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

Twohothardware · July 2018

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

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'

I again let the pricing of Alchemy Regents in Traders speak for themselves. You can't sell stacks of a Alchemy Regent for 80K when there is an easy efficient method to farm it for the same reason you can't sell a stack of Rubedite for 80K.

Purchasing a separate DLC and farming Tel Ver in Imperial City is not a reasonable method for an average ESO player that doesn't even hardly go into PvP and certainly can't solo much of the content or other players and the amounts you get from things like the Dark Brotherhood Shadow Supplier and doing Daily Writs is random and not nearly enough for crafting a stack of specific potions unless you maybe have 15 Crafters for Alchemy that you log onto each of every day and the average ESO player only has a couple characters they play.

You're trying to reason what's balanced based on methods that are only effective for those that already spend countless time on the game. Just like with upgrading Jewelry right now, there's methods to get the materials by just buying or farming Jewelry at a Dolmen to deconstruct and by farming Platinum nodes. But the time investment is far more than the average player is going to give so they don't bother with Jewelry Crafting.

Alchemy has the same problem when you look at the time investment for the average player who's not going to spend hours getting Alchemy ingredients just to use potions that last only 45 seconds or until they die. That's why most players don't even level up the Alchemy skill line and just use trash pots.

I'll pose this final question. What is the argument against increasing Alchemy Nodes to give a guaranteed 2-3 flowers instead of 1 if it benefits the large percentage of the ESO player base? What is unbalanced about making farming for Alchemy in overland areas more efficient like the methods you proposed which you say are easy and don't take very long at all?

Arkangeloski · July 2018

Twohothardware wrote: »

The cost of Alchemy Potions is something that doesn't seem to get brought up here but I think keeps a lot of ESO players from taking advantage of crafted potions more and contributes to them being put at further disadvantage in both PVE and PVP.

For those probably reading this like myself who have a lot of gold or are master crafters doing daily writs on multiple characters the cost isn't really a problem but for the average player on ESO when you have just one stack of Corn Flower on console costing as much as 80K, or these new Summerset ingredients like Clam Gall that go for 1K each, it makes it so that you're only able to use the better potions sparingly.

When you look at especially PVP and the advantages of being higher CP or having all Gold gear you have to then also consider the guy that can afford to use Potion cooldown glyphs and chug the best pots in the game every 20-30 seconds giving him multiple buffs and loads of increased resources.

I realize that Alchemy farming is part of the grind and one of the gold sinks in the game but the time investment for Alchemy farming is excessive for the average player, which is why Regent prices are high, and I think if Alchemy Nodes gave a guaranteed 2-3 flowers every time, instead of typically only 1, it would at least make farming a little less of a grind and bring down the price some on the most expensive Regents.

Additionally can we please get some quality of life improvements to the Alchemy Station? As much fun as it is to stand at it pressing Square repeatedly for 15-20 minutes crafting 4 potions at a time I'd much rather craft in bulk.

got telvar?

Revokus · July 2018

IAVITNI wrote: »

@Mystrius_Archaion
I'm well aware that ZoS wants to lower the ceiling and raise the floor. But that doesn't mean make them the same. May as well just remove the levelling system and CP system and just unlock every passive and skill. The only time that potions really makes a difference i you're trying to compete with the top 1%. Most casuals won't even know there is a difference.

And do you want to know why most of the original players quit? It's because of poor balance. ZoS keeps catering to people that don't understand how to play and it creates all these imbalances. Sypher and Fengrush quit due to the poor balancing, based on too many proc sets and ez mode healing--accessibility to safeties that removed player skill from the game. By removing depth from an MMO you are killings its longevity. Top tier players feel that all their effort is wasted and leave whereas casuals come in thinking they are good, get bored because the game lacks depth and leave as well. The only difference is those casuals had minimal impact on the game whereas Sypher and Feng had a huge following and actively shaped the community. Leave instant accessibility to games like CoD.

Twohothardware wrote: »

I wasn't trying to insult you, as I said I didn't even remember fighting you. I was simply talking about some of the ones I know you were referring to when you said the solo/small scale club. Dovetheangry is one of the few I'll give props to for solo'ing groups. He's the only one I've seen still playing the game that can take on sizeable numbers by himself. It takes a lot less skill to run in groups of 3-4+ because 3-4 timed Ults when you're communicating with each other will kill even a decent size zerg.

