Deconstructing reconstructed items does NOT return all upgrade mats

ZOS_RobGarrett · September 2020

Hello again.

We have another update regarding details of the Item Set Collection system. As many of you know, shortly after the end of Markarth reveal event this past Saturday, we posted a correction about a statement made on-stream regarding Transmute Crystal refunds when deconstructing items.

Well it turns out that wasn't the only detail in need of correcting. As a number of players have already discovered on the PTS, deconstructing a reconstructed item does not refund the full amount of booster materials either. It works the same as deconstructing any item: You have a chance to get a single booster material back, and that chance can be improved by investing in passive skills within the crafting skill lines, but it won't be a full refund.

This behavior is intentional, and it will remain this way when the Item Set Collection system goes live with U28. The reason is we anticipate full booster refunds would quickly lead to widespread “booster recycling”, where players would use deconstruction and reconstruction to simply transfer full sets of boosters between item sets. In that scenario, when a player achieves a critical threshold of booster materials there becomes very little incentive to acquire more. The more players that achieve this threshold, the less value boosters represent within the game economy. Devaluing booster materials was never a goal of the Item Set Collection system.

My error in misrepresenting this aspect of the system during the livestream was unintentional, and simply a case of miscommunication between myself and the team prior to the event. But that doesn't change the fact it was a misrepresentation. We strive to present honest and accurate information to players, and in this case we failed. For that, I want to apologize to the community and express our commitment to do better during future reveals - because there’s some really cool stuff coming in future reveals!

Thank you again for your support.

JN_Slevin · September 2020

ZOS_RobGarrett wrote: »

Hello again.

We have another update regarding details of the Item Set Collection system. As many of you know, shortly after the end of Markarth reveal event this past Saturday, we posted a correction about a statement made on-stream regarding Transmute Crystal refunds when deconstructing items.

Well it turns out that wasn't the only detail in need of correcting. As a number of players have already discovered on the PTS, deconstructing a reconstructed item does not refund the full amount of booster materials either. It works the same as deconstructing any item: You have a chance to get a single booster material back, and that chance can be improved by investing in passive skills within the crafting skill lines, but it won't be a full refund.

This behavior is intentional, and it will remain this way when the Item Set Collection system goes live with U28. The reason is we anticipate full booster refunds would quickly lead to widespread “booster recycling”, where players would use deconstruction and reconstruction to simply transfer full sets of boosters between item sets. In that scenario, when a player achieves a critical threshold of booster materials there becomes very little incentive to acquire more. The more players that achieve this threshold, the less value boosters represent within the game economy. Devaluing booster materials was never a goal of the Item Set Collection system.

My error in misrepresenting this aspect of the system during the livestream was unintentional, and simply a case of miscommunication between myself and the team prior to the event. But that doesn't change the fact it was a misrepresentation. We strive to present honest and accurate information to players, and in this case we failed. For that, I want to apologize to the community and express our commitment to do better during future reveals - because there’s some really cool stuff coming in future reveals!

Thank you again for your support.

Thank you for your explanation, i had the same thought but couldnt put it into words. It makes much more sense now, we all do mistakes thank you for your hard work!

MincVinyl · September 2020

I would be more inclined to believe if there was a full refund to boosters that it would help keep players who struggle to keep up with the game from patch to patch easier by being able to invest in a full set at a one time cost.

For the long term members that are actively playing each or every other day it gives more incentive to reach out to other classes and aspects of the game. For example a player would collect PvP and PvE gear to swap out.

Yes it would be possible to invest in a one time full set of daily re-constructable gear, but that is also asking for someone to log on to their toon, deposit gear, log out, log in to crafter, withdraw, deconstruct, reconstruct new set, re-enchant(haven't checked if these refund), deposit, log out, log in, withdraw. If someone wants to waste an hour or two every time they want to swap between pvp, pve, trial gear godspeed.

If the gold mats or hakeijos are not refunded people will never deconstruct gear for any reason. Which kind of defeats the purpose of trying to get rid of loot hording in banks/alts. Atleast the system makes it so if someone needs to farm a dungeon for a set on multiple toons they don't have to grief newer players trying to quest as they run the dungeon 100+ times per toon for weapon drops.

Olupajmibanan · September 2020

It would be nice if deconstruction of jewelry returned whole chromium plating instead of 1 chromium grain. This is the part I am not ok with.

