Alchemy Nodes need a buff as Potion crafting has become increasingly expensive

Facefister · July 2018

"Farming" is such a strong word for heavily randomized alchemy nodes. I can't precisely farm Blessed Thistles or Corn Flowers.

Mystrius_Archaion · July 2018

Facefister wrote: »

"Farming" is such a strong word for heavily randomized alchemy nodes. I can't precisely farm Blessed Thistles or Corn Flowers.

Speaking of which, I wish there were farms for specific things in the world that would have personal node, like the survey nodes are, and with a longer respawn. That would certainly help us if we just want specific ingredients.

It would be even better if we could place "gardens" in our homes on the ground or on floating platforms that don't use a lot of our item limit either so we can farm mats.
SWTOR, a competing mmo, actually has crafting nodes you can place in your home and harvest, so why can't ESO have the same?

Feanor · July 2018

Twohothardware wrote: »

Erraln wrote: »

Twohothardware wrote: »

You sound like you're more worried about how much you personally are making selling Alchemy mats to others vs whether or not the general eso population would benefit from increasing Alchemy drops through getting more from nodes, adding a Hireling, etc.

In turn, this topic seems to be a plea by you to the developers to allow you to easily access a system that you don't personally have the time to use. You've brushed off the suggested farming methods people have given you, and are trying to paint the people who don't believe the current system needs changes as driven by greed. You're also indirectly asking for the entire game's herb value to be debased in order to convenience yourself. Yes, more supply means less value in each item.

This topic has nothing to do with me beyond being annoyed at the need to stand at an Alchemy station for 15 minutes pressing Square. I have over 10 million gold and thousands of Alchemy mats and as I stated in my original post am one of the ones that can afford to buy all of my mats. But I also farm them and the time spent in order to craft enough of the popular pots is excessive for the average ESO player and results in the majority of players having to rely on those trash pots while playing against players all using expensive pots.

That’s way to altruistic to be true. Besides, making everything available for cheap may level the playing field. What it also does is taking away incentives to play more. And that’s not in ZOS interests.

IAVITNI · July 2018

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

IAVITNI wrote: »

That feeling of progression is a positive. Players should not enter cyrodil and expect to compete with top tier players. This isn't that type of game.

Then pvp doesn't belong in this game or pvpers should find a better pvp game.

I can compete with top tier players in a first-person-shooter game just fine, or a racing pvp game. I have the skill to do so.
I just can't compete well in this game because most of the power is in the stats and classes, not the player skill.

Will you not admit that this game is based on "rock/paper/scissors" balance? If not, do you forget about interrupts and blocks and break free? That is a recipe for imbalance.
FPS and racing games that are better balanced for pvp do not do this "rock/paper/scissors" crap. Even games that do use that balance, like DC Universe Online, do it much better than ESO does also by giving everyone practically the same stats free in pvp.

This isn't a PVP game. This is pvp shoehorned into a pve game and screwing with pve balance while the clash drives both sides away even though the pvp community is much smaller than the pve.

You know why people "play ESO for the pvp"? They play because of the stat and gear imbalance. There are people who enjoy figuring out how to be unstoppable or win with less work due to numbers imbalances. They don't truly want balance.
Any "true pvper" will not play ESO; they would rather play a game where they get more opponents and have more fun because of better performance and actual skill mattering more than stats.

Ok. First, my argument is that you don't need those potions to clear vet dungeons. I can run any vet dungeon without popping a single potion using gear that was BiS like 6 patches ago and only my weapons are gold and I can still pull 32k dps self-buffed despite almost never going into PvE. Ever. And that parse was done on my third try after watching a rotation video on youtube. The skill gap is not as large as you make it out to be. 30k is the minimum for most Vet trials, so I can still do them. it's a lot harder for me than a hardcore pve'r but not impossible.

Second, this isn't a PvE v PvP discussion.

There are normal trials for people that don't want to push themselves. Vet is for the players that want a challenge. All content in this game is already accessible, barring maybe monster helms. The only difference is the rewards. You want to run Mazzatun but don't have BiS gear? Go ahead run it on normal. You get slightly weaker rewards but you get the same rewards. You just want to stand at the top without putting in the effort. And you can run normal using any kind of potion. Most experienced players can solo any normal dungeon. The content is accessible. The rewards are not.

And this game is only rock paper scissors because ZoS implemented hard counters to mechanics because casuals like you whine about things you don't understand. You can clear any content and duel anyone in Julianos/Hundings + Willpower/Agility. Super accessible items. Hard counters like Major Defile, Shield Breaker, Detect pots were all introduced because casuals refused to adapt or learn why they were dying. And now we are stuck with this mess of hard counters everywhere. Most dueling tournaments ban those hard counters and guess what? Now players have to rely on skill and understanding of mechanics to beat their opponents.

The hardcore PvP players either zerg or solo/small scale. Won't comment on zerging because I don't play that content, but believe me...the moment another decent game comes out with similar combat mechanics, most people will jump ship.

