The Removal of Bind on Equip from an Endgame Perspective

potirondb16_ESO · September 2016

AJTC5000 wrote: »

A question to the endgame raiders on this thread - why do you raid? I'm interested in hearing your reasons.

I raid because I like the feeling of progression it gives, getting better each time as a team.

Shadesofkin · September 2016

Considering Dev team couldn't make it past Vet Ruins 2nd major boss on live stream, they should be sympathetic to the costs of running Veteran Trials.

Docmandu · September 2016

Asmael wrote: »

Zenimax luvz flower picking, and think you should as well.

"We want you to play the content!" -- Picks flower #97837274672

potirondb16_ESO · September 2016

Got actually two more suggestions:

1. Make normal trial drop BoE version of the new set that are already on the PTS (old revamp set) and create an intermediary version of each trial set (Inbetween Infaillible Aether and Mage as an example) that is also BoE but make this set drop only on last boss in normal mode while you make it a random drop in veteran mode and exclude totally the veteran set version from normal trial

2. Creates a box which drops only once a week in normal mode that include a BoE version of the current trial set and create a box which always drop in vet which containt the same thing.

Thanks to @Samcro on that last one !

asneakybanana · September 2016

As a well off raider the gold from hard modes from boe jewels as a reward isn't a huge worry for me. The bigger worry is the fact that zos offered BiS jewels for many builds for one update and many others for just 2. All those builds using necropotence, sun, viper, dreugh king, or akaviri are going to be extremely hard to get to the same level that can be attained currently because you have to wait for the rng cyrodiil vendor to carry rings and then later carry necks of that specific set. I would love to see the loot system stay and the only exception is gold boe jewels drop from trials like they do currently.

Autolycus · September 2016

I agree. I'd suggest that few know better than many of the names I see on this thread, in terms of how much of an investment in both time and gold (in one form or another, gear, potions, etc.), doing competitive pve content really is. The removal of BoE items in pve content places a significant strain on the ability to generate income. There are limitations to making coin in all forms of content, such as RNG boxes in pvp, but even that is in many cases far more lucrative than most pve content.

PvE players have already taken a hit to income potential with the "exploitation" (for lack of a better word) in trials content, such as the prices of Dro-m'Athra motifs plummeting as a result of scaling MoL to unreasonably low levels specifically for farming these motifs, or scaling vDSA or vSO and still obtaining cp160 loot. Ultimately, I do not want to spark a debate about how fair or unfair the prices are, but generally speaking, these items should be worth a fair amount of coin to those who are capable of completing the content.

Instead, every opportunity for income resulting from pve progression is removed... and that's logical? Okay, sure we can gear up our toons, and sure we can help our friends & guildies gear up too, but how do we cover the cost of doing the content? Upgrading that gear to gold quality isn't cheap (very far from it), nor are the potions. Perhaps most importantly, however, is the time commitment that must now be spent elsewhere. We're not talking about sitting out of a couple of vet dungeons (maybe an hour or so) to go farm some flowers to have potions on-hand. It's more like a dozen hours (or more for some people) each week that are spent working for this loot. To generate enough gold to afford gold tempers and potions through farming, offering services, or playing the market is just as time-consuming.

Are we expected to stop participating in content in order to prepare for said content, when historically speaking, participating (and doing so successfully) has been its own reward, and allowed us to continue doing it? Or perhaps more importantly, why is the system changing from an "all" to "none" basis? In other words, what is the point in doing this content if almost everything that can be obtained from participating is worthless now? As Nifty mentioned, 10k a week is next to nothing compared to the cost of doing hardmodes. That's like saying someone is qualified to hold an executive role at a reputable firm, but only offering an entry-level salary for compensation.

Humatiel · September 2016

A simple answer:

Clearing Vet Trials (each time) grants 25k
Clearing Vet Trials HM(each time) grants 50k

potirondb16_ESO · September 2016

BTW some people say they should hide 10k reward behind HM completion... what about people running veteran but whom are yet far from achiveing Hard Mode in any of those ?? Hiding reward behind Hard Mode is 100% NORMAL !

But don't hide Financial incentive behind those door or every team who are currently building and getting stronger will have too much issue with that during all the progression phase it will become a nightmare !

Shadesofkin · September 2016

potirondb16_ESO wrote: »

BTW some people say they should hide 10k reward behind HM completion... what about people running veteran but whom are yet far from achiveing Hard Mode in any of those ?? Hiding reward behind Hard Mode is 100% NORMAL !

