Can't pick up my alchemy writs.

ashes7169_ESO

I couldn't pick up alchemy writs today on any of my characters. I thought I was experiencing a bug. I know in the long run, I'm going to open a lot of boxes. But I missed out on 36 boxes today. I normally do a lot of crafting even without the event, but I missed out on a lot of extra chances to get more items.

I'd really like my chances to get those items because the spider parts drop rate is pretty ridiculous, and I am not getting nearly as many good items as I usually do.

SeaGtGruff

I wasn't aware that there was a problem related to Alchemy writs before the patch, because they always worked as expected for me. What exactly was this "issue" which apparently enough people complained about until ZOS decided that it needed to be "fixed"? Not that it's going to kill me to lose out on 6 Alchemy writs today because I hadn't done yesterday's on those 6 characters yet, but I'm curious if this pre-patch "problem" that got "fixed" was worth breaking Alchemy writs for?

BlossomDead

Why is this such a big issue? I do think you should be able to only turn in daily quests on the same day, all writs should behave like that. If you cannot commit to the timeline, you can play when you have the time to spare.

Surely you wouldn't want people who have abused the system to continue to do so and flip the prices even further. I'd like to see what additional steps have been taken, including removing whatever amount of extra gold was generated through this exploit.

By reading these replies it looks like some offenders are upset they got caught with their antics.

JoeCapricorn

@ZOS_GinaBruno

Something was broken, not fixed. I can't get alchemy writs on any of my characters if they didn't turn in yesterday's writ.

I am going to test the system on one character to see if this is a recurring issue.

For now I will report it as a bug on all characters affected.

SeaGtGruff

I'm not sure what you mean by "exploit" and "abused." Just about every daily repeatable quest in the game has always worked the way the other crafting writs still do-- if you're crunched for time, you can pick up a daily quest before reset, then complete it and turn it in after reset, and still get the next day's repeatable quest as well. If that's supposed to be some kind of "exploit" that was being "abused," then why weren't all of the other repeatable quests in the game modified in whatever way Alchemy writs were? Your accusation and choice of words makes no sense at all to me.

Daily Mages Guild quest? Pick up today's, do it tomorrow if you can't do it today, then pick up tomorrow's as well.

Daily Fighters Guild quest? Pick up today's, do it tomorrow, then pick up tomorrow's as usual.

Daily Undaunted quests? Same thing as above.

Daily zone quests? Same thing as above.

I think the only dailies that I'm aware of which could not be turned in the next day and then picked up again are the Imperial City district dailies, and that's because you can do all 6 each day, then the next day you can do all 6 again-- that is, they are not on a scheduled rotation the way crafting writs, Undaunted quests, and most other repeatable quests are, so for the Imperial City quests it's like every day is that oddball day when you turn in an old crafting writ from days ago and then find you can't get a new one that day because the writ for that day is the same as the one you just turned in from some past day.

Why were all of those other dailies not "exploit-proofed" to also behave the way Alchemy writs now do?

The way the patch notes are worded, interpreting it to mean that a character shouldn't be able to do a prior day's writs, turn them in, and pick up today's writs just flies contrary to the way all of the other daily quests currently still work and have always worked, so that interpretation doesn't make much sense to me because it fails to explain why Alchemy writs are some sort of special case that needed to be addressed whereas all of the other repeatable dailies were fine and dandy as they were and still are.

JoeCapricorn

Further testing:

I had a character with Alchemy Writ picked up from Yesterday. It was Damage Magicka IX and Violet Coprinus.

I abandoned the quest and was able to pick up an Alchemy Writ for today.

Today's writ is Damage Health Poison IX and Nightshade. In other words, the normal cadence of the 8 quest Alchemy Writ cycle.

So it seems very likely, unfortunately, that the game considers ALL possible Alchemy writs completed when one from ANY past day is turned in.


This is not how dailies are supposed to work. A hotfix should be implemented ASAP

Cuddlypuff

Technically it can be "abused" because only alchemy writs could be picked up after respeccing craft levels. This has been how the game worked in the 2 years that I have played it - it's nothing new. As someone above pointed out, only the addition of armoury could possibly make this remotely worth the effort. Never tried it myself so not sure if you can only do it an extra time or even up to 7 times for each unique level of alchemy writs.