"small scale" groups of +4 is more a response to the increased zerg mentality. You just simply aren't going to consistently pull 4-6 players anymore. They come in droves or don't fight until their Crown and their whole zerg is there, and zergs tend to run in pairs in Vivec. Despite that most people don't like going over 4 in a group anyways and even in those groups, its mostly solo play up until you have a group of healer, defile and snare bots all zerging one person. 4 co-ordinated people killing a co-ordinated zerg is still impressive. Nobody cares about a 2v8 or a 2v12. Everyone's chasing that 2v22 ever since miami and abdi did it on eu.

Anyways, that was a pretty big tangent. My original point was--based on my experience I thought you lacked the necessary PvP experience to make that kind of statement.

Moving away from that, myself and many I know use alliance draughts quite extensively, both in duels and open world. They only make a difference in the extreme cases, i.e. a 1v+4. Even in duels against players of your same skill level, it is not necessary to chug BiS pots off cooldown. It really only makes a difference for the players that are min-maxing and those are the types of players that will put the time in to farm anyways.

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.

But fengrush didn't quit he is now playing in zergs only now.

Slick_007 · July 2018

Twohothardware wrote: »

Alchemy has the same problem when you look at the time investment for the average player who's not going to spend hours getting Alchemy ingredients just to use potions that last only 45 seconds or until they die. That's why most players don't even level up the Alchemy skill line and just use trash pots.

I'll pose this final question. What is the argument against increasing Alchemy Nodes to give a guaranteed 2-3 flowers instead of 1 if it benefits the large percentage of the ESO player base? What is unbalanced about making farming for Alchemy in overland areas more efficient like the methods you proposed which you say are easy and don't take very long at all?

giving every player +100 to all stats benefits the entire player base and that would be a stupid idea. why should those people who cant/dont/wont play get given stuff for free? alchemy isnt that hard.

at a rough estimate, my craft bag has a total of 91k alchemy mats. not gold value, 91 thousand mats. and like a large amount of players, many of whom are the same you want to give stuff to for free, i walk past a stack of herbs because i quite simply cant be bothered looting them.

IAVITNI · July 2018

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

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.

Ok please don''t comment about PvP because you just don't have a strong enough grasp of ESO PvP to actually comment. On any stamina class I can run several different setups that all come within Hunding+Agility performance range. Name any class (except magicka warden) and I can give you at least 5 PvP setups that all work within the same level of effectiveness.

Legion
Shacklebreaker
Bone Pirate
Hulking Drauger
Hunding's Rage
Fury
Ravager
Veiled Heritance
Spriggan
Trainee
Werewolf Hide
Assault
Automaton

The list goes on and on. And that is just for general purpose set ups. After that you get into "niche" or "gimmicky" builds that actually have a higher potential but require certain conditions resulting in lower uptimes. Gear is not that important. All my gear is purple and I can still place top 10 if I put the time in, I can still compete with the top 1% of duelists and I can still 1vx majority of people I run into. All these sets I mentioned are really interchangeable. It just depends on class and playstyle. Anyone telling you their setup is BiS, the only way to run a class etc. is lying for the views. So you saying you have the mechanics to compete comes off as a lie. BiS hardly makes a difference in the average fight. If you get clapped by a player running BiS gear, you will still get clapped even if they aren't running BiS gear. The only time this isn't true is when a casual where's a no skill set like Durok's that does all the thinking for you. Even than, the experienced player is still going to win, they probably just have to put some effort in.

The problem is that there are hundreds of sets, all designed during different metas and only a fraction of them have every been updated. So while maybe 10% of the sets are balanced against each other that's still around 10-15 different sets to choose from. Almost all of them are also very easy to obtain.

Simply because you want cosmetics does not mean they should be accessible. You do not NEED them to play the game. They are not necessary. Not having access to them has no significant impact on your performance and therefore you are not entitled to it as a casual. Those motifs can be bought anyways, not that you're the type of player who would want to put in the work.

ESO is not the same as DCUO. ESO comes from a long line of progression games-a la Skyrim. You're going to need to grind in any Elder Scrolls game. If you don't like that go play something else and stop complaining about 24 years of tradition. I've been playing Elder Scrolls games since I started gaming. Believe me, ESO has already been dumbed down significantly.

