Why do some players grind for hundreds of hours for a specific item ?

Lord Xanhorn

ESO has a real problem on their hands regarding gearing up and it hasn't been solved in almost 3 years its been out and likely not going to be solved any time soon.

The problem is it takes 5 minutes figuratively speaking to go from fresh lvl 50 to 95% character strength and 5000 hours to get that last 5%. The only problem is that the entirety of the NON PVP content is doable with the 95% strength. So people grind for the last 5% cause if they didn't, there would literally be nothing worthwhile to do to progress their character outside of grind CP.

When Morrowind comes out, there will be a few more sets added and it might take another 5 minutes to get the set you want and then another 5000 hours to get the perfect traits.

Synfaer

wiz12268b14_ESO wrote: »

Tears are going to be awesome when they raise levels for Morrowind

ZOS confirmed they are NOT raising gear level cap in Morrowind, top gear will still be CP160.

[url="http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/3748125#Comment_3748125[/url]


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mr_wazzabi

Precise should increase crit by 15%, not 7.

Nirnhoned should increase the weapon's damage by 20%, not 10.

tplink3r1

Because i like to keep improving my character and i also like to grind things.

g00gleyes

some people like being slaves I guess.

Dredlord

Because they believe it will make them good/better at pvp/pve.

disintegr8

The game has an assortment of things people can spend their time doing and for some the best goal they see is getting the best weapons and armour.

There are plenty of 'grinds' in the game, whether it is leveling up, questing, farming for materials, selling whatever they can get to make gold, etc. For me, even running dungeons feels like a grind, yet on Sunday I spent about 4 hours fishing and collecting writ surveys - which I am sure falls into the 'grind' category for a lot of people.

Speaking as a 9 trait master crafter who has never done a vet trial, you spend over a year getting one character to learn all 9 traits on everything and you get nothing for it. You would be better of grinding the dungeons and trials for gear that is better than anything I can make.

Until they make crafting a worthwhile skill, including crafting/improvement of jewelry, most people would get more benefit from grinding the trials and dungeons.

zaria

Prof_Bawbag wrote: »

It's something i've never understood why some people on here do or more to the point, the ones who don't pvp. What I mean by that is, they complain about pugs and scrubs holding them up in their dungeon runs, dungeon runs they want over asap because they just need the gear. What do they need the gear for? From what I can gather, so they can do those dungeon runs that they dislike quicker.

I'd like to know what fun things those people use that gear for? They've obviously completed all the normal content such as side quests, main quests, dlc etc, so aye, why do some of you put yourselves through that? Like i said, I can fully understand why pvp players just want all those vet pledges and trials done and dusted so they can get on with the stuff they enjoy.

"so they can do those dungeon runs that they dislike quicker" This is the core I think.
You had the same in WOW, WOW even had an token system, an token system who let you buy raiding gear for doing veteran dungeons. Result was that people did the dungeons for the raiding gear after they had all the gear the dungeon dropped and that was an insane grind.

teladoy

Best sets are from Dungeons, but mostly from grinding public dungeons or dolmens. Spinner set or Necromancer for example are very difficult to get, specially the weapons, because jewelery u know that sooner or later will drop, but weapons can drop with any trait, so it takes a lot more time.

The thing is that makes no sense get a weapon without sharpened, because it the best trait in anything and only like that you can feel you have the best optimized set.

For example the 5 pieces of the Spinner set gives you armor and spell penetration, but then tell me which sense makes if you have one sword without sharpened?
What you won with the complete set of 5 pieces you are wasting it with one sword that doesn't have penetration.

aLi3nZ

I grind for gear and gold sometimes. My thinking is that If you want to play with or against the top players then you are going to need the best gear.

Joy_Division

Nestor wrote: »

They are blinded by the Divine Light.






Don't get me wrong, Divines is a good trait to have. But, when you really look at what it does, for one item it is like 90 more magic, or .9% more Critical Strike Chance if you have Divines on an item, and, you improve it to Gold. So, at purple or blue, it's even less.

