ZOS, you need to reach out to one of your employees on the Antiquities team.

Firstmep

kargen27 wrote: »

Firstmep wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

The antiquity system was designed to get players to go back to a variety of older content along with the new content. Of course there is going to be a variety of content where leads can be found. Shadowfen was a debacle because players made it so.

Sorry but hard disagree.

They released the new BIS pve dps item and expect people not to try and get it asap?

And even then there is 0 reason to put inside shared nodes.
This was an issue in Markarth too, and frankly even in Greymoor.
They are fully responsible for creating another contentious and toxic situation, period.

They could've made these leads more rare, but put them in places where people don't have to compete with one another in a freaking pve zone.

This a video game, not a job.
These leads should've had their own quest lines to achieve, or you know anything that's more fun than sitting in front of flowers for 20h straight and yelling at strangers not to touch said flowers.
How anyone can defend the devs on this one is truly mind boggling to me.

And before any forum mods get too excited, I'm not hurdling any insults at any devs, this is just plain criticism.

You are correct. This is a game and not a job. It is on you if you decide to treat it like work by grinding. People get in a rush and want everything right now. Some are complaining about leads not coming quick enough. Some are complaining about motifs not coming fast enough. Some are complaining about how long it takes to get the fishing achievement. Players wanting instant gratification isn't a game flaw.

I don't think you get my point.
It's not about the reward, it's about the journey to get there is full, boring and in this case creates a toxic environment.
Grinding the smallest public dungeons for 8 hours a day to get an item is not fun.
And sure you can say no one is forcing you to do that, but you also cannot fault people for wanting to get those rewards.
It is squarely on ZOS, to ensure that the experience is fun and not grueling or boring.

And franky it doesnt matter how much we grind for these items, or if we "take our time" or whatever, getting some of these leads is still going to feel boring and dull, and painful. And thats my point it shouldnt be.

As for the wading kit lead, thats just ZOS having 0 foresight, the same happened in Markarth too when they put the Nighthollow keep lead to public access. Reality is, there is no reason to actually do that as it creates unnecessary friction between players.

There are better ways to extend the aquisiton of these items, then to pit players aganist each other.

Coatmagic

Dalsinthus wrote: »

Agree so much. And there were signs of this last patch. You mentioned ancestral reach but the pet was also a nightmare. 7 leads all from one location and one type of ad.

gotten one lead, ONE. it's disgusting. really.

Idinuse

CGPsaint wrote: »

Wait a minute. So you're saying that you're not interested in farming for hours hoping for a treasure map to drop for the right zone, in the hopes that said treasure map will drop a lead, and then in the hopes that said lead will not be a duplicate lead? Thus far I've dug up countless treasure maps, and have completed 8 of the 14 leads for the Ancestral Reach style. I told myself that if I got one more dagger lead, that I was done, and guess what... I got another dagger lead. Since day 1, I've pulled maybe 2-3 of the appropriate treasure maps, and otherwise have had to rely on purchasing from guild traders because I can't be bothered to farm Harrowstorms like it's my job and hoping I'll get treasure maps. At this point though, people are listing the maps for 20K-60K each, and that's just not happening. I mean seriously, who doesn't like an aspect of the game that relies on RNG, coupled with a secondary dose of RNG, followed by a chaser or RNG. Horribly thought out and not worth my time.

While mechanics like this inevitably temporarily increases activity and traffic in these zones and on those activities like DSA, ZOS should rest assured (and it should be obvious from their Data) that we the players, due to the abysmal RNG and long grind mind you, will not enter or do that again ever as soon as we got what we painfully grinded for. Ever. No way. With a far more reward RNG however, this might not have to be the case.

There's this expression about taking a saw to the branch you're sitting on...




Edit: The saddest thing is that Death Dealer's Fete is destined for a nerf so big you will wish you could decon it. Just like they did with the Thrassian Stranglers.

code65536

mzprx wrote: »

Brrrofski wrote: »

...Dragonstar arena though. Yes, you can solo, but it's so long on even on normal. A good 40 minutes...

can you, though? how do you get past the graveyard arena? 'cause when you go down and there's no one alive on the top the arena resets. how do you get past that mechanic? i'm just curious..

@mzprx There's no shade to kill on normal. So there's no need to ever go downstairs on normal.

lillybit

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

The antiquity system was designed to get players to go back to a variety of older content along with the new content. Of course there is going to be a variety of content where leads can be found. Shadowfen was a debacle because players made it so.

