Understanding Daily Writs - level scaling and other things

Lithium Flower · April 2015

Hi,

I have a dedicated crafter that supplies items not only to my 2 veteran main characters but also to my friends and guildies. His character level is veteran 1, he has 135 skill points, 100 of them invested into the 6 crafting professions.

All my crafting skills are level 50 (Clothing, Blacksmithing, Woodworking, Enchanting, Alchemy and Provisioning). I have skill points invested in every passive in every skill line with the exception of Keen Eye (Alchemy only) and the self-buff passives for Provisioning and Alchemy (Gourmand, Connoisseur, Snakeblood etc).

I've done every quest in the DC areas, the fighter's guild and Mage's guild and have Hero of the Daggerfall Covenent, Fighter's Guild Victor and Master Wizard titles. I have not touched the main quest (because it doesn't make rp sense for a crafter to stop a daedric invasion in my mind) and he's currently parked in Belkarth, Craglorn.

I'm trying to do the writs.

First day, I pulled a writ and I got level 40 ones across the board demanding ebonthread, ebony and yew wood items. Solution of etc, filtered water for Alchemy and level 40 food and drinks for provisioning as well as Strong Glyph for Enchanting. I did the consumables writs and my rewards were also scaled to level 40. It was extremely disappointing and made no sense. Why level 40? I am veteran rank 1, I can create veteran rank 9-14 items. I have oodles of stock for those levels and none for level 40.

I abandoned the equipment writs, turned in the consumables only that day.

Next day, I got writs again from the boards. This time they were scaled to veteran 14. The equipment writs asked for voidstone, voidcloth and nightwood items. The food I was required to prepare was v5, the potions v5 and the enchantments v9-14 glyphs. I did all the writs and obtained rewards at that level. I was satisfied.

Today, I pull writs and it's level 40 again.

I don't understand why this is happening. I only take Craglorn writs. How do they scale? I want to do max level writs and that's it. Why am I randomly asked to do level 40 writs which is related to neither my level, nor my location nor the level of my crafting skills.

Oliviander · April 2015

Hi,
I have my crafter (nearly same as yours: all 50 and 106 skillpoints in crafting) stationed
in Belkarth, Craglorn and
I am pulling the writs there.
I only do consumables.
And always get the highest ones.
Only thing that is different is that my Char is Veteran 11
and I have all keen eye skills maxed out too
but I am lacking some passives in Alchemy and Provisioning
(laboratry use and the ones that make more potions and rations)
as I have other chars that are doing those and delivering these
to my writs char in craglorn

UrQuan · April 2015

No matter how high your crafting level is, you'll never get writs beyond the level of the writs that are turned in in your last alliance zone until you've progressed enough to be sent to Coldharbour by the main quest. This is because without the help of people on your friends list, guild roster, or in a group with you, you can't reach Coldharbour until you've started the appropriate part of the main quest, and they don't want to give you a writ that has to be delivered to a zone you may not be able to get to.

Likewise, even if you're level 50 in the craft with maxed out passives, and have received the part of the main quest that sends you to Coldharbour, you will never get any writs of a level that must be delivered to Craglorn if you are not yet at least VR1.

It's actually a pretty smart system - it would just be nice if they spelled out the logic behind it somewhere.

Lithium Flower · April 2015

That makes no sense. Why don't you get writs scaled to the level of the area you are in and your crafting level. I did receive and was able to do v14/Craglorn level writs yesterday and now I get level 40 again. What do I need to do to just get Craglorn writs?

Nestor · April 2015

Try this, go to Craglorn and pull the writs there. See what level they are. That is, if you have access to Craglorn.

I have not seen the levels change from day to day and I have VR's doing low level, mid level and top level writs (chasing recipes) I also have low level mules doing low level writs.

Also, send in a /bug on this issue.

UrQuan · April 2015

Lithium Flower wrote: »

That makes no sense. Why don't you get writs scaled to the level of the area you are in and your crafting level. I did receive and was able to do v14/Craglorn level writs yesterday and now I get level 40 again. What do I need to do to just get Craglorn writs?

You need to do the main quest. The game looks for certain things to make sure you're able to get to the zone where you need to deliver the writ. If you haven't done the main quest up to the point where you get sent to Coldharbour, then the games knows that you won't be able to get there without someone else's help, so it won't send you to any zone higher than the last zone of your alliance. If you're not at least VR1 then the game knows that you can't access Craglorn at all (even with someone else's help), so it won't send you to any zone higher than Coldharbour. Those 2 rules are both in play. You satisfy the second rule, but not the first, so you won't be sent to any zone higher than the last full zone of your alliance. It makes perfect sense.

Tarukmockto · April 2015

@UrQuan: If that's ^^ the case, and his VR1 character is pulling his writs only from Belkarth, why is he also getting V14 writs that have to be turned in to Craglorn?

Do you think it's because his VR1 character isn't 'really' VR1? It's slipping back and forth between the lvl50/VR1 blur without completing the Main Questline?

UrQuan · April 2015

Tarukmockto wrote: »

@UrQuan: If that's ^^ the case, and his VR1 character is pulling his writs only from Belkarth, why is he also getting V14 writs that have to be turned in to Craglorn?

Because somehow I totally missed that part of his post...

Dang. My bad. No that doesn't make sense.

Maybe it's getting confused because the 2 rules (ie. you can't have to turn in a writ beyond your last faction zone if you haven't done the main quest, and you can't have to turn in a writ in Craglorn unless you're VR1+) aren't written very well, so sometimes one is taking precedence over the other, and sometimes vice versa.

Like if the rules are written along the lines of:
Turn in writ in zones as follows:
Rank 1 Auridon/Glenumbra/Stonefalls
Rank 2 Grahtwood/Stormhaven/Deshaan
Rank 3 Greenshade/Rivenspire/Shadowfen
Rank 4 Malabal Tor/Alik'r/Eastmarch
Rank 5 Reaper's March/Bangkorai/The Rift
Rank 6 Coldharbour
Rank 7-9 Craglorn
IF Character has not completed stage X of Main Quest max rank for writ is 5
IF Character level is > 50 max rank for writ is 9

Where those 2 IF rules aren't set to run in a particular order, and whichever one happens to be run first is the one that applies.

Tarukmockto · April 2015

UrQuan wrote: »

Maybe it's getting confused because the 2 rules (ie. you can't have to turn in a writ beyond your last faction zone if you haven't done the main quest, and you can't have to turn in a writ in Craglorn unless you're VR1+) aren't written very well, so sometimes one is taking precedence over the other, and sometimes vice versa.

I think that's it in a nutshell! I can imagine that someone might have made the assumption that a player wouldn't reach VR1 without having done the main quest line, so why bother to take that consideration into account when coding the decision tree.

It's always something. Definitely /bug it.

Lithium Flower · April 2015

I did /help it since they do not reply to /bugs but I guess the weekend rush prevented them from getting back to me and also prevented me from doing anything more competitive or demanding than questing in the least populated zone, so I went ahead and completed the Quest 'Messages Across Tamriel' which sent me to Cold Harbour. Since then, I have not gotten lvl 40 writs and they seem to scale to v9-14 and v5 (for provisioning and alchemy).

I guess the problem is resolved but this is a silly issue that shouldn't be bothering crafting alts. I'll reply to the support email when they get back to me with a link to this thread so they can look further into it.