There needs to be a mercy system for antiquity leads.

alternatelder · January 27

Some of us give up for a very long time if we've farmed and farmed and farmed, but RNG is just never on our side. This leads to a very bitter taste for the antiquity sytem. Either make them available via the new Bazaar system, or build a mercy system like other games do (off the top of my head The First Descendant.) You choose the lead you want, but after a certain percentage of kills, if the lead has not dropped, the lead will be guaranteed drop.
Obviously don't make it easy, or cheap, but PLEASE, it needs to be added to save our sanity. You have way too many leads for different items in one activity/target, and way too much time needs to be spent that burns our interest away completely if RNG fails us. Yes, I am thinking of IA, how did you know?

I have already given up on some mythics, scrapped ideas for houses because that one lead for a furnishing has not dropped after spending almost a hundred hours in IA.

freespirit · January 27

Yes

Looking at you "Moons-Blessed Ceremonial Pool" and you "Prismatic Sunbird Feather" both of which stubbornly remain at codex 2/3 however hard I try!!

Buffy121 · January 29

Yes

A mercy system or increase the rate of drops.

zenonuk · January 29

Yes

I'd argue that they need this on most of the RNG aspects of the game where drops (not combat) are concerned.

Thumbless_Bot · January 29

Yes

freespirit wrote: »

Looking at you "Moons-Blessed Ceremonial Pool" and you "Prismatic Sunbird Feather" both of which stubbornly remain at codex 2/3 however hard I try!!

I got the third feather by going back and forth to the two gryphons for about three hours one day.

I gave up on the pool at one lead. It's a nice pool. I've turned mine into a jacuzzi in a sunroom. Wouldn't mind adding more to.my other homes....

katanagirl1 · January 29

Yes

Remember when they said that some unrelated dungeon achievement was accidentally added to the Eastern Solstice world boss lead for an antiquity furnishing and it would be fixed? They need to go back and check out all of the ones players have commented on that aren’t dropping and see if this is the case there too. It’s like some code was reused but not updated properly, or a copy/paste to save time was not edited for a different case. Also, they need to revisit the second leads and find out why they are so much higher than the first because there might be some inadvertent thing attached to them too that was not intended. I don’t think I have any of the second leads from IA or from West Weald except for that one purple tree.

SilverBride · January 29

Yes

I'd rather see a system where the RNG isn't so bad that it would require a mercy setting. And not gating leads behind systems that not many participate, such as ToT.

Also, why can't leads come from more than one source? Why can't the same lead drop from a group dungeon boss AND a public dungeon boss AND a delve boss for example?

alternatelder · January 29

Yes

SilverBride wrote: »

I'd rather see a system where the RNG isn't so bad that it would require a mercy setting. And not gating leads behind systems that not many participate, such as ToT.

Also, why can't leads come from more than one source? Why can't the same lead drop from a group dungeon boss AND a public dungeon boss AND a delve boss for example?

That'd be great too. There are some antiquities I won't be getting because I don't do all activities, but it'd be nice to complete them via another source.

MoonPile · January 30

Yes

There kind of is a mercy system – actually some people here on the forums actually told us about a couple of years ago (and of course can be found via normal gameplay with alts): new characters get a boost to lead drops.

But that doesn't help if:
1. you filled all your character slots and can't delete any
2. your lead is in content too difficult for a new toon (e.g. IA & others)
3. your lead is in Treasure Maps, which is a whole other system & problem. Recently acknowledged by ZOS actually! – https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8424683/#Comment_8424683

So yes, mercy for ALL leads please – and especially Map-based, which are the most heinous due to nested RNG + high gold + time costs.
.

NotaDaedraWorshipper · February 2

I'd say it should be cheap and easy. A lot of leads simply have way too low drop rate and should have a big increase so there wouldn't need to be some mercy system.

The lead drop rate is very noticeable if you're into housing because furniture leads are atrocious, especially the latest ones that drop from treasure maps. You need to loot like over 100 maps to get your 3/3. That's insane and shouldn't be needed.

