Faction Motif drops

ericsparrow · March 2017

Hello everyone.

Its been my kinda mission over the last few months to get as many of these things as possible au naturel ( as it were ). For no other reason than, well I want them and its an achievable game goal. I have 3 characters who go into the Imperial city hunting down chests. My main ( Covenant ) who is maxed out in all crafting skill lines ( bar currently alchemy ) and has lots of motifs unlocked. A Sorceror ( Pact ) who has level 50 in blacksmithing/clothing/woodworking and the skillpoints invested to craft at top level but has only a minimal amount of motifs unlocked ( other than the ones that come in a complete book which are all done ). Finally a total non crafter ( Dominion ) who I just levelled to 50 specifically for this purpose - so no skill points invested, no motifs other than the default Almeri.

Anyway, so I cant say the actual amount of effort I've invested in each of them looking for motifs but the amount I have unlocked is significantly different. In the same order as above its 8/2/1. Bearing in mind also that because of faction I cant cross loot. So is there some additional factor I need to be aware of? I remember reading for some other motif ( assassins or dark brotherhood ) that having a motif learned increased the drop rate chance etc so does that perhaps apply here? Or maybe pvp level? Or perhaps the drop rate got nerfed in the time I was levelling up the third toon specifically to do this - which would be ironic ( but I don't think so cos the pact rate was low before that ).

Any help would be greatly appreciated

cheers

Taleof2Cities · March 2017

It's just poor RNG and there's no way to sugarcoat that unfortunately.

I empathize with your situation ... especially since you're trying to earn the motifs (legitimately) by rummaging through every IC chest you can get your hands on.

The Alliance motif achievement doesn't care if you find motif pages in chests or buy them in the guild stores or crown store. Not sure if that option is in the cards ... based on the candor of your opening post.

So, the best suggestion is to keep trying.

Are you willing to buy or trade for Cyrodiil treasure maps? Do you have the willpower to grind Cyrodiil overland chests? Those are another couple of options. Your PvP rank has no bearing on the drop.

To answer your other questions, Assassin's League is totally dependent on RNG as well. They drop plentifully on the two (2) world bosses in Gold Coast (Commander Panthius; Limenauruus). They will also drop on the delve bosses in Gold Coast ... an unfortunate move by ZOS that even today still sees players camping the bosses for motif drops.

You are on the right track regarding Dark Brotherhood motif drops. They are influenced, to a lesser extent, by DB motif pages already learned. Your character's level in the Dark Brotherhood skill line is also a factor. The higher the skill the better the drop chance. My Stam DK is almost maxed out in the discipline ... and receives a motif page about one in every three sacraments.

ericsparrow · March 2017

Damm.. in that case I have some sucky RNG. I can buy them but was kinda/am enjoying looking for them manually. Wouldn't buy the books from the crown store though as that would remove a big part of gameplay for me..

Regarding the DB stuff.. I get those with a 4th toon.. a NB who has done all the DB stuff and who I feed duplicate motifs to up the % chance despite having no crafting skills whatsoever.

Its strange there is such a difference between the drop rates of the three toons though. However I'm quite prepared to admit I may well have just done it a lot more than I realised with the Covenant one.

ericsparrow · March 2017

just picked one up from a master chest with my pact toon

Narvuntien · March 2017

I have mostly been looking to buy them.. RNG is stupid it is easier to farm gold and buy it.

I need one for a master writ, (which I haven't opened yet so I might give up and sell it)

Sordidfairytale · March 2017

As someone who also worked to get the faction motifs in a "legitimate" manner, I can feel your pain. Often as I scrounged through the chests I thought to myself, the motif shouldn't drop, instead it should be a vendor tradeable item like; siege plans, spy network documents, ambassador dossier, etc. that could be sold or traded to another player but ultimately used at a Cyrodiil vendor for the motifs.

This way when you get Dominion chests for the 19th time you won't pull your hair out!

ericsparrow · March 2017

Sordidfairytale wrote: »

As someone who also worked to get the faction motifs in a "legitimate" manner, I can feel your pain. Often as I scrounged through the chests I thought to myself, the motif shouldn't drop, instead it should be a vendor tradeable item like; siege plans, spy network documents, ambassador dossier, etc. that could be sold or traded to another player but ultimately used at a Cyrodiil vendor for the motifs.

This way when you get Dominion chests for the 19th time you won't pull your hair out!

well getting dominion chests once currently would be a nice start

since I started this I only picked up one motif and that was from a master chest using my pact secondary crafter, I'm kinda taking a mental note about the chest types now. Going to give my main a bit of a blast soon and see if anything drops with it from lesser chest types, to see if potentially there is actually some sort of link between crafting and drop rates.

ericsparrow · April 2017

I started tracking my chest drops over the last week in a spreadsheet and thought id share the data here so people could make use of it should they wish. I haven't had the chance to play a huge amount but thought I was onto a pattern until a wildcard result just now through out the whole thing and I thought f**k this just buy the dam things. On that point it also shows how low the drop rates for them are 7 out of 126 chests, so if you were like me and trying to get the set "legitimately" its probably a total waste of your time. Also my regular playtime during the week is like 4-6.30am so had that been at a more popular time of day I don't think I would have been able to gather so many chests ( in the days since I last posted).

Chest type / Success Rate

Simple: 79//1
Intermediate: 25/0
Advanced: 7/0
Master: 2/2
Gate: 9/0
Trap: 9/3
Treasure Map: 2/1

Gate is the big gate things you have to shut down which then spawns a chest.
Trap is the single chest which when you open it spawns a portal and some daedra.
Treasure maps were for Cyrodriil.
I didn't get round to opening any regular overland Cyrodriil chests.

Well anyway. I thought it was pretty much one would need to be looking for Trap chests or Masters. Or that was my working theory. I didn't really have enough data for the advanced chests ( and the masters tbh ) but I felt that was the way it was going. But just now after 75 or so chests a simple chest dropped a motif for my Dominion non crafter character. So I've basically thrown all my toys out of the pram after that point and given up

There was no discernible difference in the drop rates between the 3 characters though so if anything this has confirmed, to me at least, that crafting level etc is meaningless to the drop rate of these motifs.

lientier · April 2017

My best luck I actually always got in tresure chestst arund cyrodiil - ad especially the ones from a treasure map.

disintegr8 · April 2017

Apart from buying a couple to finish off with, I actually collected every motif for every alliance directly from treasure chests in Cyrodiil. I simply shopped around the guild traders, buying the Cyrodiil treasure maps when they were priced under about 800 gold.

I have no idea of the drop rate I was getting. When you get down to the last few you just need to focus on the appropriate maps for the alliance motifs you are chasing. It does make it easier to pick a campaign which makes it easier to travel around in.

ericsparrow · April 2017

I think the treasure map thing might be a good idea tbh. I might give it a go and record it here for posterity so the next poor sap who comes along and reads this can make a more informed decision

Erynyes · April 2017

arena district event in the middle, thats a good way to get your faction motif