Make this loot NODROP UNIQUE

[Naraya]

Better idea (well..several):

Get rid of nodrop unique loot!
Get rid of the concept of the best items in the game obtainable via killing a single mob!
Get rid of mobs that take 50+ people to kill unless you feel like re-writing your graphical engine & net coding to make the game perform under conditions like that!
Make all of the very best items in the game obtainable from TRADESKILLS! T R A D E S K I L L S ! ! ! !

...and then mummify Tarasque, plant him in NLC, nuke Camelot to **** and turn it into a casino....a 0% casino no less...

[secondkenlon]

Originally posted by imhotep


Never played EQ so cannot comment, but i heard rumors that the rare items in EQ wereheavily camped too. I may be wrong but is AO not already emulating that gameplay?

EQ is perma-camped at the high end because *everything* is nodrop.

No amount of tradeskills or wheeling and dealing can get you the cash for the truly uber gear.

So you join a guild and you camp. And camp. And camp. And grief anyone who tries to go after what you are trying to kill.

Blah.

Make *all* items tradeable and watch the economy work itself out. (It will still be broken, of course, due to rampant inflation, but I suspect that most of the high end money will go chasing high end items, not driving up prices of low end twink gear.)

[secondkenlon]

Originally posted by Zifa
Have to completely agree with ihmo, it would completely help the economy, because then all players not just those that are exceptionally greedy would get a chance to get some of these items!

Hah. High level players have high level alts. This will *not* stop camping. It hasn't in EQ and it won't here.

I would also make the suggestion that no guild should be allowed to camp any particular mob.

And if they do, then they should have sanctions issued against them, call me radical but it would also help lag issueds in place like camelot as you wouldn't permanently have so many players trying to be there!

Riiiiight.
The mind boggles.

[secondkenlon]

Originally posted by Zifa


I'm afraid I have to disagree on this point, someone might actually bother to camp something once to make sure that their uber loot is rarer, but they won't do it more than once, They would get EXTREMELY bored if they were to sit there and camp something, just to prevent someone else from getting it! What ould they achive in the game? nothing! What ould it do for their character, nothing!

So I'm afraid that unless they are the most incredibly sad individual it wouldn't happen.

Haven't played many MMORPGs, have you?
It shows.

"Whats the difference if i charge you 200million to let you loot a courpse or charge you 200million to sell you an item, other than its more hassle for you. "

Again i'm afraid that i'd have to disagree are you telling me that someone is going to bother to camp mcnugget or some such other mob, just on the offchance that they can get someone there thats prepared to spend that kind of money for something that they can wait and come back to at a later point when the sad people that have been camping it, get bored of camping it and go back to actually playing the game. Don't think so!

Again, people *will* do this. And will charge more money than they would for just selling the items. And people will make the deals ahead of time, then kill the mob, not kill hte mob and hope there's someone nearby to buy it.

"What about those ql200+ mobs which needs more than one team to kill."

Imhotep, could you tell use how to stop ninja looting those ?

Example: One team gets loot rights, and the person who need/wins it is at second team ?"

Well the answer to that is an easy and question, and one that FC should have addressed a long time ago, make the mob easier to kill, make it possible for one team of 6 lvl200 chars to kill it!

Bah. Raid class mobs are a good thing.

Also make it that so the loot always goes to whichever team started the attack, that way ninja looting will never occur!

Fixer kiting. You could tie up a mob for *hours* until your attack force was ready. NOT a solution.

This would be particularly effective if the suppresion one around ll the super bosses was 75% and PvP was prevented!

The only place where PVP for loot happens is Camelot. I have not idea what you mean by this.

"NODROP on items like Chunk of Living Dragon Flesh would be a prob now wouldnt it? "

Nope, this wouldn't be a problem, because you simply wouldn't make these no drop's, you would make them uniques. That way you might get one piece, but until you had found someone who could make the dragon armour for you, there would be no point in going back!

Gee, it's going to be hard for the Engineer to give me my armor if it becomes no-drop when he makes it. . .

If the armour itself was also unique, there would then be no point in going back after you had the full set! (before anyone asks yes I know armour has 2 sleeves! just make them handed!)

It would still be sellable.

"Why is Neleb camp-free? Not because the cloak is NODROP... it's because Neleb spawns (or, at least he used to) every half hour!! It's not an 18-hour camp spawn... It's a "Let's make a run to kill Neleb, if he doesn't happen to be there we'll wait 10 minutes for him tocome back" spawn. "

Yep i would have to admit that you are partly right on this, but the fact that it is no-drop does also contribute to this!

