did they announce that there will be new luminous ink sources?

Erickson9610

If you are farming for Luminous Ink, then the drop rate matters; you won't get Luminous Ink more often now that we have more sources. Harvesting resources will always be the most efficient way of farming Luminous Ink if the drop rate is the same as other sources and we can continue to harvest at the speed and rate which we have now.

However, if you are not farming for Luminous Ink, then you will likely get more Luminous Ink over time than before, if looting chests and heavy sacks is something you would otherwise do if you weren't farming for Luminous Ink. That is, this change benefits players who aren't trying to farm for Luminous Ink, by making it more readily available from a wider range of activities.


In other words, whether you are farming for Luminous Ink or not determines whether this change helps you find more Luminous Ink or not. This isn't better than the best method of farming Luminous Ink, but it is better than not having a chance to find Luminous Ink at all in other activities.

Woozywyvern

Luminous Ink is so linked to the new expansion, it should not be something that has to be farmed to be obtained. It should come naturally through game play. It should also be Account Bound on Pickup.

Aurielle

Woozywyvern wrote: »

Luminous Ink is so linked to the new expansion, it should not be something that has to be farmed to be obtained. It should come naturally through game play. It should also be Account Bound on Pickup.

I don’t necessarily agree that ink should be account bound (it would just be worthless inventory bloat for people who aren’t interested in scribing). But I do agree that it should come more naturally through regular gameplay. Even adding ONE guaranteed ink drop per first daily completion (e.g. RND, trial daily, first battleground, Cyrodiil dailies) would be a huge step in the right direction. One guaranteed ink drop per day is not going to upset the economy, and it will give those of us with terrible luck a reliable way to acquire ink without having to spend endless hours doing something we absolutely hate. There is literally NO reason I can see for making ink such a rare, RNG-dependent drop. It’s not like scribed skills are massively OP or anything like that.

Lylith

drop rate feels like it got nerfed overnight.

i was picking it up fairly steadily yesterday but after two hours farming it this morning (plus doing nine daily quests and the related gameplay) i've not picked up a single luminous ink.

Aurielle

Lylith wrote: »

drop rate feels like it got nerfed overnight.

i was picking it up fairly steadily yesterday but after two hours farming it this morning (plus doing nine daily quests and the related gameplay) i've not picked up a single luminous ink.

Welcome to my world. This has been my consistent experience since Gold Road launched… Ink drops are exceptionally rare for me, and only tend to occur when I’m deliberately farming resource nodes in starter zones.

Again, a step in the right direction would be to offer, at bare minimum, one guaranteed ink drop from the first repeatable daily completion. Whether it be the first random dungeon daily, the first crating writ, etc.

DreamyLu

I can understand that many will be happy, but in the end, it seems to mean that globally, as soon as players complain about drop rate of rare items (no matter what), it gets increased. It looks a bit like soon or later, everything will be with normal drop rate and the concept "some farm, some pay" will slowly disappear with a trading market that will become flat. Or do I see it wrong?

It will be interesting to see how this tendency to turn everything into "easy" mode (no grind, no effort) will develop and the consequences.

XSTRONG

I have a really good chest farm run so im eager to try the drop rate for treasure chest

redlink1979

What's the point of having more sources if the drop chance isn't increased?

Aurielle

DreamyLu wrote: »

I can understand that many will be happy, but in the end, it seems to mean that globally, as soon as players complain about drop rate of rare items (no matter what), it gets increased. It looks a bit like soon or later, everything will be with normal drop rate and the concept "some farm, some pay" will slowly disappear with a trading market that will become flat. Or do I see it wrong?

It will be interesting to see how this tendency to turn everything into "easy" mode (no grind, no effort) will develop and the consequences.

There’s absolutely no reason, though, why scribing materials should be rare. This is a system that ZOS boasts of as having “almost four thousand” possible combinations. I have so far collected 43 ink since Gold Road’s launch, which means that I could scribe 14 skills out of thousands of possible combinations. A few of those combinations were duds, so I’ve settled on four now. Four skills out of thousands. After four weeks. That’s a problem. This isn’t some ultra rare housing furnishing, or some ultra rare gold motif we’re talking about. Ink is an integral component of a major new addition to ESO’s core combat system. It makes no sense why ZOS would want to limit our access to scribing so severely.

Erickson9610

redlink1979 wrote: »

What's the point of having more sources if the drop chance isn't increased?

