Companions should be more useful by having jobs... SUCH AS DOING OUR CRAFTING SURVEYS!

Palumtra

They are busy waiting for that random AoE attack to land and die from xD

TheNuminous1

derkaiserliche wrote: »

The problem is that surveys drop from "easy" crafting dailys, that are already very rewarding and fast to handle with mods.

Some people already use like 16 characters to do the daily crafting quests and then they would get even more out of them by just spending 2 minutes on each character.

We don't have mods on console and you shouldent base what the entire community should or shouldent get based on what PC has access to via mods.

Doing writs on console is EXHAUSTING. It's literally the worst.

Again. Just cause PC has mods to make their loves easier does not mean we on console don't deserve ways to make our experience better and easier.

Kendaric

SilverBride wrote: »

Vaughndaunted wrote: »

Companions need to be smarter. We paid for it.

How did we pay for our Companions?

By having to buy a chapter that contains the ones we want, that would be my guess at least.

Not that I agree with that even remotely, after all we'd have to pay for the chapter anyway. The companions, in my opinion, are/were just a bonus (aside from the Blackwood chapter where they were the actual main feature).

Bo0137

What about a mission board to place at your house where you could grab assignments for your companions to do? It could have different difficulties, starting from delivering a letter to escorting a caravan or a noble. The harder the quest, the longer you would have to wait for your companion to come back, and they would have a success rate based on their gear and level. Wounded companions would have to go through resting and/or healing.

The rewards could include gold, exp (both to you and your companions) and fame, which then would unlock more missions.

This would be similar to Assassin's Creed Brotherhood's follower missions or WoW WoD garrison quests.

SilverBride

What if the Companions assign us tasks? We're their players and we should be doing things for them.

kringled_1

SilverBride wrote: »

What if the Companions assign us tasks? We're their players and we should be doing things for them.

Isn't that essentially what their friendship quests are?

SilverBride

kringled_1 wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

What if the Companions assign us tasks? We're their players and we should be doing things for them.

Isn't that essentially what their friendship quests are?

We helped them and befriended them. We did not hire them. They are our allies not our servants, any more than we are theirs. We work together, not for each other.

Kendaric

kringled_1 wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

What if the Companions assign us tasks? We're their players and we should be doing things for them.

Isn't that essentially what their friendship quests are?

Their friendships are nice, but once they're done on one character they are also done on every character we have on a given server.
It would definitely be nice if they could offer us something akin to the "Radiant AI" quests from TES V. Basically anything that makes them more interactive than a glorified pet...

spartaxoxo

I personally don't view the companion and hero relationship as one of equals. I think they pledge their "swords" to us. A master and apprentice type situation. This is why they'll stick around even if they don't like you. If they are max rapport, they'll also have feelings towards you and will consider it a working for a close friend situation. But, if they don't, then they're only along because they agreed to be. And eventually they'll be fed up with the arrangement and leave.

SilverBride

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I personally don't view the companion and hero relationship as one of equals. I think they pledge their "swords" to us. A master and apprentice type situation. This is why they'll stick around even if they don't like you. If they are max rapport, they'll also have feelings towards you and will consider it a working for a close friend situation. But, if they don't, then they're only along because they agreed to be. And eventually they'll be fed up with the arrangement and leave.

I interpret pledging their swords as fighting for and along side us as allies, although I don't see any mention of pledging. Either way, fighting with us is combat related and does not include menial servant's chores such as collecting our surveys as this thread requests.

SilverBride

I looked for an explanation of what the Companions are. I found this page that explains the Companions when they were first introduced.

https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/60015

"Companions are non-player characters who can aid you on your adventures throughout Tamriel. Once called to your side, these stalwart allies will assist you in combat."

There is nothing mentioning that they are beneath us. Rather they are allies that will assist us in combat when we call them to our side.

Syldras

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I personally don't view the companion and hero relationship as one of equals. I think they pledge their "swords" to us. A master and apprentice type situation.

I don't know about Ember and Sharp, haven't interacted much with them yet. Isobel - maybe, she's young and stil learning. But Mirri? Or even Azandar?

Vaughndaunted

Billium813 wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

No thanks, it's a player-made issue and not one that needs to be addressed by ZOS through yet another shortcut measure that further trivialises the game.

