Feedback Thread for Secrets Of The Telvanni Event

Nebs

To start, I think it would be really nice if you collected feedback for events list these using the great survey page used to leave feedback on the forums, that worked really nicely.

• What did you like about Secrets of the Telvanni?
  I really liked that it was a fantastic way to gather motifs, furnishings and their blueprints. It was really nice to be able to get my hands on many of the furnishings and motifs that I hadn't yet collected. It was also really nice to get double rewards from the Sanity's Edge trial, too. I liked the holiday quest introduction that was separate from the daily turn-in. I liked the continuity it maintained even after completing a holiday quest each day. I feel like it was really nicely designed and a great way to celebrate the expansion and dive back in.
  
  I also really appreciated the doubled harvesting nodes throughout the region, and it being a place where boxes and pages could be gathered. I also really liked that pages could be transferred between my characters.
  
• Was there anything that was confusing or frustrating?
  I found that at the very end of the event I was forced to buy an item from the Impresario in order to collect my final ticket reward since I was holding 11 tickets already. I appreciate the system that helps prevent folks from missing out on tickets, but also being unable to collect them unless we spend as much, or more, than the tickets we'll earn that day was frustrating.
  
  The news article listing the Bastion Nymic motif, Kindred's Concord, as available from the boxes when it was not in fact available was probably the worst experience of this event. This is more of a criticism on the way the dev team communicates the availability of these styles in general, but the frustration and confusion was exacerbated by the fact that the item could be previewed in-game, and in-game it listed that Kindred's Concord was available in Bastion Nymics. This absolutely sucked. Bastion Nymics are difficult, and those first few days of the event crossing-fingers that one of the pages would show up in one of my boxes this time was really frustrating, especially after learning when the October showcase finally released that the style was not in fact yet available.
  
  It would be really helpful if the dev team could mark motif styles in that style's in-game tooltip whether or not they're actually available yet.
  
• Was there anything you wish was different?
  Coming up with some item to purchase that only costs a single ticket would alleviate the issue of being forced into spending as many or more tickets than you'd earn that day. It'd be nice if we could purchase furnishings related to Necrom, even if they were ones that also dropped from boxes for 1 ticket, or something similar.
  
  I think it would have been really cool if Kindred's Concord would have already been available during this event. It really feels like the content is being dragged out a little too far: go to the Bastion Nymic for Achievements, then the event, now the motif that's finally available. I enjoy the Bastion Nymics, but this feels like rewards are being withheld instead of being added to bring us back.
  
  It would have been a lot nicer if the dev team wanted to breathe more life into the Bastion Nymics by adding some sort of evergreen reward such as transmute crystals, or maybe a lead containing a furnishing or two that someone might want many of, or something.
  
• How did you feel about the Ebony Dwarven Scarab pet, Nightmare Nest body and face markings, and Kelesan’ruhn house as the community event reward?
  I thought they were really nice. I think it would have been cool if Almalexia saw more love in this event, and I feel like one of these community event rewards would have been a great spot to make a nod to her existence. Almalexia got mentioned in the new deck in the area, but virtually (possibly?) no where else. I can't recall hearing her even mentioned at all in dialogue in the region (references to Almalexia and the boys, such as "The Three" don't count as references to Almalexia).
  
• What are your thoughts on the player voting through Tralise (to unlock the music box) or Yensa (to unlock the book furnishing)?
  When first announced, I thought the concept was novel, however in practice I didn't like it at all. There being a default option to placing a vote was not a valid way to conduct a real poll, and I didn't like a furnishing reward being tied to ideologically opposed characters. The default option being the far more reckless sister feels like there wasn't any real choice in the community helping contribute to the Telvanni's horrible reputation (which continues into Elder Scrolls games set in the chronological future). It just feels like a sort of gotcha that, like, "Things could have been different, but the Vestige/Fate's Chosen assisted Yensa!"
  
  I also was pretty dubious of the fact that pages could be sold to players, meaning people with excess gold and accounts could have more of an effect on the vote without investing their own time in gathering pages.
  
• Any additional thoughts?
  Telvanni culture in general is pretty wretched, from their self-importance to their continued slavery, and I appreciated that not having that be something we had to stomach being thrown in our faces during the event, I've definitely had my fill of the Telvanni and their slave-keeping friends.

