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Developing the crafting of ESO, thoughts from a crafter & gatherer
Carbonised
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As one who is primarily interested in the crafting and gathering aspect of this game, and secondarily all the pvp & pve stuff, I've been wanting to post my thoughts about the current state of ESO crafting and gathering for a while now, as well as ideas and suggestions for further development in the area. Gathering materials is what I enjoy the most, to hoard (I'm a dragon at heart), to sell on, and to craft for myself and other people. I've mastered all 6 crafts on my character, 7-9 traits researched, and finishing the rest of them, while having obtained all the motifs of this game. I've crafted for myself and done a lot for other people too, so I believe I talk from substantial experience.
To make things more easy to read, I'll go through all crafts one by one, though grouping the 3 equipment crafts together, since they are so similar.
Blacksmithing, clothing & woodworking
Generally I like the equipment crafting of the game, the way tempers work, materials, researching and so on. The skill lines also seem to make sense. The only thing I would like changed are the skills for research time (metallurgy, stitching and carpentry). While they are good and nice while you are researching, they become obsolete and useless once your research is done. I don't like the idea of obsolete and useless passives in the crafting skill lines, so I would suggest giving them an additional benefit on top of the researching bonus. For instance a chance to harvest 1-2 more raw materials from a material node. Like the 'plentiful harvest' passive, but on a much smaller scale. Or requiring less materials for making items. At CP150 it would be 10 ruby ash for a bow instead of 12, at CP160 it could be 110 or 115 ruby ash instead of 120 and so on. You could even tie this passive to the amount of research done, so to gain the first tier of the bonus, you would need 6 traits researched on all materials in the profession, and to get the second tier you would need 7 traits researched, and to get the full bonus, you would need all 9 traits researched on all the items in the profession. That way your passive bonus wouldn't apply until the research was well under way.
Another thing that I'm sort of not understanding is why it takes 8 gold tempers to upgrade an item, while it only takes 2 green. I mean, gold tempers are rare, while greens you get in hundreds. I would have made a lot more sense to require something like 8 golds, 10 purples, 14 blues and 20 greens per item to upgrade them. As it is now, green tempers are pretty much trash, blues aren't worth more than 20-85 a piece, and even purple are easily obtained. I would like to have something to do with those 800+ hemmings most people are sitting on.
Another thing is the obvious discrepancy between the woodcrafting and the two other crafts. I sell silks and rubedo for about 77 gold per piece, and rubedite for about 50, while ruby ash is down at 23-25 a piece. Obviously because people need a lot less bows, shields and staffs than they do the other things. Yet ruby ash nodes are just as plentiful as the others. Ideally it would be nice to have a slight increase in the other material nodes, and a slight reduction in wood, to ease out some of this difference. Then wood prices would rise a bit, while the others would drop a bit. As it is now, wood is the one that is hugely different than all the others. It would also be nice to have more items requiring wood. Fishing rods would be an obvious choice. Maybe wands if you ever decide to add wands as a consumable, much like poisons were added as a consumable last time. And make siege weapons craftable out of mainly wood, trebs, rams, camps etc. Then wood would surely be more useful than it is now.
Alchemy
Alchemy is another craft that I like a lot. I don't use potions or poisons myself, but potions are a good way of income, and I really enjoy all the various ingredients you pick up related to poisons and potions. From plants growing, critters, animal drops etc, gathering these is definitely something I enjoy. I was really happy that you added a lot of new ingredients in the DB patch, and I would definitely want to see this expanded even further. Why not add ingredients you can get from fishing, like fish, various molluscs and clams, pufferfish, more ingredients that drop from specific creatures in the world only too. The options are limitless.
Once One Tamriel is here, I would also like to see more local flora. As it is now, you cand find every plant everywhere in the world. Whereas in older Elder Scrolls games, plants only grew in specific climates and areas of the world, and you would have to seek them out. One of the interesting things about farming and gathering is picking your area, relating to what you find there. If you're after rogue's soot and beetle scuttle, then Hew's Bane is the place for you. If you want Casiterite and butterfly wings, then Wrothgar is where you get it. Ideally, in One Tamriel you wouldn't find everything all over the place, but you'd have to venture to Skyrim to find plants growind on the frozen tundra, to Morrowind to find volcanic growths, Alik'r desert to find desert plants and so on.
There are some suggestions that others have put forth as well, regarding alchemy. First of all, many of the crafted potion names (and poisons) don't make much sense. Why is it called a health option, when in reality it's a restore stamina, magicka and health potion? Or tripot as people call them? Since you can actually combine up to 3 effects in a poison or potion, it would have been nice to have different names for these combos. That would ease both in selling these in guild stores as well as using them afterwards. Having tiers with green potions as the basics, then blue, purple and gold would also ease in recognizing potion strength and versatility. As it is now they're barely distinguishable form the basic white potions that drop in the world, which is not a good thing. We need names and colours in alchemy crafting too.
A last thing is the snakeblooded passive, which is generally ignored as it is completely useless. Now that we have poisons, snakeblooded should have some effect relating to poisons. Making them more effective when you create them or when you use them There are many options, but the current one isn't worth any skill points at all.
Enchanting
Next is enchanting. I have mixed feelings about this craft. It does not feel very fulfilling to me as a crafter. Now that you have exploded the rune gains from enchanting nodes, it's ease to level up your enchanting, and it requires no recipes, no research, and no materials worth harvesting. Essence runes are already falling to nothing in value, you can buy them in bulk at every guild store. Potency too, Repora is not even worth half of what it was a couple months ago, and you can even buy them at the NPC vendor. Aspect runes you're literally swimming in, Kutas are falling in value, and the purple, blue, green and white aspect runes I actively have to trash just to not end up with hundreds and hundreds of them. I disagree with your decision to sell potency runes at every vendor, and I especially disagree with your huge buff to the enchanting nodes, so that a single node now gives up to 6-7 runes where they had 1-2 before. This is troublesome especially because apart from Repora and Kuta, all the runes you get are utterly useless. Essence you already get in huge numbers, and the other runes aren't used in endgame enchanting at all. Meaning you end up with a large store of utterly useless and worthless runes, also known as trash materials. Trash materials is something I don't like. It doesn't provide good gameplay, it doesn't provide good entertainment, and it has pretty much made enchanting the dullest and most uninteresting craft of them all.
