Alchemical daily writs are in need of an update (and to a lesser extent enchanting as well)

Carbonised

The backdrop for this post is my thoughts around daily crafting quests, after having done all 7 dailies on my 5 characters for several months now (and done them on my main daily for years before that).

There is no doubt that all the other writs are quite rewarding. The blacksmith/clothier/woodworking ones give master writs as well as survey maps and gold tempers and other things as well. Ruby mats are also very affordable, meaning you have to put in mats of very low value to get great rewards.
Jewelrycrafting follows the same scheme, platinum is very cheap, and you get Chrome grains, surveys and other valuables from the containers.

Provisioning is also rewarding, the food and drink items are cheap to craft in bulk, and the rewards are quite ok for the costs.
Enchanting is starting to become a bit "meh", I mean, sure, the costs for mats for glyphs is extremely low, but the rewards are also q bit underwhelming. Apart from the few Kutas you get from there, the mastercrafter writs have a very low amount of vouchers, 2-5 usually, and the surveys are almost not worth collecting, considering you only get a large amount of trash runes, with a few Rekutas and a miniscule chance for Kutas from them.

Alchemy writs, however, are quite one-sided in their reward output, and have a quite high cost to finish some days. The potions/poisons requirement isn't too much of a big deal, since you can craft multiple of these with the passives. And some days the requirement is 3 Lorkhan's Tears or Alkahest, which are cheap and abundant. But then some days it requires 3 Mudcrab Chitin as well, which used to be around 180 gold each on PC-EU, and Imp Stool and Violet Coprinus and even Nightshade can also be scarce or pricey at times, and you do quickly run out of your supply even if you're only doing the dailies on 5 characters like myself.
And the rewards? From the daily box you do get a varied amount of goods, both flowers, mushroom and animal parts. But the surveys are strictly for flowers, no animal parts or mushrooms, not even Nirnroot, Water Hyacinth or Nightshade. That's great if you like flowers, but the end result if you do these dailies often is that you put in a large amount of animal parts and mushroom, and get a large amount of flowers in return. Unlike all the other dailies, Alchemy is the only one where you continually have to buy a supply of mats to do them, whereas the other dailies are almost self-replenishing.

I suggest some minor edits to the alchemy daily quests. First, the requirement of 3 raw alchemy mats per daily should probably be scrapped, or at least lowered to 1 mat. Then you could up the number of potions/poisons required to compensate, which leaves the player with a choice of which of their mats they want to use the create the potions/poisons. All the other crafting dailies require crafted goods, with only the enchanting one requiring a single rune mat as well. Why is it that alchemy dailies require only 1 crafted item and 3 raw mats to complete? It's less of a crafting daily and more of a farmer's daily to be honest.
As for the surveys, they one-sided rewarding of certain herbs should be disconitnued, and newer alchemy mats introduced into the lootable. Nightshade can be added as a node to the pool, and like you added the leather nodes to the clothing surveys way back when, you can also add an alchemist's satchel or something of the sort (maybe like the ones you find in Clockwork City zone), which rewards Nirnroot, Water Hyacinth or some of the various animal parts mats that are otherwise left out of the surveys.
Finally, I also suggest that clam gall and mother of pearl dust are added as potential, but rare, rewards from the daily alchemy reward boxes. They are alchemy mats, and they should be dropping from the alchemy reward boxes.

Enchanting dailies are a bit underwhelming as I mentioned, at least the surveys, which are barely worth collecting now. I suggest that an increased chance of Kutas is added to the survey nodes, and perhaps even a small chance for Hakeijos. Currently, the time it takes to collect the enchanting surveys is disproportionate with the amount of cheap trash runes you usually pick up form these, which is contrasted by all the other crafting surveys, which are definitely worth the time put in to pick them up. Upping the chance for Kutas and introducing the chance to get a Hakeijo will at least make these surveys a bit more rewarding to pick up.

Carbonised

Not really sure who's in charge of the crafting systems any more, but let's tag @ZOS_RobGarrett anyway.

