Where is the ink?

Necrotech_Master · June 6

Jaraal wrote: »

I spent a few hours farming and got about 30 inks, from nodes and NPCs.

The problem seems to be that some players don't want to spend time farming, and I get that.

i was more testing how "casual" the drops would come, so i did the scribing line first, assuming i would get maybe 1 or 2 random inks while i was completing the rest of the zone + story quests

so far (i havent played today yet) but since finishing the scribing quest on monday afternoon spending the next 2.5 play sessions (evening monday after finishing scribing quests, evening tues, evening wed), ive cleared everything just about from the entire west weald zone and did all story and zone quests, all WBs, all mirrormore incursions, all delves, and public dungeons (minus 1 bugged boss in silorn) with random harvesting in between all of this, and have yet to even see my first ink drop

so it seems if anyone is expecting to get any drops casually while completing other content, it wont happen if someone can clear an entire zones content without seeing a single drop either from harvesting or killing enemies

virtus753 · June 6

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

virtus753 wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

EF321 wrote: »

Got 2 drops back to back. So RNG.

How true! And the "feast or famine" nature of RNG can be frustrating. I've learned to mostly ignore the urge to grind and just let myself be pleasantly surprised whenever I do get a drop.

Luke: "I got one!"

Han: "Great, kid! Don't get optimistic."

The best "reliable option" I've seen anyone suggest so far is to create a throwaway alt, zip through the Luminaries' quests to get 12 ink, delete the alt, then do it again as often as desired. I don't know if they were being sarcastic, but it actually sounds like a winning idea-- if someone has an available character slot, that is.

the idea of the alt is consistent, but i think it requires getting the character to at least lvl 30 to do scribing, and then all of the travel involved (lack of wayshrines) might make that take longer than expected but still guaranteed results over RNG drops that are rarer than nirncrux

I was able to start the Second Era of Scribing on a level 4 character.

Level 30 should only be necessary if you don't already have CP on your account.

thats not bad, though the travel is still an issue

i wasnt sure if the lvl 30 was a minimum level requirement to do this skill line, like some of the other ones such as undaunted have a minimum of lvl 10 now

Yeah, always worth checking for sure! And travel definitely a pain point. It helps to have guildies or friends to be able to travel to, but even so the Wings are a lot of legwork.

Necrotech_Master · June 6

virtus753 wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

virtus753 wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

EF321 wrote: »

Got 2 drops back to back. So RNG.

How true! And the "feast or famine" nature of RNG can be frustrating. I've learned to mostly ignore the urge to grind and just let myself be pleasantly surprised whenever I do get a drop.

Luke: "I got one!"

Han: "Great, kid! Don't get optimistic."

The best "reliable option" I've seen anyone suggest so far is to create a throwaway alt, zip through the Luminaries' quests to get 12 ink, delete the alt, then do it again as often as desired. I don't know if they were being sarcastic, but it actually sounds like a winning idea-- if someone has an available character slot, that is.

the idea of the alt is consistent, but i think it requires getting the character to at least lvl 30 to do scribing, and then all of the travel involved (lack of wayshrines) might make that take longer than expected but still guaranteed results over RNG drops that are rarer than nirncrux

I was able to start the Second Era of Scribing on a level 4 character.

Level 30 should only be necessary if you don't already have CP on your account.

thats not bad, though the travel is still an issue

i wasnt sure if the lvl 30 was a minimum level requirement to do this skill line, like some of the other ones such as undaunted have a minimum of lvl 10 now

Yeah, always worth checking for sure! And travel definitely a pain point. It helps to have guildies or friends to be able to travel to, but even so the Wings are a lot of legwork.

honestly if i wanted to speed up the travel, i would probably just log in my 2nd acct on my other computer, and use it as a fast travel to whichever zone for free ports to wayshrines to help cut down the travel cost

i did find that to be a little bit of a chore even on my main who has everything unlocked, whenever it wanted you to go dispel wards, it was "port here dispel wards" repeated 3 times in different areas

ApoAlaia · June 6

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

virtus753 wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

virtus753 wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

EF321 wrote: »

Got 2 drops back to back. So RNG.

How true! And the "feast or famine" nature of RNG can be frustrating. I've learned to mostly ignore the urge to grind and just let myself be pleasantly surprised whenever I do get a drop.

Luke: "I got one!"

Han: "Great, kid! Don't get optimistic."

