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Idea for sharing knowledge-based collectibles between characters (CONSTRUCTIVE comments please)

Azurephoenix999
Azurephoenix999
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Styles, traits, recipes, rune translations, stuff from Eidetic Memory, and knowledge of reagent effects should have the potential to be shared between characters. I mean, these things are literally knowledge, and in real life knowledge can easily be passed from one person to the next by simply writing it down, so to say a feature like this isn't justified would be just stupid.

And before you say anything, this would NOT be used for passing knowledge between players. This is solely for passing these things between characters on the same account. If this ended up happening and players could pass knowledge to each other, that'd be Zenimax's decision and theirs alone. Sharing knowledge between players, while being kind of cool, is NOT what I am suggesting here, so please don't misunderstand.

Reasons why this would NOT be a bad thing

Players would not gain an advantage by doing this, it would simply take less time for them to get alts to the same level as their main characters. All of the challenges they'd bypass by doing this would be ones they had already completed on other characters.

Some have said that devs may lose out on potential crown store income. While this may be true, there are ways for them to gain income from implementing a feature like this. I'll be going over this in my proposal.

Some say that people might use this to fast track to maxing out all of their traits. While this is an issue, there's a very simple way of preventing this that I will also be going over.

Hypothetical Scenario: Items Required

To do this, they would require two items:
  1. 1) Animatic Ink (Gold)
  2. 2) Parchment (White)

Parchment would be a white rarity item that would be very easy to come by, possibly through purchasing it from an in-game merchant for 100 gold.

Animatic Ink would be gold in rarity and significantly more difficult to obtain. Possibly through RNG at the end of Trials, or even Maelstrom, basically endgame activities. In addition, this item would also be available through the Crown Store (500 crowns each?), this would provide Zenimax with the potential to make back any of the money they may lose if they choose to implement this feature.

Hypothetical Scenario: Method

Once these items were in the player's inventory, attempting to use either of them would bring up a small interface asking the player to choose what knowledge they'd like to pass on:
  • Styles
  • Traits
  • Recipes
  • Rune Translations
  • Eidetic Memory
  • Reagent Knowledge
  • Cancel (This option would, obviously, cancel the process).

They would only be able to choose one, and when they did, a Research Tome (Bound) would be added to their inventory. The Animatic Ink, as well as the Parchment, would be consumed in this process.

This item would then need to be deposited in the bank, where it could then be withdrawn by the character intended to use it. Upon reading the book, they would be granted all knowledge in the selected category that the first character knew at the point of making it.

Hypothetical Scenario: Research Tome

All Research Tomes would be legendary in rarity.

The title of each would be "Research Tome" followed by a dash, and the name of its category (e.g. Research Tome - Styles), and the name of the character that made it would be located in the item's description.

They would be account bound, as their only function is to pass knowledge between characters on the same account.

To prevent exploitation, it would not be possible to create a Research Tome for Traits, unless the character that was trying to make it already knew every trait for every item.


TL;DR: Players could hunt down a rare item. Use it to craft another rare item containing all of their current character's knowledge at the time of creation (which would be account bound), this knowledge would then be bestowed on the next character to open it (does nothing if interacted with by the character that made it). Also, traits cannot be passed on with this method unless the character making the item has already unlocked them all; this is necessary to prevent exploitation.

Feedback

So, now that you've read all that, would you care to tell me what you think? Constructive criticism only, please. If you're going to leave a comment with things like "this sucks", or "it's crap and it'll never work", then at least have the decency to say why.
Edited by Azurephoenix999 on October 22, 2016 6:52PM
Guildmaster of Spectral Liberty - Xbox One - European Megaserver
  • SaibotLiu
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    Obtaining all of that "knowledge" is a big part of the horizontal progression in the game. Now that One Tamriel has largely removed the vertical progression, that would essentially mean all new characters of vet players need to do is get their SP's up to be "finished". May as well sell maxed out characters on the CS tbh.
  • Azurephoenix999
    Azurephoenix999
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    SaibotLiu wrote: »
    Obtaining all of that "knowledge" is a big part of the horizontal progression in the game. Now that One Tamriel has largely removed the vertical progression, that would essentially mean all new characters of vet players need to do is get their SP's up to be "finished". May as well sell maxed out characters on the CS tbh.

