Max level daily writs should return ONLY max level materials

YaYaPineapple

Why am I using 40 ruby ash to get a return of 15 ruby ash and 10 (completely useless) sanded oak? Using 40 ancestor silk to get 15 silk and 10 (completely useless) voidcloth? The surveys are not even coming close to making up for this small amount of max level materials returned.

I searched for a thread covering this topic, but didn't find one that matched.

redspecter23

The lower level mats were added when people complained they had no access to lower level materials for lowbie crafting purposes.

If you'd like to receive only high level mats, just vendor the lower level mats you're getting. Not only will you have high only level materials, but you'll get a bit of gold as well. Win/win.

bmnoble

Because doing writs is not suppose to make you 100% self sufficient, its intended for you to actually do a bit of farming or buying mats off other players.

YaYaPineapple

bmnoble wrote: »

Because doing writs is not suppose to make you 100% self sufficient, its intended for you to actually do a bit of farming or buying mats off other players.

I get that, and I do farm, but I'd need to farm or buy 400 raw cloth +raw 400 wood +400 raw ore per day - just to do daily writs. <---edited to correct, per later post^

It doesn't need to be 100% self-sustaining, but the return should be better than it is. If ALL of the mats returned were max level, it still would not be self-sustaining, but it would be better.

I had a large stockpile of mats from farming and deconning over the past year, but since I've been doing daily writs on the rest of my alts, my stockpile of max level materials (especially silk) is being depleted, while my stock of completely useless mats is climbing. Selling those useless mats won't come close to making up the loss.

redspecter23

You can buy those materials from guild traders. A stack of wood, cloth or ingots is about 1600 gold. Keep in mind you don't have to actually farm the materials yourself. You can take some of the gold you're getting from your writs and put it back into doing more writs later on. Also those low level materials that you have no interest in are often worth 1800 - 2000 gold per stack if you were to sell them on guild vendors.

YaYaPineapple

I understand the idea of giving (a few) of the next higher tier of materials as a reward at lower skill levels (given the assumption that the skill level will progress to the higher tier), but since a max level crafter has little use for lower tier materials, they should not comprise 40% of max level daily crafting rewards.

redspecter23

YaYaPineapple wrote: »

I understand the idea of giving (a few) of the next higher tier of materials as a reward at lower skill levels (given the assumption that the skill level will progress to the higher tier), but since a max level crafter has little use for lower tier materials, they should not comprise 40% of max level daily crafting rewards.

You're right, they used to comprise 100% of the rewards (when you didn't get a survey instead). As a compromise they recently added the high level mats as a bonus.

Many players are quite happy to receive some lower level materials to help with crafting for alts and friends. As mentioned, if you don't want them, you can typically sell them for more than the equivalent high level materials would be worth.

Dusk_Coven

YaYaPineapple wrote: »

I'd need to farm or buy 400 raw cloth +raw 400 wood +400 raw ore [i]per character, per day[/i] - just to do daily writs.

Per character? I think your math is off. I have 9 toons and after the mats they get back I usually use net around 200 units refined mats for Blacksmithing (for example). That's for NINE toons doing Rubedite each day.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Blacksmith_Writ#Detailed_Walkthrough -- Rank 10 max consumption is 40 units rubedite ingot for the daily writ, minus what you get back from turn-in.

YaYaPineapple

Ahh, you're right I had a bit of a brain fart there. I was thinking of needing 10 mats to refine, forgetting that you get more than 7- 10 ingots from that refine.

Aside from that brain fart tho, my stock of max level mats is still being depleted under the current daily writ reward system, and I think a level 50 character doing max level daily crafting writs, should get only max level materials in the "Shipment of XXX", or at least the ratio should be adjusted from 40/60 to 10/90.

idk

The package we get randomly when we turn in a writ was to help with gathering low level matts when Zos changed all zones nodes to provide resources based on character's level and crafting level. This was an important issue for many players. In other words, OP's request should not happen for that reason because we would not even get that package if it was not for that issue. Also, surveys are what has always been intended to help us with the matts for max level.

Elsonso

redspecter23 wrote: »

The lower level mats were added when people complained they had no access to lower level materials for lowbie crafting purposes.

This.

