ZoS, can we have an official statement on the Tide-Glass Beads Lead?

TheForFeeF · June 2021

It really needs to be looked into, and some communication on it would be greatly appreciated.

The point in the Antiquity system was to help older content become relevant again, which, everyone loved. It does seem to work as well. However, the design behind this lead is really poor. I have spent 19 hours trying to find just this lead (it only took me 16 hours to find all the leads for the Mount). I am also not the only person who has spent 10+ hours on just this lead, in fact, there are a fair few who have spent 20+ hours.

The reason why the design is poor is because it doesn't actually fit with the reason behind Antiquities. It hasn't "revived" a zone at all. All it has done is artificially made the area look popular. No-one is engaging in content, World Bosses, Delves, and Public Dungeons in Shadowfen are just as dead as they were before this.

Either that, or the lead is bugged. So please, ZoS, do communicate with us what your response will be to this situation currently going on.

furiouslog · June 2021

I second this. Is something being done? 12 hours in, no drop, and two of those was with a 4 node coop group.

kargen27 · June 2021

It's new, people are going to farm it. The players that want it right now of course are going to concentrate on that only and ignore the rest of the zone. A couple of weeks down the line we will begin seeing players doing other stuff as they more casually search for the lead.
Hard to judge player behavior two days after a content drop.

CP5 · June 2021

People aren't going to go to shadowfen to casually search for a lead, many find that zone tedious just to be in.

Ezhh · June 2021

It being "new" and therefore currently highly farmed doesn't excuse what seems to be an extremely low drop chance, and doesn't invalidate the OP's points.

For me at least, it's going to make me less likely to ever want to go back to Shadowfen again, because there was nothing engaging or interesting about obtaining this lead. It was boredom and frustration, and it's actually left me less interested in playing.

dcmgti · June 2021

I officially have 30 hours in trying to farm this lead with no drop. I understand leads may have to be a little grindy but this is excessive.

LadyNalcarya · June 2021

kargen27 wrote: »

It's new, people are going to farm it. The players that want it right now of course are going to concentrate on that only and ignore the rest of the zone. A couple of weeks down the line we will begin seeing players doing other stuff as they more casually search for the lead.
Hard to judge player behavior two days after a content drop.

It's not possible to "casually" search for a lead that has such a low drop chance and such specific drop locations. How many nirnroots would you pick daily when just questing or whatnot? You won't get it just by playing the game normally unless you're insanely lucky, that's the problem.
Another problem is that camping spawns/leaving a macro to spam E is not even gameplay. It's much worse that farming dungeons or bosses, it doesn't require anything and doesn't reward you with anything, it's just a pointless waste of time.
And no, it's not a "you're not entitled of getting in on day1" problem. The camping thing will be the same regardless with this drop rate, and waiting wouldnt change it. Besides, ZOS has a habit of nerfing popular items so it's not that difficult to understand people who want to use mythics while they're still good.

jssriot · June 2021

Ezhh wrote: »

It being "new" and therefore currently highly farmed doesn't excuse what seems to be an extremely low drop chance, and doesn't invalidate the OP's points.

For me at least, it's going to make me less likely to ever want to go back to Shadowfen again, because there was nothing engaging or interesting about obtaining this lead. It was boredom and frustration, and it's actually left me less interested in playing.

