Let's Talk About the New Extended Grinds

ThatNeonZebraAgain

I want to get other people's opinions on the new game mechanics and reward systems because honestly, this is the thing turning me off the most from IC and the corresponding update.

While it is understood that "grinds" of various kinds (exp, RNG, loot, etc) are a canonical feature of MMOs as they create value and give players things to work toward, many of the new systems in IC and the corresponding Update appear to be taking this to an extreme. So much so in fact, that it comes off as a superficial form of increasing game difficulty at best and a thinly veiled attempt to engineer inconvenience in order to encourage more players into the Crown Store at worst (not to mention the latter is something ZOS said they weren't going to do back when they announced the B2P switch).

So, I wanted to compile all the more intensive "grinds" both already in the game and that will come with IC/Update 2.1, put them all side by side to see what this means for players. What IC/2.1 brings are new layers within layers of grinds, especially in the always frustrating form of RNG. While virtually anything could be considered a "grind," for the sake of this thread lets focus on the reward systems or mechanics that variously combine significant time sinks, high repeatability of tedious tasks, and/or RNG, often without any kind of logical explanation, and which can have matching items sold in the Crown Store that affect their value/importance/effort to achieve in-game (e.g. exp potions and motifs).

Current Grinds:

• Undaunted monster sets -- Not just getting the helm and/or shoulder piece from two different sources (chests vs bosses), but also getting the armor type and trait that works best for you.
• Nirncrux -- Admittedly will be less valuable after the update, but still needed to make 9-trait sets. Harvested from nodes in Upper Craglorn, relatively easy to farm and accessible to everyone once VR is achieved.
• Perfect Roe -- RNG to catch a fish, bigger RNG to get Perfect Roe (currently around 0.5% chance per fillet I believe)
• Champion Points
• Assault/Support Skill Lines -- Great for one character, but often tedious on another.

New Grinds:

• Tel Var Stones -- Yet another new currency to the game (if we need a tab to keep track of our currencies, that means there are too many) used to purchase all the various new V15-16 crafting mats, new gear, and other odds and ends. Drop frequently from pretty much all mobs in IC (seems about 1-4 Stones per basic mob or small group of mobs), along with higher returns from bosses, chests, etc; Stones can of course be lost and gained from player kills! At the TV vendor merchants, basic mats range in price from 80 Stones, while more specialty items and mystery boxes range from 500-800 Stones. Blue V15 armor goes for 1k Stones and purple V15 armor goes for 10k.
  
• Trophy Vaults -- Each vault appears to have its own "currency" required to open chests, and you need at least 60 of said "currency" to open them. 6 different vaults with 6 different "currencies" where you need 100 60 25 60 of each to open them means you will have to have collected 150 total purple-tier items by the time you can open each Vault once. The drop rate for these is much lower than TV Stones (I've only found 4 total, for 3 different vaults). Once you get in the vault, you are greeted by a RNG chest which should most often yield a piece of the new 3-piece sets (blue quality) with random traits. There are additional Trophy Vaults in the new 4-man dungeons that require 150 thinga-majigs to open, with the same kind of RNG chest as a "reward."
  
• Glass motif -- Fragments/Pages and Malachite/Shards. There are 10 Fragments for each Page that grants knowledge of a gear piece (same as Dwemer motif), and there are 15 Pages. This means you must collect 150 Fragments to completely learn the style; moreover, Fragments can be traded, but Pages cannot. To create a Page from the Fragments, you have to buy a special mat for 25k for each page, meaning it will cost 375k gold to learn the entire set. Malachite is required to craft it, but first it must be created from Malachite Shards! The Shards drop from treasure chests, with a higher rate from chests from Treasure Maps. You need 10 shards to create 1 Malachite.
  
• V16 crafting mats -- 10 times more mats needed for V16 compared to V15.
  
• Additional random-traited (and possibly armor type/slot) set items, including new monster sets -- Same critiques of this system that have been around ever since the first Undaunted monster sets were released.

It is important to note that players are not against challenging or rare items, and do not simply "want things handed to them" like people seem to always say. @Contraptions summarized this whole turn in IC/2.1 very well, so I'll quote him/her here:

Contraptions wrote: »

I fully understand the desire to "earn" your gear through gameplay, but there is a fine line between "challenging"/"tedious" and "earning"/"grinding". IMO the current system is too much of a grind, and I'm going to explain why with reference to another systems they implemented: The Dwemer motif. I never complained when the first one came out, and here's why:

The Dwemer motif came in 15 chapters, with the chance of finding the whole book if you were lucky. As a player I only needed to beat the RNG 15 times minimum, and the number of "tries" at the RNG is limited by how much time I want to spend opening urns. I am in relatively good control how fast or slow I get the Dwemer motif.

