So someone in another thread was complaining about Pay to Win Research Scrolls in the Crown Store, and I found myself thinking about the math of researching traits.
We all know there's nine traits you have to research for every item in the game and that research takes a really long time. So how much benefit do Research Scrolls actually give? How much time are you really saving with those Crowns? I didn't know. I wanted to find out.
How I set up the Math
I used the research times from here:
http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Traits and here:
http://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Research and my own math. I can't promise my math is perfect, so if I'm off by a little, have mercy.
Here's the hypothetical situation. You've got an addon that will automatically start research the new item the second the last item stops researching so you get optimum research time and we'll assume that you stay logged in at all the right times and such. Ideal world, here.
First things first, you level your Blacksmithing, Clothing, and Woodworking until you can get three important passives:
Metallurgy,
Stitching, and
Carpentry. These amazing research passives reduce research time by 25%, limit research to 30 days, and let you research 3 items at once for each crafting discipline when they are maxed out for 4 skill points.
Ideally, you also have ESO+ for a further 10% research time reduction, but I don't have ESO+ because I'm cheap.
We'll research in a cycle. That means we research three items, all nine traits, then go onto the next 3 items, research all traits and so on.
Wood working has 6 items, so it takes 2 Cycles. Blacksmithing and Clothing both have 14 items, so that will take 5 Cycles. That means the total researching length of time is the length of 5 Cycles because we can research blacksmithing, clothing, and woodworking all at the same time. Researching all the items will take 12 total cycles when it comes to figuring out cost of scrolls because those are unique to blacksmithing, clothing, and woodworking.
Completing a Cycle
Well, according to
http://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Research the base time for a research cycle with no passives is 3066 hours/128 days. Therefore, to research all the traits in 5 cycles will take 15,330 hrs or 638.75 days or 1 year, 273 days.
With the Metallurgy, Stitching, and Carpentry passives maxed at 4 skill points, that base time for a research cycle is 1,867.5 hours/78 days. Therefore, the research all the traits in 5 cycles will take 9,337.5 hours or 390 days or 1 year and 25 days. Definitely grab those passives!
With passives maxed and ESO+, the base time for a research cycle drops to 70 days, 45 minutes, according to
http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Traits. Again I don't have ESO+, so I didn't do a lot of math with it. This puts the lowest time for maxed research at about 350 days or slightly less than 1 year.
In-game 1 day Research scrolls
This scrolls available in game wipe 24 hours off the timer of any currently researching item or finishes it if ther timer is less than 24 hours. They have a 20 hour cooldown before they can be used again. Again, we'll assume that we have an addon that uses a scroll at the most optimal time (I tried not to waste too many hours of the scrolls) and automatically starts the next item researching. Also, I don't have ESO+, so I did my math using the research times with maxed passives (25% time reduction and capped at 30 days) but not the additional 10% of ESO+.
Working in cycles - the specific hours spent on each trait might vary if you decide to wait out research of less than 24 hours or if you want to use a scroll again as soon as possible. I chose to wait it out if the wasted time on the scroll would be 12 or more hours)
1st trait - 4.5 hours (better just to wait it out)
2nd traits - 9 hours (better just to wait it out)
3 trait - 18 hours (better just to wait it out)
4 trait - 1 scroll, 12 hours
5 trait - 2 scrolls (wasting 2 hours), 26 hrs
6 trait - 3 scrolls, 72 hours
7 trait - 7 scrolls, 120 hours
8 trait - 13 scrolls, 264 hrs
9 trait - 16 scrolls, 336 hrs
1 Cycle research time using my method under ideal researching but no ESO+ is 861.5 hours or 36 days.
Total research time (5 Cycles) is 4,307.5 hours or 179.5 or a little less than half a year.
1 Cycle requires 42 research scrolls.
Total research requires 84 Woodworking Scrolls, 210 Blacksmithing Scrolls, and 210 Clothing Scrolls, assuming they can be used as soon as they come off cooldown AND when most efficient. You might need a few less scrolls if its not efficient, or a few more if you choose to waste time on the scrolls by finishing certain items.
ESO+ would obviously shorten this time further and thus lower the number of scrolls needed.
