What is the maximum amount of time that you would want to spend to farm and get one lead?

Heartrage

With the last chapter, they added leads that take days of active farming to get. Personally, I think it’s excessive. I think 4 hours of actively doing the content to get a lead should be the maximum to get it. It could be less, and I could be flexible depending on the content that has to be done, but I think more is excessive. What do you guys think?

TaSheen

As long as it takes, if it's something I really want.

ChuckyPayne

0 hour I do only that I found, few times go there where I know can drop lead, but not only for lead. For example: first time dungeon with alt +1 skill point, missing set collectibles, etc but I don't farm anymore.

jaws343

4 hours...

This game has been out for like 8 years now. If you could farm everything that is released in every new chapter within a few days, they might as well just give it all to you at log in. It should take months for these things to drop imo. This game is meant to be played for years, not a few hours.

Veinblood1965

It's been five years and still no lead sigh.....

BXR_Lonestar

How long I'm willing to farm for a lead depends on how good the mythic item is. If the Mythic is ridiculously OP (i.e., pre-nerf oakensoul), then I'll farm for hours on end until I get the sucker. I don't mind sinking a lot of time hunting something down that is going to really make a difference. Which is why it is so upsetting when they nerf something, because you only invest that kind of time into something if it is going to be REALLY good. Feels like a bait-and-switch to release something that they know is super strong, then we go out and grind our tails off for it, and then they nerf it shortly thereafter.

IMO, it is fine to have some OP items out there that are really hard or take a long time to get.

But on average, I don't even chase down mythic item leads anymore because most of them are way too niche or just aren't strong enough compared to alternatives. The ones that are - don't stay that way long.

whitecrow

I just play and if I get it I get it.
I got a bunch of High Isle leads very quickly after starting the expansion.

jaws343

I do want to follow up on my response though. While I think putting a farming time limit on leads is not a good idea. I do think there are some sourcing issues for leads that lead to unnecessary bottle necks.

freespirit

I don't generally actively farm Mythic Leads BUT show me a "shiny" bit of furniture and off I go!!

Recently I have been trying to get all my furnishing codex's to 3/3 so at least I can buy the little suckers rather than search endlessly for leads.

I swear the game always knows when you really, really want something, anything, not just leads and makes sure it's going to be as painful as possible to get it!! 😱

Stanx

In one go? 1, maybe 2 hours.

Overall? Well, I'll let you know when I finally get the Daedric Enchanting Apparatus from Attol of Immolation. I think I'm conservatively at over 10 hours of farming for that overall now, but I've spread it out over a long time.

SeaGtGruff

There have been only a few times that I've ever actively tried to farm for leads, and they were all out-of-character for me:

- After hearing about a lead that drops from the mobs in the Glenumbra public dungeon, I decided to farm for it. I'm not sure why I did; my best guess is that curiosity got the better of me after I read posts in this forum from players complaining about farming for the lead without any success, and I wanted to see how long it would take me. I got it within maybe 30 minutes on one server, but it took me maybe 3 hours on the other server.

- After hearing about a lead that drops from water plants and pure water nodes in Shadowfen, and reading about how players were camping on water plant nodes and fighting over them, I decided to give it a shot. Again, it was mainly out of curiosity. If I remember correctly, it took maybe half an evening of farming on one server, but considerably longer (a couple of days?) on the other server.

- A few years ago, I decided to forego my normally-casual approach to Antiquities and get more serious about acquiring all of the leads zone by zone. Since my two mains belong to the Daggerfall Covenant, and Stros M'Kai is the first DC starter zone, I decided to start there. I spent an evening on each server farming for a lead that drops from fishing holes, and on occasion I've also spent time farming for a lead that drops inside the Dwarven ruin, but I never completed my farming of all leads that drop in the zone.

- Several months ago, I decided to help a random player farm for a lead in a Dwarven delve in Craglorn, because they had sent out a call for help in zone chat and I happened to be in Craglorn for something else (farming for Nirncrux?). It took each of us only one or two runs through the delve to get the lead. A week or so later, I decided to farm for the lead on the other server, and also got it within a run or two. I still haven't completed the antiquity (the Dwarven wolf mount) on either server.

