The Silence On Antiquity Leads Is Defeaning!

twisttop138 · April 22

To Gabriel's point about the silence I know they made a big push about communication and transparency. The streams are cool but dis you notice all the communication was mostly around tomes. You know, the new way to spend money. Lots of time in threads answering questions about tomes and telling players that there will in fact be content, just you wait. But after tomes released, that kinda fell off.

Elendildur · April 22

If not for the Infinite Archive and Tel Var Merchant leads, there are so many leads I wouldn't have, but it's really annoying that you need them to not lose your mind.
Plus, they don't ever seem to sell any leads that aren't fragments for something, so good luck if you want a one off lead

Katheriah · April 22

Gabriel_H wrote: »

I'm farming my 3rd iteration of the Glyphic Secrets Music Box. It includes a lead that drops from, what is in at least my opinion as someone who has solo'd every world boss except one, the Prime Cataloger - want to take a guess what my one non-solo is?! Apocrypha is a half-dead zone. Waiting for others to show up to help tackle this boss is time consuming. The low numbers of people who do show up mean the fight lasts an age. I'm now past TWO DOZENS kills on this boss and no lead.

I know your message is mainly about the system and not about this lead specificially, but I wanted to chime in because that's how I am. You may soften your pain by picking up the daily quest for this boss, throw an 'lf cataloger boss, can share q', and then after sharing and killing don't hand it but keep sharing it with people. Some people are still doing the dailies (partially because they also drop a lead).

It might make it less terrible, because that boss is really a pain in the behind.

Munkfist · April 22

Since everyone got hung up on my "instant gratification" comment, 1 in 4 chances is pretty well instant gratification, especially while working on a second or third codex compared to how things are currently, which I have zero issues with.

Someone commented that maybe if I wanted the item itself, it would be me, but as a collector of all things, I wanted the codex itself, and still had no issues with the many hours a lot of them took.

I also loved the grind to find all the original Ayleid and Dwarven plans, the dlc zone furnishings and Vvardenfell plants and banner.

We're already being spoonfed so many things, they practically just give us everything else in game, there should be some time sinks, as this is a long haul game, not meant to be completed in a year or two.

I reiterate, even if most don't agree, but this grind has been some of the more enjoyable time sink for me, hence why I'm doing it on another account since my main is already done it.

allochthons · April 22

Munkfist wrote: »

We're already being spoonfed so many things, they practically just give us everything else in game, there should be some time sinks, as this is a long haul game, not meant to be completed in a year or two.

I reiterate, even if most don't agree, but this grind has been some of the more enjoyable time sink for me, hence why I'm doing it on another account since my main is already done it.

That's great for you.
OTOH:
I willingly ran Falkreath Hold for the first time over the weekend, in many years*. Because when I was farming the Belharza's Band's lead Crimson Diamond, which only drops from the treasure chests there, I had to run it so many times no one in any of my guilds would go in with me. They were all so sick of it. I filled my stickerbook many times over. I ran it multiple times every time it was a pledge. I have every treasure chest spawn point memorized**. I HATE Falkreath Hold. Which is unfortunate, because it's a pretty good dungeon.

That's the kind of pain nested lead RNG leads to. I actively avoided an activity for 5 years. Even now, I feel a bit sick going in. There's putting in a fun amount of challenge in earning something, and then there's appalling RNG which ruins parts of the game for people. At the very least, RNG should be weighted, so the longer you don't get the lead, the higher the chances get. But the whole idea of having leads locked behind nested RNG is just BAD. Bad streaks happen. That's the way unweighted RNG works, and it really ruins things for people when they get those streaks.

* I've gotten it on a few randoms, but that's it.
* * Console, long before treasure chest add-ons.
* * * This was way before I could solo a DLC dungeon.

MoonPile · April 22

BretonMage wrote: »

Mythics are nothing compared to antiquity furnishings. Their RNG is much more favourable than those for furnishings, and I've never spent more than a week farming for a Mythic. Also one never needs multiple copies of a mythic, unlike furnishings.

I fail to see why housing enthusiasts should be discriminated against in this game. Why should we be the ones burdened with impossible-to-obtain items? Our time is no less valuable than others'.

