Scribing: Was it worth the effort?

MidniteOwl1913

No

So I have 10 toon, all at least somewhat different. I have tried the scribing on a couple, some things I like some I didn't. That used up a good chunk of my ink. Without enough ink it's impossible for me to know how good scribing is.

I have found one really good skill so far for one of my toons. But that's not really enough for me to judge.

To find the ink I must grind. I've been doing that 1-2 hours a day. I usually get 1-2 inks per hour depending on the plentiful harvest. I'm really getting tired of the grind and have put scribing on hold. Chasing the focus scripts isn't so bad that's where I'm at right now.

Joy_Division

Yes

Yes.

A 4-5 hour questline is not a Herculean effort.

shadyjane62

No

Not worth the time, the effort or the price of admission.

Gold Road is an expensive mistake I made.

Vonnegut2506

Yes

I really enjoy multiple scribing skills, and the quest to open everything up isn't very long.

TaSheen

No

Love the questline. Not really interested in scribing skills or skill styles - I have things set up the way I want them on my alts, and for the way I play, I don't really see anything that's going to improve anything for me.

I would truly love this sort of questline to be more available in future content. I'm aware others don't have any use for it.... but y'know.... I also love the Psijic questline....

Kappachi

Yes

TaSheen wrote: »

Love the questline. Not really interested in scribing skills or skill styles - I have things set up the way I want them on my alts, and for the way I play, I don't really see anything that's going to improve anything for me.

I would truly love this sort of questline to be more available in future content. I'm aware others don't have any use for it.... but y'know.... I also love the Psijic questline....

Even with the august update giving like a flat buff to a lot of the scribing skills you wouldn't consider them? The skills so far have been incredibly useful for me, on my main even, couldn't imagine going back to non-spellcrafted skills.

EdjeSwift

No

TaSheen wrote: »

Love the questline. Not really interested in scribing skills or skill styles - I have things set up the way I want them on my alts, and for the way I play, I don't really see anything that's going to improve anything for me.

I would truly love this sort of questline to be more available in future content. I'm aware others don't have any use for it.... but y'know.... I also love the Psijic questline....

I echo this sentiment. Four days ago I had use for some scribing skills to plug holes in my builds but the changes in U43 made those skills moot so I'm in the same boat of all that work for nothing significant to my playstyle.

TaSheen

No

Kappachi wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

Love the questline. Not really interested in scribing skills or skill styles - I have things set up the way I want them on my alts, and for the way I play, I don't really see anything that's going to improve anything for me.

I would truly love this sort of questline to be more available in future content. I'm aware others don't have any use for it.... but y'know.... I also love the Psijic questline....

Even with the august update giving like a flat buff to a lot of the scribing skills you wouldn't consider them? The skills so far have been incredibly useful for me, on my main even, couldn't imagine going back to non-spellcrafted skills.

That I don't know about. I'll find out eventually - I don't have the data available to download/update PTS repeatedly. And besides, even if I did.... I prefer being surprised.

In any case, the only problematic characters I have are the classes I just don't really like - nightblade and dragonknight. Eventually I will get rid of those few I still have....

Casdha

Yes

They may not be the strongest skills in the game but it is nice to be able to slot something that suits your needs such as a shield throw that uses magicka on a stamina character and putting on magicka steal to reduce the overall cost or an arrow skill with a health steal for a guaranteed distanced self heal when all of my shields come from close combat and I'm having to kite, like in The Rink of the Frozen Blood round.

KaosWarMonk

Yes

DenverRalphy wrote: »

I don't know why people insist that you need stacks of Ink for Scribing.

I'm perhaps one of "the lucky" as I've looted arund 60 just casually playing on PSNA. I love scribing. But here's the kicker... I've only spent a whopping 12 Ink so far.

I just learned all the scripts, toyed with various scripts for each skill I was interested in before settling on one I liked, and then Scribed it to memory. I didn't find any need to scribe every possible combination to take out and play with before settling on one. Scribing is working great for me without the need for stacks of Ink. The system is not so complicated that the average player can't figure it out.

This basically says what I was going to say. I will add that comments I've read in other threads lead me to suggest that people feeling disappointed with scribing need to temper their expectations. It's been implemented as a compliment to the existing skill system, it's not there to supersede it with vastly more powerful abilities. This is a good thing. If scribing was creating more powerful skills, every meta chasing player would be all over it and the complaints would be all the more strident.

DoofusMax

Yes

I really dislike these "is it worth it?" kinds of questions because "worth" depends on unstated criteria, which often generates a lot of heat, but little light.

I think the scribed abilities are interesting and I've been generally having a good time collecting scripts, scraps, and whatnot. I'll probably start grumbling once everyone has all scripts and grimoires because there are few practical uses for duplicates (some gold from a vendor, maybe? It's what I do with duplicate green/blue Provisioning recipes).

