Crafting Needs Improvements Across Characters (Especially for Consoles)

FlopsyPrince · September 2019

I noted some of this before, but I want to group all this together and desperately hope that these get some care at some point, for the consoles especially.

- Manage research across characters
-- Let me know which other characters need an item, not just the current character.
-- Let me research anything known by another character as long as I have the mats and trait mat to make it in my crafting bag
This would keep the cost the same, but prevent the tedious logout/login/craft/logout/login step to make something to research.
- Manage recipes and motifs across characters
-- This would be the ones that are not account-wide
-- Have a recipe book they can be added to. Let me automatically have another character learn it, or at least queue it in such a book for later learning.
-- Too much time is wasted now going through characters to learn recipes before finally vendoring the extras or dumping them in a guild bank.
(since they sell for so little (greens mostly, some blues))
- Allow an "order list" to be made for our crafter to make crafted gear for the character we are on.
- Allow me to send gear to be deconned to another character. It would be great for it just to happen, but making it easier than using limited bank space would be much more pleasant.

Some other additions that would help:

- Allow bulk collection of crafting mat mails.
-- I miss viewing many mail attachments and sometimes message content when rapidly trying to go through these mails that quickly pile up.
-- Dumping it directly into my bag, with a single summary email (for account would be fine, but per character would be acceptable too) rather than multiple separate email that few read in detail anymore.
- Allow bulk opening of crafting writ reward boxes
-- The time this wastes means I often do it quickly and make mistakes along the way. I can't keep any respect or reskill items I get because I regularly accidentally hit those while trying to go quickly through crafting daily rewards.
-- I rarely view these contents, since it takes so long to go through them already.

Needed Crafting Trait Changes
- Allow the styles to be sorted alphabetically. It can get really hard to find one on the console when they are just in a very arbitrary order.

Needed Crafting Research Change
- Allow the right and left arrow to navigate between items even when we are below the top. I should not have to go back to the top, and likely then back down, just to see what can be researched on the item to either side.

Small Crafting Decon Change
- Make multiple decon option work even if only a single item is selected. Treat it just as multiple refines work when only 1 can be done. It may be more efficient to do it the old way, but I often first hold down the square for a while first, until I realize it failed and then do it the old way. No reason to not allow it, just have the prompt only ask about "1" item.

Many of these things are because the logout/login process is so slow. Eliminating the need to do that for these things should also reduce the load on the servers. It would definitely improve the quality of life with little downside.

I know many PC players have addons that do a lot of this, but consoles will never have those, so most or even all these should be added to the base game.

==>> I may update this list if any good ideas are added later in the thread.

phwaap · September 2019

Yeah, you all do need help. I don't think I'd craft on multiple toons if I had to do all that crap. Did a little of it before finding the right addons and it wasn't any fun.

Jayne_Doe · September 2019

Good list! I agree with most points, except the hireling mails IF they ever decide to write more of those. If they aren't ever going to write any more, then I wouldn't mind, but some players may still be making their way through them and would actually want to read them all - not sure how to accommodate that.

Otherwise, great ideas for streamlining/improving crafting on consoles. It would be great if ZOS were to actually implement some of them. For now, though, I've got various spreadsheets I've created to track a lot of this. Not ideal, but necessary if I want to keep track of things.

FlopsyPrince · September 2019

Jayne_Doe wrote: »

Good list! I agree with most points, except the hireling mails IF they ever decide to write more of those. If they aren't ever going to write any more, then I wouldn't mind, but some players may still be making their way through them and would actually want to read them all - not sure how to accommodate that.

Otherwise, great ideas for streamlining/improving crafting on consoles. It would be great if ZOS were to actually implement some of them. For now, though, I've got various spreadsheets I've created to track a lot of this. Not ideal, but necessary if I want to keep track of things.

You could put the content of the Hireling mails someplace. Updating the text could be done with minimal programming resources most likely, but it would still have to be checked. I doubt they would do that.

