Getting ripped off from my hireling

Hanzus

My skill points for my Blacksmith hireling are maxed out, meaning I am supposed to be getting extra mats from him/her, but cripes, seems like maybe once a month I get five items from them, usually 1-3 items a day, what the heck?

Is anyone else having this problem? is it a known bug I am unaware of?

ZOS_GaryA

Hey there @Hanzus,

The final skill point for the Hirelings allows them to bring you a package ~every 12 hours. Here are some tips to take full advantage of the hireling passive!

• You must be logged in to receive hireling mails. For instance, if you received one at 10am, you'd be eligible for your next package at ~10PM.
• In the above example, if you log in the next morning at 10am, you will not receive the package you "missed" as you must be logged in to receive hireling mail.
• You must check your hireling mail for the timer to reset. You do not have to loot the items, just ensure that it is marked as "read."

Hope that helps!

Bazzakrak

ZOS_GaryA wrote: »

Hey there @Hanzus,

The final skill point for the Hirelings allows them to bring you a package ~every 12 hours. Here are some tips to take full advantage of the hireling passive!

• You must be logged in to receive hireling mails. For instance, if you received one at 10am, you'd be eligible for your next package at ~10PM.
• In the above example, if you log in the next morning at 10am, you will not receive the package you "missed" as you must be logged in to receive hireling mail.
• You must check your hireling mail for the timer to reset. You do not have to loot the items, just ensure that it is marked as "read."

Hope that helps!

Dear @ZOS_GaryA‌ that answer does not have anything to do with the question as far as I understand it.

Let me give it a shot for you instead.

You hireling at 3/3 and with 50 skillpoints is going to give you voidstone materials, and a higher chance of rarer items, like grain solvent and alloys.
He is not going to give you more items, just a chance to get higher quality temper items and you will get items according to your skill lvl in blacksmithing.

As for @ZOS_GaryA‌ in a thread in the crafting section, it has now been 6 months sine we last saw some moderator love for the wish of many people to get the hireling mail mechanism changed since, people feel they are, to put it blunty, getting shafted the way it works now.
Any chance of actually getting some loving on that front as well ?

ZOS_GaryA

@Bazzakrak,

Gonna be really honest on this one, I've only been monitoring the forums on a work related basis for about 3 months. Do you happen to remember the topic where the original wish is?

SLy_Kyti

The Hirelings have been screwing off on the job since I hired them.

They send little useful to me, a Max level Clothier, Blacksmith and Woodworker on 2 characters-all maxed skills including said hirelings, such useless junk as 2 bones and a jute in one mail or a few raw maple and one obsidian
in another. Solvent or tempers? forget it. I rarely see those, maybe 1 every 2 weeks or so. The last meaningful fix to hireling mails was a Looooong time ago when they stopped sending my clothier weapon traits stones (before I had a blacksmith).
I have played since early release and respecced several times,reflecting before reallocating those hireling points, always hoping hireling mails would be fixed or give me items that reflect spending skill points into those things such as higher tier crafting or decon. Call me gullible, naive or both, as I keep hoping this game's bugs will get fixed and better too, yet finding bug fixes are exchanged for other new bugs.

You want to see a wish list?

• Hirelings send a level 50 crafter full or nearly so mails. Not 1 or 2 things with a sob story. A sob story and 1 thing is for a low level crafter, someone new to the job themselves.
• To reflect the skill points spent in each crafting tier unlocked, you get items at or above that tier, and since there are rarer trait stones (for some reason sapphires & carnelian) and less available racial stones (palladium, daedra hearts) you get those as well. NOT obsidian or flint.
• In addition, also reflecting your investment in skill, they find you more than 1 temper, perhaps 2 (as you have indeed unlocked those improvements) which means no less than 1 a week. As it is I would have to spend almost every dreugh wax saved or refined since game release to craft a v14 set for myself.
• Your hireling finds dwemer or Xivilai chapters or nirncrux rarely. As a reward for having unlocked all skills and thus a long relationship with the hireling.

This is not mentioning the busted Heavy sacks (little worth in them except to enchanters) or the lack of crafting crates outside of cold harbor or my max crafting writ giving me the same thing in the clothier mail mentioned above (junk). YMMV.

Thank you to the posters above for continuing to communicate the problems in crafting (and game).

radiostar

forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/93659/request-for-a-change-in-hireling-timer-mechanics/p1

It's likely the change request from the Crafting Boards:

ZOS_GaryA

Thanks @radiostar, much appreciated!

We'll send this feedback along and see if we can get some word on the revisions to the hireling system mentioned by Gina. As a preface to that, if it hasn't been announced just yet, it's likely still under development. Worst case scenario the news will be "yep, they're still working on it."