Vaughndaunted wrote: »

Elyu wrote: »

Whether it's companions or a new 'hireling' npc something does need to change.

Many people in this thread seem to think it's a "you" problem - but for many, including the OP and myself, having to port around gathering surveys is HOMEWORK, and gets in the way of playing the game.
And we have to do it, because we don't have the gold to buy all the mats, or (like myself) you want to be self-sufficient for crafting materials.

So, some suggestions:

Something like hirelings to collect surveys
Let stacked surveys drop all the mats at once when you harvest (rather than collect one, ride away, ride back collect 2nd etc)
Move survey locations to be closer to wayshrines (for the ones that are in some corner of the map)
Give survey nodes a chance to drop rare crafting resources (DLC style materials, rare alchemy ingredients e.g. dragons blood)

I cannot play this game to farm surveys everyday. That’s completely time consuming.

I craft on all 20 toons and have it down to a science. I craft 9 days worth of equipment and enchantment writs. I do this once a week. I make 100 consumable writs in advanced to make it easier to get all tasks done on 20 toons. This takes approximately 3 hours to do weekly. Then there’s logging in daily before 5a est in order to do collect the daily writ mission for one day… and them doing them after 5a est so that I could collect the next one promptly after to mitigate the time spent doing writs and playing the game.

Wow, you really have this down to a science, huh?

Why do you feel the need to have 20 toons that you log into every day and submit writs for?

I know you aren't the only person that does this. I understand there is some money and mats to be made doing this, but surely there are better ways. I have 3 toons. I make pots and food daily and never want for gold. I sell crafted items and motif pages in guild traders.

> I have 20 toons
> I have too many Survey rewards from doing daily writs for those 20 toons
> ZOS needs to make it easier to complete Surveys
> Have Companions do Surveys for me

I just think that you have the incorrect solution to the issue because you haven't figured out the real issue.

The real issue is that ESO lets players submit 20 characters worth of writs daily and bury themselves in this obsessive compulsive behavior. I get it that players are doing this because they need gold and they need mats. But players wouldn't feel the need to do this if the game gave them sufficient gold and mats in other aspects of the game! We have to diagnose the correct issue in order to correctly fix the problem.

Wow! This was an amazing response. I love it. ZOS would have to rework the crafting skill lines… change everything including hirelings item delivery. The system works… but maybe they should find a way to make it easier on master crafters. Between all the motifs… we need a little more support in this direction. An apprentice would help.

Vaughndaunted

SilverBride wrote: »

Vaughndaunted wrote: »

Companions need to be smarter. We paid for it.

How did we pay for our Companions?

We purchased the DLC per year. And many of us pay for ESO plus. The companions having extra functions doesn’t make the game a play to win. But it does make it a quality of life for master crafters. It’s something to look into. Surveys takes a huge amount of storage space. We’re up to 29 locations per type of survey… 6 different types to be exact. And if you’ve been doing writs daily, you’d have a generous amount of surveys. I’ve played for 9/10 years. Been doing writs since year 1. Took many breaks… always had above 30-60 alchemy and enchantment surveys and counting… No time to do them. Need assistance.

Vaughndaunted

Bo0137 wrote: »

What about a mission board to place at your house where you could grab assignments for your companions to do? It could have different difficulties, starting from delivering a letter to escorting a caravan or a noble. The harder the quest, the longer you would have to wait for your companion to come back, and they would have a success rate based on their gear and level. Wounded companions would have to go through resting and/or healing.

The rewards could include gold, exp (both to you and your companions) and fame, which then would unlock more missions.

This would be similar to Assassin's Creed Brotherhood's follower missions or WoW WoD garrison quests.

Interesting statement. I’d love to see how ESO would do this.

SilverBride

Vaughndaunted wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Vaughndaunted wrote: »

Companions need to be smarter. We paid for it.

How did we pay for our Companions?

We purchased the DLC per year. And many of us pay for ESO plus.

Purchasing the Chapter or DLC gives us access to the content, not control over it.

spartaxoxo

Syldras wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I personally don't view the companion and hero relationship as one of equals. I think they pledge their "swords" to us. A master and apprentice type situation.

