This green CP tree thing...

thorwyn

I see a lot of threads about this, people are ranting and quitting the game left right and middle and I'm having a hard time understanding what all the fuss is about. To an extend, I a gree that the CP tree is not very well designed and the 30s cooldown (which coincidentally also blocks a certain AddOn) is kinda lame. But at the end of the day, the player is asked to pick the benefits of his choice from a selection of benefits and that's it. To me, it's the same with every CP tree: gain a benefit here, dispense a potential benefit there. In fact, it's the same with almost everything else in the game. Everything you chose, your race, your class, your atributes, everything is a choice of perks and you can never have all the benefits at once. Does it really make a difference for your every-day game wheter or not you have the harvesting perk slotted when you pick up a mushroom? Wouldn't really bother me to be honest. Now, when I know that I'm going on a fishing tour, I can still prepare and slot the fishing perk to increase my chances. Same thing as we used to do before when we had different CP settings for different trials. At the end of the day, all the complaints seem to be much ado about nothing to me.
Maybe I'm missing something? Please explain and let's try to keep this civil and friendly.

Gythral

Too many junk blocks to get what you want as way too many 30s time wastes to use what were passives!

Fast action game - with 30s cooldowns everywhere & you wonder why people are unhappy with a game that just played for 6 years - now it seems to be playijng them!

FluffWit

You want to be able to get resource nodes faster, get double resources half the time, get better loot from chests, get better loot from pickpocketing, get two furniture plans instead of one.... ok, fair enough. It would be nice to have everything.

But prior to this update you only got 3 of those things. You really don't loseanything unless you choose to lose it.. You just have to make a choice about which of the nice new options you can have, or sacrifice one of the older ones.

Olauron

thorwyn wrote: »

Maybe I'm missing something? Please explain and let's try to keep this civil and friendly.

The problem of the green tree is that not all slottable "active" stars are part of horizontal progression. There is a big number of stars that are part of the vertical progression.

For example, a choice between movement (on foot or on mount) speed and harvesting speed (and harvesting quality, including chests) is a choice of horizontal progression, and it is a good choice.
A choice between movement speed and refining (deconstructing) quality is not a choice and is a part of vertical progression disguised as horizontal, and it is a bad choice (as you can remove the choice by changing the slottable for the activity).

Sangwyne

More of the Slotted stars in Craft should be like Homemaker, which is generally useful but not mandatory all the time like Master Gatherer or Plentiful Harvest, and less specific to certain activities like Angler, which you only slot when you are fishing. I like a passive 10% chance to find extra furnishing on my character, I don't like having to respec my entire craft tree or slot certain stars just to do certain activities. Honestly, a lot of the active stars and passive stars should be switched: I am only going to use Meticulous Disassembly when deconstructing or refining, but will always do so, so it should be passive rather than requiring me to slot it in and out, whereas Steadfast Enchantment should probably be a slotted star because if I find it convenient, I will use it all the time instead of only having it be applicable in certain instances. Also, there just needs to be more and better stars, especially passive ones, in the Craft tree in general, it kinda feels depressing to rank up in CP and have that brief moment of excitement to be able to make your character more powerful only to realize that nope, it was a Green point, and it's just going to be 1/50 of the points you need to decrease the time it takes for fish to bite by 25%. But only when slotted.

Runefang

The trouble is that the choice you make is temporary so to optimise you spend time swapping slotted green CPs. Then you're just wasting precious game time swapping said green CPs all the time. Compare that to the Blue CPs where most of the time you're not changing them, which makes it not feel like a chore.

Choices like race, class, attributes etc are much easier to live with. Typically you make them once and never change, either because there's no choice (class) or there is no real difference to worry about (race).

I don't want to waste time optimising a non-combat related part of the game, its that simple really. At least there is Jack Of All Trades to do the work for me.

Seraphayel

Choice matters. Make choices and stick to them or accept the inconvenience and build around it.

If you constantly have to swap your allotted stars, that’s your fault, not the game‘s. The game doesn’t want you to have every bonus at the same time which makes sense. It still allows you to have them though, but it requires tedious work - this is good.

If you’ve got the desire to constantly have the perfect option for every situation, you gotta adjust to it. All the others just pick their stars and live with their choices.

Gythral

[snip]
If you have to take something you should be able to use it - end of!

