Should the partner-to-powerlevel exploit be fixed?

nerevarine1138

This is the exploit that allows crafters to get around the low inspiration and material gains they'd get from deconstructing their own items by trading back and forth with someone in order to powerlevel their craft.

Nox_Aeterna

People keep defending the guild AH , because it makes people be social , which it does not , i have 4 muted guilds that i simply try to profit over. Only thing i interact with is the their AH.

But people dislike when someone comes and actually talks to another person so they can profit together.

I dont even do this , mostly because i have no patience , just breaking down stuff i get while lvling appears to be enough.

Voted no , but either way , it does not affect me.

Chalybos

I don't see it as an exploit, sorry. And they haven't addressed it as one, to my knowledge. No, I don't do it, but that's besides the point; I just see it differently.

nerevarine1138

My issue isn't the increased interaction, but I genuinely don't believe this is what the developers intended when they said crafters would benefit from working together. I think that comes into play more when we're talking about crafting set gear, etc.

As far as I can tell, deconstruction is meant to be done on items that you get in-game, and you aren't supposed to be huddling in a city trading back and forth just to powerlevel crafting.

reggielee

no

i dont do it but its an efficient use of materials, they both are crafting and deconstructing, just working together.. ya know... like a team. like what you do in dungeons and groups. It is not illegal

nerevarine1138

reggielee wrote: »

no

i dont do it but its an efficient use of materials, they both are crafting and deconstructing, just working together.. ya know... like a team. like what you do in dungeons and groups. It is not illegal

I didn't say it's "illegal", I called it powerleveling. And I really think it falls under the "exploit" category, because you're not meant to get huge inspiration gains from deconstructing crafted gear. Trading with someone else to get around that seems to defeat the purpose of the system, for my money.

Chalybos

Well, if they were to consider it to be an actual exploit, it would be easy to fix, simply by making the number static regardless of creator. I don't see that happening, though.

clocksstoppe

yes, goy. fix this "bug" now that i have maxed crafting so i and the other "exploiters" become even more relevant

Tetujin

Not sure I would myself phrase it as an exploit, though maybe that's fair considering what I am writing here.

If this is valid, then it is just barely more valid than getting full inspiration from your own crafting output. If the goal is to promote trade then put a diminishing return on the output of a type of item from a given other player.

Note that what I am saying is different than commenting on whether it should be easier to level up the skill or not. Haven't gotten far enough in anything to know; lower levels seem fine to me as I keep them up with my current character level. But I see that as a separate question.

So if they have a certain goal with the system then it makes more sense to make it work correctly.

kirnmalidus

It isn't a bug, it's how the system is intended to work.

Think about it - if you craft something and deconstruct it, what would you learn? You made it, so you know everything that went into it and shouldn't learn much.

But if someone else crafted it, they may have used tricks and things you wouldn't know in the process of making it, which you learn through the process of deconstructing the item they made.

So it's a very logical way for the system to work, not an exploit.

Thechemicals

i have the only vote for not knowing what this is. I have been playing the game and kind of not noticing what everyone else is doing. What happens to me if everyone powerlevels but me? Nothing i dont think.

Streega

Why? That's how you learn in a real life: exchange your knowledge with others. At least that's how it supposed to be

Jessabella

It's not an exploit, it was intended to work that way. It encourages community.

Like @kirnmalidus said, when crafting you learn more from others.

To use a RL example, I am a crafter in RL, I make a career out of crochet. When I work the same piece over and over, its boring, I tend to go slower. If a friend shows me a new pattern I am excited and eager to work on it, it gets done faster.

Its the same way crafting works on the game.

LostScot

kirnmalidus wrote: »

But if someone else crafted it, they may have used tricks and things you wouldn't know in the process of making it, which you learn through the process of deconstructing the item they made.

How many times can a horologist deconstruct a watch made by another horologist before the first horologist fully understands the intricacies that went into crafting the timepiece to begin with? Simple answer, twice. Any horologist tells you they can learn more from deconstructing a third timepiece by the same creator then they're not exactly competent at their job.

I agree with others, there should be diminishing returns on this 'feature'. Plenty of people provided feedback stating exactly the same on the beta forums however it was fairly obvious to us back then that the devs already had their hands full with fundamental game mechanics and stability.

Ysne58

This isn't an exploit. I haven't used it because I don't really have the patience for it. I have no objections to other people learning this way. It is an intended part of the process.

nerevarine1138

LostScot wrote: »

kirnmalidus wrote: »

But if someone else crafted it, they may have used tricks and things you wouldn't know in the process of making it, which you learn through the process of deconstructing the item they made.

How many times can a horologist deconstruct a watch made by another horologist before the first horologist fully understands the intricacies that went into crafting the timepiece to begin with? Simple answer, twice. Any horologist tells you they can learn more from deconstructing a third timepiece by the same creator then they're not exactly competent at their job.

I agree with others, there should be diminishing returns on this 'feature'. Plenty of people provided feedback stating exactly the same on the beta forums however it was fairly obvious to us back then that the devs already had their hands full with fundamental game mechanics and stability.

First, kudos on your excellent use of the word "horologist".

And this is exactly my point. If we're going to take the "it's more realistic" argument on this (and let me be clear, I don't believe for a second that anyone is buying that as anything except an excuse for faster leveling), then we need to examine that claim in full.

Streega

LostScot wrote: »

How many times can a horologist deconstruct a watch made by another horologist before the first horologist fully understands the intricacies that went into crafting the timepiece to begin with?

An how many times a want-to-be horologist has to deconstruct and put back together a watch to actually become competent? An how many different watches? ten? twenty? fifty?

