Account-Wide Anti-Farming Mechanic

sleepy_worm · June 2

(Caveat: I know that many people believe that it's all just a simple dice roll. You are welcome to voice such an opinion in the thread. I'm hoping there won't be too much back and forth about this, so I won't be addressing posts about the "simple dice roll" theory. I'll read them, of course.)

So it looks like there is an account-wide anti-farming mechanic in place that is separate from the white furniture plans (a strictly character-wide mechanic).

Looting on one character until I specifically got a green and waiting ten minutes to play again got me a furnishing plan 20.36% of the time. I got 4 whites; I counted them as blues due to how I believe the white furnishing plan mechanic works. See below.

Looting until I got a green or blue and switching characters consistently got me a furniture plan 20.38% of the time (sample size 265). I never got a white plan.

Looting until I specifically got a blue plan and switching characters consistently got me a furniture plan 10.61% of the time (sample size 132). I never got a white plan. See below.

Then I got a purple plan.

After looting a purple plan on one character, looting until I specifically got a blue plan and switching characters got me a furniture plan 2.63% of the time (sample size 456). I never got a white plan.

I get white plans all the time if I stay on one character and try to farm for a purple plan (meaning, after I get a green and blue plan, I start to get white plans while I try for a purple, or in the example above try for more greens). White plans *only* start dropping after a green and a blue have dropped for that character.

It seems like the game rolls for "is this a furniture plan?" first, with an account-wide mechanic that lowers this chance by A or B amount if you've gotten a purple or a blue in the last X or Y minutes. (I say A or B, X or Y because I assume these values are different for blues and purples.)

After that, the game rolls for "what rarity is this furniture plan. If you're on cooldown for greens and it rolls a green, it gives you a blue plan instead. If you're on cooldown for blues and it gives you a blue (either naturally or through the green-replacement mechanic), it gives you a white plan instead.

This is the only sense I've been able to make of my data. Given the size of the samples, it is incredibly unlikely that I got such different drop rates two different times without some anti-farming mechanic in place.

According to my results (sample size 80), here are the chances when the game rolls for rarity (the account-wide mechanic):
green - 77.5%
blue - 21.25%
purple - 1.25%

All of this was tested in Reachwind Depths, looting only nightstands.
(Necrom is weird, so I didn't do my testing there. I've had some very strange things happen trying to farm Necrom plans. The above data is not necessarily true for that zone.)

(FYI, based on previous experience, the cooldown timers for white furnishing plans replacing other plans (the character-wide mechanic) is:
green - 10 minutes
blue - 1 hour
purple - unknown)

sleepy_worm · June 2

"Looting until I got a green or blue and switching characters consistently got me a furniture plan 20.38% of the time (sample size 265). I got occasionally white plans if I got a blue before I got a green. I never got a white plan."

Made a mistake there. It should read "I never got a white plan." (I split out the day 1 research into a separate paragraph above.)

Thanks for the forums tip! Edited to original post.

belial5221_ESO · June 2

With CP that gives better chance at higher quality plans,it makes it extremely rare to get white plans.Have you tested with and without CP star slotted?Your sample size in one area isn't a great test.I mostly will be green/blue and rarely a purple.There's no real cooldown for plans,I got a double green in a dresser,and looted a desk and got a blue within seconds.It's just RNG possibly weighted by quality.

BixenteN7Akantor · June 2

I don't think revealing drop chances would hurt. I think it would encourage farming if chances are good enough and we'd notice weird inconsistencies like was "Morrowind Banner" & "Khajiit Brazier, Enchanted".
Like Redguard plans introduced at Morrowind launch are still ellusive in their drop method.

SilverBride · June 2

sleepy_worm wrote: »

Made a mistake there. It should read "I never got a white plan." (I split out the day 1 research into a separate paragraph above.)

We can edit the Original Post by using the gear on the Subject line. It's not very intuitive to have it there and gets missed a lot.

CrashTest · June 2

You're right. I've noticed expensive purple plans, and motifs for that matter, drop once a day. When I'm farming them from containers, I always get one every day and no more.

VisitHammerfell · June 2

Interesting math OP. I wish they would just announce exact chances of these things (and sources for the red spool etc), and also wish it wasn't so low. I just want to be a completionist and it's difficult to find plans

belial5221_ESO wrote: »

With CP that gives better chance at higher quality plans,it makes it extremely rare to get white plans.Have you tested with and without CP star slotted?Your sample size in one area isn't a great test.I mostly will be green/blue and rarely a purple.There's no real cooldown for plans,I got a double green in a dresser,and looted a desk and got a blue within seconds.It's just RNG possibly weighted by quality.

Homemaker doesn't increase the chance at plan quality sadly, or at least doesn't say so in the description

twev · June 3

SilverBride wrote: »

sleepy_worm wrote: »

Made a mistake there. It should read "I never got a white plan." (I split out the day 1 research into a separate paragraph above.)