The best "reliable option" I've seen anyone suggest so far is to create a throwaway alt, zip through the Luminaries' quests to get 12 ink, delete the alt, then do it again as often as desired. I don't know if they were being sarcastic, but it actually sounds like a winning idea-- if someone has an available character slot, that is.

the idea of the alt is consistent, but i think it requires getting the character to at least lvl 30 to do scribing, and then all of the travel involved (lack of wayshrines) might make that take longer than expected but still guaranteed results over RNG drops that are rarer than nirncrux

I was able to start the Second Era of Scribing on a level 4 character.

Level 30 should only be necessary if you don't already have CP on your account.

thats not bad, though the travel is still an issue

i wasnt sure if the lvl 30 was a minimum level requirement to do this skill line, like some of the other ones such as undaunted have a minimum of lvl 10 now

Yeah, always worth checking for sure! And travel definitely a pain point. It helps to have guildies or friends to be able to travel to, but even so the Wings are a lot of legwork.

honestly if i wanted to speed up the travel, i would probably just log in my 2nd acct on my other computer, and use it as a fast travel to whichever zone for free ports to wayshrines to help cut down the travel cost

i did find that to be a little bit of a chore even on my main who has everything unlocked, whenever it wanted you to go dispel wards, it was "port here dispel wards" repeated 3 times in different areas

Given that I'm now at 300+ nodes and 0 ink I am actually considering this method.

My bb alt has 3 free character slots, and I can log my main or my alt for fast travel purposes.

It is pretty sad that this might be the most efficient farming method though.

Vynera · June 6

olsborg wrote: »

I spent 15 minutes harvesting nodes, got 1x after 3-4 mins and then another node at the 15 min mark that gave me 2 inks.

Jaraal wrote: »

I spent a few hours farming and got about 30 inks, from nodes and NPCs.

The problem seems to be that some players don't want to spend time farming, and I get that.

Idk...but it seems some accounts have less luck.

Harvested every node on my way during questing, got 2 inks in ~18-20 hours of gameplay.
By that time I got: ~2700 rough ruby ash, ~2200 rubedite ore, ~900 silk and tons of runes and alchemy stuff.

Full scribing questline done, around 50% of all scripts unlocked aleady but sadly unable to play around with the new system because I don't want to farm 24/7 to get enough for my 5 characters im playing...

(Collecting 500 ink for the achievement would probably cost me years with the current rate..)

Jaraal · June 6

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

ive cleared everything just about from the entire west weald zone and did all story and zone quests, all WBs, all mirrormore incursions, all delves, and public dungeons (minus 1 bugged boss in silorn) with random harvesting in between all of this, and have yet to even see my first ink drop

I did most of my time harvesting, and did get several double drops with the Plentiful Harvest CP slotted.

They drop from all types of nodes, including runestones. I haven't found one in a Psijic portal yet, so I don't know if they can drop them or not. Also got a few nirncrux, so it's a reasonably profitable endeavor. I'm sure prices will go down as the market saturates, so it's time to make hay while the sun shines.

Necrotech_Master · June 6

Jaraal wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

ive cleared everything just about from the entire west weald zone and did all story and zone quests, all WBs, all mirrormore incursions, all delves, and public dungeons (minus 1 bugged boss in silorn) with random harvesting in between all of this, and have yet to even see my first ink drop

I did most of my time harvesting, and did get several double drops with the Plentiful Harvest CP slotted.

They drop from all types of nodes, including runestones. I haven't found one in a Psijic portal yet, so I don't know if they can drop them or not. Also got a few nirncrux, so it's a reasonably profitable endeavor. I'm sure prices will go down as the market saturates, so it's time to make hay while the sun shines.

my random harvesting was scattered between all harvest nodes, including a few psijic portals, all in the west weald, i dont know exactly how much i harvested, but still seems too low if you can clear an entire zone without getting a single drop (clear as in complete all quests, all map objectives, delves, public dungeons, and harvesting mixed in)

ive deliberately farmed for nirncrux before too, there are random times ill get it on my first node, other times ive had to walk around and harvest what felt like the entire zone twice before getting a single drop, but if the rarity of the ink is roughly twice that of nirncrux, its going to be even worse farming that

as of right now the only reliable way to earn ink is to do the scribing quests on alts (12 guaranteed ink for the 4 wings per character)

i have no problem farming stuff, but if the drop chance is too low, it just becomes a massive pain point

currently my only plans with the scribing system is maybe running just enough alts through the system to craft all of the skills at least once on my main to finish achievement for that and then basically not touch the system at all on alts (both since they need their own scripts and because i wont have any ink to experiment with scribes for them)

Jaraal · June 6

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

currently my only plans with the scribing system is maybe running just enough alts through the system to craft all of the skills at least once on my main to finish achievement for that and then basically not touch the system at all on alts (both since they need their own scripts and because i wont have any ink to experiment with scribes for them)

Yeah, I won't be using the system at all until I get a good collection of the scripts. They seem to be dropping pretty regularly for me (the bound ones) from dailies, and that includes the super fast Cyrodiil town dailies. Also, there are nine free scripts per character to be gotten at old world mages guilds. But I'm waiting to grab those until I find out if they stack. I'm already running into inventory issues with all the bound scripts.

