ESO Looting System: A HUMONGOUS WASTE OF TIME AND EFFORTS thanks to RNG god, but is still savable.

Pr0Skygon

Let's cut to the chase: grinding for a Sharpened Maelstrom Battle Axe isn't fun. It might be fun if you get it in your first 30-ish runs, but when you have passed that point, you'll know how depressing that feeling is - the feeling of time dripping away meaninglessly.

Sadly, that feeling has struck me for countless times. I'm grinding the hell out of Darkshade Cavern for a Divine Netch Touch chest, grinding the heck out of Fungal Grotto for a Greatsword of Viper (please don't judge me). And after hundreds of grinding trips (yes I said it, hundreds), I've just realized: Why am I even doing this. Am I enjoying this? No. Do I feel like this is a waste of time? Yes. Why? Because with those time, I can do so many things in and out of ESO. I can spend more time on my job, my college, my family, my friends, my guildmates on ESO. Heck, I can even have tons of fun playing Overwatch with my brother.

I know what you're thinking: If you hate grinding so much, why don't you just stop, or even better, why don't you just go back and play Overwatch. My answer to that is easy: I love ESO. I really do. ESO is like a 2nd life I'd never have in real life. I thank you ZOS for bringing me this game. And because of my passion for the game, I'm still playing the game, despite knowing many flaws in the system. But even that can't stop me from looking away from a major disappointment: The loot system is so time consuming and unfriendly.

Here's the question: Why do we grind in ESO, or in any other MMO? Simple, because we want more, we want to become better, stronger, cooler, more useful to our friends on ESO and feels good about ourselves. I can obviously use Julianos for my MagSorc, but by that, my dps can't go any further than 30K. I want more, and so Netch Touch is my answer. Sadly as I said earlier, it seems to be impossible for me to get it anytime soon.

So instead of giving up and surrendering to the RNG god, I decided to come here and make a thread (cause why not). With this thread, I would love to give some ideas of mine of how to improve the loot system, making it more tolerable and friendly for every players.

It's quite simple actually, I'll add a new perk in Blacksmithing, Clothing and Woodworking, and the most important: a special guildhall for the Undaunted guild in every major cities (Elden Root, Wayrest and Mournhold). In that guildhall, there'll be 3 special crafting station (Blacksmithing, Clothing, Woodworking) and a unique deconstruct station. Here's how things work:
- The new skill perk for Blacksmithing, Clothing and Woodworking can be obtain at level 50 of each perspective crafting division. This new skill perk will allow players to use the unique deconstruct station in The Undaunted's guildhall.
- The unique deconstruct station: This station will only work if you put in 5 piece of armor and/or weapon with the same set of item (for exp: 4 armor pieces and a 1H sword of Spriggan). Once you put these 5 ingredients in, they'll be deconstructed into a shard of it own set (for exp: a Spriggan shard, a Twice Fang Serpent shard). These shards are bound on pick up.
- The special crafting stations: These station will allow you to make a specific item with the piece, style, trait and set of your choice, depends on the shard that you put in (for exp: with this system, I can make a Divine Dro m'athra Netch Touch robe with 150 ancestor silk, 1 sapphire, 1 Defiled Whiskers and 1 Netch Touch shard comes from the unique deconstruct station).

I seriously surprise of ZOS for not thinking of a similar system yet (maybe they have, idk). With this system, players can avoid the crushing experience from RNG god, without sacrificing the fact that players will still need complete the required content of the game to obtain certain sets of items. Also, this system'll show how important it is to leveling up your crafting division, give player the freedom in creating their own weapons and armor, without sacrificing the balance price of guildstores (it will changes, but minor).

Of course, this is not the only way to improve the grinding experiences (yes, you'll still have to grind even if a similar system like this exist), since the chance of ZOS actually reading or even considering about this is even smaller than your local restaurant special order, but hey, if there's even a chance like 0.0000001%, I'll still take it, because I'm sick of grinding in ESO (joke aside, I'll probably go back to grinding tomorrow anyway).

