Why can't you buy transmute crystals?

arfoster99

Hello,

I don't understand why there isn't a easier way to get these crucial components.

I am currently running around with a completely broken build with no easy way to farm these things.

The meagre few I can earn each day through undaunted quests is terrible and it feels like I'm going to have to wait until the spring of 2023 before I'll have amassed the 600 I need.

Zenimax are missing a serious money making opportunity here as I would literally spend real money just to buy those damn things.

These could also be part of eso plus.
This update 35 has many people looking at changing builds and the traits most pieces come with are utterly useless.

Please Zenimax just consider transmute crystal crates or something because the current situation is quite depressing.

N00BxV1

Because that would be pay to win?

arfoster99

Pay to win? Awww man.

Make them tradeable, guild store sellable or something then.

This current setup is just so bleak and I speak to people who have hundreds of the things just sitting in their accounts and they can't help me.

There has to be a better option.

N00BxV1

You're right. I do have hundreds if not thousands of them just sitting around on reconstructed items filling up a couple of my storage boxes as well as reconstructed gear on every character. And I got them all by doing the daily random dungeons and pledges on up to 18 characters a day.

It's supposed to take time...

N00BxV1

If you're on PC/NA I would be willing to craft you some gear for free if you just need to fill out your build.

Danikat

Transmutation was already a back-up system so we didn't have to keep on trying for the exact right drop, and later so we can farm set items in advance and then reconstruct them when we actually need them. I think ZOS still want you to play the game to get this stuff, not just pay for it.

arfoster99

N00BxV1 wrote: »

If you're on PC/NA I would be willing to craft you some gear for free if you just need to fill out your build.

That's very kind of you fella.

Unfortunately I'm on console.

Even if they let you only trade a limited few each day it would be an improvement over the current situation.

Zenimax should do a transmute crystal event like this undaunted thing to provide newbies like me a chance. (I'm only lvl 627).

Tsar_Gekkou

How many characters do you have? If you do a random normal on 5 characters a day, that's 50 transmutes a day.

arfoster99

Tsar_Gekkou wrote: »

How many characters do you have? If you do a random normal on 5 characters a day, that's 50 transmutes a day.

Just the one.

I have seen videos with people running many characters but that just seems too much and aren't the crystals exclusive to each character? Even so seems like a hassle.

If much rather just trade, event or simply buy the things.

Even if a huge pile of these were a 0.0001% possible reward drop from vateshran or maelstrom arenas on veteran I would just do that all day just to get these things. (I wouldn't stand a chance because my traits are **** but you get the idea.)

N00BxV1

Transmute crystals are account wide.

The easiest thing to do, and what I did, was to make a new character for every slot that you have available, then set them up as a tank (not fake tank) and run daily randoms on each of them. You'd be surprised how much faster you earn transmute crystals by doing that.

arfoster99

Uuurgh....with no better options, I shall do as you say sir.

Thank you for your advice.

stevenyaub16_ESO

random normal daily (10), tales of tribute (5 bags fairly frequently and 75 for ranking up to rubedite each season), rank 1 in cyrodil campaign before it ends (50).

And I think you get 5 for completing maelstrom unless that was changed.

Ksariyu

I can't believe people are actually defending such an awful system as transmutes.

Here we started the game with this fairly deep crafting system, with tons of different materials and trait stones to create a variety of unique weapons and armor. Rather than use this system for literally anything worthwhile in the game however, they instead added some boring new system that is both paywalled AND a grind. Like, how do you look at this and go, "Oh, well that's fine, I'll create 7+ other characters that I didn't want to play just to get gear for the one that I do." The number of times I've straight up stopped playing the game because I've realized it'll take months just to have fun is absurd. Transmutes as a whole should not exist. Let crafters craft and modify gear. God knows they have their own excessive grind to get through as it is, at least reward them for it in some way.

CaptainVenom

If this was before an update (don't remember which) when transmute crystals were scarce, I'd agree with you. But nowadays it's incredibly easy to earn them.

ForumBully

Transmutation stones should be sellable. AP has very little value and this would give PvP players, some who play a dozen or more toons regularly for 50 stones each, another source of income.

I_killed_Vivec

Ksariyu wrote: »

I can't believe people are actually defending such an awful system as transmutes.