Oh and stats aren't as important as you think. At one point I was unknowingly running 3pc spinners, 2 engine guardian, 2 lich and 4 burning spell weave for a full campaign. I still won a good portion of my duels and killed 80% of the people I ran into in Cyro. I know someone who ran kagrenacs on a stamplar and pulled off a 1v4. Pretty sure there's a youtuber that runs VMA with gimped CP and builds just for fun. I've run BGs missing both of my 5 pc bonuses because I mis-swapped gear and I still placed first on my team. The stat difference between sets isn't really that high in PvP, so get over your self-righteous crusade to champion the casuals. If you really cared you would teach them basic mechanics like resource sustain because that is literally how 80% of people die in Cyrodil. Once you reach a minimum threshold, Skill >>>> Stats and once you reach the max threshold, patience>>>>>everything else in PvP.

Mureel · July 2018

Mureel wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Erraln wrote: »

Pots are accessible in every city's kiosks, a player just needs to farm up the gold.

Humbug. 150g for something that covers less than a minute of gameplay is not "accessible".

I know a lot of people who don't have the time to do writs or farm gold. They only have 3-4 hours of time to play. They'll log on, raid for 3 hours, and not have much time left. Are you suggesting that they run laps around Coldharbor for the remainder of their time?

But vet trials drop plunder, you say. First, the plunder from vet trials isn't that much--you get enough gold for maybe 100 potions, a good chunk of which is used running the trial itself. If you are reliably clearing, it's a bit better than break-even. But what if you're not reliably clearing? Progression raiding is extremely expensive--you're wiping for 3 hours a night, consuming hundreds of potions (which are not optional for vet trials), and getting no plunder to help pay for it all.

There are those in the endgame community who have the time to do writs and participate in other economic activity. I'm one of those people, and I never worry about my potion supply. But I know a lot of my peers don't have that luxury. They have the time to either raid or farm, but not both.

And that's the problem with potion accessibility--it's making people choose between doing the content that they want and doing what essentially amounts to work. A game is supposed to be an escape from work, not an extension of it.

Usually agree with you, but in this case, yes. I actually do think people can spend 30 min farming either gold or mats if they need pots to raid. Raiding is a choice not an imperative and if you want good pots you gotta farm or buy them. That's pretty much it.

Alternatively- if you personally have more time/in game gold than your raid mates, you could conceivably drop a few stacks of pots in your guild bank for those with less time but who you'd prefer to be in your raids. Or you could just mail some out to those people privately.

I mean, either you're a team, or you aren't. If you are, toss a few pots over or tell them to farm for 30 mins.

We all hate it, but stuff has to come from somewhere.

reiverx · July 2018

I'd prefer it if they upped the duration of potions to 5 minutes but reduced the number of alchemy nodes. That would make farming more meaningful and potions feel less gimped.

code65536 · July 2018

Mureel wrote: »

Mureel wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Erraln wrote: »

Pots are accessible in every city's kiosks, a player just needs to farm up the gold.

Humbug. 150g for something that covers less than a minute of gameplay is not "accessible".

I know a lot of people who don't have the time to do writs or farm gold. They only have 3-4 hours of time to play. They'll log on, raid for 3 hours, and not have much time left. Are you suggesting that they run laps around Coldharbor for the remainder of their time?

But vet trials drop plunder, you say. First, the plunder from vet trials isn't that much--you get enough gold for maybe 100 potions, a good chunk of which is used running the trial itself. If you are reliably clearing, it's a bit better than break-even. But what if you're not reliably clearing? Progression raiding is extremely expensive--you're wiping for 3 hours a night, consuming hundreds of potions (which are not optional for vet trials), and getting no plunder to help pay for it all.

There are those in the endgame community who have the time to do writs and participate in other economic activity. I'm one of those people, and I never worry about my potion supply. But I know a lot of my peers don't have that luxury. They have the time to either raid or farm, but not both.

And that's the problem with potion accessibility--it's making people choose between doing the content that they want and doing what essentially amounts to work. A game is supposed to be an escape from work, not an extension of it.

Usually agree with you, but in this case, yes. I actually do think people can spend 30 min farming either gold or mats if they need pots to raid. Raiding is a choice not an imperative and if you want good pots you gotta farm or buy them. That's pretty much it.

Alternatively- if you personally have more time/in game gold than your raid mates, you could conceivably drop a few stacks of pots in your guild bank for those with less time but who you'd prefer to be in your raids. Or you could just mail some out to those people privately.

I mean, either you're a team, or you aren't. If you are, toss a few pots over or tell them to farm for 30 mins.

We all hate it, but stuff has to come from somewhere.

We do supply pots for those who can't afford them. But that's irrelevant--people shouldn't have to rely on that. No matter how you spin it, the acquisition of material for potions is just work that is necessary for the participation of endgame content. Whether you do that work yourself or rely on others who do that work for you, it is still a system where ZOS makes people work in order to get the consumables that are needed to participate in content. It's work. Don't deny it. It's needed. Don't deny that either. Yes, you can choose not to participate in endgame content, but at that point, why even play the game?

