The Disappearance of Racial Motifs

Legatus · May 2014

I'm someone who's farmed and sold many Daedric and Ancient Elf motifs. First off they aren't rare and were never meant to be rare (neither are Primal and Barbaric), there was just the perception of rarity which lead to the inflated pricing going on. Knowing where to farm for what, was the key to them. But regardless of that, I saw the opportunity to make good cash off people who thought they were rare; so I took to farming them up asap. So, because of that I feel that I knew pretty well exactly where and how to farm them (having collected and sold a dozen or so of them) and what else came from these containers.

That said, "something" changed about 2 weeks ago server side. Proper containers no longer drop provisioning recipes where before they dropped them quite frequently. It was recipes that would fill up my bag after about 20mins and force me to go sell off before continuing farming. During that 20min run I usually pulled a Daedric or Ancient motif every other run or about 40mins average time to farm one up. After the change, I no longer get recipes ever and instead seem to get provisioning drinks (wines). Also the rate of style crafting materials (for any race) seems to have be lowered as well, again I used to come out with a handful of various materials (e.g. daedric hearts/palaidum/and the other races materials) and now I get very few. I've gone back and tried to farm up a couple again lately; I spend an hour or two doing loops then give up. I've done it three or four times now and only pulled one Daedric motif out (and zero provisioning recipes). So take it what you will, something that used to take me 30mins to get now takes more than 4hours of farming and I still might not get it.

Of course contrary to that, I did notice that certain humanoid mobs started dropping provisioning recipes a LOT more right about the same time. Perhaps they moved these drops (recipes/motifs) from containers onto certain mobs. All speculation of course...

SDZald · May 2014

Once again another MMO, worried about content and long term playability, has decided to 'slow' down' their players by this nerf and others. If you are a casual gamer you might as well face the fact, you have been nerfed.

I swore I would never play another MMO but because a friend really wanted me to play and because I really enjoy the Elder Scrolls single player games I decided to give it a shot. Between the gold farmers and the increasing nerfs meant to slow the power gamers, which never stops them, casual gamers once again get bent over. Siggggghhhh.

Beryl · May 2014

Legatus wrote: »

I'm someone who's farmed and sold many Daedric and Ancient Elf motifs. First off they aren't rare and were never meant to be rare (neither are Primal and Barbaric), there was just the perception of rarity which lead to the inflated pricing going on. Knowing where to farm for what, was the key to them. But regardless of that, I saw the opportunity to make good cash off people who thought they were rare; so I took to farming them up asap. So, because of that I feel that I knew pretty well exactly where and how to farm them (having collected and sold a dozen or so of them) and what else came from these containers.

Lets not mix and experience of a farmer with an experience of a player. No doubts that farming was productive, but if one was questing normally and opening every container on the way, on average he would get just several motifs during the whole way to vr10. There are plenty of players (some appeared in this topic, but majority are silent and do not even read) who either did not find any motifs ever or only got a few.

I found 4 motifs in the areas 1-50 and 0 motifs on my way through vr1-vr
11. Because of the constant shouts of how easy it is to get motifs I even tried the farming way for a while (an hour per day for a week) and I still got no motifs, only hundreds of recipes and racial components. I was quite happy actually. It gave me a feeling that I am just less lucky but if others tell "they are common" then I sure should get at least something eventually, right?

It is very unfortunate that the game is now becoming tuned towards the farmer play style: change to motif drop rate, change to hireling boxes. It makes the experience of regular players far less enjoyable. Now I have no hope that I would ever be able to find a rare motif. Only buy it from farmers... and this "feature" of the present ESO economy disgusts me quite a lot.

Viblo · May 2014

SDZald wrote: »

Once again another MMO, worried about content and long term playability, has decided to 'slow' down' their players by this nerf and others. If you are a casual gamer you might as well face the fact, you have been nerfed.

The cool thing is a casual gamer will not even know or care that they were nerfed. Unless you aren't exactly talking about "casual" gamers.