It'll grant more Luminous Ink over time to players who aren't farming for it specifically. That is, there's an increased chance (up from a 0% chance) to find it in Treasure Chests and Heavy Sacks

If it's the same drop rate as looting mobs or harvesting resource nodes, then the best way to farm Luminous Ink is still harvesting resource nodes with Plentiful Harvest. The best method of farming Luminous Ink stays the same, but now players can come across it in other places, too.

Elvenheart

RicAlmighty wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

I once went 3 weeks and filleted hundreds of fish with no perfect roe. I do understand the frustration. I just don't think the system is broken.

Except Perfect Roe is not a requirement to use the tentpole feature of a new expansion. If creating expensive foods was the main selling point of a chapter release then you may have a point. Scribing was hyped as the star feature of the new Chapter, but the main ingredient needed to make use of it drops so infrequently that a significant portion of the player base simply cannot make use of it in any meaningful way without grinding nodes for hours or spending hundreds of thousands of gold. That is a failure of game design.

Adding two more sources for a < 1% ink drop is not going to help anything. If the system isn't "broken" then I'm not sure that Zos knows what a working system is actually supposed to look like.

This. Is. True.

redlink1979

Erickson9610 wrote: »

redlink1979 wrote: »

What's the point of having more sources if the drop chance isn't increased?

It'll grant more Luminous Ink over time to players who aren't farming for it specifically. That is, there's an increased chance (up from a 0% chance) to find it in Treasure Chests and Heavy Sacks

If it's the same drop rate as looting mobs or harvesting resource nodes, then the best way to farm Luminous Ink is still harvesting resource nodes with Plentiful Harvest. The best method of farming Luminous Ink stays the same, but now players can come across it in other places, too.

My best source so far has been running the quest again with alts....

EdjeSwift

Aurielle wrote: »

There’s absolutely no reason, though, why scribing materials should be rare. This is a system that ZOS boasts of as having “almost four thousand” possible combinations. I have so far collected 43 ink since Gold Road’s launch, which means that I could scribe 14 skills out of thousands of possible combinations. A few of those combinations were duds, so I’ve settled on four now. Four skills out of thousands. After four weeks. That’s a problem. This isn’t some ultra rare housing furnishing, or some ultra rare gold motif we’re talking about. Ink is an integral component of a major new addition to ESO’s core combat system. It makes no sense why ZOS would want to limit our access to scribing so severely.

Can we please stop this narrative that we need to go from Aaron A Aaronson to Zelda Zelder in the phone book with Scribing? Sure there are almost 4000 combinations but it's not very likely a player is going to need to go through every variation to find a good one.

Let's look at Scribing practically.

We have 11 skills with 3 Scripts each to scribe and get one for free at the start meaning as a jumping off point we need 30 ink to craft all the skills to begin playing with them. After that, it takes 1 ink per script tweak. Unless you're throwing scripts in there willy nilly, competent players can start off with a skill that's 'viable" for whatever build they're doing and go from there, making a few tweaks here and there until it's just right. Once you've scribed the skill you can play with it and see if the cast time/animations fit your likes/dislikes and move on from there. Furthermore, not every alt is going to need all 10 skills on their bar, making the need for ink lessened for them once you've played with it. Ink is not nearly as plentiful as it should be I agree, but I do believe we're over inflating just how much ink we need to actually use the system.

Tommy_The_Gun

I think they should think twice before adding this. I mean, please remember that there is this Endeavour to open X amount of chests. And I guess we all do want to be able to this endeavour, right ?
Otherwise...

Farmers will make chests disappear lol

Aurielle

EdjeSwift wrote: »

Aurielle wrote: »

There’s absolutely no reason, though, why scribing materials should be rare. This is a system that ZOS boasts of as having “almost four thousand” possible combinations. I have so far collected 43 ink since Gold Road’s launch, which means that I could scribe 14 skills out of thousands of possible combinations. A few of those combinations were duds, so I’ve settled on four now. Four skills out of thousands. After four weeks. That’s a problem. This isn’t some ultra rare housing furnishing, or some ultra rare gold motif we’re talking about. Ink is an integral component of a major new addition to ESO’s core combat system. It makes no sense why ZOS would want to limit our access to scribing so severely.

Can we please stop this narrative that we need to go from Aaron A Aaronson to Zelda Zelder in the phone book with Scribing? Sure there are almost 4000 combinations but it's not very likely a player is going to need to go through every variation to find a good one.

Let's look at Scribing practically.

