Master Crafter Writs - Changes are needed

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Carbonised
Carbonised
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Some time has now gone by since Homestead, and we have had time to test out the Master Crafter Writs in practise.

First of all, the system seems to be working well, and we have a steady - and not too steady - trickle of these items into people's homes, the stores and so on.

However, my one concern with the system as it is, is that it heavily favors those with long alt lists who do several crafting quests a day, compared to those of us who keep few alts, and gather motifs and recipes on a single character.

The RNG involved in Master Writs seem to supersede the bonuses of recipes learned and motifs learned. I have a Master crafter myself, all motifs in the game, all recipes and everything else. I have also done every writ quest every day, and some times even days can go by without a single master writ. And weeks, sometimes many weeks, can go by with Master Writs that reward 10+ or even 100+ vouchers.

At the same time, people with 6-7 alts doing the daily writs are showered with master writs. Leveling your skill lines to max and thereby getting the highest level Crating Dailies is easy as pie. I could do it in a couple of hours, going between the leveling alt and my master crafter. The real grind here is the trait research, the gathering of rare recipes and the motif knowledge.
Yet those things that are the hardest to do seem to be the ones that reap the fewest rewards regarding master writs.
The system is favoring RNG more so than it does the dilligence and investment of traits/motifs/recipes, and I'd like that to change.

The recent anniversary event made my point even more valid, where people could easily get 48 or more boxes from just doing the daily writs, which take like 3 minutes to do per character, there are even addons that make the process automatic.

Being rewarded Master Crafter writs should be more about quality than quantity. Someone with every recipe and motif learned should have a much higher chance for Master Writs than someone who hasn't learned a thing, but just leveled his crafting skill line to 50.

The system now favors having your motifs and recipes on 1 character, while having 10 mule crafters that just harvest in Master Crafter writs to pass on, and I don't really see why such a system would be fun or engaging.
Edited by Carbonised on April 19, 2017 10:25AM
  • DPShiro
    DPShiro
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    If it's as easy as pie, why don't you do it yourself?
    ~ Gryphon Heart ~
    ~ Immortal Redeemer ~
    ~ Grand Master Crafter ~
    ~ Master Angler ~
    ~ Former Emperor ~
  • Carbonised
    Carbonised
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    DPShiro wrote: »
    If it's as easy as pie, why don't you do it yourself?

    Because I consider it somewhat cheesy. There are plenty of things in the game one could do if one was comfortable with it.
    Like I wrote in my post, the Master Crafter system should be fun and engaging. Having an army of crafting mules just to harvest Master Crafter writs and exploit the system to its limit is neither fun nor enganging to me, which is why I don't do it.

    However, if nothing is changed in the forseeable future, I might have no choice other than to engage my own army of crafter alts, simply to not being put severely behind everyone else in the Master Crafter business, by only obtaining 1/10th of the Master Writ amounts that others do, simply because they exploit a system that caters to quantity more than quality.
  • DPShiro
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    Carbonised wrote: »

    Because I consider it somewhat cheesy. There are plenty of things in the game one could do if one was comfortable with it.
    Like I wrote in my post, the Master Crafter system should be fun and engaging. Having an army of crafting mules just to harvest Master Crafter writs and exploit the system to its limit is neither fun nor enganging to me, which is why I don't do it.

    However, if nothing is changed in the forseeable future, I might have no choice other than to engage my own army of crafter alts, simply to not being put severely behind everyone else in the Master Crafter business, by only obtaining 1/10th of the Master Writ amounts that others do, simply because they exploit a system that caters to quantity more than quality.

    Don't get me wrong, I agree with your points.
    I have a main crafter as well, with all motifs, most recipes etc etc

    But since I'm an altoholic I started doing all daily writs on all 12 characters, and that's fine because I love doing writs <3

    And my 12 characters are not just craft mules, all are maxed FG, MG, Undaunted, BiS Legendary gear and mostly all other skill lines maxed, and I try to play them all for fun and diversity.
    ~ Gryphon Heart ~
    ~ Immortal Redeemer ~
    ~ Grand Master Crafter ~
    ~ Master Angler ~
    ~ Former Emperor ~
  • Carbonised
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    DPShiro wrote: »

    Don't get me wrong, I agree with your points.
    I have a main crafter as well, with all motifs, most recipes etc etc

    But since I'm an altoholic I started doing all daily writs on all 12 characters, and that's fine because I love doing writs <3

    And my 12 characters are not just craft mules, all are maxed FG, MG, Undaunted, BiS Legendary gear and mostly all other skill lines maxed, and I try to play them all for fun and diversity.

