are Sages on thier way out [Archive] - EQ2 Forum Archive @ EQ2Wire

Katz

12-04-2010, 12:41 PM

<cite>Lamatu wrote:</cite><blockquote>On test copy I was able to start researching experts if I had adepts. The time to get a lvl 78 expert spell was 13 days.</blockquote>Developers, you have just destroyed sages, jewelers, and alchemists. Granted, jewelers and alchemists can make a few more items that aren't spells, but not that much. Why not destroy the rest of the tradeskills and be done with it. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/0320a00cb4bb5629ab9fc2bc1fcc4e9e.gif" border="0" />And for the love of pete, why oh why have you been so protective of provisioners. ("We can't increase recipe amounts because it will hurt their abiity to make money) and then so completely disregard the scholars?!!!!!!!!!!Would be great if you were a little more consistent. *waits for the "we never said we wouldn't add expert spells to the researcher and destroy the usefulness of your tradeskillers" comment.Sorry for sounding snippy but this is greatly annoying.Edit: Oh, btw, I suppose you have taken into account the dusts that sages get as a by product for making spells that are then used to make potions, etc? Won't be a heck of those around anymore. Something that has this much impact on the game shouldn't be slipped in without any heads up....this is what we have planned....this is the revamp........etc. Either you have 1) a COMPLETE revamp of tradeskilling planned, 2) you are phasing out tradeskilling, or 3) its a [Removed for Content] moment ...geezzz we didn't mean to do that./facepalmEdit # 2:Before you say, "this will have no effect because people will not want to wait for the spells and many will still have them crafted so only the few that don't have the rares and have no money will wait for the research for spells." I personally will not spend the hours I spent harvesting for my rare for my spells in SF next time the level is raised. I will just wait the time to get it researched. Why? Here my main sits at max level, max aa, max tradeskill with no level increase coming for a while. Next time I will just take my sweet time experting her out and skip the harvesting for spell rares. Which by the way had me harvesting for other rares just to clear the areas when I was harvesting and waiting for the nodes I needed to repop.Rares are getting more and more expensive as fewer and fewer of us harvest. I shudder to think what this will do. Our harvesting depot filled up quickly with tier 9 stuff as people were trying to get the rares for their spells. They aren't going to bother to harvest max tier for any other reason. Weapon, armor, what? Whats worth harvesting for in max tier?

Hirofortis

12-04-2010, 01:24 PM

This has got to be one of the stupidest things done to date. Lets look at the impact:Now you don't need a research assistant amenityNow you don't need SagesNow you don't need AlchemistsNow you don't need JewelersNow you don't need harvestersYou are already writing off carpenters, armorers, and weaponsmiths with weak recipes and Smeedbuck replacements. Now you are killing 3 more tradeskill classes.Hey Domino, you might as well start looking for another job, because you certainly don't have much of a future with the way things are going. Having a research tab, not a bad idea. Making it so everything can be done = stupid.

ccarro

12-04-2010, 01:29 PM

Horrible change. I really wish a certain someone would get fired already.

Quesera

12-04-2010, 01:58 PM

It smells like another way to implement Station Cash transactions on the live servers. This game is slowly becoming one blatant cash grab and I don't like it.

Maliclipse

12-04-2010, 02:36 PM

Lets be realistic here. If it takes 13 days to go from app to expert. Then another 28 days to go from expert to master. Any person that is at all serious about the character will still buy spells. No way would any person in their right mind use app spells for 5 months before they start working on masters.

Kordran

12-04-2010, 02:42 PM

<cite>Quesera wrote:</cite><blockquote>This is ridculous and kind of a spit in the face for those of us who have worked hard to level one crafter (or SEVERAL crafters). Why do you want to destroy the server economies?</blockquote>I have two maxed crafters (with epics and all that jazz), armorer and weaponsmith. Scholars have had it on easymode for years, and frankly there's nothing even remotely related to "hard work" to leveling up a crafter, particularly a scholar. They told outfitters to get stuffed long ago, and now it's your turn on the wheel. Do what we did, suck it up and deal. People will still buy experts because even if it just takes two weeks to get one, no serious player is going to wait 15 months just to get all their experts through the research system. The net effect will be a pressure to drive prices down for experts on the broker, just like it has for masters; right now, at least on my server, the prices sages put premade experts up for are stratospherically stupid.As far as the "destroy the server economies", that ship has sailed. Years ago. Things are so completely out of whack when it comes to the in-game economy that it's beyond salvaging. Time to surrender to reality.

Prrasha

12-04-2010, 02:47 PM

<cite>Maliclipse wrote:</cite><blockquote>Lets be realistic here. If it takes 13 days to go from app to expert. Then another 28 days to go from expert to master. Any person that is at all serious about the character will still buy spells. No way would any person in their right mind use app spells for 5 months before they start working on masters.</blockquote>People today are going without masters on the live servers for 30 days to save 30-50pp. Why would they not go without for another 13 days to save another 10pp? (Besides which, anyone still mastering up at this point in the expansion is probably someone's 4th alt. Most of my guys are down to researching the spells they don't even really use... my warden is working on "Root", for example.)...I'm adding myself to the "what the hey?" list here. Horrible idea. Put it back the way it was, and please do so yesterday.We've asked for years for balance between the crafters, yes, but we meant "give the non-scholars something that adventurers want". We didn't mean "take the one thing adventurers do want away from the scholars so none of the tradeskillers are needed." (And yes, I'm speaking of T9 here. I know mastercrafted gear from all classes is pretty [Removed for Content] at level 30.)

Maliclipse

12-04-2010, 02:52 PM

<cite>Prrasha wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Maliclipse wrote:</cite><blockquote>Lets be realistic here. If it takes 13 days to go from app to expert. Then another 28 days to go from expert to master. Any person that is at all serious about the character will still buy spells. No way would any person in their right mind use app spells for 5 months before they start working on masters.</blockquote>People today are going without masters on the live servers for 30 days to save 30-50pp. Why would they not go without for another 13 days to save another 10pp? (Besides which, anyone still mastering up at this point in the expansion is probably someone's 4th alt. Most of my guys are down to researching the spells they don't even really use... my warden is working on "Root", for example.)...I'm adding myself to the "what the hey?" list here. Horrible idea. Put it back the way it was, and please do so yesterday.We've asked for years for balance between the crafters, yes, but we meant "give the non-scholars something that adventurers want". We didn't mean "take the one thing adventurers do want away from the scholars so none of the tradeskillers are needed." (And yes, I'm speaking of T9 here. I know mastercrafted gear from all classes is pretty [Removed for Content] at level 30.)</blockquote>Well when it comes to alts Sages and them have had it easy for a long time. When it comes right down to it when i want to make an alt I allready have a full set of heirloom items waiting for him to hit 90 which cuts out all of the other tradeskillers that make armor. So the fact that you are still needed for the experts that most of us will buy since im not going to wait 5 months to get ful experts. Consider how other tradeskillers are doing before saying the sky is falling.Also masters are different than experts. With an expert you have to go and harvest some rocks and hope that you get a rare. You cant do that with masters.

Xisi

12-04-2010, 02:55 PM

Alenna

12-04-2010, 02:56 PM

Alenna

12-04-2010, 02:58 PM

<cite>Xisi@Permafrost wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Maliclipse wrote:</cite><blockquote>Lets be realistic here. If it takes 13 days to go from app to expert. Then another 28 days to go from expert to master. Any person that is at all serious about the character will still buy spells. No way would any person in their right mind use app spells for 5 months before they start working on masters.</blockquote>QFE. Plus how easy it is to level a sage compared to other tradeskills while other tradeskills have been pretty much useless. Yes, my raiding characther will just research from journeyman to master. /sarcasm off.</blockquote>hey I have an idea why not give others tradeskillers things adventurers want and more reciepes rather then taking away from scholars hmm. with this they have taken another step into takingaway one of the main reasons I like this game over the other not to be named game.

Alenna

12-04-2010, 03:01 PM

<cite>Maliclipse wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Prrasha wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Maliclipse wrote:</cite><blockquote>Lets be realistic here. If it takes 13 days to go from app to expert. Then another 28 days to go from expert to master. Any person that is at all serious about the character will still buy spells. No way would any person in their right mind use app spells for 5 months before they start working on masters.</blockquote>People today are going without masters on the live servers for 30 days to save 30-50pp. Why would they not go without for another 13 days to save another 10pp? (Besides which, anyone still mastering up at this point in the expansion is probably someone's 4th alt. Most of my guys are down to researching the spells they don't even really use... my warden is working on "Root", for example.)...I'm adding myself to the "what the hey?" list here. Horrible idea. Put it back the way it was, and please do so yesterday.We've asked for years for balance between the crafters, yes, but we meant "give the non-scholars something that adventurers want". We didn't mean "take the one thing adventurers do want away from the scholars so none of the tradeskillers are needed." (And yes, I'm speaking of T9 here. I know mastercrafted gear from all classes is pretty [Removed for Content] at level 30.)</blockquote>Well when it comes to alts Sages and them have had it easy for a long time. When it comes right down to it when i want to make an alt I allready have a full set of heirloom items waiting for him to hit 90 which cuts out all of the other tradeskillers that make armor. So the fact that you are still needed for the experts that most of us will buy since im not going to wait 5 months to get ful experts. Consider how other tradeskillers are doing before saying the sky is falling.Also masters are different than experts. With an expert you have to go and harvest some rocks and hope that you get a rare. You cant do that with masters.</blockquote>and where do you think alot folks get the common harvestibles from to help raise thier tradeskill level? from those common harvestibles others dont' need that the get so they can get that rare? so not only do you take away the only viable product from sages but make it harder for crafters even those with guilds to craft when there are no more common harvestibles out there sheesh it is hard enough to get enough roots to level up with and make things but now they want to make sure nothing is availible? This is a terrible idea that should be rolled back.

Enever

12-04-2010, 03:07 PM

<cite>Whilhelmina@Storms wrote:</cite><blockquote>OH NO!That must definatedly NOT happened!We were assured that the spell research won't impact the business of scholars. You can't be serious! And think about the impact of these on common mats influx! If people can just research experts, they won't harvest for rares and the number of raws on the broker will drop once more.Pretty please, you can't be serious !</blockquote>I've learned to no longer trust SoE's Word. This was the case ever since Station Cash. This will most definatly hit the scholars painfully.I guess my new sage will be thrown out then.

Maliclipse

12-04-2010, 03:20 PM

Scholars are still very much neededThe conjuror i just got to 90 needed 17 expert spells. Now at 13 days a pop that would be 221 days. Now i can understand if i NEVER wanted to play this conjuror yes ill just wait 221 days to be competitive but come on. Who in their right mind is going to wait a year just to have EXPERT spells. You will still get business. You wil still have income.My first Tradeskiller was a Armorsmith. When heirloom came it completley destroyed any revenue i was getting. But i didnt go off and hate the change. This will help the very very casual player. Everyone else will still buy expert spells.

Prrasha

12-04-2010, 03:20 PM

<cite>Maliclipse wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Prrasha wrote:</cite><blockquote>[...chop!...]We've asked for years for balance between the crafters, yes, but we meant "give the non-scholars something that adventurers want". We didn't mean "take the one thing adventurers do want away from the scholars so none of the tradeskillers are needed." (And yes, I'm speaking of T9 here. I know mastercrafted gear from all classes is pretty [Removed for Content] at level 30.)</blockquote>[...more chop...]Consider how other tradeskillers are doing before saying the sky is falling.</blockquote>You seem to be laboring under the misapprehension that I'm a scholar trying to protect my turf.I have all nine tradeskillers at level 90. In the post you quoted, I said "[we want all nine tradeskillers to make] something that adventurers want."Just because the sky has already suffocated 6 of the 9 classes doesn't mean I shouldn't yell "it's falling!" to protect the other 3. I see no reason to bury the last 3 before we try to dig all 9 out. Let's just leave the 3 that are OK the way the are, and do something to boost the other 6, eh?

