 5 (or T6) arts and when they were added in and how we all reacted to see they were "to fill in" rather than advance the crafting.  I've been around too long *laugh*

[Calthine]

I apologize for my phrasing lately.  I never meant to imply that anyone was stupid or anything.  I think after typing the same advice so much over two years (ha, that's an indicator of how counter-intuitive the Arts are) I just get hasty and less diplomatic.<cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote>Yes, if you make sure to use white arts for every combine, not for every use of the arts but at least some, without regard to the actual merits of the art and how it is affecting your durability and progress, you will get skill-ups faster than if you only craft according to the process and use your arts proactively to increase and decrease progress and/or durability without paying strict attention to if they're white or grey and how many of what you use each combine.</blockquote>Well, I always consider how all the arts I'm using affect the round, including one that is crappy but white.  Normally I keep four Tiers of arts up and can make a combination that will still give me a nice result, even with those bizarre T6 and T7 arts.Yep, we're on the same page.  I remember at the Fan Faire Mechanics panel Domino said (during the how tradeskills work bit) that skillups were tied to arts, but I totally forgot to ask on the weights for grey and white arts.Anyway, gonna see how many skillups I get in T4 using only non-white arts.  Should be interesting.  My T2 arts just greyed out at level 27, and skillups definitely slowed down (I'm using a combination of T3 and T2 arts, with the T1 progess/chance of success thrown in 'cause the T3 on is awful).  We'll see how far I get before I wanna quit in frustration, lol.

[Verky]

You picked the wrong tradeskill class to test this on. Tailor, so far, has been by far the easiest to level for me. I get better reactions. I am currently leveling a Tailor and Armorer at the same time. As well as a Weaponsmith. My tailor easily has 2-3 minutes left on a timed writ, where my armor and weaponsmith just barely make it. I don't know why that is, but it is. I have the same level of tradeskill arts in my hot bars (for tailor and armorer). I use current tier and previous tier, and for the power use reactions I use tier 1 and 2. Both tailor and armorer are level 34 right now. Weaponsmith is 55. I am also not lagging behind on skills. Soon as I level, they are maxed within the first 2 items I make.

[Calthine]

Rijacki suggested Tailor when I rolled this toon (she had good reason, but I'd have to go look up the thread), so I did.  If I wanted easy I woulda gone Woodworker, I get the best results with those arts.  I would have avoided Weaponsmith and Sage.Ditto on the skillups - the only levels I've had real problems on was, um 9, I think, I was three points down when I dinged 10, and I did craft through level 9.I got my tailor almost to 28 before I ran out of belladonna.  I'm not paying 20s for 'em, so I'm going harvesting, lol.

[Verky]

Yeah I wouldn't pay that either. At least with a tailor you need very little metal, which is very very expensive on my server at least. Happy Harvesting!

[Woodsrunner]

<p>I have found my T3 Sage the most frustratingly diffiluct TS'er so far.  Glad my Jeweler is almost through T4.  Feyiron has got to be the rarest of the common ores.  Must have had four stacks of loam/stack of feyiron, ugh. </p><p>Appreciate the work Rijacki and Calthine do on these forums (two thumbs way up!)</p>

[SnoesieQ]

<p>I'm just glad if the arts are getting fixed, because they are plain broken. I submit this discussion as proof. You will always have difference of opinions, but over game mechanics, from  people who obviously knows how to play?  - shouldn't happen.</p><p>As for difficulty in different tradeskills - I had the most problems with my tailor. Other people I know had big problems with their tailor. Lots of people on the forums claim tailor is one of the easy professions. So go figure. I think some characters are just born with the thumb in the middle of their hand, and shouldn't do tailoring, that's my theory, it makes as much sense as anything else.</p><p>I'll add this to the debate though: After reading the previous thread, I took note on my leveling armorer, as she was only using 2 white arts, and she leveled her skills just fine on the grey arts. "Just fine" = in 2 or 3 items she maxed out her skill after leveling. It was even more than that - she only actually uses 1 of her white skills, the other one is just for emergencies. And though she did get skill ups from using her one white art, she also got them from the grey ones. </p><p>They were not terribly grey though, if that matters - her 30 skills greyed out at 46. Her one supergrey art (lvl 1) I can't say for sure, as I use it on the same round as her one white art.</p><p>Speaking of arts and skillups though - will tinkering and transmuting ever be changed? I don't have that much experience with either, and although tinkering kind of works (it at least uses normal harvestables), I found transmuting to be terrible.After half an hour of frustration, I checked the forums and some guides, and now my transmuter is a skillup bot. <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />Well, I am at the keyboard and I do start each combine, then I do something else. She gets skillups even when she doesn't produce an item! She gets skillups from grey combines. Me being there has no influence on the process or not, and making higher level items doesn't save time if you take cost and effort into account.</p><p>I would be very happy if transmuting turned into a harvesting, not a tradeskill profession. Because that's what it is, when it comes down to it, isn't it? To have to make things to skill up is very frustrating and extremely unrewarding, for me personally anyway. Its not like I care if she makes the item or not, because every other transmuter only trying to skill up make the same items and dump them on the broker. Most times, you can't even give the things away. On the other hand, the result of the transmute itself can be sold fine.</p><p>What am I missing? I really dislike the normal UI/crafting process, but at least it makes sense. It is what it is, I suppose. But this transmuting and tinkering business... I feel I must be missing something that will make me go AH!.. so that's how its done...</p><p>I do find tinkering more interesting because of the items you make and the harvestables being easy peasy to get - there its just the crafting process itself that feels so boring I want to cry, as its the same as the transmuting crafting, meaning... eh... wait for the thing to run through and... well, hit combine again. If you are so inclined, you can of course hit some buttons, but... it made me want to scream from mental torture. It distressed my dogs, so now I catch up on blogs while I do it. <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/499fd50bc713bfcdf2ab5a23c00c2d62.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /></p><p>Sorry if I derailed the thread or sound negative.</p>

