In the upcoming Update 23 for Elder Scrolls Online, Zenimax will attempt to make Jewelry Crafting Master Writs "worth completing". They are vague on details, but the patch notes state:
A more comprehensive look at the current situation is required, and a comprehensive overhaul is NOT required. It needs to be examined in three stages:
The reason most crafters don't bother doing Jewelry Crafting Master Writs is the Cost per Voucher--specifically the cost of plating on the PLAYER-CONTROLLED market. I know this because the main tool Crafters use is WritWorthy, and that checks the COST of materials in the Guild Stores.
What is Cost Per Voucher and Rarity
But actually is "Cost Per Voucher"? It is a symptom of two things: "Rarity", and there being a better use of materials than getting vouchers from Jewelry Crafting Master Writs.
When people talk about "rarity" of materials, they are in fact not referring to "limited quantity". For example, Zircon grains are theoretically not rare at all. If you keep doing dolmens you'll get your chance a epic jewelry which you can then deconstruct to get a chance at Zircon grains. So the source is infinite. What makes it "rare" is the unacceptable time cost.
Similarly, Zircon is not hard to find in Guild Stores. There, it is kept "rare" because of the extremely high gold cost. That gold cost is translated into a measure of Cost Per Voucher, and in comparison with other types of Master Writs, Jewelry has an extremely high Cost Per Voucher.
This is the same with all "rare" items in the game -- They are difficult to acquire by an individual except with chance, but over time the entire gaming population will acquire some, and make them available to others. In this way, the acquisition of these rare items is not impossible despite the very small odds. This is the function of Guild Stores: Allowing players to exchange gold for time. Whenever an item cannot be acquired through players selling or trading to other players, then we start to see true rarity based on the drop rate.
Obviously most people would be foolish to use their materials for Jewelry Master Writs because of the extremely high Cost Per Voucher -- there is obviously a better use for it. This is probably in the creation and upgrading of jewelry for use instead of turning them in to complete a Master Writ. So for the market that needs these materials for upgrading, they have no choice but to face the costs of Rarity.
In contrast, there are other ways of getting vouchers, so Jewelry Master Writs can simply be destroyed.
Farming as a Solution
How to Address Cost Per Voucher
A solution to Cost per Voucher must be one where the player can calculate that the cost to them means it is better to do the Writ than to try to sell the materials. We can make this calculation plain by changing the currency to Vouchers and selling the rarest materials (Zircon and Chromium) through an NPC vendor.
By doing so, we are basically offering a substitute for the Guild Stores while maintaining rarity with an already "rare" currency (vouchers). By adjusting how much potential profit can be made, we can encourage this option to be one where the player merely acquires the shortfall, rather than entirely relies on using vouchers to compete writs.
And by making the purchased materials Bind on Pickup, we can prevent them from simply being resold in Guild Stores for other uses.
Benchmarking the cost to Vouchers also theoretically puts a cap on price in Guild Stores. Only players who do not have a steady source of Vouchers would still be reliant on them for materials. Given such a case, there is pressure to price materials at the going voucher/gold exchange rate (which in turn is dynamically calculated based on what players are willing to pay for various voucher-bought goods).
Here is how a suggested price might be calculated:
When materials are not rare, hoarding them instead of using them means you are paying an opportunity cost.
Conversely, when materials are "rare", as in the case of Jewelry Crafting, it is more sensible to hoard them until a good opportunity comes along to use them. In the case of Jewelry Crafting Master Writs, this means waiting for writs that reward at or near the maximum possible reward. To do a writ that is much lower is to waste materials.
Therefore, if the range of rewards is too broad, players will simply destroy most writs that don't meet their personal threshold for what is "worth doing".
Furthermore, two materials are considered rare: Zircon and Chromium. Chromium is used in Legendary Writs but Zircon is used in BOTH Epic and Legendary Writs. Therefore, a player wanting to do Epic Writs does so risking not having enough Zircon for a Legendary Writ. This is even more incentive to destroy all Epic Writs no matter their payout.
PROPOSAL: Minimum voucher reward should be at least 80% of the highest possible reward for the respective category. The drop rate can be altered accordingly to represent basically destroying writs that are not worthwhile.
Suppose that a stable solution process has been found to the issue of Cost Per Voucher such that most writs are worth doing. Then I feel we need to look carefully then at the maximum number of vouchers that are rewarded.