It's not the armor trait people are after, it's the weapons. I'll be fine with a reinforced whatever, but I need a sword/fire staff to finish a 5 piece set and sharpened is so much better, I'm gimping my build without it.

mtwiggz

ZiRM wrote: »

200CP.. the grind will start all over.

I will mail so many flaming bags of poop to Zenimax if they increase the CP gear requirements without at least giving us a relatively cheap way to increase the CP level of gear.

zaria

mtwiggz wrote: »

ZiRM wrote: »

200CP.. the grind will start all over.

I will mail so many flaming bags of poop to Zenimax if they increase the CP gear requirements without at least giving us a relatively cheap way to increase the CP level of gear.

Now if they also added better sets it would be ok? You would grind for the better sets anyway.

TX12001rwb17_ESO

Because they blindly believe 5% more DPS will make them better when the truth is most fights are determined not by who has the highest stats but the most skill, I have seen a lot of low levels defeat players with max cp.

DrkHunter86

Chazaquiel wrote: »

I'm still new to the game, and levelling my first character.
Reading through the forums, I read about people grinding for over a hundred hours in order to obtain a specific item (such as a sharpened spriggan whatsit thingy). I would like information from those players as to why another item with similar characteristics won't do the job just as well, what is so special about that specific item that some players put so much effort into obtaining ?

Thanks for any answers and insights.

Yeah its usually for best in slot items. Some items may have similar stats but you have too keep in mind some items come I sets that have 2-5 piece bonuses. And combined towards endgame with champion points 1 item may ultimately be all better than another even though there base stats are similar. People also grind fir certain items that have a high value in guild traders. Some really rare items can run several hundred thousand gold on the market.

failkiwib16_ESO

People get friends in this game, and after a certain point try to achieve what they haven't been able to achieve earlier.... and join veteran raids, these veteran raids have high demands, and sometimes raidleaders give out order to their members to improve their performance.

Part of improving performance is getting geared up. Some items take a hell of a long time to grind, due to bad loot drops.

Saturn

Chazaquiel wrote: »

I'm still new to the game, and levelling my first character.
Reading through the forums, I read about people grinding for over a hundred hours in order to obtain a specific item (such as a sharpened spriggan whatsit thingy). I would like information from those players as to why another item with similar characteristics won't do the job just as well, what is so special about that specific item that some players put so much effort into obtaining ?

Thanks for any answers and insights.

The more cynical of us would say it's because there is nothing else to do, but the biggest reason for the long grind is A: something called RNG, which basically means "good luck getting that thing you want" and B: the ridiculous system called traits, wherein one specific trait is desireable for damage, but all of them drop, meaning the chance of getting the special one is super low. The reason for the long grinds are because those items tend to be best in slot, i.e. amazing s**t.

Compared to other MMOs, ESO is a game where the endgame grind isn't always found in trials/pvp, but rather some dungeon or zone which drops the specific gear you are looking for. It's honestly a terrible system, but that's the type of game this is.

I'm currently on the Burning Spellweave Sharpened Inferno Staff grind, wish me luck, only 30 hours in so far... /wrists

Runschei

They need it for their build or they want to sell it for massive amounts of gold I guess

Xelrick

My thought on it is go with traits that work with the Sets your running, that will maximize the goal your trying to achieve.

Well my stand point on weapon traits is dependent of your actual Role... DPS definitely Sharpen, but Precise if you are somehow hitting pass their Resistance. Nirnhoned is only useful if you somehow good on crit and completely bypass resistance...though that if you a crafted set, or get a weapon with it.

Tanks, Either Defending or Decisive.... Defending most likely also used to counter those that use Sharpen as it equals in value. Decisive is helpful when Tank need to throw out many a high cost ultimates as possible, but it not necessary.

