Becoming a Master Crafter - What was Your Journey Like?

My_Treehawk

It was actually the crafting aspect that got me hooked on the game, as I am not interested in PvP or Trials. I enjoy the casual play that I can perform under the intention of being a crafter, and at least up until the Style system came along, I was able to enjoy an "in-game profession" - now however, there is little money to be made in set crafting, so it is just done for my friends, family and those guild-mates that need something special.

I thought I would pass along some data (I am a retired data-analyst, so this was a natural path for my curiosity to take) that I have gathered as related to crafting and the garnering of Master Writs (on the PS4). I thought it might help some new players determine which approach, if any, that they might want to take in regards to crafting and acquiring Master Writs.

I maintain a spreadsheet for all my ESO characters tracking all aspects of their progress, as well as tracking the results of writs turned in and vouchers earned for each, as I try to unravel some of the mystery behind this aspect of the game.

The following data was collected over the course of the past three months, using 10 characters. All activity was performed the same way (creation and turning in writs), at the same time of day (it takes me about 8 minutes per character to get and complete daily writs), each character used their Racial Style when completing writs, and all were done at the same location - this was to avoid any variables that might be present from changes in time, location and material used.

My main character "Breggan" is a Grand Master Crafter (all traits, all items, all crafting achievements - except Gold Jewelry upgrade) with 58 Motifs known.

ALL other characters have rank 50 in all crafting including jewelry and all the basic crafting achievements.

The remaining 9 characters are divided into three groups. There is one character for each alliance in each group (I was testing a theory on alliance bias - which proved wrong, there is none). None of the three T-groups have SP slotted into Jewelry as they are all farming surveys.

The first group (T1) know all the base and rare motifs, plus 5 others and have all crafting achievements.
The second group (T2) know ONLY the base races for motifs, but have all achievements relative to crafting
The third group (T3) only has 50 points allocated to the Mage's crafting (Alch, Ench & Prov) and are level 1 (afa SP spent) in the other three, so this group garners Master Writs only for those three, and produce Surveys for the other three skill lines. This group knows only the base races, and have all crafting related achievements.

This group of 10 earns an average of 500 +/- vouchers per week. I have seen weeks as low as 185 and as high as 782.

Breggan averages 125 vouchers per week

Tier 1 characters average 68 per week
Tier 2 characters average 54 per week
Tier 3 characters average 26 per week

OK, so there is a big jump from Breggan to the T1 (roughly double), However - please consider that Breggan has spent over 2 million (2,580,240 gp) in motifs, while the T1 group has spent only 700k. THINK ABOUT THAT.

Looking deeper, the T1 to T2 difference is only marginal - and yet the T2 group has spent NOTHING on motifs.
and the last group which is used primarily for farming surveys (I learned from last years analysis that level 1 skills reward more surveys than higher level skill sets, and they are still pulling in the A,E & P writs for vouchers - which as you can see they do well enough.

The T2 characters will acquire large writs (40+ voucher value) just as often as the group above them, and the T1 will garner large clothing and blacksmithing writs just as often as Breggan. However, there seems to be a MUCH larger acquisition ratio for Woodworking at the lower level (T2) than for any other craft - I cannot explain why, but at the T2 levels they hit BIG on woodworking writs 5x more often than big hits on the cloth and metal writs.

I hope this was informative, and if anyone has any questions I am happy to help.

Feric51

@My_Treehawk

Regarding the T3 group - I would assume you have all the requisite Alchemy and Enchanting achievements on these characters as those are pretty straightforward and easy to get, but I did have a question about their provisioning knowledge.

How many purple/gold recipes do the characters in the T3 group know, and how many of the 26 (average) vouchers per week come from the provisioning writs? I've found that on my main who knows every recipe in the game with the exception of aetherial and mythic aetherial ambrosia, I only get maybe 1 provisioning master writ a week, and 80%+ of the time it's a basic purple recipe for only two vouchers.

Just curious if it's worth putting 6/6 into provisioning on my alts with no purple recipe knowledge, or leaving them at 4-5/6 to farm for the rarer blue and purple recipes?