    And don't get me wrong either, I'm not asking for a complete overhaul or anything. I'm not asking for people to be locked out of the Master Crafter system. I'm simply asking for motifs/recipes/traits to count more into the equation of Master Writ drops, and RNG being less of a factor.

    Master Crafter writs should be a reward to Master crafters. Not simply someone who leveled his skill lines to level 50, which is by far the easiest thing to do.
  • DPShiro
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    Carbonised wrote: »

    And don't get me wrong either, I'm not asking for a complete overhaul or anything. I'm not asking for people to be locked out of the Master Crafter system. I'm simply asking for motifs/recipes/traits to count more into the equation of Master Writ drops, and RNG being less of a factor.

    Master Crafter writs should be a reward to Master crafters. Not simply someone who leveled his skill lines to level 50, which is by far the easiest thing to do.

    Agree.
    It annoys me to no end when I get 100+ MWs on alts and nothing on my main who can craft nearly everything.

    Since I love alts though and close to having all motifs (except crown store ones) learned on 2 more characters, and 5 can already craft 9 traits etc so I will probably end up with 10+ true Master Crafters :)
    ~ Gryphon Heart ~
    ~ Immortal Redeemer ~
    ~ Grand Master Crafter ~
    ~ Master Angler ~
    ~ Former Emperor ~
  • Code2501
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    For real 'master crafters' they could lock extra ranks of hireling behind character specific crafting achievements that could give the hireling a chance to find surveys and master writs in addition to the regular stuff.
    That would make a dedicated crafting character feel like the world recognises their status beyond rng.
  • Carbonised
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    Another thing with the Master Writs that bug me are the writs that give you 2 vouchers and other such small amounts.

    Let me tell you what you can get for 2 writ vouchers: a fourth of a piece of night pumice motif stone, that's what you can get. 2 voucher writs are an insult to anyone getting them, and considering that you can get writs that give up to 300 or more vouchers, the ones with 2, 4 and 6 vouchers simply need to go. The sooner the better.

    What I suggest is upping the amount of stuff that needs to be made for these writs, AND up the amount of vouchers you receive.

    So instead of having to craft 1 purple glyph for 2 vouchers, you need to craft 10 purple glyphs for 20 vouchers instead. The mats for 10 purple level 150 glyphs are easy enough to come by, we have them by the thousands, and getting 20 vouchers is at least somewhat rewarding compared to be getting 2. That way, they would also serve as more of a material sink than now.

    Do the same for provisioning (make 10 times the amount of food, and receive 10 times the amount of vouchers, for those who now only give 2), the same for alchemy.

    For equipment, make us craft 2 or 3 pieces of purple equipment for 2 or 3 times the amount of vouchers we get now. These can give as little as 6 vouchers per writ, make it so we get at least 12 or 18 vouchers, by crafting more pieces equipment.

    The higher voucher writs that make you craft out of legendary mats can be left as they are at the moment.
  • Carbonised
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    Also, one more thing regarding Master Writs.

    Now that we have huge load of furnishing recipes, and will see even more in the future, and since Master Writs are pretty much entirely about furnishing - I would like to see your furnishing recipe progress to influence the chance of getting a master writ from the boxes.

    This would work exactly like it does now in provisioning - the more rare recipes you know in one furnishing area - say, woodworking blueprints for example - the higher your chance to receive a woodworking master writ from the reward boxes.

    This would again reward those who have learned a large amount of the furnishing recipes, and give people an incentive to hunt down the recipes, other than being able to craft the furnishings.
  • Tasear
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    It's eso job class, some people like to craft alot so seems fair.
  • Carbonised
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    To sum up my suggested changes:

    - Make motifs/traits/recipes learned count for more in the RNG equation of whether you get a Master crafter writ or not
    - Multiply the input (crafted goods) and output (number of vouchers) on the smallest writs by a factor of x2 to x4, those that give 2 - 6 vouchers currently
    - Make furnishing recipes count into the equation of whether you get a master writ or not, just like motifs and provisioning recipes currently work on live

    @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

    These are relatively small adjustments that could easily be worked into the update for Morrowind.
  • sp_korshun
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    I think we also need furniture writ as a daily one :)
  • Carbonised
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    sp_korshun wrote: »
    I think we also need furniture writ as a daily one :)

    That would actually be a fun thing in addition with the other craft quest.

    Maybe 1 furnishing daily for each furnishing type, or maybe that would be too many?

    My only concern is that you can do most if not all the craft dailies without gathering a large amount of recipes first. The provisioning ones you can buy from vendors.

    For furnishing, however, we are looking at 2000 recipes, and even more coming with Morrowind, that are required to craft furniture.

