Comprehensive Provisioning Issues

Catches_the_Sun

There are many issues concerning Provisioning right now, so I thought I would try to make a comprehensive list here. Please, if I've missed anything, let me know & I'll add it.

1. Veteran Content Ingredients - People are currently starving to death in Veteran content. The reason for this is that the loot tables contain Tier 1 ingredients from whatever Alliance you're currently in instead of Tier 5 ingredients from your home Alliance. This means you will never find ingredients that you need for your Veteran levels. This is the #1 issue effecting Provisioners right now. Update 6/24/14: The base ingredients are updated (i.e. mudcrab meat, honey comb). Issues remain though with Tier 4 ingredients sharing this loot table (i.e. beef, shank). Also, Tier 5 & 6 "mixing" ingredients (i.e. Imperial Flour, Pinguis, etc) still don't drop. Instead, the mix ingredients are still dropping according to the 1-50 leveled zones instead of VR zones (i.e. Thin Broth & Drippings in VR6, Lard & Jus in VR5).
2. Coldharbour Ingredients - Because of the above issue, you have to go to places like Coldharbour or the highest level map from your home Alliance to find the Tier 5 ingredients that you need for level 50 food & drink. The issue is that these loot tables are shared with Tier 4 ingredients. Not only do you have to leave your Veteran content to farm T5 ingredients, but those ingredients compete with T4 in drops. (i.e. for Ebonheart, you're more likely to find Beef or Shank than Mudcrab Meat in Coldharbour & The Rift)
3. Recent loot changes - The recent changes that have been made to make Racial Motifs more rare are having an adverse effect on Provisioners. For one, we don't have as many containers to loot for ingredients & our recipes have become more rare.
4. Purple recipe drops (Lvl 50 & VR5) - Yes, I understand that purple recipe drops are supposed to be rare. Again, due to the above issue with Motifs, these are even more rare than they were before. I'm not sure if they're dropping at all right now. Not one person in our Guild has found one & people that I've spoken to that have them got them back in Early Access when Veteran rank recipes were dropping in beginner zones.
5. Recipe Inconsistencies - I think that recipe drops in general need to be looked at. I have every blue recipe & looted multiples of the ones that I have, with the exception being Tier 3 drinks. For some reason, I found 3 or 4 each of all blue foods (in EP) but not 1 single blue drink recipe for this tier. I never saw one for sale & continue to look for them without success. There are others that seem to be "missing", such as a couple of level 10 green recipes that should be as common as rain.
6. Two Different Jazbay Grapes - There are currently 2 different versions of Jazbay Grapes in the game. One of them is rare & is used as an upgrade component for purple recipes, while the other one is a common normal ingredient. One of these needs a name change. Issue Fixed in Content Patch 6/24 which added Piquant Jazbay Grapes as the rare version.
7. Usefulness of Drinks - By the time people get to Veteran content, most of them have softcapped whatever regeneration they're aiming for in their builds. This makes drinks pretty much useless at these levels. I don't think allowing stacking with food is the answer as that would mean everybody would run around with all 3 regen stats softcapped. My objective here is just to point out the imbalance though, not to push for a particular fix.
8. Fortified Mountain Lager Recipe - This recipe can not be learned by a Provisioner. You can click on it all day long, but nothing will happen. Issue Fixed in Craglorn Patch 5/22
9. Inaccurate Ingredient Descriptions - There are some food ingredients that state that they are drink ingredients & vice versa. Some examples of this are barley mash, wheat malt & carmalet grapes. Credit @Jeremy_Gelber_ESO for the discovery. Issue Fixed in Content Patch 6/24.
10. Fishy Sticks Recipe - Instead of this being a level 50 green food, as it should be, it shows up as a level 47 white food when you attempt to cook it. The value shows as 288 stamina, whereas the lower tier level 45 Grilled Shank provides 306 stamina. I cooked them just to test if it came out white or green, & they came out as white level 47 food.
11. Ingredient Drops According to Race instead of Home Alliance - This is a new issue as far as I can tell. I am now playing a Redguard alt as a member of the Ebonheart Pact. He started out getting Ebonheart Pact ingredients (i.e. goat meat, kwama eggs, etc), then for some reason it changed. He now gets ingredients that would normally drop from Daggerfall Covenant zones (i.e. battaglir weeds, iron peat, capon meat, etc). I haven't looted a recipe since it changed, but he was getting Ebonheart Pact recipes previously.
12. No True End-Game Recipes - This probably applies to Alchemy as well (but we don't care about those dress-wearin' shroom mixers) where our highest level foods & drinks cap out at VR5, while the level cap has already been raised to VR12. We would like to see additional recipes & ingredients added to account for that gap.
13. Inconsistent Drink Benefits - Currently all level 40 & 45 Blue drinks provide a +8 bonus to two stats, so there is no benefit in making the higher level drink. Level 50 provides +9 & VR5 provides +11. It should be +8 for level 40, +9 for level 45, +10 for level 50 & +11 for VR5. Credit @Mortosk for the discovery.