There are several ways you could adress this. Upgrading x number of Ta runes to a green aspect, x numbers of greens to blues etc up to Kuta would be one way. Making enahcnting require first Tas, then greens, then blues, then purples then a kuta for a godl enchant would be another way, like tempers work. Anything to actually give these runes some use. And don't make vendors sell potency runes, please. Why should they, vendors don't sell other materials for other crafts either, and now you can very easily get all the potency you need from gathering.
Enchanting is not fun to do as a gatherer and farmer, since 9 times out of 10 you get something useless in all the nodes. Pretty much the odd Kuta is the only thing of value in enchanting nodes. It's also not fun and fulfilling as a crafter, since it takes no skill nor effort.
Provisioning
Last up is provisioning. Generally it's an alright craft, but again it suffers from being somewhat dull. Finding the 2-3 recipes you need endgame to make your own food is easy as pie, and foods is perhaps one of the crafts that sell the worst. The raw materials are also easily accessible in such quantities that they're just one step above trash. Bervez juice is sold for a pittance since no one uses drinks, and even Frost Mirriam is quite easily obtained. Another thing that makes provisioning somewhat dull and uninteresting is that all the recipe lines are completely identical. They're just copies of each other, in strength from 'low' to 'high', and with stamina switched out for health or magicka or vice versa. The numbers and values are exactly the same all around, and even the foods of the same tier are exactly identical, like the 3 blue foods that all give magicka/health on the top tier, for instance. If you can just make one of them, the copy recipes become useless.
I would rather have liked if there was some difference in there. Take again the top 3 blue recipes for magicka/health. Have one give you a little more magicka, and a little less health than the others. One giving a little more health, and a little less magicka, and last one in the middle. Now you have 3 different recipes, and it makes sense to collect them all, in case you want to switch out your food. And why the strict division between attribute increase on foods and regen on drinks? With Orsinium you blurred the lines and added recipes with both increases and regens. Generally I would like to see this more widespread, make different recipes, mix it up, have some combos that are different. The current system with just a strict copy down to the cipher of other recipes is uninteresting.
Another thing is the obtaining of recipes. In guild stores it's usually possible to buy all the recipes you need for all levels, but there are some recipes that just aren't obtainable at all. I have now every recipe in the game except one blue, and it's no coincidence it's a level 25 recipe, for those are the rarest in the game. They have absolutely no value, no use, you can easily go without them, yet they are the most expensive recipes in the game, and nigh impossible to obtain. The recipe I'm lacking had 2 sales in the last month of all my trade guilds, and I'm in 4 of the largest trade guilds on the EP part of my server. 2 sales in 1 month. It makes absolutely no sense that these low/mid level recipes should be so rare, when they have no actual use compared to endgame blue and purple recipes. And while doing provisioning writs, you get showered in useless cp150 green recipes that are just trash. Please increase the chance of getting blue and purple recipes from provisioning writs, and for the love of Talos please make the recipe rewards be for all levels from 1 to cp150, so there is actually a way to obtain these elusive low to mid level recipes as well.
It would also be nice to see provisioning elaborated a bit in terms of material gathering. Why does everything have to be obtainable from craftes and boxes only? With the sole exception being meats from animals you kill. Please add some more ways to obtain food items, like npc drops or node gathering/harvesting, and decrease the amount of food items you find in containers. Make them at least a little worth to obtain and sell on, as it is they are pretty much trash as it is.
Motifs
Alright, moving on to motifs. I love motifs, I hunt them and buy them vigorously, and like I said I have gotten them all as well. Motif gathering is great for us crafters, and I love gathering and buying motif materials as well, and craft cool stuff for myself and for other people. I'm a little concerned about the way the new motifs were handled though. All the old motifs are dropable by a small chance in containers, Xivkyn you could get yourself in the treasure chests, Alliance you could get as well in Cyrodiil and the IC areas, and ancient orc dropped from NPCs, bosses and cotainers in the 2 public dungeons. Malacath wasn't too bad since you can share the boss quest and finish them multiple times.Trinimac was worse, hidden behind a daily wall. Good if you have 14 alts, not amusing if you only have 1. Outlaw and Assassin were farmable, but then again we see motifs hidde bebind the daily wall. Mino motif, Order and DB motif all behind the daily wall. Maw motif even behind a weekly wall. Did you know that many people run Maw on 14 alts, trial scaled to level 10 so it only takes a fraction of a minute to steamroll all the bosses and finish it, solely for the weekly coffer and motif? Did you know that people have created these level 1 alts for that sole reason to farm Maw scaled to level 10? I could have done that myself, but even if it isn't technically an exploit, I still think it is, so I have bought all my Maw motifs for the stupendous amounts that these farmers take. I don't like hiding motifs behind daily walls, and I definitely don't like them behind weekly walls. Grinding motifs and using them or selling them on is one of the few thinsg you can do solo which is both fun and possibly profitable too, you get plenty of good stuff from the trials as it is, stuff you can sell on for hundreds of thousands of gold. There is no need to add more motifs in trials and dungeons, please leave the majorite of them in the solo pve content.