A solution is to first watch the rate at which writs are completed. If it is proving too high, with players profiting too much from whatever Cost Per Voucher solution is implemented, then possibly a reduction is in order.
In any case, a massive increase is harder to roll back -- People like being given things, rather than for things to be taken away from them.
Jewelry Crafting Master Writ ImprovementsWithout actually addressing the reason why Jewelry Crafting Master Writs are mostly thrown away at the moment, we feel the changes at best will result in the new Superior writs (requesting Superior or blue-grade jewelry) being somewhat commonly fulfilled -- given that Iridium Grains are somewhat easy to get through grinding Alik'r Dolmens, where a piece of jewelry is a guaranteed drop; and at the highest level of Platings Expertise, you only need two units of Iridium Plating.
In this update, new Jewelry Crafting Master Writs received from daily Jewelry writs will most commonly request a superior piece of jewelry, with a rare chance of epic, and a very rare chance of legendary. The number of writs awarded from newly received epic and legendary Jewelry Crafting Master Writs has been significantly increased. This change is not retroactive.
A more comprehensive look at the current situation is required, and a comprehensive overhaul is NOT required. It needs to be examined in three stages:
- Cost per Voucher
- Vouchers per Writ
- Comparison with Other Crafts
The TL;DR solution:
- Sell plating through an NPC vendor, to cap cost per voucher
- Minimum reward on a writ should be 80% of the maximum possible reward
- Compare voucher payouts with other crafts assuming players start doing writs
The reason most crafters don't bother doing Jewelry Crafting Master Writs is the Cost per Voucher--specifically the cost of plating on the PLAYER-CONTROLLED market. I know this because the main tool Crafters use is WritWorthy, and that checks the COST of materials in the Guild Stores.
What is Cost Per Voucher and Rarity
But actually is "Cost Per Voucher"? It is a symptom of two things: "Rarity", and there being a better use of materials than getting vouchers from Jewelry Crafting Master Writs.
When people talk about "rarity" of materials, they are in fact not referring to "limited quantity". For example, Zircon grains are theoretically not rare at all. If you keep doing dolmens you'll get your chance a epic jewelry which you can then deconstruct to get a chance at Zircon grains. So the source is infinite. What makes it "rare" is the unacceptable time cost.
Similarly, Zircon is not hard to find in Guild Stores. There, it is kept "rare" because of the extremely high gold cost. That gold cost is translated into a measure of Cost Per Voucher, and in comparison with other types of Master Writs, Jewelry has an extremely high Cost Per Voucher.
This is the same with all "rare" items in the game -- They are difficult to acquire by an individual except with chance, but over time the entire gaming population will acquire some, and make them available to others. In this way, the acquisition of these rare items is not impossible despite the very small odds. This is the function of Guild Stores: Allowing players to exchange gold for time. Whenever an item cannot be acquired through players selling or trading to other players, then we start to see true rarity based on the drop rate.
Obviously most people would be foolish to use their materials for Jewelry Master Writs because of the extremely high Cost Per Voucher -- there is obviously a better use for it. This is probably in the creation and upgrading of jewelry for use instead of turning them in to complete a Master Writ. So for the market that needs these materials for upgrading, they have no choice but to face the costs of Rarity.
In contrast, there are other ways of getting vouchers, so Jewelry Master Writs can simply be destroyed.
Farming as a Solution
Any solution that allows or encourages farming, such as with alts, also needs to be carefully examined. Whatever the benchmark number of alts players can be expected to make, that number can change and over time increase as more characters per account are allowed (e.g., as new classes are made and Class Change is still not an option).
Furthermore, any solution which encourages having a lot of alts pushes players into being more like exploiters and bots instead of actually playing the game.
This is actually a risk with Jewelry Crafting because of the Rarity of materials. In the other crafts, with or without alts, there are a lot of opportunities to acquire materials, and as a result farming with alts is nowhere necessary and buying from Guild Stores is not unreasonable.
How to Address Cost Per Voucher
A solution to Cost per Voucher must be one where the player can calculate that the cost to them means it is better to do the Writ than to try to sell the materials. We can make this calculation plain by changing the currency to Vouchers and selling the rarest materials (Zircon and Chromium) through an NPC vendor.