    It's all about giving people the freedom to build the characters they want. Obviously, having every recipe in the game is something you have to earn. But for things like that, I believe you should only have to earn them once.

    Having ONE master crafter gives you a significant advantage over other players. However, having a second master crafter gives you little to no advantages whatsoever on top of that. The only things I can think of that would give the player an edge in this way are crafting writs and hirelings, and those things have absolutely nothing to do with these knowledge based things I've been talking about.

    Regardless of whether they have knowledge or not, they would need to earn the hirelings and skill level required for the crafting writs the same way as any other character.

    The only reason someone would possibly want to do what I've suggested is for role-playing purposes, and since no advantage can be gained from doing this, there's no reason for people to not be given this option.
    Guildmaster of Spectral Liberty - Xbox One - European Megaserver
  • jedtb16_ESO
    jedtb16_ESO
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    SaibotLiu wrote: »
    Obtaining all of that "knowledge" is a big part of the horizontal progression in the game. Now that One Tamriel has largely removed the vertical progression, that would essentially mean all new characters of vet players need to do is get their SP's up to be "finished". May as well sell maxed out characters on the CS tbh.

    It's all about giving people the freedom to build the characters they want. Obviously, having every recipe in the game is something you have to earn. But for things like that, I believe you should only have to earn them once.

    Having ONE master crafter gives you a significant advantage over other players. However, having a second master crafter gives you little to no advantages whatsoever on top of that. The only things I can think of that would give the player an edge in this way are crafting writs and hirelings, and those things have absolutely nothing to do with these knowledge based things I've been talking about.

    Regardless of whether they have knowledge or not, they would need to earn the hirelings and skill level required for the crafting writs the same way as any other character.

    The only reason someone would possibly want to do what I've suggested is for role-playing purposes, and since no advantage can be gained from doing this, there's no reason for people to not be given this option.

    people already have the freedom to build the characters they want...
  • Azurephoenix999
    Azurephoenix999
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    people already have the freedom to build the characters they want...

    Technically yes, but the amount of time and effort that goes into maxing out either recipes or traits is absolutely ridiculous.

    Don't get me wrong, it's something you have to earn, and I get that. I just think that if you've already done it once, you shouldn't have to do it again just because you want to make another blacksmith.

    To put it simply:

    Earning once, fine; earning again for each character? Shouldn't be necessary as it would be purely for roleplaying purposes.
    Guildmaster of Spectral Liberty - Xbox One - European Megaserver
  • jedtb16_ESO
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    technically? no it is absolutely correct.

    to make my stance clear on this... i am not happy that cp is account wide.
  • SaibotLiu
    SaibotLiu
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    The only reason someone would possibly want to do what I've suggested is for role-playing purposes, and since no advantage can be gained from doing this, there's no reason for people to not be given this option.

    The reason people would want this is so they don't have to put in the effort and the time to flesh out their alts lol, that's it. Putting in the time torwards progression on many things you've already done is just reality for people who want to play more than one character. If you dont like the idea of that, having one character only is a servicable option. As I said, the leveling process has been trivialized already, there is really no need to further streamline the game by removing "the game".
  • Azurephoenix999
    Azurephoenix999
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    SaibotLiu wrote: »
    The reason people would want this is so they don't have to put in the effort and the time to flesh out their alts lol, that's it.

    Because they already did that crap once, they shouldn't have to do it all over again when the benefits of doing so are purely in the mind of the player.
    SaibotLiu wrote: »
    Putting in the time torwards progression on many things you've already done is just reality for people who want to play more than one character.