Vonnegut2506 · June 6

Jaraal wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

currently my only plans with the scribing system is maybe running just enough alts through the system to craft all of the skills at least once on my main to finish achievement for that and then basically not touch the system at all on alts (both since they need their own scripts and because i wont have any ink to experiment with scribes for them)

Yeah, I won't be using the system at all until I get a good collection of the scripts. They seem to be dropping pretty regularly for me (the bound ones) from dailies, and that includes the super fast Cyrodiil town dailies. Also, there are nine free scripts per character to be gotten at old world mages guilds. But I'm waiting to grab those until I find out if they stack. I'm already running into inventory issues with all the bound scripts.

They do not stack.

Stridig · June 7

So far my drop rate for ink seems to be close to my potent nirn drop rate. Not great but I've gotten enough to play around with skills and sell some in the guild store.

SeaGtGruff · June 7

Jaraal wrote: »

I spent a few hours farming and got about 30 inks, from nodes and NPCs.

The problem seems to be that some players don't want to spend time farming, and I get that.

I think the problem is that it's RNG, so it's highly unpredictable. Using Nirncrux as an example, I can do 15 minutes of farming for an Endeavor and get several Nirncrux, including an occasional double draw with both types in the same node. But then I can do some dedicated farming for several hours and get none at all.

Quethrosar · June 7

And you need 500 for the black skill ?

Yamenstein · June 7

Yay ...

I finally got 1 drop of ink from a node..

HeavyMetalHippie420 · June 7

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

StihlReign wrote: »

virtus753 wrote: »

StihlReign wrote: »

New zone looks awesome , the ink grind is going to be a challenge. We need a double or triple resource weekend ASAP.

How can we show-off and test the new scribing Live if there's so little ink? (I've had 2 drop)

Lower the rate later...we need more ink now!

They just had the Explorer’s Event, and Zeal of Zenithar is coming up (which doesn’t increase resources but does save you 10% off Grimoire and Script prices). They could run an impromptu 5-day resources mini-event, but it would be packing the schedule a bit tight. And they’d also have to run it once for PC and another for console due to the different launch schedules.

We told them at the beginning of the PTS (well, once it became safe to test) that there was a concern about ink drop rates. We suggested that they increase the drop rate on enemies and allow Plentiful Harvest to proc, both of which they did. (They seem to have decided not to grant the request to allow surveys to give it, though.) So they did make some effort to improve the situation in direct response to feedback, and I want to acknowledge that. That said, I’m still not sure it’s enough to sustain the interest in those “nearly 4,000” (but somehow also “over 4,000”) possible combinations for Scribing in this initial phase when people are excited about all the possibilities but don’t have the resources to actually realize them.

Reducing all ink costs to zero for a short period of time on launch might have helped, like they have done a few times for respec costs when they’ve overhauled skills or CP. But this wasn’t an already established system they changed, and I think in the end they did want people who want to get into this system to have to “chase the Ink,” so to speak.

Yeah, I recall the PTS discussions, and now that we're live, I still can't say with certainty which scripts I really want to go with. I do know, after a few hours of dedicated resource farming, this doesn't feel good. Definitely need a lot more ink in the marketplace. A cost reduction with an NPC seller would probably work best and we don't have that...soo - drop rates ZOS, drop rates. Let the ink flow.

At this rate it's going to take forever to mix and match and have fun with the 4000 or so combos they've mentioned are available.

for best "short term" gains, you get 12 ink per character that completes the 4 wings of the scribing questline for free

if you had 20 toons and completed it with all of them, thats 240 ink total, enough to scribe skills 80 times

there is also the option to make a new toon and level it to 30 and then do the scribing skill line, delete, rinse repeat (though it would be rough without all the travel points lol)

with the current drop rate of ink, im not sure if this would be more or less work than just grinding for it lol

Ain't nobody got time for that. That shouldn't even be necessary.

Yamenstein · June 7

Jaraal wrote: »

I spent a few hours farming and got about 30 inks, from nodes and NPCs.

The problem seems to be that some players don't want to spend time farming, and I get that.