Bazzakrak

Yeah was the one @radiostar‌ linked.

Kraven

I'm at the point that the next time I respec I won't be spending these skill points in the hirelings. I on average get white items that I already have stacks upon stacks of sitting in my bank, once a week I may get purples once every two weeks I may get one legendary mat. With all crafting maxed spread among my characters (trait crafts all on main) that's several skill points that I...well I really don't need but no point in wasting them on something with such a crap return rate.

Rune_Relic

I think we should have the chance to send the hirelings to the grotto of depravity and let the seducers have their way with them.

Gyudan

@ZOS_GaryA: I have been keeping detailed logs on the deliveries of legendary materials from my hirelings for statistic purposes and have noticed a large decrease in the quality of items delivered in the past month.

All my hirelings are maxed (3/3) on 8 characters in blacksmithing, clothing, woodworking and enchanting. The following numbers do not take provisioning mails into account.

From the 28th of september to the 29th of october, over 1824 hireling mails (8 characters * 4 professions * 57 series of mails opened), I have received 266 legendary materials, meaning a 14.6% chance of getting a legendary material / mail.

From the 30th of october to the 2nd of december, over 1920 hireling mails (8 characters * 4 professions * 60 series of mails opened), I have received 199 legendary materials, meaning a 10.4% chance of getting a legendary material / mail.

This is a 28% decrease in the chance to receive legendary materials.

No skillpoints were allocated differently in crafting over the studied period.

I believe the size of the samples (over 2 months, 3700+ mails, 117 different times) show that something changed. This is not simply due to bad random numbers.

Ashtaris

Gyudan, I guess I'm not getting your statistics timeline. From the 28th of Oct. to the 29th of Nov. is approximately one month. But from the 30th of Nov. to 2nd. of Dec is just a few days. I'm assuming you just have a few months mixed up, or I'm confused Anyway, I've always thought their hireling system was terrible, especially for those who are Master crafters. Seriously, a Ta Aspect rune for a enchanter maxed out on the skill line, lol

Bouvin

ZOS_GaryA wrote: »

Hey there @Hanzus,

The final skill point for the Hirelings allows them to bring you a package ~every 12 hours. Here are some tips to take full advantage of the hireling passive!

• You must be logged in to receive hireling mails. For instance, if you received one at 10am, you'd be eligible for your next package at ~10PM.
• In the above example, if you log in the next morning at 10am, you will not receive the package you "missed" as you must be logged in to receive hireling mail.
• You must check your hireling mail for the timer to reset. You do not have to loot the items, just ensure that it is marked as "read."

Hope that helps!

And this is why I have 2/3 points in all of my hirelings. Not everyone can log on 12 hours apart each day. Actually, I bet if you looked at log on stats, most log on once a day for a period of time.

The fact that whether or not putting another point in is worth it, based solely on login behaviour is kind of broken if you ask me. No skill point allocations should be associated with how many times you log in per day.

That's the type of thing F2P cash shop games do...

Suntzu1414

Has anyone checked.

Maybe your hireling is stealing from you??


Kill Well
ST

AaronMB

My Two Bits:

I've kept a few enchanting hirelings with [silly] hope, mostly because that craft ins't maxed yet.

But I have re-spec'd too after finding hirelings mostly worthless in the long run, especially with a craft at 50.

Now if the hirelings came for "free" at a specified level as a bonus or reward for maxing the craft, I wouldn't complain at all about what they bring.

I refuse to put in a third skill point and obligate myself to a log-in schedule; if I wanted that, I'd play Farmville and other silly FaceBook games and spend the $15 elsewhere.

They should simply double the amount (if they can even figure that out) of materials given when a third hireling point is used - something different, at least.

Beesting

Gyudan wrote: »

@ZOS_GaryA: I have been keeping detailed logs on the deliveries of legendary materials from my hirelings for statistic purposes and have noticed a large decrease in the quality of items delivered in the past month.

All my hirelings are maxed (3/3) on 8 characters in blacksmithing, clothing, woodworking and enchanting. The following numbers do not take provisioning mails into account.

From the 28th of october to the 29th of november, over 1824 hireling mails (8 characters * 4 professions * 57 series of mails opened), I have received 266 legendary materials, meaning a 14.6% chance of getting a legendary material / mail.

From the 30th of november to the 2nd of december, over 1920 hireling mails (8 characters * 4 professions * 60 series of mails opened), I have received 199 legendary materials, meaning a 10.4% chance of getting a legendary material / mail.

This is a 28% decrease in the chance to receive legendary materials.