YaYaPineapple

Perhaps I've been exceptionally unlucky with surveys then? Or there is an issue with survey drop rates? A few months ago I had 12k silk, and now I have only 3k in stock. I don't craft to sell and I almost never craft for others @ cp 160. Nearly all of this stock depletion has come from doing max level writs on 10 characters. Picking up every node I pass and deconning every item I loot (valued at less than 2k) isn't balancing the consumption of max level mats from daily crafting writs. (And before anyone suggests it, I am NOT making 160 gear for daily writs).

tmbrinks

YaYaPineapple wrote: »

Perhaps I've been exceptionally unlucky with surveys then? Or there is an issue with survey drop rates? A few months ago I had 12k silk, and now I have only 3k in stock. I don't craft to sell and I almost never craft for others @ cp 160. Nearly all of this stock depletion has come from doing max level writs on 10 characters. Picking up every node I pass and deconning every item I loot (valued at less than 2k) isn't balancing the consumption of max level mats from daily crafting writs. (And before anyone suggests it, I am NOT making 160 gear for daily writs).

You're still operating under the false assumption that doing daily writs should result in a net increase in materials... one of the purposes of writs is the conversion of those materials into other rewards (master writs, surveys, gold improvement materials, and gold). There needs to be a way to actually REMOVE some of the materials from the game, otherwise they will become worthless.

redspecter23

tmbrinks wrote: »

YaYaPineapple wrote: »

Perhaps I've been exceptionally unlucky with surveys then? Or there is an issue with survey drop rates? A few months ago I had 12k silk, and now I have only 3k in stock. I don't craft to sell and I almost never craft for others @ cp 160. Nearly all of this stock depletion has come from doing max level writs on 10 characters. Picking up every node I pass and deconning every item I loot (valued at less than 2k) isn't balancing the consumption of max level mats from daily crafting writs. (And before anyone suggests it, I am NOT making 160 gear for daily writs).

You're still operating under the false assumption that doing daily writs should result in a net increase in materials... one of the purposes of writs is the conversion of those materials into other rewards (master writs, surveys, gold improvement materials, and gold). There needs to be a way to actually REMOVE some of the materials from the game, otherwise they will become worthless.

This can actually be seen in game. A few updates ago, before they added the high level mats to writ rewards, I was regularly paying up to 40g per unit for ancestor silk. Rubedite ingots were around 10g per unit. Ruby ash near 20g each. Fast forward to last week and I picked up 10,000 of each to stockpile and paid under 10g for each unit. Most were in the 7g range. We're already seeing the effects of having some high level mats in the rewards. If they were to double the current amount, everyone would just vendor away the extras and they would have tons of extras.

YaYaPineapple

tmbrinks wrote: »

You're still operating under the false assumption that doing daily writs should result in a net increase in materials... one of the purposes of writs is the conversion of those materials into other rewards (master writs, surveys, gold improvement materials, and gold). There needs to be a way to actually REMOVE some of the materials from the game, otherwise they will become worthless.

You have misread. I never said that I expect daily crafting writs to result in a net material stock increase, or even be self-sustaining. What I *did* say is that max level writs done on a max level character should reward only max level materials OR that the ratio of lowbie/max level materials should be changed.

tmbrinks

YaYaPineapple wrote: »

tmbrinks wrote: »

You're still operating under the false assumption that doing daily writs should result in a net increase in materials... one of the purposes of writs is the conversion of those materials into other rewards (master writs, surveys, gold improvement materials, and gold). There needs to be a way to actually REMOVE some of the materials from the game, otherwise they will become worthless.

You have misread. I never said that I expect daily crafting writs to result in a net material stock increase, or even be self-sustaining. What I *did* say is that max level writs done on a max level character should reward only max level materials OR that the ratio of lowbie/max level materials should be changed.

I quote.

YaYaPineapple wrote: »

Perhaps I've been exceptionally unlucky with surveys then? Or there is an issue with survey drop rates? A few months ago I had 12k silk, and now I have only 3k in stock. I don't craft to sell and I almost never craft for others @ cp 160. Nearly all of this stock depletion has come from doing max level writs on 10 characters. Picking up every node I pass and deconning every item I loot (valued at less than 2k) isn't balancing the consumption of max level mats from daily crafting writs. (And before anyone suggests it, I am NOT making 160 gear for daily writs).

