Hirelings in update 6....The Temper Tantrum

Hortator Mopa · February 2015

KrayzieBone_88 wrote: »

"Significantly decreased the chance to receive gold boosters, gold aspect runes and purple provisioning ingredients from hireling mails."

Thank god I didn't spend countless hours leveling up alts for the sole purpose of having a bunch of hirelings receiving purples/golds...oh wait I did do that....

FFS really?...

Lucky they will be 500 crowns in the store /sarcasm

DeLindsay · February 2015

Alphashado wrote: »

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.

Those of us who have all 8 Hirelings for Enchanting are finding ZERO Kuta in our mails, none. I have also personally farmed over 60 Aspect Nodes with no Kuta in sight and 15 Enchating Survey Aspect nodes without a single Kuta. The way it looks on PTS (if it stays this way) you better hope you have a decent stockpile of Kuta before 1.6 hits Live, because the price may go up to Epic Motif cost.

One thought I had as to why the severe nerf in Legendary anything dropping as well as other difficulties added with 1.6 on PTS is that ZoS is tired of Players saying the game is too easy. And I'm sure they're irritated after spending months designing Trials to be "difficult for even seasoned MMO Veterans" to take us 2+ hours to clear and we go in and blitz those very trials in <10 min. What's a great way to increase difficulty without actually nerfing Players? Reduce the ability for Players to get full Legendary gear. I'm probably wrong on the why but who knows with ZoS anymore.

Hortator Mopa · February 2015

How do you all not know whats going on...

Why would they lower the rate to the point that getting them is near impossible and takes a very long time?

Convenience

And when was the last time we heard that word?

There you have it, those will be sold in the crown store some time soon.

A Take a stupidly long time to get them (almost impossible).
B Spend money and get them right away.

After all its just a convenience item right?...

Esha76 · February 2015

They stated somewhere that there would be improved writs for completed crafters. Don't recall if that was intended for this update or a later one.

Perhaps my PTS writs have just been horrible luck, but I am still not seeing a wonderful return. I think I got one Rosin and one Wax. But my surveys had not equaled the amount of my mats used. In my limited experience on PTS writs that is....

I am, however, all for this change. Much more entertaining to actually go out and play the game (heaven forbid) to acquire mats to refine = top tempers etc.

I will add, with this change, I am now all for dropping hireling all together if this means we can have another 2 to 4 character slots.

Just my pointless opinion on the matter.

KrayzieBone_88 · February 2015

Hortator Mopa wrote: »

How do you all not know whats going on...

Why would they lower the rate to the point that getting them is near impossible and takes a very long time?

Convenience

And when was the last time we heard that word?

There you have it, those will be sold in the crown store some time soon.

A Take a stupidly long time to get them (almost impossible).
B Spend money and get them right away.

After all its just a convenience item right?...

I think you are absolutely right. They will wait a few months for everyone to get frustrated by the fact that gold boosters are near impossible to get. Then the gold boosters will pop up in the crown store because the convenience of buying them is better than doing 30 writs. If they did that it would really be game breaking....buying legendary gear is by definition pay to win.

newtinmpls · February 2015

UrQuan wrote: »

Olern wrote: »

Islyn wrote: »

KrayzieBone_88 wrote: »

"Significantly decreased the chance to receive gold boosters, gold aspect runes and purple provisioning ingredients from hireling mails."

Omg why? :-(

Did you ignore this part?

"Significantly increased the chance to receive gold boosters from refining."

Which is fine for blacksmithing, clothing, and woodworking. In the long run, it will probably mean the same or more gold boosters from hirelings, as you always get stuff to refine from them.

As you won't be getting any gold aspect runes or purple provisioning ingredients from refining, though, it's definitely a nerf for enchanting and provisioning (although perhaps with the overall changes to provisioning it won't matter - but it probably will).

On the other hand .... could it be that filleting all the fish I catch will count as a form of 'refining'? That could be interesting.

newtinmpls · February 2015

Psychobunni wrote: »

oren74 wrote: »

they want you to play the game, instead of just logging in 7 alts to get mail. Go figure.

