Stopped Doing Writs

KanedaSyndrome

So I stopped doing writs, since there's something odd going on with the RNG of the rewards. 3 weeks ago I stopped getting master writs completely, where I have been turning writs in for 2 charactes once per day. Before that cut off day approximately 3 weeks ago I got writs consistently, I would probably get about 1 per day approximately (out of 10 turnins).

Going from 1 master writ per day to 0 in 3 weeks, that can't be explained by any bell curve or any statistic, especially not when I hear other people experiencing the same. So something is going on behind the scenes.

Who else has experienced going from a steady flow of master writs to zero?

Disclaimer: Haven't unlearnt any crafting related skills. Only been gaining more motifs and recipes etc.

SirAndy

KanedaSyndrome wrote: »

So I stopped doing writs, since there's something odd going on with the RNG of the rewards. 3 weeks ago I stopped getting master writs completely, where I have been turning writs in for 2 charactes once per day. Before that cut off day approximately 3 weeks ago I got writs consistently, I would probably get about 1 per day approximately (out of 10 turnins).
Going from 1 master writ per day to 0 in 3 weeks, that can't be explained by any bell curve or any statistic, especially not when I hear other people experiencing the same. So something is going on behind the scenes.
Who else has experienced going from a steady flow of master writs to zero?
Disclaimer: Haven't unlearnt any crafting related skills. Only been gaining more motifs and recipes etc.

Same here, went from 2 or so a day doing writs on my 4 mains to 0 (zero) in at least two weeks if not longer.

disintegr8

I don't think it is anything more than RNG. I am on PS4, so may not have any latest changes that anyone on PC has, but I do writs on 8 characters every day and have never had a day without at least 1 MW. I usually get 2 or 3 a day, very rarely I get 4.

I have gone 9 days on one character between MW's and have been on my last writ character before getting one (so 7 characters in a row without a MW). If I was only doing writs on 1 or 2 characters I would possibly have given up a long time ago but I passed 100 MW's at the end of 5 weeks, so for now I'll keep going.

Edit: I might suggest that you were getting MW's 'above' the designed odds and it has just been brought back in line with how it should be working. At your rates I should have been getting 4 or more every day for 8 characters instead of 2 or 3.

KanedaSyndrome

SirAndy wrote: »

KanedaSyndrome wrote: »

So I stopped doing writs, since there's something odd going on with the RNG of the rewards. 3 weeks ago I stopped getting master writs completely, where I have been turning writs in for 2 charactes once per day. Before that cut off day approximately 3 weeks ago I got writs consistently, I would probably get about 1 per day approximately (out of 10 turnins).
Going from 1 master writ per day to 0 in 3 weeks, that can't be explained by any bell curve or any statistic, especially not when I hear other people experiencing the same. So something is going on behind the scenes.
Who else has experienced going from a steady flow of master writs to zero?
Disclaimer: Haven't unlearnt any crafting related skills. Only been gaining more motifs and recipes etc.

Same here, went from 2 or so a day doing writs on my 4 mains to 0 (zero) in at least two weeks if not longer.

Guess you're hit by the same hidden "RNG" shenanigans as well then.

KanedaSyndrome

disintegr8 wrote: »

I don't think it is anything more than RNG. I am on PS4, so may not have any latest changes that anyone on PC has, but I do writs on 8 characters every day and have never had a day without at least 1 MW. I usually get 2 or 3 a day, very rarely I get 4.

I have gone 9 days on one character between MW's and have been on my last writ character before getting one (so 7 characters in a row without a MW). If I was only doing writs on 1 or 2 characters I would possibly have given up a long time ago but I passed 100 MW's at the end of 5 weeks, so for now I'll keep going.

Edit: I might suggest that you were getting MW's 'above' the designed odds and it has just been brought back in line with how it should be working. At your rates I should have been getting 4 or more every day for 8 characters instead of 2 or 3.

