Does selling motifs or learning them make more gold in the long run?

Marronsuisse

Every time I pick up a motif I don't care for, my knee-jerk reaction is to sell it, because I am a poor and need gold. BUT I also really want writ vouchers, because I'm a housing junky and also because it seems like selling things bought from Rolis makes pretty decent gold.

So should I learn every motif I pick up in hopes of more sealed master writs and vouchers, and eventual payoff?

Or should I just sell every motif I don't want, and buy whatever furnishing plan I want from traders?

What do you guys do?

whitecrow

I always learn anything I don't have, no matter how valuable it is. Because maybe I'll never find that motif again.
I'm not concerned about the gold. I want to be knowledgeable.

Bat

Motifs can make you some gold if they are "difficult to acquire" (which mostly means, from content that not many care to play, such as DLC dungeons or PVP).

Furnishing plans can make you a lot more gold if you sell them, depending on what they are. Learning a furnishing plan just so that you can craft a couple of those furnishings for a house you want them in might make less sense economically than selling the plan and then buying crafted furniture instead. In many cases you'd have to craft hundreds upon hundreds of the furnishing itself and sell them to even make the same gold that selling the furnishing plan itself would have netted you.

If you play on PC it's always good to check on TTC for price suggestions for furnishing plans before consuming them. Some plans are so rare in this game that you can become a multi millionaire from selling just one plan.

JoDiMageio

Eat what you don't know, sell what you do.

I was given the advice (the wrong advice imo) to sell expensive motifs, only to realise that if I wanted to complete collections, do writs, etc., it would end up costing me more than the profit I would make. (I was also given the advice to destroy my survey and treasure maps until I was level 50, which led to me destroying CE maps... but I digress).

In my view, it's only worth selling the motifs you don't know for profit if you never plan on crafting or doing writs, or if you don't care about incomplete collections. If gold is your bottom line, sell. Anything else, it's worth it to learn them.

Gaeliannas

Marronsuisse wrote: »

Every time I pick up a motif I don't care for, my knee-jerk reaction is to sell it, because I am a poor and need gold. BUT I also really want writ vouchers, because I'm a housing junky and also because it seems like selling things bought from Rolis makes pretty decent gold.

So should I learn every motif I pick up in hopes of more sealed master writs and vouchers, and eventual payoff?

Or should I just sell every motif I don't want, and buy whatever furnishing plan I want from traders?

What do you guys do?

I just did the 25, then 50 achievement with the easiest to get & cheapest motifs on the market to meet it and gain the additional rewards from the crafting dailies. Also pretty sure partially completed books don't count, so no point in using one page worth a small fortune, if you aren't going to be able to collect the entire set, unless of course you just like it on an outfit.

I also did not notice any benefit between having collected 50 full motifs and collecting every motif set in the game.

Bat

JoDiMageio wrote: »

Eat what you don't know, sell what you do.

I was given the advice (the wrong advice imo) to sell expensive motifs, only to realise that if I wanted to complete collections, do writs, etc., it would end up costing me more than the profit I would make. (I was also given the advice to destroy my survey and treasure maps until I was level 50, which led to me destroying CE maps... but I digress).

In my view, it's only worth selling the motifs you don't know for profit if you never plan on crafting or doing writs, or if you don't care about incomplete collections. If gold is your bottom line, sell. Anything else, it's worth it to learn them.

Just wanted to point out that a great knowledge of motifs isn't strictly needed for neither crafting, nor for daily writs. What JoDiMageio refers to is a specific activity called "master writs", which in the cases of woodworking, clothing, and blacksmithing will require you to have specific knowledge of a specific chapter of a motif. For example, you can get a master writ requiring you to craft an Ancestor Silk Hat from the Seducer set in the Silver Rose style; in that case your writ can not be completed without having consumed the hats chapter of the Silver Rose motif.
It's entirely possible to make a lot of vouchers without a great knowledge of motifs, especially if you have access to Summerset and jewelry crafting.

WhiteCoatSyndrome

I teach anything my master crafter doesn’t already know to her, and if the motif is worth less than ~5-10k gold, I teach it to an alt, otherwise I sell it.