The Scholarium quest line had an interesting story, but was far too grindy: go to x locations to find y keys to open z-door so you can pick up a list of x-things more to do to gain approval to unlock one piece of the altar in order to repeat the process a few more times (ta-da! Now go grind those scripts and inks!). This was not an exceptionally creative way to tell the story, really struck me as grind for the sake of grind, and I worry a bit if this was the best that someone could come up with during a year-ish of planning and development.

The scribed abilities themselves are kind of fun. I don't see them being pillars upon which I'm going to center a build, but they're fun to play with.

Would I buy the scribing system if it were offered on its own? No. Far too little reward for the effort. Am I particularly upset by it? No. It really only needs to be done once if you're willing to forgo the single skill point and can be mostly bypassed with gold outside of that. On the whole, it's not something I'd go out of my way to do more than once, but it's still OK.

Theignson

No

So far the scribed skills are mostly lackluster and don't necessarily outperform existing skills.

For example, instead of camo hunter on my arcanist (ehich gives major prophcy , that arcanists dont have, and also gives NB detection and minor berserk), I tired to traveling knife, with a pull. It does a little damage and gives major prophecy plus one other buff.

The problem is the major prophecy is only 10 seconds and the skill cost is too high to spam it. Camo hunter gives permanent major prophecy just for equipping.

The other problem is the skill only reaches 15m (cf the dual wield knife skill that goes 22m and gives major brutality ) and the pull is usually resisted. Plus the animation is a clunky form of the spin to win skill.

These sort of defects are true for most of the skills.

Some badly needed buffs are only available on terrible grimoires that otherwise are useless.

Some of the skills have cast times that make them useless.

So far, at least in PvP , I am not using any of the skills regularly.

On top of all this I've killed thousand of trash mobs and looked in at least 1000 pots/containers, forgaed for a couple hours and only got 1 ink.

I suspect there is something driving ink success that I haven't figured out

Despite all this I like the concept of scribing

Hapexamendios

I haven't delved into it very much yet aside from doing the quest line.

moderatelyfatman

No

I determine if something is worth it by asking myself: would I do it again?

The scribing line had a great story behind the grind but it will be a while before I revisit that.

The new colours on skills are nice and do provide some cosmetic improvements without having to go to the Crown Store and pay.

The new scribing skills are generally lacklustre in PvE unless your class happens to lack that particular buff e.g. non DK tanks and a magicka based chain. I dislike the scribing in PvP because it hasn't been balanced.

And yes, the ink situation is ridiculous: what's the point of having over 4000 different combination of skills when you don't even have enough ink to scribe a single version of each skill.

Overall, I'd say isn't really worth it from a game mechanics perspective but there is a lot of potential for the future.

sleepy_worm

Yes

I'm only using the destro staff grimoire for now, but just that one skill I've made is a ton of fun to use in non-serious content. I'm also grinding out scripts for my 19 alts and that's a bit of an undertaking, but the system honestly worked out better than I feared it would.

Ink is not really holding me back right now, but I feel for people who are getting bottlenecked by this resource. Hopefully, that problem fades with time.

Kallykat

Yes

I don't really pay much attention to combat and builds, so it's really just about the story, characters, and quests for me, and I enjoyed them. I haven't played around with creating skills yet because of the low ink drops and because that kind of thing is just moderately interesting to me, but I will eventually. I'd still say it was worth it for me just to meet the Luminaries and Ulfsild and learn their lore.

katanagirl1

I haven’t done much with it yet myself, but it seems to be having a negative effect on my Cyrodiil PvP, getting pulled and exploded in so many different ways now.

*sigh*

Jaraal

Yes

katanagirl1 wrote: »

I haven’t done much with it yet myself, but it seems to be having a negative effect on my Cyrodiil PvP, getting pulled and exploded in so many different ways now.

*sigh*

Yeah it's become a laggy chain reaction of pulls and knockbacks that only worsens the already bad positional desynchs.

Ishtarknows

No

The buffs are nice, but the heals after the nerf are nearly pointless. <1k heal ticks Vs 3k of regen or vigour? (PvE)

Aelorin

I loves the quests, and I love the system in itself. Real nice that you can make your 'custom' spell.

Shortage of ink means that I can't play with it like I want too. I have so many combinations I want to try out, but I can't because of the ink shortage.

I refuse to buy ink.

There is a room with dummies in the Scholarium: My advice is to make it so that you can mix and match as much as you want in the scholarium and test your scribed skills. Only after you leave the Scholarium, your ink is used, and the scribed skill is set in stone. That should be doable I think.

bmnoble

Yes

Be better without the bottlenecks of the low ink drop rate and having to learn the focus, signature, affix scripts on each character.

