Should I bother to loot in a Veteran Overworld zone?

dan0311 · September 2014

At launch I played Aldmeri Dominion and went through Level 50. I rolled a new character to play through the Ebonheart Pact, and continued forward through to the Daggerfall Covenant Veteran Overworld Zone. I have just entered the Alik'r Desert and just turned VR4.

Looting has become frustrating...the same stuff keeps popping up in barrels and crates with a mixture of the low level stuff from the original level and level 50 and VR 5 ingredients. I used to see blue recipes drop occasionally in pre-Vet play, but ever since VR1 I have not seen any Blue or Purple Recipes. (I have played since before launch and have NEVER seen a purple recipe).

Does it ever change or get any better? I have all the Bervez Fruit, Honey Comb, Mudcrab Meat, etc I could ever use and it is frustrating when every container has the same stuff over and over and over.

When I hit VR 5 I know I will need to buy Imperial Broth and Pinguis (sp) and that stuff from vendors...no problem. But I figured at some point I would start seeing tomatoes and oats and purple recipes. I have been playing, as I said, since April 2 and have never seen one of these items.

I have just been playing through the solo content...no Alliance War, no Craglorn, no grouping if I can avoid it. Is it going to change or get better or should I just not bother looking in crates anymore? Sure would save a lot of time. Advice, please.

AlexDougherty · September 2014

Well some ingredients need to be bought for veteran levels, like the veteran level flour if I recall correctly (from another thread).

But continue looking, you don't have to pick it up, unless you can sell it, but always look.

Rosveen · September 2014

dan0311 wrote: »

But I figured at some point I would start seeing tomatoes and oats and purple recipes. I have been playing, as I said, since April 2 and have never seen one of these items.

Tomatoes and oats don't drop, you can get them only from the hireling. As for purples, I can't help, I never see them either.

I've looted only one, but for pre-veteran, so it isn't very useful to me.

But I have found lower quality recipes in veteran ranks, so browsing through containers isn't altogether pointless. I would imagine that veteran purple recipes drop there too, I mean why would they drop pre-vet (do they even? I don't think so) and then disappear once you hit vet? So I will continue looking. But ingredients are such a useless mix of mostly pre-vet stuff that I don't bother to pick it up anymore unless I want to make something for my alts.

Tarukmockto · September 2014

I still loot everything in sight on a V6 character. I had never seen a purple recipe until I hit V5, and since then I've picked up 3. Of course they were all the same consumate Sweet Roll recipe, which requires the hireling only Oats. Used 1 and sold the others. Now if only I could find the purple Honey Brittle one that is all dropped mats! That would be something! RNG is just mean.

Ourorboros · September 2014

Should you keep looking? That all depends on your objective. But if you want to find the purple recipes, you need to keep looking. Since the patch that drastically altered drop rates on recipes and motifs (1.2?), I sometimes find blue recipes, only 1 VR5 purple recipe, and ZERO motifs of any type. I don't look in every container I pass, but I look frequently. As stated above, some mats are from hirelings and vendors only, the rest is RNG. Yea...it's a ***.