I never want to go back to Bad Man Hollows and that's only after 2-3 hours of unsuccessful farming on the Pale Order lead there. But I keep saying this on this forum and it doesn't seem to be getting across to a lot of people: ZOS doesn't care if you're happy or enjoying your time in ESO as long as you are spending your time (and money) on the game. If they can convince you that suffering through hours of mental health-risking and cardiovascular health-impairing grinding in the hopes of getting this one thing that you think will make the game better for you, they don't care what the cost to you is. They just want you to be engaged with the game, as long as they can make you stay engaged. This is why I've backed away from mythic farming. I've played this game for years without mythic items. They're not even a thing anyone ever asked for. It's just something ZOS came up with to make us want to buy Greymoor and now Blackwood with the promise that this magic thing is going to make a perfect build as we chase after the ever moving goalposts of the latest meta, even though if we as a community wanted to do things differently, instead of meta chasing like MMO sheeple, we could make that choice and ZOS who eventually have to reconsider how they make content to fuel this never-ending meta madness. Moreover ZOS can and will change the stats of those items whenever they want, so for all you know, all those hours you put into farming this one thing will be wasted in the near future because that item will be rendered useless by later patches. Are there mythics I'd like to have? Sure. But if all of this is price ZOS demands for me to get one, giving up hours I could be using to play content I would rather play and not knowing for how long that item will be useful to me, I will have to pass.

kargen27 · June 2021

LadyNalcarya wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

It's new, people are going to farm it. The players that want it right now of course are going to concentrate on that only and ignore the rest of the zone. A couple of weeks down the line we will begin seeing players doing other stuff as they more casually search for the lead.
Hard to judge player behavior two days after a content drop.

It's not possible to "casually" search for a lead that has such a low drop chance and such specific drop locations. How many nirnroots would you pick daily when just questing or whatnot? You won't get it just by playing the game normally unless you're insanely lucky, that's the problem.
Another problem is that camping spawns/leaving a macro to spam E is not even gameplay. It's much worse that farming dungeons or bosses, it doesn't require anything and doesn't reward you with anything, it's just a pointless waste of time.
And no, it's not a "you're not entitled of getting in on day1" problem. The camping thing will be the same regardless with this drop rate, and waiting wouldnt change it. Besides, ZOS has a habit of nerfing popular items so it's not that difficult to understand people who want to use mythics while they're still good.

Sure it is. Save up treasure maps, surveys and other stuff then just spend some time in the zone grabbing every node you see. I always pick up every node I see unless I'm in Cyrodiil with a group. Knowing where the lead drops I might spend a bit of time running a loop a couple of times a week or so once the rush crowd has died down some. Eventually I will get it or I will not.

I'm still working on getting all the trophy achievements on my main character. Took me several months of maybe four hours a week to get the Ogre Toe Ring for that achievement. Was the last thing I needed. Thing about being casual is there is no real rush.

That aside we still can't judge future behaviors on what players are doing only two days after a content drop.

ThePlayer · June 2021

I took 10 water nodes and 10 Nirnroot in 1 hour, nothing! i can understand the grinding but wasting time to look the water in Shadowfen have not sense for me.
If you want players to be more active put the leads on last boss veteran of any dlc vet dungeons.

omegatay_ESO · June 2021

jssriot wrote: »

Ezhh wrote: »

It being "new" and therefore currently highly farmed doesn't excuse what seems to be an extremely low drop chance, and doesn't invalidate the OP's points.

For me at least, it's going to make me less likely to ever want to go back to Shadowfen again, because there was nothing engaging or interesting about obtaining this lead. It was boredom and frustration, and it's actually left me less interested in playing.

I never want to go back to Bad Man Hollows and that's only after 2-3 hours of unsuccessful farming on the Pale Order lead there. But I keep saying this on this forum and it doesn't seem to be getting across to a lot of people: ZOS doesn't care if you're happy or enjoying your time in ESO as long as you are spending your time (and money) on the game. If they can convince you that suffering through hours of mental health-risking and cardiovascular health-impairing grinding in the hopes of getting this one thing that you think will make the game better for you, they don't care what the cost to you is. They just want you to be engaged with the game, as long as they can make you stay engaged. This is why I've backed away from mythic farming. I've played this game for years without mythic items. They're not even a thing anyone ever asked for. It's just something ZOS came up with to make us want to buy Greymoor and now Blackwood with the promise that this magic thing is going to make a perfect build as we chase after the ever moving goalposts of the latest meta, even though if we as a community wanted to do things differently, instead of meta chasing like MMO sheeple, we could make that choice and ZOS who eventually have to reconsider how they make content to fuel this never-ending meta madness. Moreover ZOS can and will change the stats of those items whenever they want, so for all you know, all those hours you put into farming this one thing will be wasted in the near future because that item will be rendered useless by later patches. Are there mythics I'd like to have? Sure. But if all of this is price ZOS demands for me to get one, giving up hours I could be using to play content I would rather play and not knowing for how long that item will be useful to me, I will have to pass.

