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Make Crafted Sets As Good As Found Sets
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LadyNalcarya✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭amm7sb14_ESO wrote: »
This.
With found gear being superior, there is little to no use for crafting in this game, and it's certainly not worth the time nor the skill point investment.
Crafted gear should always be superior. That's been a staple of the best of MMO economies.
Eh, it's not. Unless you're talking about full loot pvp games like Albion Online. And when you can craft op items, it's usually much more difficult than just porting to a crafting hall and pressing a couple of buttons.
And crafting IS worth it, I made millions upon millions of gold on crafting, helped many people and upgraded all of my trial gear.
Everyone keeps saying how much of an investment crafting is, but I honestly don't think that I should have access to the best gear in every new patch just because I researched all traits back in 2015. ZOS wants people to play the game, not to get BiS stuff instantly.
And what about people who never invested in crafting but still have access to any crafted items because their friends/guildmates/kind strangers from zone chat offer their crafting services?Edited by LadyNalcarya on February 13, 2021 10:50AMDro-m'Athra Destroyer | Divayth Fyr's Coadjutor | Voice of Reason
PC/EU2 -
Iluvrien✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭LadyNalcarya wrote: »amm7sb14_ESO wrote: »
This.
With found gear being superior, there is little to no use for crafting in this game, and it's certainly not worth the time nor the skill point investment.
Crafted gear should always be superior. That's been a staple of the best of MMO economies.
Eh, it's not. Unless you're talking about full loot pvp games like Albion Online. And when you can craft op items, it's usually much more difficult than just porting to a crafting hall and pressing a couple of buttons.
And crafting IS worth it, I made millions upon millions of gold on crafting, helped many people and upgraded all of my trial gear.
Everyone keeps saying how much of an investment crafting is, but I honestly don't think that I should have access to the best gear in every new patch just because I researched all traits back in 2015. ZOS wants people to play the game, not to get BiS stuff instantly.
And what about people who never invested in crafting but still have access to any crafted items because their friends/guildmates/kind strangers from zone chat offer their crafting services?
You say ZOS wants people to play the game. Which bit? Does this mean that a person playing PvP only can't have access to BiS gear? Or someone doing end game PvE only? Or the RP'ers? Solo'ers?
ZOS wanting people to play their game is a truism.
BiS gear can be thought to have an attraction purely because it is BiS. On that basis, making it only available as drops seems a bit myopic to me. It is the same reason that I think there should be parity between gear granted via the PvP and PvE routes. People are here to enjoy themselves, why not encourage them to do the things they find fun?3 -
orion_1981usub17_ESO✭✭✭✭✭Crafting sets mean nothing when you can reconstruct sets. Fact is they might as well just let you collect those too. I can make any gear for content I ran. We do not lack for options. In some ways it makes me sad because I wanted my orc's name on folks swords and shields but that was a dream from before the game was even out. Crafting sadly exist for writs and the occasional newb set. There are hundreds of sets just gathering dust, unloved and unwanted, at all times in a game with so many options.3 -
LadyNalcarya✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭LadyNalcarya wrote: »amm7sb14_ESO wrote: »
This.
With found gear being superior, there is little to no use for crafting in this game, and it's certainly not worth the time nor the skill point investment.
Crafted gear should always be superior. That's been a staple of the best of MMO economies.
Eh, it's not. Unless you're talking about full loot pvp games like Albion Online. And when you can craft op items, it's usually much more difficult than just porting to a crafting hall and pressing a couple of buttons.
And crafting IS worth it, I made millions upon millions of gold on crafting, helped many people and upgraded all of my trial gear.
Everyone keeps saying how much of an investment crafting is, but I honestly don't think that I should have access to the best gear in every new patch just because I researched all traits back in 2015. ZOS wants people to play the game, not to get BiS stuff instantly.
And what about people who never invested in crafting but still have access to any crafted items because their friends/guildmates/kind strangers from zone chat offer their crafting services?
You say ZOS wants people to play the game. Which bit? Does this mean that a person playing PvP only can't have access to BiS gear? Or someone doing end game PvE only? Or the RP'ers? Solo'ers?
ZOS wanting people to play their game is a truism.
BiS gear can be thought to have an attraction purely because it is BiS. On that basis, making it only available as drops seems a bit myopic to me. It is the same reason that I think there should be parity between gear granted via the PvP and PvE routes. People are here to enjoy themselves, why not encourage them to do the things they find fun?
Even in single-player TES titles you had to earn the best gear, that's how it usually works in games. I mean, of course, you could cheat and grab it from testing room, but that would make the game boring pretty quickly.
I just don't think that researching traits should give me and everyone who knows me a lifetime access to the best equipment. Not to mention that it would be kinda P2W with all those research scrolls in crown store.
And yeah, farming stuff might get annoying depending on rng, but there is a reason why all mmos incorporate grind in one way or another. With sticker book and transmutation gearing your character is not very difficult by mmo standarts anyway (apart from a few rng-based weapon drops).Dro-m'Athra Destroyer | Divayth Fyr's Coadjutor | Voice of Reason
PC/EU1 -
BXR_Lonestar✭✭✭✭✭
✭LadyNalcarya wrote: »BXR_Lonestar wrote: »IMO, the 9 trait crafting sets should be somewhere between dungeon sets and trial sets in terms of quality. Its a huge investment becoming a 9 trait crafter, and even more so when you then consider the need to obtain motifs, crafting mats, and crating trait gems to build out your set. Sure, you have a ton of those things after you've played 3-4 years, but that doesn't undermine the fact that it took a lot of work to get where you can actually make quality crafted gear, especially if it requires 9 traits to be researched.
The TL;DR: sets that require 9 traits to craft should be endgame quality armor.
It would be an argument if crafted gear was account-bound. But it's not, and I crafted tons of sets for people who just joined the game and haven't spend a single golden piece on nirn traits or motifs.
And I would say that Julianos/Hunding/NMA/etc are decent all-around sets, much better than the majority of dungeon drops.