Ideally there would be some sot of cooldown between motif grinding, so when you had gotten a motif, you would be on cooldown for an hour or two before being able to obtain a new one at the same place. That would prevent some of the horrible Thief Guild DLC boss farming and DB boss farming, where 10 people would basically sit on a boss and own it time after time just farming motifs, while not giving other people a chance to both get drops from the boss, and also try out the boss on their own. Right now we're also seeing 15+ people at every spawn of Limenaruus and Pantheus.
Anyway, this aside, my real issue with motifs is that you cannot change motifs. If everything was craftable, this wouldn't be an issue. But the game pretty much forces you to use motifs from the setitems that drop. Monster sets, master weapons, Maelstrom weapons, all the various non-craftable sets that are pretty much always used in combination with 1 craftable set.
I mean, come on. Your designers are coming up with so many cool looking motifs, and yet you force people to use a piecemeal shabby collection if half crafted half dropped equipment sets with a monster set on top. This does not make the game aesthetically pleasing in any way. And even more, you're also pretty much forcing everyone into a combo of light, heavy and med armor due to the Undaunted passive that 90 % of the playerbase use. Those cool pictures of new motifs you see, with 3 sets, one for each light, heavy and medium? Well you can forget about that, in reality everyone looks like from freakish Frankenstein sewn together from various dropped sets, a couple crafted, a monster head and shoulder and a Maelstromg weapon on top.
Why you did this from a visual and aethetical point of view, I have no idea.
Crafters should really, really have the ability to change motif on items. Have it require them to have the motif learned for the item they want to change, and let it cost 1 style material. At leeast make them able to change the motif on their own equipment, but ideally also for others. For bound equipment there would have to be some solution. Maybe a 3rd party container where you could put the bound item into. The crafter could alter motif on the item while it's in there, but not take it out, only the owner can. Changing motifs is a purely cosmetic ability, and if you have the motif learned and have the motif style stone, then why not? One of my biggest gripes with this game is how it forces you into certain looks if you want viable equipment on your character, it kills half the idea of even having dropable motifs, you know.
Fishing
While fishing isn't technically a craft, it's still tied to crafting both via fish you catch and the chance of Roes for provisioning.
I like fishing, I think many enjoy the catch and frustration of green fish and blue fish and the hunt for the Master Angler title. On the other hand, fishing also feels like a bit of an appendix, something that's nont fully fleshed out but only left as a gimmick. Ideally I would like to see fishing elaborated more, and made more interesting. Instead of every fish just being a 'fish', then have provisioning recipes require specific fish, like Spadetails and Slaughterfish. Have some fish be alchemy ingredients so you can make potions or poisons out of them. Diversify fish instead of just letting them be trophies. First time you catch a blue, good, you got it. Second time, third time, meh, useless. Fishing has little replay value once you get the Master Angler title, pretty much only for getting roes. And make it a bit more interesting. As of now it makes no difference if you use normal roe or crawler in foul water, RNG is still the same. Yet crawlers you find everywhere, and roes is rarely found in rivers. Make the RNG different, have some bait be more designed for some catches. Make people have to select baits for different occasions, not just 'crawlers go into foul water' every time. Add fishing rods, so you actually have to make use of that wood that no one uses. Make them last a while before they have to be replaced. Maybe even add some skills to the provisioning tre, or to their own fishing tree. Skills that increase your RNG for various catches, that decrease the time between throwing your hook and landing a catch, passives for filleting fish that increases your chances for perfect roes a tiny amount, or to get other goodies from the fish. Anything to make fishing a more worthwhile and fully fleshed out craft, and not just something you do for a title and some perfect roe and then that's it. And get rid of the wet gunny sacks, they're just stupid.
Title and achievement
I'm not the first to suggest it, but seeing as researching 9 traits on all items is perhaps the most difficult and time consuming thing ever to do in this game, it's just silly that you don't obtain a "Master Crafter" or "Master Artisan" title from it. Those who don't want to use it don't have to, and those of us who actually do want it would be more visible to those who seek out a crafter's services. In any case, researching 9 traits is enough of an effort that it deserves itsown title and achievement. And why not achievement for getting all provisioning recipes in the game? That's arguably as difficult as finishing vMoL.
Writs
I'll finish this huge post by talking about the crafting writ quests. Generally I like the writ quests, even when you're not making stuff for other people, you still have to put your skills to use and can obtain rewards from it. On the other hand, the crafting writs are incredibly simple and somewhat uninteresting to do in the long run
What I would like to see is 2 tiers of daily writs. Much like you can do gold pledges, and do an extra bonus to obtain a bonus reward, or some of the dialies where you can do them basic, or do some bonus objective to receive a bonus reward.
Writs would then have 2 tiers, and you pick 1 of them. Basic tier would be for your leveling crafter. It would be pretty much what we have now. Low complexity, easily obtainable materials, and gives you rewards as well as inspiration to level up your craft skill.
The other tier would be for the advanced or master crafters. Equipment writs would call for equipment pieces in various traits, in various motifs, and in various quality. Maybe even a set. Something like "Craft a set of 5 pieces hundings cp150 in Nord style and sturdy". The writ would specify which pieces and which traits. Hand it in, and you don't get inspiration (no master crafter needs inspiration, it's just wasted when you're maxed anyway), but you get a better rewards. Tempers, mats - like now - but a chance for a motif page from a random motif, a chance for a small amount of style material, even a small chance for a nirnstone. More complex and expensive requirements for the crafter - but a wider array or rewards of better value. And no inspiration please.
Provisioning writs would require recipes from all levels. Not just cp150, maybe lvl 30 one day, cp120 next day etc. And one day a blue recipe, another day a purple, then a green. Not just have the same 5 green recipes from cp150 going on rotation over and over and over.
Alchemy would require more complex potions and also poisons. 3 ingredient potions and poisons. And enchanting would require use of Repora occasionally. And also green, blue and sometime purple runes. Would finally give some use to those Aspect trash runes you pick up all the time. And make it require 2-3 glyphs at a time. And for rewards, make it possible to get Hakeijo by a small chance.