You need a source of lower level materials in the game. You used to get 25 of them regardless (if you didn't get a survey)... now you get 15 that you can use again, and 10 at a lower level... and you're asking for MORE?

They have already balanced it away from the lower tiers.

Some of those materials sell for 6k+ a stack because they are becoming limited... you can sell them at a vendor and then buy enough of the CP160 mats to resupply to do your writs.

Also, I've gone from 105k ruby ash to 98k ruby ash in the last 4 months, doing writs on 18 characters a day, and I don't collect very many nodes, other than surveys

Are you deconning the intricates you get? They return extra resources...

YaYaPineapple

You quoted me saying that ME FARMING MATERIALS AND DE-CONNING ITEMS (in addition to the rewards and surveys from crafting writs) is not balancing the material consumption of daily crafting writs.

How are you getting

You're still operating under the false assumption that doing daily writs should result in a net increase in materials"

...from that?

You need a source of lower level materials in the game. You used to get 25 of them regardless (if you didn't get a survey)... now you get 15 that you can use again, and 10 at a lower level... and you're asking for MORE?

I haven't said we need more than 25. I wasn't having this issue back when we got 25 of the same type.

I said I want ALL max level materials (25) OR a better ratio of low level/max level materials. Max level characters don't need 40% of their material rewards to be low level. Low level characters can farm their own low level materials. Lowbie mats taking up 40% of a max level character's rewards is not necessary. At the every least, the ratio should be changed to 5/20 lowbie/max materials. Then a tiny amount of lowbie material can be supplied, while also providing more materials that level 50+ characters actually need.

tmbrinks

YaYaPineapple wrote: »

You quoted me saying that ME FARMING MATERIALS AND DE-CONNING ITEMS (in addition to the rewards and surveys from crafting writs) is not balancing the material consumption of daily crafting writs.

How are you getting

You're still operating under the false assumption that doing daily writs should result in a net increase in materials"

...from that?

You need a source of lower level materials in the game. You used to get 25 of them regardless (if you didn't get a survey)... now you get 15 that you can use again, and 10 at a lower level... and you're asking for MORE?

I haven't said we need more than 25. I wasn't having this issue back when we got 25 of the same type.

I said I want ALL max level materials (25) OR a better ratio of low level/max level materials. Max level characters don't need 40% of their material rewards to be low level. Low level characters can farm their own low level materials. Lowbie mats taking up 40% of a max level character's rewards is not necessary. At the every least, the ratio should be changed to 5/20 lowbie/max materials. Then a tiny amount of lowbie material can be supplied, while also providing more materials that level 50+ characters actually need.

Good. Writs are supposed to take materials out of the game. They're working as intended.

Dusk_Coven

I think before we look at the self-sufficiency of daily writs, we need to make some assumptions.

(1) This is the big one -- That ZOS did not plan for too many alts. The deficit is generally manageable with a bit of gathering and the odd survey, IF you had a few toons at most. This is generally the case on Console where they don't have Lazy Writ Crafter to do max-alt farming. But they can't have a different version of the game on Console versus PC and they can't expect Lazy Writ Crafter to be standard because it's an unofficial AddOn.

If we proceed on assumption 1, we still have other assumptions:

(2) That ZOS's math for required materials to make items actually makes sense. Based on many things I've seen in the game, I'm gonna say that's a toss-up but you can have more faith in ZOS if you like. That means, they want you to spend more mats for the same type of item as the tier goes up.
OR
That ZOS expects you to sit longer at each tier because levelling is supposed to take longer the higher you get (which it doesn't, but that's a different story) so while you're sitting there you're theoretically accumulating more resource for that level. Some people accumulate more surveys than they want to do. At CP160 that can literally translate into tens of thousands of a single type of top-tier material without having to buy any from a Guild Store.

(3) That ZOS wants to slow you down from doing everything max. At tier 1, Blacksmithing/Clothier/Woodworking is more than self-sufficient. You stay there too long you'll have to get rid of your tons of iron/jute/maple. At tier 2 it's near break-even but after that it's trickier. After that, they'd be blind not to notice the increasing deficit. Assuming they are not blind to that, if they wanted you to be at worst breakeven they could simply return the mats you used every day. But they don't.