That's a fair point, but then again, if they were much more powerful, you could always charge people more for the same crafted gear to reflect their higher value. Additionally, everyone's squatting on a ton of mats because not everyone is investing in making custom/crafted gear, but if they were higher tear, those resources would be a bit more scarce, which would also tend to drive up the cost of gear (assuming they aren't providing you crafting mats).1 -
Iluvrien✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭There is a lot to unpack here in this post @LadyNalcarya, so I will try and do it justice.LadyNalcarya wrote: »Even in single-player TES titles you had to earn the best gear, that's how it usually works in games. I mean, of course, you could cheat and grab it from testing room, but that would make the game boring pretty quickly.
"Earn" the armour is another rather broad term (similar to "play"ing the game) that can mean different things to different people. But the way that you earn the best gear in previous games was associated with a single mode/style of play wasn't it? For example Morrowind didn't contain a competitive multi-player (PvP) did it? There was no gating of gear between content of a specific difficulty level in Skyrim (perfected items on HM Trials) was there?
The single player TES games had no grouping requirement and had difficulty sliders. I think the bar for "earn"ing has previously been set pretty low.LadyNalcarya wrote: »I just don't think that researching traits should give me and everyone who knows me a lifetime access to the best equipment.
On this we agree, but then I see that as a fault of the crafting system that ZOS only sought to nerf rather than develop. Motifs and armour sets could have been tied into the world through cultural activities and institutions. It could have been that there were in-world activities that made learning each one a separate (if shorter) process that only allowed the creation of that set. Traits as the gating mechanism for sets was always off, but they could even have made that more interesting. I've posted a couple of ideas about trait learning mechanisms over the years.LadyNalcarya wrote: »Not to mention that it would be kinda P2W with all those research scrolls in crown store.
The least said about the crown store and its stagnatory effect on gameplay mechanisms the better.LadyNalcarya wrote: »And yeah, farming stuff might get annoying depending on rng, but there is a reason why all mmos incorporate grind in one way or another. With sticker book and transmutation gearing your character is not very difficult by mmo standarts anyway (apart from a few rng-based weapon drops).
The reason why "all mmos" incorporate grind is simple laziness. RNG gear grind is a proven hamster-wheel that keeps players repeating the same content for months/years in a way that has been proven acceptable to players. Implementing it requires no creativity whatsoever, but provides the required effect. Why would any MMO developer (ZOS or otherwise) put in the time to come up with new and interesting challenges to earn gear through multiple play-style pathways if they could just drop the new items into an existing framework (RNG loot)? They wouldn't.
Does that mean it is the best system by any metric such as fun, immersion, world-building, or community-building? Who knows? After all, if players continue to accept the same lazy application of mechanics that have existed for decades by this point... then I doubt that any studio will actually bother to innovate.2 -
Magdalina✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭As someone who has all 9 traits researched everywhere (including jewelry) and over 50 crafting motifs learnt, I don't think that crafted gear should be as good as/better than found sets. Imo the current crafted/BiS ratio is actually pretty good, Julianos/Hunding's etc are still perfectly viable for all the content in game. Seriously, unless you're score pushing for the leaderboards or doing dungeons/trials trifectas, chances are you won't notice a big difference between best crafting sets and BiS found ones.
I don't actually run trials therefore I'm not running completely BiS gear, but that's on me. It only makes sense that gear that is hardest to acquire is also the best gear. Because it provides incentive for people to participate in harder content. And (again, coming from someone who has done all that research fuss) no, pressing 2 buttons once every few days/weeks to start a research doesn't really qualify as 'hard'. Time consuming, sure. Hard? Not really.2 -
starkerealm✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭The reason why "all mmos" incorporate grind is simple laziness...
No.
Creating new content takes vastly more time and resources than completing it does. A dev team will work for months on content, and then the playerbase will finish it in a weekend or two. It's simply not possible to hand generate enough content to keep players occupied long enough to get a similar sized content release out.
Now, developers have tried to farm this stuff out to the community, with things like player created content editors, and of course every sandbox MMO with a Minecraft approach to building, but you cannot pin your overall retention on uncurrated player generated content. The vast majority of it will be a waste of time. A lot of the player created content will be built around maximizing the player payout (XP, in game resources, drops, whatever) over presenting quality content.
For example, when Cryptic first added the mission editor to Star Trek Online, it took the community less than a day to operationalize how damage worked in the game to build an XP farm that would take you to level cap in a matter of hours, while also breaking the economy through sheer drop volume.
The result is grind content. You can't get a unique story every day for the next six months while the team works on a new zone, but you can be tempted into running the same content every day for the next six months. There are ways to vary this up, and if the options on offer are diverse enough, you can mask some of the grind.
But, no, it's not laziness.
Grind is about keeping someone logging into your game on a daily, or near daily basis. In an MMO, it's about ensuring you still have a playerbase when the next release content drops. MMOs need an active player base. Nobody wants to play a dead MMO, or an MMO they think is dying, so when you have nothing to do in an MMO, and enough of your friends follow suit, that can leave the impression that the game is dying, leading more people to leave, discouraging new players from starting, and you have a death spiral.
So, Devs put grind content into the game, to offer players "who have nothing left to do," something to do. Encouraging them to stick around, keeping the population's visibility up, and helping to avoid the first steps down that death spiral.
So, no, it's not laziness, for the exact same reason that it took you longer to write your post than it did for me to read it.2 -
Iluvrien✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭starkerealm wrote: »The reason why "all mmos" incorporate grind is simple laziness...
No.
Creating new content takes vastly more time and resources than completing it does. A dev team will work for months on content, and then the playerbase will finish it in a weekend or two. It's simply not possible to hand generate enough content to keep players occupied long enough to get a similar sized content release out.
Now, developers have tried to farm this stuff out to the community, with things like player created content editors, and of course every sandbox MMO with a Minecraft approach to building, but you cannot pin your overall retention on uncurrated player generated content. The vast majority of it will be a waste of time. A lot of the player created content will be built around maximizing the player payout (XP, in game resources, drops, whatever) over presenting quality content.
For example, when Cryptic first added the mission editor to Star Trek Online, it took the community less than a day to operationalize how damage worked in the game to build an XP farm that would take you to level cap in a matter of hours, while also breaking the economy through sheer drop volume.
The result is grind content. You can't get a unique story every day for the next six months while the team works on a new zone, but you can be tempted into running the same content every day for the next six months. There are ways to vary this up, and if the options on offer are diverse enough, you can mask some of the grind.