Kallykat

What did you like about Secrets of the Telvanni?

• The nautilus motif on the event style
• The fact that I could earn event tickets with relative ease
• The ability to earn extra boxes through non-combat related activities like resource harvesting
• The new earnable house
• The furnishing rewards
• The book being a collectible instead of a single furnishing (hadn't checked myself but saw someone else mention it)

Was there anything that was confusing or frustrating?

• I didn't realize from reading the article that there would be a separate Bastian Nymic quest and initially thought that was the community meter quest.
• The drop rate for parchment pages was low for me. I was only able to complete the Mouth's quests a few times during the course of the event.
• I didn't do BN, so I don't know how that quest ended. (I'm not really even sure how to do it.)
• The parchment pages were categorized as consumables first but then moved to quest items after bundling. Could they not just be quest items the whole time?
• I knew the Mouth was going to move from frequenting the forums, but I can see how that would have been confusing otherwise.

Was there anything you wish was different?

• A post-event quest to wrap up the story would have been nice (maybe lasting the duration of the event rewards' availability in the crown store).
• I already knew about the voting from reading the article. I knew I would choose Yensa for the book, but I'm not sure how I feel about not being able to base a story choice purely on RP reasons.
• I don't think, as some suggest, that Yensa won primarily due to her being the top listed option and clicked by default/accident. When the announcement article was first posted, I saw way more hype on the forums for the book, and it even won on Gina's stream poll. However, I do think clarity about the quest being used as a voting tool should have been added in game. Add something to the characters' dialogue, make the choices red and add a hint in parenthesis after each one, place each item in game near the respective NPC as a preview the way you do with Impressario collectibles...something.

How did you feel about the Ebony Dwarven Scarab pet, Nightmare Nest body and face markings, and Kelesan’ruhn house as the community event reward?

• The pet is pretty. If I had a matching Dwarven Spider mount (preferably with a green compass like the Baandari one), then I might create a Dwemer arcanist to use it.
• The markings look cool, although I'm not sure I have a character that will use them.
• I would have loved the house to be set in Apocrypha as I already have an inn for porting in the Telvanni Peninsula zone. However, any earnable house is very welcomed. I'm sure I'll figure out what to do with it eventually. I'm glad to see a house reward return as opposed to a free Q4 DLC (especially since I'm already a member).

What are your thoughts on the player voting through Tralise (to unlock the music box) or Yensa (to unlock the book furnishing)?

• I initially liked the idea when I read the article. I like the continued incentive to do the Mouth's quest. I have mixed feelings at the end of the event.
• See the improvements I covered above.
• I think adding the losing reward (music box) to the game through other means like a daily login reward in the near future would go a long way toward improving some people's negative feelings regarding this aspect of the event.

Any additional thoughts?

• I appreciate you asking for feedback.
• I'll edit if I think of anything else to add later.

Lugaldu

What did you like about Secrets of the Telvanni?
As a housing fan, I am most excited about anything housing-related at events. It's great when furniture drops with the event boxes and we get a house as the main reward.

Was there anything that was confusing or frustrating?
I thought that with the event, as more people do Bastion Nymic, it will be easier to meet other players waiting at an entrance. But every time I passed the entrance that I have a quest open for, there was no one there. But maybe I also played at the "unfavorable" times, I don’t know. But here I have to say in general that Bastion Nymic is not content that I like. I don't like forced group play and especially not with random people.

Was there anything you wish was different?
It's always a bit annoying when you only get the event tickets from one source, in this case from a daily. After a week it's already so boring being forced to do the same dailies over and over again. You do them so often that in the end you can't see them anymore...

How did you feel about the Ebony Dwarven Scarab pet, Nightmare Nest body and face markings, and Kelesan’ruhn house as the community event reward?
I was extremely happy with the house. In 2021 and 2022 I was really disappointed that there was no house with the chapter event (but the free DLC instead) and also no house from the chapter in 2022 in general. In 2021 we were at least able to collect the Doomchar Plateau from the event tickets, but in 2022 there was no house at all.

What are your thoughts on the player voting through Tralise (to unlock the music box) or Yensa (to unlock the book furnishing)?
It should have been clearer what you were actually voting for when you choose one of the two sisters.

Any additional thoughts?
The event was fun, thank you!