Not so for Glass. I am limited off the bat by the number of writs I can do a day, and thus the number of "tries" (24 max assuming you have all 8 chars maxed). After the initial layer of RNG when opening writ boxes, there is another layer of RNG and cost (Resin) just to assemble the fragments into one chapter. So if I want to get the full motif, assuming there are 15 chapters, I need to beat the first RNG 150 times, beat the second one 15 times, and pay for 15 Resins (25000 * 15 = 375000 gold) as well. Why the huge disparity between the two? Aren't they both cosmetic? And this isn't even counting the third layer of RNG involved when getting the Malachite fragments. The amount of luck and time involved in getting even one piece of Glass armour compared to Dwemer is so large, with no good reason for it. If you're the kind of player who likes these kinds of luck-based systems, good for you. But I personally find them boring. I don't have the hard numbers for drop rates yet, but if we use Dwemer chapter rates for the Glass fragments, it could be a very long time before the average player even gets to see a single piece of Glass gear. I also heard rumours that full Malachite pieces and the full Glass Motif may be sold in the Crown store (how convenient), so yeah. I know nothing is final yet, but this isn't looking good to me now.

I can't comment on the Xivkyn and Shriven Chests much, since I haven't paid much attention to it yet, but in game I think you have to gather 60 Aether Fragments (RNG layer one) or whatever that only drops occasionally from the roaming IC bosses for a chance at opening the chests (RNG layer two). Again, layers upon layers of RNG, but at least this one can be actively "farmed" to an extent.

Lastly, about the new V15 vs V16 gear, I think having to put in 10X the effort for so little benefit is silly, but it appeals to hardcore farmers/ minmaxers. I for sure won't bother with it, on the off chance that all my effort could be wasted with yet another level cap increase when Orsinium comes out. Oh well.

EDIT FOR UPDATE 2.1.1

Relevant info from patch notes:

• Patrolling Horrors within the Districts will now always drop a Treasure Vault trophy.
• Deconstructing VR15 and VR16 weapons and armor will now always provide one associated refined material instead of just having a chance to do so.
• Significantly increased the drop rate of Treasure Vault door key fragments from monsters.The bosses in White-Gold Tower and Imperial City Prison will drop more of their dungeon's Treasure Vault door key fragments.
• Sigils of Imperial Retreat now cost 10,000 AP instead of costing Tel Var Stones.
• Greatly reduced the commonality of Xivkyn-style equipment from monster drops in the Imperial City and its dungeons.
• Greatly increased the amount of Tel Var Stones found in treasure chests in Imperial City.

ThatNeonZebraAgain

Anyone?

xaraan

Well, I like that they have made it necessary to work for high end stuff. I have two thoughts on this.

1. I worry about the idea that the first generation of players will work their butts off and accomplish something (like getting high champion points) and then the next generation or two will have it given to them in an easier fashion to allow them to catch up (ala, the talk about making it easier to gain champion points up to 300 or something). When a big change has to happen here or there, you can overlook it, but when it continues, you start to feel like you've wasted a lot of time and energy put into something and truthfully can feel a bit insulted by it.

2. I think the new grinds added (glass motif, number of trophies, how many mats to make v16, etc.) are too high. They should be high, but not as high as they are. If they are going to change it, do it now so it's fair to all players, not in a couple months to allow others to 'catch up'.

Dagoth_Rac

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

[*] Glass motif -- Fragments/Pages and Malachite/Shards. There are 10 Fragments for each Page that grants knowledge of a gear piece (same as Dwemer motif), and there are 15 Pages. This means you must collect 150 Fragments to completely learn the style; moreover, Fragments can be traded, but Pages cannot. To create a Page from the Fragments, you have to buy a special mat for 25k for each page, meaning it will cost 375k gold to learn the entire set. Malachite is required to craft it, but first it must be created from Malachite Shards! The Shards drop from treasure chests, with a higher rate from chests from Treasure Maps. You need 10 shards to create 1 Malachite.

