LOOT: boring and 'worthless'

ElliottXO · April 2014

It feels like you get the same drops over and over again. Even the pinkys have exactly the same bonuses, just 5% higher than the blue ones. Only set items provide a little bit diversity.

And here goes the next problem: loot is basically worthless. There are far too many white/green/blue drops so prices are already down at the bottom. At level 25 a player has about 30k, but you can hardly sell a blue set item for more than lousy 500g! It is so damn hard to sell stuff in this game (and this is not due to the lack of auction house). With an auction house prices would be even lower!

I can sell about 5-10% of the blue loot, and 90% goes to deconstruction because selling it for a lower price than 200g makes no sense since it can drop a blue crafting ingridience. And basically 100% of the white/green loot that is not for my crafting skill goes to the NPC vendor.

Even the prices of pink gear are already damn low. You get level 35-40 items for less than 1k in the guild stores... There is just hardly any reason to buy those items because they don't really differ from the blue ones.

Pink/Legendary items could have a second enchant or have a random class skill buffed (e.g. increases damage of Dragonknights Fiery Breath by 5%). That would give items a unique finish.

I really like the idea that drops are mostly unbound. But there are just too many whites/greens and blues. It feels like I'm playing Diablo...

Vikova · April 2014

The focus of items revolves around crafting, not buying and selling. This is intentional.

Though I do agree there should be some more bonuses on later gear.

ElliottXO · April 2014

RakeWorm wrote: »

The focus of items revolves around crafting, not buying and selling. This is intentional.

Though I do agree there should be some more bonuses on later gear.

At the moment crafting can't compare at all. It costs 10 times more gold to craft a blue item than taking a drop from the guild store. The only thing that makes sense to craft is food or potions, because they 'drop' only in white quality.

mutharex · April 2014

Items 'purple' and above that have already an enchantment and a lock sign can be enchanted with an extra one. But in general TES games aren't really gear oriented, they are skill based

Vikova · April 2014

ElliottXO wrote: »

At the moment crafting can't compare at all. It costs 10 times more gold to craft a blue item than taking a drop from the guild store. The only thing that makes sense to craft is food or potions, because they 'drop' only in white quality.

My point was that the notion of a huge, active economy is obviously not the goal when they did not implement an auction house. Making money, and spending it, is a secondary focus of the game. Gathering materials, using them, etc., is more of a focus.

Gold in and of itself is less important in this game.

nerevarine1138 · April 2014

Your bad use of quotation marks could not be more appropriate. Loot is fine, and it avoids the whole game feeling like a constant grind for cool pauldrons.

k9mouse · April 2014

I see no problem how the loot drops. The game is focus on getting new skills, not who get the newest shiny toys (aka gear). One should get the best gear from the crafters, NOT from loot drops.

Vikova · April 2014

k9mouse wrote: »

I see no problem how the loot drops. The game is focus on getting new skills, not who get the newest shiny toys (aka gear). One should get the best gear from the crafters, NOT from loot drops.

This. Just to clarify what I said earlier when I stated that I think gear should have better bonuses - I meant in general. Not drop gear specifically. Crafted gear, in my opinion, should always be the best gear.

ElliottXO · April 2014

You guys seem to miss my point:

crafting is not competitive at all from what I've seen until level 26, and I agree it should be superior
I don't complain about having inferior drops, but having too many superior drops (especially in comparison to the price of crafting)
I don't want to finish every dungeon run with 30-40 gear items that I have to vendor or deconstruct
If I finish a dungeon I should be able to sell a blue drop for a reasonable price (even half of the crafting price)

Those are my wishes. I craft myself, but at the moment I am worried that it only makes sense at endgame? Why should I spend 2000g on crafting a blue item if I can buy a similar one for 200-300g from the guild store?

Lalai · April 2014

I actually like the way crafted gear works at the moment, and think end game it will be some of the best gear just because of the different set bonuses that exist. Looted gear does seem to have crafting in mind, and I hope they don't change it because right now I get a good chunk of inspiration from stuff I deconstruct.

I am not sure how far into the game you are, but eventually the best crafters will have a variety of different tables (which give set bonuses), traits, and enchantments at their disposal so that they can really customize a set to be exactly specific to a person's build. This can beat grinding a dungeon over and over again just to try and get a specific drop, so it has the potential to be pretty amazing. We'll just have to see how common everything is at max level.