    If people enjoy doing the same stuff over and over again every time they make a new character, then they wouldn't have to take advantage of this feature. They could just keep doing stuff the same way they always had, and the changes wouldn't affect them in the slightest.

    If people consider things like this mind-numbing and repetitive, and would rather just have fun with their character, they should be allowed to do so.
    SaibotLiu wrote: »
    If you dont like the idea of that, having one character only is a servicable option.

    Not really, having multiple characters gives players all kinds of advantages. It's actually gotten to the point where if someone only has one character, they'll sometimes be chastised by fellow players for missing out.
    SaibotLiu wrote: »
    As I said, the leveling process has been trivialized already

    While CP is account-wide, and levelling from 1-50 is relatively easy in the eyes of some, level and CP isn't the only thing that affects your character's viability is it? You still have to equip them with gear, get them some skill points, find a build that works, and maybe respec them a few times when you realise you messed up somewhere along the way.

    Levelling itself may have been trivialised in your eyes, that's not the only form of progression this game has.

    SaibotLiu wrote: »
    there is really no need to further streamline the game by removing "the game".

    Again, the game isn't all about researching, gathering motif pieces, and hunting down recipes.

    All that stuff is means to an end. And for most people, only the end stuff is actually fun.

    It's like being an astronaut. You have to go through a ton of bullcrap before you're allowed into space, but once you're there it's amazing. However, once the astronaut returns to earth do you think NASA turn around and bar him from space until he re-earns his qualifications? Hell no! Once you've earned those qualifications, they stick with you, and that's how it should be in games like this.

    It's our effort, and our time. Once we've paid what we owe, we should get what we deserve, and we should get to keep it.
    Guildmaster of Spectral Liberty - Xbox One - European Megaserver
  • SaibotLiu
    SaibotLiu
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    Funny you go from this:
    Because they already did that crap once, they shouldn't have to do it all over again when the benefits of doing so are purely in the mind of the player.

    And saying the only reason someone would want to use this is for RP, to:

    Not really, having multiple characters gives players all kinds of advantages. It's actually gotten to the point where if someone only has one character, they'll sometimes be chastised by fellow players for missing out.

    So you want the advantages of having multiple toons, and misrepresent your idea as purely a RP device, but really you just want alts and cbf'ed working for them.

    Nope.

    Also, stop fragment quoting posts for no reason, it makes you look childish, just fyi.
  • Azurephoenix999
    Azurephoenix999
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    SaibotLiu wrote: »
    Funny you go from this:
    Because they already did that crap once, they shouldn't have to do it all over again when the benefits of doing so are purely in the mind of the player.

    And saying the only reason someone would want to use this is for RP, to:

    Not really, having multiple characters gives players all kinds of advantages. It's actually gotten to the point where if someone only has one character, they'll sometimes be chastised by fellow players for missing out.

    So you want the advantages of having multiple toons, and misrepresent your idea as purely a RP device, but really you just want alts and cbf'ed working for them.

    Nope.

    Also, stop fragment quoting posts for no reason, it makes you look childish, just fyi.

    Yes, having a single master crafter is advantageous. Yes, having multiple toons is advantageous (which is what I was referring to in the second quote you put in your comment), but having two master crafters has little to no benefits whatsoever on top of what's already there, and what little benefits it does bring have absolutely nothing to do with the knowledge-based things I refer to in this post. Thus, having two master crafters (the exact thing the concept in this post would make easier) is only beneficial from an RP standpoint (which is what I was talking about when I said that the benefits are purely in the mind of the player).

    I am NOT "misrepresenting my idea as purely a RP device", this system would NOT give players any advantages whatsoever over other players. All it's designed to do is make doing crap people have already done more manageable.

    You knew damn well what I meant, and you're twisting my words to try and make me look stupid.
    Edited by Azurephoenix999 on October 22, 2016 9:42PM
    Guildmaster of Spectral Liberty - Xbox One - European Megaserver
  • SaibotLiu
    SaibotLiu
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    SaibotLiu wrote: »
    Funny you go from this:
    Because they already did that crap once, they shouldn't have to do it all over again when the benefits of doing so are purely in the mind of the player.