I agree, and would add that most rewards which drop based on RNG aren't designed to be obtained right away, the way that most players want them to be. The idea is that they give you a reason to keep playing the game and that it should take you a while to obtain things.

This goes for the single-player games, too. For instance, if you're into buying every available player house, then be prepared to spend a lot of time grinding for the gold needed to buy the houses and furnish them, including any quests to satisfy all of the prerequisites for buying a particular house. If it was intended that you should be able to just buy all of the houses toot sweet, the houses wouldn't have any prerequisites for ownership and wouldn't cost so much to buy and furnish.

Similarly, if it were intended that you could just acquire a particular mythic antiquity, it wouldn't be broken up into fragments where each fragment's lead is potentially so difficult to get.

It's funny how some players will race through a new chapter's or DLC's content in a matter of hours (or, at least, claim to), then complain that they were able to do so. But give them something that's designed to take, on average, much longer than a few hours to obtain, and they compkain that they can't obtain it fast enough. Go figure.

There's a big difference between playing an MMO and a single player game.

Solo games are a journey from A (new player) to B (completion) and unlocking the houses are part of it. If you have everything done for you there's no game left.

ESO doesn't work like that, you don't need to do everything to experience the game how you want. Things like collecting mythics are things you do before you play the game you want, whether that's PvP, dungeons and trials, housing or whatever.

Having an insane grind on these things doesn't do anything to enhance the game for a lot of people. It actually has the opposite effect of driving them away. It's the equivalent of making people spend 40h playing Oblivion before they can start Skyrim. Worse than that, it's making people play GTA before they can play Skyrim!

I get that they want to encourage people to play other content but adding in horrible RNG that forces people to spend hours/days/weeks doing things they actively hate is not the way to do it.

Also, there's a difference between meaningful content and mindless grinding. Adding RNG to artificially extend the time you spend on content is just lazy and frankly insulting. They had a choice between writing meaningful content to unlock leads and just locking it behind stupid grinds that nobody likes - and it surprised nobody the way they went.

redlink1979

B0SSzombie wrote: »

(...) Clearly they're having a rough time, and their work reflects that.

Or maybe, just maybe, the lead drops are working as intented...

lillybit

redlink1979 wrote: »

B0SSzombie wrote: »

(...) Clearly they're having a rough time, and their work reflects that.

Or maybe, just maybe, the lead drops are working as intented...

In that case maybe we should be asking why they hate their players so much

Peppo_Lives

from a codex completionist perspective, the situation isn't better either XD finding all mythics 3 times, isn't exactly fun also the 30days limit on first excavation should be removed, imho

redlink1979

lillybit wrote: »

In that case maybe we should be asking why they hate their players so much

I know, and I agree, that some items would be better to be less grindier to obtain. But in MMO's things were/are/will be always designed to keep players around. ZOS follows that pattern.

ghost_bg_ESO

I can thank zos for lead locations, i don't even have to bother with them.
As a solo player i can't say i need them, and again as a solo player there is in every new mythic lead that will be close to impossible and hard NO for 20 runs.

lillybit

redlink1979 wrote: »

lillybit wrote: »

In that case maybe we should be asking why they hate their players so much

I know, and I agree, that some items would be better to be less grindier to obtain. But in MMO's things were/are/will be always designed to keep players around. ZOS follows that pattern.

I've said it before, they should have more faith in their game and their players. In the most part they've created a fantastic game that people actually want to play - we do it in spite of the rage-incucing grinds they add in to force us to do what they want instead of what we enjoy. Without them we'd still play but be happier doing it!

Sambucca1973

My heart goes out to the completionists.

Don’t we need to find an antiquity three times to complete the Codex entry for that item? Considering the ones with multiple leads (like the dwarven mount), then adding in very rare drops from specific nodes or dungeons, it would be infuriating.

Kiralyn2000

Alucardo wrote: »

tenryuta wrote: »

shouldnt the complaint be having to go to imp city for the 2 mythic leads?(everything meh compared to those 2)

Hell naw. Giving people a reason to go to IC should never be frowned upon.

There is literally nothing they could put into IC (or Cyro) to get me to go there. It could award 1000 crowns, and I wouldn't.

Peppo_Lives

Sambucca1973 wrote: »

My heart goes out to the completionists.

Don’t we need to find an antiquity three times to complete the Codex entry for that item? Considering the ones with multiple leads (like the dwarven mount), then adding in very rare drops from specific nodes or dungeons, it would be infuriating.