Just like daily pledges, it would mean maybe you cannot finish the advanced crafting writ that day. If you dont have the skills, the materials or the research. Then you do the simpler crafting writ that day (like silver), and try the next day.
I believe this would make crafting much more interesting, and also add a way to obtain crafting materials that are otherwise only obtainable elsewhere, like specific motif pages, nirnstones, Hakeijo etc., but of course only make these a rare reward with a low RNG (the game shows that you certainly know how to make low RNG happen).
Alright, this concludes this extremely long post about my thoughts on the crafting system, and suggestions on where it could be elaborated. Some will agree, some will disagree, but I hope someone from ZOS at least gives it some thought. There is no tl;dr. If you didn't read that's your own loss. Cheers, I'm off to gather more mats.
To make things more easy to read, I'll go through all crafts one by one, though grouping the 3 equipment crafts together, since they are so similar.
Blacksmithing, clothing & woodworking
Generally I like the equipment crafting of the game, the way tempers work, materials, researching and so on. The skill lines also seem to make sense. The only thing I would like changed are the skills for research time (metallurgy, stitching and carpentry). While they are good and nice while you are researching, they become obsolete and useless once your research is done. I don't like the idea of obsolete and useless passives in the crafting skill lines, so I would suggest giving them an additional benefit on top of the researching bonus. For instance a chance to harvest 1-2 more raw materials from a material node. Like the 'plentiful harvest' passive, but on a much smaller scale. Or requiring less materials for making items. At CP150 it would be 10 ruby ash for a bow instead of 12, at CP160 it could be 110 or 115 ruby ash instead of 120 and so on. You could even tie this passive to the amount of research done, so to gain the first tier of the bonus, you would need 6 traits researched on all materials in the profession, and to get the second tier you would need 7 traits researched, and to get the full bonus, you would need all 9 traits researched on all the items in the profession. That way your passive bonus wouldn't apply until the research was well under way.
Another thing that I'm sort of not understanding is why it takes 8 gold tempers to upgrade an item, while it only takes 2 green. I mean, gold tempers are rare, while greens you get in hundreds. I would have made a lot more sense to require something like 8 golds, 10 purples, 14 blues and 20 greens per item to upgrade them. As it is now, green tempers are pretty much trash, blues aren't worth more than 20-85 a piece, and even purple are easily obtained. I would like to have something to do with those 800+ hemmings most people are sitting on.
Another thing is the obvious discrepancy between the woodcrafting and the two other crafts. I sell silks and rubedo for about 77 gold per piece, and rubedite for about 50, while ruby ash is down at 23-25 a piece. Obviously because people need a lot less bows, shields and staffs than they do the other things. Yet ruby ash nodes are just as plentiful as the others. Ideally it would be nice to have a slight increase in the other material nodes, and a slight reduction in wood, to ease out some of this difference. Then wood prices would rise a bit, while the others would drop a bit. As it is now, wood is the one that is hugely different than all the others. It would also be nice to have more items requiring wood. Fishing rods would be an obvious choice. Maybe wands if you ever decide to add wands as a consumable, much like poisons were added as a consumable last time. And make siege weapons craftable out of mainly wood, trebs, rams, camps etc. Then wood would surely be more useful than it is now.
Alchemy
Alchemy is another craft that I like a lot. I don't use potions or poisons myself, but potions are a good way of income, and I really enjoy all the various ingredients you pick up related to poisons and potions. From plants growing, critters, animal drops etc, gathering these is definitely something I enjoy. I was really happy that you added a lot of new ingredients in the DB patch, and I would definitely want to see this expanded even further. Why not add ingredients you can get from fishing, like fish, various molluscs and clams, pufferfish, more ingredients that drop from specific creatures in the world only too. The options are limitless.
Once One Tamriel is here, I would also like to see more local flora. As it is now, you cand find every plant everywhere in the world. Whereas in older Elder Scrolls games, plants only grew in specific climates and areas of the world, and you would have to seek them out. One of the interesting things about farming and gathering is picking your area, relating to what you find there. If you're after rogue's soot and beetle scuttle, then Hew's Bane is the place for you. If you want Casiterite and butterfly wings, then Wrothgar is where you get it. Ideally, in One Tamriel you wouldn't find everything all over the place, but you'd have to venture to Skyrim to find plants growind on the frozen tundra, to Morrowind to find volcanic growths, Alik'r desert to find desert plants and so on.
There are some suggestions that others have put forth as well, regarding alchemy. First of all, many of the crafted potion names (and poisons) don't make much sense. Why is it called a health option, when in reality it's a restore stamina, magicka and health potion? Or tripot as people call them? Since you can actually combine up to 3 effects in a poison or potion, it would have been nice to have different names for these combos. That would ease both in selling these in guild stores as well as using them afterwards. Having tiers with green potions as the basics, then blue, purple and gold would also ease in recognizing potion strength and versatility. As it is now they're barely distinguishable form the basic white potions that drop in the world, which is not a good thing. We need names and colours in alchemy crafting too.
A last thing is the snakeblooded passive, which is generally ignored as it is completely useless. Now that we have poisons, snakeblooded should have some effect relating to poisons. Making them more effective when you create them or when you use them There are many options, but the current one isn't worth any skill points at all.
