Crafting Survey Assistant
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OutLaw_Nynx✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭DenverRalphy wrote: »OutLaw_Nynx wrote: »I don’t mind doing surveys now as a console player bc I have an add on that tells me where it is.
Over the past week, one of the things I see most on the PSNA server are players expressing their astonishment over how easy PC players have had of it due to add-ons. I mean they always knew at some level. But until they recently experienced it first-hand, it blows their minds.
I switched to consoles a couple years back now, and I was still surprised at how much I'd forgotten.
Yeah.. we have been living in the Stone Age so this is an improvement.
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RealLoveBVB✭✭✭✭✭
✭SilverBride wrote: »Assistants are a thing already. Why are some ok but others aren't?
Because none of the existing ones are doing tasks for you.2 -
wolfie1.0.✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭Given that surveys will now stack like Master writs, I find it unlikely that we will get much more from zos regarding surveys. They will take up less inventory space and the message is clear.
Zos wants us to go out and collect them manually when we open them. They will also be easier to destroy as well.
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wolfie1.0.✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭Cooperharley wrote: »RealLoveBVB wrote: »SilverBride wrote: »RealLoveBVB wrote: »SilverBride wrote: »RealLoveBVB wrote: »SilverBride wrote: »RealLoveBVB wrote: »If you need the mats so badly, isn't it way cheaper to sell your many, many crowns and buy the mats with all your million earned gold?
Many players don't gather mats from surveys because they need them. They gather them to sell.
If there was a survey assistant I would use it.
Then they should invest the time to harvest them, like everyone else who is harvesting mats several hours a day to make some gold.
This sounds like "I want money, but don't want to work for it".
I'm here to play and have fun, and I'm not going to spend my time farming resources.
Exactly. So why would anyone expect free mats then, when they don't invest time for it.
What free mats? Surveys don't just appear out of nowhere. They are earned by doing daily crafting writs.
I invested time and gold getting all my characters to level 50 in all the crafts to prepare to do these writs every day. I've put in my time.
And with being on crafting level 50, your hirelings send you free mats everyday for your invested time.
Surveys appear somewhat out of nowhere, when doing daily writs cost only 70 seconds of our time.
The assistant would be so much pay 2 win, as they gather you ressources you wouldn't have gathered else.
I've seen a lot of player inventories with several hundred spots filled with surveys and maps.
Having an assistant who gathers your mats would be a huge slap in the face for players who spent several hours every day to harvest ressources. Often those ressources are the only income those players have, when they sell those mats in guild traders.
An assistant would also de-value mats dramatically, as traders will be flooded with mats, when several thousand surveys are generated every day and an assistant is just collecting it immediately.
In other words: the players laziness keep mat prices high.
Having more crafting materials is not P2W lol, people completely misuse this term all the time. Pay to win is like purchasing a piece of gear that is significantly better than another player's gear with real $ while earning it in game would take significantly more time. Me having more ancestor silk does not make me more powerful than you. That's, in my opinion, a complete misrepresentation of that. Go play lost ark if you wanna see pay to win
Where do you store all of those mats? Do you use mules or do you have the craft bag?
While it isnt as blatantly op as in some games craft bag access and assistant access technically are pay to access mechanics in eso.
There are ways to access or work around such features in eso. But you have to at least acknowledge that being able to store near limitless crafting mats vs having restricted overall storage is a pay to win mechanic as it gives an advantage to a paying customer. Yes you still have to work for content, you still have to farm, but it is an advantage.
And ultimately thats what pay to win means, it means if you pay you get an advantage over others. Now other games may make that an OP advantage or not. One could argue that arcanist, with subclassing, is a pay to win class, and I think a case can be made.
So understand that while opinions on p2w features may be subjective on how severe they are, that you can pay for advantages is an option in eso.0 -
SilverBride✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭RealLoveBVB wrote: »SilverBride wrote: »Assistants are a thing already. Why are some ok but others aren't?
Because none of the existing ones are doing tasks for you.
They are banking, deconstructing, repairing and buying from the player without them having to go to town to do it themselves.PCNA3 -
tomofhyrule✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I feel like the easy solution is make it so only your first set of daily writs per day per account give a reward box. Then people who want to do them every day on 20 characters don't get a bag full of surveys since the other ones don't reward any!
right?
Look, doing 20+ sets of daily writs a day (or shall we say, having Dolgubon's do them for you) is a choice. If you don't intend to collect all of the surveys from them, then don't do that many. Seriously, people are making the "I can't be bothered to spend time doing chores and not playing the game" argument when they evidently can be bothered to do the chores to get the surveys first.
Don't do as many. You'll enjoy your time a lot more and you won't have million of surveys. Win-win. And as a bonus, you won't need to buy as many materials because you won't be using them up so fast anymore.
