Scrying and Excavating Takes Too Long to Level Up

ShadowPaladin · April 12

Malyore wrote: »

I've already been playing this game for several years. Why would I want every step for a thing that I have already done and spent so much time on to continue to keep taking forever?

We also have lives to participate in outside of MMOs.

I'm not going to redo all of the psijic, legerdemain, scrying, mages guild, etc lines whenever I decide to have another character that is used just to run a 10 minute daily dungeon before logging out. Or to log in on only when I decide to run an occasional trial with a guild.
What value do you see in making things unnecessarily slow to repeat something that has already been achieved and earned?

First, let me give you answers to your questions.

Why would I want every step for a thing that I have already done and spent so much time on to continue to keep taking forever?

It doesn't matter what *you* want. For most MMOs the design is set up in a way that players have to do certain things, level certain skills, etc., because that is a form of content in MMOs. Also, it is a way to animate (some would say force) players to play a game for a certain amount of time. The longer people play a game (are online) the better it is for the company managing / owning the game (thats the business).

If *you* don't want to this, then you must ask yourself one of two things. Is playing multiple chars really the thing I should be doing or should I really be playing a MMO at all.

At the end it all comes down to what Alastrine already said. If you got problems with time because in your life you only got a bit of it for games, you should not play games which take alot of time to play. It is as simple as that (I can tell you from personal experiences).

Regarding your other question.

What value do you see in making things unnecessarily slow to repeat something that has already been achieved and earned?

The "value" lies in the time you are online playing the game. BUT(!) that "value" isn't a value for you. It is one for the company managing / owning the game. As I wrote before. The longer people play the game / stay online, the better it is for business. And how can you animate (force) people to stay longer online than by giving them stuff to repeat over and over again, which always takes a certain amount of time.

By the way. Guess why companies introduced all those (fancy but stupid) things people can buy for real money to take short-cuts and get things faster, although they could get them for free simply by playing the game. It is because people want all as fast as possible without spending much time acquiring it. Selling such things to those (more or less simple minded folks) is a great business opportunity. Even Scrooge McDuck himself couldn't have thought of something better do to, to earn a lot of money and even Ferengies wouldn't have come up with something better

!

Malyore · April 12

ShadowPaladin wrote: »

Malyore wrote: »

I've already been playing this game for several years. Why would I want every step for a thing that I have already done and spent so much time on to continue to keep taking forever?

We also have lives to participate in outside of MMOs.

I'm not going to redo all of the psijic, legerdemain, scrying, mages guild, etc lines whenever I decide to have another character that is used just to run a 10 minute daily dungeon before logging out. Or to log in on only when I decide to run an occasional trial with a guild.
What value do you see in making things unnecessarily slow to repeat something that has already been achieved and earned?

First, let me give you answers to your questions.

Why would I want every step for a thing that I have already done and spent so much time on to continue to keep taking forever?

It doesn't matter what *you* want. For most MMOs the design is set up in a way that players have to do certain things, level certain skills, etc., because that is a form of content in MMOs. Also, it is a way to animate (some would say force) players to play a game for a certain amount of time. The longer people play a game (are online) the better it is for the company managing / owning the game (thats the business).

If *you* don't want to this, then you must ask yourself one of two things. Is playing multiple chars really the thing I should be doing or should I really be playing a MMO at all.

At the end it all comes down to what Alastrine already said. If you got problems with time because in your life you only got a bit of it for games, you should not play games which take alot of time to play. It is as simple as that (I can tell you from personal experiences).

Regarding your other question.

What value do you see in making things unnecessarily slow to repeat something that has already been achieved and earned?

The "value" lies in the time you are online playing the game. BUT(!) that "value" isn't a value for you. It is one for the company managing / owning the game. As I wrote before. The longer people play the game / stay online, the better it is for business. And how can you animate (force) people to stay longer online than by giving them stuff to repeat over and over again, which always takes a certain amount of time.

By the way. Guess why companies introduced all those (fancy but stupid) things people can buy for real money to take short-cuts and get things faster, although they could get them for free simply by playing the game. It is because people want all as fast as possible without spending much time acquiring it. Selling such things to those (more or less simple minded folks) is a great business opportunity. Even Scrooge McDuck himself couldn't have thought of something better do to, to earn a lot of money and even Ferengies wouldn't have come up with something better !