Though I would say to make it an option. I can let them come in as normal or I can automatically open and store them when they come in. Nothing else would have to change and it would only be a setting in the options menu.

redlink1979 · September 2019

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

I noted some of this before, but I want to group all this together and desperately hope that these get some care at some point, for the consoles especially.

- Manage research across characters
- Let me know which other characters need an item, not just the current character.

I use an app called ESO Helper. The major disadvantage of this app is that you need to input all the data yourself. Can be a bit painful if you have many chars. You can also take pics with your phone, I did that before I found the app.

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

- Let me research anything known by another character as long as I have the mats and trait mat to make it in my crafting bag
This would keep the cost the same, but prevent the tedious logout/login/craft/logout/login step to make something to research.

This implies that crafting must be account wide. Not sure if this ever going to happen.

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

- Manage recipes and motifs across characters
- This would be the ones that are not account-wide

Don't think they would ever divide the recipes/motifs/furnishings this away.

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

- Have a recipe book they can be added to. Let me automatically have another character learn it, or at least queue it in such a book for later learning.

I don't see the advantage of having a recipe book tbh. You already open your "book" when you are cooking.

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

- Too much time is wasted now going through characters to learn recipes before finally vendoring the extras or dumping them in a guild bank. (since they sell for so little (greens mostly, some blues))

Can't dodge this. How are you suppose to improve this? It would only be possible to cut this procedure if you could send recipes/furnishings/whatever to your other chars individually.

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

- Allow an "order list" to be made for our crafter to make crafted gear for the character we are on.

Not sure why you need this feature. How many times do you think you would use this feature? Everyday? Every week? Every month? I don't think this would be a feature that you would use on a daily basis. I write on a piece of paper what I need, which doesn't happens often.

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

- Allow me to send gear to be deconned to another character. It would be great for it just to happen, but making it easier than using limited bank space would be much more pleasant.

Same problem as mentioned above regarding sending items to other chars in the same account.

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Some other additions that would help:

- Allow bulk collection of crafting mat mails.
- I miss viewing many mail attachments and sometimes message content when rapidly trying to go through these mails that quickly pile up.
- Dumping it directly into my bag, with a single summary email (for account would be fine, but per character would be acceptable too) rather than multiple separate email that few read in detail anymore.
- Allow bulk opening of crafting writ reward boxes
- The time this wastes means I often do it quickly and make mistakes along the way. I can't keep any respect or reskill items I get because I regularly accidentally hit those while trying to go quickly through crafting daily rewards.
- I rarely view these contents, since it takes so long to go through them already.

It would be a nice change but not everyone has a problem with this. I don't, I don't think you lose a lot of time pressing buttons a couple of times. This isn't a pain as refining was. What really consumes time, and bugs me and many others, is logging in and out several times.

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Needed Crafting Trait Changes
- Allow the styles to be sorted alphabetically. It can get really hard to find one on the console when they are just in a very arbitrary order.

How many seconds do you lose? This doesn't bother me tbh.

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Needed Crafting Research Change
- Allow the right and left arrow to navigate between items even when we are below the top. I should not have to go back to the top, and likely then back down, just to see what can be researched on the item to either side.

How many seconds do you lose? This doesn't bother me tbh.

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Small Crafting Decon Change
- Make multiple decon option work even if only a single item is selected. Treat it just as multiple refines work when only 1 can be done. It may be more efficient to do it the old way, but I often first hold down the square for a while first, until I realize it failed and then do it the old way. No reason to not allow it, just have the prompt only ask about "1" item.

If a single item is selected then it will be a single deconstruct. Multiple for a single doesn't make sense tbh.

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Many of these things are because the logout/login process is so slow. Eliminating the need to do that for these things should also reduce the load on the servers. It would definitely improve the quality of life with little downside.

This is where we really lose precious time. If we are really lucky we get an unusual (more and more usual than before) long loading. Let's hope we see improvements when U24 goes live.

FlopsyPrince · September 2019

You are more than a bit picky. These would all be good quality of life updates. They may never happen, but would you have thought we would have the map features we have now?

