1/3 of the 51 Hlaalu Furnisher's Documents from today were duplicates, worse over time

Recremen

Currently the selection of furniture plans from the Hlaalu Furnisher's Documents are generated randomly from the list of available purple recipes. This means that anyone trying to collect them all is going to receive an incredibly high, possibly even infinite number of duplicates over the course of their effort. Now, you can of course buy or trade for them, but the sheer number of documents and chances of receiving duplicates means that you need to start looking for trades far earlier than makes for solid gameplay. When it gets down to it, needing to shuffle goods around between players too much enters Not Fun Anymore territory. It is not so bad for something like motif farming, where you can do it yourself if you really hate interacting with other people because there's only 14 possible chapters. Realistically, though, many people end up buying a couple chapters out of the lot just to finish it up. This is a whole different animal, however, when there are hundreds of furniture plans to learn for each tier. That's a whole lot of buying and selling instead of playing the content!

This of course isn't even touching on the fact that they plan to increase the cost of the documents by 150%, from 10 Vouchers to 25 vouchers, once the Morrowind patch drops. Leaving aside how awful a plan that is and how discouraging it is as a player, when put into the context of learning the furniture recipes it just magnifies the current problem.

I suggest that furniture plans act in a similar manner to Dark Anchor spawns, wherein it takes into account what a player already knows when opening the document much as the Dark Anchors take into account the participating player's achievements when spawning a General.

s7732425ub17_ESO

ZOS has tried time and time again to make a system where crafters specialize and do not have everything available to them.

This is that system done correctly.

I'm not a fan of such a system (because I want everything for myself like a lot of other people), but it's what they are trying to achieve, and this is a good way to do it.

Recremen

s7732425ub17_ESO wrote: »

ZOS has tried time and time again to make a system where crafters specialize and do not have everything available to them.

This is that system done correctly.

I'm not a fan of such a system (because I want everything for myself like a lot of other people), but it's what they are trying to achieve, and this is a good way to do it.

Uh... source on that? I'm pretty sure they've been entirely comfortable with people learning all the crafting. Otherwise they'd have made you pick only a handful of crafting professions to get certified in, or have stopped you from learning all the professions to begin with. They also wouldn't encourage you get get all the motifs with those motif achievements because not every craft can even use all those motifs. Then there's the fact that many of the furnishings require multiple crafting knowledges to make. I think there's more evidence against that claim than could possibly be for it? Unless you mean that people are supposed to specialize in whatever recipes they happen to learn, which doesn't seem the case since there's no upper limit on how much you can learn (at least one person already knows literally every plan) and there's no system to search for a crafter that knows a particular recipe.

I'm totally with you on wanting to learn it all, though. I'm pretty sure that's exactly what ZOS is encouraging, just spread out over a very long time. I don't at all mind the very long time, I mind the incredibly amount of waste generated by what is essentially a really peculiar variant of The Birthday Paradox. I mind the fact that, eventually, the vast majority of my documents will be duplicates, meaning I have to participate more in the part of the game I least enjoy (buying and selling). I think the preceding suggestion would go a long way towards alleviating some of the probably-unforseen consequences of more pure RNG nonsense.

kargen27

I'm not going to panic just yet. I do want them all eventually but really they haven't been available but for a short time. It took me over a year to get all the recipes on my provisioner. The last couple took a really long time and I had guild mates keeping an eye out for them also.

Recremen

kargen27 wrote: »

I'm not going to panic just yet. I do want them all eventually but really they haven't been available but for a short time. It took me over a year to get all the recipes on my provisioner. The last couple took a really long time and I had guild mates keeping an eye out for them also.

There are significantly fewer provisioning recipes thank furniture plans, though, and all the new ones have been event-driven instead of found randomly in the world. I am confident that I will get them all eventually, but that does not mean the current delivery system isn't deeply flawed and can't be improved.

Magdalina

s7732425ub17_ESO wrote: »

ZOS has tried time and time again to make a system where crafters specialize and do not have everything available to them.