IAVITNI · July 2018

Revokus wrote: »

IAVITNI wrote: »

@Mystrius_Archaion
I'm well aware that ZoS wants to lower the ceiling and raise the floor. But that doesn't mean make them the same. May as well just remove the levelling system and CP system and just unlock every passive and skill. The only time that potions really makes a difference i you're trying to compete with the top 1%. Most casuals won't even know there is a difference.

And do you want to know why most of the original players quit? It's because of poor balance. ZoS keeps catering to people that don't understand how to play and it creates all these imbalances. Sypher and Fengrush quit due to the poor balancing, based on too many proc sets and ez mode healing--accessibility to safeties that removed player skill from the game. By removing depth from an MMO you are killings its longevity. Top tier players feel that all their effort is wasted and leave whereas casuals come in thinking they are good, get bored because the game lacks depth and leave as well. The only difference is those casuals had minimal impact on the game whereas Sypher and Feng had a huge following and actively shaped the community. Leave instant accessibility to games like CoD.

Twohothardware wrote: »

I wasn't trying to insult you, as I said I didn't even remember fighting you. I was simply talking about some of the ones I know you were referring to when you said the solo/small scale club. Dovetheangry is one of the few I'll give props to for solo'ing groups. He's the only one I've seen still playing the game that can take on sizeable numbers by himself. It takes a lot less skill to run in groups of 3-4+ because 3-4 timed Ults when you're communicating with each other will kill even a decent size zerg.

"small scale" groups of +4 is more a response to the increased zerg mentality. You just simply aren't going to consistently pull 4-6 players anymore. They come in droves or don't fight until their Crown and their whole zerg is there, and zergs tend to run in pairs in Vivec. Despite that most people don't like going over 4 in a group anyways and even in those groups, its mostly solo play up until you have a group of healer, defile and snare bots all zerging one person. 4 co-ordinated people killing a co-ordinated zerg is still impressive. Nobody cares about a 2v8 or a 2v12. Everyone's chasing that 2v22 ever since miami and abdi did it on eu.

Anyways, that was a pretty big tangent. My original point was--based on my experience I thought you lacked the necessary PvP experience to make that kind of statement.

Moving away from that, myself and many I know use alliance draughts quite extensively, both in duels and open world. They only make a difference in the extreme cases, i.e. a 1v+4. Even in duels against players of your same skill level, it is not necessary to chug BiS pots off cooldown. It really only makes a difference for the players that are min-maxing and those are the types of players that will put the time in to farm anyways.

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.

But fengrush didn't quit he is now playing in zergs only now.

He was inactive for the longest time and he was always more group oriented anyways. Not surprised he stopped with solo. Solo is trash now anyways. To many people carried by broken mechanics.

Twohothardware · July 2018

Slick_007 wrote: »

Twohothardware wrote: »

Alchemy has the same problem when you look at the time investment for the average player who's not going to spend hours getting Alchemy ingredients just to use potions that last only 45 seconds or until they die. That's why most players don't even level up the Alchemy skill line and just use trash pots.

I'll pose this final question. What is the argument against increasing Alchemy Nodes to give a guaranteed 2-3 flowers instead of 1 if it benefits the large percentage of the ESO player base? What is unbalanced about making farming for Alchemy in overland areas more efficient like the methods you proposed which you say are easy and don't take very long at all?

giving every player +100 to all stats benefits the entire player base and that would be a stupid idea. why should those people who cant/dont/wont play get given stuff for free? alchemy isnt that hard.

at a rough estimate, my craft bag has a total of 91k alchemy mats. not gold value, 91 thousand mats. and like a large amount of players, many of whom are the same you want to give stuff to for free, i walk past a stack of herbs because i quite simply cant be bothered looting them.

Highlight in my post where I said anything about free. I said Alchemy nodes in overland areas need to be increased to give something more reasonable like 2-3 flowers because the time investment is way too high just like farming the mats to upgrade Jewelry was too high and they're now reducing it by 50%.