- "You always know what to expect when you do business with the Ferengi."

- "Which is why, if you're smart, you don't do business with the Ferengi."

So in regards to ZOS reducing the time it's takes to research traits, level mounts, level companions, the constraints of logins/endeavors; and removing the cost to some crown store upgrade purchases... that was all because ZOS saw people asking for these things and said "Well it doesn't matter what YOU want. We are an MMO! YOU should go find a different game, duh!" ???

There is a balancing act in business between respecting players desires, and pursuing what could squeeze the most out of players' wallets and time. Yes, in theory keeping people on the game by every stretch possible could be seen as better for business. But then you look at the practicality of situations for some folks like me, and like the many others who have asked for class change tokens due to wanting to continue playing their investments into the game, and you can see there is also a reality where people will disengage because the goal post's distance is not worth repeating the race over and over again. And those people are not going to spend the absolutely absurd and insulting amount of money it takes to buy the fast upgrades.

Malyore · April 13

Malyore wrote: »

ShadowPaladin wrote: »

Malyore wrote: »

I've already been playing this game for several years. Why would I want every step for a thing that I have already done and spent so much time on to continue to keep taking forever?

We also have lives to participate in outside of MMOs.

I'm not going to redo all of the psijic, legerdemain, scrying, mages guild, etc lines whenever I decide to have another character that is used just to run a 10 minute daily dungeon before logging out. Or to log in on only when I decide to run an occasional trial with a guild.
What value do you see in making things unnecessarily slow to repeat something that has already been achieved and earned?

First, let me give you answers to your questions.

Why would I want every step for a thing that I have already done and spent so much time on to continue to keep taking forever?

It doesn't matter what *you* want. For most MMOs the design is set up in a way that players have to do certain things, level certain skills, etc., because that is a form of content in MMOs. Also, it is a way to animate (some would say force) players to play a game for a certain amount of time. The longer people play a game (are online) the better it is for the company managing / owning the game (thats the business).

If *you* don't want to this, then you must ask yourself one of two things. Is playing multiple chars really the thing I should be doing or should I really be playing a MMO at all.

At the end it all comes down to what Alastrine already said. If you got problems with time because in your life you only got a bit of it for games, you should not play games which take alot of time to play. It is as simple as that (I can tell you from personal experiences).

Regarding your other question.

What value do you see in making things unnecessarily slow to repeat something that has already been achieved and earned?

The "value" lies in the time you are online playing the game. BUT(!) that "value" isn't a value for you. It is one for the company managing / owning the game. As I wrote before. The longer people play the game / stay online, the better it is for business. And how can you animate (force) people to stay longer online than by giving them stuff to repeat over and over again, which always takes a certain amount of time.

By the way. Guess why companies introduced all those (fancy but stupid) things people can buy for real money to take short-cuts and get things faster, although they could get them for free simply by playing the game. It is because people want all as fast as possible without spending much time acquiring it. Selling such things to those (more or less simple minded folks) is a great business opportunity. Even Scrooge McDuck himself couldn't have thought of something better do to, to earn a lot of money and even Ferengies wouldn't have come up with something better !

- "You always know what to expect when you do business with the Ferengi."

- "Which is why, if you're smart, you don't do business with the Ferengi."

So in regards to ZOS reducing the time it's takes to research traits, level mounts, level companions, the constraints of logins/endeavors; and removing the cost to some crown store upgrade purchases... that was all because ZOS saw people asking for these things and said "Well it doesn't matter what YOU want. We are an MMO! YOU should go find a different game, duh!" ???

There is a balancing act in business between respecting players desires, and pursuing what could squeeze the most out of players' wallets and time. Yes, in theory keeping people on the game by every stretch possible could be seen as better for business. But then you look at the practicality of situations for some folks like me, and like the many others who have asked for class change tokens due to wanting to continue playing their investments into the game, and you can see there is also a reality where people will disengage because the goal post's distance is not worth repeating the race over and over again. And those people are not going to spend the absolutely absurd and insulting amount of money it takes to buy the fast upgrades.

