Official Feedback Thread for Crafting Node Scaling

trippingchrissy · October 2015

I just logged in to test my level 20 stam NB in Orsinium, and see how the battle leveling felt for her, etc. - and one thing struck me immediately about the crafting nodes - because she's only a wee babby and doesn't have very many skill points yet, all she'll ever see at the moment are Tier 1 mats, which means that since Wrothgar is the only zone with scaling nodes, when this patch goes live, I won't even bother taking her here until I've maxed her crafting passives (which, she's almost at level 50 on all, she just needs to find more shards) - it just won't be worth her visiting until she can take advantage of farming those mats while she's traveling.

If I'm a brand-new player with a low level character, what's my incentive to purchase this DLC right away? (Assuming I'm not just super excited about Orcs, that is.)

Nebthet78 · October 2015

If you are going to have V15/16 Crafting writs in Orsinium, then all nodes need to be V15/16 for those that have the skill maxed out.

I get you are probably wanting players to deconstruct a lot of the loot drops, but even those are much, much lower than IC and are giving gold instead.

Being able to gain mats for crafting should not be this much of a grind. I understand that you don't want players being able to level up their gear in a week after a patch is released, but it doesn't matter what you do, there will always be players that grind 24/7 until they get all that gear they want and no matter what you do, it will take those players a week or less to do it.

What you are doing with these type of grinding mechanics is hurting your casual players as they are always going to be grinding, grinding, grinding to catch up to the best gear and they are going to get fed up and go to another game where they feel they can upgrade their levels and gear in a much more reasonable manner.

As a game company, you are beginning to make some huge mistakes that are going to start driving away your customers instead of keeping them.

#1: All nodes for a master crafter will all skills to 10 should always have V15/16 mats in Orsinium. No exception.

#2: Enemy NPCs need to drop more weapons/armor and not just gold.

#3: Stop the mat grind!!! It is not working as you had intended. It is actually not enjoyable to have to grind for mats every day to keep up with hardcore players, or to be more useful in Trials and Pledges for those who were unable to do them before.

Because of the mat grind to upgrade my gear, I have grown to HATE Imperial City.

When people ask me about it, I don't recommend it to them because of what it forces players to do, especially PVE players to get mats.
Yes, I could buy those mats in a guild store, but I don't have that much gold, Why?? Because of the astronomical costs of having to constantly repair my armor while in IC while I try to grind for the mats I need. Yes... with one trip to the centre and back, I have to repair my armor ever single time, and it was the same with V16 Legendary armor as well.

By stopping this mat grinding, you allow your players to actually ENJOY the content you have created instead of just doing the same thing over and over again to get what they need to get better armor.

A happy player tends to spend more money doing things they enjoy and leave when it gets to tedious. With IC you have hit tedious and with your current mechanics, it is the same with Orsinium.

#4: All Enchanting and Alchemy Solvent nodes should be scaled to V15/16 in Orsinium to match the maxed out skill level. Ensure that players can also find Hikeijo (Prismatic Essence Rune).

#5: Motifs sold in the crown store really shouldn't be more expensive than the DLC they are released in. 5000 Crowns ($39.99 usd/$53.33 cad) is expensive, even if it comes with a few mats to make armor with right away. Keep them to a reasonable 3000 Crowns and I bet you more players would buy them.. meaning more money for ZOS.

Faulgor · October 2015

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned so far, but Heavy Sacks don't seem to scale. I have all crafting skills maxed on my template character, but received Raw Jute from a Heavy Sack in Wrothgar.

myrrrorb14_ESO · October 2015

It might be worthwhile for me to make a low level character and max out skill lines.

Put however many passives I need to gather raws. Cheap respec, since its low level, to change as needed.

Casdha · October 2015

myrrrorb14_ESO wrote: »

It might be worthwhile for me to make a low level character and max out skill lines.

Put however many passives I need to gather raws. Cheap respec, since its low level, to change as needed.

It won't be that low of a level, I think it takes upwards around 100 skill points to max out crafting, that is if you want everything like the best chance to pull out good items from deconstruction.

What is that about level 30 or so before you get that many skill points,,,,, I can't remember, been to long since I brought a character up.

Edit: I think I counted 147 skill points that could be spent in crafting, I think my crafter has broke 100 but he doesn't take things like Snakeblood because he doesn't make bad potions, nor the third keen eye on each trait or any keen eye for runes.

ZoM_Head · October 2015

The more traits you have resear

Nebthet78 wrote: »

If you are going to have V15/16 Crafting writs in Orsinium, then all nodes need to be V15/16 for those that have the skill maxed out.

I get you are probably wanting players to deconstruct a lot of the loot drops, but even those are much, much lower than IC and are giving gold instead.

Being able to gain mats for crafting should not be this much of a grind. I understand that you don't want players being able to level up their gear in a week after a patch is released, but it doesn't matter what you do, there will always be players that grind 24/7 until they get all that gear they want and no matter what you do, it will take those players a week or less to do it.

What you are doing with these type of grinding mechanics is hurting your casual players as they are always going to be grinding, grinding, grinding to catch up to the best gear and they are going to get fed up and go to another game where they feel they can upgrade their levels and gear in a much more reasonable manner.

As a game company, you are beginning to make some huge mistakes that are going to start driving away your customers instead of keeping them.

#1: All nodes for a master crafter will all skills to 10 should always have V15/16 mats in Orsinium. No exception.

#2: Enemy NPCs need to drop more weapons/armor and not just gold.