No skillpoints were allocated differently in crafting over the studied period.

I believe the size of the samples (over 2 months, 3700+ mails, 117 different times) show that something changed. This is not simply due to bad random numbers.

I would still be very happy with such amounts, i hardly ever get kuta because i only have 2 max level enchanters.
I like making legendary glyphs for some reason lol

I get dreugh wax a lot, sometimes even 4 in one email, followed by about half that amount of tempering alloy, and lastly some rosin once in a while.

Still more than i will ever need though, if i am on holiday i am even glad i can take a break from the hireling mail addiction...

Beesting

@Gyudan‌ i think your previous signature caught the eye of some zenimax employees and they made a custom nerfbat hotfix just for you

Gyudan

Ashtaris wrote: »

Gyudan, I guess I'm not getting your statistics timeline. From the 28th of Oct. to the 29th of Nov. is approximately one month. But from the 30th of Nov. to 2nd. of Dec is just a few days. I'm assuming you just have a few months mixed up, or I'm confused Anyway, I've always thought their hireling system was terrible, especially for those who are Master crafters. Seriously, a Ta Aspect rune for a enchanter maxed out on the skill line, lol

Sorry, I mixed up the months, it was 28/09 - 29/10 and 30/10 - 02/12.
(28th of september to 29th of october and 30th of october to 2nd of december)
My Excel spreadsheet was displaying everything with the DD/MM system but I was worried about American devs not reading it properly, so I translated it into written months and made a mistake.

For whoever cares, here are the numbers detailed by material type:

First period: 28/09 - 29/10

Tempering Alloy: 61 / 456 mails = 13.4% chance
Dreugh Wax: 122 / 456 mails = 26.8% chance (higher because cloth tannins are delivered by packs of 2 or 4 instead of 1 or 2 for other materials)
Rosin: 63 / 456 mails = 13.8% chance
Kuta: 20 / 456 mails = 4.4% chance

Average: 266 / 1824 mails = 14.6% chance

Second period: 30/10 - 02/12

Tempering Alloy: 51 / 480 mails = 10.6% chance (-20.6%) compared to the first period
Dreugh Wax: 90 / 480 mails = 18.8% chance (-29.9%)
Rosin: 36 / 480 mails = 7.5% chance (-45.7%)
Kuta: 22 / 480 mails = 4.6% chance (+4.5%)

Average: 199 / 1920 mails = 10.4% chance (-28.9%)

AaronMB

.

Yusuf

ZOS_GaryA wrote: »

@Bazzakrak,

Gonna be really honest on this one, I've only been monitoring the forums on a work related basis for about 3 months. Do you happen to remember the topic where the original wish is?

i like honest moderators

Kraven

I know there are several who have the crafts maxed on multiple characters solely for the hirelings but return rate can not be based off of them or they become absolutely useless for those of us who choose to do it differently.

Main has the 3 trait crafts, 1 alt has enchanting, 1 has provisioning and 1 has alchemy. I simply did not want to spend all of those skill points in crafting on one character, choosing rather to perfect a couple of different complete builds. With 3 classes in Vet and the fourth and final coming up I wanted them all to have certain crafts.

If the percent chance is based off of people who get 450-720 mails in a 30 day period, many of us are screwed over.

Suntzu1414

Gyudan wrote: »

Ashtaris wrote: »

Gyudan, I guess I'm not getting your statistics timeline. From the 28th of Oct. to the 29th of Nov. is approximately one month. But from the 30th of Nov. to 2nd. of Dec is just a few days. I'm assuming you just have a few months mixed up, or I'm confused Anyway, I've always thought their hireling system was terrible, especially for those who are Master crafters. Seriously, a Ta Aspect rune for a enchanter maxed out on the skill line, lol

Sorry, I mixed up the months, it was 28/09 - 29/10 and 30/10 - 02/12.
(28th of september to 29th of october and 30th of october to 2nd of december)
My Excel spreadsheet was displaying everything with the DD/MM system but I was worried about American devs not reading it properly, so I translated it into written months and made a mistake.

For whoever cares, here are the numbers detailed by material type:

First period: 28/09 - 29/10

Tempering Alloy: 61 / 456 mails = 13.4% chance
Dreugh Wax: 122 / 456 mails = 26.8% chance (higher because cloth tannins are delivered by packs of 2 or 4 instead of 1 or 2 for other materials)
Rosin: 63 / 456 mails = 13.8% chance
Kuta: 20 / 456 mails = 4.4% chance

Average: 266 / 1824 mails = 14.6% chance

Second period: 30/10 - 02/12

Tempering Alloy: 51 / 480 mails = 10.6% chance (-20.6%) compared to the first period
Dreugh Wax: 90 / 480 mails = 18.8% chance (-29.9%)
Rosin: 36 / 480 mails = 7.5% chance (-45.7%)
Kuta: 22 / 480 mails = 4.6% chance (+4.5%)

Average: 199 / 1920 mails = 10.4% chance (-28.9%)

Really appreciate this..