I am a little confused by this. Do the fragments correspond to a particular page? Like there are 10 "helmet fragments" that you combine with 1 Resin to create the "Helmet page"? Then you read the Helmet Page and can craft glass helmets? Or is it random? 10 generic glass "fragments" + 1 resin = random Glass page? And if that random page is one you already have, you cannot trade it with another player?

Denidil

I agree - the new grinds are excessive

djyrb

The main one I have an issue with is the Glass motif - it seems like an insanely huge RNG grind, and if you are lucky enough to get a fragment from a writ, you will be holding onto it for who knows how long. I can see a situation where you need a banking mule just to hold most of the fragments while you search for those last few matching fragments. I agree with what others have stated: it seems to be a slam dunk Crown Store purchase strategy - why wait for dumb luck and pay nearly $400k gold to craft your Glass gear when you can drop 5000 crowns or so?

As for Tel Var stones, I'm on the fence, along with the Daedric keys/shards, etc to get into the Vaults. I'm not clear how rare those Vault keys are. As for the Undaunted helms, yeah that RNG sucks (still looking for certain pieces myself), but we are used to it.

Overall, it feels like this DLC is kind of light on content when you really look at it - 4 dungeon crawls (2 x nonvet/vet) and a PVP-PVE grind zone with light questing, so maybe all this grind was added in to keep us busy until the Q4 update?

Rosveen

Is it confirmed that Glass motif pages can't be traded? The patch notes said that malachite can't be traded (shards can), but didn't mentioned anything about motif pages.

Rinmaethodain

There is no logic whatsoever behind making VR16 gear need 10 times more materials than VR15 to VR1

In addition to that ZOS is greatly nerfed decon rate of craft items from VR15 and VR16 gear. Players upon destroying 20 items can barely get single pieces of crafting material (and its always 1 at a time) while VR1 to VR14 can give up to 4 crafting material pieces at once.

There is barely any way to obtain VR15/VR16 decon gear beside IC.

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/201272/ridicolous-amount-of-materials-needed-for-vr15-and-vr16-sets/p1

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/201189/110-150-raw-materials-to-craft-one-vr16-item/p1

ThatNeonZebraAgain

xaraan wrote: »

Well, I like that they have made it necessary to work for high end stuff. I have two thoughts on this.

1. I worry about the idea that the first generation of players will work their butts off and accomplish something (like getting high champion points) and then the next generation or two will have it given to them in an easier fashion to allow them to catch up (ala, the talk about making it easier to gain champion points up to 300 or something). When a big change has to happen here or there, you can overlook it, but when it continues, you start to feel like you've wasted a lot of time and energy put into something and truthfully can feel a bit insulted by it.

2. I think the new grinds added (glass motif, number of trophies, how many mats to make v16, etc.) are too high. They should be high, but not as high as they are. If they are going to change it, do it now so it's fair to all players, not in a couple months to allow others to 'catch up'.

Good points.

About the first one: Looking back, there have been many examples of older players being undercut by new changes. I think not back-crediting Undaunted experience (even though they could have because it is all logged in various achievements) when they introduced the passives was the first big example of this. Not to mention, we will surely see some form of TV accelerator potion/scroll in the Crown Store, as well as other monetizations of these grinds. At this rate, it feels like each DLC (which they say they are trying to release on a quarterly schedule) will have its own new currencies, grinds, gear changes, etc that will both undermine what people have achieved and create even more daunting grind layers. In short, if this is the plan for structuring difficulty of new content, it's overwhelming (not in a good way).

ThatNeonZebraAgain

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

[*] Glass motif -- Fragments/Pages and Malachite/Shards. There are 10 Fragments for each Page that grants knowledge of a gear piece (same as Dwemer motif), and there are 15 Pages. This means you must collect 150 Fragments to completely learn the style; moreover, Fragments can be traded, but Pages cannot. To create a Page from the Fragments, you have to buy a special mat for 25k for each page, meaning it will cost 375k gold to learn the entire set. Malachite is required to craft it, but first it must be created from Malachite Shards! The Shards drop from treasure chests, with a higher rate from chests from Treasure Maps. You need 10 shards to create 1 Malachite.

I am a little confused by this. Do the fragments correspond to a particular page? Like there are 10 "helmet fragments" that you combine with 1 Resin to create the "Helmet page"? Then you read the Helmet Page and can craft glass helmets? Or is it random? 10 generic glass "fragments" + 1 resin = random Glass page? And if that random page is one you already have, you cannot trade it with another player?