(4) That ZOS doesn't want it to be too hard either and force you to grind for mats too much. If it's just a mat sink, they'd return less mats or none at all. You already get lots of gold and XP and net profit on top of it. Normally you do quests at a loss of something to get something else (typically XP or specific loot or both) -- you lose time or resource in exchange. Daily writs are just ridiculously good profit. Very few repeatable quests are like that (I'm looking at you, Countess Viatrix Celata).

ZOS doesn't like to make statements about intent (and even when they do, sometimes it sounds like nonsense anyway) so go ahead and assume the worst.

tmbrinks

Let me put it another way... now that I'm sober

Currently you receive 15 materials at max level, plus a ~12.5% chance at a survey which will return you approximately 120 raw materials, or at 85% return on refining, an additional 102 refined materials on 12.5% of your writs.

15 + 102*.125 = 27.75 average return per writ.

Your proposal is to make it so the full 25 are the top tier material

25 + 102*.125 = 37.75 average return per writ

Crafting writs take between 36 and 42 materials per day... so you are, in fact, essentially asking for the full return of your materials.

All of this ON TOP of the master writs, gold improvement materials, etc...

I also have a very hard time believing that if you do in fact pick up nodes, pick up your surveys, and decon everything that you pick up, that you are having as drastic of a material loss as you say

There is a net loss of ~122 materials per day, with doing writs on 10 character (this is for clothing as well, the one that requires the most). So in a "few months" (I'm going to assume 90 days), you have a shortage of 11,025 materials... you say you've lost 9k (and that's just in silk.. remember 1/3rd of the clothing ones are leather!!!). The math doesn't work in your favor. So you're either 1) exaggerating 2) using anecdotal evidence 3) or flat out lying...

Alinhbo_Tyaka

Writs will never be self sustaining as ZOS does not balance around that. I have two crafters who between the writ materials, deconstruction and gathering while doing open world content generate an excess of materials. It is to the point I occasionally vendor my stock just of get rid of some. I also have a friend who has three crafters and their results are similar.

It sounds to me you might be a hyper crafter. I can see where a hyper crafter might not be able to keep up with materials unless they spend a good portion of their time doing nothing but acquiring materials. Again I don't believe ZOS balances for this type player as it would create too much excess in the typical player base. Not only could it collapse the materials market but also create an excess of gold as people switch to vendors for their sales. Keep in mind anything sold through the guild stores is just circulating existing currency whereas vendors create it out of the ether. I don't know that there are enough gold syncs in the game to handle that.

YaYaPineapple

tmbrinks wrote: »

Let me put it another way... now that I'm sober

Currently you receive 15 materials at max level, plus a ~12.5% chance at a survey which will return you approximately 120 raw materials, or at 85% return on refining, an additional 102 refined materials on 12.5% of your writs.

15 + 102*.125 = 27.75 average return per writ.

Your proposal is to make it so the full 25 are the top tier material

25 + 102*.125 = 37.75 average return per writ

Crafting writs take between 36 and 42 materials per day... so you are, in fact, essentially asking for the full return of your materials.

All of this ON TOP of the master writs, gold improvement materials, etc...

I also have a very hard time believing that if you do in fact pick up nodes, pick up your surveys, and decon everything that you pick up, that you are having as drastic of a material loss as you say

There is a net loss of ~122 materials per day, with doing writs on 10 character (this is for clothing as well, the one that requires the most). So in a "few months" (I'm going to assume 90 days), you have a shortage of 11,025 materials... you say you've lost 9k (and that's just in silk.. remember 1/3rd of the clothing ones are leather!!!). The math doesn't work in your favor. So you're either 1) exaggerating 2) using anecdotal evidence 3) or flat out lying...

We can't have any sort of discussion when you're making statements like this. I'm not lying or exaggerating, and this is quite obviously anecdotal evidence, since I'm talking about my experience.

Its possible that something is glitched with the survey drop rate. I didn't count how many I've gotten in the past few months compared to how many I got before when I wasn't having this problem. I was not having this issue before they made the change in material types rewarded. I assumed the material loss was caused by the change in material reward levels, but perhaps its caused by some change in the drop rate of surveys (for me, or in general). Either way I'm losing materials that I was not losing before. Since my farming, deconning, and daily writ activity have remained the same, that leaves me thinking that the issue is caused by either the change in materials rewarded, or a change in how many surveys I'm getting.

