Hirelings in update 6....The Temper Tantrum

Antiquity

AlnilamE wrote: »

So between:

- Decreased chance of gold mats from hirelings
- Increased chance of getting gold mats from refining
- Chance of getting gold mats from writs

I'm good with this change.

I do the equipment crafting writs when I have mats. I make sure to always do the consumable crafting writs. They give you good stuff.

I'm with you. They nerfed one gold temper obtaining method, buffed one, and created a new one. All I'm hearing is that people don't want to go out and spend the time required to farm mats to get thier gold tempers.

People actually have to go out and be "inconvenienced" by playing the game... Why are you paying for it if you don't want to play it? Having things just land in your lap isn't a game.

Go out. Gather the mats to refine. Enjoy the scenery, fight some monsters, find some chests, and help out people you come across while you gather. Far more fun than being mailed something every day.

UrQuan

Antiquity wrote: »

AlnilamE wrote: »

So between:

- Decreased chance of gold mats from hirelings
- Increased chance of getting gold mats from refining
- Chance of getting gold mats from writs

I'm good with this change.

I do the equipment crafting writs when I have mats. I make sure to always do the consumable crafting writs. They give you good stuff.

I'm with you. They nerfed one gold temper obtaining method, buffed one, and created a new one. All I'm hearing is that people don't want to go out and spend the time required to farm mats to get thier gold tempers.

People actually have to go out and be "inconvenienced" by playing the game... Why are you paying for it if you don't want to play it? Having things just land in your lap isn't a game.

Go out. Gather the mats to refine. Enjoy the scenery, fight some monsters, find some chests, and help out people you come across while you gather. Far more fun than being mailed something every day.

The only problem I have with it is with regard to Kuta and the provisioning mats that you can only get from hirelings. Unlike the other gold mats, you can't get those from refining, and while the writs at least give you some chance of getting a Kuta (although having done enchanting writs almost every day since they came out, I have yet to ever get a survey that got me a Kuta), there is literally no other way to get those provisioning ingredients.

So it's a rebalancing of the gold mats for blacksmithing, clothing, and woodworking (which is fine), while it's a straight-up nerf for gold mats for enchanting and provisioning (which is not so fine). Unless they've introduced some other way to get those provisioning ingredients (although I haven't heard of such - I've heard that they will be just about the only ingredients you can't buy from vendors), and they've increased the drop rate for Kuta from nodes...

firstdecan

Has anyone actually tried to determine what the drop rate is for gold mats on the PTS? I gave all my alts on the PTS 3/3 hireling in smithing, woodworking, clothing and enchanting (leveled up the aspect improvement as well), and in the first 32 mails I received I did not get one gold mat.

I can see them reducing the rate, especially with the expected influx of free players. From what I've read, most people with this number of hirelings are getting 4-5 gold mats per round of mails, or 8-10 a day. Completely eliminating the chance to get these does seem to be a kick in the head for players who have spent their time and effort playing according to the existing game mechanics. I would still expect to see *something* gold and shiny from the hirelings.

I also agree with other posters who have stated that ZOS seems to be increasing rewards for time wasters. Some people enjoy farming mats, but for most it's just tedious work, and will get boring quickly.

starkerealm

UrQuan wrote: »

The only problem I have with it is with regard to Kuta and the provisioning mats that you can only get from hirelings. Unlike the other gold mats, you can't get those from refining, and while the writs at least give you some chance of getting a Kuta (although having done enchanting writs almost every day since they came out, I have yet to ever get a survey that got me a Kuta), there is literally no other way to get those provisioning ingredients.

So it's a rebalancing of the gold mats for blacksmithing, clothing, and woodworking (which is fine), while it's a straight-up nerf for gold mats for enchanting and provisioning (which is not so fine). Unless they've introduced some other way to get those provisioning ingredients (although I haven't heard of such - I've heard that they will be just about the only ingredients you can't buy from vendors), and they've increased the drop rate for Kuta from nodes...