I don't know about Ember and Sharp, haven't interacted much with them yet. Isobel - maybe, she's young and stil learning. But Mirri? Or even Azandar?

Yeah, because they feel a life debt to us for helping them out. That's the way I interpret their negative dialogues at any rate.

NordSwordnBoard

Vaughndaunted wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Vaughndaunted wrote: »

Companions need to be smarter. We paid for it.

How did we pay for our Companions?

We purchased the DLC per year. And many of us pay for ESO plus. The companions having extra functions doesn’t make the game a play to win. But it does make it a quality of life for master crafters. It’s something to look into. Surveys takes a huge amount of storage space. We’re up to 29 locations per type of survey… 6 different types to be exact. And if you’ve been doing writs daily, you’d have a generous amount of surveys. I’ve played for 9/10 years. Been doing writs since year 1. Took many breaks… always had above 30-60 alchemy and enchantment surveys and counting… No time to do them. Need assistance.

I agree. Been here almost as long. You just have to take those $100 bills and light your cigar with them because you're end game lol. I destroy them when I get fed up with riding in circles awaiting respawn or know a particular tedious location. I destroy all enchanter surveys. The rewards aren't beneath us, but the work/time spent is. Some players (old and new) get great satisfaction recovering rewarded raw materials. I don't, not anymore.

I've no need or interest in companions, but if you told me they would deliver me even 1/2 or 1/3 of my surveys value while I'm offline I would get one just to do my surveys.

Vaughndaunted

NordSwordnBoard wrote: »

Vaughndaunted wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Vaughndaunted wrote: »

Companions need to be smarter. We paid for it.

How did we pay for our Companions?

We purchased the DLC per year. And many of us pay for ESO plus. The companions having extra functions doesn’t make the game a play to win. But it does make it a quality of life for master crafters. It’s something to look into. Surveys takes a huge amount of storage space. We’re up to 29 locations per type of survey… 6 different types to be exact. And if you’ve been doing writs daily, you’d have a generous amount of surveys. I’ve played for 9/10 years. Been doing writs since year 1. Took many breaks… always had above 30-60 alchemy and enchantment surveys and counting… No time to do them. Need assistance.

I agree. Been here almost as long. You just have to take those $100 bills and light your cigar with them because you're end game lol. I destroy them when I get fed up with riding in circles awaiting respawn or know a particular tedious location. I destroy all enchanter surveys. The rewards aren't beneath us, but the work/time spent is. Some players (old and new) get great satisfaction recovering rewarded raw materials. I don't, not anymore.

I've no need or interest in companions, but if you told me they would deliver me even 1/2 or 1/3 of my surveys value while I'm offline I would get one just to do my surveys.

I respect that. I am end game to the point that I only want quality of life. Unfortunately I need gold to keep my characters all suited in their own gear so that I’m up to standards for trials… I don’t wear anything less than gold. I collect transmute as well to theory craft and keep up with the DLCs and meta.

Things truly an art. I’m not asking for much… they provided a Fence assistant who takes off the top of stolen goods so we don’t have to go to the refuge when we sell gear… these thieves guild refuges are in every city basically… they can provide a new functionality to assist with doing surveys.

Elyu

@Vaughndaunted I got your back!

Purpose of thread: offer suggestion to ease burden of crafting at endgame (thank you @Billium813 for providing alternate suggestion).

Building off Billium's suggestion - surveys could be completely reworked. Some suggestions:

Instead of a survey you have to go and collect, it could just drop the raw materials in a box.
You gain a scroll that grants a temporary buff to deconstruction, increasing quality+quantity of materials dropped.
You gain an item that enables you to send your companion off on a quest, during the quest, companion is unable to be summoned, quest has various possible rewards including rare crafting materials (e.g. dragon's blood, DLC style mats). Quest success influenced by no.1 styles learnt, tribute decks collected etc.