If the lower-tier materials must remain in the rewards, I'd propose that instead of getting 10 (40%) lower-tier materials, that we instead receive 5 (20%). This would bring max crafter rewards in line with the lowest level crafter rewards. (The lowest skill crafters currently receive 20 materials of their level + 5 of the next higher tier materials).

You're acting as if I'm some entitled brat when all I'm asking for is exactly what we used to receive before they made the changes to include lower tier materials.

I don't know why you've gotten tense over this discussion. Are you in dire need of lower-tier materials, so you need to vigorously defend their presence in the daily writ reward boxes for level 50 max crafters?

I'd like to continue the discussion, and I'd like to hear about whether you've seen a reduction in the number of surveys and I'd like to hear about why all of your level 50+ characters need 40% of their rewards to be lowbie crafting materials - but I won't If you continue being hostile, disrespectful and calling me a liar.

tmbrinks

YaYaPineapple wrote: »

tmbrinks wrote: »

Let me put it another way... now that I'm sober

Currently you receive 15 materials at max level, plus a ~12.5% chance at a survey which will return you approximately 120 raw materials, or at 85% return on refining, an additional 102 refined materials on 12.5% of your writs.

15 + 102*.125 = 27.75 average return per writ.

Your proposal is to make it so the full 25 are the top tier material

25 + 102*.125 = 37.75 average return per writ

Crafting writs take between 36 and 42 materials per day... so you are, in fact, essentially asking for the full return of your materials.

All of this ON TOP of the master writs, gold improvement materials, etc...

I also have a very hard time believing that if you do in fact pick up nodes, pick up your surveys, and decon everything that you pick up, that you are having as drastic of a material loss as you say

There is a net loss of ~122 materials per day, with doing writs on 10 character (this is for clothing as well, the one that requires the most). So in a "few months" (I'm going to assume 90 days), you have a shortage of 11,025 materials... you say you've lost 9k (and that's just in silk.. remember 1/3rd of the clothing ones are leather!!!). The math doesn't work in your favor. So you're either 1) exaggerating 2) using anecdotal evidence 3) or flat out lying...

We can't have any sort of discussion when you're making statements like this. I'm not lying or exaggerating, and this is quite obviously anecdotal evidence, since I'm talking about my experience.

Its possible that something is glitched with the survey drop rate. I didn't count how many I've gotten in the past few months compared to how many I got before when I wasn't having this problem. I was not having this issue before they made the change in material types rewarded. I assumed the material loss was caused by the change in material reward levels, but perhaps its caused by some change in the drop rate of surveys (for me, or in general). Either way I'm losing materials that I was not losing before. Since my farming, deconning, and daily writ activity have remained the same, that leaves me thinking that the issue is caused by either the change in materials rewarded, or a change in how many surveys I'm getting.

If the lower-tier materials must remain in the rewards, I'd propose that instead of getting 10 (40%) lower-tier materials, that we instead receive 5 (20%). This would bring max crafter rewards in line with the lowest level crafter rewards. (The lowest skill crafters currently receive 20 materials of their level + 5 of the next higher tier materials).

You're acting as if I'm some entitled brat when all I'm asking for is exactly what we used to receive before they made the changes to include lower tier materials.

I don't know why you've gotten tense over this discussion. Are you in dire need of lower-tier materials, so you need to vigorously defend their presence in the daily writ reward boxes for level 50 max crafters?

I'd like to continue the discussion, and I'd like to hear about whether you've seen a reduction in the number of surveys and I'd like to hear about why all of your level 50+ characters need 40% of their rewards to be lowbie crafting materials - but I won't If you continue being hostile, disrespectful and calling me a liar.

Previously you didn't receive any max tier materials for doing max level writs. So I have no idea where this

You're acting as if I'm some entitled brat when all I'm asking for is exactly what we used to receive before they made the changes to include lower tier materials.

comes from. Since going back to "exactly what we used to receive" would mean getting ZERO max tier materials when we do writs. Forgive my confusion.

You would get 25 materials at a level below your current crafting if you didn't get a survey, in which case you'd get none.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yQDUjYNQVsIFl0ktkbkSlfYPkzP6pgCOTMQ-qCuzfaI/edit#gid=1071793449

As far as my data shows... survey drop rates are still right around 12.5%

YaYaPineapple

I have not collected my surveys yet for the week, so I counted how many I have from doing writs on 10 characters x 7 crafts x 6 days this week (Mon - Sat). I have 29 surveys from doing 420 daily writs, for a 6.9% survey drop rate.

