Buoyant Armiger Loot Chest Farming (In the name of research)

supaskrub

So i braved the infuriatingly all too often Xbox crashes to dashboard in Vivec to finally get my Librarian and Morrowind main quest line completed, sat there since day one when i just did not have the patience to endure Vivec.

So two days ago armed with my two new funky titles, the CP Treasure Hunter passive and the confidence that these completions give me a better chance of receiving BA motif's than not having them completed i decided to do a little experiment of my own after seeing a post on these very forums about the drop rates. I decided a fair number of chests to loot would be 500 rather than 10 or 20 to get a better understanding of the rng behind it all, not very scientific but 500 is what i would consider a good number to start out with.

After extensive looting of said chests dotted around the whole of Vvardenfell i would like to deliver my findings, I'l keep it brief.

500 chests looted gave a return of ZERO BA motifs.

500 chests, no motifs, I cant even work out an average return from that because it basically says 7k chests would also deliver none of the 14 BA chapters, nothing to benchmark anything with. I'm not even dissapointed if I'm honest, I'm actually giggling about it. Because its rng it does nt prove whether the system is broken or not, but what it does show is that there is something definatly wrong with it from a players perspective.

Oh and the irony of it when i received a Master Writ from Belkarth this morning, t'was a 6 voucher writ (insulting enough), but lets all guess what motif was required.

Edited to include: Cp Treasure hunter passive.

akl77

Do you have treasure hunter passive on?

supaskrub

akl77 wrote: »

Do you have treasure hunter passive on?

yes.. I never leave home without it..

Dalsinthus

It's absurd. I stopped tracking chests at 200 opened and, just like you, I have found zero BA motifs.

This is not fun ZOS. Please just put it in the crown store, charge $60 and get it over with.

Vapirko

Yeah that's pretty messed up. I've heard that the treasure hunter passive won't help the drop rate of BA motif but that completing the vaardenfell quest line will? I haven't done it and definitely haven't received any motif pages from however many chests I've opened.

SASQUATCH0

It's a struggle man. I've only found 3 and I've been farming these chests almost everyday since morrowind came out. I've memorized the spawn locations on the east coast of vvardenfell (atleast most of them). One thing that really grinds my gears is finding a chest that has not been cleared.

supaskrub

SASQUATCH0 wrote: »

It's a struggle man. I've only found 3 and I've been farming these chests almost everyday since morrowind came out. I've memorized the spawn locations on the east coast of vvardenfell (atleast most of them). One thing that really grinds my gears is finding a chest that has not been cleared.

I found a few like that yesterday evening, about five one after the other. I was considering calling it off but it seemed to right itself after i put a message in chat about chest ettiquette...

Eyesinthedrk

When you find a master chest you need to pop a potion, dance nord for 10 seconds and the burn an ult. Next you need to manual the lock in the first try. Then bam, BA every time.

ThePrinceOfBargains

These developers are liars. Either "Champion of Vivec" increases the drop rate by such a negligence amount, it's just an insult or they lied their asses off. Either way, I'm thoroughly annoyed.

SASQUATCH0

supaskrub wrote: »

SASQUATCH0 wrote: »

It's a struggle man. I've only found 3 and I've been farming these chests almost everyday since morrowind came out. I've memorized the spawn locations on the east coast of vvardenfell (atleast most of them). One thing that really grinds my gears is finding a chest that has not been cleared.

I found a few like that yesterday evening, about five one after the other. I was considering calling it off but it seemed to right itself after i put a message in chat about chest ettiquette...

lol I do the same thing. I'll ask who tf isn't clearing chests and some smartass will say it was him and I'll proceed to mail them the items they didn't pick up. They usually return to sender but knowing I wasted about 15 seconds of their life makes me feel a little better...

sevomd69

Like a previous poster above...I stopped counting at about 350...I'm sure its close to double that now...but not 1 motif...not ONE... in the same time frame I have looted 4 aetherial dusts... You've got to be kidding me...

Adzer2

Eyesinthedrk wrote: »

When you find a master chest you need to pop a potion, dance nord for 10 seconds and the burn an ult. Next you need to manual the lock in the first try. Then bam, BA every time.

And during this time Joe Random Farmer runs around the corner, grabs the chest you are literally standing in front of and delightfully takes all the items save for maybe a TA rune.

supaskrub

Adzer2 wrote: »

Eyesinthedrk wrote: »

When you find a master chest you need to pop a potion, dance nord for 10 seconds and the burn an ult. Next you need to manual the lock in the first try. Then bam, BA every time.