#3: Stop the mat grind!!! It is not working as you had intended. It is actually not enjoyable to have to grind for mats every day to keep up with hardcore players, or to be more useful in Trials and Pledges for those who were unable to do them before.

Because of the mat grind to upgrade my gear, I have grown to HATE Imperial City.

When people ask me about it, I don't recommend it to them because of what it forces players to do, especially PVE players to get mats.
Yes, I could buy those mats in a guild store, but I don't have that much gold, Why?? Because of the astronomical costs of having to constantly repair my armor while in IC while I try to grind for the mats I need. Yes... with one trip to the centre and back, I have to repair my armor ever single time, and it was the same with V16 Legendary armor as well.

By stopping this mat grinding, you allow your players to actually ENJOY the content you have created instead of just doing the same thing over and over again to get what they need to get better armor.

A happy player tends to spend more money doing things they enjoy and leave when it gets to tedious. With IC you have hit tedious and with your current mechanics, it is the same with Orsinium.

#4: All Enchanting and Alchemy Solvent nodes should be scaled to V15/16 in Orsinium to match the maxed out skill level. Ensure that players can also find Hikeijo (Prismatic Essence Rune).

#5: Motifs sold in the crown store really shouldn't be more expensive than the DLC they are released in. 5000 Crowns ($39.99 usd/$53.33 cad) is expensive, even if it comes with a few mats to make armor with right away. Keep them to a reasonable 3000 Crowns and I bet you more players would buy them.. meaning more money for ZOS.

Please consider this Zenimax, its actually really good!

GTech_1 · October 2015

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for crafting node scaling found in Orsinium. Specific feedback the team is looking for includes:
Is it clear that crafting nodes are scaling to the passive, and do you find that more enjoyable that scaling to your level?

Do Veteran Rank 15 and above materials still feel rare?

Do you feel you could obtain the Ancient Orc and Akiviri chapters and style items fairly reasonably?

What are your overall thoughts about the new crafted item sets? Is it fun?

@ZOS_GinaBruno
1: Is it clear?: Unfortunately, no, it is not very clear that the nodes scale to your primary crafting passive.
I do like the idea here, and when I first heard it, I was pretty excited.
The system was going to give crafters a significant benefit, due to their crafting skill ... I was stoked!

However, the actual benefit is, truly, not significant at all. VR 15-16 nodes are *Far* too rare.
I can get Voidsteel from 3 of the 5 gold zones + all of Crag + all of Cyrodiil.
I don't need 8 out of 10 nodes in Orsinium to also be Voidsteel. If the nodes are going to scale, go all the way.
If you have 10/10 in Metalworking, all mining nodes should be Rubedite. Of course, this should follow for all other professions.

That was the expectation, but it failed on delivery.

2: VR 15/16 material rarity: Yes, the VR 15-16 materials feel rare. Far too rare. See above, re: nodes, but add the following:
At VR 16, the mobs are scaled to VR 16 (proper), however, all of the drops are VR 15, including all the white glyphs.
All deconned drops still only yield 1 ingot (etc), and the VR 16 stuff still takes 10 times the amount of mats as any other craftable (150 ingots for a single chest piece).
At these rates, it would be better to avoid crafting entirely, and suffer the whim of the forced RNG.

Very disappointing.

Worse than that, even as a maxed crafter, with all traits learned, in all 3 smithing professions, on a single character (a truly epic achievement, which took me almost 1.5 years, btw ...) I do not even have a reasonable capability to make my *own* standard gear, let alone, secondary sets for build versatility, nor gear for my alts.

Stack on top of that the fact that I am a GM who likes to help his guildies through making gear for them ... Assisting guildies with VR 15/16 gear is simply not feasible at all.

Again, very disappointed.

3: Motifs:
Ancient Orc: From the reports, this one seems do-able, by farming the two public dungeons.
Sounds decent on paper, and maybe it will work ... however, I expect these dungeons to be completely overrun with crafters, as well as general farmers.

I suspect my chances of getting this motif, as a Master Crafter, and active GM, are very slim. However, if the drop rates, and sources, are similar to the Dwemer motif, this one *may* be possible.

Akaviri: Honestly, this one flat out angers me.
We have already had enough of the forced "You gotta PvP to PvE" nonsense with the IC patch. Don't make the same mistakes here. This is a PvE DLC. Unless, you have a *strictly* PvE way to obtain this motif, *Please* get it out of the Cyrodiil vendor inventory.

I've seen the Akaviri prices posted by others: 500K AP per chapter??? ... For PvE'ers? ... That will simply never happen.
This crowd includes all of my dedicated PvE guildies as well.

Very disappointing.

4: Thoughts on the crafted item sets:
Due to the current issues (above) with the inability to craft even my own, tried and true, crafted gear sets at VR 16 ... I don't believe, even as a Master Crafter, that I will be able to experiment with these, or any other sets, at the top levels.

Essentially, top-level crafting experimentation (one of the keystones of crafting in ESO) is no longer realistic under this ruleset.

TL;DR: One of the main reasons I came to ESO (from games that shall not be named) was that crafting was supposed to be fully relevant at all levels, even at the top.
This was the case, all the way up until the IC DLC. Now, crafting feels nearly irrelevant.
Unfortunately, due to the above, Orsinium will do very little to remedy this major problem.

I wish I didn't have to say all of the above, but it is true.
Integrity is my hallmark, and there you have it folks.

Sincerely,
~GTech_1

NewBlacksmurf · October 2015

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for crafting node scaling found in Orsinium. Specific feedback the team is looking for includes:
Is it clear that crafting nodes are scaling to the passive, and do you find that more enjoyable that scaling to your level?