I would happily say that the vast majority of the player base do not want to spend a "few" hours farming mats when they could be spending time playing other content within the game.

If the crafting system for Scribing was like any of the other crafting skill lines in this game then it would be a different story. I.e., There are no ink specific nodes that always drops basics and then has chance of giving you better materials. You do not gain anything from unscribing skills because it doesn't function that way.

Edit:
I have just spent 1 hour running between harvesting nodes to not even get 1 drop.

SeaGtGruff · June 7

Yamenstein wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

I spent a few hours farming and got about 30 inks, from nodes and NPCs.

The problem seems to be that some players don't want to spend time farming, and I get that.

I would happily say that the vast majority of the player base do not want to spend a "few" hours farming mats when they could be spending time playing other content within the game.

If the crafting system for Scribing was like any of the other crafting skill lines in this game then it would be a different story. I.e., There are no ink specific nodes that always drops basics and then has chance of giving you better materials. You do not gain anything from unscribing skills because it doesn't function that way.

Edit:
I have just spent 1 hour running between harvesting nodes to not even get 1 drop.

I had gotten 5 inks the other day on PC EU, but so far hadn't found any on PC NA. Then last night I finally found 3 on PC NA.

It's just the usual highly unpredictable, highly variable RNG.

I did get 2 of the 8 from a resource node, but 3 of the 8 dropped from mobs. I honestly don't know where the other 3 dropped from, because I didn't notice them until well after the fact.

So I'd advise players not to focus exclusively on farming resource nodes; be sure to kill and loot any mobs, too.

Yamenstein · June 7

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Yamenstein wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

I spent a few hours farming and got about 30 inks, from nodes and NPCs.

The problem seems to be that some players don't want to spend time farming, and I get that.

I would happily say that the vast majority of the player base do not want to spend a "few" hours farming mats when they could be spending time playing other content within the game.

If the crafting system for Scribing was like any of the other crafting skill lines in this game then it would be a different story. I.e., There are no ink specific nodes that always drops basics and then has chance of giving you better materials. You do not gain anything from unscribing skills because it doesn't function that way.

Edit:
I have just spent 1 hour running between harvesting nodes to not even get 1 drop.

I had gotten 5 inks the other day on PC EU, but so far hadn't found any on PC NA. Then last night I finally found 3 on PC NA.

It's just the usual highly unpredictable, highly variable RNG.

I did get 2 of the 8 from a resource node, but 3 of the 8 dropped from mobs. I honestly don't know where the other 3 dropped from, because I didn't notice them until well after the fact.

So I'd advise players not to focus exclusively on farming resource nodes; be sure to kill and loot any mobs, too.

Yeah my 1 drop was from 1 node. After spending the last several days completing the new zones. Not even 1 drop from mobs and I’ve completed the entire zone except one delve.

Unified_Gaming · June 7

I farmed 2000+ raw mats and had 0 drops from ore, woods and runes. I managed to get 3 ink drops from alchemy plants so wonder if there is a bug maybe with the rolling on some resource types?

This was after 4 hours of farming and on an alt who had not done the quest line but had unlocked the first part and bought all grimoires as my main had completed the entire thing, unlocking all wings.

The drop chance in my opinion seems too low for how they wish you to interact with the system. They want players to get a new script and then consider changing a skill and using it and well, I've had more script drops than my ink.

Solution? Make daily script drops also drop 1 ink. That would be 3 per account a day so after a few days you could make all scribed skills and also know you can tweak them daily without too much issue.

@ZOS_Kevin

Yamenstein · June 7

Unified_Gaming wrote: »

I farmed 2000+ raw mats and had 0 drops from ore, woods and runes. I managed to get 3 ink drops from alchemy plants so wonder if there is a bug maybe with the rolling on some resource types?

This was after 4 hours of farming and on an alt who had not done the quest line but had unlocked the first part and bought all grimoires as my main had completed the entire thing, unlocking all wings.

The drop chance in my opinion seems too low for how they wish you to interact with the system. They want players to get a new script and then consider changing a skill and using it and well, I've had more script drops than my ink.

Solution? Make daily script drops also drop 1 ink. That would be 3 per account a day so after a few days you could make all scribed skills and also know you can tweak them daily without too much issue.

@ZOS_Kevin

I can only imagine it's a bug.

Which if it was, then what frustrates me is once again the lack of communication.

