Doing Writs in Solitude

xaraan

kind_hero wrote: »

@xaraan , I feel you

I also feel the need for a convenient crafting place. The problem with Vivec is exactly how convenient it is, because so many people use it. That's why other good crafting places like that are needed. People will choose the place according to their preference, they will pick the town they like. I like Alinor, but in Vivec you have the banker so close. I get several intricate items which I do not need anymore, but I like to put them into guild banks for people who might need those. So, I tend to use the guild banker/trader after writs.

I hope they will look at the feedback and create a Vivec style crafting hub either in Solitude or in Blackreach.

Yeah, my thought as well is that the more prime crafting cities there are, the more spread out the load will be. I already prefer using Rimmen even though it's not as fast as Vivec. Figured I would give it a try in Solitude, but ended up being very surprised at what I saw after seeing the 'big deal' made in Summerset and Elsweyr patches about how great the crafting hubs were. Felt like they really missed the mark here and wasn't sure if it was intentional or not.

With them adding doors to the city, it's apparent they are trying to lighten the load on the server, so maybe they don't want people to use the city as a hub for crafting when you'll already have some using it as a hub b/c it's new. It is nice to use new cities as a hub for characters however b/c I do the quests on my guys, not just one, sometimes you'll run dailies on mulitple characters, etc. So if they did it intentionally to make it less efficient/appealing then I think that's a bad place to be. If they have having that much trouble with performance that they are cutting cities off with doors AND giving players reasons to not use places that will be popular anyway for being new, that's a bad sign.

Even from an RP side, they already have Jewelry outside, doing fine details work like a jeweler outdoors isn't exactly immersive. So duplicating stations that are indoors (just clothing, alchemy and enchanting) also on the outside wouldn't change the 'immersive' nature of the design. Or, take the doors off/prop them open on the two buildings. Have them always be "open" and leave them indoors. If every other building and the city are all behind load doors, opening two buildings shouldn't kill the load. BUT, due to the nature of how they build cities, I'm sure that would be more work b/c they'd have to fit the inside into the actual space on the same map instead of porting you to a different load space under a building. My idea about adding stations to nooks outside the doors like they have for Jewelry was simply the easiest solution that required the least work and didn't take anything away from having the options to be indoors for those that prefer it.

Nestor

One thing to keep in mind. If ZOS would ever create the "Perfect" Writ City, everyone would be there. Then the Lag and Character Load Lag would be terrible.

As it is, each good location has it's own quirks that bother some players, and not others. This way, we spread ourselves around.

And, another way to look at it, optimizing for the Mass Producers out there does not always make for a good looking or logical city.

xaraan

Nestor wrote: »

One thing to keep in mind. If ZOS would ever create the "Perfect" Writ City, everyone would be there. Then the Lag and Character Load Lag would be terrible.

As it is, each good location has it's own quirks that bother some players, and not others. This way, we spread ourselves around.

And, another way to look at it, optimizing for the Mass Producers out there does not always make for a good looking or logical city.

Not asking for it to be the best. That is clear from my posts.

If those stations were more easily accessible, the city would still not overtake Vivec, Summerset or even Rimmen for many.

starkerealm

kylewwefan wrote: »

How do you deal with RawlKa? That place is terrible. Same with Vivec.

It’s Alinor or bust for me. I couldn’t get used to anything else now at this point.

As someone who doesn't like it, Rawl'ka's layout is pretty solid. (Not sure where jewelry ended up.) Everything is reasonably compact, and if you learned the route it would be fairly efficient. For me, it still loses out to Vivec, though.

Nestor

xaraan wrote: »

Nestor wrote: »

One thing to keep in mind. If ZOS would ever create the "Perfect" Writ City, everyone would be there. Then the Lag and Character Load Lag would be terrible.

As it is, each good location has it's own quirks that bother some players, and not others. This way, we spread ourselves around.

And, another way to look at it, optimizing for the Mass Producers out there does not always make for a good looking or logical city.

Not asking for it to be the best. That is clear from my posts.

