Official Discussion Thread, "Slay Horrors & Earn Spooky Rewards during the Witches Festival"

Destai

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

@Tommy_The_Gun That's fair. I've seen some other game's Halloween events also use "spoopy" over the last few years also. So we're not the only one with typos!

@Akasha_Mei It's okay if some don't get the "spoopy" joke. It doesn't detract from understanding the core context of the article. And who am I to ruin our writers having a little fun when writing about one of their favorite events? They don't always get to insert community jokes/ memes. So when they have the opportunity, they take it.

They don't have to get "spoopy", but they have to understand "pooky" as the superior scary season adjective

Love that Witchmother style, can't wait to get that armor!

Dagoth_Rac

Spoopy Spary Speletons!

Dojohoda

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

Spoopy Spary Speletons!

That's Spooptacular!

ZOS_Kevin

Dojohoda wrote: »

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

Spoopy Spary Speletons!

That's Spooptacular!

This has come full circle and I love it.

d_raw514

Noticed in the article that it mentioned that Dremora Plunder Skulls can drop from various bosses, and listed them. However, it only mentions 6 of the 7 boss types, leaving out Trial bosses.

BenevolentBowd

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi @BenevolentBowd. Thanks for noting this. We checked in with the dev team and they have verified that this is an issue. Impresario tent in Belkarth does not have Witchmother Taerma. We have this on our list of issues to fix. This should be the only place where the quest is not attainable, but if any other places pop up, please let us know.

Thanks.

Dangranma_Burgrukgad

Today drops, 8 golden skull
- 4 Grave Dancer
- 4 Glenmoril
- 0 Servant
just another typical day.

Drop rates are so dumb that I don't know why I'm still putting up with this nonsense.

SammyKhajit

Drop rate for the Witches Servant pages are abysmal.

And if players raise this as an issue in the general forum, the thread is moved to less frequented sub forums.

Whatever happened to consultation and feedback? Or is it just positive thoughts and prayers only

ZOS_Kevin

@SammyKhajit thanks for the feedback. We checked with the team and the Witchmother’s Servent pages drop rates are working as intended. However, we will pass your overall feedback on drop rates along.

thejadefalcon

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

@SammyKhajit thanks for the feedback. We checked with the team and the Witchmother’s Servent pages drop rates are working as intended. However, we will pass your overall feedback on drop rates along.

Be sure to let them know to just name the next style the Timewaster's style and be honest about it.

Destai

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

@SammyKhajit thanks for the feedback. We checked with the team and the Witchmother’s Servent pages drop rates are working as intended. However, we will pass your overall feedback on drop rates along.

Thanks for confirming. I'm done with the event then. Enough with your crown store nudges. So much for Halloween fun.

Akasha_Mei

Enjoy the Spoopy Style this year... 🤣

NotaDaedraWorshipper

It seems style pages only comes in two types these days. Either they drop like leaves during autumn or the drop rate is so infinitesimal it's extreme grind to have a chance of getting one. Like why can't we have a middle ground here?

Dangranma_Burgrukgad

NotaDaedraWorshipper wrote: »

It seems style pages only comes in two types these days. Either they drop like leaves during autumn or the drop rate is so infinitesimal it's extreme grind to have a chance of getting one. Like why can't we have a middle ground here?

Because they clearly have their agenda.
See the answer from ZOS_Kevin, working as intended.

Ingenon

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

@SammyKhajit thanks for the feedback. We checked with the team and the Witchmother’s Servent pages drop rates are working as intended. However, we will pass your overall feedback on drop rates along.

Thanks for checking! Since the abysmal drop rates are as intended, I am not grinding for the small chance of collecting them all. And I am not spending event tickets and/or cash to purchase them.

Dagoth_Rac

It is disappointing how the event style pages, which used to be fun to collect and wear during the event itself, have now become a tedious chore designed to drive players to the cash shop to buy tickets. It is like ZOS have completely given up on the concept of satisfied customers. They would rather have 100 unhappy customers if 1 of them grumbles and gives in and buys tickets, than 100 happy customers with 0 who buy tickets. I understand there are psychological marketing and sales effects at play here and that this can increase revenue. And that, to shareholders, revenue is more important that people. But the fact that making your customers unhappy can be a good business decision just makes me sad.

LonePirate

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

@SammyKhajit thanks for the feedback. We checked with the team and the Witchmother’s Servent pages drop rates are working as intended. However, we will pass your overall feedback on drop rates along.

If the project team intended for the skulls to drop dozens of prior year pages while almost never dropping the current year pages, then the project team made a very poor decision that is not acceptable to a large portion of the player base.

SammyKhajit

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

@SammyKhajit thanks for the feedback. We checked with the team and the Witchmother’s Servent pages drop rates are working as intended. However, we will pass your overall feedback on drop rates along.

Thank you, @ZOS_Kevin this one appreciates the checking in.

[snip]

The second issue is that in the general forum, every few days, several threads would get relocated to other sub-forums. [snip]

But what made Sammy rather heated and upset this time, is that there’s a theme of threads moved without any recognition from the moderators about the issues raised in them. Last night it was all the threads about witches events and drop rates of motifs. And “magically”, once the threads are moved, they die a quick death since those sub forums are not as well frequented as the General forum.