And during this time Joe Random Farmer runs around the corner, grabs the chest you are literally standing in front of and delightfully takes all the items save for maybe a TA rune.

you forgot the part where the random also gets a BA motif

jaws343

Honestly, I have had more luck finding the motifs in treasure map chests than random world chests.

SASQUATCH0

And the part where I freak out on him in zone chat

Feanor

The real kicker about this is that there are players who actually defend this kind of BS. Coincidentally those are the same players who do nothing but farming chests for hours straight and eventually find chapters to sell them for 300k + apiece. On the German forum there is a player who said he found two full BA sets (28 chapters). He only needed to open 4000+ chests for it. That's a drop rate of 0.7%.

Apache_Kid

The constant crashes on Xbox in Vivec City are absolutely infuriating.

Nestor

I don't know if I have opened 300 on Vvardenfell, but Chests are to Me what Squirrels are to a Dog, I stop everything and pop the lock.

0 Bouyant Motifs, and this on a character that has completed the entire island and has all the goody passives.

supaskrub

Nestor wrote: »

I don't know if I have opened 300 on Vvardenfell, but Chests are to Me what Squirrels are to a Dog, I stop everything and pop the lock.

0 Bouyant Motifs, and this on a character that has completed the entire island and has all the goody passives.

I'm all for "rare" items ingame, they are good for a lot of extra income for some players (for me they would be learned) but when it gets to the point of almost "unobtainium" especially when you do the content that is required to increase drop chances then its a bit of a sorry show in my opinion.

Teridaxus

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/366116/how-many-pages-of-the-armiger-motif-have-you-learned/p1

supaskrub

Heres a little update, its sorry news i bring, after I made this post yesterday i went back to Vvardefell to cintinue my research, had a quiet few hours there and opened 150 chests bringing the total of chests opened to 650.

Latest findings:

Chests looted 650, ZERO BA motifs found.

Izaki

Don't they drop in vHoF most of the time?

supaskrub

Izaki wrote: »

Don't they drop in vHoF most of the time?

Its probably weighted so that they do, but ZOS still say they can be found ALL over Vvardenfell in loot chests.

Khenarthi

My experience is very similar to yours, except that I completed all that in 4 characters, lotting around 2000-2500 chests both while and after getting the achievements (around 1500 were after achievements). Zero drops.

I heard people had better luck farming in the morning; something about "weighted rng" to keep the availability low. In the end I just caved and bought all 14 pages from various traders. Hideous motif, but I enjoy having a complete collection.

LadyNalcarya

I agree.
I understand that there should be rare items and not every motif should cost 1,5k per page... But Buoyant drop rate is insanely low.
Especially when we have so many people not looting chests and hindering their respawn.

SASQUATCH0

LadyNalcarya wrote: »

I agree.
I understand that there should be rare items and not every motif should cost 1,5k per page... But Buoyant drop rate is insanely low.
Especially when we have so many people not looting chests and hindering their respawn.

This behavior makes me so angry.

Curtdogg47

With the treasure hunter passive, I have looted around 3000 chest and found 7 motifs. 4 of them were staffs. Its a grind!

Enemy-of-Coldharbour

I got lucky last weekend and found my first and only BA motif page when farming chests. Have not found another one since.

Bam_Bam

So, long story short , there's either a bug with the chests and/Or the Treasure Hunter passive. Has anyone asked @ZoS_GinaBruno to investigate? Because ZoS might not even be aware.

rhapsodious

I'm sitting at 11/14 learned with a few dupes here and there. The drop rate's gotta be somewhere around 1%, and I'm not sure (leaning towards no based on personal anecdote) that it takes the quality of the chest into account. The majority of mine have been from simple chests, but that could be confirmation bias considering I've opened a crapload of simple and intermediate chests compared to advanced or master.

Not to mention the price has gone up... I usually buy the last few pages of a motif that I'm missing, but if I did that I'd be out over 500k. Oof.

LadyNalcarya

rhapsodious wrote: »

Not to mention the price has gone up... I usually buy the last few pages of a motif that I'm missing, but if I did that I'd be out over 500k. Oof.

The price is higher than it was during the first few weeks after release, yeah.
At release, I sold a few pieces for 150k-ish, my last page (shoulders) was sold for 275k. Some pages (chests, staves) cost 400+k these days...