If those stations were more easily accessible, the city would still not overtake Vivec, Summerset or even Rimmen for many.

Vivec and Alinor and Rawkla are Temperate Climates. It makes sense that more stations are out in the open. Solitude is in a cold wintery land, so more is going to be inside. This is why certain things are not as accessible as others.

Kingslayer513

kylewwefan wrote: »

How do you deal with RawlKa? That place is terrible. Same with Vivec.

It’s Alinor or bust for me. I couldn’t get used to anything else now at this point.

Vivec city construction yard is the best crafting hub in the game so idk what you mean. All crafting stations located outdoors close to each other. 2 outdoor bankers in the middle. Writ turn in location just outside the crafting stations. All trader locations just outside the crafting stations. And a close by wayshrine that has all the traders conveniently located between the crafting stations and the wayshrine.

It has Alinor beat by a long shot.

xaraan

Nestor wrote: »

xaraan wrote: »

Nestor wrote: »

One thing to keep in mind. If ZOS would ever create the "Perfect" Writ City, everyone would be there. Then the Lag and Character Load Lag would be terrible.

As it is, each good location has it's own quirks that bother some players, and not others. This way, we spread ourselves around.

And, another way to look at it, optimizing for the Mass Producers out there does not always make for a good looking or logical city.

Not asking for it to be the best. That is clear from my posts.

If those stations were more easily accessible, the city would still not overtake Vivec, Summerset or even Rimmen for many.

Vivec and Alinor and Rawkla are Temperate Climates. It makes sense that more stations are out in the open. Solitude is in a cold wintery land, so more is going to be inside. This is why certain things are not as accessible as others.

I don't think RP reasons work. Other stations, esp jewelry are outside. And having one outside and one inside also is a solution that excuse doesn't fly for. Then those shops are offering both solutions for customers if you wanna stick with immersion.

starkerealm

Kingslayer513 wrote: »

kylewwefan wrote: »

How do you deal with RawlKa? That place is terrible. Same with Vivec.

It’s Alinor or bust for me. I couldn’t get used to anything else now at this point.

Vivec city construction yard is the best crafting hub in the game so idk what you mean. All crafting stations located outdoors close to each other. 2 outdoor bankers in the middle. Writ turn in location just outside the crafting stations. All trader locations just outside the crafting stations. And a close by wayshrine that has all the traders conveniently located between the crafting stations and the wayshrine.

It has Alinor beat by a long shot.

Alinor only works if you have a banker assistant. At that point it the crafting locations are packed closer to the turn in. However, Even with that, I prefer Vivec.

heaven13

kind_hero wrote: »

@xaraan , I feel you

I also feel the need for a convenient crafting place. The problem with Vivec is exactly how convenient it is, because so many people use it. That's why other good crafting places like that are needed. People will choose the place according to their preference, they will pick the town they like. I like Alinor, but in Vivec you have the banker so close. I get several intricate items which I do not need anymore, but I like to put them into guild banks for people who might need those. So, I tend to use the guild banker/trader after writs.

I hope they will look at the feedback and create a Vivec style crafting hub either in Solitude or in Blackreach.

That's exactly the reason I like Vivec too. I donate a lot of stuff to guild banks.

redspecter23

ku5h wrote: »

redspecter23 wrote: »

I'm doing 27 toons a day. 2 load screens per character at an average of 5 seconds per load screen. That's over 3 minutes of load screens a day. Over the course of the year that's over 1000 extra minutes of time spent on loading screens that are all preventable by just going to another city.

Sry but this had me laughing.
You're doing 27 toons every, but you're concerned about 15h of loading over a year.
How much time do you loose doing 27 toons worth of writs every day for a year? A month?

We all enjoy the game in different ways. There are plenty of playstyles and player choices that boggle my mind. I don't understand how anyone could ever stand playing a pet build for example. I find them disgusting and annoying. However, plenty of people do it. I don't understand the logic of following an obvious 1vXer into a tower in Cyrodiil, yet their entire playstyle depends on people doing exactly that. You should know you're walking into a trap by playing in their territory, yet it's done all the time.