MoonPile · February 9

Yes

NotaDaedraWorshipper wrote: »

I'd say it should be cheap and easy. A lot of leads simply have way too low drop rate and should have a big increase so there wouldn't need to be some mercy system.

The lead drop rate is very noticeable if you're into housing because furniture leads are atrocious, especially the latest ones that drop from treasure maps. You need to loot like over 100 maps to get your 3/3. That's insane and shouldn't be needed.

This. 100 is even a conservative estimate; it's possible to even go 76+ maps and 2 months without getting any leads, and 130+ maps used resulting in only 1 out of 6 items unlocked – if that. Data:

https://moonpile.tumblr.com/post/796136099180396544/solstice-treasure-map-leads-data-sept-30

Everyone with experience unlocking Treasure-Map-exclusive Antiquity furnishings, please come take this survey hosted by The Real Endgame – an ESO Housing community on Discord (https://discord.gg/8A9XByfhxV). We're seeking your input on Treasure Map Leads for Antiquity furnishings from a housing perspective:

⭐ https://forms.gle/Yx4D6gqzKf4Lzvc47

16BitForestCat · February 10

Yes

MoonPile wrote: »

There kind of is a mercy system – actually some people here on the forums actually told us about a couple of years ago (and of course can be found via normal gameplay with alts): new characters get a boost to lead drops

Oh, this is interesting! Is there more data about this recorded somewhere? Like, what defines a "new" character? What defines a character as no longer having "new" status? How does all this even work? I'm not a "create/delete/remake alts for drops" type, but I enjoy casually studying things like loot tables for my own curiosity. And I also try to learn how to get my leads as expediently as possible since the only thing holding me back from getting big into housing is the constant frustration in getting furnishings.

Silufadumar · February 10

Yes

A friend of mine had to run a dungeon over 250 times to get a lead to drop, for the dwarven wolf mount, from Darkshade Caverns 2.

Which of course is absolutely ridiculous.

This should never be a thing.

A mercy rule should be mandatory for such rng rewards.

Not everyone has the same amount of spare time, but regardless of the amount, that time should be respected.

The completions needed before a guaranteed drop should vary depending on the time and effort needed to complete the activity, of course, but it has to be sensible.

For example, any dungeon should not have to be ran more than 20 times before a guaranteed drop of such rng rewards, and I'm sure others would argue for it to be less.

In any case, a mercy rule is absolutely needed for these things.

MoonPile · February 10

Yes

16BitForestCat wrote: »

MoonPile wrote: »

There kind of is a mercy system – actually some people here on the forums actually told us about a couple of years ago (and of course can be found via normal gameplay with alts): new characters get a boost to lead drops

Oh, this is interesting! Is there more data about this recorded somewhere? Like, what defines a "new" character? What defines a character as no longer having "new" status? How does all this even work? I'm not a "create/delete/remake alts for drops" type, but I enjoy casually studying things like loot tables for my own curiosity. And I also try to learn how to get my leads as expediently as possible since the only thing holding me back from getting big into housing is the constant frustration in getting furnishings.

It's just something players figured out years ago and happened with my playstyle that I'd be doing anyway, luckily I guess. But Idk if anyone's tested it so extensively. I'd certainly prefer a more reliable system that works for all players and lead types.

MoonPile · February 19

Yes

Just want to add some relevant info here, because I had fun during the Hearts event doing something I normally wouldn't – farming one delve boss all day – and learned something interesting:

No Cooldown on Leads! & Other facts about ESO drops, with screenshots

I have like 10 "free" Gazebos now (not counting my alt's) and I'm very happy about it. When drop rates are good, I'd often rather go play the game to get another. It keeps content evergreen.

But currently, RNG is often so bad for many items, that it makes me sick of a place quickly and never want to go there again. E.g. I had to forget about the Mirror. I stopped trying in 2024; the item is nearly 3 years old and I guess I'll never complete it. Likewise, as I said in the "No Cooldown" post above, another "free" Moons Blessed Pool is not worth the time.

