Antiquity Leads …

BradTheNord · May 25

Let’s talk about it..

I don’t know what’s happened or if there’s an account cool down for leads but ever since hitting High Isle any leads from anything won’t drop …

Me and my friend are going for every codex entry (100% codex) in the game and we are up to High Isle up until now it’s been plain sailing pretty much. I understand RNG has a role to play in getting these leads but as a self proclaimed codex connoisseur at this point something is off very off.

Me and my friend have farmed every lead drop boss and activity for the mythics in high isle for nearly 2 weeks now and nothing will drop from any activity. Ive tried swapping toons I’ve tried waiting to different times of day I’ve been on sessions of 4-6 hours farming the same 3 bosses and nothing will drop … NOTHING

Can we please get a percentage table for leads so we have some sort of idea how long we may be grinding for these because since High Isle it’s been cranked up to a thousand and I don’t know what to do at this point.

P.S I even tried grabbing a lead that I’ve never had from solstice, it was for the cult blacksmithing station thinking ohh I’ll be able to get this lead I’ve not even had it once I’ve spent over 4 hours in a delve farming a boss for the lead to not drop once ….

@zos_kevin
@ZOS_Kira
@ZOS_GinaBruno
@ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Gabriel_H · May 25

BradTheNord wrote: »

Me and my friend have farmed every lead drop boss and activity for the mythics in high isle for nearly 2 weeks now and nothing will drop from any activity. Ive tried swapping toons I’ve tried waiting to different times of day I’ve been on sessions of 4-6 hours farming the same 3 bosses and nothing will drop … NOTHING

It once took me 82 Timbershade kills to get his lead to drop. It also took 73 kills of the Four Skull WB to get that lead. It took over 120 Bastion Nymic coffers to get that lead.

As someone aiming for codex completion myself I feel confident in saying the only thing that is "off" is the awful drop rates, especially for 2nd and 3rd iterations.

BradTheNord · May 25

Gabriel_H wrote: »

BradTheNord wrote: »

Me and my friend have farmed every lead drop boss and activity for the mythics in high isle for nearly 2 weeks now and nothing will drop from any activity. Ive tried swapping toons I’ve tried waiting to different times of day I’ve been on sessions of 4-6 hours farming the same 3 bosses and nothing will drop … NOTHING

It once took me 82 Timbershade kills to get his lead to drop. It also took 73 kills of the Four Skull WB to get that lead. It took over 120 Bastion Nymic coffers to get that lead.

As someone aiming for codex completion myself I feel confident in saying the only thing that is "off" is the awful drop rates, especially for 2nd and 3rd iterations.

Yes I have also had awful luck I spent over a week straight farming for the moon blessed pool in southern elsweyr I must of opened over 10,000 urns to get my third lead …. But what I found is mixing it up and looking for other stuff helped because other stuff would drop atleast where as now nothing is dropping from any zone I don’t know what to do.

GeneralGrundmann · May 25

It won't help you, but I decided very early on when I started with ESO that I would never go for antiquities codex completion and be happy with the sticker book being filled at least once.

For your reference: I also wanted the moon blessed pool to be buyable for a bathhouse and I got all three leads within roundabout 100 urns.

And I got the cult blacksmith station from solstice three times completely while doing just all the quest and the dailies.

For the southern Elseweyr portal lead it had been 20 hours for the first lead only.

And I had to complete 20 conquest missions for each warmachines' lead at least once.

They will never show us the lead percentage tables, these are destined to be mysterious.

AzuraFan · May 25

Gabriel_H wrote: »

As someone aiming for codex completion myself I feel confident in saying the only thing that is "off" is the awful drop rates, especially for 2nd and 3rd iterations.

Agreed for leads that require 3/3 for completion. The second and third iterations can be brutal. For 1/1 leads, that first drop can have miserable RNG too.