There are couple of things I intentionally left out that I see a lot of discussion around, so I'll address those here:

1. Oats & Tomatoes - These are rare by design & only obtainable by Provisioner Hireling 2 & 3. They are not supposed to be lootable in-game, confirmed by Zenimax.
2. Inventory Space - Again, the limited inventory space is by design. As a Provisioner, be careful what you wish for when asking for increased inventory space. If they make enough space for it to be easy for everybody to keep ingredients, you won't have anyone to sell to.

And a couple suggestions:

1. Make Fish Useful - This is obviously a popular idea on these Forums & seems like a no-brainer. Maybe Fish can be used to increase a base stat AND it's regen, making them provide different benefits than food & drink. For example, fish caught in swamps & foul waters can be used in recipes to increase stamina & stamina regen, fish caught in rivers & lakes can increase health & health regen & fish caught in the ocean can increase magicka & magicka regen. Zenimax could balance accordingly.
2. Recipes - I'd like to see some unique recipes with some different ways of obtaining them, such as quests, or talking to NPCs that you see in Tamriel that are chefs, brewers out in the world.
3. Descriptions on Ingredients & Foods - On ingredients that are specific to an Alliance, such as Beef = Ebonheart Pact, I would like to see that Alliance description on the actual ingredient. I would also like to see the Alliance description on the recipes & the final cooked product. White foods that you find in the world already have a description, such as Fishy Sticks say "An Aldmeri Imperial Food". It would also be helpful to add something to distinguish upgrade components, such as garlic & pepper from normal ingredients. Many people destroy luxurious items, such as "pepper" on a daily basis because only Provisioners understand their true value.

Edit: Added the Fortified Mountain Lager Recipe issue

Edit 5/14/2014: Added ingredient description inaccuracies & Fishy Sticks issue along with Descriptions suggestion.

Edit 5/22/2014: Fortified Mountain Lager Recipe can now be learned.

Edit 5/30/2014: Added new issue concerning ingredients dropping according to race's home alliance instead of his current alliance

Edit 6/12/2014: Added level cap issue

Edit 6/15/2014: Added inconsistent drink benefit issue. Credit @‌Mortosk

Edit 6/24/2014: Rare Jazbay Grapes version had a name change to Piquant Jazbay Grapes. Veteran ingredients are "almost" fixed. Added comments in Issue #1.

Sendarya

Thank you for this post.
I think one of the problems with oats and tomatoes is that it isn't consistent. What I mean is some recipes Frog legs, honey pudding) use pepper, and you can get pepper in the world as well as from hirelings. This makes those recipes MUCH more highly desired, and skews provisioning. If you happen to be lucky and get a purple pepper recipe (heheh), you have more chances to cook, eat and/or sell that food than people relying entirely on their hireling for mats to make purple recipes.

So I have my own suggestion to add to your list: Either make tomatoes and oats drop in the world at the same rate as pepper (Which is pretty rare, I get about one every other day lately), or make pepper hireling only.

I think Provisioning is a lot of fun. I enjoy being one of the few people I see actually stocking and selling food, and I can sell in zone chat while questing. I find it a farily lucrative craft, TBH, but it requires a LOT of investment of time and space.