Here we started the game with this fairly deep crafting system, with tons of different materials and trait stones to create a variety of unique weapons and armor. Rather than use this system for literally anything worthwhile in the game however, they instead added some boring new system that is both paywalled AND a grind. Like, how do you look at this and go, "Oh, well that's fine, I'll create 7+ other characters that I didn't want to play just to get gear for the one that I do." The number of times I've straight up stopped playing the game because I've realized it'll take months just to have fun is absurd. Transmutes as a whole should not exist. Let crafters craft and modify gear. God knows they have their own excessive grind to get through as it is, at least reward them for it in some way.

But if you take away transmutes then you are left at the mercy of the RNG gods - you can run a dungeon as many times as you like and never get the right piece with the right traits. At least with transmute stones you have a solution.

And of course they are bound to the account, they are meant to be used on artefacts that are also bound to the account.

Without transmutes you are left needing to "create 7+ other characters that I didn't want to play just to get gear for the one that I do."

Yes, it's a grind, but it is possibly less of a grind, and because they can be used on monster pieces you aren't at the mercy of the RNG gods when you spend your keys to get that shoulder piece that you need in the right trait... that can't be bought at a vendor or crafted by a crafter.

Now, if you say you want crafters to be able to craft monster pieces... then what's the reward for being Undaunted?

EF321

Play cyrodiil or BGs MYM (or not during event, but will be slower), stockpile Rewards for the Worthy coffers, but open only one. Guaranteed transmutes, 4 at least up to 25 randomly. Open next coffer after 20 hours have passed. Keep opening one a day once cooldown passed, without going to pvp as long as your supply lasts.

You can even keep those coffers in mail so they don't take inventory space.

Dawnblade

No, just no.

Dual wielding credit cards for fast mounts, skill points, and skill lines is already borderline.

Don't want to play the game - then don't play the game.

Edit to add:

I would not mind changes to include more sources of crystals, just as I wouldn't mind more changes to make farming sets less time-consuming or more changes to make trait transmute cost reduce as more items are collected.

But in the cash shop - yeah, hard nope for me.

Brrrofski

If you mean buy with gold, in game, then whatever.

You still have to grind the gold.

If you mean crowns, then nah.

But they are incredibly easy to get anyway.

Finedaible

There's already more monetization than there is gameplay in ESO. So I am very much against selling transmute crystals in the store.

If you really need a lot of transmute stones that bad you're gonna have to jump into PvP a bit for those Rewards of the Worthy and end-of-campaign rewards. Just don't go and open more than one RotW coffer every 20hrs or you won't get a transmutation geode from it.

Ragnarok0130

@arfoster99 if you're only doing the three normal Undaunted quests it will take forever due to them only giving 1 crystal, remember to do the random normal (there's no quest associated with it) and you'll get 10 crystals. You can do the random normal 10 crystal daily on every toon - that will add up over time in act I'm sitting on 1000 crystals with a lot in my toon's inventory if anything ZoS should just remove the crystal limit and make transmute geodes bankable.

If you have the ability/DPS the veteran undaunted quests provide 3 crystals each and veteran HM provides 5 crystals each instead of the 1 crystal from normal which adds up as well if you're doing the random daily 10 crystal quests.

As others stated PVP is also a good source for them.

chessalavakia_ESO

They want to increase the flow of players to group activities.

Selling transmutes to players would put a damper on that which could make the group activities lack a sufficient base of players to function.

With that said, many group activities suffer from having people that are just present for the transmutes which can produce an environment of conflicting goals.

Transmutes are account wide.

The easiest way to farm them is to make a bunch of alts and follow a blob in Cyrodiil on Grey Host or another populated campaign (you'll need to set it to home to rank up) until you hit rank one then swap to the next alt. (It might take you around an hour the first few times to rank up+ the time it takes to get the character to level 10)

This will get you 50 transmutes per character per month that you do it on.

Ragnarok0130

Ksariyu wrote: »

I can't believe people are actually defending such an awful system as transmutes.

Here we started the game with this fairly deep crafting system, with tons of different materials and trait stones to create a variety of unique weapons and armor. Rather than use this system for literally anything worthwhile in the game however, they instead added some boring new system that is both paywalled AND a grind. Like, how do you look at this and go, "Oh, well that's fine, I'll create 7+ other characters that I didn't want to play just to get gear for the one that I do." The number of times I've straight up stopped playing the game because I've realized it'll take months just to have fun is absurd. Transmutes as a whole should not exist. Let crafters craft and modify gear. God knows they have their own excessive grind to get through as it is, at least reward them for it in some way.