We have 11 skills with 3 Scripts each to scribe and get one for free at the start meaning as a jumping off point we need 30 ink to craft all the skills to begin playing with them. After that, it takes 1 ink per script tweak. Unless you're throwing scripts in there willy nilly, competent players can start off with a skill that's 'viable" for whatever build they're doing and go from there, making a few tweaks here and there until it's just right. Once you've scribed the skill you can play with it and see if the cast time/animations fit your likes/dislikes and move on from there. Furthermore, not every alt is going to need all 10 skills on their bar, making the need for ink lessened for them once you've played with it. Ink is not nearly as plentiful as it should be I agree, but I do believe we're over inflating just how much ink we need to actually use the system.

I didn’t say I expect to be able to use all the skills I scribe, or that I want to scribe every single skill possible. What I’m saying is that the lack of ink severely limits our ability to experiment with the system, to take a chance on something that MIGHT work out, but needs further testing to confirm. As things stand, plenty of folks around here have stated that due to the limited availability of ink, they’re giving up on experimenting altogether and waiting for streamers / YouTubers to tell them the best combos. Where’s the fun in that?

Erickson9610

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

I think they should think twice before adding this. I mean, please remember that there is this Endeavour to open X amount of chests. And I guess we all do want to be able to this endeavour, right ?
Otherwise...

Farmers will make chests disappear lol

I doubt the effect of this change will be that severe. Besides, there are sources of personalized chests that others cannot steal, such as the chests you dig up from treasure maps, the chests found within dungeons/trials, the ancient chest in Skyreach Catacombs, the muniment chests in the Infinite Archive, and so on. I'm pretty sure even the piles of loot at incursions like dolmens and Mirrormoor mosaics count as chests for this endeavor.

Even then, players who are farming ink wouldn't bother with chests unless those sources have a higher drop rate than harvesting resource nodes. There's the time to unlock the chest (or the time wasted if forcing the lock fails) and then the inventory management, should those people fully loot the chests. And there's so many zones in this game — I'm sure there will continue to be chests in a spot in some public dungeon or perhaps in a DLC zone like in Blackreach where players don't often travel to.

EdjeSwift

Aurielle wrote: »

I didn’t say I expect to be able to use all the skills I scribe, or that I want to scribe every single skill possible. What I’m saying is that the lack of ink severely limits our ability to experiment with the system, to take a chance on something that MIGHT work out, but needs further testing to confirm. As things stand, plenty of folks around here have stated that due to the limited availability of ink, they’re giving up on experimenting altogether and waiting for streamers / YouTubers to tell them the best combos. Where’s the fun in that?

That's the exact point I'm making, people are choosing to ignore scribing because they think they need more ink than they need.

Let's look at your example because it's handy, 43 ink, 14 skills possible, some duds, 4 you like. Even at 43 ink (which yes, is atrociously bad RNG if you're doing anything that could possibly drop ink regularly) you were able to experiment and find skills you liked and hopefully use.

The point I was making was that you don't need 500 ink to play with the system, even 40 is enough to start playing with it and find something you like, which you did. Ink isn't like Perfect Roe or Columbine, once you find your skill you're set for a while*, it's not something you're using every 43 seconds or 2-3 hours. By the time new scripts/metas come around players who are doing activities which could drop ink will most likely be swimming in it.

* The one caveat being like that one person who wanted one skill set up for PvE and the same skill set up for PvP, then they would need ink for each shift, but hopefully that's something that can be addressed via armoury or something like that.

Erickson9610

redlink1979 wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

redlink1979 wrote: »

What's the point of having more sources if the drop chance isn't increased?

It'll grant more Luminous Ink over time to players who aren't farming for it specifically. That is, there's an increased chance (up from a 0% chance) to find it in Treasure Chests and Heavy Sacks

If it's the same drop rate as looting mobs or harvesting resource nodes, then the best way to farm Luminous Ink is still harvesting resource nodes with Plentiful Harvest. The best method of farming Luminous Ink stays the same, but now players can come across it in other places, too.

My best source so far has been running the quest again with alts....

Yes, running through the questline multiple times gives a guaranteed number of Luminous Ink, but I was referring to renewable sources of Luminous Ink that don't require creating new characters and deleting them afterwards.

Technically, creating/deleting characters just for the quest line is "renewable", insofar as you get the ability to delete one additional character every 24 hours, but I'm referring to the methods which can be done regardless of available character slots.

