Researching Traits is backwards

PSUgrad

I know why the time starts off minimal and then increases with the more traits you research, but isn't this backwards? Initially it should take you a long time to research a trait because it is the first one you're researching. After each trait researched it should become more and more quick because you have learned more about the piece of armor than the trait before.

Just my opinion. It would have been cool (although frustrating initially) to have the first trait set to 45 days and decrease from there. However, I understand that this would have been off-putting to people looking to craft as the hit on length of time comes right up front.

Anyone else agree?

CGPsaint

The length of time required to research traits is off-putting regardless of which end you start with.

Scyantific

No. Researching is fine as is, and this idea is as dumb as the "give us instant-research in the crown store" idea suggested a while back.

PSUgrad

CGPsaint wrote: »

The length of time required to research traits is off-putting regardless of which end you start with.

It's not too bad- if you get all the skill upgrades you can minimize the last item to just 30 days. I definitely agree with the timeline to research the items to prevent everyone from having all crafting abilities in the first month of the game being out, but just feel it should've been opposite.

PSUgrad

Scyantific wrote: »

No. Researching is fine as is, and this idea is as dumb as the "give us instant-research in the crown store" idea suggested a while back.

Thanks for being so constructive in your response. It was just a thought. No need to be rude.

EddieHavok

Another terrible suggestion I'm sure but, maybe have each trait take its own specific time to research, i.e. all exploration traits take 14 days but all Sharpening traits take 24 hours, so if you find an item with a 2 month trait at lvl 20 then its up to you to decide on whether or not to start researching that trait.

Valen_Byte

Scyantific wrote: »

No. Researching is fine as is, and this idea is as dumb as the "give us instant-research in the crown store" idea suggested a while back.

You are incredibly rude. We don't need your kind around here.



As for the OP, your idea dose have some merit. As an apprentice learning a new trade skill, you would take much longer in the beginning. Then as you become more proficient in your craft you would become better and of course faster at it.

In the end though, it really makes no difference if you are going to be maxing out crafting. Whether you start with the longest research time or the shortest, you would still finish in the same amount of time.

rb2001

This is a great line of thought, OP.

It doesn't make sense that it takes 8 weeks to learn Sharpened, even though it would have taken 2 days if we did that one first, just because we are now... better tailors.


I propose the following system:

When you first come out and have Tailoring Level 1, you are untrained, and thus it should take you a while to research improved techniques.

1. Research time should scale inversely to Tailoring level (maybe it already does, to some degree, but this should be the primary scaling factor, not how many traits you have).

The values can be tweaked and such, but something like a base research time, per trait, of one week at Level 1 in that craft, and half a day at level 50, sounds reasonable to me.

2. There are then multiple other factors that modify research time.

a) If you are researching multiple traits simultaneously, each separate trait now takes longer to finish.

Passives can reduce how much, but initially if you have 2 research slots going, each now takes 125% as long to finish, 3 150%.

b) Actively doing things with that craft decreases the research timers (to simulate that knowledge has been gained while working at the Clothing table, for example).

What does this mean?

Okay so I have level 1 Clothing, I've queued up 2 traits right from the get-go. It's saying it will take 1 week and about 2 days for each to finish. Oh noes!

Well, each time I come to the Clothing station and perform activities there, I will see my research timers decreasing by chunks. I go break down 100 items, now it says 1 week flat. Next day I am doing things, and next thing I know, it's saying 4 days.

So, the timer would be saying "it will take this long only if I don't actively practice my craft every day". Active practicing decreases it in chunks.

And as you gain tailoring level, it simply takes less time to research traits, the timers scale down towards half a day at 50, or maybe 1 day.


Tweak the values here to make it all reasonable, but I think this is along the lines of how it should be.

PSUgrad

rb2001 wrote: »

This is a great line of thought, OP.

It doesn't make sense that it takes 8 weeks to learn Sharpened, even though it would have taken 2 days if we did that one first, just because we are now... better tailors.


I propose the following system:

When you first come out and have Tailoring Level 1, you are untrained, and thus it should take you a while to research improved techniques.

1. Research time should scale inversely to Tailoring level (maybe it already does, to some degree, but this should be the primary scaling factor, not how many traits you have).

The values can be tweaked and such, but something like a base research time, per trait, of one week at Level 1 in that craft, and half a day at level 50, sounds reasonable to me.

2. There are then multiple other factors that modify research time.

a) If you are researching multiple traits simultaneously, each separate trait now takes longer to finish.

