Today In Tamriel, ESO Character Updates and Stories Options

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

Well apparently we were lucky because the Dubious Camoran Throne recipe dropped for us. We also have the Jewels of Misrule one, and the plan for the canopy. Not sure I'd want the Jester's Coffer.

So is there any point in doing any more? And can anyone explain the pie - is that a one-use deal for the whole account, or once per day, or once per character? The fact that it's a collectible is the confusing part. It's supposed to remain collected after use anyway.

The pie is good for as many uses as you need during the time of the festival. After the festival is over, it will no longer give the xp boost. It’s like the raven whistle you get for the Witch’s Festival or Breda’s mug you get for the New Life Festival.

This post has been edited by TheCheshireKhajiit: Mar 30 2018, 03:11 AM

[ghastley]

But if the same character can simply use it again, what's the point of the two-hour timer? Except that a two-hour timer is a standard food thing, I suppose.

Anyhow, forgot to mention the Princess recipe, since you can't avoid getting that. It looks like I might keep doing it for the Jester's coins to complete the set, and get another achievement logged. The rest of them for the Jester title seem trivial, too, and you never know when I might want those trees.

This post has been edited by ghastley: Mar 30 2018, 04:14 PM

[Acadian]

The pie. It is account wide. Using it gives you 2 hours of +100% XP - but only when the Festival is active each year. If you use it when the Festival is not active then you simply eat a tasty piece of pie. It is quite similar to the New Life Festival mug and the Witches Fest cauldron - gives the XP boost only when the relevant festival is active.

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

But if the same character can simply use it again, what's the point of the two-hour timer? Except that a two-hour timer is a standard food thing, I suppose.

Anyhow, forgot to mention the Princess recipe. It looks like I might keep doing it for the Jester's coins to complete the set, and get another achievement logged. The rest of them for the Jester title seem trivial, too, and you never know when I might want those trees.

That’s actually a good question, Khajiit is guessing the timer just brings it in line with other food stuffs.

[monkeyemoness]

Don't forget the cake! That's an exp-booster too! (When's the Anniversary event again??)

At the very least, you can get an extra 2 hours of bonus EXP when the event ends as far as the timer is concerned.

[hazmick]

Don't forget the cake! That's an exp-booster too! (When's the Anniversary event again??)

It's supposed to be the first week of April. Maybe Zenimax forgot this year?

[monkeyemoness]

Considering they pushed back the Jester's Festival AND it's shorter than last year, I wound't be surprised if they, uh, surprise us with it either this week or the next.

Which reminds me...IT'S ALMOST THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN

C R A F T I N G H E L L

'Course that's assuming they're giving away a bunch of motifs this year, too. We're supposed to get a new one from the boxes, so that's probably unlikely.

Anyways, I've been forcing Lucius to run through the DLC Public Dungeons and tbh? It's going surprisingly well. He can't kill the regular bosses, but he can easily solo the Group Challenges for the Skill Point. At least, he's done it so far.

[ghastley]

I know it's not quite over yet, but I'm done with the Jesters' Festival. It has been quite a productive weekend, taking full advantage of the pie.

Laurie has made it to Champion, so we now have two ruby harvesters. She still can't quite make anything with it, but that takes inspiration, not experience, so the grind continues at its steady pace. She has six traits researched in a lot of things, and again, the pie doesn't help. She got to Master in provisioning by spamming recipes, but needs to do more real work for the others, where she's mired in the 40's.

Unna finished Cadwell's Silver, still wearing low-level gear (without pants), and is eagerly awaiting Laurie's advancement. She's feeding her deconstruction pieces, when she gets them.

The rest of the crew worked the festival, collecting recipes, mementoes, titles etc. We have a couple of Ladies of Misrule, all the provisioning recipes, the confetti coffer, we can make a pavilion once we have a home with grounds large enough to contain it. Remarkably, we only have one banner!

This post has been edited by ghastley: Apr 2 2018, 01:33 PM

[Grits]

Congrats to Laurie and Unna!

Abiene made it into the Champion ranks, much to her relief. Now she can quit watching numbers and just be Abiene.

Jerric picked up a second coffer (the furnishing) from a guy in zone chat who was desperate to be rid of the thing. He may have only gotten two or three of the flags, which he uses, and of course a whole bunch of the cherry rune boxes but only one of the new one. This year the crew only did a few of the quest runs, so that it didn’t become a chore.

[monkeyemoness]

Everyone hitting the milestones. :v Lucius reached 36 thanks to the event and the Clockwork City. New tier of materials for writs!

