How's tradeskills?

jaredm2525

It's been awhile since I played EQ2, about 9 months. The first expansion had only been out for about 2 weeks when I quit.

 So, my first question is how much has tradeskilling changed? Before, it seemed like it took forever to lvl it, and when you get into 20+ lvls, it took 30min to make 1 item. I love professions, but when it takes too much time from adventuring, I pass it up.

Also, are the items you make useful? I'm thinking about making a wizard class if I reactivate my account. Which tradeskill is best for me? Will I be able to sell things on the broker?

You see, I had a 34 ranger with a lvl 20+ woodworker. It seemed that all the items I made were useless for me. I could summon arrows, the bows I quested for were 10x's better. The only use I found out of it was making scrolls and selling them on the broker. Other than that, it was a waste of precious time. Heck, I could have been a lvl 55 if i would have adventured instead of tradeskilled. I just got done playing WoW, professions suck in it. Really boring and there are only a few that are useful.

So, has tradeskilling changed?

Flem

Huge change in tradeskills recently with Live Update 24.  Below is the outline from the EQ2 site:

Recipe Changes:

All of the tradeskill recipes in the game are moving to a "no sub-combine" system. In order to improve the availability and reduce the tedium of the tradeskill system, we are removing refine and interim recipes from the game. Instead you will be able to craft final combines with just raw components.

No longer will it take hours to craft a set of armor for someone; it will only take a few minutes. This will provide a market in which the crafter can provide their services to the community more efficiently.

In addition, many new recipes are now available in the world: from new armor types that support different classes more efficiently to harvesting tools that speed up the time it takes to harvest (speak with your local woodworker if you'd like the tools).

Item Changes:

Any crafted item will now either be flagged as "Hand Crafted" or "Master Crafted" depending on the rarity of items used when making the item (the latter of which implies rarer items). This will allow players to more easily distinguish what crafters can make.

In order to give crafters a better defined space in the loot progression of the game, any equipable item that is crafted will have somewhat different stat improvements or effects than before. Don't worry, though--existing crafted items won't be affected by this change at all.

Player crafted potions and poisons will now follow a uniform pattern in naming and effects, which should make their functionality easier to identify quickly. Additionally, Level 50-60 rare carpentry recipes have been added to the game. You might be seeing some of your favorite requested furniture pieces that are no longer sold on merchants.

Harvesting Changes:

It's now possible to get more than one item from a single harvest. With an increase in the amount of raw components that are needed in tradeskill recipes, we don't want to merely switch the tedium of crafting from sub-combines into harvesting.

To solve this issue we are going to add the chance of gaining multiple items each time you harvest. The chance for multiple items is related to your harvesting skill versus the difficulty of the harvest node--the higher your skill, the more likely you will be to get multiple items.

A higher harvesting skill will also increase the likelihood that you will obtain a rare item, as well as make it so you will not fail at harvesting items that are trivial for you to harvest.

Niber

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Originally posted by jaredm2525

It's been awhile since I played EQ2, about 9 months. The first expansion had only been out for about 2 weeks when I quit.
 So, my first question is how much has tradeskilling changed? Before, it seemed like it took forever to lvl it, and when you get into 20+ lvls, it took 30min to make 1 item. I love professions, but when it takes too much time from adventuring, I pass it up.
Also, are the items you make useful? I'm thinking about making a wizard class if I reactivate my account. Which tradeskill is best for me? Will I be able to sell things on the broker?
You see, I had a 34 ranger with a lvl 20+ woodworker. It seemed that all the items I made were useless for me. I could summon arrows, the bows I quested for were 10x's better. The only use I found out of it was making scrolls and selling them on the broker. Other than that, it was a waste of precious time. Heck, I could have been a lvl 55 if i would have adventured instead of tradeskilled. I just got done playing WoW, professions suck in it. Really boring and there are only a few that are useful.
So, has tradeskilling changed?

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Leveling is alot easier. However, selling your items and making any kind of worthwhile profit is near impossible.

If you're leveling a Wizard, go Sage, at least you'll be able to craft your App4s and Adept3s. Everquest has slowly converted to a "WoW-ish" fluff crafting system,  it's not the same as it use to be where you saw pure crafters.

Darkikon

I liked tradeskilling before the changes because no other MMORPG had a system like it with all subcombines and whatnot. Still....it is easier and quicker to level your artisan if you that's what you want. More plentiful harvested items, and more plentiful rares as well.

Theo

I liked the old system better, in that crafters had to rely on one another for components to create items. It was sort of the equivalent of grouping on the adventuring side. The only problem I had was the lack of offline selling, making it difficult to find the components you needed when you needed them, which was often an obstacle to your progress.

Offline selling and a bulletin board where one could post requests/services would have gone a long way toward making the old system workable, IMHO.