Master writs + some data, and some incomparably wise judgements (annivers boxes at end)

f047ys3v3n

So, I just reached 100 master writ quests received. I have also been discussing my impressions and some data gathered with and by a few other master crafters (thanks Gadget and wife, Akimbro, Raven, Kojou, and Bamanoob). I thought I would post a few thoughts on master writs: How to get them, how worthwhile they are now, and what I expect their worth to be in the long term.

First, if you only have not read the Tamriel foundry page on it you should google it. Worth the read. It goes into what the multipliers are for determing how many vouchers something is worth, etc.

Getting master writs
A long time ago, this was posted by a ZOS person. So far it tracks better with my experiences than any other information I have come across.

Bel_Shezzar wrote: »

Tradeskill mastery (which determines your odds of receiving a master writ from a top tier writ reward box) is meant to imply a long-term dedication to the craft. This varies from tradeskill to tradeskill.

For Blacksmithing, Clothier, and Woodworking, this means motif knowledge and overall completion of trait research. This does not include Crown-exclusive motifs or motifs for the 9 base player races. It focuses on motifs that take some effort to learn – like Xivkyn, or Minotaur, or Celestial.
For Provisioning, this is instead your collection of known purple and gold recipes as they are a strong overall representation of dedication to craft.
With Enchanting, we instead look at the total overall rune word translations you’ve completed on that character.
And with Alchemy, we look at how many reagents from which you’ve completely learned all effects.

Over time, the contributing factors for this may expand as the associated tradeskill mechanics do.

The implications of this are important. Not all writs types are equally easy, quick, or inexpensive to reach maximum drop rate on. Nor are the rewards equal. We will now discuss this.

Alchemy and Enchanting.
For a crafter who attains level 50, Alchemy and Enchanting can easily, inexpensively, and quickly be brought to full RNG chances. Make your Haikaju and Kuta learning glyph in one with a Repora and it is quite saleable and making your total cost of leveling very low. Enchanting yields 2, 7, and 6x Haikaju multiplier I have not received) writs that, with abundant kutas, are also cheap to make. Alchemy yields 2 and 5 voucher writs that are inexpensive to make. In short, these two types of writ are easy to get and cheap to do. I get an average of 3 per day doing 8 fully leveled toons which comes out to a max drop rate of 1/5.3. Probably 95% of the master writs I get are Alchemy or Enchanting.

Provisioning
They said they "fixed" the low provisioning writ drop rate. Sure, whatever, perhaps it is the garbage they wanted now instead of the garbage it was before. Who can notice? Provisioning writs are rare and aren't very good. Most are 2 writ vouchers and require some mid level purple recipe that will cost 40k if you don't have it. If you do you will have to search through your mess of recipes to find it as the game now has somewhere around 550 recipes total. What a mess. I have a crafter who has at least 300 recipes and he rarely gets a writ. What is worse, the "better" writs are 10 vouchers but take a gold recipe like psyjic ambrosia or smoked bear haunch. Writs are worth about 1.8k each and perfect roe is about 10k with the writs requiring 2 perfect roe. So, these gold recipes cost more than 20k to make and yield about 18k worth of vouchers. Great, I'll just do that right now. I sell them. Morons buy them. Anyhow, save your money, don't buy recipes to level provisioners to get a better chance at writs. They chances will still be crap and so are the writs you get.

Blacksmithing, Clothier, Woodworking
So, these are where the big dogs are. Equipment master writs start at 5 vouchers for a purple 2 trait set of basic motif and go up to about 328 for gold, nirnhoned, 9 trait set in Celestial, Draugr, Akaviri, Glass, Yokudan, or Order of the Hour. The multipliers are roughly a 6x for nirn, 4x multiplier for gold, ?(small) for style, and ?(very small) for motif rarity. Blacksmiting also seems to be worth a little more than the other two. My biggest writ was 122 for a nirnhoned legendary 2 trait staff in Malacath. My favorite was 47 vouchers for a 9trait nirnhoned epic staff in glass. The nirn multiplier is much more profitable than the gold multiplier as it is bigger and one nirn mat costs much less than 8 gold mats. Now, you may be thinking, I'll just go buy all those rare motifs and then I will get me some great master writs. You should know though that the motif multiplier is enough smaller than the research multiplier that we really don't have much of a guess as to what it is. It is small. Research though.... If you don't have much you just basically won't get writs and if you are all 9 trait, like my crafter, you will get them at almost the rate of alchemy and enchanting. I don't know what to tell you about the 9 months or so it takes to get to 100% in research other than master writ drop rates for equipment are basically determined by research level. I get more master writs at 30 some motifs and full research than a buddy who has all 44 motifs and is about half 8 trait and 9 trait. Lucky for me as I researched all the nirn years ago and less lucky for him as he didn't. I sure wish that I would have brought all my toons to 8 traits years ago but, water under the bridge now.

