Jewelry Crafting: Get ready for the worst grind in ESO's history

Lyserus

I guess I'm okay with refining into grains that need further refine, but decon also only grants grains??

Seriously what is wrong. Usually only gold gear are hard to access to any non-hardcore players, decon only yields grain makes ALL tier of jewelry hard to access.

There is no way in hell that jewelry crafting can be considered “attractive” and make summerset more worth purchase by mass player base with this level of grind.

Simple way to fix this grind AND keep jewelry upgrade harder to access is to make 10 grain yield 3-5 upgrade mats upon refinement, and deconing give a chance to yield upgrade mat instead of grain, or yield number of grains.
@ZOS_GinaBruno Just throwing suggestion here, hope ZOS can do something when you fully realize how much a grind this is.

firedrgn

Gold jewlery is a grind in amd of itself. Wonder if they are tryimg to get more people in tje lag fest of pvp. And ic sewers. I can see gettimg some purple jewelry someday dont ever see me getting any gold. From crafting....

OtisMiller

It wouldn't such a problem if we could decon existing jewelry.... Just sayin'

Peekachu99

Nothing beats VMA before trait-changing, sorry.

code65536

Peekachu99 wrote: »

Nothing beats VMA before trait-changing, sorry.

The two are not really comparable. The vMA grind was an RNG grind. Some got lucky and got their desired weapons before 50 runs. Some did not get theirs after 500 runs. The jewelry grind is a grind of tedium. Luck plays a minimal role.

Recremen

OtisMiller wrote: »

It wouldn't such a problem if we could decon existing jewelry.... Just sayin'

It would definitely still be a problem. The current design has permanent, long-term consequences. Even if you were sitting on 100 gold pieces of jewelry that is, at best, 10 gold mats, and that's assuming you actually get a dust for deconstructing all of them, when there's only a 50% chance of it. We wouldn't solve the problem just by getting to decon old jewelry, though I do think that would still be a good idea.

Sergykid

starkerealm wrote: »

[...] Or collecting Nirncrux to complete 9 trait research.[...]

wait what? wat do u need nirncrux for? you can't craft the item if u don't have it researched. Craft it on a char and research it on another? why then have 2 crafters? why don't u just buy an item with that enchant?

Nebthet78

Tandor wrote: »

Do we know how far people have progressed in Jewelry Crafting on the PTS? That will surely give some sort of an answer to how severe the leveling process is, given that Summerset has only been on the PTS for what, three weeks?

There is a fair bit of information regarding how terribly grindy this is on the PTS and just how unhappy a lot of players are about it.
Here's the link to the feedback thread there.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/407070/pts-update-18-feedback-thread-for-jewelry-crafting#latest

The grind is utterly rediculous. In my opinion, I don't think most players would mind if this took twice as long or required twice as many upgrade mats as the other other crafting professions in this game. HOWEVER, most players do mind the 10x requirement, the rarity of the nodes "seams" available in the game and the fact that when deconstrucing, you don't get an actual full upgrade material back, but rather a grain.

If this is rolled out on live, the way it is currently, even with the latest update where they supposedly increased the spawn of the seams, there are going to be A LOT of pissed off players. These forums will be inundated with complaints.

Now, if they had made it so that every single crafting node in the game would give a 50% chance of dropping a grain, in addition to the ore, or clothing node that is there (kind of how the housing mats drop), then it wouldn't be nearly as bad and I could understand the numbers a little bit.

But, considering the fact they are taking what was the most anticipated aspect of Summerset and making it into the worst grind in any game I've ever played, tells me as a company ZOS is soooooo out of touch with it's player base and it's Development Department's balls are being strangled by the Marketing Department, in the worst vice grip you can imagine.

I'm going to be making a crapload of popcorn on release weeks for this game, and then again a few weeks later when this hits consoles because these forums are going to blow up like a Hiroshima bomb hit it. And I'm going to sit back and laugh at ZOS's stupidity because the players on the PTS have told them again and again that the grind is far, far too much.

The only players that are going to have a whole lot of success with this grind, are the BOTS. Have fun competing with them!

PS: This thread will likely get moved and hidden like the other threads complaining about how bad the Jewellery Crafting grind are. ZOS moved them over to the crafting section of the forums where we know most forum members don't even look at.

leeux

I do think they'll be tweaking and adjusting this as they go... Nobody in his right mind will be investing time in something like this as it is designed... it's madness.

But they like to use this tactic often... start with a ridiculous forced scarcity so early adopters that don't have a life can fill their pockets with gold and take advantage over the rest of the player base and months from now they'll patch it up and ease the access to the system for the masses. That method guarantees exclusivity and "specialness" for the few people that like that kind of stuff for a few months at the expense of the the rest of the game population that would like to use the system too, but have normal lives.

