Really stupid crafting questions

Bran · 02-13-2009, 12:56 PM

First off, I want to apologize for asking these really stupid questions. I've read several pages of this forum and I've visited the EQ2traders website but did not find the most basic information that I do not seem to be able to understand.

The biggest question has to do with the crafting process itself. After making sure that I have a recipe's ingrediants I press the button to start crafting. At the bottom of the interface are six buttons with picture icons. Each button indicates they help with certain crafting difficulties and states positives and minuses for choosing that button.

Ok, here's the question. My crafters are using the first three buttons almost exclusively unless that bottom crafting line goes away and removes any chances of a pristine item, then I use the last three buttons to speed through the process to see if I can "save" some ingredients.

Am I doing this correctly? Are my assumptions correct? Specifically, do those last three buttons have any other purpose? At my level I do not need the completion percentage as much as I need to save the ....what's the word... the structure of the thing.

Second, what is raw bone? All of the bones I've gotten are either part of a skeleton knowledge thing or are collectibles.

Third, my guy has been making maple strong boxes for the bank. That's the positive part of this question, and here's the negative part. If the recipe is a blue "Easy" one why does it fail so much? I assume that my assumption that Easy should be easy is wrong.. that Very Easy is what you would normally consider a pass through crafting event. Is that assumption of an assumption correct or am I doing something horribly wrong?

Ta da! Stupid questions are done. Thanks for any replies.

Nulad · 02-13-2009, 01:15 PM

Makr@Mistmoore wrote:

First off, I want to apologize for asking these really stupid questions. I've read several pages of this forum and I've visited the EQ2traders website but did not find the most basic information that I do not seem to be able to understand.
The biggest question has to do with the crafting process itself. After making sure that I have a recipe's ingrediants I press the button to start crafting. At the bottom of the interface are six buttons with picture icons. Each button indicates they help with certain crafting difficulties and states positives and minuses for choosing that button.
Ok, here's the question. My crafters are using the first three buttons almost exclusively unless that bottom crafting line goes away and removes any chances of a pristine item, then I use the last three buttons to speed through the process to see if I can "save" some ingredients.
Am I doing this correctly? Are my assumptions correct? Specifically, do those last three buttons have any other purpose? At my level I do not need the completion percentage as much as I need to save the ....what's the word... the structure of the thing.
No, the first three increase or have a chance to increase the durability, you should be using those if the green bar gets low and starts to get close to dropping down to three bars, the last three increase progress and it is these you should use unless you're in a position where you're about to fail.
Second, what is raw bone? All of the bones I've gotten are either part of a skeleton knowledge thing or are collectibles.
It is the T2 rare which can be found by harvesting wood nodes iirc.
Third, my guy has been making maple strong boxes for the bank. That's the positive part of this question, and here's the negative part. If the recipe is a blue "Easy" one why does it fail so much? I assume that my assumption that Easy should be easy is wrong.. that Very Easy is what you would normally consider a pass through crafting event. Is that assumption of an assumption correct or am I doing something horribly wrong?
What is your skill for sculpting? Maple strong boxes are a level 15 recipie, if your sculpting skill is not higher than 49 because you are a non-woodworking class (woodworker/carpenter) and that skill gets capped at just under it's level 10 point, which in effect means that it is a yellow (or something like that, being that it'll be 5 levels above your skill) to you even though it will show as blue.
Ta da! Stupid questions are done. Thanks for any replies.

ashen1973 · 02-13-2009, 01:16 PM

someone once said 'there are no stupid questions', well, I have to say i can think of quite a few SMILEY but yours dont fall into that catagory!

A lot of us long-term crafters forget just how daunting the process can be when its new.

I put together a guide for my guildmates, you might find it usefull

you can find it >> HERE <<

I know a lot of my guildies have said they find it usefull, keep in mind its just written from my own experiences, others may have other methods which work just as well or better.

As for 'raw bone' this description is a little misleading.

The actual item you need is called 'severed bone' . It is the rare wood harvest from Tier2 zones (Commonlands, Antonica etc..)

You will create a Mastercrafted item using these. Mastercrafted items are generally much better than their normal counterpart.