This is that system done correctly.

I'm not a fan of such a system (because I want everything for myself like a lot of other people), but it's what they are trying to achieve, and this is a good way to do it.

Umm...? Isn't it the direct opposite? Master writs are kinda encouraging you to specialize in everything (and ideally on one toon too, especially with that auto accept pop-up).

I don't actually mind duplicates. Some of them net really nice gold, more than the vouchers themselves are worth.

Rinmaethodain

> Currently the selection of furniture plans from the Hlaalu Furnisher's Documents are generated randomly from the list of available purple recipes.

Im certain they are not random, there is some secret hardcoded 'hierarchy' rarity assigned to certain plans. How would you otherwise explain that while on PC NA 70% of furniture plans are being now sold under the cost of obtaining (cost of master writs ~1.5k/voucher -> cost of Furnisher's Document -> 10 vouchers -> minimal purple plan cost 15k) sold by less than 10k on traders while selected few purple furniture plans can cost over 300k (these mythical Firepit, Stone; Counter, Grill; Bookcase, Full; Bookcase, Piled).

When you see something like that, people "trashing" recipes (Because selling under what you paid to get them is pretty much trashing them) you know your system failed.

IwakuraLain42

MaximusDargus wrote: »

> Currently the selection of furniture plans from the Hlaalu Furnisher's Documents are generated randomly from the list of available purple recipes.

Im certain they are not random, there is some secret hardcoded 'hierarchy' rarity assigned to certain plans. How would you otherwise explain that while on PC NA 70% of furniture plans are being now sold under the cost of obtaining (cost of master writs ~1.5k/voucher -> cost of Furnisher's Document -> 10 vouchers -> minimal purple plan cost 15k) sold by less than 10k on traders while selected few purple furniture plans can cost over 300k (these mythical Firepit, Stone; Counter, Grill; Bookcase, Full; Bookcase, Piled).

I'm pretty sure that this is the case. From what I see on offer at the guild trader I can guess that some items simply drop with a higher probability then others (like the blue quality item "Redguard Desk, Florid"). Or the case the couches and cushions virtually never drop ...
Leaves a somewhat sour feeling :-(

Carbonised

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

And I'm talking about the implementation of furnishing documents here.

With the thousands of furnishing plans in the game, they should just have given every blue and every purple plan the same drop chance (whether from looting containers or the Hlaalu documents) and be done with it. It would still take an awful lot of time to collect them all.

This artificial system where some plans drop 1/100th or less times than some of the other plans is stupid and ill-conceived, not to mention entirely arbitrary.

The whole furnishing system was rushed through, as is evident by many of the recipes missing from the game still. Why does the "Dark Elf Trestle" miss from the game, for instance? All the other dark elf furnishing plans are available, but not the trestle (small table thingie). Nord trestles, Redguard treslet, but no dark elf trestle. Clearly an oversight.

Same goes for many other recipes, and this skewed droprate of purple recipes also seems like an error and oversight that no one bothered to correct, if they are even aware of it at all.

My suggestion: Swarm them with bug reports about it until they care to notice it and fix it.

IwakuraLain42

Recremen wrote: »

This of course isn't even touching on the fact that they plan to increase the cost of the documents by 150%, from 10 Vouchers to 25 vouchers, once the Morrowind patch drops. Leaving aside how awful a plan that is and how discouraging it is as a player, when put into the context of learning the furniture recipes it just magnifies the current problem.

Thanks for bringing that to my attention, I will absolutely make sure to spend all my vouchers before Morrowind drops on purple recipes.

WhiteCoatSyndrome

Question: Is the Hlaalu Furnisher Document affected by what zone you open it in? Like if I bought a bunch then warped to the Rift, would they be more likely to drop Nord recipes?

idk

Does the Dark Anchor actually take into consideration what each of the players at the dolmen need when deciding which General drops when a General is to drop?

It does not make sense the game considers the multitude of Generals multiple players need up to 20 players for such a thing. I have only heard Domens were changed to this once.