My_Treehawk

Feric51 wrote: »

@My_Treehawk

Regarding the T3 group - I would assume you have all the requisite Alchemy and Enchanting achievements on these characters as those are pretty straightforward and easy to get, but I did have a question about their provisioning knowledge.

How many purple/gold recipes do the characters in the T3 group know, and how many of the 26 (average) vouchers per week come from the provisioning writs? I've found that on my main who knows every recipe in the game with the exception of aetherial and mythic aetherial ambrosia, I only get maybe 1 provisioning master writ a week, and 80%+ of the time it's a basic purple recipe for only two vouchers.

Just curious if it's worth putting 6/6 into provisioning on my alts with no purple recipe knowledge, or leaving them at 4-5/6 to farm for the rarer blue and purple recipes?

Since the MW Provision drops are not affected by greens/blues I do not worry about them for any other than Breggan, and he crafts all the Provisioning food/drink for the entire group for Writ requirements.

The T1 group knows 18 purple, 3 gold recipes, the T2 runs with 10 purple, 2 gold recipes and the T3 are at just 8p/1g.

The T2 and T3 earn Provisioning writs (and value) and nearly the same ratios. On average each brings in 1 big Prov Writ (40v) about once per 2 weeks, and 1-2 small ones each week. While they are hitting an Enchanting or Alchemy (or both) about twice as often (3 week), though those two skill lines hit the large rewards much, much less often (about 1/month on Enchanting).

As far as your main and the drop rate your seeing - As odd as this sounds, I see very similar results on my Main vs the rest. While Breggan knows nearly every recipe available, his Provisioning Writ drops are far fewer than the others (they hit prov writs far more often than he does) though he does tend towards the higher value (40v) when it does come. By comparison, he hits the other two at nearly the same rates.

Bear in mind that these are averages, from across the 3 month spread - there have been weeks where 2 of the 3 in T1 hit nothing while one of them did incredibly well, and this is true on all skill lines. There are weeks where Breggan brings in less vouchers than a T2 character, then the next week his luck returns and he cashes in on 284 (total) vouchers just on his own.

It almost seems like they hand out those 2v writs to the lower levels more frequently as an effort to keep a new player's anticipation and interest in turning them in, and once the character reaches the upper levels of crafting, it no longer dispenses these at the same ratio. Just a thought that kept occurring to me as I tracked some of this data.

Indigo_Shade

Tedious. Annoying. Occasionally satisfying. 1 achievement left to get the "big title". Also the most expensive. Need to learn 27 more motif sets.

Also working on the Master Angler achievement.

Time sinks, both.

Linaleah

in one word. tedious.

why I did it? becasue I craft in every game I play that has crafting - its an extension of enjoying in RL crafting for me, I like being able to make things.

I'm 9 traits in everything but rings and about a week or so away from being 9 traits in that.

I feel very positive about voucher scrolls. I feel ambivalent about crown version. if someone wants to spend that much money to catch up on in game crafting, well then "shrug" it takes away nothing from me.

motifs are starting to get a bit harder to catch up on, but its a goal. part of what mastery means for me is also being able to craft furniture. I'm not 100% in anything, but I'm close. so... I think its close enough to call myself master crafter, even if I don't know every crafting thing in game and may never know ever crafting thing in the game.

Beamer_Miasma

- Was there a particular moment you decided to become a master crafter?

That would have been some 20 years ago when I first started playing MMOs. I always play a crafter.

- What does "master crafter" mean to you? Does it just mean being a nine trait crafter? Does it mean being a master of styles as well? Does it mean being of service to the community by regularly crafting gear? Something else entirely?

Being able to craft everything. Until that time (still got some furnishing plans to collect) I settle for showing off my Grand Master Crafter title. To me this includes styles, traits, really everything that is not crown-exclusive. A service to the community, of course, as long as its a paid service. It costs a lot of money to buy motifs and furniture plans.

- Where did your journey become particularly difficult or memorable?