AzuraFan wrote: »

...chasing a lead for weeks/months with no luck is a terrible player experience. Most players like to be rewarded for the time they invest in a game. When you put in tons of time and get a bit fat zero in return, that's when you start looking at other games.

anadandy wrote: »

Furnishings leads should be a one and done (or for multipart items like crafting stations one complete and done.) Then you can buy subsequent Furnishings at the achievement vendor. No one is getting OP because they bought 10 Colovian tapestries.

allochthons wrote: »

...That's the kind of pain nested lead RNG leads to. I actively avoided an activity for 5 years. Even now, I feel a bit sick going in. There's putting in a fun amount of challenge in earning something, and then there's appalling RNG which ruins parts of the game for people....

☝️ What all of them (and more) said, no notes.

Except to say for the millionth time that nested RNG from Maps sucks the most.

I'll can also address this comment:

People (OP included) complain about dead zones now, but they want everything in a zone to just be handed to them so they never return there... that's the most illogical take ever.

Akshually *pushes up glasses anime-style*, when the zone hands me things for reasonable effort, I am more likely to return there and get more of the thing I want. E.g.: Leads for West Weald Ayleid smoke-machine Trees, Spellscar Shards (a very useful light), etc. Plants from Solstice harvesting mean that if I'm going harvesting at all, I'm most likely to do it in Solstice (versus Vvardenfell, where plants theoretically drop but the rates are so minuscule that it's a disappointing waste of time, not fun). And so on.

Conversely, when the effort-to-reward ratio is imbalanced, I give up completely. E.g. I no longer buy nor use West Weald nor Solstice Maps, despite previously caring very much about 2 furnishings there. I also gave up on the Trifold Mirror of Alternatives because fighting Nightmare WB 12032820 times sucks. Likewise the Moons-Blessed Ceremonial Pool: just getting 3/3 took too long. I LIKED that delve, but now it's ruined for me – exactly as allochthons said above.

As I said in this related thread:

MoonPile wrote: »

It's less so even the Maps themselves (saying so even as a Map-hater) than the 3/3 codex completion requirement and the worsened RNG for 2/3 - 3/3.

It could be solved by keeping 1/3 chances as-is and removing the 3/3-to-buy requirement.

Then, if someone wants to keep using maps beyond 1/3, they can: every lead after 1/3 is a "free" item. Just like every other pickup Antiquity: I'm more than happy to get another "free" croc skull or Ayleid-smoke-machine-tree.

Munkfist · April 22

allochthons wrote: »

Munkfist wrote: »

We're already being spoonfed so many things, they practically just give us everything else in game, there should be some time sinks, as this is a long haul game, not meant to be completed in a year or two.

I reiterate, even if most don't agree, but this grind has been some of the more enjoyable time sink for me, hence why I'm doing it on another account since my main is already done it.

That's great for you.
OTOH:
I willingly ran Falkreath Hold for the first time over the weekend, in many years*. Because when I was farming the Belharza's Band's lead Crimson Diamond, which only drops from the treasure chests there, I had to run it so many times no one in any of my guilds would go in with me. They were all so sick of it. I filled my stickerbook many times over. I ran it multiple times every time it was a pledge. I have every treasure chest spawn point memorized**. I HATE Falkreath Hold. Which is unfortunate, because it's a pretty good dungeon.

That's the kind of pain nested lead RNG leads to. I actively avoided an activity for 5 years. Even now, I feel a bit sick going in. There's putting in a fun amount of challenge in earning something, and then there's appalling RNG which ruins parts of the game for people. At the very least, RNG should be weighted, so the longer you don't get the lead, the higher the chances get. But the whole idea of having leads locked behind nested RNG is just BAD. Bad streaks happen. That's the way unweighted RNG works, and it really ruins things for people when they get those streaks.

* I've gotten it on a few randoms, but that's it.
* * Console, long before treasure chest add-ons.
* * * This was way before I could solo a DLC dungeon.

