How do you feel about Tradeskills?

[_______________Jasni]

Plz tell me how you fell about the trade skill system at my poll
here
FC listens to polls, so plz vote. You could also give your feelings about trade skill, here

[NoEvadesDiff]

Jim, I think the system is fine but needs a few adjustments to it

[Slyyk]

Tradeskills is borked, in my opinion. It is obviously geared towards people over level 100+ due to the high level of points needed to put into skills (except for Mps with nanoprogramming buffs and NTs which have enough IP at lower levels to maintain a decent level of skill in that one area) when IP is soo badly needed elsewhere.

Most of the weapon creation kits are still broken, making it useless for anyone of any level to try those out without extensive research outside the game at tradeskill sites. It's great that people have put in a bucketload of time to find out what is broken and what isn't. But at the same time, why bother? It's not like you can make more than 8 weapons that can't be found in a store or gained as loot anyway. Even those weapons that are in demand from tradeskills (Sol Chironis, Adventure pistols....etc.) are made from hacked receptacles and don't even use the tradeskill kits.

Ah, but you say we have the wonderful new armors that are available. Well, tell me what first-time low-level person who just found that QL 60 Shape hard/soft armor PPPE has the 840,000 and some odd credits required to purchase a QL 60ish Mass Relocating Robot!!! Then there is the 100's of thousands of credits for each piece of the carbonum if you want that kind of armor. Look at it this way, I just had 3 pieces of carbonum armor turned into armor for my low level NT alt. At 1.5k per ql that the craftsman charged to make it, per piece of QL 48 armor, then add the cost of the carbonum pieces (I forget exactly how much), it added up to just under a half a million credits.

Unless something is done to lower costs of tradeskills and give higher level players a money sink other than twinking out their alts (which I admit I am guilty of) this will quickly become an elitist game where true newcomers will be completely left out in the cold because those of us that started in the first year will have billions of credits we don't know what to do with and drive up prices on things phenomenaly higher than they already are.

Just my 2 cents, currently worth .0002 and dropping.

[Mercatura]

The armor pppes need to be a 100 times more common than they are now. Actually, they should be dropping in disk form dangit.

Tradeskill armor is either rare or expensive for the lower levels already. Nobody pulls a bunch of ME+Chem out of their *** either.

Carbonum = Twink armor. I like it, I have plenty of cash but lol god help the newbs.

Tradeskills in general for anyone but engys (sort of, even then not really) are pretty much a joke sub ~150. You really have to trash your char's IP one way or another to use most of them for items your ql range.

PS you have to mule credits over 1 billion. The exploiters figured that one out

[Slyyk]

Even engies have it rough. Mine is 115 and all his equipment (including implants, though they were made for him) is in the 100-115 range self equipped. This includes skills enough wear QL 100-123 Elite and Nano armor (I like the look of the nano sleeves), dual wield 2 QL 100 OET Jess pistols, making QL 105ish rings, and making a QL 100 Aggresion and using all 4 trimmers of QL 100, and enough comp lit for a 6 slot NCU belt. Then I had a friend who wanted a QL 63ish Fixer nano made from a disc.

I figured this should be no problem. Well guess what? Without getting buffs or having special implants made for certain skills (I already have wpnsmth, quantum ft, and mech eng implanted normally for trimmer use), I used up all my saved IP for nano prog and electrical eng, etc., and now he has just a tad over 2,000 IP left. Still, he can only make Nanos from discs half his level.

[Mercatura]

Alrighty then I'll correct myself.

Tradeskills are a joke for all classes before title5

[Naughti]

I was just trying to make a lil treatment library stat thing for my doc, but basically its just blowing cash since I have no idea what quality to get for what quality and what hacker tool is needed. There is no site with info like that. I finally find one that hacks a surgery clinic thing but then I need higher break and entery to hack the lowest pharma tech tutor thingie I can find.

I wish stuff like that was more straightforward or had quality level examples in the books.

[magicalsteve]

I agree.
Tradeskills need to be profitable for all levels, to make up for the IP sink, and raw materials used for making stuff should be more common in treasure chests, and corpses.

Instead of them being useful only for rich lvl 150+ ppl, they should be for all. People should be able to almost make a living from them.

BTW jewellery needs to be improved also. I tried it and made bugger all money out of it. I loved being a jewler, but everyone stopped collecting gems to trade, because even when I split the profits 75/25 in their favour, for gem/stone polishing and ring making, they still walked off disgusted at how little money was made.
Yeh, right, maybe you make lots of money at lvl 150-200, but that's not good enough.


Tradeskills are for everyone!