But don't hide Financial incentive behind those door or every team who are currently building and getting stronger will have too much issue with that during all the progression phase it will become a nightmare !

I just feel the HM should be much larger. give 2500-5000 per boss from Veteran, with the final boss having a 10k reward, then give HM completion an additional 25k reward.

code65536 · September 2016

potirondb16_ESO wrote: »

But don't hide Financial incentive behind those door or every team who are currently building and getting stronger will have too much issue with that during all the progression phase it will become a nightmare !

Which is why I think a major component of the solution is fixing alchemy. Rewards are nice for groups that actually complete the content, but so much of the expense is borne by groups that are still progressing.

Adding more monetary rewards to offset potion costs won't solve the root problem, which is one of supply, will just result in more price inflation, and does absolutely nothing for the many people who are progressing.

Dromede · September 2016

Eweroun wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

Eweroun wrote: »

newtinmpls wrote: »

JavaWho wrote: »

Personally raiding several nights a week potions will cost me well over 200,000 gold per week, usually more

I have never had this much money in the game. Ever.

I've been playing two accounts since about a month after PC launch.

hmmm.... raiding at least 4 nights a week ... never paid for potions... oh an yes, i use them..
if you take some time to pick some flowers... it's not that hard...
(yesterday I got my precious needed flowers with a survey report... easy one this week)

wandering the lands of Tamriel is quite relaxing!! takes away the stress of real life... give it a try and spend your precious earned gold on other things

Not everyone likes to farm, some people only have time to log on and raid

takes me 10-15 minutes to get necessary stuff for potions... you can hardly call that farming, no?

Please tell us more how it takes 15 minutes to farm enough flowers and water to make a stack or two of pots..

Progression teams burn through them - i'm talking about 2k+ pots on a good night for the whole group.

potirondb16_ESO · September 2016

@code65536 I agree with you on part of that, that's why I said a crafting bag at the end of trial could also be nice. Maybe increase the amount of potion per craft too could help, maybe 8 vs. 32 for poison...

Flak · September 2016

Couldn't agree more, please look into this Zeni!
If this goes live it will hit the economy very hard.
I don't even care that much about making money with Trials or Dungeons as I do them for fun... but at least I want my spendings covered.
Not that I couldn't afford it since I do Writs on 8 toons, but it leaves a bad taste and the loosystem is already completely broken.

Mojmir · September 2016

So technically vma weps are end game rewards, can we allow selling those too?

DocFrost72 · September 2016

I think I need something clarified; are these dungeons impossible to do without potions? That seems to be the biggest issue you all are facing gold wise, if I read the OP right.

Grumble_and_Grunt · September 2016

Ok before I do anything else I am just going to leave these quotes here from another similar itemisation thread months ago to help back up my queries and for arguments sakes.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

We are not adding Impenetrable to the Trait loot tables at this time. We don't want to make our PVP community feel forced to run Trials – our most difficult PVE content – in order to remain competitive in Cyrodiil and Imperial City.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Hi everyone,

We have an update for you. We will be making the following changes to Trait attainability with the launch of Update 12:
Prosperous and Training will be removed as a valid Trait for all items that drop in Trials

Valid Traits for Trials and Leaderboard rewards are as follows:
Weapons – Infused, Powered, Precise, Defending, Sharpened, Charged, Decisive

Armor – Infused, Divines, Well-Fitted, Reinforced, Sturdy

Items drops in the overland and in dungeons will have a chance of dropping with all available Traits, including Impenetrable

Thank you all for sharing your thoughts with us on this subject. We appreciate how constructive this discussion has been, and the ideas shared.

So it appears ZoS are slowly streamlining this once casual mmo into a pure single player game with ghosts. Firstly the decision to remove TRIALS SET ITEMS and then just making them incredibly accessible is a huge F*** you to anyone who as a guild or for their pure enjoyment of the game likes to take the effort to run these trials.

Making all these items zone based not only gives even less incentive to do trials (which is actually quite funny that ZoS went through the effort to scale them up, only to then remove anything meanwhile from them) it also completely diminishes the items worth and therefore the feeling of it being rewarding, with this also being said there is no mention as to how to obtain these items in legendary or am I wrong? So what's the deal with that? Anyhow, I digress.

