kirgeo wrote: »

There is nothing that says jewelry has to be super rare in a game. ZOS is making it so. They should just remove the grain or platings(feels like adding minute grains to jewelry to improve them sounds more logical than plates to it imo). Reduce the AP cost of gold jewelry while they are at it. PvP and trial groups will still run them for specific set and achievements. I don't think vet raiders do trials just for the jewelry. I hear they used to trash gold pieces them before JC was introduced now they deconstruct them. The market will be messed up for a while but it will stabilize.

You are exactly right. ZoS is on record as stating that they want gold jewelry to be special and unique. They designed to the system to do that. So, it is working exactly as intended.

It will take work... but, in all truth, you don't NEED gold jewelry to do anything in this game (short of "score pushing" PvE, or end-game "elite" PvP... and even then, I know plenty of people who run purple (unless it drops, in game, in gold))

JC is a bonus... it is not a base game mechanic like the other crafts. It will not be the same as the others for that very reason.

kirgeo wrote: »

tmbrinks wrote: »

You are exactly right. ZoS is on record as stating that they want gold jewelry to be special and unique. They designed to the system to do that. So, it is working exactly as intended.

It will take work... but, in all truth, you don't NEED gold jewelry to do anything in this game (short of "score pushing" PvE, or end-game "elite" PvP... and even then, I know plenty of people who run purple (unless it drops, in game, in gold))

JC is a bonus... it is not a base game mechanic like the other crafts. It will not be the same as the others for that very reason.

What about a few chapters later when JC might be added to base game if ZOS can come up with new systems for other chapters (nothing new in this department for Elsweyr).

JC being a bonus annoys me, it was the highlight of a paid expansion. Feels like what you add as F2P system toa game. Forget gold, even the other gear levels are so grindy. Should a paid for feature be more grindy than a base game one. Its like getting a fastpass at a themepark to wait longer in line.

My opinion is that the extra refining should be removed if the system is ever introduced to base game and gold jewelry should be buffed a bit like the armor or weapon system if this ever happens.

It's within your prerogative for it to bug you. But, ZoS believes that it should be unique... given it only provides a minor buff, and most builds use gold jewelry that drops in game regardless... I think it's working as intended.

Would it content you to remove the extra refining but reduce the drop rate to 1/10th it's current value? Is it the extra refining that bugs, or the amount of materials you need?

The other side to consider... you need 12 chromium platings to upgrade all the possible jewelry you can wear at once. You need between 72-88 gold upgrade materials to upgrade the rest of your gear. 88/12 = 7.33 72/12 = 6 So, for every 1 chromium grain that a build needs, it needs 6-7.33 Alloy/Rosin/Wax. So the 1:10 ratio of drops (with the grain system) is reasonable based on the total number of gold upgrade materials needed for a specific purpose. Yes, it's a little rarer... I call that the "unique" that ZoS is going for...

Rosin is cheaper because it's less needed, only staves/shields... but Wax and Alloy hold their value because they're used in all builds.

There is logic behind the system. I really, really wish that a lot of the vitriol here would be looked at again with a logical eye... as it seems to make sense once taken into account.

rustle911 wrote: »

tmbrinks wrote: »

kirgeo wrote: »

tmbrinks wrote: »

You are exactly right. ZoS is on record as stating that they want gold jewelry to be special and unique. They designed to the system to do that. So, it is working exactly as intended.

It will take work... but, in all truth, you don't NEED gold jewelry to do anything in this game (short of "score pushing" PvE, or end-game "elite" PvP... and even then, I know plenty of people who run purple (unless it drops, in game, in gold))

JC is a bonus... it is not a base game mechanic like the other crafts. It will not be the same as the others for that very reason.

What about a few chapters later when JC might be added to base game if ZOS can come up with new systems for other chapters (nothing new in this department for Elsweyr).

JC being a bonus annoys me, it was the highlight of a paid expansion. Feels like what you add as F2P system toa game. Forget gold, even the other gear levels are so grindy. Should a paid for feature be more grindy than a base game one. Its like getting a fastpass at a themepark to wait longer in line.

My opinion is that the extra refining should be removed if the system is ever introduced to base game and gold jewelry should be buffed a bit like the armor or weapon system if this ever happens.

It's within your prerogative for it to bug you. But, ZoS believes that it should be unique... given it only provides a minor buff, and most builds use gold jewelry that drops in game regardless... I think it's working as intended.

