Sadly probably couldn't remove Rubedite due to coding and people's stockpiles and the like. BUT I do agree that I'd like to see this trimmed down. I doubt they'd ever do it, but less inventory bloat is always nice.

I will say that I do enjoy seeing the other mat types. They each have a world model, so I like to have my alts specifically stop at some point so I can see those models in the world. My favorites are to see Mahogany wood around, or Ironweed flowers - they definitely look better than the bright red stuff we have at max level. Obviously I only do crafting on my main though.

If we wanted to save database and crafting space, I’d honestly start with getting rid of things like the “partial style mats” we got from TG through Vvardenfell. The partial jewelry dusts also are unnecessary.

While I am one of those people who thinks a lot of inventory issues are self-inflicted (if you don’t have plus, do you really need to harvest every flower and decon every piece of gear?), I do think a good way to deal with that would be to put the Style Mats into a special bag regardless of ESO+. There are more than enough of those at this point that a free “Style Mat Bag” would not take away much from ESO+ and would alleviate some problems. I still do think ESO+ should be incentivized, particularly in the absence of any monetized DLC, mainly because server space ain’t free.

I just wish they had never added the furnishing crafting materials like Mundane Runes and Heartwood and such.

I'm mostly in agreement with this suggestion, though I think it's the style materials rather than the ores and such that are mostly cause for headache. Without the style materials, or if they weren't assigned as they are, we might have easily used more ores for tiers from previous lore, like malachite and corundum. But with the system we do have, your suggestion might be more elegant implementation.

Though I do also wonder about skill points. If the tiers were reduced to just five, would the required skill points to get to last tier also be reduced to five? That would certainly help never characters and players who don't have as many skill points yet to spare, but for veterans getting more points you don't realistically need to spend on anything is meaningless.

cyclonus11 wrote: »

Also remember that the materials have a default color. Changing from rubedite (ruby red) default color to an ebony (black) color might irritate some.

Honestly, how much the red rubedite can stand out in most areas can be a bit jarring to me. While I'd love to have the metals and woods blend in a bit more with the scenery and be a bit more difficult to spot like some alchemy flowers are, I do agree that this might be a sticking point to some players.

coop500 wrote: »

Sadly probably couldn't remove Rubedite due to coding and people's stockpiles and the like. BUT I do agree that I'd like to see this trimmed down. I doubt they'd ever do it, but less inventory bloat is always nice.

If this was ever implemented they would swap out mats like they did for Jewelry grains to full plates. Nobody would need to lose anything. You keep your Rubedite stack, it just renamed to Ebony. You'd probably get a more of the new Ebony as (not at a ratio of 1 for 1) other mats that in the CP range would also swap for Ebony. Your current Ebony stack, according to the example above would become Quicksilver as that would replace the current Ebony in the 40-50 range. The only thing the player might notice if they weren't aware of the upcoming patch that brings this is, where did my Rubidite go? Why do I have so much Ebony? Why do my dailys now require Ebony? They'd do some digging and figure it out, but ultimately not be robbed of anything.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

I will say that I do enjoy seeing the other mat types. They each have a world model, so I like to have my alts specifically stop at some point so I can see those models in the world. My favorites are to see Mahogany wood around, or Ironweed flowers - they definitely look better than the bright red stuff we have at max level. Obviously I only do crafting on my main though.

If we wanted to save database and crafting space, I’d honestly start with getting rid of things like the “partial style mats” we got from TG through Vvardenfell. The partial jewelry dusts also are unnecessary.

While I am one of those people who thinks a lot of inventory issues are self-inflicted (if you don’t have plus, do you really need to harvest every flower and decon every piece of gear?), I do think a good way to deal with that would be to put the Style Mats into a special bag regardless of ESO+. There are more than enough of those at this point that a free “Style Mat Bag” would not take away much from ESO+ and would alleviate some problems. I still do think ESO+ should be incentivized, particularly in the absence of any monetized DLC, mainly because server space ain’t free.

I agree that some do look far superior than others. For a late stage crafter, all nodes (except platinum) pretty much end up the same shade of red unfortunately. At least end game would have some variety.

I also agree that Style mats probably need some solution as new sets every patch with new style material is not exactly scalable.