    And saying the only reason someone would want to use this is for RP, to:

    Not really, having multiple characters gives players all kinds of advantages. It's actually gotten to the point where if someone only has one character, they'll sometimes be chastised by fellow players for missing out.

    So you want the advantages of having multiple toons, and misrepresent your idea as purely a RP device, but really you just want alts and cbf'ed working for them.

    Nope.

    Also, stop fragment quoting posts for no reason, it makes you look childish, just fyi.

    Yes, having a single master crafter is advantageous. Yes, having multiple toons is advantageous (which is what I was referring to in the second quote you put in your comment), but having two master crafters has little to no benefits whatsoever on top of what's already there, and what little benefits it does bring have absolutely nothing to do with the knowledge-based things I refer to in this post. Thus, having two master crafters (the exact thing the concept in this post would make easier) is only beneficial from an RP standpoint (which is what I was talking about when I said that the benefits are purely in the mind of the player).

    I am NOT "misrepresenting my idea as purely a RP device", this system would NOT give players any advantages whatsoever over other players. All it's designed to do is make doing crap people have already done more manageable.

    You knew damn well what I meant, and you're twisting my words to try and make me look stupid.

    The crafting traits take a long time to learn for a reason. Im sure every player who's been around since launch could easily see the advantage in migrating all their crafting skills to an alt and free up those SP to use on their main. It's already a huge advantage, as you said, especially considering how long it will take a new player to attain those skills. Your idea would only make that "huge advantage" even more prominent. By making the skills transient you only increase the advantage established players already have, which is something that definitely doesnt need to happen on eso.

  • Azurephoenix999
    Azurephoenix999
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    SaibotLiu wrote: »
    SaibotLiu wrote: »
    Funny you go from this:
    Because they already did that crap once, they shouldn't have to do it all over again when the benefits of doing so are purely in the mind of the player.

    And saying the only reason someone would want to use this is for RP, to:

    Not really, having multiple characters gives players all kinds of advantages. It's actually gotten to the point where if someone only has one character, they'll sometimes be chastised by fellow players for missing out.

    So you want the advantages of having multiple toons, and misrepresent your idea as purely a RP device, but really you just want alts and cbf'ed working for them.

    Nope.

    Also, stop fragment quoting posts for no reason, it makes you look childish, just fyi.

    Yes, having a single master crafter is advantageous. Yes, having multiple toons is advantageous (which is what I was referring to in the second quote you put in your comment), but having two master crafters has little to no benefits whatsoever on top of what's already there, and what little benefits it does bring have absolutely nothing to do with the knowledge-based things I refer to in this post. Thus, having two master crafters (the exact thing the concept in this post would make easier) is only beneficial from an RP standpoint (which is what I was talking about when I said that the benefits are purely in the mind of the player).

    I am NOT "misrepresenting my idea as purely a RP device", this system would NOT give players any advantages whatsoever over other players. All it's designed to do is make doing crap people have already done more manageable.

    You knew damn well what I meant, and you're twisting my words to try and make me look stupid.

    The crafting traits take a long time to learn for a reason. Im sure every player who's been around since launch could easily see the advantage in migrating all their crafting skills to an alt and free up those SP to use on their main. It's already a huge advantage, as you said, especially considering how long it will take a new player to attain those skills. Your idea would only make that "huge advantage" even more prominent. By making the skills transient you only increase the advantage established players already have, which is something that definitely doesnt need to happen on eso.

    1) In order to make use of the knowledge they passed on to their alt, they'd still need to level the skill lines of said alt and invest the same skill points they'd intend to save on their main.

