GU60: Tradeskill Writs for Levels 15-20, Harvesting Speed Bump

Written by Feldon on . Posted in Game Updates & Maintenance, Tradeskill

Frizznik is putting forth some changes to crafting in Game Update 60. Due to the loss of pristine bonuses when crafting new items that came with Velious, players have discovered a range of levels from 17-20 where there are no tradeskill quests to do, and XP has become a slow grind. So new tradeskill writs are being added from level 15-20 to resolve this issue.

Meanwhile, harvesting speed is getting a boost for low levels, with the base harvesting time dropping from 5 seconds to 3 seconds. If you’re concerned that harvesting will be too fast at high levels, have no fear. Deity buffs, racial traits, tinkered tools, and crafted tools are all being nerfed adjusted to make sure the maximum harvesting speed is still around 2 seconds.

Frizznik on adding tradeskill writs for levels 15-20:

There certainly was a black hole. Doing gathering obsession sort of helped, but only would get you about half of a level.

I just added in some level 15 tradeskill writs for outfitters, craftsman, and scholars. They should hit test next week if you want to check them out from your local writ giver.

This seemed like the best idea because it introduces you to writs a bit earlier, and also gives you a chance to earn status for your guild sooner.

Frizznik on harvesting speed:

I wanted to let you all know about some harvesting changes that will be hitting test this week and then going out with GU60.

Three things: harvesting speed is faster, harvesting skill up rate is faster, and a desperate plea.

Harvesting speed is going to be faster at lower levels. Five seconds felt like an an extra long time when harvesting as a new player. It gets faster as you level up and have access to harvesting tools to the point that it feels much better. I changed it so that the base time of harvesting is now 3 seconds to help ease new harvesters into it and make it more enjoyable. The tools and racial traits have been modified as well. There are tools at 20, 30, 40, 50, and 70. They started at a .5 reduction and added .5 seconds at each tier ending in 2.5 second reduction. Those tools now will start at a .1 reduction and add .1 second per tier ending in a .5 second reduction. This means that at level 80+ you would be exactly the same as you were with 3 seconds – .5 seconds ending in a 2.5 second harvesting time. Wood elf and half elf racial traits were also decreased from 1 second to .5 seconds and the human and Sarnak traits were reduced from .5 seconds to .25 seconds. This may feel like a nerf to the tools and racial traits, but if you look at it as a whole system you will see that it is more fair to lower level players trying to become interested in harvesting.

Harvesting skill up chance is a little higher. The way that you gain a skill is based on chance. This chance decreases the closer you get to the skill required to harvest from a specific node. The chance was around 30~50%. This seemed especially unfair to the player who is only doing tradeskills and have their harvesting skill cap rely on their tradeskill level. You would get into a situation where you needed to reach the cap for a tier to move into the next tier, but it would get slower and slower based on how the chance to gain skill works. Not only that but this ratio of skill gain has not changed since launch. That means, because you can level up faster than you could at launch it was super easy to leave your harvesting skill in the dust. The chance to gain a skill up has changed to 50~80% on appropriate harvesting nodes. Overall you should notice you get a skill gain 20~30% faster.

The last addition is the desperate plea. After the update, upon harvesting the first time you will get a letter in the mail from Lian Augren. She will let you know that she has heard of your interest in harvesting and that you should come talk to her son Qho on the Isle of Mara. She will include a heirloom bonus xp tradeskill potion to entice you and to apologize if the letter found you too late. The intention of this addition is to make players aware of the Gathering Obsession questline as soon as they start harvesting. It was entirely possible to not find this questline until much later in your career which would then force you to go harvest in low level zones. It is much more compelling to work on the quest, gain harvesting skill, and materials all at the same time. The unfortunate part of this addition is that it will apply to all players whether they have worked on Qho’s questline or not, so if you did “get the mail late” please enjoy the complimentary potion.

Rijacki asked if the meat-to-pelt ratios could be adjusted since they make the quest A Gathering Obsession quite painful in certain zones. Frizznik‘s reply:

I want to look at doing something for that… especially in Rivervale is it frustrating, not sure there is time for GU60 but it is something that should get looked at.

Regarding tinkering tools:

Some other questions that got asked / things I missed!

The tinker tools have had their harvesting time reduced as well:

  • 30: .2 seconds
  • 46: .3 seconds
  • 66: .5 seconds

Human, ogre, and dwarf traits were also halved. Out of context I know that looks like a nerf, so please consider the new base time and the system as a whole.

