CURRENT STATE OF GATHERING MATS IN ESO

Raiva172

I quit playing ESO not long after One Tamriel began. I know there are many benefits to having all the zones scale to the character's level, however; there are some significant downsides, also.

For me, there were 2 main negatives to the One Tamriel update:
1. I enjoyed going back to lower level zones to finish off content that I wasn't able to do at lower levels and doing some of the 'harder' achievements. I can live with this change since
the benefit is that we all can play together in any zone and it forces us to group more. I can deal with and adjust to that!
2. We can only gather mats that correlate to our level of crafting. THIS change is unacceptable to crafters IMO. Many people enjoy gathering and crafting for friends/guildmates as I do.
This change has resulted in having an abundance of higher end mats at the expense of NO lower level mats. I spent MANY hours leveling up my crafting skills and it makes ZERO
sense that I am now unable to farm mats to craft lower level items. This change has affected my enjoyment of ESO, so I have a suggestion for the devs.

MY SUGGESTION FOR GATHERING MATS:
There is a simple solution to this! Leave the mats in certain levels just the way they were previously. For example, in Auridon, the beginning zone for Altmer, people can ONLY
gather the first tier of crafting mats: i.e. jute, iron ore, maple wood and the first levels of enchanting runes and waters for Alchemy.
I don't see any reason why this isn't possible to do and it would ensure that lower level mats are more available to all. Players will still be able to sell their lower level mats in the
guild traders since many high level players have more gold to spend than time to gather mats.

Magdalina

You can gather lower level mats on lower level alts(if you need gear crafted for those) or from writs. Since One Tam I've gotten stacks and stacks of lower level mats JUST from writs which I don't even do that regularily.

I think the main argument here is, why do you actually need an abundance of lower level mats? If you find yourself in dire need, you can buy some at guildtraders dirt cheap. But chances are you'll outlevel that gear in 20 minutes anyway. Meanwhile, with 150 mats per piece of cp 160 gear...yeah...I must say I do appreciate all zones dropping cp 160 mats. It's not a perfect system but it's a good enough compromise imo.

Raiva172

Magdalina wrote: »

You can gather lower level mats on lower level alts(if you need gear crafted for those) or from writs. Since One Tam I've gotten stacks and stacks of lower level mats JUST from writs which I don't even do that regularily.

I think the main argument here is, why do you actually need an abundance of lower level mats? If you find yourself in dire need, you can buy some at guildtraders dirt cheap. But chances are you'll outlevel that gear in 20 minutes anyway. Meanwhile, with 150 mats per piece of cp 160 gear...yeah...I must say I do appreciate all zones dropping cp 160 mats. It's not a perfect system but it's a good enough compromise imo.

Magdalina, I think you missed my explanation of WHY I want to be able to gather lower level mats ..... I DID say that I "enjoy gathering and crafting for friends/guildmates." Please don't post if you haven't bothered to read the OP!

My proposal of returning to zones with different levels of mats won't significantly affect your ability to gather high end mats in ALL the other areas. Craglorn, Wrothgar, Hew's Bane, Gold Coast, Vvardenfell and Clockwork City would ALL still give you the highest level mats. Your hirelings will STILL bring you high level mats.

Taleof2Cities

In case you weren’t aware, the crafting node rules are now 50% drop based on character level and 50% drop based on skill points invested in the crafting profession first passive. So, your character still has a chance to gather materials at their crafting level ... which could be higher or lower than the character level. So, you have some control of it yourself through unlocking the first passives.

We have this hybrid rule because a handful of high level players complained that they couldn’t obtain max level raw mats in nodes ... even though they had done nothing to improve themselves (or didn’t want to spend skill points) in the crafting profession.

Raiva172 wrote: »

Players will still be able to sell their lower level mats in the guild traders since many high level players have more gold to spend than time to gather mats.

Sorry to say that lower level mats don’t sell very well in the guild stores. Especially the mats between CP10 and CP150 ... since players only have to level one character through that range.

I do help out players with an in-zone rare request of those mid tier mats ... and charge them the master merchant going rate which is super reasonable.

Nestor

The whole problem could be solved if they would just allow any mat to make any level of gear, just the number of mats needed changes.

Change the Material Passive to be Gear Level Passive.
Redistribute the nodes so that it follows roughly the original zone distribution, with maybe a split where 30% of the nodes in a zone a random of some other material. DLCs and Adventure Zones could drop totally random or follow the split zone scheme.

Then people could have CP160 Jute or L12 Ruby if they wanted to.

Also, the original mats takes dyes very well, the Ruby stuff, it's hit or miss if the dye is going to look anything like it should.

Raiva172

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

In case you weren’t aware, the crafting node rules are now 50% drop based on character level and 50% drop based on skill points invested in the crafting profession first passive. So, your character still has a chance to gather materials at their crafting level ... which could be higher or lower than the character level. So, you have some control of it yourself through unlocking the first passives.

We have this hybrid rule because a handful of high level players complained that they couldn’t obtain max level raw mats in nodes ... even though they had done nothing to improve themselves (or didn’t want to spend skill points) in the crafting profession.

Raiva172 wrote: »

Players will still be able to sell their lower level mats in the guild traders since many high level players have more gold to spend than time to gather mats.

Sorry to say that lower level mats don’t sell very well in the guild stores. Especially the mats between CP10 and CP150 ... since players only have to level one character through that range.

