f13.net

I have seen a number of people refer to the upcoming crafting changes. Unfortunately, I cannot seem to locate a concise list of what those changes are. Further, since I never got much into crafting during beta, there's some EQ2-specific terms I don't get.

So, can someone give me the skinny? I see something about a "no-subcombines" systems. Does that means that you no longer need to build all sub-components and then do a final combine? And if so, how does that impact the resources once needed for sub-combines? Everything just get loaded into one crafting window?

I know so little I'm even asking stupid questions now. Help!

AFAIK, that's the correct answer.

Here ya go, Niami from EQTraders kindly sifted through the noise of the official forums to pull out the important bits:

http://mboards.eqtraders.com/eq2/showthread.php?t=5551

Essentially, there will be no subcombines, recipes use all the resources that the subcombines would have done before, some other recipes changed.

afaik the rest of the detail is only really relevant if you are already a high level crafter and therefore able to spot the difference.

The key thing to take from that link is that the changes are not wholesale until the KoS expansion - todays patch only affects how the new 1-19 spell upgrades are crafted.

Dernit, and I need to upgrade soon, haven't done my wizard spells at all :( I was hoping the subs would be out by now, but I guess I'll have to bite the bullet and spend the time and bag space to make a bajillion subcomponents. I hate inks.

According to the patch notes this is not true - they rolled out oodles of changes (including crafting changes).  Course the servers are bouncing up and down, I hope the roll out goes well!

Ah, great! Thank you for the link and briefs. I get it now, and that it only means an easier time for me to get into crafting. Not sure what I'll do yet. As a Warlock (changed my mind from Wizard after first playing the 'lock last night), I'll probably do scrolls.

The 20+ spell recipes are unchanged :(

I forgot to craft a couple rare inks before the change, too. Woops. Net good effect, though, since I have 3 open boxes in the bank thanks to the removal of subcomponents.

I have enjoyed armorcraft in the past so I figure I'd try it again.  How do I select my trade class?

On the new combines all fuels are the same. for example to make spell scrolls washes and resins take candles as do the three combines for ink, quills take sandpaper, then paper and the final combine would take incense. Now with one combine the raw materials and 5 incenses produce a scroll. The time for the combine is long but its more time to spam the crafting hot keys. I found it easier to get a app4 scroll on and even level combine than the old system. ymmv of course.

So did they boost the xp you get from a single combine then?  Most of my xp comes from making all those damn subcomponents, if they didn't boost the xp it will take a whole hell of a lot of finished products to level.  Or do you still have the option of making the subcombines?

Actually the finished product nets you the most XP.  But since you had to make 1,298,358,295 sub combines it seems like thats where you get most the XP... So since you can skip to finished product you will level faster.

Your premise does not equal your conclusion....

Yes finished products net the most XP but they also take the longest to combine. Numbers:

Refine: 50% exp 400 total progress for Pristine
Interim: 75% exp 600 total progress for Pristine
Finish: 100% exp 800 total progress for Pristine

So, in reality exp/time is exactly the same regardless of what you are making.

The only difference the change will make is more havested resources are going to be needed than before. Time to level will be exactly the same unless they tweak the exp on a finished combine which has been mentioned.

The biggest difference is my skill ups are going to my skill of choice. Im a much more skilled scribe though im less skilled at chemistry and woodworking. I love it im better at what I want to do.

True, as a Sage it's a bit odd that scribing is my third highest skill...

I wish they'd patch in the rest of the recipe changes, after finishing off my pre-20 spells it's teh sux to have to go through making ink again for post 20...and I'm level 26 now...blah. Limping by on my Master II nuke, basically.

Could anyone please post a link to overall crafting information, drilled down to specifics on all the recipes?  Is this available anywhere?

I'm sure eqtraders(just google, too lazy for a link) has it.  DenMother and her helpers are insane.

Alkiera

EQ2 Trader's Corner (http://eq2.eqtraders.com/articles/article_page.php?article=g5&menustr=040000000000) is the best resource I know of.  All of those items under Basic Information are links to articles, they just aren't distinguished from plain text for some reason.  All the recipes are available from the search in the left hand navigation or you can view all of them by clicking on Recipes.

