Master Writs - Giving up fun play time trying to get them

Giraffon

When Homestead first went live, I reconfigured four characters to exclusively do crafting writs so I could get vouchers and deck out my guild hall. Everything was going according to plan at first. I managed to strike it big once or twice and set up my guild hall with all the basic crafting stations. Then I got a practice dummy. All was going according to plan until the last week of February. After that week's patch the well went dry. I've only received a single master writ for 2 lousy vouchers since then. That's not fun. I'm burning resources and time and getting nothing except a little gold in return. XP is pointless as I'm already 600 CP.

I've griped about this a couple times here in the forums but so far everyone seems willing to call it bad luck.

18 writs per day * 16 days = 2 vouchers

that's

288 writs = 2 vouchers.

Call it what you want, but it's not fun and it's not worth it. I'll keep doing the full set on my main everyday just because I always have, but that's it. >:-(

Nestor

Your earlier experience was an anomaly. Your latter results are normal. In other words, RNG is a fickle mistress. I have gotten 0 writs in the past 2 days, the day prior I got one for 17 vouchers which I sold as I did not have the motif.

Its a long slow grind, not a get it done in a week process. The drop rates are abysmal, I have stopped doing the writs on most of my characters as it is just burning up my mats.

Giraffon

Nestor wrote: »

Your earlier experience was an anomaly. Your latter results are normal. In other words, RNG is a fickle mistress. I have gotten 0 writs in the past 2 days, the day prior I got one for 17 vouchers which I sold as I did not have the motif.

Its a long slow grind, not a get it done in a week process. The drop rates are abysmal, I have stopped doing the writs on most of my characters as it is just burning up my mats.

You may be right but even if the system was dropping an average of 100 vouchers per week it would still take months if you aspired to get everything (all set gear stations) for just one home. If you wanted to do multiple homes it would take even longer.

Since I'm currently averaging 1 voucher per week (/facepalm) I think I'll give up the idea of farming them and just hope for some luck from my main crafter. I'll keep adding motifs and stuff to hopefully increase his chances.

davey1107

I'm sure ZOS felt the drop rate was generous since they allowed the quests to be sold. As homestead settles this should drop the per-voucher price in guild stores. But for now, your RNG results sound low. Have you trained your characters in the things that increase their odds of a master writ?

For smith, cloth and wood this is trait research and purple motifs known. As a PS4 player doing this for 1 1/2 weeks, My observations: my master crafter knows all traits and knows all but a few of the most recent motifs. He gets 100+ voucher quests frequently...probably four in ten days. My secondaries know 7-8 traits, and they have gotten a few 16 voucher quests and a 40. My lesser crafters knew this was coming...they know like 5 styles and 6 traits. Their drop rate is pretty tiny, and they get 2-6 voucher quests when they do drop.

For alchemy and enchanting it's traits known. All of my characters know these because I used that xp to level the lines. They get 2-4 writ quests all the time. One of them never got one, and when I look he'd never learned traits in either alchemy or enchanting because he'd been a mule that leveled another way. I went through the list and learned them, and now he gets them.

I don't have enough data to do the math, but I'm guessing the range formpercent chance of a master drop starts at like 1.0% for a toon that knows nothing, and extends up to like 10% for a knowledgeable toon. It could be tighter than this, but it's probably close.

Nestor

Giraffon wrote: »

it would still take months if you aspired to get everything

Your finally seeing the light. It gets easier to cope when you fully understand the situation.

disintegr8

I do not recommend anyone do writs purely to get master writs - they are not worth the time, effort and materials consumed (just my opinion).

Before Homestead I was doing writs on 8 characters, all at level 50 in all crafts but with varying levels of skill points allocated, depending on material supplies. I now do them on 7 - all max level crafters with various levels of trait, recipe and style research (the 8th does not currently have enough skill points to do max level writs)

So at 42 crafting writs a day, some days I actually get no MW's, other days may vary between 1 and 3. I think the most I have got in a day is 4 and there have been a few days where 1 character has received 2. I have only received 3 MW's worth more than 7 vouchers - a 10, 20 and 39. The rest are between 2 and 6 and I cannot always do them due to motif knowledge.