I choose to play the game as efficiently as I can. If I can save 15 hours of my life over the course of a year, I will do that. I don't expect everyone else to do that, but that is the way I play and enjoy the game. The time I "lose" doing writs in Alinor is a baseline time cost. I could do them somewhere else and spend more time doing that, but why?

Oreyn_Bearclaw

At least we arent forced to do them in Craglorn or Wrothgar any longer. I wonder how many times I jumped out of the second story window at the crafting stations in crag. haha.

starkerealm

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

At least we arent forced to do them in Craglorn or Wrothgar any longer. I wonder how many times I jumped out of the second story window at the crafting stations in crag. haha.

12 times a day for 8 months... uh... not sure, a bunch.

wolfie1.0.

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

Nord_Raseri wrote: »

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

Sorry to hear that one load screen is a game breaker.

I’m into doing writs, too, and that extra 5 seconds on each side won’t ruin my immersion ... not even a little.

if you have 18 characters thats 18 load screens ;-)

Take how many stations are inside and times those by 2(in and back out) and then times that by 18. After that might as well add the 36ish load screens for logging in and out for each character

18 load screens in and out multiplied by 5 seconds each ... looks like you're missing out on a minute and a half.

Super sorry to hear that is immersion-breaking for you.

Except it's not just 5 seconds for all of us. And let's be honest here in its current state on live 1 sec load screen on PTS usually ends up being 40 to 60 seconds. PTS server loads have never reflected live.

Davadin

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

I prefer Vivec City over Rimmen, because all the stations are reasonably close together, the turn-in crates aren't very far away, the bank is right there in the center of the crafting stations, the outlaws refuge is also close by, and the mount trainer is also reasonably close by. Rimmen's stations are nicely arranged, but the other things-- crates, banker, fence, and stablemaster-- are much more spread out than in Vivec City.

Nevertheless, I actually do my crafting in different cities on different characters-- Daggerfall, Windhelm, Vivec City, Rimmen, and Vulkhel Guard.

I'm narcissistic. i want an outfit station nearby.

kylewwefan

Kingslayer513 wrote: »

kylewwefan wrote: »

How do you deal with RawlKa? That place is terrible. Same with Vivec.

It’s Alinor or bust for me. I couldn’t get used to anything else now at this point.

Vivec city construction yard is the best crafting hub in the game so idk what you mean. All crafting stations located outdoors close to each other. 2 outdoor bankers in the middle. Writ turn in location just outside the crafting stations. All trader locations just outside the crafting stations. And a close by wayshrine that has all the traders conveniently located between the crafting stations and the wayshrine.

It has Alinor beat by a long shot.

Because on console, having to look in the journal at the writ quest; I can remember jewelry, enchanting, then set it to clothing and that one will be on my screen in case I can’t remember. The stations are right next to each other.
Then I look at provisioning and woodworking setting quest to wood working, cause I can remember provisioning.
Then finish up with blacksmithing and alchemy.

I’m only able to remember 2 of these at a time...maybe.

It’s too frustrating if I have to keep looking back at the journal for every one. I have my routine. I must stick to that or don’t do it at all.


On my pc account, it matters much less with a nifty little ad on.

carly

Doing writs on 27 toons sounds like a 'job' to me - meaning no offense to you at all so please don't take it that way. I also have multiple characters but I only do the writs on my main - the exception being when there is an event that offers bonus or drops for writs. We all play for different reasons, some like to keep busy in game and others like a slower pace - neither is wrong.

Personally I like the new crafting area in Solitude and I hope they leave it as is. There are other zones that you can do your writs in that are more convenient for you while those of us that enjoy a slower pace can enjoy this new area. Seems to me like there is something for both play styles in ESO without having to change this one.

starkerealm

carly wrote: »

Doing writs on 27 toons sounds like a 'job' to me - meaning no offense to you at all so please don't take it that way.

It, kinda, is. Writs are still the most efficient moneymaker in the game, so if you're trying to generate a reliable source of cash, they're still the best answer.

