Scribing: Was it worth the effort?

Olen_Mikko · July 12

No

Yes. It very much completed and enhanced my current build to be really really more viable than it used to be. So i'm a big fan of Scribing!

BlueRaven · July 12

No

It’s been well over a week now since I have seen an ink drop, even though I am doing the daily trifecta everyday in gold road. And before then I think it was just one ink from a random mob.

I get that for some people inks have been raining down on them, but other players like me are not seeing them at all. This rng discrepancy feels a lot like the anniversary event issues.
So scribing to me is just an abstract in this game. And honestly I was excited about it, but the time has passed. If zos wants the drops to be this rare then fine, but don’t ask me to be excited about it, or participate with it.

They are “increasing” the ink acquisition rate in U43 by adding them to chests etc. it’s not enough.

Necrotech_Master · July 12

Sarannah wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

scribing is perfectly useable without learning all 66 scripts on every character (theres 21 focus, 20 signature, and 26 affix), however if your after a specific combo it will take some time farming

No, it's not fine for alts. The reason for this is: When I check what I can scribe on one character, and it looks like it might instead work on another, I should be able to log in that character and scribe it. Without first having to farm for a week+, wasting my playtime. There is absolutely no reason this main game system should be locked behind months of farming dumb dailies! (Note: This farming has to be repeated every time ZOS releases new scripts. It's just wrong!)

For those having issues with ink drops, try not to farm for them. If you farm for them, you will wear yourself out and log off. Whereas I do not care about ink drops, and just keep questing. Have 100% completed two and a half zones this week, and ink drops plenty. Sometimes a more relaxed approach works better, as you can keep going for longer.

personally, it would not bother me if they did or did not change scribing knowledge (scripts/grimoires) to be account vs leaving it per character

but the ink has been a serious problem for me, so much so i cant use the system even though all 11 of my characters already know 40%+ of all of the grimoires/scripts

if i dont get any ink today, it will be the 5th day since ive gotten any ink again (in the past 2 weeks ive only gotten 2 units of ink as drops)

MudcrabAttack · July 12

No

Now that they’re planning to drop all the major buffs to 10 second duration, I’m kind of glad I stopped after inking two scribing skills

old_scopie1945 · July 12

Yes

Generally I enjoy it with one exception. The bow skill line and the vault backwards, I just can't get a handle on the backwards vault. I find it very disorienting to such an extent that I am not using that line, pity. It is also totally foreign to my style of play and my slower reactions due to my advanced years.

Stafford197 · July 12

No

Nope not even close imo. It’s a terrible reincarnation of what used to be Spellcrafting. Vast majority of the work was finished 10 years ago.

Spellcrafting was significantly better and would’ve added the schools of magic skill lines into ESO, to which we could’ve crafted massively more options including Ultimates. Far more TES-like, more customization, more options, and a fun system based on exploration instead of grinding dailies. Won’t go into all of the details here but the info on it is still all out there. As for weapon ability grimoire - they could’ve simply added new weapon abilities into weapon skill lines instead of ending up with so many totally useless “options”.

But oh well…. Too late now. Spellcrafting would’ve been the biggest most hyped feature to ever enter this game, but instead it launches as a super inferior version with most people barely caring or actually even being upset due to the anti-experimentation concept of Luminous Ink.

Orbital78 · July 12

Yes

MudcrabAttack wrote: »

Now that they’re planning to drop all the major buffs to 10 second duration, I’m kind of glad I stopped after inking two scribing skills

I don't understand the point if such short buffs, like the templar class mastery buff is 5 seconds I think?

Kappachi · July 12

Yes

Olen_Mikko wrote: »

Yes. It very much completed and enhanced my current build to be really really more viable than it used to be. So i'm a big fan of Scribing!

and yet... you voted no?

ClowdyAllDay · July 12

No

DenverRalphy wrote: »

I don't know why people insist that you need stacks of Ink for Scribing.

I'm perhaps one of "the lucky" as I've looted arund 60 just casually playing on PSNA. I love scribing. But here's the kicker... I've only spent a whopping 12 Ink so far.

I just learned all the scripts, toyed with various scripts for each skill I was interested in before settling on one I liked, and then Scribed it to memory. I didn't find any need to scribe every possible combination to take out and play with before settling on one. Scribing is working great for me without the need for stacks of Ink. The system is not so complicated that the average player can't figure it out.

Finally some behavioral mod for the speed runners

ClowdyAllDay · July 12

No

I think I just found a reason for others to like scribing

Dax_Draconis · July 12

No

Not worth the time commitment.

darvaria · July 12

No

Lack of ink ruins Scribing. I don't even play now.