I remember when I started buying Militant Ordinator as my last motif (I didn't PvP so it was the last one I still needed) it felt like it was ever going to be possible to reach my goals. Granted, collecting all the furniture plans is a much bigger task but it just felt like a landmark - memorable as you say. I don't really consider any of it 'difficult' as such as it's just a matter of earning enough gold - hard work for sure, takes a lot of time, but not difficult in the sense of 'complex'.

- What are your thoughts on the 'pay to win' research scrolls or motifs? Have you used any, or did you get everything by virtue of your own blood, sweat, and tears?

I don't mind people who spend real world money on this, for me it's a personal challenge. I did everything strictly with in-game gold, just as I do with buying houses. The fact that others want to use real world money for it doesn't affect me nor diminish my accomplishment. I did spend a ton of vouchers on jewelry research scrolls but never any crowns, I'm good enough at earning money in game not to feel a need to do that.

stitchesofdooom

first character: a grind
subsequent characters: easier as they can decon my first charatcer's CP160's and learn traits by researching traits from items my first crafter crafted for them.

Tromso

Hi all.

I have all 9 traits apart from jewelry, still researching the 9th trait. For the nirnhoned trait I bought everything from guild traders; it was not too expensive, but the weapons cost more than the armor.

Motifs I have 30/50 towards the title. A lot of the full motifs happened whilst doing dailies such as the daily delve in Wrothgar and the daily delve from the undaunted guy in Eldenroot. I am slowly purchasing the parts for the other full motifs from guild vendors, it costs gold, but hey, its easy to earn in game. As I have 20 motifs to get I am not going to accelerate JC research. A day's research can be bought for 10 writ vouchers, so again that is a free ingame currency. I have not bought any motifs from the crown store apart from the Frostcaster as I liked the look of it. I bought it before I was aware of the title I am going for.

I think I went for this title as its a challenge. I did the same in WoW for the 'Insane in the Membrane' title in 2012. It was hard then as no Darkmoon dailies. Had to be done with card decks. The Shendralar were also required then. But like this ESO title, I don't mind the grind as its a goal I am going for.

Good luck to everyone else who is in the process and congrats to the ones already there.

Regards,
Dru

Maryal

I've played the game in excess of 3 years now, playing 95% of the time on my main character (NB). In the beginning, I just wanted to level up alchemy, provisioning, and enchanting, which I did. I was fairly broke all the time and figured that if I wanted to have a plentiful supply of good potions, food/drinks, and have gold enchantments on everything, I better be able to make the items myself. Then, after playing for about 6 months, I decided to start leveling up my other crafting skills ... I wanted to be able to make armor for myself (level appropriate) ... back then there was no CP system ... we had the VR (Vet Rank) system.

Sometime after I had been playing the game for a year, some really cool craftable armor sets were being introduced, but some required knowing 9 crafting traits. Since I wanted to be able to craft 9-trait gear I put myself 'on a mission' so to speak -- not only was I going to learn all 9 traits, but I was going to do it on the same character I had maxed out alchemy, provisioning and enchanting on. My main character was going to be maxed in all crafting skill lines! But.. to do that meant I needed more skill points (it takes a lot of skill points to max out all crafting skills/passives). Working on that part was actually fun, I ended up getting all the skyshards in the game and I completed Cadwell's gold.

The most difficult part was a.) saving gold to buy items with nirnhoned traits to research, and b.) time.

But, here I am 3 years later and I can craft anything I want, I have plenty of materials in my crafting bag, and I have learned (almost) all of the provisioning recipes in the game. As far as jewelry, I've learned 8 traits in both necklace and rings and I am halfway though the research time for my 9th ring trait, then I just need to research my last necklace trait.

I learned all the motifs that I liked, most I farmed although I did buy a few through guild vendors. The difficult part is learning the motifs I don't really like ... I'm not going to spend time farming something I don't like, so that leaves me with spending gold to buy them. My toon is not 'wealthy' ... but I do try to buy 1 motif page each week.

Frawr

I have 9 traits on my main and a fair number of the motifs. I never really thought of it as a 'master crafter' just because of the simple nature of crafting in this game.

In this game, crafting is more about 'waiting'. there's nothing to actually 'learn' (as in, improve at actually crafting by developing skills as a crafter).