I would like to see a link to this information like the patch notes. @Recremen I have doubts it works this way.

Recremen

Carbonised wrote: »

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

And I'm talking about the implementation of furnishing documents here.

With the thousands of furnishing plans in the game, they should just have given every blue and every purple plan the same drop chance (whether from looting containers or the Hlaalu documents) and be done with it. It would still take an awful lot of time to collect them all.

This artificial system where some plans drop 1/100th or less times than some of the other plans is stupid and ill-conceived, not to mention entirely arbitrary.

The whole furnishing system was rushed through, as is evident by many of the recipes missing from the game still. Why does the "Dark Elf Trestle" miss from the game, for instance? All the other dark elf furnishing plans are available, but not the trestle (small table thingie). Nord trestles, Redguard treslet, but no dark elf trestle. Clearly an oversight.

Same goes for many other recipes, and this skewed droprate of purple recipes also seems like an error and oversight that no one bothered to correct, if they are even aware of it at all.

My suggestion: Swarm them with bug reports about it until they care to notice it and fix it.

Bug reporting and using /feedback is indeed highly encouraged! By the devs themselves, no less!! Just please be informative and civil with it, the folks who go through that stuff are sweethearts and don't deserve no sass.

Recremen

IwakuraLain42 wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

This of course isn't even touching on the fact that they plan to increase the cost of the documents by 150%, from 10 Vouchers to 25 vouchers, once the Morrowind patch drops. Leaving aside how awful a plan that is and how discouraging it is as a player, when put into the context of learning the furniture recipes it just magnifies the current problem.

Thanks for bringing that to my attention, I will absolutely make sure to spend all my vouchers before Morrowind drops on purple recipes.

Be sure to let them know that this is Not Cool, tell your friends about it, and throw your lamentations to the wind at every opportunity!

Recremen

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

Does the Dark Anchor actually take into consideration what each of the players at the dolmen need when deciding which General drops when a General is to drop?

It does not make sense the game considers the multitude of Generals multiple players need up to 20 players for such a thing. I have only heard Domens were changed to this once.

I would like to see a link to this information like the patch notes. @Recremen I have doubts it works this way.

Yes, these patch notes cover it.

Dark Anchors

• Added new monsters to Molag Bal’s dark army, including Grievous Twilight and Xivkyn.
• Every zone can now spawn any of Molag Bal’s Generals.
  • Visuals and combat ability sets for some Generals has been improved.
  • Achievements from players involved with an anchor are now taken into account when Generals spawn.

idk

Recremen wrote: »

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

Does the Dark Anchor actually take into consideration what each of the players at the dolmen need when deciding which General drops when a General is to drop?

It does not make sense the game considers the multitude of Generals multiple players need up to 20 players for such a thing. I have only heard Domens were changed to this once.

I would like to see a link to this information like the patch notes. @Recremen I have doubts it works this way.

Yes, these patch notes cover it.

Dark Anchors

• Added new monsters to Molag Bal’s dark army, including Grievous Twilight and Xivkyn.
• Every zone can now spawn any of Molag Bal’s Generals.
  • Visuals and combat ability sets for some Generals has been improved.
  • Achievements from players involved with an anchor are now taken into account when Generals spawn.

Thanks. Had wondered if it was true.

After thinking about it the issue is completely different, especially since the crafting plans are more involved with the economy much like motifs. Nothing in the game takes into account what has not dropped for you before so this shouldn't either.

vMA doesn't take into account I haven't received a sharpened battle axe or inferno staff. At least I'd say it doesn't seem so.

rhapsodious

Yes, as somebody with 940 recipes known with a select few that elude me (and half of them are Redguard, seriously?) I feel like this might be an issue like VMA used to have where bows and restos were unfairly weighted due to being the only weapon in their slot, or the devs put in their own weight system for some reason.

I wonder if anyone's recorded enough data to confirm one way or the other. My suspicions are that it first draws from one pool - say race, or type of furnishing - and goes down from there. It doesn't seem to draw from type of recipe, as otherwise, Redguard (it's always Redguard) formulae wouldn't be stupid hard to find.