Beta player here and I love the sticker book/transmute systems. ESO relies on RNG for absolutely everything so now I can actually min/max my toons instead of running the same content over and over for months without getting trait that I need for my build on a specific piece (that system doesn't create happy players) and I love the fact that I don't need to hold onto useless gear cluttering up my bank in case ZoS decided to make a set relevant again; I can simply reconstruct it if needed. I can't fathom anyone defending the old system, do you dislike the drop curation system too? If you don't like the transmute system nobody is forcing you to use it, simply continue to play like you used to and drive on and be happy since the old system is still in place.

arfoster99

N00BxV1 kindly gave me some advice and I'm looking into it.

I notice that most of the people here saying simply "no, terrible idea" are quite unsympathetic and have loads of transmute crystals already.

I'm still hoping that zenimax does something to help the junior players like myself and if they don't give us a easier way to make more crystals, they perhaps reduce the cost of transmuting.

Zodiarkslayer

I don't get it...
Reconstruction costs 25 crystals.
600÷25=24
How can one Charakter wear 24 pieces of Equipment?
Maybe you should rethink how you go about this?

And traits do not have that much of an impact, as some players are insisting upon. It's not like a build becomes unplayable, because I lack one piece of Bloodthirsty jewelry.
Having a piece in the wrong traits is preferable to not having a piece at all.

But hey, that's just me...

Amottica

Because Zenimax tied earning the crystals to promoting specific activities in the game. This is a common theme in ESO and it seems to work well.

chessalavakia_ESO

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

I don't get it...
Reconstruction costs 25 crystals.
600÷25=24
How can one Charakter wear 24 pieces of Equipment?
Maybe you should rethink how you go about this?

And traits do not have that much of an impact, as some players are insisting upon. It's not like a build becomes unplayable, because I lack one piece of Bloodthirsty jewelry.
Having a piece in the wrong traits is preferable to not having a piece at all.

But hey, that's just me...

Reconstruction costs a fair bit more if you don't have all of the items in the set.

For example, I have 9 pieces of the Ritualist set unlocked so I could transmute it and get the five piece bonus but, it'd cost me 275 transmutes to do it for just those five pieces.

BloodyStigmata

Don't disrespect yourself by asking for pay-to-win mechanics. You're better than that OP.

Anyway, there are tons of PVP'ers and people who do random normals on alts every day who have a metric ton of uncracked geodes who would probably like to sell them. Frankly, I think the uncracked geodes should be tradeable so that people like you and me can have a steady supply.

Deter1UK

More Sources....

I've posted before - from excavations!

Makes perfect sense and much more useful than the bonus loot that drops at the moment.

Ksariyu

Ragnarok0130 wrote: »

Beta player here and I love the sticker book/transmute systems. ESO relies on RNG for absolutely everything so now I can actually min/max my toons instead of running the same content over and over for months without getting trait that I need for my build on a specific piece (that system doesn't create happy players) and I love the fact that I don't need to hold onto useless gear cluttering up my bank in case ZoS decided to make a set relevant again; I can simply reconstruct it if needed. I can't fathom anyone defending the old system, do you dislike the drop curation system too? If you don't like the transmute system nobody is forcing you to use it, simply continue to play like you used to and drive on and be happy since the old system is still in place.

Also a beta player. . . not really relevant. I understand that the transmute system was meant to alleviate the RNG grind of getting the correct trait, particularly on weapons. What I'm saying is they should instead have found a way to utilize the already existing crafting system. Traits themselves aren't very impactful on a build's total effectiveness; there's no reason swapping traits has to come with such a grind. Just let crafters use the trait stones that already were in the game to begin with to change traits on their gear. Instead, ZoS said, "We can lock this behind a paywall, let's do that instead," and ended up with a worse system that further deprecated an older but better one.

In regards to the gear itself and reconstruction (Which was not added with the original transmute system), I personally do believe that all gear should be craftable at this point, even if the set stations for dungeon and trial sets were at the end of their respective dungeons and trials. Hell, there's hardly even a point in requiring content completion for gear, since it's not like the difficulty of the content even remotely correlates to the power of the gear (See: Mother's Sorrow still being overwhelmingly more useful than say Moondancer).

I_killed_Vivec wrote: »

Now, if you say you want crafters to be able to craft monster pieces... then what's the reward for being Undaunted?

I mean yeah, why go through the Undaunted at all for that? You can already get the helms without them, why put the shoulders behind another RNG wall? Just put both the helm and shoulders in the dungeon at that point, then at least I know if I want to get a certain set I can go to a certain place to get it.

Hurbster

So, this is where everyone draws the line and says 'pay to win', eh?

- Looks at cash shop...- lol.

Just let people sell them on the AH.