JoDiMageio

Bat wrote: »

Just wanted to point out that a great knowledge of motifs isn't strictly needed for neither crafting, nor for daily writs. What JoDiMageio refers to is a specific activity called "master writs", which in the cases of woodworking, clothing, and blacksmithing will require you to have specific knowledge of a specific chapter of a motif. For example, you can get a master writ requiring you to craft an Ancestor Silk Hat from the Seducer set in the Silver Rose style; in that case your writ can not be completed without having consumed the hats chapter of the Silver Rose motif.
It's entirely possible to make a lot of vouchers without a great knowledge of motifs, especially if you have access to Summerset and jewelry crafting.

It's also important to note that the more motifs you know, the greater the chance of getting master writs, which can grant a lot of vouchers.

It all depends on what your goals are, OP, and how you define "payoff"

Dagoth_Rac

Gaeliannas wrote: »

Marronsuisse wrote: »

Every time I pick up a motif I don't care for, my knee-jerk reaction is to sell it, because I am a poor and need gold. BUT I also really want writ vouchers, because I'm a housing junky and also because it seems like selling things bought from Rolis makes pretty decent gold.

So should I learn every motif I pick up in hopes of more sealed master writs and vouchers, and eventual payoff?

Or should I just sell every motif I don't want, and buy whatever furnishing plan I want from traders?

What do you guys do?

I just did the 25, then 50 achievement with the easiest to get & cheapest motifs on the market to meet it and gain the additional rewards from the crafting dailies. Also pretty sure partially completed books don't count, so no point in using one page worth a small fortune, if you aren't going to be able to collect the entire set, unless of course you just like it on an outfit.

I also did not notice any benefit between having collected 50 full motifs and collecting every motif set in the game.

There is diminishing returns on motif knowledge. Going from 0 to 10 motifs is a big increase in master writ drop rate. But going from 10 to 20 is significantly less increase, and going from 50 to 100 known is probably like a 0.000000000000000001% increase.

Gaeliannas

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

Gaeliannas wrote: »

Marronsuisse wrote: »

Every time I pick up a motif I don't care for, my knee-jerk reaction is to sell it, because I am a poor and need gold. BUT I also really want writ vouchers, because I'm a housing junky and also because it seems like selling things bought from Rolis makes pretty decent gold.

So should I learn every motif I pick up in hopes of more sealed master writs and vouchers, and eventual payoff?

Or should I just sell every motif I don't want, and buy whatever furnishing plan I want from traders?

What do you guys do?

I just did the 25, then 50 achievement with the easiest to get & cheapest motifs on the market to meet it and gain the additional rewards from the crafting dailies. Also pretty sure partially completed books don't count, so no point in using one page worth a small fortune, if you aren't going to be able to collect the entire set, unless of course you just like it on an outfit.

I also did not notice any benefit between having collected 50 full motifs and collecting every motif set in the game.

There is diminishing returns on motif knowledge. Going from 0 to 10 motifs is a big increase in master writ drop rate. But going from 10 to 20 is significantly less increase, and going from 50 to 100 known is probably like a 0.000000000000000001% increase.

Sounds about right with what I saw, which to the OP's point would be to collect a few sets, like 20-25, and sell the rest if you care more about the gold than having the styles. I will warn though, that you may decide someday to "catch'em all", and will be kicking yourself for selling them if that day rolls around, I know I did.

Marronsuisse

JoDiMageio wrote: »

It's also important to note that the more motifs you know, the greater the chance of getting master writs, which can grant a lot of vouchers.

It all depends on what your goals are, OP, and how you define "payoff"

Yeah, I should have said that that's specifically why I'm wondering if I should learn every motif - to increase my chances of getting master writs (I guess along with my chances of being able to actually fulfill them).

It's just really hard not to sell a motif for 50k+ because that's a lot of money to me right now! But I feel like I'm crippling my chances at master writs every time I do that. I only have four complete purple motifs.

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

There is diminishing returns on motif knowledge. Going from 0 to 10 motifs is a big increase in master writ drop rate. But going from 10 to 20 is significantly less increase, and going from 50 to 100 known is probably like a 0.000000000000000001% increase.