Yea I'm not sure. I had assumed the fragments do correspond to a particular page (e.g. fragment 1 of daggers page) rather than generic fragments that could be combined to a specific page via resin, but yea, it could be an issue like you said.

ThatNeonZebraAgain

djyrb wrote: »

The main one I have an issue with is the Glass motif - it seems like an insanely huge RNG grind, and if you are lucky enough to get a fragment from a writ, you will be holding onto it for who knows how long. I can see a situation where you need a banking mule just to hold most of the fragments while you search for those last few matching fragments. I agree with what others have stated: it seems to be a slam dunk Crown Store purchase strategy - why wait for dumb luck and pay nearly $400k gold to craft your Glass gear when you can drop 5000 crowns or so?

As for Tel Var stones, I'm on the fence, along with the Daedric keys/shards, etc to get into the Vaults. I'm not clear how rare those Vault keys are. As for the Undaunted helms, yeah that RNG sucks (still looking for certain pieces myself), but we are used to it.

Overall, it feels like this DLC is kind of light on content when you really look at it - 4 dungeon crawls (2 x nonvet/vet) and a PVP-PVE grind zone with light questing, so maybe all this grind was added in to keep us busy until the Q4 update?

Completely agree. The accumulation of TV stones does come pretty naturally as you run around and have to kill stuff, and really won't take that long to get going by this data. And the Undaunted gear is something we are already familiar with, even though it is often a hassle. So individually they aren't that bad, but together it's just so much. Pretty much all the reward mechanics revolve around mindless grinding (which also serves to get people to gain exp towards CP and possibly use more exp potions/scrolls); like someone else said, it feels like a big Cracked Wood Cave just with new currency and loot.

ThatNeonZebraAgain

Rosveen wrote: »

Is it confirmed that Glass motif pages can't be traded? The patch notes said that malachite can't be traded (shards can), but didn't mentioned anything about motif pages.

I'm almost positive I read that in one of the dev comments around here, but now I can't find it!

JacksonCarter13

I don't see this thing coming out on the 31st. There seems to be a lot of balancing issues . But I would rather they take their time and get this thing balanced out and right

Docmandu

And just think of it... you get to do it ALL over again when Orsinium releases in 3 months!

Contraptions

I just realised Dwemer is in 14 chapters, so yeah 140 times instead of 150. Still not much better though.

Agree with OP ofc, hope they give us more info about this soon. The silence from them is rather disquieting.

Mawgusta

I've played religiously at crafting. In a way that I have all my alt slot chars with 50 cloth, blacksmithing, Enchanting and woodworking and points put into them so I can get all VR14 hireling loot.

This sure is a grind. That Im not doing. But, I'm going to pay the bad ass masochist who does a lot of gold for my VR16 sets. Is it gonna be you?

Nebthet78

The extended grind is a complete turn off for IC. So not going to buy it.. Won't even subscribe again until after Orsinium is released because of it.

I don't mind working for something, like having the motif pieces in chapters like the 14 Dwemer ones. But when you start talking about 140 pieces and then 25k to put one page together. Then no.. just no.

If they have to resort to using gimmicks like this to keep people playing their game, instead of adding actual meaningful content for everyone (No, IC is not PVE friendly!), then they should just start closing up shop now because they are already on the downhill roll to P2W. And while a motif in itsself is not P2W, if mats start showing up in the Crown store to create V16 armor as well as the new runestones etc, then it is.

A lot of console gamers will not put up with these type of mechanics for very long and they won't buy them from the Crown Store either, especially when the next shiny new game comes along.

Personofsecrets

Yea, this is a clear cash grab opportunity.

Additionally, if monster helms and other gear are going to continuously increase the level, then you have to keep beating the RNG for that bit of progression. I JUST got a helmet with the right trait/armor type that I was looking for tonight after regularly playing vet dungeons, and sometimes grinding them, since the undaunted was released. It will be under leveld soon. Cool stuff.

helediron

I wanted to see what i can get from the PvP zones as a crafter and mostly PvE player. Went soloing trough all the IC districts two hours. All three factions were at medium population. I used template nightblade and cloak to be able to move freely.

There is hardly anything to farm. I found about ten backpacks and six locked chests. Saw more chests but they were next to mob packs. I killed few lonely mobs and few lonely players. There are no runestones nor nodes so this area is just tv stone grind. While moving around i counted about ten groups between 4 and 12 size, but probably saw actually the same few multiple times. Found two crafting stations, Noble's Conquest set with five traits and Redistribution with seven. I must have missed one?