Well if your suspicion is correct, then we don't have true RNG, as you're implying that there's a balancing RNG behind that will throttle down people's luck if they get "too many" writs. And that is exactly what this thing feels like.

If you're getting 2-3 from 8 characters, I should be getting about 0.5-0.75 per day, which I'm not. So something is definitely off here.

STEVIL

i have not seen a drop off running 36 consumable and 12 equip tier-10s a day.

But on any day it can go from 6-7 MW to 0 MW (only happened twice though) with a mediam/mode of around 8-12 vouchers a day and the occasional big payday that can go much much higher.

Got three writs for 9 vouchers today in fact. yesterday was 62.

KanedaSyndrome

STEVIL wrote: »

i have not seen a drop off running 36 consumable and 12 equip tier-10s a day.

But on any day it can go from 6-7 MW to 0 MW (only happened twice though) with a mediam/mode of around 8-12 vouchers a day and the occasional big payday that can go much much higher.

Got three writs for 9 vouchers today in fact. yesterday was 62.

Have you experienced not getting a single writ for 2 weeks or more?

disintegr8

KanedaSyndrome wrote: »

disintegr8 wrote: »

I don't think it is anything more than RNG. I am on PS4, so may not have any latest changes that anyone on PC has, but I do writs on 8 characters every day and have never had a day without at least 1 MW. I usually get 2 or 3 a day, very rarely I get 4.

I have gone 9 days on one character between MW's and have been on my last writ character before getting one (so 7 characters in a row without a MW). If I was only doing writs on 1 or 2 characters I would possibly have given up a long time ago but I passed 100 MW's at the end of 5 weeks, so for now I'll keep going.

Edit: I might suggest that you were getting MW's 'above' the designed odds and it has just been brought back in line with how it should be working. At your rates I should have been getting 4 or more every day for 8 characters instead of 2 or 3.

Well if your suspicion is correct, then we don't have true RNG, as you're implying that there's a balancing RNG behind that will throttle down people's luck if they get "too many" writs. And that is exactly what this thing feels like.

If you're getting 2-3 from 8 characters, I should be getting about 0.5-0.75 per day, which I'm not. So something is definitely off here.

Maybe you have a point, which is supported by the latest PS4 patch notes, in that true RNG does not exist in the game. One of the patch notes was that they fixed an issue that that caused the Master Writs to not drop as often as they should have been. This can be interpreted as they were not dropping enough or were dropping too often.

Allowing true RNG would imply that you do not care if someone never gets a MW, similarly you would not care if someone gets one for every writ they hand in. While the odds would be against it, true randomness, regardless of how many possible outcomes, has the potential to repeatedly produce the same result.

I still propose, as has been commented by a few others in similar threads, that some lower 'skilled' crafters were getting more MW's than they should have been, while some highly skilled crafters were getting less. A change may have been made to correct one or both of these scenarios, which is what you and other players may be noticing.

However, as you say, any attempt to control the drop rate in the coding is potential cause to stop calling it random.

STEVIL

KanedaSyndrome wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

i have not seen a drop off running 36 consumable and 12 equip tier-10s a day.

But on any day it can go from 6-7 MW to 0 MW (only happened twice though) with a mediam/mode of around 8-12 vouchers a day and the occasional big payday that can go much much higher.

Got three writs for 9 vouchers today in fact. yesterday was 62.

Have you experienced not getting a single writ for 2 weeks or more?

As i said above "But on any day it can go from 6-7 MW to 0 MW (only happened twice though) " in the piece you quoted so, therefore, no i have never gone a two week period with no mw.

The only minor change was a slight uptick when i did a detsiled look at all my tier-10s to see what achievements related to crafting they had not finished and with just an hour or so moved quite a few across multiple chars to higher completions. Rates

That focused and targetted effort showed dividends.

STEVIL

disintegr8 wrote: »

KanedaSyndrome wrote: »

disintegr8 wrote: »

I don't think it is anything more than RNG. I am on PS4, so may not have any latest changes that anyone on PC has, but I do writs on 8 characters every day and have never had a day without at least 1 MW. I usually get 2 or 3 a day, very rarely I get 4.