Prrasha

12-04-2010, 03:30 PM

<cite>Maliclipse wrote:</cite><blockquote>This will help the very very casual player. Everyone else will still buy expert spells.</blockquote>The "very casual player" probably earns most of their money by harvesting rares and shineys. Cutting the market for rares hurts them, as much or more than it hurts the crafters.

Tigress

12-04-2010, 03:32 PM

i dont think this is the kiss of death that many think that it will be. it will mean that journeyman spells will sell now. i dont even bother making spares bc i cannot even get enough to cover the cost of fuel. there will still be those that *must* have expert immediately so its not going to change that. i think that overall it will be good for sages. instead of needing rares, you can sell the journeyman. also, the amount of time that it takes to research will encourage many to still want the expert.thanks for this change, i look forward to it making live. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Tigress

12-04-2010, 03:34 PM

Peogia

12-04-2010, 03:36 PM

<cite>Alenna@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>From Test copy notesRESEARCH<ul><li>The Research window has been moved in to the Knowledge window.</li><li>Journeyman through Master spell tiers can be researched.</li><li>You are no longer required to speak with a Research Assistant to start/change/claim research.</li></ul>Does thismean that journeyman and expert are now researchable if so what do you plan to do for the sages on the income they are going to lose through not being able to sell their spells?</blockquote>I have a 90 Alchemist and I think this is great balanced game play is vary important and all broker/crafted items are absurdly over priced in Everquest II

feldon30

12-04-2010, 03:38 PM

All tradeskill classes should be able to make things which are useful to solo, duo, trio, and heroic players.

Maliclipse

12-04-2010, 03:44 PM

<cite>feldon30 wrote:</cite><blockquote>All tradeskill classes should be able to make things which are useful to solo, duo, trio, and heroic players.</blockquote>I 100% agree with this.

Peogia

12-04-2010, 03:46 PM

<cite>Maliclipse wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>feldon30 wrote:</cite><blockquote>All tradeskill classes should be able to make things which are useful to solo, duo, trio, and heroic players.</blockquote>I 100% agree with this.</blockquote>And raid

Prrasha

12-04-2010, 03:47 PM

<cite>Tigress wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Prrasha wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Maliclipse wrote:</cite><blockquote>This will help the very very casual player. Everyone else will still buy expert spells.</blockquote>The "very casual player" probably earns most of their money by harvesting rares and shineys. Cutting the market for rares hurts them, as much or more than it hurts the crafters.</blockquote>thats a blanket statement & i dont think its true. the ones who buy the experts are the ones who are well established in the game bc they have the several plat just sitting there waiting to be spent. those that are more casual, don't have it. also, the amount of time that it takes to actually get a rare from harvesting would prevent the very casual player from doing anything other than harvest. whose going to do that??</blockquote>A) what's the non-sequitur about established players with plat for? How much plat the rich have does nothing to affect how someone new (or returning) to the game would build their nest egg, or gear up in T9 for the first time.B) Per the thread in the tradeskill forum, the rare-harvesting rate in T9 is about 1%. So 1 rare per 33 nodes. With harvest gear, that's 2.5 seconds per pull, so 250 seconds per rare. Spell rares (on Najena anyway) are 6-8pp. If you want 30-40pp to buy some gear for yourself, or decorate the heck out of your house, or whatever... is there a faster way than harvesting a half-dozen rares and brokering them?

Maliclipse

12-04-2010, 03:52 PM

Alenna

12-04-2010, 03:59 PM

<cite>Tigress wrote:</cite><blockquote>i dont think this is the kiss of death that many think that it will be. it will mean that journeyman spells will sell now. i dont even bother making spares bc i cannot even get enough to cover the cost of fuel. there will still be those that *must* have expert immediately so its not going to change that. i think that overall it will be good for sages. instead of needing rares, you can sell the journeyman. also, the amount of time that it takes to research will encourage many to still want the expert.thanks for this change, i look forward to it making live. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Does it? when folks can research Journeyman spells it isn't only the expert but the Journeyman also.

Tigress

12-04-2010, 04:04 PM

<cite>Prrasha wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Tigress wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Prrasha wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Maliclipse wrote:</cite><blockquote>This will help the very very casual player. Everyone else will still buy expert spells.</blockquote>The "very casual player" probably earns most of their money by harvesting rares and shineys. Cutting the market for rares hurts them, as much or more than it hurts the crafters.</blockquote>thats a blanket statement & i dont think its true. the ones who buy the experts are the ones who are well established in the game bc they have the several plat just sitting there waiting to be spent. those that are more casual, don't have it. also, the amount of time that it takes to actually get a rare from harvesting would prevent the very casual player from doing anything other than harvest. whose going to do that??</blockquote>A) what's the non-sequitur about established players with plat for? How much plat the rich have does nothing to affect how someone new (or returning) to the game would build their nest egg, or gear up in T9 for the first time.B) Per the thread in the tradeskill forum, the rare-harvesting rate in T9 is about 1%. So 1 rare per 33 nodes. With harvest gear, that's 2.5 seconds per pull, so 250 seconds per rare. Spell rares (on Najena anyway) are 6-8pp. If you want 30-40pp to buy some gear for yourself, or decorate the heck out of your house, or whatever... is there a faster way than harvesting a half-dozen rares and brokering them?</blockquote>i'm confused on what you are arguing with your first point? that argument is a little lost on me. i dont mean "yeah whatever"; i mean, "what?" can you restate it please.i've been playing since the end of april, i dont have have tons of plat sitting there so i speak as the non rich player. i dont buy rares bc i cannot afford them. i dont buy mastercrafted items bc i cannot afford them. crafting has done NOTHING to increase my wealth. in fact, its making me broke. my level 82 sage had to get money from my 55 fury so i could afford the fuels.drop 30-40 plat to buy gear or decorate my house or gear up?! LOL!!! i dont even have 30-40 plat!!!i dont understand why you think that getting rares from the harvests is so easy. for me, when i actually get a rare, i need it for one of my characters. i've done a ton of harvesting and am not getting rares even 1 per 33 nodes so maybe that info is off. btw, i have 9 crafters ranging from 41-82 (four are in their 40s, three in their 50s, jeweler is 71 and sage is 82).

Kordran

12-04-2010, 04:47 PM

<cite>Prrasha wrote:</cite><blockquote>If you want 30-40pp to buy some gear for yourself, or decorate the heck out of your house, or whatever... is there a faster way than harvesting a half-dozen rares and brokering them?</blockquote>Grab a two or three friends and run PR, that's 30p in about 15 minutes. Go to SoH, kill the first few easymode mobs there, that's another 20p or so in 15 more minutes. And that's guaranteed plat, not a chance on rares; throw in any manas you get from transmuting the T8 fabled trash that drops, and you can make a heck of a lot more.For the poster that commented on masters, one of the reasons that masters are so cheap these days is because of the researcher; the other reason is that they drop like candy from easy instances that any player with a couple of friends and at least two functioning brain cells can clear. While that is more random, it's certainly not rare; a few days ago a library run dropped 3 masters, 2 of them from trash pulls. That takes all of 15 minutes.The ways to make plat in this game are stupefyingly numerous, and only a very small part of that has anything to do with rare harvests.

kcirrot

12-04-2010, 05:07 PM

This seems like it was added for lower tier alts to be honest. I don't see anyone who is serious about their character doing this for their main spells. Experts aren't nearly so expensive as to make me want to wait two weeks for them on my main.

Prrasha

12-04-2010, 05:26 PM

<cite>kcirrot wrote:</cite><blockquote>This seems like it was added for lower tier alts to be honest.</blockquote>...so you can spend 4 days* researching a level 50 Expert that you'll have replaced with the level 64 version before it's done?Another possible unintended consequence of this... partway through the previous no-level-cap-raise expansion, alchemy dusts were getting rather expensive, since everyone was already adept3/mastered out (to the point that <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=426493" target="_blank">people were asking</a> for a way to convert rares directly into more-than-two-dusts, rather than making adept3 spells.) Granted, the change to handcrafted for useful cure potions solved a lot of that, but we're going to be making dusts more rare again with this change, and they'll become more-rare-yet as time goes on and fewer spells are sold.* - guessing, haven't logged in to test to verify research times for lowbie stuff

Prrasha

12-04-2010, 05:39 PM

<cite>Maliclipse wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Prrasha wrote:</cite><blockquote>B) Per the thread in the tradeskill forum, the rare-harvesting rate in T9 is about 1%. So 1 rare per 33 nodes. With harvest gear, that's 2.5 seconds per pull, so 250 seconds per rare. Spell rares (on Najena anyway) are 6-8pp. If you want 30-40pp to buy some gear for yourself, or decorate the heck out of your house, or whatever... is there a faster way than harvesting a half-dozen rares and brokering them?</blockquote>Math is a little flawed since you have to spend time to go to the node. But i agree harvesting i the easyiest way to make money. Especially when you pick up shinnies while harvesting.</blockquote>Yeah, figured most people would read between the lines (and total harvesting time will scale a lot with "how many other harvesters are you competing with" and "do you grey out the mobs around the nodes", so I didn't have a good number for between-node time anyway.) I certainly wasn't trying to say someone would expect to drag home 15 rares per hour. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> 2-to-4 seems reasonable, though.

d1anaw

12-04-2010, 05:49 PM

Reality check time. Before everyone gets their panties in a wad.... first off, I have a sage. I don't make much in money off of spells. High level players don't want expert spells, they want master spells and sages cannot make master spells. Now THAT would be an improvement. And most of the classes that I play, the spells that are there are ridiculously overpriced. Apparently, unlike most of the people in the game, or so they say, I don't have thousands of plat lying around with nothing to spend it on, so I can't/won't buy the stuff on the broker. I don't think the whole chicken little think is actually going to be the outcome since masters are the real desire anyway. Now if they want to start allowing us to make master spells, I'll be all over that. In the meantime, for someone like me, without limitless income, who doesn't raid, it works for me.

Katz

12-04-2010, 05:57 PM

It doesn't really effect me directly, my max crafters are carpenter, provisioner, and tailor. And I don't try and make money tradeskilling. I can run daily quests and make money. I am concerned about what happens overall to tradeskillers. I would rather they take the route of making things better for those tradeskills that are not profitable than even things out by making it less profitable for those that are healthy at the moment.It seems that instead of fixing the problem by adjusting the harvest rate of rares to something reasonable in higher tiers, they will just eliminate the need for rares.

Peogia

12-04-2010, 06:00 PM

<cite>d1anaw wrote:</cite><blockquote>Reality check time. Before everyone gets their panties in a wad.... first off, I have a sage. I don't make much in money off of spells. High level players don't want expert spells, they want master spells and sages cannot make master spells. Now THAT would be an improvement. And most of the classes that I play, the spells that are there are ridiculously overpriced. Apparently, unlike most of the people in the game, or so they say, I don't have thousands of plat lying around with nothing to spend it on, so I can't/won't buy the stuff on the broker. I don't think the whole chicken little think is actually going to be the outcome since masters are the real desire anyway. Now if they want to start allowing us to make master spells, I'll be all over that. In the meantime, for someone like me, without limitless income, who doesn't raid, it works for me.</blockquote>Yeah it would be sweet if we could Craft a Master 1 or Master 3 spell

Gaige

12-04-2010, 06:12 PM

<cite>TalisX1 wrote:</cite><blockquote>Are you enjoying that certain beta test as much as me? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>No, because its a horrible game and a blatant cash grab copy of WoW. Trion should be embarassed.

