I am on my first EU character (not template). I spent over an hour with the new Antiquities system.
- To be honest, the loot was not very good. But maybe that's because I was just excavating from Green-quality leads? Hopefully, loot is better for higher-quality leads.
- I like the tutorial. It taught most of what I needed to know, except that leads are found in the Journal (J). (Or maybe it did teach that; but I missed it.) The tutorial might also provide a popup "tip" suggestion that players quick-slot the scrying stone (the "Antiquarian's Eye"). (Again, maybe it was taught, but I missed it.)
- The onscreen "tips" for new Passive Abilities were very helpful. Taught me what I needed to know.
- I completed the Scrying with no problems for more than a dozen "leads" (i.e., I always completed the scrying, getting excavation site location down to just 1 possibility).
- Figuring out how to use the "Antiquarian Eye" (I used Quick Slot) took maybe 20 seconds. At first, I wanted to use the Eye over and over, but then I learned that it is easiest just to use it one time. After learning this, at all sites, I just used it one time, and found the excavation location very quickly. Therefore, the cooldown-time for the Eye did not really matter.
- Towards the end, after I got Excavation passive abilities for levels 2 and 3, I was finding all loot (main plus bonus) before timing-out.
- I opened many chests as I was riding to and from excavation sites. Did not get any "leads" from chests. Have not yet play other content that might drop leads.

Now that I have a little more experience:
Under the Antiquities tab, one sees listings under "Available" and "Requires Lead." When an item under "Requires Lead" is highlighted and then "Codex" is selected, required "leads" are listed, with obtained "leads" in white and missing leads in grey. For each "lead" an NPC name seems to be provided. The tutorial and helpful "popups" do not explain how to find the missing "leads." (Or maybe I just missed it.) Does one track-down the named NPC? Or does the "lead" drop at random? Or what?

Ilsabet wrote: »

The NPCs don't help you find leads; those are supposed to be found from various sources in the world (like treasure chests and killing things).

Well, other than the NPCs who just straight up sell you certain leads of course.

Delpi wrote: »

The Antiquarian's eye doesn't work on MAC/osx... it doesn't mark anything on the digging place and the mud doesn't show up. The eye doesn't show the light at all (I tried all the locations) And the tutorial was confused as hell, I had to go to look youtube tutorials to see how it works.

Please, you should check the Mac/osx version, because it's just doesn't work.

Same here. Tried my existing characters, tried template characters, tried multiple zones. The orb never appears. If I'm really lucky I'll stumble upon the mound at the dig site, but most of the time I run around looking for it for a ridiculous amount of time, can't find it (did it even spawn?) and give up in frustration. Really not fun.

SantieClaws wrote: »

Making the furnishings bound? No no nooo. This takes away much of the fun for this one. While there were only a couple of things this one liked for herself there were many she would have sought out to give to freinds.

And is selling a little thing now and again to make enough just to feed your orcs such a terrible thing?

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

You can't just sell it. It belongs in a museum!

KMarble wrote: »

I have a question. Are leads considered physical objects by the game engine? If I steal a lead, will it be marked as stolen? Will they be treated like all other stolen items (if I pay a bounty to a guard, am killed or die with a stolen item, the "object" is taken away from my inventory)?

It's not treated as an inventory item. It creates an entry in your journal, so it can't be lost or taken away from you.

After testing this mechanics, it seemed to me that mythical objects at players will appear not soon.

Love the system itself: but we need more Mythical items and Antiquities in general!

See my previous posts for earlier experiences.

Suggestion: I believe the patch notes stated that "leads" expire in 30 days? If true, I would suggest (I would beg you) to eliminate this expiration clock. I have found that the drop-rate for "leads" is much too low to warrant such a time limit.

I have spent hours trying to understand how to obtain "leads" under the new Antiquities system, enough leads to allow Scrying and Excavation. I have spent maybe 7 to 8 hours running content public dungeons, delves and delve bosses, world bosses, and dolmen. I received only 1 "lead" from a public dungeon (from a lesser-boss) and 1 from a world boss. I have opened many, many treasure chests, but only received 1 "lead" from about 80 chests. From these experiences, the drop-rate of "leads" seems to be very, very low. Much too low for the Antiquities system to be interesting for me. It might be okay if "leads" did not expire after 30 days. In that case, I could get completed "leads" (some require 3 or more leads before Scrying) with normal game-play. The current system would seem to require hundreds of hours of grinding.

HumbleThaumaturge wrote: »

See my previous posts for earlier experiences.

Suggestion: I believe the patch notes stated that "leads" expire in 30 days? If true, I would suggest (I would beg you) to eliminate this expiration clock. I have found that the drop-rate for "leads" is much too low to warrant such a time limit.

