Antiquity Codex Hunting tips

Djennku · October 8

Hey!

If you want to go farming all the leads for the codex, I have some good tips that will help make farming them 10000x easier.

1.) Be persistsnt. RNG can be a pain, but do it enough times, and you WILL get every lead eventually.

2.) Be Patient. Again, those leads will drop eventually, and it may take time. If you need to take breaks in between farming, do what you need to for your health and well being.

3.) Hold onto leads you do not want or need to take them out of that loot table. This is important when going for treasure map leads and IA, where multiple leads drop from the same source. Holding onto a lead prevents it from dropping, thus removing it from being able to drop again.

*DO NOT DIG UP leads until you have aquired all the ones you are after OR it is close to expiring. The only exception to this are Mythics and multipart antiquities. If it has more than three pieces, like the few furnishings in IA for example, dig up all but ONE of those leads and you will remove those from the loot pool. Remember not to complete those antiquities or it resets the leads back into the loot pool to drop again.

4.) Only dig up 2/3 leads if you are farming leads like in treasure maps with multiple leads with only one source, then dig up everything once all possible leads are obtained. This is a more efficient way of farming leads, and keeps you from overspending on things like maps which you sometimes need a great deal of for codex completion. This way you get 3/3 in the codex much easier than filling it out and having to dig up all the leads again only to got the one or two you missed prior.

I have TESTED the theory that "it only lets you pick up X number of leads and no more from one source." I can confirm that is untrue, and as long as you haven't already obtained that particular lead or not yet completed that set/mythic, there is nothing preventing you from obtaining every available lead regardless of RNG and time.

With that said, hope these tips help you guys finish your codex/farming easier, and happy adventuing!

Buffy121 · October 9

Good tips

aleksandr_ESO · October 11

Djennku wrote: »

3.) Hold onto leads you do not want or need to take them out of that loot table. This is important when going for treasure map leads and IA, where multiple leads drop from the same source. Holding onto a lead prevents it from dropping, thus removing it from being able to drop again.

*DO NOT DIG UP leads until you have aquired all the ones you are after OR it is close to expiring. The only exception to this are Mythics and multipart antiquities. If it has more than three pieces, like the few furnishings in IA for example, dig up all but ONE of those leads and you will remove those from the loot pool. Remember not to complete those antiquities or it resets the leads back into the loot pool to drop again.

I'm sure that's not how it works, and here's why.
Initially, I followed the same strategy: I bought up all the treasure maps on the market, dug up the chests, saved up all 13 motives leads, and then dug them out. However, on the third motif collection, I realized that the drop of leads follows one pattern - first I get a lead from every 2-3 chests, then from every 4-5, until the drop chance degrades to 1 clue from every 15th-20th chest. There is only one way to explain this - I should get random lead from every 2-3 chests, but I don't get them because I didn't dig them out.
knowing how the loot system works in TESO and other games, I also think that ZOS is unlikely to have implemented any additional mechanics for dropping leads. it just works like a standard RNG.

Jaimeh · October 11

I wish they would add a condition that if you've already found one codex entry, the rest would be increasingly more likely to drop. It would things easier in particular for those wanting to fill codex for furnishings so they can buy multiples of them. I remember trying to complete three entries for the wall of gears furniture from CWC and spending entire days just killing mobs there.

Djennku · October 11

Jaimeh wrote: »

I wish they would add a condition that if you've already found one codex entry, the rest would be increasingly more likely to drop. It would things easier in particular for those wanting to fill codex for furnishings so they can buy multiples of them. I remember trying to complete three entries for the wall of gears furniture from CWC and spending entire days just killing mobs there.

Kevin had replied in a different thread (too tired to go digging it up right now), that it is a bug they are aware of that is making the second and third drops for the codex take much longer than intended. They have a bit more to go with priorities regarding combat changes (food and potions mostly), so they should be able to address some of these pain points soon. There's alot they are aware of and are working on, so might just need to be patient. With the 20- some odd, or 40-some odd (actual number escapes me right now), million lines of code the game has, it's not as simple as just flicking a switch and having the bug get fixed.

Djennku · October 11

aleksandr_ESO wrote: »

Djennku wrote: »

3.) Hold onto leads you do not want or need to take them out of that loot table. This is important when going for treasure map leads and IA, where multiple leads drop from the same source. Holding onto a lead prevents it from dropping, thus removing it from being able to drop again.

*DO NOT DIG UP leads until you have aquired all the ones you are after OR it is close to expiring. The only exception to this are Mythics and multipart antiquities. If it has more than three pieces, like the few furnishings in IA for example, dig up all but ONE of those leads and you will remove those from the loot pool. Remember not to complete those antiquities or it resets the leads back into the loot pool to drop again.