Do Veteran Rank 15 and above materials still feel rare?

-I'm confused why/how to understand scaling to the passive. (Why isn't it strait forward - scale to crafting level) I'm guessing this means the material opened up by the skill passive I upgrade under each crafting type so I think there are more than 10 tiers of mays so this is why I'm confused.
-N/A

angelyn · October 2015

Nebthet78 wrote: »

If you are going to have V15/16 Crafting writs in Orsinium, then all nodes need to be V15/16 for those that have the skill maxed out.

I get you are probably wanting players to deconstruct a lot of the loot drops, but even those are much, much lower than IC and are giving gold instead.

Being able to gain mats for crafting should not be this much of a grind. I understand that you don't want players being able to level up their gear in a week after a patch is released, but it doesn't matter what you do, there will always be players that grind 24/7 until they get all that gear they want and no matter what you do, it will take those players a week or less to do it.

What you are doing with these type of grinding mechanics is hurting your casual players as they are always going to be grinding, grinding, grinding to catch up to the best gear and they are going to get fed up and go to another game where they feel they can upgrade their levels and gear in a much more reasonable manner.

As a game company, you are beginning to make some huge mistakes that are going to start driving away your customers instead of keeping them.

#1: All nodes for a master crafter will all skills to 10 should always have V15/16 mats in Orsinium. No exception.

#2: Enemy NPCs need to drop more weapons/armor and not just gold.

#3: Stop the mat grind!!! It is not working as you had intended. It is actually not enjoyable to have to grind for mats every day to keep up with hardcore players, or to be more useful in Trials and Pledges for those who were unable to do them before.

Because of the mat grind to upgrade my gear, I have grown to HATE Imperial City.

When people ask me about it, I don't recommend it to them because of what it forces players to do, especially PVE players to get mats.
Yes, I could buy those mats in a guild store, but I don't have that much gold, Why?? Because of the astronomical costs of having to constantly repair my armor while in IC while I try to grind for the mats I need. Yes... with one trip to the centre and back, I have to repair my armor ever single time, and it was the same with V16 Legendary armor as well.

By stopping this mat grinding, you allow your players to actually ENJOY the content you have created instead of just doing the same thing over and over again to get what they need to get better armor.

A happy player tends to spend more money doing things they enjoy and leave when it gets to tedious. With IC you have hit tedious and with your current mechanics, it is the same with Orsinium.

#4: All Enchanting and Alchemy Solvent nodes should be scaled to V15/16 in Orsinium to match the maxed out skill level. Ensure that players can also find Hikeijo (Prismatic Essence Rune).

#5: Motifs sold in the crown store really shouldn't be more expensive than the DLC they are released in. 5000 Crowns ($39.99 usd/$53.33 cad) is expensive, even if it comes with a few mats to make armor with right away. Keep them to a reasonable 3000 Crowns and I bet you more players would buy them.. meaning more money for ZOS.

Agree so much. Please feed this back @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_RichLambert

WarrioroftheWind_ESO · October 2015

Normally I'll sing the praises of this game, but I feel I have to chime in here. I'm getting sincerely concerned with what I interpret to be a crafting bloat/inflation of unnecessary proportions.

I'm starting to think they should consider scaling back the v16 requirement to at least 1/3rd or 1/4th of the current mat cost. It sounds like it'd be ok in theory to have the best gear cost the most mats, but it is not working. I've seen too many cases of people still charging astronomical prices for mats out of some perverse need to line their own pockets, even at the expense of guildmembers and friends who did need help gearing up post patch. I myself have yet to have a SINGLE crafted piece of v16 gear. NONE of the new craftable sets appeal to me as a storc, and the existing stam sets from older craft tiers just don't cut the mustard for my playstyle. It's not that I don't have the mats.

I have almsot a stack of each type saved up from being very prudent with my drops, hoarding mats for myself and myself alone, and I refuse to spend gold to buy mats at 5-800g per PIECE. I don't have a need to push myself to min max because I don't do trials. Barely ANYONE does trials, in fact there are no new trials to even DO so that is not a concern for me. I can do the existing content just fine as far as IC dailies and Crag mobs. While I could ask someone else to make gear I'd like for me, I'd much rather make it myself. It feels better that way. But at this point in time things are just too volitile for me to settle on a set and stick with it. I used to use 5/5 Torugs religiously, but the set no longer appeals to me. I still use 5/5 Air, 3/5 Shadowwalker, and 2-3/5 NM Silence, and I will likely still use them when orsinium launches because there just are no existing v16 sets that catch my eye that are attainable any time soon for me.

Instead of tacking on yet another crafting tier, I think they should have AXED some tiers. Scaled BACK the equipment to 6 tiers with 1-5 for 'lvling up' and 6 for vet lvls and vet lvls alone. Not only is it more points unecessarily spent to have a tier for ever 2 levels, it just sounds plain dumb when you go from Flax to Cotton then all of a sudden you have 'silverweed' and 'Ironthread'. It'd be better to just keep mat types within the range of known materials consistent with ES lore, because once you more or less blow your load with tiers every nth levels, then things get too WoWey and you end up with "peacecotton" and "Zensteel" or some BS like that.

I remember in another thread someone talking about how having scale nodes would discourage farmers and enable crafters, but given the persnickety RNG, I'd say the new system would ENcourage farmers, because it's entirely within reason to have 10/10 points for all equipment profs. Most people have it anyway if they want to do writs and get a shot at glass frags or need gold mats. The door would be open for die hard farmers to zero in on what few v16 nodes there are available. Just like you hear of people finding nothing but worms and crawlers when they find a columbine node, or how back in the day there used to be no kuta's to be found because you'd have people looting only those and leaving the Ta's and Jejota's, you'd have people gobbling up all the v16's and callously leaving scraps for everyone else.