I can totally get behind and support weighted RNG, you're the first to bring that up. I'd rather it not be weighted so much that everything has a 25% chance to drop like others have suggested, but fully agree that a weight should be added to appeal more to the more casual collectors, without having things just handed out

BretonMage · April 23

The more I think about it, the more I think that antiquity furnishings should follow the Mythic mechanism:

1. After completing the first codex, the furnishing becomes available to purchase at the achievement vendors, for those who need it for housing. This applies to all tiers of rarity: green, blue, purple and gold.
2. Post first codex RNG rates are adjusted to be reasonably attainable within a couple of weeks, for those who need to complete the 3 codices for lore or completionist purposes. This means, no more nesting RNG in treasure maps, or make the effective accumulated RNG much more forgiving (eg. either guaranteed zone maps or guaranteed leads from maps, or some kind of curation system for maps and leads).

Munkfist wrote: »

Someone commented that maybe if I wanted the item itself, it would be me, but as a collector of all things, I wanted the codex itself, and still had no issues with the many hours a lot of them took.

I don't know if you misunderstood my comment, but I said if you needed the item. Some of us might need specific antiquity furnishings to decorate a home, the same way we might need Mythics or gear for a build. For us it's no longer just "nice to have", but becomes an important and irreplaceable part of our home.

Even for those who just want to complete the codices (which I think is OP's case as well), it's absolutely reasonable for them to want their time to be respected. For all the reasons I outlined in my previous post, the antiquity furnishing grind feels particularly disrespectful, because no, it is not reasonable to spend months and even years trying to obtain an item. This is supposed to be entertainment, not a real life job - and tbh if it was a real life job, I would probably quit.

Gabriel_H · April 23

FlameDark wrote: »

The problem with ridiculous rng leads, is the exact same problem with immunity phases on bosses... the whole point is to extend your time playing. People want things to do, and they want challenging boss fights that don't last 2 seconds before you destroy them. So we get immunity phases and leads that take wayyyyy too long to complete in an attempt to keep us engaged and the activity longer. The problem with that is, it's very hollow. It doesn't feel like a victory or an accomplishment. When you get the lead you don't go "wow that was a challenge, I might do that again in the future! I felt like I earned it!" instead it's more "thank every divine that's over with. Never. Again". They have the right idea, players want more engaging content that cant be done in 10 minutes, but the execution is... soul killing. I want to have fun playing a game, not button mash the same 2 second kill mob for over 4 hours and get bored out of my mind doing so. I want to give up because its too challenging, not because I want to stab myself in the eye if I have to do another loop around the map.

In my particular case it's not even for a sense of accomplishment. ZOS made some antiquities 3 codex entries, so 3 codex entries I must get.

I logon for 10 minutes, kill a boss, log off. Then later in the evening when friends are on we group up and go dungeon diving. I suspect the same is true for lots of others.

And do not get me started on immunity and health sponges. There are other ways to deal with power creep that would make a boss fight last without either and not having the need to break out a deck of cards and wait around. (Clustered mechs to make burning problematic, self-healing if mechs are skipped, increased boss armour - just off the top of my head).

Gabriel_H · April 23

Munkfist wrote: »

Since everyone got hung up on my "instant gratification" comment, 1 in 4 chances is pretty well instant gratification

It's literally definitionally not. 1 in 1 is instant. 1 in 4 is anywhere between 1 and infinity though the odds of it reaching infinity are ~0, it doesn't mean you get it in 4. Nor is there a difference in the reward.

Currently boss leads have a drop rate between 5% to 10%. So statistically getting it within 20, doesn't mean it won't take you 82 kills of Timershade, or 73 kills of the Voidmother.

The 25% I suggested in my OP is the last in a long line of suggestions. I've suggested dynamic drop rates, capped drop rates, leads as rewards - all ignored with zero comment.

peacenote · April 23

I STILL don't have either fishing lead for Thrassian's Stranglers. I tried and tried and tried back when they were meta and I still periodically go back and try again because I'm a completionist. It definitely can be frustrating.

That said, didn't they start putting leads on a rotation to be purchaseable in IA to counteract this issue? I don't follow Antiquities as closely as other things so I don't know if they all go through on a rotation or just certain ones, but I always felt like it was a good addition to counteract the problem described.

https://eso-hub.com/en/merchant-ool

MoonPile · April 23

peacenote wrote: »

I STILL don't have either fishing lead for Thrassian's Stranglers. I tried and tried and tried back when they were meta and I still periodically go back and try again because I'm a completionist. It definitely can be frustrating.