[Mercatura]

You don't really make a "lot" of money at high levels either, except in rare cases. You can make a living though

Those cases usually involve something like supergluing a +80 doctor to your butt 24/7 or getting a hard armor pppe the day its patched.

[______________tizshe]

I'm new, so what do I know, but....

I started my char as a trader because I thought this was a ROLEPLAYING GAME. I assumed that "trader" equals "make your living selling/transporting/making stuff"--i.e., through trade. But from what I see here, you can't make much of anything, and what you can make you have to wait to make until you're high level. So I'm a "trader" who runs around killing stuff. Ohhhhkay.... And from what I see so far in the game, there's no real roleplaying aspect to selling stuff, either. Just spam away on the appropriate channel--no stores, no personal vending machines, not even something like a trade blanket that you can sit down and set up in a market or anything. Why have this class/tradeskills at all?

It sounds good but you can't do much, apparently. I've tried to make stuff after checking out websites and I STILL can't get anything to work. This always means that I blow my hard-earned credits on useless parts. I can't believe that this was meant to work this way.

[Octo]

Slyyk wrote:

...At 1.5k per ql that the craftsman charged to make it, per piece of QL 48 armor...

IMO way too high. I can understand that many armorcrafters wants to make up for their investment in the pppe (around 50-60m), but charging 1.5k per ql for lowbie qls is.... well... "not nice" (I would want to use more harsh words, but then again, im a nice guy ;P )

Anyway.... I make all types of armor, and I set the price individually when I see the char that orders the money, talk to him abit and such. For a sub ql50 I have never ever charged more than 100k for a FULL set. Lately though Ive been doing them for 100k since it takes some time to do it though. Seems kinda outragous that this guy actually charged 72k per part. Thats 504k for a ql48 set. Get real!

For higher QLs the prices increase though..... but nowhere near 1.5k per ql. Im less online now than I used to, but see if Im online sometime and Ill make you a cheap set if you bring plates.

*EDIT*: Now, Im sure there are several armorcrafters that will flame this now. So lets just say it for the record: You are free to charge whatever you want to charge. Noone will dictate what you should charge.
I just posted this so that it would be possible for the real n00bs to get this armor also, and asking you to be nice to them. Remember that we where all n00bs once (Though we never had any armor this good)

[____________Intrepid]

Originally posted by Mercatura
Those cases usually involve something like supergluing a +80 doctor to your butt 24/7

Not really.

At level 191 i will be able to self swap all my implants. If i was nanomage i could have been doing that around level 165. As it is a solitus i am 1 treatment point away after twinking to be able to do it. So either when i get to 190 and can raise treatment or i get a virral egg or 2 i will be able to do it on my own./

As a engie doing tradeskills means having a trader stapled to my ass all day long.

And yes it does mean i am not wearing ql200 armour. I only use armour which i can self equip so that swaping armour for medsuit to be able to swap implants is not a problem.

[Slyyk]

Originally posted by Octo
.................I just posted this so that it would be possible for the real n00bs to get this armor also, and asking you to be nice to them. Remember that we where all n00bs once (Though we never had any armor this good) [/B]

The armor I had made was for a level 40 toon. The carbonum plating was QL 48 and cost about 100k for each piece. If I couldn't bring myself to buy more than 3 pieces because of the high price of carbonum, what makes you think a 'real n00b' will even bring himself to buy one piece when their nanos are starting to cost that much in stores? Granted that nanos can be purchased from other people cheaper or found in missions, but there is only one source of carbonum plating.

[________sapphireblue]

Great poll, I hope they add more to the trade skills.

I just started trying out trade skills on my lvl 51 eng. After spending an hour, going around finding crystals and parts for nano-crystals, and parts for weapons, I was down 20-30k credits, with only 5k experience.

Just after that, I went on a mission, and within an hour, I was up 50k credits and 120k experience.

I know that the main point of this game is fighting, but as a RL engineer, building stuff gives experience too. I should be able to get similar experience to fighting by utilizing my trade skills, and should be able to build stuff thats WORTH something.

SapphireBlue

[______Dragon Falcour]

Originally posted by Mercatura
You don't really make a "lot" of money at high levels either, except in rare cases. You can make a living though

Those cases usually involve something like supergluing a +80 doctor to your butt 24/7 or getting a hard armor pppe the day its patched.

ROFLMAO Where can I find one of those superglueable doctors

AHahahahahaah....*trips on his robes spilling wine everywhere*

but honestly something should be done about tradeskills, i'm afraid to level 2 of my characters because they are in a position to search missions for the pppe's however my Trader might not ever be high enough level to make use of them even if I DO finally find some.