Araneae6537

What did you like about Secrets of the Telvanni?
It was a fun community event, with extra reason to do all sorts of quests in zone and encouraged me to finally venture into Bastion Nymic! I thought the rewards were nice and appreciated all the motifs, furnishings, and furnishing plans! I also thought the droprate for the style page was good: It was not super rare like the PvP event some years ago where the only CHANCE of one dropping was from Imperial City Sewer bosses. On the other hand, after some events, everyone is swimming in style pages and you can’t even give them away. I think it’s good that they remain a valued reward (and I say this as someone who will need to buy a few to complete my collection).

Was there anything that was confusing or frustrating?
Was there anything you wish was different?
I think it would have been good if esoteric pages were a guaranteed drop from world bosses with a chance of dropping from anywhere else. It did seem to vary a lot with some long dry spells, which was frustrating for some players.

How did you feel about the Ebony Dwarven Scarab pet, Nightmare Nest body and face markings, and Kelesan’ruhn house as the community event reward?
I really liked these rewards and felt they were much better than last year. A gold quickened companion ring is useful, but not something that I am enjoying looking at or interacting with as with a house — best reward in my opinion!
I also like the pet (hope there will be a matching mount!) and body markings too!

What are your thoughts on the player voting through Tralise (to unlock the music box) or Yensa (to unlock the book furnishing)?
As others have pointed out, I think it needed to be evident within the game that you were voting for a reward, as well as what these were — it would have been great to be able to preview the rewards in game similar to how the event fragment collectible rewards have been displayed at the Impressario.
I think both of these bonus rewards are lovely and hope that the music box becomes available through another means in the future!

Any additional thoughts?
Thank you for a great event!

liliub17_ESO

What did you like about Secrets of the Telvanni?
- New land, different environs

Was there anything that was confusing or frustrating?
- The 3-bar Seekers who roam the land. I thought they were world bosses at first, but they roam. (map thing, not really event)
- The voting was off. The player did not really get much choice, not truly.

Was there anything you wish was different?
- At first, the dailies were interesting. Then they simply became monotonous and tedious. It's the same with all the map dailies, to be honest.

How did you feel about the Ebony Dwarven Scarab pet, Nightmare Nest body and face markings, and Kelesan’ruhn house as the community event reward?
- The pet is ok, just another pet I won't ever use. The markings are horrible looking. The house is ........ interesting.

What are your thoughts on the player voting through Tralise (to unlock the music box) or Yensa (to unlock the book furnishing)?
- Horrible idea

Darkmage1337

Speaking for my partner @Darkmistress1337 (healer) and myself (tank):

-What did you like about Secrets of the Telvanni?
We always enjoy all zone-specific events (and obviously the annual Fall post-chapter chapter-zone-specific event).
This is a great way to make zones more populated, as older chapter-zones can be sparsely populated at times.

-Was there anything that was confusing or frustrating?
We had NO IDEA what we were getting ourselves into with the Bastion Nymic dungeon, nor its puzzles and bosses.
The Bastion Nymic zone was entirely empty and void of other players (not sure if it is public or party-instance-specific), anyways, we spent hours in there as a duo (tank+healer), but we powered our way through sweat, grit, and possibly some tears (lol). We took the Sbubverted path (far-left) with the memory mini-game. The memory mini-game took us -forever- to figure out, but we eventually caught on and figured it out... without having to Google it, surprisingly (lol). The Eater of Secrets subverted-path boss and The Noxious Herald were very challenging battles; and, despite many deaths for my healer GF and our insufferable deadweight companions, those bosses were no match for my invincible tank, which can only be bested by one-shot mechanics (lol). Aside from this very long adventure for that specific quest, we saw a lot of zone-chat (afterwards, of course), of why other players were not participating in the Telvanni event quests due to the time-commitment and difficulty with this area. All in all, it was fun (for me), despite the time-sink. But, my the GF healer will say otherwise. Lol.

-Was there anything you wish was different?
The event rewards and area drop-bonuses were good, as always (compared to similar chapter-zone-specific events in the past). The primary problem was sticking the Bastion Nymic area quest in the middle of the event's story-arc quest, which made many players unable to complete the entire event's story-arc; and, thus, being left unable to vote and choose the final bonus reward (the choice between the two specific reward items).