Bremer

12-04-2010, 06:53 PM

<cite>Maliclipse wrote:</cite><blockquote>Lets be realistic here. If it takes 13 days to go from app to expert. Then another 28 days to go from expert to master. </blockquote>It takes 14 days from Apprentice to Journeyman, 14 days from Journeyman to Adept, 14 days from Adept to Expert and 30 days from Expert to Master. 2.5 Months from zero to master for one spell. With ~30 spells that's ~6 years to get a crap toon to full mastered.I can see why this is the death of Scholars.

feldon30

12-04-2010, 06:56 PM

<cite>Gaige wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>TalisX1 wrote:</cite><blockquote>Are you enjoying that certain beta test as much as me? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>No, because its a horrible game and a blatant cash grab copy of WoW. Trion should be embarassed.</blockquote>At the risk of breaking NDA, the above is total crap.

Peogia

12-04-2010, 07:06 PM

<cite>Bremer wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Maliclipse wrote:</cite><blockquote>Lets be realistic here. If it takes 13 days to go from app to expert. Then another 28 days to go from expert to master. </blockquote>It takes 14 days from Apprentice to Journeyman, 14 days from Journeyman to Adept, 14 days from Adept to Expert and 30 days from Expert to Master. 2.5 Months from zero to master for one spell. With ~30 spells that's ~6 years to get a crap toon to full mastered.I can see why this is the death of Scholars.</blockquote>Talk about the slowest game on planet

Gaige

12-04-2010, 07:08 PM

<cite>feldon30 wrote:</cite><blockquote>At the risk of breaking NDA, the above is total crap.</blockquote>Opinions vary and some are more valid than others. I wish you much success with Rift-Wire. You might want to start playing WoW and writing about WoW for a few months before launch for practice.

Jrral

12-04-2010, 08:05 PM

<cite>Bremer wrote:</cite><blockquote>It takes 14 days from Apprentice to Journeyman, 14 days from Journeyman to Adept, 14 days from Adept to Expert and 30 days from Expert to Master. 2.5 Months from zero to master for one spell. With ~30 spells that's ~6 years to get a crap toon to full mastered.I can see why this is the death of Scholars.</blockquote>It's not so much that it's the death of Scholars, it's that it's the death of the old rule that the RA couldn't be used as a replacement for a scholar. I don't like breaking that rule, because once it's broken that's precedent to support more things that allow NPCs to replace crafters.And it's not 2.5 months. Mostly you can ignore the lower levels and start from Adept, so figure 6 weeks per spell to Master. Less for lower-tier spells that don't upgrade, like Amends or Rescue.

kcirrot

12-04-2010, 08:06 PM

<cite>Prrasha wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>kcirrot wrote:</cite><blockquote>This seems like it was added for lower tier alts to be honest.</blockquote>...so you can spend 4 days* researching a level 50 Expert that you'll have replaced with the level 64 version before it's done?</blockquote>Not all of us play our alts that way. My Warlock is level-locked in the 30s and has been for months. Now she's a Sage herself so this is pretty much irrelevant to her, but still she would have plenty of time to upgrade all her spells.My mains (a Fury and Dirge) will probably still only use this for Masters they don't need right away. But please, don't let me rain on the SOE raging.

kcirrot

12-04-2010, 08:09 PM

<cite>Jrral@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Bremer wrote:</cite><blockquote>It takes 14 days from Apprentice to Journeyman, 14 days from Journeyman to Adept, 14 days from Adept to Expert and 30 days from Expert to Master. 2.5 Months from zero to master for one spell. With ~30 spells that's ~6 years to get a crap toon to full mastered.I can see why this is the death of Scholars.</blockquote>It's not so much that it's the death of Scholars, it's that it's the death of the old rule that the RA couldn't be used as a replacement for a scholar. I don't like breaking that rule, because once it's broken that's precedent to support more things that allow NPCs to replace crafters.And it's not 2.5 months. Mostly you can ignore the lower levels and start from Adept, so figure 6 weeks per spell to Master. Less for lower-tier spells that don't upgrade, like Amends or Rescue.</blockquote>One of the problems with requiring crafters is that it makes alting suck. Armor is not so bad, but you get new abilities every level and it's a heck of a pain to upgrade them. To seriously play a character in this game requires an investment that many other games don't.Now many like that. They think it adds depth. I don't necessarily disagree. But it does certainly discourage playing a lot of alts. At least it does for me.

Rijacki

12-04-2010, 10:31 PM

Isn't it possible to buy Mastercrafted and Expert's on EQ2x for SC? What's on Test -might- be testing the whole process that will be available 'over there' but it might be set differently when brought to Live.I'm trying to be optimistic.. but.. umm.. yeah. While tradeskillers have been asking and begging for more ways to be involved with the adventurers, the solution presented is to remove the last set of things tradeskillers of any class have to offer to the adventure side of the game (in the end cap)?I hadn't thought about the dusts, really. But... after this goes live, the only use for anything crafted from rares (other than fluff items) will be as fodder for transmuting. So, dusts will still come as a by product of making spell/CA upgrades but not for them to be used as upgrades, for their use as transmuting attempts.. but legendary stuff is considered crap by most and Experts munge as if they're legendary, so not even a real market from that either.Sure, all crafters can level up adorning and adorning still makes one of the adornment types that -currently- is still only available by crafting and crafted adornments can be used with non-crafted. It won't be the first time the crafting of adornments is held out to tradeskillers as the "fix" for them wanting something adventurers desire. But... you don't need to be a crafter to level up adorning, so that "fix" falls on its face, too.

d1anaw

12-04-2010, 11:45 PM

<cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote>Isn't it possible to buy Mastercrafted and Expert's on EQ2x for SC? What's on Test -might- be testing the whole process that will be available 'over there' but it might be set differently when brought to Live.I'm trying to be optimistic.. but.. umm.. yeah. While tradeskillers have been asking and begging for more ways to be involved with the adventurers, the solution presented is to remove the last set of things tradeskillers of any class have to offer to the adventure side of the game (in the end cap)?I hadn't thought about the dusts, really. But... after this goes live, the only use for anything crafted from rares (other than fluff items) will be as fodder for transmuting. So, dusts will still come as a by product of making spell/CA upgrades but not for them to be used as upgrades, for their use as transmuting attempts.. but legendary stuff is considered crap by most and Experts munge as if they're legendary, so not even a real market from that either.Sure, all crafters can level up adorning and adorning still makes one of the adornment types that -currently- is still only available by crafting and crafted adornments can be used with non-crafted. It won't be the first time the crafting of adornments is held out to tradeskillers as the "fix" for them wanting something adventurers desire. But... you don't need to be a crafter to level up adorning, so that "fix" falls on its face, too.</blockquote>I think the best solution is for crafters to provide the best the game has to offer and everything else is second banana. You can still make it worth the raids, heaven forbid, by having required components come from quests, raids, etc. Allowing crafters to create the best spells, the best armor, jewelry, spells, etc. would be a shot in the arm and might even deflate some of the acrimony between crafters and raiders. Still have the options for everyone, but make it worth having crafted items and make it worth tradeskilling.

QuiDex

12-05-2010, 12:15 AM

My sage has only made it to 67 and that is mainly because of real life work and the fact that no one wants to have spells crafted. My perception is that this is happening to most sages except for the very top that play EQ2 all the time and have basically retired or live in the parents basement. No offense intended just the rest of us working full time find sage to be a dead end. It's easier to buy the spell off the broker and/or the researcher than level up sage.....

TalisX1

12-05-2010, 12:38 AM

<cite>Gaige wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>feldon30 wrote:</cite><blockquote>At the risk of breaking NDA, the above is total crap.</blockquote>Opinions vary and some are more valid than others. I wish you much success with Rift-Wire. You might want to start playing WoW and writing about WoW for a few months before launch for practice.</blockquote>Never played WoW so could not compare the two. But I find it enjoyable...at least for the first 7 levels I've gotten. It needs some tweaking (turn around time on bug fixes seems very fast to me...much different than my prior beta experiences) but which game are you playing that doesn't need tweaking? Like most games the end game will tell alot and that has yet to be seen.Silat

Te'ana

12-05-2010, 02:27 AM

I am not liking that Other Game at all. It is a clone of a very old game and not a very good clone at that. The fact that it does not have ANY housing makes it nothing more than a temporary diversion for a lot of EQ2 folks.

Elwin

12-05-2010, 07:21 AM

I'm waiting for the day when masters will be available in Marketplace. I can't imagine that will be far off.

Whilhelmina

12-05-2010, 08:53 AM

For those that say that nobody in this right mind will research experts...Well, I don't adventure much, especially on my alts. On live, my templar alt went from 67 to 71 in a year. She has all spells in expert up to 69 but if this goes live, I, for sure, will research experts for my alts because I'm in no hurry. Gods, I even research adepts sometimes on my lowbies. All those very slow levellers will prefer researching instead of hunting for rares. Of course, the top tier chars will not do that and farm for rares to get expert and research masters, but I'm pretty sure a lot of players will skip the harvesting part if this goes live. So : less raws on the broker, less dusts and no work for scholars. I can't understand how that can be good.

Binea

12-05-2010, 09:58 AM

This change to the research assistant will do very little to change the economy of the game, since the only thing you NEED to spend money on are repairs.You can play without crafted gear, spell upgrades, food, drink, housing, adornments, and everything else that crafters can make. Obviously things like posions, potions, arrows and a few other consumable items make the game go a lot faster and make some classes more viable (scouts)and player housing is definatly fun to decorate, but you don't NEED any of it.I've leveled 10 characters to 90 on 2 accounts and have several more that are "in progress" as well as 7 of 9 tradeskills at 90 and I don't even bother to make journeyman spells for my own characters since it's easier to just level past them.Find some compelling way to make crafting part of the game or let it remain the tacked on system that it is.... tradeskilling in eq2 is a battle vs click-fatigue and has little entertainment value.I would rather craft with eq1's system than this pointless waste of pixels.

Xethren

12-05-2010, 10:15 AM

<cite>Hirofortis@Everfrost wrote:</cite><blockquote>This has got to be one of the stupidest things done to date. Lets look at the impact:Now you don't need a research assistant amenityNow you don't need SagesNow you don't need AlchemistsNow you don't need JewelersNow you don't need harvestersYou are already writing off carpenters, armorers, and weaponsmiths with weak recipes and Smeedbuck replacements. Now you are killing 3 more tradeskill classes.Hey Domino, you might as well start looking for another job, because you certainly don't have much of a future with the way things are going. Having a research tab, not a bad idea. Making it so everything can be done = stupid.</blockquote>Looks like there is next to no point to even touch crafting in this game anymore because you can get what should take players to make from other sources and SmedBucks.Add in my vote to not have this pushed Live. But you all know they are going to do it anyway.

Laiina

12-05-2010, 02:25 PM

<cite>Bremer wrote:</cite><blockquote>Yeah, now everbody will wait several months to get experts instead of buying them at once. </blockquote>Uhm.. not hardly.I really do not see what the fuss is about. The only real change is that now you can research expert from journeyman through master - if you want to spend the extra 2-4 weeks per spell.The simple fact is, almost nobody does. Expert spells/CA's are about the ONLY thing that sells for me. As far as adept spells go, 99% of what I find go for muting, I gave up selling them long ago. Journeyman spells simply do not sell, their only real use is for something to level up tradeskills on.