I have gone 9 days on one character between MW's and have been on my last writ character before getting one (so 7 characters in a row without a MW). If I was only doing writs on 1 or 2 characters I would possibly have given up a long time ago but I passed 100 MW's at the end of 5 weeks, so for now I'll keep going.

Edit: I might suggest that you were getting MW's 'above' the designed odds and it has just been brought back in line with how it should be working. At your rates I should have been getting 4 or more every day for 8 characters instead of 2 or 3.

Well if your suspicion is correct, then we don't have true RNG, as you're implying that there's a balancing RNG behind that will throttle down people's luck if they get "too many" writs. And that is exactly what this thing feels like.

If you're getting 2-3 from 8 characters, I should be getting about 0.5-0.75 per day, which I'm not. So something is definitely off here.

Maybe you have a point, which is supported by the latest PS4 patch notes, in that true RNG does not exist in the game. One of the patch notes was that they fixed an issue that that caused the Master Writs to not drop as often as they should have been. This can be interpreted as they were not dropping enough or were dropping too often.

Allowing true RNG would imply that you do not care if someone never gets a MW, similarly you would not care if someone gets one for every writ they hand in. While the odds would be against it, true randomness, regardless of how many possible outcomes, has the potential to repeatedly produce the same result.

I still propose, as has been commented by a few others in similar threads, that some lower 'skilled' crafters were getting more MW's than they should have been, while some highly skilled crafters were getting less. A change may have been made to correct one or both of these scenarios, which is what you and other players may be noticing.

However, as you say, any attempt to control the drop rate in the coding is potential cause to stop calling it random.

Not sure i follow the reasoning.

You can have true tng (read as unbiased randomness) and sn ecpected drop rate. You can also identify bugs which cause the randomness to fail, often a rounding factor or off-by- one issue.

Sure any individual series of limited size can skew but when you are dealing with millions of results the aggregate data can point out deviations and statistics can help identify the degree to which things are off your intended rates.

None of that requires or leads one to conclude there is any kind of account specific tracking and throttle adustments on thst scale.

Its always easy to ascribe cause to phsntoms beyond the scope of our influence. In certain times and places, it was accepted practice to sacrifice goats or chickens to appease these phantoms in sn attempt to make one feel they are taking steps.

I do not endorse animal sacrifice of course.

In our more enlightened times, many seem to feel sacrifciing time and pixels in online gripe posts can do the trick.

A lot less messy, no entrails to wash off, but likely just as productive.

megnin

Master writ drops for me has gone to zero, too. I still do them. Still get nothing but pi$$ed off.

disintegr8

I still think that true randomness requires that there are no presets other than maybe the range, say randomly generate a number between 1 and 100. Anything that controls how often any number or number range can be generated negates the randomness.

If you randomly generate a number between (and including) 1 and 100, each number has an expected chance of dropping 1 in every 100. We know that if you randomly generate 100 numbers, you will never, ever get every number out once - some will not drop, others will drop 2, 3 ,4 or maybe many more times. In reality you can draw out several hundred, or a thousand, numbers and still not have drawn all of them once.

Any attempt to control this randomness is manipulating the odds. In the above scenario, if number 24 drops, the likelihood of that number being generated again the next drop is still 1 in a 100. This is unless you remove the number from the pool or manipulate the program to reduce a numbers likelihood of dropping based on prior outcomes. Then it is no longer random.

I am a reformed gambler and as such know about 'phantoms', rituals and ill omens but as a meat eater I have nothing against sacrificing animals, as long as we make use of the meat.

TaranWanderer

Dear ESO,

I have been playing this game since Beta. I've seen the transitions, the updates, played your seasonal stuff and ravenously scooped up everything crafting has had to offer.

And now, I have hit a wall.

I don't understand what the heck you are doing.

I don't understand why I log in everyday to do writs on 9 characters. I don't understand why my maxed out characters receive zero master crafting writs when they have all traits learned, and all motifs learned.