-How did you feel about the Ebony Dwarven Scarab pet, Nightmare Nest body and face markings, and Kelesan’ruhn house as the community event reward?
We didn't care for that specific pet or those tattoos, but receiving a free house from Fall chapter-specific events is always the primary appeal and is great to look forward to (similar to Summerset/GrandPsijicVilla and Skyrim/Antiquarian’sAlpineGallery). Sadly, we were left missing a free house from the Blackwood chapter, but we were glad to see that a free house returned in the Telvanni chapter community event. In giving away a free house, ZOS ESO monetization designers can capitalize on themed furnishing packs for said house, instead of charging for both a house and the themed furnishing packs along with it. (As it was noticeable with the Telvanni mushroom furnishing pack sale at the same time as the free Telvanni mushroom house). Anyways, I should stop giving the team these free sales-funnel ideas. Lol.

-What are your thoughts on the player voting through Tralise (to unlock the music box) or Yensa (to unlock the book furnishing)?
The reward-choice was a major highlight and appeal when we read the event article, so we looked forward to making our choice. We both wanted the glowy green book (especially because I had already bought the giant glowy green HermaMora statue several weeks ago). So, of course I had to have the glowy green book to match and support the theme. Two drawbacks to the event's reward-choice idea are: #1, the top/first-listed option will always be chosen first, simply due to players spamming through the dialogue and not realizing the 'choice' part. (I don't believe there was an obvious specific confimation prompt other than the optional 'are you sure' dialogue.) Anyways, we were glad that the better reward (in our opinion) was the first choice. Now, that begs the question for #2, what happens to the 2nd reward (since the music box ingame asset itself was already created, etc.) Our thoughts were that it'll just appear for sale in the crown store or show up elsewhere, eventually (the classic illusion-of-choice game mechanic). Anyways, they were both cool rewards. I was especially glad that the book was a collectible and not an actual inventory item, because the inventory items can only be placed in one home whereas collectible furnishings can be placed in multiple homes. For example, my HermaMora statue (from the crown store) can only be placed once, whereas the HermaMora book (free event reward) can be placed multiple times in any number houses. This is the weird reality we are in, and our wish was that unique crown store furnishings were collectibles and not inventory items. (Furnishing-packs are fine as inventory items, but one-off singular crown store furniture items like large statues items or special effects items like the comet should be collectibles like the free book reward was.) I hope that ZOS ESO designers/developers will someday come to their senses with this major player-housing inconvenience and oversight with regards to collectible furnishings and crown store furnishings. AKA: many major unique furnishings should be collectibles and not inventory items. I hope that future events continue to follow this trend with furniture rewards.

-Any additional thoughts?
Fun event.
Cool story.
Good rewards.
Challenging quest (due to the Bastion Nymic area).
We are looking forward to the next event, as always!

Tomasius

What did you like about Secrets of the Telvanni?

1. It was actually a pretty good client stress test and, after recently going up to 1440p on a test rig situated in redesigned network and power infrastructure, stress tests were definitely on the cards.
2. I especially liked that you provided an alternative way to obtain herald seeker ichor if you couldn't find a group to hunt for the world boss herald seekers in a timely manner. And those little herald seekers did the job nicely even if you had to hunt quite a few of them for each bottle.
3. Offering a variety of rewards was a nice touch because not everyone wants the same things

_

Was there anything that was confusing or frustrating?

Uhm, the title. I'll deal with that last...

1. It's Always On the Developer to Ensure That Video Game Rules are Defined Solely by the Game's Mechanics
This is the same as the author responsibility for the clarity of his or her expression because it is not the responsibility of the reader to read the author's mind and neither is it the responsibility of the user to guess or even look outside the game to speculate on the developer's intent. People who are not developers or testers who go the extra mile of reading the manual, along with folks like those of us posting here, are a freebie.

User interaction with your site, your forums and social media is a form of charity and not to be expected from the rank & file who've already put in their day's work and deserve to be able to enjoy your game without having to put in yet more work to work around all which you have left unfinished.

The most egregious blunder in the event's design was having to consult the event web page (i.e. OUTSIDE the game environment) to understand what was happening, how many missions were running, which were dailies, etc. All that should have been made clear in the introductory mission (the one brokered at the ritual circle). For someone who is just trying to relax after a long hard day at work, this is a complete waste of time and it is not surprising when your game loses their attention as a consequence of failing to ensure that everything the player needs to know is available in the proper context within the game environment.