Others have posted different ways to get Alchemy mats like doing Daily Writs on 15 characters or farming Imperial City bosses in a group but none of those are the most common way the average player is going to look to get Alchemy materials which is collecting it in overland areas and right now players don't even bother to stop and collect it, not because they have too much already, but because it's too much time to stop, get off your mount, and go through the animation of collecting just for 1 flower at a time.

I guarantee you if an Alchemy node gave 4-5 flowers at a time players would stop just ignoring Regents everywhere for the same reason when they give double node drops in areas during the Yearly events the entire zone is barren. But I'm not even asking for that much of a buff, just something reasonable that brings overland Alchemy farming closer to methods like spending Tel Var in IC and lower the high cost of crafting potions.

And btw if you have 91k alchemy mats its because you have over 1000 hours on the game and are the 1% that can afford to just buy Alchemy if you're not already spending hours farming it.

Mystrius_Archaion · July 2018

IAVITNI wrote: »

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

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.

Ok please don''t comment about PvP because you just don't have a strong enough grasp of ESO PvP to actually comment. On any stamina class I can run several different setups that all come within Hunding+Agility performance range. Name any class (except magicka warden) and I can give you at least 5 PvP setups that all work within the same level of effectiveness.
Legion

Shacklebreaker

Bone Pirate

Hulking Drauger

Hunding's Rage

Fury

Ravager

Veiled Heritance

Spriggan

Trainee

Werewolf Hide

Assault

Automaton

The list goes on and on. And that is just for general purpose set ups.

There is the problem. Everyone is so obsessed with sets being "the key to win" which involves either crafting or grinding drops and transmuting them or upgrading to purple and potentially gold.
Nobody can just say, like they should be able to, "bring anything and just 'git gud'". That stupid phrase "git gud" is thrown around as if it means "practice practice practice until 'practice makes perfect'" but that is not how ESO works because of the effect gear has on pvp.

People would not complain about proc sets or specific debuffs like major defile if all gear was equally viable in pvp for competing at any level, which is definitely the goal for everything to be equal in pvp.

IAVITNI wrote: »

ESO is not the same as DCUO. ESO comes from a long line of progression games-a la Skyrim. You're going to need to grind in any Elder Scrolls game. If you don't like that go play something else and stop complaining about 24 years of tradition. I've been playing Elder Scrolls games since I started gaming. Believe me, ESO has already been dumbed down significantly.

Actually, ESO has been "watered down", not "dumbed down". You're confusing the phrases and meanings.
Elder Scrolls games before ESO were actually "dumbing down" using fewer skill lines and less "fully mathematical" stats. They removed acrobatics and athletics going from Morrowind to Skyrim. They simplified the gameplay into better keybinds and button combos and to being primarily based on having a gamepad/controller instead of keyboard and mouse.
They were making Elder Scrolls games more accessible and easier to control and play, not less.
They "watered down" ESO by adding more skills that do the same things, adding classes which are just differences between ice and fire magic(for example) and adding more stats that control the same things like some skills being stamina or magicka so 2 resource pools for activating skills and those skills then being buffed by 4 damage controlling stats such as "spell damage and max magicka" that effectively do the exact same things so long as you don't have trouble running out of resources which "magicka recovery" could replace that part of the max magicka effects. It's all artificial complexity that is unnecessary.

ESO actually had to change drastically to be MORE LIKE Skyrim after it had been running a while with less success. One Tamriel was all about standardizing levels of enemies and player stats so anybody could go and play anywhere, which is how the single player Elder Scrolls games have been with level scaling getting more extreme since Morrowind. The progression in Skyrim is actually now arguably more heavy than ESO because of enemies that do require higher stats like "The Ebony Warrior" and "Kharstag". ESO is much more accessible everywhere in pve due to the stat leveling systems of One Tamriel.

And for the final nail in the coffin, ESO had a much smaller customer base until they went optional subscription and cash shop and even the One Tamriel update that brought everybody together instead of spread out across several different level tiers; they made it more accessible than ever by making everyone more equal in stats without those players doing any more work than just hitting a button to equip gear that is just thrown at them like clouds of candy flying from people with buckets of it at a parade.