No, it doesn't. If it was droppable, they'd be all over the place, as 48 coats can enter the economy every day. Biiig difference from .75 per day. (18 hour spawn).


Bah. I'm not going to bother responding to the rest of this post, as it is blatantly stupid.
Study what has gone before, and maybe you can avoid the mistakes the other games made. (And are still making, in the case of EQ.)

[Gibbet1]

Originally posted by Kenlon


Haven't played many MMORPGs, have you?
It shows.



Fixer kiting. You could tie up a mob for *hours* until your attack force was ready. NOT a solution.



The only place where PVP for loot happens is Camelot. I have not idea what you mean by this.



Gee, it's going to be hard for the Engineer to give me my armor if it becomes no-drop when he makes it. . .



No, it doesn't. If it was droppable, they'd be all over the place, as 48 coats can enter the economy every day. Biiig difference from .75 per day. (18 hour spawn).


Bah. I'm not going to bother responding to the rest of this post, as it is blatantly stupid.
Study what has gone before, and maybe you can avoid the mistakes the other games made. (And are still making, in the case of EQ.)

I'm not going to bother attacking you for your inept attempts to insult me, all i can say is if you can't say anything constructive, or bother to actually read the post, or take it in the context that it was written in then don't bother posting.



I note that you obviously play on RK1 and the test server, do you play on RK2?

The whole point of the post was to make a

[Gibbet1]

Originally posted by Kenlon


Haven't played many MMORPGs, have you?
It shows.



Fixer kiting. You could tie up a mob for *hours* until your attack force was ready. NOT a solution.



The only place where PVP for loot happens is Camelot. I have not idea what you mean by this.



Gee, it's going to be hard for the Engineer to give me my armor if it becomes no-drop when he makes it. . .



No, it doesn't. If it was droppable, they'd be all over the place, as 48 coats can enter the economy every day. Biiig difference from .75 per day. (18 hour spawn).


Bah. I'm not going to bother responding to the rest of this post, as it is blatantly stupid.
Study what has gone before, and maybe you can avoid the mistakes the other games made. (And are still making, in the case of EQ.)

I'm not going to bother attacking you for your inept attempts to insult me, all i can say is if you can't say anything constructive, or bother to actually read the post, or take it in the context that it was written in then don't bother posting.



I note that you obviously play on RK1 and the test server, do you play on RK2?

The whole point of the post was to make a suggestion!!!

My opinion is not set in stone as some people's appears to be.

I have played several MMorpg's, can't say I've ever played EQ, but then again I haven't played it because all i had heard was the kind of points, that seem to be being displayed by a lot of players in AO, which along with hearing that the game was seriously flawed, kinda put me off.

I'm guessing from your rants, that you are one of the players that has several high lvl chars and probably sits there and camps???

Kenlon,
Did you actually even understand the point of my post, or would you like me to explain it to you?

Well in case you missed it, i will summarise it as follows!

This game has some problems, the two most serious of which are the economy being out of control and the llaaagggg issue's!!!!!

The idea of these items being no-drop uniques, or just plain uniques, is a POSSIBILITY that should not be ignored simply because a few incredibly sad people are going to whinge about not being able to make 100's of millions of credits in one fell swoop. To them i say, try actually playing the game, it is only a game!

To FC i say, look at the possibilities? look at the problems, look at the solutions!

Make a few in game tweaks, to sort out the lag and to sort out the economy that is out of control.

Whoever said about making the best items available from building things, then i say good! its a good idea that FC should explore.

All i'm saying, is the game is basically a good game, but it has a few bits that are broken! I for one am in favour of exploring the possibility of a few idea's that might fix it!

If making these items no-drops, would not help cure the problem, then don't make them no drop, however, most of the rebutals that i've seen for Imho's idea, posted here are flawed in their logic.

Maybe i'm underestimating the sadness of some of the people that play this game, I don't know, but all I'm doing is making a suggestion, if you have to resort to sarcasm, pathetic jokes, or a lightly veiled insults to get your point across, then your point is quite obviously not very strong!

[secondkenlon]

Originally posted by Zifa

I'm not going to bother attacking you for your inept attempts to insult me, all i can say is if you can't say anything constructive, or bother to actually read the post, or take it in the context that it was written in then don't bother posting.