I made sure to get one last try at the Festival earlier today and somehow got everything I was missing. (The new memento and some recipes, with the furnishing plan acquired yesterday--better than spending thousands of gold on the tents from a while back)

But that aside

I AM READY

THEY'RE ALL READY

I've actually calculated exactly how many materials I'll need for the coming weeks (five max tier, two minimum tier, one each in the second and fourth tier), and I'm currently in the process of getting everything sorted out. I don't want a repeat of last year where I had a mental breakdown. With everything organized, the next 13 days of crafting writs should go smoothly. Dunno how I'm gonna scrounge up 2k units of Rubedite and Ruby Ash, though

[monkeyemoness]

Fjotreid and Jo'zira did some farming in anticipation for tomorrow, Eolan and Hates will do theirs then. Style material was bought, everyone shifted around materials and crafts, new crafter set up for writs, The Crafting Monkey and Lucius...pretty much go on as they were lol. Double checked my numbers to make sure the farming goal is accurate. Jo'zira and Fjotreid donated excess Rubedo Leather so that the farming doesn't involve Hates and Eolan killing things for scraps...

I think that's everything? Good. Now I rest. Tomorrow I start crafting hell but hold off on turning them in until Wednesday. Yes, I am doing okay.

[ghastley]

I've actually calculated exactly how many materials I'll need for the coming weeks (five max tier, two minimum tier, one each in the second and fourth tier), and I'm currently in the process of getting everything sorted out. I don't want a repeat of last year where I had a mental breakdown. With everything organized, the next 13 days of crafting writs should go smoothly. Dunno how I'm gonna scrounge up 2k units of Rubedite and Ruby Ash, though

Care to share what went into your calculations? I'm in the position of trying to level a crafter without an existing one to pull them up, so any insights (and the basis for them) is useful.

[monkeyemoness]

I've actually calculated exactly how many materials I'll need for the coming weeks (five max tier, two minimum tier, one each in the second and fourth tier), and I'm currently in the process of getting everything sorted out. I don't want a repeat of last year where I had a mental breakdown. With everything organized, the next 13 days of crafting writs should go smoothly. Dunno how I'm gonna scrounge up 2k units of Rubedite and Ruby Ash, though

Care to share what went into your calculations? I'm in the position of trying to level a crafter without an existing one to pull them up, so any insights (and the basis for them) is useful.

I just predicted the amount of materials that will be used for the 13+1 days of the event using what I know about the writ sequences. All (but one) crafting writs cycle through the same writs consistently, so figuring out who will get what is easy when you're familiar with them. (I like to make several "batches" ahead of time so I can just pick up the writs and turn them in quickly.) Equipment gets 3 different sets. Alchemy up to a certain point gets 4 (poisons getting thrown in there eventually by the final rank, bumping it up to 8). Enchanting has 3. Provisioning up to rank 5 has 3, with the first 3 ranks of the profession being different based on the Alliance. (Rank 6 is currently bugged. It has 6, since the cp10-140 recipes were shoehorned into it thanks to the Orsinium shenanigans, and it currently doesn't cycle right. Honestly, they could easily make a new rank given that Rank 2 is only accessible if you're reached 20 in the skill. Why is the skill requirement this abnormally high??? All the other ranks are 10 levels apart.)

For equipment writs up to Rank 9, there's what I call the "23-21-17 Cycle", which refers to the total amount of style material used for the day for all 3 professions. Regardless of rank it's always the same items, but I think which "set" you'll get changes based on rank. I honestly don't pay much attention to these, since most of my crafters are already maxed out and since I do writs for all crafts on new crafters now I can't exactly hold onto more than a single day's set. (I don't have Plus, so materials take up most of the inventory space.) I DO know the items specific to the craft's set by heart, though. (Example: 23's Blacksmithing set is 5 Daggers, 2 Helmets and 2 Pauldrons) The UESP has info on that if you don't.

Once you get to Rank 10, it goes down to 3 per craft for all 3 days in the cycle, so there isn't much to set them apart, so I designated them the Alpha, Beta and Gamma "days" or sets. I also lucked out with my Squad each having a different one from the other, which was pretty neat. It convinced me that Alliance also played a part on which one they'll get, but yesterday I found out it doesn't. (Hates and the Crafting Monkey, both EP, get the same set every day so I assumed Fjotreid, also EP, would too. He got Jo'zira's set instead. Jo'zira is AD) I've linked it before, but here's the Max Rank Sets for all crafting professions. I also memorized this thanks to over a year of doing these daily. :v


tl;dr Knowing how the writs cycle lets you plan ahead and figure out exactly how many materials you'll need for two weeks of hell.

[monkeyemoness]

I call it Crafting Hell, but the reality is that what makes me lose my mind is the micromanaging that makes that crafting happen smoothly.

As an example, today I learned that last night's planning had me so out of it that when I got to Hates distributing alchemy reagents for writs, I didn't send out a certain number of sets, but the exact number. As in, when I got Eolan's alchemy writ that I'm saving for turn-in tomorrow, I learned that he only had 2 Mucrab Chitin, not 6. As I was trying to figure out whether to laugh or cry, I accidentally turned in today's blacksmithing writ and now I gotta do another daily to replace the one I just wasted.

After today, things should settle down lol, so there's that.