I love ESO and all but I see systems taking a dark dark path, a path that caused me to give up on my previous MMO crush I had for 10+ years. I suggest the team take a second look at their existing model and realize this is not going to work. It is not going to work if you have people charging up to 1k PER SINGLE PIECE OF MAT when it takes 140 of the gd things to make ONE item. I would spend that much gold on a super rare recipe, or an even rarer motif. Heck I think I spent that much to get one of my SW rings that I still use to this day.

I will not, WILL NOT, spend that much to buy MATS to make ONE piece of armor. Nor SHOULD anyone.

NewBlacksmurf · October 2015

WarrioroftheWind_ESO wrote: »

Normally I'll sing the praises of this game, but I feel I have to chime in here. I'm getting sincerely concerned with what I interpret to be a crafting bloat/inflation of unnecessary proportions.

I'm starting to think they should consider scaling back the v16 requirement to at least 1/3rd or 1/4th of the current mat cost. It sounds like it'd be ok in theory to have the best gear cost the most mats, but it is not working. I've seen too many cases of people still charging astronomical prices for mats out of some perverse need to line their own pockets, even at the expense of guildmembers and friends who did need help gearing up post patch. I myself have yet to have a SINGLE crafted piece of v16 gear. NONE of the new craftable sets appeal to me as a storc, and the existing stam sets from older craft tiers just don't cut the mustard for my playstyle. It's not that I don't have the mats.

I have almsot a stack of each type saved up from being very prudent with my drops, hoarding mats for myself and myself alone, and I refuse to spend gold to buy mats at 5-800g per PIECE. I don't have a need to push myself to min max because I don't do trials. Barely ANYONE does trials, in fact there are no new trials to even DO so that is not a concern for me. I can do the existing content just fine as far as IC dailies and Crag mobs. While I could ask someone else to make gear I'd like for me, I'd much rather make it myself. It feels better that way. But at this point in time things are just too volitile for me to settle on a set and stick with it. I used to use 5/5 Torugs religiously, but the set no longer appeals to me. I still use 5/5 Air, 3/5 Shadowwalker, and 2-3/5 NM Silence, and I will likely still use them when orsinium launches because there just are no existing v16 sets that catch my eye that are attainable any time soon for me.

Instead of tacking on yet another crafting tier, I think they should have AXED some tiers. Scaled BACK the equipment to 6 tiers with 1-5 for 'lvling up' and 6 for vet lvls and vet lvls alone. Not only is it more points unecessarily spent to have a tier for ever 2 levels, it just sounds plain dumb when you go from Flax to Cotton then all of a sudden you have 'silverweed' and 'Ironthread'. It'd be better to just keep mat types within the range of known materials consistent with ES lore, because once you more or less blow your load with tiers every nth levels, then things get too WoWey and you end up with "peacecotton" and "Zensteel" or some BS like that.

I remember in another thread someone talking about how having scale nodes would discourage farmers and enable crafters, but given the persnickety RNG, I'd say the new system would ENcourage farmers, because it's entirely within reason to have 10/10 points for all equipment profs. Most people have it anyway if they want to do writs and get a shot at glass frags or need gold mats. The door would be open for die hard farmers to zero in on what few v16 nodes there are available. Just like you hear of people finding nothing but worms and crawlers when they find a columbine node, or how back in the day there used to be no kuta's to be found because you'd have people looting only those and leaving the Ta's and Jejota's, you'd have people gobbling up all the v16's and callously leaving scraps for everyone else.

I love ESO and all but I see systems taking a dark dark path, a path that caused me to give up on my previous MMO crush I had for 10+ years. I suggest the team take a second look at their existing model and realize this is not going to work. It is not going to work if you have people charging up to 1k PER SINGLE PIECE OF MAT when it takes 140 of the gd things to make ONE item. I would spend that much gold on a super rare recipe, or an even rarer motif. Heck I think I spent that much to get one of my SW rings that I still use to this day.

I will not, WILL NOT, spend that much to buy MATS to make ONE piece of armor. Nor SHOULD anyone.

Specific to taking back tiers.
Really your right.

Because those things are here I personally feel one simple approach is to remove the level requirement attached to mats.
Use any mats but use the 10 tiers to allow crafting skill level and the tier passive to allow a player to increase any mat in order to craft armor/weapon/food/etc at a players level. So in essence any may would be able to craft level 1-vr16 but the amount of mats is based on your crafting skill passive and crafting level as to if you can craft it successfull.

The same as improvements now
This allows us all to wear the artwork design of our choosing but keeps in tack the system and allows ZOS to add many more materials without disrupting tiers.

Also some mats could be locked behind skill level and passive level like the motifs.
To me that seems simple and open up value to all so that any player can craft but the skill level and passive make them use less mats and have a higher success rate of crafting

Ayantir · October 2015

Just looked to grab some data and it takes me 30 minutes to find 1 node of silk (v15).

Meanwhile I found 4 of mineral and 3 of wood.

-> Quicker to farm mobs

But I've got 1 salt in the silk node. should I be happy ?

nimander99 · October 2015

Can't wait for this to go live, forums will be fun

angelyn · October 2015

nimander99 wrote: »

Can't wait for this to go live, forums will be fun

Yeah...ive tried raising awareness with my rocking horse poop thread

, ( and gotten many responses of agreement), but I don't think the wider community realises what's in store. I think everyone (even me initially) assumes that because there are nodes in Orsinium it will help.. (which we of course know it won't unless ZOS changes things).