Oh, I read the post. It was full of the sort of half-baked reasoning that breaks games. That's why I disagree with it so strongly.

I note that you obviously play on RK1 and the test server, do you play on RK2?

Utterly irrelevent. RK2's lower population may mean less inflation, but the fundamental problems are the same.
Test doesn't have an economy, period.

The whole point of the post was to make a suggestion!!!

My opinion is not set in stone as some people's appears to be.

And the suggestion was a bad one. That's why I posted.

I have played several MMorpg's, can't say I've ever played EQ, but then again I haven't played it because all i had heard was the kind of points, that seem to be being displayed by a lot of players in AO, which along with hearing that the game was seriously flawed, kinda put me off.

I'm guessing from your rants, that you are one of the players that has several high lvl chars and probably sits there and camps???

Nope. I'm one of the players who hated the camping and the fact that you *cannot* get many very useful items in the game for *any* price, without camping it yourself. (This was back before multi-questing was big.)
Having items move around inside the economy means that if you want something enough, you can get it. Making it nodrop means that everyone who wants it must camp the same bottlenecks for hours and hours and hours. . .

Kenlon,
Did you actually even understand the point of my post, or would you like me to explain it to you?

Oh, I understood it. I just don't agree. Understanding does not equal agreement.

Well in case you missed it, i will summarise it as follows!

This game has some problems, the two most serious of which are the economy being out of control and the llaaagggg issue's!!!!!

The idea of these items being no-drop uniques, or just plain uniques, is a POSSIBILITY that should not be ignored simply because a few incredibly sad people are going to whinge about not being able to make 100's of millions of credits in one fell swoop. To them i say, try actually playing the game, it is only a game!

How will making it so that credits are *worthless* for getting high level gear make the economy better? It will just drive up the prices for low level gear to even more insane prices! If the creds of high level players were kept chasing high level gear, the low end economy would improve. The high end economy would remain broken, but that's due to a lack of money sinks. Hopefully Notum Wars will help with that.

To FC i say, look at the possibilities? look at the problems, look at the solutions!

Make a few in game tweaks, to sort out the lag and to sort out the economy that is out of control.

Whoever said about making the best items available from building things, then i say good! its a good idea that FC should explore.

Amen to that. I heartily agree.

All i'm saying, is the game is basically a good game, but it has a few bits that are broken! I for one am in favour of exploring the possibility of a few idea's that might fix it!

If making these items no-drops, would not help cure the problem, then don't make them no drop, however, most of the rebutals that i've seen for Imho's idea, posted here are flawed in their logic.

Maybe i'm underestimating the sadness of some of the people that play this game, I don't know, but all I'm doing is making a suggestion, if you have to resort to sarcasm, pathetic jokes, or a lightly veiled insults to get your point across, then your point is quite obviously not very strong!

These same, tired arguments get trotted out in *every* game, with people thinking that *this* time it'll work.

Well it won't. And it can't.
So learn from the mistakes of the past instead of repeating them.

[Crim]

If these items are rare, they will always fetch a high price, no matter what. Making them nodrop would simply delay the camping, most people after these items lack the levels to be in a team of there own level, and often the high end level players help them out, so the camping would continue.

The main problem i find with this game is the 18 hour spawn, which makes no sense to me what so ever. All it does is establish the higher level team or better equiped team dominant on the spawn pushing the other teams away.

The way i see it, the mob spawn is not the issue, its the item spawn. Once the mob has spawned it is, in most cases almost gauranteed that the item will drop from this mob. Although the mobs are quite difficult to lower levels it can still be done given the correct circumstances.

There are three answers to this problem, i think anyway.

The first is simple, make the item less rare, like crat suits for example, not hard to get one, only takes a few hours worth of camping at most. These items dont sell for much compared against some items which sell for 150m+. Just make the items unique so it stops the farming of these items.

The second may not be a very popular idea but i think it would work better than the current solution. As i mentioned before reduce the chance of the item spawning to around 15% or so and increase the spawn time on the mob to something short, like 20mins.

The third will be very unpopular, give the unique mob some friends. By that i mean make it very hard for it to be killed, give it some body guards, henchmen whichever you prefer. Make them unmezzable or difficult to mez, make them hit hard, make them work together properly.

Well those are just my views on the way the problem could be solved.