So ZoS removes all the trial sets from trials to accommodate those who do not wish to trial clearly? Even though such people could buy the sets from those who made the efforts to obtain these items. Now those who were interested in trials can no longer obtain the gear and the only gear they can obtain is now BoP??? Any guild who runs trials already has full sets of the only remaining trial sets that are noted. The addition of the revamped old trial sets with BoP trading will mean everyone will have full sets within a few weeks if that. So where is the incentive to trials? Also worth noting nothing in patch notes about an updated relevant weekly trials rewards, so yayyy more pointless vmol loot for all! Not that it even matters anymore lol since even if these were updated the sets would be kinda irrelevant to most at this point.

@ZOS_Finn and @Wrobel since you are the guys behind trials and itemisation. Please explain to us all your reasonings for this? You finally made trials relevant again and ultimately made the decision to make them irrelevant again in the space of one patch lol. BoP has been complained about extensively since it's existence in this game. The only justification was DLC based content and paywalls, now here we are with original trial sets removed and BoE ONLY in overland zones and BoP on base game gear sets??? What was the thought process behind this? Do you feel the gear was too easily accessible? Because making it zone based does opposite effect. Do you feel that top tier guilds are extorting other players with the gear? Because take a look at the guild traders this is not the case when guilds run so frequently and given the BoE ratio regarding the BoE loot on Vet Trials it's no easy feat to obtain them anyhow unlike the normal versions. It's one thing to make it more rewarding for casual players, but it's another to literally make the raiders of the game redundant and take away the only real saving grace of running trials besides leaderboards. Some feedback on the decision making would be greatly appreciated by all.

Also worth mentioning that this change forces people in certain types of content more than before, which I imagine was maybe the thought process behind this change. As quoted above, impenetrable was removed from trials gear to not force pvp players to pve. Well..now we all have to grind zones instead with still no impenetrable included when you have redesigned the drops of ALL these sets.

Second quote because it has been quiet and wasn't mentioned on patch notes was about the traits since as quoted was slated for update 12 or did I miss something or overlook something? I attached as felt was relevant to itemisation, was not to sidetrack. ZoS as can already read most encourage you to revert or amend this change to be more flexible with all aspects of the game. Otherwise you may as well re brand the game as single player and take the servers down, since all end game gear is accessible simply by farming overland zones.

Mojmir · September 2016

Grumble_and_Grunt wrote: »

Ok before I do anything else I am just going to leave these quotes here from another similar itemisation thread months ago to help back up my queries and for arguments sakes.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

We are not adding Impenetrable to the Trait loot tables at this time. We don't want to make our PVP community feel forced to run Trials – our most difficult PVE content – in order to remain competitive in Cyrodiil and Imperial City.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Hi everyone,

We have an update for you. We will be making the following changes to Trait attainability with the launch of Update 12:
Prosperous and Training will be removed as a valid Trait for all items that drop in Trials

Valid Traits for Trials and Leaderboard rewards are as follows:
Weapons – Infused, Powered, Precise, Defending, Sharpened, Charged, Decisive

Armor – Infused, Divines, Well-Fitted, Reinforced, Sturdy

Items drops in the overland and in dungeons will have a chance of dropping with all available Traits, including Impenetrable

Thank you all for sharing your thoughts with us on this subject. We appreciate how constructive this discussion has been, and the ideas shared.

So it appears ZoS are slowly streamlining this once casual mmo into a pure single player game with ghosts. Firstly the decision to remove TRIALS SET ITEMS and then just making them incredibly accessible is a huge F*** you to anyone who as a guild or for their pure enjoyment of the game likes to take the effort to run these trials.

Making all these items zone based not only gives even less incentive to do trials (which is actually quite funny that ZoS went through the effort to scale them up, only to then remove anything meanwhile from them) it also completely diminishes the items worth and therefore the feeling of it being rewarding, with this also being said there is no mention as to how to obtain these items in legendary or am I wrong? So what's the deal with that? Anyhow, I digress.

So ZoS removes all the trial sets from trials to accommodate those who do not wish to trial clearly? Even though such people could buy the sets from those who made the efforts to obtain these items. Now those who were interested in trials can no longer obtain the gear and the only gear they can obtain is now BoP??? Any guild who runs trials already has full sets of the only remaining trial sets that are noted. The addition of the revamped old trial sets with BoP trading will mean everyone will have full sets within a few weeks if that. So where is the incentive to trials? Also worth noting nothing in patch notes about an updated relevant weekly trials rewards, so yayyy more pointless vmol loot for all! Not that it even matters anymore lol since even if these were updated the sets would be kinda irrelevant to most at this point.