I don't understand why, when you promised that all the best gear will be craftable, that I am forced to run for random drops to GET better gear than I can craft.

Why is it harder to craft a bed than it is to craft a bow? Heartwood is harder to find than regular wood, sure, but beds are more COMMON than bows, surely. So why create a "special" item so I can make a common one?

Crafting should be special thing. It should reward the investment in TIME. Your system does not support the endgame mechanic the way it needs.

I have stopped doing the grind, as the reward for doing it no longer supports the system, and THAT makes me sad- you had so much promise. I may peek in every once in a while just to see what you have done, but I can honestly say that the honeymoon is over.

Good luck.

STEVIL

disintegr8 wrote: »

I still think that true randomness requires that there are no presets other than maybe the range, say randomly generate a number between 1 and 100. Anything that controls how often any number or number range can be generated negates the randomness.

If you randomly generate a number between (and including) 1 and 100, each number has an expected chance of dropping 1 in every 100. We know that if you randomly generate 100 numbers, you will never, ever get every number out once - some will not drop, others will drop 2, 3 ,4 or maybe many more times. In reality you can draw out several hundred, or a thousand, numbers and still not have drawn all of them once.

Any attempt to control this randomness is manipulating the odds. In the above scenario, if number 24 drops, the likelihood of that number being generated again the next drop is still 1 in a 100. This is unless you remove the number from the pool or manipulate the program to reduce a numbers likelihood of dropping based on prior outcomes. Then it is no longer random.

I am a reformed gambler and as such know about 'phantoms', rituals and ill omens but as a meat eater I have nothing against sacrificing animals, as long as we make use of the meat.

Well anyone can choose to use any definition of terms they want.

But the only thing random vs not random applies to is the "roll" to generate the pass/fail.

the chances of pass/fail are determined by various factors they weigh in. Whether or not that range of pass/fail is set always to the same amount (like say chance of cryfrag proc) or if that chance varies by stats on the character (like chance of master writ) has nothing to do with the random element just like whether they did the calculation by hand using pen and paper or by ti-80 calculator or by windows 10 calculator. The range of succes is there and the random comes into play from the "roll" and the logic it uses.

But to each his own be they phantoms or definitions.

disintegr8

Had my largest MW return yesterday, 7 MW's out of 45 daily writs completed. Still no sign of crafting knowledge giving a character more chance/reward as one of my lowest characters got 3 while my most experienced got none.

The grand sum of vouchers for the 7 MW's ........................ a whopping 29.

I suggest some of you complaining about not getting any will be further peeved when your luck turns and you get 2 or 3 writs one day, for a total of less than 10 vouchers. Hopefully you will know the trait, I am sitting on a few that I currently cannot do until get the motifs.

Erynyes

my max crafter ( master all occupation, 9 traits, almost all motif style except yokedan and the mazzatun silken ring ) as not got a single MW in more than 2 weeks, i still do them, but something is wrong

since the beginning i've been getting more MW from my others non max char, my max crafter looks bugged, glad to see i'm not the only one, i'm starting to get real ***

ASkullParty

I really only have the one character, who's a max crafter, with many motifs known as well, and I went from getting them 80% of days, sometimes even two a day, to none in days. I think I got one wood writ for 2 vouchers in the past week.

Somethings deffo up.

Glamdring

Same here, fully researched crafter with lots of motifs, got atleast 1 every other day Before. last 2 weeks i got one 2vouchers.

KanedaSyndrome

Erynyes wrote: »

my max crafter ( master all occupation, 9 traits, almost all motif style except yokedan and the mazzatun silken ring ) as not got a single MW in more than 2 weeks, i still do them, but something is wrong

since the beginning i've been getting more MW from my others non max char, my max crafter looks bugged, glad to see i'm not the only one, i'm starting to get real ***

Alright, good to know. Since I created this thread I still haven't gotten any master writs. And no, I didn't really stop doing them lol, since I still get some yellow mats etc which kinda makes it worth it I guess. But still not gotten a master writ in what must soon be up to 4 weeks.

