Please Make Master Writs Easier on Console!

FlopsyPrince

Figuring out if I know a Master Writ before taking it is extremely challenging on the PS5.

I couldn't even tell if I knew how to make a Dwemer shield I had a Master Writ for. Having to take a photo so I can remember what I am looking for is not a good game feature!

At least tell me if I know the specific motif for a Master Writ! Just showing that would help incredibly!

ESO_player123

How is it different from other platforms? PC have addons, but I just go to the "library" section and look up the appropriate motif there (above the Eidetic memory).

Diebesgut

I write everything down, then look for the right crafting table in the guild hall, then check whether I can make the style and whether I have the right ingredients for it - before I accept the quest.

If I can make it, I accept the quest, then everything is automatically displayed on the crafting table. If I can't make it, then I haven't wasted the master's writ.

ESO_player123 wrote: »

How is it different from other platforms? PC have addons, but I just go to the "library" section and look up the appropriate motif there (above the Eidetic memory).

i only know a library section for the found magic books 🤔

tomofhyrule

Diebesgut wrote: »

ESO_player123 wrote: »

How is it different from other platforms? PC have addons, but I just go to the "library" section and look up the appropriate motif there (above the Eidetic memory).

i only know a library section for the found magic books 🤔

Can you post a screenshot of your UI?

The basegame UI for PC has the library section divided into four sections:
- Crafting Motifs
- Eidetic Memory
- Shalidor's Library
- Hireling Correspondence

We don't need addons to see that.


Opening the Crafting Motifs will list all of them (except the Crown Store Only ones) and you can see how many chapters of each your character knows, and also which ones if you select it.

Elsonso

Yes! There are many things that they should add to make console life easier. ESO is still at the stone knives and bearskins stage of UI development.

Paulytnz

And this is why I literally have 20 different spreadsheets for this game so far. You don't want to see my "Motif's" spreadsheet, just that one spreadsheet has 30 tabs alone......

One for each letter of the alphabet for Motifs, something like A-F/etc for Style Pages and then I have a few Tabs for Event collectables......

That's all just ONE spreadsheet lol.

Ingenon

Yes! I hope that ZOS implements a QOL update someday that addresses telling you if you can make a master writ before you open it.

I find it difficult on console. The steps others have listed above will work (take a picture, write it down, have a separate spreadsheet of your known motifs, etc.) But they take time and you can still make a mistake because you are doing manual steps. And then, just because you know the motif you open the master writ, only to find you don't have the particular style material. Argh!

LunaFlora

we do have the ability to check for known motifs in Collections -Armor Styles and Weapon Styles.
and Lore Library - Crafting Motifs.

though there's no search function which would make it easier.

i also wish writs told us if we know the motif or not.

Danikat

LunaFlora wrote: »

we do have the ability to check for known motifs in Collections -Armor Styles and Weapon Styles.
and Lore Library - Crafting Motifs.

though there's no search function which would make it easier.

i also wish writs told us if we know the motif or not.

I think making it so the writs tell you if you know the relevant motif would be the simplest fix. If they could add a line to the description to say if you know the motif (or recipe for provisioning) it would make things easier for everyone.

I'm on PC and use the Craftstore addon to check, which makes it slightly quicker because I can have that menu open while I'm in my inventory looking at the writs (also it's just one list to scroll down, I don't have to click into each one to check pages), but it's still an annoying extra step.

jaws343

Danikat wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

we do have the ability to check for known motifs in Collections -Armor Styles and Weapon Styles.
and Lore Library - Crafting Motifs.

though there's no search function which would make it easier.

i also wish writs told us if we know the motif or not.

I think making it so the writs tell you if you know the relevant motif would be the simplest fix. If they could add a line to the description to say if you know the motif (or recipe for provisioning) it would make things easier for everyone.

I'm on PC and use the Craftstore addon to check, which makes it slightly quicker because I can have that menu open while I'm in my inventory looking at the writs (also it's just one list to scroll down, I don't have to click into each one to check pages), but it's still an annoying extra step.

