Official Feedback Thread for Crafting Node Scaling

Didgerion · February 2016

The resource scaling based of your crafting level is just one more bad solution into the basket.

You cannot enjoy the content when you are not getting maximum out of it.

Everything just cries in this game - go grind your max levels first and the start exploring...it is a bad design...the players are not rewarded for exploring...every cool item fount at level 1 becomes obsolete at next level...ZOS just forcefully makes most people grind...then those people at max levels cries for end-game content.....while 95% of the game is still un-explored...

ZOS you seriously need to review your gear/resources scaling system - like you did it with battle leveling - great idea!

Casdha · February 2016

Dagonthir wrote: »

The 100% v15/16 nodes in Hew's Bane and Wrothgar is only if you have the crafting passive maxed out, right?

As a crafter, I don't really mind if other non-crafting players can go around and harvest high level nodes. I'm more of a casual player (well, as casual as you can call someone with a vet 6 and two lvl 49 chars) and limiting other players from getting these mats is just not important to me. Having my own ability to harvest be stunted due to having crafting across alts hurts my experience more than allowing more people to harvest high level nodes would. Being a crafter is always valuable since you can always make gear for others, or sell gear, and also improve gear from dungeons. I think these other advantages of crafting are a sufficient reward for pursuing the trades without having to limit other players' ability to harvest.

You are correct, I tested this with a lower character and they still scale to passives taken.

Using your characters as an example, the thing on the bottom of my list of solutions is scaling nodes to character level. By what some folks here have proposed, none of the characters you listed would be able to get the Vr15/16 materials because none of your characters are high enough level to get them. You would have to have a VR15/16 character to get them and only your VR15/16 characters could get them. Now it is up to you whether that bothers you or not, I'm just pointing it out

Taleof2Cities · February 2016

Casdha wrote: »

To me this is like asking them to put Molag Kena stuff or Master weapons in random treasure chests for anyone to get with only the cost of a lock pick and RNG stopping anyone from having them. I can't just walk around and pick up these highly sought after items, why should non crafters be able to walk around and just pick up the best crafting material? If a person chooses a path there should be a cost and a reward, regardless of whether that play style is your or mine. I'm glad they added node scaling by passives to the mix just for this reason.

Well said ... kudos.

A player's investment into crafting abilities on a character should be commensurate with said character's crafting activities ... including harvesting nodes.

Dagonthir · February 2016

Casdha wrote: »

Using your characters as an example, the thing on the bottom of my list of solutions is scaling nodes to character level. By what some folks here have proposed, none of the characters you listed would be able to get the Vr15/16 materials because none of your characters are high enough level to get them. You would have to have a VR15/16 character to get them and only your VR15/16 characters could get them. Now it is up to you whether that bothers you or not, I'm just pointing it out

Yeah I know, and that would be perfect for me because it fits my playstyle. Whenever I play my characters, I harvest all the nodes I come across, and then hand them off to my respective crafter. Whenever my gear breaks, I craft another set rather than repairing the gear so that it's at whatever level I've gotten that character up to by then. So gathering nodes at my character level works very well for me, and that's why I'm compromising when I say that I'd be fine with "scaling to character level or crafting passive, whichever his higher". As it is now, I'm playing my vet 6 character who is my alchemist and enchanter, and so I'm gathering water and potency runes that are too high of a level for me. All I can really do with those things is save them for later and make things to sell, which I do both. But at least I'll be able to use them one day. I'm just skipping all the other nodes since they're too low a level. I am working on the other crafting skills, but I think I can only harvest level 30ish mats for now, so it's still not worth it. Once vet levels are dropped though, I'm expecting to be able to use everything since I'll have more than 160 CP by then. ZOS has said that it may map vet level gear to vet level times 10 CP, so vet 16 gear would require 160 CP. I have 150 CP, and they also said they'd give us 2.5 * our vet level number of CP, so that would put me at 165. Anyhow, that's all subject to change, but I'm keeping it in the back of my mind.

Casdha wrote: »

... why should non crafters be able to walk around and just pick up the best crafting material?

Because this is how the game always was, prior to Orsinium, and people like me built their characters around it.

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

A player's investment into crafting abilities on a character should be commensurate with said character's crafting activities ... including harvesting nodes.

