Removing Map Based Leads?

MidnightDuel · February 25

ESO has a broad and varied player base and years of content for diverse play styles. When the Antiquities system was introduced, leads for everything dropped from a variety of sources and there were no shortcuts. Having a completed codex didn't matter if you wanted five Wild Hunt rings or five Vampiric Stained Glass windows. Each Antiquity had to be farmed separately and repeatedly if a player wanted more than one. While not an ideal situation, at least it was equitable, not favoring any player group over another.

Unfortunately, over time there has developed an enormous inequity in the game in regard to how much "grind" is required for players to achieve their individual goals, particularly with regard to Antiquities. If one's focus is combat, the sources of mythic leads are now mostly combat-related activities. In contrast, players with a focus on housing have seen an unfavorable shift to furnishing leads double triple-locked behind rare zone Treasure Maps, poor drop rates, and large loot tables.

Whereas combat-focused Mythic gear only needs to be unlocked once for virtually endless recreation, Antiquity furnishings either require a complete codex to buy extras with gold or remain forever double-locked behind the original source.

What we are asking for is that the developers make the game systems fair and equitable to all players and play styles, not favoring combat over player housing in this case.

First steps to bringing back equality are:

Make rare zone treasure maps for Solstice, West Weald, Apocrypha and The Telvanni Peninsula more available and accessible, not locking them behind "Archival Fortunes" and "Tel Var" treasure map purchases either.
Add CURATION to the leads that drop from Treasure Maps, just like combat gear from dungeons, trials and infinite archive sets.
Make all antiquities purchasable from sellers after the first antiquity, instead of requiring a full codex, and not locking the other (blue and green quality) furnishings behind endless lead farming.

kitsun_dark · February 26

The only thing i don't understand is why these antiquities can't be bought after finding 3 pieces. It just doesn't make sense, because you can do it with antiquities not from treasure maps. Or these leads should drop really often if you don't let us buy them.
I want to get 25 apocrypha shells for my house and i still only have 3 after a few dozen treasure maps. If the rules were more adequate, i could have already bought it.

MoonPile · February 26

kitsun_dark wrote: »

The only thing i don't understand is why these antiquities can't be bought after finding 3 pieces. It just doesn't make sense, because you can do it with antiquities not from treasure maps. Or these leads should drop really often if you don't let us buy them.
I want to get 25 apocrypha shells for my house and i still only have 3 after a few dozen treasure maps. If the rules were more adequate, i could have already bought it.

This seems to be unintentional, AFAIK. All antiquities are supposed to be buyable. But, of course, I do not know of any internal plans nor timeline to fix this.

Separately,
Re: Curation above – Yes, but also improving drop rates. More akin to those for 1/3 codex.
Related: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/688204/there-needs-to-be-a-mercy-system-for-antiquity-leads

Aside,
(TL;DR: I'm in a bad mood and hate maps. Feel free to ignore this.)

Happy for people who somehow enjoy Treasure Maps. I can't speak for all Housers, but personally, I find Maps to be one of the most boring systems in the game.

There is nothing I find interesting about scouring TTC for the cheapest maps, running to try to buy them before they're gone, scouring TTC some more, then trying to organize them in inventory (at least that will be helped in U49), then running back and forth refreshing the "treasure" site, and getting a bunch of decon junk 95%+ of the time. Not to mention the dry streaks that players are seeing: 25 - 150+ maps of nothing but junk.

As shown here, I'd literally rather sit in one spot and kill the same boss all day – crucially: to get multiple of the item I like – than do Maps at all.

What I do find fun:
Going to the NPC housing vendors, buying the items I want with gold, and then spending my time doing creative projects in Housing.

"So you just want everything for free" is a common retort – But at no point is any of it free. I paid for the DLC with real money, I've paid for ESO+ with real money. Items are obtained via achievements and with gold gotten by playing the game, doing things I found at least somewhat enjoyable. But yes, I would like the stuff without a boring middle system to grind through to get it. And no, I don't care a single iota about MMO conventions; I'm certain that more fun and interesting systems can supplant this.

So at the very least, if we have to have housing items stuck in Maps, let it be over quickly. If there's players out there who enjoy doing this organically, waiting for the Map to drop, finding the site without any addons, etc. – nobody's stopping that, it's a choice. But as it stands, we who dislike this have no other choice to get some of these items, and don't want our chief gameplay hindered by this system.

BetweenMidgets · 12:34AM

MoonPile wrote: »

@BetweenMidgets you may not have seen our survey then

I hadn't, thanks for the heads up. I took the survey.

Anything to give a sliver of hope that ZoS could adjust the system, since they're trying to adjust other aspects of the game to bring people back.

Not sure if it is too late for me, but the system is an absolute misery, and needs attention. Especially since housing whales are probably a large part of ESOs success (2 billion in 10 years on the backs of people getting screwed by these freaking leads just so we can decorate pixel houses.)