Hirelings in update 6....The Temper Tantrum

Vahrokh

oren74 wrote: »

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

Maybe if there was quantity and quality content enough, people would not complete it and then stick to logging in to fetch materials.

I have some little doubts people love to pay a sub NOT to play, if they'd find the game fun enough, they'd bother logging on.

Valencer

Not sure what to make of this thread. Levelling up crafts is really easy (especially on low level alts) and you guys expect to keep on seeing the gold tempers rolling in for your 'great' investment on all those alts?

It's 3 skill points per hireling. In a game with hundreds. Deconning high level items on your low level alts used to give better inspiration gains and I dont think it has changed much.

I just keep getting reminded of this one thread about people levelling up Enchanting on their alts until they could max the hireling and then only keeping 2-3 points into the hireling passive (and nothing else in that craft), expecting to get Kuta daily (or close to it).

I totally appreciate the fact that people don't want to farm, but just logging in on 8 alts every day, expecting to get multiple legendary tempers (which are supposed to be rare) is silly.

Ignoring all the crown store conspiracy talk, the change makes perfect sense from a game design point of view.

Nestor

Valencer wrote: »

It's 3 skill points per hireling. In a game with hundreds. Deconning high level items on your low level alts used to give better inspiration gains and I dont think it has changed much.

You must not have deconned anything high level lately on a low level Alt.

Valencer

No, I haven't. Because I don't. The characters I play are my crafters.

AlnilamE

It does give a fair amount of IP, though I have found that deconning blues and purples gives more IP than crafted whites.

Nestor

I did some testing the other night on a low level alt with a low level craft skill. Basically you get the same amount of Insp from deconing something near your character's level as you do the VR stuff. On a VR character with a low crafting skill, you get the boost in Insp that you would expect.

So, the moral is, if you want to raise your crafting level fast, wait until your at VR Ranks to get the most Insp from deconning.

DisgracefulMind

Rook_Master wrote: »

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.

See it's their assumption that one cannot have more than one character they play. I have several that are actively played, and they all have crafting leveled from what I have deconned in the world from, can you believe it, playing them! Therefore, they all have hirelings.

Just getting tired of people trying to control how other people play.

rawne1980b16_ESO

Nestor wrote: »

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.

Why are you telling me?

I'm not the one nerfing them to uselessness.

I barely get any tempers from my hirelings, after 1.6 hits i'll get even less. I don't need to waste points on hirelings if they serve me no purpose.

Pretty sure I can find a use for those points elsewhere.

Nestor

rawne1980b16_ESO wrote: »

Why are you telling me?


Pretty sure I can find a use for those points elsewhere.

I was agreeing with you, commiserating with you, trying to be simpatico with you.....

And I agree that I will probably toss my hirelings to the winds come 1.6

rawne1980b16_ESO

Nestor wrote: »

rawne1980b16_ESO wrote: »

Why are you telling me?


Pretty sure I can find a use for those points elsewhere.

I was agreeing with you, commiserating with you, trying to be simpatico with you.....

And I agree that I will probably toss my hirelings to the winds come 1.6

Ahhh, my mistake then. I apologise.

Gix

Psychobunni wrote: »

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

No it doesn't. He'll just have to make a choice instead.

Firestar_

I have to say this change is kind of BS.

Those are skillpoints that players are spending to have a chance at getting those mats. Dunno about others, but skillpoints are expensive to my crafter. It means he is that much more gimped in combat the stronger a crafter he is.

Making the choice to spend these skill points in getting mats not worth it at all, in which case, why have them at all now? The letters are pretty amusing but not amusing enough to sacrifice combat ability if all I'm going to get in the mail system is worthless junk.

newtinmpls

Hmmmm.....

I run all 8 of the characters from my primary account, and started another one (yeah, I have it bad. I also write fanfic). I have several characters who are also crafters, and ... long story short 7 of the 8 characters put a single point each into hirelings for woodworker, blacksmith, clothier and enchanter. One point. Just one. I get a wide range of stuff, anywhere from 1 low level basic material (jute or raw maple or iron ore) to 3 (max I've gotten from enchanter hireling) to 6 (max I've gotten from the woodworker hireling).

I'm not in a big hurry to level everyone up, and currently the first group is level-wise something like 33, 21, 14, 13, 26, 27, 9, and 7 ... or so. My hirelings are starting to send me stuff that I'm not high enough to use, and between them and deconstructing and gathering .... I probably average 200-400 of the two lowest "groups" of materials. If it gets much higher than that I sit down with a friend and construct/trade/deconstruct.