Rohamad_Ali

I quit too . Four months and no master writs in prov or alc . Stopped bothering .

KanedaSyndrome

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

I quit too . Four months and no master writs in prov or alc . Stopped bothering .

But you still get in from the other professions?

anitajoneb17_ESO

I still do them - but I agree that something must have gone wrong with the drop rate. It's not been logical for a couple of weeks already.

helediron

TL;DR If you are doing master writs with only one master crafter, you will smile oone day and then be sad next three weeks.

There was a sharp turn in statistics for drop rates for master crafters after patch 3.7.7 . What happened is that highest drop rates were cut off. Now a master crafter, who knows all traits, motif and all, has same drop rate as medim level crafter with 8 traits and cheap motifs and easy achievements.

You don't need a master crafter for master writs. You need lots of medium level crafters and lots of mats. Please understand that quality of crafter affects only drop rate of writs, i.e. will a writ drop or not. The amount of vouchers in a dropped writ is completely random.

The amount of vouchers comes from having lots of MWs dropping. The systems works effectively through legendary gear writs. There is about 20% chance of getting one gear writ daily for one crafter. Then there is 25% chance of it being a legendary writ. Combining these, there is 0.2 * 0.25 = 0.05 = 5% chance for getting legendary writ in a day. So, you need 20 crafters (0.05 *20 = 1 = 100%) to reach average daily legendary. These statistics were calculated from about 5000 writs.

Turning around that 20 crafters, with one crafter you need 20 days ~ three weeks to get a legendary master writ.

Rohamad_Ali

KanedaSyndrome wrote: »

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

I quit too . Four months and no master writs in prov or alc . Stopped bothering .

But you still get in from the other professions?

Don't have any other professionals .

STEVIL

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

KanedaSyndrome wrote: »

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

I quit too . Four months and no master writs in prov or alc . Stopped bothering .

But you still get in from the other professions?

Don't have any other professionals .

Well if i had not gotten any alchey master writs in the four months since the MW system started two months ago... i would likely be doing things differently too... like maybe farming gold and buying writs in the guild stores. I mean if you want writs and cant get any in four months of a two month old release you can still buy 5 voucher alchey writs for under 10k and one can make 20k for 10 vouchers worth a day in no time flat. heck i usually bring in about 45k a day in my normal non-master writs basic non-survey a day. That could easily buy me 20+ vouchers in writs a day if i wanted.

That of course assumes you dont have other things gold-approachable you want more than stuff you can buy with vouchers, of course.

i recall one guy who was complaining that they spent "entire mornings" just harvesting nodes and go only two heartwood. That calls for a change in tactics, not a game change IMO. Can harvest gold to buy dozens of heart wood in an hour with no sweat.

KanedaSyndrome

helediron wrote: »

TL;DR If you are doing master writs with only one master crafter, you will smile oone day and then be sad next three weeks.

There was a sharp turn in statistics for drop rates for master crafters after patch 3.7.7 . What happened is that highest drop rates were cut off. Now a master crafter, who knows all traits, motif and all, has same drop rate as medim level crafter with 8 traits and cheap motifs and easy achievements.

You don't need a master crafter for master writs. You need lots of medium level crafters and lots of mats. Please understand that quality of crafter affects only drop rate of writs, i.e. will a writ drop or not. The amount of vouchers in a dropped writ is completely random.

The amount of vouchers comes from having lots of MWs dropping. The systems works effectively through legendary gear writs. There is about 20% chance of getting one gear writ daily for one crafter. Then there is 25% chance of it being a legendary writ. Combining these, there is 0.2 * 0.25 = 0.05 = 5% chance for getting legendary writ in a day. So, you need 20 crafters (0.05 *20 = 1 = 100%) to reach average daily legendary. These statistics were calculated from about 5000 writs.