JKorr

Wish they'd consider a "trade-in" option; even doing writs on more than one crafter, I have enough Ta runes to last until Tiber Septim shows up, and I always find more. It would be great to be able to go to a Mage's guild Mystic trader and trade in X amount of Ta runes to get green, blue, purple, or with a much larger amount, a gold rune. Might provide a little incentive for players who aren't crafters to pick up runes if they want glyphs for their gear....most crafters would make them for a lower cost or even free if the player gives them the mats.

Royaji

Alchemy surveys are a great source of alchemy materials. Tri-pots, stamina potions and magicka potions all require 3 flowers, Immovability pot is 2 flowers and Namira's Rot. Those flowers usually cost 150-200 gold (and up to 300 for columbine and corn flower). The ingredients required for writs can be bought for 50-70 gold (just checked TTC for all 4 you mention). All prices are PC EU. I would rather get the expensive flower from survey, sell it and buy a bunch of other cheap ingredients (and honestly, I have stockpiles of those since they are entirely useless for making potions). Basically I treat Alchemy writs as a way to turn cheap alchemy ingredients into expensive ones. And for this it works really well.

Enchanting surveys are pretty useless, that's true. But enchanting master writs have one of the best money/vouchers ratios in the whole game. For one Rekuta (under 100 gold) you get 2 vouchers. And they are convenient to craft and do not require you to trave all other the world or know someone with all stations in their house.

I would not expect Hakeijos or Mother of Pearl and Clam Gall in writ rewards since they are supposed to be locked behind a DLC/Chapter.

Carbonised

@Royaji

Hakeijo already drops in the base game, we have had several events that had Hakeijos as drops, plus they drop from Psijic portals all over the world.
Clam ingredients are also in the IC alchemy bags, so they're available outside just Summerset. So the argument about DLC paywall already doesn't apply.

I'm aware that flowers are worth more than animal part ingredients, but that doesn't really help me, or others, when you lack Stinkhorn for your Telvanni crafting, Nightshade for your furniture crafting or Witchmother brew, or other ingredients, and the only thing you can find is a stack of 20 that's prices 3 x more than the average price.
All the other crafting dailies are self-replicating, you get from the surveys enough, or almost enough, mats so that you can so the dailies in perpetuity. Alchemy dailies is the only one where you continually have to re-supply via bought ingredients. So while it may be bad for flower users, it's in general better for the overall game to have surveys supply a variety of alchemy mats, instead of only a few of them.

Also, I suspect strongly that most pot users get their mats from the IC Tel Var alchemy bags, or just buy them at traders. It's not sustainable to rely on alchemy surveys for your potion needs anyway.

tmbrinks

As a magicka main (and also a 15 character master crafter, short of jewelry at this point) I find the alchemy ones rewarding, since I need corn flower and lady's smock for my spell power potions. I do have to farm some Water Hyacinth, but I've got a spot for that.

I do have to occasionally buy mats to complete the crafting writs (wood/cloth/metal), so they're not quite self-sufficient, and somehow I have run out of Ta and Oko in the past few weeks... it's probably because all I've been running for trials is vCR, and since it doesn't have any trash, I don't get a lot of white glyphs to decon (I can count on getting about a 1/2 dozen running the craglorns, MoL or HoF)

IC bags are great for getting mats, as well as the shadowy supplier can give you some mats.

if you're really into making more gold on the alchemy surveys, you can go to the survey, and if you don't like what is there (lots of wormwood, for example), you can run out of range (approximately 26 seconds left on the speed skill in the alliance line while mounted), and return, and the survey will "reset" so you can get the materials you're looking for.

I, for one, am glad they switched it to a rotation off of primarily Nirnroot, which was approaching 500g a plant on PC/NA before they switched it, so paying 150g for the Chitin is not that painful in retrospect

Alchemy and Enchanting master writs are also AMAZING for leveling up toons, and skills, since you don't need to know any motifs, just simply get them leveled up to 50, and grind for a few skill points to max out the lines (11 SP for Alchemy, 12 for Enchanting, if I can do my math right, not in game), so that you can complete them.

Carl_Bar

I agree with the OP though for slightly different reasons.