Enchanting
Next is enchanting. I have mixed feelings about this craft. It does not feel very fulfilling to me as a crafter. Now that you have exploded the rune gains from enchanting nodes, it's ease to level up your enchanting, and it requires no recipes, no research, and no materials worth harvesting. Essence runes are already falling to nothing in value, you can buy them in bulk at every guild store. Potency too, Repora is not even worth half of what it was a couple months ago, and you can even buy them at the NPC vendor. Aspect runes you're literally swimming in, Kutas are falling in value, and the purple, blue, green and white aspect runes I actively have to trash just to not end up with hundreds and hundreds of them. I disagree with your decision to sell potency runes at every vendor, and I especially disagree with your huge buff to the enchanting nodes, so that a single node now gives up to 6-7 runes where they had 1-2 before. This is troublesome especially because apart from Repora and Kuta, all the runes you get are utterly useless. Essence you already get in huge numbers, and the other runes aren't used in endgame enchanting at all. Meaning you end up with a large store of utterly useless and worthless runes, also known as trash materials. Trash materials is something I don't like. It doesn't provide good gameplay, it doesn't provide good entertainment, and it has pretty much made enchanting the dullest and most uninteresting craft of them all.
There are several ways you could adress this. Upgrading x number of Ta runes to a green aspect, x numbers of greens to blues etc up to Kuta would be one way. Making enahcnting require first Tas, then greens, then blues, then purples then a kuta for a godl enchant would be another way, like tempers work. Anything to actually give these runes some use. And don't make vendors sell potency runes, please. Why should they, vendors don't sell other materials for other crafts either, and now you can very easily get all the potency you need from gathering.
Enchanting is not fun to do as a gatherer and farmer, since 9 times out of 10 you get something useless in all the nodes. Pretty much the odd Kuta is the only thing of value in enchanting nodes. It's also not fun and fulfilling as a crafter, since it takes no skill nor effort.
Provisioning
Last up is provisioning. Generally it's an alright craft, but again it suffers from being somewhat dull. Finding the 2-3 recipes you need endgame to make your own food is easy as pie, and foods is perhaps one of the crafts that sell the worst. The raw materials are also easily accessible in such quantities that they're just one step above trash. Bervez juice is sold for a pittance since no one uses drinks, and even Frost Mirriam is quite easily obtained. Another thing that makes provisioning somewhat dull and uninteresting is that all the recipe lines are completely identical. They're just copies of each other, in strength from 'low' to 'high', and with stamina switched out for health or magicka or vice versa. The numbers and values are exactly the same all around, and even the foods of the same tier are exactly identical, like the 3 blue foods that all give magicka/health on the top tier, for instance. If you can just make one of them, the copy recipes become useless.
I would rather have liked if there was some difference in there. Take again the top 3 blue recipes for magicka/health. Have one give you a little more magicka, and a little less health than the others. One giving a little more health, and a little less magicka, and last one in the middle. Now you have 3 different recipes, and it makes sense to collect them all, in case you want to switch out your food. And why the strict division between attribute increase on foods and regen on drinks? With Orsinium you blurred the lines and added recipes with both increases and regens. Generally I would like to see this more widespread, make different recipes, mix it up, have some combos that are different. The current system with just a strict copy down to the cipher of other recipes is uninteresting.
Another thing is the obtaining of recipes. In guild stores it's usually possible to buy all the recipes you need for all levels, but there are some recipes that just aren't obtainable at all. I have now every recipe in the game except one blue, and it's no coincidence it's a level 25 recipe, for those are the rarest in the game. They have absolutely no value, no use, you can easily go without them, yet they are the most expensive recipes in the game, and nigh impossible to obtain. The recipe I'm lacking had 2 sales in the last month of all my trade guilds, and I'm in 4 of the largest trade guilds on the EP part of my server. 2 sales in 1 month. It makes absolutely no sense that these low/mid level recipes should be so rare, when they have no actual use compared to endgame blue and purple recipes. And while doing provisioning writs, you get showered in useless cp150 green recipes that are just trash. Please increase the chance of getting blue and purple recipes from provisioning writs, and for the love of Talos please make the recipe rewards be for all levels from 1 to cp150, so there is actually a way to obtain these elusive low to mid level recipes as well.
It would also be nice to see provisioning elaborated a bit in terms of material gathering. Why does everything have to be obtainable from craftes and boxes only? With the sole exception being meats from animals you kill. Please add some more ways to obtain food items, like npc drops or node gathering/harvesting, and decrease the amount of food items you find in containers. Make them at least a little worth to obtain and sell on, as it is they are pretty much trash as it is.
Motifs
Alright, moving on to motifs. I love motifs, I hunt them and buy them vigorously, and like I said I have gotten them all as well. Motif gathering is great for us crafters, and I love gathering and buying motif materials as well, and craft cool stuff for myself and for other people. I'm a little concerned about the way the new motifs were handled though. All the old motifs are dropable by a small chance in containers, Xivkyn you could get yourself in the treasure chests, Alliance you could get as well in Cyrodiil and the IC areas, and ancient orc dropped from NPCs, bosses and cotainers in the 2 public dungeons. Malacath wasn't too bad since you can share the boss quest and finish them multiple times.Trinimac was worse, hidden behind a daily wall. Good if you have 14 alts, not amusing if you only have 1. Outlaw and Assassin were farmable, but then again we see motifs hidde bebind the daily wall. Mino motif, Order and DB motif all behind the daily wall. Maw motif even behind a weekly wall. Did you know that many people run Maw on 14 alts, trial scaled to level 10 so it only takes a fraction of a minute to steamroll all the bosses and finish it, solely for the weekly coffer and motif? Did you know that people have created these level 1 alts for that sole reason to farm Maw scaled to level 10? I could have done that myself, but even if it isn't technically an exploit, I still think it is, so I have bought all my Maw motifs for the stupendous amounts that these farmers take. I don't like hiding motifs behind daily walls, and I definitely don't like them behind weekly walls. Grinding motifs and using them or selling them on is one of the few thinsg you can do solo which is both fun and possibly profitable too, you get plenty of good stuff from the trials as it is, stuff you can sell on for hundreds of thousands of gold. There is no need to add more motifs in trials and dungeons, please leave the majorite of them in the solo pve content.
