Ancestral Reach motif/style: Drop-rate under current system way too low

HumbleThaumaturge

The "Ancestral Reach" motif/style comes in 14 Chapters which are acquired via the Antiquities system using "Leads" that (may) drop from Treasure Chests found using Treasure Maps for: (1) The Reach; (2) Western Skyrim; or (3) Blackreach. Under the current system, I might get all 14 chapters by the year 2042. I'm begging you ZOS, please do one or both of the following: (1) Raise the number of Treasure Maps for The Reach, Western Skyrim, and Blackreach; and/or (2) Raise the drop-rate (of motif/style chapters) from Treasure Chests. Raise the drop-rate to 100 percent if you don't increase the frequency of Treasure Maps.

Enemy-of-Coldharbour

I just want to fill out my codex and with the current system it most likely will never happen. I refuse to spend millions on maps at guild traders that may/may not (mostly) yield a motif lead.

SilverIce58

What do treasure maps even drop from? Just chests?

jssriot

I can't even finish Ancestral High Elf because I cannot find Kharnathi's Roost maps, even ridiculously overpriced ones in the Guild traders. I get Reach maps way more frequently and even then I only have found one Ancestral reach page.

SilverIce58 wrote: »

What do treasure maps even drop from? Just chests?

Treasure chests. Dolmen chests. Thieves troves. The document satchels dropped by Elsweyr dragons. And more rarely, looted off of slain mobs. Probably other places I can't remember atm.

jaws343

jssriot wrote: »

I can't even finish Ancestral High Elf because I cannot find Kharnathi's Roost maps, even ridiculously overpriced ones in the Guild traders. I get Reach maps way more frequently and even then I only have found one Ancestral reach page.

SilverIce58 wrote: »

What do treasure maps even drop from? Just chests?

Treasure chests. Dolmen chests. Thieves troves. The document satchels dropped by Elsweyr dragons. And more rarely, looted off of slain mobs. Probably other places I can't remember atm.

The pages for the base zone styles are for sale for 10-15k in traders more often than not.

Peppo_Lives

Spent over 2M in maps to finish Ancestral reach (for codex completion)......i hope the next Ancestral-something coming with Blackwood won't be the same
(btw, it's almost one year since greymoor came out, and i still have to find every codex entries for lancers from cyro coffers -.-' that's my true nightmare XD)

HumbleThaumaturge

jaws343 wrote: »

jssriot wrote: »

I can't even finish Ancestral High Elf because I cannot find Kharnathi's Roost maps, even ridiculously overpriced ones in the Guild traders. I get Reach maps way more frequently and even then I only have found one Ancestral reach page.

SilverIce58 wrote: »

What do treasure maps even drop from? Just chests?

Treasure chests. Dolmen chests. Thieves troves. The document satchels dropped by Elsweyr dragons. And more rarely, looted off of slain mobs. Probably other places I can't remember atm.

The pages for the base zone styles are for sale for 10-15k in traders more often than not.

Meanwhile: Treasure Maps for The Reach, Western Skyrim, and Blackreach can run 65k or more at guild traders. But the drop-rate from Treasure Chests may be as low as 1-in-4 (1-in-5? 1-in-10?) so it's a 65k (or more) gamble. Even at such high prices, guild traders don't have many of these maps.

agegarton

HumbleThaumaturge wrote: »

The "Ancestral Reach" motif/style comes in 14 Chapters which are acquired via the Antiquities system using "Leads" that (may) drop from Treasure Chests found using Treasure Maps for: (1) The Reach; (2) Western Skyrim; or (3) Blackreach. Under the current system, I might get all 14 chapters by the year 2042. I'm begging you ZOS, please do one or both of the following: (1) Raise the number of Treasure Maps for The Reach, Western Skyrim, and Blackreach; and/or (2) Raise the drop-rate (of motif/style chapters) from Treasure Chests. Raise the drop-rate to 100 percent if you don't increase the frequency of Treasure Maps.

Totally right.

I hate this grindy sh-t !

trackdemon5512

@HumbleThaumaturge it’s low but consider you have a ton of players just buying up any maps they can find to corner the market. When you get a map consider you have 4 out of 35 chance of getting one for Western Skyrim/The Reach/Blackreach. Also consider that the 4 zones only have like 10 maps for the areas combined.

Also I’d still say that drops for Buoyant Arminger are lower and that one of the biggest changes for that came with their addition to Psijic portals.

I’d say the drop is fine.

tomofhyrule

I finally stopped chasing Reach maps. I would usually stop by guild traders and look for them - never wanted to spend more than 30k on a map if I could help it, so I didn't get many - but throwing away 30k at a time for a chest with a blue Venomous Smite Resto staff is just...ugh.

I think I've opened around 40-50 of those maps since Markarth dropped. I got one lead.

Finally broke down and just bought the handful of Ancestral Reach motifs from traders that I need for outfits. It's cheaper to just buy the motif than buy ridiculously expensive maps for the chance of getting one (and RNGesus hates me, eveidently). Pity I won't get the codex entries, but at least now I can play Fashion Scrolls properly.

It'd be great if there was a consistent source or maps or if the leads could also drop from digging bonus loot (you know, like the tooltips and the patch notes implied...) so we might have a chance at them. But, well...

I'm glad I don't really need the Ancestral Akaviri motif, because screw that after this one. And I bet it's only gonna get worse from here - Anc. Reach drops from a total of 8 maps. Now Anc. Akaviri gets a total of 6, and we don't know if the other two in the Q4 DLC will also (not) drop Akaviri, or are they gonna make another Ancestral Daedric motif or whatever to drop from those two and those two alone?

B0SSzombie

Peppo_Lives wrote: »

Spent over 2M in maps to finish Ancestral reach (for codex completion)......i hope the next Ancestral-something coming with Blackwood won't be the same
(btw, it's almost one year since greymoor came out, and i still have to find every codex entries for lancers from cyro coffers -.-' that's my true nightmare XD)

Good news! Ancestral Akaviri drops EXACTLY the same way in Blackwood! And there's even less Treasure Maps for it since it's limited to a single zone!

But at least you'll be able to blow all your money on the maps faster this time since you only need to search for one Zone's maps now!

jle30303

The *really* annoying thing about the Ancestral Whatsit motifs is *getting the same one over and over again, and not getting the one you actually wanted*.

A thing that is going to be far worse with Ancestral Reach (14 motifs, 4 zones - W Skyrim, Reach, Blackreach G, Blackreach A) than it ever was with Ancestral Nord, High elf and Orc (2 motifs per each of 7 zones).

Dalsinthus

There's just too much RNG involved with the Ancestral Reach farm. RNG to:

-Get a treasure map
-Get the right treasure map
-Get a motif lead when you dig up the treasure (low chance)
-Get a lead you need and not a repeat (I keep getting belts and staffs)

This is not a fun system. And they're repeating it for Ancestral Akaviri.