Scribing is VERY anti-alt and does not support speed farming

Bo0137 · September 24

I understand the reason of locking the scripts behind time gated activities for your main. It's the first time you are doing this in your account. It makes sense.

But then making you chase all these same scripts over and over again on all your alts is madness.

If you want, let's say, frost damage, you will have to either 1. do the mages guild daily for 16 days for EACH alt for a 100% chance (sure, it can drop earlier); or 2. wait for the rotating merchant to have your desired script, which rotates one focus, one affix and one signature script each week (16 weeks for the full cycle).

And this gets even more unbearable because you will have to do this process again for every single alt in your account AND the guild dailies will only reward you ONE script per account per day.

Result: you can't speed farm these. And your alts will suffer even more.

Please, consider making the unlocking of scripts account-wide!

Tandor · September 24

This is another of those situations where having to repeat things on multiple characters is considered by some players to be anti-alt, and by some other players to be pro-alt. It all depends on whether you want to take the progression approach with alts or the instant endgame approach with them.

Is there really enough benefit in scribing to warrant your needing to cover it on multiple characters? I thought the rewards weren't that special.

sshogrin · September 24

Tandor wrote: »

This is another of those situations where having to repeat things on multiple characters is considered by some players to be anti-alt, and by some other players to be pro-alt. It all depends on whether you want to take the progression approach with alts or the instant endgame approach with them.

Is there really enough benefit in scribing to warrant your needing to cover it on multiple characters? I thought the rewards weren't that special.

There are some really good PvE tank scribing abilities...I have multiple tanks of different classes, so yes it does warrant getting them on multiple characters.

Necrotech_Master · September 24

the biggest problem i really have with it is that only 1 script drop per source per day is guaranteed with the rest only being a chance, it should be one per source per character instead of 1 per source per account (so someone could farm out dailies on multiple characters)

right now i have a couple characters which get a major excess of 1 type of script and then just put extras into my bank for alts that need them

if they were changed to be account wide for scripts, i wouldnt complain either, but i also can see what problems people have with the existing system

DenverRalphy · September 24

Bo0137 wrote: »

If you want, let's say, frost damage, you will have to either 1. do the mages guild daily for 16 days for EACH alt for a 100% chance (sure, it can drop earlier); or 2. wait for the rotating merchant to have your desired script, which rotates one focus, one affix and one signature script each week (16 weeks for the full cycle).

You can get 3 guaranteed curated focus scripts per day. 2 if you don't PvP. So you have to at least halve that.

You also have 2 sources for purchasing scripts each week.

And ironically, your hypothetical alt is in luck! This week the Frost Damage focus script is for sale at Filer Ool.

Major_Toughness · September 25

If you bought them from the vendor in the Scholarium each week since release you would be finished by now on every character with zero grind required.

Ugrak · September 25

I just do dailies frequently and stockpile the duplicate scripts. They stack now so it's feasible.

Currently they go to an unused character that I intent to level up later on, but if I dump it all in my bank and pass my roster of in-use characters by it I think the first few may get most of the scripts almost immediately just through that.

I believe you can simply bank the mages guild pickups too if you don't use them immediately; then pick up another and repeat. Thus building a stockpile for your alts of those.

Bucky_13 · September 25

Major_Toughness wrote: »

If you bought them from the vendor in the Scholarium each week since release you would be finished by now on every character with zero grind required.

This. It will cost a lot of gold but it's the easiest way to get them on alts. I have all scripts learned on 19/20 characters now since I did this, only farmed the scripts for my main 4 characters initially.

SeaGtGruff · September 25

Ugrak wrote: »

I just do dailies frequently and stockpile the duplicate scripts. They stack now so it's feasible.

Currently they go to an unused character that I intent to level up later on, but if I dump it all in my bank and pass my roster of in-use characters by it I think the first few may get most of the scripts almost immediately just through that.

I believe you can simply bank the mages guild pickups too if you don't use them immediately; then pick up another and repeat. Thus building a stockpile for your alts of those.

I do something similar, except I haven't been farming the dailies to get the various types of scripts the way I was doing on my main until he learned everything. Even doing just a few dailies on an irregular basis, my alts have been able to learn many of the scripts, although I haven't been keeping tabs on who still needs what.

LanteanPegasus · September 25

Bo0137 wrote: »

If you want, let's say, frost damage, you will have to either 1. do the mages guild daily for 16 days for EACH alt for a 100% chance (sure, it can drop earlier); or 2. wait for the rotating merchant to have your desired script, which rotates one focus, one affix and one signature script each week (16 weeks for the full cycle).