Turning around that 20 crafters, with one crafter you need 20 days ~ three weeks to get a legendary master writ.

If this is true and this is intended, then prices on vouchers will go up A LOT, they should cost about 4-8k/voucher and not 1500-2000.

ASkullParty

I've never even seen a provisioning writ, but I guess they exist. Anyone have any experience with them?

Elsonso

KanedaSyndrome wrote: »

So I stopped doing writs, since there's something odd going on with the RNG of the rewards. 3 weeks ago I stopped getting master writs completely, where I have been turning writs in for 2 charactes once per day. Before that cut off day approximately 3 weeks ago I got writs consistently, I would probably get about 1 per day approximately (out of 10 turnins).

Going from 1 master writ per day to 0 in 3 weeks, that can't be explained by any bell curve or any statistic, especially not when I hear other people experiencing the same. So something is going on behind the scenes.

Who else has experienced going from a steady flow of master writs to zero?

Disclaimer: Haven't unlearnt any crafting related skills. Only been gaining more motifs and recipes etc.

This seems to be a feature of the ZOS RNG, and I have noticed it in a lot of places. It seems particularly noticeable in these events that happen.

The first few hours and days of an event will have a very nice drop rate for the special rewards. You will frequently get the special recipes and runeboxes. After awhile, they don't quite seem drop with the same frequency.

I don't know what is going on, and have no numbers to prove any of this. It is like ZOS goes in there and tweaks the drop rates dynamically when they see that too many are dropping, or they have some sort of dynamic drop rate that is based on how many have been dispensed, or how many are already out in the game.

In any case, I have learned to do events early, hard, and fast. Those characters will get the achievements in a matter of a few hours. Characters that do not start until the middle of the event might get the achievements, or might run out of time.

For example, my recipe to banner ratio early in the Festival was pretty balanced. Now, all I am getting is banners. One might blame RNG, but this seems to be a pattern, and RNG results should not be running patterns.

KanedaSyndrome

ASkullParty wrote: »

I've never even seen a provisioning writ, but I guess they exist. Anyone have any experience with them?

Had a few before the drop rate nerfs/bugs.

anitajoneb17_ESO

ASkullParty wrote: »

I've never even seen a provisioning writ, but I guess they exist. Anyone have any experience with them?

Yes. They exist.
But you're not missing a lot.
There are (roughly) 2 types : provisioning writs that ask for 8 servings (2 crafts) of anything standard epic (fine, take a bit of time for 2 vouchers only, but ok), and those that ask for 8 servings (2 crafts) of a recipe that requires perfect roe. Those are imho badly rewarded in terms of vouchers (10 vouchers vs. 2 perfect roe ? your mileage may vary, but imho that's not balanced at all).

DaveMoeDee

KanedaSyndrome wrote: »

disintegr8 wrote: »

I don't think it is anything more than RNG. I am on PS4, so may not have any latest changes that anyone on PC has, but I do writs on 8 characters every day and have never had a day without at least 1 MW. I usually get 2 or 3 a day, very rarely I get 4.

I have gone 9 days on one character between MW's and have been on my last writ character before getting one (so 7 characters in a row without a MW). If I was only doing writs on 1 or 2 characters I would possibly have given up a long time ago but I passed 100 MW's at the end of 5 weeks, so for now I'll keep going.

Edit: I might suggest that you were getting MW's 'above' the designed odds and it has just been brought back in line with how it should be working. At your rates I should have been getting 4 or more every day for 8 characters instead of 2 or 3.

Well if your suspicion is correct, then we don't have true RNG, as you're implying that there's a balancing RNG behind that will throttle down people's luck if they get "too many" writs. And that is exactly what this thing feels like.

If you're getting 2-3 from 8 characters, I should be getting about 0.5-0.75 per day, which I'm not. So something is definitely off here.

I think the point was that it is regression to the mean. You got lucky initially, but over a larger sample size you are seeing the rates are lower than you thought.

So it wasn't "brought back in line" in an active sense. It is just regression to the mean.