@ZOS_Finn and @Wrobel since you are the guys behind trials and itemisation. Please explain to us all your reasonings for this? You finally made trials relevant again and ultimately made the decision to make them irrelevant again in the space of one patch lol. BoP has been complained about extensively since it's existence in this game. The only justification was DLC based content and paywalls, now here we are with original trial sets removed and BoE ONLY in overland zones and BoP on base game gear sets??? What was the thought process behind this? Do you feel the gear was too easily accessible? Because making it zone based does opposite effect. Do you feel that top tier guilds are extorting other players with the gear? Because take a look at the guild traders this is not the case when guilds run so frequently and given the BoE ratio regarding the BoE loot on Vet Trials it's no easy feat to obtain them anyhow unlike the normal versions. It's one thing to make it more rewarding for casual players, but it's another to literally make the raiders of the game redundant and take away the only real saving grace of running trials besides leaderboards. Some feedback on the decision making would be greatly appreciated by all.

Also worth mentioning that this change forces people in certain types of content more than before, which I imagine was maybe the thought process behind this change. As quoted above, impenetrable was removed from trials gear to not force pvp players to pve. Well..now we all have to grind zones instead with still no impenetrable included when you have redesigned the drops of ALL these sets.

Second quote because it has been quiet and wasn't mentioned on patch notes was about the traits since as quoted was slated for update 12 or did I miss something or overlook something? I attached as felt was relevant to itemisation, was not to sidetrack. ZoS as can already read most encourage you to revert or amend this change to be more flexible with all aspects of the game. Otherwise you may as well re brand the game as single player and take the servers down, since all end game gear is accessible simply by farming overland zones.

It's not your typical mmo,it's an online rpg- matt fiorir

code65536 · September 2016

DocFrost72 wrote: »

I think I need something clarified; are these dungeons impossible to do without potions? That seems to be the biggest issue you all are facing gold wise, if I read the OP right.

Impossible? No. But very difficult. Popping potions on cooldown helps a lot with sustain--not just the injection of resources, but also Major Endurance/Intellect. It also means that you can get Major Brutality, Savagery, and Sorcery without taking up bar space or rotation time.

For 4-man dungeons, I typically use the dropped trash potions (I used to use crafted potions for dungeons, but that's too cost-prohibitive now). But for vet trials, the difficulty scaling and DPS requirements are such that potions are a de facto requirement. And if you are running competitively, then they're definitely required.

And, yes, they are by far the biggest expense. Gear is expensive too, but that's a 1-time cost. You burn through potions every night.

The core problem with potion is that alchemy yields do not realistically support this kind of use. With maxed passives, a single craft gets you enough potions for 3 minutes of usage. Contrast that with 4 hours for blue food. And on top of that, alchemical nodes yield just one mat.

Shadesofkin wrote: »

Considering Dev team couldn't make it past Vet Ruins 2nd major boss on live stream, they should be sympathetic to the costs of running Veteran Trials.

@Shadesofkin do you have a link to this stream?

Shadesofkin · September 2016

@code65536 https://twitch.tv/bethesda/v/87736518 hour 5 is when they started.

It was rather hilarious to watch, one of them even ran out of soul gems. It was explained to us that only one of them was using a Template, the rest of them were using their live characters.

Mojmir · September 2016

Shadesofkin wrote: »

@code65536 https://twitch.tv/bethesda/v/87736518 hour 5 is when they started.

It was rather hilarious to watch, one of them even ran out of soul gems. It was explained to us that only one of them was using a Template, the rest of them were using their live characters.

Lol

code65536 · September 2016

Shadesofkin wrote: »

@code65536 https://twitch.tv/bethesda/v/87736518 hour 5 is when they started.

It was rather hilarious to watch, one of them even ran out of soul gems. It was explained to us that only one of them was using a Template, the rest of them were using their live characters.

In fairness, though, after watching that, the three devs played competently (and Rich Lambert in particular was doing a pretty good job). As I understand it, the fourth was a guest from the community, not a dev.