Thanks man much appreciated multiple lead/pieces for collectibles aren't really a problem, imho (annoying? yes but still tolerable...besides, a little effort should be in order).....3 codex entries per piece really test patience (mythics and cyro lancers i'm looking at you )

cptqrk

Supertonicbaker wrote: »

This. It would have been great if they worked antiquities differently, like, you kill a random mob and in that Blackguard Marauder, you found a note that says: “Spoke to someone who claimed there could be something worth its weight in gold stashed in Arx Corinium. Before gutting them, said something about a giant lizard? That’s on your end -Ugglog”. And then, when you go, you fight that giant electrolizard and he drops nothing! But wait…. There’s an odd shaped mound near the waterfalls. What’s this? A lead that you didn’t have to farm 3 years for!! And this is just a basic one, maybe you could have mythics be a puzzle from Rajhin after “stealing” your lead. Idk, actually use the game’s world than just saying “Ehh…. Let’s just make it nearly impossible to find and move on.”

Here's the thing tho'

The first step in the example is RNG...
After that, it would be like every other quest in the game, look up a guide

Step 1 cross your fingers for RNG
Step 2 follow guide to go to x and talk to y until you get the lead.

While yes, it would be 'nice' for people who love the quests and read/listen to all the dialog, it would turn into Step 2 very quickly, and people would complain it was too easy or boring...

People just like to complain.

AlnilamE

All the people that think RNG is the wrong way to do this, would you rather ZOS just put all the leads at a vendor for 1 million gold each? 100 undaunted keys? 100k Tel Var?

They put the leads in a variety of content. If it's content you like, you'll get it multiple times without even trying. If it's content you don't like, it will be a grind.

But "content you like" and "content you don't like" varies from player to player. So in this very thread, you see people complaining about the leads in IC bosses and people thinking those are a great place to put leads.

Some people use the Void Crystal Anomaly to level scrying, meanwhile, I have a whole bunch of them just from gathering from the wayshrine to the bank in Hollow City.

It's each player's choice how they approach it, and with the sticker book, you really only need to get each mythic once.

jle30303

I don't mind most leads. The Bad Mans Hallows trash mob lead is annoying, but at least you know what you'll eventually be getting for it.

The Ancestral Orc, Nord and Elf leads are more annoying, because there's *two* that can drop from any given treasure chest, and if you keep on getting the wrong one and not the right one, it gets really frustrating. (Khenarthi's Roost is particularly egregious in this, because the fact that the Dominion have only one newbie area rather than two means that ALL FOUR leads drop from maps in just one zone. So far I have three or four leads EACH of three of the Ancestral High Elf motifs from Khenarthi's Roost, but none of the fourth. Opening a KR chest and getting a motif I already have, instead of the one I'm missing, is severely annoying - frankly it's worse than opening a chest and getting no motif at all.

And then you get the Ancestral Reach motifs.

Not two. Not even three or four. FOURTEEN of them. All with a number of sources - treasure maps from Skyrim, Blackreach (both halves, do they have separate treasure maps for Blackreach Greymoor and Blackreach Arkthzand?) and The Reach... but each map has only a small chance of giving you a lead at all, and then there are an entire fourteen of them that it could give you, AND IT CAN GIVE YOU DUPLICATES.

Then you get the newest ones (Ancestral Akavir?) in Blackwood. Once again, FOURTEEN possible motifs... this time with only one source, treasure maps for Blackwood... and the more you get, the greater chance of getting a duplicate that you already have, instead of the one you actually want.

"But you can trade the motifs", I hear you say. Yes, you can, and you can complete the crafting motifs this way... but the antiquity factoids about them are not tradable. Thank goodness there is only one factoid for each antiquity motif part.

This is what is wrong with the Ancestral Reach, Ancestral Akaviri and to a lesser extent even the Ancestral High Elf, Orc and Nord antiquity motifs.

CGPsaint

kargen27 wrote: »

You are correct. This is a game and not a job. It is on you if you decide to treat it like work by grinding. People get in a rush and want everything right now. Some are complaining about leads not coming quick enough. Some are complaining about motifs not coming fast enough. Some are complaining about how long it takes to get the fishing achievement. Players wanting instant gratification isn't a game flaw.

