Zenimax, the Miner Hireling is useless. Mats for upgrading are ridiculous

FURYBlakhart

I have 3 skill points put into the Blacksmith Skill line "Miner Hireling"

I have had 3 points in this skill for weeks.

I have received, in all of that time, 2 grain solvents, a handful of dwarven oils and between 5 and 10 ores (per mail) of my highest Metalworking level. Additionally, the hireling has only been sending me a single set of resources every 24 hours, where the skill dictates I should be receiving multiple.


This is one of the biggest wastes of skillpoints I have seen in the game. I can spend 10-15 minutes out in the game world and quadruple what the Miner Hireling sends to me. The only exception here is the Dwarf Oils and Grain solvents, which require some cash in the Guild Store. Again, however, the hireling is not sending enough of these rare mats to be of much use at all anyway




This flows into a larger systemic problem of needing too many materials to improve gear later down the track, with not enough resources coming in.

It is too hard to acquire the rarer purple and yellow tempering agents to improve gear.

Coming up on Level 50 and higher vet ranks I am going to be needing LOTS of Tempering Alloys to craft yellows. I have yet to see a single one of these come from my miner. In fact I have yet to see a single piece of yellow gear which would allow me to even gain a yellow tempering alloy.

A SINGLE piece of gear will require 2 honing stones, 3 dwarf oils and 4 grain solvents to guarantee a purple. You then need FIVE yellow agents to guarantee a legendary. THis seems backwards. I would think you would need MORE of the LOWER end agents (which you receive plenty of through greens) and then LESS of the HIGHER end.

In my bank currently I have:
376 Honing Stones
68 Dwarf Oils
20 Grain Solvents
6 Tempering Alloys

Most of the green stones I received through deconstructing drops or quest items. THe Majority of the Dwarf Oils have come from drops or buying cheap blues and deconning them.

Almost every Grain Solvent and Tempering Alloy has had to be bought from someone supplying them to me for good $$$.


Where are "normal" folks supposed to get all of these components? I see people spamming Zone chat selling dozens of yellow agents... they must be botting in order to accumulate so many. I have yet to gain a single one that I did not buy off someone else.

I am certainly not getting them from my miner hireling, quest rewards, chests, random drops or anywhere else.

Azarul

Before the patch it was easy to have 8 characters all with hirelings in crafting. I would receive 4-5 yellows a day (per craft). That is how people have a lot of them.

Vantor

Legendary (Yellow) equipment never dropped anyway. It's crafted only.

Lupinemw

Vantor wrote: »

Legendary (Yellow) equipment never dropped anyway. It's crafted only.

Thats not true you can get them in the PvP area as well.

But back on subject if people are planning their crafting around the Hireling they are missing the point its a small boost. I get more items from refining ore than I do anything else. Always have done.

Iluvrien

FURYBlakhart wrote: »

A SINGLE piece of gear will require 2 honing stones, 3 dwarf oils and 4 grain solvents to guarantee a purple. You then need FIVE yellow agents to guarantee a legendary. THis seems backwards. I would think you would need MORE of the LOWER end agents (which you receive plenty of through greens) and then LESS of the HIGHER end.

Not when you consider the upgrade in terms of the skill required.

As you increase your level of ability in a craft you would expect to be able to do minor improvements more easily that those embodying higher difficulty. As such, because improving an item is as difficult as clicking a button, that difficulty is effectively encoded into how many of the higher level upgrade materials you need.

Thought about in those terms it makes perfect sense.

Vantor

Lupinemw wrote: »

Vantor wrote: »

Legendary (Yellow) equipment never dropped anyway. It's crafted only.

Thats not true you can get them in the PvP area as well.

But back on subject if people are planning their crafting around the Hireling they are missing the point its a small boost. I get more items from refining ore than I do anything else. Always have done.

As well? You mean that Legendaries drop in PvE? I was under the impression that Legendaries could only be made by upgrading Epics (Purples)

Azarul

Vantor wrote: »

Lupinemw wrote: »

Vantor wrote: »

Legendary (Yellow) equipment never dropped anyway. It's crafted only.

Thats not true you can get them in the PvP area as well.

But back on subject if people are planning their crafting around the Hireling they are missing the point its a small boost. I get more items from refining ore than I do anything else. Always have done.

As well? You mean that Legendaries drop in PvE? I was under the impression that Legendaries could only be made by upgrading Epics (Purples)

Correct, I do not believe any legendaries drop at this time in either PvP or PvE

Lupinemw

Nope didn't say PvE at all, mentioned PvP sure of that.