Ideally there would be some sot of cooldown between motif grinding, so when you had gotten a motif, you would be on cooldown for an hour or two before being able to obtain a new one at the same place. That would prevent some of the horrible Thief Guild DLC boss farming and DB boss farming, where 10 people would basically sit on a boss and own it time after time just farming motifs, while not giving other people a chance to both get drops from the boss, and also try out the boss on their own. Right now we're also seeing 15+ people at every spawn of Limenaruus and Pantheus.
Anyway, this aside, my real issue with motifs is that you cannot change motifs. If everything was craftable, this wouldn't be an issue. But the game pretty much forces you to use motifs from the setitems that drop. Monster sets, master weapons, Maelstrom weapons, all the various non-craftable sets that are pretty much always used in combination with 1 craftable set.
I mean, come on. Your designers are coming up with so many cool looking motifs, and yet you force people to use a piecemeal shabby collection if half crafted half dropped equipment sets with a monster set on top. This does not make the game aesthetically pleasing in any way. And even more, you're also pretty much forcing everyone into a combo of light, heavy and med armor due to the Undaunted passive that 90 % of the playerbase use. Those cool pictures of new motifs you see, with 3 sets, one for each light, heavy and medium? Well you can forget about that, in reality everyone looks like from freakish Frankenstein sewn together from various dropped sets, a couple crafted, a monster head and shoulder and a Maelstromg weapon on top.
Why you did this from a visual and aethetical point of view, I have no idea.
Crafters should really, really have the ability to change motif on items. Have it require them to have the motif learned for the item they want to change, and let it cost 1 style material. At leeast make them able to change the motif on their own equipment, but ideally also for others. For bound equipment there would have to be some solution. Maybe a 3rd party container where you could put the bound item into. The crafter could alter motif on the item while it's in there, but not take it out, only the owner can. Changing motifs is a purely cosmetic ability, and if you have the motif learned and have the motif style stone, then why not? One of my biggest gripes with this game is how it forces you into certain looks if you want viable equipment on your character, it kills half the idea of even having dropable motifs, you know.
Fishing
While fishing isn't technically a craft, it's still tied to crafting both via fish you catch and the chance of Roes for provisioning.
I like fishing, I think many enjoy the catch and frustration of green fish and blue fish and the hunt for the Master Angler title. On the other hand, fishing also feels like a bit of an appendix, something that's nont fully fleshed out but only left as a gimmick. Ideally I would like to see fishing elaborated more, and made more interesting. Instead of every fish just being a 'fish', then have provisioning recipes require specific fish, like Spadetails and Slaughterfish. Have some fish be alchemy ingredients so you can make potions or poisons out of them. Diversify fish instead of just letting them be trophies. First time you catch a blue, good, you got it. Second time, third time, meh, useless. Fishing has little replay value once you get the Master Angler title, pretty much only for getting roes. And make it a bit more interesting. As of now it makes no difference if you use normal roe or crawler in foul water, RNG is still the same. Yet crawlers you find everywhere, and roes is rarely found in rivers. Make the RNG different, have some bait be more designed for some catches. Make people have to select baits for different occasions, not just 'crawlers go into foul water' every time. Add fishing rods, so you actually have to make use of that wood that no one uses. Make them last a while before they have to be replaced. Maybe even add some skills to the provisioning tre, or to their own fishing tree. Skills that increase your RNG for various catches, that decrease the time between throwing your hook and landing a catch, passives for filleting fish that increases your chances for perfect roes a tiny amount, or to get other goodies from the fish. Anything to make fishing a more worthwhile and fully fleshed out craft, and not just something you do for a title and some perfect roe and then that's it. And get rid of the wet gunny sacks, they're just stupid.
Title and achievement
I'm not the first to suggest it, but seeing as researching 9 traits on all items is perhaps the most difficult and time consuming thing ever to do in this game, it's just silly that you don't obtain a "Master Crafter" or "Master Artisan" title from it. Those who don't want to use it don't have to, and those of us who actually do want it would be more visible to those who seek out a crafter's services. In any case, researching 9 traits is enough of an effort that it deserves itsown title and achievement. And why not achievement for getting all provisioning recipes in the game? That's arguably as difficult as finishing vMoL.
Writs
I'll finish this huge post by talking about the crafting writ quests. Generally I like the writ quests, even when you're not making stuff for other people, you still have to put your skills to use and can obtain rewards from it. On the other hand, the crafting writs are incredibly simple and somewhat uninteresting to do in the long run
What I would like to see is 2 tiers of daily writs. Much like you can do gold pledges, and do an extra bonus to obtain a bonus reward, or some of the dialies where you can do them basic, or do some bonus objective to receive a bonus reward.
Writs would then have 2 tiers, and you pick 1 of them. Basic tier would be for your leveling crafter. It would be pretty much what we have now. Low complexity, easily obtainable materials, and gives you rewards as well as inspiration to level up your craft skill.
The other tier would be for the advanced or master crafters. Equipment writs would call for equipment pieces in various traits, in various motifs, and in various quality. Maybe even a set. Something like "Craft a set of 5 pieces hundings cp150 in Nord style and sturdy". The writ would specify which pieces and which traits. Hand it in, and you don't get inspiration (no master crafter needs inspiration, it's just wasted when you're maxed anyway), but you get a better rewards. Tempers, mats - like now - but a chance for a motif page from a random motif, a chance for a small amount of style material, even a small chance for a nirnstone. More complex and expensive requirements for the crafter - but a wider array or rewards of better value. And no inspiration please.
Provisioning writs would require recipes from all levels. Not just cp150, maybe lvl 30 one day, cp120 next day etc. And one day a blue recipe, another day a purple, then a green. Not just have the same 5 green recipes from cp150 going on rotation over and over and over.