Laiina

12-05-2010, 02:28 PM

<cite>Jrral@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Bremer wrote:</cite><blockquote>It takes 14 days from Apprentice to Journeyman, 14 days from Journeyman to Adept, 14 days from Adept to Expert and 30 days from Expert to Master. 2.5 Months from zero to master for one spell. With ~30 spells that's ~6 years to get a crap toon to full mastered.I can see why this is the death of Scholars.</blockquote>It's not so much that it's the death of Scholars, it's that it's the death of the old rule that the RA couldn't be used as a replacement for a scholar. I don't like breaking that rule, because once it's broken that's precedent to support more things that allow NPCs to replace crafters.And it's not 2.5 months. Mostly you can ignore the lower levels and start from Adept, so figure 6 weeks per spell to Master. Less for lower-tier spells that don't upgrade, like Amends or Rescue.</blockquote>And Adepts are not crafter made, so I don't see the connection here. If I need a better spell, I am not going to go find or buy an adept and then research it to expert, I am going to buy the expert and save 2-3 weeks.

Cloudrat

12-05-2010, 02:44 PM

<cite>Prrasha wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Maliclipse wrote:</cite><blockquote>This will help the very very casual player. Everyone else will still buy expert spells.</blockquote>The "very casual player" probably earns most of their money by harvesting rares and shineys. Cutting the market for rares hurts them, as much or more than it hurts the crafters.</blockquote>1. /agree it will help the very very casual player as well as the altaholic<img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />2. I don't think there is any way in Norrath that most very casual players make their money from selling rares..I have all 9 crafters and then some and I don't use them to make money so there are other ways. I think this might help new players have a better understanding of spell hierarchy, but the length of time to master out won't make it replace scholars. I love the new method and always hated looking for a researcher . I love that the the game is evolving to enchance the entrance into the game, and allow all sorts of different playstyles. I am not too happy with the way game changes are being introduced, but I guess you can't have it all.

Juravael

12-05-2010, 04:55 PM

<cite>Alenna@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>From Test copy notesRESEARCH<ul><li>The Research window has been moved in to the Knowledge window.</li><li>Journeyman through Master spell tiers can be researched.</li><li>You are no longer required to speak with a Research Assistant to start/change/claim research.</li></ul>Does thismean that journeyman and expert are now researchable if so what do you plan to do for the sages on the income they are going to lose through not being able to sell their spells?</blockquote>Two things..First this is one of the worst changes that I have seen to date. What is the reasoning for this? I have a 90 Sage but what bothers me much more than any possible lost "income" is just how dumbed down things have been becoming. Isn't the game easy enough as it is. Why not just give everyone Masters from the get go.Secondly, what is the point of the Researcher if you no longer have to speak to one. A waste of an NPC and a guild hall amenity. May as well just remove them.I was very excited just yesterday about the new race and mounts that were announced but it is the things like this that make me want to stop playing the game some days.

Lorriana

12-05-2010, 05:22 PM

<cite>Laiina wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Jrral@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Bremer wrote:</cite><blockquote>It takes 14 days from Apprentice to Journeyman, 14 days from Journeyman to Adept, 14 days from Adept to Expert and 30 days from Expert to Master. 2.5 Months from zero to master for one spell. With ~30 spells that's ~6 years to get a crap toon to full mastered.I can see why this is the death of Scholars.</blockquote>It's not so much that it's the death of Scholars, it's that it's the death of the old rule that the RA couldn't be used as a replacement for a scholar. I don't like breaking that rule, because once it's broken that's precedent to support more things that allow NPCs to replace crafters.And it's not 2.5 months. Mostly you can ignore the lower levels and start from Adept, so figure 6 weeks per spell to Master. Less for lower-tier spells that don't upgrade, like Amends or Rescue.</blockquote>And Adepts are not crafter made, so I don't see the connection here. If I need a better spell, I am not going to go find or buy an adept and then research it to expert, I am going to buy the expert and save 2-3 weeks.</blockquote> Quite often, I am going to do that. And I have a sage. During the fairly early part of the level cap increase, this is exactly what I would do. All of my spells will be mastered going in to the new level cap. They will do about the same damage as expert spells of the next tier. I don't get in a hurry with leveling usually. So, yeah. I'll just wait the extra 14 days most likely while I play on my level 39 BGers. This is only until the rare market and such levels out, of course. If that ever happens if these changes go live. I suspect very strongly that there are quite a few that will do more or less as I will.

Seiffil

12-05-2010, 09:21 PM

<cite>Laiina wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Bremer wrote:</cite><blockquote>Yeah, now everbody will wait several months to get experts instead of buying them at once. </blockquote>Uhm.. not hardly.I really do not see what the fuss is about. The only real change is that now you can research expert from journeyman through master - if you want to spend the extra 2-4 weeks per spell.The simple fact is, almost nobody does. Expert spells/CA's are about the ONLY thing that sells for me. As far as adept spells go, 99% of what I find go for muting, I gave up selling them long ago. Journeyman spells simply do not sell, their only real use is for something to level up tradeskills on.</blockquote>I'd have to agree with you for the most part. Most people who actually care about getting their characters to the point where they have expert/master level spells especially in T9, are not going to want to wait for the RA to research experts and then research the masters.I don't understand why they're allowing you to handle the Research through the knowledge window, were people complaining that it was too difficult to go to their guild hall or into town to pick up a master, or start/change the research?I don't fear this change necessarily making sages worthless or really causing too much trouble for them in general as those who truly want their experts and masters won't want to wait to research the experts and then the masters. What I am concerned about is what future changes they might make using this as a precedent.

BleemTeam

12-05-2010, 09:51 PM

Te'ana

12-06-2010, 03:40 AM

I have very mixed feelings about this change and I am worried that this change was not made due to player input. the only thing I do know is that despite the bad changes there really isn't a viable alternative. My research has not turned up any game that has a really fun crafting sustem and a super housing system comboned with excellent graphics. Most games out there are cartoonish and have extremely limited housing and crafting.

Exelance

12-06-2010, 07:51 AM

I doubt this will effect crafters at all. if it takes 13-16 days to research a SINGLE expert its not going to hurt anyones income at all. most i can see this doing is letting people get those worthless spells to master insted of leaving them at app level.

Jaremai

12-06-2010, 09:03 AM

This change gives me back an amenity - I'm happy.This change will not kill any tradeskill. If anyone wants to wait months/years for their spells to save a few plat, that's their life to waste. I'll still be fully experted every level, masters when they're cheap, and slowly get a free master whenever the calendar allows it.I'm a casual player with over 500p in the bank and 6 active characters, all MC'd, all experted or mastered. If I can do it anyone can.

KinMorbidreamer

12-06-2010, 10:18 AM

Scholars are fine, this change won't make a bit of difference except that maybe now my wizard can get aurora mastered, heh.I can barely stand waiting a month to go from expert to master as it is let alone wait another month to get it to expert level to begin with.tl;dr - quit overreacting.

d1anaw

12-06-2010, 12:51 PM

<cite>Kynalith@Permafrost wrote:</cite><blockquote>tl;dr - quit overreacting.</blockquote>+10

Bremer

12-06-2010, 02:12 PM

NardacMM

12-06-2010, 03:08 PM

Why is SOE's goal to make things cheaper? There is already too much coin in the economy. In EQ1, prices were measured in kilo-plat. EQ2 is better than EQ1 b/c there are things that suck money OUT of the economy. Crafting is one of those things (fuel.) Quests already reward ridiculous amounts of coin. Anybody with a brain can either harvest or adventuer their way to saving enough coin for all their MC spells.Researching masters was a good idea b/c the drop rate on master spells was very low and it was hard to find them for a reasonable price. Tradeskilled spells (Apps, in particular) are not that expensive and are readily availble. If you don't see one on the broker, then you can find a sage in chat to make one (more interaction with strangers - that's good, too

Kordran

12-06-2010, 03:12 PM

<cite>Deverel@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>Tradeskilled spells (Apps, in particular) are not that expensive and are readily availble. If you don't see one on the broker, then you can find a sage in chat to make one (more interaction with strangers - that's good, too</blockquote>Or just create one yourself. If you're a vet with XP pots it takes about 12 hours.

Elwin

12-06-2010, 06:52 PM

I have a 90 sage and I have a number of alts.. yes I'm an altaholic and not all alts are on the same server as my sage.I have never made experts to sell on the broker and I have never leveled an alt using anything but experts or masters. I really don't think it will affect Sages much at all. It certainly won't affect mine.And have you seen the prices of adepts on the broker? Who in their right minds would pay those prices for an adept spell? (keeping in mind you need the adept to research expert... don't you?)I don't think the sky will fall, I don't think people will stop harvesting or crafting and I'm more than sure the regular player will NOT be happy with crap spells for weeks while waiting for the research assistant.

jjlo69

12-06-2010, 08:14 PM

well here the issue im seeing.. what happens when this goes in and ppl making experts goes down to the point it effects dust needed to make poisons maybe time to remove the dust component for poisons ???Uncle

Elwin

12-06-2010, 08:37 PM

<cite>Uncle@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote>well here the issue im seeing.. what happens when this goes in and ppl making experts goes down to the point it effects dust needed to make poisons maybe time to remove the dust component for poisons ???Uncle</blockquote>I imagine if that happens we'll see dusts available on Marketplace. **said only half joking...Surely most players will still buy experts and research masters than go through months of waiting starting with apprentice to journeyman?

SmokeJumper

12-06-2010, 10:36 PM

Okay, I'm coming to this discussion late, but let me explain a few things:1) I have a level 90 alchemist. I leveled it up the hard way and I've been actively making spells, buying rares on the marketplace, etc. I'm familiar with what you're talking about (although certainly not as experienced as many of you on these forums).2) I can't sell Journeyman spells to save my life (okay, dribbles of them occasionally, but usually not), so I'll exclude this from my explanation.3) That pretty much leaves Expert spells for discussion.That being said:<ul><li>Researching from Adept to Expert takes time. Unless you're talking about the level 80+ spells, very few players will be in the pertinent level ranges to sit and camp and RA their spells up to Expert level.</li><li>Those that *are* in that level long enough (rare) will even more rarely be willing to wait that long without breaking down and purchasing upgrades from crafters instead of waiting for the research to complete.</li></ul>This change will not impact crafters very much, if at all. It will, however, make the ability to research spells in the first place much more obvious (players see the widget on their spellbook now instead of having to find a welll-hidden NPC somewhere). It also adds a bit more micromanagement fun (for the players that like that sort of thing) as players tinker with their research on the way up to the level 60+ spells...which is where most players start looking for broker upgrades anyway.Are there holes in this reasoning?

Phaso

12-06-2010, 10:56 PM

Do you intend to somehow promote the fact that Journeyman and Expert level abilities can be crafted by certain classes to fast-track the process of getting upgrades within the Research window? It would make sense to do that if, as you suggest, this is being done to make it more apparent that players can upgrade the abilities.

SmokeJumper

12-06-2010, 11:11 PM

<cite>Phaso@Najena wrote:</cite><blockquote>Do you intend to somehow promote the fact that Journeyman and Expert level abilities can be crafted by certain classes to fast-track the process of getting upgrades within the Research window? It would make sense to do that if, as you suggest, this is being done to make it more apparent that players can upgrade the abilities.</blockquote>that's a good idea, Phaso. A bit tricky in interface. Have to think about that a bit.