I've been farming CoH2 regularly since the last mythic items were added and I still haven't gotten the Great Eltheric Pearl lead there after countless runs. I'm not treating this like a job, but I can also tell you that running ANY content 40-50 times and not getting the item that everyone else in my group got after a handful of runs, is just plain rubbish. The Ancestral Reach leads are another prime example. I'm not looking to unlock all 14 pages in a day, but I've already dug up well over 150 maps and can't really be bothered to continue that grind. I have literally dug up 9 chests in a row without a lead, and at this point IF I do get a lead, it's generally going to be daggers. I'm not farming to sell. I just want to complete the leads. IT SHOULDN'T BE THIS MUCH OF A GRIND. Period.

RevJJ

What I did, and what worked for me, regarding the ancestral motif leads from base game maps:

- when you get a lead for a motif you already have, leave it open
- Dig up more treasures while the lead is open

You can’t get double leads, so if you do get a lead it’s going to be one you don’t have.

More difficult for Khenarthi’s Roost and probably useless for Markarth and Blackwood since there’s so many in one zone but with limited ones it’s doable.

B0SSzombie

RevJJ wrote: »

What I did, and what worked for me, regarding the ancestral motif leads from base game maps:

- when you get a lead for a motif you already have, leave it open
- Dig up more treasures while the lead is open

You can’t get double leads, so if you do get a lead it’s going to be one you don’t have.

More difficult for Khenarthi’s Roost and probably useless for Markarth and Blackwood since there’s so many in one zone but with limited ones it’s doable.

What happens there is that if you were going to get a duplicate of a lead you already have active, it simply doesn't drop anything, instead of rolling a different one.

Similar system to Battlegrounds drops.

Sylvermynx

I think you can't really dump this on some employee as at fault. I'm going to bet it's a dev decision, and the employee you're targeting just did what she was told.

efster

Here's some anecdata.

Since the antiquities system came out, I have refused to look up any leads, so the only knowledge I have of lead locations is based on what I have personally found and the occasional spoiler that I didn't look for. I've played all manner content on about five characters - fishing, farming, story quests, dungeons, trials, arenas.

I completed my first mythic item (Wild Hunt Ring) two days ago.

fall0athboy

Ippokrates wrote: »

The real missed opportunity ZOS made to encourage players to "return to old content" was not putting a lead in Arx Corinium... XD

But seriosly, if you want to make a lead obtainable from one & one only source, especially involving things like killing boss. Bigger than usual. In pvp area fulled with people without any form of courtesy or honour who would attack you from behind just to feel important and touch themselves, you should have RNG at least at 100%.

Normal bosses could have 50% - two trips is enough.

But if you want to keep on 1%, leads should drop from many sources, because no one in the right mind would repeat the same action hundred times & be happy about that - look at Shadowfen, if instead of freaking nodes, lead would drop also from things like chests, bosses, mobs or QUESTS or bookshelfs, situation would not be so dramatic.

Not mentioning introduction things like lead drop to ALL group members.

Nest of Shadows furnishing is only found at the Arx Corinium final boss.

Lugaldu

When the antiquity system came out, I also started to specifically farm leads at first, but it quickly became too annoying for me. If you wait 50 times for the same boss and still don't get the lead, then this has nothing to do anymore with fun. This hunt for certain leads is madness and if you only have 1 hour a day to play, then nothing remains of the game. So for me there is only one solution, to just ignore certain leads / items. And if, by chance, a lead drops, then I can be happy. But that doesn't usually happen either.

Iluvrien

AlnilamE wrote: »

All the people that think RNG is the wrong way to do this, would you rather ZOS just put all the leads at a vendor for 1 million gold each? 100 undaunted keys? 100k Tel Var?

They put the leads in a variety of content. If it's content you like, you'll get it multiple times without even trying. If it's content you don't like, it will be a grind.

I think this is where my fundamental disconnect is with ZOS's approach to this and some players' view of it.

I don't think that leads should be in content, I think that finding leads should be content.

Without giving away too many spoilers, Mirri's companion quest is actually a good example of how this could be done very well indeed. ZOS has now proved that they can do things in this fashion. They chose not to.

Amottica

gamergirldk wrote: »

I freakink hate they lock lead behind non solo group content.. Was Antiquities designed to be a solo thing ppl do to pass time with. ?

Judging by the various activities involved it seems it was designed to get us into a variety of activities, both solo, and group. Heck, I have seen some leads are even in PvP.