When you complete PvP elements you get containers that contain an item these can contain Legendary items so in essence its a reward. You can also trade in Alliance Points for Containers in the hope its something useful as well.

LonePirate

To receive the two a day emails, you must be logged in at the 12 hour intervals when the emails arrive. If you receive a Hireling email at 7 AM, the next one will arrive at 7 PM or your next login time, whichever is later. If you only login once a day, you will only receive one email a day. This is a majorly annoying setup and I recommend everyone use /bug or /feedback to comment on it.

Also, even with three points invested in Temper Expertise, you still need 8 gold Tempering Alloys to guarantee 100% success. I wish it scaled to five o be in line with the linear progress of the other improvement tempers.

It is a very idea to place three skill points into Metal Extraction and then mine every ore node you find. I have obtained more Grain Solvents and Tempering Alloys from refining ore than I have ever received in total from my Hireling.

Azarul

Lupinemw wrote: »

Nope didn't say PvE at all, mentioned PvP sure of that.

When you complete PvP elements you get containers that contain an item these can contain Legendary items so in essence its a reward. You can also trade in Alliance Points for Containers in the hope its something useful as well.

Do you mean the "worthy reward" ones you get in the mail? If so I am not going to say I do not believe you, but I would like to see a second person confirm it. Only reason I say this is I have opened God knows how many of them and only gotten greens. I know its just RNG but you would think a blue or purple at least.

RomedyMC

So, back on topic then...

I have my 3/3 miner hireling as well as Keen Eye for ores. (I'm colorblind, so the points are worth it to me.)

As a fellow "normal" person, just go out of your way to mine as much ore as possible and, if you see a good deal in zone chat, snatch it up. Refining ore gives me way more grain solvent and tempurs than my hireling ever has. So my best advice is to get as much ore as you can and refine it for ingots to use/sell and the upgrade mats.

On another note, my impression is that legendary items should be difficult to get, and while there are surely V10-12 players in full gold, this is probably not the norm.

And yes, we can complain all we want about the botting and duping and hireling exploit, etc. Its done and we need to move on.

Lupinemw

Azarul wrote: »

Do you mean the "worthy reward" ones you get in the mail? If so I am not going to say I do not believe you, but I would like to see a second person confirm it. Only reason I say this is I have opened God knows how many of them and only gotten greens. I know its just RNG but you would think a blue or purple at least.

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/104070/proof-dropped-gear-crafted-by-huge-difference

Laharl_Overlord

Even with the hireling fix I still get a couple yellow upgrade mats per day, although it's not near as good as it used to be. Farming ore and refining will yield better results since the fix. However it is still highly worth it to put hirelings on all alts.

Azarul

Lupinemw wrote: »

Azarul wrote: »

Do you mean the "worthy reward" ones you get in the mail? If so I am not going to say I do not believe you, but I would like to see a second person confirm it. Only reason I say this is I have opened God knows how many of them and only gotten greens. I know its just RNG but you would think a blue or purple at least.

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/104070/proof-dropped-gear-crafted-by-huge-difference

The item was upgraded to legendary.

Viblo

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/104070/proof-dropped-gear-crafted-by-huge-difference

A little bit of reading and I learned that this was not found this way but upgraded to be legendary. There are no legendary drops in PvE or PvP. There are drops that can be upgraded to be better than anything currently craftable though.

Stonesthrow

Outside of hirelings, the only thing you can "find" that is legendary crafting-wise is the Aspect Rune Kuta.

Everything else is found from extracting… sorry "refining" raw materials… or getting lucky crushing… sorry "deconstructing" a legendary item you don't want anymore.

Farm the ore/cloth/leather and make sure you have 3/3 in extraction and it boils down to a tolerance level. How much can you farm and how well do you deal with rolling the dice and crapping out on legendary boosters roughly 95% of the time?

Oh, and they drop from dang near every level of raw material. Dwarven ore gave me the most for BS for example. Way more than Calcinium or Galatite has.

Mansome

Viblo wrote: »

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/104070/proof-dropped-gear-crafted-by-huge-difference

A little bit of reading and I learned that this was not found this way but upgraded to be legendary. There are no legendary drops in PvE or PvP. There are drops that can be upgraded to be better than anything currently craftable though.

Technically now its crafted because otherwise it would never be more powerful. Good way to look at this then would be to compare a dropped purple to a crafted gold and see which one is better for the same item.

Bollerlotte

today i got 5 ore.

Blacksmithing 50, Metalworking 9/9, Miner Hireling 3/3.

Lupinemw

Bollerlotte wrote: »

today i got 5 ore.

Blacksmithing 50, Metalworking 9/9, Miner Hireling 3/3.