"But that's the point of grinding, the feeling of achieving something from RNG god is the reason why people plays MMORPG". If you say this in 2005 when WOW is the hottest thing online, I might agree to that. But this is 2017, where tons of MMORPG, and also the whole gaming industry has evolved. At the time right now, FUN, EASY TO PICK UP, HARD TO MASTER IN A FAIR AND BALANCE ENVIRONMENT is what driving the industry forward. Is ESO fun? Hell yeah. Is it balance? Not really. Is it hard to master? Sure is. But is it easy to pick up? NO!

And as I said before, there're many flaws in ESO (no jewelry crafting, the combat animation sucks compares to newer MMORPG, most skill looks bland as hell, the meta is often crap, most traits are useless, balancing in PvP, where the hell is our spell crafting?....), but I'll talk about those topic another day, because this problem, the soul crushing time wasting grinding experience is just unhealthy for both the game and players themselves. This system has been driven many end game players away from ESO, most recently is Deltia (the Youtuber). I might disagree with him about his build videos, but I'll always agree with him on 1 thing: grinding sets just to make a god damn video isn't fun at all. So, any suggestion or ideas from you guys from the forum?

And my message to ZOS: What now?

DarkAedin

I love it. Great thoughts man heres an awsome

Smasherx74

Well there is so many sets now that just casually playing the game and doing random dungeons you'll come across enough set pieces that you'll end up with 2-3 active sets.

As for actually grinding for set items, I find that to be stupid. The only time I really grinded anything was ROM or whatever and that was for the *** set that gives people 10% chance evasion on heal because my guild wanted me to run it in trials with someone else.


Once they introduced the first set that was paywalled I decided I'd never care or go for sets I have to grind. I always stuck to my TBS/Nightmothers. However now that I'm replaying the game as warden, I've just magically came across so many sets that I'm racking up spell crit, damage, and tons of magicka. In that way I'm glad they introduced so many sets, because they're so abundant anyone can get multiple pieces of them. And I think it's a lot better than randoms have random sets on them, instead of everyone wasting their time crafting meh sets.

Pr0Skygon

@Smasherx74 If you're in multiple end game vet trial guilds like me, you'll know how competitive we're in min max dps parse. Like I said, I can just make a 5 piece set of Julianos, do some pledges to get a llmabris sets and do some random normal dungeons for a full set of Willpower jewelry, then make 2 random Lightning staves and wala, my MagSorc can go beat vAA with my crew. But if you want to get into the leaderboard, or even have a chance to finish vMOL or vHOF, I'd better go farm that Darkshade Cavern for Netch Touch, some vet trials for IA jewelry and get 2 Maelstrom Lightning Staves.

Anyway, you're off topic. I'm not talking about the sets or is it legit to go grinding, I'm talking about how time consuming and frustrating it is for people who decided to go grinding sets.

Pr0Skygon

@DarkAedin Thanks buddy, really glad to see someone shares my ideas

Iccotak

Solid agree.
Endlessly grinding for something when I have important things to do or want to do more in my day than just play ESO is damaging.
I would prefer not having to spend so much time in my day just to make the perfect build.

ESO should strive to not be like WoW in that respect.

MarekT_T

As for the Viper 2h, hopefully you've been grinding the Spawn of Mephala boss in Fungal Grotto 2 for the "Debaser". Is the named sharpened 2h greatsword

Pr0Skygon

@MarekT_T Holy Skooma! Thank you!

Absalon

No, never gonna happen, mate. You're already allowed to run any trait and weight on your set. If you want to min/max you must grind for it, as everybody else, and this is not supposed to be fun. If you want to be the best on something, you need to make sacrifices. As in life, as in games. No pain, no gain. Since when ppl start to being so lazy on MMOs?

PS. Last week I've took one of my guildies and we farmed nDC1 until we get every divine peace of netch touch he needed, and this only took about 3 hours.

Rawreak Rovyre

While I understand the competitive nature of min/max DPS, leaderboards, etc., I assure you that finally getting that piece you're looking for will not give you the time and energy back you've already spent on this. You'll only find it momentarily pleasing before you're off to grind the next thing.