On another note, I'm not certain but I can assume that motifs were not meant to be available in a way that you could learn them all in a week. They are easily data mined. We don't know how many there are floating around in guild banks, personal banks, and guild stores. ESO can easily see that data and determine if the rate is higher or lower than what they want. I did a motif search in the 4 guilds I'm a member of and found 283 various motifs. That is 4 guilds. lol

ChairGraveyard · May 2014

The cool thing is a casual gamer will not even know or care that they were nerfed.

Yes, I'm sure your average player won't notice at all that motifs doubled in price over night, or that they no longer get any provisioning drops.

SARCASM.

Legatus · May 2014

Beryl wrote: »

Lets not mix and experience of a farmer with an experience of a player. No doubts that farming was productive, but if one was questing normally and opening every container on the way, on average he would get just several motifs during the whole way to vr10. There are plenty of players (some appeared in this topic, but majority are silent and do not even read) who either did not find any motifs ever or only got a few.

I found 4 motifs in the areas 1-50 and 0 motifs on my way through vr1-vr
11. Because of the constant shouts of how easy it is to get motifs I even tried the farming way for a while (an hour per day for a week) and I still got no motifs, only hundreds of recipes and racial components. I was quite happy actually. It gave me a feeling that I am just less lucky but if others tell "they are common" then I sure should get at least something eventually, right?

It's just RNG playing against your small sample size though. You found 4 motifs (out of 10) in the 1-50 area so 40% success which sounds high honestly. I found zero from 1-50 casually looting everything and I know a lot of others who also never found a motif. Then you found 0/2 in Vr1-5 content, and 0/2 in Vr6-10 content (which is a lot like my experience from 1-50). They are after all a rare drop out of containers (rough guess I'd say used to be 2% chance in a container?). That said though, it only took me about 6 hours to farm the 1-50 content to get 9/10 motifs and a lot of duplicates (never did get Imperial). Even using your example, you said you got lots of recipes and racial components; as of today you don't get any for some reason.

Realistically for this to be significant, you want the largest sample pool to try and identify the "real" drop rate. Not just one person who either got lucky and pulled it on the first container or anyone for that matter who doesn't farm them. From there, you can at least try to identify if there has been a change in the system, either intended or unintended.

PF1901 · May 2014

Shamusangus_24 wrote: »

I was collecting doubles of the regular Motifs before the patch and am kinda glad now (like a financial security blanket....

And here you have it why the nerf was due: "collecting doubles". Or triples or maybe even quadrupels? Hell, I don't necessarily like this change either what with the disadvantages now but you people need to wake up => blue rare items. Maybe you should think back to those other MMOs you played and what the term "blue and rare" meant. Yes, i'm aware of the negative effects - hoping for some finetuning - and I can understand people complaining but this constant "instant gratification" attitude is annoying as hell.

the.dzeneralb16_ESO · May 2014

Kind of upsetting that I'm one of those very unlucky players who loots everything (even tried to farm them for a few hours once) and have only ever gotten 1 motif all game (now vr7)

The good news is, motifs are dirt cheap (with the exception of daedric, but even then it isn't really that expensive).

Beryl · May 2014

Legatus wrote: »

Beryl wrote: »

Lets not mix and experience of a farmer with an experience of a player. No doubts that farming was productive, but if one was questing normally and opening every container on the way, on average he would get just several motifs during the whole way to vr10. There are plenty of players (some appeared in this topic, but majority are silent and do not even read) who either did not find any motifs ever or only got a few.

I found 4 motifs in the areas 1-50 and 0 motifs on my way through vr1-vr
11. Because of the constant shouts of how easy it is to get motifs I even tried the farming way for a while (an hour per day for a week) and I still got no motifs, only hundreds of recipes and racial components. I was quite happy actually. It gave me a feeling that I am just less lucky but if others tell "they are common" then I sure should get at least something eventually, right?

