Lets Make The Best Of A Late Start: TS Quest Line

11-02-2017, 09:41 AM

So PoP is going to launch without a signature line for Tradeskills. As long as dev takes this into account it could actually be good. But dev needs to seriously think about the implications before they just follow the example of previous TS quests.

Before the new quests can be released, there will be a large number of max level crafters. Why? Because that is what the community around here is like. Even if it takes 100 writs to level all the bot crafters a significant portion of the serious crafters will max out at least a few toons within a month.

Also keep in mind that the vast majority of players will have a 100 crafter thanks to the new epic quests. If the 110 crafting content actually turns out to be 'fun' or 'rewarding' the majority of them will do it.

The big point I'm trying to make here is making the PoP TS quests the leveling path isn't going to be all that interesting for most of the crafters because its going to come late. Making the largest reward from each quest be XP is naive. Get a few of the content devs to brainstorm on activities that would be fun and not adventure level dependent. Add that into PoP TS quests. Use a PoP coin for a tradeskill shop.

Make some of the quests based off of the timed quests that were introduced in AoM and continued on from there. Stuff like using nets to capture lost magic, picking the 'right' mushrooms after using a magic fertilizer, or putting out fires in a gnomish workshop are a few ideas. Sure some should involve actual crafting, but I think it would be more interesting to make the majority of them just fun silly games that could be enjoyed by all players. It would encourage people to keep crafting.

As for shop reward ideas, the usual furniture idea is fine. Lots of monster 'statues', plants, decorations, walls, ect. A very simple idea would be to sell a 'package' of status. A lot of crafters could use an easy way to boost their status quickly if they want to purchase something from a city merchant, or just pay rent for a private guild. The same for a small stash of plat. It doesn't have to be a lot of coin, but some conversion rate to just plat would be interesting.

In closing, this is an opportunity to make the TS quests bigger and better than they have been. Do more than just making a signature quest line. Use the extra time and get all hands to work on making it better that what we expect. After all, its already failed to live up to our expectations of being ready for PoP's launch. It needs to be better to erase the disappointment.

Mermut · 11-02-2017, 04:29 PM

I agree that the main 'reward' shouldn't be TS xp, but I would prefer the that quests be tradeskill based and not timed quests or adventure-ish quests. Personally, I think most of the recent TS lines have been well done.
Personally, I don't enjoy 'goblin games' style games (I actually still have some of those tickets left that I still haven't used because bleck). LIke them or not, they're not 'tradeskill' related and I'd prefer a tradeskill line to be tradeskill related, not full of 'silly quests'. I'm not sure why a TS line should be made less TS and more 'silly'. It's a TS line.. if people don't want to TS, why should the tradeskil stuff be changed (perhaps making it less attractive to people who DO enjoy/want to TS) in order to attract those that don't...

Ocarinah · 11-02-2017, 06:44 PM

As I sit at the treat trade and frantically try to exchange my night of the dead treats into usable currency and remembering how many times I asked to have an option "Exchange All" option ADDED (yes keep the 20 option so people don't freak out), I thought of an idea. Since we can now get mats for holidays from our pack ponies, wouldn't it be so wonderful to get a treat trader that is usable all year round?!?! I would prefer an animated house plushies but if we must have as a pet like the harvesting pack pony and goblin that would be acceptable too. This new creature would let you exchange all holiday treats (love notes, hard candy, the many notd candies) into the currency version of the treats (candy corn, barbarian love note). My ideas for what creature to use...rainbow patchwork burynai, a rainbow patchwork unicorn, or the PoP clockwork calamity. The animation could be when you pick to exchange all types of candy (must have exchange all in personal inventory but if we must have options then what about 20, 2000 and ALL options), the creature would either puke, fart or poop out a rainbow of magically sparkles or something. Other option could be animation can be turned on and off like the hearts a flutter option on the "an Erollisi Teddy Bear".

Plus, have the reward give a recipe book with recipes for the following house items:

Calm Forgotten Pools Sproutling
Enraged Forgotten Pools Sproutling
Forgotten Pools Pod
Valorian Bloom

11-03-2017, 09:25 AM

Mermut said: ↑

“I agree that the main 'reward' shouldn't be TS xp, but I would prefer the that quests be tradeskill based and not timed quests or adventure-ish quests. Personally, I think most of the recent TS lines have been well done.
Personally, I don't enjoy 'goblin games' style games (I actually still have some of those tickets left that I still haven't used because bleck). LIke them or not, they're not 'tradeskill' related and I'd prefer a tradeskill line to be tradeskill related, not full of 'silly quests'. I'm not sure why a TS line should be made less TS and more 'silly'. It's a TS line.. if people don't want to TS, why should the tradeskil stuff be changed (perhaps making it less attractive to people who DO enjoy/want to TS) in order to attract those that don't...”