But really, "do the survey" is a part of the "do writs on everyone every day" process. This is essentially a step away from asking for an assistant to just do the writs for you in the first place and drop the gold and goodies in your bank automatically, which - let's face it - Dolgubon's is essentially doing for you anyway. Maybe ask him to make a totally-not-a-macro-autoplay-for-me addon to collect the surveys for you as well.1 -
wolfie1.0.✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭tomofhyrule wrote: »I feel like the easy solution is make it so only your first set of daily writs per day per account give a reward box. Then people who want to do them every day on 20 characters don't get a bag full of surveys since the other ones don't reward any!
right?
Look, doing 20+ sets of daily writs a day (or shall we say, having Dolgubon's do them for you) is a choice. If you don't intend to collect all of the surveys from them, then don't do that many. Seriously, people are making the "I can't be bothered to spend time doing chores and not playing the game" argument when they evidently can be bothered to do the chores to get the surveys first.
Don't do as many. You'll enjoy your time a lot more and you won't have million of surveys. Win-win. And as a bonus, you won't need to buy as many materials because you won't be using them up so fast anymore.
But really, "do the survey" is a part of the "do writs on everyone every day" process. This is essentially a step away from asking for an assistant to just do the writs for you in the first place and drop the gold and goodies in your bank automatically, which - let's face it - Dolgubon's is essentially doing for you anyway. Maybe ask him to make a totally-not-a-macro-autoplay-for-me addon to collect the surveys for you as well.
I will say that the cost to upkeep, as in to be able to play any content at will, seems to go up almost exponentially per every character added. Its even worse if you intend to maintain more than one account that way. Believe me I have tried. But due to the sheer amount of character bound and account bound reliance that we have now its more daunting. Ultimately, I think thats what really needs to be addressed. Time consumption.1 -
Frayton✭✭✭✭SilverBride wrote: »RealLoveBVB wrote: »SilverBride wrote: »Assistants are a thing already. Why are some ok but others aren't?
Because none of the existing ones are doing tasks for you.
They are banking, deconstructing, repairing and buying from the player without them having to go to town to do it themselves.
We also have the thieves den assistant for fencing so we don't have to go to a thieves den.2 -
DenverRalphy✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭Doesn't matter how many assistants there currently are in game. It's still different. They all offer a mobile replacement to services offered by other interactive objects or NPCs.
A survey assistant would be different because it would be replacing the player. Effectively playing the game on behalf of the player.
No matter which way ya cut it. This thread is asking for a shortcut to circumvent an immersive time sink. Are all time sinks enjoyable? Obviously not. But they're there for a reason. It's a standard mechanic in every successful online game.2 -
kargen27✭✭✭✭✭
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@karthrag_inakkarthrag_inak wrote: »
An MMO needs to feel populated. Players are more apt to keep playing if the areas they are in are populated with other players. Sending an assistant to gather surveys would remove a reason players return to older zones. Those zones would feel more empty than they do now. More players running around keeps us running around.and then the parrot said, "must be the water mines green too."0 -
darkriketz✭✭✭Ragnarok0130 wrote: »This would not be good for the game. We need more reasons to visit existing zones not less.
No we don't, people doing crafting surveys add nothing to the existing zones. They jump in at the nearest way shrine in the middle of nowhere, gather the survey, and immediately leave (usually by portaling from the survey site to the nearest way shrine in the next zone) to do the next survey in the next zone. They are not doing content or interacting with other players.
To be honest I don't interact with anyone when I'm picking up all my survey materials (generally six or seven maps at once, I don't pile up too much), but only because I pick the materials with my main character, who also is my master crafter, and she has completed everything that can be done in most provinces. Unless I'm in a helpful mood and I can invest some time assisting other players, regarding my IRL time, there's no point for me to linger in any province.
Survey maps aren't a chore for me, but they're also not fun enough for me to take my time while following them.2 -
darkriketz✭✭✭DenverRalphy wrote: »Doesn't matter how many assistants there currently are in game. It's still different. They all offer a mobile replacement to services offered by other interactive objects or NPCs.
A survey assistant would be different because it would be replacing the player. Effectively playing the game on behalf of the player.
No matter which way ya cut it. This thread is asking for a shortcut to circumvent an immersive time sink. Are all time sinks enjoyable? Obviously not. But they're there for a reason. It's a standard mechanic in every successful online game.
Exactly.
I really feel that from the beginning this tread is like "I want to grind gold as fast as possible, please let me skip parts of the game that I don't like."
Well, if you're so eager to get gold, do what it required to become richer. I've been completing master writs for years, it can be tedious, especially since the moment I've decided to complete more writs at once and less often, because you're basically reading and standing in a guild house to craft 40 or more different items and try not to forget any (last time was 2 days ago and I forgot 5 alchemy produces, luckily Mournhold alchemy station isn't far from Rolis Hlaalu), but I don't skip this part of master writs gold-making because that's the least fun.