Do yourself a favor and move on. Run the occasional run to see if you get lucky. But enjoy the game--it's a game, don't let it consume you. If you're not having fun, you're better off not playing/taking a break and go live life.

MarekT_T

No Sweat! Another tip, the previous boss in Fungal Grotto 2 (the one who does not respond well to safe words) drops "Knife of Shadows" which is a sharpened viper dagger. I also found out you can obtain two of these daggers, despite being named items

Xander3Zero

Its a great idea, but it might have to be a bit more complicated, or difficult to achieve.

For example, its ridiculously easy to get 5 matching pieces of set armor (in any/varying traits of course). Like I can sit in a delve for 15 minutes and get 5 pieces of spriggans armor, then go and craft any of the best set armor in the game for deconstructing those 5 pieces? That would be too easy if you ask me.

I think the reason ESO doesnt implement a "token" loot system, or something along the lines of what your talking about, is because they dont want there to be a specific number of hours required to get what you are looking for.

Like if i wanted to craft 5 pieces of divines Netch Touch, I could use 25 pieces of spriggans (for example). I can loot a delve boss every 3-5 minutes, which means it would take 75-125 minutes for me to farm 5 pieces of Netch Touch. I think this is bad for the game because it is too finite a system for gathering BiS loot. Correct me if you think im wrong, or I am missing something in your post.

LiquidPony

I like the idea, but, it's not going to happen. IMO, obviously.

What I'd like to see, and I think it's actually feasible, is just: drop way more loot.

For instance, in vMoL, you get: 10 (?) guaranteed chests + 3 boss drops + the weekly coffer. In vHoF, you get: boss drops + 10 (?) guaranteed chests (not sure on the number exactly but there are a lot) + the weekly coffer. Plus, the loot tables are comparatively small (4 sets each in HoF and MoL versus 6 sets each in SO/HRC/AA).

Whereas, in vSO, you get 4 boss drops and maybe a chest or 2 randomly. Same with dungeons.

IMO, ZOS should just revisit existing Trials/Dungeons and add more guaranteed loot. Put chests in tough content that are always there. Also, for Hard Mode Trial completes, stop dropping 2 pieces of gold jewelry. That is dumb as hell. We can't sell it anymore, and after a few runs you just vendor all of the jewelry. So I would suggest that Hard Mode Trials should drop 2 weapons and 1 piece of gold jewelry from the final boss. And then buff the Hard Mode vet Dungeon drops, maybe something like guaranteed a Monster Helm + set weapon + set jewelry.

That doesn't solve the problem with Undaunted Shoulders or Maelstrom/Master weapons, though. Undaunted shoulders could be solved by just adding more chests: split them up into groups of 4, like the chest that only covers DLC dungeons, so that the loot table isn't so diluted.

As for Maelstrom/Master weapons ... I don't know. Maybe make the chests at the end of each round have a small (5%? 10%?) chance of dropping a weapon?

Dark_Aether

Speaking of time wasting, if you're going to write an essay, at least put a tl;dr version somewhere.

Pr0Skygon

@Xander3Zero My friend you didn't read carefully what I said. As my ideas suggested, if you want to craft 1 Netch Touch item, you'll need to have already deconstructed 5 other Netch Touch, and only Netch Touch set Items to have a Netch Touch Shard.
Though saying that, I would agree about the number of item to get a shard, 5 is quite forgiving. So maybe 15?

Pr0Skygon

@LiquidPony Well it just my little crazy idea As I said, I don't even think that ZOS would ever read this
But hey at least I tried, right?

And yeah 100% agree with you. Why would I even try to do HM vAA or vHRC when I know that it's only for the achievement? And just like the 2H Viper set in Fungal Grotto 2 with the name Debaser, why not just adding more named gears, so we can actually have more info on how and where to find it?

Xander3Zero

Pr0Skygon wrote: »

@Xander3Zero My friend you didn't read carefully what I said. As my ideas suggested, if you want to craft 1 Netch Touch item, you'll need to have already deconstructed 5 other Netch Touch, and only Netch Touch set Items to have a Netch Touch Shard.
Though saying that, I would agree about the number of item to get a shard, 5 is quite forgiving. So maybe 15?