I probably worded this badly. I'm not saying that we shouldn't get a traditional Signature Line, that should happen. But instead of 7 'dailies' and one 'weekly' I'd prefer to see a large variety of quests and the timed quests are a decent direction to branch out into for Tradeskill Quests.

As far as what crafters do, generally speaking a large number of the repeatable quests are kill 10 rats craft 10 items. Simple boring day job kind of stuff that nobody is going to enjoy doing. Then there are the quests like knocking out the grimling runner, or tagging creatures, or even delivering supplies (that we may have crafted). Some of these quests are actually fun, or at least a break from the usual grind. I'd honestly like to see 7 daily grind quests, and then a bunch of timed quests where you do something other than stare at the crafting UI.

The main idea is to try and appeal to a broader audience through making the game more enjoyable rather than relying on the reward to incite players. If its done right, more causal players will spend time doing crafting quests. That can't be bad for us.

11-03-2017, 02:01 PM

Whatever suggestions we make here, they probably have whatever they are planning lined-out, but thought I'd toss a few thoughts in.

Crafting: A necessary evil. I liked that it was required for the Epic 2.0. How could an adventurer have gotten that far in Norrath, without having learned a trade???
Bauble: I am excited to see that they've offered the level 100 crafting bauble, finally!
Relevance: I love it when there are crafted items which are a "must have", such as foods, potions & scrolls of prowess, etc. Makes crafting relevant.

Time invested: I loved some of the old TS questlines, was not as fond of the KA one--I thought it too involved. I normally do the TS lines on all my chars,.

Pre-reqs: I'd prefer whatever they do not be tied to completion of prior content. I have all nine crafters, but one of my goals in-game is helping the new and returning folks. Folks want to dive into the new content.

Just my 2c.

Ocarinah · 11-03-2017, 10:12 PM

Yes I love past crafting lines which I did on not only my main crafters but all my duplicate crafters up through AoM. I didn't get past my two main adventurers doing crafting lines for ToT and KA. ToT I didn't like that you had to grind faction to get recipes and they were heirloom plus I am a decorator and the same tokens were for buying house items and there were tons of really cool house items. KA I loved that you could buy books for all crafters with one crafter and there were house items on sale with easy to get tokens. I hope that recipes are heirloom this time so I don't have to grind faction and tokens with all just worry about leveling them up. Even if they don't need my idea for this expansion...maybe in future or some other event. Smile

11-08-2017, 09:13 AM

Just in case these ideas and thoughts are ‘early’ enough to be considered, I thought I would drop in my 2cp as well!

I’m not overly keen on crafting but I do have a lot of crafters because of the epic 2.0. I love harvesting though!

Firstly, and just for clarity, I don’t think the OP is saying reduce the amount of TS exp from the quest line and I completely agree. They are saying that for dedicated crafters, it will be moot.

I do agree it would be nice to have other rewards and I’d like to see some more/updated tradeskill equipment with bonuses to trade skills and/or harvesting. Maybe some appearance gear that is quite distinctive and crafter-y? I’m sure people could suggest ideas for this.

As for the quests, I really don’t like the timed stuff and some people really struggle with them. Nor am I keen on ‘twitch’ type quests or platformers. Maybe i’m Traditional but I like quests such as the frostfang seas series where you perform tasks (I like the evil line more than the good line) with a few using your tradeskills. I like them even more when the components are supplied so you don’t have to run around getting mats or to and from your guild halll.

I do like the once only per quest line idea of crafters working together for updates. PotP style. This can be frustrating on lower population servers but you could include the option to ‘order’ items and wait for it them to be made (24 hours per item or something) so that you can get through if there really is nobody to help. I think requiring items from other crafters, rewards those that love their tradeskills because they’re going to be able to help people out and will get a bit of appreciation for all their time and effort (they deserve it!).

