Official Discussion Thread for "The Witches Festival is Coming!"

rhapsodious

Welp, to blow $40 on a motif I'll probably barely use for the sake of completion or not... shame.

Now, I'm wondering. All the other Crown Crafting motifs give 5 mimic stones. You said the Grim Harlequin motif will give 54. Which could easily be a typo. Will it actually give 54, which is kind of a weird number, or will it just give 5 in line with the other crown motifs (and also making it impossible to make a full set of GH armor out of the box)?

Elsonso

rhapsodious wrote: »

Welp, to blow $40 on a motif I'll probably barely use for the sake of completion or not... shame.

Now, I'm wondering. All the other Crown Crafting motifs give 5 mimic stones. You said the Grim Harlequin motif will give 54. Which could easily be a typo. Will it actually give 54, which is kind of a weird number, or will it just give 5 in line with the other crown motifs (and also making it impossible to make a full set of GH armor out of the box)?

Well, it is 2 mimic stones shy of 8 full sets, which is what you need if you want to outfit your whole stable of 8 characters. As the purpose of this set is to sell Mimic stones, I am actually surprised they didn't go with 6 of them, or maybe 13 of them.

Woeler

So that is why there is no achievement for completing that motif.

Preyfar

As a crafter this leaves a really bad feeling in my mouth.

Elsonso

Preyfar wrote: »

As a crafter this leaves a really bad feeling in my mouth.

But then you remember that, starting with One Tamriel, they really want players to grind for zone sets rather than craft. Right?

Donum-Dei

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Going to try and answer everyone's questions, but first, want to explain how this event is

Daz_dingoeb17_ESO wrote: »

will the grim harlequin motif drop during the event or will it be a crown store exclusive?

The Grim Harlequin is going to be exclusive to the Crown Store. However, purchasing the Grim Harlequin will net you 54 Mimic Stones, which you can use to craft gear (including the Grim Harlequin). You can use this crafted gear to deconstruct and have a chance to get a Grinstone - the Grim Harlequin style item. All this can be traded, too, if you wish.

...

I guess this is going to be a thing?
There will be a dropped/farmable motif and a crown store motif each event?

Dracane

Hello @ZOS_GinaBruno Can you tell us, if bosses in Cyrodiil caves can drop these skulls as well ?
Or only those bosses found in pve areas ?

GorraShatan

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

G
The Grim Harlequin is going to be exclusive to the Crown Store. However, purchasing the Grim Harlequin will net you 54 Mimic Stones, which you can use to craft gear (including the Grim Harlequin). You can use this crafted gear to deconstruct and have a chance to get a Grinstone - the Grim Harlequin style item. All this can be traded, too, if you wish.

I hope you understand why this is such a serious concern to players. You're essentially letting people convert cash into gold. It's not full blown Black Desert, but still worrying to see things go in that direction at all.

sadownik

lordrichter wrote: »

Cazzy wrote: »

What happens when the event is over? How will we get gems to craft Harlequin?

Now we know why they invented Mimic Stones. They finally have something in the Crown Store that requires them, so anyone purchasing this Motif has to buy them or they have wasted their money on the Motif.

Agree, but its a vile way to monetize, even for some c class f2p grinder.

Daz_dingoeb17_ESO

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Daz_dingoeb17_ESO wrote: »

will the grim harlequin motif drop during the event or will it be a crown store exclusive?

The Grim Harlequin is going to be exclusive to the Crown Store. However, purchasing the Grim Harlequin will net you 54 Mimic Stones, which you can use to craft gear (including the Grim Harlequin). You can use this crafted gear to deconstruct and have a chance to get a Grinstone - the Grim Harlequin style item. All this can be traded, too, if you wish.

Thanks for the reply Gina although i will have to admit that as a crafter who played since beta i am deeply disappointed by Zos decision on this.

By doing this Zos has opened the grave for all those who like me loved the crafting system and strived all this time to have all motifs and be called master Crafters.
Crafters will now have to choose between buying something they like on the crown store and something that they will need to be competitive on their craft.
Maybe one motif is not the end you may say but we all know there will be more of those coming and as such i can't stress enough how bad this is for one of the most healthy communities in the game, the crafting one. I really hope Zos reconsiders this for the future.

DPShiro

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Going to try and answer everyone's questions, but first, want to explain how this event is going to go down.

1. First, you'll want to pick up a (free) Crow Caller from the Crown Store.
2. Then, start the quest “The Witchmother’s Bargain” by using your Crow Caller.
3. Complete the quest to receive the Witches Festival Whistle.
4. Use the Witches Festival Whistle to summon the Witchmother’s Cauldron.
5. You can use the Witchmother’s Cauldron to turn you and anyone you are grouped with into an Undead (each use will last for two hours, but you can use it as many times as you like until the end of the event).
6. Once the event is over, you’ll be able to keep the Witches Festival Whistle as a memento, but all of its supernatural powers will be gone.