Aside from those few times, I've taken the attitude that I don't particularly care to know where and how any given lead drops, because I'm content to just find leads by accident as it were, which usually gives me a sense of discovery and pleasure when I unexpectedly find a lead while playing the game normally. The only exception is when I find a lead that drops frequently, such as the one that drops so easily in Coldharbour; whenever I find it, I tend to react with a sort of tired feeling of "Oh, joy; I found that lead yet again!" There are a couple of other leads like that in other zones.

On the other hand, I've actively farmed for the Coldharbour lead on a couple of occasions, when a daily endeavor called for excavating a certain number of purple or gold antiquities and I didn't have enough available leads handy, but it took no time at all to find it again. Nowadays I just leave most leads unscried after I find them, at least if they're purple or gold. Then, about once a week, I'll pull up my list of available leads and scry anything that is due to expire in 14 days or less.

But I'll scry any green leads for ancestral motif pages as soon as I find them, mainly because I don't want available leads that are left unscried to prevent me from finding another copy of a given lead, since I like to learn things on each of my alts after my mains have learned them.

Enemy-of-Coldharbour

One hour at most. I have more important things to do.

ProudMary

I won't do grindy farming for leads or anything else. It's not fun.

CGPsaint

Dragon Star Arena takes about 40-45 minutes to run through, and the mythic lead only drops from the last boss. I've run through DSA 25+ times and still don't have the lead, so I've given up on that mythic. I would rather find a different game to play, then deal with the kind of RNG that ESO is notorious for.

phileunderx2

I don't have an issue with grindy leads where they are in content that I can do whenever I want on my own.
Dungeon leads should not require 30 plus runs of said dungeon to get. Cradle of Shadows, Ruins of Mazzatun.

chessalavakia_ESO

For me, it depends on the activity I'm doing.

For example, I don't mind ranking up the Fighter's Guild to Max but I absolutely hate ranking up the Psiiic Order and Mages Guild.

Peppo_Lives

After their mess with codex (when they "fixed" the 30days timer - i've lost more than a few weeks of progress), the absurd drop rates for some deadlands leads (belharza band, markyn ring), and the leads from treasure maps (Ancestral/Ancient-something: several layers of RNG, quite a sick joke imho)......no thanks, no more active farm

Heartrage

jaws343 wrote: »

4 hours...

This game has been out for like 8 years now. If you could farm everything that is released in every new chapter within a few days, they might as well just give it all to you at log in. It should take months for these things to drop imo. This game is meant to be played for years, not a few hours.

4 hours for one lead means 20 hours per mythic and a 100 hours to get every mythics of high isle. This doesn’t count other leads added to the game and other content from the chapter. I, personally, wouldn’t consider this playing the game for a few hours.

Heartrage

jaws343 wrote: »

I do want to follow up on my response though. While I think putting a farming time limit on leads is not a good idea. I do think there are some sourcing issues for leads that lead to unnecessary bottle necks.

Like nodes or limited sources that create too much competition?

SammyKhajit

Spent a few hours trying to get the Ancestral Breton leads. Remembered how tedious it was to bring the Trefery Debutante Gown. Gave up and went shopping.

CGPsaint

SammyKhajit wrote: »

Spent a few hours trying to get the Ancestral Breton leads. Remembered how tedious it was to bring the Trefery Debutante Gown. Gave up and went shopping.

I'm currently sitting on a rate of 1 lead per 10 maps for the Ancestral Daedric motif chapters with 50 maps dug up and 5 leads received of which 1 was a duplicate. Given that I very rarely ever get deadlands treasure maps as loot drops, and with maps running a minimum of 20K each on Xbox/NA, that's going to be 200K per chapter, or 2.8m for all of the pages. Granted there will be duplicate pages that can be resold, but I'm also not interested in digging up 250-300 maps in order to get 14 pages and to complete the Codex. The bottom line is that this lead sourcing sucks and even though ZOS knows that it's a point of frustration, there's no indication that it's going to change for any future Ancestral motifs.

endgamesmug

The atoll farm for moras whispers taught me i should just take it easy play the game and if it happens it happens no use forcing it not gonna happen

Dr_Con

I think it would be funny if they turned annoying/optional bosses in dungeons like Ciirenas The Shepherd into lead dropping sources.