@ShadowPaladin with that being said, do you have any other insights as to the value folks see in things taking forever, in light of the recent direction ZOS has taken? Both inside and outside of the business model.

ShadowPaladin · April 13

You are right Malyore. "Balance" or as you wrote "the act of finding a balance" between business and player interests is the important thing. As you wrote, a company needs to know how long it can squeeze someone until they leave for good and when to give them a bit of a carrot to keep them going.

I can only assume why ZOS did what they did with the recent changes. But my guess would be that sales for certain things - for example like the outfit slots per char - were so far down, for some time, that it didn't matter anymore if they would make the slots account wide or not. So, nothing to squeeze anymore. Instead more was to be gained by rolling out those changes.

In addition to that, I would guess that ZOS just did something other game companies did as well with their games running for many years, making changes to attract new players and keep old players going. I have seen that in the last 22 years with quite a few games (SWG, AION, SWToR, STO, WoW, FF, etc.).

Regarding the value thing.

It all depens on how someone defines value, sees the value of something.

What it is for a company I already wrote - keep players online. Also it represents a sort of "content", which can be presented to players. Certainly, some may state now that this is not "real" content. But, from a certain perspective it is, because it gives players something to do and that for some time.

For players the value in taking time for something and doing it again - after some time - can be to reexperience something they perhaps rushed through the first time or didn't do proberly the first time, not noticing certain things. I for example do like to replay certain content after some time, just because it has been some time since I have done it

. Sure, that is not something for everyone. Some just want to get through afap and be done with, never doing it again. But still, it does represent some sort of value.

AlnilamE · April 13

Vonnegut2506 wrote: »

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

While the ideas here to make leveling scrying/excavation a bit less painful are indeed welcome and helpful, I agree with OP that both skills level too slowly.

I honestly wouldn't care how long they take to level if they would just move the treasure chest passive to level 2 so I didn't have to keep constantly leveling any character that does dungeons. It's not like I need multiple characters able to scry and excavate, but that passive is pretty nice.

Personally, I like scrying, so take this into account.

All my characters are level 7 in scrying for the glowy treasure chests. You don't need more than that. In a dungeon you will pretty much always get close enough to a chest to see the glow.

What I did when leveling was, I would start with a few green leads until I unlocked the ability to scry blues. Then I would go on my main and get her to scry 5 purple leads (you can have up to 5 leads active as long as they are in different zones). Then I would hop on the character I was leveling and go dig up those 5 leads and repeat.

I went after the purple leads that drop from all loot tables (you wouldn't believe how many Tall Papa's Lamps I have).

Once my character unlocked the wide shovel I would move up to yellow leads and do the same thing. The Void Crystal Anomaly in Coldharbour is a good one because it drops like candy.

It basically took no time to level a character to 7 that way.

DenverRalphy · April 13

AlnilamE wrote: »

Vonnegut2506 wrote: »

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

While the ideas here to make leveling scrying/excavation a bit less painful are indeed welcome and helpful, I agree with OP that both skills level too slowly.

I honestly wouldn't care how long they take to level if they would just move the treasure chest passive to level 2 so I didn't have to keep constantly leveling any character that does dungeons. It's not like I need multiple characters able to scry and excavate, but that passive is pretty nice.

Then I would go on my main and get her to scry 5 purple leads (you can have up to 5 leads active as long as they are in different zones).

You can scry 5 concurrent leads in the same zone.

daim · April 14

AlnilamE wrote: »

Vonnegut2506 wrote: »

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

While the ideas here to make leveling scrying/excavation a bit less painful are indeed welcome and helpful, I agree with OP that both skills level too slowly.

I honestly wouldn't care how long they take to level if they would just move the treasure chest passive to level 2 so I didn't have to keep constantly leveling any character that does dungeons. It's not like I need multiple characters able to scry and excavate, but that passive is pretty nice.

Personally, I like scrying, so take this into account.

All my characters are level 7 in scrying for the glowy treasure chests. You don't need more than that. In a dungeon you will pretty much always get close enough to a chest to see the glow.