They don't even have to add a line. Just mark the motif text red if you don't know it.

LunaFlora

jaws343 wrote: »

Danikat wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

we do have the ability to check for known motifs in Collections -Armor Styles and Weapon Styles.
and Lore Library - Crafting Motifs.

though there's no search function which would make it easier.

i also wish writs told us if we know the motif or not.

I think making it so the writs tell you if you know the relevant motif would be the simplest fix. If they could add a line to the description to say if you know the motif (or recipe for provisioning) it would make things easier for everyone.

I'm on PC and use the Craftstore addon to check, which makes it slightly quicker because I can have that menu open while I'm in my inventory looking at the writs (also it's just one list to scroll down, I don't have to click into each one to check pages), but it's still an annoying extra step.

They don't even have to add a line. Just mark the motif text red if you don't know it.

it would be better to add a line.
simply making the motif text a different colour wouldn't be accessible to everyone

Veinblood1965

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Figuring out if I know a Master Writ before taking it is extremely challenging on the PS5.

I couldn't even tell if I knew how to make a Dwemer shield I had a Master Writ for. Having to take a photo so I can remember what I am looking for is not a good game feature!

At least tell me if I know the specific motif for a Master Writ! Just showing that would help incredibly!

I found an easy way on PS4/5. (I'm not home right now so forgive the batched location but you'll get the idea). Go to the main menu, then up on the top is the collections menu I think is called, it's where the fragments lists and stuff are. At the bottom are the Armour and Weapons STYLE lists. You just go there and see if you know the style and if you do then you can do the writ. I used to hate that also until I figured that out.

smackinhippies

I always check my lore library first before opening a master writ, unless it's a motif style that I know for a fact I have a complete book on. While I agree a good QOL addition would be nice to have that information visible while looking at a master writ, it doesn't really take much to see if you know the style or not. I'm on Xbox.

katanagirl1

I do a dress rehearsal run at a regular crafting station to see if the style mat for the particular gear item is red or not. If it’s red then I don’t know the style.

code65536

ESO_player123 wrote: »

How is it different from other platforms? PC have addons, but I just go to the "library" section and look up the appropriate motif there (above the Eidetic memory).

It's not about whether that information is accessible.

It's about whether that information is conveniently accessible.

Having information shown in contextually relevant places makes for a good user experience. In the case of PC, WritWorthy will tell you in the tooltip of the master writ whether or not you know the relevant motif chapter, and even more conveniently, Master Writ Inventory Marker will add indicators to you inventory for master writs that you are able to do, so you can scan your bank or inventory without having to even look at the individual tooltips.

So let's run through a real-world usage scenario. You're shopping for master writs from the guild traders. You find a couple dozen of them at a reasonable price. But can you craft them? With the default UI, you need to close the guild store UI, open up a separate UI for lorebooks, and then see if you know the motif. Then you need to close that UI, open the guild store again, re-submit your search, and then buy the writ. We programmers call this context-switching. You need to swap from a shopping context to a reference context and back. If you're efficient, you'd have a pad of paper where you wrote down the motifs for all those master writs that you found, so you can look them up all at once instead of switching back and forth a couple dozen times. And hopefully you don't make a mistake while doing all this. ("Oops, I wrote down boots instead of belt.")

With WritWorthy, you just hover over the item, read the tooltip, and you know without having to swap contexts, whether that writ is doable. And with MWIM, this gets even easier since the item in the store will have a little marker next to it so you don't even have to look at its tooltip. That's the power of having information presented in a contextually-relevant way.

TL;DR: It's about not new information, but about the context and manner in which that information is presented. And that's where addons can really shine.

katanagirl1

code65536 wrote: »

ESO_player123 wrote: »

How is it different from other platforms? PC have addons, but I just go to the "library" section and look up the appropriate motif there (above the Eidetic memory).

It's not about whether that information is accessible.

It's about whether that information is conveniently accessible.