You will find the recipes for mastercrafted recipes in the 'advanced' recipe books, these are the ones you get from loot drops (or buy from the broker) as oppossed to the normal books that you purchase from the NPC near the tradeskill places.

Dareena · 02-13-2009, 01:38 PM

Here's another trick of the trade. Each individual crafting situation has a sweet spot. Basically if you hit the x3 buttons in the proper sequence, you will get the most out of your results. If you do this with the 1-2-3 buttons, you'll raise both progress and durability. Or if you're using the 4-5-6 buttons, you'll get the most progress and only lose a little durability.

So how do you know which of the x3 button combinations is the correct sequence for your current craft? To be honest, it's just trial and error. If you guess wrong, then your crafting durability and progress can potentially take a big hit. Yet once you get the correct sequence, you can fix it just as easily. Also understand that every crafting is different. So the perfect sequence for craft #1 of a specific item may be different from craft #2 of that same item.

By the way, the proper sequence won't even correctly show itself until you've used 2-3 sequences. The beginning of every craft always starts off wonky for some reason. So you made have hit the correct sequence on your 1st try, but it may not act like it until you try it again.

Bran · 02-13-2009, 01:53 PM

Thank all of you for the responses, and thank you for the guide. I have a three day weekend coming up and my highest level crafter is almost level 20, so I'll make great use of your advice.

Calthine · 02-13-2009, 02:06 PM

Another crafting guide: http://eq2.allakhazam.com/wiki/Unde...anding_the_Arts

Just remember: be proactive, not reactive, when using your arts!

valkry · 02-13-2009, 05:03 PM

Stupid question is "What's a Forge?" You are well beyond that.

Don't forget, untill you get the above mentioned 'sweet spot' of 1-2-3/4-5-6 cycling, those blue easy crafts aren't easy. You are in the middle of a personal learning curve, as a newer crafter.

Myself, having something like 380-400 crafting lvls between all of my alts, I will find a blue craft (at any crafting lvl) much easier then you will. I've been through the trial & error stage enough that it takes a few cycles to get my groove.

You will take much longer to actually complete a single craft, you will have more 'non-pristines'/fails... but you are getting better at the player skills of crafting as your toon gets better at the skill points of crafting. Once you get past the 'training wheels' stage of crafting, those easy blues will actually feel like easy blues.

Oh · 02-13-2009, 05:43 PM

valkry wrote:

Stupid question is "What's a Forge?" You are well beyond that.

Actually when I work with folks, I tell them the only stupid question is the one you didn't ask. It's much better to ask for help then to be silent and get frustrated when someone can easily help you out.

Anyways glad you got alot of information, please feel free to ask questions! Good luck on your crafting run this weekend.

SilkenKidden · 02-13-2009, 06:24 PM

Ohiv wrote:

valkry wrote:
Stupid question is "What's a Forge?" You are well beyond that.
Actually when I work with folks, I tell them the only stupid question is the one you didn't ask. It's much better to ask for help then to be silent and get frustrated when someone can easily help you out.
Anyways glad you got alot of information, please feel free to ask questions! Good luck on your crafting run this weekend.

I once raised my hand in class and said, I was about to ask a stupid question. The teacher carefully explained to me that no question was stupid and then told me to ask my question. I did. He replied - with a straight face - that's a stupid question.

Donilla · 02-16-2009, 02:35 PM

I'm sure the linked guides provided this information, but just in case. Along with using those 1,2,3,4,5,6 hot keys to affect your durability and progress, they are also used to counter adverse events while crafting. If you see an icon pop up during the crafting process, you need to hit the corresponding icon key, doesn't matter which of the two (1 or 4, 2 or 5, 3 or 6). Not doing so could cause a critical failure to occur which can have a negative impact on the crafting process and on your health. If you know this I apologize, but assuming you know,...... well assumptions can kill you SMILEY

Rijacki · 02-16-2009, 03:29 PM

Ohiv wrote:

valkry wrote:
Stupid question is "What's a Forge?" You are well beyond that.
Actually when I work with folks, I tell them the only stupid question is the one you didn't ask. It's much better to ask for help then to be silent and get frustrated when someone can easily help you out.
Anyways glad you got alot of information, please feel free to ask questions! Good luck on your crafting run this weekend.