And it's a matter of degree. If there wasn't such a massive discrepancy between the performance of crafted potions and the readily-available dropped potions (if dropped potions were more like Alliance pots), this wouldn't be as much of an issue. If the time needed to acquire crafted potions isn't as disproportionate to the amount of game time they enable, this wouldn't be an issue.

Which brings me to my other objection: It takes a hell of a lot more than "30 minutes" to farm the mats to sustain one night of progression. I know, because two years ago when we were working on vMoL and I was not as well off in-game as I am now (and I didn't have anyone to give me potions), I had to farm my potions each night. It took well over an hour of Coldharbor laps to get the materials to sustain 3 hours of wiping in vMoL. And that's if there wasn't much node competition--if there were other farmers, I'd just have to come back at another time. And frankly, that was exhausting.

It's completely out of line with the costs of other consumables. Even gold food is more accessible than this (it takes an average of about an hour of fishing to get a Perfect Roe, which makes enough to cover 8 hours of play time), and the performance discrepancy between gold food and the cheaply-acquired Witchmothers is miniscule compared to the performance discrepancy between crafted potions and cheaply-acquired dropped potions.

All that ZOS needs to do is have alchemical nodes yield the same as all other nodes. I get three ores out of a metal node. Why do I only get a single flower out of a plant?

Twohothardware · July 2018

Facefister wrote: »

"Farming" is such a strong word for heavily randomized alchemy nodes. I can't precisely farm Blessed Thistles or Corn Flowers.

That is what makes Alchemy farming more of a grind than for really any other material but the current Jewelry Gold Plating. Like I use a lot of Namiras Rot yet that's what I tend to find by far the least of. So if I didn't have the gold to buy it I'd spend half the day farming that one Alchemy Regent just to have enough potions for a nights worth of PVP.

Feanor wrote: »

Twohothardware wrote: »

Erraln wrote: »

Twohothardware wrote: »

You sound like you're more worried about how much you personally are making selling Alchemy mats to others vs whether or not the general eso population would benefit from increasing Alchemy drops through getting more from nodes, adding a Hireling, etc.

In turn, this topic seems to be a plea by you to the developers to allow you to easily access a system that you don't personally have the time to use. You've brushed off the suggested farming methods people have given you, and are trying to paint the people who don't believe the current system needs changes as driven by greed. You're also indirectly asking for the entire game's herb value to be debased in order to convenience yourself. Yes, more supply means less value in each item.

This topic has nothing to do with me beyond being annoyed at the need to stand at an Alchemy station for 15 minutes pressing Square. I have over 10 million gold and thousands of Alchemy mats and as I stated in my original post am one of the ones that can afford to buy all of my mats. But I also farm them and the time spent in order to craft enough of the popular pots is excessive for the average ESO player and results in the majority of players having to rely on those trash pots while playing against players all using expensive pots.

That’s way to altruistic to be true. Besides, making everything available for cheap may level the playing field. What it also does is taking away incentives to play more. And that’s not in ZOS interests.

Don't get me wrong, I'd prefer to not just waste my gold if I didn't have to and could just farm the Alchemy Regents I need in a more reasonable time. But my reason for this topic was looking at this from the perspective of those I've played with who many haven't even ever leveled up the Alchemy skill line and don't use the better potions because of cost. This puts them at a disadvantage.

And I really don't think making it so that Alchemy nodes give a guaranteed 2 to 3 flowers per node is taking away incentives to play the game. You can have so much of a grind in a game that people don't bother with that content because it's not worth their time. Alchemy farming is one of those grinds.

reiverx wrote: »

I'd prefer it if they upped the duration of potions to 5 minutes but reduced the number of alchemy nodes. That would make farming more meaningful and potions feel less gimped.

Argonian would be screwed.

Mystrius_Archaion · July 2018

Feanor wrote: »

Twohothardware wrote: »

Erraln wrote: »

Twohothardware wrote: »

You sound like you're more worried about how much you personally are making selling Alchemy mats to others vs whether or not the general eso population would benefit from increasing Alchemy drops through getting more from nodes, adding a Hireling, etc.

In turn, this topic seems to be a plea by you to the developers to allow you to easily access a system that you don't personally have the time to use. You've brushed off the suggested farming methods people have given you, and are trying to paint the people who don't believe the current system needs changes as driven by greed. You're also indirectly asking for the entire game's herb value to be debased in order to convenience yourself. Yes, more supply means less value in each item.

This topic has nothing to do with me beyond being annoyed at the need to stand at an Alchemy station for 15 minutes pressing Square. I have over 10 million gold and thousands of Alchemy mats and as I stated in my original post am one of the ones that can afford to buy all of my mats. But I also farm them and the time spent in order to craft enough of the popular pots is excessive for the average ESO player and results in the majority of players having to rely on those trash pots while playing against players all using expensive pots.