I'm sure that's not how it works, and here's why.
Initially, I followed the same strategy: I bought up all the treasure maps on the market, dug up the chests, saved up all 13 motives leads, and then dug them out. However, on the third motif collection, I realized that the drop of leads follows one pattern - first I get a lead from every 2-3 chests, then from every 4-5, until the drop chance degrades to 1 clue from every 15th-20th chest. There is only one way to explain this - I should get random lead from every 2-3 chests, but I don't get them because I didn't dig them out.
knowing how the loot system works in TESO and other games, I also think that ZOS is unlikely to have implemented any additional mechanics for dropping leads. it just works like a standard RNG.

Yup, but what you're saying goes along with my advice and from personal testing. All except not getting drops because you did not dig up what you had. I had to farm the whole set of West weald leads about three times because I thought the same thing at first, but the laat lead I needed was the last one that dropped. I had to collect every other lead before it gave me the one I was after. My detriment was spending much more than I needed to on maps because I was concerned the game wasn't going to give me any more.

So I can 10000% confirm that excluding RNG, because we all know it sucks, that nothing is going to prevent you from aquiring all leads from a single source. I wanted to share this advice to help people get all their codex enteies done faster as well as prevent unnecessary gold spent on things like maps or tine farming.

freespirit · October 11

When did Antiquities come out? 2020 with Greymoor iirc!

I still have Codex entries missing from release, quite a few actually but two I have specifically spent hours and hours on are the Prismatic Sunbird Feather and the Moons Blessed Pool, atm I'm stuck on two of each.

These were supposedly "fixed" quite some time ago, I got the second ones shortly after that but the third refuses to drop.

I have 30+ Ebony Fox Totems and similar numbers of others, it is beyond ridiculous how hard it is to get some leads to drop.

I have tried every tip and trick ever offered none have worked!! 😱

Jaimeh · October 11

Djennku wrote: »

Jaimeh wrote: »

I wish they would add a condition that if you've already found one codex entry, the rest would be increasingly more likely to drop. It would things easier in particular for those wanting to fill codex for furnishings so they can buy multiples of them. I remember trying to complete three entries for the wall of gears furniture from CWC and spending entire days just killing mobs there.

Kevin had replied in a different thread (too tired to go digging it up right now), that it is a bug they are aware of that is making the second and third drops for the codex take much longer than intended. They have a bit more to go with priorities regarding combat changes (food and potions mostly), so they should be able to address some of these pain points soon. There's alot they are aware of and are working on, so might just need to be patient. With the 20- some odd, or 40-some odd (actual number escapes me right now), million lines of code the game has, it's not as simple as just flicking a switch and having the bug get fixed.

I'm glad to heard it's not intended and that it's a bug, because subsequent drop RNG for some entries goes from brutal to non existent. Good to know they are aware and working on it, hopefully they can address this sooner than later, especially with more antiquities being added with every update.

Djennku · October 11

freespirit wrote: »

When did Antiquities come out? 2020 with Greymoor iirc!

I still have Codex entries missing from release, quite a few actually but two I have specifically spent hours and hours on are the Prismatic Sunbird Feather and the Moons Blessed Pool, atm I'm stuck on two of each.

These were supposedly "fixed" quite some time ago, I got the second ones shortly after that but the third refuses to drop.

I have 30+ Ebony Fox Totems and similar numbers of others, it is beyond ridiculous how hard it is to get some leads to drop.

I have tried every tip and trick ever offered none have worked!! 😱

Sadly there's no tricks to RNG. Took me 2 weeks of farming before I got my second sunbrid feather when it came out. Only thing you can do is keep farming until it drops. I have a friend I will farm leads with, and it took him between 6 months to a year before the lead from ICP dropped for him the third time around.

Djennku · October 11

@freespirit my advice with bad RNG is to spend no more than an hour or two a day on a lead unless your brain is like mine and likes to obsess over things and finds repetition relaxing. Helps to not go crazy trying for leads. Can always come back and farm more when you need to.

tomofhyrule · October 11

Djennku wrote: »

3.) Hold onto leads you do not want or need to take them out of that loot table. This is important when going for treasure map leads and IA, where multiple leads drop from the same source. Holding onto a lead prevents it from dropping, thus removing it from being able to drop again.

*DO NOT DIG UP leads until you have aquired all the ones you are after OR it is close to expiring. The only exception to this are Mythics and multipart antiquities. If it has more than three pieces, like the few furnishings in IA for example, dig up all but ONE of those leads and you will remove those from the loot pool. Remember not to complete those antiquities or it resets the leads back into the loot pool to drop again.

NO NO NO NO NO
DO NOT DO THIS FOR TREASURE MAPS

I know from experience. I tried to get the codex complete for Ancestral Breton ages ago, and I thought that this strategy would work.

It seems that the lead is generated when you do the content (e.g. dig up the map). If you have that copy already, then you get nothing. And once I had 11 motif pages in my to-be-dug pile, I then had a streak of about 50+ maps that contained no leads. The map ones are not curated. I didn't start getting more drops until I cleared out my list, because I kept rolling the same ones.

Infinite Archive does seem to be curated, so that will work there. But not for maps.