That said, even on PC, doing writs on 27 characters a day is a little miserable. I'll put up with it during the Anniversary event, because the box payouts are that tantalizing, but normally, I can't push myself past 18. Now to be fair, with 18 characters, that's still just shy of 100k gold a day.

Nestor

starkerealm wrote: »

That said, even on PC, doing writs on 27 characters a day is a little miserable.

Tell me about it. After the last event, I haven't even done a Writ on my main....

Chasing 1,000,000 dollar fence achievement at the moment.

ddoggw

Very good discussion on various cities for doing writs. I'm an 18 character writ dude as well. Right now, I have a banker and merchant, and use Rimmen. My character load to character load is about 2min 15 sec after completing the 7 writs, turning them in, and rallying back to the writ boards for the next day. Roughly 42-45 minutes total on a good day.

I am super curious as to others' times between full writ completions and if Vivec City might be even faster.

More importantly, I don't play the PTS, but I thought character load with multiple CPU cores now used , was supposed to make loading times faster, assuming the PTS worked exactly like a Live server would. Has anyone seen faster load times at least on PTS at this time? I think it takes around 40-50 seconds for the current version.

Thanks for any feedback! Take care!

Oreyn_Bearclaw

starkerealm wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

At least we arent forced to do them in Craglorn or Wrothgar any longer. I wonder how many times I jumped out of the second story window at the crafting stations in crag. haha.

12 times a day for 8 months... uh... not sure, a bunch.

@starkerealm
I used to always try to do it so that you would barely touch the edge of the window, giving you a half a second to mount. every now and then, you would summon your mount mid air and land riding it. It's the little things. Haha

Djiku

xaraan wrote: »

Those of us that are into our writs/crafting are always curious about how well a new zone will stack up to Vivec, Alinor, Rimmen, Mournhold, etc.

But Solitude comes up very short in this area. I was hoping with the city behind it's own load with a door it would be a good city to use for a home base as loading in would be smoother. But having Alchemy, Enchanting, Clothing stations behind doors will kill this as an option IMO.

I'm not concerned with it being the best option, hard to beat certain other cities for their convenience and distance between wayshrine/bank/stable is also a factor. But putting half the stations behind a door load (even though they are faster that a full load screen) will prevent it from being a decent option.

Nothing wrong with keeping an outfit station indoors or having some indoor options, but I would definitely recommend adding an outdoor station of each beside the front door. There is definitely room to put alchemy and enchanting stations on either side of it's entrance. And there should be a way to work a spot in for clothing.

Totally with you on this one. A few tweaks and it would be better. There are only a few towns or cities ingame where you can do writs in a reasonable amount of time. Thats why I don't understand they won't give us writ boards in some of the DLC zones.
Take Senchal for example. All the crafting stations are so close together in one place. Bank is relatively close, as are Guildtraders and Stables. But there are no writ boards.
I personally like the Gold Coast for example. If you would put writ boards around the Tree between the blacksmith and the tailor in Anvil that would be great. Sure, some of the stations would still be inside but I just love the town.
A overhaul of the zones major towns/cities would be great. I am not looking for min/maxing towns here. Keep the layouts but with a few tweaks they would feel much better for everyday use.
This would also potentially draw out some of the population from the overcrowded locations right now and spread them out for better loading times.

xaraan

Agreed Djiku.

Too many players are jumping to defend the layout instead of letting the feedback stand as advice to improve the game. Nothing in my opening post was incorrect in my assessment. Maybe zos does not care to change it, they often have ignored past feedback on layout of writ boards and such that are already in the game, so maybe it's not worth the effort. But I'm not wrong.

Putting three stations behind doors definitely contradicts all they've learned in past expansions/dlc's: the crafting areas of Vivec, Alinor and Rimmen are some of the best, but for some reason they've gone against that here. Maybe it is a desire to make people not want to use the city as much, but IMO spreading out crafting needs more will help the server (maybe they will make these changes 3 or 6 months later after the 'new content' traffic in the zone has died down a bit). Improving Solitude with the changes I recommended would still not make it better than Vivec for example, and no one needing stables every day will use the city b/c it's through a real loading screen outside the city. But it could take some of the load off of Vivec and Alinor that are often packed if it at least came closer to being a solid choice.