[_________Neurofreeze]

WARNING! Before anyone reads any further, note that this is probably the longest post ever in this forum (over 1000 words). If you scroll all the way to the bottom there's a summary for the lazy. But if you're at all interested, or feel like replying, please read it in its entirety. The post is thorough so a reply may not be needed or may be rendered moot. And if you're thinking about going to college and think this post is too much to read, well... reconsider your future plans.

Originally posted by Kenlon
No, it doesn't. If it was droppable, they'd be all over the place, as 48 coats can enter the economy every day. Biiig difference from .75 per day. (18 hour spawn).


Bah. I'm not going to bother responding to the rest of this post, as it is blatantly stupid.
Study what has gone before, and maybe you can avoid the mistakes the other games made. (And are still making, in the case of EQ.)

That's one-and-a-third-times-per-day respawn for Tarasque. If the servers never went down and Tarasque was killed instantly each time he appeared, he's appear four times every three days. For a 0.75-per-day respawn, Tarasque would have to spawn every 32 hours. Just thought you should know.

As for the camping problem, I believe that the inherent problem is that Funcom thinks that making a few dozen special mobs with special loot will last thousands and thousands of players for all time. A possible solution could be a separate team of developers working on just making new special loot and new special mobs/quests that will be in the game a limited amount of time. The game would go like this:

1) New limited edition mission with new limited edition loot is created (possibly anounced, possibly not).
2) Someone eventually figures out how to complete the quest and gets cool loot.
3) Word spreads and others try to get in on the action.
4) Time expires and only a limited number get the quest/loot.
5) Item becomes a collectable.
6) The new development team comes up with other limited edition quests.

This could benefit us in quite a few ways.
1) High level people would have something else to do besides horde money and complain.
2) High level people would have something else to spend their hordes.
3) The game would actually reward players for exploration and ingenuity (he who finds/completes the new quest would obviously attract a lot of fame and fortune).
4) There would actually be a consistant level of exploration throughout all of a player's career, not just when a major patch or expansion comes out.
5) Lastly and possibly most importantly, this would create a system which Funcom could make Rubi-Ka much more dynamic, actually advancing the storyline through player interaction (not just inconsequential stuff like a Nanonanny billboard in a level 1-25 dungeon or new armor named after a clan). For instance a quest could be introduced where the final reward (after much investigation) is an opportunity to save/assassinate Supreme Commander Silvermoon. If an Omni team figures out the quest first (and successfully completes it), they get his special gear AND open up Tir for a possibility to be taken by Omni later in the future (and the immediate effect being Omni people having a free pass into Tir once again). If a clan team stops Omni, Silvermoon could reward them with honorary titles from his organization shown in lieu or perhaps adjacent to PvP titles (and some special equipment that his all his lieutenants get, of course...).

At first, people will go crazy and think that every single new item and new quest is MUST-HAVE-OR-CANNOT-PLAY-AO-EVER-AGAIN, but if new quests and loot appear frequently and consistently players could eventually get used to it and figure out you don't have to have everything, simply having a few special items is just fine.

The biggest problem I see is the e-Bay problem. Obviously a limited item would sell for outrageous prices. The only way I can see how to lessen this effect (because I think we can all agree that completely ridding an MMORPG of the e-Bay problem is impossible) is to occasionally recycle the some of the limited editon loot every once in a while, but not the missions. Recycling some of the limited edition loot would lessen the sheer number of items in the game created by this special quest system (lessening the workload on the developers), and it would somewhat lessen the amount of whiners that still think they need to have everything (by giving them prospects of getting it in the future). e-Bayers would be slightly more cautious about selling stuff, since they never know when that limited item is going to appear on another quest again (although this could create a semi-stock market effect, trying to buy low and sell high). Of course, the missions can never, ever be repeated. A repeated mission means that the limited edition loot would be very easily camped. Everyone would know what to expect and what to do.

The second big problem I see are the developers. The quests would have to be flawless ON THE FIRST TRY. No patching later, there just wouldn't be enough time. Also, there has to be consistent quest releases (no dry spells for months, for instance) and they have to be creative quests.

Lastly, limited edition quests could create a problem of vastly diverging storylines between servers. Like in the above scenario, perhaps Rimor had Silvermoon saved but Atlantean had him killed. Of course, if Funcom had the resources, this divergence could be very cool and entice players to play on other servers and more than one side (and not just for economic benefit).