11-02-2017, 06:44 PM	#3
Ocarinah Well-Known Member Join Date: Jan 1970 Posts: 0	As I sit at the treat trade and frantically try to exchange my night of the dead treats into usable currency and remembering how many times I asked to have an option "Exchange All" option ADDED (yes keep the 20 option so people don't freak out), I thought of an idea. Since we can now get mats for holidays from our pack ponies, wouldn't it be so wonderful to get a treat trader that is usable all year round?!?! I would prefer an animated house plushies but if we must have as a pet like the harvesting pack pony and goblin that would be acceptable too. This new creature would let you exchange all holiday treats (love notes, hard candy, the many notd candies) into the currency version of the treats (candy corn, barbarian love note). My ideas for what creature to use...rainbow patchwork burynai, a rainbow patchwork unicorn, or the PoP clockwork calamity. The animation could be when you pick to exchange all types of candy (must have exchange all in personal inventory but if we must have options then what about 20, 2000 and ALL options), the creature would either puke, fart or poop out a rainbow of magically sparkles or something. Other option could be animation can be turned on and off like the hearts a flutter option on the "an Erollisi Teddy Bear". Plus, have the reward give a recipe book with recipes for the following house items: Calm Forgotten Pools Sproutling Enraged Forgotten Pools Sproutling Forgotten Pools Pod Valorian Bloom

11-03-2017, 09:25 AM	#4
Meirril Well-Known Member Posts: n/a	Mermut said: ↑ “I agree that the main 'reward' shouldn't be TS xp, but I would prefer the that quests be tradeskill based and not timed quests or adventure-ish quests. Personally, I think most of the recent TS lines have been well done. Personally, I don't enjoy 'goblin games' style games (I actually still have some of those tickets left that I still haven't used because bleck). LIke them or not, they're not 'tradeskill' related and I'd prefer a tradeskill line to be tradeskill related, not full of 'silly quests'. I'm not sure why a TS line should be made less TS and more 'silly'. It's a TS line.. if people don't want to TS, why should the tradeskil stuff be changed (perhaps making it less attractive to people who DO enjoy/want to TS) in order to attract those that don't...” I probably worded this badly. I'm not saying that we shouldn't get a traditional Signature Line, that should happen. But instead of 7 'dailies' and one 'weekly' I'd prefer to see a large variety of quests and the timed quests are a decent direction to branch out into for Tradeskill Quests. As far as what crafters do, generally speaking a large number of the repeatable quests are kill 10 rats craft 10 items. Simple boring day job kind of stuff that nobody is going to enjoy doing. Then there are the quests like knocking out the grimling runner, or tagging creatures, or even delivering supplies (that we may have crafted). Some of these quests are actually fun, or at least a break from the usual grind. I'd honestly like to see 7 daily grind quests, and then a bunch of timed quests where you do something other than stare at the crafting UI. The main idea is to try and appeal to a broader audience through making the game more enjoyable rather than relying on the reward to incite players. If its done right, more causal players will spend time doing crafting quests. That can't be bad for us.

11-03-2017, 02:01 PM	#5
Kittybock Well-Known Member Posts: n/a	Whatever suggestions we make here, they probably have whatever they are planning lined-out, but thought I'd toss a few thoughts in. Crafting: A necessary evil. I liked that it was required for the Epic 2.0. How could an adventurer have gotten that far in Norrath, without having learned a trade??? Bauble: I am excited to see that they've offered the level 100 crafting bauble, finally! Relevance: I love it when there are crafted items which are a "must have", such as foods, potions & scrolls of prowess, etc. Makes crafting relevant. Time invested: I loved some of the old TS questlines, was not as fond of the KA one--I thought it too involved. I normally do the TS lines on all my chars,. Pre-reqs: I'd prefer whatever they do not be tied to completion of prior content. I have all nine crafters, but one of my goals in-game is helping the new and returning folks. Folks want to dive into the new content. Just my 2c.