Things like going left & right on the research menu would match what you can do when you are assigning skills to the skillbar.

Yes, it doesn't take much time, but why should I have to go all the way up to just switch the current item? Left and right arrow are not being used now. So use them!

Jayne_Doe · September 2019

PC players can correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall that there's an add-on that at least enables you to see if any of your characters need to learn a particular trait, when you're looking at a piece of gear with a trait? Also with recipes, that you can see whether any of your other characters need to learn it?

Plus, I think there are add-ons that show all available recipes/plans in-game and whether you know them or not?

Also, I know there's an add-on that let's you just pick up daily crafting writs and turn them in, with the add-on not only making all the items for you but also opening all the writ reward boxes for you.

Basically, there are add-ons on PC that already do some of the things that the OP is asking for. Not all, to be sure. But it would be great if some of the QOL features in PC add-ons could be incorporated into the game for consoles.

I don't know if all of the OPs ideas are actually possible or feasible, but some of them are pretty similar or the same as what some PC add-ons already do. At least from what I've gathered from various other crafting threads.

tmbrinks · September 2019

Jayne_Doe wrote: »

PC players can correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall that there's an add-on that at least enables you to see if any of your characters need to learn a particular trait, when you're looking at a piece of gear with a trait? Also with recipes, that you can see whether any of your other characters need to learn it?

Plus, I think there are add-ons that show all available recipes/plans in-game and whether you know them or not?

Also, I know there's an add-on that let's you just pick up daily crafting writs and turn them in, with the add-on not only making all the items for you but also opening all the writ reward boxes for you.

Basically, there are add-ons on PC that already do some of the things that the OP is asking for. Not all, to be sure. But it would be great if some of the QOL features in PC add-ons could be incorporated into the game for consoles.

I don't know if all of the OPs ideas are actually possible or feasible, but some of them are pretty similar or the same as what some PC add-ons already do. At least from what I've gathered from various other crafting threads.

Yes. Craftstore and Trait Buddy are two add-ons that will show if an item is "researchable" by any character.

Yes. Craftstore shows all recipes. It also shows all plans, but uses the API to do so, so several (30+) of what it shows are plans that are in the code, but not actually available in game.

TBH, and while I use it. I think Dolgubon's Lazy Writ Crafter skirts the line between acceptable behavior and "botting" and if it wasn't possible to be done with the API that ZoS provides, they would probably not allow the add-on. ZoS has stated, that as long as you are still "at the screen" those add-ons are acceptable... so things like Lazy Writ Crafter, Postmaster, the old Multicraft that automated a lot of tasks were okay by that standard, but ones that would automate things like material collection, without your input crossed that line.

I'm just hypothesizing on the last point, which is why I don't believe ZoS is going to take the step to add many of those in the base game. However, I was wrong with Multicraft, so we shall see.

Dusk_Coven · September 2019

The real issue isn't crafting -- it's alt farming. The more alts they give us, the worse the alt-farm problem will become, because some people have the time investment to do it to various degrees. And ZOS has to deal with alt farms skewing the quantities of everything crafting related.

This is why FFXIV style multiclassing is a good system. You can experience all the game on one character. Alts aren't required at all and if you wanted them to farm stuff, then you put your time in.

Asking ZOS to make daily crafting more convenient is asking them to make the consequences of alt-farming more of a headache for them.

FlopsyPrince · September 2019

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

The real issue isn't crafting -- it's alt farming. The more alts they give us, the worse the alt-farm problem will become, because some people have the time investment to do it to various degrees. And ZOS has to deal with alt farms skewing the quantities of everything crafting related.

This is why FFXIV style multiclassing is a good system. You can experience all the game on one character. Alts aren't required at all and if you wanted them to farm stuff, then you put your time in.

Asking ZOS to make daily crafting more convenient is asking them to make the consequences of alt-farming more of a headache for them.

Too late for that. They made the system, it should be easier to use.