Having information shown in contextually relevant places makes for a good user experience. In the case of PC, WritWorthy will tell you in the tooltip of the master writ whether or not you know the relevant motif chapter, and even more conveniently, Master Writ Inventory Marker will add indicators to you inventory for master writs that you are able to do, so you can scan your bank or inventory without having to even look at the individual tooltips.

So let's run through a real-world usage scenario. You're shopping for master writs from the guild traders. You find a couple dozen of them at a reasonable price. But can you craft them? With the default UI, you need to close the guild store UI, open up a separate UI for lorebooks, and then see if you know the motif. Then you need to close that UI, open the guild store again, re-submit your search, and then buy the writ. We programmers call this context-switching. You need to swap from a shopping context to a reference context and back. If you're efficient, you'd have a pad of paper where you wrote down the motifs for all those master writs that you found, so you can look them up all at once instead of switching back and forth a couple dozen times. And hopefully you don't make a mistake while doing all this. ("Oops, I wrote down boots instead of belt.")

With WritWorthy, you just hover over the item, read the tooltip, and you know without having to swap contexts, whether that writ is doable. And with MWIM, this gets even easier since the item in the store will have a little marker next to it so you don't even have to look at its tooltip. That's the power of having information presented in a contextually-relevant way.

TL;DR: It's about not new information, but about the context and manner in which that information is presented. And that's where addons can really shine.

That’s a good point, I don’t buy them so I am not jumping through quite so many hoops.

So in that case maybe having the style listed in green for having learned it and red for not learned would be a good addition, similar to furnishing plans and recipes.

EDIT: typo

FlopsyPrince

Veinblood1965 wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Figuring out if I know a Master Writ before taking it is extremely challenging on the PS5.

I couldn't even tell if I knew how to make a Dwemer shield I had a Master Writ for. Having to take a photo so I can remember what I am looking for is not a good game feature!

At least tell me if I know the specific motif for a Master Writ! Just showing that would help incredibly!

I found an easy way on PS4/5. (I'm not home right now so forgive the batched location but you'll get the idea). Go to the main menu, then up on the top is the collections menu I think is called, it's where the fragments lists and stuff are. At the bottom are the Armour and Weapons STYLE lists. You just go there and see if you know the style and if you do then you can do the writ. I used to hate that also until I figured that out.

That is what I have been doing. It is not only a pain, but I still couldn't figure out if I knew a Dwemer style. It was not in either the known or unknown list for some reason and I checked it multiple times to make sure I didn't look out of alpha order or such.

Simply noting it on the Motif - You Know/Don't Know this Motif type would help greatly!

Diebesgut

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Can you post a screenshot of your UI?

The basegame UI for PC has the library section divided into four sections:
- Crafting Motifs
- Eidetic Memory
- Shalidor's Library
- Hireling Correspondence

We don't need addons to see that.


Opening the Crafting Motifs will list all of them (except the Crown Store Only ones) and you can see how many chapters of each your character knows, and also which ones if you select it.

it looks completely different to the Playstation, I wouldn't even know where I could find it if it existed....

I'll try checking it out on the outfit station first, maybe that'll be quicker...

fizl101

Diebesgut wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Can you post a screenshot of your UI?

The basegame UI for PC has the library section divided into four sections:
- Crafting Motifs
- Eidetic Memory
- Shalidor's Library
- Hireling Correspondence

We don't need addons to see that.


Opening the Crafting Motifs will list all of them (except the Crown Store Only ones) and you can see how many chapters of each your character knows, and also which ones if you select it.

it looks completely different to the Playstation, I wouldn't even know where I could find it if it existed....

I'll try checking it out on the outfit station first, maybe that'll be quicker...

Journal > Lore Library is where you can see the motif you have, you can go to each one and you can see which you have and haven't collected within each style

Veinblood1965

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Veinblood1965 wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Figuring out if I know a Master Writ before taking it is extremely challenging on the PS5.

I couldn't even tell if I knew how to make a Dwemer shield I had a Master Writ for. Having to take a photo so I can remember what I am looking for is not a good game feature!