Imagine a crafting system where you actually hit the sword on the anvil to craft it and, with practice, you could make a better sword !

SWG... now that was master crafting.

dan958

It has something I've been working on on and off. There are times where I play ESO a bunch, then don't play for a few months. I am now hoping to get them all completed soon. I am on 90% of all traits, so not a lot more to go, but these last few will take a long time!

I've been using my writ vouchers to buy 1 day cooldowns, which helps a little.

I don't consider motifs to be a part of the master crafter, and will only bother getting them when required to be a master writ.

Haenk

Maryal wrote: »

The most difficult part was a.) saving gold to buy items with nirnhoned traits to research

In comparison, this is quite cheap. All nirnhoned items combined are as expensive as one page of the most expensive motif.


The (at least *my*) next level is to learn all craftable items (still lacking "that" wickedly expensive Ambrosia receipt, plus half of the other furnishings etc.). I'd say that's another 20 Million of gold. Or even more.

Wreuntzylla

Starlock wrote: »

Becoming a master crafter is quite the journey. For those of you who have made it there (or if it is something you are currently working towards), take a few moments in this discussion to reflect upon your experiences.

Was there a particular moment you decided to become a master crafter?

Before early release.

I travel from game to game with the same guild and it was my turn to pick up crafting.

Starlock wrote: »

What does "master crafter" mean to you? Does it just mean being a nine trait crafter? Does it mean being a master of styles as well? Does it mean being of service to the community by regularly crafting gear? Something else entirely?[/indent]

It means meeting the needs of my guild mates, whatever that entails. Nowadays it just means I send each of them 50-100 of each legendary upgrade mat every so often, thanks to the outfit system.

Starlock wrote: »

Where did your journey become particularly difficult or memorable? [/indent]

Difficult: Well, not difficult but very irritating. I almost left after the Great Nirnhone Debacle.

Memorable: The implementation of master writs in a way that made up (mostly) for the Great Nirnhone Debacle. It would have been a perfect recovery if it had not occurred years later...

Starlock wrote: »

What are your thoughts on the 'pay to win' research scrolls or motifs? Have you used any, or did you get everything by virtue of your own blood, sweat, and tears?[/indent]

I initially split crafting across multiple toons in order to be 8/8 on everything asap. While somewhat time consuming, all other guildies funneled their drops to me from day 1 of early release, making it much easier than what most people probably experienced. Except for enchanting, the real initial grind. I added accounts just to handle the enchanting dilemma. Of course, they eventually nerfed it into sublime ease, but <shrug>.

Over the years my accounts have together become a crafting empire. The only aspect I bought into was horse training. Building the empire was actually pretty casual. As it turns out, because of the way you get intricate gear, the more crafters you have, the easier it is to make more. You can also make considerable amounts of gold doing writs and master writs, making it easier to complete achievements. I have and do use the master writ crafting accelerators. I won't say how many of my toons are 9/9 and have all the achievement motifs to avoid causing wailing and gnashing of teeth... But, as I said before, the more you have the easier it is.

I don't begrudge people buying into crafting this late in the life of the game. Aside from the Great Nirnhoned Debacle, ZoS is fairly good about letting people profit from early entry into crafting. I don't see it as pay to win so much as pay to catch-up, and they do add similar catch-up devices that can be purchased with gold (e.g., voucher crafting accelerators).

Runs

This keeps popping up in my Participated cause of my comments about the title, so I figure I should participate in the actual questions

Starlock wrote: »

Was there a particular moment you decided to become a master crafter?

As soon as I started playing. I always craft in games.

Starlock wrote: »

What does "master crafter" mean to you? Does it just mean being a nine trait crafter? Does it mean being a master of styles as well? Does it mean being of service to the community by regularly crafting gear? Something else entirely?

To me it means someone who can craft anything and everything in any style available. Every recipe in provisioning as well. Furnishings though is a bit different. There are just so much and some recipes still not able to be looted. I feel like ZOS really didn't want people knowing every furnishing recipe, even though I've heard a few have all that are available.