But, no, it's not laziness.
Grind is about keeping someone logging into your game on a daily, or near daily basis. In an MMO, it's about ensuring you still have a playerbase when the next release content drops. MMOs need an active player base. Nobody wants to play a dead MMO, or an MMO they think is dying, so when you have nothing to do in an MMO, and enough of your friends follow suit, that can leave the impression that the game is dying, leading more people to leave, discouraging new players from starting, and you have a death spiral.
So, Devs put grind content into the game, to offer players "who have nothing left to do," something to do. Encouraging them to stick around, keeping the population's visibility up, and helping to avoid the first steps down that death spiral.
So, no, it's not laziness, for the exact same reason that it took you longer to write your post than it did for me to read it.
Your post contained nothing I did not already know and, respectfully, I continue to disagree.
I have seen the time it takes to produce new content drops, I have seen what happens when you allow uncurated content, neither of these preclude that further solutions may exist.
Change the nature of the content to extend replayability, lean on the modding communities to shore up interim content production with a smaller number of content projects that can be curated, and half a dozen other solutions that may well work better when you actually work for a dev studio.
The RNG loot system is, based on my rather hasty research, over two decades old. The first direct reference I can find is in Diablo 1. Released in 1997.
Now I can't speak for you, but during that time in my own life I have gotten 3 degrees, travelled to 3 different continents, lived in one of them for 5 years, gotten married, had children, changed career twice (one of those requiring going back to college), moved house about a dozen times, and have expanded my personal library to a point where my wife may actually use it against me in any future divorce proceedings... (hopefully not on both counts).
And you are saying that during that period, if the will had been there to do so, the incredibly bright people creating games (in general) and MMOs (in particular) couldn't have come up with a better way than that original system of repetitively running content to get a gear drop that is artificially scarce only due to developer imposed RNG factors? Really?
I think you are doing the developers a disservice.
I think it could have been done. I just think that the people holding the purse strings saw a functional system that could be slotted into place with minimal outlay or maintenance. Now, to be explicit, I don't think the laziness is on the part of individual developers who are involved in the system. Not at all. However, I definitely believe that this is a case of creative laziness at the level of those making fundamental decisions about the design and implementation of those game systems.4 -
PizzaCat82✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Crafting has earned me 11M gold, 64 houses, Countless mounts, stacks of gold upgrade mats (of every type). I don't think we need it to also be the best gear in the game too.4 -
Kalik_Gold✭✭✭✭✭
✭There are a good amount of great crafted sets. Compared to a few Mmos I have played the crafted usefulness in ESO - food, potions and gear is incredible.
Also furnishings but that isn’t my thing.Main: (PvP & PvE)PS5/NA - Ras Kalik a Redguard Templar - Daggerfall Covenant • 1550+ Champion
Ras Kalik a Redguard Templar, the Vestige
PvP:
Aurik Siet'ka a Redguard Necromancer
Cacique the Sage of Ius a Redguard Warden
Jux Blackheart a Redguard Nightblade
Goliath of Hammerfell a Redguard Dragonknight
Kaotik Von Dae'mon a Redguard* Sorcerer
PvP: (Specialty)
Tyrus Septim an Imperial Lycan Sorcerer
Tsar af-Bomba a Redguard Vampiric Nightblade (Bomber)
Movárth Piquine a Nord Vampiric Necromancer
Uri Ice-Heart the Twin a Nord Vampiric Warden
Voa a Priest of Sep a Redguard* Necromancer
PvE:
Cinan Tharn an Imperial Dragonknight (Tank)
Bates Vesuius of Dawnstar an Imperial Dragonknight (Damage)
Herzog Zwei the Genesis an Akavari* Templar (Healer)
Tav'i at-Shinji a Redguard** Warden (One-Bar)
Lucky Hunch the Gambler - a Redguard Nightblade (Thief)
Leveling...
Two-Big-Horns an Argonian Arcanist
Styx of Akatosh a Goblin* Arcanist
Zenovia at-Tura a Redguard** Sorcerer
Yesi af-Kalik a Redguard Templar
======
Passives of another race used. (RP)
*Breton
**Imperial
__________________________Backstories:_________________________
Ras Kalik the Vestige, a renown Redguard warrior; He has been blessed to save Tamriel from Molag Bal’s destructive Planemeld while reuniting the Five Companions. His further accomplishments after defeating Molag Bal, has been to stop the destruction of Morrowind, the Clockwork City, return order to the isle of Summerset and create a new king in Wrothgar and a queen in Elsywer. These events have made him a living legend and continue to lead him into new adventures throughout Tamriel, as well as into the hearts of many ladies including the Elf Queen, Aryenn. Over many years of adventurous travels, Ras Kalik had become a loner, until he re-visited his homeland of Alik'r.
Alik'r and it's cities were overrun by the undead Ra-Netu and therefore he made an allegiance with Alik'r's own Ash'abah tribe. These Ash'abah with his help, cleansed the city of Sentinel in Alik'r desert and it's surrounding areas of the undead brought to life by the Withered Hand. After rescuing Sentinel from the undead zombies, King Fahara’jad’s personal bodyguard the Goliath of Hammerfell, who was given this name by Imperials in the region; was asked to assist the tribe after learning of the defeat of the Withered Hand to the Ash'abah. Kalik promised Goliath he would task him with fighting living enemies on the battlefield if he so desired. Goliath being a Yokudan warrior wields a massive sword in respect to the Ansei, a gift given by the Imperial, Cinan Tharn. Not many soldiers are able to wield double two handed weapons, but Goliath loves to get up and personal in a fight, so he also carries a giant maul, both weapons laced with magical flames.
Jux Blackheart is a master thief that masquerades as a Bard at the Sisters of the Sands inn, with his younger sidekick Lucky Hunch for pilfering and gambling during this time. Jux was known to infiltrate any towns bank vault he came across and even delved into Ayelid ruins without detection. Kalik can vividly recall the night he met the famed thief. Jux found himself rummaging thru a slightly inebriated Kalik’s pocket for too long, on a full-mooned night and because of his greed and the glimmer of his golden armor in the moonlight. He lost his left pinky fingertip as a lesson! But in return, he gained a new friend, as it was his first time since a child being caught red-handed...