    However, I like the idea. Maybe if furnishing dailies only required a few handful of the more common green recipes, much like provisioning writs currently do, it could work out.

    Then you could get furnishing materials and furnishing recipes from those dailies.
  • sp_korshun
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    Carbonised wrote: »
    For furnishing, however, we are looking at 2000 recipes.
    About 1090 recipes in fact, but there're more than 2000 furniture items, so a bit less than a half are uncraftable.
  • Carbonised
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    sp_korshun wrote: »
    About 1090 recipes in fact, but there're more than 2000 furniture items, so a bit less than a half are uncraftable.

    Yeah I realised that when I wrote it, I just recalled ESO bragging about Homestead and having "more than 2,000 furnishing items availlable" - then recalled that not all of them are craftable =p

    Anyway, furnishing crafting dailies could work if we keep the rotation between 10-20 of the more easy to get recipes, much like provisioning dailies.
    And we do have a sore need of a way to obtain rare furnishing recipes as well as furnishing materials. Again, much like provisioning dailies give you a random amount of ingredients (some common, some rare) and a daily recipe (mostly green common ones, chance for a more rare one).
  • cschwingeb14_ESO
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    I don't know how"advanced" your crafting alts are, but getting them up to a moderate level of trait research is not that time consuming. Sure, it can take weeks. But with 1 master crafter, you can make all of those research items in not a lot of time.

    Getting 7 alts up to 6 trait across the board was easier than I thought. It took about an hour of up front time, and then an extra 10 minutes a day from 1-4 traits. Then 10 minutes every few days after that. Not 10 minutes per character, total time spent crafting research pieces and clicking research.

    I did have enough bank space and main crafter inventory space free, so that helps. All it takes is a little organization

    I also did writs on a no-trait crafter for the anniversary event. That guy got a lot less master writs that the 6-trait guys

    The real solution to this is account-based dailies
  • Carbonised
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    As was mentioned somewhere else as well, it is time to look at the Daily Crafting writs hand in places.

    It started out as Craglorn being the final place to hand in max level crafting quests, then it moved to Wrothgar, and now it's back at Craglorn. Meanwhile we get Vvardenfell soon, but you cannot hand in your crafting dailies there. I would like to, other people would like to, and others again would like to keep it in Craglorn or somewhere else.

    Just how hard would it be to code it so that you can hand in your crafting dialy in any zone capital? There are already drop off points in every base game zone plus Craglorn, Orsonium and Vvardenfell. Make it so that all these accept the final level writ quests, so you can decide yourself where to hand them in.

    It's a quality of life change, instead of forcing everyone to queue at the Craglorn drop off point.
  • DPShiro
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    Carbonised wrote: »
    As was mentioned somewhere else as well, it is time to look at the Daily Crafting writs hand in places.

    It started out as Craglorn being the final place to hand in max level crafting quests, then it moved to Wrothgar, and now it's back at Craglorn. Meanwhile we get Vvardenfell soon, but you cannot hand in your crafting dailies there. I would like to, other people would like to, and others again would like to keep it in Craglorn or somewhere else.

    Just how hard would it be to code it so that you can hand in your crafting dialy in any zone capital? There are already drop off points in every base game zone plus Craglorn, Orsonium and Vvardenfell. Make it so that all these accept the final level writ quests, so you can decide yourself where to hand them in.

    It's a quality of life change, instead of forcing everyone to queue at the Craglorn drop off point.

    Yes! Please let this happen!

    ~ Gryphon Heart ~
    ~ Immortal Redeemer ~
    ~ Grand Master Crafter ~
    ~ Master Angler ~
    ~ Former Emperor ~
  • IwakuraLain42
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    DPShiro wrote: »

    Yes! Please let this happen!

    Oh yes, please, I'm missing dropping my writs in Orsinium and seeing the other drop points in the other zones going to waste hurts my feelings as a crafter ;-)
  • davey1107
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    My alts all pitched in and we've crafted an impressive pile of cheese to go with your whine. But it could be Vile Manse bathtub cheese, so keep,that in mind, lol.

    The game rewards players based on how they choose to spend their time. If I run max writs on five characters, I deserve a 500% chance at rare items over someone who runs them on one. I've invested the time and resources to level those characters, and to set them up for the task. By the same measure, someone who runs five VMSA grinds deserves 500% more maelstrom weapons than someone who runs it once.

    You're also mistaken about the RNG. My master crafter has about the same odds of pulling a master writ, but his odds that it's worth more are astronomically higher. I have eight characters running writs daily...one has most everything in the game, the other seven know 7ish traits and 1/3 the motifs. My master crafter has pulled three 200+ master writs. In volume of vouchers, he's probably earned 60% of the total.