Gaeliannas wrote: »

Sounds about right with what I saw, which to the OP's point would be to collect a few sets, like 20-25, and sell the rest if you care more about the gold than having the styles. I will warn though, that you may decide someday to "catch'em all", and will be kicking yourself for selling them if that day rolls around, I know I did.

Ahh, okay, this is really good to know. I may focus on learning some more easy/cheap styles for now, and sell the more expensive ones I don't want until I'm hurting less for gold. I never regret having more gold

PvP_Exploiter

Learn = 0 gold

El_Borracho

whitecrow wrote: »

I always learn anything I don't have, no matter how valuable it is. Because maybe I'll never find that motif again.
I'm not concerned about the gold. I want to be knowledgeable.

This is exactly what I do. I have a master crafter, he gets all the motifs for writs. Then I sell any I already have. Some are fairly worthless (like Dremora), others can get 50K or higher (like Sea Giant or Icereach Coven). But typically, you can expect most motifs to go between 10K and 20K

phaneub17_ESO

I rarely see anyone asking for something crafted in a specific style except from new players. People would rather have the motif themselves so they can have that appearance permanently instead of on a single piece of gear on one character. If you're keeping it for yourself its only for the appearance and filling out master writs.

JoDiMageio

Marronsuisse wrote: »

JoDiMageio wrote: »

It's also important to note that the more motifs you know, the greater the chance of getting master writs, which can grant a lot of vouchers.

It all depends on what your goals are, OP, and how you define "payoff"

Yeah, I should have said that that's specifically why I'm wondering if I should learn every motif - to increase my chances of getting master writs (I guess along with my chances of being able to actually fulfill them).

It's just really hard not to sell a motif for 50k+ because that's a lot of money to me right now! But I feel like I'm crippling my chances at master writs every time I do that. I only have four complete purple motifs.

As someone who has been at it a while (and I am not assuming anything about how long you've been in game), I have learned that gold happens. You make it doing basic dailies, you make it selling mats, you make it during quests. Eventually you have it, and you have enough of it.

I think it's a question of how much gold do you need (for how you want to play) vs how much gold do you want - and how quickly you want to make things happen. Your original post states you're a housing junkie, and as one myself, I can confidently state that it takes A LOT of gold to be creative and feel satisfied with housing.

So what are your priorities? What you can get with writs is limited, whereas what you can get with gold is unlimited.

Do you want to make and build your own furniture (learning the stuff you can buy with writs to build it) or do you want to decorate (requiring gold)?
Are you a collector of achievements and want to know a lot of motifs?
Do you like doing master writs, or do you want to spend your time collecting mats and motifs to sell for gold to buy furniture?
Do you want to have full collections of motifs you love? The law of diminishing returns is a consideration - you could sell motifs you know you'll never wear and eat those you love/appreciate, allowing for a middle ground.

It comes down to what you want writs for vs what you want gold for.

There are a ton of ways to go about it, all depending on your playstyle and priorities.

That being said, I will still stick by my original advice of eat what you don't know and sell what you do, because as others have stated, you might be hard-pressed to come by that page again, and when you do, you might have to pay a pretty penny for it.

captainwolfos

My main crafter has first pickings on the motif pages I collect, and now, thanks to AWA, I no longer care if anyone else of my characters get them.

As long as at least one of my characters unlocks the Style, which logically means my main crafter, then I'm happy to sell the rest.

jaws343

I learn every motif and plan on my main first before selling subsequent copies. Sure, you don't make gold off the first one to drop, but then every single one after that is profit. And, you don't have to try to grind for it or buy it later.

What's great about learning them all, is eventually the Anniversary event is just pure gold. Coming into the event, I know every motif that can drop in game. So every page I get is a potential sale. And the same will likely go for next year and the year after if the event stays the same.

Necrotech_Master

i learn motifs, furnishing blueprints, and provisioning recipes on my main since he handles all my crafting (and has enough skill pts for full craft build and full normal build)

most of my alt toons only have points devoted in crafting for the passive to increase return on decon, and hirelings

...i still wish we could deconstruct food and potions/poisons, and yes i know it makes no sense lol, this is elder scrolls darnit and we have them magics lol

Marronsuisse

JoDiMageio wrote: »

It comes down to what you want writs for vs what you want gold for.