It's just RNG playing against your small sample size though. You found 4 motifs (out of 10) in the 1-50 area so 40% success which sounds high honestly. I found zero from 1-50 casually looting everything and I know a lot of others who also never found a motif. Then you found 0/2 in Vr1-5 content, and 0/2 in Vr6-10 content (which is a lot like my experience from 1-50). They are after all a rare drop out of containers (rough guess I'd say used to be 2% chance in a container?). That said though, it only took me about 6 hours to farm the 1-50 content to get 9/10 motifs and a lot of duplicates (never did get Imperial). Even using your example, you said you got lots of recipes and racial components; as of today you don't get any for some reason.

Realistically for this to be significant, you want the largest sample pool to try and identify the "real" drop rate. Not just one person who either got lucky and pulled it on the first container or anyone for that matter who doesn't farm them. From there, you can at least try to identify if there has been a change in the system, either intended or unintended.

I understand how RNG works and that my example was just a single player point of view which is nothing from the point of view of statistics. My objection was to your comment that the motifs never were and never were meant to be rare. From my point of view they were rare enough for players who are going through the game in the intended way: quest, kill mobs, quest more. Some would find more than I did, some would find less, but a player was unlikely to get dozens of motifs as you got via farming. Farming is not the intended way and for that type of a playstyle the amount of motifs was indeed too high. I just regret that ordinary players have to suffer from that.

Legatus · May 2014

Beryl wrote: »

I understand how RNG works and that my example was just a single player point of view which is nothing from the point of view of statistics. My objection was to your comment that the motifs never were and never were meant to be rare. From my point of view they were rare enough for players who are going through the game in the intended way: quest, kill mobs, quest more. Some would find more than I did, some would find less, but a player was unlikely to get dozens of motifs as you got via farming. Farming is not the intended way and for that type of a playstyle the amount of motifs was indeed too high. I just regret that ordinary players have to suffer from that.

Ah ya, just a miss interpretation of what I was referring to. People were saying the Daedric/Ancient/Barbaric/Primal were more rare than the other 10. I was meaning to say that they weren't any more rare than other motifs. The motif's themselves still were rare drops, there just wasn't any difference in the drop rate between them all. You just had to get them from the right locations (Vet zones) which made people who were farming the 1-50 areas think incorrectly that they were rare drops. It's why normal motifs were going for 1.5k and Daedric was going for 50k+. IMO there shouldn't have been as much a price differential since the same effort was required to get it, discounting the need to be in veteran content of course. But it is what it was and I made my cash off people thinking the Daedric motif was (more) rare. Sorry for the confusion.

Beryl · May 2014

Legatus wrote: »

Sorry for the confusion.

No problem

It is good to finally understand what you meant and with that I do agree.

Viblo · May 2014

ChairGraveyard wrote: »

The cool thing is a casual gamer will not even know or care that they were nerfed.

Yes, I'm sure your average player won't notice at all that motifs doubled in price over night, or that they no longer get any provisioning drops.

SARCASM.

And you are right, they won't notice.

NOT SARCASM

Allyah · May 2014

ChairGraveyard wrote: »

The cool thing is a casual gamer will not even know or care that they were nerfed.

Yes, I'm sure your average player won't notice at all that motifs doubled in price over night, or that they no longer get any provisioning drops.

SARCASM.

All the higher level motifs that I have noticed selling have been selling for half the price that they were selling two weeks ago.

demonlkojipub19_ESO · May 2014

rynth wrote: »

You guys have heard of supply and demand correct???? We don't need the market flooded with motifs then they lose their value. Motifs shouldn't be easy to find, they should be harder to find. That way when you do find one it means more or when you purchase one for a good deal. Heck the beginning motifs are only like 800 to 1k for each, I've even seen some lower. STOP COMPLAINING, lol and I can't believe you sent five emails. Oh my gosh I'm not getting what I want right now in every container I must spam the mail until I get what I want lol. You act like the game is falling apart and no one cares about it.

Motifs never should have been part of the economy at all. A book should have been on a bookshelf, giving you the skill if you happen upon the bookshelf with the motif.

Cheprens · May 2014

I dont know where to fall on this argument. I agree with both sides. I DO fid it absurd that i have all but 3 crafting styles (daidric, ancient elf, and barbarian), but i also find it absurd that they have disappeared from the market all together. I think they should have changed them to around a blue rare item spawn rather then high orange rare(or whatever).