    2) If someone has spent enough time on the game to get all traits on every item (which they would need to be able to transfer that knowledge to another character, as you'd know if you read the original post), chances are they have enough skill points to set up their chosen build AND have crafting on lockdown. Thus, they wouldn't even need to transfer their stuff to an alt if it was the skill points they were after.
    Guildmaster of Spectral Liberty - Xbox One - European Megaserver
  • TheShadowScout
    TheShadowScout
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    I generally dislike all those "gimme" ideas that people use to try and argue the game should in some way treat all their different characters as if they were the same character in one regard or the other.
    As such, I am opposed to such sharing notions...

    How-ever...

    At least this idea does not go with a "just gimme" approach, but has some merit with actually making some "research tome" - though I would greatly lessen the effect, and increase the requirements.

    The basic premise, of character-generated tomes however, that is something I do find interesting.

    After all, we do on occasion find style tomes in the world, do we not? Who wrote those? Who's to say our master crafters cannot write them as well?

    But that is also the limit of the amount of information any such "research tome" should convey - one style. And similar for other things...

    And naturally, there should be a crafting skill involved. Making books used to be a full time craft, art even, back in times equivalent to tamriels tech development... and the advancement in skill would decide on how much info they can pack into one tome... naturally the scribe would have to research all that infor themselves, and only could make tomes for completed research collections...

    So, a new crafting skill, "Scribe", "Scrivener" "Calligrapher" or "Bookbinder" or whatever... and different inks dependent on what level of skill or amount of information you want to put into your research book (like, an common racial style motiv would use the blue ink, a rare style the purple ink, and a collection of any super rare style would require the gold ink - just like the complete style books of the sort are rated in game...) and also parchament comparable to the amount of info (so a single recipe or the used of one alchemy reagent could be made with one page of parchament, but a style book might need twenty or more pages...)

    And then the idea could be expanded to other info...
    ...books containing all trait research on ONE item type (like, sword, or sash, or frost staff... if the scribe has researched ALL the traits for one item, they can make the book with blue ink, or at higher skill an collection tome for a whole crafting skill with gold ink)
    ...books containing all the alchemy uses of ONE ingredient (would be green ink, since its little info, with another collection tome of all ingredients if the scribe has them all researched and uses gold ink)
    ...books containing all the recipes of ONE grouping (like, "Common [green] meat dishes" or "uncommon [blue] drinks" made with blue or purple ink... again, a gold ink tome can be made if the scribe learned ALL possible recipes; but also single recipes can be made with the equivalent ink and a single page of parchament)
    ...books containing all the translations of ONE rune (with green ink, purple ink for an entire rune group, and gold ink for a tome with all the runes)

    Eidetic memory would be more of an issue. Since those are -already- books... still, there could be "collection" tomes, if the scribe managed to get all the info themselves... in fact, making those could be the very first step for a scribe, green ink and plain parchment to copy a single book or recipe before they work up their way to pen collections and more complex crafting instructions...

    Mages guild books on the other hand cannot ever be allowerd to be player-copied due to guildline progression issues. Prolly have some spell on them to prevent the knowledge to be copied, I wager... ;)

    And naturally, all those scribe made books should be tradable between players. I mean, style tomes are, so why should player-made tomes not be?? As long as the good inks are difficult enought to get... I see no problem, when people have to work their ass off to make a book, these books will be rare and costly enough that other players may think twice about taking that shortcut...

    Which of course means... the really good stuff like gold-quality ink would have to be super-duper rare. Since it could be used to make an style tome worth 5000 crowns... it would be just as rare and hard to get as the gold crafting tome in-game. Or cost 5000 crowns in the crown store itself. And that in turn means, even the purple ink would be very hard to get, and only drop rarely from the most challenging of content. And the blue ink would still be on the rare side, being about as common as blue style books in world. Green ink May be common, and show up in treasure chests or purchasable from some select vendors... there may also be daily scribe requests that reward ink and parchment bundles... (stuff like: Copy "Almalexia and the Mudcrab" and deliver to Mournhold...)
  • Azurephoenix999
    Azurephoenix999
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    I generally dislike all those "gimme" ideas that people use to try and argue the game should in some way treat all their different characters as if they were the same character in one regard or the other.
    As such, I am opposed to such sharing notions...