You know I pointed out the BS it the patch notes thread. Some people have jobs, a real life outside playing ESO all day. I'll use my husband as an example he works 12 hour shifts, with an hour commute each way. So on work days, he gets an hour, two if he is lucky, tops. He spends the first couple minutes logging all those he receives mail from, and then dives into play with whatever he can do in that limited time.

That is kind of scary. What about a life outside of work and game? And of course the obvious question here is that if you are NOT stuck in that kind of schedule, then why are you not leveling up a bunch of crafters and helping him out?

DeLindsay · February 2015

Don't count on Writs > Surveys giving you great results in 1.6, unless ZoS didn't include the higher drop rate for Legendary Tempers/Kutas in the 1.6 that's on PTS right now. What we're seeing is that (0) Kuta are dropping from the Aspect Nodes in Surveys and the Kuta dropping from open world Aspect Nodes are <1%. I've personally found that Hirelings now give (0) Kuta so expect the price of Kuta to go through the roof when 1.6 is Live if ZoS doesn't change it. Legendary Tempers so far I'm seeing about a 4% drop rate via Refining which is slightly worse than Live, and roughly an 80-90% reduction in Legendary Tempers via Hirelings.

Alphashado · February 2015

DeLindsay wrote: »

Alphashado wrote: »

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.

Those of us who have all 8 Hirelings for Enchanting are finding ZERO Kuta in our mails, none. I have also personally farmed over 60 Aspect Nodes with no Kuta in sight and 15 Enchating Survey Aspect nodes without a single Kuta. The way it looks on PTS (if it stays this way) you better hope you have a decent stockpile of Kuta before 1.6 hits Live, because the price may go up to Epic Motif cost.

Agreed. I wish I could say with certainty that this is NOT a preemptive move in anticipation of adding Kutas and other gold mats to the cash shop. But I've seen too many other F2P/B2P games use tactics EXACTLY like this in order to make money.

IMO if we see gold tempers or even blue or purple tempers in the Cash Shop, then it will be straight up P2W w/o debate because you will be able to buy your way into an upgraded blue, purple, or Legendary set of gear with a credit card. It would be no different than putting legendary Gear and Weapons in the Crown Store.

newtinmpls · February 2015

I have gotten higher level runes when deconstructing.

Reverb · February 2015

newtinmpls wrote: »

I have gotten higher level runes when deconstructing.

But you will never get higher than those needed to make the glyph you decon. You will never get a Kuta or even Rekuta for deconstructing white glyphs you get from mobs, or the green ones you get for the writs.

Alphashado · February 2015

Reverb wrote: »

newtinmpls wrote: »

I have gotten higher level runes when deconstructing.

But you will never get higher than those needed to make the glyph you decon. You will never get a Kuta or even Rekuta for deconstructing white glyphs you get from mobs, or the green ones you get for the writs.

And that is exactly why a nerf to the enchanting hirelings is pretty outlandish. You can pretty easily(supposedly) find gold tempers for WW, Clothier, and BS just by gathering and refining materials. With Kutas, you have to hope to get them from gathering nodes in the wild and the odds of that are VERY slim. I stop and farm every single runestone I come across and I am lucky if I see a kuta once per week. I've gone several weeks w/o seeing one.

So unless they want a MASSIVE shortage of Kuta, they need to increase the drop rate from nodes or cancel the nerf to Enchanting Hirelings.

DeLindsay · February 2015

Alphashado wrote: »

So unless they want a MASSIVE shortage of Kuta, they need to increase the drop rate from nodes or cancel the nerf to Enchanting Hirelings.

I'm starting to think that's exactly what they want to have happen.

nerevarine1138 · February 2015

Psychobunni wrote: »

oren74 wrote: »

they want you to play the game, instead of just logging in 7 alts to get mail. Go figure.

You know I pointed out the BS it the patch notes thread. Some people have jobs, a real life outside playing ESO all day. I'll use my husband as an example he works 12 hour shifts, with an hour commute each way. So on work days, he gets an hour, two if he is lucky, tops. He spends the first couple minutes logging all those he receives mail from, and then dives into play with whatever he can do in that limited time.

What this change does is effectively prevents him from playing aside from doing writs.