Starlock wrote: »

Where did your journey become particularly difficult or memorable?

When Housing was introduced. It gave me a new crafting goal, attuning every set station in the game for my home. Soooo many master writs done, so much gold spent buying extra masters. But it was worth it and not long after I finished my goal I founded At Writs End originally intending for it to be a personal guild bank and ability to share my home with a few. At Writs End grew very fast and almost immediately blossomed into a real guild.

Another memorable moment came recently when I got a custom title added via addon. Artificer of Zenithar Which I feel is more than fitting for me. I have 9 traits on everything, every motif even the crown store exclusives, I know every provisioning recipe, all alchemy traits known. Other than furnishings, I know it all. And eventually I will have all of them too.

Starlock wrote: »

What are your thoughts on the 'pay to win' research scrolls or motifs? Have you used any, or did you get everything by virtue of your own blood, sweat, and tears?

I have used the ones the ones provided by the voucher merchant for Jewelcrafting on my main crafter. When they were first released on the Crown Store and people were arguing over P2W or not, I made a comment then that at that time it was not P2W but the moment new traits were released it would be. And it was. People who paid to finish as soon as they could get a hold of the research items had a significant advantage for crafting sales and personal gear till the other people who used the "free" scrolls caught up. If we hit a 10th trait on any or all of the crafts it will be the same.

AgentOrangeR

I finally got the Grand Master Crafter title last night. Felt good seeing that this morning, almost a relief! It's been a long road, like for many of you. I used the 1 day scrolls to help with research at times, only for the long research times - but not for everything. I recommend that approach. I'm researching my last jewelry trait and am of the opinion that all traits on all items should be researched, for the title. Otherwise it feels incomplete.

The worst part are the motifs, no way in hell I'd keep grinding to get all of them, so about half, if not more, were bought from the guild stores. Joining trade guilds made that possible. Yes, more than one.

So it took me about a year to get this achievement. But only this year I decided to start buying motifs seeing that it might take me 3 times that if I farmed them myself, as RNG Gods are not very kind most of the time.

Anyways, feeling proud of this achievement ☺️

Borrowing a phrase from Descartes:
I craft, therefore I am.

Maryal

Haenk wrote: »

Maryal wrote: »

The most difficult part was a.) saving gold to buy items with nirnhoned traits to research

In comparison, this is quite cheap. All nirnhoned items combined are as expensive as one page of the most expensive motif.


The (at least *my*) next level is to learn all craftable items (still lacking "that" wickedly expensive Ambrosia receipt, plus half of the other furnishings etc.). I'd say that's another 20 Million of gold. Or even more.

Cheap? LOL! Not back when I researched nirnhoned items. I've been playing the game a long long time. Believe it or not, back when I was a 'young whipper-snapper' (LOL!) nirnhoned anything was the end-all-be-all and the prices back then were outrageous. Now-a-days, nirnhoned items are relatively inexpensive.

Back when I researched my crafting traits, the game didn't have anything that reduced research time (other than an applicable crafting passive) ... researching those last traits was excruciatingly long (maxing out the research passives cut research time down to 30 days per trait (needed for the last few traits)).

And .... and .... (LOL), when I was leveling up my provisioning, you had to farm recipes (which one you got was rng). Back then NPCs did not sell provisioning recipes (although, if you were wealthy enough, you could pay the ransom money demanded by the guild vendor to get a provisioning recipe released to you).

dan958

I am working my way to it now (both all traits, and the achievement). I currently have 88.58% traits unlocked, so still got a long way to go with that. Then I just need to get to level 50 in jewelry and provisioning. Then I need to complete a bunch more motifs, which will probably be the hardest part.

I've just been using my writ vouchers to get 1 day research bonuses, so it will make the process a bit quicker.