Everyone complaining about this scaling issue has invested in crafting abilities, so we've all done our time there. We just did it across alts. There doesn't seem to be much sympathy for alts in this statement. Why can't you understand this from that point of view? Doing it this way is very anti-alt, and I haven't heard any good arguments for why it should be anti-alt. It's just not fun to work on crafting on all characters just to harvest. Honestly, these kinds of arguments are just not constructive in this discussion.

Casdha · February 2016

Dagonthir wrote: »

Everyone complaining about this scaling issue has invested in crafting abilities, so we've all done our time there. We just did it across alts. There doesn't seem to be much sympathy for alts in this statement. Why can't you understand this from that point of view? Doing it this way is very anti-alt, and I haven't heard any good arguments for why it should be anti-alt. It's just not fun to work on crafting on all characters just to harvest. Honestly, these kinds of arguments are just not constructive in this discussion.

Scaling to passives is much more alt friendly than scaling to character level. You can max out crafting in a 1/3 the time it takes to max out character level (much less time if your main crafter makes enough gold to pay for your alt upgrades). It is not however more skill point friendly. I understand why folks don't want to spend 100+ skill points on one character which is exactly why those that did should receive a better benefit to crafting than those who did not (ie. being able to farm all nodes with one character).

edit: as I stated a while ago I made a second gatherer in a matter of about an hour but I only spent 30 skill points on him as I don't care about runes that much. My crafter still has to look for those. (sorry I forgot to say here that it was easy but it cost me about 100k gold and buying every high level intricate item I could find)

Dagonthir · February 2016

[quote="Casdha;2693165"You can max out crafting in a 1/3 the time it takes to max out character level (much less time if your main crafter makes enough gold to pay for your alt upgrades).[/quote]

Yeah, there's no question of that, which is why I think "scaling to character level or passive, whichever is higher" is a good compromise. That way, people who want to max out crafting on all characters in order to always harvest top-level nodes no matter which character they're on can, and everyone else can harvest nodes that are at that character's level, so that gear that suits that character can be crafted from them. I recall you mentioning that about getting a second character up, but not everyone has that kind of money to level their characters, and so it's still painful for us.

Scaling to character level might work out quite well once vet ranks are removed. If they scale to CP earned, then anyone who is level 50 will be able to gather top level nodes assuming they have the CP for it. That would remedy the issue of people who have a master crafter that is a low vet level character not being able to harvest high level nodes, assuming they've earned CP on another character.

I suppose I'll just never agree that people who spend the skill points should get a better reward from node harvesting because it goes against the earlier design (I only think this way on node harvesting, and I don't think that node harvesting is comparable in the ways that various analogies here have made them out to be). ZOS has done so much to take out the grinding and other negative aspects of MMORPGs and I just feel like this design goes against that notion. They've introduced a new kind of grinding that is uniquely their own.

...Well, if the scaling went across all characters on the account so that you'd only have to level the skills once and spend the skill points once, I'd be ok with that I guess. Then players still have to spend the points, they just don't have to do it on every character (again, I only think this way on node harvesting, and not on things like sharing skill across characters).

Casdha · February 2016

I respect your opinion as well as others, I just offer my view on things, that said I have one more comment:

Dagonthir wrote: »

I suppose I'll just never agree that people who spend the skill points should get a better reward from node harvesting because it goes against the earlier design.

Earlier design would have had Wrothgar as a VR15/16 zone and folks who would have bought the DLC wouldn't have been able to play it until they were high enough to survive that level. If the game would have stayed with a sub model this wouldn't have been a problem (like when lower and upper Craglorn came out VR11/12 then VR13/14) but being as it is now a B2P model they wouldn't have been able to sell content that folks couldn't play. They had to come up with a different solution to fit players of every level. I understand their solution even if everyone doesn't agree with it. I think when VR goes away a suitable solution is still to have it tied to the Master Gatherer Perk in the CP system and if you take that perk it not only speeds up harvesting times but it allows you to scale nodes to your highest skilled crafter. That way folks who split up the duties of crafting between alts can gather all nodes with each based on which one has the highest level in a line .

I know I rehash stuff from earlier posts, but it is just so folks don't have to read through the pages to see what I'm talking about when it pertains to the comment I'm replying to.