That’s way to altruistic to be true. Besides, making everything available for cheap may level the playing field. What it also does is taking away incentives to play more. And that’s not in ZOS interests.

You think grind is a good incentive to play more? That doesn't work.
There are plenty of other things to do, especially once you have the potions. Grind has a cumulative effect of wearing away all fun for a game to the point where people just sop logging in because they don't feel it is fun, especially if they find something else that is fun.

That's the wrong way to encourage playing. That's why daily rewards are as easy as "login and click a button for good stuff" because it definitely encourages logging in with something that easy, then players find friends on to chat with or something else to do.

Jeezye · July 2018

Should introduce purchasable reagent bags like the ones in IC for AP, since there aren’t much ways to spent them anyways. Would take away the grind part so players can actually play the content they want on the limited time they have during their day

Mystrius_Archaion · July 2018

IAVITNI wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

IAVITNI wrote: »

That feeling of progression is a positive. Players should not enter cyrodil and expect to compete with top tier players. This isn't that type of game.

Then pvp doesn't belong in this game or pvpers should find a better pvp game.

I can compete with top tier players in a first-person-shooter game just fine, or a racing pvp game. I have the skill to do so.
I just can't compete well in this game because most of the power is in the stats and classes, not the player skill.

Will you not admit that this game is based on "rock/paper/scissors" balance? If not, do you forget about interrupts and blocks and break free? That is a recipe for imbalance.
FPS and racing games that are better balanced for pvp do not do this "rock/paper/scissors" crap. Even games that do use that balance, like DC Universe Online, do it much better than ESO does also by giving everyone practically the same stats free in pvp.

This isn't a PVP game. This is pvp shoehorned into a pve game and screwing with pve balance while the clash drives both sides away even though the pvp community is much smaller than the pve.

You know why people "play ESO for the pvp"? They play because of the stat and gear imbalance. There are people who enjoy figuring out how to be unstoppable or win with less work due to numbers imbalances. They don't truly want balance.
Any "true pvper" will not play ESO; they would rather play a game where they get more opponents and have more fun because of better performance and actual skill mattering more than stats.

Ok. First, my argument is that you don't need those potions to clear vet dungeons. I can run any vet dungeon without popping a single potion using gear that was BiS like 6 patches ago and only my weapons are gold and I can still pull 32k dps self-buffed despite almost never going into PvE. Ever. And that parse was done on my third try after watching a rotation video on youtube. The skill gap is not as large as you make it out to be. 30k is the minimum for most Vet trials, so I can still do them. it's a lot harder for me than a hardcore pve'r but not impossible.

Well good for you. You're better than a lot of people. /cheers

I can't pull 30k dps self-buffed or otherwise. I drop like wet tissue paper if I even get close to that. For one, I use a gamepad; two, my hands don't work like they used to; three, because of those I have to build a bit more balanced.
I end up pulling about 10k dps in most content at best, which is plenty enough for me to solo most world bosses and the old normal dungeons. I can stand in the fire from that giant daedroth in Banished Cells due to how I have built.
And that is beside my point.

PVP in this game is a joke when it comes to balance. It's ridiculously unbalanced.
If player skill actually mattered in pvp then I could still do very well competing with the top pvp players because I know what I can do and how people behave so I can predict them enough to pull off some good shots in FPS games for example.
This game makes stats and "twitch reflexes", which is a form of physical stats, more important so that I just can't compete.

This is not a true pvp game. If it was, pvp would be the first balance concern that the game would have been built around from the ground up and well balanced and pve would be easy as hell to balance after just by tweaking enemy NPCs.
PVP was an afterthought.

Anybody who truly wants "a good fight" and "equal opportunity to win based on skill" in PVP is better off in a pvp game, not here. Anybody who thinks they can get that here is either deluding themselves or only saying that to us to trick us when they really want us to be the "grass to their lawnmower" by joining pvp expecting to compete and instead getting destroyed.

Mystrius_Archaion · July 2018

IAVITNI wrote: »

There are normal trials for people that don't want to push themselves. Vet is for the players that want a challenge. All content in this game is already accessible, barring maybe monster helms. The only difference is the rewards. You want to run Mazzatun but don't have BiS gear? Go ahead run it on normal. You get slightly weaker rewards but you get the same rewards. You just want to stand at the top without putting in the effort. And you can run normal using any kind of potion. Most experienced players can solo any normal dungeon. The content is accessible. The rewards are not.

And this game is only rock paper scissors because ZoS implemented hard counters to mechanics because casuals like you whine about things you don't understand.

1) Normal trials are still excluded from the most of us due to the amount of people required and the fact that everyone wants the easiest time possible. You wipe at all and the group self-destructs, if you could even form a group in the first place with people unwilling to lead and only wanting to dps.

2) I just want sets to be complete, if I have part of it available to me like monster shoulders so need the helms(which I can buy if patient), and cosmetics. They locked some cosmetics behind the hardest modes which are already excluding me by the "e-peen measuring jerks" even if I am good at playing the game.