11-02-2017, 09:41 AM	#1
Meirril Well-Known Member Posts: n/a	So PoP is going to launch without a signature line for Tradeskills. As long as dev takes this into account it could actually be good. But dev needs to seriously think about the implications before they just follow the example of previous TS quests. Before the new quests can be released, there will be a large number of max level crafters. Why? Because that is what the community around here is like. Even if it takes 100 writs to level all the bot crafters a significant portion of the serious crafters will max out at least a few toons within a month. Also keep in mind that the vast majority of players will have a 100 crafter thanks to the new epic quests. If the 110 crafting content actually turns out to be 'fun' or 'rewarding' the majority of them will do it. The big point I'm trying to make here is making the PoP TS quests the leveling path isn't going to be all that interesting for most of the crafters because its going to come late. Making the largest reward from each quest be XP is naive. Get a few of the content devs to brainstorm on activities that would be fun and not adventure level dependent. Add that into PoP TS quests. Use a PoP coin for a tradeskill shop. Make some of the quests based off of the timed quests that were introduced in AoM and continued on from there. Stuff like using nets to capture lost magic, picking the 'right' mushrooms after using a magic fertilizer, or putting out fires in a gnomish workshop are a few ideas. Sure some should involve actual crafting, but I think it would be more interesting to make the majority of them just fun silly games that could be enjoyed by all players. It would encourage people to keep crafting. As for shop reward ideas, the usual furniture idea is fine. Lots of monster 'statues', plants, decorations, walls, ect. A very simple idea would be to sell a 'package' of status. A lot of crafters could use an easy way to boost their status quickly if they want to purchase something from a city merchant, or just pay rent for a private guild. The same for a small stash of plat. It doesn't have to be a lot of coin, but some conversion rate to just plat would be interesting. In closing, this is an opportunity to make the TS quests bigger and better than they have been. Do more than just making a signature quest line. Use the extra time and get all hands to work on making it better that what we expect. After all, its already failed to live up to our expectations of being ready for PoP's launch. It needs to be better to erase the disappointment.

11-02-2017, 04:29 PM	#2
Mermut Well-Known Member Join Date: Jan 1970 Posts: 0	I agree that the main 'reward' shouldn't be TS xp, but I would prefer the that quests be tradeskill based and not timed quests or adventure-ish quests. Personally, I think most of the recent TS lines have been well done. Personally, I don't enjoy 'goblin games' style games (I actually still have some of those tickets left that I still haven't used because bleck). LIke them or not, they're not 'tradeskill' related and I'd prefer a tradeskill line to be tradeskill related, not full of 'silly quests'. I'm not sure why a TS line should be made less TS and more 'silly'. It's a TS line.. if people don't want to TS, why should the tradeskil stuff be changed (perhaps making it less attractive to people who DO enjoy/want to TS) in order to attract those that don't...

11-03-2017, 10:12 PM	#6
Ocarinah Well-Known Member Join Date: Jan 1970 Posts: 0	Yes I love past crafting lines which I did on not only my main crafters but all my duplicate crafters up through AoM. I didn't get past my two main adventurers doing crafting lines for ToT and KA. ToT I didn't like that you had to grind faction to get recipes and they were heirloom plus I am a decorator and the same tokens were for buying house items and there were tons of really cool house items. KA I loved that you could buy books for all crafters with one crafter and there were house items on sale with easy to get tokens. I hope that recipes are heirloom this time so I don't have to grind faction and tokens with all just worry about leveling them up. Even if they don't need my idea for this expansion...maybe in future or some other event.

11-08-2017, 09:13 AM	#7
Ellah New Member Posts: n/a	Just in case these ideas and thoughts are ‘early’ enough to be considered, I thought I would drop in my 2cp as well! I’m not overly keen on crafting but I do have a lot of crafters because of the epic 2.0. I love harvesting though! Firstly, and just for clarity, I don’t think the OP is saying reduce the amount of TS exp from the quest line and I completely agree. They are saying that for dedicated crafters, it will be moot. I do agree it would be nice to have other rewards and I’d like to see some more/updated tradeskill equipment with bonuses to trade skills and/or harvesting. Maybe some appearance gear that is quite distinctive and crafter-y? I’m sure people could suggest ideas for this. As for the quests, I really don’t like the timed stuff and some people really struggle with them. Nor am I keen on ‘twitch’ type quests or platformers. Maybe i’m Traditional but I like quests such as the frostfang seas series where you perform tasks (I like the evil line more than the good line) with a few using your tradeskills. I like them even more when the components are supplied so you don’t have to run around getting mats or to and from your guild halll. I do like the once only per quest line idea of crafters working together for updates. PotP style. This can be frustrating on lower population servers but you could include the option to ‘order’ items and wait for it them to be made (24 hours per item or something) so that you can get through if there really is nobody to help. I think requiring items from other crafters, rewards those that love their tradeskills because they’re going to be able to help people out and will get a bit of appreciation for all their time and effort (they deserve it!).