By doing so, we are basically offering a substitute for the Guild Stores while maintaining rarity with an already "rare" currency (vouchers). By adjusting how much potential profit can be made, we can encourage this option to be one where the player merely acquires the shortfall, rather than entirely relies on using vouchers to compete writs.
And by making the purchased materials Bind on Pickup, we can prevent them from simply being resold in Guild Stores for other uses.
Benchmarking the cost to Vouchers also theoretically puts a cap on price in Guild Stores. Only players who do not have a steady source of Vouchers would still be reliant on them for materials. Given such a case, there is pressure to price materials at the going voucher/gold exchange rate (which in turn is dynamically calculated based on what players are willing to pay for various voucher-bought goods).
Here is how a suggested price might be calculated:
- Epic Writs
- Suppose the highest possible payout on an Epic Master Jewelry Writ is 100 vouchers, and the only significant cost are the three Zircon plates.
- Further assume NO profit on writs paying less than 90% of the best possible writ, as it is meant to be a supplement to a scarce supply and hence rarity of the material is protected.
- Therefore, Zircon is valued at ( 100 vouchers x 90% / 3 plates ) = 30 vouchers per plate.
- Legendary Writs
- Suppose the highest possible payout on a Legendary Master Jewelry Writ is 450 vouchers, and the only significant costs are the three Zircon Plates and four Chromium Plates.
- 450 vouchers is 350 more than our benchmark Epic Writ, so our calculations will use 350 vouchers and four Chromium Plates.
- Therefore, Chromium is valued at ( 350 vouchers x 90% / 4 plates ) = 78.75 vouchers per grain or 80 vouchers.
- Therefore to use vouchers for all Zircon and all Chromium on a Legendary Master Jewelry Writ could cost 90 + 320 = 410 vouchers. So there is room for profit, but only with the highest paying writs.
Vouchers Per Writ
Supposing that we can solve the issue of making Jewelry Crafting Master Writs worthwhile to complete, I feel that another issue that really needs looking at is the RANGE of voucher rewards in each tier.When materials are not rare, hoarding them instead of using them means you are paying an opportunity cost.
Conversely, when materials are "rare", as in the case of Jewelry Crafting, it is more sensible to hoard them until a good opportunity comes along to use them. In the case of Jewelry Crafting Master Writs, this means waiting for writs that reward at or near the maximum possible reward. To do a writ that is much lower is to waste materials.
Therefore, if the range of rewards is too broad, players will simply destroy most writs that don't meet their personal threshold for what is "worth doing".
Furthermore, two materials are considered rare: Zircon and Chromium. Chromium is used in Legendary Writs but Zircon is used in BOTH Epic and Legendary Writs. Therefore, a player wanting to do Epic Writs does so risking not having enough Zircon for a Legendary Writ. This is even more incentive to destroy all Epic Writs no matter their payout.
PROPOSAL: Minimum voucher reward should be at least 80% of the highest possible reward for the respective category. The drop rate can be altered accordingly to represent basically destroying writs that are not worthwhile.
Suppose that a stable solution process has been found to the issue of Cost Per Voucher such that most writs are worth doing. Then I feel we need to look carefully then at the maximum number of vouchers that are rewarded.
Jewelry writs already give a lot of vouchers. But at the same time, there should be some premium to the cost to do a writ because Jewelry Crafting has a number of substantial advantages over the nearest competitor crafts of Blacksmithing, Clothing, and Woodworking:
- You need a lot less research. If you only researched two lines in any of those other crafts your chances of being able to complete any master writ there is probably zero.
- You do not need motifs for Jewelry crafting. If you only had a few motifs, again your chances are next to zero. Motifs cost either gold or time, and you need a substantial investment to have a decent chance of doing any particular writ that comes your way either in the guild store or from a daily writ drop.
- You can completely circumvent the need to do the wide variety of game content by simply buying the required trait material from guild stores. This bypasses the supposed drawback of jewelry trait materials being sprinkled over a wide variety of content.
A solution is to first watch the rate at which writs are completed. If it is proving too high, with players profiting too much from whatever Cost Per Voucher solution is implemented, then possibly a reduction is in order.
In any case, a massive increase is harder to roll back -- People like being given things, rather than for things to be taken away from them.
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