So, to recap our acquisitions section, if you want to get master writs fully learn all the alchemy and enchanting traits and translations and research all your traits in the equipment crafting professions. Do not bother acquiring recipes as they are expensive, provisioning writs never drop much anyway, and are crap when they do. Do not bother (unless you buy them from me as they have always been a major source of my income) acquiring motifs as they have a very small effect on writ drop rates and cost around 4.5 million to get all of anyway.

Value of master writs
Well, you know master writs aren't worth 10k each any more now. Actually, they are down to about 1.8k last I checked and falling fast. At this point, the worst value writs, gold recipe 10 voucher provisioning ones, are worth less than the cost of mats to make them as they are worth 18k but cost a bit over 20k to make. Wow, that happened fast didn't it. The next writs to reach this negative value level will either be purple Haikeju enchanting ones or blacksmithing gold writs that have no other multiplier. I can't be bothered to calculate which right now. I would sell any of these right now as people are stupid and will buy them for more than they are worth. Anyhow, I am illustrating a trend. In the long run, and even in the short run now, master writs are not a good way to make money except on the best (all traits in equipment) leveled toons. The bottom line is that really the only long term stuff for sale for writs are gambling purple housing recipe boxes and these are seriously undercut by crown store competition for purchase of the goods which the recipe with allow you to craft. For long term viability writ vouchers would need to be able to buy something with long term demand that does not compete with a crown offering. Alchemy ingredients, housing crafting ingredients, gold mats, the long rumored weapon and equipment trait change stones and style changing stones, these are my ideas.

It is clear to me now, from the current trend line, that the market value for master writs and for the stuff purchased with their vouchers, will soon be very low. By this I mean low enough that they will soon be eclipsed as an income/hour activity by simple crafting or thieving. They will not be the long term income generation for master crafters that many hoped they would be unless more stuff is put into the writ vender and some of that stuff is of lasting interest to the serious players who have significant amounts of gold. I have put in a few ideas by way of this.

Anyhow, I got my crafting stations, test dummy, some gold while the gold was good, and a few purple crafting recipes I didn't really want, so my interest is flagging a bit. Hope this all helps those who are in acquisition mode as the information ZOS provided in game was, as usual, clear as mud in your eye, and misleading to boot.

Reorx_Holybeard

Great info, thanks! For reference an Epic Hakeijo master writ gives 12 vouchers so I assume a Legendary one might give 36?

Have you (or anyone) noticed a difference in master writs from Blacksmithing/Clothing and Woodworking? I seem to get noticeably master writs from Woodworking:

• Blacksmithing = 9/451 (2.0%)
• Clothing = 8/451 (1.8%)
• Woodworking = 15/451 (3.3%)

Or perhaps I've just been very lucky in Woodworking writs or very unlucky in Blacksmithing/Clothing.

f047ys3v3n

Gadget seems to be seeing more from woodworking as well. He is convinced it drops more. I do think I have one more woodworking than the others but we are not talking about very many total and I have not kept as good of numbers as many of my friends so I don't read much into it. You have a very nice sample size in your data, well more than I have. I suspect you are on to something with the greater number in woodworking.

helediron

Woodworking probably isn't dropping more than others. Lower level alts usually have WW research more complete.Looking my numbers all three are rather close to each other with much jumpiness because of RNG. I would wait few more moths before saying anything definite.

There is one very clear result: I gave up figuring out how much difference there is between a master crafter and a mediocre 8trait crafter when two mediocre crafters clearly outperforms one master crafter. Quantity rules in master writs.

saxgooner

I am having some seriously bad rng.

on xb1 eu, my main has all research, all motifs(pre homestead, quickly acquiring new ones) , all recipes, 95% game.

highest writ 78 blacksmithing.
still no provisioning.

where is my reward in return for knowledge

disintegr8

27 days in now on PS4. With one character not having done all writs on all crafts every day, here is what I have found.