WarrioroftheWind_ESO · October 2015

I assumed prices would subside after IC had been out for awhile and people spent morning noon and night farming and grinding to get their sets within the first day or two, but they haven't. If mats were 1-200g apiece I MIGHT be tempted to buy them, but what I've seen happen is people will snap up all the 'cheap' mats they can find then repost it for obscene profit, then proceed to gloat about it to everyone. It's a rather disgusting behavior and I'm kind of confused why ZOS seems to propagate douchebaggery in this vein. They finally did away with emp buffs and server buffs and all that crap that soured the PVP scene, then they turn around and do this? Talk about one step forward three steps back.

v10 writs in their existing form are a mistake. To warrant the inherent cost and effort, mat availability would have to be tripled, or the rewards from the goodie bag significantly increased. Perhaps a combination of the two. Maybe make it to where the amount of mats you get from deconning a item increases in relation to its quality? Say white gives 1 mat, green gives 2-4, blue 5-6, and purple 6-10 or so? That's always been a sore point for me is no matter how many purple ancestral silk gloves or rubedite belts I get, its always and ever 1 mat. Heck I think I got 4 elegant linings off of a belt, but just 1 mat along with it.

Another thing I'm wondering about is if there are any plans to create 'super stones' by refining the trait mats to a upraded form. I've hoarded alot of those stones and gotten to a point where if a non tier 10 item has a trait on it, I'll vendor it rather than decon it unless its a 'vanilla' item with no traits whatsoever. I already have 200+ Carnelians and Sardonices and Emeralds. I don't need anymore. Maybe with jewelcrafting they'll gain additional utility to add small bonuses by being included in settings? I dunno. It's just another nit to pick.

angelyn · October 2015

So I worked this out in another thread but since it has taken some people 4 hours to find 3 nodes on PTS ;Or if they have found nodes, 90% of them were not V16, despite having maxed out the crafting passive. Using this mat/node per hour rate:

Say we need 150 nodes per V16 piece ( to equate to 150 mats per piece) . That equates to 200 hours of farming with that sole purpose, for one piece. Or 1800 hours to farm an entire set. At 2 hours playtime it would take 900 days before grinding enough for a set.

Say we need 100 nodes per V16 piece. This equates to 133 hours per piece, or 1200 hours per set. If I play 2 hours a day, that's 598 days of doing nothing else in game but grinding mats.

What about 50 nodes per V16 piece? This equates to 66 hours per piece, or 600 hours per set. At 2 hours play per day, that's 300 days.

good bye casuals

Chanman23 · October 2015

Just a thought.
Maybe the reason v15/16 mats are so rare are because thats the highest the vet levels will ever go. They capped cp, and said that its just "for now" so maybe from now on, they will periodicallly raise the cp cap, and the level cap will stay at v16, thus making the rarity of the mats more viable....
Idk, just a thought.

Nebthet78 · October 2015

Chanman23 wrote: »

Just a thought.
Maybe the reason v15/16 mats are so rare are because thats the highest the vet levels will ever go. They capped cp, and said that its just "for now" so maybe from now on, they will periodicallly raise the cp cap, and the level cap will stay at v16, thus making the rarity of the mats more viable....
Idk, just a thought.

I wouldn't hold my breathe on that. Especially after seeing evidence Orsinium was meant to be V17/18 and with Bristlecone and other mats.

angelyn · October 2015

Ok, so we've found someone who has had a vastly more successful harvesting experience than the majority. I've attempted to have a look at what may have contributed to this in the following:

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en-GB/discussion/comment/2335691/#Comment_2335691

If everyone had this same experience it would be a lot better indeed. Have a think about which factors may have influenced your harvesting experience.There may be hope yet.

helediron · October 2015

After spending three days in Wrothgar, these are my harvesting and crafting results. Just warning the resuts are sad, real sad. I am no noob crafter, have all professions maxed on seven toons, have all traits, styles, and harvested hundreds of thousands raw mats, hundreds of nirncrux, yadayada.

Harvesting: lower tier, upper tier (upper t. drop rate%)
voidstone ore 416, rubedite ore 65 (14%)
raw void bloom 389, raw ancestor silk 92 (19%)
rough nightwood 498, rough ruby ash 137 (22%)
shadowhide 81, rubedo leather 37
43 casserite sand

18 hours /played time with vr14 template doing quests, exploring, several hours of serious harvesting. Most of harvesting was done at EU morning time where nobody else was around, keen eyes maxed. All nodes were there, and i verified this by multiple passes over time. In other words, harvest conditions couldn't be better. All mats were saved for writs. None was spared for equipment crafting.

Refining and taking gear writs:
60 rubedite ore -> 53 rubedite. I couldn't finish BS writ.
130 rough ruby ash -> 118 sanded ruby ash. Finished writ with 80 ash left.
90 raw ancestor silk -> 74 ancestor silk (no writ)
30 rubedo hide scraps -> 23 rubedo leather. I couldn't finish clothing writ.

I can't finish daily writs after spending three days in Wrothgar. Worst was rubedo leather writ. I was able to do one single pair of bracers, one single item out of three required!

This just isn't gonna work. Something must be done.
- vr15+ mats have to drop 100%
- Overall acquirement of vr15+ mats have to increased tenfold overall.
- vr16 mats requirements must drop drastically.