My highest level crafters are around 27-31 or so, and two of them have gotten the "deconstructed 1,000 items" awards. Even so, I still have plenty of traits left to research (I've never seen a nirnhoned traited item) and styles to learn (I have yet to find any non-basic style book - I have found exactly 1 Imperial book and the clothier happily clamied it).

With a limit of 5 choices for my bar o' attacks, I'm not really worried about needing a lot of points for choices. Passives are more valuable to me (when they are useful - which many of them aren't). As for the idea of "switching bars", well ... I suck at it. So most of my characters have a bar with

1-distance attack (crystal shard for Sorc, obsidian flake for DK)
2-something weapon specific aimed at one person
3-weapon ability with splash or group action
4-familiar, bound armor or something long lasting or toggle-able. Oddly this is where my NB's put their teleport jump.
5-Default for soul trapping or something I'm working on. Battle mages tend to use 4 & 5 for lightning form and bound armor.

When I switch bars it's usually so I can use an emergency resto staff, so 1, 4 & 5 stay the same and 2 and 3 become the top two abilities on the resto "tree".

At any given time I usually have 2-4 points that I've not yet alloted yet.

So going back to the whole hireling thing - I'm a bit overwhelmed both with deliveries per day and with stuff I can't quite yet use (my crafting tends to run ahead of my adventuring). But that's okay, and I'm still having fun.

Charadras

I try my crafter yesterday in pts. In about 15 minutes of daily writs and with the refining of 150 void cloth and 100 void ore i obtain 3 tempering 2 wax and 1 rosin.

DaggerfallTradeMasters

Yeah not worth having hirelings anymore.... wel if you already have them and farmed them like me..... but not worth to train it anymore 0_o

Messy1

I did completed a crafting writ with my VR2 character got a survey map, which was located in a VR 8 zone and would be highly perilous to get to it. Got that about a month ago. I do not do crafting writs anymore . . . -.-

Merlin13KAGL

The writs are awesome. I love doing a master level writ, going to the map location, and getting six Ta's...

DeLindsay

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

The writs are awesome. I love doing a master level writ, going to the map location, and getting six Ta's...

I kid you not I actually got my first ever double Kuta from an Enchanting Survey yesterday. This was on Live not PTS and I have done all 3 Consumable Writs every day since it came out. I have a little side game going to see how many Ta's I can stack up in the GB just for the fun of it. I think I'm at 13 Stacks now lol.

AlnilamE

Firestar_ wrote: »

I have to say this change is kind of BS.

Those are skillpoints that players are spending to have a chance at getting those mats. Dunno about others, but skillpoints are expensive to my crafter. It means he is that much more gimped in combat the stronger a crafter he is.

Making the choice to spend these skill points in getting mats not worth it at all, in which case, why have them at all now? The letters are pretty amusing but not amusing enough to sacrifice combat ability if all I'm going to get in the mail system is worthless junk.

That is a calculation that each player needs to make individually. Personally, I'm going to keep my 3/3 hirelings (and I'm still working on leveling 2 alts to the point where they can get them). Even with the reduced chance, they will still bring mats, so I can refine those and hopefully get some improvers that way.

helediron

Confirming the same drop rates at PTS as others. Hirelings down to maybe 10% from what they were and refining same as live. Well, hireling drops of yellows is so low that it's hard to say how much worse they actually are.

If they need balancing, maybe halving the hirelings and doubling refinery yellows would be ok. At the same time make hirelings harder to get needing maximized skill and many skillpoints to prevent exploiting by botters. Real crafters have no difficulty to level them up.

I do feel bad for average players if this goes to live unchanged. We crafters will control the stock and just extract another million gold for free.

Khami

Sallington wrote: »

Weberda wrote: »

Yeah, it looks like they did this to get more people to do the stupid crafting writs. And the writs make no sense for max level toons/crafters. They are doing their best to drive the original player base from the game.

Sure seems that way. I've been trying to avoid those crafting writs because I have no interest in them whatsoever.

If you have the mats already, the writs, all 6, will take about 5 minutes or the time it takes you to click R to craft them.

The maps from the rewards are wonderful because they're heavier nodes and give more than just VR9-14 mat. Their worth doing just for those. The upper craglorn maps tend to have the nirnhoned stones as well. It's the best place I've found them since returning last month.

DeLindsay

I have been compiling a list of all Legendaries I've gotten from my hirelings in 1.6.2 that I'll post when NA loses PTS this Tuesday (so it's all at once instead of multiple posts). ZoS ninja changed the values, one you will like the other you will hate even more. I've spawned my Hirelings twice every day since 1.6.2 hit.

Alphashado

I haven't put nearly as much time and effort into this as @DeLindsay but I can say that what I've seen so far based on two characters with max Hirelings in every craft, that hirelings are not even worth the skill points anymore. I can spend those points on something else besides getting 5 ore and a racial stone every day in the mail.