[ghastley]

I think you're understating the complexity. The writ cycles are just one of the variables. If your characters are using skyshards to raise their levels as they go, you need to determine where the level changes happen, and you switch mats. And a change of level increases the number of mats needed for each writ. Throw in deconstruction returns from the reward items, and I give up trying to calculate anything.

Even if you're not doing that, Alchemy allows choices of ingredient for the same potion, so you can provide more than two for each recipe, provided you get the combinations right, and don't accidentally get another shared effect taking precedence. Even with the Plus craft bag, I have problems deciding what recipe to use for best balance of ingredients. E.g. avoiding the combinatory use of ingredients that are wanted "raw" by the writs.

I presume you're doing the crafting writs as qualifiers for the anniversary rewards, not because it's beneficial to crafting itself. I don't think there's any boost to inspiration to make craft levelling faster, but I wouldn't mind if they did that.

This post has been edited by ghastley: Apr 3 2018, 09:55 PM

[monkeyemoness]

Oh, yeah, the main reason I'm even calculating how many materials I'll need is because I'm having everyone do every single craft, and Rank 10 equipment materials can be both expensive (mostly, it's the cloth) and it takes hundreds of them to make a full set of armor so I'm trying to ration as much as I can. Otherwise I just gather as much as I can and pay it no mind. Until it runs out again. It's also why for characters like The Crafting Monkey and Lucius it's not that big a change. They're already doing writs every day, while the others only work on two specific crafts if they do them at all.

I guess it also helps that my characters' Crafting Skill tends to overtake character level, so increasing it is based on whether the character has caught up to the items that will be crafted. I suppose that when you have characters in different levels that depend on their craft, it can get much more convoluted. Still, things are easier when crafting skill is higher, which is where guild kiosks and intricate items come into play.

With Lucius I've also taken to saving one or two surveys for the next tier so that I have something to fall back on when jumping to the next rank. Less gathering involved that way, and more time for making a new set of armor.

With Alchemy, I honestly just try to avoid using Writ requirements whenever possible. I think it gets tricky when the writ calls for something like Mountain Flower. I don't think there are many reagents with Restore Stamina that don't also have another related trait that'll end up changing the type of potion it'll become. Honestly, it's just gotten to the point where every. Single. Material found on the ground is snatched up immediately just to satisfy writs.

[Grits]

If anyone needs middle tier equipment mats, let me know. I have a bunch sitting in the craft bag waiting just for you. My entire crew is doing either top or bottom level equipment writs.

For some reason Jerric decided that the eve of writ-pocalypse was the perfect time to promote some of his crew in Provisioning. After they had checked their supplies and cooked accordingly for their old levels. A few of them swapped goods and sorted out their inventories, but poor Tythis is groaning under the weight of the ready meals and drinks that no one has claimed yet.

[haute ecole rider]

Like Grits, I also have a ton of mid level mats, and of course, provisioning materials.

Hit me up in game if you find you are desperately short of these and you are standing at the crafting table tearing your pixelated hair out by the fistful.



On a totally separate note, some of you may know that I joined a housing guild in game. It is a wonderful group of friendly, humorous enjoyable people who are passionate about decorating and creative ideas. The guild holds contests for the best party house, the best spa, whatever. I entered my Sleek Creek home about a month ago for the guild's Birthday Party contest - it didn't place, but I got a tremendous amount of compliments on it. As it is Julian's main residence, we have left it the way it is since the contest.

We entered Phae's Bouldertree Refuge in my second contest, From Camping to Glamping. Many of you have toured the finished home, which Phae is extremely proud of. It has an outdoor kitchen, a rotmeth brewery for the strong of stomach, several outdoor sleeping nooks, an outdoor latrine (classic campground style, of course), and a Spinner's Room where you can gather around a magical campfire for tales or curl up in a corner with a good book. Beyond that is the Bosmer Bath, modeled after the classical Roman Bath, with the frigidarium (cool bath) on the left of the entrance, the sudatoria (wet sweating room, or sauna) in the center, and the tepidarium (warm bath) on the right. Of course, no proper bath is complete without an apodyterium, or changing room, located at the back of the pod.

This house won second place (we nearly tied for first), and is set as my primary if any of you wish to come and visit. As I have no plans to enter any more contests in the near future, it looks as if Phae's Thistleleaf Clan Reunion Campground will remain open for the summer! Be sure to bring your own booze of choice if you do not wish to partake of the rotmeth (there are three very excellent varieties).

[Acadian]

Grats to Phae on her campy prizewinner of a junglepod place! I had the privilege of touring it several times while work was in progress and then popped in again just yesterday to admire the final product. Beautifully clever and creative place!

[ghastley]

I'l have to be careful to visit with a character that won't want one of her own. We're still saving up for a Mathiisen Manor - almost half-way there! - so other homes that could be bought now are off-limits to certain characters.

It will probably be Taminwe, as it's her house that would get delayed.