What I did when leveling was, I would start with a few green leads until I unlocked the ability to scry blues. Then I would go on my main and get her to scry 5 purple leads (you can have up to 5 leads active as long as they are in different zones). Then I would hop on the character I was leveling and go dig up those 5 leads and repeat.

I went after the purple leads that drop from all loot tables (you wouldn't believe how many Tall Papa's Lamps I have).

Once my character unlocked the wide shovel I would move up to yellow leads and do the same thing. The Void Crystal Anomaly in Coldharbour is a good one because it drops like candy.

It basically took no time to level a character to 7 that way.

If you say leveling multiple characters to lvl7 basically takes no time - that's just not true (even with your great grinding advice). It will take days.

Glad you like it though. I do too when casually doing them with my main (actually I have 3 toons with max scrying but can't say I enjoyed grinding the last two alts).

Veinblood1965 · April 14

You can open unearth leads higher than your level if you have another character that is leveled up. Just have that character scry for the lead, then switch to the toon you want to level and unearth the lead. You have to choose hit and miss until you actually find part of the lead though(kind of like battleship).

twisttop138 · April 14

Just make it a green CP. Faster scrying amd excavation xp. Just like faster subclass xp. This way it's a choice for those that have lives outside the game and those that live laugh love grind. To be fair though, even though I like the treasure chest thing, I've still only done it on one toon because, well, you know.

AlnilamE · April 16

daim wrote: »

AlnilamE wrote: »

Vonnegut2506 wrote: »

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

While the ideas here to make leveling scrying/excavation a bit less painful are indeed welcome and helpful, I agree with OP that both skills level too slowly.

I honestly wouldn't care how long they take to level if they would just move the treasure chest passive to level 2 so I didn't have to keep constantly leveling any character that does dungeons. It's not like I need multiple characters able to scry and excavate, but that passive is pretty nice.

Personally, I like scrying, so take this into account.

All my characters are level 7 in scrying for the glowy treasure chests. You don't need more than that. In a dungeon you will pretty much always get close enough to a chest to see the glow.

What I did when leveling was, I would start with a few green leads until I unlocked the ability to scry blues. Then I would go on my main and get her to scry 5 purple leads (you can have up to 5 leads active as long as they are in different zones). Then I would hop on the character I was leveling and go dig up those 5 leads and repeat.

I went after the purple leads that drop from all loot tables (you wouldn't believe how many Tall Papa's Lamps I have).

Once my character unlocked the wide shovel I would move up to yellow leads and do the same thing. The Void Crystal Anomaly in Coldharbour is a good one because it drops like candy.

It basically took no time to level a character to 7 that way.

If you say leveling multiple characters to lvl7 basically takes no time - that's just not true (even with your great grinding advice). It will take days.

Glad you like it though. I do too when casually doing them with my main (actually I have 3 toons with max scrying but can't say I enjoyed grinding the last two alts).

If I ever make another character, I will time how long it takes. But I'm not likely to make another character. 11 is more than enough for me.

Jammy420 · April 16

I agree 100%, scyring and excavation need a serious boost. They simply take too long. That or just put a boost in the crown store already.

Orbital78 · April 16

It was pretty tedious when I did it the first time. It gets better once you have one maxed out for scrying alts excavations.

Being able to see treasure chests is nice, even if you have a map marker addon. It helps you and teammates. I just wish quick chat emotes had a treasure chest, heavy sack, "loot", type option to announce to group.

tulx · April 16

I have just reached level 7 because I want that one legendary ring and to be honest, I found the levelling to be completely fine. It can definitely get tedious if it is the only thing you do and just run in ricrles scrying and excavating stuff, but if you approach this in any other way than just blasting 0-100% though the contenct in as little time as possible, it lends itself very well as a side-activity while doing other things in the repective areas.

cyberjanet · April 16

You only need to level scrying on one character. After that, that character can scry, but any other character can dig it up. So your scrying character can scry the purple and gold leads, and your new-to-antiquity characters can go dig them up and level faster. My 6th character doing this is nearly maxed, I have one to go, but all of them have level 7 and cheat vision.

ADarklore · April 17

I'm just glad they added it to the Crown Store so I don't have to level it again on every new character.