I find most trait items to be so abundant (save for Nirncrux and most of Jewelry) to be redundant. They don't vendor, and they are so abundant they don't really sell for much on the traders. Most can go. Recycle the assets as 'treasures'.

Onestly wrote: »

I'm mostly in agreement with this suggestion, though I think it's the style materials rather than the ores and such that are mostly cause for headache. Without the style materials, or if they weren't assigned as they are, we might have easily used more ores for tiers from previous lore, like malachite and corundum. But with the system we do have, your suggestion might be more elegant implementation.

Though I do also wonder about skill points. If the tiers were reduced to just five, would the required skill points to get to last tier also be reduced to five? That would certainly help never characters and players who don't have as many skill points yet to spare, but for veterans getting more points you don't realistically need to spend on anything is meaningless.

cyclonus11 wrote: »

Also remember that the materials have a default color. Changing from rubedite (ruby red) default color to an ebony (black) color might irritate some.

Honestly, how much the red rubedite can stand out in most areas can be a bit jarring to me. While I'd love to have the metals and woods blend in a bit more with the scenery and be a bit more difficult to spot like some alchemy flowers are, I do agree that this might be a sticking point to some players.

That is a good point regarding skill points. Two positions is 1) It works for Jewelry, so could just try that or 2) this:

• Point 1 - Default starting position (Iron)
• Point 2 - Research perk
• Point 3 - Orichalum
• Point 4 - Research perk
• Point 5 - Galatite
• Point 6 - Research perk
• Point 7 - Quicksilver
• Point 8 - Research perk
• Point 9 - Ebony CP150
• Point 10 - Ebony CP160

That way research is merged with the main tree. Reason is, we still have to put 10 points into the primary craft just as before but the standalone research perk is removed and merged into the primary. The standalone research perk is a skill that most people remove (or should remove) if they complete all the research. Now it is not a future redundant skill but more of a stepping stone you must acquire to get to level 10. It also means the future redundancy of the standalone research perk becomes irrelevant, and the requirement for 'research' before a new tier of mat unlocks also implies the character has to go and actually learn something (lore wise, they don't need to actually research items to unlock the next level) before they can delve into a whole new metallurgy with the next point.

The inspiration requirement should be lesser for the research parts and greater for the others (total inspiration requirement to max the tree is the same though). This way the player can get to the next tier at ideally the same rate they level and don't get stuck in a research bracket when they need Orichalum.

Arunei wrote: »

They honestly could have stuck to base game Style mats for most of the Motifs in the game. I don't remember if Daedra Hearts/Daedric was added after launch or not, but like...every Argonian Motif (like Elder Argonian) could have just used Flint. Every Imperial Motif (like Colovian) could have just used Nickle. Every Daedric Motif could have just used Daedra Hearts. All the Dunmer Motifs (like Telvanni) could have used Obsidian. All the Redguard Motifs (like Akaviri) could have just used Starmetal.

Now there are Motifs would have needed their respective Style mats, like Sea Giant and Pyandonean. But stuff like Order of the Hour? They're a Cyro group, make their mat Nickle. Silken Ring? Led by ex-Morag Tong and worship Mephala, it could have either used Obsidian or Daedra Hearts. Silver Ring? The group formed in High Rock, it could have used Molybdenum.

It would be nice if we could condense mats down to general use rather than a bunch of specific things. Mats for Food or Drink for example; make all vegetable mats Fresh Vegetables, all fruits Fresh Fruit, condense the different meats into White Meat or Red Meat, and so on. The different Crafting skills could have their mats condensed like OP suggested too. It would streamline crafting and make it easier for new players to understand, easier for everyone not to need a bunch of mats for all the different CP levels like now, and REALLY help with inventory management for folks without Plus. It would also help the database by removing a bunch of items that we'd no longer need.

Sadly I doubt we'll ever get stuff like this because it would involve reworking a lot of stuff, and the code is so spaghetti after all these years that removing a lot of things that become redundant could break any number of other things. Plus the items that everyone has now would be a matter to deal with. Stuff like Food mats would just get converted, but what would you do to compensate specific mats like Dwarven Ore/Ingots that are being removed rather than converted? What if item conversion goes wrong and all those items wind up getting deleted? I know we've had stuff get changed before, like Soul Gems and Vault Keys, but those would be a smaller scale thing than something like this.