Passives can reduce how much, but initially if you have 2 research slots going, each now takes 125% as long to finish, 3 150%.

b) Actively doing things with that craft decreases the research timers (to simulate that knowledge has been gained while working at the Clothing table, for example).

What does this mean?

Okay so I have level 1 Clothing, I've queued up 2 traits right from the get-go. It's saying it will take 1 week and about 2 days for each to finish. Oh noes!

Well, each time I come to the Clothing station and perform activities there, I will see my research timers decreasing by chunks. I go break down 100 items, now it says 1 week flat. Next day I am doing things, and next thing I know, it's saying 4 days.

So, the timer would be saying "it will take this long only if I don't actively practice my craft every day". Active practicing decreases it in chunks.

And as you gain tailoring level, it simply takes less time to research traits, the timers scale down towards half a day at 50, or maybe 1 day.


Tweak the values here to make it all reasonable, but I think this is along the lines of how it should be.

This would be great, but I just don't think they'd invest that much time building it.

CJohnson81

PSUgrad wrote: »

rb2001 wrote: »

This is a great line of thought, OP.

It doesn't make sense that it takes 8 weeks to learn Sharpened, even though it would have taken 2 days if we did that one first, just because we are now... better tailors.


I propose the following system:

When you first come out and have Tailoring Level 1, you are untrained, and thus it should take you a while to research improved techniques.

1. Research time should scale inversely to Tailoring level (maybe it already does, to some degree, but this should be the primary scaling factor, not how many traits you have).

The values can be tweaked and such, but something like a base research time, per trait, of one week at Level 1 in that craft, and half a day at level 50, sounds reasonable to me.

2. There are then multiple other factors that modify research time.

a) If you are researching multiple traits simultaneously, each separate trait now takes longer to finish.

Passives can reduce how much, but initially if you have 2 research slots going, each now takes 125% as long to finish, 3 150%.

b) Actively doing things with that craft decreases the research timers (to simulate that knowledge has been gained while working at the Clothing table, for example).

What does this mean?

Okay so I have level 1 Clothing, I've queued up 2 traits right from the get-go. It's saying it will take 1 week and about 2 days for each to finish. Oh noes!

Well, each time I come to the Clothing station and perform activities there, I will see my research timers decreasing by chunks. I go break down 100 items, now it says 1 week flat. Next day I am doing things, and next thing I know, it's saying 4 days.

So, the timer would be saying "it will take this long only if I don't actively practice my craft every day". Active practicing decreases it in chunks.

And as you gain tailoring level, it simply takes less time to research traits, the timers scale down towards half a day at 50, or maybe 1 day.


Tweak the values here to make it all reasonable, but I think this is along the lines of how it should be.

This would be great, but I just don't think they'd invest that much time building it.

I totally understand everyone's points - they're all reasonable - and if I came into the game and that's how it was built, then that's how it was built. But (you knew there was a 'but') as a fairly low level crafter with one research slot, I kinda already hate the research times. It would really stink if they were as long as a week+.

Maybe it just requires a compromise, because even in my Sim City mobile game, with my leveling, I have the opportunity to reduce production times. Maybe it starts as low as a few days, but can be brought down to a few hours by burning skill points.

GuyNamedSean

As much as it may not make sense that less skilled crafters research faster, it's a catchup mechanism. People will be a lot more hesitant to get into crafting if they know it'll take weeks to be able to craft anything good for themselves even if they'll reach the end in the same frame of time as now.

OrphanHelgen

I just finished my very last research a couple of days back, and now I can finally respec and get back some skillpoints, and its a good feeling to be done with it. It took me a loooong time, but I never complained about it and actually think the research time are perfectly balanced atm. You can craft some really good gear for endgame after only 6 traits. And that is not really much of time consuming.

MilwaukeeScott

Maybe the research gets more complicated. Especially when you're doing three of them at a time.

At least that's what I've been telling myself. That's how I cope with it.

PSUgrad

Please don't misunderstand the purpose of my OP, because it's not upsetting to me how it's done, I was just thinking out loud. Thanks for all the responses!

CGPsaint

PSUgrad wrote: »

CGPsaint wrote: »

The length of time required to research traits is off-putting regardless of which end you start with.

It's not too bad- if you get all the skill upgrades you can minimize the last item to just 30 days. I definitely agree with the timeline to research the items to prevent everyone from having all crafting abilities in the first month of the game being out, but just feel it should've been opposite.