I have a minimal list of ingredients I keep, usually only for 3 levels (and all rares For instance, if I'm lvl 40, I'll keep only ingredients to make the blues and purples for 35, 40, and 45. AND I've stopped stocking ANY drink ingredients except to make purples. It has greatly freed up my bag space. Currently, I loo and keep only 30 ingredients, for instance.

I personally have 2 lvl 35 purple recipe (frog legs and sparkling spring), and one lvl 50 purple drink, all of which I obtained long after early access. I do wish I had ever ever seen a lvl 50 purple food recipe, I'd pay a lot for it. Let alone V5 purples. I've never even seen one. I DID get some v5 blues back in early access, but like you, I see they are terribly common now anyway.

Natjur

I had six V1/V5 purple recipe drop, all in vet instanced group dungeons, I have been told this is the only place they should drop (but early on they were bugged and loot able in containers.)

Its odd that tomatoes and oats are the only hireling only food parts, but the others needed for purple recipes are not (Garlic, Pepper, Barley, Potato, Hops, Saaz Hops, Juniper Berry, Canis Root, White Grapes & Jazbay Grapes) Saving theses, as I got the feeling they are going to make all parts needed for purple recipes come from hirelings only, for their .... fix.

I never make any food that uses tomatoes or oats, and the only demand is for the food (not drink), so currently endgame, this means only two foods are worth making.

Consummate Honey Brittle
Honey Comb, Pinguis, Salt, Garlic, Pepper
Increase Max Health, Magicka and Stamina by 257 for 2hrs

Invigorated Honey Pudding
Honey Comb,Imperial Stock, Onion
Increase Max Magicka & Stamina by 312 for 1 hour

Since most players have hit the soft cap on Health, Invigorated Honey Pudding sell very well and very easy to get the parts for.

So yes purple recipes are still easy to get, but they are from dungeons not random looting containers. But I agree with all your other points.

Saltypretzels

I got a purple recipe from a dungeon yesterday, but we are talking level 35.

Rosveen

Catches_the_Sun wrote: »

(i.e. for Ebonheart, you're more likely to find Beef or Shank than Mudcrab Meat in Coldharbour & The Rift)

Really? REALLY? You censored the name of an ingredient in your own game, Zenimax? Does anyone else think this forum censor is quite ridiculous?

Jeremy_gelber_ESO

the only other thing i can think of is there are several food ingredients tagged as drink ingredients and visa versa.

Phranq

To put my 2 cents in.. I am only level 22 but I have done dungeons and looted gobs of cabinets etc, but I have never seen any of the Blue or better quality recipes... the only "rare" ones I have are vet level ones that I got during early access and I don't have a tomato to make them anyways. I really would like to get the "enriched moonsugar brittle" or whatever the blue recipe is for level 25.

Locke_ESO

Their entire loot system needs better balancing. You get far more drops in VR1-5 group dungeons than you do in VR6-10. I've run at least 100+ of these dungeons and never seen or heard of anyone getting a purple recipe if that is where they do come from.

Catches_the_Sun

utzpretzels wrote: »

I got a purple recipe from a dungeon yesterday, but we are talking level 35.

To put it in perspective, I have all of the Ebonheart Pact purple recipes for level 35. I don't have a single purple recipe for any other level. I even had multiples of the level 35 ones, and they seemed fairly common. At least common enough that somebody was always trying to sell one. This would have been around the end of Early Access.

Avidus

The problem as you said with VR food, is that VR recipes also seem to be unable to be found, well at least I used to search everything in the city. Now I only bother looking through stuff I walk past.

Also an issue I think needs addressing is that the Hirelings only bring you a very insignificant amount of borderline worthless ingredients.
Sure enough tomato's and oats. great..
I usually get hops or grapes, I actually sell the container for the 3 gold, because it has more value to me to do that.
I think the hireling should bring you either a large amount of ingredients, occasional recipe, or something worth something.

Cogo

I agree with the OP, but want to put this one first, since the Jazbay grape is critical to "epic" food buffs. You can even use them as low as lvl 30 food.