Would have also been nice to have more freedom with the combinations of the focus, signature and affix scripts for each skill.

As it is I am making a point to learn it on one of each class, in case future additions make it more interesting at most I find it useful to give different classes stuff lacking in their current skill options.

Sarannah

Yes

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

scribing is perfectly useable without learning all 66 scripts on every character (theres 21 focus, 20 signature, and 26 affix), however if your after a specific combo it will take some time farming

No, it's not fine for alts. The reason for this is: When I check what I can scribe on one character, and it looks like it might instead work on another, I should be able to log in that character and scribe it. Without first having to farm for a week+, wasting my playtime. There is absolutely no reason this main game system should be locked behind months of farming dumb dailies! (Note: This farming has to be repeated every time ZOS releases new scripts. It's just wrong!)

For those having issues with ink drops, try not to farm for them. If you farm for them, you will wear yourself out and log off. Whereas I do not care about ink drops, and just keep questing. Have 100% completed two and a half zones this week, and ink drops plenty. Sometimes a more relaxed approach works better, as you can keep going for longer.

Aurielle

Yes

I love the skills I’ve scribed on my main (Templar). They’ve totally improved my PVP experience on that character.

I just wish ink wasn’t so rare or RNG-gated, so I could figure out some good skill/set combos for my alts as well. Still just barely sitting above 50 ink on the achievement.

Aurielle

Yes

Kappachi wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Kappachi wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

i like scribing, and the idea of scribing, but bottlenecking the entire system behind the ink grind was not a good move personally

im not really sure how to answer the poll, or what the poll is asking lol

I like this part too, fuels the economy at least for a while. I hope ink never drops to super low prices, always being at least 10k+ on PCNA. I love being rewarded for just playing the game, + if you ever just need ink you can sell a motif and get a bunch for instance.

my problem is i dont get ink, in the last 8 days ive gotten 2 ink drops

buying ink does not increment the achievements, and ive such a lack of ink selling is not really an option (not to mention the price is still stabilizing)

you have to not be hunting it... i can often find like 40 in a day just playing regularly. when you do dungeons/trials slay all the mobs, don't skip mobs... means doing optional bosses in things like fungal grotto too. I have so much ink that I profit massively every single day since launch of expac. I check every container, harvest every node and kill every mob I come across.

You guys neeeeeed to remember that RNG luck is not the same for everyone in this game before suggesting we’re doing something wrong. I’ve asked ZOS for some clarification on whether or not static character or account IDs are used in the RNG calculations, and have yet to hear anything. I doubt they’ll ever reveal that info. One way or another, some people tend to have much better luck with ink RNG than others. I actively hunt for ink almost every time I play (it’s usually what I do when I’m in the queue for Cyrodiil), but have only acquired 53 ink since GR launch, which includes the 12 I got from the quest.

Orbital78

Yes

Simple way to fill out gaps in your builds or just straight up enhance them. I am interested to see what the next patch adjusts in full release. Major Protection will be nice for my non-Templar characters. I only wish I hadn't wasted archival fortunes on the scripts at launch but oh well. The scripts are much easier to fill in than I expected. I went ahead and started to fill in my supports and other alts gaps in buffs since inks are so common and cheap now on PC-NA. I have another vLC tomorrow, I am going to bring a different toon in the see how it does.

Aurielle

Yes

Orbital78 wrote: »

I only wish I hadn't wasted archival fortunes on the scripts at launch but oh well.

I’m mad at myself about this, too. 15k fortunes down the drain… I find IA so boring as well, so regaining those fortunes will be a pain.

Orbital78

Yes

I think I burned like 50k, but I don't mind it so much. If my RNG is good with those boss furnishing plans that is an easy 200-1mil. Some weeks I don't feel like going in and want to just get the missing style page, so I need to rebuild up a reserve. My arcanist can burn through arc 1 resets pretty darn fast, so not a big deal.

Ye_Olde_Crowe

Yes

I found those few short quests well worth the effort… just for the mount that came with the questline .
I have neither ‚read the manual‘ on scribing yet, nor have I scripted anything outside of the questline, but I find the skill customizations neat that came with the system, and - well, I mentioned this already - the mount.
So yes, I‘m fine with the effort.
Please note, however, that I generally just play with my main (who also did the scribing quests), and that I don’t use my other 14 characters for anything besides the occasional roleplay, or showing low-level RL friends around Tamriel.

divnyi

Yes

Yes, absolutely. A big influx of skills is one of the best things that happened to the game, because it shifts focus from proc sets to actions.

VouxeTheMinotaur

Yes

would be even better if I can stay logged in for more than 30-45 minutes at a time since the servers are garbage right now with rubberbanding and lag spikes. ongoing issue since may and no word on why

purchased a chapter in full and it's acting like a demo -___-