Upon arrival back in the Alik'r after many moons of adventuring, Ras Kalik ventures to Bergama. Visiting The Winking Jackal, he runs into Jux Blackheart, who introduces him to the coin game Crowns vs Forebearers (Heads vs Tails) and Golden Dwemer (RBG).... Jux constantly takes gold from the unfortunate thru theft or gambling, his biggest gambling victim is actually his partner in crime known as Lucky Hunch the Gambler. Lucky doesn't mind losing any gold coins to Jux... as Jux saved him from Altmer slavers in Summerset, by stealing a key and sending him on a boat to the mainland years prior. Lucky spent years in slavery with Khajiits in Summerset and picked up the art of subterfuge, using illusion magic disguises and stealing there.
Kaotik Von’Daemon an outcast, and a half-caste between a Breton mother and a Redguard father. Kaotik become a pariah due to his conjuration of Daedra pets. He was taught healing magic during his childhood years by his Breton mother. His father due to Redguard customs exiled him from the desert, sending him by wagon caravan to be a soldier in the war in Cyrodiil. He happened to meet Kalik while traveling from Alik'r, during this long caravan ride the caravan he was in was ambushed in Bangkorai by a group of bandits. Kalik by chance was also traveling thru this area on his Auridon Warhorse (which was bestowed to him by his friend, Darien Gautier). During this ambush, Kalik was able to rescue five hostages from the bandits. Kaotik was the first rescued, and Ras Kalik also recruited him to be in the Ash'abah tribe. These core Ash'abah tribesmen may never be seen together in travel as they partake in their own adventures but they always know what each other is doing; as they frequent a hideout in northern Bankorai. Their hideout an old Orc castle ruin, is kept watch by Nuzhimeh and she passes messages written between them, and frequently they also enjoy her company and her bed.
The other men rescued were a Dunmer banker, an Imperial mercenary and two other soldiers, an Imperial and a Breton Knight, stating proudly he was an Akavir descendent. One of the Imperials, Cinan, claimed to be related to Abnur Tharn the Battlemage of the Imperial Elder Council (One of Ras Kalik's mentors in the Five Companions). Cinan Tharn was really Abnur's drunkard treasure hunting illegitimate son. He was caught smuggling artifacts out of the Ayleid ruins in Cyrodiil and the elder of the two Imperials was Tyrus Septim a retired Imperial navy battle-mage (now a Lycan mercenary living in the city of Rimmen) and guard to the Tharn family. As much as Abnur Tharn hated his half-sister Euraxia, he dislikes his bas†ard son Cinan more. Tyrus now a ruffian and privateer had been paid by Abnur Tharn to watch over Cinan as much as possible. Cinan Tharn a drunkard, loves to drink at least a quarter barrel of Nord mead before he raids various delves and dungeons for relics to sell on the black market. Cinan also plans to one day, run an illegal gambling ring... which he thinks will net him more gold for his wares.
The Dunmer captive shackled to the Imperials looked familiar to Kalik from his time in Morrowind.... and he recognized him as Tythis Andromo a House Telvanni slave-owner and banker from Vvardenfell. During a rough interrogation to Tythis, Ras Kalik learnt why the bandits accosted him. The racist Dunmer was providing slaves as soldiers for the Three Banner War. The bandits were trying to negotiate a lucrative ransom for Andromo and the Imperials.... Kalik did not need any of this gold and he could never set Tythis free as he did with the two Imperial soldiers. His past involvement with slavery and war crimes, made Kalik's blood boil. He chose not to execute Tythis, as he figured the worse punishment for this former rich and opulent slave owner, is to now be an imprisoned servant for Ras Kalik and the tribe.
Herzog Zwei the Genesis a reknown Imperial/Akavirri battle-mage. His roots going back to Akavir through his mother’s bloodline. (His mother is descended from the Akaviri, through Versidue-Shae, and his Imperial father met her in Hakoshae, while traveling) Herzog earned the nickname "the Genesis" from his father as a child, as he was his mother's first born child, and last, as she tragically died in child-birth.
Herzog was seeking to purchase an artifact from Cinan Tharn, before their capture and was meeting Tyrus while in Rimmen, who introduced him to Cinan. This artifact being the Ayelid artifact; the sword Sinweaver. After their rescue and the exchange of gold to Cinan for the sword he decided to slip away before Ras Kalik could question who he was, and why the Akavir descendant really wanted that sword. Herzog was headed to Nagastani — An Ayleid ruin in eastern Cyrodiil. He had read in scrolls that the Sword would give him magical powers to meet his mothers spirit, if he performed an Ayleid ritual at an old shrine hidden there. Equipped with the artifact sword, he was off to start his own adventure but Ras Kalik, did indeed notice the sword however and instead sent a letter to Jux Blackheart (whom also was interested in Ayleid treasures), to attempt to find Herzog and acquire the sword. (*Azani Blackheart in Elder Scroll's Oblivion is Jux's descendant some 747 years later)
And so the Redguard, Imperial and Akaviri men parted ways ... While Ras Kalik went off to Elsweyr to encounter the latest threat to Tamriel, with Abnur Tharn and Sai Sahan - - DRAGONS!! Little did Ras Kalik know a few people were awaiting him in Senchal besides Sai. A necromancer survived his attack on the Withered Hand, while in Alik'r. The necromancer known as Auriek Siet'ka is also following him to the land of the Khajiits and Cacique the Sage of Ius a Shaman mystic who has become attuned spiritually with Tu'whacca (a Redguard God) and Ius (the Animal God), after being burned severely by the escaped dragons in Elsywer, is awaiting his arrival also. Aurik is a soldier of the Daggerfall Covenant that was introduced to necromancy while in the military, even though this magicka art is not spoken of openly by most of the Military leaders. He came to Alik'r and worked with the Withered Hand before Ras Kalik intervened on their plans. After the defeat of the Withered Hand, he aligned with the Worm Cult, and is constantly adapting and perfecting his necromantic arts.