You sound like a dev posting from a non zos account. What devs really want to say, but can't. Lol

what_the · June 2021

Ezhh wrote: »

It being "new" and therefore currently highly farmed doesn't excuse what seems to be an extremely low drop chance, and doesn't invalidate the OP's points.

uhh, yeah it does.
Blackwood has been out is out 2 days (2 DAYS) and folks are complaining they cant complete their mythic leads?
please...the "I want it now" beast is rearing its ugly head...

AinSoph · June 2021

kargen27 wrote: »

LadyNalcarya wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

It's new, people are going to farm it. The players that want it right now of course are going to concentrate on that only and ignore the rest of the zone. A couple of weeks down the line we will begin seeing players doing other stuff as they more casually search for the lead.
Hard to judge player behavior two days after a content drop.

It's not possible to "casually" search for a lead that has such a low drop chance and such specific drop locations. How many nirnroots would you pick daily when just questing or whatnot? You won't get it just by playing the game normally unless you're insanely lucky, that's the problem.
Another problem is that camping spawns/leaving a macro to spam E is not even gameplay. It's much worse that farming dungeons or bosses, it doesn't require anything and doesn't reward you with anything, it's just a pointless waste of time.
And no, it's not a "you're not entitled of getting in on day1" problem. The camping thing will be the same regardless with this drop rate, and waiting wouldnt change it. Besides, ZOS has a habit of nerfing popular items so it's not that difficult to understand people who want to use mythics while they're still good.

Sure it is. Save up treasure maps, surveys and other stuff then just spend some time in the zone grabbing every node you see. I always pick up every node I see unless I'm in Cyrodiil with a group. Knowing where the lead drops I might spend a bit of time running a loop a couple of times a week or so once the rush crowd has died down some. Eventually I will get it or I will not.

I'm still working on getting all the trophy achievements on my main character. Took me several months of maybe four hours a week to get the Ogre Toe Ring for that achievement. Was the last thing I needed. Thing about being casual is there is no real rush.

That aside we still can't judge future behaviors on what players are doing only two days after a content drop.

This specific lead can only be found from water nodes and water plant nodes. People are literally claiming single spots just to have a chance at it so those alternatives don't apply.

Ratzkifal · June 2021

I got mine after "only" 7 hours of camping at one node. I spent more time in total, but I was only at a node for 7 hours because the others were spent looking for an unoccupied node.
It works as a method to obtain a lead for some obscure furnishing, like the Ruby dragon skull lead from enchanting nodes on Bleakrock. But Bleakrock has a higher node density than other zones and only a handful of people are actually going to grind that lead, so competition for it is low.
Mythics however are, ideally, highly sought-after and the Wading Kilt is certainly no exception. People want that Mythic and they want it soon - for unrelated reasons regarding balancing of proc (read Monster) sets. So now we have a highly competitive hunt for nodes that take way too long to respawn to handle this demand, so the most viable strategy is to camp a single node or to fight another player over theirs in hopes of having a better ping than them. This grind is actually painful. And not painful like vMA. MORE painful than vMA. More painful than Cyrodiil lag. It is essentially PvP without the fun and mental stimulation of actually playing the game. Those 7 hours were the most unfun time I've had in this game to this day and the only thing that made it bearable at all were the knowledge that you'd only have to do it once in your life and the other people in zone chat sharing in that suffering (and posting a fake item called the "Belt of Bad Performance" in the chat whenever you harvest a node but didn't get the lead to make fun of you, ZOS).
Now nobody is being forced here (except through peer pressure and the desire to excel), but I am sure if you forced someone to stay in a constant state of attention for 7 hours and punished them by extending those 7hours by a few more minutes every time they lose focus would legally be considered torture. This lead is not a game, it's a chore. It's not fun, it's work - and not the kind of work that makes you feel accomplished for having achieved something. All you did was press E a lot for 7 hours. Your biggest sense of accomplishment you could possibly get is from successfully stealing nodes from other players, which is highly infuriating and not healthy. This sort of behavior turned the ESO chat more toxic than league of legends.