Lylith · July 13

MudcrabAttack wrote: »

Now that they’re planning to drop all the major buffs to 10 second duration, I’m kind of glad I stopped after inking two scribing skills

so they're going to cause players to run out of resources sooner?

brilliant.

James-Wayne · July 13

Yes

The idea of scribing is amazing but it hasnt hit the mark just yet in my view but I'm hoping the system will be expanded and improved overtime.

James-Wayne · July 13

Yes

DenverRalphy wrote: »

I don't know why people insist that you need stacks of Ink for Scribing.

I'm perhaps one of "the lucky" as I've looted arund 60 just casually playing on PSNA. I love scribing. But here's the kicker... I've only spent a whopping 12 Ink so far.

I just learned all the scripts, toyed with various scripts for each skill I was interested in before settling on one I liked, and then Scribed it to memory. I didn't find any need to scribe every possible combination to take out and play with before settling on one. Scribing is working great for me without the need for stacks of Ink. The system is not so complicated that the average player can't figure it out.

The real issue will come next patch where the scribing skills have been adjusted and no one will have ink to change load out because of nerfs/buffs.

ZOS wont be able to change scribing skills every patch like they do with abilities because it wont be viable to change that often.

If you have 60 I would say you are very very very lucky. This is definitely not normal amongst myself and my guilds and I have been grinding inks since release.

peacenote · July 13

I'm on PC (so that's how long I've had access to Scribing) and I still can't decide how I feel about it.

Pros:
+I enjoy collecting the scripts on all of my characters. There's nothing I like more than an activity in game where I obtain multiple benefits from it, so I like the excuse of doing the guild quests to level my companion abilities, and then also getting scripts. Going into IC and getting tel var, and also getting scripts. My alts are getting wayshrines, skyshards, and other items across the board because they have a new, relevant item to collect.
+I love the animal theming of the quest. As such I even enjoy repeating the quests on alts.

Cons:
-Participating in the quest as a group is awful and, since I like questing with friends, took some of the fun out of it. Constant misalignment of progress because each participant has to do their own wards. Why must this be?
-The system to me feels very complicated. Scripts and scraps and grimoires... I'm slowly getting it, but find the whole thing un-intuitive and overly complex.
-Because I'm hearing a lot about the ink grind, I haven't made a single ability. I raid; I do end game. I want to be able to make the abilities, for the success of my team, when I am asked. Therefore the combination of the low ink drops with a complex system where I don't totally "get" the ramifications if I go and make a few abilities just for fun, to try it... means I haven't played around with it at all. I have found that I do not mind having to learn the scripts per character (in fact, I enjoy it) but having ink not be easily accessible means that while I've been enjoying preparing to use the system, I haven't found the actual system fun at all.

The ink grind seems similar to the mismatch of having end game mythics locked behind horrible RNG drops that don't require combat, so you have to spend a lot of time in an activity you don't like in order to be successful at the one you do like. For example, I'd much rather spend time running trials to get the right gear drops to become better at trials than hours fishing in a fishing hole for a lead that will help me be better at trials. I think it's unfortunate because if only the super rich or those who enjoy farming nodes can play around with the abilities the scribing system won't feel "fun" for many. I had kind of assumed the system would grow by ZOS slowly adding more scripts and ability color options (like how they keep adding leads for Antiquities), as opposed to putting it behind a material grind.

Despite the fact that my cons list is longer than my pros list, I don't have an overly negative impression of the system, because I am busy and I have a lot going on so it hasn't bothered me as much as it might have in years past that I feel "behind" on it, but rather I have a feeling of vague disappointment that it seems like it could have been better (and simpler) and the re-coloring of abilities seems much more limited than I had thought it would be. Hard to make, say, an orange theme if I can only choose between purple and blue.

LunaFlora · July 13

Yes

i love Scribing!
nearly all my skills in my damage dealer build are grimoires now. they're so fun to use, especially Elemental Explosion, Trample, and Burst Soul.

and we get ink from boss enemies now so it's less scarce

Poss · July 13

No

No purely based on ink drop rates. I made a mag costing pull on my necro tank which it needed other than that, nothing

Yudo · July 13

Yes

I was able to fill a gap in my build using one scribing skill, but for the rest have no use otherwise.
I guess it is worth it in that sense, but had higher expectations.

Erickson9610 · July 13

Yes

Eventually there may be a Grimoire for the Werewolf skill line, which would finally give werewolf playstyles access to a brand new skill option. Such a Grimoire could enable entirely new styles of play, such as Werewolf Healer, which currently does not exist without proc sets as there's no crossheal ability in Werewolf's toolkit.