"What's a forge?" might be considered a stupid question when you're leaning on one getting burn on your hand, but yeah, generally the only stupid question is one unasked.

However, if you ask the same question over and over and over, you might need to look somewhere else for a different type of answer or look for something else to do.

Terron · 02-17-2009, 10:43 AM

Have you done the crafting tutorial quests?

Bran · 02-17-2009, 01:06 PM

The weekend is over and I thought I would update this thread so everyone would know that things worked out nicely. My main crafter is crafting level 20 and my alts are working on their areas of expertise.

The two linked sites really gave me the information that wasn't intuitive for me and I thank you both.

"Proactive versus Reactive" really made a huge difference for me and I'm currently working on my timing so that I have the ability to react to negatives so I do not end up with a failure.

I've successfully created many of the valentines day items, food items, some bags, skill increases, garments, rugs, etc... and have set myself a goal of being a wonderful harvester. (grin) (bonk) (cringe) I'm sorry but I found that harvesting is more fun than crafting.

If's it's any consolation, I've spent 2p buying "stuff" for all of my characters so I definately support crafters!! BIG HUGS for all of you wonderful crafting-type people. It's just that after an hour or three of being proactive and making at most 2 items at a time... I'm just not confident in my ability to maintain my sanity.

Again, thanks for the links and the support. The community is great.

02-13-2009, 01:16 PM	#3
ashen1973 Loremaster Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: The cellar under the stairs Posts: 1,220	someone once said 'there are no stupid questions', well, I have to say i can think of quite a few but yours dont fall into that catagory! A lot of us long-term crafters forget just how daunting the process can be when its new. I put together a guide for my guildmates, you might find it usefull you can find it >> HERE << I know a lot of my guildies have said they find it usefull, keep in mind its just written from my own experiences, others may have other methods which work just as well or better. As for 'raw bone' this description is a little misleading. The actual item you need is called 'severed bone' . It is the rare wood harvest from Tier2 zones (Commonlands, Antonica etc..) You will create a Mastercrafted item using these. Mastercrafted items are generally much better than their normal counterpart. You will find the recipes for mastercrafted recipes in the 'advanced' recipe books, these are the ones you get from loot drops (or buy from the broker) as oppossed to the normal books that you purchase from the NPC near the tradeskill places. __________________ " [our mistake was] to not just think we know the right direction without bringing the fans into the mix," he explained. "We made the cardinal sin of not listening, but assuming and we were wrong." --Quote from John Smedley, CEO of SOE, Oct 07

02-13-2009, 01:53 PM	#5
Bran General Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 46	Thank all of you for the responses, and thank you for the guide. I have a three day weekend coming up and my highest level crafter is almost level 20, so I'll make great use of your advice. __________________ "Hi, my name is Makr and I am an altaholic" I play to have fun and escape into the "Real World". What do you mean this isn't the real world? If I can be who I want to be, that's the real world.

02-13-2009, 02:06 PM	#6
Calthine ZAM EQII Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 7,439	Another crafting guide: http://eq2.allakhazam.com/wiki/Unde...anding_the_Arts Just remember: be proactive, not reactive, when using your arts! __________________ Please visit my non-gaming Blog! or follow me on Twitter!

02-13-2009, 05:03 PM	#7
valkry Gnombie!! Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Minneapolis, MN USA Posts: 1,321	Stupid question is "What's a Forge?" You are well beyond that. Don't forget, untill you get the above mentioned 'sweet spot' of 1-2-3/4-5-6 cycling, those blue easy crafts aren't easy. You are in the middle of a personal learning curve, as a newer crafter. Myself, having something like 380-400 crafting lvls between all of my alts, I will find a blue craft (at any crafting lvl) much easier then you will. I've been through the trial & error stage enough that it takes a few cycles to get my groove. You will take much longer to actually complete a single craft, you will have more 'non-pristines'/fails... but you are getting better at the player skills of crafting as your toon gets better at the skill points of crafting. Once you get past the 'training wheels' stage of crafting, those easy blues will actually feel like easy blues. __________________