Mindset: Solutions before problems! Answers first!

sharffffff

I've always seen companions as you allies, your friends, your, well, companions. That's the point of them, and when they aren't summoned, they have their own life going on, as can be surmised by their summoning lines of dialogue. They aren't your employees, they aren't your underlings, and they for sure aren't your servants. They're here to battle alongside you, and even though for some of them it would probably be in character to reluctantly (or not) agree to gather some resources for you, I do not feel like it should be added at all.
And argument about having 20 characters each of whom do crafting dailies every day and therefore you have way too many surveys is somewhat silly. After all, most people don't do that, and doing a reasonable number of surveys doesn't take that much time - so even if companions were your servants, which they're not, and this wasn't out of character for them, this is a problem for such a small minority of people that I doubt it would ever be added. Potentially as an assistant, which I also doubt, but almost never as a companion feature.

UGotBenched91

Araneae6537 wrote: »

Our companions have their own lives when not adventuring with us. I don’t think more utility would be given to either surveys or companions without some cost / taking something away. If you have too many surveys, do them, destroy them, do fewer writs — you’ve many options.

You do know these are npcs right? If you want to RP and your companions have lives outside of being npcs who follow you that’s great and I encourage it but game mechanics shouldn’t be held back because of non existent NPC lives.

SilverBride

UGotBenched91 wrote: »

Araneae6537 wrote: »

Our companions have their own lives when not adventuring with us. I don’t think more utility would be given to either surveys or companions without some cost / taking something away. If you have too many surveys, do them, destroy them, do fewer writs — you’ve many options.

You do know these are npcs right? If you want to RP and your companions have lives outside of being npcs who follow you that’s great and I encourage it but game mechanics shouldn’t be held back because of non existent NPC lives.

We can do surveys every day and not let them build up, or set aside time one day a week to catch up on them, as many players do. But turning our Companions into servants isn't the answer.

Vaughndaunted

sharffffff wrote: »

I've always seen companions as you allies, your friends, your, well, companions. That's the point of them, and when they aren't summoned, they have their own life going on, as can be surmised by their summoning lines of dialogue. They aren't your employees, they aren't your underlings, and they for sure aren't your servants. They're here to battle alongside you, and even though for some of them it would probably be in character to reluctantly (or not) agree to gather some resources for you, I do not feel like it should be added at all.
And argument about having 20 characters each of whom do crafting dailies every day and therefore you have way too many surveys is somewhat silly. After all, most people don't do that, and doing a reasonable number of surveys doesn't take that much time - so even if companions were your servants, which they're not, and this wasn't out of character for them, this is a problem for such a small minority of people that I doubt it would ever be added. Potentially as an assistant, which I also doubt, but almost never as a companion feature.

Respectfully I agree to disagree. This is a huge problem in the small master crafting community. We want to play the game too. We found a way to simplify doing daily crafting writs… increasing our storage space in order to fit premade items for the daily writs. Now that we found a solution to one problem, we’re asking for programmers to add a feature that PC has an add-on for that makes their gaming easier.

Asking for supports is something we should do. I’m assuming you don’t craft. When you do choose to craft and accumulate surveys… you’ll see what I’m talking about. I still want to do trials, go to Cyrodill and be available for the social aspect of the game. If ZOS can make that a little easier, it’ll be better for newer players as well. No one should have to do so many surveys. If they left the character max slot at 8… it might be manageable. But the character max slot is 20 now. Things are now out of control. I’m requesting a way to reign some of that in by allowing us to add apprenticeship to companions or introducing a new assistant that will do surveys for us.

Vaughndaunted

SilverBride wrote: »

UGotBenched91 wrote: »

Araneae6537 wrote: »

Our companions have their own lives when not adventuring with us. I don’t think more utility would be given to either surveys or companions without some cost / taking something away. If you have too many surveys, do them, destroy them, do fewer writs — you’ve many options.

You do know these are npcs right? If you want to RP and your companions have lives outside of being npcs who follow you that’s great and I encourage it but game mechanics shouldn’t be held back because of non existent NPC lives.

We can do surveys every day and not let them build up, or set aside time one day a week to catch up on them, as many players do. But turning our Companions into servants isn't the answer.

Maybe companions can be more than companions. We have 6 of them now… we’re getting 2 more at the end of year. It would be nice if they did more than die in AOE or or not be used at all. Be honest, when was the last time you did anything on each companion? Do they have all purple gear? Can being a crafting apprentice open up doorways that allow companions to live in their truth when they are not active or if they’re at our house.