    How-ever...

    At least this idea does not go with a "just gimme" approach, but has some merit with actually making some "research tome" - though I would greatly lessen the effect, and increase the requirements.

    The basic premise, of character-generated tomes however, that is something I do find interesting.

    After all, we do on occasion find style tomes in the world, do we not? Who wrote those? Who's to say our master crafters cannot write them as well?

    But that is also the limit of the amount of information any such "research tome" should convey - one style. And similar for other things...

    And naturally, there should be a crafting skill involved. Making books used to be a full time craft, art even, back in times equivalent to tamriels tech development... and the advancement in skill would decide on how much info they can pack into one tome... naturally the scribe would have to research all that infor themselves, and only could make tomes for completed research collections...

    So, a new crafting skill, "Scribe", "Scrivener" "Calligrapher" or "Bookbinder" or whatever... and different inks dependent on what level of skill or amount of information you want to put into your research book (like, an common racial style motiv would use the blue ink, a rare style the purple ink, and a collection of any super rare style would require the gold ink - just like the complete style books of the sort are rated in game...) and also parchament comparable to the amount of info (so a single recipe or the used of one alchemy reagent could be made with one page of parchament, but a style book might need twenty or more pages...)

    And then the idea could be expanded to other info...
    ...books containing all trait research on ONE item type (like, sword, or sash, or frost staff... if the scribe has researched ALL the traits for one item, they can make the book with blue ink, or at higher skill an collection tome for a whole crafting skill with gold ink)
    ...books containing all the alchemy uses of ONE ingredient (would be green ink, since its little info, with another collection tome of all ingredients if the scribe has them all researched and uses gold ink)
    ...books containing all the recipes of ONE grouping (like, "Common [green] meat dishes" or "uncommon [blue] drinks" made with blue or purple ink... again, a gold ink tome can be made if the scribe learned ALL possible recipes; but also single recipes can be made with the equivalent ink and a single page of parchament)
    ...books containing all the translations of ONE rune (with green ink, purple ink for an entire rune group, and gold ink for a tome with all the runes)

    Eidetic memory would be more of an issue. Since those are -already- books... still, there could be "collection" tomes, if the scribe managed to get all the info themselves... in fact, making those could be the very first step for a scribe, green ink and plain parchment to copy a single book or recipe before they work up their way to pen collections and more complex crafting instructions...

    Mages guild books on the other hand cannot ever be allowerd to be player-copied due to guildline progression issues. Prolly have some spell on them to prevent the knowledge to be copied, I wager... ;)

    And naturally, all those scribe made books should be tradable between players. I mean, style tomes are, so why should player-made tomes not be?? As long as the good inks are difficult enought to get... I see no problem, when people have to work their ass off to make a book, these books will be rare and costly enough that other players may think twice about taking that shortcut...

    Which of course means... the really good stuff like gold-quality ink would have to be super-duper rare. Since it could be used to make an style tome worth 5000 crowns... it would be just as rare and hard to get as the gold crafting tome in-game. Or cost 5000 crowns in the crown store itself. And that in turn means, even the purple ink would be very hard to get, and only drop rarely from the most challenging of content. And the blue ink would still be on the rare side, being about as common as blue style books in world. Green ink May be common, and show up in treasure chests or purchasable from some select vendors... there may also be daily scribe requests that reward ink and parchment bundles... (stuff like: Copy "Almalexia and the Mudcrab" and deliver to Mournhold...)

    Okay, seriously? I love this. So much.

    Levelling up a skill line to make books to share knowledge? I'd totally be down for that. It'd introduce something new for players to trade (which will definitely shake up the economy), it'll provide crafters with a new way to make money, and it'll give new players another method of becoming a master crafter.
    Guildmaster of Spectral Liberty - Xbox One - European Megaserver
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