Even if one was to "exploit" this and assuming it can be done 8 times for every alchemy level, it would require all writs to be done first, followed by a respec to alchemy L0, followed by grabbing quest from writ board, going to alchemy table, going to turn in, increasing alchemy level by 1, then repeating 6 more times. Might be worth doing if you have 1 writ crafter toon only, but definitely pointless if you have 18-36 toons to do writs on.

SeaGtGruff

CasgarTheSomnolent wrote: »

This is to staunch the bleeding on a situation we discovered where <clearly explain whatever the hell is the problem>. This was something we overlooked in designing the armory system, and we need some time to determine how to tweak that system to contain the issue.

I know you weren't giving an actual quote, but what do Alchemy writs-- or any other crafting writs-- have to do with the Armory system? Was there some sort of bug that allowed players to do multiple writs from the same day by changing their builds so their characters were at a different Alchemy skill level and were then able to pick up another daily Alchemy writ for that other Alchemy skill level? That would be bad, and should certainly be patched, but I still don't understand why the other crafting writs weren't affected-- either by the presumed bug, or by its drastic "fix."

doesurmindglow

Cuddlypuff wrote: »

Technically it can be "abused" because only alchemy writs could be picked up after respeccing craft levels. This has been how the game worked in the 2 years that I have played it - it's nothing new. As someone above pointed out, only the addition of armoury could possibly make this remotely worth the effort. Never tried it myself so not sure if you can only do it an extra time or even up to 7 times for each unique level of alchemy writs.

Even if one was to "exploit" this and assuming it can be done 8 times for every alchemy level, it would require all writs to be done first, followed by a respec to alchemy L0, followed by grabbing quest from writ board, going to alchemy table, going to turn in, increasing alchemy level by 1, then repeating 6 more times. Might be worth doing if you have 1 writ crafter toon only, but definitely pointless if you have 18-36 toons to do writs on.

Yeah interesting insights; though I'm also in agreement, of all the problems in the game, I'm having a hard time seeing why an "exploit" where someone cheeses the armory system to get themselves more daily writs than they're technically allowed is worth really any development time.

Even so, the patch should not have removed the ability for players to "stack" the quests from the previous day. It should've just made it so you can't do anything more than that, as is the case with literally. every. other. type. of. writ.

fizl101

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

CasgarTheSomnolent wrote: »

This is to staunch the bleeding on a situation we discovered where <clearly explain whatever the hell is the problem>. This was something we overlooked in designing the armory system, and we need some time to determine how to tweak that system to contain the issue.

I know you weren't giving an actual quote, but what do Alchemy writs-- or any other crafting writs-- have to do with the Armory system? Was there some sort of bug that allowed players to do multiple writs from the same day by changing their builds so their characters were at a different Alchemy skill level and were then able to pick up another daily Alchemy writ for that other Alchemy skill level? That would be bad, and should certainly be patched, but I still don't understand why the other crafting writs weren't affected-- either by the presumed bug, or by its drastic "fix."

Yes, I saw it by swapping builds in the armory, I would see the alchemy writ available even if I had already done it that day. It only affected alchemy, no idea why

doesurmindglow

What's wild about this change is that alchemy writs are singled out from all the rest of the crafting writs, which are unchanged and can be done the day after they're collected just like many players always have.

Why are they different? If we're going to make it so you must do your crafting writs on the same day you collect them, which in my opinion is still a bad idea, why wouldn't that same rule apply to all of them? This is all very silly.

SeaGtGruff

Okay, so the workaround (or else the adjustment to the new normal) is that if you're crunched for time, pick up your crafting writs before reset as usual but be certain to do the Alchemy writ and turn it in right away, unless you don't care that you'll miss out on the next day's Alchemy writ if you wait until after reset to do it and turn it in.

If this bug has been around since long before the Armory system-- after all, anyone can respec by going to a shrine-- then it's odd that now it suddenly got "fixed" (albeit in a broken way). Someone, or group of someones, must have started using their Armory builds and Armory assistant to exploit that bug in a major way for it to suddenly become so important to "fix" it.

I'm glad the exploit got dealt with, and while I'd have preferred that the "fix" not be so simplistic and drastic in its logic, I'm not that worried about losing out on a few Alchemy writs, especially now that I know to be sure to do them on the day of if they're really that important to me.