Kill Well
ST

Bouvin

AaronMB wrote: »

I refuse to put in a third skill point and obligate myself to a log-in schedule; if I wanted that, I'd play Farmville and other silly FaceBook games and spend the $15 elsewhere.

Haha... exactly what I was thinking. Although ESOville has a ring to it...

ZinniKeys

SLy_Kyti wrote: »

The Hirelings have been screwing off on the job since I hired them.

They send little useful to me, a Max level Clothier, Blacksmith and Woodworker on 2 characters-all maxed skills including said hirelings, such useless junk as 2 bones and a jute in one mail or a few raw maple and one obsidian
in another. Solvent or tempers? forget it. I rarely see those, maybe 1 every 2 weeks or so. The last meaningful fix to hireling mails was a Looooong time ago when they stopped sending my clothier weapon traits stones (before I had a blacksmith).
I have played since early release and respecced several times,reflecting before reallocating those hireling points, always hoping hireling mails would be fixed or give me items that reflect spending skill points into those things such as higher tier crafting or decon. Call me gullible, naive or both, as I keep hoping this game's bugs will get fixed and better too, yet finding bug fixes are exchanged for other new bugs.

You want to see a wish list?

• Hirelings send a level 50 crafter full or nearly so mails. Not 1 or 2 things with a sob story. A sob story and 1 thing is for a low level crafter, someone new to the job themselves.
• To reflect the skill points spent in each crafting tier unlocked, you get items at or above that tier, and since there are rarer trait stones (for some reason sapphires & carnelian) and less available racial stones (palladium, daedra hearts) you get those as well. NOT obsidian or flint.
• In addition, also reflecting your investment in skill, they find you more than 1 temper, perhaps 2 (as you have indeed unlocked those improvements) which means no less than 1 a week. As it is I would have to spend almost every dreugh wax saved or refined since game release to craft a v14 set for myself.
• Your hireling finds dwemer or Xivilai chapters or nirncrux rarely. As a reward for having unlocked all skills and thus a long relationship with the hireling.

This is not mentioning the busted Heavy sacks (little worth in them except to enchanters) or the lack of crafting crates outside of cold harbor or my max crafting writ giving me the same thing in the clothier mail mentioned above (junk). YMMV.

Thank you to the posters above for continuing to communicate the problems in crafting (and game).

^^ This ....and can I fire these sorry ass-bastages without spending MY money? No? Add that to the wish list.

Bazzakrak

Bouvin wrote: »

ZOS_GaryA wrote: »

Hey there @Hanzus,

The final skill point for the Hirelings allows them to bring you a package ~every 12 hours. Here are some tips to take full advantage of the hireling passive!

• You must be logged in to receive hireling mails. For instance, if you received one at 10am, you'd be eligible for your next package at ~10PM.
• In the above example, if you log in the next morning at 10am, you will not receive the package you "missed" as you must be logged in to receive hireling mail.
• You must check your hireling mail for the timer to reset. You do not have to loot the items, just ensure that it is marked as "read."

Hope that helps!

And this is why I have 2/3 points in all of my hirelings. Not everyone can log on 12 hours apart each day. Actually, I bet if you looked at log on stats, most log on once a day for a period of time.

The fact that whether or not putting another point in is worth it, based solely on login behaviour is kind of broken if you ask me. No skill point allocations should be associated with how many times you log in per day.

That's the type of thing F2P cash shop games do...

And even if you are able to log in every 12 hours, your schedule will get moved slowly further and futher along the day, since you can't always log in at the exact same time every day.

The timer issue also puts a damper on some peoples scheduel for trials/dungeons/raids/pvp if they really want to get 2 mails pr day.
Imagine every person in your raid needing to log out at different times because they have to get hireling mails.

My schedule gets moved at a regular basis or I have to skip 1 mail pr day, since I have to get my mails so early in the day CET, that if the maintance drag out a little then the server is not up at the time when I have to log in.

Dear @ZOS_GaryA‌ there are severel suggestions to solutions to the issue in the thread in the crafting section that I am sure could implemented pretty easily if @Zos really wanted.
And yeah we may just get the answer "They are still looking into it" but it seems to be the standard on the forum, that we get a green post in a thread about something and being told that they will look into it, and then it seems to slide into oblivion and no answer comes from the green side.