Rare crafting motifs, is the "nerf" a myth?

Locke_ESO

There has undoubtedly been a stealth nerf to rare motif drop rates and also rare racial crafting items such as daedric hearts and paladium dropping from chests/drawers/cupboards etc. Anyone who was actively farming them before will tell you this is true and this is what is driving the extreme high sale price of motifs now.

While there will never be solid proof that this has been happened unless a dev says something or someone analyses the game files the most obvious answer to your question is that the amount of VR5+ players has increased exponentially while the amount of motifs on sale has dropped. If the drop rate was stable still then you certainly wouldn't expect to see a drop in motifs on sale but rather a large increase and price drop. There is no way a small group of people could control the price of these items to the extent you seem to be suggesting.

NoMoreChillies

Sendarya wrote: »

NoMoreChillies wrote: »

opening week common motifs sold for 1k-1.5k. Now they sell for <700g.
why havent rare motifs dropped by the same percentage??

there is your answer

There could be many answers, including that there are many people who are easily fooled by a few sky is falling chicken little's. Those who have access to those 4 motifs can only get them in vet areas, and can, clearly, easily fool people in the lvl 1-50 areas into paying a ton for them because those people perceive their rarity to be higher than it is.

What did Barnum say? THERE is your actual answer.

Vet tank 7 atm
searched everywhere i can
found 0 rare motifs

lemme know how rare motifs many you find

randomriffyrocksprerb18_ESO

I tend to more likely find them in Veteran dungeons, oops did I spill the secret?

Trenchfoot

meglon978ub17_ESO wrote: »

Just an update, as it got to nagging at my few remaining brain cells:

http://www.gamebreaker.tv/games/elder-scrolls-online-mmorpg/patch-notes-for-elder-scrolls-onlines-first-major-update/

....a touch more than half way down the list:

"Itemization

The rate at which you can earn racial motifs and provisioning recipes from lootable containers and furniture has been slightly reduced."

Whether that's gone live, or whether people are simply reacting to the odd spike in "empty" containers starting with v.06... well, i don't have an answer for that.

They say "slightly reduced" but I've not seen a recipe or motif drop since that patch.

wrlifeboil

Sendarya wrote: »

balmung127eb17_ESO wrote: »

The prices got higher because vr motifs are very very rare now ppl that are selling them keeped them from before the fix and selling them now for much more than it was before... thats all and as long as ppl pay the price it will not change on EU Server at Dominion prices for motifs are:

Dedric > 200k+ (was sold for 500k highest)
Ancient Elf > 135k+
Babaric > 85k+
Primal > 50k+
Others > 1k+

So again, what proof do you have that anything was changed aside from the logging in and out style of farming (which needed fizing, btw)? Got a Dev statement or patch note? Or just anecdotal evidence from a handful of people, usually the people selling them? Yeah....I don't trust them. there are far too many being sold each day for them just to be "reserve" from before.

The prices on the NA server are roughly half of that, even after the supposed "nerf". I guess I'm glad I'm not playing on the EU server if you guys are getting THAT ripped off.

Maybe more players on the EU megaserver care about their outfits. Supply and demand.

Unless there was a way to transfer motifs between the NA megaserver and EU server megaserver, there's no reason why the prices for individual motifs couldn't be wildly different.

SadisticSavior

vyal wrote: »

Here's some "facts", Sendarya, since you doubt anecdotal evidence.

I used to get over sixty recipes in an hour from opening furniture. (green, blue, motifs, whatever)

Now I get six recipes, or less, in an hour from opening furniture. (and only greens, rarely blues, never motifs)

In point of fact, personally, I have never seen a motif drop, since 1.0.6, across all characters, ranging from level 3 to 16, 24 to 31, and VR1 to VR3.

I've had at least 4 since that patch. And those are just from the bank... I have not been going out of my way to farm them for a while now.

Sendarya

SadisticSavior wrote: »

vyal wrote: »

Here's some "facts", Sendarya, since you doubt anecdotal evidence.

I used to get over sixty recipes in an hour from opening furniture. (green, blue, motifs, whatever)

Now I get six recipes, or less, in an hour from opening furniture. (and only greens, rarely blues, never motifs)

In point of fact, personally, I have never seen a motif drop, since 1.0.6, across all characters, ranging from level 3 to 16, 24 to 31, and VR1 to VR3.

I've had at least 4 since that patch. And those are just from the bank... I have not been going out of my way to farm them for a while now.

Only negative personal experiences count, didn't you know? It's confirmation bias at it's worst on this forum.

P.S people, it's not a conspiracy of thousands of players. It takes ONE person freaking out on the forums (or even possibly a few goldfarmers trying to inflate prices for their own benefit?), and lot of people not realizing that RNG is RNG and that they might just be having bad luck, and the next thing you know, rumor has turned into "fact". And the goldsellers (and farmers) rejoice!