The main thing for me was wanting to understand why the change was made at all, and why it was made only to Alchemy.

doesurmindglow

Yea I mean that's a solid workaround, not hard to implement as most crafters make the required alchemy products in full stacks and just pick them up and turn in.

The bigger and more concerning issue is more just how this whole episode kinda further exposes bizarre inconsistencies of the game's systems, generally speaking, such that one crafting profession's writs are handled one way and every other profession in a significantly different way; and that essentially the change leaves it like that and just patches over whatever was allowing the exploit in the one exceptional case.

phaneub17_ESO

Since they "fixed" the exploit, here's how it works. You first set one of your Armory slots saved with 1/8 Alchemy and 1/6 Cooking. You do the daily writ quest for that that 1/8 and 1/6 cooking, turn it in, then put a skill point bringing it to 2/8 Alchemy and 2/6 Cooking, a NEW daily consumable Writ pops up. If you have the resources, you can do up to 8 Alchemy and 6 Cooking Daily Writ quests per character then using the Armory Station to reset back down to 1 the next day and repeat.

Before the Armory Station this was a time consuming and wasteful to constantly use a shrine that it would never be worth the gold to respec, now that its free and can be done in an instant, it has become a problem. The fix appears to have made it where if a character has done 1 Alchemy writ quest, it locks out all others in the process so you're no longer able to do all 8 every day; the new problem is that if you're holding onto past day alchemy writ quests it applies to those too so you can only do 1 Alchemy daily writ a day, period.

ApoAlaia

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Okay, so the workaround (or else the adjustment to the new normal) is that if you're crunched for time, pick up your crafting writs before reset as usual but be certain to do the Alchemy writ and turn it in right away, unless you don't care that you'll miss out on the next day's Alchemy writ if you wait until after reset to do it and turn it in.

If this bug has been around since long before the Armory system-- after all, anyone can respec by going to a shrine-- then it's odd that now it suddenly got "fixed" (albeit in a broken way). Someone, or group of someones, must have started using their Armory builds and Armory assistant to exploit that bug in a major way for it to suddenly become so important to "fix" it.

I'm glad the exploit got dealt with, and while I'd have preferred that the "fix" not be so simplistic and drastic in its logic, I'm not that worried about losing out on a few Alchemy writs, especially now that I know to be sure to do them on the day of if they're really that important to me.

The main thing for me was wanting to understand why the change was made at all, and why it was made only to Alchemy.

I'm also concerned that - as I expressed earlier in the thread - they might apply this behaviour to all daily quests rather than just the alchemy daily writs; it could be simpler than altering the alchemy daily writs in such fashion that the exploit is prevented yet they behave in line with how the rest of the daily quests currently do (and alchemy daily writs used to do before the patch).

They can always say that 'the behaviour was never intended' [being able to pick the daily quests to hand in the following day and immediately get offered the ones for the day] and now everything has been 'made consistent' and there is very little anyone can do about that.

I mean they went ahead and pulled the switcheroo with the MA perfected weapons; after that choice I would not put anything past them, however outrageous it may sound.

heinousmoz

There was an original bug that was there for years which they didn't care about. The bug was amplified with the release of the amoury system which they still didn't care about enough to fix. Anniversary has now started and like others I can only assume that it's being expoited enough that ZOS suddenly care enough to do something about it.

I just wish they'd have gone back and fixed the original spaghetti programming instead of breaking the system for everyone else in the game that was using the funtion normally (the number of which likely far outstrips the people abusing it).

Also where are the rash of warnings and ban hammers for those exploiting it if if was that important? ZOS have come down harder on others for doing less...

EF321

heinousmoz wrote: »

Also where are the rash of warnings and ban hammers for those exploiting it if if was that important? ZOS have come down harder on others for doing less...

This exploit is too easy to come across "naturally", since having crafter profile and combat profile with no points in crafting in armory is very normal for alts who don't have massive amount of skill points. You don't have to do anything overly specific.

heinousmoz

I guess my brand of scrcasm doesn't come across in the written form xD

ZoLatKam

CasgarTheSomnolent wrote: »

*sigh* Permanently punishing the overwhelming majority of people that login daily or every other day EXACTLY AS ZOS WANTS US TO to do daily writs to stop a few people gaming the system.