02-13-2009, 05:43 PM	#8
Oh General Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 2,516	valkry wrote: Stupid question is "What's a Forge?" You are well beyond that. Actually when I work with folks, I tell them the only stupid question is the one you didn't ask. It's much better to ask for help then to be silent and get frustrated when someone can easily help you out. Anyways glad you got alot of information, please feel free to ask questions! Good luck on your crafting run this weekend. __________________

02-13-2009, 12:56 PM	#1
Bran General Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 46	First off, I want to apologize for asking these really stupid questions. I've read several pages of this forum and I've visited the EQ2traders website but did not find the most basic information that I do not seem to be able to understand. The biggest question has to do with the crafting process itself. After making sure that I have a recipe's ingrediants I press the button to start crafting. At the bottom of the interface are six buttons with picture icons. Each button indicates they help with certain crafting difficulties and states positives and minuses for choosing that button. Ok, here's the question. My crafters are using the first three buttons almost exclusively unless that bottom crafting line goes away and removes any chances of a pristine item, then I use the last three buttons to speed through the process to see if I can "save" some ingredients. Am I doing this correctly? Are my assumptions correct? Specifically, do those last three buttons have any other purpose? At my level I do not need the completion percentage as much as I need to save the ....what's the word... the structure of the thing. Second, what is raw bone? All of the bones I've gotten are either part of a skeleton knowledge thing or are collectibles. Third, my guy has been making maple strong boxes for the bank. That's the positive part of this question, and here's the negative part. If the recipe is a blue "Easy" one why does it fail so much? I assume that my assumption that Easy should be easy is wrong.. that Very Easy is what you would normally consider a pass through crafting event. Is that assumption of an assumption correct or am I doing something horribly wrong? Ta da! Stupid questions are done. Thanks for any replies. __________________ "Hi, my name is Makr and I am an altaholic" I play to have fun and escape into the "Real World". What do you mean this isn't the real world? If I can be who I want to be, that's the real world.

02-13-2009, 01:15 PM	#2
Nulad General Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 638	Makr@Mistmoore wrote: First off, I want to apologize for asking these really stupid questions. I've read several pages of this forum and I've visited the EQ2traders website but did not find the most basic information that I do not seem to be able to understand. The biggest question has to do with the crafting process itself. After making sure that I have a recipe's ingrediants I press the button to start crafting. At the bottom of the interface are six buttons with picture icons. Each button indicates they help with certain crafting difficulties and states positives and minuses for choosing that button. Ok, here's the question. My crafters are using the first three buttons almost exclusively unless that bottom crafting line goes away and removes any chances of a pristine item, then I use the last three buttons to speed through the process to see if I can "save" some ingredients. Am I doing this correctly? Are my assumptions correct? Specifically, do those last three buttons have any other purpose? At my level I do not need the completion percentage as much as I need to save the ....what's the word... the structure of the thing. No, the first three increase or have a chance to increase the durability, you should be using those if the green bar gets low and starts to get close to dropping down to three bars, the last three increase progress and it is these you should use unless you're in a position where you're about to fail. Second, what is raw bone? All of the bones I've gotten are either part of a skeleton knowledge thing or are collectibles. It is the T2 rare which can be found by harvesting wood nodes iirc. Third, my guy has been making maple strong boxes for the bank. That's the positive part of this question, and here's the negative part. If the recipe is a blue "Easy" one why does it fail so much? I assume that my assumption that Easy should be easy is wrong.. that Very Easy is what you would normally consider a pass through crafting event. Is that assumption of an assumption correct or am I doing something horribly wrong? What is your skill for sculpting? Maple strong boxes are a level 15 recipie, if your sculpting skill is not higher than 49 because you are a non-woodworking class (woodworker/carpenter) and that skill gets capped at just under it's level 10 point, which in effect means that it is a yellow (or something like that, being that it'll be 5 levels above your skill) to you even though it will show as blue. Ta da! Stupid questions are done. Thanks for any replies. __________________