Skjoldur

DaiKahn wrote: »

Disagree. I like you have to actually work for things, if you actually want them

A massive problem it seems is that most people want everything right now. No, not right now, that's too slow, RIGHT NOW

Considering websites put up articles ASAP like:

• "Get Mythics super quick!"
• "Level super fast, faster than ever before!"
• "Be the super-bestest at everything RIGHT NAO!"
• et al

which takes any real effort out of the player, are you surprised ZoS is trying to slow people down? Especially for some items that are apparently so good they render other items [monster sets] "useless"?

People also avoid some places (PvP, arenas) so mayhaps ZoS is trying to entice players to seek these places out cause, you know, they might actually like them

Even in a few months it's a horrible activity. Picking flowers in the same zone for such a long time instead of playing and enjoying the game is just bad. I would have preferred nice questlines, yes, but I would have been okay with something that I could do from time to time while actually playing. Had they put the lead in all water plants in all zones, that would have been an immense improvement.

Skjoldur

kargen27 wrote: »

Firstmep wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

The antiquity system was designed to get players to go back to a variety of older content along with the new content. Of course there is going to be a variety of content where leads can be found. Shadowfen was a debacle because players made it so.

Sorry but hard disagree.

They released the new BIS pve dps item and expect people not to try and get it asap?

And even then there is 0 reason to put inside shared nodes.
This was an issue in Markarth too, and frankly even in Greymoor.
They are fully responsible for creating another contentious and toxic situation, period.

They could've made these leads more rare, but put them in places where people don't have to compete with one another in a freaking pve zone.

This a video game, not a job.
These leads should've had their own quest lines to achieve, or you know anything that's more fun than sitting in front of flowers for 20h straight and yelling at strangers not to touch said flowers.
How anyone can defend the devs on this one is truly mind boggling to me.

And before any forum mods get too excited, I'm not hurdling any insults at any devs, this is just plain criticism.

You are correct. This is a game and not a job. It is on you if you decide to treat it like work by grinding. People get in a rush and want everything right now. Some are complaining about leads not coming quick enough. Some are complaining about motifs not coming fast enough. Some are complaining about how long it takes to get the fishing achievement. Players wanting instant gratification isn't a game flaw.

Stop defending low quality and [snip]

Some impatient players might want it right now because it gives them an advantage or they are wired like you said, but there likely is a ton of players who have had enough of disrespectful, time wasting "content" in games that are supposed to be fun after 15+ years of MMOs.

Instead of running dungeons, questing or whatever people do for fun, one gets pulled out of the game, confined to a single area to pick flowers. [snip]

I remember killing mobs in a small area for a whole week only to get a weapon enchantment in Burning Crusade 13 or so years ago and I didn't mind, but that was MMO stone age.

For all I care it could take weeks to get the lead, but not if it stays like this. Today I expect more.

[edited for bashing & profanity bypass]

seldomseenkd

The antiquity system is ultimately designed to be as tedious as possible so when leads are finally added to the crown store players will gladly hand over their cash and say thank you.

It does not encourage players to revisit old content, it encourages players to engage in mind-numbingly dull, bottom-of-the-barrel content in locations they have previously visited. It does not gate rewards behind achievement because there's nothing hard or engaging about standing in a swamp for hours or killing the same 3 snakes over and over again in cave.

It's just arbitrary hoop jumping that's completely devoid of any imagination.

DaiKahn

Skjoldur wrote: »

Even in a few months it's a horrible activity. Picking flowers in the same zone for such a long time instead of playing and enjoying the game is just bad. I would have preferred nice questlines, yes, but I would have been okay with something that I could do from time to time while actually playing

I'm hoping you saw my response to Tsar_Gekkou on this similar point, but I'll happily repeat it here just in case:

"For me, yes, if I didn't get it today, I will try again tomorrow; I'm in no hurry as this is a long-term game for me. I also spice it up by doing other things in-game instead of being so hyper-focused on one thing that it agitates me because I'm only doing that one thing and not getting satisfaction"

This is key with many of the things in this game and others; people get hyper-focused on something they really want, get disappointed others are getting it and/or they aren't, then it goes downhill from there. It's similar to burnout. Step away for even just a bit to let your mind and feeling rest Go do some dungeons, mix with friends, help new players in your Guild or in chat. Just something to help ease that frustration or dislike

Had they put the lead in all water plants in all zones, that would have been an immense improvement

That would certainly ease the annoyance for many, but why do you think ZoS made the lead only available from certain things in Shadowfen? There are many views out there on this, mine included in the post you responded to