Healer is Powered, Precise Powered what I hear is best trait for a restoration staff and boost heal output overall. Precise -Crit Heals are always the best.

Charge and Infuse are more in line with the Enchantment, over roles, there are a few cases these be useful for a set, but above more recommended. -Sidenote I have a VO Infused dagger and some reason throws out an additional very low (9-16!) damage tick with Blood Graze, which add also procs any damage deal related set.-

Training and Prosperous only useful for XP and Gold Farming, Not recommended for end game.

Gordon906

For builds.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Prof_Bawbag wrote: »

It's something i've never understood why some people on here do or more to the point, the ones who don't pvp. What I mean by that is, they complain about pugs and scrubs holding them up in their dungeon runs, dungeon runs they want over asap because they just need the gear. What do they need the gear for? From what I can gather, so they can do those dungeon runs that they dislike quicker.

I'd like to know what fun things those people use that gear for? They've obviously completed all the normal content such as side quests, main quests, dlc etc, so aye, why do some of you put yourselves through that? Like i said, I can fully understand why pvp players just want all those vet pledges and trials done and dusted so they can get on with the stuff they enjoy.

You understand that PVE leaderboards are a thing right? End of the day, score comes down to 2 things. Speed and not dying. Not dying is generally a function of understanding mechanics. Speed is a function of DPS. BIS gear means more DPS means higher score. Some people play the game solely for competing for leaderboard spots.

Remag_Div

What's funny about MMO's too is that you can grind hundred of hours for that sharpened staff and then a couple months later they can increase the gear cap and you have to grind for EVERYTHING all over again.

Fun.

Ragemar

Simple answer.

Because ESO substitutes content and replay-ability of content with p** poor RNG.

So most are forced into doing X, Y times to get Z instead of doing X because its fun enough to do Y times.
This results in many will not bother doing X again after they obtained Z unless a new Z is introduced.

Note, I find the rest of the game quite enjoyable and the community is good so I still enjoy playing. But I wish the main reason for doing content wasn't RNG

Remag_Div

Ragemar wrote: »

Simple answer.

Because ESO substitutes content and replay-ability of content with p** poor RNG.

So most are forced into doing X, Y times to get Z instead of doing X because its fun enough to do Y times.
This results in many will not bother doing X again after they obtained Z unless a new Z is introduced.

Note, I find the rest of the game quite enjoyable and the community is good so I still enjoy playing. But I wish the main reason for doing content wasn't RNG

To be fair, ESO is not the only game to do this. It's pretty standard in every MMO.

It's an easy way to get people to keep playing for months. If everyone got BiS gear after a few days most people would get bored and leave. The carrot on a stick playstyle is an MMO commandment at this point.

Veuth

Because they're lowlife virgins.

Ragemar

Remag_Div wrote: »

To be fair, ESO is not the only game to do this. It's pretty standard in every MMO.

It's an easy way to get people to keep playing for months. If everyone got BiS gear after a few days most people would get bored and leave. The carrot on a stick playstyle is an MMO commandment at this point.

Many other MMO's use many systems to remove pure RNG such as token system or smaller loot tables
And many of these MMOs have made an actual working LFG system

I do not mind a grind ( I have 9 lvl 50 chars all leveled by questing) and a level 40 and almost all traits researched (I swapped crafter halfway I regret that now)
But if you do the same content over and over only to get nothing of use it feels a bit like wasted time.

I played MMOs for +10 years and in my experience ESO is the worst I tried in terms of RNG/Reward as a bare minimum in other MMOs you could accumulate DKP if you where with bad luck haha.

Remag_Div

Ragemar wrote: »

Many other MMO's use many systems to remove pure RNG such as token system or smaller loot tables.

This I can agree with. There definitely should be some sort of token system implemented similar to how Crown Crates and Gems are handled. Then again, knowing ZOS, the amount of tokens needed for certain gear would be way over the top so you're still grinding a ton.