FYI, ESO shares a lot more in common with DCUO than Skyrim because in DCUO you have 6 skills to use, one being a "Supercharge"(click Supercharge for link) which works almost exactly the same as our "ultimates" here with a meter that must be filled before using by weapon attacking, and weapon attacks that build back resources to use those skills and similar buff durations that are short and require constant monitoring. It even has similar aiming and definitely similar blocking and interrupting in combat, but definitely done better as to be easier and more fair to everyone in DCUO.
The only real difference is that DCUO embraced the fact that all abilities can be essentially boiled down to a simple equation and balanced everything much better because of it, while ESO still struggles badly with balance due to trying to "maintain uniqueness" for abilities that aren't actually unique in function compared to other abilities that do the exact same thing just with a different number. ESO is struggling with balance because of the fake complexity that DCUO has realized is fake and eliminated more.

Mystrius_Archaion · July 2018

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

IAVITNI wrote: »

ESO is not the same as DCUO. ESO comes from a long line of progression games-a la Skyrim. You're going to need to grind in any Elder Scrolls game. If you don't like that go play something else and stop complaining about 24 years of tradition. I've been playing Elder Scrolls games since I started gaming. Believe me, ESO has already been dumbed down significantly.

Actually, ESO has been "watered down", not "dumbed down". You're confusing the phrases and meanings.
Elder Scrolls games before ESO were actually "dumbing down" using fewer skill lines and less "fully mathematical" stats. They removed acrobatics and athletics going from Morrowind to Skyrim. They simplified the gameplay into better keybinds and button combos and to being primarily based on having a gamepad/controller instead of keyboard and mouse.
They were making Elder Scrolls games more accessible and easier to control and play, not less.
They "watered down" ESO by adding more skills that do the same things, adding classes which are just differences between ice and fire magic(for example) and adding more stats that control the same things like some skills being stamina or magicka so 2 resource pools for activating skills and those skills then being buffed by 4 damage controlling stats such as "spell damage and max magicka" that effectively do the exact same things so long as you don't have trouble running out of resources which "magicka recovery" could replace that part of the max magicka effects. It's all artificial complexity that is unnecessary.

ESO actually had to change drastically to be MORE LIKE Skyrim after it had been running a while with less success. One Tamriel was all about standardizing levels of enemies and player stats so anybody could go and play anywhere, which is how the single player Elder Scrolls games have been with level scaling getting more extreme since Morrowind. The progression in Skyrim is actually now arguably more heavy than ESO because of enemies that do require higher stats like "The Ebony Warrior" and "Kharstag". ESO is much more accessible everywhere in pve due to the stat leveling systems of One Tamriel.

And for the final nail in the coffin, ESO had a much smaller customer base until they went optional subscription and cash shop and even the One Tamriel update that brought everybody together instead of spread out across several different level tiers; they made it more accessible than ever by making everyone more equal in stats without those players doing any more work than just hitting a button to equip gear that is just thrown at them like clouds of candy flying from people with buckets of it at a parade.

FYI, ESO shares a lot more in common with DCUO than Skyrim because in DCUO you have 6 skills to use, one being a "Supercharge"(click Supercharge for link) which works almost exactly the same as our "ultimates" here with a meter that must be filled before using by weapon attacking, and weapon attacks that build back resources to use those skills and similar buff durations that are short and require constant monitoring. It even has similar aiming and definitely similar blocking and interrupting in combat, but definitely done better as to be easier and more fair to everyone in DCUO.
The only real difference is that DCUO embraced the fact that all abilities can be essentially boiled down to a simple equation and balanced everything much better because of it, while ESO still struggles badly with balance due to trying to "maintain uniqueness" for abilities that aren't actually unique in function compared to other abilities that do the exact same thing just with a different number. ESO is struggling with balance because of the fake complexity that DCUO has realized is fake and eliminated more.

TL;DR, DCUO has much better combat than ESO even though it is very similar. They just know how to better work stats and controls in DCUO, which is how they did it.

Emma_Overload · July 2018

You know why everything is more expensive on console, right? It's because of the lack of bots! Just something for PC players to think about before they report that bot...

Twohothardware · July 2018

Emma_Overload wrote: »

You know why everything is more expensive on console, right? It's because of the lack of bots! Just something for PC players to think about before they report that bot...