There are a number of rewards you can get from the Plunder Skulls (dropped from bosses) including:

• The Hollowjack Motif book
• A Halloween mask (either a pumpkin or scarecrow)
• Spooky (sometimes gross) recipies
• Amber Marble, the Hollowjack style item
• Gross stuff, like worms and guts

Hope this helps! Now, onto the questions:

Caff32 wrote: »

No mention of XP boost...

Sorry about that! Yes, you will be able to get a double XP boost by using the Witchmother's Cauldron.

Daz_dingoeb17_ESO wrote: »

will the grim harlequin motif drop during the event or will it be a crown store exclusive?

The Grim Harlequin is going to be exclusive to the Crown Store. However, purchasing the Grim Harlequin will net you 54 Mimic Stones, which you can use to craft gear (including the Grim Harlequin). You can use this crafted gear to deconstruct and have a chance to get a Grinstone - the Grim Harlequin style item. All this can be traded, too, if you wish.

Minute_Waltz wrote: »

So do we have an exact time of this event starting? Will it start at 0:01AM EST? Will we have another 8 hour maintenance to enable this?

We'll be starting to add this event onto each realm at 10:00am EDT. It won't require any downtime, and shouldn't take too long to complete.

TheDarkRuler wrote: »

Will the Motif crafting materials of the festival motif be farmable forever?
Or are the style materials gone once the festival ends?

No, only during the duration of the event.

Voidnova wrote: »

Will console players be able to participate?

Yes, of course!

SunshineSen wrote: »

I'm new to the game so I was wondering if the "boss monsters" that you have to kill are only those that are found in group dungeons etc. or do the bosses found in (solo) delves count as well?

Nope, it's any boss found in the game. Dungeons, delves, etc.

RebornV3x wrote: »

RomansXXI wrote: »

Aldmor13 wrote: »

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom

So this is droping on PS4/XBox before 1T does. So on PS4/XBox there will still be low level world/dungeon/delv bosses dropping skulls, up until the 1T patch next week? On the other hand, those servers will be down for a day or more during this event FOR the patch...

I have this question also. Are console players missing out and getting pushed to the back again? I don't want to be missing 2 days or more of the event due to downloading the patch. What is the reason for making it the 13th and not the 18th with the console being on the same level as pc

So yeah what up with console players

There will be some downtime while we publish One Tamriel next week on console. That said, we're also publishing incremental patches on PC, so everyone is going to have some patches here and there. The event lasts until 10:00am EDT on November 1st, so you'll have lots of time to play and enjoy it.

Regarding this, can I continue farming VMA and they drop from those bosses too?

fangroth

Store only motif after continuously neglecting crafters and oncoming gamble boxes? I'm out.

bottleofsyrup

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Daz_dingoeb17_ESO wrote: »

will the grim harlequin motif drop during the event or will it be a crown store exclusive?

The Grim Harlequin is going to be exclusive to the Crown Store. However, purchasing the Grim Harlequin will net you 54 Mimic Stones, which you can use to craft gear (including the Grim Harlequin). You can use this crafted gear to deconstruct and have a chance to get a Grinstone - the Grim Harlequin style item. All this can be traded, too, if you wish.

@ZOS_GinaBruno Will this be another $50 motif?

Castielle

Motifs are the sort of thing I don't mind being in the store. I understand that many people are completionists, but these items will help fund the game when it goes F2P in the future. I play ESO primarily for the immersion and gameplay. If people want to spend 50$ to buy a Motif so I can keep playing the game I love, then all the better.

Cas

Elsonso

.

bottleofsyrup wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Daz_dingoeb17_ESO wrote: »

will the grim harlequin motif drop during the event or will it be a crown store exclusive?

The Grim Harlequin is going to be exclusive to the Crown Store. However, purchasing the Grim Harlequin will net you 54 Mimic Stones, which you can use to craft gear (including the Grim Harlequin). You can use this crafted gear to deconstruct and have a chance to get a Grinstone - the Grim Harlequin style item. All this can be traded, too, if you wish.

@ZOS_GinaBruno Will this be another $50 motif?

I doubt that it will be that cheap.

cjhhickman39

Will we be able to double double (use xp pots and scrolls) like last event?

Donum-Dei

Castielle wrote: »

Motifs are the sort of thing I don't mind being in the store. I understand that many people are completionists, but these items will help fund the game when it goes F2P in the future. I play ESO primarily for the immersion and gameplay. If people want to spend 50$ to buy a Motif so I can keep playing the game I love, then all the better.

Cas

The issue I am having with this, and I bet other player share the same perspective towards this, is removing an object completely has "farmable" and placing it only in crown store. Both can share the same options in crown stores and outside of it. For players that don't wan't to waste time and buy it (because not everybody wants or can't buy everything) and for players that wan'ts to farm it and feel that sort of emotion of satisfaction and surprise of completion towards finding it. Because what would be the fun, if everything that can become an adventure is being minimize because is being transfer only to crown store.

Make those particular kind of "special" items a little bit more rare on drops. And you will have both of the side happy.

BdCHighVoltage

the worst thing imho is this:

Will the Motif crafting materials of the festival motif be farmable forever?
Or are the style materials gone once the festival ends?