2. Never move a daily mission broker from the initial location of contact without a mission that shows the player to the new location of the broker.
Initially positioning the "Mouth" at the ritual circle (when he was given a mission marker) then moving him, unannounced, to the Impressario camp (and he no longer had a mission marker when you went back the next day to find him) made it impossible to find the guy except by complete accident or asking another player. He should have been placed initially at the Impressario camp from the very beginning so that the player would be led, by that initial mission marker (to find him), to the Impressario Camp and subsequently know where to find him.

In demonstration of point #1 (above) I'm going to hazard a guess that the Mouth was placed at the ritual circle to facilitate cheaper in-house alpha testing then the build got promoted from alpha to beta testing before the responsible supervisor had signed off against pre-beta requirements (such as moving assets to the right place and closing all the gates that are supposed to be closed on gated items that needed to be balanced in alpha, etc.). This leads me to my next bit of feedback:

3. You need to run a checklist when moving assets to facilitate cheaper, faster QA
So if my guess doesn't demonstrate my first point by being totally, off the planet, wrong; then my feedback on this is that you may need better internal communication because the responsible supervisor either didn't do his or her job or wasn't consulted before the final alpha build got promoted to beta.

4. A title must always accurately sum up the applicable work without exaggerating anything; especially scope.
A title like "Secrets of the Telvanni", for example, is only suitable for a deep, broadly branched mission chain where existing questions about the Telvanni (and your lore team needs to have already done the ground work in the rest of the game regions to pull this off) get some hands-on answers (i.e. in the form of e.g. physical evidence; not just more "trust me" lines from book and scroll authors); and answers which do not always conform with the opinions of in-game experts (e.g. coming via books, scrolls, etc.) in addition to the possibility of raising new questions revolving around the mystery of currently emerging Telvanni shenanigans and culminating in any one of a dozen outcomes; all with predictable consequences and rewards. It communicates the sort of mission chain which would play out over a quarter as part of a significant event which gradually transforms the in-game region over the course of the event. There are also major events (I forget whether it's Eve or Elite Dangerous where these happen) where a war starts in a region and transforms that region, or the theatre of battle moves or expands from one region into and transforming another; possibly with the introduction of a new antagonist+enemy and where it comes down to the players to engage at the new front and push it back over the course of three to six months in a campaign of mission chains offering a variety of activities which make strategic and tactical sense (no mindless, idiotic charge of the light brigade). In the most extreme form, you may see a fighting retreat which bottoms out in asymetric warfare against total regional occupation before a weakness is found (usually logistics but a a clear advantage in communications turnaround will do the trick as well as the knowledge of how to gain the maximum advantage from new weapons technology - so there is room for just a tiny bit of creativity, here) - and congrats! You've just scarred your playerbase for life! Seriously, events like that are unforgettable - even for people who don't play the game and hear about it third or fourth hand. The idea is to only temporarily upend a playspace before allowing players to engage in activities which make them feel like they've played a significant and bespoke role, as themselves, in regaining that space (not just being the 3,194,208th 'Vestige').

This is just to give you an idea of how much potential for scope there is in an MMO event...so you have to be careful of titles with the potential to exaggerate the scope and cause a chunk of your playerbase to become jaded because jaded players are the first to wake up to the sense of gameplay being more like gamework and that's when your game loses their attention and, ultimately, participation.

To sum up, the title "Secrets of the Telvanni" is not appropriate for the kind of stand-alone missions that constitute starters, introductory missions or daily missions - and, given the relatively short duration of the event, there is no room for mission chains, here. The problem with a title like that is that it identifies quite clearly as conforming to mystery genre characteristics which are not possible in a short event. "Curse of the Locked Book" would have been more appropriate because it would have been a lot less confusing because the subject and object are more tangible and limited in scope than things like "secrets" and a generalisation spanning a whole people in the form of the word "Telvanni".

_

Was there anything you wish was different?

This is hard because I've trained myself not to dwell on regrets. However, if I really push hard to break my own rules:

1. More effective in-game notification of the event (not through the crown storefront)
2. Consistent mission broker start locations
3. Title written by someone ranked in the top 0.001% for English vocabulary, 100% English fluency, and sufficient grammar to fully understand the use case difference between the comma, the semicolon and the colon and where they fit in and around the subordinate clause (and who probably has autism) - because you need someone with advanced language skills just to reduce 6000 words to a 250 word abstract - never mind communicate an MMO event in the eight words or less that make up an effective title.

