For lack of a suggestion forum - Storage, Crafting, Horses - ect.

Nacht · June 2014

Following are four suggestions personal only to me, but which could vastly improve this poor excuse for a game and prompt more people to actually continue playing.

Having seen so many 'I [snip] QUIT!' threads this game truly does need some drastic changes to keep players. [snip]

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Cursing & Profanity]
[snip]
[edited for bashing]

Nacht · June 2014

Storage:

There are many things that get in the way of enjoyable gameplay in Elderscrolls. Functions which detract massively from the franchise of Elderscrolls that players have enjoyed for more than 15 years.

First off and foremost and what turned me away from the game: Storage.
In previous iterrations of the Elderscrolls setting you could not only pick up everything that wasn't nailed down, you could store it too! You had chests, dressers, cabinets, armor dummies, weapon racks. You name it, you could cram stuff into it. Or just lay the stuff on a table or pose it artfully on a shelf.
Since everything in the game is not unique - except for crafted items (I'll get to that pile of stinking manure in a while) - They have the same database number to call from. Now all that is needed is an ownership bit and quantity bit and everyone can pick up any cup they happen to wander past without glutting the database system.
Player A owns 7 of DBref# 123 ... et cetera.

Now, the current storage system in ESO is a complete travesty. It's hugely limited as a 'soft cap' to what... crafting? Which is a pile of manure anyway.

Get rid of any soft caps and introduce: Storage Space! (It's a wonderful money sink, too. Which can only improve the economy over time). Storage space comes in the form of: Personal Living space! (Not *gag* a horse). Personal living space - i.e. a Home - comes in a variety of flavors and prices.

Basic Hovel - Cheap.
Cottage
House
Manor House
Villa - Expensive.

Homes are visible to the player only and are located in the same place - no need to create a thousand homesteads on every map when One will do for each. A player can have ONE 'House' though they are not limited to what city they want to purchase it in. When in groups the members of the party will see the party leader's House if the party should go there.

A hovel will have pretty much no room for furnashings and has space for one Chest.
A cottage will have more furnishing pace and room for three chests.
A House will have room for five chests and 2 crafting stations. A banker can be hired for this home.
A Manor will have room for five chests and 4 crafting stations and a stable. A banker can be hired for this home.
A Villa will have room for 10 chests and all crafting stations as well as a stable. A banker is included.

A Box will hold 50 items of all types. An Chest will hold 100 items.

You can also purchase specialized storage areas. A woodpile, herb rack, loom... ect. These are crafting specific and store 50 items specific to that craft (they're accessed via the crafting station if one is present, or as a stand-alone piece of furniature if no station is present). You can also put ONE chest into the craft store to increase the capacity once. Crafting stations do not inherantly have any storage.

House styles are dependant upon the city in which they're purchased and cannot be modified.
Interior decor is up to the player, and this opens an entire new line of crafting: Furniature (basic stuff like tables, chairs, ect), Storage (chests, trunks, crafting store), and Crafting stations. How these things look is determined by the racial motif selected during creation (using the same 'motif' stones as all other items).
The layout of items in a dwelling would probably be rather modular rather than being completely free-form. With 'slots' that you can put items into if they're allowed for that 'spot'. So you can put in, say, a 'table' and 'chairs' for it... or a Kitchen table that allows crafting advanced foodstuff.

I'm not really set on naming a price scheme, but homes are not cheap. A Hovel, for example, would be fine at 10k gold (and with an advanced money sink like homes taking money out of the market 10k would be a larger stretch than it is currently), while a villa would be somewhere around 500k. All homes would have a maintainance cost - Property Tax - each month. F/E 100 gold for a hovel per month and 10k for a villa per month.

Players will have the option to 'link' their Home to other characters on their account, giving them all access to the same Home.

All of the various storage methods are independant to the character storing items there. Characters cannot access their account Bank via their home's storage - they still have to find a banker (usually rather far across town) unless they have a banker in their house. A House Banker, if hired, would be a further money sink.

Advanced crafting can only be accomplished in a residence, and advanced crafting stations have a maintainance cost per month.

Addendum:
Each building has its first 'storage chest' placed in a prominent central location that is the same for all buildings and cannot be placed in other furnishing slots. If characters are in a group and enter the party leader's Home they will be able to access THEIR primary storage chest as if they are in their OWN house (and only this particular chest). Crafting storage and crafting stations will work the same way - as if the person using them was accessing their personal storage.

Furniature craft can either be its own craft, or added to existing craft. More on that in subsequent posts.

Woodworking - Tables, Chairs, other wooden household furnishings. Basic storage chests.
Metalworking - Metal accented furnishings, large storage chests.
Leatherworking - Beds, Simple chairs and other furnishings.
Apothecary - Herb Rack
Enchanter - Magical lighting, hovering furniature,
Cooking - Kitchen implements, Spice racks, cookfires.
Cloth - Curtains, Bedlinens, screens.
Each crafting profession will be able to craft their specific storage type (moderate expense) and station (expensive).

