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The lack of Culanda Lacquer will negatively impact Summerset housing

Carbonised
Carbonised
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First of all, let me start up on a positive note, the droprate for Summerset furnishing plans is actually quite decent, already there are plenty of plans for sale, including lots of purples. People still try and take up to 1M for these at sellers, but I imagine that price will soon drop a lot, when more and more plans are put up for sale and no one buys them for that price. That was a nice decision, ZOS, instead of leaving them as rare unicorns like Vvardenfell plans at release.

Now for the main point of this post, the lack of the style mat, Culanda Lacquer, will negatively impact the Summerset housing and funiture market in the forseeable future. A point I already brought up on the PTS, but which didn't get that much attention, and none from the devs.
Vvardenfell plans required Obsidian as style mat, Alinor plans require 2 of these Culandas for each and every item. Why is this a bad idea? The source of Culanda is extremely restricted, only dropping from the 3 daily quests in Alinor and from no other place whatsoever. Even now when these dailies are heavily farmed, the Culanda price on PC-EU is already around 2k per item, and even increasing currently. There was a drop in price from release until today, but now they are again increasing somewhat. Why? Because people are finally catching up on the fact that these items are very limited, plus we are finally beginning to know a number of the new furnishing plans, and want to craft the items for ourselves or to sell.

Vvardenfell furnishings were kept in dark elf style mat, Obsidian, which also served as a great gold sink. Most furniture crafters bought Obsidian by the thousands at NPCs in order to craft, which was gold out of the economy. It also meant you could always craft these items, when you had the recipe and the other mats. Obsidian wasn't the bottleneck.
Clockwork City was different, now it was 1 style mat, Tempered Brass, per item. Tempered Brass dropped from 2 dailies, plus a lot of gear you found was in the Apostle style, which also dropped Brass. The recent anniversary event also poured a lot of Brass into the megaservers. Even with all these channels for Brass, the price was well over 500 per item before the anniversary event, and around 300 now. Brass is reasonably available, while still worth something.

What about Summerset/Alinor? It's now 2 Culandas per item, and no sets drop in this motif whatsoever, and you cannot get Culandas anywhere else than by doing the dailies. Right now there's a frenzy in dailies as people try and collect the Sapiarch motifs, what happens when that becomes old, the flow of Culanda into the playerbase will be little more than a trickle, while every recipe will require double the amount of style mats than CWC did. Prices of 5k per mat wouldn't be unthinkable. That's 10k just to craft a tiny cup, not even mentioning the cost of the other mats.
Who is going to pay 10k plus fee for a cup? No one. The furniture market for these items will be extremely limited, and the items will be heavily overpriced, so only the very rich players will buy them. This is bad for furniture sellers, it is also bad for the casual players who want to decorate their houses, but don't have the crafting skill or plans for it, and who now have to pay tens of thousands for every cup, chair or plate. It is even bad for the housing people who don't intend to sell furniture. With a 700 item limit of a large house, and every item costing 2 Culandas, that's 1400 Culandas just to decorate 1 house, assuming you want to keep it in that racial style. With a few thousand gold per Culanda, that's easily a handful of million gold - only for the style mats! Few people have that kind of money to throw away. Or you could do 1400 dailies. I don't know which is worse.