Along what you were saying, several small tweaks are needed around various cities in regards to crafting, writ boards and traders. Improving some of these other cities can offer players more options as their "home base" as even if it's not as perfectly designed as Vivec for all needs, the desire to avoid the giant crowd and perhaps choose a home base for other reason (home there, like the area, lore, etc). More options are better IMO.

Djiku

xaraan wrote: »

Agreed Djiku.

Too many players are jumping to defend the layout instead of letting the feedback stand as advice to improve the game. Nothing in my opening post was incorrect in my assessment. Maybe zos does not care to change it, they often have ignored past feedback on layout of writ boards and such that are already in the game, so maybe it's not worth the effort. But I'm not wrong.

Putting three stations behind doors definitely contradicts all they've learned in past expansions/dlc's: the crafting areas of Vivec, Alinor and Rimmen are some of the best, but for some reason they've gone against that here. Maybe it is a desire to make people not want to use the city as much, but IMO spreading out crafting needs more will help the server (maybe they will make these changes 3 or 6 months later after the 'new content' traffic in the zone has died down a bit). Improving Solitude with the changes I recommended would still not make it better than Vivec for example, and no one needing stables every day will use the city b/c it's through a real loading screen outside the city. But it could take some of the load off of Vivec and Alinor that are often packed if it at least came closer to being a solid choice.

Along what you were saying, several small tweaks are needed around various cities in regards to crafting, writ boards and traders. Improving some of these other cities can offer players more options as their "home base" as even if it's not as perfectly designed as Vivec for all needs, the desire to avoid the giant crowd and perhaps choose a home base for other reason (home there, like the area, lore, etc). More options are better IMO.

More options would be great and it wouldn't even take much to tweak things a bit. I completely removed all my characters from the good towns like Vivec or Alinor because I couldnt't stand the crowds. it would take ages for everything to load.

heaven13

Djiku wrote: »

xaraan wrote: »

Those of us that are into our writs/crafting are always curious about how well a new zone will stack up to Vivec, Alinor, Rimmen, Mournhold, etc.

But Solitude comes up very short in this area. I was hoping with the city behind it's own load with a door it would be a good city to use for a home base as loading in would be smoother. But having Alchemy, Enchanting, Clothing stations behind doors will kill this as an option IMO.

I'm not concerned with it being the best option, hard to beat certain other cities for their convenience and distance between wayshrine/bank/stable is also a factor. But putting half the stations behind a door load (even though they are faster that a full load screen) will prevent it from being a decent option.

Nothing wrong with keeping an outfit station indoors or having some indoor options, but I would definitely recommend adding an outdoor station of each beside the front door. There is definitely room to put alchemy and enchanting stations on either side of it's entrance. And there should be a way to work a spot in for clothing.

Totally with you on this one. A few tweaks and it would be better. There are only a few towns or cities ingame where you can do writs in a reasonable amount of time. Thats why I don't understand they won't give us writ boards in some of the DLC zones.
Take Senchal for example. All the crafting stations are so close together in one place. Bank is relatively close, as are Guildtraders and Stables. But there are no writ boards.
I personally like the Gold Coast for example. If you would put writ boards around the Tree between the blacksmith and the tailor in Anvil that would be great. Sure, some of the stations would still be inside but I just love the town.
A overhaul of the zones major towns/cities would be great. I am not looking for min/maxing towns here. Keep the layouts but with a few tweaks they would feel much better for everyday use.
This would also potentially draw out some of the population from the overcrowded locations right now and spread them out for better loading times.

I was disappointed that smaller story zone DLCs don't handle writs. And then Hew's Bane has a place to pick them up, but can't turn in there. It'd be nice for all zones to have this functionality, even if it's not as optimal.