At least tell me if I know the specific motif for a Master Writ! Just showing that would help incredibly!

I found an easy way on PS4/5. (I'm not home right now so forgive the batched location but you'll get the idea). Go to the main menu, then up on the top is the collections menu I think is called, it's where the fragments lists and stuff are. At the bottom are the Armour and Weapons STYLE lists. You just go there and see if you know the style and if you do then you can do the writ. I used to hate that also until I figured that out.

That is what I have been doing. It is not only a pain, but I still couldn't figure out if I knew a Dwemer style. It was not in either the known or unknown list for some reason and I checked it multiple times to make sure I didn't look out of alpha order or such.

Simply noting it on the Motif - You Know/Don't Know this Motif type would help greatly!

I'll check when I get home and see if Dwemer is on mine. I'll let you know. I know I know the style.

The OP does have a point though, it would be so much nicer to see it on the writ especially when in the vendor stores.

FlopsyPrince

The information is there (mostly, I never did find the Dwemer shield motif I was looking for in the known or unknown shield list) but it is a big pain to find and that should not be the case!

That is why simply showing if you know the motif on the Master Writ would be so helpful!

I have tried precrafting a bunch of things before so I would only accept the ones I could make, but that not only makes it harder to find the right motif in the interface (no master alphabetical list of styles is available) I also made far too many incorrect items even after all my attempts to not do that.

Playing the game should be fun, not a second job like this.

Sarannah

PC EU - No add-ons: Please also add mastercrafting stations for all crafts across the road of the master writ turn-in in Grahtwood, with ALL set crafting possibilities we have also unlocked in our home(s)(including provisioning/alchemy/enchanting). This way we don't have to constantly port back and forth to our home, but still have a reason to collect all crafting set stations for in our homes. (Doing one master writ of each craft and porting back & forth to our home is still the fastest way to complete bulk master writs without add-ons.)

Diebesgut

fizl101 wrote: »

Journal > Lore Library is where you can see the motif you have, you can go to each one and you can see which you have and haven't collected within each style

.... thank you very much!🤗

I found it now and tried it, its a lot of searching too but a little less complicated

N00BxV1

There's also a problem when turning-in too many Master Writs back-to-back, the game will boot you from the server with an error code and give you a login penalty... I've heard this is an anti-bot "mechanic" that occurs when earning too much XP in a short amount of time... But legit players should not be getting penalized for playing the game...

Whenever I do Master Writs I use an addon to pre-craft all of the required items, then I'll go to the Master Writ vendor and manually accept and turn in each quest one at a time. But if I complete a bunch of Master Writs back-to-back then the game will always boot me with an error code and give me a login penalty. This is frustrating as hell and should not be happening!

P.S.:
PlayStation's UI, Xbox's UI, and PC's Gamepad UI are all exactly the same. The only difference is the button prompts depending on what type of controller is being used. So if one UI lacks something or has problems, then they all lack something or have problems... I just wanted to make that clear because I always see people mentioning specific Gamepad UI's as if they're somehow different.

Alastrine

To see if you know a motif page you can also just open the Achievements window and search the name of the motif.
Not sure if that isn't the same on console, I use PC.

N00BxV1

Alastrine wrote: »

To see if you know a motif page you can also just open the Achievements window and search the name of the motif.
Not sure if that isn't the same on console, I use PC.

There is no way to search within the Achievements menu with the Gamepad UI because there isn't a search bar.

The only ways to see which motifs that you know in the Gamepad UI is to open the Journal > Lore Library > Crating Motifs > and then click on a motif collection to view the known pieces, or use the much more tedious method of going to Collections > Armor Styles / Weapon Styles > and then viewing each collected piece individually.

Keyboard UI users would probably have their minds blown if only they knew how many basic things the Gamepad UI was lacking compared to the default Keyboard UI...

oldbobdude

It’s true the keyboard ui is much better than gamepad. I routinely use both and both UI’s suck for many things. Addons cleans much of that up. You have to wonder why an addon can fix things but the devs can’t be bothered.