Nobody remembers what was like when IC came out? How difficult was to acquire vr15 mats back then... vr16 gear didn't drop anywhere, the most you could get is vr15 gear and *only* in IC... until Wrothgar came out there wasn't a single material node for vr15 in the game.

The trouble with this tactic they use.. is that you cannot trust them, they're not open about it and they can change anything on a whim... and they're tweaking drop rates for everything all the time.

kringled_1

As set up, I don't plan on doing anything much with jewelry crafting for a very long while other than research and harvesting nodes, and maybe transmutation. Upgrading is appalling and I'm not really sure what is served by making even green-blue crafted rings/necklaces take extreme resources.

umagon

I think the funny part is they expect people to pay to grind. However, the sad part is some people will. When I saw summer set on pts the only thing of interest for me was the jewelry crafting, mainly because I wanted upgrade a number of accessories I already have. Then I looked at how long it would take just to do that, which was literally months of farming. And that solidified my decision not to purchase it. Paying money to farm for months just to upgrade existing items is ludicrous. If they expect me to pay, my acquisition times should be lower not higher.

DuskMarine

code65536 wrote: »

Most players who regularly participate in the PTS or otherwise follow the PTS closely already know what will be in store for them when the Summerset update introduces jewelry crafting, but I suspect that most of the player base are not yet aware of some of the details of the system.

Specifically, the amount of materials needed to upgrade jewelry quality is 10x more than what is needed for the other crafts.

Similar to the other crafts, it takes 2 green plates, 3 blue plates, 4 purple plates, and 8 golden plates to upgrade jewelry if you have maxed the improvement passives. The problem is that whereas you acquire full pieces of upgrade materials for the other crafts, the upgrade materials for jewelry come in the form of grains, which represent 1/10th of a plate. And, most crucially, based on testing that people have done on the PTS, these grains drop at the same rate as the full upgrade materials of the other crafts.

For example, when you deconstruct a purple-quality staff with maxed deconstruction passives, you have a 50% chance of getting a single Mastic from the deconstruction. When you deconstruct a purple-quality ring with the necessary deconstruction passives, you have the same 50% chance of getting a single grain of a purple jewelry upgrade material. Each time you refine raw wood, you have a 7.5% chance to acquire a single Mastic--a full purple upgrade mat. Each time you refine raw jewelry mats, you have the same 7.5% chance to acquire a single grain of a purple jewelry upgrade material.

Effectively, the amount of materials needed to upgrade is 10x more than that of the other crafts, since the upgrade materials are acquired as 1/10th grains from all sources (refinement, deconstruction, and writ rewards; there are no hirelings), at rates that are apparently identical to that of full upgrade mats of other crafts.

What does this mean? It means that to craft a single purple-quality Julianos ring, you will need 20 green grains, 30 blue grains, and 40 purple grains. Purple mats--grains for jewelry and full upgrade mats for the other crafts--drop at a 7.5% rate per refinement. To acquire 40 grains, you will need to refine 533 times; you will need to acquire and refine approximately 5300 raw jewelry mats just to craft a single purple ring.

Let's say purple is too rich for your blood. You just want to craft a simple blue-quality Julianos ring. That's 30 blue grains, which, at a drop rate of 12.5% per refinement, is 240 refinements. You need to acquire and refine 2400 raw jewelry mats to craft a single blue Julianos ring.

What if you're leveling a character, and instead of wearing random dropped jewelry as you do now, you want to craft a matching set of jewelry? Since it's just a character that's being leveled, you're not too picky and will be happy with simple green quality. 20 grains at a 15% drop rate means 133 refinements. You need to acquire and refine 6-7 stacks of raw jewelry mats just to upgrade a single ring to green quality.

Still excited about jewelry crafting?

I have friends who were excited about all the golden jewelry from vet trials that they can decon for mats next patch. Similar to other crafts, with maxed passives, you have only a 50% chance of getting an upgrade mat from decon. Except here, it's just a grain. To acquire the 80 grains needed to upgrade a single purple ring to gold, you'll need an average of 160 gold rings to decon. Think about that for a moment. You need to decon 160 golden jewelry pieces... to upgrade a single jewelry piece. That's 80 runs of vAA HM to get the mats for golding one jewelry piece via decon. I don't know about you, but I'll probably go crazy before the 20th run.

Or, if you're crazy enough to seek golden quality through refinement, you're looking at 1600 refinements: 16K, or 80 full stacks, of raw jewelry mats. For a single jewelry piece.

Oh, and did I mention that there are no hirelings? I did, but let's reiterate that.

How's that excitement for jewelry crafting now?