If you havnt, please make a bug report about these 2 grapes with a simular name. I am no coders, but that cant be to hard to fix?

Two Different Jazbay Grapes - There are currently 2 different versions of Jazbay Grapes in the game. One of them is rare & is used as an upgrade component for purple recipes, while the other one is a common normal ingredient. One of these needs a name change.

Cogo

Avidus wrote: »

The problem as you said with VR food, is that VR recipes also seem to be unable to be found, well at least I used to search everything in the city. Now I only bother looking through stuff I walk past.

Also an issue I think needs addressing is that the Hirelings only bring you a very insignificant amount of borderline worthless ingredients.
Sure enough tomato's and oats. great..
I usually get hops or grapes, I actually sell the container for the 3 gold, because it has more value to me to do that.
I think the hireling should bring you either a large amount of ingredients, occasional recipe, or something worth something.

Erhm, the hirelings DOES bring you important mats. Dont you have one?
Level 2 and 3 is where you of course get the best stuff, but even at level one, I get mats like union, potato and even if its confirmed that you have to have a hireling at rank 2, I got a Tomato once.

I think the hirelings as just fine.

Catches_the_Sun

Jeremy_gelber_ESO wrote: »

the only other thing i can think of is there are several food ingredients tagged as drink ingredients and visa versa.

Can you provide me some examples of this? I can't say that I've noticed them, but I don't pay much attention to what they say.

R0M2K

Agree with OP & like the suggestions.

Also, why not a Tier6 provisioning level to craft legendary food?

Like adds all 3 stats+all 3 regen bonuses.

Jeremy_gelber_ESO

Catches_the_Sun wrote: »

Jeremy_gelber_ESO wrote: »

the only other thing i can think of is there are several food ingredients tagged as drink ingredients and visa versa.

Can you provide me some examples of this? I can't say that I've noticed them, but I don't pay much attention to what they say.

barley mash, wheat malt, carmalet grapes all tagged as food when they should be beverage. i know there are more. but i dont tend to keep things for recipes i dont make repeatedly.

thats just what i found in my backpack.

Doskias

@‌Catches_the_Sun

Thanks for the suggestions. I am adding it to the Master Suggestions List for Improving Crafting Systems and Interfaces thread.

Halrloprillalar

Agree 100% with this. I didn't realize the thing about jazbay grapes, but I did notice there are 2 versions.

I feel like drinks should be one max stat and that stat regen (base, green) and food should always be (health + one other stat) for base (green) recipes, with purple food being double health and both magika/stam and purple drinks being one max stat and regen on all 3 to make them competitive/worthwhile.

Catches_the_Sun

Jeremy_gelber_ESO wrote: »

Catches_the_Sun wrote: »

Jeremy_gelber_ESO wrote: »

the only other thing i can think of is there are several food ingredients tagged as drink ingredients and visa versa.

Can you provide me some examples of this? I can't say that I've noticed them, but I don't pay much attention to what they say.

barley mash, wheat malt, carmalet grapes all tagged as food when they should be beverage. i know there are more. but i dont tend to keep things for recipes i dont make repeatedly.

thats just what i found in my backpack.

Thanks for that. I'm adding it to the original post as an issue. Also adding an issue I found with Fishy Sticks recipe today.

Catches_the_Sun

Doskias wrote: »

@‌Catches_the_Sun

Thanks for the suggestions. I am adding it to the Master Suggestions List for Improving Crafting Systems and Interfaces thread.

Thank you. I'll see if there's anything else I can add to that thread.

ZOS_GinaBruno

@Catches_the_Sun‌, this is a great thread, very well written and organized. We forwarded this to the team so they can take a look, and see if there are any issues that they aren't already aware of.

Thanks!

bruceb14_ESO5

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

@Catches_the_Sun‌, this is a great thread, very well written and organized. We forwarded this to the team so they can take a look, and see if there are any issues that they aren't already aware of.

Thanks!

Awesome to see that specific problems are being looked at and threads noticed. I appreciate the feedback response. This is a well thought out thread bringing up specific points with good positive action suggestions included.