LootAllTheStuff · February 19

For those advocating for a "mercy rule": How do you see that being implemented?

MoonPile · February 20

Yes

LootAllTheStuff wrote: »

For those advocating for a "mercy rule": How do you see that being implemented?

The OP made a suggestion and most games that have it do something similar: increased % after each failure, or guaranteed after a certain number of attempts, etc.
There is sort of an existing "help" in ESO that's been known for years. I pointed out in my first reply above, but again, with the stated caveats. I'd like to see simply better rates all around (like those for the Gazebo), and/or one of the above systems. I don't play other MMOs so I couldn't tell you which type works best in practice, but I'd hope the Devs will choose one that works best for ESO (and take feedback from testers).
Other players have suggested making Antiquity furnishings tradeable. It doesn't solve the core problem of getting them (especially 2/3 - 3/3 codex) to begin with, but personally I don't see any cons to that. Loads of people don't even care about them, so they just take up space pointlessly or get destroyed. Instead, those of us who do want them could buy them from players.

LootAllTheStuff · February 21

MoonPile wrote: »

LootAllTheStuff wrote: »

For those advocating for a "mercy rule": How do you see that being implemented?

The OP made a suggestion and most games that have it do something similar: increased % after each failure, or guaranteed after a certain number of attempts, etc.

There is sort of an existing "help" in ESO that's been known for years. I pointed out in my first reply above, but again, with the stated caveats. I'd like to see simply better rates all around (like those for the Gazebo), and/or one of the above systems. I don't play other MMOs so I couldn't tell you which type works best in practice, but I'd hope the Devs will choose one that works best for ESO (and take feedback from testers).

Other players have suggested making Antiquity furnishings tradeable. It doesn't solve the core problem of getting them (especially 2/3 - 3/3 codex) to begin with, but personally I don't see any cons to that. Loads of people don't even care about them, so they just take up space pointlessly or get destroyed. Instead, those of us who do want them could buy them from players.

I'm trying to decide whether an increasing drop chance for each failed roll of the virtual dice would be a net good or not, but it very much depends on how it's implemented.

One way to implement would simply be to have a rolling calculation that increases the drop chance for every failed roll for an item of a given rarity level. But that assumes that you have a common "roll for a chance of an epic item" associated will every loot source (or source in a given category). That's not particularly granular, though, and it wouldn't necessarily help with the map lead problem if you looted other sources in between opening treasure map chests.

The other way you could do this would be to keep track of how many attempts had been made for each specific lead, and recalculate based at a much more granular level. But know you've added a whole bunch of extra values that must be stored in memory and I'm not sure that's a good thing either.

I'm not sure how else you could implement a "mercy" system, especially for a game this large, but if anyone has experience with such things it would be interesting to find out more specific details.

My thoughts would be some combination of the following:

Split the general loot pool for leads from chests into a set of smaller pools, and either allow a roll for a chance from each one (multiple leads possible but unlikely) or put different pools into different zones.
Increase the drop chance for higher rarity leads specifically from treasure map chests to compensate for the double RNG of map + lead
Provide additional sources for the leads across the game

MoonPile · February 21

Yes

LootAllTheStuff wrote: »

MoonPile wrote: »

LootAllTheStuff wrote: »

For those advocating for a "mercy rule": How do you see that being implemented?

The OP made a suggestion and most games that have it do something similar: increased % after each failure, or guaranteed after a certain number of attempts, etc.

There is sort of an existing "help" in ESO that's been known for years. I pointed out in my first reply above, but again, with the stated caveats. I'd like to see simply better rates all around (like those for the Gazebo), and/or one of the above systems. I don't play other MMOs so I couldn't tell you which type works best in practice, but I'd hope the Devs will choose one that works best for ESO (and take feedback from testers).

Other players have suggested making Antiquity furnishings tradeable. It doesn't solve the core problem of getting them (especially 2/3 - 3/3 codex) to begin with, but personally I don't see any cons to that. Loads of people don't even care about them, so they just take up space pointlessly or get destroyed. Instead, those of us who do want them could buy them from players.