We have bots on console too but I haven't seen any able to farm Alchemy so maybe we need some to bring down the high cost of Alchemy mats lol.

burglar · July 2018

Isn't this the ladder of progression? I've simply used ingredients, rather than sold them and because they pile up, I have a couple hundred of everything, including tempers and whatnot. On top of that I have 4 build sets of armor that are completely gold. Granted I've been playing since console launch, but still, I simply don't understand these hardships. Especially since I returned - I quit playing when morrowind launched, and came back for summerset - nodes seem to be doubled. I remember nirnroot was really expensive, and now I see it everywhere I go. I sometimes see two nodes literally on top of each other. Materials are not scarce.

I think a much larger issue is with people not willing to harvest ingredients themselves. Like, for one, I NEVER see new players loot heavy sacks - how long does it take them to realize that these are great resources? Maybe it's an inventory concern, but that's why I trained my horse for inventory before speed. Maybe they should too? But so many guides online advise people to train speed.

Ultimately, I wonder, how is this complaint more than an issue of impatience? Because, once you learn more about the game and know how important harvesting is, I can't see how anyone could struggle to acquire ingredients. As it is, the game is too easy.

As a side note, I am really happy with the new Grand Master Crafter achievement.

Mystrius_Archaion · July 2018

ProbablePaul wrote: »

Isn't this the ladder of progression? I've simply used ingredients, rather than sold them and because they pile up, I have a couple hundred of everything, including tempers and whatnot. On top of that I have 4 build sets of armor that are completely gold. Granted I've been playing since console launch, but still, I simply don't understand these hardships. Especially since I returned - I quit playing when morrowind launched, and came back for summerset

I've been playing about as long as you and never stopped for the 10-12 months you did by your post and would not ever consider myself to "have enough" alchemy mats even if I have 700+ of everything because it just goes too fast at 45 seconds each use. " Your experience of always having enough because you don't sell ingredients and "have 4 sets golded out" is both a detail that doesn't matter and not normal.
1) Gold gear has nothing to do with alchemy.
2) You must have made some money trading somehow to be able to have afforded enough for that.
3) I also don't sell ingredients, but I also had to not use them either since starting nearly 3 years ago to get the amount I currently have. I farmed a lot and stopped farming even more. I didn't have the craft bag for all that time either, but I did stay logging in on the game regularly and doing solo content.

That brings up another point. As they are, the craft bag is absolutely essential to do anything with alchemy because of the immense material requirements you have to store up farming just to run content and the amount of things already taking up inventory that are character/account bound and rare so you can't easily get another.

Crafting anything truly important is a grind. It's not a fun grind or a "do it while you quest" thing like it should be as that has been how other games did it better. Alchemy and jewelry crafting are the worst grinds with enchanting third. They all need an update.

Mystrius_Archaion · July 2018

ProbablePaul wrote: »

I think a much larger issue is with people not willing to harvest ingredients themselves. Like, for one, I NEVER see new players loot heavy sacks - how long does it take them to realize that these are great resources? Maybe it's an inventory concern, but that's why I trained my horse for inventory before speed. Maybe they should too? But so many guides online advise people to train speed.

Ultimately, I wonder, how is this complaint more than an issue of impatience? Because, once you learn more about the game and know how important harvesting is, I can't see how anyone could struggle to acquire ingredients. As it is, the game is too easy.

1) What you consider "easy" is not what others do, especially those with less time.

2) You're right, it's "an issue with impatience". That doesn't mean that it is good and doesn't need changing or that we need to somehow make people patient.

People have finite time every day and finite lives and everything they do competing for that time.
We can't all be wealthy enough to have time despite what politicians and rich people and the news media seems to think. They all say "get a college degree and make more money so you have more time" when in reality all employers try to get the most out of their employees for the least compensation and the least time off so that doesn't work. They also say to start your own business while neglecting to mention that takes money to do and is unlikely to get a loan to start if it is a risk.
The biggest issue with that idea that anyone can find/make the time is that it is all based on a "relative peer performance" system for currency and time. What money we have is coming from what others are willing to pay us for our time where ultimately "time is money". We can never get ahead as if everyone got ahead then nobody would be ahead. Anybody else remember the line by Syndrome in The Incredibles? "And when everyone is super, no one will be. /EvilLaugh". Everyone being rich and having more time means nobody will be rich or have more time since those are relative and dependent on each other. The only way to really give people time is to make it so working to live isn't a requirement, but that's a whole other topic and would be complicated to explain and make happen.