Provisioning on my Vet has been sitting even though the skills are maxed. Some changes with drops, exploration and fishing would turn the balance toward exciting finds and fun provisioning.

Catches_the_Sun

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

@Catches_the_Sun‌, this is a great thread, very well written and organized. We forwarded this to the team so they can take a look, and see if there are any issues that they aren't already aware of.

Thanks!

Thanks for the feedback & it's great to hear that our issues will be addressed.

Rage_Frost

great post!
I would like to add these two cents into this thread.

Make Hireling also have a chance to grant you a new recipes I mean they can give you Rare items in the boxes why can their be a chance to also grant a recipes?

Not to side track this thread but I think it would be a good way to control the Motif problem also...
At Rank 3 Hireling, Black Smith, Wood Working and Clothing you also have a random chance to loot a Motif from the Hireling chest?

And not to leave enchanters out also grant them a new recipe to add a glow effect to the Enchant? for weapons rings etc.

This sounds like a Win, Win for everyone. And then it's also a random bonus for folks who invest the 3 points into the skill.

ZOS_GinaBruno

Hey guys! Just thought you'd like to hear an update on the issues you pointed out (please excuse some of the repetitiveness in the answers).

1. Veteran Content Ingredients - We are currently working on fixing this issue.
2. Coldharbour Ingredients - This will be fixed when the issue with Veteran Content Ingredients (above) is fixed.
3. Recent loot changes
4. Purple recipe drops (Lvl 50 & VR5)
5. Recipe Inconsistencies
   • For all three of the issues above, there were some deliberate changes made to the frequency of drops. That said, if there is a legitimate issue with not being able to obtain enough materials to make food, recipes not dropping at all, or extreme imbalances, please let us know with specifics and we can look into it.
6. Two Different Jazbay Grapes - This has been fixed internally and will be rolled out in a future patch.
7. Usefulness of Drinks - This is something that needs to be investigated and will probably take some time.
8. Fortified Mountain Lager Recipe - This has been fixed internally and will be rolled out in a future patch.
9. Inaccurate Ingredient Descriptions - This has been fixed internally and will be rolled out in a future patch.
10. Fishy Sticks Recipe - We're currently investigating this issue.

KerinKor

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

[*] Recent loot changes
[*] Purple recipe drops (Lvl 50 & VR5)
[*] Recipe Inconsistencies

• For all three of the issues above, there were some deliberate changes made to the frequency of drops. That said, if there is a legitimate issue with not being able to obtain enough materials to make food, recipes not dropping at all, or extreme imbalances, please let us know with specifics and we can look into it.

So this is finally an admission drops were nerfed to the ground and a negative impact on players and can only be seen as a weak countermeasure to RMT bots.

Have I got that right?

zhevon

I also might add to this list - levelling is too easy. I don't want it to be achingly hard but its ridiculous when one has been levelled provisioning to 50 and one is only 17/18. I haven't been particularly trying to level provisioning I just did it mainly by cooking spare ingredients for a little extra spending money and some health boosters.

cody_ESO

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

[*] Recent loot changes
[*] Purple recipe drops (Lvl 50 & VR5)
[*] Recipe Inconsistencies

• For all three of the issues above, there were some deliberate changes made to the frequency of drops. That said, if there is a legitimate issue with not being able to obtain enough materials to make food, recipes not dropping at all, or extreme imbalances, please let us know with specifics and we can look into it.

I have over 19 days played on my main and enough time at VR6+ to have looted over 7 Daedric/Ancient Elf Motifs. I've long, long, long since stopped looting blue recipes. I've never seen a level 50+ purple recipe drop.

That's about as specific as I can get.

Lupinemw

KerinKor wrote: »

So this is finally an admission drops were nerfed to the ground and a negative impact on players and can only be seen as a weak countermeasure to RMT bots.

Have I got that right?

They didn't say it was done to counter Bots at all you're trying to put words where none were said. It could be down to many reasons like too many of them turning up etc.

Making an accusation like that is rude at best and most sensible people wouldn't allow themselves to be baited in such a way.