Pre-Markarth a lead like this in a meta like we have now would have been a reason to quit the game. The item set collection is the only thing that makes this "worth it", because it will be over eventually and in a few months (when the item was nerfed) the interest and competition will die down so it will get better. But the issue is that you, ZOS, are most likely just going to add a lead like this to every new must-have flavor of the month Mythic with every update so that people keep spending these hours torturing themselves and not having fun in your game. This design is not acceptable. Do not do it again. Increase the drop rate for at least a week or two to unclog the bottle neck. Don't make console players go through this.

Ratzkifal · June 2021

what_the wrote: »

Ezhh wrote: »

It being "new" and therefore currently highly farmed doesn't excuse what seems to be an extremely low drop chance, and doesn't invalidate the OP's points.

uhh, yeah it does.
Blackwood has been out is out 2 days (2 DAYS) and folks are complaining they cant complete their mythic leads?
please...the "I want it now" beast is rearing its ugly head...

You should go to Shadowfen for yourself and see it with your own eyes. This has nothing to do with "i want it now" and everything to do with bad design on ZOS' part. The chance for getting one of the Gaze of Sithis leads has a cooldown of 20h per character and yet it is not as much of an issue because the time spent on it is minimal and you get to do other things while waiting. Yes, people are complaining about the Gaze of Sithis lead too, but that's never going to be this bad.

Zenzuki · June 2021

Sometimes being a console plebe has it's advantages.

No add-ons means we don't know where every little node resides.

Sure, some will camp a few they've found, but most of us will just have to run around looking and picking.

Even though ZOS has made this a really rare drop... This seems to be more of a PC add-on issue.

Add-ons mostly work FOR you guys... but SOMETIMES they can be your enemy!

GL to those still searching, and may the divines be in your favor and bless you soon!

couriersix · June 2021

The kilts leads drop locations are generally awful, with Shadowfen being the most egregious. Even with Bad Mans Hollow and it's terrible RNG, at least public dungeons are instanced so there's less competition ( as well as grouping so everyone has a chance for loot) and more engaging than picking up plants.
I really have no idea what ZOS was thinking when they decided to put 3/5 of the leads in zones with very limited enemies, nodes, and foul fishing holes. Even if the item wasn't as sought after as it is, I still view this as incredibly unreasonable, especially when compared to the lead locations of most other mythics.

Xuhora · June 2021

Zenzuki wrote: »

Sometimes being a console plebe has it's advantages.

No add-ons means we don't know where every little node resides.

Sure, some will camp a few they've found, but most of us will just have to run around looking and picking.

Even though ZOS has made this a really rare drop... This seems to be more of a PC add-on issue.

Add-ons mostly work FOR you guys... but SOMETIMES they can be your enemy!

GL to those still searching, and may the divines be in your favor and bless you soon!

and thats where you are wrong... i think because consoles dont have addons, most people will wander arround until they found a node, and then will stay there. which means, in primetime every node will be contested and you most likely wont find a free node.
and that will be the point in time where you realise, this lead is nothing but bad game design in its purest form.

Ippokrates · June 2021

You all those saying "Kilt Day One You Don't Need To Have"... Are you playing ESO for a first time? RNG was always awful. Especially here in Shadowfen with our beloved Arx Corinium! Do I need to say how many times I have completed this damned dung to get lightning staff?

