Why are Master Provisioning Writs so rare?!

Amadis001

I've gotten a decent number of master writs for all the other crafts. I probably have done or sold about 20-30 of them, total, since Homestead launched. But never a single provisioning writ. Did ZOS intentionally make them much much rarer than the others? Am I just plain unlucky?

Reivax

I've had 3 so far since this started, turning in on two characters each day. 2 were for 2 writs, one was for 5. All three were for Ozorga recipes. Red Frothgar for 2 writs, Smoked Bear Haunch for 5.

Jayne_Doe

They are rare, although they supposedly fixed a bug that was causing them to drop less often than intended. I suspect it may have to do with the fact that roughly 50% of the time, you don't get a top tier writ to complete. I don't know if that is intended or not, but it's been that way since OT - roughly a 50% split between getting a Tier 5 or Tier 6 writ. If MW's only drop from top tier writs, then your chances of getting a Provisioning MW is reduced even further.

Turelus

Go watch any cooking shows where people try to be a good cook, then you'll see.

Jciampi

To my knowledge people said getting master writs in provisioning requires having all or as many of the purple recipes as possible. I wasn't getting any. I thought I had em all til I went guild shopping. Missing so many low level ones, that run for $50k+ in guild stores for a lvl 25 purple and such. Kills me

Ackwalan

Master Provy writs are rare, because you don't need to buy DLC's or have ESO + to go to a crafting station to complete them.

Taleof2Cities

Ackwalan wrote: »

Master Provy writs are rare, because you don't need to buy DLC's or have ESO + to go to a crafting station to complete them.

While I'll withhold from outright calling this a troll post ... you can find a friend or guildie that has DLC crafting stations in their home. That way you can still finish your writs without needing the DLC content yourself.

The rarity of provisioning writs is directly related to your mastery of (purple) recipes and achievements ... not because the devs willfully decided to lower the drop rate.

Ackwalan

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

Ackwalan wrote: »

Master Provy writs are rare, because you don't need to buy DLC's or have ESO + to go to a crafting station to complete them.

While I'll withhold from outright calling this a troll post ... you can find a friend or guildie that has DLC crafting stations in their home. That way you can still finish your writs without needing the DLC content yourself.

The rarity of provisioning writs is directly related to your mastery of (purple) recipes and achievements ... not because the devs willfully decided to lower the drop rate.

Even if you know someone that has the crafting station in their house, you will still need to know not only the correct trait, but enough traits to unlock the set. A problem that is just not there for master provy writs.

helediron

Ackwalan wrote: »

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

Ackwalan wrote: »

Master Provy writs are rare, because you don't need to buy DLC's or have ESO + to go to a crafting station to complete them.

While I'll withhold from outright calling this a troll post ... you can find a friend or guildie that has DLC crafting stations in their home. That way you can still finish your writs without needing the DLC content yourself.

The rarity of provisioning writs is directly related to your mastery of (purple) recipes and achievements ... not because the devs willfully decided to lower the drop rate.

Even if you know someone that has the crafting station in their house, you will still need to know not only the correct trait, but enough traits to unlock the set. A problem that is just not there for master provy writs.

Alchemy and enchanting don't need DLCs nor sub either, and they have high drop rates.

ScytheNL

As a N00b... Why are writs so popular? I saw another topic the other day where people were doing all their writs first thing when they log on. Why? What's so good about the rewards?

Amadis001

ScytheNL wrote: »

As a N00b... Why are writs so popular? I saw another topic the other day where people were doing all their writs first thing when they log on. Why? What's so good about the rewards?

Regular writs are a really good way to earn inspiration to level crafting skills and to get high-quality materials like tempers, kutas and epic (purple) provisioning ingredients. Master writs yield vouchers for housing items.

If you have a crafting alt, you can make it very efficient. Max level writs ask for one of a known handful of items which you can craft in advance. I keep a dozen of each kind of food, glyph and potion needed to satisfy these writs on my crafting alt. He is parked in Craglorn. All I have to do on most days is log in, pick up the three consumable crafting writs, and walk over to the turn-in location to collect my rewards; three writs done in one minute. For equipment crafting, I make what I need each day, so it takes five minutes. Between two toons, I can easily complete 12 crafting writs and reap all the rewards in 15-20 minutes if I don't start fussing with my inventory. I've never calculated it, but my daily take from these must be worth at least 10K on average, and some days it can be 50K.

And that's without scoring a Master Writ. I'm sure I've sold 750K worth of of Master Writs since Homestead launched. I keep the ones I can craft and sell the rest. Big ones easily worth more than 100K each. I sold one really big one for for 450K about a week after Homestead launched.

Jayne_Doe

I still suspect the split of Tier 5 and Tier 6 writs affects the drop rate, since I don't think MWs will drop from a Tier 5 Provisioning Writ.

Also, I hadn't thought about the fact that your chances are improved by the number of purple/gold recipes you know. I think a lot of people didn't bother too much with purple recipes in the current min/max meta, and so focused on blue recipes. It was always odd for me to see blues going as high or higher than purples (as a player since early access, purples used to be worth a lot more). It's interesting to see the prices of the purples skyrocket, since there was a time not long ago when I had trouble selling a purple lv20 or 25 for more than 1-2K.

I don't get Provisioning writs as often as alchemy or enchanting, but I have had a few drop. My main knows all purple recipes, thank goodness considering the current prices! She doesn't know the Aetherial Ambrosia recipe, but she has all from the holidays and Orsinium.

But, provisioning writs really don't reward that well. You get 2 vouchers from any purple recipe and the blue ones from Orsinium. You can get 8 from the gold ones, but that requires 2 perfect roe to complete (since you have to make 8). Overall, you're not missing much from not getting any of these MWs.