Imagine if this is a customer helpline or chat and the customer keeps getting diverted to different divisions. It really is not good customer service.

[edited for bashing]

NettleCarrier

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

It is disappointing how the event style pages, which used to be fun to collect and wear during the event itself, have now become a tedious chore designed to drive players to the cash shop to buy tickets. It is like ZOS have completely given up on the concept of satisfied customers. They would rather have 100 unhappy customers if 1 of them grumbles and gives in and buys tickets, than 100 happy customers with 0 who buy tickets. I understand there are psychological marketing and sales effects at play here and that this can increase revenue. And that, to shareholders, revenue is more important that people. But the fact that making your customers unhappy can be a good business decision just makes me sad.

The cash shop is still the worst way to do it, unless you can't spare an hour. Granted my knowledge is based on PC-NA so bear in mind my numbers can be different from another platform. I've just been playing as normal to get the skulls, this being my 4th Witches Festival there's not a whole lot of excitement for doing all 7 activities per day so I just don't. Upon seeing how rare the style pages were, I just decided to buy them at the end of the event from players - like I do for any style pages that are too annoying for me to obtain (staring at Imperial City boss pages here). I looked last night while placing my weekly bids and found at least 30-40 of these pages around the 100k mark on traders. To me, this is a perfectly reasonable price for them. It keeps the pages from being throwaway pages like Grave Dancer which in turn keeps them slightly more exciting to loot from a plunder skull - well done here ZOS.

If you don't want to do the event then that's fine, go do your normal currency farming method of choice. The easiest way is harvesting. Running around any half-decent farming zone and picking up whatever you see is an EASY 300k-400k per hour. This is my rate if I'm just in voice chat running around in healer gear while waiting for a queue without even trying. Picking a better zone, wild hunt ring, and steed mundus and these numbers quickly become 800k-1m per hour. What this proves to me is that with even the most unoptimized setup, you can farm enough to buy a full set of these pages (7 pieces) in under 2 hours harvesting and if you try, less than one hour. There's no need to go into buying tickets with crowns, psychological marketing, customer relations, or shareholder earning... it's just absurd. I understand companies do this and it's a problem, but "this event ain't it".

Destai

SammyKhajit wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

@SammyKhajit thanks for the feedback. We checked with the team and the Witchmother’s Servent pages drop rates are working as intended. However, we will pass your overall feedback on drop rates along.

Thank you, @ZOS_Kevin this one appreciates the checking in.

[snip]

The second issue is that in the general forum, every few days, several threads would get relocated to other sub-forums. [snip]

But what made Sammy rather heated and upset this time, is that there’s a theme of threads moved without any recognition from the moderators about the issues raised in them. Last night it was all the threads about witches events and drop rates of motifs. And “magically”, once the threads are moved, they die a quick death since those sub forums are not as well frequented as the General forum.

Imagine if this is a customer helpline or chat and the customer keeps getting diverted to different divisions. It really is not good customer service.

@ZOS_Kevin Can you explain the intention behind such an austere drop rate?

Sharktoes

MrLasagna wrote: »

Today drops, 8 golden skull
- 4 Grave Dancer
- 4 Glenmoril
- 0 Servant
just another typical day.

Drop rates are so dumb that I don't know why I'm still putting up with this nonsense.

I believe the gold skull boxes suffer the same, unspoken fate as all "recent" reward coffers (I believe it started in Elsweyr).

Which means you have to stockpile them and only open enough to get a single motif. Then do the same the following day. Some days you may get it on the first box you open! Horray! The key is to stop opening boxes once you get the motif / style page until the cooldown resets.

Some say the cooldown is 20-21 hour between receiving them from the boxes. My own ANECDOTAL experience says it is somewhere in that range, too. I understand there is also anecdotal evidence that supports getting multiples. I actually do believe it is possible to get multiples of the style pages / motifs that are gated behind a secret, internal CD, I just believe the odds are definitely not in your favor.

"But I don't have enough bag space to hold all these gold plunder skulls, my normal gear, specialty gear, and consumables!"

You're right. You're going to have to stockpile on multiple toons if you want to have a modicum of breathing room AND maximize the returns from your coffers.

Believe me, I do not like it any more than you do.

Sharktoes

As an addition, as I have been tracking my drops and drop rates from the gold skull boxes, the current average needed (for me, with the small sample size I have since the event has only been going on since 10-20-22) is 5.11 gold skulls for a style page.

Dangranma_Burgrukgad

Sharktoes wrote: »

I believe the gold skull boxes suffer the same, unspoken fate as all "recent" reward coffers (I believe it started in Elsweyr).

Which means you have to stockpile them and only open enough to get a single motif. Then do the same the following day.

This is what I've been doing since a lot of time.
I want to add that the fact they don't tell use this kind of things is in my opinion a very bad move, [snip]
This is as I see things, I could be wrong of course.

[edited for bashing]