After his journey to Rimmen, Kalik heads south to Senchal, in the southern regions of Elyswer. This new adventure will also put him on a path to meet a strange Redguard man. The stranger which was infected with an untreated Peyrite disease and also was the exiled from the Order of the New Moon cult, due to his sickness. He originally joined the cult to worship Laatvulon, the green dragon, mistakenly thinking it was the Daedric prince Peyrite. This confused and suffering cultist is known as Tsar al-Bomba and he is on a path to spread the disease. He was originally infected in Orccrest while recruiting members there. Can Ras Kalik and the shaman Cacique cure this poor soul, only time will tell. Little does Tsar al-Bomba know, that his infection is tied to Vampirism, and eventually the desire for blood will take over his mind. Senchal also offers Kalik his latest love interest... Aeliah. Whom he fondly led thru battles with the Dragonguard.
After the trek thru the heat, tropical and desert climate of Northern and Southern Elyswer, Ras Kalik heads north to the cold mountain range of Skyrim. His companion friend Lyris beckons for him with a letter sent by crow...
Movárth Piquine - a former vampire hunter (now infected), within the Fighter's Guild (and a secretive necromancer) was in Skyrim working with the Morthaal Guard. On a patrol mission he was caught in Frewien's ice curse outside of Morthaal with the frozen undead. Movárth's vampiric infection kept him from becoming an undead minion to the curse. He was able to use necromantic ice-magic to encase himself safely until he was freed with Freiwen, when the Vestige Ras Kalik broke the curse.
Uri Ice-Heart - brother of Urfon Ice-Heart. The twin sons of Atli and Oljourn Ice-Heart. The Ice-Heart family are originally from Markarth but now reside on the Jerall Mountain range near Cyrodiil, with their younger sister Araki. The twins had joined the Winterborn Reachmen while living in Markarth. Urfon pushed west to Orsinium with the Winterborn Clan, leaving his family behind. Uri stayed behind with his parents and sister to live in the family cabin for safety, avoiding the Vampire plague infiltrating the Reach. After news reaches him and he hears of Urfon's death... Uri leaves and heads home and is seeking vengeance. Meanwhile, his sister has also moved on to Windhelm to join the Fighter's guild. He will visit his sister, once before going to seek vengeance and she will craft him armor mixed with ice, called Stalhrim armor. Uri fearing death, after his brother's passing, falls victim to the convincing talk of Movárth at a Nordic tavern, and will also becomes a vampire.
{time moves forward through the hour-glass}
Returning player - 2017-2022, back in 25'1 -
YandereGirlfriend✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I strongly agree with the sentiment that the best items should not be crafted.
That said, there are indeed heaps of crafted sets that desperately need a redesign. Someone earlier astutely observed that you can tell precisely when a crafted set was introduced by looking at its proc condition and bonuses. That sort of dated balance is why so many are still in need of a refresh.
IMO, crafted sets are best utilized as PvP sets and/or sets that can strongly buff one niche aspects of gameplay that can be used to make a viable off-meta or thematic build. They should not simply be mindless BiS-adjacent 'stat sticks' like New Moon was when it debuted.2 -
starkerealm✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Your post contained nothing I did not already know and, respectfully, I continue to disagree.
So, to translate that, I didn't tell you anything you didn't know, you simply don't understand what that means.I have seen the time it takes to produce new content drops...
So, this statement is either untrue, severely misleading, or extremely outdated....I have seen what happens when you allow uncurated content, neither of these preclude that further solutions may exist.
...and you have no idea what those solutions are. This reeks of a manager who says, "I don't want to hear about how it's impossible, I want to hear how you plan to do it."
At present, there are no ways to produce unlimited content without significant tradeoffs. Procedural content cannot match the quality of hand generated content. Hand generated content takes far more time to create. Low quality content that can be bashed out in a few hours is utter garbage, and a waste of the player, and the developer's time.Change the nature of the content to extend replayability, lean on the modding communities to shore up interim content production with a smaller number of content projects that can be curated, and half a dozen other solutions that may well work better when you actually work for a dev studio.
Okay, saying, "we won't bother fixing it, because the modders will do it for us," is a lazy solution.
Fully vetting content diverts developer resources and is time consuming. Failure to fully vet content (or even just missing details that seemed unimportant) can become a real headache,The RNG loot system is, based on my rather hasty research, over two decades old. The first direct reference I can find is in Diablo 1. Released in 1997.
So... we're back to one of those managers who, "doesn't know much about computers, but from what I saw on TV last night..."Now I can't speak for you, but during that time in my own life I have gotten 3 degrees...
Unlike you, one of my degrees is actually in programming....and have expanded my personal library to a point where my wife may actually use it against me in any future divorce proceedings... (hopefully not on both counts).
None of which is relevant. For the exact same reason I don't brag about how many books I have. It's completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
I'm honestly not even sure what argument you're trying to make. That you're somehow better qualified to understand software development because you have a complete collection of Dune in your home, somewhere? That living in multiple countries teaches you about software development? Because, it clearly hasn't.And you are saying that during that period, if the will had been there to do so, the incredibly bright people creating games (in general) and MMOs (in particular) couldn't have come up with a better way than that original system of repetitively running content to get a gear drop that is artificially scarce only due to developer imposed RNG factors? Really?
Something doesn't add up here. So, you're arguing that the first RNG drop system was released with Diablo in 1997, and that this was copied by the first MMO... in 1985. Really?
From the sound of things, you're not very familiar with video games. Which leads back to, you don't understand the decisions being made. You're saying, "I want it cheap, I want it done right, and I want it fast, and I don't care why you can't give me everything I want, do it or I'll find someone who will." Which, isn't how any of this works.I think you are doing the developers a disservice.
If any of ESO's developers feel I've besmirched them, they certainly know where to find me. If you mean video game developers in general... yeah, there has been a lot of experimentation over the years. Random drops is not the only potential solution to long term engagement, however, it is the solution that ZOS chose.I think it could have been done.
And you base this on your entire lack of knowledge regarding game design, your unfamiliarity with video game history, and the part where you don't have a programming or content creation background.I just think that the people holding the purse strings saw a functional system that could be slotted into place with minimal outlay or maintenance.
And you base this on the idea that you've never actually seen these solutions implemented. Even in independent MMOs... and your complete lack of a background in software development or game design. Just, making sure we're on the same page here.Now, to be explicit, I don't think the laziness is on the part of individual developers who are involved in the system. Not at all. However, I definitely believe that this is a case of creative laziness at the level of those making fundamental decisions about the design and implementation of those game systems.