[Tryk]

And why should any engineer be fighting, anyway? Or trader? Or fixer? Seriously, at the moment, I'm a level 47 agent, and I'm BORED of all the missions. There's nothing special about this game in my oppinion (exagerated, of course, for the purpose of my message). I go in, buff, pull a monster (or all of them :P) kill them, or get killed... go through all the rooms.... eradicate everyone... go to boss, kill boss, loot, open chests. Someone mentioned earlier in this thread "I thought this was a roleplaying game"? What's the fun of my engineer beying able to build a nano crystal, also available in shop, for a few k more than its original price? Or a gun that (again) costs a lot more than if you buy it from the terminal? What's the fun for a trader if they can't make their life with trading? What's the fun for a fixer not to be able to fix a "damaged pistol" or something similar?

I'm quite a newbie (well... more or less now), and Agent appealed to me - my main. I met an engineer and he build a rifle for me, and that was a really cool thing to do, so I made an engineer too. I've abandoned him at level 25, unable to make the money from items, selling and stuff.

Personally, I'd love to see an engineer build stuff, give them to a trader who'd sell them, and both get xp. That, I see as Team work.

An engineer that fights? That's a bit... strange (if not stupid, in my oppinion).

FunCom, please! Listen to this, and let us roleplay a bit. Let us play an engineer (and a trader, and a fixer, and an adventurer, and all the other classes in the game) as we SHOULD be playing them: Engineers make wow stuff. Fixers fix them. Traders sell them. Adventures go exploring and make maps, which they can sell to the traders, and those maps take less Map Navigation points to be uploaded. Agents can switch sides without that very rare item that lets you keep the tokens (ok, maybe I'm pushing it here, tap me on the shoulder if I do); or they would be able to hide their names wearing a device or something... Actually that gives me the idea of missinformation: wearing a device makes you appear as clan, when you're omni or neutral, or something (at LEAST to the other people). Soldiers would do whatever they do best. Enforcers will be able to go after the people who stole a trader's money or cheated them somehow. I pass on the other professions, but I'm sure there can be a zillion things to be said about each of them.

And please keep in mind the newbies! I don't have high level friends to help me out. When I ask for a loan (and mean it) people think I'm begging and they send me to hell and back a few times.

[_____________Arithus]

It would be nice if they actually created a system of xp for doing tradeskills... would make a lot more sense too. Would be nice if engineers got some experience for engineering, and traders for trading....

[Kithraks]

Or the paperwork tradeskill that they cancled/scrapped for the bureaucrats.

[______________theBro]

Great concept...horrible execution.

Made my first tradeskill item last night and i have to say there was a certain satisfaction to it when the whole thing came together. It took me about 20k credits and an hour and i received maybe 1500 xp. It may be unfair to judge (Im only level 30, building an emergency treatment kit) but it seems that tradeskills, at any level, have a very disporportionate cost/benefit ratio.

the main problem i see:
Tradeskills require lots of IP and credits and yeilds almost no XP or credits. Using tradeskills should be a valid way to gain levels and credits. If someone wants to create a toon and do only trade skills, they should be able to gain levels and credits without fighting. This would open up an entirely different way to play the game at any level.

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Easy win for funcom-increase the XP gained (alot) and reduce the price of tradeskill items in shops. you should be able to gain xp as fast as you can in a solo mission (and yes this should include the time spent running around collecting the needed parts)
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of course with quite a bit more work, tradeskills have HUGE potential to make AO more fun for all profs. there are so many great ideas on these boards for new tradeskills from the ability to upgrade more of the exisiting weak and unused weapons (insteading of introducing more uber, never drop, or camp only items) to brand new trade skills that dont exist yet (loved the idea for adventurer produced maps...or imagine map upgrades that let you mark things like elevators indoors or other places of interest out) many of the things that need to be improved could be done so through tradeskills.

imagine how much tradeskills could enhance the community way beyond the usual Lvl xx, UberDamagedealer lfg!

[Mercatura]

Dunno why they didn't give some of the low level "arkish" stuff to crats, or at least let them do it too.

Want to change your first/last name? See a crat with X psychology. Fc could add some kind of quest and incorporate how the crat has to learn their naming policies etc before they are allowed to do it.

Want to get married? same.

Want to attach an id form to some item? (e.g. make it nodrop or put your name on it) get a crat to make the form for you.

Want to form an org? need a crat to fill out the paperwork. The leader of the team then uses it.

Want to align your org with one of the RP depts of OT/clan? see a crat.

Want to hold certain kinds of events etc? crats have extra things they can do to help the event.

etc etc etc etc

Lots of little things could be turned into crat tradeskills, and make them feel like real crats.

Oh well