Rebalance and Engis

[Obtena]

Every other profession should have at least one trade skill that they dump IP in to to fulfill requirements for their nanos or other necessary equipment. I suggest the existing blue trade skill lines for every profession OTHER than Engineer and Trader.

You're going to have to explain why because from the initial sounds of it, you simply want other professions to waste IP, which seems stupid. I can't see any reason to expand the skills necessary for a profession to cast nanos or use equipment and I also don't see how it's related to engi's and their own IP spending.

[Otansaanpas]

Every other profession should have at least one trade skill that they dump IP in to to fulfill requirements for their nanos or other necessary equipment.

like computer literacy?

[smokex]

You're going to have to explain why because from the initial sounds of it, you simply want other professions to waste IP, which seems stupid. I can't see any reason to expand the skills necessary for a profession to cast nanos or use equipment and I also don't see how it's related to engi's and their own IP spending.

Burning that straw man again? I mean CHANGING the requirements to the trade skill. Like tutoring on MAs and Pharma Tech on Doctors. Make those requirements a normal part of their ip lines and take away some nano requirements from lines. Not ADDING requirements. BTW it didn't sound that way to start with. Not sure what would motivate you to twist it that way. Are you a lawyer?

[Obtena]

I'm just reading what people post here. TBH, I don't see the point of the change your suggesting, unless FC was going to implement very focused tradeskill usage for every profession in the game, which they haven't indicated they would do. Sure, it does exist in some limited capacity already (fixers with B&E for instance), but it's so underutilized that it would make more sense to remove that concept instead of expand it.

Unless there is some alternative purpose to swapping a nanoskill for a tradeskill for each profession, it's rather pointless and a useless amount work, simply to appeal to a cool factor. It's just not necessary at this point. Once re-balance in actually in, it's even less useful ... every engi in the game will be able to make stuff. Having a tradeskill on other profs here and there seems just a make-work suggestion.

[Mostadio]

Unless there is some alternative purpose to swapping a nanoskill for a tradeskill for each profession, it's rather pointless and a useless amount work, simply to appeal to a cool factor. It's just not necessary at this point. Once re-balance in actually in, it's even less useful ... every engi in the game will be able to make stuff. Having a tradeskill on other profs here and there seems just a make-work suggestion.

Once upon a time there was the idea that there should be no "one tskiller to rule them all" class. Everybody was supposed to have some niche they would fill when it came to making phatz. Pretty much why the psychology requirement was put on AI armor... engis couldn't get a whole lot of it w/o having full sets of AI armor, perk lines maxed, and city... all of which were supposed to be difficult to obtain. Doctors would be experts in pharm, crats in psychology, blahblahblah... Unfortunately this never came about because these skills were utterly useless for the professions outside of a handful of recipes and traders and engis could build everything anyway.

I sincerely believe it's too late in the game to push for this line of thought. Having that random green tradeskill (agents have super cheap chemistry!) is just going to be another one of those ancient designs that was either overlooked or never properly implemented.

[IHaveHugeNick]

Once upon a time there was the idea that there should be no "one tskiller to rule them all" class.

Yes.

That was the general idea about the whole thing - the original game design

Unfortunately since then it evolved into:

- few selected professions make crab (SL)

- very few selected professions make crab (AI)

- two selected professions make crab (LE)

- one selected profession better shut up and make crab or we'll make them worthless when it comes to all the other aspects of the game (whenever rebalance comes)

[MajorOutage]

Traders are the only ones losing in this scenario, but they're only losing in the sense that they're staying the same. No one is taking the trader's ability to do tradeskills. If players made a toon so it can tskill and wrangle, they still have a toon that can tskill and wrangle. I know that's what I rolled my trader for and once this change goes through I'll have a 220 trader that I can play as a trader, rather than a mule.

I rolled a trader too, fully understanding that putting any useful amount of tradeskills on him will gimp the **** out of him combat-wise, even at 220.

My engi is no gimp by any sense of the word, and can still tradeskill anything thrown at him.

I completely fail to understand why the profession that DOESN'T really need this change is getting it, and the one that does isn't.

[Obtena]

Doesn't matter if you don't understand it. That's not a barrier to implementation. I can see why ... increasing function of the profession for a larger population.

As to why traders aren't getting something similar ... who knows. TBH, most traders don't care either so it's nonsense that people are making up truths about non-engi profs and basing arguments on them ... FOR ENGI'S.

[Mostadio]

I completely fail to understand why the profession that DOESN'T really need this change is getting it, and the one that does isn't.

Honestly, I understand where you're coming from. I rolled a trader specifically to do tskills while my engi was set up for pvp. My trader really sux :S However, tradeskills for trader aren't on the table, tradeskills for engis is. No point in whining about it in an engi thread.

[Psikie]

I never really thought of traders as master tradeskillers. I think originally they were given avenues of commerce and money making like crafting jewelry. It just happened that some of the jewelry making skills overlapped other tradeskill requirements like Mech engineering. I don't think FC ever intended for traders to be as good or better at times than engineers at armor making or weapon making.

[MajorOutage]

I don't think FC ever intended for traders to be as good or better at times than engineers at armor making or weapon making.

The engi tradeskill mastery bufflines are SL-only clones of the ones traders had had since launch.