Enchanting doesn't bother me so much though it would be nice if we got more than the one glyph, it really dosen;t compare with the deconstructable stuff awarded for the 4 equipment types in XP gain.

Alchemy however is a monumental pain in the posterior. It's not so much the ingredients used for the writs for me, (though thats not pleasant as without extra craft passives your still only 1 actual ingredient ahead if it's asking for ingredients on the turn in), but rather the inherent nature of Alchemy. The 4 equipment crafting professions plus Enchanting all craft things that you don't replace super often. You will do it, but it's not like your going to be replacing everything every week or less, (during leveling to the gear CP cap aside).

Provisioning and Alchemy both craft things that your going to consume in decent quantities on a regular basis.

Provisioning however gets 30 ingredients in 4 types back from each writ turn in, and can get another 2 lots of 20 from the hireling. Plus you can find provisioning ingredients in every container in the game pretty much, often in multiple, and said containers are more common than dirt.

As long as you've got a couple of writ alts and go on a looting spree from time to time it's only the rare provisioning ingredients that will vex you, and you can mostly get by without the things they make for overland content. So by and large it's virtually impossible to run out of provisioning mats unless you actively try to do so.



Alchemy however is a completely different ball game. Even with crafting passives reducing the average expenditure per daily to 1 ingredient your still only making off with 1.5 excess ingredients. Now it's true you can get Alchemy survey's. Something provisioning doesn't have. But they're only worth 24 base ingredients of, (as the OP notes), limited types. What that means is that even if you got a survey per daiy writ you'd only break even with Provisioning on the writ reward side. But Provisioning as still has the hireling and the containers everywhere.

At this point people are probably going to point out 2 things. 1. Alchemy surveys can benefit from the double loot CP passive, and 2. Provisioning can easily pull in vastly more per day than you need.

The problem is you won't ever get 1 survey per daily writ and 10% doubling rate is still only 10% more on average. It's nice to have but your still going to need a lot of alts to get enough surveys to really make back a lot of alchemy ingredients.

In addition whilst it's true that provisioning makes a lot more stuff back than it needs very easily. It also has lower consumption rates by the end user on average, and especially, it has the ability to make enough on a small number of characters with low time investment and of all types bar rare provisioning ingredients. Alchemy is limited to flowers, needs lots of characters, and collecting the surveys takes time. And your still limited in what you get.



Yeah but isn't provisioning still a tad overpowered in how easily it gathers mass ingredients?

Ok yeah, it is.


But Alchemy is seriously too far in the opposite direction.

And to make matters worse, not only does it have by far the highest average daily consumption of materials of any crafting type, it also has the lowest harvest per harvesting node of any crafting type.

Alchemy needs a major overhaul in terms of rewards across the board for this reason. Forget the variety issue, it flat out hates giving you any alchemy mats, (except by tedious grinding), period.

Carbonised

@Carl_Bar

I agree, alchemy is the craft that takes the most mats, if you want to use potions regularly in content.

A possible buff to alchemy would be to leave the surveys and flowers alone, and instead add new ingredients to the surveys, so that in addition to the various flowers, you can also get some nirnroot, water hyacinths, various fungi and various animal parts. Maybe even a slight boost the the rewards of the daily alchemy reward coffer too. That would make alchemy writs more valuable, as well as giving us a larger variety in the rewards instead of always giving us the same 8 types of flowers from surveys.

VaranisArano

Carbonised wrote: »

Royaji

Hakeijo already drops in the base game, we have had several events that had Hakeijos as drops, plus they drop from Psijic portals all over the world.
Clam ingredients are also in the IC alchemy bags, so they're available outside just Summerset. So the argument about DLC paywall already doesn't apply.

I'm aware that flowers are worth more than animal part ingredients, but that doesn't really help me, or others, when you lack Stinkhorn for your Telvanni crafting, Nightshade for your furniture crafting or Witchmother brew, or other ingredients, and the only thing you can find is a stack of 20 that's prices 3 x more than the average price.
All the other crafting dailies are self-replicating, you get from the surveys enough, or almost enough, mats so that you can so the dailies in perpetuity. Alchemy dailies is the only one where you continually have to re-supply via bought ingredients. So while it may be bad for flower users, it's in general better for the overall game to have surveys supply a variety of alchemy mats, instead of only a few of them.