That said, didn't they start putting leads on a rotation to be purchaseable in IA to counteract this issue? I don't follow Antiquities as closely as other things so I don't know if they all go through on a rotation or just certain ones, but I always felt like it was a good addition to counteract the problem described.

https://eso-hub.com/en/merchant-ool

Only for multi-part Gold Antiquities, usually Mythics. None of the awful Map-exclusive furnishing leads are stocked.

In theory Filer Ool could be an OK stop-gap (minus the fact it'll take just as long to wait for him to stock a Lead as it does to grind it). But the reality is half the time he stocks cheap purple plans and base-zone "Treasure" maps not worth buying for AF, and Leads that can literally be picked up off the ground.

peacenote · April 24

MoonPile wrote: »

peacenote wrote: »

I STILL don't have either fishing lead for Thrassian's Stranglers. I tried and tried and tried back when they were meta and I still periodically go back and try again because I'm a completionist. It definitely can be frustrating.

That said, didn't they start putting leads on a rotation to be purchaseable in IA to counteract this issue? I don't follow Antiquities as closely as other things so I don't know if they all go through on a rotation or just certain ones, but I always felt like it was a good addition to counteract the problem described.

https://eso-hub.com/en/merchant-ool

Only for multi-part Gold Antiquities, usually Mythics. None of the awful Map-exclusive furnishing leads are stocked.

In theory Filer Ool could be an OK stop-gap (minus the fact it'll take just as long to wait for him to stock a Lead as it does to grind it). But the reality is half the time he stocks cheap purple plans and base-zone "Treasure" maps not worth buying for AF, and Leads that can literally be picked up off the ground.

Thanks, that's good to know. I wonder if improving/expanding the merchant's inventory or adding leads to another kind of vendor (golden vendor, gold coast bazaar, etc.) would be another way to combat the issue we're discussing in this thread. It truly is an issue and can turn Antiquities from a fun activity to truly punishing.

MoonPile · April 24

BretonMage wrote: »

... I said if you needed the item. Some of us might need specific antiquity furnishings to decorate a home, the same way we might need Mythics or gear for a build. For us it's no longer just "nice to have", but becomes an important and irreplaceable part of our home.

... the antiquity furnishing grind feels particularly disrespectful, because no, it is not reasonable to spend months and even years trying to obtain an item. This is supposed to be entertainment, not a real life job - and tbh if it was a real life job, I would probably quit.

Wanted to highlight this, an important point!
If we're to split hairs, this is a game and none of us truly "need" anything, sure! But,

A combat-first or casual player will easily get a 1/3 codex lead and think it's "nice to have". Maybe a decoration to display nicely in Grand Gallery of Tamriel. It's "just cosmetic". (At best. For some, it's just a nuisance storage-slot-waster.)

But insofar as anyone "needs" anything in a game, Housing players need these items in bulk for our main gameplay.

These cosmetics are most of the reason we continue to play and, perhaps more importantly, purchase ESO+ subs, etc. When it's too troublesome to get what we need, we realize the gameplay (ideas, creations) we were excited about is impossible. We give up. Sometimes it's enough to lead us to unsubscribe and take a break – or leave entirely, sadly, in the case of several I know.

We're not here for the grind, we want USE the things.

Especially for stuff that's not even market- nor combat-affecting. Like anadandy said: "No one is getting OP because they bought 10 Colovian tapestries." And if gold-sinks are a goal, a lot more of my gold would get pulled out of the system if I could actually buy the [bleep] things. As it stands, I'm certainly no longer wasting my gold or time to play the awful Map chase.

dcrush · April 24

I’ve been running ICP for the lead from the Gravelight Sentry boss and I have one more item to go before I complete my stickerbook… but still no lead. An that’s the FIRST lead.

The problem is that no matter how much we as players hate this, we’re still doing it. We are grinding the content and spending hours in game so most likely somewhere at a ZOS or Microsoft office someone is looking at those numbers like this:

BlackKnight556 · April 24

For real. I have been farming the same lead, almost every day, since the start of the Jester's festival and still no drop. I think it might be broken.

MoonPile · April 25

dcrush wrote: »

The problem is that no matter how much we as players hate this, we’re still doing it.

Not necessarily,

I make info posts like this and share them widely because a lot of players just don't know how bad it is. Of those who do know, as said above, many of us quit.