I completely agree, and have advocated for multi-purpose style mats in the past. I actually think they should remove the base style materials from the game and as a requirement for crafting (and reduce the daily gold reward ever so slightly to factor in the gold sink these style mats do provide for dailies). Then have the new style materials for greater sets multi purpose going forward. This requires some consideration for furniture crafters though. If the basic style mats were removed from the game, they'd simply be removed and the player would receive the gold it would cost to purchase from a vendor, which is about 15g each if I recall. Or the amount of gold received into the economy is ridiculous due to all the combined store in the ESO bags. Convert X basic styles for 1 bound mimic stone, rounded up.

I agree re condensing food items. Poulty and pork could just be 'light meat'. This might mean killing a pig strangely results in a chicken sandwich but it would trim low tier mats down. Even if they only went half way with your suggestion and didn't trim it down to broad categories like 'Meat' or 'Vegetables' but merged specific like Jazbay Grapes and Surilie Grapes to just 'Grapes' that serves the function of both. That would still halve much of the list while keeping variety.

The conversion would work the same as what they did to remove jewelry grains from the game. Easier in fact as for many it is just a one for one swap for the non CP mats in the same level bracket, any overlap should favor the higher tier. Ebony would be the only one with any degree of complexity as the CP1-140 mats would be converted at a ratio less than 1 for 1. The amount of mats lost due to rounding would be trivial. The end result is people will actually end up with more Ebony as all their CP mats would roll into Ebony. So the player gets more end game tier mats to be safe. Given how useless the non CP150-160 mats are, I don't think the players would mind their CP1-140 mats being exchanged for a lower rate to avoid hickups to the economy being over supplied. They'll essentially get drained of a material they'll never use again for a less amount of a material they will actually use.

Katahdin wrote: »

IDK, I think this is a lot of work for a nothing problem.
Id rather see them put effort into things that are real problems.

Once you get one character to CP160, you dont need any of the CP 10-150 mats any more, just sell them if they are taking up too much space.

The dev's are focusing on precisely this sort of thing now, revamping old system, QOL, etc.

This function isn't entirely for people that intend to never look at CP1-140 again. It is just as much for crafters and making crafting sets more appealing. Furthermore as the productive conversations have emerged above, it is about a general clean up of the existing items too.

You are correct this has less value to a player that is CP160 and has no intention of crafting. This is for crafters, people that like a functional and cleaner inventory, and also new players. I know far too many people that have been turned off this game due to the inventory management being all over the place. ESO+ is not a valid solution for new players that are being turns away from a game before they've played it long enough to consider committing to it with ESO+. Culling redundant items from the game would improve that situation considerably.

I feel ya on the frustration here. The major problem was that Jewelry was back-fitted onto the existing 10-tier gear-crafting system. This is not particularly unique to ESO, though. Daggerfall had 10 tiers for weapons and 12 for armor. ESO kind of kept that hierarchy with a bit of shuffling: Silver carrying over to Jewelry, Elven/Mithril/Adamantium disappearing, and Daedric becoming a style rather than a material. Arena had eight (Daedric and Orcish/Orichalcum weren't there). Reverting to a 5-tier system would certainly save on skill points, but there are enough skill points available that it's really more of "I like this lore idea because it gives me a dozen-ish extra skill points that do not need to go into crafting skillls."

Would be neat to hear Kira / her teams feedback on this one, its a "minor" issue but shouldn't be too hard to change.

Since in the stream they did tell us to leave suggestions

I think this is a great idea and am all in favor for it.

I’ve always liked that the top tier mats are bright red for ease of farming. I’m on console and we only recently got HarvestMap addon.

I also have concerns about how any changes to the mat level structure might affect what we already have on all of characters.

I really think it’s fine the way it is.

richo262 wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

I’ve always liked that the top tier mats are bright red for ease of farming. I’m on console and we only recently got HarvestMap addon.

I also have concerns about how any changes to the mat level structure might affect what we already have on all of characters.

I really think it’s fine the way it is.

Anything pre-crafted would not be affected save for perhaps a name change. Only CP10-140 items will just become 'Up to CP150'. So you won't be forced to unequip an item.

I’m not thinking of those levels, I just feel like there might be unintended consequences for such a radical change to a system that has been in place for so long. One slight coding error could wreak havoc on gear we already have created for our characters.