No, only during the duration of the event.

Pandorii

I'm really sad about ZOS's decision to add a crown store exclusive motif. I'm going to miss being able to say: 9 trait crafter, all styles. Instead, I'm going to have to say: all styles, except the ones that ZOS put on the crown store to milk crafters.

I am not going to pay ~$50 to be able to maybe craft one specific style, especially not without a transmog or style-changing feature in the game (that the devs find to be too much work to implement).

Parafrost

Looking at the 2 motifs, im glad the grim harlequin is in the crownstore. It doesn't compare to the Hollowjack style lol. It looks uglier imo. Nvm. The dyed light harlequin looks slick af... MAKE THIS FARMABLE ZOSE

chimneyswift_ESO

Insanely pumped, gonna be a great time!

anitajoneb17_ESO

Pandorii wrote: »

I'm really sad about ZOS's decision to add a crown store exclusive motif. I'm going to miss being able to say: 9 trait crafter, all styles.

This^

It makes business much easier when you have all traits and all styles. I have many customers ingame because they know that I can craft anything and they won't have to go piece by piece asking "do you have Abah for helmets, draugr for legs and celestial for chests", or whatever.

But since the style item will not be purchasable - or at least be extremely rare, I doubt many people will want stuff crafted in that style to begin with. I may be wrong though.

I must admit that I am quite speechless about the Crown Store exclusivity for crafting styles. I did not think that ZOS would go down that road. It's the first direct straight cash=>gold converter in ESO. Not good imho.

I also want to add that the profusion of Crown Store stuff lately makes Crown Management difficult (I strictly restrict myself to the crowns that come with my subscription + 1 bulk of 5K crowns per seasonal sale). Not knowing what's coming, at what price and under what conditions makes me save up my crowns instead of spending them. For instance, I was just tempted to buy the commander "attitude" but refrained from doing so because of this crafting style coming and not knowing the price. I wish there was more transparency and regularity in the crown store. It's too much of a mess at the moment.

Xaipe

Now the most important question of all: are items crafted in this style tradable or not?
If no: no problem, besides the completionists. It's basically another costume, where you can combine parts.
If yes: you just made a money to gold converter, where crafters can charge horrific amounts of gold for items in this style.

So: are items in the grim harlequin style tradable or Bop?

AzuraKin

grim harlequin is the start of the pay to win. by putting a style for crafting crown only is how pay to win on a former real free to play or sub based game starts. i have seen this happen with multiple games. wizard101 started of only making money off subs and zone purchasing. with the second world release after coming out of beta, they started adding things to crown store to point the best gear in the game now comes from the crown store rng packs. trust me when i say making a motiff crown story only is the start of pay to win.

Daz_dingoeb17_ESO

Xaipe wrote: »

Now the most important question of all: are items crafted in this style tradable or not?
If no: no problem, besides the completionists. It's basically another costume, where you can combine parts.
If yes: you just made a money to gold converter, where crafters can charge horrific amounts of gold for items in this style.

So: are items in the grim harlequin style tradable or Bop?

they are tradeable

Caligamy_ESO

WhiteCoatSyndrome wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Daz_dingoeb17_ESO wrote: »

will the grim harlequin motif drop during the event or will it be a crown store exclusive?

The Grim Harlequin is going to be exclusive to the Crown Store. However, purchasing the Grim Harlequin will net you 54 Mimic Stones, which you can use to craft gear (including the Grim Harlequin). You can use this crafted gear to deconstruct and have a chance to get a Grinstone - the Grim Harlequin style item. All this can be traded, too, if you wish.

*sigh* As expected. Thank you for the information anyway Gina.

And it begins, crafters who struggle to earn every style are left out in the cold.

How much you guys wanna bet that the crafters who DO buy this are going to gouge the hell out of people to craft it. Converting crowns into gold doesn't seem quite so far fetched anymore.

randolphbenoit

Much as I love this game I sadden by the Motif for crowns only. Crowns for motif and Mimic stones makes it a very expensive COSTUME! Motifs are about crafting, crafting is about community as you usually making gear for others not just yourself. Crafting gear about the fun of exploration to find materials and the economy of traders.

As it stands its an over expensive costume (who would buy a crown only motif just to make for other people, it would serve no value). Better been a costume that unlocks and be use by all a player characters. Imagine how much real money it would cost to make a crown only motif for 12 characters....

Frenkthevile

I like that they're adding lots of sets and styles, but yeah, i want to be always able to farm them ingame somehow...

Great event anyway ^^

Fettkeewl

Do we get to keep the motif crafting material gathered when the event is over of do we have go craft our gear before that

Plintkabouter

Well most people already had the feeling it would be crown store exclusive.


Too bad ZOS has decided to take this road. I hope they understand this is the first time they added an item that converts real money into in-game money by giving paying crafters an edge over those that didn't, unlike any item before that was only useful for the person buying it (skins, mounts, etc).

It might not be P2W in the sense that it gives you direct advantages in combat, but making in-game money with your creditcard is a big step towards it...