Alchemy would require more complex potions and also poisons. 3 ingredient potions and poisons. And enchanting would require use of Repora occasionally. And also green, blue and sometime purple runes. Would finally give some use to those Aspect trash runes you pick up all the time. And make it require 2-3 glyphs at a time. And for rewards, make it possible to get Hakeijo by a small chance.
Just like daily pledges, it would mean maybe you cannot finish the advanced crafting writ that day. If you dont have the skills, the materials or the research. Then you do the simpler crafting writ that day (like silver), and try the next day.
I believe this would make crafting much more interesting, and also add a way to obtain crafting materials that are otherwise only obtainable elsewhere, like specific motif pages, nirnstones, Hakeijo etc., but of course only make these a rare reward with a low RNG (the game shows that you certainly know how to make low RNG happen).
Alright, this concludes this extremely long post about my thoughts on the crafting system, and suggestions on where it could be elaborated. Some will agree, some will disagree, but I hope someone from ZOS at least gives it some thought. There is no tl;dr. If you didn't read that's your own loss. Cheers, I'm off to gather more mats.
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idk✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Besides being the biggest wall of text I've seen in a long time, so hard to ready, your thoughts are from an Extreemly narrow point of view and doesn't take in the full scope of the game.
From your own words, your focus is on gathering and crafting.
Furthermore, you state you do not use potions. If your not using potions I guarantee there is much you have not experienced with the game and therefore could not begin to offer a review of crafting from a balanced position.
Get out and enjoy the game. Learn Marie about tamriel and the various systems in the game.
Thank you.0 -
Carbonised✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »Besides being the biggest wall of text I've seen in a long time, so hard to ready, your thoughts are from an Extreemly narrow point of view and doesn't take in the full scope of the game.
From your own words, your focus is on gathering and crafting.
Furthermore, you state you do not use potions. If your not using potions I guarantee there is much you have not experienced with the game and therefore could not begin to offer a review of crafting from a balanced position.
Get out and enjoy the game. Learn Marie about tamriel and the various systems in the game.
Thank you.
This is a post about the crafting and material aspect of the game. I mean, what exactly did you think it was going to be about?
And please do not assume anything on my behalf. You're coming off as both condescending and patronizing, and quite frankly so far off topic that I'm not even going to bother adressing it further.0 -
Nestor✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Gold Tempers need to be both rare and expensive to use. Legendary gear should be difficult to get or make. People have talked about converting lower level tempers into higher level ones, but since ZOS has not commented on this in 3 years, I doubt the are going to do anything about it.
I do agree about the research skill points being useless, but I just respecced my crafters and did not invest those points again (and I hope I never have to either after getting to 9/9 on everything). I actually looked at that as an accomplishment being able to put 12 skill points into combat skills.
Enjoy the game, life is what you really want to be worried about.
PakKat "Everything was going well, until I died"
Gary Gravestink "I am glad you died, I needed the help"2 -
Carbonised✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Gold Tempers need to be both rare and expensive to use. Legendary gear should be difficult to get or make. People have talked about converting lower level tempers into higher level ones, but since ZOS has not commented on this in 3 years, I doubt the are going to do anything about it.
I do agree about the research skill points being useless, but I just respecced my crafters and did not invest those points again (and I hope I never have to either after getting to 9/9 on everything). I actually looked at that as an accomplishment being able to put 12 skill points into combat skills.
I didn't suggest anywhere that you should be able to convert lower level tempers to gold. The only suggestion for conversions were all those useles Ta and Denata and other Aspect runes. For my sake it could be 100 Tas to one green and 100 greens to one blue. At least some kind of use for them. As it is now, everything from Ta to Rekuta is just trash. Rekuta has remote use for your spare gear or when you can't be bothered with Kuta. I also suggested a temper solution where you first apply Ta, then green Aspect, then blue, then purple, and finally a Kuta.
What I did suggest was to actually increase the amount of tempers you needed to upgrade armor in green, blue and purple, to make these more useful, and leave gold as it is.Edited by Carbonised on August 19, 2016 3:37PM0 -
Kraynic✭✭If you increase the base costs of improving gear, nobody starting out would be able to improve anything. One of the strategies for leveling the equipment professions is to improve any intricate drops from white to green to improve inspiration gain. You can do this as a beginning crafter for 5 green upgrade materials, but 20? Part of the challenge of making changes to professions is that you need to make sure they will work whether you are just starting out, or are maxed out.
Also, I don't agree on stripping out the different provisioning recipes that result in food with the same buffs. They use different ingredients, so if you are low on something, you swap to a different recipe and can still make the food (buff) you want.
I think you are right on the balance/availability of wood/cloth/leather/ore in that it needs looked at some more. I would also like to see leather be a little less painful to farm. It really makes me sad that my crafting character is so bad at skinning that he can only get a single scrap of leather from a mammoth. I mean, it can take him a few hundred bears to make a set of cp160 leather gloves! Pretty shameful.1 -
jert14✭Good post. I agree with some suggestions, disagree with others, but I appreciate the stated problem and proposed solutions. I especially like the Master Crafter writ change, the ability to change the look of a dropped item based on known motifs, and the change to the passive research ability.0
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idk✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Carbonised wrote: »Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »Besides being the biggest wall of text I've seen in a long time, so hard to ready, your thoughts are from an Extreemly narrow point of view and doesn't take in the full scope of the game.
From your own words, your focus is on gathering and crafting.
Furthermore, you state you do not use potions. If your not using potions I guarantee there is much you have not experienced with the game and therefore could not begin to offer a review of crafting from a balanced position.
Get out and enjoy the game. Learn Marie about tamriel and the various systems in the game.
Thank you.
This is a post about the crafting and material aspect of the game. I mean, what exactly did you think it was going to be about?