In any case, it's not worth it for me to spend vouchers on furnisher's documents now, and it definitely won't be worth it come Morrowind. Unless I enjoy selling Wood Elf things at 8k for a loss.

Zoner

It's no longer viable for me to purchase the furnisher's documents from the writ vendor because I'm only missing about 7 purples. This is an example of a further problem:

After a certain point the fact that buying documents becomes slowly unviable means that there will be more cheap ones flooding the market from those who still do it, and rarer blueprints will become rarer still because 1. Less people buying documents means less chance for them to drop, and 2. Odds are the person who is still buying the documents is still missing a lot of them (otherwise it wouldn't be viable to buy documents in the first place) and will likely use the rares themselves.

After the price of purples increases by 150% expect those rare purples to become virtually nonexistent

Recremen

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

Does the Dark Anchor actually take into consideration what each of the players at the dolmen need when deciding which General drops when a General is to drop?

It does not make sense the game considers the multitude of Generals multiple players need up to 20 players for such a thing. I have only heard Domens were changed to this once.

I would like to see a link to this information like the patch notes. @Recremen I have doubts it works this way.

Yes, these patch notes cover it.

Dark Anchors

• Added new monsters to Molag Bal’s dark army, including Grievous Twilight and Xivkyn.
• Every zone can now spawn any of Molag Bal’s Generals.
  • Visuals and combat ability sets for some Generals has been improved.
  • Achievements from players involved with an anchor are now taken into account when Generals spawn.

Thanks. Had wondered if it was true.

After thinking about it the issue is completely different, especially since the crafting plans are more involved with the economy much like motifs. Nothing in the game takes into account what has not dropped for you before so this shouldn't either.

vMA doesn't take into account I haven't received a sharpened battle axe or inferno staff. At least I'd say it doesn't seem so.

As I explained it's not a bad deal for motifs to be this way since there's very few chapters per style and not quite so many styles. It is very frustrating for this system, though, since you can't aim for specific recipes like you can for motifs and you have to do MUCH more buying and selling than for any other system in order to complete it.

Incidentally, I DO think Maelstrom (and most PvE) loot should use this method and I outlines a system for doing so here.

Magdalina

Recremen wrote: »

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

Does the Dark Anchor actually take into consideration what each of the players at the dolmen need when deciding which General drops when a General is to drop?

It does not make sense the game considers the multitude of Generals multiple players need up to 20 players for such a thing. I have only heard Domens were changed to this once.

I would like to see a link to this information like the patch notes. @Recremen I have doubts it works this way.

Yes, these patch notes cover it.

Dark Anchors

• Added new monsters to Molag Bal’s dark army, including Grievous Twilight and Xivkyn.
• Every zone can now spawn any of Molag Bal’s Generals.
  • Visuals and combat ability sets for some Generals has been improved.
  • Achievements from players involved with an anchor are now taken into account when Generals spawn.

Thanks. Had wondered if it was true.

After thinking about it the issue is completely different, especially since the crafting plans are more involved with the economy much like motifs. Nothing in the game takes into account what has not dropped for you before so this shouldn't either.

vMA doesn't take into account I haven't received a sharpened battle axe or inferno staff. At least I'd say it doesn't seem so.

As I explained it's not a bad deal for motifs to be this way since there's very few chapters per style and not quite so many styles. It is very frustrating for this system, though, since you can't aim for specific recipes like you can for motifs and you have to do MUCH more buying and selling than for any other system in order to complete it.

Incidentally, I DO think Maelstrom (and most PvE) loot should use this method and I outlines a system for doing so here.

Aren't furniture recipes kinda sorta zone oriented? So like to farm (mainly) Nord things you'd go to Eastmarch/Rift and open all the containers there? It's not a crazy high droprate but you can find stuff that way, no? And it seems it would be less of a "shot in the dark" than the voucher thing.