WarrioroftheWind_ESO · October 2015

Is Wrothgar justice enabled? What if they added v15+ equipment to the stealable tables? Also what if they change writs from asking for 9 gd staves (I HATE the staff daily...) to an 'artisan writ' where it asks for a single item but specific criteria, like it has to have orcish motif and has to have sharpened trait, or has to have bosmer motif and sturdy trait. Maybe ask for it to be a green quality item so there's use for tier 1 upgrade mats again? The gold reward would be the same, but the goodie bags should have a chance to drop v15 items/mats too.

BalticBlues · October 2015

What was wrong with good old crafting?
- we knew where to find material
- the amount of collected material was ok
- the amount of required material for crafting was ok
NOTHING was wrong. Crafting was FUN.

Now with Orisinium
- the material to collect is RNG, giving you old, unwanted material
- the amount of collected material is low
- the amount of required material for crafting is absurd since IC

Crafting WAS FUN in former times, but since IC, CRAFTING SUCKS.
ZOS, please bring back the fun in crafting. Please do not repeat the failures of the IC.
People hope that Orisinium will fix crafting. Please give us back the crafting fun in the game.

code65536 · October 2015

Additionally...

1) Stealables should not be limited to V14 as it is now.

2) Decon needs to yield more than one mat.

3) The more I play Orsinium, the more the question, "Do Veteran Rank 15 and above materials still feel rare?" feel like a slap-in-the-face insult. The fact that this frustration that they are putting us through wasn't unintended, that it was their goal. I thought that this was supposed to be a game? You know, a source of fun? Why the hell does more and more of ESO feel like a low-wage sweatshop job instead of a game?

angelyn · October 2015

Wow ..them is some depressing stats @helediron

. Thank you for taking the time to test it and post here.

Agree with you, @BalticBlues and @code65536 . This doesn't seem fun..this seems like a chore. I'll just forget about crafting if it hits like this, but ZOS should be careful since I may just decide to forget about the game.

Still no clarification on kai's confusion? Or even an acknowledgement from ZOS that either this feedback or the feedback in general forums is being listened to?

Grileenor · October 2015

Nebthet78 wrote: »

If you are going to have V15/16 Crafting writs in Orsinium, then all nodes need to be V15/16 for those that have the skill maxed out.

I get you are probably wanting players to deconstruct a lot of the loot drops, but even those are much, much lower than IC and are giving gold instead.

Being able to gain mats for crafting should not be this much of a grind. I understand that you don't want players being able to level up their gear in a week after a patch is released, but it doesn't matter what you do, there will always be players that grind 24/7 until they get all that gear they want and no matter what you do, it will take those players a week or less to do it.

What you are doing with these type of grinding mechanics is hurting your casual players as they are always going to be grinding, grinding, grinding to catch up to the best gear and they are going to get fed up and go to another game where they feel they can upgrade their levels and gear in a much more reasonable manner.

As a game company, you are beginning to make some huge mistakes that are going to start driving away your customers instead of keeping them.

#1: All nodes for a master crafter will all skills to 10 should always have V15/16 mats in Orsinium. No exception.

#2: Enemy NPCs need to drop more weapons/armor and not just gold.

#3: Stop the mat grind!!! It is not working as you had intended. It is actually not enjoyable to have to grind for mats every day to keep up with hardcore players, or to be more useful in Trials and Pledges for those who were unable to do them before.

Because of the mat grind to upgrade my gear, I have grown to HATE Imperial City.

When people ask me about it, I don't recommend it to them because of what it forces players to do, especially PVE players to get mats.
Yes, I could buy those mats in a guild store, but I don't have that much gold, Why?? Because of the astronomical costs of having to constantly repair my armor while in IC while I try to grind for the mats I need. Yes... with one trip to the centre and back, I have to repair my armor ever single time, and it was the same with V16 Legendary armor as well.

By stopping this mat grinding, you allow your players to actually ENJOY the content you have created instead of just doing the same thing over and over again to get what they need to get better armor.

A happy player tends to spend more money doing things they enjoy and leave when it gets to tedious. With IC you have hit tedious and with your current mechanics, it is the same with Orsinium.

#4: All Enchanting and Alchemy Solvent nodes should be scaled to V15/16 in Orsinium to match the maxed out skill level. Ensure that players can also find Hikeijo (Prismatic Essence Rune).

#5: Motifs sold in the crown store really shouldn't be more expensive than the DLC they are released in. 5000 Crowns ($39.99 usd/$53.33 cad) is expensive, even if it comes with a few mats to make armor with right away. Keep them to a reasonable 3000 Crowns and I bet you more players would buy them.. meaning more money for ZOS.

@ZOS_GinaBruno he is so true and just to be sure:

GTech_1 wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno
1: Is it clear?: Unfortunately, no, it is not very clear that the nodes scale to your primary crafting passive.
I do like the idea here, and when I first heard it, I was pretty excited.
The system was going to give crafters a significant benefit, due to their crafting skill ... I was stoked!

However, the actual benefit is, truly, not significant at all. VR 15-16 nodes are *Far* too rare.
I can get Voidsteel from 3 of the 5 gold zones + all of Crag + all of Cyrodiil.
I don't need 8 out of 10 nodes in Orsinium to also be Voidsteel. If the nodes are going to scale, go all the way.
If you have 10/10 in Metalworking, all mining nodes should be Rubedite. Of course, this should follow for all other professions.

That was the expectation, but it failed on delivery.

2: VR 15/16 material rarity: Yes, the VR 15-16 materials feel rare. Far too rare. See above, re: nodes, but add the following:
At VR 16, the mobs are scaled to VR 16 (proper), however, all of the drops are VR 15, including all the white glyphs.
All deconned drops still only yield 1 ingot (etc), and the VR 16 stuff still takes 10 times the amount of mats as any other craftable (150 ingots for a single chest piece).
At these rates, it would be better to avoid crafting entirely, and suffer the whim of the forced RNG.