And please do not assume anything on my behalf. You're coming off as both condescending and patronizing, and quite frankly so far off topic that I'm not even going to bother adressing it further.
I will go a different route then. As someone with max crafting in every line and has most characters maxed in multiple crafts. As someone woth all 9 traits research completed over a year ago, I will offer my thoughts on the Original post in this thread. Not intending to be condescending, but to offer up that I do have a background in crafting.
Overall the original post has some mildly interesting thoughts. however, none are worth consideration to be added to the game.
Research passive, this does not need to be augmented. There is already a passive in the game that gives a chance to harvest more from a node. Additionally there is no reason every passive needs to have a constant and persistent use. We have plenty in the game to spend points in as it is.
CP level tied to crafting cost. This may be the worst idea suggested. Higher CP level reducing cost of crafting. Really? The basic idea is everyone will be Cp160 eventually and once someone hits CP160 any new character will almost instantly hit that level. No reason. No purpose.
Enchanting is a fabulous craft as it is. I end up crafting enchants weekly. it offers a great opportunity to enhance our gear from weapons to jewelry. No need to change it.
Alchemy - Zos just added many new matts and sources for the matts. One cannot begin to suggest adding more matts without some suggested plan for how to use the new matts other than hey, why not.
Motif farming - the new design is great. great means to get people playing the game. Fabulous change Zos made.
Making write more interesting. Adding tiers? ABSOLUTLY NOT. Write are great for getting upgrade matts but they do not need to be more complicated or changes to take longer. Fine as it is. The one of two people who think they should be enhanced should try more activities in the game. Seriously.
Honestly. No to all of these ideas and OP will have a hard time finding anyone to agree with him on his overall ideas.
I cannot write further because it's so hard to read this poorly written post. So long and unfocused. Sorry if that is condescending, but it's true.
I suggest OP experience more of this game.Edited by idk on August 19, 2016 5:03PM0 -
moonio✭✭✭✭I agree with your thoughts on enchanting, I started crafting at level 50 and decided to focus on Enchanting as apparently it was really hard and I like that
I spent loads of money buying glyphs to extract, traveling miles around the map checking the guild stores, I loved doing this.
Also with the writs, they can be a pain if you don't have the correct runes, but it was the hunt that kept me at it, seeking out bargains, going to remote places to find the best prices. I loved doing this..
Then they made it way too easy and I've now stopped levelling enchanting, after spending much time and money on my craft, I may go back to it but fighting in Cyrodiil and selling my rewards for the worth items is now my focus...0 -
Zerok✭✭✭✭
Condescending comment.Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »Besides being the biggest wall of text I've seen in a long time, so hard to ready, your thoughts are from an Extreemly narrow point of view and doesn't take in the full scope of the game.
From your own words, your focus is on gathering and crafting.
Furthermore, you state you do not use potions. If your not using potions I guarantee there is much you have not experienced with the game and therefore could not begin to offer a review of crafting from a balanced position.
Get out and enjoy the game. Learn Marie about tamriel and the various systems in the game.
Thank you.Zeerok (the sneaky ruffian) - LV50 Bosmer stamblade DPS (AD)
Gontrand de Bourbon (the greedy aristocrat) - LV50 Breton magsorc tank (DC)
Augustus Aquilarios (the imperial claimant) - LV50 Imperial stamDK PvP (EP)
Zeerokk (the AD zealot) - LV50 Altmer magblade PvP (AD)
Lianna Storm (the inferno maiden) - LV50 Dunmer magDK DPS (EP)
Fights-With-Khajiit (the gullible faithful) - LV5 Argonian templar (EP)
Miner'va (the skooma addict) - LV3 Khajiit sorcerer (AD) - chaotic neutral
Siggy Thorvaldsson (the charismatic baroness) - LV50 Nord stamwarden tank (DC)0 -
Nestor✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Carbonised wrote: »
I didn't suggest anywhere that you should be able to convert lower level tempers to gold. The only suggestion for conversions were all those useles Ta and Denata and other Aspect runes.
Converting Aspects is the same as converting Tempers as far as things the Community has asked for. Same with adjusting how they are used. ZOS has remained quiet on this issue, not even giving us a token "We are looking into that but have no plans to implement it" kind of statement.
So, yes we are left with our 4 figures of low level aspects and low level tempers. I have even destroyed a few 200 stacks of Ta's before Crafting Bags and I still have more than a 1000 of those.
Enjoy the game, life is what you really want to be worried about.
PakKat "Everything was going well, until I died"
Gary Gravestink "I am glad you died, I needed the help"0 -
Carbonised✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Carbonised wrote: »
I didn't suggest anywhere that you should be able to convert lower level tempers to gold. The only suggestion for conversions were all those useles Ta and Denata and other Aspect runes.
Converting Aspects is the same as converting Tempers as far as things the Community has asked for. Same with adjusting how they are used. ZOS has remained quiet on this issue, not even giving us a token "We are looking into that but have no plans to implement it" kind of statement.
So, yes we are left with our 4 figures of low level aspects and low level tempers. I have even destroyed a few 200 stacks of Ta's before Crafting Bags and I still have more than a 1000 of those.
Well in all honesty I don't really expect much to change regarding crafting. I wanted to share my thoughts about how I think each craft can be improved, but I'm not so optimistic to think that much of this is going to get implemented.
I do believe that trash materials is a bad idea, though. Once you get hundres and hundres of something that has little to no use, like Ta, fleshfly larvae, hemming, or even insect parts that now fill guild stores by the millions, then it starts becoming much less amusing or interesting. When you actively have to destroy items to get rid of them (at least before crafting bags), or sell them to NPC vendors for 2 gold a piece, or in guild stores for 3-4 gold a piece, then the material is dropping way, way too often. A solution would be to lower the drop rate, another solution would be to increase the use of the item to make more demand. One could do a little of both of these.
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