Niaver · September 2020

I don't mean to be rude, but I find it strange when a Lead Designer doesn't know what's the desing behind a feature.

karliahquinn · September 2020

Wait, so the set collection thing isn't just for overland sets? It's for trial and monster sets too?
Awesome!

Altyrann · September 2020

ZOS_RobGarrett wrote: »

Hello again.

We have another update regarding details of the Item Set Collection system. As many of you know, shortly after the end of Markarth reveal event this past Saturday, we posted a correction about a statement made on-stream regarding Transmute Crystal refunds when deconstructing items.

Well it turns out that wasn't the only detail in need of correcting. As a number of players have already discovered on the PTS, deconstructing a reconstructed item does not refund the full amount of booster materials either. It works the same as deconstructing any item: You have a chance to get a single booster material back, and that chance can be improved by investing in passive skills within the crafting skill lines, but it won't be a full refund.

This behavior is intentional, and it will remain this way when the Item Set Collection system goes live with U28. The reason is we anticipate full booster refunds would quickly lead to widespread “booster recycling”, where players would use deconstruction and reconstruction to simply transfer full sets of boosters between item sets. In that scenario, when a player achieves a critical threshold of booster materials there becomes very little incentive to acquire more. The more players that achieve this threshold, the less value boosters represent within the game economy. Devaluing booster materials was never a goal of the Item Set Collection system.

My error in misrepresenting this aspect of the system during the livestream was unintentional, and simply a case of miscommunication between myself and the team prior to the event. But that doesn't change the fact it was a misrepresentation. We strive to present honest and accurate information to players, and in this case we failed. For that, I want to apologize to the community and express our commitment to do better during future reveals - because there’s some really cool stuff coming in future reveals!

Thank you again for your support.

Many thanks for clarifying

TwinLamps · September 2020

Not amused at all

lillybit · September 2020

I get the reasoning but it's disappointing for sure.

Jewellery in particular will be pretty unusable with it. Offhand I can't think of any that drop in the lowest quality of purple so it'll be prohibitively expensive except in extremely rare occasions.

The whole thing seems custom made for monster sets and little else!

Pauleh · September 2020

This is disappointing news.

silvereyes · September 2020

Thank you for the clarification. Makes total sense, from the perspective of the set collections system.

Like others, I find the loss from deconstructing set jewelry too large to actually consider using it. To be clear though, I find this a fault with the economics of jewelry crafting in general, not set collections.

You say that your design goal is not to reduce the value of jewelry materials, but given these reactions, maybe it should be.

idk · September 2020

Rob's clarification makes sense. It would have been problematic for the economy if upgrade matts became worthless.

I look forward to being able to clear out my inventory if items I have hoarded in the off chance they become good to use. That is what this system will do for a great many of us.

luen79rwb17_ESO · September 2020

Too good to be true. Full disapointment.

dimensional · September 2020

luen79rwb17_ESO wrote: »

Too good to be true. Full disapointment.

I was disappointed BEFORE the clarification. This actually makes me much happier. I make a lot of gold trading tempers and materials and this would totally ruin that aspect of the economy.

Olupajmibanan · September 2020

silvereyes wrote: »

Thank you for the clarification. Makes total sense, from the perspective of the set collections system.

Like others, I find the loss from deconstructing set jewelry too large to actually consider using it. To be clear though, I find this a fault with the economics of jewelry crafting in general, not set collections.

You say that your design goal is not to reduce the value of jewelry materials, but given these reactions, maybe it should be.

Jewelry crafting was designed without Set Collection in mind, but now that reconstruction is a thing, obtaining jewelry upgrade mats should be reworked. There is huge disparity between jewelry upgrade mats and reconstruction now.

Reconstructing jewelry, even in epic will be highly discouraging due to upgrade mats price, which will skyrocket thanks to reconstruction BTW. Not even mentioning that after rework to Bloodthirsty trait, the difference between epic and legendary is much bigger with this particular trait than with other traits.

Altyrann · September 2020

ZOS_RobGarrett wrote: »

Hello again.

We have another update regarding details of the Item Set Collection system. As many of you know, shortly after the end of Markarth reveal event this past Saturday, we posted a correction about a statement made on-stream regarding Transmute Crystal refunds when deconstructing items.

