No Drains in Poison Crafting!!!

Dreddnawt

DRAINS ARE THE MAJOR PROBLEM WITH POISONS AS THEY ARE NOW.

Currently we have all these USELESS Alchemy reagents with negative traits (Emetic, Imp, Luminous, Nirnroot, Stink, Violet...) that have almost no value in the game. So many players have been waiting for this Poison Crafting release to make these items viable as assets in Tamriel.

And now you give us Drain Poisons that steal attributes and therefore make the Positive Reagents, once again, the only truly useful materials. So what will happen is a massive spike to prices of the already over-priced items and the total uselessness of half the reagents in the game. So then we have to ask, "Why were the negative trait items ever added in the first place?" These are pretty much just vendor trash that inconveniently occupy resource nodes that could and should be giving us something usable. Kind of like slap-in-the-face items just to irritate farmers.

Alchemy is the only craft with truly useless materials applied to it. Whats more, nearly HALF the Reagents available in game are worthless. I really do like the addition of the new reagents to further expand our pool of combinations and effects, but again most of those having negative traits make them a total waste when compared to the boon and bane of using the "big 9" ingredients that have always been the best. No matter how fancy the new items are, they just cant hope to beat the Bugloss + Columbine + Mountain Flower trifecta.

On the common sense side, lets forget for a minute this is a fantasy game in a magical pretend land where reason and physics have no place:
Why would a weapon applied poison have any effect on the wielder? If I tip my arrow with a burning neurotoxin to injure and immobilize my target, how will shooting that person make me run faster or become immune to fire? It makes no sense at all.

Positive Reagent Traits should be used primarily for Potions.
We can already make potions with both positive and negative effects, but as rational thinking players we only really use potions with purely beneficial properties. This gives value to the Reagents with Positive Traits.

***Negative Reagent Traits should be used primarily for Poisons.***
Poisons too should have the capability to be crafted as either positive or negative in nature, though of course sane thinking reason would dictate we only really find use from those poisons with negative traits. This gives value to the Reagents with Negative Traits.

The result of such would be that all Alchemy reagent combinations would be universal and the choice between Water or Oil would dictate whether the crafted result is to be drank as a potion or applied to weapons as a poison. This would not only simplify the Alchemy process greatly overall, but would be the only way for it to be completely balanced and make any reasonable sense whatsoever.

@ZOS_GinaBruno
Seriously, my dear:
If you want to fix the balance and "overpowered" issues, ZOS needs to remove the drain effects and limit all poison effects to single target just like potions are limited to the drinker.

This will finally make Negative Alchemy Reagents materials useful, poisons effects will follow some kind of reasonable application as they should, potions and poisons will balance each other completely, and it will fix 90% of the complaints about poisons being "overpowered."

Also, the useless HALF of alchemy materials will be super grateful to you.

susmitds

The whole list of poisons and the associated effects need a remake.

staracino_ESO

Yes, please. If you've spent any time in the official poison-making feedback thread, you would see that I have the same sentiments as you.
Most importantly, launching poison making traits in this state will NOT be 'getting it right.' The current system with its multitude of drains feels very alien in the Elder Scrolls universe. There is not much more that I can say that would not just be echoing the OP.

Yolokin_Swagonborn

Agree completely. There is already too much talk in all of my guild store chats about price speculation. There are people already buying up reagents and manipulating prices that are going to try to make this miserable for all of us. Some alchemy ingredients are already too expensive as it is. I like the suggestions in this thread.

Enodoc

Agreed completely as well. Positive effects should be useless for poisons, just like negative effects are useless for potions.

Kendaric

I agree completely.

Lava_Croft

I didn't even bother trying to understand the logic behind ZOS' implementation of poison reagants.

Yolokin_Swagonborn

Lava_Croft wrote: »

I didn't even bother trying to understand the logic behind ZOS' implementation of poison reagants.

Are the new alchemy ingredients only found on the gold coast in the new DLC? Because that usually explains a lot of what they do.

Solariken

I agree with the OP. The current poison crafting system is wonky, unthoughtful design.

Poison should be exploitative and for debuff only. It's ridiculous that the user also can be buffed.

They should make poison crafting the inverse of potions - you use oil and combine the NEGATIVE effects listed on reagents.

Neoauspex

100% agree.