I'm trying to decide whether an increasing drop chance for each failed roll of the virtual dice would be a net good or not, but it very much depends on how it's implemented.

One way to implement would simply be to have a rolling calculation that increases the drop chance for every failed roll for an item of a given rarity level. But that assumes that you have a common "roll for a chance of an epic item" associated will every loot source (or source in a given category). That's not particularly granular, though, and it wouldn't necessarily help with the map lead problem if you looted other sources in between opening treasure map chests.

The other way you could do this would be to keep track of how many attempts had been made for each specific lead, and recalculate based at a much more granular level. But know you've added a whole bunch of extra values that must be stored in memory and I'm not sure that's a good thing either.

I'm not sure how else you could implement a "mercy" system, especially for a game this large, but if anyone has experience with such things it would be interesting to find out more specific details.

My thoughts would be some combination of the following:
Split the general loot pool for leads from chests into a set of smaller pools, and either allow a roll for a chance from each one (multiple leads possible but unlikely) or put different pools into different zones.

Increase the drop chance for higher rarity leads specifically from treasure map chests to compensate for the double RNG of map + lead

Provide additional sources for the leads across the game

it very much depends on how it's implemented.

For sure

how else you could implement a "mercy" system, especially for a game this large,

Lots of large games have them, from Gachas like Genshin Impact to Dota, WOW, and Diablo.

Here's an interesting comment about the system in Diablo:
https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/63fqu7/comment/dftu4mk/

According to developers, on average you should be rolling at least one legendary item every 2 hours. If that’s not happening, after two hours the game will start to take notice that you haven’t rolled a legendary item. If this proceeds for another couple of hours, the Safety Net will kick in.

As someone who spent a stretch of 2 months & 76 maps without leads (+ others had larger streaks of nearly 200 lead-less), and fought Nightmare dozens of times over months and never got a Mirror piece, and still can't get another Vitrified Soul Crystal to drop in Solstice since months ago – not even for newbies, I'd be overjoyed for a 2-hour timer, or almost anything really! Instead, for now I just give up on these things and pretend they don't exist. What a waste all around.

Another example from the same thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/63fqu7/comment/dftwexv/

World of Warcraft has "bad luck protection" on legendary items, so after each boss kill your chances of getting a legendary item increase.

Heck, ESO finally even implemented curation and stickerbook for dungeon gear – that's a kind of mercy system.

But us Housers still have to suffer at every level, from bad RNG to our main gameplay being wildly expensive by default. Little wonder that some great builders have gone off to play Palia etc. instead.

I'm not a Dev and don't know what would be right for this game, but they said they will look into it at least for Maps to start, so I hope they can figure something out. (P.S. I see you in the other threads and I'm sure you're aware! Just leaving all this info here for whoever else might read, anyway.)
.

MoonPile · March 6

Yes

Related:
Calling on forum-post magic / Solstice RNG deities:
Please grant this one 2/3 and 3/3 Vitrified Soul Crystal Leads soon!

Khajiit has opened many chests, urns, and battled many Worm Cultists etc. throughout Solstice for weeks, but all she gets is Crocodile Skulls and Pendulums. (However, Khajiit will not touch Maps, even with a 10-foot-pole.)

That is all.
Thank you.

EDIT: FWIW, As of March 17, none of my attempts at calling on forum- or chat-post magic have worked 😂 I am cursed.

MidnightDuel · March 27

Other

alternatelder wrote: »

Some of us give up for a very long time if we've farmed and farmed and farmed, but RNG is just never on our side. This leads to a very bitter taste for the antiquity sytem. Either make them available via the new Bazaar system, or build a mercy system like other games do (off the top of my head The First Descendant.) You choose the lead you want, but after a certain percentage of kills, if the lead has not dropped, the lead will be guaranteed drop.
Obviously don't make it easy, or cheap, but PLEASE, it needs to be added to save our sanity. You have way too many leads for different items in one activity/target, and way too much time needs to be spent that burns our interest away completely if RNG fails us. Yes, I am thinking of IA, how did you know?.