Wreuntzylla

I'm happy to report that when you have all the provisioning purples, the drop rate is about the same as enchanting or alchemy.

Jayne_Doe

Wreuntzylla wrote: »

I'm happy to report that when you have all the provisioning purples, the drop rate is about the same as enchanting or alchemy.

In my experience, it's actually not the same. On average, I get the Alchemy and Enchanting 2 to 3 times as often, and I know all purples. Perhaps it's that one gold I don't know that is making it drop significantly less often.

But, it doesn't really matter, since overall, provisioning writs aren't that great. If you get one for a purple, fine, you get 2 writ vouchers like you do for some of the alchemy/enchanting ones. Then, you could get a gold one worth 8 vouchers, but they cost 2 perfect roe to complete. Not saying you shouldn't do them if you have perfect roe on hand, but all in all, they're not quite as lucrative as the other consumable MWs.

Wreuntzylla

I run writs on 16+ toons a day due to the anniversary event. I wait until I have 20ish master writs in inventory before running them. Further, in order to knock out the achievements, I funnel all the master writs to one toon until it hits 100, then the next, and so on.

I tend to do the consumables together first, as there are more of them and less travel. I typically run out of alchemy master writs before either of the other two. Prov and enchanting has been about the same. However, I consider that difference within the noise.

Anectodal for sure, but if people are interested, I could keep count.

Jayne_Doe

Wreuntzylla wrote: »

I run writs on 16+ toons a day due to the anniversary event. I wait until I have 20ish master writs in inventory before running them. Further, in order to knock out the achievements, I funnel all the master writs to one toon until it hits 100, then the next, and so on.

Whew...16+ toons?!? I'm getting exhausted just doing them on 8 each day.

EDIT: I know you're aware of this, but I wanted to point it out to others that currently the MW vouchers aren't transferrable, so if you complete MWs on different toons, your vouchers will be spread out over your characters and unable to be accumulated all together in the bank. So it'll be harder to amass a certain number for the larger ticket items.

Nanigae

I recently got a 10 voucher master provisioning writ. Was super excited. Called for psiijic ambrosia. Cool, I can make one of those even though it will mean not selling my perfect roe for 10K, worth it! Accepted the writ to discover it wanted 8, not 4, which I was expecting (probably silly me, right). So 20k worth of material. Won't do that again.

There are still quite of few mid level purples I don't have but do have most recipes.

Jayne_Doe

Nanigae wrote: »

I recently got a 10 voucher master provisioning writ. Was super excited. Called for psiijic ambrosia. Cool, I can make one of those even though it will mean not selling my perfect roe for 10K, worth it! Accepted the writ to discover it wanted 8, not 4, which I was expecting (probably silly me, right). So 20k worth of material. Won't do that again.

There are still quite of few mid level purples I don't have but do have most recipes.

Yeah...provisioning MWs always require 8 portions of the food/drink. It doesn't actually list the amount in the MW text, but only when you accept and it shows your progress: 0/8.

Mine was only worth 8 vouchers for 8 Psiijic Ambrosia.

DaveMoeDee

ScytheNL wrote: »

As a N00b... Why are writs so popular? I saw another topic the other day where people were doing all their writs first thing when they log on. Why? What's so good about the rewards?

Because of the anniversary. You get an anniversary box and those have a lot of valuable stuff in them.

Jayne_Doe

DaveMoeDee wrote: »

ScytheNL wrote: »

As a N00b... Why are writs so popular? I saw another topic the other day where people were doing all their writs first thing when they log on. Why? What's so good about the rewards?

Because of the anniversary. You get an anniversary box and those have a lot of valuable stuff in them.

Yes, right now, and until April 18, 10am EST (or thereabouts), every daily you complete rewards you with an additional reward box, which contains quite a variety of things. I've received style mats for rare styles (even gold scale and night pumice!), blue furnishing plans, purple recipes, the various furnishing mats, perfect roe, potent and fortified nirn, etc. Most of the rewards aren't as great - alchemy plants/solvents, bait, potency/essence runes - but are still quite useful and it's nice to be able to build some of those up. Plus, I've received quite a bit of raw and refined equipment mats, which helps to keep me topped off on those stocks.

EDIT - since I run all 6 writs on all 8 of my characters, I get 48 of these boxes every day. Many get more since they have more toons and probably run the other dailies as well. I've done some of the guild dailies and the Orsinium/TG dailies, but those take more time than just turning in writs.

Wreuntzylla

Jayne_Doe wrote: »

Wreuntzylla wrote: »

I run writs on 16+ toons a day due to the anniversary event. I wait until I have 20ish master writs in inventory before running them. Further, in order to knock out the achievements, I funnel all the master writs to one toon until it hits 100, then the next, and so on.

Whew...16+ toons?!? I'm getting exhausted just doing them on 8 each day.

EDIT: I know you're aware of this, but I wanted to point it out to others that currently the MW vouchers aren't transferrable, so if you complete MWs on different toons, your vouchers will be spread out over your characters and unable to be accumulated all together in the bank. So it'll be harder to amass a certain number for the larger ticket items.

Yeah, it's all I have been doing aside from a few Cyrodiil hub quest chains for more boxes. I'm past burned out, but I get between 10-20 motifs a day (which I funnel to crafters), and on one weekend day ended up with something like 30. Plus the recipes, plus the furniture mats, plus the nirnroot in bunches of 20, plus the gold mats plus the style mats.... It's a bit crazy seeing as how rare everything used to be.

Edit: As an aside, if you decide to clone stations, start with Orgnums. I think half my master writs take me to the fighters guild forge.

Karivaa

I don't know. I'm not doing this anymore though. Every day I do writs on one character and get nothing.

FelixTheCatt

Heck I have like ten or more in bank I can't even do yet. Wish they'd reduce research times.