Also, I suspect strongly that most pot users get their mats from the IC Tel Var alchemy bags, or just buy them at traders. It's not sustainable to rely on alchemy surveys for your potion needs anyway.

Minor nitpick, Hakeijo does not drop from the base game. It can be acquired through Imperial City or from Psijic Portals which currently require Summerset purchase to access.

Now, there are some rumors that they drop from Heavy Sacks, but I have no way of knowing if the people who say they do own IC or not.

Of course, you can always farm gold and buy Hakeijo on a guild store even if you just own the base game.

Carbonised

VaranisArano wrote: »

Carbonised wrote: »

Royaji

Hakeijo already drops in the base game, we have had several events that had Hakeijos as drops, plus they drop from Psijic portals all over the world.
Clam ingredients are also in the IC alchemy bags, so they're available outside just Summerset. So the argument about DLC paywall already doesn't apply.

I'm aware that flowers are worth more than animal part ingredients, but that doesn't really help me, or others, when you lack Stinkhorn for your Telvanni crafting, Nightshade for your furniture crafting or Witchmother brew, or other ingredients, and the only thing you can find is a stack of 20 that's prices 3 x more than the average price.
All the other crafting dailies are self-replicating, you get from the surveys enough, or almost enough, mats so that you can so the dailies in perpetuity. Alchemy dailies is the only one where you continually have to re-supply via bought ingredients. So while it may be bad for flower users, it's in general better for the overall game to have surveys supply a variety of alchemy mats, instead of only a few of them.

Also, I suspect strongly that most pot users get their mats from the IC Tel Var alchemy bags, or just buy them at traders. It's not sustainable to rely on alchemy surveys for your potion needs anyway.

Minor nitpick, Hakeijo does not drop from the base game. It can be acquired through Imperial City or from Psijic Portals which currently require Summerset purchase to access.

Now, there are some rumors that they drop from Heavy Sacks, but I have no way of knowing if the people who say they do own IC or not.

Of course, you can always farm gold and buy Hakeijo on a guild store even if you just own the base game.

You're correct that Summerset is required for the portals, but that's still either IC or Summerset required, so one of 2 DLC.

Also, there has been several BASE game events that rewarded Hakeijo, such as the Midyear Mayhem, to name one, or some of the anniversary events and other events that reward a random amount of crafting mats.
So the argument still stands, that these things aren't behind a hard DLC paywall. And in any case, clam mats have been introduced into the IC alchemy bags, so no reason why they shouldn't be introduced into the daily writs alchemy bags as well.

VaranisArano

Carbonised wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Carbonised wrote: »

Royaji

Hakeijo already drops in the base game, we have had several events that had Hakeijos as drops, plus they drop from Psijic portals all over the world.
Clam ingredients are also in the IC alchemy bags, so they're available outside just Summerset. So the argument about DLC paywall already doesn't apply.

I'm aware that flowers are worth more than animal part ingredients, but that doesn't really help me, or others, when you lack Stinkhorn for your Telvanni crafting, Nightshade for your furniture crafting or Witchmother brew, or other ingredients, and the only thing you can find is a stack of 20 that's prices 3 x more than the average price.
All the other crafting dailies are self-replicating, you get from the surveys enough, or almost enough, mats so that you can so the dailies in perpetuity. Alchemy dailies is the only one where you continually have to re-supply via bought ingredients. So while it may be bad for flower users, it's in general better for the overall game to have surveys supply a variety of alchemy mats, instead of only a few of them.

Also, I suspect strongly that most pot users get their mats from the IC Tel Var alchemy bags, or just buy them at traders. It's not sustainable to rely on alchemy surveys for your potion needs anyway.

Minor nitpick, Hakeijo does not drop from the base game. It can be acquired through Imperial City or from Psijic Portals which currently require Summerset purchase to access.

Now, there are some rumors that they drop from Heavy Sacks, but I have no way of knowing if the people who say they do own IC or not.

Of course, you can always farm gold and buy Hakeijo on a guild store even if you just own the base game.