There is already (sort of) a "mercy system" in ESO for difficult to obtain leads, but it's nearly impossible get leads there either. I'm speaking of the Infinite Archive and Imperical City merchants that have a weekly rotation of leads for sale. First you have to have the currency to buy the lead and then hope that one day the lead might actually appear to purchase.

LootAllTheStuff · March 27

MidnightDuel wrote: »

alternatelder wrote: »

Some of us give up for a very long time if we've farmed and farmed and farmed, but RNG is just never on our side. This leads to a very bitter taste for the antiquity sytem. Either make them available via the new Bazaar system, or build a mercy system like other games do (off the top of my head The First Descendant.) You choose the lead you want, but after a certain percentage of kills, if the lead has not dropped, the lead will be guaranteed drop.
Obviously don't make it easy, or cheap, but PLEASE, it needs to be added to save our sanity. You have way too many leads for different items in one activity/target, and way too much time needs to be spent that burns our interest away completely if RNG fails us. Yes, I am thinking of IA, how did you know?.

There is already (sort of) a "mercy system" in ESO for difficult to obtain leads, but it's nearly impossible get leads there either. I'm speaking of the Infinite Archive and Imperical City merchants that have a weekly rotation of leads for sale. First you have to have the currency to buy the lead and then hope that one day the lead might actually appear to purchase.

That honestly sounds more like a "give me a paper cut and pour lemon juice on it" system.

katanagirl1 · March 28

Yes

MidnightDuel wrote: »

alternatelder wrote: »

Some of us give up for a very long time if we've farmed and farmed and farmed, but RNG is just never on our side. This leads to a very bitter taste for the antiquity sytem. Either make them available via the new Bazaar system, or build a mercy system like other games do (off the top of my head The First Descendant.) You choose the lead you want, but after a certain percentage of kills, if the lead has not dropped, the lead will be guaranteed drop.
Obviously don't make it easy, or cheap, but PLEASE, it needs to be added to save our sanity. You have way too many leads for different items in one activity/target, and way too much time needs to be spent that burns our interest away completely if RNG fails us. Yes, I am thinking of IA, how did you know?.

There is already (sort of) a "mercy system" in ESO for difficult to obtain leads, but it's nearly impossible get leads there either. I'm speaking of the Infinite Archive and Imperical City merchants that have a weekly rotation of leads for sale. First you have to have the currency to buy the lead and then hope that one day the lead might actually appear to purchase.

Not all leads can be bought there, they are mostly fragments for the mythics. There are treasure maps for sale, but not the leads from them. If your RNG is bad then buying maps may or may not help.

I do not consider this a mercy system as far as treasure map leads go.

MidnightDuel · March 28

Other

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Not all leads can be bought there, they are mostly fragments for the mythics. There are treasure maps for sale, but not the leads from them. If your RNG is bad then buying maps may or may not help.

I do not consider this a mercy system as far as treasure map leads go.

Never said it was a good system. With only four leads on offer each week (two each from IA and IC) and over 770 leads in the game, the chance of the lead you want being in the store is nearly zero.

The rotating inventory of zone treasure maps is also a cruel attempt to appear like there's an alternative to horrible RNG and double-locked leads. It's like giving a dog a bone that's already been picked clean and bleached in the sun. No better than a distracting chew toy.

katanagirl1 · March 28

Yes

I do not like the band-aid approach to leads anyway. You put the time into getting them, except you don’t get them. Then you have to grind more somewhere else to get currency to buy them if you are lucky, and that is not guaranteed.

Just increase the chances for them to drop directly. They are too low to be reasonable in many cases.

Necrotech_Master · March 28

i only really farm the first lead drop, and then just pick up leads from the archive rotation vendor to fill out more codex entries

this doesnt necessarily help treasure map leads though (unless the yellow lead comes from a treasure map)

ideally treasure map leads should be curated for missing codex entries and have increased chance for leads

The Elder Scrolls Online

There needs to be a mercy system for antiquity leads.

There needs to be a mercy system for antiquity leads. 57 votes