1084 daily writs completed across 7 characters (6 x 162, 1 x 112 writs) with 77 master writs received worth 561 vouchers.

Alchemy and Enchanting have produced the most MW's with a combined 40 for 144 vouchers. Woodworking has given me 9 for 170 vouchers, Smithing 13 for 148 vouchers, Clothing 12 for 85 vouchers and Provisioning at 3 for 14 vouchers.

MW/voucher return across the 6 characters that have done all writs every day is: 14/106, 13/134, 13/81, 13/67, 11/77 and 8/42. My main crafter is in the middle of this list at 13 MWs for 81 vouchers.

My main crafters largest MW has only been 13 vouchers while my biggest voucher writs have been worth 72, 55, 40 and 39, each one received on a different character.

I do not believe knowledge or achievement comes into it and luck has everything to do with it. Nothing more than RNG.

EDIT: Need to add that my main crafter is my only 9 trait crafter and it is not improving his returns.

lientier

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

Provisioning
They said they "fixed" the low provisioning writ drop rate. Sure, whatever, perhaps it is the garbage they wanted now instead of the garbage it was before. Who can notice? Provisioning writs are rare and aren't very good. Most are 2 writ vouchers and require some mid level purple recipe that will cost 40k if you don't have it. If you do you will have to search through your mess of recipes to find it as the game now has somewhere around 550 recipes total. What a mess. I have a crafter who has at least 300 recipes and he rarely gets a writ. What is worse, the "better" writs are 10 vouchers but take a gold recipe like psyjic ambrosia or smoked bear haunch. Writs are worth about 1.8k each and perfect roe is about 10k with the writs requiring 2 perfect roe. So, these gold recipes cost more than 20k to make and yield about 18k worth of vouchers. Great, I'll just do that right now. I sell them. Morons buy them. Anyhow, save your money, don't buy recipes to level provisioners to get a better chance at writs. They chances will still be crap and so are the writs you get.

I totally agree with this!

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

I get more master writs at 30 some motifs and full research than a buddy who has all 44 motifs and is about half 8 trait and 9 trait.

I was counting today, its only 34 motives that count (so none of the 9 blue ones and not the 2 corwn-only motifs)
So either I miscalculated.. or how did you get the number 44?!

Anyway thanks for ths great post!

f047ys3v3n

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

I get more master writs at 30 some motifs and full research than a buddy who has all 44 motifs and is about half 8 trait and 9 trait.

I was counting today, its only 34 motives that count (so none of the 9 blue ones and not the 2 corwn-only motifs)
So either I miscalculated.. or how did you get the number 44?!

Anyway thanks for ths great post![/quote]

43 then? I'm not really sure. I did count the base ones, which I obviously have, but not the Crown only. It is mostly a bunch of DLC ones I am missing in addition to Akavari and Ebon. The count error was my foggy memory. I didn't look it back up when writing the post.

Krymon

I do not know how it is supposed to work, but seems to me that it is broken if you know ALL avail motifs, and all traits, in the past 9 days i have gotten 1 equipment writ worth... 5 vouchers..

and one enchanting writ worth 2 vouchers... so where is this part about more motifs and traits the better your results???

T

Nestor

I do writs on two characters, 9/9 on everything for Traits, and one knows a lot of Motifs but not all of them. The other had no traits researched, knew some motifs and was not fully Achieved in Enchanting, Alchemy or Provisioning (major lack in Purple and Gold Recipes). So, I certainly am not Motifed up like the game would want me to be.

The less skilled character was more apt to get Master Writs where the more skilled character got less. The highest Voucher level ever obtained was 17 for a BS Writ I could not do (did not know Motif). In the past 10 days, I have only done writs on my most skilled character, and have gotten 0 Master Writs.

There is too much RNG in the process. I understand it is supposed to be a grind, but this is more of a grind than I am willing to deal with. I have stopped doing Crafting Writs as the net return on Master Writs is too low, and not enough to show for it when it does happen.

The only reason I am over 100 Vouchers is a generous guildmate donated Master Writs that were worth 107 Vouchers. I am at 102 Vouchers as I could not get two of the Alchemy ones to complete.

Maybe if I learn some more motifs I might do some more. But for now, keeping the mats is more important as I still have characters in CP150 gear.