Imagine a housing system where each companion can work on their expertise pending the surveys they do. In return, they work on crafting their own gear suitable for them. It gives them in combat bonuses. This is incentivized play. Just like archive gives class based gear… companions could get the same based on their apprenticeship. It’s gold!!!

Vaughndaunted

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/598826/a-2-person-arena-would-be-great-is-zos-going-to-work-on-one#latest

I’ve had crazy ideas before… now look. They made Infinite Archive. I’m an invested player. I see things before most. Hopefully ZOS takes my insight seriously and adds more functionality to companions.

spartaxoxo

Companions are pretty useful already, imo. I don't have an issue with mine dying all the time. Bastian tanks better than my DPS in some scenarios (although not as good as a real tank, as is to be expected).

I wouldn't mind if it was new assistants that did this if bothers people too much to send their companions. But I just personally don't see an issue with making it the companions either. They aren't strictly friends already. They can hate you and still adventure with you. Everyone can have their own headcanon as to why that is but personally I think it's because they view you as a hero/master they want to learn from. So they wouldn't mind doing something like that if asked.

Edit

Azandar, Sharp, Isobel, and Ember in particular seem like they wouldn't mind. Azandar used to be a chef and misses it sometimes. He likes to gather ingredients for tea and brew it himself. He finds it mediative. Sharp likes to gather things in general as part of his preparedness. Isobel enjoys smithing. And Ember enjoys rune gathering and enchanting.

sharffffff

Vaughndaunted wrote: »

Asking for supports is something we should do. I’m assuming you don’t craft. When you do choose to craft and accumulate surveys… you’ll see what I’m talking about. I still want to do trials, go to Cyrodill and be available for the social aspect of the game. If ZOS can make that a little easier, it’ll be better for newer players as well. No one should have to do so many surveys. If they left the character max slot at 8… it might be manageable. But the character max slot is 20 now. Things are now out of control. I’m requesting a way to reign some of that in by allowing us to add apprenticeship to companions or introducing a new assistant that will do surveys for us.

I only have one active character, but yes, I do craft. I do crafting dailies every day, as well as I steal every thieves' trove and treasure chest I see - so I get both surveys and treasure maps accumulated quite quickly - not as quickly as it would be with 20 characters, but then again, each of those characters has their own inventory.
So once my inventory space goes up too high, when even deconstructing everything I ever picked up doesn't get it out of the yellow, I just go and dig up or collect everything I have collected so far. It doesn't take much time (unless it's Cyrodiil treasure maps), and you just fly around the map, collect them and continue with your day.
I'd try to assume that you don't want to do that because of the lack of eso+, then yes, having all those materials clog up your inventory would be extremely annoying, but considering you're still suggesting your companions do pick up those materials for you I don't feel like that's the case.

TaSheen

I don't care what happens with surveys - as long as it's OPTIONAL. I like gathering all of my own, and I don't use or want sidekicks.

Surveys are fun. I have unlimited time in game (because I'm retired - ie OLD), and I spend some of that time on surveys.

SilverBride

Vaughndaunted wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

UGotBenched91 wrote: »

Araneae6537 wrote: »

Our companions have their own lives when not adventuring with us. I don’t think more utility would be given to either surveys or companions without some cost / taking something away. If you have too many surveys, do them, destroy them, do fewer writs — you’ve many options.

You do know these are npcs right? If you want to RP and your companions have lives outside of being npcs who follow you that’s great and I encourage it but game mechanics shouldn’t be held back because of non existent NPC lives.

We can do surveys every day and not let them build up, or set aside time one day a week to catch up on them, as many players do. But turning our Companions into servants isn't the answer.

Maybe companions can be more than companions. We have 6 of them now… we’re getting 2 more at the end of year. It would be nice if they did more than die in AOE or or not be used at all. Be honest, when was the last time you did anything on each companion? Do they have all purple gear? Can being a crafting apprentice open up doorways that allow companions to live in their truth when they are not active or if they’re at our house.

Imagine a housing system where each companion can work on their expertise pending the surveys they do. In return, they work on crafting their own gear suitable for them. It gives them in combat bonuses. This is incentivized play. Just like archive gives class based gear… companions could get the same based on their apprenticeship. It’s gold!!!

I really don't see that happening.