So, by, "lazy," you instead mean, "greedy." Which doesn't even make sense. I mean, we have the cheap MMO solution out there already. We've seen it for years. Procedurally generated MMOs are a thing. Cheep asset flips are a thing.
But, the thing is, we've already got a real examples of publishers being legitimately greedy. You can look at publishers like Perfect World, and you can see some really impressive greed. The thing is, when you kick over to greedy developers, the tools they have to mess with the players extend far beyond just tweaking drop rates.4 -
starkerealm✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭YandereGirlfriend wrote: »I strongly agree with the sentiment that the best items should not be crafted.
That said, there are indeed heaps of crafted sets that desperately need a redesign. Someone earlier astutely observed that you can tell precisely when a crafted set was introduced by looking at its proc condition and bonuses. That sort of dated balance is why so many are still in need of a refresh.
IMO, crafted sets are best utilized as PvP sets and/or sets that can strongly buff one niche aspects of gameplay that can be used to make a viable off-meta or thematic build. They should not simply be mindless BiS-adjacent 'stat sticks' like New Moon was when it debuted.
Yeah, that goes way beyond just the crafted sets. You can kinda see it with a lot of the old drop sets as well. There are a few that have held up, there's less than a dozen 2014 drop sets that still impress in 2021. (Now, granted, there weren't nearly as many drop sets back then, but still.) (Also worth remembering, a lot of drop sets were added in 2016 with One Tamriel... so this isn't quite as bold a statement as it first sounds.)1 -
Aardappelboom✭✭✭✭✭LadyNalcarya wrote: »
But researching traits doesn't require any effort, you just need to wait. It's not in any way comparable to clearing veteran content, and I'm saying this as someone with a bunch of master crafters.
Besides, you don't even have to research a single trait to wear crafted gear. I crafted hundreds of gear pieces for other players, for example.
Well, isn't only the second part the problem? It's not comparable (apples and oranges and all) but it does take effort. Quite a bit even and the resources you need for CP 160 gear aren't mild.
They could add better sets and make them bind on craft, maybe add the requirement of some extra items/resources from other crafting lines and mix up the types (not just 5 piece sets) problem solved imo.
I maxed my crafting and while I am glad I did, crafting gear doesn't have the same level of usefulness as provisioning and alchemy for example.
I really believe you need same quality sets, if you don't then crafting loses appeal and becomes an afterthought.4 -
Brrrofski✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭Are crafted sets better than the end game sets? No.
Can you do all content with crafted gear? Yes.
Plus crafted gear has a very big place in pvp.
New moon, daedric trickery and clever alch are very heavily used. Mechanical accuity is very good. Stuhn is best in slot for pure damage on some classes. Other sets like shacklebreaker and armor master are very good too.Edited by Brrrofski on February 14, 2021 9:07AM6 -
Kwoung✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭No.
Earned gear should always be better than crafted. The harder the achievement/content, the better the gear.
As others have pointed out it is a serious investment that is required in order to make the more powerful craftable sets in ESO.
In fact in recent memory some of the best sets were crafted like New Moon Acolyte, and I still use Clever Alchemist to this day. There are trait requirements needed to make these sets which is how ZOS stops the newbies from getting the best sets in the game by themselves. They need to get a crafter to makes these sets for them, and the max level stuff is quite resource intensive.
You kind of defeated your own argument. Crafting is a serious investment but you can buy crafted gear. Most the players I know won't charge guild members if they provide the materials.
And you can also buy overland gear, which is BIS, what's your point? Crafting NMA and numerous other sets is both an investment in time (about a year of researching) and large amounts of gold worth of materials. I have guildies that are 6 months into the game that can pull 75K DPS and are welcome on any vet trials, how is their 6 month investment more valuable than someone who spent a year to earn their skills?4 -
LadyNalcarya✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭BXR_Lonestar wrote: »LadyNalcarya wrote: »BXR_Lonestar wrote: »IMO, the 9 trait crafting sets should be somewhere between dungeon sets and trial sets in terms of quality. Its a huge investment becoming a 9 trait crafter, and even more so when you then consider the need to obtain motifs, crafting mats, and crating trait gems to build out your set. Sure, you have a ton of those things after you've played 3-4 years, but that doesn't undermine the fact that it took a lot of work to get where you can actually make quality crafted gear, especially if it requires 9 traits to be researched.
The TL;DR: sets that require 9 traits to craft should be endgame quality armor.
It would be an argument if crafted gear was account-bound. But it's not, and I crafted tons of sets for people who just joined the game and haven't spend a single golden piece on nirn traits or motifs.
And I would say that Julianos/Hunding/NMA/etc are decent all-around sets, much better than the majority of dungeon drops.
That's a fair point, but then again, if they were much more powerful, you could always charge people more for the same crafted gear to reflect their higher value. Additionally, everyone's squatting on a ton of mats because not everyone is investing in making custom/crafted gear, but if they were higher tear, those resources would be a bit more scarce, which would also tend to drive up the cost of gear (assuming they aren't providing you crafting mats).
I don't know about that. When cp160 materials were super rare (you could only get them from IC or Wrothgar), a lot of people still didnt charge guildies for Julianos and just crafted it with their mats. So it was still easily obtainable.There is a lot to unpack here in this post @LadyNalcarya, so I will try and do it justice.LadyNalcarya wrote: »Even in single-player TES titles you had to earn the best gear, that's how it usually works in games. I mean, of course, you could cheat and grab it from testing room, but that would make the game boring pretty quickly.
"Earn" the armour is another rather broad term (similar to "play"ing the game) that can mean different things to different people. But the way that you earn the best gear in previous games was associated with a single mode/style of play wasn't it? For example Morrowind didn't contain a competitive multi-player (PvP) did it? There was no gating of gear between content of a specific difficulty level in Skyrim (perfected items on HM Trials) was there?
The single player TES games had no grouping requirement and had difficulty sliders. I think the bar for "earn"ing has previously been set pretty low.
Still, you had to go on adventure and explore if you wanted to get your artifacts. A lot of them were very well-hidden, too, do you remember the Daedric Face of God? Or Goldbrand?