I got
- 2 tears (the new water) and one malachite fragment from backpacks.
- 400 tv stones, but this time i was avoiding mobs and scouting. Lost few because of two crashes.
- a dozen looted gear, one from vr14 Air set (from chest).
For a farming run that's very little. To actually get mats and gear, tv stone grind is the only option. With IC everybody have to provide all their own mats for crafting, just like nirns and dwemer frames before.

All i can see is zerging ahead - a rather boring prospect. Because there is no alternative I can think of continuing that few months until Orsinium comes, and then IC turns to ghost town. I think i'll spend most of the time farming dungeons and only do tv farming when necessary.

DDuke

The new grinds are actually the best thing in the patch. I know, sounds funny but...

Players have been requesting for end game progression, particularly itemization, to be made more meaningful and longer.

Currently on live, you hit maximum level and *poof* you've got yourself Best in Slot crafted gear and likely every BoE PvP gear piece you need as well (recently leveled up a DK alt, ended up with 500k gold in inventory & more crafting mats than I can count).


Well, that is no longer the case.

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

While it is understood that "grinds" of various kinds (exp, RNG, loot, etc) are a canonical feature of MMOs as they create value and give players things to work toward

You said it yourself, it's a canonical feature of MMOs and gives players goals to work towards. They may seem excessive to you, but to me they seem perhaps too easy even.

You have to find the right balance and provide these grinds for the different types of players playing the game, else you risk alienating a certain part of the player base.

This is why VR15 gear does not require as much effort as VR16 for instance, though...

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

Lastly, about the new V15 vs V16 gear, I think having to put in 10X the effort for so little benefit is silly, but it appeals to hardcore farmers/ minmaxers. I for sure won't bother with it, on the off chance that all my effort could be wasted with yet another level cap increase when Orsinium comes out. Oh well.

I do agree.

VR16 gear should give a bigger increase, as it currently doesn't really reward players much.
Every step in the gear progression should feel like a step forward, +1 stats doesn't really feel that way.

glavius

I like that you can get vr15 gear cheap and vr16 gear costs alot. Makes you able to compete relatively easy in pvp, but at the same time giving you a long term goal to work for. Perfect! :-)

Faulgor

I actually like that things are harder to get now.

However, in the case of style items - like new motifs and costumes / polymorphs - I'd like to be able to get all of them within the same "season", that means, before the next DLC rolls out. With their planned schedule, that should be around 3 months, which seems like a good timeframe to me to work for something rare. And once the new DLC comes out, you'll actually want to get it for the new styles, because you're not working on the last one anymore.

A rough calculation as an example, let's take the new glass motif. Because it's limited by daily crafting writs, it's easier to determin. I think it's resonable to assume that a dedicated crafter has 1 blacksmith, 1 clothier and 1 woodworker and can do writs with each of them every day. That would result in 3 boxes per day, and 270 over the course of the 3 month period. To get all 14 Glass motif pages, we'd need a droprate of slightly more than 50%.
That seems a bid silly for a rare item, so I'd rather see the required amount of fragments for a full page dropped from 10 to 3-5, and adjust the droprate accordingly so you can get fragments for all 14 pages out of ~270 boxes.

Menelaos

helediron wrote: »

There is hardly anything to farm. I found about ten backpacks and six locked chests. Saw more chests but they were next to mob packs. I killed few lonely mobs and few lonely players. There are no runestones nor nodes so this area is just tv stone grind.

Interesting, I made the same observation (in the same template ). There are no herbs, nott even water sources but obviously there are many, many containers and simple backpacks up for grabs.

Did you find any Heavy Bags in IC?

Lowenhigh

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

New Grinds:

• Tel Var Stones -- Yet another new currency to the game (if we need a tab to keep track of our currencies, that means there are too many) used to purchase all the various new V15-16 crafting mats, new gear, and other odds and ends. Drop frequently from pretty much all mobs in IC (seems about 1-4 Stones per basic mob or small group of mobs), along with higher returns from bosses, chests, etc; Stones can of course be lost and gained from player kills! At the TV vendor merchants, basic mats range in price from 80 Stones, while more specialty items and mystery boxes range from 500-800 Stones. Blue V15 armor goes for 1k Stones and purple V15 armor goes for 10k.