DeLindsay

Alright here are my results after spawning all 8 Character's 3/3 Hirelings twice a day since 1.6.2 hit. I also tested one change in Enchanting to see if it made a difference. In 1.6 all 8 Characters had 4/4 Aspect Improvement, 3/3 Hireling and 3/3 Runestone Extraction and I received 0 Kuta, although I missed the first 2-1/2 days of Hirelings so it wasn't a full week of testing. This week all 8 Characters have only the base 1/4 Aspect Improvement while also having 3/3 Hireling and 3/3 Runestone Extraction. Either Aspect Improvement makes your Kuta chances worse -OR- Zos ninja buffed the Kuta drop rate a little in 1.6.2. I will only be listing my Legendary results this time as that's all that ZoS said they changed.

12 Hireling spawns for 96 total Hireling mails

• 4 - Dreugh Wax
• 2 - Rosin
• 4 - Kuta

4 Kuta over the course of 6 days isn't terrible actually. It's far better than the 0-1 that we had seen in 1.6 and 1.6.1. The down side is ZoS further ninja nerfed the Legendary Temper drop rates via Hirelings. 6 total Tempers over 6 days is REALLY bad compared to how it was even in 1.6 and 1.6.1. Kuta however are the hardest Legendary to get in the game so at least they helped us out a bit there but it really sucks that they further nerfed Tempers. I would still consider the Hirelings moderately useful for all the hard work we've all put into them but I can certainly see the cost of Legendary Tempers as well as Kuta going up some in 1.6 with a smaller pool available.

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO

Khami wrote: »

If you have the mats already, the writs, all 6, will take about 5 minutes or the time it takes you to click R to craft them.

Well, that's the point, isn't it? If you don't have the mats, it takes quite a bit of farming to get them, or you need to buy them, in which case you end up paying more for others to farm the mats for you than what the writ reward is likely to be worth.

They have obviously made Kuta inconveniently scarce. I don't think that is an accident, and I expect them to be sold in the crown store soon. They will try to mask it by selling a "potion of luck" or something along those lines, but Kuta will most probably be an item you can pay real money to get.

Grapdjan

It's quite basic really. Without a nerd there is nothing to stop people having 5, 10 or 100 accounts and just logging in and out of them for a week collecting tons of golds.

Crowzer

So they decreased the chance from nothing to more nothing ! Incredible.

WhiskyBob

Yes.
NERF hirelings
BOOST refining.

starkerealm

newtinmpls wrote: »

My highest level crafters are around 27-31 or so, and two of them have gotten the "deconstructed 1,000 items" awards. Even so, I still have plenty of traits left to research (I've never seen a nirnhoned traited item) and styles to learn (I have yet to find any non-basic style book - I have found exactly 1 Imperial book and the clothier happily clamied it).

With the level of your characters, the only source for Nirnhoned... and the the 11 - 14 motifs is other players.

You probably already know this, but Nirnhoned only naturally drop from completing the questline in Craglorn.

The Barbaric and Primal motifs only drop in vet zones, and the Daedric and Ancient Elf motifs only drop in vet 6+ zones. (I'm not sure if either group drops in Craglorn or just Cadwell zones.)

newtinmpls

starkerealm wrote: »

With the level of your characters, the only source for Nirnhoned... and the the 11 - 14 motifs is other players.

You probably already know this, but Nirnhoned only naturally drop from completing the questline in Craglorn.

The Barbaric and Primal motifs only drop in vet zones, and the Daedric and Ancient Elf motifs only drop in vet 6+ zones. (I'm not sure if either group drops in Craglorn or just Cadwell zones.)

No I did not know this. I know that some folks have said that the Imperial motif book only drops in Vet areas; but the one I got was from a cabinet in the Rosy Lion in Daggerfall (starter zone DC). Saw it recently in a guild store for something like 10k <choke, gasp>.

I did not start getting 'divines' until I had characters in the third or so zone (not 100% sure on that).

I have seen "other" motifs for sale in guild stores, but I haven't a chance in heck of getting them. I am totally-deconstruct happy, and between that and getting my characters up to about 80 bank slots (okay the provisioner is 90 plus a few more for his horse) and the general account up to 120, as of last night I have about 2400 in the bank and maybe 300-400 on most characters (have to keep that much available for armor repairs after a 'day' of adventuring).

I have lots of characters and play them in a disorganized rotation, so right now I'm averaging between about 8th level to about 28-33rd level. Eventually I suppose I'll find them. For now, there are folks out there willing to craft the occasional set/bit for me which I very much appreciate.