Kuta come out of nodes. I've been averaging one every 2-3 days on live for the last couple weeks.

As for Provisioning... if you're not doing the provisioning writ... are you out of your mind? It costs 4 ingredients, post 1.6 it will literally cost 40 gold. It pays out with 10 mats (even on PTS) with a chance for the rare stuff to get dropped in your lap.

UrQuan

starkerealm wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

The only problem I have with it is with regard to Kuta and the provisioning mats that you can only get from hirelings. Unlike the other gold mats, you can't get those from refining, and while the writs at least give you some chance of getting a Kuta (although having done enchanting writs almost every day since they came out, I have yet to ever get a survey that got me a Kuta), there is literally no other way to get those provisioning ingredients.

So it's a rebalancing of the gold mats for blacksmithing, clothing, and woodworking (which is fine), while it's a straight-up nerf for gold mats for enchanting and provisioning (which is not so fine). Unless they've introduced some other way to get those provisioning ingredients (although I haven't heard of such - I've heard that they will be just about the only ingredients you can't buy from vendors), and they've increased the drop rate for Kuta from nodes...

Kuta come out of nodes. I've been averaging one every 2-3 days on live for the last couple weeks.

As for Provisioning... if you're not doing the provisioning writ... are you out of your mind? It costs 4 ingredients, post 1.6 it will literally cost 40 gold. It pays out with 10 mats (even on PTS) with a chance for the rare stuff to get dropped in your lap.

Oh believe me, I've been doing the provisioning writs. They're by far the best ones to do. I have yet to ever get any oats or tomatoes from them, and haven't heard of anyone else getting them. As far as I know those rare ingredients only come from hirelings.

And I know Kuta come from nodes, but the drop rate is incredibly low. If you've been getting one every 2-3 days you've been very lucky. I've got maybe 3-4 from nodes in the last 2 months (none from nodes I got from an enchanting survey), and that's with playing probably an average of 15+ hours a week and grabbing every node I find.

Tankqull

starkerealm wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

The only problem I have with it is with regard to Kuta and the provisioning mats that you can only get from hirelings. Unlike the other gold mats, you can't get those from refining, and while the writs at least give you some chance of getting a Kuta (although having done enchanting writs almost every day since they came out, I have yet to ever get a survey that got me a Kuta), there is literally no other way to get those provisioning ingredients.

So it's a rebalancing of the gold mats for blacksmithing, clothing, and woodworking (which is fine), while it's a straight-up nerf for gold mats for enchanting and provisioning (which is not so fine). Unless they've introduced some other way to get those provisioning ingredients (although I haven't heard of such - I've heard that they will be just about the only ingredients you can't buy from vendors), and they've increased the drop rate for Kuta from nodes...

Kuta come out of nodes. I've been averaging one every 2-3 days on live for the last couple weeks.

As for Provisioning... if you're not doing the provisioning writ... are you out of your mind? It costs 4 ingredients, post 1.6 it will literally cost 40 gold. It pays out with 10 mats (even on PTS) with a chance for the rare stuff to get dropped in your lap.

sure? been doing the writs on 3 chars per day since implementation NEVER recieved a key ingredient for purple recipes...

starkerealm

Tankqull wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

The only problem I have with it is with regard to Kuta and the provisioning mats that you can only get from hirelings. Unlike the other gold mats, you can't get those from refining, and while the writs at least give you some chance of getting a Kuta (although having done enchanting writs almost every day since they came out, I have yet to ever get a survey that got me a Kuta), there is literally no other way to get those provisioning ingredients.

So it's a rebalancing of the gold mats for blacksmithing, clothing, and woodworking (which is fine), while it's a straight-up nerf for gold mats for enchanting and provisioning (which is not so fine). Unless they've introduced some other way to get those provisioning ingredients (although I haven't heard of such - I've heard that they will be just about the only ingredients you can't buy from vendors), and they've increased the drop rate for Kuta from nodes...