I'm currently working on the codex, and sometimes it's so bad that I wonder if it's bugged. There are leads I've been chasing off and on for a while and no luck. It doesn't help that some of them drop from mobs that rarely drop anything, or only exist in small numbers (gryphons in Summerset as an example). On the other hand, there are leads that drop like candy. The RNG certainly seems to be off.

Also, I've noticed that the two leads vendors only seem to be selling leads that are part of a set (mythics, music boxes, etc.), or at least that's all I've seen lately. At one time, they sold everything. The community complained about having fixed location leads (which require no RNG) in the rotation, because nobody has problems getting those. I'm hoping they didn't remove everything except fragment leads, because other RNG leads can be horrible to get. The vendors need to sell those too.

Anyway, to the OP's point, yes, I've wondered if a lead drop is bugged too. Unfortunately, it's unlikely. I have had leads after High Isle drop for me recently, so it's RNG. Having players invest hours/weeks/months of time with no reward is "as intended", as unbelievable as that is for a game in 2026.

o_Primate_o · May 25

i've recently begun completing the codexes too. Yes, the drops seem much more horrible since the first time i did them (when the leads first arrived in ESO.) for example I've farmed easily over 100 metal/jewelry nodes in Glenumbra and still waiting for a lead. etc. etc. I certainly am worried about going back into dungeons (secret bosses particularly as no one does them).

secondly, i did the Solstice maps when they dropped in IA. I bought 30 of them. the first 12-15 gave me all the leads than only drop from treasure maps. the next nine dropped one lead. i stopped buying them. i waited a week and the next two no leads. i'm holding onto my last four for today (maybe ESO will thank me for my service on Memorial Day and give me some leads). Solstice really should drop from any treasure chest considering that it's much less common for people to sell unread treasure maps so buying them is a gamble not worth it.

SwordOfSagas · May 25

I'm still working on the Torc of the Last Ayleid King, been trying on and off since it released lol I've only received one fragment the whole time. And I see it's had some fragments in the venders at some point that I missed.

Thoriorz · May 25

AzuraFan wrote: »

I'm currently working on the codex, and sometimes it's so bad that I wonder if it's bugged.

You never know—it’s been a while, but when I was farming Lead, which drops from ToT coffers, it just wouldn’t drop for 2/3 codex, so I decided to post on the forum and ask players if anyone had gotten it recently, or if it might be a bug, and so on. Well, guess what happened? Not long after that, there was a patch in the game, and the patch notes said that they’d fixed a bug where this Lead wasn’t dropping as intended... So you really never know...

Gabriel_H · May 25

AzuraFan wrote: »

I'm currently working on the codex, and sometimes it's so bad that I wonder if it's bugged. There are leads I've been chasing off and on for a while and no luck. It doesn't help that some of them drop from mobs that rarely drop anything, or only exist in small numbers (gryphons in Summerset as an example). On the other hand, there are leads that drop like candy. The RNG certainly seems to be off.

Post-covid forced me to take a 2 year break from the game. When I came back I was missing 2.5 chapters worth of leads. The number of world bosses I had to solo ... ugh ... but that was nothing compared to soloing a Harrowstorm. Luckily for me the latter dropped my 2 missing entries within 10 storms.

There have been dozens of threads* about the drop rates. ZOS continue to be silent, and then release the NM where the drops are much more boosted. The 2nd and 3rd iterations were still lower than the 1st, but I got all 3 codex entries very quickly compared to other zones. It was great.

*Case In Point: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/691443/the-silence-on-antiquity-leads-is-defeaning/p1

AzuraFan · May 26

Thoriorz wrote: »

You never know—it’s been a while, but when I was farming Lead, which drops from ToT coffers, it just wouldn’t drop for 2/3 codex, so I decided to post on the forum and ask players if anyone had gotten it recently, or if it might be a bug, and so on. Well, guess what happened? Not long after that, there was a patch in the game, and the patch notes said that they’d fixed a bug where this Lead wasn’t dropping as intended... So you really never know...