Aren't the drops per character curated? If I remember that correctly, pick a character for your speed farming that hasn't learned any (relevant) scripts. Plan what specific scripts you want for several other chars (like frost dmg). Then farm scrips and learn all BUT the ones you need duplicates of. Those you put in the bank or give them to the other characters. That should make it possible to speed farm a few specific scripts.

davidtk · September 25

Why very anti-alt?
1. Alt must do only tutorial few minutes quest. No more until you want more free INK from wings quests.
2. scripts are bankable so when you doing dailies with main, you can bank scripts for alts
3. you have weekly rotation at script vendor and IA vendor
4. some scripts are in the mages guilds, dunno if are for char or acc.
5. all scripts and grimoires what you learn on the main are discounted (iirc) at vendors so you can just go there and buy multiple scripts for other alts and bank them
I encountered weird issue some time back that I wanted buy multiple scripts for alts but when I bought one, I couldn't buy another one, so I had to summon the banker, deposit the script and buy another one, and repeat the whole thing.
Don't know if it was a bug or it is intended. Anyway 1/5 of my bank are scripts what my alts didn't read yet.

joergino · September 25

It's still a convoluted mess, the "you're not allowed to buy this because you're already carrying a copy" is the only the worst offender. If you want to give the stuff to your alt(s), you mustn't ever learn any scripts on your main character under any circumstances because otherwise you'll quickly end up with an uncurated pile of stuff to vendor off.
The character who is qualified to get scripts to drop has to be the last one to learn any scripts.
As I said, it's an utterly convoluted mess.

But hey, they love our alts so much that their inventories are now steadily filling up with character bound pieces for skill styles! I could not believe my eyes when I noticed that.

They are so "unique" that each of your character can carry them!

I had been thinking (and hoping!) that we would never ever see any "character bound" inventory fillers again, but no, the last chapter gave us plenty new ones.

Sarannah · September 25

Scripts are made into an unnecessary grind for no reason. Scripts should be accountwide unlocks!

davidtk wrote: »

Why very anti-alt?
1. Alt must do only tutorial few minutes quest. No more until you want more free INK from wings quests.
2. scripts are bankable so when you doing dailies with main, you can bank scripts for alts
3. you have weekly rotation at script vendor and IA vendor
4. some scripts are in the mages guilds, dunno if are for char or acc.
5. all scripts and grimoires what you learn on the main are discounted (iirc) at vendors so you can just go there and buy multiple scripts for other alts and bank them
I encountered weird issue some time back that I wanted buy multiple scripts for alts but when I bought one, I couldn't buy another one, so I had to summon the banker, deposit the script and buy another one, and repeat the whole thing.
Don't know if it was a bug or it is intended. Anyway 1/5 of my bank are scripts what my alts didn't read yet.

1: Not true, to unlock scribing you have to unlock all the scripts too. Otherwise it is of no use at all. The intro quest only unlocks the scribing altar to use.
2: This is busywork for no reason, this is a game. Accountwide script unlocks would be the smart thing to do. (Note: And I dont have bankspace to spare anyways.) (Note 2: The daily quest sources for scripts suck! Like these are in the worst places ZOS could put them. And I always avoid all these dailies.)
3: Having to log in to 20 different characters every week for the sole reason of going past two vendors... instead of you know, playing and having fun in a GAME! (Note: Don't want to waste IA fortunes on scripts, as these are quite hard to come by.)
4: Mages guild scripts are per character too. Again, scripts should have been accountwide unlocks.
5: Besides having to log in every alt every week, having to waste 500k+ gold every week doesn't make this better either. Just a waste of my gold and time. No bankspace to spare, and this is busywork for no reason at all.

So I completely disagree with your conclusion of scribing being altfriendly. The current implementation of scripts is just a waste of time, gold, and space. With no reason for it to be, other than ZOS making it so. Keep in mind, every time ZOS releases new scripts in the future, this grind starts all over again! Continuously wasting my time, gold, and space. For no reason, when I could actually be playing parts of the game that I actually like playing.

Things like this, chores, drive players away from games.

Xandreia_ · September 25

im not gonna do the entire scribing thing on 14 characters, i dont wanna do chores, i wanna play!

Ugrak · September 25

Xandreia_ wrote: »

im not gonna do the entire scribing thing on 14 characters, i dont wanna do chores, i wanna play!