    Also, people running extras via alts generates more writs, making more available in guild stores, pushing prices down. This benefits you if you want to just buy the writs.

    But the point still stands - you don't need to be rewarded because you don't want to run more daily writs, and life is not unfair because other people who work harder at something get proportionally more from the effort than you do.
  • Malamar1229
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    Prices per vouchers have plummeted to ridiculously low levels...the demand for vouchers just isn't there. All cosmetic stuff.

    #Makecraftersgreatagain

    I would add a reroll scroll to the voucher merchant.

    For X vouchers, you can buy a reroll scroll that when consumed will reroll the trait on an weapon/armor.

    This will instantly become to most popular and desired item in ESO, and it will keep materials being consumed as players complete more writs daily. CP160 materials are at an all time low, largely because of the consecutive Double Resource events.
  • Carbonised
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    davey1107 wrote: »
    But the point still stands - you don't need to be rewarded because you don't want to run more daily writs, and life is not unfair because other people who work harder at something get proportionally more from the effort than you do.

    Yes I'm quite sure that having 10 mule alts farming crafting writs that take 2 minutes each constitues as "hard work", compared to someone who has spent more than a year to research every single trait in the game, and who has spent upwards of 3-5M to obtain every single motif page in the game, as well as every provisioning recipe.

    Oh, and no, it is actually you who is mistaken about the RNG. Master Crafters do have a bonus to obtain master writs, and not "about the same" as everyone else, as you falsely claim. And the nature of the master writ isn't dependant on any character skills, so you're actually doubly wrong.

    But thank you for that constructive input.
    Edited by Carbonised on April 24, 2017 8:39AM
  • Malborn66
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    How about a mod to the 'open a pack prompt to accept a writ' logic.
    Just lose it and treat all writs the same. (IE you have to open it and accept it to get it)

    I lost the first writ that dropped because I did not understand this.

    Malborn
  • Carbonised
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    Malborn66 wrote: »
    How about a mod to the 'open a pack prompt to accept a writ' logic.
    Just lose it and treat all writs the same. (IE you have to open it and accept it to get it)

    I lost the first writ that dropped because I did not understand this.

    Malborn

    I'm not sure entirely what you mean by this, but if you mean the "autopopup" for accept/decline quest that comes when you loot a master writ, that is being changed from the next patch.
    They have already mentioned this, now you don't get the prompt to accept/decline until you actually use the writ.
    Edited by Carbonised on April 24, 2017 12:27PM
  • Malborn66
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    Thanks for that Update, it must have got past me.

    Malborn
  • f047ys3v3n
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    I am both a person with a master crafter (all but 4 motifs, most recipes, and all traits unlocked) and with many alts that I can do writs on. During the magic anniversary box event I actually did all writs across both my accounts to the tune of 15 toons daily. If your counting that is 90 boxes a day for 14days for a total of 1260 boxes. While I was well rewarded for depth of toons during that event I can assure you that this is not the case on a daily basis. During the event, with all 15 running (8 of which are level 50 in all crafts), roughly half of my master writs come from just the one true master crafter toon and this ignores the magnitude of each of the writs. Essentially, only the master crafter gets the big equipment writs at all whereas the others get almost solely little alchemy and enchanting ones (since learning all combinations and therefore getting full rng on those is easy.) At least 80% off all writ vouchers are therefore obtained from just the one toon. Now that the event is over I only do writs on the one toon daily.

    Bottom line, don't fret about those with stables of toons and accounts when it comes to master writs. Unless they have invested a lot in research and motifs they are not getting many writs from them though they still will get some nice gold mats and worthless surveys with the crap nodes that can't drop housing mats. If you would like you can legitimately carp about the 260 motif pages 138 blue housing recipes, 9 purple provisioning recipes, 1 purple housing recipe (yes they could drop, and piles of other good stuff I got with my stable of toons during the event though. I do feel well rewarded.
    I am currently worried for the future of ESO. Population seems like it is in free fall and the cancellation of the North America in-person gathering feels very much like pulling the plug. Kudos on fixing the in-game economy though. Clearly whatever gold shenanigans were happening the last couple years are fixed.
  • Mix
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    I think the master writ quality (for cloth/smith/wood) should be better if your crafter has 9 traits and all motifs. My poor master crafter (with every motif, all research, all achievements) gets barely any master writs.

    Consumable Master Writs do seem to have a much better drop rate than the Crafting Master Writs.

