You're right. A lot of people that don't feel like actually plying a trade are Tailors, for Splendours.

One potential solution:

The trans trade skill items could be twinned into purchasable artifacts conferring the exact same bonuses, with a different flavor and theme than the mundane versions, where possible. To use any of these artifacts, a character would need to have at least one trans trade skill -- but it wouldn't matter which one (however, perhaps the same guild- and specialization-based restrictions on items like the Philosopher's Stone would still apply). As with all artifacts, these would not decay and would always return to the owner, so they would be somewhat more expensive than 150 credits.

However, the "regular" trans trade skill items would remain attainable in the same way they are now. They would still decay and wouldn't return to the owner (though they could be remade), so they would continue to act as gratis mini-artifacts for people who have transed their chosen trade. That way, "little people" are not punished.

One more detail: The "you can have only one of the same type" restriction still applies between both the artifact and mundane version of the trans trade items.

This would have the following effect on the game:



1.) People will no longer need to trans a skill just to obtain an item; they can spend a bit more and get it in superior, risk-free artifact form.

2.) People (like me) who don't want to see non-Alchemists with Philosopher's Stones everywhere, won't (it will be called something else).

3.) People who can only afford to trans one trade skill, and feel forced into one that they don't want and will never use just to obtain a "best" trans trade item, will have more options. For example, someone could buy the artifact version of Splendours. They won't have Tailoring, but they didn't care about it anyway, and then, later, they can pick up a trade skill they actually want.

3a.) Thanks to 3, some of the rarer trades might become less rare, while the overpopulated trades become less so.

4.) People who have multiple trans trade items right now lose nothing. They keep them until they decay, and may then buy the new artifact versions once that occurs.



One potential flaw is already a moot point -- making trade-themed items freely available for purchase. Because of learning and forgetting trade skills, though, they pretty much already are freely available for purchase (within guild/specialization limits).

The other flaw would be the coding work necessary to design and implement the new, twinned artifacts.

Can anyone think of more flaws?

Keep in mind that, with Skillflex, each of these items costs a bit under 300 credits plus the lessons for swapping around.

I'm personally fine with how it works as-is, except that I'd like Tradeskills to be separate from normal skills and perhaps activateable at a faster rate as well.

Well you can also just ask for people to be able to multi-trade all at once, but the current system is fine to me.

Well, yes. Skillflex has the potential to solve many current problems, with the unfortunate exception of my own personal problem (non-Alchemists, Philosopher's Stone, you know the drill).

And, as far as I can see, there is no way to fully solve the "player can only afford one trans trade skill, so he picks Tailoring (which he doesn't really want) for Splendours" problem, which:

A.) deprives us of a potential Artisan (or whatever) because he felt compelled to take Tailoring, and
B.) if he and people like him decide to use Tailoring after all, they flood the market for people who actually enjoy Tailoring.

It's lose-lose. Everyone loses: The frugal player, the rare professions, the overpopulated professions. Well, if someone like that both enjoys Tailoring and wants Splendours, they win.

In my opinion, while trans trade items are a fun idea, I think that ultimately the game would have been better off without them from the beginning. Tying unique, long-lasting personal items into skill sets... I'm no longer a fan of it.

Implementing that would require a time machine, however, and if I had one of those, I would get a $100,000 loan, convert the money into gold bars, travel back to 1982, and purchase stock in the Microsoft corporation.

Then I would buy out Aardwolf and have it shut it down. That game should not be #1 on TMS....

I don't see anything retardedly broken with the current way of things. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Though Bookbinding is something of a bust: you lose the ability to read the pages on it and you lose the languages you learned the moment you skillflex it, so the entire skillset adds up to +5 DMP and not a darned thing else. (Though that's still better than Artisan...)

I got it specifically for the languages to help mitigate the "it makes no sense so bad it hurts" of being a changeling with rotating language knowledge, but it turns out that I shouldn't've bothered. What a waste of lessons.

Edit: I was misinformed about the part concerning reading the pages; you still can, so it's not half as bad as I thought. Though still hugely disappointed about languages, as that was really the reason I took the skillset, not the tome. But at least it's good to know the tome does remain useful.

I'm going to go ahead and help flesh out Felicia's idea. I don't necessarily agree with it, but putting it in a visible format might make the argument a little easier to see.

Great Rune of Ironthread: Takes existing greatrobes and enhances them, adding +15/+15 to the resistances, allowing two additional proofings, and bolstering all proofings on the robes.