[Rattfa]

The biggest class I have had problems levelling is Armorer. I currently have 2 ( i guess retired) one level 35 and the other 36. Their Armorer skill is way below the cap, and through using 'white' arts or 'grey' arts, it dings so infrequently I have given up trying. My sage is currently level 42 and I find that my skillups have caught up before I'm halfway to the next level. My carpenter is 46 and insanely easy to skillup. I find he is capped 3 or 4 combines into a new level. Both use a mixture of old and new arts in their usual cycle. I don't even try to skillup...I just continue as normal.Maybe there is some code somewhere that determines what tradeskills you are more 'skillful' (easier to skillup) based on race/class/rng?Armorer has always been difficult for me. Both characters are between 1 and 2 years old. I pick them both up from time to time if crafting for alts, but the lack of skillups makes me back my head on the desk and give up. I vaguely recall my 40 WS being tricky to skillup too, but again that character is pretty much retired.

[zaneluke]

I have a 70 carpenter, 70 provisioner and a 56 alchemist.All three tradeskill classes have been silly easy to level. All related skills are going up in kind while i level I am not or did not lag behind. On the average it takes about 30-45 minutes per level for each one, vitality being the only ,major factor in leveling speed. I finish rush order writs with all of them with about 90 sec to 120 sec to spare. My alchemist is a pure crafter is 56 has 2 days play time and is a lev 21 troub. I honestly am lost in what you guys are talking about. .

[Jesdyr]

Calthine / Rijacki I am not sure what the real point of all this is. We wont know what happens once the revamp hits. Even ignoring that, I have come to realize that some people, even after making an attempt to understand crafting, still have no idea how things work. I would not expect one of the "master crafters"** to have a problem unless they knowingly cause it themself. I recently had a breakthrough with a guildmate who I could not understand why she was having problems. Even after a lot of instruction (in chat and pointing her to guides) it was finally clear that she was only using 1 art per round. After getting that cleared up and giving her some instruction on my methods, she now has enough skill to do rush orders (yay). The fact is that many people have problems. It is not really the system that is at fault but the knowledge of the user. The tradeskill system is built in a way that allows for different successful methods of using it. I highly doubt any two people craft exactly the same and to me this illustrates the beauty of the design. Unfortunately we are going to be taking a step backwards with RoK for the sake of making it easier to understand. Soon there will be no choice in arts, everyone of XX level will be using the same things. There will still be different styles in how these are applied, but it wont be as different as what we have today. <span style="font-size: xx-small;">** I am not talking about level here. I am talking about those who have a great understanding of crafting. We have many on this forum and I am sure there are many others out there. </span>

[Rijacki]

In my opinion, a system that's contra-intuitive, rewards grind, and penalises player input/skill is highly flawed. Having Arts 'make sense' and provide an upgrade as the character goes up in level also makes it possible to make the difficulty of crafting an item more tied to the level of the item and not arbitrarily to only the crafter. How logical is it for a level 1 recipe to be as difficult (or nearly so) for a level 70 to make as a level 70 recipe? But right now, the process and difficulty -is- nearly the same (or even more difficult for the 70 if he uses T5+ arts only). Then again.. this will be, hmm, the 4th major change to the Arts (or is it 5th).

[Jesdyr]

<cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote>In my opinion, a system that's contra-intuitive, rewards grind, and penalises player input/skill is highly flawed. Having Arts 'make sense' and provide an upgrade as the character goes up in level also makes it possible to make the difficulty of crafting an item more tied to the level of the item and not arbitrarily to only the crafter. How logical is it for a level 1 recipe to be as difficult (or nearly so) for a level 70 to make as a level 70 recipe? But right now, the process and difficulty -is- nearly the same (or even more difficult for the 70 if he uses T5+ arts only). Then again.. this will be, hmm, the 4th major change to the Arts (or is it 5th).</blockquote><b>rewards grinding </b>- Sadly this is the theme for MMOGs. The problem is the games are designed to minimize the impact of player skill which means they reward time spent not player skill. Some mask it better than others but it really comes down to time is rewarded more than skill.<b>penalizes player input/skill </b>- .. huh? I dont know what you mean here. <b>level differences in making items</b> - The problem here is that if you made it very easy for a lvl 70 to craft low level items, then you are seriously hurting low level crafters' ability to make money. In my opinion one reason that there is not a higher supply of low level items on the broker is that higher level crafters do not want to spend the time crafting the low level stuff. If the time needed to make the items was reduced greatly, then it would no surprise me if high level crafters moved into the market.

[Calthine]

This was not what this thread was supposed to be about guys.  It was just an experiment with the Arts.  For fun.  I thought people might be interested.Rijacki, this conversation has now followed me through at least three threads and I'm tired of it.  We all know Arts are broken. We all also know they're getting fixed.  What's the point of derailing every thread with this?  They're getting fixed, wait it out.Meanwhile, I'm getting very frustrated because my intentions have been read completely wrong, and I keep getting attacked for it, but I'm unable to convince my attackers they're mistaken.  So I give up.

[Echgar]

It sounds like this thread isn't really the kind of discussion originally intended so I am going to go ahead and close it.