Gottbeard

Why not just remove negative aspects of the ingredients and replace them with only positive effects. Then let the oil make it negative and the water make it positive. Like enchanting.

kryptonpink

Couldn't agree more. Would be nice of ZOS to listen. Doubt it. But couldn't have been put any better. AGREE 100% OP!

Enodoc

I've posted a list of what positive trait poisons should look like in the official feedback thread. No drains in sight:

Enodoc wrote: »

The general purpose of a potion is to apply a beneficial effect to you. The general purpose of a poison is to apply a detrimental effect to your target. "Bad" potions, made of negative traits, apply a detrimental effect to you, so poisons made of positive traits should also be "bad", and based on how poisons work, a bad thing would be to apply a beneficial effect to your target.

I was having a look through the list by BenevolentBowd (http://benevolentbowd.ca/esotu/esotu-poison-making-for-the-savvy-assassin/) and comparing with my lists above of negative potion effects. Here is a list of what poisons made from positive traits should look like:

Increase Armor
Applies Minor Resolve to your target, increasing their Armor by 990 for 4 seconds, 10 second cooldown.

Increase Spell Power
Applies Minor Sorcery to your target, increasing their Spell Power by 5% for 4 seconds, 10 second cooldown.

Increase Spell Resist
Applies Minor Ward to your target, increasing their Spell Resistance by 990 for 4 seconds, 10 second cooldown.

Increase Weapon Power
Applies Minor Brutality to your target, increasing their Weapon Power by 5% for 4 seconds, 10 second cooldown.

Protection
Applies Minor Protection to your target, reducing their damage taken by 8% for 4 seconds, 10 second cooldown.

Restore Health
Restores 1266 Health to your target per second for 4 seconds, 10 second cooldown.

Restore Magicka
Applies Minor Intellect to your target, increasing their Magicka Recovery by 10% for 4 seconds, 10 second cooldown.

Restore Stamina
Applies Minor Endurance to your target, increasing their Health Recovery by 10% for 4 seconds, 10 second cooldown.

Speed
Applies Minor Expedition to your target, increasing their Movement Speed by 10% for 4 seconds, 10 second cooldown.

Spell Crit
Applies Minor Prophecy to your target, increasing their Spell Critical by 657 for 4 seconds, 10 second cooldown.

Sustained Restore Health
Restores 822 Health per second to your target for 6.7 seconds, 10 second cooldown.

Unstoppable
Renders your target immune to control effects for 4 seconds, 10 second cooldown.

Vitality
Applies Minor Vitality to your target, increasing their healing taken by 8% for 4 seconds, 10 second cooldown.

Weapon Crit
Applies Minor Savagery to your target, increasing their Weapon Critical by 657 for 4 seconds, 10 second cooldown.


These would then all do what you would expect them to do; the opposite of their respective negative traits, which are all unfavourable effects, just as negative potions are unfavourable. All the effects are minor, and the duration is short, so that should reduce any issues that may arise when buffing your enemy (which is essentially what you're doing). The duration itself is exactly 2/3 of the comparative "short" or "long" duration of a useful poison. The cooldown is kept at 10 seconds so that all poisons have a standard cooldown period.

Dreddnawt

Reading the official PTS Poison feedback thread it is clear the main complaint is specifically the Drains themselves. Currently on PTS they debuff HP, Mag, Stam, Armor, Spell Pow, Regen, Etc to the target AND grant Buffs to the caster. End result is basically a 200% discrepancy between poison user and poison victim. This will pretty much break PvP and make PvE an incredible joke. And though i dont personally agree, it also reopens the whole "Pay to Win" complaint many have been ranting about since TU, considering poisons will be purchasable through crown store.

To put it in perspective, we all use Food buffs and potions that can grant us up to 15-25%ish more of our resources but a single hit of tri-stat poison can debuff you by 30% of your effective Health, Magicka, and Stamina. The Health drain alone can inflict 1500-2000 poison damage per tick while restoring up to twice that amount to the user. The target has basically suffered the loss of their food buff increase and any potion they may be able to drink to counter the poison effects is also negated. So your 20k Life pool is now more like 13k and you cant effectively defend yourself or retaliate because your resources are drained and everything costs more to use - that is assuming you havent already been one shot. At the same time the poison user gets full benefit from Food, Potions, and now a double up on resources from the poison for 10 seconds.

