There's a lot of small things I've noticed in the game which creates inconsistencies or more incentive than other actions. I'm going to address them as well as provide my insight for positive changes.

Topics:
-Crafting Writs
-Alchemy
-Survey Map Inconsistencies
-Inventory and Bank Space
-Champion System
-Friends List
-Itemization for Armors
-Veteran content for silver/gold zones

Crafting and Writs

There's a few changes to crafting which would help it overall, and some subtle changes many don't know about.

Alchemy Writs

When you receive a survey location for alchemy, there is something which bugs me about how it is handled. Here's a list of herbs which can never be part of alchemy surveys: Namira's Rot, Luminous Russula, Emetic Russula, Blue Enteloma, Stinkhorn, Water Hyacinth, Violet Coprinus, White Cap, Nirnroot, and Imp Stool. That's 10 of the 18 herbs in the game which can't be obtained from surveys. Nirnroot is an exception because of lore, such as in Oblivion they never grow back. So Nirnroot should be kept out of survey rewards in my opinion.

My suggestion is that 1 of the 3 possible different alchemy surveys are located off of water and near a group of trees. And all herbs are mushroom/fungi related. This way over half of the herbs from alchemy writs are now included and equal to the rest.

Clothier, Blacksmith, and Woodworking Writs

There is a serious imbalance for survey locations between the 3 crafts. I am only regarding tier 9/9 writs, ones located in Craglorn and may yield nirncrux. Each craft has 3 different survey map locations. And for those of you who don't know, those surveys can only yield nirncrux if the survey location is in upper Craglorn. This is where the imbalance occurs. Blacksmithing has all 3 surveys in upper Craglorn, woodworking has 2 surveys in upper Craglorn, and clothing only has 1 survey in upper Craglorn.

This creates an imbalance of incentive to do each writ. If blacksmith has a 100% chance on survey report to be able to drop nirncrux, why do clothing writs instead of blacksmith if you had to choose? Clothing only has a 1/3 chance of dropping a survey located in upper Craglorn.

My proposed solution is to let all survey locations be able to drop nirncrux, regardless if they are upper or lower craglorn. This way the same survey map locations can be used, but now there isn't an imbalance between the frequency of nirncrux in clothing, woodworking, and blacksmithing surveys.

Inventory and Bank Management

Currently, for those who craft and do end-game content often, bank and inventory space is extremely limited without placing items of alts or abusing the mail system and leaving items in return mails. My bank is 240/240 slots, all 240 only in the materials tab. This is because I hold 1 stack of each material for each level range (Kreshweed, Steel ingots, Birch wood, Wormwood, Apples, etc), and multiple stacks of upgrade materials (Kuta, Hemming, Tempering Alloy, etc).

A solution would be to increase bank slots, even if the price continues its upward scale from buying 230 -> 240 slots. So then, for example, when it keeps scaling it would cost about 300k to upgrade from 290 -> 300 slots. Another solution would be increasing inventory space passed 160, but not over 200. This could also be done with a scaling price, for example 190 -> 200 would be 200k.

A popular idea which is suggested often is the addition of crafting bags. I wouldn't like those for the reason that it creates menus within menus for the inventory UI. It is simpler to increase the overall slots, because some PvE or PvP players may have 240/240 slots from all items except crafting materials. The new slots should cover all types of items.

Champion System

So the champion system has been out a little over 3 months now. Some players have 250 points, and some players just reached vet levels after a year of playing and have less than 20. After time there will be such a disparity between new players and veteran players from launch that the catch-up period would be years. The main reason this is an issue to me is 1 reason is specific, and this fact is also not know by a majority of players.

Every champion point you spend will increase your attribute pools for the respective constellations. A point into a thief tree would increase your max stamina, a point in warrior increases your health, and a point in mage increases your magicka total. The increase is so great that once you reach 1,200 points in each constellation, your attribute pools increase by 50% each, that is an insane amount, especially the gap between a new and vet player. A player with 20k stamina and 0 champion points spent would then have 30k stamina if they put in 1,200 points to the thief constellation.

A proposed solution is to modify the enlightenment system a bit. Create an algorithm which gives a permanent enlightened bonus the farther away you are from the average champion point total. So for example, in 3 more months when most players have 400 champion points, let there be a 2x gain of champion points to those at 100 or less, 1.5x gain to those at 200 or less, and 1.3x gain to those at 300 or less, and no gain when within 25% of the average.

This bonus can't be incredible, but it has to be enough to help shorten the gap between new vet players and those playing for years and rid the feeling that it's impossible to catch up to old players.

Friends List

One of the main features I wish existed, and I also don't know exists anywhere else except battle.net, is the ability to mass message your friends list. Whether it be a broadcast like in b.net or a private message with a different color to signify it's a public message, it would be very helpful. For example, the default color to a private message is the teal/cyan color and the default color to a mass message to your friends list could be defaulted to a dark blue.

This is extremely helpful for people forming groups, looking for new players, trying to sell to clients who add them, or even getting advice on builds. And the new unique color to the broadcasts would let people know it's not directly a 1 on 1 question to them, and it can be ignored.

Itemization for Armors

There's one thing about armors I would like to see changed. Specifically which enchants are able to be placed on each piece of gear. At the moment pieces of armor can only take glyphs for max stamina, max health, or max magicka.

What I would like to see is the ability to also place regeneration glyphs or resist glyphs on armor pieces. This provides greater customization to the player, and it wouldn't be overpowered either. Let's say someone is going for a regeneration build. They can now enchant armor pieces to provide that regeneration, but they are losing about 20% of their max resource pools because those glyphs don't exist on their armors anymore. This would make them more susceptible to burst damage and heavy hits for PvE content. The same goes for resist glyphs, they can take reduced damage but overall their health, magicka, and stamina pools were sacrificed to get those resists.

Some glyphs which should not be allowed on armors are ones like max spell damage, reduce armor, drain magicka, and reduce resource costs. Only regeneration, resists, and max attributes should be applied to armors.

Veteran Content (Silver/Gold)

It seems now that with the introduction of the champion system, veteran content in zones V1 to V10 has been much easier than before. The nerf to veteran content they did about 6 or 7 months ago is now too much when considering the power scale of the champion system.

The strength of enemies in V1 to V10 zones needs to be increased, possibly to what it was pre-nerf. A V2 which can fully complete the V10 zone without losing more than 25% life is an indicator that the nerf should be reverted.


I had a few other suggestions but I forgot what they were when writing this up. Any other feedback and suggestions are welcome.