Although I burried all hope of seeing a
decent enchanting system, couldn't we have at least useful enchantments? If anything, 1.6 made everything worse, when it is probably the last chance for quite some time to see improvements.
Currently, the only enchantments for armor pieces are attribute increases. While this is boring enough, couldn't they at least be on par with set bonuses? A VR14 legendary set bonus for health is slightly above 1000 Health, whereas a legendary VR14 enchantment is only 700 Health. Even the traits on jewelry are better than this, easily above 800, although I have no exact numbers here for legendary grades. Combined with the fact you only get the full effect of armor enchantments on head, chest and leg pieces, this is absolutely pitiful.
Jewelry enchantments were moderately important, at least on live. 14 weapon or spell damage per glyph was on par with the better equipment sets, and attribute recovery enchantments were even better than many sets. On PTS, both are a joke. While a set bonus adds about 177 spell and weapon damage at maximum, I believe an enchantment is about a third of that value (as there are no +damage glyphs in the template boxes, I'm going by memory). Attribute recovery enchantments add 64 per glyph, which yields a maximum of 192 on three jewelry pieces- again, an absolutely laughable amount compared to sets and the scale of recovery values in 1.6.
But the absolute worst are weapon enchantments. I can honestly say I have never enchanted a weapon in ESO since beta. There is simply no point.
On PTS, a fire/shock/frost/poison glyph adds 490 damage, with a cooldown of 4 seconds. This translates to 122,5 dps, if you get it to proc without delay every 4 seconds. Ideally, most fights in PvE don't even last long enough for a second proc. Even with a powered weapon and a full Torug's Pact set, you only get 637 more dps - still laughable when compared to the necessary dps of upwards of 10k in 1.6, even more so considering the commitment of using a specific set and items for it.
Other weapon enchantments aren't any better, with a 406 damage shield for 5 seconds, a decrease of the target's weapon damage by 64 or of their armor by 1116 - and one that actually upsets me, attribute drain enchantments with 367 damage and 166 attribute gain. That's 41,5 health, magicka or stamina per second on a 4 second cooldown. Slightly better than the jewelry glyph for attribute recovery, I'll give you that - but still so unbelievably underwhelming. And this actually upsets me because instead of making this mechanic which already existed in the game useful, you introduced attribute gain on heavy attacks - which not only introduced a new mechanic, but is also absolutely nonsensical.
In summary, I don't even know what to give feedback on anymore. I've been suggesting improvements to enchanting since beta - removing the cooldown, increasing the magnitude, scale magnitude with spell power or magicka, improve the system as a whole by making more use of soul gems, so on and so forth - but it does not even seam to exist for you guys. Apparently it matters so little that there is not even a simple sound or visual effect for applying an enchantment. I would worry if such an integral part of the Elder Scrolls series is not really used by the community, but to you, it was apparently still too powerful.
I mean, what is even your
idea with enchantments, ZOS? What's the intended design here? I just don't get it.
TL;DR
Enchantments suck. Fix them or remove the whole system, in its current state it's just an embarrassment.