It's pretty fast when you've already done it on one character.

You just do the intro quest, which takes about as much time and effort as a base game delve.

Grimoires for alts only cost 10K each and are all in the vendor.

You earn scripts from a bunch of stuff, so if you've stockpiled unused scripts somewhere then just learn whichever you need and you're basically ready to play. Also you need some ink, but it has been abundant enough for me.

sarahthes · September 25

It took me very little time to get what I needed on my alts. If you are smart about it you can curate the scripts you need and farm them for all the alts that need them. Alts don't usually need the full suite of scripts, just targeted ones.

peacenote · September 25

Tandor wrote: »

This is another of those situations where having to repeat things on multiple characters is considered by some players to be anti-alt, and by some other players to be pro-alt. It all depends on whether you want to take the progression approach with alts or the instant endgame approach with them.

This. Tbh, I have really been enjoying unlocking the scripts on my alts, because it has given me a reason to trot them out, and learn wayshrines and grab skill points from the delves and whatnot that you need to go to for these daily quests. I get a lot of satisfaction from doing things in game that have multiple benefits. Like, for example, if the dungeon pledge is a dungeon where I'm farming gear. Unlocking the scripts, sad as the comparison may be, is reminiscent to me of when I was able to get excited about an alt doing pledges because I might unlock the speed mode achievement on another character. It's great. Therefore I consider it pro-alt because it's actually an activity I can do on my alt, for my alt, even if my main has already done it.

But also... it is not hard to power level an alt if need be. I completed 80% of a character's scripts in something like three days to prepare for a raid by doing all the dailies available, snagging any scripts that were in the bank, buying everything I could get for gold, and visiting the Mage's Guilds. Granted, I "cheated" just a little bit as I happened to already have Rewards of the Worthy in my mail that I could open on that toon, as well as some Undaunted rewards from random dungeons... but that's easily re-create-able by doing a bit of PvP or a few randoms. And the Undaunted rewards are great because they show the scripts in the mail (they don't come out of a box) so you know what you have. I get that some people might not want to do the dailies or farm these at all... but the time needed to, say, obtain a stubborn mythic lead drop or an arena weapon or something compared to obtaining the scripts is so, so minuscule. I think the argument "I don't want to farm" isn't very strong because literally a huge portion of any MMO, including ESO, is encouraging players to repeat content by applying RNG to drops.

Anyway, I am one of those people that truly do find it fun to work through my characters to unlock the scripts.

davidtk · September 25

Sarannah wrote: »

1: Not true, to unlock scribing you have to unlock all the scripts too. Otherwise it is of no use at all. The intro quest only unlocks the scribing altar to use.
2: This is busywork for no reason, this is a game. Accountwide script unlocks would be the smart thing to do. (Note: And I dont have bankspace to spare anyways.) (Note 2: The daily quest sources for scripts suck! Like these are in the worst places ZOS could put them. And I always avoid all these dailies.)
3: Having to log in to 20 different characters every week for the sole reason of going past two vendors... instead of you know, playing and having fun in a GAME! (Note: Don't want to waste IA fortunes on scripts, as these are quite hard to come by.)
4: Mages guild scripts are per character too. Again, scripts should have been accountwide unlocks.
5: Besides having to log in every alt every week, having to waste 500k+ gold every week doesn't make this better either. Just a waste of my gold and time. No bankspace to spare, and this is busywork for no reason at all.

So I completely disagree with your conclusion of scribing being altfriendly. The current implementation of scripts is just a waste of time, gold, and space. With no reason for it to be, other than ZOS making it so. Keep in mind, every time ZOS releases new scripts in the future, this grind starts all over again! Continuously wasting my time, gold, and space. For no reason, when I could actually be playing parts of the game that I actually like playing.

Things like this, chores, drive players away from games.

Ok,
1. To unlock ability to scribe you just do ONLY tutorial. Use of the altar matter.
1.1. Then you can buy all griomoires at scribing vendor discounted.
1.2. If you have tons of scripts from dailies (I have different play style and doing zone dailies and some PvP dailies) its easier
2. This is a game, yes. I play that game but obviously in different way. For me it is not busywork, I want achievements and have stuff. On one side ppl want everything char only and on the other side ppl want everything acc wide.
2.1. so you avoid zone dailies? Achivements, stuff, motifs...? Or guilds dailies or PvP dailies?.
3. Just log with one and buy scripts what you rly want/need on alts. Understand that my advantage is that I have banker, so I buy script, bank it, buy another for other alt. But ok thats not fun.. like daily crafting with all my alts, its boring understand. But ok, I know purpose of my alts. Some are tanks, some pvp, some solo, harvester so yes I don't need to know every single script on other alts.
4. There I wall agree that these scripts are annoying just because flying through 9 places is pain.
5. If you rly need every script and grimoire on alts ok agree too.
6. Agree that banking scripts is wasting space because scripts are not stackable. So my bank suffer.
7.
And we probably agree that we have different play styles.
So, honestly, enjoy the game in the way that suits you. I will enjoy my way.
I will go do some dailies for motifs and weekly endeavors.