3) No, casuals never asked for "rock/paper/scissors mechanics". We're perfectly happy with "tank and spank" or "dps trumps all".
It's the hardcore jerks who say "overland is too easy" while they ignore the signs saying "challenge over there" who wanted these rock/paper/scissors mechanics that are now everywhere. Even normal enemies have the ability to stun and silence now that used to be only on bosses with the negate bubble in the overland pve.

The true "lowering the ceiling" that hardcore vocal forum posters have gotten ZOS to do is to move mechanics that were once reserved for hard content down to the lower tiers of content so that we all can suffer because some masochistic "wall-head-bangers" enjoy it and want everyone to have the same "enjoyment".

I like casual gameplay, yes. I even like casual pvp. I don't pvp for rewards or to say I'm better than anyone. I pvp when it's just exciting like "hide and seek" and the game has a fun physics engine that makes the death scenes extra cool/funny.
This game has none of that. It's all about rewards and not about the simple strategy where everyone has the same exact tools and stats. This game is all about getting the best stats before you can even hope to compete and then having the best twitch reflexes because it's not really about aiming and true dodging. Everything sticks to players here like DoTs and undodgeable controls and other gimmick mechanics.

I'm just here for the good looking world and characters and to feel overpowered in pve with flashy cool looking abilities, because pve is "all or nothing" and pvp is completely screwed.

Mystrius_Archaion · July 2018

IAVITNI wrote: »

Once you reach a minimum threshold, Skill >>>> Stats and once you reach the max threshold, patience>>>>>everything else in PvP.

DINGDINGDINGDINGDING!!! We have a winner!

"Once you reach a minimum threshold..."
Even you can't say "skill trumps all" because you know, consciously or subconsciously, that it is not true. That very statement indicates that you must be at a minimum stat value threshold to be able to compete at all.

Other games, better designed games, don't need that because everyone already has that minimum stat threshold for free when they join pvp.

Edit:
For example, I can literally go pvp naked in DC Universe Online because they automatically grant stats to players entering pvp to be able to compete, just like ESO does to low level players so they don't just die everywhere in PVE. They also rewrote their original pvp system of gear to be different stats than pve and to be much less of a stat gap from the base pvp stats to the top. They still have stats but also have a matchmaking system that places players against ones with equal win/loss records in a variable system so provide fair fights.
ESO isn't nearly that well balanced, plus DCUO rewrote their whole pve system also because it was becoming a problem which improved it.
The only reason I'm not playing DCUO is the world is so shallow, not even a day/night cycle. It's "fly over country" in that game.

Twohothardware · July 2018

Buff Alchemy nodes in all overland areas to guaranteed 2-3 flowers per node.

Make it so that the average ESO player can go farm enough Alchemy to craft potions they need for activities that night in a few minutes instead of hours when they don't have the money to buy it.

The Alchemy grind should be closer to the grind for Provisioning and crafting food/drink rather than closer to the grind for upgrading gear in quality.

Ragnaroek93 · July 2018

Yeah they need to get buffed, I don't play this game to collect flowers ffs

IAVITNI · July 2018

@Mystrius_Archaion

The point of me pointing out my DPS is that if I can learn to do minimal Vet Trial DPS in a span of 5 minutes, more casual players should be able to run a normal dungeon no problem.

As for the monster sets, yes I acknowledge it's poor design to lock them behind vet dungeons.
Group finder is meant to help beginners get into trials. Unfortunately it simply doesn't work. That's on ZoS.
Rock-Paper-Scissors balance only exists in PvP. Don't know why you're bringing up PvE

And you can't complain about cosmetics. You don't need those to play the game.

The lowering the ceiling refers to proc sets in PvP. PvE mechanics for normal dungeons can just be ignored for the most part. You have to literally have no heals and only light attack to fail a non-dlc normal. DLC dungeons are meant to be harder btw. So don't expect to beat them without any mechanics.

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

IAVITNI wrote: »

Once you reach a minimum threshold, Skill >>>> Stats and once you reach the max threshold, patience>>>>>everything else in PvP.

DINGDINGDINGDINGDING!!! We have a winner!

"Once you reach a minimum threshold..."
Even you can't say "skill trumps all" because you know, consciously or subconsciously, that it is not true. That very statement indicates that you must be at a minimum stat value threshold to be able to compete at all.

Other games, better designed games, don't need that because everyone already has that minimum stat threshold for free when they join pvp.

Ok. First off, that minimum threshold is literally just throwing on a Blue set of gear that matches your primary stat. Match Blue with Blue and Green with Green. Even a casual can do it.

Second. Elder Scrolls has always been a progression game.

Third. If you can't compete with someone in basic Julianos+willpower/Hunding+Agility, than you can't compete with them in any gear. Gear only makes a difference when both players are simply light attacking each other or both are so close to skill level that every edge counts. So if you get smoked by someone in ESO, you'll get smoked by them even if you ran the same gear.