E.g. I haven't bought certain zone Maps in > 6 months (since my tests ended in September) and know others who've stopped using them too. I've also "forgotten" about certain items stated in prior comments: when it's that bad, it may as well not exist. And we'll soon have data to share from a Map-Lead survey hosted by a major Housing community; I've seen some of the answers and players are fed up.

Regardless, numbers only tell part of a story and can even be made to lie. So I hope the kind folks at ZOS are considering all of this other input too.

katanagirl1 · April 27

Nevermind, probably shouldn’t comment at this point.

allochthons · April 27

dcrush wrote: »

I’ve been running ICP for the lead from the Gravelight Sentry boss and I have one more item to go before I complete my stickerbook… but still no lead. An that’s the FIRST lead.

That lead is absolutely brutal. My sympathies.
It definitely needs its chance raised significantly, if not to 100%.

ApoAlaia · April 28

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Munkfist wrote: »

Since everyone got hung up on my "instant gratification" comment, 1 in 4 chances is pretty well instant gratification

It's literally definitionally not. 1 in 1 is instant. 1 in 4 is anywhere between 1 and infinity though the odds of it reaching infinity are ~0, it doesn't mean you get it in 4. Nor is there a difference in the reward.

Currently boss leads have a drop rate between 5% to 10%. So statistically getting it within 20, doesn't mean it won't take you 82 kills of Timershade, or 73 kills of the Voidmother.

The 25% I suggested in my OP is the last in a long line of suggestions. I've suggested dynamic drop rates, capped drop rates, leads as rewards - all ignored with zero comment.

There is not even 1 in 1.

The current wisdom is that since the release of Gold Road the first instance of every lead - at least when it comes to mythics - is 'guaranteed'. This holds true most of the time alas in one of my accounts I had to run HoF three times to get the lead.

How did this happen when other players in my groups did get it (I run LootLog and I could clearly see 11 instances of the lead dropping) I have no idea.

But if 'guaranteed' under who knows what circumstances can become 'high chance' what happens when 'extremely low chance' hits that set of unspecified circumstances?

As opposed to let's say FO76 where one can quite easily 'datamine' the levelled lists (or could anyway, I quit after burning out in the closed beta of Wastelanders, compounded by the realisation that they were never going to implement modding in any meaningful way) in the case of ESO this is completely opaque to the player; there is no way to tell if there is something awry (in the case of FO76 they famously have set the 'chance to drop' in levelled lists to negative on at least two occasions I can remember) at work unless the devs come forward and say 'we looked into it, we found something awry and we fixed it' and then players can confirm that it was in fact fixed (it would not be the first, second or even fifth time that players have found something unintended with drop rates, including something not dropping at all, and the dev's default reply has been 'we have looked into it and everything is fine' only for a few hours/days later come back and contradict themselves).

IMO this whole system needs a 'deep dive' and a serious QoL pass because for everyone that is not a glutton for punishment it is a reliable source of frustration rather than entertainment.

Thoriorz · April 28

There's a thread on PTS about where the leads drop for the newly added station(U50), and currently 3 or 4 out of the 5 required leads for station drop from Thieves' Trove in Glenumbra. Now imagine how many spawn locations are in Glenumbra and how often spawn, and what this will look like on the live server once people start farming that—not to mention the "great" drop rates...

GeneralGrundmann · April 28

Thinking of Tide-Glass Beads and Petrified Oak Loop makes me shudder...

twisttop138 · April 28

ApoAlaia wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Munkfist wrote: »

Since everyone got hung up on my "instant gratification" comment, 1 in 4 chances is pretty well instant gratification

It's literally definitionally not. 1 in 1 is instant. 1 in 4 is anywhere between 1 and infinity though the odds of it reaching infinity are ~0, it doesn't mean you get it in 4. Nor is there a difference in the reward.

Currently boss leads have a drop rate between 5% to 10%. So statistically getting it within 20, doesn't mean it won't take you 82 kills of Timershade, or 73 kills of the Voidmother.

The 25% I suggested in my OP is the last in a long line of suggestions. I've suggested dynamic drop rates, capped drop rates, leads as rewards - all ignored with zero comment.

There is not even 1 in 1.

The current wisdom is that since the release of Gold Road the first instance of every lead - at least when it comes to mythics - is 'guaranteed'. This holds true most of the time alas in one of my accounts I had to run HoF three times to get the lead.