Dagonthir · February 2016

Casdha wrote: »

...but being as it is now a B2P model they wouldn't have been able to sell content that folks couldn't play. They had to come up with a different solution to fit players of every level. I understand their solution even if everyone doesn't agree with it. I think when VR goes away a suitable solution is still to have it tied to the Master Gatherer Perk in the CP system and if you take that perk it not only speeds up harvesting times but it allows you to scale nodes to your highest skilled crafter. That way folks who split up the duties of crafting between alts can gather all nodes with each based on which one has the highest level in a line

Yeah, I understand their dilemma, although I do think scaling to character level instead would have been more in line with accommodating newcomers. But they did what they did whether people like it or not. I do think your suggestion is a good one, and I'd like to see them do something different than the current mechanic when vet ranks are removed. I don't mind leaving things the way they are in the meantime.

Casdha wrote: »

I respect your opinion as well as others, I just offer my view on things

I respect your opinion too. You've had some good things to say and some good suggestions, so I want to thank you for having a constructive discussion.

josh.lackey_ESO · February 2016

Dagonthir wrote: »

Yeah, there's no question of that, which is why I think "scaling to character level or passive, whichever is higher" is a good compromise. .

I disagree. I have alts with crafting passives at specific ranks for the express purpose of nodes scaling to that level of material.

For example, it's very difficult to find potency runes in some of the lower level zones, and they can even be hard to find in guild stores. With the current system, I can have an alt with Enchanting 2, another with Enchanting 3, another with Enchanting 4, and so on, and collect those potency runes while I am farming with level-appropriate (scaled) content or in while PvP.

Dagonthir · February 2016

josh.lackey_ESO wrote: »

[I have alts with crafting passives at specific ranks for the express purpose of nodes scaling to that level of material.

Well that's certainly new. I suspect people who do this are in the minority. I myself have never had problems getting materials while leveling as long as I gather materials while questing and decon all the gear I get. My master enchanter is generally pretty good at extracting potency runes. One of the other suggestions that no one has really responded to is having Game Settings allowing players to choose what level they harvest at, as long as they meet requirements. So the range players could select would be between 1 and either character or crafting passive (possibly using highest passive of all characters on account), whichever is higher. That would give you complete control over what you're harvesting, which is convenient from a gameplay point of view.

Casdha · February 2016

Dagonthir wrote: »

One of the other suggestions that no one has really responded to is having Game Settings allowing players to choose what level they harvest at, as long as they meet requirements.

Again, we are back to skill point cost. As "josh.lackey_ESO" pointed out, the functionality is already there, it is just has a cost, the higher you choose to go, the more skill points it will cost you.

Edit: I really hate how tagging a name doesn't work right if there is a "." in the name.

Dagonthir · February 2016

Casdha wrote: »

[Again, we are back to skill point cost. As "josh.lackey_ESO" pointed out, the functionality is already there, it is just has a cost, the higher you choose to go, the more skill points it will cost you.

Which I'm fine with, as long as character level is the minimum available in the range. I don't care if my vet 6 guy can't harvest vet 16 nodes in professions he's not proficient in, but I really hate only having low level nodes available in those professions.

Does referencing @josh.lackey_ESO not work? Type @ and then quote " and then name and then quote ".

Hechicera · February 2016

The current solution is horribly alt unfriendly. It is also casual leveling with crafter unfriendly, and will hurt the market for both mats and have unexpected consequences for crafters and non-crafters alike in the market.. And in before the "invest your time crowd": I have one V16 master crafter with all crafts fully skilled and maxxed, AND a variety of alts with 0-3 crafts each with a variety of skill point layouts.

Here are the competing dynamics:
- crafters need to harvest the items to craft at max level
- crafters who are leveling a craft TO MAKE THINGS need items of that craft level, irregardless of character level
- people wanting to level a craft, just to have it for NOT MAKING THINGS can decon items for this fine, items best if not synced to craft level but slightly above
- some crafts have useful passives for non-crafters and crafter alts
- many crafters expect you to provide mats and mats/tip depending on how you know them
- right now, one the suggestions I see the most for new players or players needing cash is to go harvest and sell

So, where do the paths of least resistance go?

So, non crafters need mats of their character level available to harvest. They feed crafters, either directly in a guild or indirectly on the market. This change kills that.

