Noob crafter : best place to get motifs?

Chronicburn

I've been having a little luck stealing from the castle in daggerfall ... but I'm still short 4 of the basic motifs ... any recommendations on better places to lot for the 9 basic motifs?

davey1107

Welcome to the game! Let's cover some waaaaaay basic stuff that'll help.

Guilds

You can belong to up to five guilds. A guild is a group of up to 500 players...like a club. Some guilds have activities, others focus on aspects of the game like crafting, trading, dungeons. All you really need to know is that 1. You can find info on guilds in the guild section of these forums, 2. Guilds with more than 50 members earn a store, where members can list most any item for sale.

You can access the store for any guild you belong to at any banker. But there are also 100+ permanent trader spots in the game, which guild masters bid on weekly to earn a week in that spot. You don't need to worry about the bidding...the point is that any player in the game can access a guild's entire store if they have a trader. You'll see these traders listed as icons on your map. Most are clustered in large cities...some are out in the wild. You sound like you're Daggerfall...you have six traders in Daggerfall...those stores are okay. Your best trade spot is the Wayrest stalls. That's one of the three biggest trade zones in the game...those stores are always packed.

Players list items in guild stores for the price they want. If I want to list an apple for $1 million gold, I can. So be wary of bad deals. But guild stores are an essential place to obtain items you don't want to farm. There's a pretty simple filter at the guild traders that will take some time to learn, but you can pretty easily find anything you're looking for. (Example, motifs are under the filter crafting...clothing...motifs).

Motifs

There are a bazillion motifs in this game. Well...maybe not that many. But like 45 or so at this point. Each motif "style" will have a specific place/way it drops.

The common blue motif books for the nine races are a rare drop in any container - urns, lockboxes, wardrobes, chests, etc, etc. they're also dirt cheap at guild traders.

Then we move on to purple motifs, which comprise almost every other style. There are four, daedric/barbaric/ancient elf/primal that drop as complete books in the same urns you find blue books in...they're just ultra rare.

Other purple motifs are broken into 14 chapters...you have to learn one piece at a time, like for dwemer you might find dwemer chests, then later dwemer legs, then later some more. If you learn chests, that character can craft a dwemer chest piece, but they can't make legs until they find and learn that motif. Each of these motifs drops in a specific area in a specific way. Thieves Guild style chapters are obtained as rewards for daily quests in Hews Bane. Draugr is dropped in Fighters Guild dailies rewards. Ancient Orc comes from bosses in Wrothgar public dungeons and delves. If you're a crafter, you can see pictures of the style on a site like ESO-fashion.com, then look up how it drops if you want to grind for it. Or, as always, go shopping for it at guild traders.

Some tips on this subject:

- you sound like you might enjoy crafting. If you're going to play this aspect of the game, feel free to take your time learning the mechanics and how everything works. There is nothing to stress about, nor is there any way to "wreck" a character. The only thing to maybe get started on is reading how the skill lines level, and working on that. And if you want to craft different motifs, you should start trait research. It takes a year to complete it all...you don't need to stress about that, but research traits on junk items you find.

- if you enjoy "motif hunting," then you're maybe suited to one of the more profitable aspects of the game. Some motif chapters are worth a loooooooot of gold (especially for a newbie). Right now, any Minotaur or Draugr chapter will sell in a guild store for at least $30,000. You can fund your character very, very nicely by farming and selling motifs. Look up which are costly in guild stores, then how they're earned. If it involves something you enjoy doing, you can bypass boring play. For example, I like the thieves guild and dark brotherhood dailies. I can run one of these in ten minutes, and 1 time in 3 I get a $25,000 motif. I can sell this and use it to buy materials that would have taken all day to farm.

- if you're going to try this, you really need to belong to a guild that consistently maintains a trader. Most of these charge a weekly fee for store access of $2-$5k in gold. It's well worth it...like I said, I move $150k a week in motifs and mats, so the rent is fair. So as a new player, you might first build up an inventory of 5-15 rare items to sell, THEN find a trade guild with a trader, then list your items.

Sorry, all of that may have gone down a rabbit hole for you. It's late and I was homestead farming, lol. If you have any questions, feel free to respond using @my user id in the post. That'll alert me...I'm happy to answer specific questions.

Ackwalan

Basic motifs are common and so cheap, about 150 gold. You can farm the Dwemer delves for Dwemer pages and sell those for a fast 3k+.

Chronicburn

So can anyone buy from a guild trader or do you have to be in the guild to buy from it ?

Or are the guild traders only for buying and selling inside the guild?

Sorry really new ... been playing for a month but just having fun and really haven't figured out how the auction mechanics work ...

Jaeysa

Anyone can buy from a guild store if they've rented a trader(the people standing around the wayshrine in mournhold, et cetera. Some guilds have a store but don't bother with a trader.

Another way to find the motifs you are looking for is to ask in /z chat.

Chronicburn

What is /z chat? Sorry to ask if that's a dumb question

Chronicburn

Also how does renting a trader work?

Jaeysa

No problem.

/z chat is short for zone chat. Basically you type: /z and then whatever you want to say. It'll be seen all over the zone.

Guilds with more than 50 members can open a guild store, which their members can use to buy and sell. If the leader or officers wish, they can also bid on traders every week - highest bid rents the trader - so that everyone in game can go to that trader to access that store.

Basically unless you are the guild leader or an officer in a guild with fifty or more people you don't have to worry about renting the trader.