There is an easy solution, though: increase the drop rate of grains. They currently drop at the same rate as full upgrade mats of other crafts. (50% per decon, 15% green per refinement, 12.5% blue per refinement, 7.5% purple per refinement, and 5% gold per refinement.) If, for example, deconstruction always guaranteed at least 1 grain, with the chance of sometimes getting multiple grains, the drop rate would still be substantially lower than that of the other crafts, but not quite as insane as it currently is on the PTS. As it stands, jewelry crafting isn't fun. It isn't accessible. And I don't see myself seriously using it any time this year.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert

for some this grind may look bad but for me its easy

lihentian

which is why am seriously considering canceling my pre order.. for same price gw2 pof expansion offer 6 huge map and one specialization(passive skill line) and one new weapon skill line for each class(gw2 have 9 class).. plus six new mount that actually do something special other the just look............ look back at eso.. offer only one map(which is about the same size as one of gw2 pof map), and it is full with none accessible mountain. one skill line... and now tons of grind........... true i love elder scroll series.. but i felt they are doing it too far...

Tandor

Nebthet78 wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

Do we know how far people have progressed in Jewelry Crafting on the PTS? That will surely give some sort of an answer to how severe the leveling process is, given that Summerset has only been on the PTS for what, three weeks?

<snip> There is a fair bit of information regarding how terribly grindy this is on the PTS and just how unhappy a lot of players are about it.
Here's the link to the feedback thread there.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/407070/pts-update-18-feedback-thread-for-jewelry-crafting#latest <snip>

Yes, but what's the answer to my question? Do we know how far people have progressed in 3 weeks? That's the best guide to how long it takes to level, not players simply moaning about "the grind" (possibly in some cases because they're sore about not being able to decon all the jewelry they bought up on the guild trader over the previous months expecting to be able to complete the profession on the first day so they could claim server bragging rights !).

Syncronaut

Give them feedback....lots of negative one and hope they change it before its to late.

code65536

Syncronaut wrote: »

Give them feedback....lots of negative one and hope they change it before its to late.

This is why I posted this thread, here, in the General forum. There is an official feedback thread on the PTS forum, but there has not been any ZOS reply in that thread or acknowledgement of the concerns that testers have had. I've also found that most people pay little attention to what goes on the PTS and just assumed that jewelry crafting would be like any other craft. So my hope here is to let people outside of the relatively small PTS community know of the concerns of the PTS testers, and so that they can offer ZOS their feedback as well.

TequilaFire

Tandor wrote: »

Nebthet78 wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

Do we know how far people have progressed in Jewelry Crafting on the PTS? That will surely give some sort of an answer to how severe the leveling process is, given that Summerset has only been on the PTS for what, three weeks?

<snip> There is a fair bit of information regarding how terribly grindy this is on the PTS and just how unhappy a lot of players are about it.
Here's the link to the feedback thread there.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/407070/pts-update-18-feedback-thread-for-jewelry-crafting#latest <snip>

Yes, but what's the answer to my question? Do we know how far people have progressed in 3 weeks? That's the best guide to how long it takes to level, not players simply moaning about "the grind" (possibly in some cases because they're sore about not being able to decon all the jewelry they bought up on the guild trader over the previous months expecting to be able to complete the profession on the first day so they could claim server bragging rights !).

Wasn't possible for me before they reset with updates.
Had to use a template character preleveled to test.

MajesticHaruki

Zos what's going on?

TerraDewBerry

I was so excited about jewelry crafting when I first heard about it when they announced some of the things we were getting in Summerset. Then, I went to the PTS and saw how bad jewelry crafting was really going to be and I just felt well.. I don't really have words for how bad I felt. I never imagined something that crafters have wanted and waited for since launch would turn into what they have made it... oh, and we get to "pay" for this...

They will not get me again.. ever.. with a pre-order before I know what they are really going to do.

Jhalin

Tandor wrote: »

Nebthet78 wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

Do we know how far people have progressed in Jewelry Crafting on the PTS? That will surely give some sort of an answer to how severe the leveling process is, given that Summerset has only been on the PTS for what, three weeks?

<snip> There is a fair bit of information regarding how terribly grindy this is on the PTS and just how unhappy a lot of players are about it.
Here's the link to the feedback thread there.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/407070/pts-update-18-feedback-thread-for-jewelry-crafting#latest <snip>

Yes, but what's the answer to my question? Do we know how far people have progressed in 3 weeks? That's the best guide to how long it takes to level, not players simply moaning about "the grind" (possibly in some cases because they're sore about not being able to decon all the jewelry they bought up on the guild trader over the previous months expecting to be able to complete the profession on the first day so they could claim server bragging rights !).

No one is expecting to max it out and start gilding out troves of jewelry day one. The leveling is about on par with other lines, slower yes, but reasonable.

The material costs however, make the entire craft line unattractive. If it's going to take 2400+ raw mats just to make one piece of gold jewelry (or upwards of 6.4mil gold buying from the golden vendor), what exactly is the appeal? If it's meant to be supplementary like the Transmute stones, it does not justify being advertised as something on the level of blacksmithing or woodworking.

