Tradeskills - is this normal?

[Csihar]

I'm working on tailoring. At this point my only options are variations of one type of armor. I know it's a steep hill to climb. It can cost a lot, ingredients are time consuming to gather etc. but I'm wondering if it's normal to make 20 attempts and not get a single skill point.

The last 3 skill points required a total of 35 tries. If it's perfectly normal, I'll suck it up and /or slit my wrists but just making sure there isn't some problem.

Any tips on how to raise chances of gaining skill points are very welcome.

[Evia]

It's normal. I can't remember who posted it but I read something a few years back where someone tried over 250 combines for a single skill up.

[loramin]

Any tips on how to raise chances of gaining skill points are very welcome.

More Int/Wisdom.

Also trade skills (and really anything involving the RNG) are evil.

[Baler]

Tradeskills are a plat sink, don't do them if your goal is high skill and don't have 20-40k plat.
As mentioned above get as much int or wis as possible. Str works for blacksmithing I believe.

Find an enchanter to buff your int/wis. your goal is 255 stat. I actually keep gear in my bank for tradeskill training that has high wis or int but I wouldn't use it combat.

[Lhancelot]

Tradeskills are a plat sink, don't do them if your goal is high skill and don't have 20-40k plat.
As mentioned above get as much int or wis as possible. Str works for blacksmithing I believe.

Find an enchanter to buff your int/wis. your goal is 255 stat. I actually keep gear in my bank for tradeskill training that has high wis or int but I wouldn't use it combat.

Aside from INT/WIS working for trade skills, STR works for blacksmithing and I thought DEX worked for fletching and tailoring. A trades master could verify or confirm to be sure though.

In my experience most crafters reached high skill fastest when they had a guild that fed them mats.

Gathering all the mats yourself will take a vast amount of time and resources, setting you back thousands of plats and hours on top of hours farming them.

[Swish]

Gathering all the mats yourself will take a vast amount of time and resources, setting you back thousands of plats and hours on top of hours farming them.

JC aside, just be prepared for carpal tunnel on the combines...took me ages to go from 245-250 on my red enchanter.

[Csihar]

Thanks, buds.

[yzarCritS]

Let me follow up with a question. At the higher levels, are there better skill up chances with different combines? Example Arctic Wyvern vs. Cobalt Drake? Assuming the same trivial value. Or is it same skill up % regardless of rcecipe, at the mercy of the RNG?

Thanks.

[Raavak]

I think its based on the trivial level and char skill level only.

There is an equation in the wiki (Wiki:tradeskills (http://wiki.project1999.com/Tradeskills)) but I think its just a guess.

I did grandmaster level several times and near the top end I was happy with the rare 1-in-20 skill up.

[loramin]

are there better skill up chances with different combines? Example Arctic Wyvern vs. Cobalt Drake? Assuming the same trivial value. Or is it same skill up % regardless of rcecipe, at the mercy of the RNG?

Same skill up % regardless of recipe or trivial. It doesn't matter if you're crafting the most expensive 300 trivial item possible or a trivial 30 sock that sells for two copper: as long as the combine's trivial > your skill you have the exact same (relatively small) chance.

Literally the only thing that impacts your skill up chance is your Intelligence/Wisdom (or alternate stats like Strength for blacksmithing). If you want to increase your skill-up rate you need to shop for some tradeskill gear and/or get an Enchanter buff.

[Daldaen]

http://www.project1999.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2348121&postcount=7

This post may help you understand.

[yzarCritS]

Same skill up % regardless of recipe or trivial. It doesn't matter if you're crafting the most expensive 300 trivial item possible or a trivial 30 sock that sells for two copper: as long as the combine's trivial > your skill you have the exact same (relatively small) chance.



Thank you for the feedback. I don't know with certainty to say you're wrong on this, but based on my experience trade skills at lower levels skilled up much more frequently than they seem to do now when I do combines in the 170s. Maybe I misunderstood your example?

[Somekid123]

I have been raising tailoring for about a year now I'm at 248. I would say a hundred combines at average 6 to 8, the worst I saw was 2 out of a hundred combines the best I got was 10.

[yzarCritS]

http://www.project1999.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2348121&postcount=7

This post may help you understand.

Perfect! This is what I was looking for. Thanks.

[yzarCritS]

One final question from me. Sorry if this is a little thread jacking.

For tailoring, which recipe is the least expensive to chase skill ups at the high levels? Assuming you're needing to buy resources through EC tunnel? Is there one or two that stand out?