Here's the proper way to handle this:

"As a temporary measure, we've made it so that alchemy writs can only be turned in on a daily basis and cannot be carried over to the next day like other writs. This is to staunch the bleeding on a situation we discovered where <clearly explain whatever the hell is the problem>. This was something we overlooked in designing the armory system, and we need some time to determine how to tweak that system to contain the issue. Once that has been solved, alchemy writs will return to normal operation. We know this is a major pain for many people, especially during an event where doing writs is so encouraged. To partially make it up to everyone, we're giving out five 150% crown experience scrolls and a special anniversary box that has the contents of 7 anniversary boxes. We apologize for this this."

I know that's not gonna happen, but I think it checks all the boxes of accountability, containment of the issue, transparency, and compensation while still being a compromise in line with similar things ZOS has done in the past.

@ZOS_GinaBruno ^^This^^.

This suggestion or something extremely similar needs to happen - Actually, rather than Never.

Zulera301

Law of Equivalent Exchange. For every one thing they fix, they must break at least two others.

Arunei

BlossomDead wrote: »

Why is this such a big issue? I do think you should be able to only turn in daily quests on the same day, all writs should behave like that. If you cannot commit to the timeline, you can play when you have the time to spare.

Surely you wouldn't want people who have abused the system to continue to do so and flip the prices even further. I'd like to see what additional steps have been taken, including removing whatever amount of extra gold was generated through this exploit.

By reading these replies it looks like some offenders are upset they got caught with their antics.

And why should they all behave that way? You do realize you're still doing two days' worth of writs and not getting extra rewards, right? What does it matter if someone turns in a writ the day they pick it up or the next day? It's still the exact same number of rewards either way.

And Gods forbid people might have a real life that where unexpected issues could pop up! Surely those people who can't take the same exact amount of time to do something regardless of what day they actually do it can't be expected to play the game! Why is it any of your business what people spend their time doing? It's a game, not a second job that people are stealing time on. And here's the main point again, so you can't miss it: it takes the same amount of time regardless. Grabbing writs on Tuesday to do and turn in Wednesday and then doing Wednesday's takes the same amount of time as doing them separately, but sometimes people might not have that time to spend doing Tuesday's on Tuesday, or just maybe their schedule makes it easier to pick up Day A's set of writs and then do them on Day B along with Day B's. Gods forbid someone play the game in a way that fits their schedule.

What abuse and flipping are you even talking about? People who abused the ACTUAL exploit will be punished, as always happens when this sort of thing occurs. But there's no flipping and abuse for the system allowing people to hand in two days' worth of writs while getting the exact same number of rewards as they'd have gotten for doing them on each day.

The people here who are upset aren't people that abused the exploit, they're people whose way of playing has been negatively impacted by a change that's either having unintended consequences or was implemented on purpose. You're just trying to invalidate their frustration as just people who are mad they can't use an exploit any more.

SeaGtGruff

heinousmoz wrote: »

There was an original bug that was there for years which they didn't care about. The bug was amplified with the release of the amoury system which they still didn't care about enough to fix. Anniversary has now started and like others I can only assume that it's being expoited enough that ZOS suddenly care enough to do something about it.

I just wish they'd have gone back and fixed the original spaghetti programming instead of breaking the system for everyone else in the game that was using the funtion normally (the number of which likely far outstrips the people abusing it).

Also where are the rash of warnings and ban hammers for those exploiting it if if was that important? ZOS have come down harder on others for doing less...

If there's a 50(?) quest limit for dailies, wouldn't that also apply to exploits such as this? I mean, anyone who wants to farm 50 event coffers per character per day can still do it, and I don't understand how such an exploit could be worse than that. Maybe it's quicker to use that sort of exploit, but it still couldn't let a player exceed the daily limit, could it?

And as anyone who's gone to Cyrodiil to do dailies and missions for event coffers can tell you, it's easy to hit that limit of 50 dailies, especially if you're also doing crafting writs and zone dailies. So it must just be about the time involved, and how easy it is to farm 50 coffers per character per day using such an exploit.

Personally, I've been mulling over whether to cut way back on doing daily crafting writs, because it's been taking up so much of my playing time that I'm not playing the game as much.