Would it content you to remove the extra refining but reduce the drop rate to 1/10th it's current value? Is it the extra refining that bugs, or the amount of materials you need?

The other side to consider... you need 12 chromium platings to upgrade all the possible jewelry you can wear at once. You need between 72-88 gold upgrade materials to upgrade the rest of your gear. 88/12 = 7.33 72/12 = 6 So, for every 1 chromium grain that a build needs, it needs 6-7.33 Alloy/Rosin/Wax. So the 1:10 ratio of drops (with the grain system) is reasonable based on the total number of gold upgrade materials needed for a specific purpose. Yes, it's a little rarer... I call that the "unique" that ZoS is going for...

Rosin is cheaper because it's less needed, only staves/shields... but Wax and Alloy hold their value because they're used in all builds.

There is logic behind the system. I really, really wish that a lot of the vitriol here would be looked at again with a logical eye... as it seems to make sense once taken into account.

Let’s assume that you’re making a “meta” sorc build with the 5-1-1 armor set and 2 staves. To gold all of your gear you need 48 wax, 16 rosin, 8 alloy, and 120 chromium grains. If all things drop at the same rate(which in my experience chromium grains drop at best 1/3 the rate of other gold materials) you are still refining almost 3 times the raw jewelry materials as you would any other materials group.

The only things incrafting that are rarer then chromium and zircon grains are some of the trait dusts and nirncruxes. I’ve gotten Perfect Roe to drop at better rates than chromium plating. If you want jewelry crafting to be such a rare thing, then don’t drop master writs for it. The amount of effort and cost for me to complete 1 master jewelry writ is far greater than the effort and cost for me to complete my greatest return on another type of writ for 1/10th the vouchers.

To put it plainly, the balance is still way off. It feels more like ZoS is saying “You wanted jewelry crafting, here you go. We hope you choke to death on it”.

And for those of you who say that there are addons for that, don’t forget that the console side of the community doesn’t get to use those addons.

I have a spreadsheet that is tracking the drop rate for gold materials from refining. This has tens of thousands of refined materials in it. They are all within 0.02% of a 0.5% drop rate. (between 0.48-0.52% drop between all 5, (cloth/leather are separate)) 0.5% is a nice round number... 1/20 chance per refine of 10 materials. i.e. you get an average of 1 gold material per stack of raw material.

Same is true of the drop rate from doing writs daily. I get between 3-5 of each of the gold materials doing writs on 15 characters.

The drop rates are, from all evidence I've collected, the same.

Don't know where you're getting 3x as much... as 48 + 16 + 8 = 72, and 120/72 = 1.666, a far cry from 3 times as much.

I'm talking about the COMBINED amounts for a full build. Because you need 9-11 slots worth of Wax/Rosin/Alloy at 8x per slot... and only 3 slots worth of Chromium at 4x per slot, the 10:1 ratio is justified.

I completely agree on the jewelry MASTER writs. I have done 2 of them. Both were 461 voucher ones. I did one for the "upgrade" achievement on my main. I did another one in a moment of weakness as the vouchers allowed me to complete a project I had been working on for months (getting all the attunables in my personal house), rather than wait a few days. I am only keeping the best ones, in hopes prices come down. I destroy the rest.

I see a few solutions to make jewlery crafting actually worth it:

1) On decon get chance at 1 temper,instead of 1 grain,seeing other crafting gets refined mats back (most preferred)
or
2)On decon get a chance at raw mats on all gear,instead of refined to balance all crafting (least preferred by players)
or
3)On decon get a chance at 3-6 grains,instead of one. (best compromise)
or
4)Put gold grains/platings in vendor for AP or vouchers like Dawn-Prism and Gilding Wax,but limit to Summerset owners only (another decent compromise)
or
5) Open up jewlery crafting for all,to help put more mats on market. (least preferred by ZOS and some players probably)

It's really more the Master Writs that are an issue,than gear you will actually use.
cost 300k+ avg just for gold plating to make one gold jewlery piece(over 400k total for platings)
cost 36-56k+ avg just for gold tempers to make other gold gear (about 45-70k total for all tempers)

These are just suggestions and observations,based on markets,chat,forum posts,and personal experience,since I own Summerset.Obviously there can be tweaks to the system to make it balanced and retain exclusivity to Summerset owners,so they'll feel it was worth buying,or worth buying in future.

rustle911 wrote: »

@tmbrinks

The almost 3x cost is simple. If upgrading 6 pieces of light/medium armor from purple to gold costs 6*8(48) dreugh wax and upgrading 3 pieces of jewelry from purple to gold costs 3*4*10(120) chromium grains, then the cost is 120/48(2.5) times the necessary mats. If I were using a double bar dual wield then in this same scenario the cost to upgrade 1 heavy piece and 4 1h weapons from purple to blue is 5*8(40) tempering alloy which is 1/3 the 120 cost to again upgrade only 3 pieces of gear. As I stated, even if the drop rates are the same, the cost is significantly higher. In the best scenario, at a 40/8 cost ratio, even if I’m only upgrading half the number of items, the requirement is that I refine 2.5-3x the number of raw materials.

