You do have two new signature styles: Gravegrasp and Shroom Tender.

But yeah, I think this is the first DLC Zone where all of the Overland Drops are in the same style which is a bit odd when you consider that even the post chapter DLC zones had at least two different motifs used for Overland drops.

It does seem like ZOS has been moving from crafting motifs to outfit styles, and I'm a bit disappointed by that. I liked collecting the motif pages.

We saw that in Firesong as well - the Q4 DLC tends to bring three motifs with it: one releases with the DLC and two time delayed. We saw that with Southern Elsweyr (Dragonguard, then Shield of Senchal and New Moon Priest), Markarth (Arkthzand, then Wayward Guardian and Nighthollow), and then the Deadlands (House Hexos, then Fargrave Guardian and Annihilarch's). Note that that's not counting Antiquity motifs.
But then for Firesong, we only got House Mornard and Firesong, and both were on time delay. There was no immediate motif.

Same with the Chapters: Usually there are two overland motifs, one on a time delay, and one trial motif on delay. That was like that since Summerset (Psijic and Sapiarch, then Welkynar), Elsweyr (Anequina and Pellitine, then Sunspire), Greymoor (Blackreach Vanguard and Greymoor, then Sea Giant), Blackwood (Ivory Brigade and Black Fin Legion, then Sul-Xan), and even High Isle (Steadfast Society and Systres Guardian, then Syrabanic Marine). Again, I'm not counting Antiquity motifs here.
Yes, the Vvardenfell Chapter brought a lot more but that's an outlier. Pynadonean could also count for Summerset, but that was first made for the Crown Crates before being brought to the isle.

And here, we only seem to have Dead Keeper and Clan Dreamcarver from the trial. And no antiquity motifs.
I do find that somewhat suspicious because there was a piece of Concept Art on the official site right next to the Dead Keeper style that shows off another style that we've not heard about. Now I didn't test the Bastion Nymics so I don't know if NPCs in there wear this one, but if so I guess that it'll eventually pop there. New Moon Priest also didn't have any indication of being in game before it just got kind of appeared in the crown store showcase and in the Tideholm chest.

It's also really strange that all three overland sets are the same style. And as much as we all gripe about Antiquity motifs, this would have been a perfect time to bring in Ancestral Dunmer (or even Ancestral Chimer) just like Ancestral Breton was popping in in High Isle. We've even seen things like the SElsweyr light or Blackwood medium in styles that didn't match that DLC, so the fact that everything is exactly the same is... disappointing.

I will say though that ZOS has been bringing in a lot more event styles though. We pretty well have a new style every event, and we didn't use to have that. Also there's been a lot more outfit styles ending up piecemeal in crates as well. I don't know if it's exactly equivalent (because outfits tend to come in one weight and may not have all weapons whereas motifs come in all three and are complete), but it does feel like ZOS has been moving towards making fewer motifs and more outfit styles.

EDIT to add one more interesting thing: the style numbers.
So far, we've got everything up to 122 with two blanks - 109 and 121. Style 122 is Dead Keeper, and the trial motif (Clan Dreamcarver) will usually show after that one, but it's not on PTS yet so it doesn't have a number. But still, what are those two missing motifs?
We did have a serious time delay getting 93 (Ancestral Breton) and 98 (House Hexos) since they dropped around the time we got styles 113 and 107 respectively. So 109's gonna be another late bloomer. But 121 is right next to the one we're getting now, so could that be the mysterious motif from the concept art? And if so, why isn't it considered for the overland styles?
...I do note that the look of that concept art motif is a bit of a spoiler for anyone who knows their Elder Scrolls symbology, so maybe that's why it's being hidden?

how many more motifs do dark elves need to satisfy you?

Dr_Con wrote: »

how many more motifs do dark elves need to satisfy you?

Who said it needs to be Dark Elf?

We have a zone in Apocrypha. ZOS claimed 60% of the worldspace for this Chapter is in Apocrypha. And the only Mora-based motif we have is... from a dungeon, representing the Scribes of Mora. There's no Hermaeus Mora-based (or any Daedra-based) motif coming, despite the majority of the zone being in a Daedric realm.
...and said Daedric realm will drop two Overland sets named specifically for Morrowind as well (Vivec's Duality and Camonna Tong). I didn't know Apocrypha was literally a part of Morrowind. /s

But yes, that also means the third overland set, which has a name that sounds appropriately Apocrypha-y (Adamant Lurker), will also drop in a Dunmer style because they didn't set it to have a unique style.