AgriyaTheGrey · May 2014

SadisticSavior wrote: »

Vixenator wrote: »

People who are not getting them are either looking in the wrong places (have never seen one in a backpack or a normal sack for example) or are just not being persistent.

Possibly you haven't found any there, but until Tuesday EVERY racial motif (5 or 6) -half of them Breton which would have been ok except the characters finding them were Bretons anyway- I'd found had been in a backpack. Since Tuesday, haven't seen squat anywhere except chat. However I haven't really been looking, since I'm not in a hurry to get anywhere.

Draganta · May 2014

Like many others said, they were too easy to get. I am glad it is harder now. I only own 2 currently, and I could own them all for only a few goldpieces (they only cost 1500g now), but where is the challenge???

redwoodtreesprite · May 2014

I have found 4 of the basic racial motif books in the last few days on the EU server, where I started a group after the nerf patch was put in. I don't think the drop rate from containers was changed at all. But it is infuriating when every single container in a town I have never been in is empty or just has a lockpick.

To get those 4 books, I parked 4 of my new characters in rooms other than the bank ones, and loaded them in about every 10 minutes. Boring, as before I just checked containers when a bank alt was loaded in to do inventory management. But I am trying to have at least 2 crafters, one heavy armor and one med/light, eventually get all the basic ones (other than Imperial of course).

lynzriches · May 2014

I kind of wish I could find at LEAST one of the rare motifs (I managed to find and learn all of the regular ones pretty much right away) sometime SOON...but I guess it's not the end of the world if I don't. I do agree that the rare ones should be hard to find...they're RARE after all. *shrugs*

Legatus · May 2014

lynzriches wrote: »

I kind of wish I could find at LEAST one of the rare motifs (I managed to find and learn all of the regular ones pretty much right away) sometime SOON...but I guess it's not the end of the world if I don't. I do agree that the rare ones should be hard to find...they're RARE after all. *shrugs*

It's people like you who are the reason the other 4 motifs go for 50k+ a pop...

They aren't rare, you just have to be in the other faction zones (vet content) to find them. Same drop rate as all the other ones you got. But regardless, thanks for the easy millionaire achievement; keep up the good work!

lynzriches · May 2014

Legatus wrote: »

lynzriches wrote: »

I kind of wish I could find at LEAST one of the rare motifs (I managed to find and learn all of the regular ones pretty much right away) sometime SOON...but I guess it's not the end of the world if I don't. I do agree that the rare ones should be hard to find...they're RARE after all. *shrugs*

It's people like you who are the reason the other 4 motifs go for 50k+ a pop...

They aren't rare, you just have to be in the other faction zones (vet content) to find them. Same drop rate as all the other ones you got. But regardless, thanks for the easy millionaire achievement; keep up the good work!

Actually don't thank ME, jackass. I haven't spent a penny on motifs - rare or not. But thanks for assuming.

I just choose not to make a big deal out of the fact that these so-called "rare" motifs have become hard to find. If I happen to find one, great. If not, big deal. Been in vet zones now for 2 weeks and haven't had one drop yet. I'll repeat for you again: BIG. DEAL.

People. Geez.

Mordenkaiser · May 2014

Simple....make motifs have a higher chance to drop from higher Hireling chests.

Sendarya · May 2014

This entire topic really ticks me off. It is total BS!!
This is all just rumor and speculation, and I'd like to note a lot of it was STARTED BY and PERPETUATED BY people who "farmed" these things.
Personally, I have noticed no change. I've found 3 or 4 blue recipes in the last week, about the same amount I find every week. I tend to loot most or all containers as I quest, and sometimes explore a bit, but I'm not searching every building in every area I cross.

I've also noticed PLENTY of recipes and motifs still for sale. Just yesterday, 4 or 5 people were selling Barbaric, Daedric and Ancient elf. 2 days ago I bought a purple lvl 50 provisioning recipe off another player, and I've seen a few others listed in chat for sale that I was not interested in buying. I see TONS of blue recipes for sale, and my guild banks are overflowing with recipes and many motifs.