Man, did you actually tried to level in any craftmanship in ESO? Do you know how boring and time consuming it is, even with this "exploit"?
Seriously, we have a bunch of real issues to resolve, and this is just a social bonus, not an exploit.

Mishoniko

And here I was thinking the thread title was about the Rings of Mara, not the self-deconstruction IP penalty.

Malediktus

This is not an exploit, its intended.

Malediktus

Streega wrote: »

LostScot wrote: »

How many times can a horologist deconstruct a watch made by another horologist before the first horologist fully understands the intricacies that went into crafting the timepiece to begin with?

An how many times a want-to-be horologist has to deconstruct and put back together a watch to actually become competent? An how many different watches? ten? twenty? fifty?

Man, did you actually tried to level in any craftmanship in ESO? Do you know how boring and time consuming it is, even with this "exploit"?
Seriously, we have a bunch of real issues to resolve, and this is just a social bonus, not an exploit.

Crafting professions are supposed to be hard to level. They can make the best items ingame.

Streega

Malediktus wrote: »

Crafting professions are supposed to be hard to level. They can make the best items ingame.

Yep, I know - I spent last five days gathering resources and 2 hours yersterday just to progress 2 levels in my craft And I love it - but it is boring, you have to admit...

Tetujin

It looks like there is some confusion about the question to some extent. I think it's about partnering up with one person for example, and then exchanging everything you craft between the two of you. Zero-sum, except that you get the full inspiration. I didn't take this as a question about whether or not you should have to deconstruct others' items in order to get good inspiration returns, but more a question of whether it makes sense to have a very simple way of effectively bypassing the limitation, assuming you can find another person to play along.

It appears to me to be about promoting interconnectedness between people in trading. You can use random loot or shop around for the work of others to deconstruct and learn from. But in a more wide-ranging way. I think some are seeing the Yes/No in the opposite terms that I am: is it a bug/exploit that you get more inspiration from someone else? Nope.

Is it worth changing (or "fixing")? Well, does it really have much of an impact? How many people are going to figure this out and then correctly organize this with someone else in a way that both are happy with? Probably not many is my guess, which makes it a more philosophical question to me.

Kangas

OP is off his rocker.

ZoS in its divine wisdom decided that crafting actual items would be the WORST possible way to increase crafting.

ZoS decided that breaking down others crafted items would be the best.

In what world does it make sense to attack the players who are following the very design that ZoS created?

PS - This is not "zero-sum" you lose a lot when you decon.

Abeille

I don't think it is an exploit. Besides, the way it is now, it makes people actually interact with each other. It is pretty common for one to be absolutely alone in a MMO, even with all the players around them (just like real life, am I right?).
The way it is now, it doesn't forces group play because gear drops everywhere, but it incentives group play nonetheless because it makes the process quicker.

Brennan

How dare these crafters socialize? How dare they work together? How dare they engage in a consensual relationship for mutual benefit? How dare they?!

Rings of Mara for questing together but how dare these people get extra experience for working together?

knightblaster

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

I didn't say it's "illegal", I called it powerleveling. And I really think it falls under the "exploit" category, because you're not meant to get huge inspiration gains from deconstructing crafted gear. Trading with someone else to get around that seems to defeat the purpose of the system, for my money.

I agree. Likely a bug -- all crafted gear should get the inspiration penalty, otherwise it is too easy to powerlevel.

SuperJChat

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

As far as I can tell, deconstruction is meant to be done on items that you get in-game, and you aren't supposed to be huddling in a city trading back and forth just to powerlevel crafting.

No, they intentionally made it where player crafted items give more inspiration than world generated items, and Self-crafted items give next to none. As far as i see it, its meant to be a way to "work together to go farther" rather than an exploit, especially since deconstruction doesn't have a 100% chance to return the items used to craft said gear (its actually closer to less than 40% if you ask me, and even if it does give resources back it may only be 1-2 out of an item that had 8+ resources put into it), so even if you trade back and forth you are losing resources, and therefore you will be forced to gain more, or find another person crafting. Also ii have noticed if you deconstruct something that you dont have the skills to craft yourself you apparently have an even lower chance of salvaging resources from said item...

I very highly doubt that Zenimax would implement such a feature without knowing that people would be trading/G Banking said items for mass exp, therefore in my eyes it isn't an exploit

*Also all of this complaining about the games design and exploits, yet nobody wants to talk about the Horse that spawns right next to you when you whistle for it and vanishes the second you get off it? I mean obviously that is super un-lore-friendly and game breaking....

The above statement is sarcasm if you didn't get that

Tetujin

It should theoretically make even white items more worthwhile to buy through trade from other players. Is the inspiration and whatever materials extracted worth more than the vendor sale value plus the guild store or cod cost? Dunno, but I had thought this is what they were going for. Promote more open trade through crafting like this. Some type of diminishing returns in extreme cases would maybe stop this from being undone in such a simple way and push more people to engage in general trade more often.

Eris

It's not really an exploit, it is more a way to get people to work together in crafting, like a team of blacksmiths. There are, of course, ways to exploit it, for instance just having 2 accounts would do the trick.

For me, I just plod along and don't really worry about what other people are doing. I mean seriously, why should I care if someone is max level in blacksmith, it doesn't really affect me. I craft for my characters and have been able to out craft my character levels since the day I started crafting.

Laerian

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

This is the exploit...

What are you talking about?

If the items crafted by other players give more inspiration then it is obvious that it is for encourage partnering.

Btw, I haven't used this method and probably won't.

SeñorCinco

To me, it matters not how fast someone else levels up. One can spend a week on a character and the other can spend a day and be at the same level.

As long as their actions do not directly hinder my character from advancing a quest or simply advancing in level, then I don't have issue.