It would be the 6th usable active ability Werewolf gets to pick from — with it, werewolves aren't guaranteed to have Pounce, Piercing Howl, Roar, Hircine's Bounty, and Claws of Anguish slotted if they have all 5 skill slots filled. Maybe some players swap out Piercing Howl, or maybe Roar, in favor of this customizable Scribing skill.

So, Scribing will be worth it because it's the only way to potentially add new skills and even playstyles to Werewolf's locked-down toolkit.

FrancisCrawford · July 13

I'm focused on heavy attack builds these days. While scribing could be great for those, in fact ZoS decided not to make the Off-Balance option available to any skill a HA build would use.

So I haven't even bought the chapter.

PDarkBHood · July 13

Yes

Well worth the effort. The quests were interesting and the 'grind' is fine. What I would like to see is the ability to keep multiple variants of a scribing ability. For example, I use smash, the Two-Handed skill-line, and I wish to test different variants of this scribing ability, the only way is to go back to the scribing station to make adjustments for like 3 inks (depending on the changes). Let us keep the variants instead, way better, you have them in your skills panel and you can easily to switch back and forth at your convenience.

Tommy_The_Gun · July 13

No

Not right now. There is actually no way to test stuff on live. It is better to go to PTS, which is probably something that I am guessing is most likely not intended.... Ink drop rate needs to be greater or there have to be some guaranteed sources, like daily quests or something.

BasP · July 14

Yes

Was it worth the time and resources it took to implement Scribing? I think so, even though I haven't actually scribed a skill on the live server yet.

At the moment I find Scribing still a bit limiting, but the system itself has potential and I'm curious to see what new Grimoires and Scripts will be added in future updates.

Cronopoly · July 14

Yes

Scribing like everything else, can be adjusted in future patches, so I think the launch was just fine. I'll never be happy completely and I think the dev's realize this with all of us lol.

I think Scribing has some areas where it needs adjustment, like Elemental Explosion (Destro Staff) 2 second cast time makes it useless in pvp (my interest), and only seems good for a stealthed characters imo. In keep defense I've been killed several times trying to cast that spell. Two seconds is forever being exposed while casting...

AvalonRanger · July 14

No

At least, ZOS gave us farming purpose for boring daily quest fatigue.

Part of it is good for newbies, because they can beat dangerous foe with
experienced players.

Part of it is more worse than before, because they made another "grinding fatigue".

More over...

I think "ink" should be more common crafting material, because game developer
want to let us enjoy crafting custom skills, right? But instead of it , we're spending time
for harvesting much of resource on the road for "ink" dropping purpose.

Is...this...really creative game development?

DreamyLu · July 14

I don't understand the question of the poll: what effort? The - supposed - "grinding" many complained about? For me, there was no grinding and zero effort.
I have completed the quest releasing the drops from gathering resources (wings) and since then, just playing same than usual, I have by now around 120. I find the drop rate more than fair for a rare item, even better than nirncrux for example.

I don't understand why players have so much different experiences with the drop rate of those inks.
I can imagine that following factors play a role:
- CPs dispatched on categories linked to resources.
- Both quests done (wings and dragons) thus drops from both gathering and killing.

But I don't believe that it's enough to explain that some get only 2 inks over days, whereas I get up to 5 in just one 20 minutes round of gathering resources...

What other factors could influence this apparently very "capricious" drop rate?

Dragonredux · July 14

Yes

I mean I use at least one Scribing skill on on every character I have, which is already used more than Companions and Tales of Tribute on launch. Some skills could be better yeah, my biggest gripe is the lack of basic elemental effects on skills, it's remedied a bit next patch with Frost. Also 3 skills having >1 second cast times when the community's been heavily against cast times was definitely a decision.

Vonnegut2506 · July 14

Yes

Dragonredux wrote: »

I mean I use at least one Scribing skill on on every character I have, which is already used more than Companions and Tales of Tribute on launch. Some skills could be better yeah, my biggest gripe is the lack of basic elemental effects on skills, it's remedied a bit next patch with Frost. Also 3 skills having >1 second cast times when the community's been heavily against cast times was definitely a decision.

I would imagine the cast time in PvP is more of a problem than PvE, but I really like elemental explosion with shalks. I cast shalks and by the time elemental explosion goes off they both hit pretty much simultaneously giving major breach, brittle, mana back, and most overland stuff dead. If it isn't dead, it is debuffed and ready for the rest of the rotation in case of world bosses.

JimFord047 · July 14

Don't Know as of yet, On the PTS YES, but unlimited ink and instant everything for All the toons.... ON the Full Fat Site, not got all of the scripts yet to even try it out, and its going to be months before i do! my 11 hours per day has been cut to , come on 2 dailies, 2 guild dailies , get the scripts and off till the next day

I will let you now when i get to play it!