Is it possible that the motif drop rate was lowered? Yes. Is there anything to back it up aside from a handful of people complaining on the forums? No. At least, not that I have seen.

In game they are still constantly for sale, the number I see for sale has not changed in recent weeks, yet the prices have gone up (well, to clarify, the prices have attempted to go up. but I do see more people laughing at the high prices and slapping them down again. Good for those people!).

The explanation for the prices rising is that people are claiming they are rarer, heard it through the grapevine style, true or not. The prices between the EU server and the NA server are HUGELY different, even though drop rates are presumably the same. So yes, prices can fluctuate madly because of many reasons, rumor of scarcity being one. Actual scarcity being another. I just don't see any evidence of actual scarcity.

And funnily while having this argument, I've looted 3 in 2 days. Plus a purple lvl 45 recipe. Go me!!

Did any of you people live through the gasoline scares of the 70's and 80's, where people were told gas was going to be scarce and prices skyrocketed, but then....turns out it was just hype to raise prices. Actually, this happens to some small extent every spring break and summer.

I'm just saying, read the play experiences of people who have NOT noticed a change, either positive or negative. There or MORE people on these forums who claim they have never looted a motif even though they started in early release than there are people claiming they just recently stopped getting them. It's probably just....RNG.

Sendarya

Trenchfoot wrote: »

meglon978ub17_ESO wrote: »

Just an update, as it got to nagging at my few remaining brain cells:

http://www.gamebreaker.tv/games/elder-scrolls-online-mmorpg/patch-notes-for-elder-scrolls-onlines-first-major-update/

....a touch more than half way down the list:

"Itemization

The rate at which you can earn racial motifs and provisioning recipes from lootable containers and furniture has been slightly reduced."

Whether that's gone live, or whether people are simply reacting to the odd spike in "empty" containers starting with v.06... well, i don't have an answer for that.

They say "slightly reduced" but I've not seen a recipe or motif drop since that patch.

That patch has not been implemented yet.

jircris11

i am quite skilled at getting prices i want when buying items on ESO. I ended up getting AE/Barb/Prim and daed for 100k total. Took some smooth talking but, the best thing about dealing with the seller directly is i can get a very fair price. I learned a long time ago not to just hand them the gold, try and get them to lower the price if they say no then ignore them because they only want money. You will find those out there willing to haggle.

Shamusangus_24

I bought barbaric for 25k last week. have not used. will sell for 200k or your soul. Psst.

andreas.rudroffb16_ESO

here some facts:

the day that the 1.0.6 Patch was rolled out to the servers, the loot in the veteran zones changed (loot in crates, wardrobes, desks ....)

this not only affected VETERAN motifes (primal, barbaric, ancient elf, daedric) but also crafting matierials for them (e.g. daedra hearts) and rare provisioning recipes

days before the patch 1.0.6. zos got aware of the "farmers" of motifes by a forum thread "is logging in/out a exploit to farm motifes" in that they stated "thats working as intended but we consider some changes".

I assume it was a quick&dirty block of that motif farming (as i say just for the veteran zones)

since then i NEVER found any veteran motif in crates etc, but there are rarely some in backbacks and urns now (very very rare)

Nickdorlandb16_ESO

Ancient elf + deadric have been nerfed, others not

Goldov

Personally I think that the drop rate has been reduced only for those that are trying to log out and back in to reset the instance. I was trying to find some Primal and Barbaric motifs and was farming an area where the loot was getting worse and worse as I would go along (ie. Got two recipes first run and almost everything was at least lootable, by the third, fourth and fifth run I wasn't getting any recipes and a lot of the containers were empty to begin and a lot more lockpicks).

I would hazard to guess that something may have been done to prevent that but otherwise if you play normally and look around and loot everything you come across normally you would find more. I certainly find that to be true as I usually come across more recipes and better items this way. Of course this is my personal account and by no means an indication of what someone else might experience.

That being said I still haven't gotten the motifs but I'm not saying that they have been nerfed as I wasn't in VR before 1.06 anyway so I have nothing to compare it with.

Ashlynne

Sendarya wrote: »

Gillysan wrote: »

OTH the day you find one, well you just struck gold. There is no magic to this and even though their might be a nerf to drop rate, the fact remains they are still dropping. Which means you will eventually get one while playing the game.

I know they are still dropping. My entire point in the OP was to point this out, that they are dropping, and still at a pretty high rate, since there are always some for sale in chat. So I wasn't complaining that I haven't got one....

What I meant by Artificial Inflation is that there is NO PROOF of the reduced drop rate, yet everyone seems to be wielding it like a weapon to drive prices up.

My personal opinion is that they nerfed farming them by the log-in log out method, but not just randomly looting during regular play.