I do help out players with an in-zone rare request of those mid tier mats ... and charge them the master merchant going rate which is super reasonable.

My crafting levels are maxed in ALL professions, so this 50% rule you mention won't help me gather lower level mats.

Again, the suggestion I made to merely allow us to gather lower level mats in the same zones we could prior to One Tamriel won't significantly affect people needing higher level mats There are more zones now that can give the higher level mats than in past.

I understand what you are saying about the CP10 to CP150 mats, however; this doesn't apply to ALL the mats below these levels. Also, there's lots of newcomers all the time who DO need that level of gear as they level.

Asardes

I'm literally swimming in surplus low level mats I have no use for from the crafting writs. Those will always drop if you don't get a survey. I end up selling them on guild stores cheap or simply vendoring them to NPC since the guild price is not worth it (ex. maple). So the supply is probably much higher than the demand and this has been the case since the beginning. Actually the system put in place by the developers to satisfy people like you overperforms and should be changed in some way that provides less of those. It was provided as soon as One Tamriel was launched so OP has clearly made up a baseless excuse for leaving the game.

As for enemies/content leveling I remember outleveling them by 5+ levels as soon as I cleared the 1/3 of a zone and getting no XP or loot from them as a result. It was very unrewarding. Even now overland content is boringly easy even when fully leveled.

Integral1900

What guild mate would need you to gather the mats, the stuff is everywhere, my new nightblade gathers their own mats, crafts their own gear and then dumps the low level surplus on the nearest convenient npc merchant. The one tamriel update was a game changer, absolutely now way would I go back.

rhapsodious

Raiva172 wrote: »

My proposal of returning to zones with different levels of mats won't significantly affect your ability to gather high end mats in ALL the other areas. Craglorn, Wrothgar, Hew's Bane, Gold Coast, Vvardenfell and Clockwork City would ALL still give you the highest level mats. Your hirelings will STILL bring you high level mats.

I don't think going back to locking CP150 mats to DLC areas (and Craglorn, which people already farm because Nirncrux) is a good look. Plus the competition for the resources, oof. One of the things I really enjoyed about that part of 1T, other than the convenience of it, was that I could both farm in areas I enjoyed aesthetically (like Rivenspire - Necropotence pieces are a nice bonus!) or areas I knew wouldn't be that crowded and farm in peace, instead of being shoved into a select few areas.

Plus, you can get by on dropped gear until CP160 anyway. Yeah, crafted gear is better, of course, but you don't need crafted gear for questing.

I think the current system is a vast improvement over the old one. If you insist on gathering them yourself, you can always re-spec and put the number of skill points you want into the skill so you can find appropriately-leveled nodes. Or just do writs, you get a shipment of low level mats as rewards.

Raiva172

Integral1900 wrote: »

What guild mate would need you to gather the mats, the stuff is everywhere, my new nightblade gathers their own mats, crafts their own gear and then dumps the low level surplus on the nearest convenient npc merchant. The one tamriel update was a game changer, absolutely now way would I go back.

I am not proposing ANY changes to One Tamriel EXCEPT to gathering - and ONLY in the zones prior to One Tamriel!! Why do people take things out of context? You gather and craft your own gear, Integral - NOT everyone does.

Please don't derail my OP by implying that I'm suggesting a removal of the One Tamriel update - that is simply NOT the case and you aren't addressing MY posted issue.

QuebraRegra

Nestor wrote: »

The whole problem could be solved if they would just allow any mat to make any level of gear, just the number of mats needed changes.

Change the Material Passive to be Gear Level Passive.
Redistribute the nodes so that it follows roughly the original zone distribution, with maybe a split where 30% of the nodes in a zone a random of some other material. DLCs and Adventure Zones could drop totally random or follow the split zone scheme.

Then people could have CP160 Jute or L12 Ruby if they wanted to.

Also, the original mats takes dyes very well, the Ruby stuff, it's hit or miss if the dye is going to look anything like it should.

no, no, no... because that would REDUCE substantially the number of items in the inventory system, leading to reduced server loading and of course fewer subs due to the need to more inventory space/craft bag.

SARCASM

Raiva172

rhapsodious wrote: »

Raiva172 wrote: »

My proposal of returning to zones with different levels of mats won't significantly affect your ability to gather high end mats in ALL the other areas. Craglorn, Wrothgar, Hew's Bane, Gold Coast, Vvardenfell and Clockwork City would ALL still give you the highest level mats. Your hirelings will STILL bring you high level mats.

I don't think going back to locking CP150 mats to DLC areas (and Craglorn, which people already farm because Nirncrux) is a good look. Plus the competition for the resources, oof. One of the things I really enjoyed about that part of 1T, other than the convenience of it, was that I could both farm in areas I enjoyed aesthetically (like Rivenspire - Necropotence pieces are a nice bonus!) or areas I knew wouldn't be that crowded and farm in peace, instead of being shoved into a select few areas.

Plus, you can get by on dropped gear until CP160 anyway. Yeah, crafted gear is better, of course, but you don't need crafted gear for questing.

I think the current system is a vast improvement over the old one. If you insist on gathering them yourself, you can always re-spec and put the number of skill points you want into the skill so you can find appropriately-leveled nodes. Or just do writs, you get a shipment of low level mats as rewards.

There doesn't need to be any change in regards to competition for nodes, Rhapsodious. Did I suggest that?? No, I didn't.

I also wonder why you continue to farm when you will only get higher level mats? At some point, you'll be saturated in those and there's no need to farm further if you have no lower level toons or you don't craft for other people. With all the newer DLCs and upcoming ones, you should have an abundance of places (and I'm sure some will be aesthetically pleasing to you) to farm your higher level mats, if you need them.

Your suggestion that I respect and lower my skill points in my crafting skills is ridiculous, also. I spent a huge amount of time and effort into crafting skills and see no reason why I would want to lessen my abilities JUST to gather mats.

Your suggestion that I do crafting writs to (hopefully) get a few lower level mats is also ridiculous.

Magdalina

Raiva172 wrote: »

Magdalina wrote: »

You can gather lower level mats on lower level alts(if you need gear crafted for those) or from writs. Since One Tam I've gotten stacks and stacks of lower level mats JUST from writs which I don't even do that regularily.

I think the main argument here is, why do you actually need an abundance of lower level mats? If you find yourself in dire need, you can buy some at guildtraders dirt cheap. But chances are you'll outlevel that gear in 20 minutes anyway. Meanwhile, with 150 mats per piece of cp 160 gear...yeah...I must say I do appreciate all zones dropping cp 160 mats. It's not a perfect system but it's a good enough compromise imo.

Magdalina, I think you missed my explanation of WHY I want to be able to gather lower level mats ..... I DID say that I "enjoy gathering and crafting for friends/guildmates." Please don't post if you haven't bothered to read the OP!

My proposal of returning to zones with different levels of mats won't significantly affect your ability to gather high end mats in ALL the other areas. Craglorn, Wrothgar, Hew's Bane, Gold Coast, Vvardenfell and Clockwork City would ALL still give you the highest level mats. Your hirelings will STILL bring you high level mats.

I did read the OP, I always do -.- I still don't see the issue. Your friends also won't need low level mats for a long period of time, you outlevel them ridiculously fast. You can buy them easily enough.

I understand that you want a minor convenience for you and your playstyle and that's fair, but point is the game's being tuned towards the majority, and the majority would gladly trade all their low level mats for cp 150+ ones after they hit cp 160 on their first toon. We simply have a MUCH bigger need in highest tier mats. For comparison, you need I think roughly 50 Jute to make full set of level 2-12 light armor, right? You can buy it for perhaps 10-15 gold per piece, so ~500-700 gold total. This is the gear that only a beginner char could use and unless they only rp or fish(in which case gear doesn't matter anyway) they will outlevel it and reach next tier in like 2 hours' worth of gameplay(that without grinding). Meanwhile, a full set of cp 160 gear, which would last you until the meta changes/you decide to change your gear for whatever other reason equals something like 800(!!) Ancestor Silk, which currently goes for maybe 40-50 g per piece(and that's cheap, I remember when it used to go for like 3 times as much; one of the biggest reason prices have fallen is it's so easily accessible), meaning you'd need roughly 32k(in best case) for a full cp 160 crafted outfit of light armor. So yes, I'd MUCH rather see high level mats everywhere.

Heck if nothing else, you can easily farm Silk(or the other cp 160 mats), sell it, buy the low level mat you need and even get profit off that

JKorr

I belong to 4 guilds. I craft for all 4 guilds. I make gear for under cp160 guildies for free and don't ask for mats. I need mats at all levels to do this.

My two main crafters are maxed everything. I'll never find anything other than ruby level mats with them.

I have 14 characters total. With the exception of the 2 main crafters, all the others have crafting to a certain level specifically so I can still farm at least 50% of the lower level mats. One finds nightwood, ebonthread and voidstone. One finds jute and iron and rawhide, and so on. I also do writs on my two main crafters, so I do get crates of the lower level mats, although I would never rely on only writs to keep up my supply of lower level mats. 25 pieces of whatever is not enough to make a full set of gear. I farm as much myself as I can, and I'll buy from guild traders if I don't have the time.

This is simply how I chose to deal with the changes to how mats work now. It might be ridiculous, but it works for me. So far my guildies haven't complained either. :shrug:

rhapsodious

Raiva172 wrote: »

There doesn't need to be any change in regards to competition for nodes, Rhapsodious. Did I suggest that?? No, I didn't.

I also wonder why you continue to farm when you will only get higher level mats? At some point, you'll be saturated in those and there's no need to farm further if you have no lower level toons or you don't craft for other people. With all the newer DLCs and upcoming ones, you should have an abundance of places (and I'm sure some will be aesthetically pleasing to you) to farm your higher level mats, if you need them.

Okay, let me phrase it another way.

Right now, I can go to literally any zone in the game and farm for my CP150 mats. I can go to Bal Foyen, or Greenshade, or Hew's Bane, or Coldharbour. Anywhere I want. So can anyone else. So if there's 100 people like me who want to farm at any given time, we can distribute ourselves among the ~30 zones. With your proposal, us 100 people are constrained to a fifth of that. I'm bound to step on somebody's toes eventually; I already do in the more popular farming zones like Bal Foyen.

With the current system, if I find myself in someone else's path, I go elsewhere. With the way the old system worked (what you're proposing), given enough people farming, I can't farm without constantly racing to the next node to beat the guy on my heels. I could definitely run into this problem with the current system, too, but there'd have to be a thousand people willing to farm in Shadowfen all trying to gather mats for it to be a real issue.

I almost never use lower-level mats, and in the event that I do need them for a lowbie or a new friend or something, they're dirt cheap on guild stores because of getting them from the writ rewards. Or I can get them in like half an hour on that lowbie. Meanwhile, if I do my writs on my 5 characters capable of doing so per day, I'm burning through almost a full stack of CP150 mats. I have to either farm or buy to keep at a surplus. If there are less mats due to being in fewer zones, the price of mats goes up, and they're harder to go out and acquire myself. Also, considering that CP160 gear takes literally 10 times the amount of material that any other level takes (which is stupid, but tangential), I have to do a significant amount of farming if I want to recoup the cost of making a new gear set. So I'm never saturated. To the contrary, if I buy a thousand ancestor silk, ruby ash or rubedite ingots, I'm usually out within a week. The non-CP150 materials are a fraction of the cost.

Your suggestion that I respect and lower my skill points in my crafting skills is ridiculous, also. I spent a huge amount of time and effort into crafting skills and see no reason why I would want to lessen my abilities JUST to gather mats.

Your suggestion that I do crafting writs to (hopefully) get a few lower level mats is also ridiculous.

When you're done with your farming you can put them back, or you can make an alt with the correct level of investment that you want if you don't want to constantly respec.

I'm not proposing that you solely rely on writs to get lower-level mats, but if you do writs in addition to your regular farming, you'll end up with more than enough material. The point I was making was even with the current system, you can still acquire low-level mats yourself.

Raiva172

Magdalina wrote: »

Raiva172 wrote: »

Magdalina wrote: »

You can gather lower level mats on lower level alts(if you need gear crafted for those) or from writs. Since One Tam I've gotten stacks and stacks of lower level mats JUST from writs which I don't even do that regularily.

I think the main argument here is, why do you actually need an abundance of lower level mats? If you find yourself in dire need, you can buy some at guildtraders dirt cheap. But chances are you'll outlevel that gear in 20 minutes anyway. Meanwhile, with 150 mats per piece of cp 160 gear...yeah...I must say I do appreciate all zones dropping cp 160 mats. It's not a perfect system but it's a good enough compromise imo.

Magdalina, I think you missed my explanation of WHY I want to be able to gather lower level mats ..... I DID say that I "enjoy gathering and crafting for friends/guildmates." Please don't post if you haven't bothered to read the OP!

My proposal of returning to zones with different levels of mats won't significantly affect your ability to gather high end mats in ALL the other areas. Craglorn, Wrothgar, Hew's Bane, Gold Coast, Vvardenfell and Clockwork City would ALL still give you the highest level mats. Your hirelings will STILL bring you high level mats.

I did read the OP, I always do -.- I still don't see the issue. Your friends also won't need low level mats for a long period of time, you outlevel them ridiculously fast. You can buy them easily enough.

I understand that you want a minor convenience for you and your playstyle and that's fair, but point is the game's being tuned towards the majority, and the majority would gladly trade all their low level mats for cp 150+ ones after they hit cp 160 on their first toon. We simply have a MUCH bigger need in highest tier mats. For comparison, you need I think roughly 50 Jute to make full set of level 2-12 light armor, right? You can buy it for perhaps 10-15 gold per piece, so ~500-700 gold total. This is the gear that only a beginner char could use and unless they only rp or fish(in which case gear doesn't matter anyway) they will outlevel it and reach next tier in like 2 hours' worth of gameplay(that without grinding). Meanwhile, a full set of cp 160 gear, which would last you until the meta changes/you decide to change your gear for whatever other reason equals something like 800(!!) Ancestor Silk, which currently goes for maybe 40-50 g per piece(and that's cheap, I remember when it used to go for like 3 times as much; one of the biggest reason prices have fallen is it's so easily accessible), meaning you'd need roughly 32k(in best case) for a full cp 160 crafted outfit of light armor. So yes, I'd MUCH rather see high level mats everywhere.

Heck if nothing else, you can easily farm Silk(or the other cp 160 mats), sell it, buy the low level mat you need and even get profit off that

Raiva172

[/quote]

I did read the OP, I always do -.- I still don't see the issue. Your friends also won't need low level mats for a long period of time, you outlevel them ridiculously fast. You can buy them easily enough.

I understand that you want a minor convenience for you and your playstyle and that's fair, but point is the game's being tuned towards the majority, and the majority would gladly trade all their low level mats for cp 150+ ones after they hit cp 160 on their first toon. We simply have a MUCH bigger need in highest tier mats. For comparison, you need I think roughly 50 Jute to make full set of level 2-12 light armor, right? You can buy it for perhaps 10-15 gold per piece, so ~500-700 gold total. This is the gear that only a beginner char could use and unless they only rp or fish(in which case gear doesn't matter anyway) they will outlevel it and reach next tier in like 2 hours' worth of gameplay(that without grinding). Meanwhile, a full set of cp 160 gear, which would last you until the meta changes/you decide to change your gear for whatever other reason equals something like 800(!!) Ancestor Silk, which currently goes for maybe 40-50 g per piece(and that's cheap, I remember when it used to go for like 3 times as much; one of the biggest reason prices have fallen is it's so easily accessible), meaning you'd need roughly 32k(in best case) for a full cp 160 crafted outfit of light armor. So yes, I'd MUCH rather see high level mats everywhere.

Heck if nothing else, you can easily farm Silk(or the other cp 160 mats), sell it, buy the low level mat you need and even get profit off that [/quote]

[/quote]

Let me reiterate why I want to gather lower level mats. I craft for friends but also for low level guildmates - of which there is a steady influx, therefore; if one crafts for other people, they will always require mats of all levels.

I question how you think you know what the 'majority' wants. There are people on both sides of this issue and, often, it seems the loudest aren't necessarily in the majority.

I haven't researched the price of mats ingame, but I'd wager that the highest level mats are cheaper because they are so abundant now. My goal isn't to profit from crafting. I craft to gear my own characters as they level, but also to gear others.

This isn't a 'minor convenience' for me and my playstyle as you have suggested. It's become a major inconvenience if you consider that crafting and gathering IS part of the game also. Suggesting that people have multiple toons with varying levels of passives in crafting skills is NOT practical nor convenient!

Your stated need for more higher level mats doesn't make a lot of sense to me either. If you don't craft for others, you will soon have far more high level mats than U will ever use. If you also have hirelings, you'll get those mats without doing anything.

code65536

The problem is that 99% of the people are better served by the current system. I rarely need lower-tier mats, and when I do, I have an abundance of them from doing writs. And in the exceptional case that I don't have enough, I can buy from the guild traders.

Sure, there are some rare cases, like the OP, that might benefit from the old system.

But reverting to the old system of gathering will hurt the vast majority of the player base, to satisfy the niche needs of a handful of people. This is a terrible idea. Sorry.

Magdalina

Raiva172 wrote: »

Let me reiterate why I want to gather lower level mats. I craft for friends but also for low level guildmates - of which there is a steady influx, therefore; if one crafts for other people, they will always require mats of all levels.

I question how you think you know what the 'majority' wants. There are people on both sides of this issue and, often, it seems the loudest aren't necessarily in the majority.

I haven't researched the price of mats ingame, but I'd wager that the highest level mats are cheaper because they are so abundant now. My goal isn't to profit from crafting. I craft to gear my own characters as they level, but also to gear others.

This isn't a 'minor convenience' for me and my playstyle as you have suggested. It's become a major inconvenience if you consider that crafting and gathering IS part of the game also. Suggesting that people have multiple toons with varying levels of passives in crafting skills is NOT practical nor convenient!

Your stated need for more higher level mats doesn't make a lot of sense to me either. If you don't craft for others, you will soon have far more high level mats than U will ever use. If you also have hirelings, you'll get those mats without doing anything.

I provided a logical explanation as for why the need for higher tier mats is higher, backed up with numbers(TTC is fairly accurate, it gathers information from all the guildstores in the game). I also suggested a workaround for your issue.

What's wrong with the "farm high level, sell, buy low level" idea? There're HEAPS of low level mats in guildstores, definitely no shortage of that. Gold cannot possibly be an issue because high level mats sell like candy(price them slightly below the average and they'll go in hours probably) so you'd only make gold off that.

Raiva172

rhapsodious wrote: »

Raiva172 wrote: »

There doesn't need to be any change in regards to competition for nodes, Rhapsodious. Did I suggest that?? No, I didn't.

I also wonder why you continue to farm when you will only get higher level mats? At some point, you'll be saturated in those and there's no need to farm further if you have no lower level toons or you don't craft for other people. With all the newer DLCs and upcoming ones, you should have an abundance of places (and I'm sure some will be aesthetically pleasing to you) to farm your higher level mats, if you need them.

Okay, let me phrase it another way.

Right now, I can go to literally any zone in the game and farm for my CP150 mats. I can go to Bal Foyen, or Greenshade, or Hew's Bane, or Coldharbour. Anywhere I want. So can anyone else. So if there's 100 people like me who want to farm at any given time, we can distribute ourselves among the ~30 zones. With your proposal, us 100 people are constrained to a fifth of that. I'm bound to step on somebody's toes eventually; I already do in the more popular farming zones like Bal Foyen.

With the current system, if I find myself in someone else's path, I go elsewhere. With the way the old system worked (what you're proposing), given enough people farming, I can't farm without constantly racing to the next node to beat the guy on my heels. I could definitely run into this problem with the current system, too, but there'd have to be a thousand people willing to farm in Shadowfen all trying to gather mats for it to be a real issue.

I almost never use lower-level mats, and in the event that I do need them for a lowbie or a new friend or something, they're dirt cheap on guild stores because of getting them from the writ rewards. Or I can get them in like half an hour on that lowbie. Meanwhile, if I do my writs on my 5 characters capable of doing so per day, I'm burning through almost a full stack of CP150 mats. I have to either farm or buy to keep at a surplus. If there are less mats due to being in fewer zones, the price of mats goes up, and they're harder to go out and acquire myself. Also, considering that CP160 gear takes literally 10 times the amount of material that any other level takes (which is stupid, but tangential), I have to do a significant amount of farming if I want to recoup the cost of making a new gear set. So I'm never saturated. To the contrary, if I buy a thousand ancestor silk, ruby ash or rubedite ingots, I'm usually out within a week. The non-CP150 materials are a fraction of the cost.

Your suggestion that I respect and lower my skill points in my crafting skills is ridiculous, also. I spent a huge amount of time and effort into crafting skills and see no reason why I would want to lessen my abilities JUST to gather mats.

Your suggestion that I do crafting writs to (hopefully) get a few lower level mats is also ridiculous.

When you're done with your farming you can put them back, or you can make an alt with the correct level of investment that you want if you don't want to constantly respec.

I'm not proposing that you solely rely on writs to get lower-level mats, but if you do writs in addition to your regular farming, you'll end up with more than enough material. The point I was making was even with the current system, you can still acquire low-level mats yourself.

OK, I now get your point about competition for nodes and also why you would want higher level mats.

IF there are truly that many higher level crafters farming nodes, then perhaps the lower level mat zones could be limited to JUST one faction's zones. That would surely enable all the people who need higher level mats to gather them without issues of competition. I'd be fine with this also, as my main complaint is that currently it's impossible to gather low level mats once maxed. Thank you for your explanation, Rhapsodious!

VaranisArano

If I need lower level mats, I buy them from the guild store. A stack of them will fit almost all of my needs, whether that's crafting for my own characters or crafting for friends. Half the time I vendor the lower-tier mats I get from writs anyway.

When I did want large amounts of a lower-tier mat, I reset my farming character's skills so that I could collect more of that material from half of the nodes. But that was when I needed large quantities for refining, not a normal amount for crafting.

Raiva172

VaranisArano wrote: »

If I need lower level mats, I buy them from the guild store. A stack of them will fit almost all of my needs, whether that's crafting for my own characters or crafting for friends. Half the time I vendor the lower-tier mats I get from writs anyway.

When I did want large amounts of a lower-tier mat, I reset my farming character's skills so that I could collect more of that material from half of the nodes. But that was when I needed large quantities for refining, not a normal amount for crafting.

The way you chose to workaround this issue is not my concern. Again, resetting skills to craft for other people is NOT a practical solution and I see no reason why I should have to buy materials when I've maxed my crafting and gathering skills.

I'd simply like a few zones where one could gather lower level mats. Hell, if it could be only ONE zone with varying levels of mats?? FINE!! Would that inconvenience all the high level crafters out there who only craft for themselves? I don't think so.

Taleof2Cities

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

Sorry to say that lower level mats don’t sell very well in the guild stores. Especially the mats between CP10 and CP150 ... since players only have to level one character through that range.

Just to clarify this, lower level mats can be found in the guild stores ... but from a seller's perspective it's not worth wasting guild trader slots on something that sells 10-15g per piece.

I just let these mats accumulate in the craft bag until there's the off-chance someone needs these.

VaranisArano

Raiva172 wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

If I need lower level mats, I buy them from the guild store. A stack of them will fit almost all of my needs, whether that's crafting for my own characters or crafting for friends. Half the time I vendor the lower-tier mats I get from writs anyway.

When I did want large amounts of a lower-tier mat, I reset my farming character's skills so that I could collect more of that material from half of the nodes. But that was when I needed large quantities for refining, not a normal amount for crafting.

The way you chose to workaround this issue is not my concern. Again, resetting skills to craft for other people is NOT a practical solution and I see no reason why I should have to buy materials when I've maxed my crafting and gathering skills.

I'd simply like a few zones where one could gather lower level mats. Hell, if it could be only ONE zone with varying levels of mats?? FINE!! Would that inconvenience all the high level crafters out there who only craft for themselves? I don't think so.

I don't only craft for myself. I farm max level materials to sell. Lots of raw materials. Plenty of people farm materials for sale and for refining tempers. So while one zone of lower tier materials isn't really going to inconvenience my farming, I fail to see how one zone of lower-tier mats to service everyone who could possibly want those lower-tier mats (beyond what they can already get from their skill passives or level) is going to be better for the majority of players compared to the current system where each player gets half the mats at their level and half the mats at their crafting level and lower-tier mats from doing crafting writs.

Which is to say that I don't care if ZOS implements your system. It won't bother me, necessarily. I'm just saying that the current system is perfectly adequate for my needs AND that the current system already provides you plenty of opportunities to get the lower tier crafting mats you want by buying them, doing crafting writs to get them, or changing your skills so you can gather them yourself.

Magdalina

Raiva172 wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

If I need lower level mats, I buy them from the guild store. A stack of them will fit almost all of my needs, whether that's crafting for my own characters or crafting for friends. Half the time I vendor the lower-tier mats I get from writs anyway.

When I did want large amounts of a lower-tier mat, I reset my farming character's skills so that I could collect more of that material from half of the nodes. But that was when I needed large quantities for refining, not a normal amount for crafting.

The way you chose to workaround this issue is not my concern. Again, resetting skills to craft for other people is NOT a practical solution and I see no reason why I should have to buy materials when I've maxed my crafting and gathering skills.

I'd simply like a few zones where one could gather lower level mats. Hell, if it could be only ONE zone with varying levels of mats?? FINE!! Would that inconvenience all the high level crafters out there who only craft for themselves? I don't think so.

Why the refusal to buy? Is it the crafter complex, like "I can make it all therefore I shall never buy it"? I used to have that too, until I realized life becomes SO much simpler when you leave that aside and buy whatever it is you need. Well, it's more like a time/effort vs gold dilemma. In the case of lower level mats, it's indeed inconvenient to have lower level chars/less points in crafting JUST for farming while low level mats cost so little so it's easier to buy. In the case of high level mats, it depends.

By the way, we used to have tiered mats everywhere but Crag and dlcs. That was awful. Crag had SO many farmers you'd literally hardly ever find a single node without someone harvesting it. Dlcs...well there're more dlcs now, but back then it was just TG I think, plus it's not everyone who has dlc access and I'm glad ZOS made it accessible everywhere rather than locking it behind dlcs only.

I can sympathize with your issue, but you're really making a big deal out of nothing. It really is easy to just buy it. Also, if you do daily writs on several toons you'll have stacks of low level mats in no time. I personally vendor mine when I'm not subbed because Idk what else to do with them - meanwhile, I'm almost always low on high tier mats because I do craft for myself, my alts and sometimes friends, and that's over 1000 mats(total, of all types) every time. This stuff goes super fast.

redspecter23

Do daily writs for an influx of lower level mats. If that's not enough, you can farm ancestor silk, sell it for 45g each and buy 4 times the amount of lower level mats with the gold you make. You're basically farming low level mats 4 times faster than you normally would.

Just because you can't personally farm the lower level mats yourself, doesn't mean you don't have any access to them. There are resource exchanges here you can use to your advantage to get what you want while saving time and money as well. That's a win for everyone.

If you're still really hard up for low level mats, I'm willing to help out. If you're on PC/NA, you can send me any refined ancestor silk, ruby wood, rubedite ore or rubedo scraps and tell me what low level mat you want and I'll do a 1:1 exchange for you.

Raiva172

Upon reviewing the replies to my OP, I think I do understand a bit better why people want more high level mats and also why being able to gather lower level mats isn't a concern for them.

I'm not trying to 'make a big deal' out of the issue. It simply was and is a rewarding activity for me to be able to craft for friends/guildmates and I've never experienced another mmo where there weren't levelled zones. I'm not trying to deprive anyone of their coveted high level mats. I could be wrong here but as far as I'm aware, Craglorn is STILL the only spot to farm nirnhoned gems and it appears to me that these are still VERY rare. Does that mean that everyone is farming in Craglorn then? Why isn't THAT an issue? Shouldn't we be able to get nirnhoned gems in ALL the zones now?

As it appears that I'm in the minority on this issue, then I will find other ways. The thing I've always enjoyed about mmos is the diversity in being able to play the way you want. All changes bring pros and cons and not everyone will be happy.

Thank you all for the replies and opinions. I won't promise that this is my last word on this topic, but I appreciate the input.

VaranisArano

Raiva172 wrote: »

Upon reviewing the replies to my OP, I think I do understand a bit better why people want more high level mats and also why being able to gather lower level mats isn't a concern for them.

I'm not trying to 'make a big deal' out of the issue. It simply was and is a rewarding activity for me to be able to craft for friends/guildmates and I've never experienced another mmo where there weren't levelled zones. I'm not trying to deprive anyone of their coveted high level mats. I could be wrong here but as far as I'm aware, Craglorn is STILL the only spot to farm nirnhoned gems and it appears to me that these are still VERY rare. Does that mean that everyone is farming in Craglorn then? Why isn't THAT an issue? Shouldn't we be able to get nirnhoned gems in ALL the zones now?

As it appears that I'm in the minority on this issue, then I will find other ways. The thing I've always enjoyed about mmos is the diversity in being able to play the way you want. All changes bring pros and cons and not everyone will be happy.

Thank you all for the replies and opinions. I won't promise that this is my last word on this topic, but I appreciate the input.

Lots of people do farm Craglorn. Including me. And yes, people do get competitive and salty over nodes sometimes.

Is that a problem? No, not really.
A. Nirncrux being relatively rare and found only in Craglorn is a part of the lore of the zone. It also encourages players to come to a zone that's otherwise a little harder than the other zones (used to be a LOT harder than the other zones).
B. ZOS specifically wants nirncrux to be a rare trait that required players to work together to research the trait. The only way to learn the trait is to complete all the Craglorn quests for a nirnhoned item, get a nirnhoned trait reward from VMA or a trial, or ask for or buy nirnhoned items from other players. That's by design.
C. When One Tamriel dropped, ZOS already increased the drop rate of nirncrux. It used to be 1 in 400 nodes dropped a nirncrux, now its 1 in 200. Yes, the price of nirncrux dropped accordingly.

So nirncrux is relatively rare because ZOS wants it that way as a harder to get researched trait and as an incentive to go to Craglorn in the first place. They also modified the drop rate to benefit the influx of farmers when they opened the zone to everyone with One Tamriel.

Finally, if you actually farm Craglorn, nirncrux isn't all that rare. With a 1 in 200 drop rate, I usually get 1-3+ nirncrux on a farming loop around the zone. So as someone who farms for nirncrux, its not unobtainably rare as long as you actually farm in a volume that will account for the 1 in 200 drop rate.

Raiva172

VaranisArano wrote: »

Raiva172 wrote: »

Upon reviewing the replies to my OP, I think I do understand a bit better why people want more high level mats and also why being able to gather lower level mats isn't a concern for them.

I'm not trying to 'make a big deal' out of the issue. It simply was and is a rewarding activity for me to be able to craft for friends/guildmates and I've never experienced another mmo where there weren't levelled zones. I'm not trying to deprive anyone of their coveted high level mats. I could be wrong here but as far as I'm aware, Craglorn is STILL the only spot to farm nirnhoned gems and it appears to me that these are still VERY rare. Does that mean that everyone is farming in Craglorn then? Why isn't THAT an issue? Shouldn't we be able to get nirnhoned gems in ALL the zones now?

As it appears that I'm in the minority on this issue, then I will find other ways. The thing I've always enjoyed about mmos is the diversity in being able to play the way you want. All changes bring pros and cons and not everyone will be happy.

Thank you all for the replies and opinions. I won't promise that this is my last word on this topic, but I appreciate the input.

Lots of people do farm Craglorn. Including me. And yes, people do get competitive and salty over nodes sometimes.

Is that a problem? No, not really.
A. Nirncrux being relatively rare and found only in Craglorn is a part of the lore of the zone. It also encourages players to come to a zone that's otherwise a little harder than the other zones (used to be a LOT harder than the other zones).
B. ZOS specifically wants nirncrux to be a rare trait that required players to work together to research the trait. The only way to learn the trait is to complete all the Craglorn quests for a nirnhoned item, get a nirnhoned trait reward from VMA or a trial, or ask for or buy nirnhoned items from other players. That's by design.
C. When One Tamriel dropped, ZOS already increased the drop rate of nirncrux. It used to be 1 in 400 nodes dropped a nirncrux, now its 1 in 200. Yes, the price of nirncrux dropped accordingly.

So nirncrux is relatively rare because ZOS wants it that way as a harder to get researched trait and as an incentive to go to Craglorn in the first place. They also modified the drop rate to benefit the influx of farmers when they opened the zone to everyone with One Tamriel.

Finally, if you actually farm Craglorn, nirncrux isn't all that rare. With a 1 in 200 drop rate, I usually get 1-3+ nirncrux on a farming loop around the zone. So as someone who farms for nirncrux, its not unobtainably rare as long as you actually farm in a volume that will account for the 1 in 200 drop rate.

Raiva172

[/quote]

Lots of people do farm Craglorn. Including me. And yes, people do get competitive and salty over nodes sometimes.

Is that a problem? No, not really.
A. Nirncrux being relatively rare and found only in Craglorn is a part of the lore of the zone. It also encourages players to come to a zone that's otherwise a little harder than the other zones (used to be a LOT harder than the other zones).
B. ZOS specifically wants nirncrux to be a rare trait that required players to work together to research the trait. The only way to learn the trait is to complete all the Craglorn quests for a nirnhoned item, get a nirnhoned trait reward from VMA or a trial, or ask for or buy nirnhoned items from other players. That's by design.
C. When One Tamriel dropped, ZOS already increased the drop rate of nirncrux. It used to be 1 in 400 nodes dropped a nirncrux, now its 1 in 200. Yes, the price of nirncrux dropped accordingly.

So nirncrux is relatively rare because ZOS wants it that way as a harder to get researched trait and as an incentive to go to Craglorn in the first place. They also modified the drop rate to benefit the influx of farmers when they opened the zone to everyone with One Tamriel.

Finally, if you actually farm Craglorn, nirncrux isn't all that rare. With a 1 in 200 drop rate, I usually get 1-3+ nirncrux on a farming loop around the zone. So as someone who farms for nirncrux, its not unobtainably rare as long as you actually farm in a volume that will account for the 1 in 200 drop rate.[/quote]

[/quote]

Your described intentions can ALL be bypassed easily by JUST buying an item with the nirnhoned trait - so lore (and content) be damned!

My guess is that it was just easier for ZOS to leave that as it was when they made the 1Tamriel changes.

I'm surprised that people didn't complain about the relative rarity and having to go to JUST ONE zone and compete with others for nodes.

Magdalina

Raiva172 wrote: »

Upon reviewing the replies to my OP, I think I do understand a bit better why people want more high level mats and also why being able to gather lower level mats isn't a concern for them.

I'm not trying to 'make a big deal' out of the issue. It simply was and is a rewarding activity for me to be able to craft for friends/guildmates and I've never experienced another mmo where there weren't levelled zones. I'm not trying to deprive anyone of their coveted high level mats. I could be wrong here but as far as I'm aware, Craglorn is STILL the only spot to farm nirnhoned gems and it appears to me that these are still VERY rare. Does that mean that everyone is farming in Craglorn then? Why isn't THAT an issue? Shouldn't we be able to get nirnhoned gems in ALL the zones now?

As it appears that I'm in the minority on this issue, then I will find other ways. The thing I've always enjoyed about mmos is the diversity in being able to play the way you want. All changes bring pros and cons and not everyone will be happy.

Thank you all for the replies and opinions. I won't promise that this is my last word on this topic, but I appreciate the input.

It used to be a huge issue back when nirnhoned trait just came out and most people needed the gems for research/gear. But most people have since researched their 9th traits(obviously there always are new players getting there but still that's not the same as the ENTIRE crafting population of the game farming Crag like crazy), plus it's been nerfed so it's rarely used for actual gear anymore. Meanwhile, there's almost always a need for top level mats(and a lot of them) because new alt leveled up/trying a new build/meta changed etc. Or, heck, crafting for a friend Which btw I do a lot, both friends and randoms.

But I would absolutely support nirncrux dropping outside of Craglorn, I don't think there's any point in keeping it zone specific anymore.

I can understand your confusion/frustration coming from zone-specific zones point of view, but I do think One Tamriel brought more pros than cons in that sense. It now is an open world where you can play wherever you want, including a cp capped veteran on a starter island with their freshly level 3 friend, which is awesome