I can’t speak for everyone, I know that I’ve done over 100 level 5 crafting writs and a few hundred level 1-4 writs, and refined thousands of platinum, silver, electrum, copper, and pewter dusts. I have 13 chromium platings to show for it. I know that I have probably refined similar amounts of the other raw materials over the last 8 months, and have received dozens of alloys, waxes, and rosins.

I defer to those who have taken the time to build up and refine 10000 raw mats at a time to derive drop rates. Regardless of whether my RNG For jewelry is made up for by other things, the costs are still unbalanced and either need to be made comparable or the drop rates for grains need to be adjusted to accommodate for the differences.

If perception is reality, and perception is that jewelry crafting is broken, then changes need to be made so that perception is changed.

But you ALSO need the Alloys and Rosin to complete your build... so you need to take them as a whole. at least that's my opinion on it. you need either 72, 80 or 88 Rosin/Alloy/Wax AND 120 chromium grains to complete an ENTIRE build... that's how I interpret the relative percentages needed. You could just cherry pick the rosin that you only need 16 of (or even 8 for many builds) Which is why I choose to look at the total between all pieces.

That being said... ZoS is on record, that they want JC to be "special" and not like the other crafts. They believe that not everybody should be running around with full gold jewelry, that's why they made it the way that they did. (There are also more sources of gold jewelry drops in the game, than there are gold weapons/gear) Could they very easily make it the same as all the other crafts? Yes. Remove grains, and revert to the 2, 3, 4, 8 upgrade, drop platings on deconstruction... then it's identical. But I don't believe that they want that. They already capitulated somewhat and reduced the cost by 50%, with the reduction of platings needed... as well as increasing the master writ vouchers by a factor of 4 (even though that still wasn't enough)

To be honest... would I like it if the system was easier? Yes, I'd have more gold gear. I guess I'm arguing from the perspective that ZoS has taken, and what they've done for the system at this point. I personally, think it's fair for what they are trying to accomplish (other than master writs)

JC is gorked, and the excuses given for keeping it that way are pretty pathetic and stupid.

Reducing the mat requirement was a good first step to fixing it, but they still need to at least double (triple would be better) the grains you can get per action (decon, refine, whatever...)

If JC was overly good, anybod would cry p2w. So it can't be too strong.

Concerning the dust, there are many compains about it for two reason.

1. It is very annoying for those, who don't pay for Eso Plus. (Those aren't F2P leechers. They paid for the game, maybe they even pay for Eso Plus *sometimes*, and many pay for DLCs, chapters, crown things separately and independent of Eso Plus.) They've got no crafting bag and their inventory gets filled now with dusts and grains, a step which seems just grindy and unnecessary. Very annyoing, no comfort. Alone for this dust/grain mechanic should change.

2. Second reason is, when it's not really about dust and grains, but drop rates.

So, assuming the drop rates / accessibility for chromium platings is "fixed" due to balancing issues. Then we've got a problem. The drop rate would be so low, that it would seem similar to Aetherium Dust. It would be possible to refine 2,000 platinum dust without getting a single chromium plating, like it is now possible to refine 200 platinum dust without getting a single chromium grain. However, with a 0.5% chance to get a grain we get at least some reliability when refining dust. When you are refining 10,000 platinum dust, you can be pretty sure to get about 5 chromium grains, + - 1 or 2. The more you refine, the more you will be inside the expected amount.
However, with a 0.05% chance, you wouldn't have the same reliability of getting 1.1 chromium platings per 10,000 refined platinum dust. The reliability would me much lower.

Getting 3 instead of 5 chromium grains from 10,000 platinum dust is much less painful and annoying than getting 0 (zero) chromium platings from 10,000 platinum dust.