I guess my point is that the NERF to MOTIF DROPS is just a RUMOR. I'm tired of people acting like (and even incorrectly stating) that it is a dev confirmed thing that happened.

Sorry for caps, frustrated, and I wanted to shorten and clarify my point.

It's not a rumor. It's quite true, sadly. Drop rates were nerfed significantly.

redwoodtreesprite

I can only get the basic racial books, but here is what I have noticed:

There is no change in the chance of getting a racial motif book, but recipes above green are incredibly rare now. I have not gotten a single one since the changes. Perhaps those are in the loot table that has the container being empty after being clicked. With the empty being over 80% of the time and a lockpick most of the rest of the time.

I have also been getting almost none of the blue/purple recipe ingredients. Where before I was getting a reasonable amount of them.

Sendarya

What is really odd to me is that I have SOOO many blue recipes I can barely sell them. I've gotten the crab cakes one (lvl 50 blue) twice in 2 days (one from a mob drop, one from a container in Coldharbour), and people were offering me like 300g for one. I went to lower level areas and managed to sell them both for 800 each, but it took time and haggling.

1 to 2 weeks ago, I could EASILY sell my duplicate blue recipes for 1k, sometimes 1.5k. Seems like there are so many for sale the market is saturated. Hardly seems rare....
So from my experience, blues recipes are not that rare. Like I said, I'm getting duplicates and sometimes triplicates just from killing mobs and looting containers IN the quest area I'm in, not going out of my way.

I just don't see the rarity. Maybe I'll hit a string of bad luck soon, but right now, I'm getting about 1 blue recipe a day maybe one every other day and slightly less motifs, but still about 2 or 3 a week. Purple recipes are appropriately rare (they should NOT be common), and I'm happy with having found 2 in 48 levels, and I bought 2 others.

The thing is, we are having different experiences, yet the people who are having the less loot experience are somehow more valid than those who's loot seems unchanged (or even those who have had better luck! They are here in this thread and many others too)....why? Why is everyone assuming the poor luck people are the ones who's experience is valid?

How many poor luck people used the log-in/log-out method? Because THAT method I am certain and agree has been nerfed, and it needed to be. I think average players are experiencing the same, with perhaps a run of better or worse luck.

Maybe it would help to make a poll, but still we'd only be sampling the forum population, and we all know people who are happily getting plenty of drops are not here complaining, we will mostly see the unhappy people here....

redwoodtreesprite

I see lots of the high level blue recipes for sale. I am talking about low level ones. Ones for lower than the close to vet level food.

Sunrock

SadisticSavior wrote: »

balmung127eb17_ESO wrote: »

The prices got higher because vr motifs are very very rare now ppl that are selling them keeped them from before the fix and selling them now for much more than it was before... thats all and as long as ppl pay the price it will not change on EU Server at Dominion prices for motifs are:

Dedric > 200k+ (was sold for 500k highest)
Ancient Elf > 135k+
Babaric > 85k+
Primal > 50k+
Others > 1k+

LOL, no one is paying over 1k for common motifs. Ever. Have not seen it happen even once. 700gp is considered very expensive for a common motif.

@SadisticSavior I have sold several on the EU server for 1500 of the more common motifs.

Sunrock

ShADoW0s wrote: »

balmung127eb17_ESO wrote: »

The prices got higher because vr motifs are very very rare now ppl that are selling them keeped them from before the fix and selling them now for much more than it was before... thats all and as long as ppl pay the price it will not change on EU Server at Dominion prices for motifs are:

Dedric > 200k+ (was sold for 500k highest)
Ancient Elf > 135k+
Babaric > 85k+
Primal > 50k+
Others > 1k+

I highly doubt it will stay like that, if someone is willing to buy for that amount then good, but I rather buy upgrade mats, and get someone who already know how to make the armor for 10k or something lol. IDK the reasoning of some people.

@ShADoW0s Yea... For it to be worth buying Dedric for 200k you have to be able to sell dedric armor for 10k more just because it's dedric... then they just ask for it to be rearguard or something else to save money. Because in the end of the day, Stats > Look.

Ytterin

Yeah, I can verify that I have not seen a single drop of anything blue or above in terms of recipes or motifs since the adjustment.
The big problem is that it doesn't fix the issue of people just constantly checking, it makes it worse. Not because it is more rewarding, but because now to get the darn things you HAVE to farm for them... or pay outrageous prices.
There are a number of solutions that would have been better, like limiting the times you can check any given container in a day, or by simply stating it was unacceptable to farm for these and that bans would happen. Instead it becomes a punishment of the rest of the playerbase because people were doing something Zenimax didn't want. Personally, I just decided that I don't care, and I'm not even looking as of now... it's pointless, and I can just enjoy a different style that doesn't suck the fun out of the game to get.