Difficulty doesn't really matter because in ESO you can still farm gear in normal dungeons and trials and it will be just a little bit worse than perfected variants (and the majority of sets don't even have perfected variants to begin with). They also made non-hm dlc dungeons easier so people can get their masks+there's Golden vendor. So I don't think that the bar for earning stuff is very high.
I mean, there are ways to redesign crafting system. You could turn the game into full-loot pvp arena and treat gear as consumables. You could make crafting much more complicated and difficult to master. You could do thousands of different things.On this we agree, but then I see that as a fault of the crafting system that ZOS only sought to nerf rather than develop. Motifs and armour sets could have been tied into the world through cultural activities and institutions. It could have been that there were in-world activities that made learning each one a separate (if shorter) process that only allowed the creation of that set. Traits as the gating mechanism for sets was always off, but they could even have made that more interesting. I've posted a couple of ideas about trait learning mechanisms over the years.
But why? Crafting is very relevant as it is now. Researching traits and leveling crafts is still a must: even if you're wearing dropped gear, you would still want to be able to transmute and upgrade it. Alchemy passives are very important for keeping up your buffs. Most trading guilds offer crafting halls as one of their perks - surely if crafting was useless, no one would care?
Not to mention crafting writs which are insanely lucrative:
Do we really need the best gear on top of that?
But it's still a factor because those research scrolls are not going anywhere.The least said about the crown store and its stagnatory effect on gameplay mechanisms the better.
And as for the "laziness" part, I fully agree with starkerealm. It's simply not possible to churn out non-repeatable content fast enough so in every mmo there's going to be some degree of repetition.
Edited by LadyNalcarya on February 14, 2021 10:53AMDro-m'Athra Destroyer | Divayth Fyr's Coadjutor | Voice of Reason
PC/EU2 -
LadyNalcarya✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Aardappelboom wrote: »LadyNalcarya wrote: »
But researching traits doesn't require any effort, you just need to wait. It's not in any way comparable to clearing veteran content, and I'm saying this as someone with a bunch of master crafters.
Besides, you don't even have to research a single trait to wear crafted gear. I crafted hundreds of gear pieces for other players, for example.
Well, isn't only the second part the problem? It's not comparable (apples and oranges and all) but it does take effort. Quite a bit even and the resources you need for CP 160 gear aren't mild.
They could add better sets and make them bind on craft, maybe add the requirement of some extra items/resources from other crafting lines and mix up the types (not just 5 piece sets) problem solved imo.
I maxed my crafting and while I am glad I did, crafting gear doesn't have the same level of usefulness as provisioning and alchemy for example.
I really believe you need same quality sets, if you don't then crafting loses appeal and becomes an afterthought.
As someone who does both... You can easily compare the effort, and leveling crafts is easy. To research every trait you just need to pick those trait items from the nearest guild vendor, press a couple of buttons and do whatever you want. Most of those traits are also dirt cheap, only nirnhoned weapons are somewhat valuable. And to level crafts to 50 you just need to decon your loot which does not require any effort whatsoever.
The most difficult (and expensive) part of crafting is collecting motifs, but they are purely cosmetic and can be applied to any gear so I don't think it's very relevant.
As for crafting being irrelevant, check my previous post. I don't think that the ability to change traits on your gear, upgrade it to gold, improve your dps (alchemy passives), earn millions of gold, craft decent sets etc is an "afterthought". It is very useful, just not in a "you can just craft the best gear" kind of way.Edited by LadyNalcarya on February 14, 2021 11:18AMDro-m'Athra Destroyer | Divayth Fyr's Coadjutor | Voice of Reason
PC/EU0 -
Kesstryl✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭I don't think it should be the best gear, but I do think 8-9 trait crafted should be on par with dropped gear. Crafted is definitely behind in terms of power to dropped sets.HEARTHLIGHT - A guild for housing enthusiasts! Contact @Kesstryl in-game to join.0 -
phantasmalD✭✭✭✭✭
It takes like a year.
Now I'm not saying that's not a long time, especially when you are in the mindset of wanting TBS immediately, but it's only a one-time investment, isn't RNG dependent and only takes a few clicks every so often. And besides Nirnhoned every research material is easy to acquire.
Pretty sure the majority of players have at least one master crafter, so at this point it's not even a unique achivement.
And there haven't been any new crafting related grinding since Jewelry crafting was added 3 years ago.
Learning the mechanics of a dungeon/trial takes comparable effort.
And when new sets are released you'll have to learn the new fights and grind for the new set but you won't have to re-research the traits for the new crafted set.
I don't think either should be better than the other but there def should be a reason for crafted sets to exist.starkerealm wrote: »Here's the problem with that, if you can get the best gear in the game without running any endgame content (like Trials or Vet Dungeons... and at this point in time, that meant specifically Vet City of Ash), why would you ever run that? You'd get your V14 jewelry from trials... but after that, you could craft better gear than you'd get out of any endgame content (with a handful of exceptions.)
If you don't want to run endgame content for the content/achivement then why would you need BiS equipment? Just so you can give yourself an imaginary gold star for wearing the objectively best sets?3 -
starkerealm✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭phantasmalD wrote: »starkerealm wrote: »Here's the problem with that, if you can get the best gear in the game without running any endgame content (like Trials or Vet Dungeons... and at this point in time, that meant specifically Vet City of Ash), why would you ever run that? You'd get your V14 jewelry from trials... but after that, you could craft better gear than you'd get out of any endgame content (with a handful of exceptions.)
If you don't want to run endgame content for the content/achivement then why would you need BiS equipment? Just so you can give yourself an imaginary gold star for wearing the objectively best sets?
Pretty much. There are people who legitimately look at fully kitting out their character in BiS gear as the victory condition for an MMO.
Of course, that has more to do with players approaching ESO like it's any other MMO. Things like "BiS," or raid/trial content having, "the best gear," doesn't really hold up in ESO, as things tend to be a little more flat than that. I can't tell you how many people I've seen incorrectly running trial sets like Reli over the years, but it's not trivial.1 -
dcam86b14_ESO✭✭✭✭✭
✭unless the set has a proc chance /% it's kinda useless in pvp as it is.