Very disappointing.

Worse than that, even as a maxed crafter, with all traits learned, in all 3 smithing professions, on a single character (a truly epic achievement, which took me almost 1.5 years, btw ...) I do not even have a reasonable capability to make my *own* standard gear, let alone, secondary sets for build versatility, nor gear for my alts.

Stack on top of that the fact that I am a GM who likes to help his guildies through making gear for them ... Assisting guildies with VR 15/16 gear is simply not feasible at all.

Again, very disappointed.

3: Motifs:
Ancient Orc: From the reports, this one seems do-able, by farming the two public dungeons.
Sounds decent on paper, and maybe it will work ... however, I expect these dungeons to be completely overrun with crafters, as well as general farmers.

I suspect my chances of getting this motif, as a Master Crafter, and active GM, are very slim. However, if the drop rates, and sources, are similar to the Dwemer motif, this one *may* be possible.

Akaviri: Honestly, this one flat out angers me.
We have already had enough of the forced "You gotta PvP to PvE" nonsense with the IC patch. Don't make the same mistakes here. This is a PvE DLC. Unless, you have a *strictly* PvE way to obtain this motif, *Please* get it out of the Cyrodiil vendor inventory.

I've seen the Akaviri prices posted by others: 500K AP per chapter??? ... For PvE'ers? ... That will simply never happen.
This crowd includes all of my dedicated PvE guildies as well.

Very disappointing.

4: Thoughts on the crafted item sets:
Due to the current issues (above) with the inability to craft even my own, tried and true, crafted gear sets at VR 16 ... I don't believe, even as a Master Crafter, that I will be able to experiment with these, or any other sets, at the top levels.

Essentially, top-level crafting experimentation (one of the keystones of crafting in ESO) is no longer realistic under this ruleset.

TL;DR: One of the main reasons I came to ESO (from games that shall not be named) was that crafting was supposed to be fully relevant at all levels, even at the top.
This was the case, all the way up until the IC DLC. Now, crafting feels nearly irrelevant.
Unfortunately, due to the above, Orsinium will do very little to remedy this major problem.

I wish I didn't have to say all of the above, but it is true.
Integrity is my hallmark, and there you have it folks.

Sincerely,
~GTech_1

Just the same as the first quote. 100% agree. Thanks you guys for your qork, so we only have to quote and agree.

Faulgor · October 2015

helediron wrote: »

After spending three days in Wrothgar, these are my harvesting and crafting results. Just warning the resuts are sad, real sad. I am no noob crafter, have all professions maxed on seven toons, have all traits, styles, and harvested hundreds of thousands raw mats, hundreds of nirncrux, yadayada.

Harvesting: lower tier, upper tier (upper t. drop rate%)
voidstone ore 416, rubedite ore 65 (14%)
raw void bloom 389, raw ancestor silk 92 (19%)
rough nightwood 498, rough ruby ash 137 (22%)
shadowhide 81, rubedo leather 37
43 casserite sand

18 hours /played time with vr14 template doing quests, exploring, several hours of serious harvesting. Most of harvesting was done at EU morning time where nobody else was around, keen eyes maxed. All nodes were there, and i verified this by multiple passes over time. In other words, harvest conditions couldn't be better. All mats were saved for writs. None was spared for equipment crafting.

Refining and taking gear writs:
60 rubedite ore -> 53 rubedite. I couldn't finish BS writ.
130 rough ruby ash -> 118 sanded ruby ash. Finished writ with 80 ash left.
90 raw ancestor silk -> 74 ancestor silk (no writ)
30 rubedo hide scraps -> 23 rubedo leather. I couldn't finish clothing writ.

I can't finish daily writs after spending three days in Wrothgar. Worst was rubedo leather writ. I was able to do one single pair of bracers, one single item out of three required!

This just isn't gonna work. Something must be done.
- vr15+ mats have to drop 100%
- Overall acquirement of vr15+ mats have to increased tenfold overall.
- vr16 mats requirements must drop drastically.

I posted my findings in another thread:

Faulgor wrote: »

Elephant42 wrote: »

Faulgor wrote: »

-snip-I don't really see how one can be so unlucky, except heavy competition by other people gathering materials. I easily collect a dozen ores just riding around Wrothgar, admiring the landscape, and I don't stop at nodes all that often (Heavy Sacks drop them, too). Without Keen Eye even. So I can't really agree with your math there.-snip-

Perhaps it's you who have been excessively _lucky_ as this does not at all correspond to my experience, nor to that of most of the posters in this thread from the way I read it.

And you have also hit a nerve with your node competition comment - if the drop rate is this bad on the relatively lightly loaded PTS, imagine what it will be like once all and sundry rush in there when it goes live

I considered just being lucky, so I just now spent another full hour riding through Wrothgar, gathering nodes.

* I only gathered VR15/16 nodes. I did not touch Nightwood/Voidstone/Voidbloom.
* I had the Master Gatherer perk. It will not speed up overall gathering by a ton, but it's convenient.
* I rode a horse maxed out in speed.

The results are:

Ancient Silk nodes: 13
Ruby Ash nodes: 5
Rubedite Ore nodes: 14

Ancient Silk recovered: 44 raw, 39 refined
Ruby Ash recovered: 19 raw, 7 refined
Rubedite Ingot recovered: 43 raw, 34 refined

It's notable that Ruby Ash is much rarer than the other nodes. While this could be a fluke, I don't think it's because you see less wood nodes in general. I saw plenty of Nightwood, but only the 5 Ruby Ash listed above. I don't want to say it's a bug, as that would require more testing, but it's noteworthy.