And it is not a matter of "competition". Few weeks ago I was completing leads for this freaking Wolf... World bosses were fine, one or two fights were enough but dung bosses? Two of them took me literally dozen attempts with different characters.

Imagine a world where you are a casual player who do not want to spend all days in the game... What can you accomplish?

Jeirno · June 2021

It took me 27 hours and over 2200 nodes picked up to get it, fix this *** pls so no one else have to suffer like I do.

I'm one with the swamp and the swamp is with me, I'm one with the swamp and the swamp is with me, I'm one with the swamp and the swamp is with me, I'm one with the swamp and the swamp is with me, I'm one with the swamp and the swamp is with me, I'm one with the swamp and the swamp is with me....

-Shrek

MRAW · June 2021

Did someone find the lead in a chest? Some people said so in Shadowfenn area chat, but not sure if it was a lie.

Xuhora · June 2021

MRAW wrote: »

Did someone find the lead in a chest? Some people said so in Shadowfenn area chat, but not sure if it was a lie.

people tend to get bored during their farming... i also read they drop from mudcrabs.
i would give you the advice: until not proven otherwise by a screenshot, the lead only drops from Waternodes

LeonAkando · June 2021

Got in the first 24 hrs of the chapter, after farming for THREE hours. At my own specific node. This was an unfun, unnecessary grind. Many people I was with was grinding it for up to 10 hours. Absurd.

LadyNalcarya · June 2021

kargen27 wrote: »

LadyNalcarya wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

It's new, people are going to farm it. The players that want it right now of course are going to concentrate on that only and ignore the rest of the zone. A couple of weeks down the line we will begin seeing players doing other stuff as they more casually search for the lead.
Hard to judge player behavior two days after a content drop.

It's not possible to "casually" search for a lead that has such a low drop chance and such specific drop locations. How many nirnroots would you pick daily when just questing or whatnot? You won't get it just by playing the game normally unless you're insanely lucky, that's the problem.
Another problem is that camping spawns/leaving a macro to spam E is not even gameplay. It's much worse that farming dungeons or bosses, it doesn't require anything and doesn't reward you with anything, it's just a pointless waste of time.
And no, it's not a "you're not entitled of getting in on day1" problem. The camping thing will be the same regardless with this drop rate, and waiting wouldnt change it. Besides, ZOS has a habit of nerfing popular items so it's not that difficult to understand people who want to use mythics while they're still good.

Sure it is. Save up treasure maps, surveys and other stuff then just spend some time in the zone grabbing every node you see. I always pick up every node I see unless I'm in Cyrodiil with a group. Knowing where the lead drops I might spend a bit of time running a loop a couple of times a week or so once the rush crowd has died down some. Eventually I will get it or I will not.

I'm still working on getting all the trophy achievements on my main character. Took me several months of maybe four hours a week to get the Ogre Toe Ring for that achievement. Was the last thing I needed. Thing about being casual is there is no real rush.

That aside we still can't judge future behaviors on what players are doing only two days after a content drop.

I also pick nodes while collecting surveys and whatnot, but it's not nearly enough for an item with such a low drop chance. People still grind for Pale Order lead in Bad Man's Hollow, so if drop rate stays the same, every node will be camped for a very long time.

MorganaBlue · June 2021

The amount of toxicity in Shadowfen is over the top, and the grind for this lead is easily the worst ESO experience I've had in 4 years of gameplay. I was told to leave, verbally abused and trolled repeatedly for long periods of time every time I went to farm there.

Yes I put them on ignore. Yes, I reported them. But I also lost any love I had left for this game and the people who play it in the process. I'll be walking as soon as *that new game* hits beta.

LadyNalcarya · June 2021

MorganaBlue wrote: »

The amount of toxicity in Shadowfen is over the top, and the grind for this lead is easily the worst ESO experience I've had in 4 years of gameplay. I was told to leave, verbally abused and trolled repeatedly for long periods of time every time I went to farm there.

Yes I put them on ignore. Yes, I reported them. But in the process I also lost any love I had left for this game and the people who play it in the process. I'll be walking as soon as *that new game* hits beta.