Kuta come out of nodes. I've been averaging one every 2-3 days on live for the last couple weeks.

As for Provisioning... if you're not doing the provisioning writ... are you out of your mind? It costs 4 ingredients, post 1.6 it will literally cost 40 gold. It pays out with 10 mats (even on PTS) with a chance for the rare stuff to get dropped in your lap.

sure? been doing the writs on 3 chars per day since implementation NEVER recieved a key ingredient for purple recipes...

At present they can't. Or, if they can, it's rare enough that it will basically never happen. On 1.6 the provisioning writ is supposed to pay out with Frost Miriam and... whatever Oats turned into, somethingerother juice.

UrQuan

starkerealm wrote: »

Tankqull wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

The only problem I have with it is with regard to Kuta and the provisioning mats that you can only get from hirelings. Unlike the other gold mats, you can't get those from refining, and while the writs at least give you some chance of getting a Kuta (although having done enchanting writs almost every day since they came out, I have yet to ever get a survey that got me a Kuta), there is literally no other way to get those provisioning ingredients.

So it's a rebalancing of the gold mats for blacksmithing, clothing, and woodworking (which is fine), while it's a straight-up nerf for gold mats for enchanting and provisioning (which is not so fine). Unless they've introduced some other way to get those provisioning ingredients (although I haven't heard of such - I've heard that they will be just about the only ingredients you can't buy from vendors), and they've increased the drop rate for Kuta from nodes...

Kuta come out of nodes. I've been averaging one every 2-3 days on live for the last couple weeks.

As for Provisioning... if you're not doing the provisioning writ... are you out of your mind? It costs 4 ingredients, post 1.6 it will literally cost 40 gold. It pays out with 10 mats (even on PTS) with a chance for the rare stuff to get dropped in your lap.

sure? been doing the writs on 3 chars per day since implementation NEVER recieved a key ingredient for purple recipes...

At present they can't. Or, if they can, it's rare enough that it will basically never happen. On 1.6 the provisioning writ is supposed to pay out with Frost Miriam and... whatever Oats turned into, somethingerother juice.

Hmm, if that's true (I hadn't heard that), then it's not such a big deal.

Wreuntzylla

In a few weeks I'll be 50 in every craft on every one of 8 toons, 4 of which are veterans.

Lot's of leveling for skill points, farming deconstructables, etc.

For those of you who remember, hireling returns were initially stealth nerfed by requiring extra points. The general consensus is that you needed to put points into refining/extraction to have a decent return, although it may just be based on the number of overall points put into a craft. To my knowledge, ZoS never acknowledged the stealth nerf or provided any explanation as to the mechanic. Further, it's tough to test how the mechanic actually works due to sample size over time.

More leveling for skill points, farming deconstructable items, etc.

Then they added the craft level 45 research trait. Once you get to craft level 45, knowing they have a history of pushing additional mechanics into higher levels, might as well go to 50 for padding.

More leveling for skill points, farming deconstructable items, etc.

I like to PvP. My guild likes to PvP. We, as a general rule, only like to PvP. The whole point of investing months and months of 2+ hours a day was so that my friends and I could competitively PvP without having to PvE, farm gold, etc. As it is, half our guild left over the initial insanity of VR leveling (prior to grinds being widely advertised). Now, after all that effort, we have to run crafting writs and/or harvest materials?

This could be the proverbial straw for the other half.

Ryluk

Farewell to my 2 Dreugh Wax and 1 Kuta a day

Antiquity

starkerealm wrote: »

At present they can't. Or, if they can, it's rare enough that it will basically never happen. On 1.6 the provisioning writ is supposed to pay out with Frost Miriam and... whatever Oats turned into, somethingerother juice.

This is the way I understood the mechanics of it, as well.

@UrQuan‌ You must just be really unlucky with rune nodes And while that sucks and I feel for you, I still feel like ZOS made the right move with hirelings with the influx of players that will probably be coming in.

UrQuan

Antiquity wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

At present they can't. Or, if they can, it's rare enough that it will basically never happen. On 1.6 the provisioning writ is supposed to pay out with Frost Miriam and... whatever Oats turned into, somethingerother juice.

This is the way I understood the mechanics of it, as well.

@UrQuan‌ You must just be really unlucky with rune nodes And while that sucks and I feel for you, I still feel like ZOS made the right move with hirelings with the influx of players that will probably be coming in.

Oh, I'm OK with the hireling move as long as it is compensated for through other methods of getting those mats. I think it's perfectly fine for blacksmithing, clothing, and woodworking, and assuming you get rare (formerly hireling-only) ingredients from completing provisioning writs, I'm fine with that too. A small buff to Kuta drop rates (maybe even specific to nodes obtained from enchanting surveys) makes me fine with that too.

To be honest, I've got enough Kutas in my bank from hirelings that I don't really care for my own sake anyway. I've never sold even 1 of them, and I don't plan on it - they're for my own use only, and I've got a good enough supply for that. I was more concerned about the provisioning ingredients, but the news that we'll get them from writs makes me less concerned.

KrayzieBone_88

So I did some very quick testing on the PTS. I refined roughly ~150-200 raw mats across a few materials (all vet mats) and I received 3 green, 1 blue, and 1 purple. That's a terrible drop rate. Now maybe bc I was switching bw mats when refining that somehow changes the output, but as it stands that's a terrible return.

In my mind all this is doing is encouraging farming...something so repetitive and mindless its very easy to create a bot to do it for you.

I just can't help but feel that anyone who has been playing this game from the beginning and logged 1,000+ hrs is just getting hosed by zos at every opportunity....I mean I'm still not fully leveled in Undaunted bc I had every dungeon achievement accomplished when that went live and with no retroactive XP gain in the skill. How the hell do you level a skill that increases based on achievements no longer available to you? Now they are killing my hirelings that I spent gobs and gobs of gold and time leveling??? All this on top of the three 42,000 horses I bought that are now effectively useless.

Yay!!!

Iago

KrayzieBone_88 wrote: »

So I did some very quick testing on the PTS. I refined roughly ~150-200 raw mats across a few materials (all vet mats) and I received 3 green, 1 blue, and 1 purple. That's a terrible drop rate. Now maybe bc I was switching bw mats when refining that somehow changes the output, but as it stands that's a terrible return.

In my mind all this is doing is encouraging farming...something so repetitive and mindless its very easy to create a bot to do it for you.

I just can't help but feel that anyone who has been playing this game from the beginning and logged 1,000+ hrs is just getting hosed by zos at every opportunity....I mean I'm still not fully leveled in Undaunted bc I had every dungeon achievement accomplished when that went live and with no retroactive XP gain in the skill. How the hell do you level a skill that increases based on achievements no longer available to you? Now they are killing my hirelings that I spent gobs and gobs of gold and time leveling??? All this on top of the three 42,000 horses I bought that are now effectively useless.

Yay!!!

That is still better than this

Iago wrote: »

I have my Black Smith maxed out and this is what I received after refining 1,000 voistone ore

858 Voidstone Ingots

3 Almandine

2 Amythest

2 Bloodstones

1 Chrysolyte

3 Citirine

1 Diamond

16 Dwarven Oil

3 Emerald

2 Garnet

7 Grain Solvents

14 Honing Stones

3 Jade

2 Quartz

1 Ruby

1 Sapphire

2 Sardonyx

1 Temp Alloy

1 Turquoise



If they nerfed my one hireling then I may as well re-spec and just buy all my *** from other players.

Rosveen

I have the same experience with Kutas. I hardly ever find them in nodes, hirelings are a more reliable source by far.

Grunim

Ashtaris wrote: »

I already dislike writs because they usually expend far more in mats and time than the rewards you get in return. Now they are nerfing the hirelings to the ground. One of the perks we had when leveling our crafters to the Master level. Really stupid ZOS, thanks for nothing. I guess now I'll have considerably more skill points that I won't bother wasting on my hirelings, that's for sure.

One thing I don't understand is how this change is going to work for Enchanters? When you create Glyphs, you don't get anything in return like when creating armor, such as tanins and alloys. The only way we have is to go out in the open world and find runes. I don't know about the rest of you, but most of my Kuta's came from hirelings, and NOT finding them in the open world from Aspect runes.

They definitely need to boost the RNG for harvesting Kuta and/or significantly boost the Kuta chance from harvesting enchanting surveys. Originally when I tested Patch 5 on PTS, I got Kuta from my first survey. I've harvested Kuta once since doing my daily enchanting surveys on Live.

NukeAllTheThings

On reddit someone has done lengthy testing on refining and they have come up with:

Gold drop rate 2.67%
Purple drop rate 7.01%
Blue drop rate 13.97%

reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/2tjkoe/results_of_refining_20000_raw_materials/

DeLindsay

3rdwardhobocub18_ESO wrote: »

On reddit someone has done lengthy testing on refining and they have come up with:

Gold drop rate 2.67%
Purple drop rate 7.01%
Blue drop rate 13.97%

reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/2tjkoe/results_of_refining_20000_raw_materials/

Reddit servers are all busy atm so I can't check the link. Do you know if this was done on PTS with 1.6 on it? If so then ROFL at ZoS that 2.67% Refine rate of Legendary Tempurs is a "significant" increase. There was a time closer to launch that you would almost always get 1 Legendary Tempur per full stack of refine.

s7732425ub17_ESO

DeLindsay wrote: »

3rdwardhobocub18_ESO wrote: »

On reddit someone has done lengthy testing on refining and they have come up with:

Gold drop rate 2.67%
Purple drop rate 7.01%
Blue drop rate 13.97%

reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/2tjkoe/results_of_refining_20000_raw_materials/

Reddit servers are all busy atm so I can't check the link. Do you know if this was done on PTS with 1.6 on it? If so then ROFL at ZoS that 2.67% Refine rate of Legendary Tempurs is a "significant" increase. There was a time closer to launch that you would almost always get 1 Legendary Tempur per full stack of refine.

No, it was done on live two weeks ago. The refine rates on the PTS are unknown.

DeLindsay

s7732425ub17_ESO wrote: »

No, it was done on live two weeks ago. The refine rates on the PTS are unknown.

Alright then at least we have a reasonable baseline to see just what ZoS considers a "significant" increase to Legendary Tempurs via refining in 1.6.

Divinius

I'm just going to call it now...

Kuta and gold upgrade mats for sale in the Crown Store inside of 6 months.

AlnilamE

UrQuan wrote: »

Antiquity wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

At present they can't. Or, if they can, it's rare enough that it will basically never happen. On 1.6 the provisioning writ is supposed to pay out with Frost Miriam and... whatever Oats turned into, somethingerother juice.

This is the way I understood the mechanics of it, as well.

@UrQuan‌ You must just be really unlucky with rune nodes And while that sucks and I feel for you, I still feel like ZOS made the right move with hirelings with the influx of players that will probably be coming in.

Oh, I'm OK with the hireling move as long as it is compensated for through other methods of getting those mats. I think it's perfectly fine for blacksmithing, clothing, and woodworking, and assuming you get rare (formerly hireling-only) ingredients from completing provisioning writs, I'm fine with that too. A small buff to Kuta drop rates (maybe even specific to nodes obtained from enchanting surveys) makes me fine with that too.

To be honest, I've got enough Kutas in my bank from hirelings that I don't really care for my own sake anyway. I've never sold even 1 of them, and I don't plan on it - they're for my own use only, and I've got a good enough supply for that. I was more concerned about the provisioning ingredients, but the news that we'll get them from writs makes me less concerned.

I don't think you can get tomatoes from the writs right now, but if you get paid with 10 pinguis, that's 630 gold saved right there!

I have been finding more Kuta from nodes recently (I got 2 from an enchanting survey yesterday!!!). Though I agree they should maybe up the drop rate a bit.

KrayzieBone_88

"Tiered the rewards from equipment crafting writs to provide an increased chance to receive a gold booster as you complete higher tier writs."

I just found that interesting gem. The gold booster increase drop rate would mainly apply to high level crafting writs -- ie a new alt doing writs likely wouldn't get them.

So, effectively, everyone who has hireling maxed alts could still be seeing the same output of gold (maybe more?) - just with the expense of a few more skill pts. Instead of logging on twice a day to collect mail, you log on once a day to do 2 minute writs. Now the only downside to my logic there is the mat intensive nature of the writs. But if writs are profitable and worth doing on one character (which zos clearly is trying to make them) it will be profitable and 'exploitable' using all characters. You can do wood, smith, cloth, enchant writs in 5 minutes total in Belkarth in one shot -- I do this every morning before work. So 5x8 =40min total to do those writs on all 8 chars. Given u only do this once a day as opposed to hirelings twice a day that's not too unreasonable to make a habit out of. 4 characters in morning and 4 at night -20 mins each.

This strategy will likely require quite a bit of gold up front to stock up on mats and make it scalable, but with all the gold boosters we will be swimming in it shouldn't be an issue.

Thoughts anyone?

s7732425ub17_ESO

KrayzieBone_88 wrote: »

"Tiered the rewards from equipment crafting writs to provide an increased chance to receive a gold booster as you complete higher tier writs."

I just found that interesting gem. The gold booster increase drop rate would mainly apply to high level crafting writs -- ie a new alt doing writs likely wouldn't get them.

So, effectively, everyone who has hireling maxed alts could still be seeing the same output of gold (maybe more?) - just with the expense of a few more skill pts. Instead of logging on twice a day to collect mail, you log on once a day to do 2 minute writs. Now the only downside to my logic there is the mat intensive nature of the writs. But if writs are profitable and worth doing on one character (which zos clearly is trying to make them) it will be profitable and 'exploitable' using all characters. You can do wood, smith, cloth, enchant writs in 5 minutes total in Belkarth in one shot -- I do this every morning before work. So 5x8 =40min total to do those writs on all 8 chars. Given u only do this once a day as opposed to hirelings twice a day that's not too unreasonable to make a habit out of. 4 characters in morning and 4 at night -20 mins each.

This strategy will likely require quite a bit of gold up front to stock up on mats and make it scalable, but with all the gold boosters we will be swimming in it shouldn't be an issue.

Thoughts anyone?

Writs (at least VR14 ones) are always profitable. Ill spend 500g on crafting mats and get 600g back and a bunch of useful items. However, you won't be getting gold tempers from writs. The best way to get gold mats will be to refine raw mats, and there are plenty of raw mats to go around.

EQBallzz

Slurg wrote: »

EQBallzz wrote: »

Slurg wrote: »

hiyde wrote: »

KrayzieBone_88 wrote: »

There was nothing unfair or exploitable in the previous system. You needed to invest a lot of gold and time up front to get those alts leveled for max hirelings. You invested that gold/time (my god think of the expense from enchanting leveling up!!!) with the expectation that you would slowly get paid back your investment over time and long-term hopefully make a profit. That was very reasonable. What isn't reasonable is pulling the reward after everyone already invested the gold/time....

This, This, This.

If you want more people doing Writs, raise the rewards for Writs.
It's not like hirelings are showering people with gold items as it stands now.

People (myself included) put a ton of time & effort into leveling characters specifically for hireling mail. That's a lot of time, effort & gold flushed down the toilet for what appears to be no good reason.