Peppo_Lives · October 12

i give up months ago on leads after i got over 10 stack of mundane rune from nerfweyr southern elsweyr in searching of the second codex entry for the psijic portal lead (not counting the loss of progress from the big mess of enforced "expiration timer on leads" patch) - but if there's a bug on drop rate (who would have guessed?) maybe, i could start again looking for them (once and if it will be fixed) - maybe

aleksandr_ESO · October 12

Djennku wrote: »

Yup, but what you're saying goes along with my advice and from personal testing. All except not getting drops because you did not dig up what you had. I had to farm the whole set of West weald leads about three times because I thought the same thing at first, but the laat lead I needed was the last one that dropped. I had to collect every other lead before it gave me the one I was after. My detriment was spending much more than I needed to on maps because I was concerned the game wasn't going to give me any more.

well, I'm saying that you would have gotten all 13 leads for about the same number of maps, because it's RNG. But only with this strategy do you lose even a few dozen repeated leads that could have drop out, but did not drop out, because you have not yet dug up

aleksandr_ESO · October 12

tomofhyrule wrote: »

NO NO NO NO NO
DO NOT DO THIS FOR TREASURE MAPS

I know from experience. I tried to get the codex complete for Ancestral Breton ages ago, and I thought that this strategy would work.

It seems that the lead is generated when you do the content (e.g. dig up the map). If you have that copy already, then you get nothing. And once I had 11 motif pages in my to-be-dug pile, I then had a streak of about 50+ maps that contained no leads. The map ones are not curated. I didn't start getting more drops until I cleared out my list, because I kept rolling the same ones.

exactly

freespirit · October 15

Djennku wrote: »

@freespirit my advice with bad RNG is to spend no more than an hour or two a day on a lead unless your brain is like mine and likes to obsess over things and finds repetition relaxing. Helps to not go crazy trying for leads. Can always come back and farm more when you need to.

There's bad rng and really, really bad rng......

I seem to suffer with the latter!

I never spend more than a couple of hours at a time on any particular lead, I swap between those that are driving me crazy, I also swap between characters.

I know second and third leads can be a problem to drop but seriously multiple hours, over a long time and still no luck, this is not player friendly in any way shape or form!!

Djennku · October 15

freespirit wrote: »

Djennku wrote: »

@freespirit my advice with bad RNG is to spend no more than an hour or two a day on a lead unless your brain is like mine and likes to obsess over things and finds repetition relaxing. Helps to not go crazy trying for leads. Can always come back and farm more when you need to.

There's bad rng and really, really bad rng......

I seem to suffer with the latter!

I never spend more than a couple of hours at a time on any particular lead, I swap between those that are driving me crazy, I also swap between characters.

I know second and third leads can be a problem to drop but seriously multiple hours, over a long time and still no luck, this is not player friendly in any way shape or form!!

At least the grind in ESO is much, much easier than other MMOs. Some hings in WoW for example can take over a year to drop, and BDO can take that long for a level up at a certain point.

Compared to that, I prefer a few weeks or couple hours of hunting things in ESO.

freespirit · October 15

Djennku wrote: »

freespirit wrote: »

Djennku wrote: »

@freespirit my advice with bad RNG is to spend no more than an hour or two a day on a lead unless your brain is like mine and likes to obsess over things and finds repetition relaxing. Helps to not go crazy trying for leads. Can always come back and farm more when you need to.

There's bad rng and really, really bad rng......

I seem to suffer with the latter!

I never spend more than a couple of hours at a time on any particular lead, I swap between those that are driving me crazy, I also swap between characters.

I know second and third leads can be a problem to drop but seriously multiple hours, over a long time and still no luck, this is not player friendly in any way shape or form!!

At least the grind in ESO is much, much easier than other MMOs. Some hings in WoW for example can take over a year to drop, and BDO can take that long for a level up at a certain point.

Compared to that, I prefer a few weeks or couple hours of hunting things in ESO.

If we want to talk about "over a year to drop" my final lead for my first In Dreams and Memories music box actually took over a year to drop........ It was the safebox lead..... OMG that one truly drove me crazy!!

Funny thing is I got second, third, fourth, fifth full sets of leads for that box by not even looking.

Necrotech_Master · October 15

Djennku wrote: »

Jaimeh wrote: »

I wish they would add a condition that if you've already found one codex entry, the rest would be increasingly more likely to drop. It would things easier in particular for those wanting to fill codex for furnishings so they can buy multiples of them. I remember trying to complete three entries for the wall of gears furniture from CWC and spending entire days just killing mobs there.

Kevin had replied in a different thread (too tired to go digging it up right now), that it is a bug they are aware of that is making the second and third drops for the codex take much longer than intended. They have a bit more to go with priorities regarding combat changes (food and potions mostly), so they should be able to address some of these pain points soon. There's alot they are aware of and are working on, so might just need to be patient. With the 20- some odd, or 40-some odd (actual number escapes me right now), million lines of code the game has, it's not as simple as just flicking a switch and having the bug get fixed.

if that is a bug that the 2nd and 3rd leads are much harder to get, this has been this way basically since antiquities were introduced, and still a problem even with all of the new leads that they add