The solution is rather simple. The recipes should have been changed from Culanda to Adamantite, like Vvardenfell plans require Obsidian. The use of Culanda is inappropriate even from a lore perspective. Culanda is for Sapiarch motif, a specific faction of scholars on Summerset. Why would all the Altmer recipes call for Sapiarch related items? What do Sapiarchs have to do with household cups and plates? If ZOS insists on keeping the Culanda, they should at least be decreased to 1 per item, like the CWC recipes.
However, ZOS rarely goes back and changes mat requirements in plans, even when they are way out of balance or reason.
So what could they do instead? Make the Gryphon zone set in Summerset drop in Sapiarch motif, so you can decon it for a chance for Culanda. Right now, the 3 zone sets in Summerset drop in Ebonshadow, Psijic and Ancient Elf motif. Why on earth did you make the final set Ancient Elf instead of Sapiarch? Again look at Vvardenfell, or even CWC. Vvardenfell has 3 overland sets that drop in the 3 House motifs, Hlaalu, Telvanni and Redoran. CWC has 3 sets, 1 in Ebonshadow and 2 in Apostle, which you can decon for Brass. The Vanus set from Summerset is in Psijic which you can decon for mat, but it makes no sense from any perspective to have the Gryphon set in Ancient Elf. Following the logic that Sapiarch style mats are needed for cups and pots, this set should drop in Sapiarch motif as well, as this apparently is ZOS' "default" Alinor/Altmer mat. Ancient Elf is also another word of Ayleid, which is why the Palladium is used in Ayleid furniture crafting, it has nothing to do with Summerset or Alinor. At least making the Gryphon set drop in Sapiarch instead of Ancient Elf would release a few more Culanda into the economy.
Ideally, Culanda mat parts would also be found on the overland map, from node harvesting and killing mobs. Make it 1/10th of a mat, just like you can find Viridian Dust all over Vvardenfell, and combine 10 of them into a Volcanic Viridian style mat. This would again at least make people able to farm a bit of these mats without sourcing the entire mat behind daily quests, which currently aren't enough to feed the demand, even when the dailies are farmed like crazy, and which will be only a trickle of mats later on, when farming slows down and people already have the Sapiarch motif.

Long post, but I wanted to give a detailed explanation about this, so as to not get dismissed as "just yet another whine post". This isn't mere complaining, I'm trying to put down some suggestions as to how to make Summerset furniture crafting more viable and sustainable, both for the personal houseowner, as well as the furniture seller, and by extension, the playerbase at large.
I foresaw this on the PTS, and already, a week into the update, with dailies being farmed heavily, we see a large demand for Culandas, driving up the prices which are already increasing. Anyone who does trade or knows the server economy will know that this trend will only increase as more and more people get to know the recipes and want to craft or sell. The problem is only going to increase, unless more sources of Culandas are made available, or the recipes possibly changed.

Edited by Carbonised on May 28, 2018 9:01AM
  • LMar
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    Making the Gryphon set drop in Sapiarch instead of Ancient Elf sounds like an excellent suggestion!!
    "If a stick of fish is a fish stick, it will stick like other fish sticks stick"
    "Taller races now sit in chairs correctly"
  • ssorgatem
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    Not gonna happen; after the outfit system they need a new a way to sell crown style stones.
    Edited by ssorgatem on May 28, 2018 9:15AM
  • Carbonised
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    ssorgatem wrote: »
    Not gonna happen; after the outfit system they need a new a way to sell crown style stones.

    If the price of Culandas increase enough, then I'm sure some people will resort to crafting Sapiarch gear with mimic stones and decon, and even sell these Culandas with a profit.

    I don't think many people would disagree that having the main source of Culandas be crown store bought mimic stones is a bad idea, not to mention the people who could in effect exchange their real life currency to mimic stones and then to in game gold.

    Edited by Carbonised on May 28, 2018 9:22AM
  • Azurya
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    As I mentioned already in another discussion it is ridiculous how low the droprate is, compared to the need giving as you have like me tha alinor town house.
    Dropped and bought some real fancy looking blueprints, but then I am not able to craft them due to the lack of specific mats, and I have ton of mats as eso+ user.

    I THINK IT IS ONE OF THOSE LITTLE TWINKS GIVING ME A HINT
    -let it be
    -spend your time/money somewhere else
    -this is getting frustating over time
    -you want to have fun, not get frustrated
    ergo >>>>>>>>>> .................... (fill in whatever you like, but that is where the journey heads atm)
  • Feanor
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    Personally I find the drop rate of the Sapiarch motif pages to be the more pressing issue. Seeing prices in the stores it's not far off from Bouyant Armiger.
    Edited by Feanor on May 28, 2018 12:43PM
    Main characters: Feanor the Believer - AD Altmer mSorc - AR 50 - Flawless Conqueror (PC EU)Idril Arnanor - AD Altmer mSorc - CP 217 - Stormproof (PC NA)Other characters:
    Necrophilius Killgood - DC Imperial NecromancerFearscales - AD Argonian Templar - Stormproof (healer)Draco Imperialis - AD Imperial DK (tank)Cabed Naearamarth - AD Dunmer mDKValirion Willowthorne - AD Bosmer stamBladeTuruna - AD Altmer magBladeKheled Zaram - AD Redguard stamDKKibil Nala - AD Redguard stamSorc - StormproofYavanna Kémentárí - AD Breton magWardenAzog gro-Ghâsh - EP Orc stamWardenVidar Drakenblød - DC Nord mDKMarquis de Peyrac - DC Breton mSorc - StormproofRawlith Khaj'ra - AD Khajiit stamWardenTu'waccah - AD Redguard Stamplar
    All chars 50 @ CP 1900+. Playing and enjoying PvP with RdK mostly on PC EU.
  • Carbonised
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    Feanor wrote: »
    Personally I find the drop rate of the Sapiarch motif pages to be the more pressing issue. Seeing prices in the stores it's not far off from Bouyant Armiger.

    Bear in mind we're still only a week into the new content. Apostle and Ebonshadow was also very pricey at first, but even before the motif bonanza anniversary, you could get all the pages for next to nothing.

    Motifs isn't so much of an issue, since you only need to collect them once. Culanda is needed for every tiny cup, platter or trinket box you wish to make, whether for your own 700 item house, or to sell. And 2 of them per item. This very quickly adds up, and I foresee that the supply of culanda will not nearly match the demand for it, which is already the case right now.

    Motifs are in high demand at first, since everyone want to be "the first" to have them, then they steadily decrease in price. Culanda is an ingredient that will only increase in demand as more and more people learn the furnishing plans, and thus it needs a more steady supply than is currently the case.

    Switching Gryphon set from Ancient Elf to Sapiarch would at least help a little bit on this issue.
  • Alphawolf01A
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    I wanted to build a custom castle/fortress/palace on coldharbor surreal estate using the alinor structure furnishing items, but if I can't get enough mats, it will take forever to even complete a single floor. Hopefully they fix this, but I won't hold my breath. If I have to craft Sapiarch with mimic stones and decon them, I guess that will be the cheapest option for now.
  • simox
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    I like the idea of them incorporating the style mats into furniture recipes, most of them do not have enough use now that the outfit system exists.

    However, using the same single style mat for every single blueprint is just awful design. There are five new style mats available in Summerset, why not equal them out across the new blueprints? Or make use of some of the old ones at least.
  • N0TPLAYER2
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    Just buy crown gems

    Is the answer from zos :)
  • Carbonised
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    simox wrote: »
    I like the idea of them incorporating the style mats into furniture recipes, most of them do not have enough use now that the outfit system exists.

    However, using the same single style mat for every single blueprint is just awful design. There are five new style mats available in Summerset, why not equal them out across the new blueprints? Or make use of some of the old ones at least.

    Indeed. I like that they include style mats in furnishing crafting, but it needs to be balanced better. Just look at Vvardenfell, 1 bonemold to make a large game table - 20 bonemold to make a tiny turtle box. And no use for the other 2 style mats, Ferrofungus and Polished Scarab Elytra. It baffles me why ZOS always either ignore some style mats in recipes, or go completely overboard with others. CWC was one of the only times where they actually balanced it rather well, both in terms of costs, and availability of the brass mats.
  • LMar
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    Tbh it almost seems like the Gryphon set not dropping in Sapiarch is an oversight.

    What style do the Cloudrest trial sets drop in?
    "If a stick of fish is a fish stick, it will stick like other fish sticks stick"
    "Taller races now sit in chairs correctly"
  • Teebs13
    Teebs13
    Soul Shriven
    Yeah I just sold 20 Culanda for over 60k, ez money if you ask me. Makes teh dailies actually worth it considering the motif pages never drop, plus it keeps people doing the summerset dailies because of that high price. They probobly want to stop Vvardenfelds problem in which the region dried up waaaay too fast. Having farmers still do the daily quest is probobly a step in the right direction...
  • Saccarius
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    This is a massive barrier to anyone thinking of crafting Alinor furniture. I've completely abandoned the idea and was was looking to buy the furniture from guild stores instead but even that seems like it's going to be impossible.

    I'm really starting to regret buying that townhouse now... :disappointed:
    Edited by Saccarius on May 28, 2018 5:14PM
    saccarius | PC | EU
    Almost master crafter
    Altoholic and decorating neophyte.
    Say hello, I'll say hello back.
    Gaymer
  • Juju_beans
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    I decided just to decorate my Alinor townhouse with Redguard furniture. Eventually I'll find and learn the Alinor patterns and eventually I'll have enough mats to make the Alinor furniture.

    But I can do Redguard now so I will.
  • Linaleah
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    Saccarius wrote: »
    This is a massive barrier to anyone thinking of crafting Alinor furniture. I've completely abandoned the idea and was was looking to buy the furniture from guild stores instead but even that seems like it's going to be impossible.

    I'm really starting to regret buying that townhouse now... :disappointed:

    this. you can use mimic stones for styles or more like... you can just use gold and make an outfit. you HAVE to use culanda laquer for furniture crafting, there is no way around it.

    I would say its worse then dwemmer but at least you only usualy need 2 per recipe. then again, its also time gated far more then dwemmer when it comes to farming it...
    dirty worthless casual.
    Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself. Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will. And outlive the ***
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  • Carbonised
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    LMar wrote: »
    Tbh it almost seems like the Gryphon set not dropping in Sapiarch is an oversight.

    What style do the Cloudrest trial sets drop in?

    ZOS makes many of these so-called "oversights" in their implementation of furnishings. Or mistakes, or blunders, we might call them.

    Cloudrest sets are in the Welkynar style, non-craftable at the moment, but will most likely come as its own motif eventually.
  • Alastrine
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    N0TPLAYER2 wrote: »
    Just buy crown gems

    Is the answer from zos :)

    If you are talking about the Mimic stones, you can't use them for crafting furniture?
    Unless you mean use crowns to buy the furniture instead of crafting it.

    I bought the townhouse furnished just for this reason.. I loved the style but knew I would never be able to craft the stuff. I've bought a few patterns for walls and stairs for other houses and I'll save the Culanda I get for those but I won't be making too many lights or chairs etc.

    At least Dwemer you could farm in Delves. It was the same with Bonemold Resin for the gold patterns which was also ridiculous as was pointed out.
    Edited by Alastrine on May 28, 2018 10:23PM
  • Ragged_Claw
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    Why must it be such a ball-ache? I've not bothered buying the townhouse because a) I've only picked up one green plan for a bloody cup and b) I can't even make the damn cup because the style mat hasn't dropped from the dailies yet. It would at least be something if it was a guaranteed drop from the dailies, then you'd get three a day and could at least make one thing. Its already making my head hurt it just shouldn't be this hard, it's supposed to be an escape from real life, not add more stress. Gah!
    PC EU & NA
  • Saccarius
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    Why must it be such a ball-ache? I've not bothered buying the townhouse because a) I've only picked up one green plan for a bloody cup and b) I can't even make the damn cup because the style mat hasn't dropped from the dailies yet. It would at least be something if it was a guaranteed drop from the dailies, then you'd get three a day and could at least make one thing. Its already making my head hurt it just shouldn't be this hard, it's supposed to be an escape from real life, not add more stress. Gah!

    I agree completely. I started playing not long after Homestead was released and I never had any recipes or money to buy recipes or furniture and the whole thing seemed pointless. I took a break for over a year and came back to find that crafting/buying furniture in the classic racial styles was actually possible and fun. But with Morrowind furniture recipes being like gold dust and Alinor recipes requiring this elusive mat while ALSO being rare, the whole thing seems pointless again. I wish I'd saved my money and bought one of the original homes.
    saccarius | PC | EU
    Almost master crafter
    Altoholic and decorating neophyte.
    Say hello, I'll say hello back.
    Gaymer
  • Carbonised
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    Culanda is nowhere to be found on guild traders, except a few who try and take advantage of the situation and sell for overprice like 7k per item.

    They don't even drop 100 % from daily quests, more like 50-60 % droprate, and limited to 3 quests per day per char.

    Is this the part where I say "I told you so", ZOS?
  • nemvar
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    Carbonised wrote: »
    3 quests per day per char.

    You know that you can share the daily delve and wb quests?
  • NoTimeToWait
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    This is really an issue if you want to furnish some notable house with Alinor furnishings. I just can't imagine myself getting 200 Culanda Laquer, not saying even about 1200.

    And really, furniture pieces going for 10-15 thousand gold? I am okay when it is luxury furniture, I am not going to use many such items. But when it is a furnishing staple (like furniture, arches, columns) it really adds up. Say, I am going to have around 200 Alinor items and 400 some other furnishings. My previous rough estimates for furniture in general land me somewhere around 5000 gold per item average (with luxury items included and I do like purple quality furniture). Now multiply 10k average for alinor stuff(which is huge underestimate for current market, more like 15k average), and you get 4 million gold spendings on furnishings only for a house with 600 items (eso+), which is quite crazy.

    Edited by NoTimeToWait on June 2, 2018 12:26PM
  • jssriot
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    Jesus, this is so dumb. The new Summerset furnishings are very nice I agree, but they are not worth this nonsense.
    PC-NA since 2015. Tired and unimpressed.
  • DuskMarine
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    no ones noticed the awesome house we shoulda gotten through an achievement to buy with gold is likely gonna be posted for tons of crowns yet?
  • SantieClaws
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    Khajiit has said this before yes.

    No one is ever going to furnish a home from the store alone no. We use this to supplement the things we can craft - a few items we really like or cannot presently obtain through recipes.

    If you make the task of creating a home so difficult travellers they simply will not bother - especially when you consider that the home itself may be a considerable purchase in the first place.

    So if you wish to maximise the number of houses you sell and at the same time get some sales of small items from the store then you must make the rest of the furnishing much more possible via the crafting system.

    Perhaps also allow this lacquer to drop from mobs on Summerset or start having rarer style stones appear in ore nodes - or let it be deconstructed from something. It is unprecedented no to have a style stone you cannot obtain from deconstruction?

    In making this style so rare it is like putting great effort into training an apprentice and then keeping them locked in a tower so they cannot go out and make you any sweet shiny coins.

    Yours with paws
    Santie Claws
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  • Numerikuu
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    Why am I not surprised that I saw this coming? :*
  • Carbonised
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    Just did the 3 Summerset dailies, and only got 1 Culanda drop. One of the many, many faults in the shoddy implementation of this.

    Oh, and on PC-EU the average price for Culanda is now up at 6-7K per item. For the very few that are actually for sale, that is.
  • XDark_One13
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    There are 3 summerset dailies?
    I’ve done the world boss quest and the delve quest. What ane where is the third quest?
  • ArvenAldmeri
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    There are 3 summerset dailies?
    I’ve done the world boss quest and the delve quest. What ane where is the third quest?

    The third unlocks after you do a quest that you can obtain on the way to the Alinor palace I believe.
    Magicka sorcerer from start until the end. Always. Through the good times and the bad, even now when its probably saddest PvE dps it has ever been.
    Even as an owner of one radiant apex mounts I am against radiant apex mounts and anything thats not obtainable by direct purchase.
  • Jayne_Doe
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    It's clear that they still want players to go to the CS for their furnishings. They decided to make players happy by increasing the drop rate for Alinor furnishings vs Vvardenfell furnishings at launch, but then decided to make the style mat extremely rare.

    I guess that even with the low plan drop rate with MW, they didn't make as many CS sales as they wanted, since those that got lucky were able to easily make furnishings to sell to other players. That's how I largely furnished my MW homes. I did purchase Amaya furnished & Tel Galen furnished, but I purchased Ald Velothi with gold. I'm planning to purchase the Townhouse furnished, as well, so they'll get my crowns there.

    It sounds like the Alinor furnishing market is going to be non-existent for quite some time. People will be able to get plans, but they won't be able to make much for themselves or to sell to others.

    At least make the style mat a guaranteed drop from the dailies, as it was in MW. Oh...I saw in another thread that there is some gear that drops in the Sapiarch style? They mentioned they had gotten some from deconning gear.
    Edited by Jayne_Doe on June 5, 2018 8:14PM
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