Catches_the_Sun

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey guys! Just thought you'd like to hear an update on the issues you pointed out (please excuse some of the repetitiveness in the answers).

1. Veteran Content Ingredients - We are currently working on fixing this issue.
2. Coldharbour Ingredients - This will be fixed when the issue with Veteran Content Ingredients (above) is fixed.
3. Recent loot changes
4. Purple recipe drops (Lvl 50 & VR5)
5. Recipe Inconsistencies
   • For all three of the issues above, there were some deliberate changes made to the frequency of drops. That said, if there is a legitimate issue with not being able to obtain enough materials to make food, recipes not dropping at all, or extreme imbalances, please let us know with specifics and we can look into it.
6. Two Different Jazbay Grapes - This has been fixed internally and will be rolled out in a future patch.
7. Usefulness of Drinks - This is something that needs to be investigated and will probably take some time.
8. Fortified Mountain Lager Recipe - This has been fixed internally and will be rolled out in a future patch.
9. Inaccurate Ingredient Descriptions - This has been fixed internally and will be rolled out in a future patch.
10. Fishy Sticks Recipe - We're currently investigating this issue.

If #1 is fixed, then #2 & #3 become a non-issue. I'm leveling an alt currently & it looks like some of the Recipe Inconsistencies that I cited early may have been fixed in an earlier patch. Since I went from 1-35 or so during Early Access, there were issues with recipe drops at that time. There are still some level 20-30 blue recipes that I have never seen (on 4 characters through that content) & will continue to look for. When I confirm that they're in-game, I'll remove Recipe Inconsistencies from the list.

Rage_Frost

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey guys! Just thought you'd like to hear an update on the issues you pointed out (please excuse some of the repetitiveness in the answers).

1. Veteran Content Ingredients - We are currently working on fixing this issue.
2. Coldharbour Ingredients - This will be fixed when the issue with Veteran Content Ingredients (above) is fixed.
3. Recent loot changes
4. Purple recipe drops (Lvl 50 & VR5)
5. Recipe Inconsistencies

Veteran Content that's good news its very hard to even want to loot stuff at Vr6 when you open a new faction to have that zones level 1 food.

Recent loot changes - Try to be nice on this one but in two hours every night for the last two weeks trying to loot chest, boxes backpacks, trunks and every other lootable in game and have Nothing to show for it "beside 1000's of lockpicks" is a real let down and almost such a hard nerf that it is turning me off on that part of the game. " I truly understand how and why the gold farmers are now sending the bot armies to loot this stuff and send you ingame mail to sell it for Real Money now... This stuff is now the true Rare item ingame more rare then the yellow mats needed to make yellow gear...

Purple Recipe Drops? is their level 50 and Vr5 purple ones?
this is news to me I check 5 active 500 person guild stores everyday I look at chat every day I see no one ever talking or linking anything like this at all.

LonePirate

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey guys! Just thought you'd like to hear an update on the issues you pointed out (please excuse some of the repetitiveness in the answers).

1. Veteran Content Ingredients - We are currently working on fixing this issue.
2. Coldharbour Ingredients - This will be fixed when the issue with Veteran Content Ingredients (above) is fixed.
3. Recent loot changes
4. Purple recipe drops (Lvl 50 & VR5)
5. Recipe Inconsistencies
   • For all three of the issues above, there were some deliberate changes made to the frequency of drops. That said, if there is a legitimate issue with not being able to obtain enough materials to make food, recipes not dropping at all, or extreme imbalances, please let us know with specifics and we can look into it.

Thank you for the update. There is definitely a problem with purple recipes not dropping. I have not found a purple recipe in about five weeks. The last one I found was around level 30 back in Shadowfen. I never found any in Eastmarch, The Rift, Coldharbour, Cyrodiil or my Veteran zones in the Daggerfall areas. I have searched thousands of containers . I have unlocked hundreds of chests. I have cleared dozens of delves and defeated countless enemies, delve bosses and the overland skull bosses. I am finding blue recipes at an acceptable rate; but the purple ones have disappeared altogether. I will provide more specifics if needed.