If you're only pulling 10k DPS than changing gear isn't going to make a difference unless you change from a damage set to a tank set. If gear was so important than everyone with the gear should be pulling the same DPS. However the difference between an experienced player and a beginner can be anywhere from 10k-20k damage.

Gear only matters if you're trying to compete; ergo you are a competitive player. If you're a casual, than you don't need to compete;

Your issue is that you want ESO to be a better version of DCUO. Those are 2 very different genres.

MLGProPlayer · July 2018

No. There is already huge oversupply on the market. Prices have never been lower on raw materials.

Twohothardware · July 2018

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

No. There is already huge oversupply on the market. Prices have never been lower on raw materials.

Corn Flower wouldn't be 80K a stack on console if that was remotely true.

MLGProPlayer · July 2018

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

Upgrade materials are also not cheap except for single resource nodes like Dreugh Wax and Rosin. Since blacksmithing materials now share same nodes with jewelry, it is a time/gold sink. And to make things worse, some nodes refuses to respawn because of what is presumed to be a glitch.

Upgrade materials have never been cheaper.

Temper = 5k
Rosin = 2.5k
Wax = 3k

This is down from like 15k/7k/5k from 2 summers ago when I started playing. In-demand alchemy mats were like 500g/ea then.

This is on PC.Console prices will be higher, but you also make more money on consoles because you sell at these prices.

MLGProPlayer · July 2018

Twohothardware wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

No. There is already huge oversupply on the market. Prices have never been lower on raw materials.

Corn Flower wouldn't be 80K a stack on console if that was remotely true.

The console market has inflation. Things cost more because you can sell them for more as well.

You can easily make 2x as much gold per hour farming on console vs. PC.

Twohothardware · July 2018

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Twohothardware wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

No. There is already huge oversupply on the market. Prices have never been lower on raw materials.

Corn Flower wouldn't be 80K a stack on console if that was remotely true.

The console market has inflation. Things cost more because you can sell them for more as well.

You can easily make 2x as much gold per hour farming on console vs. PC.

You again come back to only the rich and those that farm for hours all the time being able to afford to regularly craft the popular potions. The average ESO player does not farm materials. What time they spend on the game is running Dungeons, XP grinding at Dolmens, running around in Cyrodiil, or running Trials, not running circles for mats. That's like the 1% crowd that makes money off mats and that's why prices are where they are.

MLGProPlayer · July 2018

Twohothardware wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Twohothardware wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

No. There is already huge oversupply on the market. Prices have never been lower on raw materials.

Corn Flower wouldn't be 80K a stack on console if that was remotely true.

The console market has inflation. Things cost more because you can sell them for more as well.

You can easily make 2x as much gold per hour farming on console vs. PC.

You again come back to only the rich and those that farm for hours all the time being able to afford to regularly craft the popular potions. The average ESO player does not farm materials. What time they spend on the game is running Dungeons, XP grinding at Dolmens, running around in Cyrodiil, or running Trials, not running circles for mats. That's like the 1% crowd that makes money off mats and that's why prices are where they are.

Making money is part of playing an MMO. Whether you farm mats, steal, kill mobs in public dungeons, or resell goods, you need to do something if you want to have money.

Twohothardware · July 2018

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Twohothardware wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Twohothardware wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

No. There is already huge oversupply on the market. Prices have never been lower on raw materials.

Corn Flower wouldn't be 80K a stack on console if that was remotely true.

The console market has inflation. Things cost more because you can sell them for more as well.

You can easily make 2x as much gold per hour farming on console vs. PC.

You again come back to only the rich and those that farm for hours all the time being able to afford to regularly craft the popular potions. The average ESO player does not farm materials. What time they spend on the game is running Dungeons, XP grinding at Dolmens, running around in Cyrodiil, or running Trials, not running circles for mats. That's like the 1% crowd that makes money off mats and that's why prices are where they are.

Making money is part of playing an MMO. Whether you farm mats, steal, kill mobs in public dungeons, or resell goods, you need to do something if you want to have money.

I agree but the amount of money you need to craft potions is beyond what the normal ESO player makes in the couple of hours they spend in a setting playing the game. It's cheaper to buy a full set of gear than a stack of Corn Flower or Columbine.

If Provisioning costs were the same as Alchemy then the average ESO player could not afford to use more than green food unless they farmed for hours each week.

Alchemy would still have to be farmed by players if each node gave 2-3 flowers every time instead of 1. It would not flood the market and kill sales because more people would be able to afford it and it would take you less time to farm the same amount. Corn Flower would just go from an unaffordable amount of 80K a stack to more like 20-30K.

Mystrius_Archaion · July 2018

IAVITNI wrote: »

@Mystrius_Archaion

The point of me pointing out my DPS is that if I can learn to do minimal Vet Trial DPS in a span of 5 minutes, more casual players should be able to run a normal dungeon no problem.
As for the monster sets, yes I acknowledge it's poor design to lock them behind vet dungeons.