KerowynnKaotic

12-06-2010, 11:26 PM

<cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote>Okay, I'm coming to this discussion late, but let me explain a few things:1) I have a level 90 alchemist. I leveled it up the hard way *snipped* </blockquote>aww .. you're so cute when you say things like that. ...<cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote>*snipped* 3) That pretty much leaves Expert spells for discussion.That being said:<ul><li>Researching from Adept to Expert takes time. Unless you're talking about the level 80+ spells, very few players will be in the pertinent level ranges to sit and camp and RA their spells up to Expert level.</li><li>Those that *are* in that level long enough (rare) will even more rarely be willing to wait that long without breaking down and purchasing upgrades from crafters instead of waiting for the research to complete.</li></ul>This change will not impact crafters very much, if at all. It will, however, make the ability to research spells in the first place much more obvious (players see the widget on their spellbook now instead of having to find a welll-hidden NPC somewhere). It also adds a bit more micromanagement fun (for the players that like that sort of thing) as players tinker with their research on the way up to the level 60+ spells...which is where most players start looking for broker upgrades anyway.Are there holes in this reasoning?</blockquote>** If ** the availibility of being able to research Journeyman/Expert is considered something that the majority of players will -not- utilize then I see no reason to include it in the first place. The fact is that by being able to acquire a Expert without needing a spell rare & crafter of the proper skill/level is stepping on the toes of those Crafters, regardless of the potential monetary loss or not. And, frankly, even without having the Journeyman & Experts up for Research, the widget would do its job, assuming someone actually looks in their spellbooks, by giving them the option to upgrade from Journeyman to Adept and Expert to Master, just as the Research Assistant did. I can't disagree with your opinion on the out of the way locations of the former Research Asssistants, though. It was annoying if you didn't have access to the Guild Hall version.

Shazzie

12-06-2010, 11:48 PM

Perhaps, if you're trying to research something a crafter can make, there would be a pop-up (much like 'do you really want to destroy this?') letting the player know that what they're trying to research they may be able to get immediately via crafting.Notice: You may be able to purchase this item immediately and directly from an appropriate crafter. Are you certain you wish to spend (x days x minutes) on research instead? YES / NOThat makes for one heckuva long pop-up and I'm sure it could be condensed, but I think it would do the job.(Signed, a Sage, Alchemist, and Jeweller)[EDIT: Dang typos and unwanted smilies!]

Elwin

12-06-2010, 11:58 PM

My mind boggles at how stupid you must think some players are. New players may not know about crafting but I can't imagine many new players end up on EQlive now anyway. Plus once a new player joins a guild they'd have to be deaf blind and incredibly dumb to not catch on.How many lvl 90 Scholars are making experts to sell on the broker for levels under 80/81? And how many players on live do you really think will research their spells/abilities from apprentice through to master using the research assistant? I'm saddened that some would even consider playing with apprentices in the first place, I'd rather delete my account.Adepts are needed before experts can even be researched. I guess it depends on server but on the servers I play on half the time the adepts are the same price as the experts anyway. Imagine the price they'll be once this goes in as most adepts looted are muted now anyway.I really can't see it affecting scholars much at all tbh except maybe on EQlame aka EQX.

Valentina

12-07-2010, 12:28 AM

I think this is great. Research time is dog-slow enough that it still presents a value for buying the appropriately-tiered spell... wait several weeks or pay a premium and get it now. For our part, we tend to rotate our duos, so we often log on out 'unplayed' characters to queue up research while they wait for their turn to play. This will work perfectly for us.

Hirofortis

12-07-2010, 12:51 AM

<cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Phaso@Najena wrote:</cite><blockquote>Do you intend to somehow promote the fact that Journeyman and Expert level abilities can be crafted by certain classes to fast-track the process of getting upgrades within the Research window? It would make sense to do that if, as you suggest, this is being done to make it more apparent that players can upgrade the abilities.</blockquote>that's a good idea, Phaso. A bit tricky in interface. Have to think about that a bit.</blockquote>It is not tricky at all, Just link to looking for crafters. Opens up a list of all crafters that can make the spell you want. If players don't want to be on the list they can put a check in an option on there Persona to not be on the search. THere you have now made it so people can get things made or take the slow road.

Shareana

12-07-2010, 12:53 AM

This post has moved: <a href="/eq2/posts/preList.m?topic_id=445320&post_id=5464224" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">/eq2/posts/preList.m?topic_id=44532...post_id=5464224</a> Racism of any kind is not permitted on these forums per the Forum Guidelines.

BleemTeam

12-07-2010, 02:45 AM

dreiden

12-07-2010, 03:04 AM

Crazy idea.Add a sage crafted item that reduces the time it takes to research a master spell by half of the current time. A player can take said item to the researcher and whatever time is left on the research is just cut by half. Have the item similar componets to those used to make an expert scroll scroll.With that in place each time a player starts a master spell research up its another sale for a sage. A player who really wants a master fast might use 2 or 3 of this type of item to speed up the process.Just make sure you add the recipie for each tier of spells.

Kordran

12-07-2010, 04:21 AM

The amusing thing about all this is the position that some people (the ones who are stomping their feet and pulling their hair) are taking that crafting serves any meaningful purpose beyond creating consumable items. Everything else, including spells, are just placeholders for items that you get playing the game. Mastercrafted is a placeholder for legendary/fabled, experts are placeholders for masters.In short, it's much ado about nothing.

Eugam

12-07-2010, 06:19 AM

<cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote>Isn't it possible to buy Mastercrafted and Expert's on EQ2x for SC? What's on Test -might- be testing the whole process that will be available 'over there' but it might be set differently when brought to Live.I'm trying to be optimistic.. but.. umm.. yeah. While tradeskillers have been asking and begging for more ways to be involved with the adventurers, the solution presented is to remove the last set of things tradeskillers of any class have to offer to the adventure side of the game (in the end cap)?I hadn't thought about the dusts, really. But... after this goes live, the only use for anything crafted from rares (other than fluff items) will be as fodder for transmuting. So, dusts will still come as a by product of making spell/CA upgrades but not for them to be used as upgrades, for their use as transmuting attempts.. but legendary stuff is considered crap by most and Experts munge as if they're legendary, so not even a real market from that either.Sure, all crafters can level up adorning and adorning still makes one of the adornment types that -currently- is still only available by crafting and crafted adornments can be used with non-crafted. It won't be the first time the crafting of adornments is held out to tradeskillers as the "fix" for them wanting something adventurers desire. But... you don't need to be a crafter to level up adorning, so that "fix" falls on its face, too.</blockquote>Bingo <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />The problem with "player involved in global mechanics" is, that it requires a playerbase. A base that is willing to spend time into such activities. The other side are plat hoarding RMT people. Those control prices once there are not enough players who want to harvest. Currently the main objective is to get the AA and enough marks and past that to get your fabled set from the hotzone. Plat is comming fast after an expansion from master drops and shineys. Thats enough to buy rares for adept III. Additionally the solo quests are usually enough to buy a lot of adept III.My crafter is jeweler and i just keep her maxed out of habbit. Made like 20 T9 scouts CA's. I have a provisioner at 77 but gave up to watse time into him. All tradeskills, except the carpenter and maybe woodworker, have one in common, they are boring. Carpenter is obvious and wooodworker is nice for the totems.So actually me, and a lot others need just 5-10 recipes for consumables to make tradeskilling useful and fun. And thats what i want from crafting. It has to be usefull to be fun. But that wont happen, beacuse items are the one and only goal in current expansions.

Hirofortis

12-07-2010, 01:04 PM

Well it really does not matter because it has been ramroded through anyway. Guerss it will be a good way for the F2P to tell them yet again they need to upgrade. We are sorry, you are only on the fre version. Upgrade if you want to use this feature.

MurFalad

12-07-2010, 02:49 PM

<cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote>Are there holes in this reasoning?</blockquote>Not that I can see, while my first reaction to this change was "Urgh", reality is my experience on my alchemist was the same, I struggle to sell journeyman spells I craft just to level, and the prime window to make profits on experts is generally within months of a expansion release where its still risky if the rare drops in price fast. So I doubt this will change things much.But I have three suggestions (I got beaten to the idea by Dreiden on #3!)<ul><li>The research assistant currently shows us all our spells that can be upgraded (correct me if I'm wrong!). But for most players we only care about upgrading the spells that are not obsolete. How about adding a checkbox to only show non-obsolete spells for upgrading and default it to true.</li><li>Make a reason for this checkbox by adding in an achievement for having every single spell of every level (that we auto learn) mastered (a title "The master"?). Reset this achievement (and title) for all players whenever a new expansion comes out so its something that is always current that people can work for.</li><li>Make it so that we can consume multiple journeyman and expert level spells to speed up research time, this would increase demand for such spells but should not significantly effect the desirability of adept and master level spells.</li></ul>Lore wise this could be explained by referring to multiple texts to understand the workings of these spells better.The way this works could be explained to players graphically, when we highlight a spell we see a box at the bottom that shows the current level of the spell and the new level we can research to.Below this it can say "You can scribe up to 3 more of these scrolls to speed up research time" whenever a journeyman or expert level spell is highlighted for research, each scroll then scribed speeds up research time by 10%. For all other levels it just shows the next level that can be researched to and a message saying that there is no way to speed up research for this level of spell.One further enhancement that could be made to the system would be to adjust the number of expert scrolls that can be used to speed up research depending on how long the expansion has been launched as a way of allowing players to catch up faster and maintain the demand for experts.For example GU55 we can not scribe any extra expert level scrolls, GU56 we can scribe 1, GU57 2, GU58 onwards 3. Then when a new level cap raising expansion is released the new level range of abilities (90-100) are all set to not allowing additional experts to scribe resetting the sequence.One last suggested alternative would be to put research assistants only in Qeynos and Freeport and make them only perform the research speed up function as a way to get more people at least visiting the cities.

Mellia

12-07-2010, 02:50 PM

<cite>feldon30 wrote:</cite><blockquote>I barely have the energy to be outraged by this change anymore. Or maybe I'm just tired from a certain beta test.</blockquote>This. I want to be outraged, but meh - you can only be let down so many times before you just get indifferent. That, and I, too, am tired from that certain beta, which I enjoyed very much. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

SmokeJumper

12-07-2010, 03:11 PM

<cite>dreiden wrote:</cite><blockquote>Crazy idea.Add a sage crafted item that reduces the time it takes to research a master spell by half of the current time. A player can take said item to the researcher and whatever time is left on the research is just cut by half. Have the item similar componets to those used to make an expert scroll scroll.With that in place each time a player starts a master spell research up its another sale for a sage. A player who really wants a master fast might use 2 or 3 of this type of item to speed up the process.Just make sure you add the recipie for each tier of spells.</blockquote>We sell similar items to those on the EQ2X marketplace, dreiden. We don't offer them on the Live side because, understandably, there would be concern.

Calthine

12-07-2010, 03:31 PM

<cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote>We sell similar items to those on the EQ2X marketplace, dreiden. We don't offer them on the Live side because, understandably, there would be concern riots.</blockquote>Fixed!<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />

vexrm

12-07-2010, 03:38 PM

Lodrelhai

12-07-2010, 03:43 PM

<cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>dreiden wrote:</cite><blockquote>Crazy idea.Add a sage crafted item that reduces the time it takes to research a master spell by half of the current time. A player can take said item to the researcher and whatever time is left on the research is just cut by half. Have the item similar componets to those used to make an expert scroll scroll.With that in place each time a player starts a master spell research up its another sale for a sage. A player who really wants a master fast might use 2 or 3 of this type of item to speed up the process.Just make sure you add the recipie for each tier of spells.</blockquote>We sell similar items to those on the EQ2X marketplace, dreiden. We don't offer them on the Live side because, understandably, there would be concern.</blockquote>As opposed to the concern of gutting the sole market of one TS class? Or the concern of handing over with no cost or effort skill upgrades some people would spend months hunting, just because it was neat?Here's my crazy idea - scrap the concept of spell/CA grades entirely. You want everyone to have access to masters, stop yanking us around and just make masters default. Give Sages a bunch of consumeable spell scrolls they can sell to other players - one-shot attacks, temporary boosts to blue stats, maybe no-rent adornments for gear. Heck, make the one-shot attacks equivalent to ranged ammo for mages. And give everybody the spell/CA level that you so clearly want to make the standard anyway.Seriously, this slow strangle is driving me nuts.

Tenamdar

12-07-2010, 03:44 PM

<cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>dreiden wrote:</cite><blockquote>Crazy idea.Add a sage crafted item that reduces the time it takes to research a master spell by half of the current time. A player can take said item to the researcher and whatever time is left on the research is just cut by half. Have the item similar componets to those used to make an expert scroll scroll.With that in place each time a player starts a master spell research up its another sale for a sage. A player who really wants a master fast might use 2 or 3 of this type of item to speed up the process.Just make sure you add the recipie for each tier of spells.</blockquote>We sell similar items to those on the EQ2X marketplace, dreiden. We don't offer them on the Live side because, understandably, there would be concern.</blockquote>Smokejumper: The key words you missed were "sage crafted". "sage crafted" != "Marketplace for Station Cash". <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />This might actually work as a NO-TRADE or HEIRLOOM item craftable only by master sages (even better, master sages who have completed some new long epic quest), but I think opening such a thing up willy-nilly might diminish the research mechanic.

Kordran

12-07-2010, 03:50 PM

<cite>Calthine wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote>We sell similar items to those on the EQ2X marketplace, dreiden. We don't offer them on the Live side because, understandably, there would be concern riots.</blockquote>Fixed!<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>I doubt it. Conceptually, they're not much different than the XP/AA and vitality potions they sell which can greatly accelerate leveling. It appears that for items like this, determining whether an SC item is acceptable for Live is answering the question "Does it give the player something outright, or does it just reduce the amount of time required for them to obtain it on their own?"Selling masters in the marketplace would cause riots. Selling the ability to reduce research time? I doubt you'd have much of a freakout over it, and it would probably be one of the most popular items they sell, particularly amongst the raiding crowd (even if no one outright admitted it).Edit: And I agree, giving sages the ability to commission craft an item that would reduce research time wouldn't be a bad way to compensate them for the impact of this change. Have it require the same kind of rare component as part of the recipe as well, to address the harvesting/rares issue.

Chefren

12-07-2010, 04:05 PM

<cite>vexrm wrote:</cite><blockquote>The suggestion was for a trade skill item to do it not a marketplace item. Of course that would be Live having an item EQ2X doesn't...</blockquote>Well since they are two separate games as SOE made very clear to us and since EQ2X has stuff EQ2 doesn't, that doesn't pass for an excuse and they would have to come up with a better one. Not that I'm for the idea myself, getting masters is another part of character development that is so fast and easy these days for no apparent reason at all. But EQ2X can't be a reason not to implement things in EQ2, since you know EQ2X isn't affecting us at all and all that.

Rijacki

12-07-2010, 06:30 PM

NamaeZero

12-08-2010, 04:27 AM

If you're going to apply the Research Assistant idea to the majority of crafted items from the Scholar classes, It seems to me only fair that you should apply this new paradigm for other tradeskill classes. How about a smithing assistant that upgrades your armor or weapons from Handcrafted to Fabled? Or a Culinary assistant to cook for you, or any number of other things that tradeskillers normally handle. Perhaps even (this might even be taking things too far) an adventuring/tradeskill assistant to level you up slowly over time?If you're going to stop with just spell-crafting, then can you at least give Scholars (Sages especially) a free chance to switch to another tradeskill class that has the option of making things people might want to realistically buy?

Tel'Anni

12-08-2010, 05:25 AM

<blockquote><cite>Prrasha wrote:</cite> crafting has done NOTHING to increase my wealth. in fact, its making me broke.</blockquote>How can crafting make you poorer ? if you harvest the raws you need and do either rush order or ordinary tradeskill orders - every writ you do will give you your fuel back + tip. Doing writs will also give you city tokens that can either be turned in for cash and status 2.5g each iirc - or be used to buy house items at the city festivals - tiles will normaly easily sell for 1pp each.

Blakkmantis

12-08-2010, 06:02 AM

I got no ambition to get worked up about any changes to the game anymore. people complain, some things change. Sometimes it's for the better, while other times changes break other things. Either way I/we continue to play the game, and end up still having fun. Those that don't have plenty of other games to go try out. Life goes on. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" />I gave up crafting a long time ago, when I seen there really was little use for it, as some others here in this thread have been trying to say also.

MurFalad

12-08-2010, 06:07 AM

<cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>dreiden wrote:</cite><blockquote>Crazy idea.Add a sage crafted item that reduces the time it takes to research a master spell by half of the current time. A player can take said item to the researcher and whatever time is left on the research is just cut by half. Have the item similar componets to those used to make an expert scroll scroll.With that in place each time a player starts a master spell research up its another sale for a sage. A player who really wants a master fast might use 2 or 3 of this type of item to speed up the process.Just make sure you add the recipie for each tier of spells.</blockquote>We sell similar items to those on the EQ2X marketplace, dreiden. We don't offer them on the Live side because, understandably, there would be concern.</blockquote>My suggested idea and the bit I thought he came up with first is the idea to speed up research time via something that alchemists create.My idea is to actually use the Journeyman and experts we have already as the speedup item, especially for journeyman spells since you yourself acknowledged that they were not in enough demand to be able to sell well, this change would certainly increase such demand.

MurFalad

12-08-2010, 06:25 AM

<cite>Arandar@Everfrost wrote:</cite><blockquote>I doubt it. Conceptually, they're not much different than the XP/AA and vitality potions they sell which can greatly accelerate leveling. It appears that for items like this, determining whether an SC item is acceptable for Live is answering the question "Does it give the player something outright, or does it just reduce the amount of time required for them to obtain it on their own?"Selling masters in the marketplace would cause riots. Selling the ability to reduce research time? I doubt you'd have much of a freakout over it, and it would probably be one of the most popular items they sell, particularly amongst the raiding crowd (even if no one outright admitted it).Edit: And I agree, giving sages the ability to commission craft an item that would reduce research time wouldn't be a bad way to compensate them for the impact of this change. Have it require the same kind of rare component as part of the recipe as well, to address the harvesting/rares issue.</blockquote>Selling accelerated research time on the marketplace would be very different from selling the XP/AA potions they have now I believe becauseSelling XP/AA potions accelerates the progress until you can hit the end level.Selling accelerated research time accelerates the power growth of the character within that level.So if they sold accelerated research time on the marketplace they might as well sell the first tier of raiding gear too, since that just accelerates the progress through raiding, I'd argue both would be a bad thing <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /> But I think your right, on EQ2X this would be a great seller to be able to accelerate researching of spells.But having the current and in the case of journeyman spells undervalued spells being used as a consumable to speed up research time would both compensate for the change and make the current items more desirable.Whatever happens it would be good to actually see a change that simplifies the game for new players actually give something new to experienced players to play with at the same time.

Terron

12-08-2010, 09:05 AM

<cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote>Okay, I'm coming to this discussion late, but let me explain a few things:1) I have a level 90 alchemist. I leveled it up the hard way and I've been actively making spells, buying rares on the marketplace, etc. I'm familiar with what you're talking about (although certainly not as experienced as many of you on these forums).</blockquote>So that would be before writs were added back in after LU24 (except for the last 20 levels) - as there has been no hard way to level up since then, only easy and easier ways.<cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite><blockquote>2) I can't sell Journeyman spells to save my life (okay, dribbles of them occasionally, but usually not), so I'll exclude this from my explanation.</blockquote>Like 99% of all handcrafted non-consumable recipes for as long as I have bene playing (aince LU13). Though there used to be one exception for alchemists - devastation fist when it could not be upgraded and only dropped in the bloodline zones. That used to be a recipe worth crafting.<cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite> <blockquote>3) That pretty much leaves Expert spells for discussion.That being said:<ul><li>Researching from Adept to Expert takes time. Unless you're talking about the level 80+ spells, very few players will be in the pertinent level ranges to sit and camp and RA their spells up to Expert level.</li><li>Those that *are* in that level long enough (rare) will even more rarely be willing to wait that long without breaking down and purchasing upgrades from crafters instead of waiting for the research to complete.</li></ul></blockquote> So you don't think anyone will use this facility - so what is the point of it. Isn't is just a waste of effort and a bad precedent?<cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite> <blockquote>This change will not impact crafters very much, if at all. It will, however, make the ability to research spells in the first place much more obvious (players see the widget on their spellbook now instead of having to find a welll-hidden NPC somewhere). It also adds a bit more micromanagement fun (for the players that like that sort of thing) as players tinker with their research on the way up to the level 60+ spells...which is where most players start looking for broker upgrades anyway.Are there holes in this reasoning?</blockquote> <cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite> <blockquote>This change will not impact crafters very much, if at all. It will, however, make the ability to research spells in the first place much more obvious (players see the widget on their spellbook now instead of having to find a welll-hidden NPC somewhere).</blockquote> A separate issue from allowing the researching of experts. Note that the reasearcher has made finding a master less special and thereby reduced the fun I get from playing EQ2.<cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite> <blockquote>It also adds a bit more micromanagement fun (for the players that like that sort of thing) as players tinker with their research on the way up to the level 60+ spells...which is where most players start looking for broker upgrades anyway.</blockquote> So now you are saying it will be used at lower levels. Any added micromanagement fun will come at the cost of the micromanagement fun of choosing which spells to buy upgrades for, and the fun of scholars making those upgrades. For some classes it is important to get some spells upgraded - such as pet spells for summoners. Mostly those upgrades are not done through the broker by by asking someone to make them for you.<cite>SmokeJumper wrote:</cite> <blockquote>Are there holes in this reasoning?</blockquote> Yes. You contradicted yourself, and brought in an irrelevant factor.The biggest problem though is that crafters need more things only they can make, not fewer. This appears to be another step towards destroying crafting as a playstyle. Only a small one, but it is going in the wrong direction.

Tyrus Dracofire

12-08-2010, 09:52 AM

now i understood.i think it is time and good idea to weed-out unwanted journeyman spells on brokers.it was so flooded of hundred of pages.that what exactly i wrote almost a year ago asking the devs about those "lootable looted items" that was intended for cash bait with vendor merchants, not meant for brokers, some items fooled to think those were status items for factions, or collections, but they are not. it should be taken care of those unwanted loot baits off the brokers to get better game performances that we all need and wanted.looted items on brokers got more than several hundreds of pages of loots, and it been sitting there for months, and kept adding and adding as many months went by.there could be about 2,000 pages of loots that not weapons, armors, spells, rares, or collections, or L&Ls.gosh, imagined what about 2 servers getting merged, and get extra junks up to about 5,000 pages???i think journeyman spells get phased out of brokers, but still good for writ crafting quests.

Terron

12-08-2010, 10:36 AM

<cite>Tyrus@Butcherblock wrote:</cite><blockquote>that what exactly i wrote almost a year ago asking the devs about those "lootable looted items" that was intended for cash bait with vendor merchants, not meant for brokers, some items fooled to think those were status items for factions, or collections, but they are not. it should be taken care of those unwanted loot baits off the brokers to get better game performances that we all need and wanted.</blockquote>If removing such items would make any significant difference to performance then there is something badly wrong with the game database.Most likely there isn't and they haven't bothered removing them because it would not make any significant difference.

Hirofortis

12-08-2010, 12:56 PM

Hey, can I get a research button to upgrade my armor now? Wepaons too. I have time and would love a way to get all my gear. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Tuppen

12-08-2010, 02:04 PM

<cite>Hirofortis@Everfrost wrote:</cite><blockquote>Hey, can I get a research button to upgrade my armor now? Wepaons too. I have time and would love a way to get all my gear. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>You don't need that. All you need is some plat and to be on-line when a raid is auctioning off raid gear. No effort required.

Valdaglerion

12-08-2010, 03:07 PM

If this game was a horse we would shoot it to put it out of its misery.A majority of changes being made add NOTHING to the entertainment or balance of gameplay here.I cancelled my subs and re-subbed at the request of friends but honestly, I have logged in a handful of times in the last month. This coming from someone that logged in everyday for hours and hours each day.Each time I see changes like this being made it makes it harder to find the desire to log in. This change is nothing more than another added timesink to the game which is not needed.Honestly, we dont need more click button, wait XX hours, days, weeks, months and your item is delivered. People dont mind figuring the game out and putting some effort into being rewarded for it. How about giving us more smart loot?Give us smarter loot and keep the ill conceived unnecessary timesinks we dont want nor need. A 75% smart loot on all drops would be great for a good majority of players. I have yet to run across a single player that will say "woohoo, I spent 6 hours tonight running instances and didnt get anything I needed for my actual toon but hey, I transmuted some heirloom junk for some infusions, rock on!". NEVER HAPPENS.The problem with all these timer timesinks - they make you not want to log in because there is no game play going on. Log in, click, log out and come back in a few weeks. Even free games on Facebook know better than that. Keep your players engaged.When Research Assistants were first discussed we knew it would come to this point eventually because they are not an interactive amenity. The players should have some interaction with these assistants which affect what they get from them. Give us repeatable quests to gather resources, knowledge of the tier etc that will add bonuses to research time. An entire questline which gives our toons the ability to research the spells, something besides watching the grass grow.This change wont be the deth of scholars but it will affect them somewhat which means fewer people will want to invest in making them which will only raise the prices for the few remaining on the broker. For those that dont understand the current broker prices of rares and subsequently for Expert level spells . .. Harvest Depots, Hirelings, rares are more rare, you can make a lot more coin by farming isntances and shinies than craftable items. I hope you can deduce the answer from that.

KerowynnKaotic

12-08-2010, 03:26 PM

<cite>Arandar@Everfrost wrote:</cite><blockquote>The amusing thing about all this is the position that some people (the ones who are stomping their feet and pulling their hair) are taking that crafting serves any meaningful purpose beyond creating consumable items. Everything else, including spells, are just placeholders for items that you get playing the game. Mastercrafted is a placeholder for legendary/fabled, experts are placeholders for masters.In short, it's much ado about nothing.</blockquote>Well, the Crafters aren't as necessary to overall game as much as we'd like it to be this is true.We do a lot of items that are just temporary stop gaps till someone gets something better, yes this is also sadly true. But, it is only because that is all that the EQ2 Devs will allow us to do! They took away our Raid Crafting and turned them into Token farming sessions!Some asinine Dev (and/or multiple ones) thought it would be more fun for the players to run endless loops of the same zone and less game breaking than needing to go through the 'hassle' of finding a Crafter, who in turn would more than likely have to have the proper skill as well as the proper faction to be able to purchase the proper recipe, because it would be .. let's all say it together .. 'as easy as digging in the ground for a rock' Now, they are taking away our 'placeholder' spell income. The arch class of crafting that was 'safe' to be and generally guarenteed some sort of business. This new EQ2 Producer seems to be of the same mindset that some of the Raiders are in -- that crafting is just something to do when you're bored! Apparently, he was bored long enough to level up a Alchemist "the hard way" ..He also thinks this service won't be used as much for Experts .. I believe he mentioned after lvl 60 .. So, I guess the loss of the work from those lower tiers isn't as big of a deal as the loss of higher tier work, even though there are Crafters at every level in the game to coincide with those Adventurers of all levels .. But, really, there are 1000s of players with 1000s of Alts per server that will be using the Experts in the Research widget whichmeans even less work and less fun for Crafters. We, Crafters, enjoy providing a service in the game just as much as Raiders enjoy breaking in a new zone and killing & looting everything. The same way PvPers enjoy a good battle with a real thinking PC. The same way that those who activitivly seek out Discos and try for the most, the first to do whatever ... all kinds of weird things are enjoyed by all kinds of gamers. We aren't all the same. The good thing about EQ2 was that it allowed a player to be those things without really hurting anyone else. But, little by huge chucks, Crafting is losing out on its already small niche in the world. We have THE Best Ever Tradeskill Dev but despite her efforts all we are becoming is a solo-play game within a game with its own Questlines and our biggest customers are NPCs!!So, while it might not be much ado over nothing for you and others like you. It is however something pretty dear to some of us. ----------------------So I am begging here .. Please remove the Journeyman & Experts from the new Research Widget! Leave us some shred of dignity for Crafting and a need for it. Keep it the same as the Research Assistant. You'd need Journeyman to Reaseach Adept and Need Experts to be able to research Masters!The Research Assistant worked fine in this way! Sure, we Crafters grumbled about wanting to be able to Craft Masters but at least it was a level playing field. There was a need for Crafters and still those who wanted only the Best of the Best still got the Masters they wanted! It was a win/win situation. Why do you people always have to frak stuff up for the sake of 'useablity'?!

Kordran

12-08-2010, 03:35 PM

<cite>MurFalad wrote:</cite><blockquote>Selling accelerated research time on the marketplace would be very different from selling the XP/AA potions they have now I believe becauseSelling XP/AA potions accelerates the progress until you can hit the end level.Selling accelerated research time accelerates the power growth of the character within that level.So if they sold accelerated research time on the marketplace they might as well sell the first tier of raiding gear too, since that just accelerates the progress through raiding, I'd argue both would be a bad thing <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /> But I think your right, on EQ2X this would be a great seller to be able to accelerate researching of spells.</blockquote>That's a flawed argument because AA increases the growth of a character's power within their level, and the primary benefit of the XP/AA potions you can buy isn't the increased leveling speed, it's the ability to quickly hit 250 once you've reached level 90. And having a "raid capable" build means having both AA at level cap and being mastered.If they were selling masters in the cash shop, then you'd be right; they might as well start selling T1 raid gear as well (or perhaps more accurately the T0 fabled with yellow slots that drops from instances). But they're not doing that. To my mind, selling something that reduces the time to get a master is no different than selling something that reduces the time required to reach the AA cap.As I wrote previously, I don't think this latest change has anything to do with masters, or raiding per se. It has to do with acknowledging that experts are the "new normal" when it comes to spell tiers (and has been for years, frankly). They want to make them more accessible to casual players here, and on EQ2X.

MyleeSilverwings

12-08-2010, 03:57 PM

I had to digest this change before I voiced my opinion.I am a 90 sage, 90 jeweler and 90 alchemist. I have never made expert spells to sell on the broker. I make them for my alts, my friends and for my guildmates. So, there has never been an economic factor for me.I will continue to make all those expert spells/ca's because the dust they produce is invaluable to make poisons and potions which I use in great abundance.However, what concerns me about this is here we have yet another example of the severe dumbing down of this game. I guess the research assistant we spent a ton of plat and status on can now be sold for something else. SOE does not have a clue!! They are turning this game into just another rmt game in order to attract new players. They never did understand that you have to ADVERTISE to get customers, just like Blizzard did. So, they are now in the second round of merging servers as players leave the game in droves. We loved this game because it was difficult to play, because the rewards we received were hard-earned. Now, it is just another point and click, money-grabbing game. Such a pity.And DOMINO, I truly do feel badly for you because you have always been a true champion of us trade-skillers. This is just beyond sad!

Prrasha

12-08-2010, 04:41 PM

<cite>TelAnni wrote:</cite> <blockquote> <blockquote><cite>Prrasha wrote:</cite> crafting has done NOTHING to increase my wealth. in fact, its making me broke.</blockquote> How can crafting make you poorer ? </blockquote> Please mind your quotes, I didn't write that.

Lodrelhai

12-08-2010, 08:29 PM

<cite>Arandar@Everfrost wrote:</cite><blockquote>As I wrote previously, I don't think this latest change has anything to do with masters, or raiding per se. It has to do with acknowledging that experts are the "new normal" when it comes to spell tiers (and has been for years, frankly). They want to make them more accessible to casual players here, and on EQ2X.</blockquote>Then they should stop dicking around with us and just make the "new normal" the baseline - minimum we start with is Experts, or even Masters. If they care so little about the crafter playstyle, just kill the market outright and give Sages something else to do.I've spent 6 years leveling characters with mostly Apprentice (App I), Journeyman (old App IV), and Adept (Adept 1) spells and Handcrafted/Treasured gear. My main is only Experted out because a guildie wanted me available as a replacement for raids. For all that time I've been telling people that the Expert/MC minimum was bs, that the majority of the solo and group content for the game was perfectly accessible at baseline, easily-obtained gear and spell levels. And that was before revamps to HC/MC and to stats that actually does make HC gear better than most tradeable Treasured.It's going to be really interesting to see what the beta buffer for DoV is handing out when that opens.

Hirofortis

12-08-2010, 10:26 PM

<cite>Garith@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Hirofortis@Everfrost wrote:</cite><blockquote>Hey, can I get a research button to upgrade my armor now? Wepaons too. I have time and would love a way to get all my gear. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>You don't need that. All you need is some plat and to be on-line when a raid is auctioning off raid gear. No effort required.</blockquote>LOL @ Garith. Guess you don't get sarcasm. I will put it plainly, at the way they are going we will soon have easy buttons for everything. Don't wanna raid, here is an easy button for your upgrades. That takes to long? Here is another easy button for your armor. Press SC now. Lets look at it another way. Cost for an apprentice freeCost for next tier up - 5- 10 goldCost for expert - Rare plus fees (T9 - 7-15 plat)Cost for master - 50 plat +With the new system, all free. Just takes timeNext step buy it now on SC.Yes, there will still be the raiders who want there masters right now. But if people don't have to buy the expert to upgrade it to a master, you now have taken away a key component of the market. Of course it is all done now anyway whether people wanted it or not. Man I feel sore.

theriatis

12-09-2010, 06:05 AM

Suggestion:1. Remove Journeyman & Expert from the Researcher. 2. Remove the Tab from the Knowledgebook, get back to the Researchers.3. Let the Researcher buy Journeyman and Expert Spells for the SAME SpellMasters Time (ehhh... grammar... its morning). You still need the Expert to upgrade.Explanation:You have Icenova 2 (Expert) and want a Master.That Master research takes 30 days.Giving the Researcher 1 Icenova 2 (crafted Journeyman) reduces the time by 1 hour (tbd.)Giving the Researcher 1 Icenova 2 (crafted +Expert) reduces the time by 12 hours (tbd.)Voila ! Sages, Alchemists and Jeweler are back in demand !Regards, theriatis.

kahonen

12-09-2010, 09:32 AM

I can't see what the problem is to be honest.But then again, I don't have tradeskill toons to make money - my sage makes spells for my fury and any guildies that ask for them. For guildies I don't charge for fuel and any by-products from my spells go into the guild bank for other crafters to use.Will I be happy with my toon bimbling around with apprentice spells until I can research experts? No way!! I'm also convinced that the vast majority of other players won't be either. I'll still be harvesting as hard for the next expansion as I have for all of the others. Anyone who is not prepared to do this shouldn't be surprised if they don't get groups or start to lose their place on raids!This change presents a choice, that's all. Players were offered an alternative way to get masters when researchers were introduced, they now have an alternative way to get other tiers of spells - that's all it is, an alternative.As for the argument that this is going to ruin the economy in the game, what economy?We still have raiding guilds selling fabled drops for 300+ plat a time and then zoning toons in to collect them. This means that when the next ExPack is released we'll, once again, have an elite selection of toons with thousands of plat waiting to snap up the rare drops and maintain their elite status.If anyone really wants to give SOE a hard time about the problems of game economy, it's game-breaking "features" like this that should be being discussed.