Well it turns out that wasn't the only detail in need of correcting. As a number of players have already discovered on the PTS, deconstructing a reconstructed item does not refund the full amount of booster materials either. It works the same as deconstructing any item: You have a chance to get a single booster material back, and that chance can be improved by investing in passive skills within the crafting skill lines, but it won't be a full refund.

This behavior is intentional, and it will remain this way when the Item Set Collection system goes live with U28. The reason is we anticipate full booster refunds would quickly lead to widespread “booster recycling”, where players would use deconstruction and reconstruction to simply transfer full sets of boosters between item sets. In that scenario, when a player achieves a critical threshold of booster materials there becomes very little incentive to acquire more. The more players that achieve this threshold, the less value boosters represent within the game economy. Devaluing booster materials was never a goal of the Item Set Collection system.

My error in misrepresenting this aspect of the system during the livestream was unintentional, and simply a case of miscommunication between myself and the team prior to the event. But that doesn't change the fact it was a misrepresentation. We strive to present honest and accurate information to players, and in this case we failed. For that, I want to apologize to the community and express our commitment to do better during future reveals - because there’s some really cool stuff coming in future reveals!

Thank you again for your support.

Many thanks for clarifying

Olupajmibanan wrote: »

silvereyes wrote: »

Thank you for the clarification. Makes total sense, from the perspective of the set collections system.

Like others, I find the loss from deconstructing set jewelry too large to actually consider using it. To be clear though, I find this a fault with the economics of jewelry crafting in general, not set collections.

You say that your design goal is not to reduce the value of jewelry materials, but given these reactions, maybe it should be.

Jewelry crafting was designed without Set Collection in mind, but now that reconstruction is a thing, obtaining jewelry upgrade mats should be reworked. There is huge disparity between jewelry upgrade mats and reconstruction now.

Reconstructing jewelry, even in epic will be highly discouraging due to upgrade mats price, which will skyrocket thanks to reconstruction BTW. Not even mentioning that after rework to Bloodthirsty trait, the difference between epic and legendary is much bigger with this particular trait than with other traits.

Jewelry definitely feels like the outlier here. Obtaining 40 Dreugh Wax for a new gold armour set, for example, feels like something that can be done at least eventually and would allow this system to work there, albeit with enough of a hurdle that you would want to think hard before deconning anything gold. For jewelry just upgrading the 3 items will take, for example, 840k gold (assuming best case of upgrading a perfected trial set and a 70k cost per Chromium Plating) so I can't see that many people would do anything other than hoard here. As above, this feels more like an issue with the scarcity of jewelcrafting mats than anything else.

With the clarification on the system going live broadly as it works on PTS, it would be great to see a pass on obtaining the jewelcrafting upgrade mats.

Ascarl · September 2020

I fully agree that right now reconstructing jewelry is too expensive right now that there will be only niche uses like creating a second ring.
Nobody except Sheogorath would consider destructing and reconstructing jewelry to be an option right now.

tim99 · September 2020

So its more a little help for, instead of replacing, storage-toons.... you only need to keep the golden things from now on.

well, thats still something...

Ascarl · September 2020

tim99 wrote: »

So its more a little help for, instead of replacing, storage-toons.... you only need to keep the golden things from now on.

well, thats still something...

Given the price of lower tier boosters for jewelry the same applies to purples, maybe even blues.

Feric51 · September 2020

Olupajmibanan wrote: »

Jewelry crafting was designed without Set Collection in mind, but now that reconstruction is a thing, obtaining jewelry upgrade mats should be reworked. There is huge disparity between jewelry upgrade mats and reconstruction now.

Reconstructing jewelry, even in epic will be highly discouraging due to upgrade mats price, which will skyrocket thanks to reconstruction BTW. Not even mentioning that after rework to Bloodthirsty trait, the difference between epic and legendary is much bigger with this particular trait than with other traits.

Altyrann wrote: »

Jewelry definitely feels like the outlier here. Obtaining 40 Dreugh Wax for a new gold armour set, for example, feels like something that can be done at least eventually and would allow this system to work there, albeit with enough of a hurdle that you would want to think hard before deconning anything gold. For jewelry just upgrading the 3 items will take, for example, 840k gold (assuming best case of upgrading a perfected trial set and a 70k cost per Chromium Plating) so I can't see that many people would do anything other than hoard here. As above, this feels more like an issue with the scarcity of jewelcrafting mats than anything else.