True, but most leads have this problem - the second and third iterations take forever. Leads RNG has always been miserable.

Gabriel_H wrote: »

There have been dozens of threads* about the drop rates. ZOS continue to be silent, and then release the NM where the drops are much more boosted. The 2nd and 3rd iterations were still lower than the 1st, but I got all 3 codex entries very quickly compared to other zones. It was great.

Hopefully they'll extend that everywhere. The time it takes to get some leads is insane. I probably won't complete the codex because I'll eventually decide I'm wasting my time. I've already put the codex aside several times. If there was more to do in the game, I wouldn't even touch it. I've basically been working on it while I wait for season 1 to drop, and then other stuff later in the year.

I really liked the antiquities system when it first released and leads were reasonable (the sources and the time it took for leads to drop), but now I'm indifferent to it. It's the dreck I do when I'm in wait mode.

OTOH, I love hunting lore books. Why? It takes me all over the world, and I'm always rewarded for the time spent. It's so much better than antiquities, where you have to do the same activity over and over again, and even after hours or weeks of that, you still get nothing. Just typing that makes me wonder why I'm spending time on it.

Gabriel_H · May 26

AzuraFan wrote: »

OTOH, I love hunting lore books. Why? It takes me all over the world, and I'm always rewarded for the time spent. It's so much better than antiquities, where you have to do the same activity over and over again, and even after hours or weeks of that, you still get nothing. Just typing that makes me wonder why I'm spending time on it.

Lorebooks you say. Be aware: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/678748/eidetic-memory-bug-list/p1

Good hunting!

Lokiator · May 26

BradTheNord wrote: »

I don’t know what’s happened or if there’s an account cool down for leads but ever since hitting High Isle any leads from anything won’t drop …

As someone with just over 80 leads left to hunt (mostly [snip] treasure map ones), my observation was that High Isle / Galen and Telvanni Peninsula / Apocrypha lead drop rates seemed much, MUCH lower than previous (or subsequent) zones. I spent a fraction of the time doing other areas compared to those two chapters.

In fact, of the 38 non-map leads that I still need to find to complete the codex, 31 of them are from those two chapters. They just won't drop despite ridiculous amounts of grinding.
[edited for profanity bypass]

agelonestar · May 26

Antiquities was originally a means of getting players to revisit areas, replay content, make the most of the game.

The problem is, very few people are encouraged to grind the same boss 70-odd times for a piece of furnishing, or open 100 treasure chests, loot 1,000 urns, etc etc.

How hard is it to include some code that manages and limits attempts at a lead?

AzuraFan · May 26

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Lorebooks you say. Be aware: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/678748/eidetic-memory-bug-list/p1

Yep, I've run into a few bugged books. I'm hoping they'll eventually make the eidetic memory account wide (not the motifs, just the lorebooks), and hopefully an alt will be able to get the bugged ones. It's frustrating to pick up a book and not have it recorded, or to go to the location where one's supposed to be and it's not there. And there are the ones I missed while doing a quest that ZOS hasn't fixed. Still, 99% of the time the book is there, it's recorded, and I'm rewarded for my time.

(nice thread!)

Thoriorz · May 27

AzuraFan wrote: »

Thoriorz wrote: »

You never know—it’s been a while, but when I was farming Lead, which drops from ToT coffers, it just wouldn’t drop for 2/3 codex, so I decided to post on the forum and ask players if anyone had gotten it recently, or if it might be a bug, and so on. Well, guess what happened? Not long after that, there was a patch in the game, and the patch notes said that they’d fixed a bug where this Lead wasn’t dropping as intended... So you really never know...

True, but most leads have this problem - the second and third iterations take forever. Leads RNG has always been miserable.

I know this all too well (I have all the Antiquities in the game at 3/3), so don't worry—I know that, overall, 2/3 and 3/3 are mostly pain, and there are even some that make you start to think they're buged l. So, yea.