ZOS implementing this as "Positive Traits yield positive and negative effects" is unbalanced in regards to Food/drink buffs, potion effects, reagent traits, and material usefulness. It also causes a horrible imbalance to the Alchemy skill itself as positive trait reagents can be used for positive potions and both positive/negative poisons while negative trait reagents are completely worthless as they create negative potions and merely negative poisons.

Regular poisons, which debuff the effected target, should use negative traits which cause negative effects to a single target. In that case poisons will be effective in combat to counteract food and potion buffs but not be so overpowered as to tip the scales out of balance. Also there is the common sense issue as stated in my post above: In what universe does poisoning another increase your abilities? This has never been the case in TES games, certainly.

Minno

Dreddnawt wrote: »

Reading the official PTS Poison feedback thread it is clear the main complaint is specifically the Drains themselves. Currently on PTS they debuff HP, Mag, Stam, Armor, Spell Pow, Regen, Etc to the target AND grant Buffs to the caster. End result is basically a 200% discrepancy between poison user and poison victim. This will pretty much break PvP and make PvE an incredible joke. And though i dont personally agree, it also reopens the whole "Pay to Win" complaint many have been ranting about since TU, considering poisons will be purchasable through crown store.

To put it in perspective, we all use Food buffs and potions that can grant us up to 15-25%ish more of our resources but a single hit of tri-stat poison can debuff you by 30% of your effective Health, Magicka, and Stamina. The Health drain alone can inflict 1500-2000 poison damage per tick while restoring up to twice that amount to the user. The target has basically suffered the loss of their food buff increase and any potion they may be able to drink to counter the poison effects is also negated. So your 20k Life pool is now more like 13k and you cant effectively defend yourself or retaliate because your resources are drained and everything costs more to use - that is assuming you havent already been one shot. At the same time the poison user gets full benefit from Food, Potions, and now a double up on resources from the poison for 10 seconds.

ZOS implementing this as "Positive Traits yield positive and negative effects" is unbalanced in regards to Food/drink buffs, potion effects, reagent traits, and material usefulness. It also causes a horrible imbalance to the Alchemy skill itself as positive trait reagents can be used for positive potions and both positive/negative poisons while negative trait reagents are completely worthless as they create negative potions and merely negative poisons.

Regular poisons, which debuff the effected target, should use negative traits which cause negative effects to a single target. In that case poisons will be effective in combat to counteract food and potion buffs but not be so overpowered as to tip the scales out of balance. Also there is the common sense issue as stated in my post above: In what universe does poisoning another increase your abilities? This has never been the case in TES games, certainly.

If looking for a reason to keep the buffs, an oil can be applied to a slot dedicated to enhancing the 7 armor slots similar to how the weapon poison works.

This way you can separate the buffs from the poison, stimulate another build craft requirement, and not have a ranged staff attack give you rediculous major expedition.

Both armor oil and weapon poison will have negative effects. But oils/poisons should have a risk/reward mechanic to give a reason to use a negative effect material.

Dromede

I also agree that there's a hige difference in pricedue to effects imbalance, but to call some reagents trash - that's an overstatement. PC NA - cheapest flowers/shrooms are at 15-20 gold a piece, and that's excellent for beginner alchemists. You can buy a stack of cheap mats, some water and level up to 50 for relatively low cost. Also, selling alchemy levelling bundles is pretty profitable since noone bothers to break down cost to see if what is charged is fair enough.

The price of all reagents will go up as soon as DB hits live - might as well make the most out of it i think.

staracino_ESO

Hopefully the dilution they intend to add completely wrecks these drains as far as potency goes... that's all I can say.

baratron

I agree with all of the OP except for the "seriously, my dear" aimed at Gina, which sounds patronising and/or sexist. Remember that she's the community manager, not a dev - I'm sure a lot of things in game might be different if the community managers were in charge .

Lava_Croft

Sorry to inform you, but there's nothing sexist about "my dear", my dear.

zuto40

if your xbox 1 na CoD all violet coprinus and white cap to zuto40 for 70 a piece

Denidil

The drains look pretty weak as of 2.4.2

Panth141

Denidil wrote: »

The drains look pretty weak as of 2.4.2

Agreed - as far as I could tell they have such a small duration that they seem useless against their 'pure' poison counterparts