Soella

According to my statistics on 10 crafters with different number of motifs/trait knowledge:
- number of known motifs does not significantly affects chances (number of MW for toon with all motifs vs toon with only couple purple motifs is almost within statistical variations);
- number of known traits drastically affects number of writs, my crafters with 0 traits practically did not receive writs;
- roughly 4-6 traits know is when crafters start receiving some writs - but not enough statistics to prove it.

One very strange thing - my master crafter obviously received most of my equipment writs, but almost 2 times less alchemy/enchanting writs.

Statistics gathered on 10 crafters since start of Homestead on PC.

RoyalPink06

At this point I'm not sure how much I believe the achievements play into it. I know the data are there and the achievements are supposed to be a factor, but my crafting character (many completed motifs and 9 traits in all) has gotten nothing but 6-11 vouchers per Master Writ found, while 2 of my other characters who know almost nothing to very little in terms of motifs and researching have each gotten a Master Writ worth 251 and 301 vouchers, respectively. In my case, I have no idea what factors are coming into play or if it just pure RNG.

disintegr8

I notice that the XBOX patch notes contain this line: "Fixed an issue that prevented Sealed Provisioning Writs from being awarded as often as intended."

Be interested to see how much this changes anyone's drop rate. Hopefully this will be in the PS4 patch and I can see if I notice any difference.

link: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/330527/xbox-one-patch-notes-v1-7-1-0#latest

FrancisCrawford

I had a happy RNG event yesterday -- my 5-trait woodworker, who has 7 or so purple motifs known per item, got a little writ drop. (Something that's easily doable and gives 6 vouchers.)

My 9-trait woodworker, with better but hardly complete motif knowledge, has only got 3 or 4 Master writs since Homestead dropped.

As for consumables, which is where I get most of my chances for Master Writs -- the comments in the OP are consistent with my experiences.

Mike0987

Recently got a provisioning writ for 8 Ambrosia, for 10 vouchers... Have decided they are not worth doing...

Reorx_Holybeard

disintegr8 wrote: »

I notice that the XBOX patch notes contain this line: "Fixed an issue that prevented Sealed Provisioning Writs from being awarded as often as intended."

Be interested to see how much this changes anyone's drop rate. Hopefully this will be in the PS4 patch and I can see if I notice any difference.

link: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/330527/xbox-one-patch-notes-v1-7-1-0#latest

Post the 2.7.9 patch I'm at 3/15 (20%) on my main crafter with 64/69 purple/gold recipes known. For my mule characters with no recipes known I'm at 0/150. This is a slightly improved rate for my main and a reduced rate for my mules.

disintegr8

Mike0987 wrote: »

Recently got a provisioning writ for 8 Ambrosia, for 10 vouchers... Have decided they are not worth doing...

I had this once but did it because I had nearly 30 perfect roe and about 1000 caught fish that I have yet to fillet (from trying to progress towards Master Angler). I do think that you should get more than 10 vouchers for using 2 perfect roe though.

Have made nirnhoned legendary weapons for 55 and 72 voucher writs. Probably borderline writs if you had to buy or find the materials but I have well over a stack of each gold temper and over 30 potent nirncrux.

f047ys3v3n

So, I'm down to doing writs on just my main crafter. The biggest factor in this is Nirnroot and the alchemy writs. I know that it doesn't seem like much but 1/2 of the alchemy writs require 3 nirnroot. You have no way of knowing if any given day for any given toon will be a nirn day or not and this means that going through the lengthy log screens to even get to a toon gives you a 50% chance of only having one writ (enchanting) instead of 2 (alchemy and enchanting) that gives you a decent chance of a master writ. Alchemy ones that require nirn are decidedly not worth doing as you have to compete with the bots to harvest it (my God this stuff is over harvested) or pay 600g per (totally more than a writ is worth.) Given the drop in writ value in general. I just don't think it is near worth my time to do them on more than my main.

As for my main crafter. I got a 50 voucher legendary gold writ a few days back and can't even seem to sell it for 1.5k per voucher. These things are getting hard as hell to move and we are getting near the point where ones that require gold mats are just not worth doing even with the massively decreased prices for gold mats (3k for Dreague wax instead of almost 6k)(well past that one the perfect roe ones.) I will admit to being pretty disappointed with the longevity of master writs as an income source for master crafters. Well, such is the economy in ESO I guess. I still plan to do writs every day on my main. As complete a crafter as he is he averages better than one master writ a day despite not doing half the alchemy ones because of the nirnroot thing.