We can edit the Original Post by using the gear on the Subject line. It's not very intuitive to have it there and gets missed a lot.

But you have to refresh the page (at least I do) to cause the edit option to appear.

TaSheen · June 3

twev wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

sleepy_worm wrote: »

Made a mistake there. It should read "I never got a white plan." (I split out the day 1 research into a separate paragraph above.)

We can edit the Original Post by using the gear on the Subject line. It's not very intuitive to have it there and gets missed a lot.

But you have to refresh the page (at least I do) to cause the edit option to appear.

Yes. That's because Vanilla isn't the best forum backend out there.

Amottica · June 3

sleepy_worm wrote: »

According to my results (sample size 80), here are the chances when the game rolls for rarity:
green - 77.5%
blue - 21.25%
purple - 1.25%

The cooldown timers for white furnishing plans replacing other plans is:
green - 10 minutes
blue - 1 hour
purple - unknown

Maybe it is not clear, but a sample size of 80 may be enough to get a rough idea of what the probability of getting an item is, but it does not seem to be anywhere near enough to determine cooldown timers. Just looking at how long it would take to harvest 80 items and yet it is suggested a 1 hour CD timer on blue items.

It would take dozens and dozens of hours of constant harvesting to figure out if Blue had a CD of 1 hour. It would have to be consistently 1 hour, not 1.1 sometimes and 1.2 other times. Otherwise, it would come down to just being based on probability.

80 would be far too small of a sample to even hazard a guess there is a CD timer.

sleepy_worm · June 3

Amottica wrote: »

80 would be far too small of a sample to even hazard a guess there is a CD timer.

I'm sorry I wasn't clearer. I found 80 furniture items, so my sample size for the proportions was 80. Only those numbers.

I calculated the cooldown timers based on extensive previous testing. It's not really the focus of my post today, but I thought I'd include them in my summary for anyone curious.

ETA:
I changed the wording a bit and put those numbers somewhere else so as not to mislead anyone else. I did not test character-wide mechanics recently. Today was all about the chance of getting any furniture plan and it turned out I stumbled into a weird account-wide mechanic.

sleepy_worm · June 3

belial5221_ESO wrote: »

With CP that gives better chance at higher quality plans,it makes it extremely rare to get white plans.Have you tested with and without CP star slotted?Your sample size in one area isn't a great test.I mostly will be green/blue and rarely a purple.There's no real cooldown for plans,I got a double green in a dresser,and looted a desk and got a blue within seconds.It's just RNG possibly weighted by quality.

I disabled Homemaker for the testing. I don't think it works the way you do, though. When you said you found a double green in a dresser, that was Homemaker. It adds another furnishing of the same rarity as one the chest already had. I've gotten double whites, double greens, double blues, and double purples from Homemaker before.

I have never actually found two furnishing plans in one container (outside of Necrom) with Homemaker unslotted.

TaSheen · June 3

I... actually can't remember EVER getting a white plan out of anything.

katanagirl1 · June 3

I’ve been farming furnishing plans since Elsweyr. It was better back then, I used to make lots of gold but sometime in Greymoor it started getting so much harder to get furnishing plans.

I have seen the behavior described with the white plans after a blue many times. I rarely get purples and since I farm in Necrom now it’s mostly those worthless Necrom banners or a purple base game plan.

I typically farm until I get a blue or purple (or only about 10-15 minutes)and then switch toons if I want to farm more.

EDIT: typo

Amottica · June 3

sleepy_worm wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

80 would be far too small of a sample to even hazard a guess there is a CD timer.

I'm sorry I wasn't clearer. I found 80 furniture items, so my sample size for the proportions was 80. Only those numbers.

I calculated the cooldown timers based on extensive previous testing. It's not really the focus of my post today, but I thought I'd include them in my summary for anyone curious.

ETA:
I changed the wording a bit and put those numbers somewhere else so as not to mislead anyone else. I did not test character-wide mechanics recently. Today was all about the chance of getting any furniture plan and it turned out I stumbled into a weird account-wide mechanic.

Great, but how many hours per session was that extensive testing in a row? I question this because the length of time plays a key role, and many players do not track anything but post what they think occurred, which is not very useful.

A player tracks the results of his refinement and keeps track of the details per update. When someone questions if changes to refinement come up, he posts the details of his work, and it is clear what he did. Their sampling size is very large, which leaves no questions about the results.

Vallie42 · June 7

sleepy_worm wrote: »

belial5221_ESO wrote: »

With CP that gives better chance at higher quality plans,it makes it extremely rare to get white plans.Have you tested with and without CP star slotted?Your sample size in one area isn't a great test.I mostly will be green/blue and rarely a purple.There's no real cooldown for plans,I got a double green in a dresser,and looted a desk and got a blue within seconds.It's just RNG possibly weighted by quality.