Group finder is meant to help beginners get into trials. Unfortunately it simply doesn't work. That's on ZoS.

Rock-Paper-Scissors balance only exists in PvP. Don't know why you're bringing up PvE

And you can't complain about cosmetics. You don't need those to play the game.

Your issue is that you want ESO to be a better version of DCUO. Those are 2 very different genres.

1) DCUO and ESO are very much the same. DCUO has block and interrupt and CC and they are both action MMOs. The difference being that DCUO actually has tab targeting that does lock the target and has done the rock/paper/scissors combat better. They even both have weapons attacks and then abilities that use a resource pool until it is empty which the weapon attacks regenerate. That's why I'm here; they are both fairly similar and both support gamepads.

2) Rock/paper/scissors combat is everywhere in PVE. You get stunned into silenced all the time in anything from Vvardenfell and Clockwork City and newer and it is spreading to old world enemies with sneaky updates. The old enemies also still always have had things you need to interrupt or block or take a lot more damage and/or get knocked back/stunned. Even regular enemies, which shouldn't so reliably stun some superhuman player that can solo worldbosses, can and do stun them.
I'm not sure what you thought I meant by "rock/paper/scissor mechanics", or what you meant by it. I'm talking about blocking and interrupting and breaking free.

3) The main reason I play this game is for cosmetics.
It's about the only reason I play any game since the old game Tibia which gave me a bigger thrill and challenge and sense of progression than any game since really because it has literally limitless levels and perpetually dangerous pve content and open world griefing pvp by walling in players with furniture or other players. We want nice graphics though so newer games that do less for mechanics are viable financially.
So yes, it upsets me when they lock nice cosmetics behind "smash your face into this wall a few dozen/hundred times before the wall gives up" types of "challenge". I'd gladly pay to avoid that challenge(especially since a lot of it is fake challenge), but those things say to me "we don't want your money" which is sad and arguably a dumb financial plan.

Edit:
FYI, DCUO does pvp a hell of a lot better also. Go try it, since it is completely F2P to try, no game purchase to start. It performs better and the combat actually is better designed to work well. I can even compete with the top tier pvpers because I actually am decent so long as technology isn't limiting me and the stats are meaningless, for the most part.
DCUO actually has that "equal skill results in gear difference providing that edge" that you talk about while ESO doesn't. ESO has too many different sets that set bonuses make the difference in PVP much more than how it really should be. If PVP were truly balanced here in ESO then any set combination, so long as they had the full bonuses and same quality level and same enchants, should be fully balanced against any other set, but that isn't true or people wouldn't be calling for nerfs to Sload's Semblance.

Mystrius_Archaion · July 2018

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Twohothardware wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Twohothardware wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

No. There is already huge oversupply on the market. Prices have never been lower on raw materials.

Corn Flower wouldn't be 80K a stack on console if that was remotely true.

The console market has inflation. Things cost more because you can sell them for more as well.

You can easily make 2x as much gold per hour farming on console vs. PC.

You again come back to only the rich and those that farm for hours all the time being able to afford to regularly craft the popular potions. The average ESO player does not farm materials. What time they spend on the game is running Dungeons, XP grinding at Dolmens, running around in Cyrodiil, or running Trials, not running circles for mats. That's like the 1% crowd that makes money off mats and that's why prices are where they are.

Making money is part of playing an MMO. Whether you farm mats, steal, kill mobs in public dungeons, or resell goods, you need to do something if you want to have money.

The question is how much money, and no you don't need to do anything to have money. The richest players are the ones that buy from "real money trade" farmers, who often use botting programs, or those who directly use botting programs.

Seriously, nobody who has a life and comes home tired from work has the time to farm up everything they need to run content. They probably don't run the content then or run it on normal mode sub-optimal and have to deal with the toxic grouping environment where groups kick them or the group implodes if it isn't fast and easy enough.

Anotherone773 · July 2018

Argument: You dont need crafted potions to do X.
My Answer: That is true. Pretty much everything in this game can be done without crafted pots including pvp. But Pots add a significant advantage. In pvp, i use weapon power pots. Stam, power, crit. The power portion alone gives a significant advantage. I am a glass cannon. I need as much cannon as i can before i shatter or it just doesnt work especially in Crowd Control Online

Argument: Farm IC for TV stones, buy alchemy bags.
My Answer. I found that to be more work and less reward than collecting nodes. Unless you group farm or something where you can just mow through areas like an FG I speedrun. You also have the constant issue of losing TV for dying. IC was a failed experiment to try to get PVERs to go into PVP zones. It didnt work and hasnt in any game that tried it. For one thing its a pain to get too( and to get out of). And the rewards are just not worth the risk or time required....even for a person who pvps.