So, think outside your own little box before stating they want people to play the game.

Everyone should send feedback >>in game<< that this is a horrible change.

I have a job too. Most adults playing this game probably have jobs.

I accept that my having a job means that I'll never be one of the top players on the server. Fortunately, my life's ambitions lie elsewhere, so I'll live. I also accept that people with more time to play have more time to get better things.

There is no reason to have a wall of alts getting hireling mail unless you're trying to get an excess of rare materials for your one real crafter. And the really sad part is that this punishes people who weren't trying to game the system by using those alts.

EQBallzz · February 2015

Hortator Mopa wrote: »

How do you all not know whats going on...

Why would they lower the rate to the point that getting them is near impossible and takes a very long time?

Convenience

And when was the last time we heard that word?

There you have it, those will be sold in the crown store some time soon.

A Take a stupidly long time to get them (almost impossible).
B Spend money and get them right away.

After all its just a convenience item right?...

I wish I could say that this is just wild conspiracy talk nonsense and I might have said that a few months ago. Sadly, ZOS has played right into all the conspiracy theories by proving that many of them were right.

Now that B2P is a reality we are stuck trying to read the tea leaves to determine if this B2P adventure will be a departure from the norm and keep things legit or will go down the path of most other B2P/F2P misadventures with P2W crap in the store and annoying cash shop alerts/messages.

Considering the record of ZOS so far and the fact that the conspiracy theorists have been mostly right I don't think there is much hope that this B2P misadventure will deviate far from the path of others before it, sadly.

deepseamk20b14_ESO · February 2015

This is a complaint I can actually get behind. When I read that I just shook my head in disappointment.

DeLindsay · February 2015

For Kuta, my PTS results after 4-5 days of Hirelings (twice a day on 8 Characters) and Farming nodes for hours each day, and doing all 8 Enchanting Writs/day is this:

Kuta drop rate via Hirelings: 0% (47 Enchanting Hirelings).
Kuta drop rate via open World Aspect Nodes: 1.4% (2 from 141 farmed).
Kuta drop rate via all sources: 1.8% (got 2 from the Enchanters Coffer from 39 Writs).

Legendary Tempers via Hirelings: 5.3% (7 from 133 Hireling Mails).
Legendary Tempers via Refining: 5% (19 from 3770 Raw mats).

I completed zero Crafting Writs so cannot speak on the drop rate when opening Coffers there.

Hellkiteacus · February 2015

I have been here since beta and prerelease. I work the long hours and have a very limited amount of time to play. I have managed to get two toons to v14 and maxed in crafting so I can get the hireling mail. So yes this bothers me. I don't intend to use what time I do have doing those god awful crafting writs. Not everyone is "exploiting" the hireling system as some of the "holier than thou" out there would suggest.

cchin256b16_ESO · February 2015

I knew it was a good idea to hold on to the multiple stacks of legendary mats I have been saving up since launch.

ArconSeptim · February 2015

Seems Crown store will be full of tempering alloys

Zershar_Vemod · February 2015

I hardly get that crap as is even as a fully unlocked crafter in Wood, Smithing, and Clothing...now they're nerfing it....great.

So how long do you think it'll be until we get crafter's packs in the Crown Store?

Psychobunni · February 2015

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

I have a job too. Most adults playing this game probably have jobs.

I accept that my having a job means that I'll never be one of the top players on the server. Fortunately, my life's ambitions lie elsewhere, so I'll live. I also accept that people with more time to play have more time to get better things.

There is no reason to have a wall of alts getting hireling mail unless you're trying to get an excess of rare materials for your one real crafter. And the really sad part is that this punishes people who weren't trying to game the system by using those alts.

Actually I agree, he has 2 crafters getting mails. I have one getting enchanting, 1 getting food, so forth.... I think a better answer would be one hireling per toon.
Yes, it would suck if you leveled crafting on 8 to get all mails on 8, but its better than punishing everyone.

People are already posting the #'s from PTS. Refining 100 basically gets you nothing, need 1000(in their testing). That is hours and hours of gathering. Which other people will be doing as well, creating a whole other ballgame of problems (ie: you are fighting that mob to get that node and xxx sorry sack of skeever dung runs in and grabs it while you are fighting)

And again the writs. I get it, "some" people wanted dailies. However, not everyone did and I still feel like its a maneuver to get people into doing something that is more a waste than gain after max crafting.

AlnilamE · February 2015

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?

If you up the crafting skill of your alts, keep the hirelings for sure! They will deliver the mats you need for the writs, will have a chance of delivering the gold improvers, you get a chance of getting the improvers from refining (with your main crafter).

DeLindsay wrote: »

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.

That was a little excessive, don't you think? I mean, gold improvers are supposed to be rare.

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.

The "significantly increased" chance is from the Enchanter box, not from the Survey. The survey gives you the exact same chance as a random world node (except you'll get 2 runes out of the node).

rawne1980b16_ESO · February 2015

It saves me a couple of points not having to put them in hirelings.

Nerf them any more and they may as well just get rid of them altogether.

dylanjaygrobbelaarb16_ESO · February 2015

KrayzieBone_88 wrote: »

"Significantly decreased the chance to receive gold boosters, gold aspect runes and purple provisioning ingredients from hireling mails."

Thank god I didn't spend countless hours leveling up alts for the sole purpose of having a bunch of hirelings receiving purples/golds...oh wait I did do that....

dont cry yet, if they seriously increase the chance when we break stuff down then converting all the mats they send you could be even, or possibly better to the current system if the chances are right. did you actually break down a bunch of stacks on pts or just strait to comments?

DeLindsay · February 2015

dylanjaygrobbelaarb16_ESO wrote: »

KrayzieBone_88 wrote: »

"Significantly decreased the chance to receive gold boosters, gold aspect runes and purple provisioning ingredients from hireling mails."

Thank god I didn't spend countless hours leveling up alts for the sole purpose of having a bunch of hirelings receiving purples/golds...oh wait I did do that....

dont cry yet, if they seriously increase the chance when we break stuff down then converting all the mats they send you could be even, or possibly better to the current system if the chances are right. did you actually break down a bunch of stacks on pts or just strait to comments?

So far there has been almost 30K Raw mats Refined by various Players, myself included. We are finding almost the exact same results, Refine rates for Legendary Tempers on PTS in 1.6 and 1.6.1 is ~5%, pretty much identical to Live right now. Kuta don't exist in Hirelings anymore and the overall drop rate via all sources (including the Enchanter's Coffer) is 1.8%. Get ready for a run on the market, for Kuta at least

kewl · February 2015

oren74 wrote: »

they want you to play the game, instead of just logging in 7 alts to get mail. Go figure.

You are correct Sir! "Play the way you want," as long as it's the way ZO$ wants.

Nestor · February 2015

rawne1980b16_ESO wrote: »

It saves me a couple of points not having to put them in hirelings.

Nerf them any more and they may as well just get rid of them altogether.

I have 4 Mules with 3 Eq Hirelings at L2, and each Master Crafter has an L3 for their respective crafts, so one more Wood, Cloth and Blacksmith Hireling at L3. I have one master enchanter with a L3 Hireling. I have had these hirelings since June/July. I have also probably had 3000 refining operations between the 3 of them, so 30,000 plus raw mats have been refined. This number could be much higher, its just a guess.

In that time I have just acquired enough Gold Tempers to make a Set of Metal Armor/Weapons and enough to either make a set of Cloth or Leather armor, but not both. It's not like the Hirelings have made me rich with Gold Tempers, nor has the refining process.

DisgracefulMind · February 2015

Just a question to all of you whining about people having hirelings on all their characters:

How does that even affect your gameplay? Why are you so mad about how other people play their game? It's this sort of complaining that gets things nerfed. How does this impact you in any way?

Rook_Master · February 2015

DisgracefulMind wrote: »

Just a question to all of you whining about people having hirelings on all their characters:

How does that even affect your gameplay? Why are you so mad about how other people play their game? It's this sort of complaining that gets things nerfed. How does this impact you in any way?

Because they just love their ONE character they made so much. They expect to be rewarded for the conscious decision to limit themselves. They think having alts is elitism.