Hopping on board for this. I also spent a good deal of time and gold leveling various crafts on five characters for the hireling return. I don't get gold items every day but I thought the reward was worth the effort. I don't have a lot of time to play and it fit well with my schedule. Clearly I should've spent my limited play time grinding one of them to VR 14 instead.

Funny how you were one of the people telling those with multiple max level characters that the original 30 CP change was just fine and fair and just tough luck if you leveled up 5 VR14 characters. Now that something changes that affects you personally..guess you don't feel the same? Funny how that works but this is why nobody should have been in favor of anyone getting screwed out of their progression because it's only a matter of time before they do it again on something else.

I was one of the people suggesting people give 30 CP a chance and see how it would work when it hit PTS so they could give constructive feedback instead of throwing tantrums threatening to rage quit in dozens of posts a day, yes.

But now I have seen that the temper tantrum rage posts really work and the people who scream the loudest get what they want.

Thanks for the troll post.

Nice try on turning this around to suit your own selfish aims but you were clearly not concerned with them wiping away HUNDREDS of hours of progress because it didn't affect you and would have in fact given you a nice boost while knocking others down. Now they are wiping away far less progress that affects you and you suddenly have some concern? Sorry, but you are a textbook hypocrite. Oh and just because someone posts something true that hurts doesn't make it a troll post.

For the record I agree that this change is completely bogus but the difference is I'm not saying it *just* because it affects me. It's a crap move to continue nullifying people's progress in any form..whether it affects me personally or not.

DeLindsay

KrayzieBone_88 wrote: »

So, effectively, everyone who has hireling maxed alts could still be seeing the same output of gold (maybe more?) - just with the expense of a few more skill pts. Instead of logging on twice a day to collect mail, you log on once a day to do 2 minute writs.

This isn't what we're seeing on PTS right now. So far Players are finding almost 0% drop rate of Legendary Tempers and Kuta in Hirelings (218 Hirelings checked so far). We went from ~10/day + 2-3 Kuta on Live to 0-1/day + 0 Kuta on PTS. Also, several of us are doing all 8 Writs every day and are noticing no increase in Kuta via Surveys whatsoever, nor any increase via Aspect Nodes out in Tamriel. I have personally already farmed/Refined almost 1000 Ore/Wood/Cloth and found the Refine rate of Legendary Temper on PTS to actually be worse than Live right now.

It's obviously a work in progress but ZoS doesn't seem to be delivering on their comment of "significantly increased" via Survey reports/Refining, but they sure as hell delivered on the reduction via Hirelings. On PTS Hirelings are almost useless for BS/Clothing/WW when it comes to Legendary and in some cases even Epic Tempers and you can almost forget about seeing Kuta anymore if it stays this way.

I'm fine with the change is ZoS basically swaps the values. That is if we are capable of getting the same numbers daily via Survey reports and Refining that we now get via Hirelings then it'll turn out fine. That just isn't the case so far, it's a blanket nerf to Legendary drop rates across the board.

SpAEkus

I just want to know what is the real driver for the nerfs. Do they have ANY kind of economy data that would justify the changes?

starkerealm

SpAEkus wrote: »

I just want to know what is the real driver for the nerfs. Do they have ANY kind of economy data that would justify the changes?

Probably. But, we don't have access to it.

At a guess, the idea is to push players towards generating resources by refining mats. Right now, on live, you can camp out with eight characters with maxed hirelings. Log in for about 15-20 minutes twice a day, and get all the crafting mats you'd ever need. (Or, you know, not.) So, this seems to be a transition away from hirelings as a substitute for material gathering.

That said, unless provisioning is really different in 1.6, this IS going to screw provisioners for purple food.

Alphashado

I don't disagree that a nerf was in order. But they went too far. At the current rate, hirelings are not even worth the skill points for WW, Clothier, and BS. I'm hoping they are more lenient with Enchanting hirelings because Kuta is MUCH harder to find in the wild than a few stacks of Ore.

SpAEkus

Unfortunately that push has returned squat for many on PTS so far including me