My experience has been for spells that are within 3 levels of even-leveled I still have to separately craft ink which has been my most limiting factor. For some reason, Thaumaturgy has been an ENORMOUS mana suck, using 90 power on the higher-end tradeskill buttons, and I run out every time I craft some above blue. None of the other tradeskill hotkeys use up any mana, not even the scribing ones and I'm a fucking sage for chrissakes. And since I have yet to craft a single pristine iron gaul ink, for example, (despite flawless crafting pre-20), I cannot craft any spell that goes above the second progress bar (whatever those four progress bars are called). It's been very frustrating, as I've been trying to focus on crafting only evens, but am getting almost no xp for any of it, and am just wasting rare materials. For crafting most spells, I still have to craft the paper, quill and ink separately.

Another major major complaint I have is that pre=patch I could use either silver cluster OR rough coral to craft adept spells (the main component of the ink), and now it's only rough coral. They've removed the silver from all of the equations. Sadly, I have no coral but plenty of silver. Also, pre-patch you didn't have to pay very close attention to which material was defaulting in the "either/or" situations (e.g. the recipe calls for either  ash or belladonna), because it would just automatically select what is more common or what you have more of. Now it isn't doing that, and I inadvertently used up all 5 of my ash when I had a stack of belladonna because I wasn't paying that close attention.

So, I don't know if it's a patch thing or a level 20 thing, but I went from having to craft only two even-level spells to get a ding (no exaggeration) to having to craft 5 or 6, including ALL of the subcombines. And crafting was supposed to be the fun part for me.  :x

You're seeing a couple things there.

First is that yes, as you progress it takes more and more combines to gain a level. With my sage only doing the final combines I think I used a single stack of each sub to get 10-20. Used about 2 stacks to do 20-30, 4 stacks 30-40, and about 8 stacks of everything to do 40-50.

The second thing your noticing is that the discovery experience for making a new recipe is greater for making the first pristine combine. I believe it was supposed to have been about doubled. They did this to compensate for the fact you are no longer gaining exp from subcombines.

Put those two things together and you're probably seeing exp gain cut by 75% just by dinging 20. After the patch/expansion things should pick back up again at least by a little bit. It will probably seem even better though due to no more subcombines needed.

I made a few alts on the weekend, I wanted to get one character in each basic group so I made a guardian, dirge, and templar.  I started tradeskills with each of them and it seemed that a few items I made resulted in a lot more xp than others, even if they were the same level.  They might have have added up the xp that all the subcombines would have gotten you and just added a portion of it to the (now single) combine.  If I made an item that used a lot of fuel (meaning it would have had a bunch of subcombines) I could get a level in just two or three combines, but making coffee (almost no subcombines) resulted in only 8-10 percent.

I might have just been imagining things though, I daydream a lot while tradeskilling  :-).

That's the case in low level crafting - I remember making 2 chairs and levelling.  Partly it's the bump from making your first of each pristine sub-compenent.  It doesn't work later though since xp from combines gets really, really small.

Glad they did the Sage no-sub-combine changes first :)

In making scrolls last night though, I was wishing for a way to instantly see the Final Product. It's nice to see the Recipe and all, but I'm still making Recipes based on what I think people will want, rather than just trying to grind to Artisan 20.

I can right click a Recipe for the Examine window, and then right click the final product for a view of the Final Product, but I'd love to have the Final Product as an option in the Recipe contextual menu.

The sub-20 Sage stuff, though. I was going to work on my Wizard spells over the weekend, until I realized that I'd be spending most of the weekend harvesting and  making subcomponents. Said fuck it, tried to work some quests and found everything camped to hell and back (even at 4am on sunday morning), so went and ground mobs in Enchanted Lands until I hit lvl 29. Bah, server merge has me in a fucking foul mood. It's wasting more of what little time I have for EQ2.

edit: Woops, sorry for mentioning the fact that post-20 recipes are still laden with subcomponents yet again :P

Yea, at Scholar 13, it's pretty easy right now. Just buy what I need from the Broker and craft App IVs until I hit 19. I'll be starting to look for those Advanced Scholar books to try and get into the Adept ranges, but I don't want to spend too much time on that just yet. Right now, I'm in this for myself and the occasionally guild need. I've done the virtual business thing, and 3 years later am still burned out from it  :-D

And I hear ya on the server pops. That's why I bitched about their use of Instancing. I think they need to make zones private unless they're getting a huge amount of cash on those two Adventure Packs (and going by there only being two Packs, and those both so old already, I doubt they're the panacea of micropayments they were meant to be).