I don't mind the whole thought process of having to earn the traits through research, because the people that invest the time will reap the rewards. My main points of contention are that even with the research passives, it will still take the better part of a year or more for a casual player to complete up to 8 traits on each piece of armor or weapon. (We won't even bring Nirnhorned in to this discussion), and the fact that the ridiculous RNG ensures that you will constantly loot the exact same traits over and over again. I'm in 4 different guilds (all maxed out), and I can't even find the traits that I'm missing on any of the guild traders. I recently joined a group on Facebook called ESO Trait Share Initiative, and they have been incredibly helpful as I look to wrap up research.

myrrrorb14_ESO

This suggestion would be painful. But it would make sense. Sometimes games have to do things to keep them fun games though.

The current way was probably the eadiest for them to impliment.

The other suggestion of having individual traits have their own research time is intriguing.

PSUgrad

myrrrorb14_ESO wrote: »

This suggestion would be painful. But it would make sense. Sometimes games have to do things to keep them fun games though.

The current way was probably the eadiest for them to impliment.

The other suggestion of having individual traits have their own research time is intriguing.

I actually agree with you. Not too many people can say that their idea wasn't the best, but at least I was able to spark a conversation and create a platform for suggestions.

After seeing different suggestions than my own, I do agree that different traits should have different times associated with them. They can be the same length of time as they currently are, just assign the time value to a specific trait rather than if it's the 3rd trait or 7th trait researched for that item.

I wonder if they'd ever consider changing it?

Alexa.Darkstar

Your idea makes logical sense, OP. In real life, after all, that is usually the case.

However, I agree with other posters here about research times not being based on the number of traits you already have researched but based on the trait itself. The "rarer" the trait, the more time it would take to research it, or something like that.

In any case, though, it will forever be annoying to have to wait an entire IRL month to unlock a trait, or over a month if you don't have the crafting perk

sekhem

I don't think it could work like that actually. Think about the crafted sets locations. You would have to wait like two months to be able to craft one or two items in the Nights Silence set which is located in the first zone for each faction. Each new zone as you progress in the game gives you more sets available to craft that require more traits. Sure in the end you could craft the higher sets but that would totally leave out the first ones until you get to vet levels.

PSUgrad

sekhem wrote: »

I don't think it could work like that actually. Think about the crafted sets locations. You would have to wait like two months to be able to craft one or two items in the Nights Silence set which is located in the first zone for each faction. Each new zone as you progress in the game gives you more sets available to craft that require more traits. Sure in the end you could craft the higher sets but that would totally leave out the first ones until you get to vet levels.

Not necessarily. If you wanted to craft the sets in the first zone that required 2 traits, you could just hunt for the 2 traits that had the least research time attached to them and research them first.

sekhem

PSUgrad wrote: »

sekhem wrote: »

I don't think it could work like that actually. Think about the crafted sets locations. You would have to wait like two months to be able to craft one or two items in the Nights Silence set which is located in the first zone for each faction. Each new zone as you progress in the game gives you more sets available to craft that require more traits. Sure in the end you could craft the higher sets but that would totally leave out the first ones until you get to vet levels.

Not necessarily. If you wanted to craft the sets in the first zone that required 2 traits, you could just hunt for the 2 traits that had the least research time attached to them and research them first.

Sorry I meant for the first post suggestion. The one about different traits being different times would work.

Woolenthreads

An alternative way to think about this (rationalising away why the system might work this way) is that each Trait Stone has a number of components which are the the same except for a minor something that gives it a difference. The first time you break a stone down you can crudely find the "something". The second time, you have to compare things to separate out the parts that are similar to discover what component parts are different. Each time you research a new Trait you have to do this "comparison" work, in order to find that "something", it takes more and more time because of the amount of similarities that you have to differentiate between the materials that you have researched previously.

i3ig_Gun

81 days total for 9 traits on 1 peice.

14 Items to research in Blacksmithing and Clothing

6 Items to research in Woodworking.

Do the math...

xxdabqueenxx

Hey sorry to post here but I didnt know how to start a separate topic.
I wanted to know if researching traits with low level items is good or should I
Just wait for high level items? Also after I have researched a trait would I be able to research that trait again
With a higher level item? If not is there anyway to do so ?

I am only lvl 28 dragonknight

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated
Thanks.

Woolenthreads

i3ig_Gun wrote: »

81 days total for 9 traits on 1 peice.

14 Items to research in Blacksmithing and Clothing

6 Items to research in Woodworking.

Do the math...