Edited to add: Currently I level in mostly crafted gear. I keep everything mostly up to level, can add my own traits and enchantments, and can even craft some pieces of set bonus gear. I don't make all of my gear blue though. That's just silly when end game gear takes the same mats to increase the quality of the gear (you're still gonna be using dwarven oil at 50), and gear is replaced so quickly now.

k9mouse · April 2014

RakeWorm wrote: »

k9mouse wrote: »

I see no problem how the loot drops. The game is focus on getting new skills, not who get the newest shiny toys (aka gear). One should get the best gear from the crafters, NOT from loot drops.

This. Just to clarify what I said earlier when I stated that I think gear should have better bonuses - I meant in general. Not drop gear specifically. Crafted gear, in my opinion, should always be the best gear.

The game is still new and the crafters have not gotten a change to add more bonus to their gear yet. Once the game have a true "master level" crafters, they will be able to put any bonus one wants on any gear. Crafters can only learn about one bonus per day and there are hundreds of bonuses to learn. Game has been out a few days thus far. (Not counting EA time)

Greydog · April 2014

You do realize that by deconstruction all those worthless green/blue/purple drops you will most likely have to spend far less creating other stuff?

If everyone did that then only the good items players can't bring themselves to decon would be sold.

Sihnfahl · April 2014

k9mouse wrote: »

Crafters can only learn about one bonus per day and there are hundreds of bonuses to learn.

Two once you get to a certain level in the craft.
But we're still on the long research times.

I'm personally on about my 21st and 22nd traits, but keep in mind that there's 56 total for just one armor type (light/medium/heavy) before you even touch the weapons.

Vikova · April 2014

ElliottXO wrote: »

You guys seem to miss my point:
crafting is not competitive at all from what I've seen until level 26, and I agree it should be superior

I don't complain about having inferior drops, but having too many superior drops (especially in comparison to the price of crafting)

I don't want to finish every dungeon run with 30-40 gear items that I have to vendor or deconstruct

If I finish a dungeon I should be able to sell a blue drop for a reasonable price (even half of the crafting price)

Those are my wishes. I craft myself, but at the moment I am worried that it only makes sense at endgame? Why should I spend 2000g on crafting a blue item if I can buy a similar one for 200-300g from the guild store?

People actually enjoy crafting their own gear and leveling it alongside their character. Not many people level with blue items. As far as endgame goes, we all agree here that crafting should be superior.

What exactly are you looking for out of a dungeon run, then? This cost of crafting you speak of is significantly reduced by the fact that you are getting so much to deconstruct for mats.

And again, we've responded to your last point which seems to be the main one. Markets and gold are intentionally not focused upon in the game. Gathering, deconstructing what you find, etc., is the focus.

Sarenia · April 2014

I'm not sure what you're doing wrong, but I've crafted every item I've used so far, and it's been entirely viable.

If you want to facesmash loot pinatas for shiny stuff, there's always Diablo.

Snakebite6x6x6 · April 2014

Crafting is great. I can make blues, by using the mats I get from breaking down looted gear, no purchasing required. I can make potions that restore health, magicka, and stamina all in one. Or potions that can restore health while boosting weapon power, or crit chance.
Food buffs are great aswell... I can never have too much stamina in my pool for laying down the hurt.

Thesiren · April 2014

I wish Zenimax would change most of the level 1-10 crafted jewelry enchants into weapon or armor enchants instead. You waste a ton of time harvesting runes that are mostly for jewelry enchants, when there's almost no enchantable jewelry whatsoever in the 1-10 range. However, there *are* tons of weapons and armor both crafted and from loot drops, and there are hardly any craftable weapon and armor enchants, compared to the tons of jewelry ones.

Outside of that, I've found most other crafted things at least decent and useful.

seanolan · April 2014

Thesiren wrote: »

I wish Zenimax would change most of the level 1-10 crafted jewelry enchants into weapon or armor enchants instead. You waste a ton of time harvesting runes that are mostly for jewelry enchants, when there's almost no enchantable jewelry whatsoever in the 1-10 range. However, there *are* tons of weapons and armor both crafted and from loot drops, and there are hardly any craftable weapon and armor enchants

This, +10. Health, stamina and magicka buffs are nice, but boring.

ElliottXO · April 2014

RakeWorm wrote: »

ElliottXO wrote: »

You guys seem to miss my point:
crafting is not competitive at all from what I've seen until level 26, and I agree it should be superior

I don't complain about having inferior drops, but having too many superior drops (especially in comparison to the price of crafting)

I don't want to finish every dungeon run with 30-40 gear items that I have to vendor or deconstruct

If I finish a dungeon I should be able to sell a blue drop for a reasonable price (even half of the crafting price)

Those are my wishes. I craft myself, but at the moment I am worried that it only makes sense at endgame? Why should I spend 2000g on crafting a blue item if I can buy a similar one for 200-300g from the guild store?