How did this happen when other players in my groups did get it (I run LootLog and I could clearly see 11 instances of the lead dropping) I have no idea.

But if 'guaranteed' under who knows what circumstances can become 'high chance' what happens when 'extremely low chance' hits that set of unspecified circumstances?

As opposed to let's say FO76 where one can quite easily 'datamine' the levelled lists (or could anyway, I quit after burning out in the closed beta of Wastelanders, compounded by the realisation that they were never going to implement modding in any meaningful way) in the case of ESO this is completely opaque to the player; there is no way to tell if there is something awry (in the case of FO76 they famously have set the 'chance to drop' in levelled lists to negative on at least two occasions I can remember) at work unless the devs come forward and say 'we looked into it, we found something awry and we fixed it' and then players can confirm that it was in fact fixed (it would not be the first, second or even fifth time that players have found something unintended with drop rates, including something not dropping at all, and the dev's default reply has been 'we have looked into it and everything is fine' only for a few hours/days later come back and contradict themselves).

IMO this whole system needs a 'deep dive' and a serious QoL pass because for everyone that is not a glutton for punishment it is a reliable source of frustration rather than entertainment.

A guildmate and I were just having this conversation as we're both also players of fallout 76 though not as much anymore. It's a mess over there folks. But being able to see the drip chances of every item, yea this is still a thing, to see corrections and errors is beneficial. Also disheartening when you see a drop chance is 0.67% or something wild like that. Still though, it's plain as day. I'm amazed Zos goes to such lengths to keep these hidden.

Leads can be crazy. We need some kind of improvement. In this year of QoL what we're seeing a lot is monkey paw versions of what we asked for. And in this new era of communication and transparency, what we're seeing is that after they sold us tomes, they went right back to how they were before. So second verse, same as the first. Disappointing but predictable.

MoonPile · April 28

ApoAlaia wrote: »

this whole system needs a 'deep dive' and a serious QoL pass because for everyone that is not a glutton for punishment it is a reliable source of frustration rather than entertainment.

THIS.

But I'll add,

MoonPile wrote: »

RicAlmighty wrote: »

What an incredibly player hostile decision this is. I thought we were past the age of endless grind? @ZOS_Kevin

Even with all the good QOL updates recently, Antiquities – especially Housing related – have been left behind so far.

It's an odd choice to punish active subscription instead of rewarding it. When it takes months or literally years of frustration to get what you need for your gameplay, then in my experience, it can be better to leave and maybe return when it's reasonable:

Just for one example, I left ESO just before Greymoor, until late 2022. I just barely missed the whole Murkmire Safebox debacle. By the time I returned, 1. Tons of people had complained and drop rates were improved, 2. Most people who wanted Oakensoul already got it, so by the time I tried to get it, there were plenty of safeboxes in Murkmire and it was easy to get. Yay for me, but... sorry for everyone who was supporting the latest content at the time.
...

And likely thanks to those mass complaints, more recent Mythics (as we've repeated) are often far easier to get than furnishings, and are usable and even endlessly reconstructable after just ONE completion. Versus 3/3 to unlock, which we need to use things in Housing, and wherein 2-3 - 3/3 is utterly miserable.

GeneralGrundmann · April 29

I am not even so into housing like others here, still I can imagine the pain and frustration.

My suggestion is, after you completed a furniture for the first time, you can buy it for 100% of the given price.

With the second completion, you get a 20% discount, paying 80% of the given price.

And after the third completion, you get another 30% discount, paying 50% of the given price.

Of course, the codex entries two and three with the additional lore texts are still kind of a reward in themselves.

Perhaps different %-numbers are *better*, like 300%-200%-100% or 200%-150%-100%, but that's just speculation.

This way, furniture would be much easier to obtain and there is still some incentive to achieve a 3/3 in the codex.

MoonPile · April 29

GeneralGrundmann wrote: »

I am not even so into housing like others here, still I can imagine the pain and frustration.

My suggestion is, after you completed a furniture for the first time, you can buy it for 100% of the given price.

With the second completion, you get a 20% discount, paying 80% of the given price.
...