I have always done writs for the gold improvement items and gold, so will continue to do them primarily for this reason. I got enough vouchers just inside 2 weeks to get my standard target skeleton and am in no rush to get anything else. As I accrue MW's, I will look at attunable crafting stations for my manor, but I am in no hurry.

msetten

davey1107 wrote: »

For alchemy and enchanting it's traits known. All of my characters know these because I used that xp to level the lines. They get 2-4 writ quests all the time. One of them never got one, and when I look he'd never learned traits in either alchemy or enchanting because he'd been a mule that leveled another way. I went through the list and learned them, and now he gets them.

Weird, as I have all skills in Enchanting and Alchemy, all runes translated (yes, including the one you only get in the imperial city) and all alchemy ingredient effects fully identified. Also, I have all the achievements (excluding the new furnishing ones) for these two crafting skills.

And so far I only once got a 2 voucher master writ in Enchanting. Either I'm very unlucky, or something is wrong with my character.

Giraffon

I executed my plan to reallocate resources and only do writs on my best crafter last night. this is what I had been doing before homestead. Do some writs and then hit the dungeons. Life was good. Then homestead hit. Got a bunch of vouchers early on and then last week the whole system went ice cold. Burned through a lot of mats with little to show for it. Got mad. Now back to old ways. Life is good again. :-)

I can make just as much gold running dungeons (if not more) as I can doing writs. I can always buy master writs from other players to get more vouchers. Not my original plan, but it's viable.

Nestor

Well I was getting a smattering of master writs here and there, but lately, nothing. I have stopped doing regular writs on my characters as I am just burning through mats with nothing to show for it as even the drop rate on Gold Tempers has dropped.

I know it's RNG for to a large extent, I just don't have the excess mats to ride this out. Getting my Alts into CP160 gear is more important than something a Voucher can buy.

kriegernight

I too have written on the issues with the homestead update.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/324766/this-is-a-concern-toward-the-future-of-game-play-under-the-new-construct-models#latest

wayfarerx

Honestly this has all worked out pretty well for me so far. I do all six writs on 8 characters every day and have not gone a day with zero master writs yet. I have had to do a lot of farming to keep the mats I need in stock, but then I've been getting a ton of furniture crafting mats and nirnhoned stones in the process so it's been working overall.

I've now got most of the stuff I wanted from the writ voucher merchant so I'm focusing on building up my voucher count to buy stuff for my guild's hall. However the constant farming required to keep this up is getting pretty annoying and I see myself pulling back on writs very soon, at least until they add new stuff to the voucher merchant.

Reivax

Nestor wrote: »

Well I was getting a smattering of master writs here and there, but lately, nothing. I have stopped doing regular writs on my characters as I am just burning through mats with nothing to show for it as even the drop rate on Gold Tempers has dropped.

That's interesting, I'm not getting much in the way of writs, but the amount of Cloth/Wood/Blacksmith gold tempers as well as Kuta are flowing in over last seven days is more than worth it in materials to do the writs.
Of 8 total dailies I do, I've had 4 masters worth ~22 writs. Not amazing, but to me, raw materials are "free" so doing a writ is really free, and I used the points to buy 2 different purple recipes.
Even though Provisioning doesn't seem to produce master writs still, I've received a psijiic fragment and 12 each of Frost miriam and Berjez(?) in last week since I started writing this down.

sha-ext

I also haven't been blessed by luck concerning vouchers. But i see it this way: I'd do the writs anyway, so any masterr writs coming my way is a bonus
That viewpoint is saving me from a lot of frustration seeing my guildies get those juicy 3-digits-master writs...

IwakuraLain42

Wasn't there a note in the last incremental patch for PC/Mac that they fixed the drop rate for these writs (improved them). I'm on Console so I can't confirm that, but any experiences from you guys would be appreciated.

My (felt) drop rate on my master crafter is something like 10 vouchers per day in average.

Giraffon

I'm out of the rat race. My new normal is that I'm doing all 6 crafting writs on my main each day and I'm going to buy one motif each day for him to learn. Maybe over time he'll get some master writs.

I ran a dungeon last night. Solo'd a boss when everyone else rage quit. It was glorious! Much more fun! :-)

Nestor

IwakuraLain42 wrote: »

Wasn't there a note in the last incremental patch for PC/Mac that they fixed the drop rate for these writs (improved them). I'm on Console so I can't confirm that, but any experiences from you guys would be appreciated.