Gotcha, that makes more sense, and i agree about the number maybe needing to be 15 or even higher. Or maybe its not a 100% chance on deconstruction to receive the shard? Maybe make the % success chance related to a skill tree or something like that, idk.

Pr0Skygon

@NesNes Or you can support me and tell ZOS to improve their loot system, so no one else will ever have to experience such a tasteless moment as I did?
I've already moved on from just grinding the game and actually enjoy myself again, doing writs, helping newbies in Morrowind, doing some quick pledges, but those are not the excuses for ZOS to just lazying around and be ok with the terrible loot system I created.

Pr0Skygon

@Xander3Zero If there's a % involved in it, then we're back to square 1 and have business with RNG god again

Pr0Skygon

@Dark_Aether sorry :P

DjMuscleboy02

Julianos is better than Netch for a magsorc in trials.

But I get your point, I've ran vma over 500 times and haven't seen a sharpened inferno.

Pr0Skygon

@Absalon The following respond might trigger or offend you, if it does then i'm sorry, totally not intended.

Dude, saying that throwing away my duties with everyone else involved in my life for any kind of video game (not only MMO) is just irresponsible and childish. Why can't I just have fun and thrive myself to the limit of my ability as the same time? I've already gave ZOS my money and time, and now they want my soul too?

PS: I wish I've found you somewhere and join you for the run,I really do, cause I'm still 2 pieces short in Netch Touch after 100+ runs.

Acrolas

They don't really care what gear drops in game, so long as you buy a hat or a goat or something.

They're definitely afraid that more player freedom will negatively affect their sales, unless they can monetize the player freedom in question. I wouldn't be surprised if they're talking about tokens or transmog in the same breath as raising ESO+ by another $5 or even $10 for a "premium" experience.

Be careful what you wish for, because a company will use high demand to *** everyone but their most loyal customers. Always downplay your enthusiasm. Even if it's a totally awesome idea that makes so much sense it hurts.

Pr0Skygon

@Acrolas That is true, yet scary my friend

eso_nya

Pr0Skygon wrote: »

Here's the question: Why do we grind in ESO, or in any other MMO? Simple, because we want more, we want to become better, stronger, cooler, more useful to our friends on ESO and feels good about ourselves. I can obviously use Julianos for my MagSorc, but by that, my dps can't go any further than 30K. I want more, and so Netch Touch is my answer. Sadly as I said earlier, it seems to be impossible for me to get it anytime soon.

U can waste some additional weeks, to find out how different sets influence your dmg done, and get the superawesome result:

If u can pull 30k dps with julianos, swapping julianos out for netch will (theoretically) give u:
31005 dps on a staff/staff loadout (+3,35%)
30729 dps on a dw/staff loadout (+2,43%)
Given u use the exactly same rotation. And ignoring that e.g. Wall of Elements from a firestaff will do 8% less dmg.
Warmaiden gives u the same increases on everything not elemental.
Burning spellweave is exactly 2% better than julianos, given u have a perfect uptime. (In that place ignoring, that the proc itself is awesome, as u get the spelldmg increase when u also get the +20% dmg on firewall from burning). Theoretical numbers, i know, but the lucky crit will screw over the actual parse more than any of the sets.
Even compared to run non-set items w/ same enchants/quality (for passives and stuff), theres no set that gives more than 20% dps increase....sharp weapon gives 10%...sharp weapon of mount whateverest is as good as non-sharp vma weapon :P

Once i figured out how close the numbers r...well, id never farm for a weapon again. Last stupid action was tryharding for sharp spriggan daggers, turns out, its totally within parameters that killing 1022 worldbosses in bankorai, rewards with 3 sharp icestaffs, 2 sharp lightningstaffs, and one sharp of each resto, battleaxe and greatsword of the spriggan and as a topping a total of 23 restos of the 7th legion in all the funny traits xD

I'm with the "change trait and style of dropped gear with crafting" crowd. You still have to grind places for the item u want, but rnt up against dropchances of 0,08% due to dilluted loottables anymore. (statistically, i should have gotten one sharp spriggan dagger within 1248 kills, looks like i gave up to soon xD)

khele23eb17_ESO

This is why I stopped playing ESO over a year ago.I wanted a token system and I wanted new progression options. Came back for Morrowind and I see nothing's changed. Come on! Its been over a year! FFS.