Alchemy x 3
Blacksmith x 7
Cloth x 4
Enchanting x 5
Jewelry x 8
Wood x 2

If you are getting a 12.5% survey drop rate from daily writs, then my 6.9% is a problem. I'll hold all surveys this upcoming week also and see what the drop rate is, in case this week is an aberration.

All 10 characters are level 50 Metal/Cloth/Wood and are 10/10 in metalworking/tailoring/woodworking
All 10 characters are level 50 Alchemy and 8/8 solvent proficiency
7/10 characters are level 50 Jewelry and 5/5 Engraver. The remaining 3 being: 1 at 4/5 Engraver and 2 at 1/5 Engraver.
4/10 characters are level 50 Enchanting with all translations. The remaining 6 range from 10 - 37 in Enchanting skill.

tmbrinks

YaYaPineapple wrote: »

I have not collected my surveys yet for the week, so I counted how many I have from doing writs on 10 characters x 7 crafts x 6 days this week (Mon - Sat). I have 29 surveys from doing 420 daily writs, for a 6.9% survey drop rate.

Alchemy x 3
Blacksmith x 7
Cloth x 4
Enchanting x 5
Jewelry x 8
Wood x 2

If you are getting a 12.5% survey drop rate from daily writs, then my 6.9% is a problem. I'll hold all surveys this upcoming week also and see what the drop rate is, in case this week is an aberration.

All 10 characters are level 50 Metal/Cloth/Wood and are 10/10 in metalworking/tailoring/woodworking
All 10 characters are level 50 Alchemy and 8/8 solvent proficiency
7/10 characters are level 50 Jewelry and 5/5 Engraver. The remaining 3 being: 1 at 4/5 Engraver and 2 at 1/5 Engraver.
4/10 characters are level 50 Enchanting with all translations. The remaining 6 range from 10 - 37 in Enchanting skill.

You cannot get surveys from provisioning.... so 29/360 = 8.1% (still low... but not as low as you suggest)

redlink1979

You can only be self sustainable if you don't craft all the daily writs at the same crafting rank level: you will always consume more than you collect if you run daily writs with all your char at the same crafting rank level unless you collect enough to cover all your chars expenses while playing.

In the other hand, if you run daily writs with so many chars gold shouldn't be a problem and you can spend some coin on the mats you need from time to time. Common mats aren't that expensive, specially if you run daily writs on a daily basis: your income from there is more than enough to spend some on mats.

katanagirl1

I like getting some mats back through the writ reward boxes via both ingots, wood, cloth, etc. and the intricates to decon, plus the surveys. I know it’s not enough to break even, but I don’t think it should be that way. It doesn’t seem right to be able to craft so much without actually playing the game and deconning gear and farming. If you’re doing furnishings, you absolutely have to farm to get those mats.

Dawnblade

My only issue is that cloth from surveys and rewards is no where near as common as say wood or metal.

Running alts with all three crafting skills maxed and collecting materials from rewards and surveys, I never run out of ore and wood, while I always run out of cloth (and rarely run out of leather).

Edit to add: I also do writs on my lowbies with no skills in crafting (all have all three), and use writs on max character - so this adds materials above what the max level characters would generate on their own - but I'm still always short cloth, rarely leather, and never ore or wood.

katanagirl1

I’m never short on refined mats, but mastic is something that is always in short supply.

Gear drops in wood are much fewer than cloth and metal, so less mastic comes from there, and there are so many purple furnishing plans that require mastic.

I also get waaaay more purple woodworking master writs than cloth or metal. It’s really hurting and forcing me to spend even more time farming mats.

redlink1979

@Dawnblade @katanagirl1 Bad rng.

katanagirl1

redlink1979 wrote: »

@Dawnblade @katanagirl1 Bad rng.

Bad rng that has lasted for several months? Seems unlikely. I also listed other reasons for a higher need for mastic than other purple level improvement mats.

You get gold mats from daily writs but purple ones have to be deconned or refined. I have started hirelings for woodworking only on 3 of 4 toons but I’m just barely breaking even at this point.