Enchanting Commentary and Suggestions for Improving

vyal
vyal
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While I don't know the reasons for Zenimax has for making Enchanting "different" than the other crafting in ESO, I've obtained level 50 in each crafting profession (except Enchanting) now, and have played since launch.
I've played MMO's since 1996, and I'm over 21. Enough about me, here's the suggestions for improving Enchanting in ESO.

Open World Gathering
-Enchanting requires harvesting rune nodes. Different than any other harvesting, rune nodes cane be one of three, Essence, Potency, and Aspect. Which one of these a rune node can be is, as far as I can tell, random.
As such, even with dozens of rune nodes in a zone, harvesting what you want is entirely different than harvesting wood, ore, plants for cloth, plants for alchemy. It's slightly similar to provisioning, but only slightly.
This makes obtaining runes that are desired quite a time sink, if all you did was harvest to get them.
It is currently a bit odd/illogical that the most common Essence rune types that you find from looting Essence rune nodes are also the types you can buy for 60g each in infinite quantity from NPCs.

Item Deconstruction
-This does not produce glyphs or runes. Glyphs must be found separately, and then deconstructed.
NPC's sell runes, and you can deconstruct them to obtain Essence or Potency runes of various types, only "white" quality runes are sold (that I have seen) and as such, green, blue, purple and gold Aspect runes can only be obtained from harvesting.
What this means in practice is that very rarely (VERY rarely) you may obtain a white (Ta) Aspect rune from a storebought or dropped glyph.
NPC's also only sell three Essence types. Frost, Fire, Shock, and Health, Stamina, Magicka.
The rest of the types (shield, armor, regens, disease, poison, spell/physical harm, power, alchemist) must be found on Essence Rune nodes in the open world.
This is problematic for a few reasons, not the least of which is some zones (Khenarthi's Roost is a good example) only have Essence nodes that provide the same six Essence types sold by NPC's.

Notes on Levels
-Rune quality by level (white, green, blue, purple gold, aka Ta, Jejota, Denata, Rekuta, Kuta) is a linear progression.
A simple example is the Deteri additive glyph, "Hardening". Each rank increases the damage shield by 36, in a VR5-7 version.
That's it. Ta 38, Jejota 74, Denata 110, Rekuta 145, and Kuta 181. Never mind the fact that mobs hit for ~500 auto attack at this rank (and so even 181 points is arguably a drop in the bucket) but the damage shield itself bypasses defenses for the remainder of the damage done, after it's removed.
But setting that aside, the problem with a linear growth based on quality is that the drop rate for these various qualities is not linear. Not even close.
Based on 310 Aspect rune loots, here's the breakdown:
Ta: 36% , Jejota: 18%, Denata: 9%, Rekuta: 5%, Kuta: 2.5%.
I'm aware a larger sample size is necessary to see the true distribution, but it's clear there's a pattern here, and it's not linear. (it's probably 40/20/10/5/2.5% in the database)
If the chances of getting each increasing quality is half, it stands to reason the power curve should reflect this rarity. If not, then the drop-rate distribution of all quality types should be normalized (so that they are equal, like the progression of power in the resulting items).

Mix-n-Match Improvements
Here's the suggestions that could be used, together, or separate.
  • Remove all Ta from Aspect Nodes. If players need Ta, they can deconstruct storebought runes for 60g each.
  • Normalize all Aspect Runes drop percentages/distribution. OR Adjust the power curve of increasingly rare glyphs rather than leaving it linear.
  • Allow deconstruction of gear to pull glyphs. This means if you find an "of frost" blue quality weapon, you have a chance to obtain the blue glyph that's on it, and subsequently, deconstruct the Denata aspect rune out of the glyph. This would also go a long way in addressing the rarity of dropped glyphs in general, and the overal scarcity of obtaining glyphs to deconstruct for advancement.
  • Publish the list of what zones drop what non-storebought Essence Runes. (that's a to-do for you, Zenimax) and/or fix the current "broken" zones that only drop the same six Essences that are storebought.
  • Allow combining 2-5 of each previous quality of Aspect rune to obtain the next higher quality Aspect rune. This means something like 5 Ta = 1 Jejota, 4 Jejota = 1 Denata, 3 Denata = 1 Rekuta, 2 Rekuta = 1 Kuta.
  • Remove all storebought Essence types from Essence Rune nodes. If players want the storebought Essence types, they can deconstruct them for 60g each.
Thanks for reading, hopefully these constructive ideas will make it into ESO, some day.
  • Aeradon
    Aeradon
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    I do believe Enchanting nodes and drops are constantly on watch by the development team, along with the progression as well.

    I also remember a certain patch that increased the chances of randomly generated nodes to be Aspect runes, as there was a shortage of aspect runes and tonnes of Essence runes to work with.

    While I do not completely agree with some of the ideas, but I do like the idea of deconstructing gear and having a minor chance of obtaining glyphs. Combining Aspect runes to attain a higher grade is also pretty decent, but personally if that is possible, I would want it to be more punishing and linear. (5 of each makes a higher grade, regardless of tier)

    Love seeing the figures regarding your loot ratio (:
    People keep telling me they're gonna buy me an ale. They never do.

    There are only two things I can't stand in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's culture. And the Elves.

    Help make this compilation complete!
    Compilation of Ideas and Suggestions
  • vyal
    vyal
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    If you work out the numbers with a linear path (such as 5:1) you'll find the numbers inflate to rather punitive values quite quickly.

    As demonstrated here.

    Thanks for reading, though, nice to see some response.
  • Aeradon
    Aeradon
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    vyal wrote: »
    If you work out the numbers with a linear path (such as 5:1) you'll find the numbers inflate to rather punitive values quite quickly.

    As demonstrated here.

    Thanks for reading, though, nice to see some response.

    You're welcome. I actually wouldn't mind that the numbers add up to 8k, It would definitely create a balanced pricing for all the materials and forge a stable economy. Plus, there's constant supply of honing stones, so why not balance up the demand for it? ;)

    A progressively lower exchange rate would trigger a lower demand for tempering alloys or Tier 5 materials, it would definitely lower the price and it's value, being that the price could be associated with price of Honing Stones.

    IMHO, Legendary should remain Legendary. I somehow really doubt they will introduce the exchange system though, but they should really work on their RNG to allow more legendary drops. A lot of my guild mates have been complaining about the total absence of legendary drops make vet dungeons pointless.
    People keep telling me they're gonna buy me an ale. They never do.

    There are only two things I can't stand in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's culture. And the Elves.

    Help make this compilation complete!
    Compilation of Ideas and Suggestions
  • vyal
    vyal
    ✭✭✭
    Yeah, I would agree in principle ...
    IF

    .. there weren't thousands of stacks of duped legendary mats still in the game from the first two weeks of launch.

    The constant erosion of refining returns (due to botting), the constant erosion of tempering from hirelings (used to be daily, now weekly at best), and the imbalance of wax/rosin demand vs. tempering alloy demand adds up to some frustration.

    Several thousand honing stones is non trivial. It's an onerous punitive burden, to produce one legendary item that an exploiter can produce trivially because he has a bank full of duped legendary mats.

    Several hundred I can live with, personally, but as we're arguing degrees, at least there's a tacit consensus the idea has merit in principle.

    And yeah, Epic is rare enough, I've -never- seen a legendary drop in the open world or a dungeon. I've asked three guilds, just now, and no-one has ever seen one. Far too rare, if it happens at all.
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