Good. I really don't want to see people running around in full TV Stone gear on week 1... You underestimate the ability of players to consume content. They're currently tweaking the rate at which players gather TV Stones, and I get the feeling that you're trying to show how horrible this grind is going to be so that you can just get your gear quickly. This is small minded, as there are many types of players to balance a system like this for.

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

• Trophy Vaults -- Each vault appears to have its own "currency" required to open chests, and you need at least 60 of said "currency" to open them. 6 different vaults with 6 different "currencies" where you need 60 of each to open them means you will have to have collected 1,200 by the time you can open each Vault once.

Your math is wrong -- 60 of each "currency" to open 6 different vaults is only 360 combined. You also get 3-6 of each "currency" per boss, which I saw while watching a Twitch stream of an IC dungeon. So, assuming 5 bosses per dungeon and 4 stones each on average, you're only looking at about 3 runs through a dungeon to get enough currency to open a treasure box.

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

]
• Glass motif -- Fragments/Pages and Malachite/Shards. There are 10 Fragments for each Page that grants knowledge of a gear piece (same as Dwemer motif), and there are 15 Pages. This means you must collect 150 Fragments to completely learn the style; moreover, Fragments can be traded, but Pages cannot. To create a Page from the Fragments, you have to buy a special mat for 25k for each page, meaning it will cost 375k gold to learn the entire set. Malachite is required to craft it, but first it must be created from Malachite Shards! The Shards drop from treasure chests, with a higher rate from chests from Treasure Maps. You need 10 shards to create 1 Malachite.

Master crafters need something to do. This isn't designed for all players -- If the glass armor looks awesome enough, I'd say ZOS would see a lot of sales in the crown store of this motif to avoid the grind. But they always release it on the crown store a month or two after ingame. If you remember, the XP potion had like 7 different parts that were all expensive, and I was seeing people advertising that for sale after like 2 days. Give people that love crafting a sense of achievement for doing something that few other people will be able to do, because that is what they love most about the game. There are tons of these types of people in the game. If that isn't you, then it's ok.

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

]
• V16 crafting mats -- 10 times more mats needed for V16 compared to V15.

Again, this is a good thing. If we only needed 16 cloth to make a v16 chest, we'd see all the new gear on day 1 or 2 after the grinders blasted their way to max rank. We're going to see lots of v15 gear, but the v16 should be a reward for people that want to min/max. V16 gear has been shown to be a tiny improvement over v15. With a full set of v16 gear, you're looking at about a 5% boost over v15 gear combined. This will give me a reason to actually disenchant stuff instead of vendor it, and it will give value to crafting materials for a long time! Better than having 200 of each matierial just sitting in the bank. Instead, this is actually a source of gold for PvP players that disenchant V15/16 gear to sell mats for gold, and provides some much needed gating behind gear!

All of this is my opinion, but I think it reflects a positive increase on all sides for the health of the game. Remember, the systems are good -- The numbers are still being tweaked with TV Stones (Which is the only problem that is really a thing for now), and I expect to see everyone at or near max level very occupied and happy with the game and these changes for the next 3 months until the next DLC is released.

Rinmaethodain

Lowenhigh wrote: »

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

New Grinds:

• Tel Var Stones -- Yet another new currency to the game (if we need a tab to keep track of our currencies, that means there are too many) used to purchase all the various new V15-16 crafting mats, new gear, and other odds and ends. Drop frequently from pretty much all mobs in IC (seems about 1-4 Stones per basic mob or small group of mobs), along with higher returns from bosses, chests, etc; Stones can of course be lost and gained from player kills! At the TV vendor merchants, basic mats range in price from 80 Stones, while more specialty items and mystery boxes range from 500-800 Stones. Blue V15 armor goes for 1k Stones and purple V15 armor goes for 10k.

Good. I really don't want to see people running around in full TV Stone gear on week 1... You underestimate the ability of players to consume content. They're currently tweaking the rate at which players gather TV Stones, and I get the feeling that you're trying to show how horrible this grind is going to be so that you can just get your gear quickly. This is small minded, as there are many types of players to balance a system like this for.

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

• Trophy Vaults -- Each vault appears to have its own "currency" required to open chests, and you need at least 60 of said "currency" to open them. 6 different vaults with 6 different "currencies" where you need 60 of each to open them means you will have to have collected 1,200 by the time you can open each Vault once.