Most of us, who have an interest, on the PC have done both the math .... and the work .

xxdabqueenxx wrote: »

Hey sorry to post here but I didnt know how to start a separate topic.
I wanted to know if researching traits with low level items is good or should I
Just wait for high level items? Also after I have researched a trait would I be able to research that trait again
With a higher level item? If not is there anyway to do so ?

I am only lvl 28 dragonknight

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated
Thanks.

There is no repetition, per character, in learning the traits on the specific item groups like swords or axes. There is no benefit in waiting, in fact it might be considered detrimental, if you don't get any research done, on a character that it is desired on.

Brrrofski

No, I disagree.

Otherwise it would take you over two months to make 5 pieces in any set...

PSUgrad

xxdabqueenxx wrote: »

Hey sorry to post here but I didnt know how to start a separate topic.
I wanted to know if researching traits with low level items is good or should I
Just wait for high level items? Also after I have researched a trait would I be able to research that trait again
With a higher level item? If not is there anyway to do so ?

I am only lvl 28 dragonknight

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated
Thanks.

Once a trait is researched on an item, there is no need to research it again for the same piece. It doesn't matter if you research precise on a level 1 dagger or a VR16 dagger. It still gets you the trait for any daggers you make in the future.

Tyr

PSUgrad wrote: »

I know why the time starts off minimal and then increases with the more traits you research, but isn't this backwards? Initially it should take you a long time to research a trait because it is the first one you're researching. After each trait researched it should become more and more quick because you have learned more about the piece of armor than the trait before.

Just my opinion. It would have been cool (although frustrating initially) to have the first trait set to 45 days and decrease from there. However, I understand that this would have been off-putting to people looking to craft as the hit on length of time comes right up front.

Anyone else agree?

No in real life the closer you approach mastery in your professional and the larger number of sub-skills you learn, the harder it gets. On the road to mastery it goes from about 200 hours for novice level, 600 hours for intermediate and the well established 10,000 hours for mastery.

Alucardo

Oddly enough this makes sense. It almost feels like I'm getting worse at something. Though to defend its current implementation, you could say learning more traits increases your knowledge allowing you to create more powerful sets, and this is why it takes so long.
Either way, I don't mind too much.

PSUgrad

Tyr wrote: »

PSUgrad wrote: »

I know why the time starts off minimal and then increases with the more traits you research, but isn't this backwards? Initially it should take you a long time to research a trait because it is the first one you're researching. After each trait researched it should become more and more quick because you have learned more about the piece of armor than the trait before.

Just my opinion. It would have been cool (although frustrating initially) to have the first trait set to 45 days and decrease from there. However, I understand that this would have been off-putting to people looking to craft as the hit on length of time comes right up front.

Anyone else agree?

No in real life the closer you approach mastery in your professional and the larger number of sub-skills you learn, the harder it gets. On the road to mastery it goes from about 200 hours for novice level, 600 hours for intermediate and the well established 10,000 hours for mastery.

That doesn't mean it gets "harder"- you become more efficient with your time... it just requires more overall hours to become a master. If an electrician takes 30 minutes on average to put in an outlet while he gets his intermediate rank, it won't take him 45 minutes to install outlets after that just because he is working towards "mastery" rank in his profession.

As you learn your profession/skill, you become more efficient... I don't think there is any profession where it would take you longer to do something the more times you do it.

i3ig_Gun

Woolenthreads wrote: »

i3ig_Gun wrote: »

81 days total for 9 traits on 1 peice.

14 Items to research in Blacksmithing and Clothing

6 Items to research in Woodworking.

Do the math...

Most of us, who have an interest, on the PC have done both the math .... and the work .

xxdabqueenxx wrote: »

Hey sorry to post here but I didnt know how to start a separate topic.
I wanted to know if researching traits with low level items is good or should I
Just wait for high level items? Also after I have researched a trait would I be able to research that trait again
With a higher level item? If not is there anyway to do so ?

I am only lvl 28 dragonknight

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated
Thanks.

There is no repetition, per character, in learning the traits on the specific item groups like swords or axes. There is no benefit in waiting, in fact it might be considered detrimental, if you don't get any research done, on a character that it is desired on.

I'm one of those who have, and transfered to Xbox, making a killing, seem to be the only one with 9 traits on everything.

Wasting your time on multiple characters is only time wasted if you dont time your researching to finish on your alt, just in time for you to craft it, and research it on your main crafter.