Hamish999 · September 25

I didn't find it anti alt in the slightest. I had all 16 of my toons maxed on scripts by the 1st of September just by doing daily quests on a single toon that didn't know any and filtering them down to the others that didn't know them. And then learning scripts on the farming toon last (there is some sort of curation of scripts from dailies, it isn't perfect though).

shadyjane62 · September 25

I found it to be another make work activity that we get instead of improvements.Companions, card games, antiquities and scribing.

I mostly pvp and can not see a reason to keep on paying for this game with no improvements to Cyro. I don't do BGs or Arenas so what's coming means nothing to me.

Sarannah · September 25

davidtk wrote: »

2.1. so you avoid zone dailies? Achivements, stuff, motifs...? Or guilds dailies or PvP dailies?.

Yes, I avoid all dailies(zone/guild/PvP) as I dislike them all with a fiery passion. I always do just enough dailies to get the achievements, usually 30. And that already feels like I'm wasting my playtime. There is sooo much I want to do in-game, and I do not want to let these stupid dailies take time away from that. For example, I'd rather do an extra IA run for fun, or quest through a zone for zone completion.

To get motifs I wait for the yearly event that grants motifs, and then buy the ones I need. During events I even buy the companion guild tokens with leftover tickets to avoid having to do dailies, and I love companions! So that is saying something.

Scripts should come curated from mob drops. Mobs drop like 20 gold each, scripts sell for 999(let's say 1k) gold. It would be fine to drop a curated script every 50 mobs(1k divided by 20), so that we aren't forced to do those dailies. This way no matter how or where we play and with what character, we would be able to gather all scripts quite fast. This would be my preferred way of gathering scripts.

Having scripts only available from one world source(dailies), is just bad. Especially for such a major and important game system.

Necrotech_Master · September 25

Sarannah wrote: »

davidtk wrote: »

2.1. so you avoid zone dailies? Achivements, stuff, motifs...? Or guilds dailies or PvP dailies?.

Yes, I avoid all dailies(zone/guild/PvP) as I dislike them all with a fiery passion. I always do just enough dailies to get the achievements, usually 30. And that already feels like I'm wasting my playtime. There is sooo much I want to do in-game, and I do not want to let these stupid dailies take time away from that. For example, I'd rather do an extra IA run for fun, or quest through a zone for zone completion.

To get motifs I wait for the yearly event that grants motifs, and then buy the ones I need. During events I even buy the companion guild tokens with leftover tickets to avoid having to do dailies, and I love companions! So that is saying something.

Scripts should come curated from mob drops. Mobs drop like 20 gold each, scripts sell for 999(let's say 1k) gold. It would be fine to drop a curated script every 50 mobs(1k divided by 20), so that we aren't forced to do those dailies. This way no matter how or where we play and with what character, we would be able to gather all scripts quite fast. This would be my preferred way of gathering scripts.

Having scripts only available from one world source(dailies), is just bad. Especially for such a major and important game system.

mobs can drop unbound scripts, but the drop rate is exceptionally low, these unbound scripts can be sold on guild stores, though i dont think they are cheap

FelisCatus · September 26

Bo0137 wrote: »

I understand the reason of locking the scripts behind time gated activities for your main. It's the first time you are doing this in your account. It makes sense.

But then making you chase all these same scripts over and over again on all your alts is madness.

If you want, let's say, frost damage, you will have to either 1. do the mages guild daily for 16 days for EACH alt for a 100% chance (sure, it can drop earlier); or 2. wait for the rotating merchant to have your desired script, which rotates one focus, one affix and one signature script each week (16 weeks for the full cycle).

And this gets even more unbearable because you will have to do this process again for every single alt in your account AND the guild dailies will only reward you ONE script per account per day.

Result: you can't speed farm these. And your alts will suffer even more.

Please, consider making the unlocking of scripts account-wide!

Good, I hate using alts.