SammyKhajit

CGPsaint wrote: »

SammyKhajit wrote: »

Spent a few hours trying to get the Ancestral Breton leads. Remembered how tedious it was to bring the Trefery Debutante Gown. Gave up and went shopping.

I'm currently sitting on a rate of 1 lead per 10 maps for the Ancestral Daedric motif chapters with 50 maps dug up and 5 leads received of which 1 was a duplicate. Given that I very rarely ever get deadlands treasure maps as loot drops, and with maps running a minimum of 20K each on Xbox/NA, that's going to be 200K per chapter, or 2.8m for all of the pages. Granted there will be duplicate pages that can be resold, but I'm also not interested in digging up 250-300 maps in order to get 14 pages and to complete the Codex. The bottom line is that this lead sourcing sucks and even though ZOS knows that it's a point of frustration, there's no indication that it's going to change for any future Ancestral motifs.

The whole business of finding maps and then leads is just tedious. If there is an award for the most absurd grinding, this would be up there.

disintegr8

I can manage about an hour at a time before I move on to something else.

I started playing again with the High Isle event and hadn't put any real effort into farming mythic items before a 2 year break. I'm currently focusing on the armour/jewelry items and the RNG is all over the place. You get one thing first try and then you spend ages and/or multiple attempts for the next without any luck.

I've done about 15 runs of Elden Hollow without getting the lead (from final boss) but the friend I started running it with got it 1st or 2nd run. Lesser Sea Adders in High Isles are also elusive and very rarely drop anything, let alone the lead they're supposed to drop.

The number of items listed for Deadlands is also pretty annoying, the only one I've found is from clothing pickups. Right now I'm pretty much all farmed out and ready to forget them for a while.

OBJnoob

My vote was cast in a similar thread for 2 hours per lead... Which would be 10 hours per mythic... Which would be 3 or 4 days playtime for me, who has a somewhat busy life.

I understand that the word "mythic" implies some OP gear and for some semblance of realism they want to make it hard to get. But making it take long to get isn't the same as making it hard to get.

I wish they would increase the difficulty of scrying and excavating so that they didn't feel the need to artificially inflate the difficulty by hiding leads in ridiculous places.

When I was first grinding the skill lines I found the little mini games of scrying and excavating oddly fun. Really fun in fact. Now I really don't ever need more than one try, and that's partially because the passive skills in the skill line make it too easy.

But seriously... To get a monster helm you have to find 3 people to help get you through a vet dungeon. Not that hard. Takes about an hour from the time you start asking for help. To get an arena weapon is much harder but assuming you're someone who can do vet arenas, also only an hour or two.

Why are mythics so EASY but so LONG? The difficulty could be turned up (literally just make the scrying and excavating grids bigger,) so that the longevity could be turned down. It'd be more in line with similar powered items.

CasgarTheSomnolent

1 hour. 2 hours max. If something takes longer than that, you've just made something annoyingly or infuriatingly grindey when you could have inserted a more interesting mechanic. "Grinding" can feel rewarding and satisfying depending on the system attached to it. Pure, low-percentage RNG and competing with others for limited resources on top of that probably is the laziest and worst way to make a person grind, so if you make me do more than an hour of that, then you deserve all the hate you get.

I'm never going to forget how many weeks of grinding it took to get the Bad Man's Hollows lead for the Pale Order ring. Maybe half-hour to and an hour a day at times. Giving up for days at a time. Just atrocious. At the very least, lead drop percentages should be curated to increase until you're absolutely guaranteed to get the lead after a certain amount of effort put in.

Jamie_Aubrey

An hour

I got all parts of the Wild Hunt ring in about 2 hours total, only had to each lead twice to get it to drop

Hapexamendios

I'd like to say about 4 hours, but I'm pretty sure I've exceeded that a couple times.

AzuraFan

It depends on the activity. Some leads I'll never get because I'm not interested in doing whatever it will take to get them. For those I'm willing to try for: a maximum of 30 minutes per try. After 30 mins, it's come back another day and try again. For example, if I'm trying to get a lead off a world boss, I'll spend 30 mins killing that boss over and over again. If I still don't have the lead, I'll go back another time.

(I don't spend a lot of time chasing mythics. I have oakensoul, pale order, and a couple I got naturally through playing the game. That's it.)

SilverBride

0