    I do run several toons through writs, but besides my master crafter, they almost exclusively get Consumable (alch, ench, prov) master writs as they don't know any rare motifs or research or many of the related achievements.

    I am currently keeping track on my master crafter since I completed all the crafting achievements and it isn't enough data yet but here is what I have recorded so far:

    Character has all research, all motifs, all crafting achievements (all the factors that apparently influence drop rate)

    16 days
    Alchemy: 2 master writs (5 voucher, 2 voucher)
    Enchanting: 2 master writs (2 x 2 voucher)
    Provisioning: 5 master writs (5 x 2 voucher)

    Blacksmithing: 2 master writs (2 x 5 voucher)
    Clothing: 1 master writ (7 voucher)
    Woodworking: 1 master writ (6 voucher)

    It is rather disheartening to get so few vouchers (44) in 16 days on a master crafter. It feels like the smith/cloth/wood writs should be better quality based on your mastery of the craft. An average of 2.75 writ vouchers per day so far, if I didn't buy other people's writs I'd be saving forever to get anything worthwhile (45 days for a pattern at this rate). Now I know you can get lucky and get smith/cloth/wood writs with vouchers into the 100s, but very rng!

    I only started recording data once I maxxed out all the factors that supposedly influence drop rate. I have seen writs up to 80 vouchers personally.

  • Carbonised
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    Mix wrote: »
    It is rather disheartening to get so few vouchers (44) in 16 days on a master crafter. It feels like the smith/cloth/wood writs should be better quality based on your mastery of the craft. An average of 2.75 writ vouchers per day so far, if I didn't buy other people's writs I'd be saving forever to get anything worthwhile (45 days for a pattern at this rate). Now I know you can get lucky and get smith/cloth/wood writs with vouchers into the 100s, but very rng!

    I'm with you on that, which is why I made this topic, essentialy to up the chances for true master crafters to get these writs, so everything doesn't feel so RNG.

    I have a feeling, and so do many others, that the RNG factor heavily outweighs the crafter benefits (motifs, recipes, traits etc) when determing whether a writ drops or not.
  • Dapper Dinosaur
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    The one thing I want to see changed the most in the master writs are the joke writs you can obtain that give less than 20 vouchers for legendary items.

    I literally have gotten 5+ writs that ask me to waste 8 tempering alloy, to say nothing else of the other supplies needd, for less than 20 vouchers. Just the other day I literally got a master writ that wanted me to waste 8 dreugh wax for NINE vouchers. NINE. It should literally be AGAINST THE LAW to put such trash in my inventory.

    If the writs asks you to make a legendary item, the MINIMUM number of vouchers should be NO LESS than 40. Even that is garbage but at least it wouldn't be less than 30. There is no excuse for a writ asking for items that cost many dozens of times' more gold to give only double the vouchers. That is one of the most pathetic things I've ever seen.
    Edited by Dapper Dinosaur on April 24, 2017 6:17PM
  • Carbonised
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    The one thing I want to see changed the most in the master writs are the joke writs you can obtain that give less than 20 vouchers for legendary items.

    I literally have gotten 5+ writs that ask me to waste 8 tempering alloy, to say nothing else of the other supplies needd, for less than 20 vouchers. Just the other day I literally got a master writ that wanted me to waste 8 dreugh wax for NINE vouchers. NINE. It should literally be AGAINST THE LAW to put such trash in my inventory.

    If the writs asks you to make a legendary item, the MINIMUM number of vouchers should be NO LESS than 40. Even that is garbage but at least it wouldn't be less than 30. There is no excuse for a writ asking for items that cost many dozens of times' more gold to give only double the vouchers. That is one of the most pathetic things I've ever seen.

    Yeah I agree. The writs that call for gold materials arne't nearly enough profitable.

    And those who only call for purple give a measly low amount of vouchers ..
  • KillahBrew
    Carbonised wrote: »

    And don't get me wrong either, I'm not asking for a complete overhaul or anything. I'm not asking for people to be locked out of the Master Crafter system. I'm simply asking for motifs/recipes/traits to count more into the equation of Master Writ drops, and RNG being less of a factor.

    Master Crafter writs should be a reward to Master crafters. Not simply someone who leveled his skill lines to level 50, which is by far the easiest thing to do.

    I was sure that I read somewhere that you have to be lvl 50 in the craft AND have learned motifs.
    As a matter of fact, you can't craft anythng that you haven't read the book on.
    I've been lvl 50 in my crafting across the board for a good while and only received master writs more recently.
    Do you know with any certainty what circumstances allow for master writs to be offered?
    If so, please share.
    Thank you
    Edited by KillahBrew on April 25, 2017 8:51AM
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