[Edited to remove Baiting]

Cirantille

Because it is unnecessary hassle since fishing, pickpocketing etc do not give you any advantage in combat

Like I get, in other trees you need to specc if you want to be a healer, tank, dps, pvp you need to respec of course

But there is no rule like healers cant fish good, or dps cant steal better etc

So why bother slotting it each time

These leisure activities used to be about fun & chill now people need to adjust them each time

It is the opposite of chilling

Olauron

Non-combat activities should be balanced on the same principle as combat activities.

Players are directly competing for resource nodes and chests. Movement speed, speed of harvesting, quality of harvesting and loot from chests influence the activity effectiveness the same way as blue stars influence combat effectiveness. In stealing and gathering furnishing plans players don't compete directly, but they compete indirectly in a sense of gathering the most gold per time (by selling to a fence or in a guild store). Stealth, loot quality and quantity, movement speed influence effectiveness the same way as blue stars influence combat effectiveness.

In such cases there should be the same horizontal progression as in blue and red constellations to balance low and high CP players.

Hurbster

Seraphayel wrote: »

Choice matters. Make choices and stick to them or accept the inconvenience and build around it.

If you constantly have to swap your allotted stars, that’s your fault, not the game‘s. The game doesn’t want you to have every bonus at the same time which makes sense. It still allows you to have them though, but it requires tedious work - this is good.

If you’ve got the desire to constantly have the perfect option for every situation, you gotta adjust to it. All the others just pick their stars and live with their choices.

Wrong, it absolutely is the fault of the game.

ZOS_ConnorG

Greetings all,

After review we have had to edit or remove several posts for rule violations, mostly Baiting. Ensure when engaging in a discussion that you keep said discussion civil, constructive, and within the rules. If you see a post that is baiting in nature do not engage it with further hostility and instead report it for the moderators to review.

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GrumpyDuckling

thorwyn wrote: »

Now, when I know that I'm going on a fishing tour, I can still prepare and slot the fishing perk to increase my chances.

You know what would be great? Not having to segment the game into "fishing tours," or farming tours, or thieving tours, or refining tours.

Oh, I'm wandering through a zone and there's some players fishing and I want to join them -- let me pause the game to change up some slottables.
Oh, I entered an area full NPCs I want to pickpocket -- let me pause the game to change up some slottables.
Oh, I'm headed to [x] destination so along the way I'll farm some resource nodes -- let me pause the game to change up some slottables.
Oh, I'm going to refine some items -- let me pause the game to change up some slottables.

Really glad I put all that time into my crafter and thief character -- so I can segment the game to go on "tours" that encourage me to pause the game.

It's not fun.

BlueRaven

I wrote a long post about the green tree and it’s problems with some solutions here;

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/564754/green-craft-tree-problems-and-possible-improvements-long-post

One of the main issues is the situational nature of many of the slotted passives. A section from my post:

“Many of the slot or “active” elements in the craft tree have quite limited uses. This invites a sense of needed micromanagement of what actually has to slotted at any one particular time, even for rather mundane chores.

Professional Upkeep (1-50 CP) is a fine example of this. While powerful and deserving a spot in the green Craft tree, the passive is very situational. The player needs to be at a vendor and repairing, or this slot passive is of no use.

Meticulous Disassembly (50 CP) is another such example. Again a powerful addition to the Craft tree, but only used if the player is at a craft station and is refining. Slotting this item before refining and then taking it off afterwards seems to add an element of needless micromanagement.

Additional examples that are very situational uses is the two fishing passives Angler Instinct (25 CP) and Reel Technique (50CP). While powerful additions, the situational nature of these items makes their need to take up a slot feel pointless.“

DinoZavr

@thorwyn;d-566534

thorwyn wrote: »

Maybe I'm missing something? Please explain and let's try to keep this civil and friendly.

Yes, you are actually missing something.
You are missing the very fact, that discussion concerns the game. The computer game.

Job you do may be annoying, cumbersome, boring, etc. Still you do it not to die from hunger.
Game is what you willingly buy to relax. I don’t find annoying, cumbersome, boring, illogical activities relaxing.
As simple as that. I did my best to be civil and friendly.