The way I understand it, master merchant thing was never meant to be the main way to tackle this farm, more of an occasional lottery ticket thing, which is probably why they're buffing the prices.

I don't know that much about furnishings though so I could be wrong.

elantaura

You know I would be ok with 25 ..if I could pick what I was getting!! but for RNG system again because we have obviously shown of support to RNG...from rage quit maelstrom threads. To the RNG which resourses will I get back threads. To the give us a token system already threads ...So given RNG. I feel 10 is enough

Vanthras79

ZOS just loves their RNG.

@Recremen , what would Men'Do think about what the House Hlaalu Member is doing regarding these rediculous plans for his writ vouchers, and increasing them just in time to see Vvardenfell? ( have not seen much of Men'Do around recently)

They are probably going to add more purple items over time, even with Morrowind. I think you should be able to exchange a known furnishing plan for writs, then it would be not so bad. But for 25 writs once Morrowind comes out or will ZO$ only give a 25% refund for known plans?

kargen27

Magdalina wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

Does the Dark Anchor actually take into consideration what each of the players at the dolmen need when deciding which General drops when a General is to drop?

It does not make sense the game considers the multitude of Generals multiple players need up to 20 players for such a thing. I have only heard Domens were changed to this once.

I would like to see a link to this information like the patch notes. @Recremen I have doubts it works this way.

Yes, these patch notes cover it.

Dark Anchors

• Added new monsters to Molag Bal’s dark army, including Grievous Twilight and Xivkyn.
• Every zone can now spawn any of Molag Bal’s Generals.
  • Visuals and combat ability sets for some Generals has been improved.
  • Achievements from players involved with an anchor are now taken into account when Generals spawn.

Thanks. Had wondered if it was true.

After thinking about it the issue is completely different, especially since the crafting plans are more involved with the economy much like motifs. Nothing in the game takes into account what has not dropped for you before so this shouldn't either.

vMA doesn't take into account I haven't received a sharpened battle axe or inferno staff. At least I'd say it doesn't seem so.

As I explained it's not a bad deal for motifs to be this way since there's very few chapters per style and not quite so many styles. It is very frustrating for this system, though, since you can't aim for specific recipes like you can for motifs and you have to do MUCH more buying and selling than for any other system in order to complete it.

Incidentally, I DO think Maelstrom (and most PvE) loot should use this method and I outlines a system for doing so here.

Aren't furniture recipes kinda sorta zone oriented? So like to farm (mainly) Nord things you'd go to Eastmarch/Rift and open all the containers there? It's not a crazy high droprate but you can find stuff that way, no? And it seems it would be less of a "shot in the dark" than the voucher thing.

The way I understand it, master merchant thing was never meant to be the main way to tackle this farm, more of an occasional lottery ticket thing, which is probably why they're buffing the prices.

I don't know that much about furnishings though so I could be wrong.

Looks like the thread has separated into two different topics. The Hlaalu Furnisher's Documents would appear to be completely random when you get them. The furniture recipes found while exploring appears to me to be slanted towards finding zone specific recipes. I think they will all drop in every zone but better chance of getting Khajiit in Reaper's March. Seems that way to me anyway.

Commenting on other things in the thread I don't think any of us have a big enough sampling to make a decent estimate of drop rates. Some people in my guild are getting all kinds of desirable recipes and some are getting the average stuff. The prices in guild stores are based in part of the desirability of the recipe as well as availability. A lot of people want the Redguard Bookcase, Full. Less are looking for the Argonian Mortar, Bone. Even if they dropped at the same rate the bookcase is going to cost a lot more.

Writs are still high priced compared to the furnisher documents right now because people are still building crafting stations, practice dummies and other things that take a lot of writs to do. I have been able to get writs for between 1k and 1.2k per voucher lately so prices are already coming down.

I really do want a Khajiit Skooma Bubbler to drop though and so far nobody I have asked has seen one drop or seen one listed for sale. So hey maybe ZOS is bending us over a barrel. Probably a common one.