Hopefully at some point ZOS will put some stuff with some long term value in the voucher store like alchemy mats, gold mats, trait change stones (don't currently exist) or the new housing mats. For now there is little of lasting interest.

Rohamad_Ali

Four months and no writs for alchemy or provisioning .

STEVIL

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

Four months and no writs for alchemy or provisioning .

Didn't homestead and m writs launch Feb 6?

disintegr8

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

So, I'm down to doing writs on just my main crafter. The biggest factor in this is Nirnroot and the alchemy writs. I know that it doesn't seem like much but 1/2 of the alchemy writs require 3 nirnroot. You have no way of knowing if any given day for any given toon will be a nirn day or not and this means that going through the lengthy log screens to even get to a toon gives you a 50% chance of only having one writ (enchanting) instead of 2 (alchemy and enchanting) that gives you a decent chance of a master writ. Alchemy ones that require nirn are decidedly not worth doing as you have to compete with the bots to harvest it (my God this stuff is over harvested) or pay 600g per (totally more than a writ is worth.) Given the drop in writ value in general. I just don't think it is near worth my time to do them on more than my main.

As for my main crafter. I got a 50 voucher legendary gold writ a few days back and can't even seem to sell it for 1.5k per voucher. These things are getting hard as hell to move and we are getting near the point where ones that require gold mats are just not worth doing even with the massively decreased prices for gold mats (3k for Dreague wax instead of almost 6k)(well past that one the perfect roe ones.) I will admit to being pretty disappointed with the longevity of master writs as an income source for master crafters. Well, such is the economy in ESO I guess. I still plan to do writs every day on my main. As complete a crafter as he is he averages better than one master writ a day despite not doing half the alchemy ones because of the nirnroot thing.

Hopefully at some point ZOS will put some stuff with some long term value in the voucher store like alchemy mats, gold mats, trait change stones (don't currently exist) or the new housing mats. For now there is little of lasting interest.

Nirnroot has always been my point of pain when doing writs but I can spend 30 minutes and go farm 15 or 20 at one of my farming locations, so they are not hard to get. If not for master writs I probably would not do Alchemy writs all of the time, only when I had a supply of nirnroot.

Being someone who has a large stockpile of crafting mats, including gold tempers, kutas and perfect roe, I am happy to still do every MW I can, regardless of return. You get plenty of gold items from daily writs or the refining of raw mats and refined mats are relatively cheap now if you shop around.

I have never thought of master writs as being a source of income, only a source of vouchers, but I was doing all daily writs before Homestead came along, so they are a 'fringe benefit' for me. I have only sold 4 or 5 MW's because I did not have the motifs and at 40+k, I was not going to buy them for a handful of vouchers.

redspecter23

Great info provided here so thanks for the insights. Much of it matches up with my own experiences as well. Provisioning master writs are definitely messed up. The drop rates are extremely low even on my characters with all recipes learned and the payout as mentioned is not even worth it on the rare ones. You spend more than you make back which is just silly. I'm confident that they never fixed the drop rate on provisioning master writs even though they said they did, not that it matters much.

I think that if they decide to rotate in new rewards and reevaluate some writ drop rates and multipliers, it could keep the system fresh over time, but I worry that they'll just abandon it like many other systems and move on with the next new shiny thing.

f047ys3v3n

So, crafting writs are easily the fastest way to obtain anniversary boxes and the anniversary boxes are good in no uncertain terms. I thought I would drop a little data on that. I have 15 total toons across 2 accounts including my wife's. I set them all up to do writs and therefore have done 90 per day total. This puts me at about 540 boxes at the time I am writing this as there were a few nirnroot writs that didn't get done and some other scattered dailies.

In 540 boxes I got:

100 purple motif pages
65 blue housing recipes
2 purple provisioning recipes (strange I know)

I also got few gold mats including perfect roe (yay a way to get it that doesn't suck,) some rare race stones including ebon, nirncrux, and alchemy mats by the 20 including nirnroot (which will not drop from crafting surveys.) Of course, I also got lots and lots of housing crafting mats, yay.