Pr0Skygon

@eso_nya And that's why I'd not even bother with Twice Fang Serpent, and be happy with my Spriggan set

MLGProPlayer

eso_nya wrote: »

Pr0Skygon wrote: »

Here's the question: Why do we grind in ESO, or in any other MMO? Simple, because we want more, we want to become better, stronger, cooler, more useful to our friends on ESO and feels good about ourselves. I can obviously use Julianos for my MagSorc, but by that, my dps can't go any further than 30K. I want more, and so Netch Touch is my answer. Sadly as I said earlier, it seems to be impossible for me to get it anytime soon.

U can waste some additional weeks, to find out how different sets influence your dmg done, and get the superawesome result:

If u can pull 30k dps with julianos, swapping julianos out for netch will (theoretically) give u:
31005 dps on a staff/staff loadout (+3,35%)
30729 dps on a dw/staff loadout (+2,43%)
Given u use the exactly same rotation. And ignoring that e.g. Wall of Elements from a firestaff will do 8% less dmg.
Warmaiden gives u the same increases on everything not elemental.
Burning spellweave is exactly 2% better than julianos, given u have a perfect uptime. (In that place ignoring, that the proc itself is awesome, as u get the spelldmg increase when u also get the +20% dmg on firewall from burning). Theoretical numbers, i know, but the lucky crit will screw over the actual parse more than any of the sets.
Even compared to run non-set items w/ same enchants/quality (for passives and stuff), theres no set that gives more than 20% dps increase....sharp weapon gives 10%...sharp weapon of mount whateverest is as good as non-sharp vma weapon :P

Once i figured out how close the numbers r...well, id never farm for a weapon again. Last stupid action was tryharding for sharp spriggan daggers, turns out, its totally within parameters that killing 1022 worldbosses in bankorai, rewards with 3 sharp icestaffs, 2 sharp lightningstaffs, and one sharp of each resto, battleaxe and greatsword of the spriggan and as a topping a total of 23 restos of the 7th legion in all the funny traits xD

I'm with the "change trait and style of dropped gear with crafting" crowd. You still have to grind places for the item u want, but rnt up against dropchances of 0,08% due to dilluted loottables anymore. (statistically, i should have gotten one sharp spriggan dagger within 1248 kills, looks like i gave up to soon xD)

You should never grind overland gear. Grind gold and then buy the sets from guild trader. It's a million times faster. But if you're going to grind weapons, killing world bosses is the least efficient method. You want to either kill public dungeon bosses or farm chests.

And some gear is substantially better than its crafted/overland counterpart (trial gear, SPC/Worm, etc.).

L2Pissue

you play MMOs you grind

F7sus4

Your ideas sound nice to all people bored to death with RNG god (me including). But as a pro-trader I also must say that your ideas would totally and utterly ruin the marketplace as a whole.

People spend tons of their legitimate gameplay time to hunt for specific set item+trait combos to provide them to you. Yes. They cost a bunch but allowing the purchase of a few cheap crap-traited set items only to recraft it into proper traited one... I guess you see where it's going.

Anyway - there should be some way of getting rid of RNG cockblocking people's way to e.g. vMSA Sharpened Staves.

MLGProPlayer

F7sus4 wrote: »

Your ideas sound nice to all people bored to death with RNG god (me including). But as a pro-trader I also must say that your ideas would totally and utterly ruin the marketplace as a whole.

People spend tons of their legitimate gameplay time to hunt for specific set item+trait combos to provide them to you. Yes. They cost a bunch but allowing the purchase of a few cheap crap-traited set items only to recraft it into proper traited one... I guess you see where it's going.

Anyway - there should be some way of getting rid of RNG cockblocking people's way to e.g. vMSA Sharpened Staves.

We need a token system in dungeons and trials (including vMA). Overland can stay the way it is.