I disabled Homemaker for the testing. I don't think it works the way you do, though. When you said you found a double green in a dresser, that was Homemaker. It adds another furnishing of the same rarity as one the chest already had. I've gotten double whites, double greens, double blues, and double purples from Homemaker before.

I have never actually found two furnishing plans in one container (outside of Necrom) with Homemaker unslotted.

I can confirm that I got 3 furnishings from a container in Gold Road - 2 blue (I attribute the 2nd to homemaker) and 1 green. So I guess new containers have that now. Not sure if intended or not

Araneae6537 · June 7

TaSheen wrote: »

I... actually can't remember EVER getting a white plan out of anything.

How is that? Do you loot everything in the course of questing? I get white plans all the time, but I usually loot everything…

Araneae6537 · June 7

@sleepy_worm What were you testing in waiting and/or switching characters? Is your point the cooldown time being accountwide regardless of character, and your theory that you would have the same results looting after waiting 10 minutes or an hour, regardless or whether you stayed on the same character or switched? Or have I missed something?

Some guildies who regularly farm for plans were saying that changing characters reset odds or RNG (suggesting there are not set odds per color, but another layer of RNG at character login), and that one could, hypothetically at least, get multiple purple plans this way. I don’t know whether this was based on experience, perception (which we know can be misleading), or others’ reported data, nor whether or not this is accurate.

On top of all this, is there an additional layer of odds as to whether or not one gets a zone specific plan as versus an old base game plan?

I would be interested in your thoughts on all this.

Necrotech_Master · June 7

TaSheen wrote: »

I... actually can't remember EVER getting a white plan out of anything.

white plans oddly are almost as rare as purples, but you can buy all the white plans from npc vendors

so most of the drops that happen are in the green/blue range

Araneae6537 · June 7

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

I... actually can't remember EVER getting a white plan out of anything.

white plans oddly are almost as rare as purples, but you can buy all the white plans from npc vendors

so most of the drops that happen are in the green/blue range

I must be very unlucky as I often get multiple greens and whites.

katanagirl1 · June 7

Go to Nchuthnkarst public dungeon in Blackreach. Start farming urns there. Once you get a blue plan, or a purple one if you are lucky, then all you will get are white plans all the way to the end.

TaSheen · June 7

Araneae6537 wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

I... actually can't remember EVER getting a white plan out of anything.

How is that? Do you loot everything in the course of questing? I get white plans all the time, but I usually loot everything…

I loot containers yes, but don't steal. I don't run through places like under Necrom, just pick up stuff as I'm questing or farming.

LaintalAy · June 7

I haven't ever considered stats, drop rates, calculations. I just take what I find.

White recipes? I never find these. Possibly because all the 'satchels' and 'drawers' I find have a lone lock pick or piece of 'bone'; usually indicative of recipe-farmer activity.

Why would you farm just recipes? Other things will sell.

Araneae6537 · June 7

TaSheen wrote: »

Araneae6537 wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

I... actually can't remember EVER getting a white plan out of anything.

How is that? Do you loot everything in the course of questing? I get white plans all the time, but I usually loot everything…

I loot containers yes, but don't steal. I don't run through places like under Necrom, just pick up stuff as I'm questing or farming.

Huh, that’s odd. I mostly just loot as I quest, rarely do I farm for plans, but occasionally. I believe I often white plans get from some delve, public dungeon, and other overland containers not marked as stealing (I don’t think I’ve ever stolen a white plan, come to think of it, the equivalent is other junk but the plans and recipes are always of at least green level). 🤔

LaintalAy wrote: »

I haven't ever considered stats, drop rates, calculations. I just take what I find.

White recipes? I never find these. Possibly because all the 'satchels' and 'drawers' I find have a lone lock pick or piece of 'bone'; usually indicative of recipe-farmer activity.

Why would you farm just recipes? Other things will sell.

I loot everything, but materials go in the craft bag and most everything else is junk to be vendored, but furnishing plans and other rarer items are the goal. Best find ever: a shivering cheese in a safebox. 🤩

LunaFlora · June 8

LaintalAy wrote: »

I haven't ever considered stats, drop rates, calculations. I just take what I find.

White recipes? I never find these. Possibly because all the 'satchels' and 'drawers' I find have a lone lock pick or piece of 'bone'; usually indicative of recipe-farmer activity.

Why would you farm just recipes? Other things will sell.

to find new furnishing plans to learn. not everyone sells everything

katanagirl1 · June 8

LunaFlora wrote: »

LaintalAy wrote: »

I haven't ever considered stats, drop rates, calculations. I just take what I find.

White recipes? I never find these. Possibly because all the 'satchels' and 'drawers' I find have a lone lock pick or piece of 'bone'; usually indicative of recipe-farmer activity.

Why would you farm just recipes? Other things will sell.

to find new furnishing plans to learn. not everyone sells everything

I was not so gently educated by someone on the forums here a long time ago that containers are instanced. Each player sees something different in them, so they would not have just left the lockpicks and style mats there. Those are sometimes all that they contain.