Shadesofkin · September 2016

code65536 wrote: »

Shadesofkin wrote: »

@code65536 https://twitch.tv/bethesda/v/87736518 hour 5 is when they started.

It was rather hilarious to watch, one of them even ran out of soul gems. It was explained to us that only one of them was using a Template, the rest of them were using their live characters.

In fairness, though, after watching that, the three devs played competently (and Rich Lambert in particular was doing a pretty good job). As I understand it, the fourth was a guest from the community, not a dev.

Right, but what I was saying was after having to carry someone through a Veteran Dungeon, that's got to be enough of an inclination of how much it can sometimes cost to run Veteran Content.

code65536 · September 2016

Shadesofkin wrote: »

Right, but what I was saying was after having to carry someone through a Veteran Dungeon, that's got to be enough of an inclination of how much it can sometimes cost to run Veteran Content.

Yes, definitely. I'm a bit fortunate that I went through my vMA first-clear wipefest back when spell power potions cost about 1/4 what they cost now. I feel sorry for the people who are progressing now, when things are so much more expensive.

vyndral13preub18_ESO · September 2016

Mojmir wrote: »

Shadesofkin wrote: »

@code65536 https://twitch.tv/bethesda/v/87736518 hour 5 is when they started.

It was rather hilarious to watch, one of them even ran out of soul gems. It was explained to us that only one of them was using a Template, the rest of them were using their live characters.

Lol

I liked it when right at the start after the first turtle one of them was all, it would be neat to see group dps on that.....

here have some salt!

DocFrost72 · September 2016

code65536 wrote: »

DocFrost72 wrote: »

I think I need something clarified; are these dungeons impossible to do without potions? That seems to be the biggest issue you all are facing gold wise, if I read the OP right.

Impossible? No. But very difficult. Popping potions on cooldown helps a lot with sustain--not just the injection of resources, but also Major Endurance/Intellect. It also means that you can get Major Brutality, Savagery, and Sorcery without taking up bar space or rotation time.

For 4-man dungeons, I typically use the dropped trash potions (I used to use crafted potions for dungeons, but that's too cost-prohibitive now). But for vet trials, the difficulty scaling and DPS requirements are such that potions are a de facto requirement. And if you are running competitively, then they're definitely required.

And, yes, they are by far the biggest expense. Gear is expensive too, but that's a 1-time cost. You burn through potions every night.

The core problem with potion is that alchemy yields do not realistically support this kind of use. With maxed passives, a single craft gets you enough potions for 3 minutes of usage. Contrast that with 4 hours for blue food. And on top of that, alchemical nodes yield just one mat.

Shadesofkin wrote: »

Considering Dev team couldn't make it past Vet Ruins 2nd major boss on live stream, they should be sympathetic to the costs of running Veteran Trials.

@Shadesofkin do you have a link to this stream?

Not to sound dismissive of the OP, I am very much sympathetic to the idea of not being able to do what one loves;

Why not adjust tactics around NOT consuming pots? If it is so expensive to run them, then in theory after this change few if any at all will be able to sustain it, making the De facto requirement a luxury instead.

To be honest, if the content is doable with trash pots and some bar changes... I don't know how I feel about it.

EDIT: If content requires you to run equipment that costs more than the reward for the content, maybe the content ought to be looked at, is my point I suppose.

Shadesofkin · September 2016

DocFrost72 wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

DocFrost72 wrote: »

I think I need something clarified; are these dungeons impossible to do without potions? That seems to be the biggest issue you all are facing gold wise, if I read the OP right.

Impossible? No. But very difficult. Popping potions on cooldown helps a lot with sustain--not just the injection of resources, but also Major Endurance/Intellect. It also means that you can get Major Brutality, Savagery, and Sorcery without taking up bar space or rotation time.

For 4-man dungeons, I typically use the dropped trash potions (I used to use crafted potions for dungeons, but that's too cost-prohibitive now). But for vet trials, the difficulty scaling and DPS requirements are such that potions are a de facto requirement. And if you are running competitively, then they're definitely required.

And, yes, they are by far the biggest expense. Gear is expensive too, but that's a 1-time cost. You burn through potions every night.

The core problem with potion is that alchemy yields do not realistically support this kind of use. With maxed passives, a single craft gets you enough potions for 3 minutes of usage. Contrast that with 4 hours for blue food. And on top of that, alchemical nodes yield just one mat.