I like this idea! I have also been suggesting that they should allow buyability after 1, and if they really feel it's more fair to do it this way, fine. However, it grinds my gears that the system is completely imbalanced and unfair towards Housing as is:

Today, players have already unlocked the newest Mythic within just hours of the Night Market being live!
(EDIT: I accidentally completed it today too! Wish I could trade it in for my final Lead of the Solstice Bismuth Tower instead.)
(EDIT 2: I've already unlocked all of the NM furnishings 3/3, yay! That's great! I'm happy the Lead drop rates are good during this temporary event. Still, what I said below remains true for all other zones. And like I said below, I happily keep going back for more "free" leads even though I can buy them now!)

The Signet:

That means they can already USE it infinitely and even reconstruct it for all of their characters.
That's great!! Legitimately, not a problem!

But meanwhile, us poor sods in Housing have to suffer through the awful months-to-years-long grind to unlock any of our furnishing Leads 3/3 to be able to use them in the same capacity. (Plus, Blue and Green are still not buyable at all.) It's imbalanced and unfair towards us.

So I don't think the % discount tiers are even needed, considering that Mythics work right away for combat-focused players, and even reconstruction only needs Transmute Crystals that can be gained passively and pretty easily. Why should Housing items have all these extra roadbumps?

It's also a win-win when Leads drop easily:

It's an effective gold-sink: Many of us will gladly spend our gold to buy items – in bulk, at that! (Whereas if I can't even get the unlock, there's nothing to buy. With how awful Maps are, I'm certainly not buying those anymore).
Improves morale, retention, AND keeps content evergreen: We're more likely to redo activities when drop rates are good because we love to get useful, "free" items even after we unlocked it. (Whereas currently, everything about the grind is so bad that it even ruins entire areas for us, driving us away – whether or not we even manage to unlock. A number of us just give up & lose interest because it's too frustrating; what a waste of the Devs' work.)

So I wish ZOS would please let ALL Antiquities be buyable after 1 find. This would vastly improve the Treasure Maps issue too, since the bulk of the problem is the 2/3 – 3/3 Leads grind.

+ quoting @anadandy again: "No one is getting OP because they bought 10 Colovian tapestries."

anadandy · May 6

MoonPile wrote: »

Today, players have already unlocked the newest Mythic within just hours of the Night Market being live!
(EDIT: I accidentally completed it today too! Wish I could trade it in for my final Lead of the Solstice Bismuth Tower instead.)

The Signet:

That means they can already USE it infinitely and even reconstruct it for all of their characters.
That's great!! Legitimately, not a problem!

But meanwhile, us poor sods in Housing have to suffer through the awful months-to-years-long grind to unlock any of our furnishing Leads 3/3 to be able to use them in the same capacity. (Plus, Blue and Green are still not buyable at all.) It's imbalanced and unfair towards us.

Totally agree. I've "earned" the NM antiquity twice already, not even trying, and have 3/3 for two more pieces and yet, the last lead for Blessings of Stone still eludes me. I just had to laugh. I get that The Night Market is the new hotness but come on...

Al_Ex_Andre · May 6

BlackKnight556 wrote: »

For real. I have been farming the same lead, almost every day, since the start of the Jester's festival and still no drop. I think it might be broken.

This.

As for me, same experience, although I have just stopped entirely before it is too much.

So yes agreed, I think too there's something broken. Like this character, yes this one, will never drop the lead, yeah it is coded like this (but I have no proof).

I am surprised some people have it all completed. For a few of us, it never drops.

Emeratis · May 6

The lead is likely not broken. I've done hundreds of runs of the leads I need over the past few months with no luck, but lootlog shows them frequently dropping for other players in the runs (especially dungeon leads). At least LL helps confirm it's not broken but it is annoying and boring to run the same five dungeons almost a thousand times and still not have even the second copy of a lead....

Al_Ex_Andre · May 6

Emeratis wrote: »

The lead is likely not broken. I've done hundreds of runs of the leads I need over the past few months with no luck, but lootlog shows them frequently dropping for other players in the runs (especially dungeon leads). At least LL helps confirm it's not broken but it is annoying and boring to run the same five dungeons almost a thousand times and still not have even the second copy of a lead....

yeah, but the chance is so slim then, then it could be considered broken, in a different meaning. But to each its own, I won't do this mess anymore.