A Proposal on Ancestral Motif Leads

Froil

As we know the leads for Ancestral motifs only come from treasure map chests, but these are not guaranteed. This makes the treasure maps, especially for new zones like the Reach and Blackwood, expensive, around 50k~ for the maps alone. The motifs, specifically the new Ancestral Reach and Ancestral Akaviri, are probably the most expensive motifs in the entire history of this game. Acquiring them is difficult and expensive, so my proposal is this:

Add the leads to the generic treasure chests within their respective zones. This includes all interior locations which can contain treasure chests, delves, trials, dungeons and arenas etc.

This chance to get a lead can and should be lower than treasure maps, and wouldn't take away much value from the maps but allows people to obtain them on a more regular basis.
Some might complain as the price of the motifs eventually drops but it would be for the better, allowing the motif to be available for those without millions of gold at their disposal or an immense amount of luck in getting treasure maps and leads.

Treeshka

That would be very nice yes. Since some people also wants to collect the codex entries for those motifs. Currently collecting every motif piece with those treasure maps cost a lot. Maybe for trials leads can be disable because it is an instanced area and there are lots of chests there.

Chalinal

I agree 100%.

I spent roughly 7.5 million gold acquiring Blackwood maps to farm all 14 motif page leads of the Ancestral Akaviri style. I paid about 40-75k per map, so you can do the math on about how many maps it took to acquire all 14 motif page leads.

I paid something similar for Western Skyrim/ Blackreach Caverns/ The Reach maps for the Ancestral Reach motif page leads.

These leads should have a chance to drop from any treasure chest in the zone that the Ancestral style comes from. Not purely from treasure maps.

kargen27

Chalinal wrote: »

I agree 100%.

I spent roughly 7.5 million gold acquiring Blackwood maps to farm all 14 motif page leads of the Ancestral Akaviri style. I paid about 40-75k per map, so you can do the math on about how many maps it took to acquire all 14 motif page leads.

I paid something similar for Western Skyrim/ Blackreach Caverns/ The Reach maps for the Ancestral Reach motif page leads.

These leads should have a chance to drop from any treasure chest in the zone that the Ancestral style comes from. Not purely from treasure maps.

And a year from now those maps will be fairly cheap. People that want things quick always pay more. Nature of supply and demand.

Faulgor

Chalinal wrote: »

I agree 100%.

I spent roughly 7.5 million gold acquiring Blackwood maps to farm all 14 motif page leads of the Ancestral Akaviri style. I paid about 40-75k per map, so you can do the math on about how many maps it took to acquire all 14 motif page leads.

I paid something similar for Western Skyrim/ Blackreach Caverns/ The Reach maps for the Ancestral Reach motif page leads.

These leads should have a chance to drop from any treasure chest in the zone that the Ancestral style comes from. Not purely from treasure maps.

That there is no reliable source of specific treasure maps is really the main problem for me, because you basically have to buy all of your maps from vendors. At that point, you might just as well buy the motif pages outright. Where is the gameplay?

I'd love to use the antiquity system to collect motifs, but the current implementation makes that a very punishing experience. The suggestion in the OP is perfect.

Baracuta90

Fantastic idea. I support this.

preevious

I totally agree with this. But I'll tell you a tale of old times ..

Froil wrote: »

The motifs, specifically the new Ancestral Reach and Ancestral Akaviri, are probably the most expensive motifs in the entire history of this game.

let me introduce you to buyoant armiger (yes, that ugly one from Vvardenfell's chests) .. that trice-cursed motif WAS, historically, the most expensive when it came out. Pages at 1.500.000 - 2.000.000 were a common sight.
The drop rate for it was ... horrible. Collecting it is the most soul-crushing thing I've done in the game.

Ishtarknows

kargen27 wrote: »

And a year from now those maps will be fairly cheap. People that want things quick always pay more. Nature of supply and demand.

Not true. Skyrim, Blackreach and Reach maps are still around 50k (xbox EU) with ancestral Reach motif pages at least as expensive as last year, if not more. The drop rate of leads from chests is abysmal. At one point I'd opened 27 treasure map chests in a row without one.

Something could be tweaked to make them difficult to get, but not unreasonably so.

FluffWit

I like the idea of keeping them somewhat rare, so maybe make the odds when you open a chest really low? Something like Buoyant Armiger I guess.

inchdixprb19_ESO

If zos wants to keep these motifs rare for whatever reason, at least make sure we never get a master writ requires that we know the motif.

jaws343

Ishtarknows wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

And a year from now those maps will be fairly cheap. People that want things quick always pay more. Nature of supply and demand.

Not true. Skyrim, Blackreach and Reach maps are still around 50k (xbox EU) with ancestral Reach motif pages at least as expensive as last year, if not more. The drop rate of leads from chests is abysmal. At one point I'd opened 27 treasure map chests in a row without one.

Something could be tweaked to make them difficult to get, but not unreasonably so.

On Xbox NA, maps containing Reach leads are around 20-30K at most. And the pages are all under 100K.

And outside of the last page of the motif which I bought just to finish things, I paid an average of 10K per piece of the Reach style, if you count all of the maps I bought. And that doesn't even take into account the duplicates I found and sold. Working on the codex entries now and it's the same thing, search a trader for the maps, buy any under 10K, if I find a lead, I sell it for 70K.

Players very often list Reach, Skyrim, Blackreach, and even Blackwood maps for under 1000 gold in traders. You just have to look for them.

Froil

preevious wrote: »

I totally agree with this. But I'll tell you a tale of old times ..


let me introduce you to buyoant armiger (yes, that ugly one from Vvardenfell's chests) .. that trice-cursed motif WAS, historically, the most expensive when it came out. Pages at 1.500.000 - 2.000.000 were a common sight.
The drop rate for it was ... horrible. Collecting it is the most soul-crushing thing I've done in the game.

Oh I remember Buoyant Armiger. I farmed the the entire motif myself, save one piece. I remember it being somewhere around 200k~ (usually bit higher) per page. I've seen Ancestral motifs be some 300k~ on average.

Might be different on consoles or EU.

AlnilamE

I don't disagree with your suggestion, but keep in mind that they will probably be added to the Jubilee Event boxes next year.

jaws343

AlnilamE wrote: »

I don't disagree with your suggestion, but keep in mind that they will probably be added to the Jubilee Event boxes next year.

They weren't in the Jubilee boxes this year. Since they are Antiquity leads, I highly doubt they ever get added there.

kringled_1

AlnilamE wrote: »

I don't disagree with your suggestion, but keep in mind that they will probably be added to the Jubilee Event boxes next year.

None of the prior Ancestral motifs (orc, nord, high elf) was in the boxes this year. If they did get added that would change the situation significantly, but I haven't seen a reason to think that they would add them.

K9002

Even their drop rate from treasure maps is horrendous. I used more than 10 Khenarthi's Roost maps and I still can't get the last motif page. Something was changed a few patches back because my Western Skyrim, Reach and Blackreach maps also drop far fewer leads.

jle30303

Putting the ancestral motifs in the boxes wouldn't change anything, because the prize isn't even so much the motifs as getting the ancestral factoids as well, meaning that you have to actually find them as leads and dig them up.