All sets need to be reworked and procs taken off all but monster helms but even that I wish went away.1 -
fred4✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭
This! All it takes is a PvP perspective to prove the OP's premise wrong. After watching Kristofer ESO's latest, I'd perhaps add Nocturnal's Favor to the list. Furthermore I'm starting to prefer non-crafted sets the more I fill out my collection. As I have fully collected all overland sets aside from Syvarra's Scales, I prefer reconstruction to crafting. I can do it my own house and all I need is upgrade materials.Are crafted sets better than the end game sets? No.
Can you do all content with crafted gear? Yes.
Plus crafted gear has a very big place in pvp.
New moon, daedric trickery and clever alch are very heavily used. Mechanical accuity is very good. Stuhn is best in slot for pure damage on some classes. Other sets like shacklebreaker and armor master are very good too.1 -
Iluvrien✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭I am going to reorganise and edit the quoted post both to allow me to deal with it in a logical fashion as well as removing the more confrontational aspects.
So, let's start at the assertion that seems to underpin your criticismstarkerealm wrote: »Unlike you, one of my degrees is actually in programming.
andstarkerealm wrote: »...and the part where you don't have a programming or content creation background.
This is an assumption, and it is incorrect. If you ever want to sit down and have a chat about my doctoral work then I would be more than happy to do so. However, my programming experience has been in research, enterprise, and edutech rather than game design. That particular criticism in your post is accurate. I have had work as a physics consultant on a couple of indie game projects, but I was not employed as a programmer on those.starkerealm wrote: »...and you have no idea what those solutions are. This reeks of a manager who says, "I don't want to hear about how it's impossible, I want to hear how you plan to do it."
This is me staying in my lane as I know where my own expertise lies (see the areas above). It is a case of a consumer who is identifying what they see as a problem, without the need to tell the professional how to solve it. For exactly the same reason that when I call a plumber, I don't feel it is my place to tell them how to fix the leak. I need only identify that there is a leak. That's professional respect, not managerial overreach.
As for having no idea what my optimal solution to the gear problem is, I have already identified it in this thread. That solution existed in the game at launch. Restore the primacy of crafted sets. Now, I am aware that solution won't work for the endgame players who only repeat content for the gear it drops. So, I would be happy if there were true parity. I have said it before in the PvP vs PvE gear threads, I am entirely in favour of people playing the way they enjoy to get the gear they feel they need. If there were PvP, PvE, and crafting avenues to get the same gear then people could choose. Seeing that would make me extremely happy.
Do I think the crafting system, as it stands, provides enough of a challenge to make this parity workable? Nope. I identified possible areas of expansion in my reply to LadyNalcarya. I think if this was going to happen, then the crafting system would need a rework, and it would need to be made more involved (no just idling through trait research) and much MUCH harder.starkerealm wrote: »If you mean video game developers in general... yeah, there has been a lot of experimentation over the years. Random drops is not the only potential solution to long term engagement, however, it is the solution that ZOS chose.
Indeed. And it is that choice, that I disagree with.
Just a last couple of notes to clarify:starkerealm wrote: »From the sound of things, you're not very familiar with video games.
About 32 years in games in all genres. This has included several online environments, starting with MUDs and MOOs and working up to MMOs. The details can be found in my post history on this forum.starkerealm wrote: »None of which is relevant. For the exact same reason I don't brag about how many books I have. It's completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
It was a facetious inclusion to try and keep the tone light. I could have gone with a timeline of the major events during the same period, but I decided to keep it a little closer to home. Another casualty of tone not translating into text.starkerealm wrote: »The thing is, when you kick over to greedy developers, the tools they have to mess with the players extend far beyond just tweaking drop rates.
Also true, but I am not looking for a race to the bottom here. I'd rather go in search of the best possible incarnation of player retention systems rather than measuring what we have against the worst.
I hope that clears things up. Have a good one.2 -
Mettaricana✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭Easy fix for crafting allow maxed crafters to do things like reforge a gear peice to have a second trait like being a twice born star of traits beable to do like 2h axe of hunding with sharpened and precise or sharp and infused but make the second trait like 50% of its normal value so it doesn't become super op.
Same for enchanting make it so maxed enchanters can do dual enchantments a main full power one and a half strength weaker one on gear and weps or jewelry.
Could have some new resource that allows us to dual trait or dual enchant either as a refining drop or crafted using alot of mats or even transmute stone sink. The new resource would be a boon for crafters. Make the item be tradable like crafted "auxiliary rune of weapon damage" for a ring and "trait kit of sharpended" etc they have the trait or enchant all wrapped up for resale for others to use. But for traits maybe make it be csn only craft as a rsnk 50 perk or tie it to research like needs 9 traits unlocked to do. It'd be something that only crafters could make and would give value to crafter players as well as lighting a fire under non crafters and would make gear farmer players either invest in crafting or buy it from someone to keep bis.1 -
cyberjanet✭✭✭✭✭B0SSzombie wrote: »
Would be kind of cool if Crafted Sets lined up with the power of different types of sets based on the number of Traits they have:
1-3 Trait Crafted Sets = Slightly worse than Overland Sets
4-6 Trait Crafted Sets = On par with Overland Sets
7-8 Trait Crafted Sets = Slightly worse than Group Dungeon Sets
9 Trait Crafted Sets = Slightly worse than Trial/Arena Sets
But there are overland sets, group dungeon sets and trial/arena sets that nobody ever uses, because they are perceived as not good enough. That would make crafting entirely useless, if crafted sets were worse than the crappy sets already available.
I think it would be great if crafters were valued for a change.Favourite NPC: Wine-For-All
Mostly PC-EU , with a lonely little guy on NA.2 -
starkerealm✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭So, let's start at the assertion that seems to underpin your criticismstarkerealm wrote: »Unlike you, one of my degrees is actually in programming.
This is an assumption, and it is incorrect.
No, I'm not wrong on that count. You have, repeatedly, demonstrated a complete lack of familiarity with game design, software development, programming... really, the list goes on. This isn't your field, and it is clear.
Whatever you may have done with computers is not relevant to this discussion in the slightest.Edited by starkerealm on February 18, 2021 9:27AM2 -
LalMirchi✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭For the 1
Let the crafting achievements mean something: Making unique gear for example.
For the 2
Crafted sets should be equivalent to the relevant overland sets as you still need to explore the zone to find the crafting station.
For the 3
I have spent many moons, too many moons, leveling up crafting, that should give me additional value when crafting.1