Nacht · June 2014

Crafting:

Crafting in ESO is a travesty. While it seems like there is a great variety within each tree there, in truth, is very little and what there is is laughably enemic. The only improvment comes from material types and not any actual crafting research. It's a horrible system that leaves ZERO room for the customization that people have come to expect of an Elderscrolls game. Here is a proposal:

Keep the various different traits and use those as a basis for median and advanced crafting. In this instance I will use bows as an example. All 'drops' from in-world sources will be capped at tier 2 (regardless of 'color'), leaving open a market for crafters. In this proposal there would be five total tiers to crafting in a specific field, with the field getting progressively narrower as the crafter focuses on a particular avenue of research. This will limit the number of crafters for a given item and enable a more robust market. Also, higher tiers will require more components from other crafts of similar tiers - so crafters will be required to sell and buy rather than craft from scratch unless they have time to manage that many crafting alts.

Crafting tier 1 is what we currently have, with the eight traits providing a foundation upon which advanced crafting can be built. Researching time would have to be reduced at this tier (with each of the eight traits taking only 6 hours, as an example). At tier 2 players can only research six advanced traits. At tier 3 only four, two at tier 4, and at tier 5 only a single Master Trait can be unlocked. The time to progress from tier 1 to tier 5 should take approximately 3-4 MONTHS.

A crafter does not need to unlock ALL of the tier 1 traits to progress to tier 2, if they know what tier 5 trait they're working toward.

As an example, with the bow, there are eight possible unlocks at tier 5:
Seek - Arrow pursues the target or chooses one within range if no target selected.
Hammer - Knocks opponents back or down and stuns them.
Boom - Explodes in a radius from the target.
Break - Considerably reduces target defense (or Hardness, if structure or siege item)
Poison - Hampers target's vison and causes damage over time.
Soar - Considerably extends archer range.
Penetrate - Vastly improved damage through defense (no defense reduction).
Leech - Portion of damage dealt is returned to archer as health, stamina, or mana (whichever is lower).

At tier 4 all varieties unlock an 'Element' slot. Adding a gem of a specific type changes the damage type and visual effect of the weapon to a particular element. The elemental damage type from runes is also changed, but secondary effects - like DOT - are unchanged. Types could be (but not limited to): Fire, Ice, Toxic, Neucrotic, Electrical, Earth. This does not add any damage, but may be used in calculating damage versus those strong or weak to that element.

These do a considerable degree more to a target than the mere basic effects, but a crafter can use a Master Trait on a basic level five maple bow! Granted, it takes a larger variety of materials and more of them for Advanced Craft items.
They can also craft their bow at a secret 'Set' crafting station, and add a magical rune to the finished product, and upgrade it per normal (but 'upgrading' chances are dramatically reduced!).

At tier 4 a woodworker would need materials from a tier 4 leather crafter to produce their bow (Enhanced bowstrings). At tier 5 they would also need materials from a tier 5 metal crafter (enhanced ferrules). Likewise the leather worker and metalsmith would need materials from other crafters for their Advanced items.

For that simple Master Trait Maple Bow the woodworker would need (as an example) a tier 4 crafted maple bow (which would need to be crafted up from tier 1, each tier adding more and varied materials). The same Trait gem would need to be used for each tier to achieve the desired tier 5 trait.

Unfortunately, by the time they've crafted this bow it's minimum tier would be 20, not 5. Each tier of crafting enhances the level requirements for an item by 4. Additionally, each tier enhances weapon upgrade results by 5% - but reduce success chance by 10%.

Addendum:
While we're at it - Crafting Synergies would be an excellent enhancement to the current system as well, but can only be limited to a Major Synergy (two crafting skills mixing their various crafts together for new items) and a minor synergy from a third craft. Each crafting skill would have 'Synergy' two level skill in it skill tree. Players could choose 3 level 1 synergies which would lock out any other selection until they reset their skills. Choosing two level 2 Synergy would disable the third.

Crafting: Home
If they choose to create a completely new path for crafting household goods there would be no Traits to research, only higher tiers of furniature crafting. This would require materials from all crafting professions and recipes would need to be found/unlocked to make various items and that recipe would need to be researched to improve it.
A chair, for example: At tier 1 is a basic split log. tier 2 would be a leather camp stool. Tier 3 a woven seat chair with a back. Tier 4 a proper upholstered chair. Tier 5 a Masters' Chair (the throne seen at the head of a table in a Noble's House).
At tier 2 they can create boxes.
At tier 3 they can create chests.
At tier 4 they can create craft storage for 3 different professions.
At tier 5 they can craft one type of crafting station.

Nacht · June 2014

Horses:

Horses!
OMFG they're ugly as sin in ESO, and a horribly thought out money sink that does pretty much nothing. The current system needs to just... go away.
Instead, create a crafting skill for Tack! The various items that horses can equip to perform their job!
Basic tack could use enhancement gems to change its motif, and the crafter can research tiers the same way other crafts do as I outlined above.
Traits would allow a horse to be tougher (providing a way for characters to fight from their mount could be developed), or faster, or with higher endurance, or with stealth (allowing a character to 'sneak' while mounted!).

Likewise, tack could be craft type specific - Metal, Leather, Cloth. With the attendant benefits of such. This would further spread out the research work of crafters and make the market economy for crafting more dynamic.

New graphics would not be required to reflect different tack - indeed, obscuring the type of tack a player is using would be very useful in Cryodil.

Blackwidow · June 2014

@Nacht I loved your ideas.

I don't think crafting is bad in ESO, but your ideas would make it even better.

emeraldbay · June 2014

[opinion]

The horse system is fine.

The crafting system is fine.

The storage system works, but it's debatable whether or not it's "fine".

[/opinion]