Argument: Farm nodes for what you need.
My Answer: I do. I have a regular plant run and a mushroom run. But to do a whole 80ish plant run takes about 10 minutes. I might get 30 or 40 plants running late when most people are in bed. I still have competition and often run across 1 or 2 other people every run also picking nodes. It takes me 2-3 hours to get a quarter stack of the ingredients i use for that pot. Each plant give 3 minutes worth. All said and done a quarter stack of each ingredient i need gives me about 2 hours of pot up time. So i farm for 3 hours to do what i really want for 2 hours. Thats not very fun. Some people enjoy picking nodes. Im not one of them.

Argument: Farm other stuff, sell it, buy pots/ingredients, profit???
My Answer: We are back to hours of farming to do what we want for less time. I do farm other stuff and i make a good amount on traders. But that gold is for other activities i enjoy.

I like crafting in this game. Its meaningful and in most( nearly all) other games ive played, it isnt that meaningful. But i think alchemy is the one craft they screwed up and yes im including jewelry crafting in the lot. Its ridiculous that pots are so short duration but also that ingredients to make them are so expensive in time or gold. It puts the average player off using them because they either cant afford them or they are so high valued they only want to use them in rare situations where they absolutely need them. For example i didnt start using crafted pots until months after i reached 160 and had maxed alchemy. In fact it was the better part of a year before i started using crafted pots and poisons and now i only use them in pvp and harder solo PVE such as soloing mobs that werent really designed to be soloed. Id use them more if i didnt have to spend so much time farming ingredients for them.

Having a consumable craft that the average player cant afford to use is just stupid. They either need to double the amount of pots, double the amount per node or nodes, or make the pots about 90 seconds( when skilled).

Twohothardware · July 2018

Anotherone773 wrote: »

I like crafting in this game. Its meaningful and in most( nearly all) other games ive played, it isnt that meaningful. But i think alchemy is the one craft they screwed up and yes im including jewelry crafting in the lot. Its ridiculous that pots are so short duration but also that ingredients to make them are so expensive in time or gold. It puts the average player off using them because they either cant afford them or they are so high valued they only want to use them in rare situations where they absolutely need them. For example i didnt start using crafted pots until months after i reached 160 and had maxed alchemy. In fact it was the better part of a year before i started using crafted pots and poisons and now i only use them in pvp and harder solo PVE such as soloing mobs that werent really designed to be soloed. Id use them more if i didnt have to spend so much time farming ingredients for them.

Having a consumable craft that the average player cant afford to use is just stupid. They either need to double the amount of pots, double the amount per node or nodes, or make the pots about 90 seconds( when skilled).

I fully agree. I think Alchemy crafting is one of the things they screwed up in this game and they just don't realize it because their only listening to the 1% that spend hours farming or have endless gold and the general ESO population doesn't know what their missing by being able to use the best pots all the time on cooldown.

There's no reason at all from a balance standpoint to have Alchemy cost as high as it currently is. Increasing overland Alchemy nodes to give 2 to 3 flowers instead of 1 won't break the game any more than what they just did with reducing the cost to upgrade Jewelry by 50% and even adding a chance for Jewelry mats to Rubedite nodes.

Taleof2Cities · July 2018

Just wanted to re-post this ... since it’s either being missed or it’s being conveniently ignored.

There are so many other ways to obtain alchemy mats other than farming:
- PvP bags
- Dark Brotherhood Shadowy Supplier
- Alchemy Writs (and surveys)
- Guild Vendors
- Trading with friends and guildies

The list goes on ...

Twohothardware · July 2018

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

Just wanted to re-post this ... since it’s either being missed or it’s being conveniently ignored.

There are so many other ways to obtain alchemy mats other than farming:
- PvP bags
- Dark Brotherhood Shadowy Supplier
- Alchemy Writs (and surveys)
- Guild Vendors
- Trading with friends and guildies

The list goes on ...

None of those address the core issue of the grind to farm specific ingredients like Corn Flower to craft specific potions. If any of those avenues you just listed were actually efficient means of getting Alchemy it would not be even possible for Corn Flower to cost 80K a stack in Guild Traders.

This isn't an issue of whether the 1% have a way to go get Alchemy ingredients. It's an issue of the exact amount of time it takes for the average ESO player to farm Alchemy ingredients and whether Alchemy crafting is being for the most part ignored by the larger population due the grind and cost.

Taleof2Cities · July 2018

Twohothardware wrote: »

This isn't an issue of whether the 1% have a way to go get Alchemy ingredients. It's an issue of the exact amount of time it takes for the average ESO player to farm Alchemy ingredients and whether Alchemy crafting is being for the most part ignored by the larger population due the grind and cost.

Interesting.

Of the items I listed, none of those take very long at all ... except maybe getting enough Tel Var for a few PvP bags.

The Dark Brotherhood Shadowy Supplier is simply a passive unlock. After that it's free mats once a day.

Writs are insanely easy as well and can be done at any level over level 6. Sometimes writ rewards are accompanied by a survey which generally yields 30+ mats per survey node ... can be higher with investment in the Plentiful Harvest passive in the Lover constellation.

What's that proverb again? 'You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink'