In your opinion, are any motifs worth paying Crowns for?

Araneae6537

Basic motifs, clearly not, inexpensive price in gold and often can find for free.

Motifs from regional dailies, I think not, considering that it only takes patience/persistence to earn them and maybe several thousand gold to finish, certainly not worth 5k Crowns in my opinion.

Now those that drop from DLC dungeons I occasionally do on vet or rare drops from trials, I’m not sure.

Specifically, I am interested in the Sunspire motif. I haven’t looked up every price on TTC to figure out approximately the cost in gold versus crowns.

I know relative value is subjective but I would appreciate hearing others’ opinions on this. I need to deliberate before making large purchases!

Royaji

The only one that is really worth buying with crowns is probably Buoyant Armiger. The drop rate on this is abysmal. Maybe Welkynar if you are not into vCR but it's not too hard and at this point lots of groups are working on GH and the motifs are out there.

VaranisArano

Even the most annoying ones to farm see their price drop dramatically once they get included in the Anniversary Event's drop table. I'm willing to be patient.

Froil

Out of every motif? Maybe Buoyant Armiger and Welkynar. I farmed Buoyant Armiger pages the normal way, it was slow and I left many chests full of junk (#noregerts). Trying to get Welkynar pages is bad because, unless you can easily beat vCR+3, you're only getting like one-two pages out of ten to end up making one random full page.

I might also say Refabricated if only because vHoF is hard. Other than those? No; especially the blue and purple full books. Those are such a waste you might as well buy a werewolf or vampire bite through the crown store.

fred4

I believe Grim Harlequin is Crown Store only, so there's that, if/when it's on sale and you like it.

Do you really need a whole motif? The chest piece makes the most difference to your look. I bought Sunspire Chests with in-game gold and left it at that.

Didn't Welkynar already drop in some event? I'd be weary, because as soon as an older motif drops in an event, prices plummet.

MerguezMan

In your opinion, are any motifs worth paying Crowns for?

No.

I had Master crafter achievement just by in-game grinding.
All pages appear in guild stores, sooner or later.

So, unless you have too much IRL money and/or absolutely no patience, there's no real reason.

Grianasteri

Depends entirely, its a 100% objective issue.

If you can afford it, anything is worth paying what you are prepared to pay for it. Aesthetically, absolutely, there are some very desirable motifs that I have paid for, because I can afford it, and because I wanted them.

That said, the Crown store is sickeningly over priced in almost every aspect. ZOS would probably make MORE money, if they halved the cost of everything, therefore encouraging more people, to spend more money.

ghastley

There are two kinds of motif involved. The few that are crown-store-only, you'd buy if you want to use them in an outfit, but only then. They'll never be asked for in a Master Writ.

The ones that you have the choice of buying or farming are probably best bought one page at a time from the guild traders when you get a Master Writ that needs it. You can also buy individual pages for your outfit and learn just the piece you want to use.

Starlock

All of them are overpriced rip-offs and classic examples of predatory microtransactions in video games.

That said, if you don't have a problem with any of that, I'll say there are a few that I bought before I wised up to these business practices:

• [OBSOLETE] Buoyant Armiger (via gamble crates). At the time, this motif was pretty much impossible to obtain and the prices for individual chapters on XBOX reflected that. When it was datamined that the entire book would be in gamble crates, I saved up gems to get it from the gamble crates. At the time it was a decision that made sense, but as is always the case with these things, the house always wins and plays us for fools. Months later there were events that dropped these chapters like candy, and while I certainly made bank by selling those chapters for cheap to others, I also could have just not wasted money on questionable microtransactions in the first place. I wouldn't recommend purchasing this motif from the cash shop anymore given you will be able to get the chapters (relatively) cheap with gold when the next Anniversary hits.
• Welkynar. I'm just not a fan of trials for various reasons, and with the ridiculous hurdles the developers put in the way to actually getting all the chapters, I knew there was just no way and that the prices per chapter were going to be outrageous (and they were). It was well beyond what I'd ever be able to afford in-game, just like Buoyant Armiger was, so I was an idiot and bought it. Important lesson here - the racketeers they call "monetization designers" put in the ridiculously grindy hurdles to obtaining this motif entirely on purpose to exploit the consumer. Again, the house always wins and plays us for fools.