People actually enjoy crafting their own gear and leveling it alongside their character. Not many people level with blue items. As far as endgame goes, we all agree here that crafting should be superior.

What exactly are you looking for out of a dungeon run, then? This cost of crafting you speak of is significantly reduced by the fact that you are getting so much to deconstruct for mats.

And again, we've responded to your last point which seems to be the main one. Markets and gold are intentionally not focused upon in the game. Gathering, deconstructing what you find, etc., is the focus.

So, I deconstruct 20 blue heavy armor items which I could rather use myself to be able to craft 1 similar blue item?

Markets where money is worthless lead to that people replace the currency. So no, I don't think the game intents to do that.

Decreasing the amount of drops should be the way to go E.g.. 80% less blue drops, 50% less green drops and 30% less white drops.

On the other hand crafting should be 'easier 'to level, which means quality over quantity. I heard people level it by making tons of daggers which they trade to a partner to deconstruct them.

Thete · April 2014

ElliottXO wrote: »

So, I deconstruct 20 blue heavy armor items which I could rather use myself to be able to craft 1 similar blue item?

No, you use them. Then, when they are replaced with better items, you deconstruct them for the possibility of reagents for use later.

Humor · April 2014

I can kind of agree with what you say, though the point of Blue/Purples are to break em down into material you can use in crafting. While the gear may not be worth much. The materials are definitely worth every bit of gold to the right customer.

An example if I may; I paid $1K for motif of Argonian, of course, no one else on earth would pay that much for any motif (if you do, you're ***), but since I love Argonian style so much, it was worth every penny to me.

You'll most likely end up breaking down armor/weapons in order to get the materials to trade to others. If you don't get the materials, well, it's up to YOU to upgrade your crafting. No one else's fault really.

Lalai · April 2014

Humor wrote: »

An example if I may; I paid $1K for motif of Argonian, of course, no one else on earth would pay that much for any motif (if you do, you're ***), but since I love Argonian style so much, it was worth every penny to me.

You'd be surprised! I was selling the Motifs quite regularly at 2k per up until two days ago. They're down to about 800 - 1k now though.

Anyway, back on topic.. The loot may not sell well itself, but the crafting materials from breaking it down are very much useful. No, upgrading your random crafted piece to a blue at low level isn't going to be worth it. However, once you've unlocked some sets and you aren't going to be replacing gear frequently you can put those blue things you've saved up from lower level stuff to good use! A blue weapon with a set bonus, trait, and enchant that you specifically want, in the combination that you want, is likely not going to happen frequently by chance.

Heck, even if you don't want the items, a lot of crafters do. So deconstructing them and then selling that dwarven oil to a crafter is likely going to net you more money in the long run than trying to sell each piece of gear individually.

Vodkaphile · April 2014

Pink gear?

Delte · April 2014

Give us crafters a chance to learn the equipment abilities please

I have nearly unlocked all of one items abilities and it takes a day and a half to learn a new one on that item. With 7 pieces or armour and 14 other items (i think) it is going to take a while to learn them all.

Thete · April 2014

Delte wrote: »

Give us crafters a chance to learn the equipment abilities please

I have nearly unlocked all of one items abilities and it takes a day and a half to learn a new one on that item. With 7 pieces or armour and 14 other items (i think) it is going to take a while to learn them all.

They have given you a way, it's called carpentry, stitching or metallurgy (depending on your craft of choice).

Stautmeister · April 2014

Crafters need to research traits in order to make set gear. Set items can only be made at certain points, requiring crafters to know those locations.
being en enchanter blacksmith though i always have a blue wep with max dmg enchant on it.
Currently its not worth it for me to create for a secondary market. But seeing as how long it takes to gain vet ranks. I assume once you reach a single rank its definatly gonna be worth it creating max gear for those ranks.
Gear while leveling has never been exciting because you outlevel it within 2 hours.

THis is also why i advise to use drops and save the upgrade items for important stuff (weapons) or save them for later in the game, where gear matters a lot more

Im also pretty happy with the deconstructing, it lets me also research shield traits for a minimal amount of skillpoints while leveling woodworking. Even though all other stuff is useless to me

.

MercyKilling · April 2014

ElliottXO wrote: »

At the moment crafting can't compare at all. It costs 10 times more gold to craft a blue item

How the heck do you figure this is true? By deconstruction green and blue items I've gotten and saving materials and upgrade items...I've made myself blue quality armor from head to toe and blue weapons to use by level 15...and haven't spent a single gold, which is good, because my armor repair bills are through the roof and I can't afford what the zone price is for pretty much anything.