I have spent hours trying to understand how to obtain "leads" under the new Antiquities system, enough leads to allow Scrying and Excavation. I have spent maybe 7 to 8 hours running content public dungeons, delves and delve bosses, world bosses, and dolmen. I received only 1 "lead" from a public dungeon (from a lesser-boss) and 1 from a world boss. I have opened many, many treasure chests, but only received 1 "lead" from about 80 chests. From these experiences, the drop-rate of "leads" seems to be very, very low. Much too low for the Antiquities system to be interesting for me. It might be okay if "leads" did not expire after 30 days. In that case, I could get completed "leads" (some require 3 or more leads before Scrying) with normal game-play. The current system would seem to require hundreds of hours of grinding.

I too think leads with an expiration date is a bad idea and might lead to most people ignoring the whole antiquities system, which is, I think, the opposite of what the devs expect will happen by slapping a expiration date on leads.

Since leads can drop from pretty much anything/one, INITIALLY people will feel pressured to stop doing what they usually do to chase the other leads associated with the antiquity (or if it's one that only requires one lead, stop doing the content they like/want to do and go digging).

How many people will remain in this wild goose chase for leads after they begin to expire? How many will keep on going after they find out that the most sought after antiquities are BOP? How frustrated will players get when they get a lead they can't pursue due to low level on the very first day they start playing Greymoor (it happened to me when I tested)?

This is going to be frustrating for those of us who have enough skill points to assign to the new system, but it will be even more so for those people who are still leveling up their chars and will have to choose where to apply those few skill points they do have - do they unlock a new skill that will allow them to have an easier time in fights, or do they assign them to one of the new system?

HumbleThaumaturge wrote: »

From my experience so far, the best source of new leads, by far, is from Excavations. I seem to get a new lead with every Excavation. No kidding: If you get a few leads to start you off (say, buy map leads from a General Goods Merchant for 1000 gold), you could easily be Scrying and Excavating for hours and hours afterwards, because you will be getting new leads with nearly every Excavation.

I have never got a furnishing lead from the excavation. There are three treasure items for each zone (green, blue, purple), green is always accessible to scry, lead to the blue is given from the excavation of the green, lead to the purple is given from the excavation of the blue.
It looks like that after getting all codex entries of blue and purple treasure items their leads are not guaranteed from the excavation of the less quality item.

Have you managed to get leads to non-treasure items (furnishings, parts of mythic items, etc.) from excavations?

HumbleThaumaturge wrote: »

Olauron wrote: »

I have never got a furnishing lead from the excavation. There are three treasure items for each zone (green, blue, purple), green is always accessible to scry, lead to the blue is given from the excavation of the green, lead to the purple is given from the excavation of the blue.
It looks like that after getting all codex entries of blue and purple treasure items their leads are not guaranteed from the excavation of the less quality item.

Have you managed to get leads to non-treasure items (furnishings, parts of mythic items, etc.) from excavations?

Olauron, thanks for another very helpful post clarifying the Antiquities system. Much appreciated.

In short, No. In my post, I was pointing out that a player can Scry and Excavate (endlessly) for hours and hours without first "grinding" for "leads." If players want to level-up the two new skill trees ("Scrying" and "Excavation"), they can do so immediately, starting with the Green leads for each zone (and, perhaps, also by buying the "Antique Map" lead for each zone from a General Goods Merchant). They don't need to first spend time grinding bosses.

But you are entirely correct: I do not recall having a furnishing lead drop from an Excavation. Pity: those are the items I want most. I have also had the same experiences as you describe for Green, Blue, and Purple leads from Excavations. For now, I am thinking that when Greymoor goes "live," I will not try to get non-Excavation leads until I level-up the two new skill trees to level 10. If you have any ideas that will result in quicker leveling, I would greatly appreciate your insights. Thanks making Antiquities posts!

I see.

Yes, I agree that at least excavating Antique Maps should have a chance (a reasonable chance, not a chance to get a painting from a chest) to provide a lead for other antiquity furnishings of this zone.

I think that levelling skills is not a problem. It is better to start with green and blue items and go from zone to zone to get all codex entries for such items. You should also pay attention to antiquity achievements, since they are giving the most increase to skills. Some achievements are random (like locating the antiquity with the first Augur), some are not. There are achievements that make little sense (like capturing all the hexes in the scrying window), and if you want to get this achievement, you should not hurry with levelling up scrying passives to be able to scry at simple difficulty (and at the same time upgrade scrying tools to maximize you abilities with scrying). To get this achievement you should also keep in mind that scrying ends with getting the last (sixth) focus, so you should capture all other hexes and still have turn to get the 6th focus, finishing the scrying. Actually, I didn't get that achievement, because it is very artificial and you should slow capturing the foci instead of getting them as fast as possible.