Aurielle

EdjeSwift wrote: »

Aurielle wrote: »

I didn’t say I expect to be able to use all the skills I scribe, or that I want to scribe every single skill possible. What I’m saying is that the lack of ink severely limits our ability to experiment with the system, to take a chance on something that MIGHT work out, but needs further testing to confirm. As things stand, plenty of folks around here have stated that due to the limited availability of ink, they’re giving up on experimenting altogether and waiting for streamers / YouTubers to tell them the best combos. Where’s the fun in that?

That's the exact point I'm making, people are choosing to ignore scribing because they think they need more ink than they need.

Let's look at your example because it's handy, 43 ink, 14 skills possible, some duds, 4 you like. Even at 43 ink (which yes, is atrociously bad RNG if you're doing anything that could possibly drop ink regularly) you were able to experiment and find skills you liked and hopefully use.

The point I was making was that you don't need 500 ink to play with the system, even 40 is enough to start playing with it and find something you like, which you did. Ink isn't like Perfect Roe or Columbine, once you find your skill you're set for a while*, it's not something you're using every 43 seconds or 2-3 hours. By the time new scripts/metas come around players who are doing activities which could drop ink will most likely be swimming in it.

* The one caveat being like that one person who wanted one skill set up for PvE and the same skill set up for PvP, then they would need ink for each shift, but hopefully that's something that can be addressed via armoury or something like that.

Four skills is just the minuscule tip of the iceberg of what I wanted to do with scribing. I’m frustrated, because I have seven characters in total, multiple Armory builds on each character. You say I’ve been able to experiment with scribing, but I feel like I haven’t been able to experiment with the system. Not like I wanted to or expected to. Sure, I luckily landed on a few skills that worked with a small number of my builds, but if the ink drop rate remains unchanged, I’m never going to be able to get the most out of the main feature of this chapter. They’re adding more to scribing abilities with future updates, too — even more possible skills I’ll never be able to fully explore and test. You need WAY more than 40 ink to even begin to play around with this system. At the rate I’m acquiring ink, it’ll take years to feel like I’ve actually gotten my money’s worth.

CoronHR

redlink1979 wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

redlink1979 wrote: »

What's the point of having more sources if the drop chance isn't increased?

It'll grant more Luminous Ink over time to players who aren't farming for it specifically. That is, there's an increased chance (up from a 0% chance) to find it in Treasure Chests and Heavy Sacks

If it's the same drop rate as looting mobs or harvesting resource nodes, then the best way to farm Luminous Ink is still harvesting resource nodes with Plentiful Harvest. The best method of farming Luminous Ink stays the same, but now players can come across it in other places, too.

My best source so far has been running the quest again with alts....

i did the scribing questline again with 1 alt ... i suffered an existential crisis about a quarter of the way through. turns out once was too much

MidniteOwl1913

Sarannah wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

yes for treasure chests and heavy sacks

Awesome!

PS: I love the way ink is dropping, and they really aren't that rare(sitting at 100+).

I haven't got anywhere near that, but I'm happy for you. Not rare for you doesn't mean they aren't rare for others.

MidniteOwl1913

Woozywyvern wrote: »

Luminous Ink is so linked to the new expansion, it should not be something that has to be farmed to be obtained. It should come naturally through game play. It should also be Account Bound on Pickup.

Gods no! Let people sell/buy ink.

I won't buy ink but I know people do. Farming enough to be useful takes a lot of time. Time that some players are willing to pay other players to use.

LaintalAy

redlink1979 wrote: »

What's the point of having more sources if the drop chance isn't increased?

Well, no-one is complaining about poor performance in Cyrodiil anymore.

TaSheen

LaintalAy wrote: »

redlink1979 wrote: »

What's the point of having more sources if the drop chance isn't increased?

Well, no-one is complaining about poor performance in Cyrodiil anymore.

That made me LOL - but it's a really sad comparison after all.

Woozywyvern

Aurielle wrote: »

Gods no! Let people sell/buy ink.

I won't buy ink but I know people do. Farming enough to be useful takes a lot of time. Time that some players are willing to pay other players to use.

You conveniently ignored my first point. It's so tied into the expansion, farming it shouldn't be a necessity. Neither should buying it off the market - it should naturally come from game play. The combination of it being such a rare and inconsistent drop rate and a sellable commodity is a mistake for something instrinsic to a paid expansion.

Aurielle

Woozywyvern wrote: »

Aurielle wrote: »

Gods no! Let people sell/buy ink.

I won't buy ink but I know people do. Farming enough to be useful takes a lot of time. Time that some players are willing to pay other players to use.