The path of least resistance in the scaled node solution is for everyone to craft. You level the craft by decon items fed to you by self or market drops when level above craft level, and you do this whether you intend to make things or not. If you don't you are left out of the economy. If you hate crafting, you rage that you need to do this (to you bogus) busy work and waste 11 points per craft not just 1 (keen eye). If you want to level crafting, you are fine. However, once more players get past the skill point drought period, and into the "what do I do with 50 skill points?" stage, then more will just point out the already at 50 crafts. Everybody craft! This is not ideal for interchange on a market. It also makes non-crafters mad for being left out or mad for being forced to point and level crafts to gather. Lose. Lose.

GW2 has the same issue, and was able to solve it easier due to one major and one minor difference.
- Decon to get craft mats is viable in both games, but NOT tied to craft skill in GW2
- and a minor one, GW2 can inject raw mats easier into loot tables

In that game you get loot bags in both PvP and PvE with raw mats, that the game can scale to match a mix of expected levels when a character opens them. Also, since deconning gear gives mats to non-crafters, they can compete in the raw material market. Non-crafters must produce wealth crafters want to generate a market.

I would suggest perhaps:
- add PvE lootbags to monster loot
- in both PvE and PvP reward bags, include raw mats at character level
- untie decon skills from crafting completely
- or rework decon unlock points so they all unlock VERY early in a craft and tie what can be deconned to that

Say, decon 1 at 3
decon 2 at 5
decon 3 at 9
This is not a burden to achieve for non crafters and then they need to sink 3 points instead of 1 (decon not keen eye).
decon 1 lets you get raw refined mats from any non-vet item and slight chance at improve items
decon 2 lets you get raw refined mats from any vet item below max tier, and better chance at improve items
decon 3 lets you get raw refined mats from max tier items, and current max chance at improve items

People aren't getting things "for free" as they still need to acquire those items to decon. It helps remove items from the economy, which is good for it. And it mimics both how crafters level no (more using of decon of items) and allows non-crafters to compete in the raws market USING DROPS THEY GET FIGHTING! This allows you to leave the nodes as scaled to crafter tier skill points to allow crafters that actually want to make things to control the raw material mix from those by themselves, as some are already doing.

Sorry for the length of this feedback.

ub17_ESO · March 2016

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?

Yes it is clear they are scaling to my passive level. I would prefer this style in aaaaaallllll of Tamriel! Seriously!!

Yes they are rare and it takes a considerable amount of effort to craft V16 gear.

No i dont think so. I have seen less than 5 aside from the AH

Julianos is strong for magic builds. Armor Master is interesting with the changes to Hist Bark. No comparable set to match Hundings or Twice Born Star for stam builds IMO.

Cheers

josh.lackey_ESO · March 2016

Hechicera wrote: »

The current solution is horribly alt unfriendly. It is also casual leveling with crafter unfriendly, and will hurt the market for both mats and have unexpected consequences for crafters and non-crafters alike in the market.. And in before the "invest your time crowd": I have one V16 master crafter with all crafts fully skilled and maxxed, AND a variety of alts with 0-3 crafts each with a variety of skill point layouts.

This is not special in any way. Maxing out all your crafts can be done in a night if you power level it. What makes someone a "master crafter" is being able to make 9 trait set pieces. The only reason there is a demand for crafted gear is because of the set bonuses. Having 50 in the skill doesn't make you a master crafter.

The only mats that aren't dirt cheap are improvement mats and aspect runes. They not related to craft level or character level. You can go farm nodes in the newbie zone all day long for these. If a crafter is asking you for "mats" he means those. If you wanted a 5pc set, gold, that's 40 tempers. That's about 300k gold worth of them, so you might be asked to supply them.

If a crafter is asking you for mats like 54 thick leather or 12 oricalchium ore, then you're just a schmuck because they clearly just don't want to deal with either you or crafting.

Refined mats will always be cheap, because refining raw mats is the easiest way to get improvement mats. Honestly, refined mats (which are the only thing level-dependent) are practically junk. The only exception is tier 10 because it takes over 100 per piece. But even the price on those has dropped down to something almost reasonable.

If someone wants to pay me in "mats" for gear, I do a cash-equivalent for raw mats. I don't care if they go to Glenumbra come back to me with 200 iron ore, 200 jute, and 200 maple. I am just going to refine it for tempers then junk the refined mats.

The only real hurdle is inventory management, but anyone serious about crafting in this game figured out a system that works for them. Also, Hakejio, Nirncrux, and a few style materials are also valuable, but gathering them is not tied to level in any way, except for the v1 requirement to go to Craglorn or the level 10 requirement to go to IC (charcoal).