My (felt) drop rate on my master crafter is something like 10 vouchers per day in average.

Since the patch I have received one Enchanting Writ.

I_killed_Vivec

Nestor wrote: »

IwakuraLain42 wrote: »

Wasn't there a note in the last incremental patch for PC/Mac that they fixed the drop rate for these writs (improved them). I'm on Console so I can't confirm that, but any experiences from you guys would be appreciated.

My (felt) drop rate on my master crafter is something like 10 vouchers per day in average.

Since the patch I have received one Enchanting Writ.

I've had four or five, so I'm about 8 vouchers better off than you...

It's an RNG grind and as you said above, the sooner you accept that the sooner you can get on with doing what you want to do and seeing vouchers as a bonus.

In a couple of years time, when I've save up a grand, I might go on a spending spree

fritzOSU03

I've actually been keeping track of general writ profitability for clothing, blacksmithing, and woodworking. Here's a link for what information I've gathered. There's also a column indicating the number of master writ vouchers.

Writ Profitability Spreadsheet

Giraffon

Wow! Those numbers are terrible! You should be raging too! LOL

Jayne_Doe

OP - seems like you got really lucky in the beginning. If you got enough to set up your guild hall with basic stations and get a target dummy - that's quite a few vouchers you got.

Since XB launch on 2/21, I've been doing writs on my master crafter (all 6 each day), so it's been slower for me since I don't have multiple characters doing them. I've managed to scrape together about 20-30 writ vouchers, with an additional 20 or so from a couple of MWs I purchased at a price I was willing to pay. So, I'm sitting on only 50-60 vouchers.

I've debated about whether to grind my alts so that they can do top tier writs (they all have 50 in the crafts, just haven't allocated any points past their current character levels). With One Tamriel, do they still need to do some of the quests leading up to Coldharbour, etc., or if I allocate the points, can they get top tier writs?

parkham

dumb question - what are master writs used for anyway? I have about 100 of them.

fritzOSU03

parkham wrote: »

dumb question - what are master writs used for anyway? I have about 100 of them.

Master writs are used to get vouchers. Vouchers can be used to purchase things from Rolis Hlaalu, the Mastercraft Mediator. More info here.

fritzOSU03

I must agree that there might be something a bit off in how the RNG drops are coming after that late February patch. I've been measuring the drop rate from clothing, blacksmithing, and woodworking writs since mid February (15th) and my results don't completely correlate with what we've been told about the drop rate of master writs. I've been doing the top level writs daily on my main crafter and a second crafter with around half as many known motifs and recipes as well as around 2/3 as many achievement points. Let's call the second crafter the "lesser crafter."

As it stands, after 25 days of data, my lesser crafter averages 300% more master writs from woodworking writs than my main crafter so something's definitely off there. My main crafter, on the other hand, gets 200% more master writs from blacksmithing and clothing. With that being said, the vast majority of master writs I've received have been for 6 vouchers or less so the voucher drop rate is horrid.

• Main Crafter
  • Blacksmithing: 16.67%
  • Clothing: 16.67%
  • Woodworking: 4.17% <--This is broken.
• Lesser Crafter
  • Blacksmithing: 8.33%
  • Clothing: 8.33%
  • Woodworking 12.50% <--This is broken.

disintegr8

I would like to add that in doing MW's since launch on PS4, my highest skilled and highest achieving crafter has neither got the most writs or received the highest voucher return of my 7 characters doing all daily writs.

I think he is running about 3rd or 4th on both counts.He is my only character who knows any gold provisioning recipes and is the only one to get a provisioning writ (and only 1) but that has not helped in the race.

Mike0987

Don't bother grinding up on PS4 too far. Given the pack full of master writs I just got off my 5 lowest end crafters and only 1 on my 3 that have the most researched and learned... I would stop the grind at least until they fix the basackwards drops.

Mike0987

I even stopped buying motifs the other day once I realized they have this backwards...

Mike0987

And yet another day with 9 trait crafter/full motifs = zero writs... and the lower 7 crafters got 6 writs totaling 37 vouchers.

KimberlyannKitsuragi

I go stealing. I do my writs, I sell the master writs I can't do due to lack of knowledge of motifs. Then I use the gold I've made to buy master writs or motifs that I can learn . Occasionally I've bought triples of stuff but I'll just flip it and sell it at my guild.