Regarding the potion…I wanted it to be helpful if you were already max level but due to the exploit chance, I changed it to not be heirloom. Instead it also gives bonuses to combat or aa experience for an hour, so use it however you like. If you are max tradeskill, adventure, and aa experience… then I don’t know drink it in a toast to good health and fortune.

While timers are being shortened, why not the Mender Bot (Mechanized Platinum Repository of Reconstruction)? Frizznik had this:

I think this may have already been changed for 60. If not I will look into changing it tomorrow. I will throw in a casting animation too.

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Comments (10)

  • Grugg

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    Have the number of commands needed to harvest different nodes been reduced to one yet? I think Rothgar was working on that and similar efficiency fixes for harvesting input, but I haven’t been following EQ2 news for awhile.

    Reply

  • Lathain

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    The nerf on tinkerings tool look huge, do the woodworking tools nerfed too ? why god a low level toon need to harvest quickly ? beside farming botting a low level toon dont need quick lot of stuff, obviously not as much as a level 90 crafter. (specialy when this one craft for a raid/friend potion/poison/arraw and such lol)

    This is not a good thing

    Reply

  • Green Armadillo

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    @Lathain: Try leveling a new alt in Timorous Deep. By design, you aren’t even offered the chance to harvest until you’re 50 points behind in all of your harvest skills, and it’s very easy to adventure beyond what you can harvest at that skill level. At that point, the only thing you can do is grind out 50-100 skill points times 5 gathering skills times 30-50% chance of skill point per attempt times five seconds per attempt. It’s not fun, nor is it in any way challenging; merely time consuming and a way to keep new players out of one of the best portions of the game.

    That said, I would have had the base harvest time scale by level (e.g. 2.5 sec til level 20, add 0.5 every 10 levels thereafter or somesuch) to preserve the value of the tools. Right now, it’s perhaps a bit too easy to shrug and do without a tool altogether since it’s only a 0.5 second reduction at best (and nigh unnoticeable at lower tiers).

    Reply

  • Lathain

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    this game is so much more than just one zone, if you think timorous deep is not fun, try another one, darklight wood is nice.

    Reply

  • Lejoni

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    just great… Another recipe for woodworker that will become absolutely useless.
    WHO will by a tool or whatever for .5 seconds?
    You might as well remove the tools and recipes all together.

    Reply

  • Anaogi

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    I barely bothered with any but the tinkered tools, and then only the high-end anyway (skill bonuses, don’cha know). As for ‘nerfs’, to put them in perspective, note that the base time has been reduced by 40% to begin with–altogether it’s not a huge loss, though I do question the point of having a .1 second improvement.

    And I still want to ‘stack the deck’ towards certain nonrare results. Ah well…

    Reply

  • Kyrmyn

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    As a woodworker here on Guk I am not complaining. I agree the starting curve for harvesting is way too steep and that needs fixed. People are still going to purchase harvesting tools. Most of the ones on the broker sit there forever and end up selling for less than the cost of fuel.

    If they wanted to throw Woodworkers a bone, however, they could have fixed this by adding a quest for a temporary harvesting tool…something that lasts for a week…to let beginning players get skill ups at the 3s mark. They could reduce or remove the level requirements for some of the harvesting tools. And let beginning players know they can purchase harvesting tools from other players on the broker with text from said quest.

    It’s time Sony stopped messing with game mechanics.

    -Kyrmyn

    Reply

  • Murfalad

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    The harvesting tools are a little questionable now, but at the top end 25% faster is going to be brought every time for me. Perhaps they could add a small 1/2/3/4/5% double harvesting buff chance to the tools?

    I’m not sure about the idea of harvesting 3 tries in one go, they did that in WoW but what it added to the game it took away sort of…

    The one thing I think that they have wrong here is the potion, it should give a harvesting buff (say a 15% chance to double harvest for 2 hours) rather then a tradeskill/XP buff since its supposed to encourage people to harvest.

    Reply

  • Anaogi

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    8: Your idea was brought up in the thread, actually–and the devs seem responsive to the idea…so stay tuned, I guess…

    Reply

  • Murfalad

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    Very interesting, it looks like some other people liked it/thought of it at the same time too 🙂 The 2/4/6/8/10% amount sounds on the top end, but maybe just right since too low (1%) and maybe people wouldn’t care.

    I do worry about where to go in future with these things, although they can always make the current tools up to XYZ skill only and produce a new set…

    Reply

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