With the clarification on the system going live broadly as it works on PTS, it would be great to see a pass on obtaining the jewelcrafting upgrade mats.

I think you guys are missing the main point behind the collection/sticker book. This wasn't so you could willy-nilly deconstruct and reconstruct all items pieces every few weeks. This is intended as an inventory management QOL upgrade so you don't have to hang onto every single item of every single set in a handful of different traits that "might" be relevant someday. It's also a huge upgrade to reduce grinding for the ideal trait in a hard to find item.

For some players that have limited time to play each day, this is huge for acquiring trial sets because you could swap items at the end of the trial run to be able to reconstruct your ideal set in the future with whatever traits you want.

Yeah, Rob misspoke during the presentation and I'm sure that got some hopes up, but why would you honestly think that a brand new feature that essentially costs net-zero transmutation stones, should also be exponentially better than the existing system of deconstruction? You deconstruct a crafted item now you have a chance and getting a fraction of your material input back.

Think deconstructing/reconstructing jewelry is fiscally irresponsible? Then just do what we've been doing for the last six years.... don't deconstruct it!!!

Ascarl · September 2020

I agree that not deconstructing jewelry because of material cost is an option but it defeats the purpose.

There sould be a fiscal penality in deconstructing/reconstruction but it should not be as steep as it is right now for purples.

Xebov · September 2020

Ascarl wrote: »

I fully agree that right now reconstructing jewelry is too expensive right now that there will be only niche uses like creating a second ring.
Nobody except Sheogorath would consider destructing and reconstructing jewelry to be an option right now.

Thats not entirely true. Reconstruction always creates an item in the lowest quality it can drop in without requiring upgrade materials. Which means if you have hoarded blue dungeon jewelry, or purple perfected jewelry you can just decon it and recreate it later with only costing transmute crystals.

Besides that gear changes are usually are every 3 months or in even bigger time frames. Do you realy want to tell me ppl are unable to gather the materials for a jewelry gold upgrad ein 3+ months?

Altyrann · September 2020

Xebov wrote: »

Ascarl wrote: »

I fully agree that right now reconstructing jewelry is too expensive right now that there will be only niche uses like creating a second ring.
Nobody except Sheogorath would consider destructing and reconstructing jewelry to be an option right now.

Thats not entirely true. Reconstruction always creates an item in the lowest quality it can drop in without requiring upgrade materials. Which means if you have hoarded blue dungeon jewelry, or purple perfected jewelry you can just decon it and recreate it later with only costing transmute crystals.

Besides that gear changes are usually are every 3 months or in even bigger time frames. Do you realy want to tell me ppl are unable to gather the materials for a jewelry gold upgrad ein 3+ months?

Across multiple characters and multiple roles that starts to add up.

MashmalloMan · September 2020

@ZOS_RobGarrett Just wanted to say thank you for the clarification. Companies seem to be too scared to admit when they've made a mistake, we're only human. I do feel there is a passion behind the people and yourself, who design this game. Despite some of the decisions I haven't entirely agreed with, I truely believe you are trying to make the game better for everyone long term. It's nice to see transparency and it builds better trust in your community. Keep up the communication when you can, looking forward to the future new systems you eluded to.

You've made a lot of great quality of life changes within the past 6 months that I felt have been missing since you introduced the housing system years ago so I'm very excited to see what comes next.

Collection system. Never cared for achievements unless I wanted a specific reward from it, this system has me thinking about pokemon in that I "gotta catch them all." despite only the lower transmute cost reward.
Antiquities opening the door for other possible future minigames (tavern games, spellcrafting, etc)
Pathing system for homes
Combination and simplification of crit/penetration in the game enabling more variety in builds.
Major/minor rework is a long time coming with extremely high values like the 30%'s.
Zone guide introduced last year.
Gamepad UI dedicated scaling after removing it due to technical issues, players would of gotten use to not having it, yet you fixed it anyway.
Gamepad UI filters.
Gamepad UI better guild stores.