They would, or should, have logging on their side. Each node harvested should create an event log indicated what calculations were done and the result. Identifying those logs and analyzing them should show the number of players receiving ink, how frequently and if any events (i.e.., harvesting ore, wood and runes) are not triggering a calculation on that formula.

vsrs_au · June 7

I'm up to 19 inks so far (and haven't used any), but I do quite a bit of resource farming.

sarahthes · June 7

Unified_Gaming wrote: »

I farmed 2000+ raw mats and had 0 drops from ore, woods and runes. I managed to get 3 ink drops from alchemy plants so wonder if there is a bug maybe with the rolling on some resource types?

This was after 4 hours of farming and on an alt who had not done the quest line but had unlocked the first part and bought all grimoires as my main had completed the entire thing, unlocking all wings.

The drop chance in my opinion seems too low for how they wish you to interact with the system. They want players to get a new script and then consider changing a skill and using it and well, I've had more script drops than my ink.

Solution? Make daily script drops also drop 1 ink. That would be 3 per account a day so after a few days you could make all scribed skills and also know you can tweak them daily without too much issue.

@ZOS_Kevin

I've gotten ink from all the sources you claim are bugged

ZOS_GinaBruno · June 7

Hi everyone, just wanted to let you know we've seen your feedback over the drop rate for ink. We've found that ink is not currently dropping from boss enemies, and we'll be fixing that in an upcoming incremental. Additionally, we did double check and confirm ink is dropping as intended from nodes, though it's worth reminding everyone that ink will only begin dropping from nodes after you've completed the Netch quest.

Once the fix goes out for the boss enemies, we'll continue to monitor the drop rate and make further adjustments if necessary.

MyNameIsElias · June 7

Does ink drop fom survey nodes?

Orbital78 · June 7

Unified_Gaming wrote: »

I farmed 2000+ raw mats and had 0 drops from ore, woods and runes. I managed to get 3 ink drops from alchemy plants so wonder if there is a bug maybe with the rolling on some resource types?

I didn't have luck with runestones, but I did get inks from all of the other sources.

mdjessup4906 · June 7

I've killed 2 of the new dolmens and done the new trial 6 times, looting everything I could find each time. 1 ink

TaSheen · June 7

MyNameIsElias wrote: »

Does ink drop fom survey nodes?

In one of the threads about this, someone said it didn't. Maybe from the PTS feedback thread?

freespirit · June 7

I'm old, I have a lot of free time, since I unlocked ink drops on Monday I have received just ONE ink from a drop!

Actually not sure where it dropped from.

My issue is that I don't chase the "meta" but as I'm unlocking more and more scripts, I am seeing plenty of spell combo's I fancy trying, just for fun.....

Ink is the defining factor stopping me from doing that atm, hopefully that will change as more hits the market but on PC-EU atm if buying ink, one spell would cost around 300k!

I'm not poor but that is a healthy chunck of gold.

For clarification I haven't actually dedicated time to farming per se but I have killed every mob i see and picked up every node I pass.

In four days of playing I would've hoped to see more than one drop! 😠

virtus753 · June 7

MyNameIsElias wrote: »

Does ink drop fom survey nodes?

It did not in over 1.5k nodes on PTS. I got 6 ink in 1k non-survey nodes on PTS.

I suggested they increase the rate on enemies, make Plentiful Harvest proc, and let survey nodes drop them. We got the first two.

At the very least they should have been clear whether “resource nodes” includes survey nodes for Ink purposes. Survey nodes are obviously resource nodes, so if they didn’t intend it to drop from them, they needed to mention that. As far as I’m aware that issue was not acknowledged.

Necrotech_Master · June 7

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone, just wanted to let you know we've seen your feedback over the drop rate for ink. We've found that ink is not currently dropping from boss enemies, and we'll be fixing that in an upcoming incremental. Additionally, we did double check and confirm ink is dropping as intended from nodes, though it's worth reminding everyone that ink will only begin dropping from nodes after you've completed the Netch quest.

Once the fix goes out for the boss enemies, we'll continue to monitor the drop rate and make further adjustments if necessary.

might explain why not really getting anything from enemy kills

i appreciate its being monitored though, because the ink drop rate overall is terrible in the current state (excluding known issues)

i did the scribing quests on monday and have yet to get a single ink drop through "normal" gameplay

dkblight · June 7

I finished scribing quests to crow and since then I've had about 9 ink randomly picking from nodes or incursions. Not one ink from mobs. I tend to wonder if they drop from mobs without going to areas with tons of trash mobs like craglorn. Ink should drop as I enjoy the game, grinding in one spot everyday to get some ink feels like a waste of experience we are paying monthly to do. At the moment, collecting ink is not my highest priority, so it's not a huge deal however, I still think it's worth taking notice.

Not all of us can play all day, a mortgage doesn't pay itself.