The forums would be full of crying of people who refined even 20,000 platinum dust and didn't get a single plating. I refine often platinum dust and it's happening all the time - refining 400 platinum dust, no single grain. I know, it will even out in the end, so I don't bother, but someone who doesn't understand the basics of statistics might be already alarmed by that.

So, my conclusion is:

If the availability of chromium platings is supposed to be so low, they can't let the grains drop. It would be a grind nightmare, having to refine 100,000 platinum dust instead of 10,000 platinum dust to get the platinums you "deserve" with some reliability.

However, this all changes when we consider that the availability isn't fixed and can be changed. ZOS already did this. Maybe more balancing would be good. I am all for it. However, simply giving platings a drop chance of 0.5% like the other temper would be too much.

A simple increase of platings would be to let doing daily writs drop platings instead of dust. The drop rate could be lowered then a bit again, maybe to 15%. This would be for writs. Refining dust would still only give grains.

Honestly, I am more concerned of inventory spam if you don't have a crafting bag. This would need an overhaul of the whole system, although the simplest solution would be to add specialized crafting bags to the crown store... Another possibility is to make grains a CURRENCY and add a npc trader, where you can trade this currency for platings. The perfect vendor would be the guy in Summerset where you have to go to be allowed to do the writs or the golden vendor in Cyrodiil. I mean, wir talking here about actual GOLD, or SILVER, or ELECTRUM. It doesn't seem so far off to make it a currency.

belial5221_ESO wrote: »

Maybe another solution would be to not allow upgrading of dropped jewelry,only crafted.That way they can sell the drop sets in The Golden,and people have to work for gold jewelry from dropped areas,or pay premium from ppl who did do the grind.

While I understand the spirit of the suggestion, the grind as you say could also be people buying raw materials and refining them. All you would be doing is redirecting the flow of gold. You then also limit those who are working with non-endgame gear to only being able to get gold jewelry when the gold vendor rng smiles upon them. Which takes us back to, why have jewelry crafting at all?

The biggest things that jewelry crafting should have provided was another way outside of repeating the same trials and the gold vendor to get gold jewelry, more ability for the player to mix crafted and dropped gear that wouldn’t require repeating a string of dolmens for hours and hours, and another way to get writ vouchers for those of us who put the time into developing crafting. What we got was something that cost more in terms of time and gold, a more tedious grind, and for those that may have completed some of those writs, a poor reward that is a far cry from worth the effort.

SugaComa wrote: »

tmbrinks wrote: »

kirgeo wrote: »

There is nothing that says jewelry has to be super rare in a game. ZOS is making it so. They should just remove the grain or platings(feels like adding minute grains to jewelry to improve them sounds more logical than plates to it imo). Reduce the AP cost of gold jewelry while they are at it. PvP and trial groups will still run them for specific set and achievements. I don't think vet raiders do trials just for the jewelry. I hear they used to trash gold pieces them before JC was introduced now they deconstruct them. The market will be messed up for a while but it will stabilize.

You are exactly right. ZoS is on record as stating that they want gold jewelry to be special and unique. They designed to the system to do that. So, it is working exactly as intended.

It will take work... but, in all truth, you don't NEED gold jewelry to do anything in this game (short of "score pushing" PvE, or end-game "elite" PvP... and even then, I know plenty of people who run purple (unless it drops, in game, in gold))

JC is a bonus... it is not a base game mechanic like the other crafts. It will not be the same as the others for that very reason.

All true ... But the writs ask for gold jewellery and cos it's so hard and expensive to get the stuff required then ZoS are making writs worthless by forcing them out of the realms of players ability to complete them under normal game play

then they need to change the value of the master writs so that there is more incentive to do them. Rather than changing everything else about JC

MikaHR wrote: »

Jewellery crafting is an absolute joke, if someone is considering buying summerset for it....dont, you will never craft anything because it costs 50 000 to make 1 purple item...lets not even talk about gold.

Heck, on console the zircon platings are selling for 35k/ea (35*3=105k) just to go from blue to purple.

Still as disappointed as when it came out! I have lost all interest in it.

BringerOfOmens wrote: »

Remember the original comments and concerns were the introduction of Jewelry crafting ("JC") would trivialize the Golden Vendor and their offerings. ZOS acknowledged this and said were balancing JC on the Golden Vendor.

The problem as I see it was the introduction of the master writs requiring legendary products and the lack of a hireling which may provide gold materials (which would have violated the intended balance already stated as desired).

I have a stockpile of those master writs that will never get used and I am almost at the point of destroying them because I dont think we can expect much more change on the balance issue.