I've seen limited edition loot on some text-based online RPG's (before the acronym MMOPRG was coined, Dragon Realms in particular). It worked out quite well. Some items were very powerful (think of a new 2H sword, the Excalibur or Masamune, but only one spawning... ever) and some were just cool to have (think of a leet social wear outfit with 500% scale that are dropped by an April Fool's Day invasion of killer giant leets). Both types were treasured in Dragon Realms and didn't cause riots when people found out they could no longer be spawned. The limited edition quest system is unique to my knowledge though, so I can't say that it'd work out.

Just some ideas.

THE SUMMARY
To solve (or at least alleviate some) the camping problem:

Make a new development team in charge of making new quests/mobs that will be available only for a limited time but will give limited edition rewards.

These limited edition quests must be:
1) Creative
2) Bug Free
3) NEVER EVER REPEATED
The limited edition items can be:
1) Occasionally re-introduced
2) Ranging from incredibly powerful (refer above in the meat of the post to the single excalibur existing) or just plain cool (refer above to the giant leet suits)

The system can benefit us in many ways:
1) Consistent level of exploration
2) A way for Funcom to let players interact and influence Rubi-Ka's storyline directly
3) High rollers have more efficient ways of throwing around cash (ie. lots of collectable items).

[____________Edvieira]

MONEY SINK!

Hopefully it will come in NW....

[_______________Nikki]

simpler solution : Quest Timer?

So you could only pick up a certain item once a month. how's that?

[_______________Nikki]

Originally posted by Kenlon
EQ is perma-camped
So you join a guild and you camp. And camp. And camp. And grief anyone who tries to go after what you are trying to kill.

Never played EQ, but hey, I see they called it EverQuest for a reason

[___________Firedrake]

I have to check in with the crowd against making more things no-drop here. I did play EQ for a couple years and DOAC for a while and can also testify that making things no-drop does NOT, I reapeat, NOT reduce their being camped. The only realistic and simple solution I can see is not having long spawn times and/or making multiple mobs drop the same item. The bottom line in these games is if an item is perceived as being really good, it will get camped. The only thing you can do is make the camping as short and as painless as possible.

[____________Meligant]

I would like to start off by saying that I hate the "Unique" flag worse than I hate it when people put Mayonnaise on my hamburgers.

On camping and loot:
1. NO DROP is for QUEST LOOT. It should also be loot that is specific to one class.
2. Quest timers need to be at MOST 1-2 hours on boss mobs.
3. In AC, they coined an interesting term that helps with camping and quest camping. "Distributed Camping" The idea was that they would put rare drop loot and some quest parts on MOBs that randomly spawn in given areas. Players would have to go to an area and look around to find one of the MOBs and kill it. This keeps the players or small group of them moving around instead of sitting in a boss room of a quest.

Other pet peeves:
1. CARS should NOT be NO DROP!
2. Uniques on anything but cloaking devices is a pain in the arse! Why is god's name is the Wen-Wen unique? Reflect bracers? Inter-Op Coats? XP rings!? WTF is going on when I find a great new Wen-Wen that I can't use for 10 more levels (another month!) but you want me to DELETE the one I’m using before I can pick up and keep the one I CAN NOT USE yet!

Jitta - RK2

[Sheffy]

I would almost prefer all of the 18 hour spawns to be turned into perhaps a 33% chance of spawn every 6 hours. Statistically, it wouldn't change the number of spawns very much, but camping would go down quite a bit I feel. Look at Trash King now that its not a set spawn -- only a couple people hanging out, if that. I don't foresee people camping a 6 hour spawn with only a 33% chance of the mob spawning.

[_______________Elria]

about the Unique tag: seeing the way it is currently implemented, the Unique tag should be restricted to items that cannot be found in multiple QLs (looks like someone copied the Lore Item tag from EQ without thinking of adapting it to the quality level system here...)

about the NoDrop tag: I disagree with people who say it is totally useless and does not solve anything. Sometimes it is, sometimes not... It doesn't help with the best items (by best, I mean that there is no other item with same or better stats for the same slot), but it can salvage some fun for the lower level people who want to try and get some of the lower end items on their own, without the competition from higher levels (since they'll be looking at the better ones).
Making every item tradable would be ok in a world where special spawns campers could not ruin the fun of other characters. I'd rather go kill my way to a "boss" mob than go blitz 20 missions to get the money required to buy it from a high level camper.

But perharps the problem is that there are not enough items in the game: for (almost) each interesting item, there should be a few other similar ones, maybe not as good but close enough, that can be obtained through different ways. Then again, that's only my opinion, and I realize that I've been really disappointed by the amount and type of content for AO at high level...