And it's not like I need the in-game gold, because I've managed to accumulate 8 figures-- which will go back down to 4 or 5 figures as soon as I buy some of the player housing I haven't collected yet, since it's so expensive. The only reason I haven't done that yet is because I like the feeling of security I get from seeing that many digits. And I don't spend a lot of gold at the guild traders, either-- and when I do, it's on items such as motif pages, style pages, and uncommon crafting mats, all of which I buy for my own use, and which I have no trouble passing on by if I think the sellers are asking too much for it.

Just last night I ended up rushing like crazy to grab writs and do my endeavors on one server, because I'd decided to help out some players by (trying to) help them grind for XP, or helping them clear all of the world bosses in a zone, or crafting gear for them. Then I was getting so stressed out trying to complete my endeavors before reset that it was not at all enjoyable, and I had to forego picking up writs on 3 of my characters because it wouldn't have left me enough time to do the endeavors.

Plus, the event coffers are becoming too difficult for me to manage due to shrinking inventory space, so I'm perfectly happy to collect fewer coffers each day. I can't even imagine how anyone could collect 50 coffers per day on 18 characters and be able to manage all of that inventory, unless they're just selling everything as they get it such that they've always got plenty of free inventory and bank space.

doesurmindglow

heinousmoz wrote: »

There was an original bug that was there for years which they didn't care about. The bug was amplified with the release of the amoury system which they still didn't care about enough to fix. Anniversary has now started and like others I can only assume that it's being expoited enough that ZOS suddenly care enough to do something about it.

I just wish they'd have gone back and fixed the original spaghetti programming instead of breaking the system for everyone else in the game that was using the funtion normally (the number of which likely far outstrips the people abusing it).

Also where are the rash of warnings and ban hammers for those exploiting it if if was that important? ZOS have come down harder on others for doing less...

Yeah the thing that makes no sense is why Alchemy (and Provisioning?) behave this way when the rest of the professions do not. Like if there's something that prevents this behavior on Blacksmithing (ie. you don't get a second writ offered for the same day after changing your Blacksmithing level with the armory), why can't that be implemented to Alchemy also?

I get these things are very complicated but it blows my mind that one profession is on a completely different system than all of the others.

SeaGtGruff

The only thing I can think of is that the other crafting professions always ask for the same types of items but at whatever level your crafting skill calls for-- for instance, two resto staffs and a shield, or two bows and a shield, and only the material used varies based on your crafting skill. Provisioning and Alchemy are different than that, and maybe the logic to check whether a writ for the current day has already been turned in would be much more complicated than it is for the other professions.

Epona222

Yeah, something has been "fixed" that wasn't broken. Or if it was broken in some way, the fix is wrong and has broken it more. It now doesn't work the same as other writs.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin can you please look into this.

Epona222

I don't use the armory so wasn't benefitting from whatever you thought you fixed, and because I was out yesterday and stocked up writs to do double today, I have now lost a load of rewards for alchemy writs.

Your "fix" broke it in a different way. During an event.

Not happy.

renne

That's always how it used to work for me until recently, where if you had the writ quests and the dailies turned over when you did that day's lot you never got an alchemy writ quest for the new day.

So now they've gone back to the broken version? GG ZOS.

doesurmindglow

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

The only thing I can think of is that the other crafting professions always ask for the same types of items but at whatever level your crafting skill calls for-- for instance, two resto staffs and a shield, or two bows and a shield, and only the material used varies based on your crafting skill. Provisioning and Alchemy are different than that, and maybe the logic to check whether a writ for the current day has already been turned in would be much more complicated than it is for the other professions.

Yeah this is kinda the problem with the communication; it would be helpful to know what's actually going on so we're not left to speculate in our frustration.

What's also odd is that Provisioner quests have not changed with this update. You can still collect them and turn them in a day later without locking you out of the next day's quests, as you used to be able to do with Alchemy, and are able to do with every other profession. Does the exploit still exist for those quests then? Or was it still just Alchemy that was coded in this completely separate, potentially exploitable way?

None of it makes any sense.

MyNameIsElias

Can confirm this is bugged, this is a MASSIVE issue

JoeCapricorn

@ZOS_Kevin

Will we have any word on when this bug will be fixed?