DanteYoda

I just wont bother till they nerf it back to the others levels.. wasted content to me.

Dapper Dinosaur

What you're not considering is that there are less than half as many jewelry pieces as armor pieces, and depending on which sets you're running, you could pick up the jewelry from the Golden vendor and skip the process entirely.

lihentian

Dapper Dinosaur wrote: »

What you're not considering is that there are less than half as many jewelry pieces as armor pieces, and depending on which sets you're running, you could pick up the jewelry from the Golden vendor and skip the process entirely.

true, which also make jewelry crafting pointless.. it have potential to unlock many build to the public but they have to lock it behind a pay wall, then toss in tons of grind to make it tasteless....

the trait stone and trait research are also tons to grind.. not to mentioned the research time if you don't pay few thousand of dollars to shorten research timer.. and after all that work you end up with something that barely useful to the minimum

eso_nya

Yet another gamesystem that will support botting and goldselling! \o/

Ley

Oh cool, another one of these threads. Got it, jewelry crafting will require much effort.

How will I survive?!? Oh wait, same way I did before.

It will take time but eventually market will become saturated enough with materials for jewelry crafting and when that time comes, I will simply buy the materials I lack with gold. Until then, I will harvest as usual and make due.

karekiz

I do need to start to max all skill lines to 50 weapon wise on my sorc.

Plenty of Alik'r to farm rings/necks.

Ohtimbar

Well there goes most of my excitement for jewelry crafting. I've done the 9 trait grind once, but there are limits to how much (more) time I'm willing to waste on crap like that.

Adernath

@code65536 many thanks for this insightful post.

They really should get this profession in line with the others, preferably by removing the grain entirely.

Mannox wrote: »

What the *** is going on at ZOS? They are going hardcore Korean F2P on us. More gated content. WAY more grind. Less content in DLCs. More gambling and hot sales. Jesus Christ the list goes on! They're ruining their own damned game. I stopped playing for now myself. Refunded the Summerset chapter too. This is such pure *** in my opinion. If they want an empty Tamriel spattered with whales and B2Ps then be my guest.

Oh indeed, such grind is what finally drove me away from another game. I can take some farming, but if I have to do a 2nd job to be competitive or get what I want then I will pass. I do not want to have droprates for bots or people who can play 24/7.

My fear is that introducing more grind will open up the possibility for flooding the store with speed up items, essentially going a P2W route. I am sure we will see this in the coming months... horrible .

redspecter23

Adernath wrote: »

@code65536 many thanks for this insightful post.

They really should get this profession in line with the others, preferably by removing the grain entirely.

Mannox wrote: »

What the *** is going on at ZOS? They are going hardcore Korean F2P on us. More gated content. WAY more grind. Less content in DLCs. More gambling and hot sales. Jesus Christ the list goes on! They're ruining their own damned game. I stopped playing for now myself. Refunded the Summerset chapter too. This is such pure *** in my opinion. If they want an empty Tamriel spattered with whales and B2Ps then be my guest.

Oh indeed, such grind is what finally drove me away from another game. I can take some farming, but if I have to do a 2nd job to be competitive or get what I want then I will pass. I do not want to have droprates for bots or people who can play 24/7.

My fear is that introducing more grind will open up the possibility for flooding the store with speed up items, essentially going a P2W route. I am sure we will see this in the coming months... horrible .

I don't think the time or cost investment getting to level 50 is the issue. Even trait research isn't all that bad. This assumes you don't even bother with research cooldown items. It's the actual crafting of the gear which feels way out of whack. Combine the 10x cost with the lack of hirelings and scarce nodes and the issue is compounded further. We'll see how it plays out, but my gut is saying they will pull back a bit at some point. 10x cost can't stay forever and be sustainable.

WhiteCoatSyndrome

Sergykid wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

[...] Or collecting Nirncrux to complete 9 trait research.[...]

wait what? wat do u need nirncrux for? you can't craft the item if u don't have it researched. Craft it on a char and research it on another? why then have 2 crafters? why don't u just buy an item with that enchant?

Concur with this. You can't really grind for Nirncrux items. You get a drop at the end of the main quest once per character and any others you have to go buy from someone else.

leeux wrote: »

Nobody remembers what was like when IC came out? How difficult was to acquire vr15 mats back then... vr16 gear didn't drop anywhere, the most you could get is vr15 gear and *only* in IC... until Wrothgar came out there wasn't a single material node for vr15 in the game.

*raises hand* I do - only time I was ever purposely deconning Ornate items, because the mats sold for more than the item would vendor for. IIRC their token change in response to feedback of how horrible it was was to guarantee that each item always dropped one mat. (And only one.) And didn't the nodes in Orsinium only have a 50-50 chance of coming up in the Ruby tier when it was finally added, or am I forgetting?