The joys of Random. Yesterday my first delivery was 5 Void Ore, 2nd was 5 Void, 2 Purple, 1 Gold temper. Random..

neueregel

Today I got 5 marshmellows...

Lupinemw

neueregel wrote: »

Today I got 5 marshmallows...

hmmmmm marshmellows...

Artemiisia

for my hirelings are bonus mats, nothing else, mats that comes to me without moving my lacy butt

that means I have to work to make extra like farming nodes, if I want extra something.

No where did it say, you could live out of hirelings

vyal

FURYBlakhart wrote: »

...
In my bank currently I have:
376 Honing Stones
68 Dwarf Oils
20 Grain Solvents
6 Tempering Alloys
...

Which is exactly why all of these should be things you can trade up.

4 Honing Stones = 1 Dwarven Oil
3 Dwarven Oil = 1 Grain Solvent
2 Grain Solvent = 1 Tempering Alloy

That way, green items continue to have value, and there are multiple paths to success.
Unless you would..

..rather have underground/teleporting/speed-hacking bots harvesting all the Iron and having to buy Mats in-game from RMT farmers who are doing their best to corner the market and price fix everything in the game

Azarul

vyal wrote: »

FURYBlakhart wrote: »

...
In my bank currently I have:
376 Honing Stones
68 Dwarf Oils
20 Grain Solvents
6 Tempering Alloys
...

Which is exactly why all of these should be things you can trade up.

4 Honing Stones = 1 Dwarven Oil
3 Dwarven Oil = 1 Grain Solvent
2 Grain Solvent = 1 Tempering Alloy

That way, green items continue to have value, and there are multiple paths to success.
Unless you would..

..rather have underground/teleporting/speed-hacking bots harvesting all the Iron and having to buy Mats in-game from RMT farmers who are doing their best to corner the market and price fix everything in the game

I like this, but I think the values would need to be much higher

20 Honing = 1 Dwarven Oil
10 Dwarven = 1 Grain
5 Grain = 1 Tempering

vyal

Azarul wrote: »

...I like this, but I think the values would need to be much higher

20 Honing = 1 Dwarven Oil
10 Dwarven = 1 Grain
5 Grain = 1 Tempering

At those rates, it would provide very little value. If you work out the numbers 376 honing at the rates I outlined would give you 15 Alloys in the end.

Currently, it requires: (with max temper skill)
2 Honing Stone
3 Dwarven Oil
4 Grain Solvent
8 Tempering Alloy
to make a single Legendary Item.

With that in mind, it would require 192 Honing Stones with the numbers I outlined, per legendary item (just for the alloys).

With what you've outlined, Azarul, it would require 8000 Honing Stones, per legendary item (just for the alloys).

I know which I'd rather play with. heheh.

Adramelach

I agree, the rates of these things, especially Legendary, are far too small. I'm VR1, been playing the same main alt since 5-day early access, and have deconstructed every single item I have received through any means - chests, drops, PvP, etc... everything has gone into the decon "maw". I increased my Unraveling to 3/3 and Wood Extraction to 3/3 as soon as I possibly could.

After months of doing so, I have a grand total of 9 Rosin, and 8 Dreugh Wax, not enough to make more than 1 legendary item of each type, without fail.

To me, that's ridiculous, and frustrating. Considering that these upgrades are anything but earth-shattering, and only provide a few more points/percent, I think they should be FAR more common.

Cogo

The Miner hirelings works just fine for me.

I get good and rare mats, every day.

I do not get a LOAD of the most rare mats, but thats not what the hirelings should bring you.

The rare things they bring me, is just right. If Hirelings would ONLY bring rares.....it would take a few weeks and there was no rares.

Unless I am lucky, miner hirelings works as intended.

Kalman

Yellow poop is rare too

dylanjaygrobbelaarb16_ESO

Lupinemw wrote: »

Vantor wrote: »

Legendary (Yellow) equipment never dropped anyway. It's crafted only.

Thats not true you can get them in the PvP area as well.

But back on subject if people are planning their crafting around the Hireling they are missing the point its a small boost. I get more items from refining ore than I do anything else. Always have done.

the official statement from zenimax is that world drops only up to purple and legendary is only able to be crafted. this was to make crafting more valuable and influience the economy.

Haewk

While I agree that the hireling is fairly useless and the 3 points (or at least 2) are much better spent elsewhere I don't agree that the hirelings should have higher chances of delivering golds. It should not be easy to walk around in full legendary gear.

If you have the points to burn then go for it, you get some mats on a daily basis through zero effort.

And I have received golds through hirelings and from refining. Probably have about 3 or 4 gold materials across 6 characters so very rare.