Essentially, it is against human nature to be patient, against the nature of a finite time-limited universe to be patient. We shouldn't be actively encouraging "wasting time". We should be finding ways to minimize that time by maximizing what we get out of it which is our goals.

I play for fun. I don't think of grind as fun but the goal at the end of the grind is fun, so I try to minimize the grind. The developers should acknowledge that and meet me in the middle with a compromise of time spent grinding, if the grind even matters which it probably doesn't at all since we are not paying for time anymore as a mandatory direct only financial option system.

So people are impatient, what of it? Do you still think that is a bad thing? Too bad. That's the universal constant effect of time doing what time does, march ever onward to tomorrow. (guess the reference, by the way)
Embrace the impatience and find out what you yourself really want to spend time doing and try to maximize your time doing that and minimize everything else like any wise person should. That's all we are trying to do for ourselves here, minimize the time grinding so we can spend more time enjoying the things we are grinding to be able to enjoy.

CyberSkooma · July 2018

Sypher quit because he's making bank over on Fortnite, and Fengrush still plays. What are you talking about? lmao.

phileunderx2 · August 2018

many times I go to Craglorn to see if I can get some nirncrux and all I find are alchemy nodes that almost every one has passed over. The number of alchemy nodes is fine.

SilverWF · August 2018

Was there a funny guys, who able to collect hundreds of alchemy mats just while walking form crafting stations to daily writs crates, already?
Because in my thread, there is a tons of them https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/426921/crafting-resources-gain-not-balanced

Hutch679 · August 2018

The alchemy satchels from tel var are the #1 easy to farm alchemy mats. Its soooooooo easy to get alchemy ingredients lol. You're doing it wrong if you can't find them.

BNOC · August 2018

Anotherone773 wrote: »

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).

I seen you say this "So i farm for 3 hours to do what i really want for 2 hours" - Farming IC for 3 hours @ 100k P/30m would literally net you minimum 1200 of each plant - That's 4.8k sp pots for example. So you're actually farming for 3 hours to be able to drink pots on cooldown for 60 hours straight. That's a hell of a long time.

Even if you died once or twice and were making 100k an hour Telvar which is slow - You'd be making more than 2.4k pots in that 3 hours.

Worth noting that 4.8k & 2.4k pots are just of one type - You'd have stacks and stacks and stacks of Stamina mats that you could sell and buy even more for example - Or vice versa.

Not hard. Not risky.

Twohothardware · August 2018

BNOC wrote: »

Anotherone773 wrote: »

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).

I seen you say this "So i farm for 3 hours to do what i really want for 2 hours" - Farming IC for 3 hours @ 100k P/30m would literally net you minimum 1200 of each plant - That's 4.8k sp pots for example. So you're actually farming for 3 hours to be able to drink pots on cooldown for 60 hours straight. That's a hell of a long time.

Even if you died once or twice and were making 100k an hour Telvar which is slow - You'd be making more than 2.4k pots in that 3 hours.

Worth noting that 4.8k & 2.4k pots are just of one type - You'd have stacks and stacks and stacks of Stamina mats that you could sell and buy even more for example - Or vice versa.

Not hard. Not risky.

The issue isn't whether IC farming for Alchemy mats provides acceptable returns for time spent because the majority of ESO players on the game will never even go into IC. It's a separate paid DLC and your average CP200-300 player will be destroyed not just by bosses but what few players still go into IC are typically PvP'ers looking to take Telvar from anyone farming.

The main method of Alchemy farming should be the same as it is for every other material in the game, and that is overland resource nodes or overland enemies. The issue isn't whether a separate paid DLC Imperial City gives enough Alchemy for time spent there or whether doing Daily Writs on 15 Master Crafters gives enough Alchemy for the few that have numerous characters with maxed Alchemy, the complaint is that resource nodes which only provide typically 1 regent per node is too low and needs to be increased to provide a more comparable return to these other methods of farming.

Again, I ask, what is the argument for not increasing Alchemy nodes to give a guaranteed 2-3 regents per node instead of only 1? Listing other methods besides farming overland nodes as a means for getting Alchemy is not an argument against buffing resource nodes. The only point I've seen made is the complaint that the small percent who farm Alchemy now for profits will make less money off players who are currently paying the high regent prices.