You're correct that Summerset is required for the portals, but that's still either IC or Summerset required, so one of 2 DLC.

Also, there has been several BASE game events that rewarded Hakeijo, such as the Midyear Mayhem, to name one, or some of the anniversary events and other events that reward a random amount of crafting mats.
So the argument still stands, that these things aren't behind a hard DLC paywall. And in any case, clam mats have been introduced into the IC alchemy bags, so no reason why they shouldn't be introduced into the daily writs alchemy bags as well.

True! I forgot all about event awards.

Jayne_Doe

I agree with the OP, although I've avidly picked up pretty much every plant I've come across in the game since day one, so I have no trouble keeping up with the alchemy dailies, and have about 30 or so alchemy surveys just sitting in my bank, since I don't need the plants that they award. Mudcrab Chitin is the only mat I have trouble keeping in stock. I had as many as 300 after the Anniversary Event, but am struggling to stay above 120 now. I pretty much kill every mudcrab I come across - I wish the coral mudcrabs would drop them.

As for the gear crafting dailies being almost sustainable, that has not been my experience with Woodworking. This past weekend, I did the daily WW writ on all 10 of my characters (6 top tier, 4 first tier). I got ONE survey. Meanwhile, I got about 4 clothing surveys and 3 BS ones. This has been the case for me for months. Now, maybe I'm just in a long dry spell, but I average about 1 WW survey for every 3 or 4 BS/clothing survey. I struggle to keep above 100 ruby ash, and that's with active farming of every wood node I come across, plus spending a couple hours every weekend in dedicated farming. I've basically stopped doing WW top tier writs on all but my main.

As for enchanting, I agree that outside of the occasional Kuta, the rewards are pretty meh. You get a green glyph you can break down, but it's a CP150 green glyph. Then, you get soul gems, which I regularly just vendor. But, they are easy to complete, but it would be nice if the rewards were a bit better. I also have about 30 enchanting surveys just sitting in my bank. I recently took a stack of 8 or so and went to the spot and collected all of them - not a single Kuta.

ETA: I think reducing the mat requirement to 1, like Enchanting, would be ok, but I really like your suggestion of improving the surveys to include more variety in the mats they provide as well as adding the clam ingredients to the lootable - as you say, they are already included in the IC alchemy bags. And while we're at it, it would be nice if Hakeijo would drop from the writ reward container - a much smaller chance than a Kuta and only at top tier. IC's been out long enough that an occasional Hakeijo dropping from a crafting writ wouldn't be that out of line.

Feric51

For alchemy surveys I'd like to see them just go the Clockwork route with "Alchemical satchels," or whatever they're called, that can hold 4-12 of ANY alchemical ingredient. Clam gall, Namira's rot, mudcrab chitin, etc. Yeah, they would still be RNG based, but have a much larger pool to pull from. That way you at least have a chance at getting some of the ingredients currently unavailable from surveys.

Carl_Bar

I agree with the OP though for slightly different reasons.

Enchanting doesn't bother me so much though it would be nice if we got more than the one glyph, it really dosen;t compare with the deconstructable stuff awarded for the 4 equipment types in XP gain.

Alchemy however is a monumental pain in the posterior. It's not so much the ingredients used for the writs for me, (though thats not pleasant as without extra craft passives your still only 1 actual ingredient ahead if it's asking for ingredients on the turn in), but rather the inherent nature of Alchemy. The 4 equipment crafting professions plus Enchanting all craft things that you don't replace super often. You will do it, but it's not like your going to be replacing everything every week or less.

Provisioning and Alchemy both craft things that your going to consume in enormous quantities on a regular basis.

Feric51 wrote: »

For alchemy surveys I'd like to see them just go the Clockwork route with "Alchemical satchels," or whatever they're called, that can hold 4-12 of ANY alchemical ingredient. Clam gall, Namira's rot, mudcrab chitin, etc. Yeah, they would still be RNG based, but have a much larger pool to pull from. That way you at least have a chance at getting some of the ingredients currently unavailable from surveys.

Given they allready do this with leather effectively, i wouldn't be against this.