I have had a full complement of alts in just about any MMO I have played. Some of us just like doing things on different characters.

I have not played FFXIV, so I am not sure what I would do with it though. I am forcing myself to not try anything else now since this takes up far too much of my entertainment time already.

Dusk_Coven · September 2019

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Too late for that. They made the system, it should be easier to use.

Unless alt farming is not an intended use of alts and they don't want to support it.
In the absence of multiclassing/class change, alts are for trying different class-race combinations.
There's hardly any choices of consequence, so alts aren't really for story exploration.
And if they intended alts for farming stuff AND made it convenient, they might as well allow botting.

FlopsyPrince · September 2019

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Too late for that. They made the system, it should be easier to use.

Unless alt farming is not an intended use of alts and they don't want to support it.
In the absence of multiclassing/class change, alts are for trying different class-race combinations.
There's hardly any choices of consequence, so alts aren't really for story exploration.
And if they intended alts for farming stuff AND made it convenient, they might as well allow botting.

Their intention is irrelevant. Their desire to keep customers paying, especially for ESO+ and such, is far more important. Making users want to stay should be a major priority. Annoying them is not a good way to make that happen.

They may not do more quality of life improvement things, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't if they want to keep a significant part of their player base content. Companies that fail to do that will pay a penalty. It may take time, but chipping away at enjoyment is not the path to success.

Dusk_Coven · September 2019

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Too late for that. They made the system, it should be easier to use.

Unless alt farming is not an intended use of alts and they don't want to support it.
In the absence of multiclassing/class change, alts are for trying different class-race combinations.
There's hardly any choices of consequence, so alts aren't really for story exploration.
And if they intended alts for farming stuff AND made it convenient, they might as well allow botting.

Their intention is irrelevant. Their desire to keep customers paying, especially for ESO+ and such, is far more important. Making users want to stay should be a major priority. Annoying them is not a good way to make that happen.

Ruining the economy and encouraging grinding can also make paying customers go away.
If they wanted to level the playing field between Console and PC they could disallow the addons that make it too easy for PC.
And restrict alt farming by making dailies account-based.

ZOS doesn't communicate much about a lot of things. They could be working on something and just spring it on us suddenly.
Like Random Normal -> port to Fungal Grotto 1 or port to pledge.
That was an exploit they quietly allowed for a long time, then suddenly took away.

They might be working on Crafting right now... one way or the other.

FlopsyPrince · September 2019

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Too late for that. They made the system, it should be easier to use.

Unless alt farming is not an intended use of alts and they don't want to support it.
In the absence of multiclassing/class change, alts are for trying different class-race combinations.
There's hardly any choices of consequence, so alts aren't really for story exploration.
And if they intended alts for farming stuff AND made it convenient, they might as well allow botting.

Their intention is irrelevant. Their desire to keep customers paying, especially for ESO+ and such, is far more important. Making users want to stay should be a major priority. Annoying them is not a good way to make that happen.

Ruining the economy and encouraging grinding can also make paying customers go away.
If they wanted to level the playing field between Console and PC they could disallow the addons that make it too easy for PC.
And restrict alt farming by making dailies account-based.

ZOS doesn't communicate much about a lot of things. They could be working on something and just spring it on us suddenly.
Like Random Normal -> port to Fungal Grotto 1 or port to pledge.
That was an exploit they quietly allowed for a long time, then suddenly took away.

They might be working on Crafting right now... one way or the other.

You are correct on that. I don't think anyone expected the map changes before they came.

I am sure many here would have argued against asking for exactly what we got too!

FlopsyPrince · September 2019

I think most MMO companies know some people enjoy running lots of alts and see at least some value getting them to do that.

I could list a bunch of things that push alts in this game. The only part of crafting that does is the daily writs. Advancing crafting so much otherwise is unnecessary.

@tmbrinks Few things in this game are necessary. Many things make it more enjoyable and thus can be called "needed" even if that isn't strictly true. It then become a matter of words.