[Snuble]

Agree.

2 real solutions for camping:
1) Diffrent looking items for the same slot with about the same reqs and modifiers.
2) More of the items in game (increase spawn).

[secondkenlon]

Real solution for camping:
No rare drops off of specific mobs, ever.

Unless you are willing to go that far, there will *always* be camping.

[aiwass777]

Originally posted by Naraya
Better idea (well..several):

Make all of the very best items in the game obtainable from TRADESKILLS! T R A D E S K I L L S ! ! ! !

I once thought this would be a great idea, until I discovered that not every character is equally adept at using tradeskills. Any trade skill process that is placed into the game, inevitable provides the means for a select few to easily make a fortune.

A good example of this is the patch in which the PPPE Shape Hard Armor item was released. People paid 150 million credits or more for these things and some made thier money back in a couple of hours... This is both an example of the 'get rich quick' thing as well as poor implementation.

Funcom has shown an amazing amount of stupidity when tackling the issue of tradeskills. They have generally chosen to make all new processes involve rare items that cannot be easily obtained. In some cases this is a GOOD thing, like the matter of the Enhanced Queen Blade, but it is generally a bad thing.

The perfect tradeskill system would allow for the creation of nearly every item in the game using items which can be found in stores. Funcom could also introduce a shop which would sell money-sink items like Soul Frags, Cold Stones, Notum, PPPEs, etc.

[_________Neurofreeze]

Originally posted by Sheffy
I would almost prefer all of the 18 hour spawns to be turned into perhaps a 33% chance of spawn every 6 hours. Statistically, it wouldn't change the number of spawns very much, but camping would go down quite a bit I feel. Look at Trash King now that its not a set spawn -- only a couple people hanging out, if that. I don't foresee people camping a 6 hour spawn with only a 33% chance of the mob spawning.

I doubt that would change anything. People would just camp in shifts. Have an ENG at Trash King hang out. If he spawns, he tells his clan and beacons people over. If it doesn't, someone else takes the next shift. It'd probably make the inflation worse, because the items take more effort to get. You'd have an entire guild looking to cash in on one spawn instead of just a group of people. Items from percentage-chance special mobs would be bought and sold to guilds with guild treasuries, not by single people (although some people are as rich as some guilds...).

Originally posted by Kenlon
Real solution for camping:
No rare drops off of specific mobs, ever.

Unless you are willing to go that far, there will *always* be camping.

Two words: Claw Camp.

NS and GA don't specifically drop off of these claws in this particular area only, yet people camp here for hours a LOT. It's not as bad as true unique mobs, but probably because the respawn rate at that camp is incredible.

Originally posted by Hoops


I once thought this would be a great idea, until I discovered that not every character is equally adept at using tradeskills. Any trade skill process that is placed into the game, inevitable provides the means for a select few to easily make a fortune.

A good example of this is the patch in which the PPPE Shape Hard Armor item was released. People paid 150 million credits or more for these things and some made thier money back in a couple of hours... This is both an example of the 'get rich quick' thing as well as poor implementation.

Funcom has shown an amazing amount of stupidity when tackling the issue of tradeskills. They have generally chosen to make all new processes involve rare items that cannot be easily obtained. In some cases this is a GOOD thing, like the matter of the Enhanced Queen Blade, but it is generally a bad thing.

The perfect tradeskill system would allow for the creation of nearly every item in the game using items which can be found in stores. Funcom could also introduce a shop which would sell money-sink items like Soul Frags, Cold Stones, Notum, PPPEs, etc.

I wouldn't want nearly every item to be bought in shops, but a very good percentage (about half). Another big chunk of tradeskill items (both tools and items themselves) could come from quests, like the all-purpose tuning tool. Some things are definitely better left to mob drops, like monster parts for plasma or robot junk for personalized brains. Actually I think mob drop tradeskill items should be more common and, most importantly, more useful in non-uber items. For example, finding carbonum plating of all QL's on some specific types of bots for mausser conversions. PPPE's should DEFINITELY be in shops though, but that's been discussed in multiple threads already.

As for the tradeskill adept problem, you could split the process of making items between classes. For instance have notum saturated metalplast be obtainable from a mission or mob type that only certain non-tradeskill adept professions can do, or at least can do without great difficulty. So if an ENG wants to make a set of armor, he'd have to pay an ENF to get it, and if an ENF wants a set of armor, he'd have to mission for it then pay an ENG to make it.