I want writs for furnishing plans and the potential to make gold, and I want gold for... gold, haha.

In the end having gold is more important than vouchers because I can use gold to buy furnishings or plans among everything else. But I guess I was just wondering if writ vouchers are a big source of gold in themselves, selling things from Rolis and Faustina.

But if as others have said it's largely the first ten completed motifs that affect drop rate, that makes me feel like I can have both - complete a few motifs, get those master writs, then sell any valuable motifs I don't want and buy any I do.

JoDiMageio wrote: »

That being said, I will still stick by my original advice of eat what you don't know and sell what you do, because as others have stated, you might be hard-pressed to come by that page again, and when you do, you might have to pay a pretty penny for it.

Yeh I spent 250k on the Honor Guard Shoulders to make an outfit I had in mind. No regretsss

I have a spending problem in this game

jaws343 wrote: »

What's great about learning them all, is eventually the Anniversary event is just pure gold. Coming into the event, I know every motif that can drop in game. So every page I get is a potential sale. And the same will likely go for next year and the year after if the event stays the same.

Very fair point, and what prompted my question, since this is my first Jubilee and I'm getting so many motifs I want to sell but also haven't learned.

Mythgard1967

WhiteCoatSyndrome wrote: »

I teach anything my master crafter doesn’t already know to her, and if the motif is worth less than ~5-10k gold, I teach it to an alt, otherwise I sell it.

this is exactly what I do as well.

JKorr

Marronsuisse wrote: »

Every time I pick up a motif I don't care for, my knee-jerk reaction is to sell it, because I am a poor and need gold. BUT I also really want writ vouchers, because I'm a housing junky and also because it seems like selling things bought from Rolis makes pretty decent gold.

So should I learn every motif I pick up in hopes of more sealed master writs and vouchers, and eventual payoff?

Or should I just sell every motif I don't want, and buy whatever furnishing plan I want from traders?

What do you guys do?

Pick flowers. Pick mushrooms. Mine ore. Sell the mats for gold. Use any motif my main doesn't know, sell the ones she does.

NettleCarrier

I earn a great deal of money and experience completing master writs, and even used that to furnish a guild hall. I think it paid off for sure in the long run, but I also knew I'd be at it for at least a few years

El_Borracho

@Marronsuisse There is a market out there for writs, especially non-jewelry writs for 80+ vouchers in return. You can make quite a bit selling those. Jewelry writs in the base traits can also sell easily.

As for furnishings, as you pointed out, there is a market for those as well. So you could do enough writs to build a rare furnishing for yourself, then make extras to sell.

I suppose it depends on how much gold you want and what you like to do in the game. Because you can make a lot of gold quickly by doing vet trial plunder runs, get a TON of gold if you can get a monster motif from the dungeon of the month, or by selling gold glyphs.

Jaimeh

Marronsuisse wrote: »

Every time I pick up a motif I don't care for, my knee-jerk reaction is to sell it, because I am a poor and need gold. BUT I also really want writ vouchers, because I'm a housing junky and also because it seems like selling things bought from Rolis makes pretty decent gold.

So should I learn every motif I pick up in hopes of more sealed master writs and vouchers, and eventual payoff?

Or should I just sell every motif I don't want, and buy whatever furnishing plan I want from traders?

What do you guys do?

You can definitely make gold by selling writs or items that you can buy with writ vouchers, but learning motifs also has an extra advantage: if you sell the motif and don't learn it, and at some point you decide you want to buy it, it could be very expensive, depending on the style.

Kalik_Gold

Sell for Gold, learn for Fashion.

JoDiMageio

Marronsuisse wrote: »

JoDiMageio wrote: »

That being said, I will still stick by my original advice of eat what you don't know and sell what you do, because as others have stated, you might be hard-pressed to come by that page again, and when you do, you might have to pay a pretty penny for it.

Yeh I spent 250k on the Honor Guard Shoulders to make an outfit I had in mind. No regretsss

I have a spending problem in this game

I hear you... I spent an obscene amount of money on some jerkin/robes styles for fashion/rp purposes only