Considering competition, I did not see anyone else during that time. However, I'm not convinced other players gathering as well will be a detriment: The more nodes will be harvested, by yourself or other players, the higher the frequency of high ranking nodes that will spawn. Because I only gathered the high ranking nodes, I rode past a lot of ungathered lower ranking nodes which did get a new chance to spawn as high ranking ones. If you plan to gather along a fixed route, it would be advisable to collect everything.

I also noticed that the further north you go in Wrothgar, nodes in general become really sparse. I could have probably gotten more if I had stayed south of Orsinium, but I also wanted to visit some areas I hadn't seen before (the zone is bloody gorgeous).

Overall, I came back even more convinced that the current rate is fine. The return is actually great. It would have taken me significantly longer to get the same amount of refined materials by grinding in IC for gear to deconstruct. If I'd trade all materials for the one I want, I could get ~80 in an hour. 2 hours of gathering, and I could make myself a VR16 cuirass. That is incredibly fast. 2 hours of gathering per day and you have yourself a full VR16 set within a week. I'd say gathering nodes is now the fastest way to get the new materials when playing solo.

I find it odd that I got a third of the refined materials you got over three days within a single hour.

code65536 · October 2015

@Faulgor ... So to do this efficiently, you need a max speed horse, enough CP to get the harvesting perk, lots of discipline, and a tight route. Oh, and you need to be on the PTS where the population is far lower than what it'd be on live, and the proportion of that population out actually gathering will be far lower than on live.

I dare say that the vast, vast majority of people will not have the same kind of experience that you had, and it baffles me that you think that this would translate acceptably on live.

A better comparison would be this: Imagine if 4 people were speed-farming (and thus competing against each other). Do you think they'd be able to get nearly the amount that you got of the new mats? And compare that to that they'd get in a quick 30-minute run-through of nICP, where all 4 of them will get a bundle of mats.

Vandercat · October 2015

I haven't had a chance to read the entire thread yet, but I wanted to say a couple of things real quickly.

When I posted the other day, I had not had a chance to check out the pricing on Akaviri motif yet.

Let me just say this...bad choice ZoS.

It will take 4 MILLION + AP to buy it. I have been playing since, well forever, and I have 700k AP. I don't spend it, but I since I don't spend my life pvp'ing I don't earn it either. Which means, I either learn to like pvp or I spend HUGE amounts of gold to buy it from people who do. The glass motif was bad enough, I sucked it up and did it, but this actually offends me. I respect the folks that do like pvp, it's just not for me as a general rule. What I don't like is being forced to play one way or the other to get crafting items.

and...

No, I won't spend crowns to buy it either.

Faulgor · October 2015

code65536 wrote: »

@Faulgor ... So to do this efficiently, you need a max speed horse, enough CP to get the harvesting perk, lots of discipline, and a tight route. Oh, and you need to be on the PTS where the population is far lower than what it'd be on live, and the proportion of that population out actually gathering will be far lower than on live.

I dare say that the vast, vast majority of people will not have the same kind of experience that you had, and it baffles me that you think that this would translate acceptably on live.

A better comparison would be this: Imagine if 4 people were speed-farming (and thus competing against each other). Do you think they'd be able to get nearly the amount that you got of the new mats? And compare that to that they'd get in a quick 30-minute run-through of nICP, where all 4 of them will get a bundle of mats.

* You don't need a max speed horse. Of course speed will help, but it is not required, and a horse is not the only means to be fast. I merely stated the conditions of my run.
* You don't need the harvesting perks either. The one for 30 cp increases your yield by 10%, which is both quite easy to get but not immensely important, and the master gatherer perk is merely a slight convenience. Spending half a second longer to harvest a node once you found it won't effect the overall gathering speed by a lot.
* Riding / Running from node to node doesn't really require a lot of discipline. It's probably the most relaxed activity in the game.
* I certainly didn't have a tight route, not sure where you got that idea. Establishing routes is especially difficult in Wrothgar due to the vertical terrain, and I just ran around to whatever looked interesting along a general vector from south to north.
* I can't influence the population on PTS. Again, I merely stated the circumstances of my run. Generally, you'll want some other players to gather nodes as well to increase the spawn rate, but not too much so you don't get into the situation where someone steals someone else's node. But that has always been the case.
* I specifically said gathering nodes seems like the best way to acquire materials solo. As I was gathering solo, the most apt comparison was running solo PvE as well, not group dungeons.

Dezaker_Zyro · October 2015

My vote is for it to scale to Crafting passives. Make each skill point a little more meaningful for crafter's.

Teargrants wrote: »

Crafting nodes should scale to character level, not the amount of skill points invested into the crafting proficiency. As it is, this forces ppl to spend another 30 skill points on their alts to be able to harvest useful mats.

However, those who did sacrifice skill points to use materials should be the focal point of the scaling. They made the sacrifice and put forth the effort. Just because someone is V16 doesn't mean they invested in said crafting skill.
This is a crafting issue not a character level issue. It should scale to the investment in the crafting skill line.

Casdha wrote: »

I like that the nodes level off of crafting level/skill point use rather than character level. This way if you want them you have to level crafting / spend skill points to have access to them from a node. If it were scaled off of character level crafters would get no advantage again.

Again I like this idea.

I agree. this should be a reward to those who have heavily invested in crafting.