The point is that motifs are fun to collect, and also give a reason to do content (ask how many people are still doing Blackwood portals versus Deadlands portals, considering only one of the two drops motifs and the other only drops overland gear). If we have fewer motifs to collect, that means that the content dies off that much faster.

Honestly, i'm REALLY glad that there's no Ancestral motif .... imho the whole treasure map\lead multi-layered RNG is atrocious

DinoZavr wrote: »

The "why?" questions can only be answered only by Zenimax, though i doubt they will bother.
The reasons of changes might be trivial: employees are leaving, lost interest, coding quality decay.. we hardly hear frank answers, if we hear anything at all.

i have already asked about missing 109 and i doubt i ll get any answer anytime.

I'm not concerned about the 'why' of some numbered motifs missing - that's usually because the motif and style are planned and just not implemented at the time, and they finally release a bit of time in the future. If anything, it may give a hint as to what it may be, but not much else.

The numbering used to be strictly in release order. But then there was a massive overhaul back around the Elsweyr days when Refabricated got assigned as 79. It was in game as early as Morrowind on the Factotum enemies in HoF, but it technically didn't start dropping until just before Southern Elsweyr released. By timing, it was supposed to have number 53, but then Frostcaster (Crown Store only) took that number instead and Refab just got bumped further and further down the line.

Since then, the numbering has been based on when the motif was planned, which means you can use clues in the area to at least guess the theme. For 93, everyone knew it would be Ancestral Breton well before it released. Our first motifs in that area were 90 and 91 from the Stonethorn dungeons, and then it skipped to 95-97 for the Markarth motifs. Since 87-89 were all Ancestral motifs and 94 was the new Ancestral motif that came with the Reach, it made sense that 92 and 93 were probably also Ancestral motifs... and we saw Verandis and several NPCs in what looked like Ancestral Breton in the zone itself. It just took two years before that motif finally had a place to drop from. Granted, we did have a missing 92 in there for a while, which was another Ancestral motif, but it wasn't obvious (without datamines) that it was going to be Akaviri. And once that one was released, it only left 93 for Breton... and then they felt like releasing that in the Breton chapter.

98 being House Hexos (Ancestral Imperial) was a bit weirder, but since Markarth motifs ended with 97 and the Flames of Ambitions dungeons started with 99, we knew 98 had to have some relation to that general storyline. And we did see some Ancestral Imperial outfits on NPCs by the Waking Flame dungeon DLC.

Since the numbering seems to be based on the order things were planned, I have a guess that 109 would have something to do with the Deadlands because 108 is a Fargrave motif and 110 started the High Isle prologue dungeons. I just don't remember ever seeing a style on any Oblivion-story NPCs that I don't recognize. ZOS just may be waiting for a time to release it, if there's ever a dungeon/event/etc. that takes us back there.

121, on the other hand, is clearly something that was first planned for Necrom. Dungeons always have one for each, so that's cleared at 120 with the Scribes of Fate set. And then Necrom starts at 122? Definitely 121 is another motif that was originally planned for Necrom, but for some reason isn't releasing. And every trial motif is after the respective zone's daily motifs, so if I had to guess, that'd put Clan Dreamcarver at 123 when it's announced. So it really makes me feel like there is another Necrom motif that they just decided to hold for a while.

MafiaCat115 wrote: »

I know I started a thread a few days ago about the missing Ancestral Dunmer style. It didn't even occur to me how few motifs we're getting in this chapter overall. I really hope more get added at some point.

I hope it's not too late. I'm pretty disappointed by all this.

Even accounting for the Shoomtender and Gravegrasp outfit styles, those still are not enough to quantify as a single motif. They each only have one weight of armor, which still leaves us one short of a full motif set. And that isn't mentioning the lack of weapon styles, or the fact that the Gravegrasp armor is more akin to the Dragonguard Berserker style where it is not associated with the DLC it came with, but rather the Imperial City.

Luke_Flamesword wrote: »

Since there will be no new zone in Q4, they probably will put new motifs in Necrom for whole year. It's a shame, because they told that they change year formula to make bigger chapters, but for now it look like there will cut content AND smaller chapters (compared to first chapters). If Q3 update will have standard amount of Qol and bug fixing as it was with normal dungeon dlc's I will be really angry.

This is something i am very much worried about, i hope we go back to the old style next year, as this year is REALLY lacking in content, a zone being replaced with a endless dungeon just flat out sucks.

When you consider that each new motif also requires a new style mat, and how players without the craft bag have complained about the ever-growing number of style mats in the game, at some point cutting back on the number of new motifs each DLC or chapter seems inevitable.

Or you can just make all chapter motifs with same style stone