I should also note that each purple motif does not have have a equal chance to drop from anniversary boxes. Akavari can drop but this is rare (I have gotten 3.) I have not seen ebon, nor maze-tun or spiderkith. On the other side of that, Mercenary drops a lot as does Dwemer, Pact, Dominion, and Covenant. So, there seem to be tiers of rarity within the purple mats. I didn't keep individual track but I have noticed it. Many of the dlc questy ones like Trinimack or Abahs watch seem to be in the middle.

f047ys3v3n

Some more thoughts and totals on the anniversary event stuff:

First off, for the anniversary event I finished with:
1265 boxes opened
260 purple motif pages (20.5% drop chance)
138 blue housing recipes (10.9% drop chance)
13 purple provisioning recipes (1% drop chance)
1 purple housing recipe (.079% drop chance) (apparently these could drop or at least one was bugged so it could)
A few gold mats including perfect roe, lots of alchemy mats, and lots of rare race stones including Akavari and the alliance ones.

To put it mildly, the anniversary event was easily the most rewarding thing ZOS has ever done. It is not even close. I'm going though withdrawl now. I used the event as an opportunity to become complete in all but ebon, ruins, cradle, and akavari motifs. Saved millions though I would not have otherwise done that.

Since I did 15 total toons at 6 writs a day through the whole event and held the writ boxes until I had all those motifs learned on my main crafter I also gained more understanding of master writ drop rates. To put it simply, at least 85% of the writ vouchers gained in the event came on my main crafter. This is part because he gets more and most because he is the only toon to get any appreciable number of the big equipment ones. That means that 14 characters doing writs, of which 8 were maxed in all crafts and knew all the stuff for alchemy and enchanting, got only 15% of the vouchers that one toon got that is almost maxed in all RNG chances. I do not believe that much that has been written about the number of toons you do writs on being more important than the quality of the toon is accurate. Unless you at least learn the traits on alt toons they will never yield any appreciable number of writ vouchers though they still do pick up gold mats and a good but of just gold so maybe it is worth it for you to do them. That is my 2C. I would not venture to say it is really worth it to buy motif pages as they are very expensive and master writs aren't worth much. However, they do result in the obtaining of more master writs in no uncertain terms.

Linaleah

I'm actualy having issues now and I figured that this thread is as good as any to post in. ever since anniversary event, my rate of getting master writs has shrunk to abysmal. I saw 1 gear writ for 5 vouchers, the rest are 1 every few days and exclusively alchemy with occasional cooking and rarely enchanting. mind you, I'm now closer to having all the traits research and have unlocked, FULLY multiple rare motif sets thanks to the event. so my rng should be better no yes? its worse. the best writ I got was when i barely had anything researched, for 100 vouchers, easy motif 7 traits.

moreover. my alt who has no traits researched, who doesn't have all the plant traits/tune translations unlocked - has better luck with enchanting/alchemy writs than my main (that is just missing some furnishing recipes for full achievement completion)

I know that rng is suppose to improve the more advanced you are in crafting. but at the moment - it seems like the opposite. the more I learn. the worse my luck is. its frustrating.

f047ys3v3n

I was not really expecting it but there have been some major drop rate changes to master writs post morrowind "chapter." After confirming with some buddies who also have full on master crafting toons I am pretty certain that the drop rate for master writs received a substantial nerf. I believe the decrease in drop rate was about 75% so that where I used to average 1.5 writs per day I now average .375 per day. I also do not think it was even across each writ. Alchemy seems to have received a huge hit and enchanting less. I am less certain about that but it is something I have noticed. I also have no idea how this change was implemented relative to your characters crafting prowess. I only do writs on my master crafter and he took that hit. I do not know it less robust crafters took the same nerf, less nerf, or more nerf. It would be hard to find this out as the drop rate for crafters not well leveled was so close to zero already (6 writs per day on 5 poorly leveled toons for 2 weeks for the anniversary event yielded precisely 1 provisioning master writ.)

In thinking about my opinion on this very large magnitude stealth nerf I realized that I basically don't care. This struck me as odd and a little worrisome as I have a master crafter toon with many millions of gold worth of motifs. By all rights I ought to care that all that investment is worth 1/4th of what it used to be in terms of yeild. It is just that there isn't much of interest to buy with writs, they are not worth all that much gold anymore, and the most interesting new furnishings, mundus stones for your house, were not even added to the writ merchant. Prices for master writs have plummeted and this is basically due to lack of demand not excessive supply. Perhaps this drop in prices is what prompted the nerf. The prices have, if anything actually continued to drop post nerf and nobody else even seems to have even noticed on the forums. If a nerf fell in the woods and nobody screamed is it still a nerf? Food for thought I guess.

ninti

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

I was not really expecting it but there have been some major drop rate changes to master writs post morrowind "chapter."