Haenk

Maryal wrote: »

Cheap? LOL! Not back when I researched nirnhoned items

Not exactly "cheap", but very doable, as you probably did Nirn last (as did I), so you had enough days to collect enough money to purchase the next research item. Research required a bit of dedication, like almost a year
As for the receipts / motifs - I never went out farming them (only when required by "gameplay"). Simply buying them from guild stores is a much better option IMHO, money-wise it might not be very fast-paced though.

dan958

dan958 wrote: »

I am working my way to it now (both all traits, and the achievement). I currently have 88.58% traits unlocked, so still got a long way to go with that. Then I just need to get to level 50 in jewelry and provisioning. Then I need to complete a bunch more motifs, which will probably be the hardest part.

I've just been using my writ vouchers to get 1 day research bonuses, so it will make the process a bit quicker.

To go on from my previous message. I leveled my provisioning and alchemy to 50 today. It was very easy, just not a skill I really bothered with before

stitchesofdooom

still working on my last few traits. They take FOREVER. I'll be done in a month with research scrolls

CGPsaint

My first character was a Bosmer DK, which I later learned was a terrible choice. I had completed quite a bit of research and learned a boatload of motif styles and provisioning recipes, so I didn't want to just delete the character. So I turned her in to my crafter, completed ALL research, and proceeded to learn more styles, provisioning recipes, and later on, furnishing plans as well. Then I got tired of logging back and forth to her whenever I needed something crafted, so I started the journey all over again on my main MagSorc. At this point now, I am 4-5 traits away in Blacksmithing/Clothier, 1 trait in Jewelry Crafting, and just need to finish Scalecaller/Fang Lair/BGs and my main is caught up as a crafter as well! I haven't used any Crown Research Scrolls, and only a handful of Writ Voucher Research Scrolls. It can seem tedious, but I stay on top of my research, farm the motifs when I can, which I learn, and then either trade or sell to get the motifs that I need. Definitely worth the effort!

dan958

Learning the motifs is going to be the killer for me to get the Grand Master Crafting achievement.

Haenk

dan958 wrote: »

Learning the motifs is going to be the killer for me to get the Grand Master Crafting achievement.

Wait until you start to collect furnishing plans. I'm pretty certain I will not be able to finish the collection at all - not even considering phased-out ones. Tens of millions of gold are required, plus a constant flow of new plans, makes this a fulltime job or lifetime achievement.

reoskit

Maybe (definitely) cried a bit when I finished 9-trait on my first... Then did it a whole bunch more times.

But that first one was a beast. Especially since "back in my day" we didn't have these silly research scrolls.

kylewwefan

I was a master crafter, then took an arrow....I got about 6 more weeks til I can become a master crafter again.

The motif hunt

Will make your eyes bleed if you’re on console. It is so rough. I’ve spent a lot of gold. Lot of gold. Collecting Motifs I’ll never even use.

Decon Jewelry

Well, this part wasn’t that bad. Just don’t try to do it all in one day. Join the Horde of people rampaging the Alik’r Desert Dolmens. Will probably be the quickest way to get the jewelry to deconstruct and level up.

Traits and Research

This is gonna take a little while. Robust, Healthy and Arcane are fast quick and easy.

The rest are easy enough to buy. I messed around with Cyrodil quest for triune. It’s easier to just buy the stone and tip someone to make it.

goldenflameslinger

Another post was asking for a three word ESO story. I have a three word story for becoming a master crafter.... "Long A. F."

redlink1979

Long and painful, resumes it all. Lol

Zoal_AUG

It was start of April i woke up started eso and was questing around and people in chat were saying that we should research traits in order to be able to craft sets, every item i had i was deconstructing and researching. At the time of craglorn release i had almost everything 8 traits and maxed out every crafting skill line.
Not long after i got my dwemer motif and glass motif i was happy those were my first real non base game motifs.
Right now im a master crafter i have 9 trait on everything including jewerly. I have over 55 motifs learned and i am proud ovnew of grand master tittle along with powerful sky forge anvil hammer!

lagrue

I'm less than 10 days away from becoming a GRAND Master Crafter. The hype is real.

Malborn66

The painful bit is also being my toughest PVE character as well as being my main crafter.
I am currently working on the 50 motifs to complete the Legendary achievement.
At 44 with one Motif at 13/14.
Others not as close.

I will get there eventually but it will be a while yet...

Malborn
PC-EU