AzuraFan

LunaFlora wrote: »

i also wish writs told us if we know the motif or not.

This would be ideal. Just like motif pages and other stuff, when I look at a writ, just tell me whether I can do it or not. I'm thinking ZOS might not have done this already because writs are quests. But there must be a way to add the line to the quest text. After all, they now tell you when turning in an event quest whether you're at the max amount of tickets.

VampirateV

I agree that the UI should have had this eons ago, but the best workaround I've found is using The ESO App. It hasn't updated since High Isle, but it does have the majority of the existing motifs available, and you can check off which pieces you've 'read'. Whenever I get a motif page, I open up the app and check it off immediately. Then when I get a master writ, I can look it up in no time and see if I can do it. It's def not the ideal solution, but much faster than the current way of having to go through multiple game menus to see whether you've read a particular motif. I also like that the app has treasure map and survey locations with text descriptions, as well as a way to check off all the skyshards. Like I said, it's not ideal having to use an app to make up for what the console UI lacks, but it's definitely easier than relying on spreadsheets and whatnot.

dk_dunkirk

ZOS should make the console versions support mods. There's really no excuse. I've brought this up many times before, and people always blame Microsoft and Sony (especially Sony), but both Skyrim and Fallout 4 support mods on Xbox and PS, and they're both Bethesda games too. There's no reason ESO couldn't do this as well. Yes, it would be a different system than mods on PC. I don't care. It could be done, and it should be. I guarantee modders would figure it out. If ZOS isn't going to incorporate the enhancements that have been proven to be WILDLY popular on PC into the base game UI, then they need to allow the console versions to be brought to *somewhat* closer ease of use.

"Lazy" writ crafting is an absolute no-brainer. (The current system with the markers is better than NOT having markers, but there should be a game options toggle to just make it automatic, once you've understood how crafting works.) This idea is right there with it. Putting treasure map and survey markers on the map should be next, and then a minimap. People have been complaining about these things for many years.

I see estimates that there are 24M players. Consider that half of them are on PC, and look at the number of times these mods have been downloaded by people who took the time and interest to set up Minion and figure all of this out. That these (kinds of) mods aren't base game features at this point should be embarrassing to ZOS and Bethesda. The situation is shameful.

FlopsyPrince

dk_dunkirk wrote: »

ZOS should make the console versions support mods. There's really no excuse. I've brought this up many times before, and people always blame Microsoft and Sony (especially Sony), but both Skyrim and Fallout 4 support mods on Xbox and PS, and they're both Bethesda games too. There's no reason ESO couldn't do this as well. Yes, it would be a different system than mods on PC. I don't care. It could be done, and it should be. I guarantee modders would figure it out. If ZOS isn't going to incorporate the enhancements that have been proven to be WILDLY popular on PC into the base game UI, then they need to allow the console versions to be brought to *somewhat* closer ease of use.

"Lazy" writ crafting is an absolute no-brainer. (The current system with the markers is better than NOT having markers, but there should be a game options toggle to just make it automatic, once you've understood how crafting works.) This idea is right there with it. Putting treasure map and survey markers on the map should be next, and then a minimap. People have been complaining about these things for many years.

I see estimates that there are 24M players. Consider that half of them are on PC, and look at the number of times these mods have been downloaded by people who took the time and interest to set up Minion and figure all of this out. That these (kinds of) mods aren't base game features at this point should be embarrassing to ZOS and Bethesda. The situation is shameful.

Not integrating these things into the base game has been an annoyance for console play for a long time. The fact that they have not been added over time is a constant sticking point to many of us.

This shows a huge failure of of ZOS to listen to its customers. Instead we get new "quality of life" things that often only help the devs quality of life, not the players. Enough factors pushing people away, start paying attention to things like this and many more people would get satisfied over time.

That would not require all of them at once, but imagine how many we would have had if they added even 2 a quarter?