02-13-2009, 01:38 PM	#4
Dareena Server: Lucan DLere Guild: Dark Prophecy Rank: Member Loremaster Join Date: Mar 2008 Posts: 1,074	Here's another trick of the trade. Each individual crafting situation has a sweet spot. Basically if you hit the x3 buttons in the proper sequence, you will get the most out of your results. If you do this with the 1-2-3 buttons, you'll raise both progress and durability. Or if you're using the 4-5-6 buttons, you'll get the most progress and only lose a little durability. So how do you know which of the x3 button combinations is the correct sequence for your current craft? To be honest, it's just trial and error. If you guess wrong, then your crafting durability and progress can potentially take a big hit. Yet once you get the correct sequence, you can fix it just as easily. Also understand that every crafting is different. So the perfect sequence for craft #1 of a specific item may be different from craft #2 of that same item. By the way, the proper sequence won't even correctly show itself until you've used 2-3 sequences. The beginning of every craft always starts off wonky for some reason. So you made have hit the correct sequence on your 1st try, but it may not act like it until you try it again.

02-13-2009, 06:24 PM	#9
SilkenKidden Loremaster Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 2,039	Ohiv wrote: valkry wrote: Stupid question is "What's a Forge?" You are well beyond that. Actually when I work with folks, I tell them the only stupid question is the one you didn't ask. It's much better to ask for help then to be silent and get frustrated when someone can easily help you out. Anyways glad you got alot of information, please feel free to ask questions! Good luck on your crafting run this weekend. I once raised my hand in class and said, I was about to ask a stupid question. The teacher carefully explained to me that no question was stupid and then told me to ask my question. I did. He replied - with a straight face - that's a stupid question.

02-16-2009, 02:35 PM	#10
Donilla Server: Antonia Bayle Guild: Carnival of Khaos Rank: Ass Tard Loremaster Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 1,566	I'm sure the linked guides provided this information, but just in case. Along with using those 1,2,3,4,5,6 hot keys to affect your durability and progress, they are also used to counter adverse events while crafting. If you see an icon pop up during the crafting process, you need to hit the corresponding icon key, doesn't matter which of the two (1 or 4, 2 or 5, 3 or 6). Not doing so could cause a critical failure to occur which can have a negative impact on the crafting process and on your health. If you know this I apologize, but assuming you know,...... well assumptions can kill you __________________ "May the Light stand between you and all the dark places you must walk."

02-16-2009, 03:29 PM	#11
Rijacki Tester Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 7,842	Ohiv wrote: valkry wrote: Stupid question is "What's a Forge?" You are well beyond that. Actually when I work with folks, I tell them the only stupid question is the one you didn't ask. It's much better to ask for help then to be silent and get frustrated when someone can easily help you out. Anyways glad you got alot of information, please feel free to ask questions! Good luck on your crafting run this weekend. "What's a forge?" might be considered a stupid question when you're leaning on one getting burn on your hand, but yeah, generally the only stupid question is one unasked. However, if you ask the same question over and over and over, you might need to look somewhere else for a different type of answer or look for something else to do. __________________

02-17-2009, 10:43 AM	#12
Terron Loremaster Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Reading, England Posts: 2,309	Have you done the crafting tutorial quests? __________________

02-17-2009, 01:06 PM	#13
Bran General Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 46	The weekend is over and I thought I would update this thread so everyone would know that things worked out nicely. My main crafter is crafting level 20 and my alts are working on their areas of expertise. The two linked sites really gave me the information that wasn't intuitive for me and I thank you both. "Proactive versus Reactive" really made a huge difference for me and I'm currently working on my timing so that I have the ability to react to negatives so I do not end up with a failure. I've successfully created many of the valentines day items, food items, some bags, skill increases, garments, rugs, etc... and have set myself a goal of being a wonderful harvester. (grin) (bonk) (cringe) I'm sorry but I found that harvesting is more fun than crafting. If's it's any consolation, I've spent 2p buying "stuff" for all of my characters so I definately support crafters!! BIG HUGS for all of you wonderful crafting-type people. It's just that after an hour or three of being proactive and making at most 2 items at a time... I'm just not confident in my ability to maintain my sanity. Again, thanks for the links and the support. The community is great. __________________ "Hi, my name is Makr and I am an altaholic" I play to have fun and escape into the "Real World". What do you mean this isn't the real world? If I can be who I want to be, that's the real world.