At this point I would like to see ZOS do the following:
1. Add a JC hireling to the passives. Instead of a gold mat, add chance of purple mats.
2. Restructure the master writs to require purple jewelry with a very rare occurrence of a gold legendary requirement
3. Restructure the number of vouchers to balance against the other master writs. Based on current price associations, legendary JC should provide somewhere around 1,250 vouchers. With a purple mat hireling, I would think the number of vouchers provided on those writs would come into line with similar master writs requiring legendary items for blacksmithing,clothier or woodworking.

With those additions, I think we gain more value from JC master writs and materials bringing those in line with the other master writs while preserving the balance of the gold jewelry and the golden vendor.

My 2 cents worth.

it's dangerous bringing logical opinions into this thread

I agree with you as well, all of your suggestions would make the master writs more worthwhile, without drastically affecting multiple other subsystems that are in place in the game.

(Also, as an aside, for everybody saying you get "more" JC master writs... yes, you do. The chances of you getting them are going to be higher, as it's based on the number of traits that you have researched. Whereas the blacksmithing/woodworking/clothing, are based on the number of full, complete, purple motifs that you have. So, having all 9 traits researched in JC has the same increase in drop chance as having the knowledge of over 50 motifs. I'm guessing that more people have a higher percentage of JC traits researched than they do full motifs on characters, as motifs can be very expensive. So, that mystery is solved)

I couldn't agree more that this needs some repair. I currently sell my jewlery writs for 35-500g the cost per vouchers is worthless, nothing you buy with them can justify the cost. The grains are an absolute joke, and it's better to sell them right now than keep them.

tmbrinks wrote: »

Feric51 wrote: »

tmbrinks wrote: »

(Also, as an aside, for everybody saying you get "more" JC master writs... yes, you do. The chances of you getting them are going to be higher, as it's based on the number of traits that you have researched. Whereas the blacksmithing/woodworking/clothing, are based on the number of full, complete, purple motifs that you have. So, having all 9 traits researched in JC has the same increase in drop chance as having the knowledge of over 50 motifs. I'm guessing that more people have a higher percentage of JC traits researched than they do full motifs on characters, as motifs can be very expensive. So, that mystery is solved)

Not disagreeing with you, but (anecdotally) my master writ return for crafting professions looks something like this alchemy/enchanting/provisioning < BS/WW/Clothing < Jewelry.

Based on the above logic, I should see an approximately similar return on my consumable crafting professions with jewelry crafting since they, too, do not require motif knowledge.

Full disclaimer: I have every available crafting achievement with the exception of the outfit-related ones (I'm not paying to change my outfit slot 100 times, and haven't yet used prisoner's on my main crafter), and my motif knowledge is complete other than Silver Dawn, Elder Argonian and Pyandonean.

I'm fully okay with jewelry awarding more master writs than the material crafting lines based on the motif knowledge argument, but I would definitely like to see the consumable lines brought more in line with jewelry rates.


Edit: Missing words.

Alchemy is based on the fully known traits of the herbs/flowers/mushrooms
Enchanting is based on the runestones "translated"
Provisioning is based on the number of purple and gold recipes known

Yeah, I'm aware of what they require and it's a pretty much direct comparison to jewelry crafting.

For ease of math let's assume:

• knowing all jewelry traits is a 0.5 modifier for rewarding master writs (I.E. each daily jewelry writ has a 50% chance to award a master writ)
• knowing all four traits of every alchemy ingredient should be a 0.5 modifier
• having every rune translated for enchanting should be a 0.5 modifier, and
• knowing every gold and purple recipe should also be a 0.5 modifier

Again, these numbers are just for comparison and not presumed to be accurate in any way...

Bottom line - because motif knowledge is not factored into these four professions, once all applicable requirements have been met, you would think they would have the same chance to provide a master writ upon daily writ completion. As my anecdotal response earlier indicated, this is definitely not the case. I average 2-3 jewelry master writs per week on my main crafter. I'm lucky to get 1 each of alchemy and enchanting every two weeks, and provisioning seems to be more on par with 1-2 per month. Now, I will admit that I have not learned the two gold aetherial ambrosia recipes, but I have a hard time believing that two out of the whole pool of purple/gold recipes would impact the modifier that much.

Again, all parts being equal across the four skills, you would think that the return of master writs should also be comparable. Unfortunately, to this point, I think we've all seen a preponderance of jewelry writs and not so much of the others.