Should someone from Zenimax read this, please forward the issue that legitimate players can't find anything anymore due to this... and that this is the wrong fix.

taylorwilenskiub17_ESO

balmung127eb17_ESO wrote: »

The prices got higher because vr motifs are very very rare now ppl that are selling them keeped them from before the fix and selling them now for much more than it was before... thats all and as long as ppl pay the price it will not change on EU Server at Dominion prices for motifs are:

Dedric > 200k+ (was sold for 500k highest)
Ancient Elf > 135k+
Babaric > 85k+
Primal > 50k+
Others > 1k+

I would love to know how anyone on this game has 500k to spend...

SteveCampsOut

I found barbaric yesterday during my first day in the VR1 Stonefalls area! Why should I pay ludicrous prices?

RomedyMC

I firmly believe the mechanics have changed in a way that favors me as a casual player. I have found so many green and blue recipes along with a Primal motif by continuing to search every container I come across...

... in new, previously unexplored places.

I have had the most success in solo-dungeons and NPC houses outside of towns/cities.

The very first wardrobe/dresser/trunk I search inside a city generally yields a green (sometimes blue) recipe, then every other container is either empty, has a lockpick, or a white provisioning item.

I have never logged in/out to farm things.

World exploration has provided me the best results and I have seen a drastic increase in the number of motifs/recipes I have gotten post-mythical nerf.

Stop trying to cheat the system and go get rewarded for exploration as intended.

Sendarya

@RomedyMC, I actually think that is very insightful.

I too play "as intended", just looting things as I go along, and am still getting drops as normal. I think if there was a "nerf", it was to those who log in/log out loot. And that needed changing. If this is the case, it does indeed reward normal play.

Of course, people have different experiences, and I'd like to point out again there is a strong negative confirmation bias going on about this "nerf". People seem to be overlooking the HUNDREDS of people claiming they have not noticed a change, or even have been getting more drops lately, and only paying attention to or giving any credence to those who have recently been finding less.

That is why I personally think the idea that in general the drops have been nerfed is a myth. I see absolutely no evidence for it, not only in my own gameplay, but on the forums, and in the game itself, where plenty of recipes and motifs are still for sale.

SirAndy

vyal wrote: »

In point of fact, personally, I have never seen a motif drop, since 1.0.6, across all characters, ranging from level 3 to 16, 24 to 31, and VR1 to VR3.

I got two less than 10 minutes apart last night ...


PS: Also sold 4 normal ones in the guild store for 666g each over the weekend. They had been sitting there for a good 15 days. Seems like people are believing the panic about how "rare" drops are supposed to be now.

RomedyMC

Sendarya wrote: »

Of course, people have different experiences, and I'd like to point out again there is a strong negative confirmation bias going on about this "nerf". People seem to be overlooking the HUNDREDS of people claiming they have not noticed a change, or even have been getting more drops lately, and only paying attention to or giving any credence to those who have recently been finding less.

This.

Spidermonk

I've found 0 motifs over the past few weeks and I play at least 5 hours every day. Not even the regular racial ones...perhaps it's cause I'm a nightblade? (The passives are broken, why not motif drops?) :P

I'm starting to think that you won't find motifs of what you already have, or at least they inadvertently made it that way when they changed stuff around. (I got all of the regular racial motifs a week or so after launch)

SDZald

Sendarya wrote: »

....

Is it possible that the motif drop rate was lowered? Yes. Is there anything to back it up aside from a handful of people complaining on the forums? No. At least, not that I have seen.

...

Seems strange with all the threads and talk about this that we haven't seen a Dev come out and say " Naaaa you guys are over reacting we didn't nerf drops."


Of course if it is true then they will stay mummm, let guys like you do their work and hope it all blows over.

SirAndy

Spidermonk wrote: »

I'm starting to think that you won't find motifs of what you already have, or at least they inadvertently made it that way when they changed stuff around. (I got all of the regular racial motifs a week or so after launch)

@Spidermonk
Nope, the last two i found were at least quadruplicates, if not quintuplicates ...
;-)

Morimizo

ZedalisDesign wrote: »

This change is unfortunate because I can 100% guarantee most players will have less incentive to loot containers at all now, considering (at least by my own statistics), it's a complete waste of time and you will get nothing of value 99% of the time. It renders another dynamic part of the game a bit useless.

Though I've also noticed a significant drop in blue recipes/motifs, I would not mind this near as much if the chance to find something was mine alone, and not purloined previously by a legion of bots. Why is the design to have enemy loot instanced but not the containers? Surely this wouldn't flood the market with rares, if properly balanced. Zenimax can lower the rate to .001% (Ancient Elf motif, for example) if we all get a chance at that .001%. Much better than EMPTY, or the dreaded search desk to find that it's EMPTY. Pet peeve right now, that. If the container can be searched, there should at least be a lockpick. Or some lovely congealed goat bits with a side of stale radishes. How long has this stuff been in the desk anyway?