Rukia541

Its pretty simple, having to change cp slots for specific activities is just garbage design. Its merely an annoyance and adds no substance to the game, its not really a choice just an inconvenience. It works for combat related buffs but not for the craft tree. If you don't take part in side activities then it probably doesn't effect you which is probably why you aren't bothered by it.

ThorianB

thorwyn wrote: »

I see a lot of threads about this, people are ranting and quitting the game left right and middle and I'm having a hard time understanding what all the fuss is about. To an extend, I a gree that the CP tree is not very well designed and the 30s cooldown (which coincidentally also blocks a certain AddOn) is kinda lame. But at the end of the day, the player is asked to pick the benefits of his choice from a selection of benefits and that's it. To me, it's the same with every CP tree: gain a benefit here, dispense a potential benefit there. In fact, it's the same with almost everything else in the game. Everything you chose, your race, your class, your atributes, everything is a choice of perks and you can never have all the benefits at once. Does it really make a difference for your every-day game wheter or not you have the harvesting perk slotted when you pick up a mushroom? Wouldn't really bother me to be honest. Now, when I know that I'm going on a fishing tour, I can still prepare and slot the fishing perk to increase my chances. Same thing as we used to do before when we had different CP settings for different trials. At the end of the day, all the complaints seem to be much ado about nothing to me.
Maybe I'm missing something? Please explain and let's try to keep this civil and friendly.

1. The paths to get to things are blocked by junk things we have no interest in. So we blow points on things we don't want to get to things we do.
2. Those things we want use to be free perks of obtaining level X. Now they require more levels to acquire the same perks. I am in the 900s and my wife got more perks, pre update, in the 600s than i do in the 900s.
3. Many of us have a character that is a Jack of all trades. Now Jack is... Jack the Juggler because he has to constantly juggle slottables from the green tree.
4. We don't want constantly have to switch slottable passives when we are out farming. The purpose of having a farming character is that they are optimized for farming and mediocre for combat. I don't wear cowards gear and RoWH, so i can stand there and play "Slot Swap Online".

The green tree is absolutely horrible and off-putting. It takes a lot of the fun out of the tasks i normally enjoy and turns them into a tedious slot juggling PITA. They actually managed to make the CP system worse which is really impressive considering it was garbage to being with.

Ilsabet

I'm always a little bemused when I see people saying "but you have to make choices and stick with them and not expect to have everything!"

The system gives me the ability to earn up to 3600 CP by playing the game and earning exp. That's a lot of CP.

The system also gives me the ability to invest my earned CP into perks that will be useful in various activities (such as gathering materials, opening treasure chests, fishing, or stealing). With all the CP I can earn, I can invest in a lot of perks.

The system also gives me the ability to swap my perks so that I can choose what I have active at any given time.

The only real aspect where you have to make choices and have trade-offs is in the limitation on the number of perks you can have slotted at any given time. And that is something that the swap mechanic gives me the ability to work around.

So the entire system is designed so that I can unlock many useful perks and not be confined to only ever using a few of them.

The problem is that the swap mechanic is itself an inconvenient mechanism that takes time out of playing the game and involves a clumsy process of going into the CP interface and finding what you want and replacing something you already have slotted and then remembering to go back and change it the next time you want something different, which might be as soon as you finish doing the thing you just got done slotting the perk for.

Is it the end of the world? No, not really. Is it kind of lame to give us a highly beneficial and adaptable system and then make it an unnecessary pain in the butt to use it? Fo sho. And the fact that some people's response to the inconvenience of using the system to its fullest extent is just to not use the system to its fullest extent is actually more of an indication that the inconvenience is a significant flaw in the system and not something to just be hand-waved away as an excuse for greedy whiners to whine.

Tedious isn't good. Not when we're talking about the simple day-to-day nuts and bolts of playing the game.

So really just give us loadout buttons and a lot of these problems would go away.

virtus753

Ilsabet wrote: »

So really just give us loadout buttons and a lot of these problems would go away.

The cooldown would also have to be modified for loadouts to work effectively. It’s easily possible for many players to swap stars manually in much less than 30 seconds, so that’s just artificially extending the tediousness.

Really puts the Endless in Endless Swappables Online.

If the cooldown was truly implemented to alleviate server performance concerns, then I expect it to be reduced or removed by the time the new servers come. Otherwise we’ll be fully justified in thinking that they chose to stand by their hardware limitations to the detriment of the playing experience.