Collect all the gear you want with Curated Item Set Drops
For example, in Veteran Maelstrom arena, each time you clear the PvE challenge, you’ll receive a Maelstrom weapon that you haven’t yet collected, guaranteeing that eventually you’ll receive the specific item you’re chasing (in my case, the Perfect Crushing Wall staff!) Once you’ve fully collected an item set, any future drops for that set will be random as normal.
When designing this new system, the team wanted to remove some of the frustration associated with completely randomized reward drops. For Rob Garrett, ESO’s Gameplay Lead, this change builds upon other systems that came before it.
“The first step in addressing the problem was the Transmutation system back when Clockwork City launched, which allowed players to customize traits on their gear,” says Garrett. “Last year, we launched Item Set Collections to allow players to safely deconstruct and reconstruct set items without needing to re-farm them. That system, however, also served as a steppingstone for curating loot table drops on a per-player basis. Since the system knows what each player has already collected, it allows us to ensure they aren’t at the mercy of pure RNG when chasing specific items.”
Of course, this change doesn’t affect every reward drop in the game, and there are some cases where you’ll continue to receive completely randomized rewards.
“The goal was to reduce pain associated with chasing specific items, but not to completely trivialize those efforts. The loot tables themselves have not been altered, so items are still acquired from the same sources as before. It’s always been possible, for example, for randomly appearing chests in a dungeon to drop set items normally looted from bosses in that dungeon. We don’t curate the drops from those chests because the required effort to open them is minimal relative to defeating a boss. Reward chests from arenas and incursions (World Events), however, are directly tied to defeating bosses, so those drops are curated based on your collections.”
For the team, the hope is that this new experience will lessen the frustration for players seeking to gain specific items or collect entire sets.
“The most relevant impact is on expectations associated with any given item set chase. The math is straightforward in terms of calculating the maximum number of times you’d need to complete a given activity before a desired item or set of items will drop,” explains Garrett. “That worst-case scenario is far, far less ambiguous and daunting than before. We also believe this change will make the activity of filling out your item set collection “stickerbook” more broadly appealing and satisfying.”
Collect Items & Customize at Will
With the addition of the new Armory and Curated Item Set Drops, you’ll have a much easier time collecting items and both customizing and switching your builds. How are you planning to make use of these important base-game changes when Update 32 arrives in November? Is there a specific set you’re hoping to collect? Or are you excited to effortless switch builds on your favorite character? Let us know via Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
Arriving in tandem with the Deadlands DLC, Update 32 will go live November 1 on PC/Mac and November 16 for Xbox and PlayStation consoles. As a base-game patch, Update 32 is free for all existing ESO players with no purchase necessary.