I have not seen any nerf in my data. My average for the month before May 22 was 3.86 master writs a day (from 8 characters). My average for the (almost) month since May 22 is 4.39 master writs a day. In fact, this last week has been my best week ever, at 4.71 master writs per day.

f047ys3v3n

So, with HotR master writs were updated to include the "new" motifs. I believe that drop rates were also adjusted. I have seen a dramatic drop in the number of equipment master writs I am getting since then. At the very least, the chances of getting a writ if you have 100% of the motifs are the same as before making the relative value of each motif you complete less because there are now many more motifs. I have all the motifs before SotH and none since so my drop rate is at least lower by that much.

Given the very low value of master writs now it would not be my recommendation to anybody to be buying motifs for the purpose of acquiring drop rate (realistically it has been some time since I would have recommended this). It is not much of a return. I do actually think that doing writs is still a pretty good value but that is solely based on the chances of getting gold mats. Master writs in general are not so valuable the ones we are now getting that require the newer motifs are basically worthless. 1/2 of my post HotR equipment master writs have been new motifs and not one of these has sold despite aggressive pricing and the fact that one of them is that wonderful purple/nirnhoned combination that yields such a high writ voucher return for low cost materials.

Lastly, I should mention that the ninrnhoned multiplier in the #of writ vouchers equation may have changed. I think my nirnhoned staff writ in the new morag tong motif only said something like 28 vouchers and these used to be more like 48. I haven't bothered to double check my foggy memory on this as I just don't really care but I thought I would mention it.

Well, that's the update. I am still wondering though if the morrowind mega nerf to alchemy writ drop rates was intentional. It doesn't make much sense as it used to be the same as enchanting and now it is half at best. I think it was probably an unintentional change.

f047ys3v3n

Another year, Another set of anniversary boxes. I hit it hard this year with all 21 toons on 2 accounts. Here is the data:

2510 Anniversary boxes opened.

527 non-worm motif pages for a 21% drop rate
43 worm pages for a 1.7% drop rate
13 perfect roe for a .5% drop rate
59 tempers (tempering alloy+DW+Rosin) for a 2.4% drop rate
228 blue housing recipes for a 9.1% drop rate (only 14 of these were morrowind or newer though)
33 nirncrux for a 1.3% drop rate (about even fortified vs. potent)
23 purple food recipes for a .9% drop rate
24 purple housing recipes for a 1% drop rate (yea, 19 of them were the same switch though)

So, when compared to my last years drop rates, these were basically the same with the exception of that clockwork switch that was clearly just bugged. Unfortunately, I did not keep track of the relative drop rates of the motifs for which this was the first anniversary (SotH and newer) vs. those that were in last years. My gut is that the drop rate was the same per motif. Of course, there are less of the new ones so the overall chances were lower. Hopefully, as we continue to add years to this, there will be a bit of a slant in the drop rate twords newer ones as the older ones will be pretty well chewed over.

Anyhow, love the anniversary event. Even when you don't get something good enough to record you still might have gotten 20 alchemy mats or 5 rare style stones. Really, it is a rare box that has only what one might call garbage. Most have something you want and it you wern't currently so hedonistically saturated you would be overjoyed.

Great event. No complaints. Also, thanks to the service team who was failing to keep the EU server running resulting in an extra week.

helediron

My numbers show that all motifs had roughly same drop rate, except Worm Cult had triple drop rate. It might be that Buoyant had reduced rate, but it might be also RNG hiccup.

See here: https://blog.fizban.fi/2018/04/anniversary-2018-daily-rewards-motif-pages/ and scroll down to a blue graph.

Reorx_Holybeard

helediron wrote: »

My numbers show that all motifs had roughly same drop rate, except Worm Cult had triple drop rate. It might be that Buoyant had reduced rate, but it might be also RNG hiccup.

See here: https://blog.fizban.fi/2018/04/anniversary-2018-daily-rewards-motif-pages/ and scroll down to a blue graph.

Great stuff as usual! From our logged data we have similar results. No Militant or Ra Gada motifs, Worm has a x3.8 chance and Buoyant seems to be close to the average drop (43 compared to 45 average).

See here for a really quick graph from our data.