Years ago while installing Writworthy I noticed on ESOUI an addon that helped players complete daily writs faster : they just had to interact with the crafting stations and everything was automatically crafted.
Please, go play Satisfactory if you want industrial automatic production. It's TESO here, players actually play.Edited by darkriketz on July 4, 2025 11:45PM0 -
Cooperharley✭✭✭✭✭
✭RealLoveBVB wrote: »Cooperharley wrote: »RealLoveBVB wrote: »SilverBride wrote: »RealLoveBVB wrote: »SilverBride wrote: »RealLoveBVB wrote: »SilverBride wrote: »RealLoveBVB wrote: »If you need the mats so badly, isn't it way cheaper to sell your many, many crowns and buy the mats with all your million earned gold?
Many players don't gather mats from surveys because they need them. They gather them to sell.
If there was a survey assistant I would use it.
Then they should invest the time to harvest them, like everyone else who is harvesting mats several hours a day to make some gold.
This sounds like "I want money, but don't want to work for it".
I'm here to play and have fun, and I'm not going to spend my time farming resources.
Exactly. So why would anyone expect free mats then, when they don't invest time for it.
What free mats? Surveys don't just appear out of nowhere. They are earned by doing daily crafting writs.
I invested time and gold getting all my characters to level 50 in all the crafts to prepare to do these writs every day. I've put in my time.
And with being on crafting level 50, your hirelings send you free mats everyday for your invested time.
Surveys appear somewhat out of nowhere, when doing daily writs cost only 70 seconds of our time.
The assistant would be so much pay 2 win, as they gather you ressources you wouldn't have gathered else.
I've seen a lot of player inventories with several hundred spots filled with surveys and maps.
Having an assistant who gathers your mats would be a huge slap in the face for players who spent several hours every day to harvest ressources. Often those ressources are the only income those players have, when they sell those mats in guild traders.
An assistant would also de-value mats dramatically, as traders will be flooded with mats, when several thousand surveys are generated every day and an assistant is just collecting it immediately.
In other words: the players laziness keep mat prices high.
Having more crafting materials is not P2W lol, people completely misuse this term all the time. Pay to win is like purchasing a piece of gear that is significantly better than another player's gear with real $ while earning it in game would take significantly more time. Me having more ancestor silk does not make me more powerful than you. That's, in my opinion, a complete misrepresentation of that. Go play lost ark if you wanna see pay to win
Surveys include raw mats. Refining them can grant you golden upgrader. Upgrading your purple gear makes you stronger.
Or: sell all those mats on guild vendors, buy DLCs for gold, where you can gather better gear.
Just think outside the Box.
You're stretching big time bud lol but agree to disagree there..PS5-NA. For The Queen!4 -
Frayton✭✭✭✭More players running around keeps us running around.
I don't know about anyone else but more players running around don't keep me running around. It's actually really weird when I run into someone doing surveys because we can't see their harvest animation, so it just looks like someone is AFK or randomly moving to nothing every few seconds. It gets awkward when you're also harvesting the same survey and you and the other players just look like bots moving in sync from node to node.3 -
mdjessup4906✭✭✭✭Having an assistant who gathers your mats would be a huge slap in the face for players who spent several hours every day to harvest ressources. Often those ressources are the only income those players have, when they sell those mats in guild traders.
I honestly cant figure why anyone would try to make gold like that. Exclusively anyway. Such a time sink. Just doing the writs on 9 leveled crafters gets you something like several thousand gold a day. More than enough to repair armor or whatever. Things like motifs and recipes are way better imo because you get them while playing normally and not just farming.
In about 3 years of actively trading ive only ever sold mats a few times and that was just to pad the slots. 99.99% of the time keep them for myself to make gear with.
Id sell the surveys if I could. Or even just give them away to people who actually want to do them. But getting an assistant to do them for me so I have even more crap to make gear with would be nice too.
Anything that reduces tedium is a good thing in my book.
Edited by mdjessup4906 on July 5, 2025 6:09PM3 -
mdjessup4906✭✭✭✭Dolgubon's is essentially doing for you anyway.
I have to disagree with this. One hour of my life (or anyone else's) per day is not nothing.
Edited by mdjessup4906 on July 5, 2025 6:06PM4 -
mdjessup4906✭✭✭✭The thing, for me at least, is that the surveys wouldn't even be so bad if they had implemented sensible things like instant reset of the nodes, or letting you collect multiple at once. But no, you have to run all the way out to the middle of nowhere and then run back and forth a dozen times to let each. And. Every. One. Respawn. And I dont even stack them that high, just like 5 or 6 at most. Who in their right mind wants to go through that?