Advanced (purple) leads are possible to scry with skill level 5, and it is possible to capture all 6 foci with tools available (at least it was possible on v6.0.0 and v6.0.1 with my NA character), but I recommend getting skill level 6 and upgrading Coalescence to 2nd level.

Another thing to remember is that you can scry on one character and excavate on another. But both scrying and excavation skills improve when you are retrieving the antiquity. That means that you will increase BOTH skills on a character that does excavation and digs an antiquity. Character that does only scrying will not get skill increase at all (with the exception of achievement increase, I think, I didn't tried that).

Also, if you are removing points from the difficulty passive of Scrying skill, you should log off and log on to get the changes in difficulty, simply changing a zone is not enough.

Antiquities achievement "Meticulous Digger" states "Complete an excavation of Epic Difficulty or higher while dealing zero damage to the antiquity." Now, elsewhere in the ESO, "Epic" refers to something of Purple quality. I have excavated may purple-quality items while dealing zero damage, yet I have not completed this achievement. Under Antiquities achievement "Focal Precision," four Difficulties are listed: (1) Intermediate; (2) Advanced; (3) Master; and (4) Ultimate. Under this system, the "Advanced" difficulty is purple quality.

So, Is the "Epic Difficulty" purple quality? If so, I should have received credit for the achievement, but I did not [i.e., there's a possible bug here]. Also, suggest being consistent in use of terms for Antiquity difficulty: either use "Advanced Difficulty" or "Epic Difficulty" for purple quality Antiquities; don't use different terms for the same thing under different Achievements.

Thoughts after reaching level 8 on new Antiquities skill trees:
- I used a copied character from the EU server
- I liked the introduction and tutorial quests. Of course, I did the tutorial initially with zero knowledge of the new system. Now that I have a fair amount of experience with the new system, I repeated the tutorial today with a different character. I think the tutorial is fine just the way it is. No changes needed.
- Doing the Tutorial quest a second time: When I did the tutorial quest the first time, I must not have completely read the many helpful popup tips. Big mistake! Everything you need to know to get started is covered either by the popup tips or via the NPC conversions. So, don't just close the popups without reading them. Don't close NPC conversations without completing them! I could have saved myself a lot of time and confusion if only I had learned everything that was in the tutorial the first time. Even after many hours of experience (reaching level 8), I learned something new by doing the tutorial a second time.
- Discovered many dozens of Antiquity Leads while playing. Most leads were from Excavations. The drop-rates are very low for "leads" from public dungeon bosses, world bosses, delve bosses, dolmen, treasure chests, and psijic portals. I spent many hours grinding these sources for "leads." I believe all furniture leads came from bosses or treasure chests.
- I learned how to Scry and Excavate very quickly. I can't think of anything I would change about the system. I especially benefited from the pop-up tips. The popup tips after Passive Abilities are obtained are very helpful. Great job!
- Rewards: I really like the Furniture rewards. Unfortunately, drop-rates are very low. Mythic rewards look great, but I didn't get the leads for any. Treasure items (that can be sold to a vendor for gold) aren't that exciting, since there are better and far quicker ways to make gold. Although, the Antiquities system could be a good way for newer players to make gold.
- Finding a Dig Site is very, very easy. Took less than 30 seconds to figure out how to us the "Eye" to locate Dig Site. It was also helpful to have the audio tone for the dig sites. The "Keen Eye: Dig Site" passive ability (that makes a dig site glow) can be helpful, but is not really needed. (There's really no need to spend the 2 skill points for it.) Just use the "Antiquarian's Eye" one time anywhere in the search zone, then head in that direction. Very quick, very easy. Some have suggested shortening the "cooldown" of the Eye. I don't think that's necessary.
- General feedback: Would be nice to have higher drop-rates from bosses. But perhaps keeping things "rare" makes them sweater to find?

In a previous post (#236), I was wondering if the "Meticulous Digger" achievement (under Antiquities) was working correctly. The achievement reads, "Complete an excavation on Epic Difficulty or higher while dealing zero damage to the antiquity." Elsewhere in the ESO, "Epic" means purple-quality. I have completely Excavating many purple-quality items without damage, yet had not received the "Meticulous Digger" achievement. Having recently reached level 10 on Scrying and Excavating, I excavating my first gold-quality antiquity. This time I got the "Meticulous Digger" achievement. So, it would seem that "Epic Difficulty" means gold-quality or higher? What up with this achievement?