All of the above has been completed within about a year, that's pretty impressive. It really starts to feel like your thinking about better ways to shake up how we play ESO instead of sticking to a formula. It's starting to feel like the audits in 2018-2019, to even today, are paying off with easier developement cycles leading to extra time to focus on quality of life changes.

That much, I can appreciate. Yes, we all want more dungeons, zones, quests and trials to explore.. but the quality of life changes and new systems are really what make this game feel fresh long term instead of a 6+ year old game. Please continue to focus on that, it's working.

Xebov · September 2020

Altyrann wrote: »

Xebov wrote: »

Ascarl wrote: »

I fully agree that right now reconstructing jewelry is too expensive right now that there will be only niche uses like creating a second ring.
Nobody except Sheogorath would consider destructing and reconstructing jewelry to be an option right now.

Thats not entirely true. Reconstruction always creates an item in the lowest quality it can drop in without requiring upgrade materials. Which means if you have hoarded blue dungeon jewelry, or purple perfected jewelry you can just decon it and recreate it later with only costing transmute crystals.

Besides that gear changes are usually are every 3 months or in even bigger time frames. Do you realy want to tell me ppl are unable to gather the materials for a jewelry gold upgrad ein 3+ months?

Across multiple characters and multiple roles that starts to add up.

Not necessarily. Many players that have alot of characters and roles often stil only have a few characters they regularly play. This leads to the question if they realy need all characters always to be up to date and to what degree non optimal builds can just be used as well. If someone thinks he needs to have alot characters up to date always its his/her problem.

anitajoneb17_ESO · September 2020

tim99 wrote: »

So its more a little help for, instead of replacing, storage-toons.... you only need to keep the golden things from now on.

well, thats still something...

That's not "a little" something, it's a big thing.
Yes, you just need to keep the upgraded gear, which is faaar better than keeping every single BoP item you get, just in case you may need it one day and you never know how long it will take to farm it again.
It also makes it so that you don't need to farm stuff several times for gear that you want to equip several characters with.
And it gives renewed value to crafting mats.

Everybody wins.

Ascarl · September 2020

Xebov wrote: »

Ascarl wrote: »

I fully agree that right now reconstructing jewelry is too expensive right now that there will be only niche uses like creating a second ring.
Nobody except Sheogorath would consider destructing and reconstructing jewelry to be an option right now.

Thats not entirely true. Reconstruction always creates an item in the lowest quality it can drop in without requiring upgrade materials. Which means if you have hoarded blue dungeon jewelry, or purple perfected jewelry you can just decon it and recreate it later with only costing transmute crystals.

Besides that gear changes are usually are every 3 months or in even bigger time frames. Do you realy want to tell me ppl are unable to gather the materials for a jewelry gold upgrad ein 3+ months?

Actually I have upgrade a single item to gold yet and have chrome platings for one more item and I am close to the third. And I did a lot of crafting writs so far. This took way longer than 3 month.

anitajoneb17_ESO · September 2020

Ascarl wrote: »

Actually I have upgrade a single item to gold yet and have chrome platings for one more item and I am close to the third. And I did a lot of crafting writs so far. This took way longer than 3 month.

For jewelry, yes. For other gear, no.
And remember, you can play very decently with non-golded gear. Purple is fine. Gold isn't mandatory.

Elvenheart · September 2020

I have gear commitment issues, and altitus, and I’m a digital hoarder who runs out of space in every game. The only thing I gold is weapons. This system is going to help me sooooo much, but I’ll continue to use purple armor and blue/purple jewelry. When they first revealed it in ESO Live and mistakenly said that we get everything back I had visions of finally having gold EVERYTHING, but I understand that was just too much to hope for 🙂

zaria · September 2020

Elvenheart wrote: »

I have gear commitment issues, and altitus, and I’m a digital hoarder who runs out of space in every game. The only thing I gold is weapons. This system is going to help me sooooo much, but I’ll continue to use purple armor and blue/purple jewelry. When they first revealed it in ESO Live and mistakenly said that we get everything back I had visions of finally having gold EVERYTHING, but I understand that was just too much to hope for 🙂

This, although golded some other set and bought jewelry from golden.
But know that some sets are nice and some gear is very hard to get so you hold on to stuff.
With this update all gear is in practice become crafted. Yes it still an cost to make it and might be easier to farm.
Already deconned close to 200 items, duplicates with bad traits of sets I don't use,