Transplanar mirror: Allows the following syntaxes:
MIRROR GAZE scries out the current location of a person
MIRROR FOCUS fixes a plane on which the mirror is focused for the next Lusternian decade (allowing for the flexibility that occurs naturally with the Tierstone's decay)
MIRROR PLANEGAZE will show you who is on the focused plane.

Dashing Eyepatch: This debonair eyepatch reduces all ego consumption when worn.

Great Rune of the Turtle: This mysterious rune transforms a suit of full plate into Masterwork full plate, with all the same limitations as Masterarmour.

Great Rune of Arcane Attunement: Attaching this rune to a crown tunes the wearer to the currents of arcane power flowing through the world, reducing his mana expenditures by 25 percent.

Needle of Immunization: ENVENOM this needle, then STICK ME WITH NEEDLE to immunize yourself to the applied toxin at the start of the next month.

The Idol of False Presence: By focusing this strange Idol on any one room, you can later ADULATE IDOL and be transported to that room, once the Idol is appeased with power.


The main objection I could see to this approach is the solstice gnomes. And I'm dead serious about that.

I personally think this would be a waste of time and coding resources. The people who do what you complain about are the same people who would have no qualms about going to buying all of those. It'd also make these new abilities more accessible, since only few can actually become alchemists/enchanters, but what you propose is now let anyone buy them.

Also, right now you cannot choose to have both better sip and better sipping, since they both require actively having herbs/lorecraft. And, according to Lendren (unless I misunderstood something) it would also boost the Magic Tome if you skillflexed away from it, given that you can apparently not use the "scrolls" in it unless you're actually a bookbinder. I'm sure there are other examples as well.

You didn't even bother with Artisan, I noticed...

Like I said, just fleshing out the idea a bit, off the top of my head. In light of the info about herbs/Alchemy, I'll go ahead and remove those.

And I can't even think of an off-the-top-of-my-head idea for Prized. Most artifacts have to be on your person, so... :shrug:

EDIT: Removed the Kiakodan Hibiscus, Girdle of the Hamhadi, and Great Rune of the Spellthief; added the Idol of False Presence.

The artisan one's basically one quarter of a stasis gem, plus one eighth of a pyramid puzzle (since you only get one spot and you have very, very few choices about where it is, but it doesn't decay every month and you can reach it from farther away), so you hardly need it. (Then again, the tierstone's also somewhat similar to the scrying stone artifact plus the scrying mirror artifact.)

Sadly with the new forget temp ability there is no reason to even bother with this topic is there?

The only time I worry about this sort of thing is stuff like trans poisons + splendours/masterwork plate. The fewer of those sorts of things we have running around, the better.

It was skillflex that started the topic, really.

Well, yes and no.

I'd heard of forgetting a trans trade skill and keeping the item before the Skillflex thread was posted, but prior to that, it didn't occur to me that players might be able to assemble an arsenal of trans trade items in this way, nor that they could dunk said items in storerooms to curtail their decay. (Part of the reason for this is that those activities seemed remarkably exploitative on the surface, and so it's not a line of thinking I'd easily segue into.)

Some comment posted in the Skillflex thread caused the seed of curiosity to sprout into a full-fledged question, so I asked it in Simple Questions, and the rest is recent history.

I still don't think it's a good idea, in principle, to allow the collective trade skills in this game to be used as a piñata for accruing bonus goodies. I suspect that, like me, not a few new players have balked at the concept, since they have not had 2-6 years to become accustomed to it as most of the other active participants in this discussion have.

However, the issue has now been (by all parties, myself included) discussed, re-discussed, argued, hammered, flamed, over-exaggerated, and stretched to the point where I don't give a damn anymore, nor am I upset or disgruntled.

I consider it a satisfactory conclusion to a very awkward and unnecessarily tense line of discussion.

You're welcome!
I agree with this, more or less. Mind you, I think you underestimate the number of players who would be willing to be sub-optimal in order to benefit their team, or just to be different.
I agree that this would streamline the system we effectively have now, and would prefer this to the current swapping around.
Certainly, I don't think anyone wants IRE to lose revenue. If we allow them to be activateable more often, though, perhaps we might just allow multiple trades to be active at once?
I think you misunderstood Felicia's proposal. The idea isn't to suppress the practice, it's to streamline and legitimise it. Also, she did say: "...however, perhaps the same guild- and specialization-based restrictions on items like the Philosopher's Stone would still apply".