Crown Store Research Scrolls
The Crown Store Research Scrolls come in 1, 7 and 15 day versions. They do not have a cooldown.
1 day scrolls - 400 Crowns
7 day scrolls - 2500 Crowns
15 day scrolls - 5000 crowns
Again you have the option to waste time on scrolls. Since this one involved much less math to find an optimal use of scrolls, I went ahead and did both options.
1 trait - wait 4.5 hours or 1 1-day scroll
2 trait - wait 9 hours or 1 1-day scroll
3 trait - wait 18 hours or 1 1-day scroll
4 trait - wait 12 hours and 1 1-day scroll or 2 1-day scrolls
5 trait - 3 1-day scrolls
6 trait - 6 1-day scrolls
7 trait - 1 7-day scroll and 5 1-day scrolls (ESO+ gets 1 7-day scroll and 4 1-day scrolls)
8 trait - 1 15-day scroll, 1 7-day scroll and 2 1-day scrolls (ESO+ gets 1 15-day scroll and 1 7-day scroll)
9 trait - 2 15-day scrolls (ESO+ gets 1 15-day scroll, 1 7 day scroll and 5 1-day scrolls)
So the cost in scrolls for 1 Cycle is either:
Patient People Price: wait 43.5 hours and 17 1-day scrolls, 2 7-day scrolls, and 3 15-day scrolls.
Impatient People Price: 21 1-day scrolls, 2 7-day scrolls, and 3 15-day scrolls
ESO+: wait 36 hrs 45 min and 19 1-day scrolls, 3 7-day scrolls, 2 15 day scrolls OR 23 1-day scrolls, 3 7-day scrolls, 2 15-day scrolls.
Total Cost for all researching is thus: (5 times waiting, 12 total cycles for all crafts)
Patient People: Wait 217.5 hours (9 days) and 204 1-day scrolls, 24 7-day scrolls, and 36 15-day scrolls = 321,600 Crowns
Impatient People: 252 1-day scrolls, 24 7-day scrolls, and 36 15-day scrolls = 340,800 crowns
Patient ESO +: wait 182.5 hours (7.6 days), 228 1-day scrolls, 36 7-day scrolls, 24 15-day scrolls = 301,200 Crowns (possibly a little lower depending on how patient they are on some of the later traits)
Impatient ESO+: 276 1-day scrolls, 36 7-day scrolls, 24 15-day scrolls = 320,400 Crowns
Conclusions/TLDR:
1. Metallurgy, Stitching, and Carpentry are super important if you want to research items, saving you about 250 days.
2. Super patient people who never use anything to speed up their research but are also extremely on the ball about keeping up on the research with take a minimum of 390 days (350 days with ESO+) to become a full 9-trait crafter. So, I predict that most players will take around a year and a half/two years to become a 9-trait crafter if they are diligent about researching or don't max out the passives right away which many new players don't.
3. The In-game 1-day Research Scrolls cuts down the time required by a little over half if you are using them as soon as they come off cooldown (assuming its optimal to do so). It will take approximately 84 Woodworking Scrolls, 210 Blacksmithing Scrolls, and 210 Clothing Scrolls if you do so (+ or - a few for differing methodology), so weigh that against the current cost of scrolls on your platform.
4. To completely wipe out your crafting in as little time as it takes to click on all those scrolls you bought from the Crown Store takes 300,000+ Crowns. That is the price of instantly becoming a 9-trait Crafter.
5. Using a combination of patience, in-game 1-day research scrolls, and Crown Store scrolls is probably the most cost effective way to become a 9-trait crafter in less than a year, but that would be a lot of math I don't want to do right now. If someone else wants to, that'd be awesome!
Final Thoughts:
Every hour a super patient person without ESO+ researches is worth about 34 crowns.
If you are going to go hog-wild and buy ALL the scrolls, patience saves about 20K Crowns. Save yourself the crowns.
it costs 300,000+ Crowns to become a Master Crafter with only Crown Store Research Scrolls. That's about $2000 if the crown packs aren't on sale (PC/NA prices).
As usual, if I've screwed up my math or misunderstood something, please feel free to point it out politely. As I've noted, some of the numbers of scrolls or exact cost might differ slightly if you choose to research items a little differently than I did when doing the math.