My guess is this is a rumor started BY the motif and recipe farmers to artificially drive up prices. As a normal player, I haven't seen an actual difference. I still get tons of racial stones and recipes, and I've always seen a ton of lockpics, so that isn't new.

Don't believe a rumor and pay more based on it. The actual amount of these for sale or even fro free in guild banks and stores clearly shows that this "nerfed drop rate" is all a lot of BS. Don't believe the farmers, they just want more of your hard earned gold.

lynzriches · May 2014

Sendarya wrote: »

My guess is this is a rumor started BY the motif and recipe farmers to artificially drive up prices. As a normal player, I haven't seen an actual difference. I still get tons of racial stones and recipes, and I've always seen a ton of lockpics, so that isn't new.

Don't believe a rumor and pay more based on it. The actual amount of these for sale or even fro free in guild banks and stores clearly shows that this "nerfed drop rate" is all a lot of BS. Don't believe the farmers, they just want more of your hard earned gold.

This is an interesting take and could very well be true. I hope it is true LOL! Because then that means I'm just having a run of bad luck not finding any motifs at the moment and hopefully my luck will change!

RazzPitazz · May 2014

Soooo wait. People who need motifs are getting recipies, people who need recipies are getting motifs....... you guys could trade.... or something.

Deorro · May 2014

I have found 2 Daedric Motifs in the past 2 days. So this thread is moot.

Mathias.vikenb16_ESO · May 2014

The problem is that bots and farmers are still there and makes it allmost impossible to find a untouched container... And still they are the once getting them. Why make stuff harder for player when your real target is bots?!?!?!? Bots stay there all day long. They dont care about time... Players do!

roigseguib16_ESO · May 2014

Right now the situation is: the most common and cheaper (Altmer, Bosmer, breton..) are arround 1.5k or 2k. The Imperial is arround 20k, Daedric 40k, Ancient Elves arround 50k.. People is starting to get crazy. I have even seen a website where people sell Racial Motifs with real money (50€ for the Ancient Elves or so).
In my opinion, should work like many other things: as a private item. Players should be able to find all of them, depending the zone, the alliance and the level, but not making it a competition, because there will always be someone who spends more time in the game, know how to farm them, and will get it before you because he is going to earn 50€ for each one. IDK but it seems like the Vampire and Werewolf bite all over again.

Ohioastro · May 2014

There are only some containers that can hold recipes and motifs. When you enter a town, go into every house and check for wardrobes, urns, nightstands, trunks, etc. If you do this then you'll greatly up your chances of getting something nice. If you loot crates, sacks, barrels etc. you'll get food supplies. The people reporting so few drops are probably not going to the extra effort to ensure that they always check for these sorts of containers and always loot them. I get about one motif every 4 hours of play or so, post change. I think that this rate is fine.

I found it more than a little absurd that you could mine things that were supposed to be rare by logging in and out in a single room (the bank in Auridon, for instance.) And, yes, farmers do cause problems because they do take advantage of loopholes and they do then distort the market.

asaimori · May 2014

I would also like to weight in on the motif drop rate as not a solution but a break in the game. No one and i mean no one buys armor made by someone else it is too custom. The trade set up in the game makes crafting armor for someone else to much of a hassle with the many customization options like traits, and craft able set bonuses. Unless you want to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to decipher through chat the request for a custom set, (which i do not) for gold (which has no value), to make a set of armor which i cover with a costume 99% of my playing time. So the asinine nerf to the drop rates for motifs serves no real purpose but to protect the "i got mine" types of the community, and for the record i am an early access player so i have 12 out of 14 motifs anyway, but a motif does not affect game play it is just an illusion of individuality, so to nerf a purely cosmetic effect serves no purpose other that to road block player progress. I would like to state that when it comes to recipes which DO affect game play particularly PvP (which i do not engage in at all) i have no problem as these recipes can determine an outcome versus another player, but just because i am in a full set of Barbaric looking armor will not have any bearing on outcomes either in PvE or PvP.