That's a really good point. Pitting players against each other like this breeds toxicity and ruins the experience for everyone.

Lerozain · June 2021

I got mine after about 250-260 node loots, but I'm luckier than many people have been.

Oh, you might say, 250 node loots doesn't sound so bad right? Wrong.

Remember most of these are stationary picks, which means I'm looting, then waiting for the node to respawn with an average time of ~4 minutes.

What's 4 minutes x 250 nodes? That's 1,000 minutes. That's over 16 hours of the lamest, dreariest ESO experience I've had to date.

And what happens if you move off the mode to try and do something else? Another player will pounce on it and camp just like you were. There is no "find other things to do while you farm for the lead". You are either farming for the lead and subjecting yourself to this, or you try to do other things in between and find yourself unable to find a single lead-relevant node to loot until half an hour later when some other poor soul offers theirs.

Onyx_Werewolf_Gnome · June 2021

I agree OP there is grindy & then there is every man & his dog stood on a node in Shadowfen for 8 hours+ at a stretch bored out of their tree. With players turning on each other in zone chat.... then add in the farming bots

And at then end of it no lead.....

At this point either switch it to an end boss in a four man D or give it to us.... or let Shadowfen stay toxic. Nothing says engaging with new content in Blackwood like people standing on a nirnroot node in Shadowfen for 5 days straight & no lead

James-Wayne · June 2021

I did this with Thrasian in Bad Mans, days went past and got nothing. When I eventually got it ZOS nerfed it to be useless and I looked back and was like, what a waste of precious time.

So this year while your all waiting on that one drop I've just completed all quest content and most achievements in Blackwood, got a TON of leads for other things, made about 500k from selling gear/furniture plan drops and thoroughly enjoyed the Blackwood ending (although very short).

A much better use of my time! Happy days!!

mzprx · June 2021

i went to Shadowfen on purpose yesterday. to see what the situation was like after seeing posts like this and actually running through Shadowfen two days ago to pick up the blacksmithing survey and noticing that it (Shadowfen) has become the most popular zone all of a sudden. what i saw has terrified me..

people have become zombies. mindless creatures staring into the water, one here, another one there. they are is a state of trance, oblivious to their surroundings, endlessly waiting for a node to spawn. when you come close they awake. they become aggressive, exactly like zombies in some kind of B horror movie. they start growling incomprehensive words in the zone chat. they are trying to type as fast as possible (to avoid the node actually spawning and them missing out on grabbing it because they're typing) to tell you to "f%$!k off, that is their spot!" the zombie apocalypse has arrived, folks..

i tried to warn them. i tried to tell them to remember the Thrassian Stranglers. that 2-3 patches later noone will ever use that Kilt because ZOS will take care of that. i tried. noone listened. they kept staring into the water..

the end is nigh, folks..

LadyNalcarya · June 2021

mzprx wrote: »

i went to Shadowfen on purpose yesterday. to see what the situation was like after seeing posts like this and actually running through Shadowfen two days ago to pick up the blacksmithing survey and noticing that it (Shadowfen) has become the most popular zone all of a sudden. what i saw has terrified me..

people have become zombies. mindless creatures staring into the water, one here, another one there. they are is a state of trance, oblivious to their surroundings, endlessly waiting for a node to spawn. when you come close they awake. they become aggressive, exactly like zombies in some kind of B horror movie. they start growling incomprehensive words in the zone chat. they are trying to type as fast as possible (to avoid the node actually spawning and them missing out on grabbing it because they're typing) to tell you to "f%$!k off, that is their spot!" the zombie apocalypse has arrived, folks..

i tried to warn them. i tried to tell them to remember the Thrassian Stranglers. that 2-3 patches later noone will ever use that Kilt because ZOS will take care of that. i tried. noone listened. they kept staring into the water..

the end is nigh, folks..

Oh no, people are trying to get the thing they paid for...