What you just said is completely backwards.

[Psikie]

I think originally they were given avenues of commerce and money making like crafting jewelry. It just happened that some of the jewelry making skills overlapped other tradeskill requirements like Mech engineering.

The engi tradeskill mastery bufflines are SL-only clones of the ones traders had had since launch.

What you just said is completely backwards.

No what I said was that regardeless of the buff lines traders have... they overlap skills used for other tradeskills. My opinion is that those buffs lines were meant primarily for jewelry crafting and selling not armor making.
Good example is breaking and entering skill. Fixers have that green skill primarily to open locks/doors in missions not because it's also used for a few tradeskill processes. I dont think anyone would suggest fixers are tradeskillers because they have BnE buffs?

[MajorOutage]

No what I said was that regardeless of the buff lines traders have... they overlap skills used for other tradeskills. My opinion is that those buffs lines were meant primarily for jewelry crafting and selling not armor making.

They had tradeskill buffs when NO other profession did, but they weren't intended to be tradeskillers...?

PS. Jewelery crafting is tradeskilling, lol, and back then high-ql rings were about the toughest things to make.

[Mostadio]

They had tradeskill buffs when NO other profession did, but they weren't intended to be tradeskillers...?

PS. Jewelery crafting is tradeskilling, lol, and back then high-ql rings were about the toughest things to make.

What this guy said. Traders were BUILT to tskill. Engineers just happened to be much less of a broken class and took over.

[Psikie]

They had tradeskill buffs when NO other profession did, but they weren't intended to be tradeskillers...?

PS. Jewelery crafting is tradeskilling, lol, and back then high-ql rings were about the toughest things to make.

Perhaps you are not understanding what i'm saying. I'm not saying traders can't tradeskill, i'm not saying they shouldn't. I'm saying that i don't think the idea was to have traders making armor and weapons from tradeskills when that is clearly more in character for the engineer proffession. Now I can't say I know exactly what the developers were thinking, thats just my theory. Traders conceptually deal with commerce and bartering so making selling jewelry fits that. Engineers are builders including their robot pets that are armored and equiped with weapons to fight, so making armor and weapons fits conceptually there also.
Again i'm not saying traders can't or shouldn't just an opinion that it's a coincidence the skills for jewelry making overlap armor/weapon creation. But if you were to say it makes more sense for traders to be better weapon/armor crafters than engineers, you have not read the character descriptions of those proffessions during character creation.

[Mostadio]

Now I can't say I know exactly what the developers were thinking, thats just my theory. Traders conceptually deal with commerce and bartering so making selling jewelry fits that.

The fact that their cheapest skills are on the tradeskill page (cheaper than engineer tradeskills, too), buff support before engineers (as well as having no level lock on their buffs), have identical access to group perks as engineers, you still don't see them as being tradeskillers? Does it not also fit conceptually that traders would sell more than jewellery? What about... everything else? An economy that's central around guns and armor and you pick out jewellery? Really?

[Psikie]

The fact that their cheapest skills are on the tradeskill page (cheaper than engineer tradeskills, too), buff support before engineers (as well as having no level lock on their buffs), have identical access to group perks as engineers, you still don't see them as being tradeskillers? Does it not also fit conceptually that traders would sell more than jewellery? What about... everything else? An economy that's central around guns and armor and you pick out jewellery? Really?

Again you are being too literal. How about you think about it this way, if you read the proffession description during character creation you will understand what I mean. No one that is new to this game would make a trader thinking it was a proffession of crafters/builders. A new player would make an engineer just by the proffession description if making stuff is what they wanted to do. You are taking game mechanics to prove your point, which I am not disputing. Game mechanics makes it easy for traders to become armor makers. Character description would not lead a new player to that same conclusion.

So for right or wrong, perhaps these changes to engineer proffession are more in line with the proffession description at character creation? That is what I am saying is a possible motive for the current game developers.

[Mostadio]

That logic doesn't work either. The engineer prof description doesn't say anything about tradeskilling. It just says they make/repair robots. Go fish.

[Psikie]

That logic doesn't work either. The engineer prof description doesn't say anything about tradeskilling. It just says they make/repair robots. Go fish.

Go fish? Did you not just say "MAKE and REPAIR ROBOTS" what goes into "MAKING" a robot? I would think hydrolics (mechanical) and some form of controls (electronics) and perhaps something to protect those inner workings (armor). O wait it is a fighting robot so it would need some form of weapons maybe? Lets go out on a limb here and guess that MAKING a robot requires some SKILL perhaps? It's not hard for a "reasonable" person to think engineers build and or make things. Tradeskill is an "in game" term for making and building things. So the word "tradeskill" is not something a new player creating a character would even know until they had made their new character and were "in game". As I said earlier a reasonable person can assume engineers build things from character creation description. I do not think a new player to AO would assume traders could build things based on that character creation description. Regardless of game mechanics once in game. FC is also changing the start up character experience so maybe they will change the character descriptions also. If you refuse to understand that i don't know what else to say to you bud.

[Mostadio]

Nonsense.

Actually, a reasonable person would understand that NANOskills are used for casting NANOprograms. I'm done trying to explain things to you, just accept that you're wrong and move on.