Shadesofkin wrote: »

Considering Dev team couldn't make it past Vet Ruins 2nd major boss on live stream, they should be sympathetic to the costs of running Veteran Trials.

@Shadesofkin do you have a link to this stream?

Not to sound dismissive of the OP, I am very much sympathetic to the idea of not being able to do what one loves;

Why not adjust tactics around NOT consuming pots? If it is so expensive to run them, then in theory after this change few if any at all will be able to sustain it, making the De facto requirement a luxury instead.

To be honest, if the content is doable with trash pots and some bar changes... I don't know how I feel about it.

Doable...some of it. I can run Normal for days on Trash pots.

I can run Vet Sanctum on Trash pots.

But here's the kicker, those trash pots have a shorter duration relation to their cooldown and they don't provide any benefit to the spelldamage, meaning many magicka DPS are missing nigh unto 500 spell damage from their builds if they run trash pots.

Sure they might be able to do it, but they're asking for a beating through, their times are going to go by the wayside and they're going to feel like its far more of a chore than before.

Nifty2g · September 2016

DocFrost72 wrote: »

To be honest, if the content is doable with trash pots and some bar changes... I don't know how I feel about it.

Right now I think it is a good mix, and as I said, this is coming from an end game point of view, which means players are going to always be in the mindset of getting most damage that they can, to dumb that down and tell players no, just use what gets you by. That is just not fair

And this thread is not about potions, it is about end game content needing to give raiders a decent amount of compensation to keep doing what they want to, because like many other players sometimes it is all we log on for, and raiding in theory should give a decent amount of gold, it should not be made a chore and players have to do something to be able to raid, a player should be able to raid, and save up gold to make their gear legendary, or save up gold to buy the sufficient amount of potions needed. No one should be made to go out of their way and farm by themselves in a well populated game coming with One Tamriel, that in my opinion is a huge issue to the raiding community as a whole, to put people in a position like that is just worrying, this should have been thought over a lot more by ZOS.

Increasing the amount of drops from a node has literally nothing to do with this, that benefits potion makers not raiders, sure it will lower the price cost, but what does that fix? That doesn't give raiders a viable amount of gold to keep running the content that they want to

Like I said, when it becomes even more a chore than it is and bleeds your gold dry with these changes, it's just going to be what it was like with the Imperial City update, I am sure you all remember that.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/227508/talking-about-bind-on-pick-up-again/p1

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/228145/talking-about-bind-on-pick-up-again-poll-included/p1

Why the hell are we even repeating this Zenimax, honestly.

code65536 · September 2016

DocFrost72 wrote: »

Why not adjust tactics around NOT consuming pots?

You can for things like vet dungeons. But for vet trials, the content is tuned such that the amount of DPS and sustain that is required doesn't really leave you much room for adjustment.

DocFrost72 · September 2016

code65536 wrote: »

DocFrost72 wrote: »

Why not adjust tactics around NOT consuming pots?

You can for things like vet dungeons. But for vet trials, the content is tuned such that the amount of DPS and sustain that is required doesn't really leave you much room for adjustment.

I guess that is the thing I can't quite wrap my head around. I don't raid Vet, I raid normal so I'm missing a key component, but I can definately say if I had to run crafed potions that cost an arm and a leg to compete, to me it would seem gold, not skill, buys leaderboards (assuming two identicle groups one with potions one with trash pots).

Just my view.

And @Nifty2g, my apologies. The OP seemed to focus on how costs after the BoP stuff would cost more than reward, and I took it as the expenses needed to be accounted for.

Nifty2g · September 2016

DocFrost72 wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

DocFrost72 wrote: »

Why not adjust tactics around NOT consuming pots?

You can for things like vet dungeons. But for vet trials, the content is tuned such that the amount of DPS and sustain that is required doesn't really leave you much room for adjustment.

I guess that is the thing I can't quite wrap my head around. I don't raid Vet, I raid normal so I'm missing a key component, but I can definately say if I had to run crafed potions that cost an arm and a leg to compete, to me it would seem gold, not skill, buys leaderboards (assuming two identicle groups one with potions one with trash pots).

Just my view.

And @Nifty2g, my apologies. The OP seemed to focus on how costs after the BoP stuff would cost more than reward, and I took it as the expenses needed to be accounted for.

What annoys me the most @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_RichLambert @ZOS_Finn We have done this experiment before, it didn't work so well, but now we are removing it from trials only?