Your math is wrong -- 60 of each "currency" to open 6 different vaults is only 360 combined. You also get 3-6 of each "currency" per boss, which I saw while watching a Twitch stream of an IC dungeon. So, assuming 5 bosses per dungeon and 4 stones each on average, you're only looking at about 3 runs through a dungeon to get enough currency to open a treasure box.

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

]
• Glass motif -- Fragments/Pages and Malachite/Shards. There are 10 Fragments for each Page that grants knowledge of a gear piece (same as Dwemer motif), and there are 15 Pages. This means you must collect 150 Fragments to completely learn the style; moreover, Fragments can be traded, but Pages cannot. To create a Page from the Fragments, you have to buy a special mat for 25k for each page, meaning it will cost 375k gold to learn the entire set. Malachite is required to craft it, but first it must be created from Malachite Shards! The Shards drop from treasure chests, with a higher rate from chests from Treasure Maps. You need 10 shards to create 1 Malachite.

Master crafters need something to do. This isn't designed for all players -- If the glass armor looks awesome enough, I'd say ZOS would see a lot of sales in the crown store of this motif to avoid the grind. But they always release it on the crown store a month or two after ingame. If you remember, the XP potion had like 7 different parts that were all expensive, and I was seeing people advertising that for sale after like 2 days. Give people that love crafting a sense of achievement for doing something that few other people will be able to do, because that is what they love most about the game. There are tons of these types of people in the game. If that isn't you, then it's ok.

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

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• V16 crafting mats -- 10 times more mats needed for V16 compared to V15.

Again, this is a good thing. If we only needed 16 cloth to make a v16 chest, we'd see all the new gear on day 1 or 2 after the grinders blasted their way to max rank. We're going to see lots of v15 gear, but the v16 should be a reward for people that want to min/max. V16 gear has been shown to be a tiny improvement over v15. With a full set of v16 gear, you're looking at about a 5% boost over v15 gear combined. This will give me a reason to actually disenchant stuff instead of vendor it, and it will give value to crafting materials for a long time! Better than having 200 of each matierial just sitting in the bank. Instead, this is actually a source of gold for PvP players that disenchant V15/16 gear to sell mats for gold, and provides some much needed gating behind gear!

All of this is my opinion, but I think it reflects a positive increase on all sides for the health of the game. Remember, the systems are good -- The numbers are still being tweaked with TV Stones (Which is the only problem that is really a thing for now), and I expect to see everyone at or near max level very occupied and happy with the game and these changes for the next 3 months until the next DLC is released.

Disagree

helediron

Menelaos wrote: »

helediron wrote: »

There is hardly anything to farm. I found about ten backpacks and six locked chests. Saw more chests but they were next to mob packs. I killed few lonely mobs and few lonely players. There are no runestones nor nodes so this area is just tv stone grind.

Interesting, I made the same observation (in the same template ). There are no herbs, nott even water sources but obviously there are many, many containers and simple backpacks up for grabs.

Did you find any Heavy Bags in IC?

No, didn't see any heavy sacks. I forgot to mention the containers. They seemed to have usual food stuff. after awhile i started to ignore them.

SeptimusDova

Define Value? Value for who? Is not value based on the perspective of the viewer/Participant. I like the game but I value my time more.By extending the time I must play the game to acquire items that have no tangible value to me. Or no payoff or fail to satisfy an Equilibrium then my value of playtime is depreciated. This is me speaking for me.

I pay a eso fee. I may buy the DLC or I may not. I may continue the sub I may not. The decisions on zenimax's part directly determines whether or not I will continue to financially support their company.As What I expect to get for my money is drastically(or marginally) different than most.

FloppyFrank

ESO is starting to turn more into work and less like a game

Paulhewhewria

FloppyFrank wrote: »

ESO is starting to turn more into work and less like a game

Hate to say it,but yeah this sums up my feels as well.

kogadrake

FloppyFrank wrote: »

ESO is starting to turn more into work and less like a game

What MMO when you try to compete at the top of the highest tier of content isnt like a job? it takes hours a day and you have to do many things in those hours that you wouldnt put on the top of your todo list if you had the choice.

so many people want this type of effort put in to have the top gear, to be honest the VR16 gear is EASY to get, it just takes time (10x the time of the vr15 to be exact). They could keep the main materials the same as before, and add something actually hard to get into the materials for making the VR16 version and make it hard to get (to the point most players cant get without buying the item), thats a real achievement and as much as I prefer this type of challenge, i'd hate to see the outcry over it if they went this path

Ezareth

I don't think there is anything wrong with a little grinding...