Flobdeth

12-09-2010, 09:37 AM

Not sold a single T9 expert since this was put on test <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" />

kahonen

12-09-2010, 09:53 AM

<cite>Flobdeth wrote:</cite><blockquote>Not sold a single T9 expert since this was put on test <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>It's not meant to be a flippant question but would you expect to?I think the biggest problem with this change is the timing. Let's face it, with SF being out for so long, is the current effect of this change anything like representative of the effect it will have when the next ExPack arrives? As I said in an earlier post, I use my Sage to produce my own spells so my trade experience in this area is limited but isn't there an expected and normal slowing down of spell purchases at this stage in the life of the previous ExPack? If so, how do you assess whether not selling T9 spells is normal or due to the change being discussed?Perhaps SOE should have waited and released this change when the next ExPack is released?

Flobdeth

12-09-2010, 10:21 AM

When I go from making 200p in sales a day to 0p for the past few days since it was announced, it's not just the fact we're reaching the end of expac.Just as well I can make adorns too or they gonna be buyable on $C soon too?Agree they should have held off, wasn't exactly a lot of notice for me to dump 250+ experts and a few hundred rares that no one needs anymore!

Elwin

12-09-2010, 06:55 PM

I haven't sold any 81-90 adepts either and I sell them cheap (20gold) for muters.I don't think it's the recent easy mode RA that's stopped your sales, I think it's people lack of interest.People are logging in now, asking when the merges are going to happen, and logging out. That's my 2 cents worth.

Kordran

12-09-2010, 07:54 PM

<cite>Pippy@Najena wrote:</cite><blockquote>I haven't sold any 81-90 adepts either and I sell them cheap (20gold) for muters.I don't think it's the recent easy mode RA that's stopped your sales, I think it's people lack of interest.</blockquote>It was the change to transmuting where you can break down powders into fragments. Before that, adepts sold for quite a bit because you would burn through fragments at a high rate if you're making greater or superior adorns; after the change, just 4 infusions would net you a stack of fragments. The price players were able to charge for both fragments and the treasured trash loot to make them fell through the floor.Personally, if I need fragments, I don't bother buying anything off the broker. I just go spawn some of the heroic mobs in SF or farm lower Sebilis for a bit, then break everything down.

Elwin

12-09-2010, 08:00 PM

<cite>Arandar@Everfrost wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Pippy@Najena wrote:</cite><blockquote>I haven't sold any 81-90 adepts either and I sell them cheap (20gold) for muters.I don't think it's the recent easy mode RA that's stopped your sales, I think it's people lack of interest.</blockquote>It was the change to transmuting where you can break down powders into fragments. Before that, adepts sold for quite a bit because you would burn through fragments at a high rate if you're making greater or superior adorns; after the change, just 4 infusions would net you a stack of fragments. The price players were able to charge for both fragments and the treasured trash loot to make them fell through the floor.Personally, if I need fragments, I don't bother buying anything off the broker. I just go spawn some of the heroic mobs in SF or farm lower Sebilis for a bit, then break everything down.</blockquote>Aye but I thought peeps would buy them to research Experts.

Kordran

12-09-2010, 08:11 PM

I honestly doubt you're going to see many people, aside perhaps from very casual players, actually researching experts. The typical way to spell up alts at T9 would be to buy any important masters below a certain price threshold (say 50p) and then for the rest, buy the rare spell components and have a guildmate/friend/alt make you the experts and start researching. The extra time to go from adept > expert > master just isn't worth it, except on lowbie toons where you can research an upgrade in less than a day.

Elwin

12-09-2010, 08:34 PM

<cite>Arandar@Everfrost wrote:</cite><blockquote>I honestly doubt you're going to see many people, aside perhaps from very casual players, actually researching experts. The typical way to spell up alts at T9 would be to buy any important masters below a certain price threshold (say 50p) and then for the rest, buy the rare spell components and have a guildmate/friend/alt make you the experts and start researching. The extra time to go from adept > expert > master just isn't worth it, except on lowbie toons where you can research an upgrade in less than a day.</blockquote>Agree.

Davngr1

12-11-2010, 08:53 AM

markets change that's how it goes. if you had 250 experts and hundreds of rares clearly you're not hurting for plat so just find something else fun to sell/trade/whatever. i will say that i think something new and exiting should be given to sages/alchy/jeweler to keep them useful. since next expac won't be a level cap change. btw i don't mean some faction grind item.

Prrasha

12-11-2010, 04:02 PM

So, based on all the responses in this thread, this change will do one of three things (or a combination of them):1) It will hurt sales for the 3 scholar classes, who used to be the only classes who made high-end things that players needed. Crafters, get your grinding boots on, all you need to make anymore are cheap consumables! (How about spending some dev time to make the other six crafters MORE useful, instead of kneecapping the three decent ones?)2) It was a complete waste of developer time (other than to grease up another slippery slope*), since nobody will spend the extra time to research experts.3) It will add to mudflation, as the only people using it will be the ones who wouldn't otherwise spend five coppers on their alts, but now they can master up for free while they play their mains. Expert is the new Apprentice, Master is the new Journeyman. (Making the generous assumption that most soloers didn't want/have Expert & Master spells anyway.)...is there a positive aspect to this change?As for the journeyman discussion... who cares? As long as journeyman is a step DOWN from the previous tier's expert and at best a step sideways from the adept (more mana cost for virtually the same effect? sign me up!), and you've got two years to find those upgrades between level cap raises... yeah, journeyman spells won't be used by upper-level characters no matter how they're made available, researcher or crafter or laying in the gutter on Lucie Street.* - now that the wall's broken down and you can get tradeskilled spells from some nebulous NPC "researcher" without using a scholar... why not do the same for the others? Can my ranger have an NPC woodworker to make him some arrows over time, and an NPC alchemist to keep him stocked with poisons? NPC carpenter who just drops off some furniture at my house every few days?And why just pick on crafter-created things? Perhaps an NPC weapon "researcher" who can recreate my epic weapon without having to do the quest? (Not like it's a one-of-a-kind item, all the other guardians have the same "unique" sword.) An NPC thief to pilfer 3 or 4 pieces of Mark gear per year from the erudite merchants? Heck, why can't I have some NPC raiders bring me back some mid-grade raid gear just for paying my sub and waiting a while?

Shareana

12-12-2010, 02:30 AM

This post has moved: <a href="/eq2/posts/preList.m?topic_id=445320&post_id=5468154" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">/eq2/posts/preList.m?topic_id=44532...post_id=5468154</a> Let's remember to keep the posts constructive please.

Zabjade

12-12-2010, 06:37 PM

It will take time still to upgrade all the spells but it will put a dent in things. Alchemists will be hit the least because they make a lot of money with potions.While Sages and Jewelers can make items they are usually one-shot per tier and not comparable to many of the items you can quest for. I think introducing some Consumables that Jewelers and Sages can sell would soften the blow. Rune-stones for Jewelers and spells-pages for Sages (oddball spells they would make for their normal classes I would guess but weaker)

wayfaerer

12-13-2010, 12:25 AM

I have a 90 Sage and a 90 Jeweler and I can safely say this wont hurt business at all. Only the ultra casuals or bads who don't care at all about their character performance would actually wait a year researching all of their masters instead of just buying experts (and then researching/picking up masters as time/money permits).

theriatis

12-13-2010, 06:37 AM

If that doesn't have any effect at all, then why was it introduced ?Don't take content away from the Players, generate new content !!Let the Scholars craft a special Item with which you can reduce the Research timesin different qualities:If you use normal components, it just costs the Fuel, but reduces the time only byone hour.If you use rare components, it costs the Rare and the fuel, but reduces the time byone day.Or get the Research Guy back to Business and let him buy Journeyman Spells / ExpertSpells to reduce the Research time of the Master they sold him the spells to.And all the Scholars have again something to do.Now, if you would just make every other Crafter Class desirable again, that would be an added Bonus ! [/sarcasm]Regards, theriatis.

Trelyn_Willowleaf

12-13-2010, 10:37 AM

<address>Im fine with this change, I see it helping the lower lvl players get good spells without breaking the bank. When I first started out it was so anoying to see even adept spells for 25 gold (I think I was still in silver and copper). I think if this change is implemented then the powders that come from expert spells should infact come from any spell crafted from that tier. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></address>

Thunndar316

12-14-2010, 11:16 PM

Anyone gonna wait a couple weeks for an Expert? Didn't think so. Sages need to chill.

Layakilie

12-15-2010, 06:18 AM

i agree, can't imagine anyone exept people with few time to play to stop buying spells. I guess many people have a sage in their guild or flist to craft the spells- seems to be like that on my server. Anyway, i deceided to become a sage to be able to craft upgrades for myself/most of my twinks, making plat was not the reason to craft, and in order to be relativly sure to sell something I'd have to keep a huge number of spells in stock- to me it always feels like a very risky way to try to make money, with good chances of never seeing even the fuelcosts return, as about 3/4 of the spells i put on the broker never got sold. Nothing to wonder about, considering my sage isn't even at maxlvl, but already knows over 4000 recipes.I simply offer what i don't need and have a small chance that some day someone's just looking for what i put up. I'm never counting on selling that- i MIGHT sell.Still i benefit from having this profession- i get my experts as soon as i get a hand on a rare. I guess without the sage profession, i'd have to research 3-5 months, just to get the spells i got the last 3-4 lvlups... honestly, who is going to wait that long? Edit: Even updating only one spell to expert can have a huge impact on how well a toon is soloing, just saw it again 2 days ago- bought 2 rares and accidentally crafted Back into the Fray twice instead of a dmgspell as second- but even with only that one heal up to date everything has become a lot easier, the amount it heals almost doubled. I would consider it a big waste of personal lifetime to research everything instead of simply upgrading as soon as getting the rare/plat for it.

Shasroh

12-16-2010, 03:11 PM

I haven't bought spells via broker in years outside of masters. Even when leveling alts, I tend to just buy masters for a few gold more.Also can't sages craft the temp adornments scrolls for priests and mages? I know that is pretty much all my weaponsmith makes money on (and ammo) when I am not feeling lazy.

Zabjade

12-17-2010, 04:09 PM

Still think the best way to handle it would be to give bothe the Sages and Jewelers Consumable Recipies (much like Alchemists get potions, Jewelers can get Runestones and Sages can get Spell-Slips)Make the powers on the stones and slips a buffs so that they arn't overpowered.

Shasroh

12-17-2010, 05:03 PM

Don't sages already have: <a title="Quel'ule Scroll of Combat" href="http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Quel%27ule_Scroll_of_Combat">Quel'ule Scroll of Combat</a><a title="Quel'ule Scroll of Power" href="http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Quel%27ule_Scroll_of_Power">Quel'ule Scroll of Power</a>there is also a ROK equivelent, also they have player crafted books, not to mention quite a few different items from ROK faction, like the pocket expander.Jewelers have jewelery, which the resist jewelery is very handy especially do those just starting to raid.

Zabjade

12-17-2010, 07:49 PM

<cite>Shasroh wrote:</cite><blockquote>Don't sages already have: <a title="Quel'ule Scroll of Combat" href="http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Quel%27ule_Scroll_of_Combat">Quel'ule Scroll of Combat</a><a title="Quel'ule Scroll of Power" href="http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Quel%27ule_Scroll_of_Power">Quel'ule Scroll of Power</a>there is also a ROK equivelent, also they have player crafted books, not to mention quite a few different items from ROK faction, like the pocket expander.Jewelers have jewelery, which the resist jewelery is very handy especially do those just starting to raid.</blockquote>Way WAAAAAY up there in level meanwhile they are buring plat buying recipies for nothing until then.