Crafting Motif 47: Buoyant Armiger - Drop Chance Inadequacy!

laniakea_0

I'd like to discuss the atrocity that is the drop chance of this item.
This is the situation: The motif chapters and very rarely the whole book have a chance to be found in Treasure Chests around Vvardenfell and The Halls of Fabrication. This is the only way to generate this item. As anyone who has tried looking for this motif knows, it's practically impossible to find. Treasure Chests, if they spawn, are generally well hidden. You basically have to scour every corner and compartment of a set area to find them. It is even harder to find an Advanced difficulty or even Master difficulty chest. On the rare occasion that you do find a Master Chest, the chest with the best possible drop chance modifiers, it's not even a guaranteed drop. I've heard reports of other players that try to farm this motif and don't get even a single chapter after opening hundreds of chest including 10+ Master Chests. I can't speak to how close to the average these numbers are but this is a pretty common outcome as far as I can tell. It is not surprising that the TTC suggested price for these chapters is generally between 40k and 60k with the Chest-pieces between 100k and 120k.

Now, lets compare this to another Motif that holds the same role within its Chapter expansion. The Psijic Motif from Summerset. This Motif's Chapters also drops from Treasure Chests and yet they sell for less than a tenth of the Bouyant Armiger Motif. There appear to be 2 reasons for that:
1. The drop chance from Treasure Chests is significantly higher
2. It drops from other sources too!
That's right, it also drops from Abyssal Geysers and Pools, Delve Bosses and World Bosses.

These 2 motifs fulfill the same role. They are Overworld rewards for the Morrowind and Summerset Chapters respectively. In my opinion that sets them equal in function and value. There is room for a difference in value due to different challenges one would have to overcome to obtain either but I really don't understand how ZOS could possible justify such a large difference in overall drop chance between these 2 Motifs!

I believe that the Buoyant Armiger Motif should be that abundant as well! It could perhaps be tied to more challenging content than the Psijic motif since there is no way to improve the drop chances through skill line progression for this motif. By my estimation, the drop chance of Buoyant Armiger Chapters from high-level content (such as World bosses and perhaps Master Chests) should be similar to the drop chances of Psijic Chapters from mid-level content (Abyssal Geysers and Delve Bosses) at maxed out skill line progression.That is assuming that the drop chances of both Motifs improve with the difficulty/rarity of the source. Now, Vvardenfell doesn't have Dolmens of any kind and no mini invasion events throughout it's map. That rules them out as a possible source for this Motif. To stay consistent with that missing activity, I think it wouldn't necessarily have to drop from Delves either since they are very similar in difficulty level. However, it absolutely should drop from World Bosses. They are challenging and warrant an appropriate reward like this Motif.

Piojo

I'd agree with having a small chance of dropping from world bosses. It would certainly add some traffic to VVardenfell outside of Vivec City and the safebox farming routes.

Just a quick addition, though: the motif also has a small chance of dropping from psijic portals. The chance to get one also seems a little higher than finding a master chest and having it drop (i've gotten two chest pieces, swords, and hands from portals despite farming Vvardenfell regularly since even before Summerset debuted). In contrast, I've only had one motif drop from farming master chests.

laniakea_0

indeed. Master chest ought to have a significantly higher drop chance

Haenk

laniakea_0 wrote: »

the TTC suggested price for these chapters is generally between 40k and 60k with the Chest-pieces between 100k and 120k.

That's actually cheap? There are other motifs going for 5-10 times the price.
In the time you spent to find and open hundreds of chests, you could have easily farmed the money to buy the whole set.

laniakea_0

Not all problems can be solved through money and I assure you this is not "cheap" by any measure. This motif doesn't come out of nowhere. Even if you buy it, someone still has to find it first. and sometimes that means there are none for sale at all. Certainly not at a reasonable price. And all because they are unjustifiably hard to find. Also, you're probably comparing this to Motifs which don't drop from the Overworld which is a completely different situation.

Haenk

What is a "reasonable price"? 1k, 100g? Like 5 minutes worth of farming stuff? 1 minute worth of farming stuff?

And why has everything to be cheap as in "almost free", "available all the time in unlimted quantities"?

If it's nowhere to be found in a guild store (which I doubt), check back next week. Easy as that. Unless you want everything today, so you are able to stop playing next week.
There are *lots* of people playing, so even ultra-rare items are constantly being found, there is a steady flow.

laniakea_0

You're still missing the point. Someone still has to find it first and it is too hard to find, because the effort needed is so much higher than the pay-off. An unreasonably price would be a price that's been inflated way above the average price. This only works because of scarcity, not demand. And just because something is affordable, doesn't make it cheap. Sure, I could farm something else to get the money to buy this from someone else but that's not the issue people take with this Motif. The point is that the drop chance is simply inadequate for this type of item.

tmbrinks

They aren't worth that much because they drop like candy at Halloween during the anniversary event. Yes, the normal sourcing is rare, but they are one of the more common drops during the event.

laniakea_0

Buoyant Armiger? really? can't say that's been my experience. Not that it matters. the intended sourcing is still atrocious.

katanagirl1

The drop rate on everything in Vvardenfell is vanishingly small, but these motif pages are actually quite reasonably priced compared to other less rare drops there are elsewhere.

Just look at the purple Druidic furnishing plans (not the cheap Firesong lava plans). They drop more frequently than those motif pages but are 700k to 2 mil gold on my server.

xilfxlegion

i have opened thousands of chests in vvardenfell --- i usually get a motif page on average of every 12 chests.

that being said there is an easier way of getting them.

the maps typically sell for around 500 gold in most traders ---- and all of the treasure maps with the exception of map 4 have random chests that spawn near them.

Map 1 for instance --- there are two random chests on the way to it - and then two on the other side of it -
map 2 has a random chest that spawns about 6 feet from it
map 3 has a random chest and a heavy sack that spawns about 20 feet away
map 5 - there is a wooden bridge next to the wayshrine - one spawns under there -- and then on the other side of it another one spawns.
map 6 --- a random chest spawns 20 feet away from it - next to a pair of shalks ---- and then if you drop down on the other side of it there is another random spawn.

i usually have around 30 vvardenfell maps in my mail --- and i take the same loop every time i do it --- this will give you a lot more drops and also war maiden stuff and telvanni paintings.

CGPsaint

I've farmed countless chests in Vvardenfell and I've never had a page drop, so I can definitely agree that the drop rate is abysmal. I completed my collection by buying pages cheap during the Anniversary Event.

exoib

I think people are missing the point that you need to complete the main quest of Vvardenfell to have higher drop rates, I personally got many motifs from my main character who has finished this zone, compared to my other characters. I don't know if after the account-wide achievement thingy the drop rates been effected in anyway.

laniakea_0

is that true? I completed Vvardenfell and my drop rates are still abysmal. do you mean to tell me it's even worse when you don't complete it?

exoib

laniakea_0 wrote: »

is that true? I completed Vvardenfell and my drop rates are still abysmal. do you mean to tell me it's even worse when you don't complete it?

yes apparently

laniakea_0

then there is absolutely no reason why it should have a lower drop rate from chests than Psijic!