I also bought Refabricated ... after I'd wised up. Why? Why would I buy a motif when I'd woken up and smelled the coffee on $enimax's incredibly shady and steadily worsening monetization of this game? Two reasons, mostly. One, I'd been waiting on this motif since it existed and have a character I wanted to use it on immediately. Two, and more importantly, I'm sitting on a bunch of crowns from when I was an idiot and bought crown packs to "support the game." They might as well be spent on something. But if I hadn't had those leftover crowns from being an idiot? Nope, would have passed.

if you are someone who cares a lot about fashion - and I definitely do since I prioritize character concepts and telling stories - I would suggest being selective in what you get just in general. There are so many motifs in the game these days that you'll want to just focus on the specific pieces you want for your character designs. Often that will mean not completing an entire motif, so you can dive into the traders and just pick up the chapters you will actually use. Sunspire is pretty easy to find on guild stores - I completed that using in-game gold and traders during the Dragonhold event that ran recently. Not sure what the situation is on other platforms, though.

Alkapton

Apart from the three styles that are Crown Store only, all pages can be obtained in Guild stores.

With eight toons, mostly just doing writs (both craft and zone) it took me about four months to get every motif in the game.
My favorite place to buy pages was in Deshaan. I sell stuff in guild store and keep buying the cheapest page my crafter hasn't got yet. Never did I have to pay more than 150,000, and very very few cost over 100,000. I make 100,000 a day easy so its just time to get them this way.

Two other exceptions might be Glass and Ebony because you'll get them from Master Writ vouchers.

Can't imagine how long it would take to get Boyant by grinding, I don't think I've ever got a page from chests in Vvardenfell. Bad rng!

BTW. I'm using same technique to get every furnishing plan, with just 144 to go I'm paying 25,000 to 40,000 per plan. The green Murkmire ones scare me, prices are insane.

Taleof2Cities

Froil wrote: »

I farmed Buoyant Armiger pages the normal way, it was slow and I left many chests full of junk (#noregerts).

Sounds like you didn't know you mainly hurt yourself more than other players, @Froil ... ?

There are only a finite number of chests that can spawn in each zone at any given time. If you leave chests unlooted then new ones can't spawn ... which increases the time on your chest circuit through Vvardenfell.

At least that kind of overland motif grind doesn't exist in newer zones. So, you can't make the same mistake twice.

"No regrets" is indeed an apt expression.

Froil

I literally farmed through the entire zone and I knew every single overland chest spawn, they were very very frequently there whenever I got to them and no I didn't suffer from me leaving behind trash.

Araneae6537

fred4 wrote: »

I believe Grim Harlequin is Crown Store only, so there's that, if/when it's on sale and you like it.

Do you really need a whole motif? The chest piece makes the most difference to your look. I bought Sunspire Chests with in-game gold and left it at that.

Didn't Welkynar already drop in some event? I'd be weary, because as soon as an older motif drops in an event, prices plummet.

That’s a good point — I most want the Sunspire chest and legs. The whole motif would be progress toward the Master Crafter achievement, but surely there are less expensive motifs I have yet to complete!

Thank you all for sharing your thoughts! I think I will buy the pages I want with gold after all.

kringled_1

If I were in a rush to know Honor guard or refabricated, I would be looking at crown store options. The latest 3 dlc dungeon motifsv(meridian, coldsnap, and Moongrave) are also quite expensive and right now I'm only buying pages occasionally.

phwaap

Trading gold for motif gifts is definitely worth it imo. I wouldn't spend crowns I had purchased with $$ on them though.

Taleof2Cities

Froil wrote: »

I literally farmed through the entire zone and I knew every single overland chest spawn, they were very very frequently there whenever I got to them and no I didn't suffer from me leaving behind trash.

Are you sure that's your final answer??

I just did a quick 10-minute chest run in Vvardenfell ... and found three chest spawn points that looked like the screenshot below.

How many farming hours did you think you added to yourself by leaving chests behind?

Bottom line: Before you attempt to scam other players make sure you're not scamming yourself first.