And the way they been laying out the nodes in later zones, all ridiculously spread out, makes it even worse. Just why???
How about have a long-ish wait timer on the assistant that simulates how long it takes a real person (who isnt some kind of hyper optimized super farmer) to collect a stack of a moderately inconvenient set.
Maybe ill time this myself for a recommendation.Edited by mdjessup4906 on July 5, 2025 5:57PM4 -
DenverRalphy✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭mdjessup4906 wrote: »How about have a long-ish wait timer on the assistant that simulates how long it takes a real person (who isnt some kind of hyper optimized super farmer) to collect a stack of a moderately inconvenient set.
Wouldn't matter since you'd still be sidestepping the time sink. Because it would happen concurrently with other gameplay.Edited by DenverRalphy on July 5, 2025 6:49PM0 -
RealLoveBVB✭✭✭✭✭
✭mdjessup4906 wrote: »Having an assistant who gathers your mats would be a huge slap in the face for players who spent several hours every day to harvest ressources. Often those ressources are the only income those players have, when they sell those mats in guild traders.
I honestly cant figure why anyone would try to make gold like that. Exclusively anyway. Such a time sink. Just doing the writs on 9 leveled crafters gets you something like several thousand gold a day. More than enough to repair armor or whatever. Things like motifs and recipes are way better imo because you get them while playing normally and not just farming.
In about 3 years of actively trading ive only ever sold mats a few times and that was just to pad the slots. 99.99% of the time keep them for myself to make gear with.
Id sell the surveys if I could. Or even just give them away to people who actually want to do them. But getting an assistant to do them for me so I have even more crap to make gear with would be nice too.
Anything that reduces tedium is a good thing in my book.
Mats are always the most demanded thing in game with stable prices.
Which motifs or recipes are valuable these days?
With dungeons and trials being super easy and events, that flood you with motifs, the prices are 24/7 at the bottom. Motifs are barely worth more than 10k, while a dreughwax is on 15k, which requires a bit of farming.
20 minutes farming ressources gets you more gold than playing a 20 min DLC dungeon with a motif drop.0 -
mdjessup4906✭✭✭✭Idk I sold some random motif for 250k the other day. Guess thats not alot. Granted i dont care about gold at all unless I want to buy crowns.
Maybe hard core traders would abuse the thing, but as I said, I keep all mats for my own use so the assistant would literally only help me not wait an extra month or two to collect enough decon trash to get some extra gold platings.
Or, forget the assistant and just make the nodes less annoying to harvest like i and others have mentioned above. Either way. Assistant is probably easier for the devs than fixing a million node locations though.Edited by mdjessup4906 on July 5, 2025 7:25PM0 -
RealLoveBVB✭✭✭✭✭
✭mdjessup4906 wrote: »Idk I sold some random motif for 250k the other day. Guess thats not alot. Granted i dont care about gold at all unless I want to buy crowns.
It was either the dromathra-chest piece, where you only have a chance once a week to drop it, or a new released motif from the latest dungeons. There are none else, that are that high in price.
Claiming a lucky drop doesn't make an argument.
Besides that: new players can't clear a dungeon or trial on vet to drop motifs, so their only income is actually selling mats.
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GeneralEU✭✭✭Personally, I also think that such a ‘Crafting Survey Assistant’ would be cool. But a simpler solution would be that since we have 10x the same maps in one spot, we also collect 10x from one place. Let's be honest, we have more and more zones, and collecting maps after a month of collecting becomes annoying. I know that Survey Maps are supposed to work similarly to Master Writs in the next update, but in my opinion, that's just sugarcoating the problem. Anyway, it will require the player to open, for example, 200 pieces, and then collect materials from individual maps as it is now.2 -
DenverRalphy✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭RealLoveBVB wrote: »mdjessup4906 wrote: »Idk I sold some random motif for 250k the other day. Guess thats not alot. Granted i dont care about gold at all unless I want to buy crowns.
It was either the dromathra-chest piece, where you only have a chance once a week to drop it, or a new released motif from the latest dungeons. There are none else, that are that high in price.
Claiming a lucky drop doesn't make an argument.
Besides that: new players can't clear a dungeon or trial on vet to drop motifs, so their only income is actually selling mats.
There are several motifs that sell for that price (and higher). I still have a bunch banked from Jubilee that are selling in the 300k-600k range again now that the saturation slump has passed. And my prices are a bit cheaper than many others.
Edited by DenverRalphy on July 5, 2025 8:57PM1 -
wolfie1.0.✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭One thing to make sure is noted. Please be careful what you ask zos to change or add.
Because one solution that comes to mind about players complaining about surveys is simply reduce the drop rate.3