You conveniently ignored my first point. It's so tied into the expansion, farming it shouldn't be a necessity. Neither should buying it off the market - it should naturally come from game play. The combination of it being such a rare and inconsistent drop rate and a sellable commodity is a mistake for something instrinsic to a paid expansion.

I didn’t make that comment. You meant to quote MidniteOwl1913.

I do agree, though, that farming ink shouldn’t be a necessity. It should be possible to get at least one guaranteed ink drop per day. I think that making it drop from the first repeatable daily a player completes would be best, as it would allow people to acquire one guaranteed ink through an activity they enjoy and actually have time for, like Cyrodiil or dungeons or Battlegrounds. I’d be perfectly fine with ink remaining a rare drop for those who only want to farm and sell it if we also had a guaranteed way of acquiring it. Scribing one skill every three days would be reasonable.

Woozywyvern

Aurielle wrote: »

Woozywyvern wrote: »

Aurielle wrote: »

Gods no! Let people sell/buy ink.

I won't buy ink but I know people do. Farming enough to be useful takes a lot of time. Time that some players are willing to pay other players to use.

You conveniently ignored my first point. It's so tied into the expansion, farming it shouldn't be a necessity. Neither should buying it off the market - it should naturally come from game play. The combination of it being such a rare and inconsistent drop rate and a sellable commodity is a mistake for something instrinsic to a paid expansion.

I didn’t make that comment. You meant to quote MidniteOwl1913.

I do agree, though, that farming ink shouldn’t be a necessity. It should be possible to get at least one guaranteed ink drop per day. I think that making it drop from the first repeatable daily a player completes would be best, as it would allow people to acquire one guaranteed ink through an activity they enjoy and actually have time for, like Cyrodiil or dungeons or Battlegrounds. I’d be perfectly fine with ink remaining a rare drop for those who only want to farm and sell it if we also had a guaranteed way of acquiring it. Scribing one skill every three days would be reasonable.

Apologies for misquoting you, I messed it up with my edit.

Casdha

If history is a precursor then give it a couple of years and they will nerf the system to only require 1 ink to scribe and they will be included in the daily mat emails (provided you spend the skill points) and they may even be added to daily log-in rewards. I mean you can't have stuff locked behind activities that folks don't want to do *cough AP, *cough Tel-var.

Personally I find farming a relaxing way to end the day and it is nice to have an excuse to do it again. (if out on your travels you see my character stuck ridding into the side of a wall or cliff then it worked a little too well and I dozed off again)

If folks wind up getting their way (which they will) then I say all of these content blocked weapons (edit- and masks) should have a chance of dropping as daily crafting rewards,,,,,, just to make things fair.

Eternalscourge1

Sarannah wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

yes for treasure chests and heavy sacks

Awesome!

PS: I love the way ink is dropping, and they really aren't that rare(sitting at 100+).

Speak for yourself. Ive run hours of dedicated farming, in addition to 20 runs of march of sacrifice lootig everything each run. I got 1 ink out of those 20 runs, and 4 total (1 a double) from node farming. Additionally, the bots running around harvesting nodes is infuriating when considering luminous ink value

Eternalscourge1

LaintalAy wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

LaintalAy wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Provided players were already looting these sources anyway, the additional chance to find Luminous Ink from these sources means that overall, players will find more Luminous Ink. I think adding more sources (rather than increasing the drop rate for very specific sources) is the best approach to making Luminous Ink available over time, by encouraging players to diversify their activities.

That is, it's better that players have a chance to find Luminous Ink doing what they were doing anyway, rather than strongly nudging them in the direction of doing activities which they don't want to do in order to get Luminous Ink.

Nope. Players will find less chests.

More Death Star support

What about guaranteed sources of chests, such as in dungeons or trials? Now players who run that content regularly will have even greater odds of obtaining Luminous Ink, and they won't need to compete with their fellow players to get to those containers first.

Heavy Sacks in these areas are also shared between the entire group, so there's another shared source of Luminous Ink on top of that.

Maybe I wasn't clear. Ink-starved masses have stripped nodes in all zones, now the chests will be gone too.

You raise an interesting scenario of players slowing down in dungeons to find chests, something they don't do now. Yes trials are different. I'm of the opinion that heavy sacks are replacing chests in some cases.

I think everyone (who needs ink) was hoping for 'higher drop rates' to be announced.

Anyway, let's walk the road leading to the gold, eh?

Not to mention all the bots farming nodes as well