[skarlorn]

Don't do trade skills man it's a trap

[HippoNipple]

Tradeskills - is this normal?

Nope, definitely not cool or normal.

[zodium]

Don't do trade skills man it's a trap

Bristlebane sends his regards. :eek:

[loramin]

Thank you for the feedback. I don't know with certainty to say you're wrong on this, but based on my experience trade skills at lower levels skilled up much more frequently than they seem to do now when I do combines in the 170s. Maybe I misunderstood your example?

Oh yes, sorry I said that poorly. I guess I should have prefaced what I said with "At any given skill level, ....". But yes it is most certainly easier to get skillup #2 than it is to get #200 :)

[Cecily]

Thank you for the feedback. I don't know with certainty to say you're wrong on this, but based on my experience trade skills at lower levels skilled up much more frequently than they seem to do now when I do combines in the 170s. Maybe I misunderstood your example?

I'm pretty sure he's wrong. You have much higher chance of raising skill on a successful combine than on a fail, therefore lower trivial items will result in more successful crafts and overall more skill ups. The only reason to grind on super high, relative to your skill, trivials is if the combine is simpler, cheaper, or otherwise easier to mass produce like if you had a glut of materials for it.

That's half of it. I believe the INT/WIS part comes in on likelihood to raise skill on a fail. Dalden had an amazing post awhile back detailing all this in much more detailed detail. But that's how I remember it.

[Cecily]

Tradeskills - is this normal?

Nope, definitely not cool or normal.

I mean.. I made 300k earlyish Velious casually helping people make their armor.
But yeah, I agree.

[Cecily]

One final question from me. Sorry if this is a little thread jacking.

For tailoring, which recipe is the least expensive to chase skill ups at the high levels? Assuming you're needing to buy resources through EC tunnel? Is there one or two that stand out?

T-t-triple post. Assuming you can find the uh.. limiting reagent lets call it. Black Panther stuff has a very simple combine with plentiful cheap skins. Yew leaves are your bottle neck there and it's just velium + plat after that.

Arctic Wyvern is also a good choice, but the hard part for that armor is the velium studs. Very expensive to mass produce those in comparison to velium boning.

[loramin]

You have much higher chance of raising skill on a successful combine than on a fail

I was a big tradeskiller on live, and I distinctly remember skill-ups being 100% independent of successes. Now I'm not trying to argue with Cecily and Daldaen: it sounds like that's the way it is here. But I'm going to do some research because that really conflicts with my (admittedly 15+ year old) memories (of how people understood the game 15+ years ago, which also might have been incorrect).

[Samoht]

The advice has always been to work on things that trivial just barely above your current skill for faster skillups. More success = more skillups.

[loramin]

I couldn't find anything on Wayback so I asked on the EQ Tradeskillers forum:

I was wondering if anyone who played back then remembers:

A) the belief that the two were independent, and/or
B) if the game actually changed to make successes give more skil-ups, or whether this was just a false believe people had (there were many back in the day).

And got this response:

A) Yes, I clearly remember we all thought they were independent.
B) Sorry, not positive enough on this one to answer.

Happy tradeskilling!

Like him I clearly remember this being accepted knowledge on tradeskilling. But since that's all the proof I was able to find (and since I really want tradeskills to work classically here) I want to offer a bounty of 5k (great plat for a lower-level character) for anyone who can provide a (sourced) explanation. Probably either evidence that:

A) people in classic thought skill-ups were independent, but that idea was later proven to be wrong

or:

B) tradeskill skill-ups in classic were independent of successes, but then that later changed

TLDR: 5k to the first person who posts solid (ie. Nilbog-worthy) evidence which explains why classic EQers were convinced that tradeskill skill-ups were independent of successes .. even though that is no longer the case on live.

[aaezil]

in p99 you dont get skillups for failure do you?

[Squabbles123]

in p99 you dont get skillups for failure do you?


I've gotten skill ups on failures many times. I actually find I skill up more from failures than successes.

[loramin]

in p99 you dont get skillups for failure do you?

The way the P99 formula works (as I understand it), and the way live works, is that the server makes a roll against your skill to determine success. On success you have a fixed (better) chance of a skill-up, and on a failure you have a lesser (and stat-based) chance of a skill-up.

All of this directly contradicts a common perception that was held by tradeskillers in the classic era, which held that your chance of getting a skill-up was independent of success or failure. Unfortunately even my bounty has failed to turn-up solid evidence one way or the other (even Daldaen's excellent find showing success did matter in 2004 doesn't prove how things were in 2001).