Are Bookcases no longer random?

allochthons · October 2023

Are the books you find in bookcases no longer random? I've checked the same bookcases (The Belkarth Observatory, and Daggerfall mage's guild) on multiple toons, across multiple sessions, and the books are always identical. Can we no longer farm random bookcases for skill books?

This started in the last few days (1st or 2nd week in October), because I was farming skill books in Belkarth on my arcanists (and a new nightblade tank) but took a break during the Necrom event.

In Belkarth, stating at the door, on the right:
Wuunding and Tumult
Merchants, Scoundrels, Thieves
Report: quality of recruits
On the Utility of Shock Magic
Rislav the Righteous, Part 1
etc.

allochthons · October 2023

(playstation NA)

code65536 · October 2023

They are random across instances. So if you read a bookcase in a dungeon, reset the dungeon to get a new instance, you'll get a different book.

But major zones like Craglorn aren't temporary instances that are spun up and destroyed like dungeons or delves. These instances persist and don't reset until the server goes down for maintenance.

Now, for very busy zones, there could be multiple instances of that zone to prevent each individual instance from being overpopulated, and the books should be different from one instance to the other.

In your case, one of two things could've happened. Maybe there isn't enough population on console for multiple Craglorn instances to spawn. In which case, there's just one Craglorn instance on your server and you'll always see the same books until the next time the server goes down for maintenance. Or maybe there are multiple instances of Craglorn on your server, but by happenstance, you entered the same instance each time.

allochthons · October 2023

Hm. I understand your logic, and how instances work.

So now I'm confused because I've been farming skill books like this for over a year, across at least 5 characters. And getting new books (especially in Belkarth) every time I re-enter the building (the Conservatory, various mage's guilds etc). I would get new books without leaving the instance just by leaving and re-entering the building, just like you can walk away from an alchemy survey and reset the nodes.

I've shared this technique with multiple people, who also have been successful, and have never reported duplicates like now.

Craglorn may have had only once instance on PS-NA since the Necrom event started, since everyone was over there, but last night when I was in Craglorn it was packed, certainly enough to spawn a new instance.

I guess I'll keep an eye on it, and take advantage while I can, since Notes on Racial Phylogeny is in the Daggerfall Mage's Guild for me right now.

Weird.

jaws343 · October 2023

From my experience farming specific books in zones for eidetic, there is a 24 hour cool down where the books are the same. And then after 24 hours, when you go back to the book case, it re-rolls the book available.

However, bookcases in zones pull from set book options, so it isn't unlikely to get the same book in the same bookcase day to day.

code65536 · October 2023

allochthons wrote: »

Hm. I understand your logic, and how instances work.

So now I'm confused because I've been farming skill books like this for over a year, across at least 5 characters. And getting new books (especially in Belkarth) every time I re-enter the building (the Conservatory, various mage's guilds etc). I would get new books without leaving the instance just by leaving and re-entering the building, just like you can walk away from an alchemy survey and reset the nodes.

I've shared this technique with multiple people, who also have been successful, and have never reported duplicates like now.

Craglorn may have had only once instance on PS-NA since the Necrom event started, since everyone was over there, but last night when I was in Craglorn it was packed, certainly enough to spawn a new instance.

I guess I'll keep an eye on it, and take advantage while I can, since Notes on Racial Phylogeny is in the Daggerfall Mage's Guild for me right now.

Weird.

I've done a bit of bookshelf farming, to find the jewelry crafting skill books to get the final 48->50 levels, and I've never seen bookcases reset without changing the instance. I've never tried Belkarth, though.