_

How did you feel about the Ebony Dwarven Scarab pet, Nightmare Nest body and face markings, and Kelesan’ruhn house as the community event reward?

Well, this stuff's diverse. I'm sure some people liked the Ebony Dwarven Scarab pet (neutral for me), and others liked the Nightmare Nest body and face markings (not my thing at this stage) but I definitely liked the Kelesan’ruhn house which I feel was complimented nicely by either of the Yensa/Tralise rewards on offer.

While I like the way that furniture loot drops complimented the Kelesan’ruhn house reward, quite nicely, I did notice the lack of clothing and armour to compliment the work you've put into the Nightmare Nest body markings and it has been observed, in the past, that there are still too few clothing options which really compliment the variety of body markings you've invested in making available to the playerbase.

_

What are your thoughts on the player voting through Tralise (to unlock the music box) or Yensa (to unlock the book furnishing)?

Quite a few, actually.

Firstly: whenever you implement a subtle voting system (the choice to give pages to Tralise or Yensa) it's better to keep it to a choice and leave the word "voting" out of it; even in external documentation and discussions such as this. Also, when taking this approach, it's more appropriate to make both rewards available and offer both of them on the basis of what the player chooses most often. So, if player A sends 34 pages to Yensa and 33 pages to Trelise, he or she is awarded the item that comes with the choice of Yensa; meanwhile, player B sends all 79 pages to Tralise and he or she is awarded the item that comes with the choice of Tralise. That way everyone gets what they want.

However, it muddies the waters to make the rewards contingent on expressing a opinion or political view - in this case regarding the control of what are socially perceived to be "dangerous" items or knowledge. It's a real can of worms which runs the gamut from what it means to be an adult to how property ownership underpins technological progress by making the investment of energy in innovation worthwhile for the innovator. Anything that limits this in a small way has rather large consequences (e.g. compare human civilisation with chimpanzee civilisation) and so people who've thought this through will be compelled to express something that isn't necessarily compatible with the reward they actually want otherwise they must sacrifice their in-game expression for the reward they want. Either way, every person in that position is going to feel shortchanged. For this reason, the reward should have been a separate question and not tied to a highly contentious political issue. While I understand the correspondence of reward symbolism with the corresponding political position, the symbolic affirmation of a point of view is not what everyone or even most people will want from a reward. So choice of reward and expression of point of view (i.e. through facilitation of the corresponding sister) should have been kept totally separate.

Secondly: Voting, per se, is for when a major direction in the game's future development is being tailored to your existing customer base (i.e. the current playerbase) where it simply isn't practical or viable to "do both" even in the sense of doing "this" for the players who want "this" and doing "that" for the players who want "that". A good example was when Cloud Imperium Games were testing the water to see if the playerbase actually wanted a space age world completely devoid of sentient AI - and in the game's lore to date, sentient AI had been weighed, measured and banned. However, forum discussion showed that perceptions and interests weren't so cut and dried. So there was a question hanging over the design direction as to whether this direction would really be a better fit for player expectations or if it might contribute constructively to player experience if sentient AI played a slightly more prominent role. Instead of putting it to a vote, outside the game's lore, CIG had their lore team set up a Prime Citizen election with a selection of likely political peacock's in the running - all with different policies and varying views on the subject of reopening research into sentient AI. Although the voting was conducted outside the game-world, it was still well-contextualised within the game's lore framework and able to indicate a change in design direction without having to retcon anything or neglect what players wanted to get out of their in-game experience. And it did all this while yielding reliable information on which design direction would be most engaging for players - which is what voting mechanics are for.

That said, if you want more detail or some links to the specific pages, PM/DM me and I'll dig up the details for you. This is all public material.

Something to keep in mind is that whenever you introduce "voting" into a game, you open the door on politics - which is a bad thing for a game as most of us are trying to get away from politics (which includes religion), when we play a game. So, if you're going to pull off a voting event successfully, you have to have a lore team with good writers who can fill the political space with the right political noises by parodying how the various sides of politics argue referendum question without allowing it to become abusive or coercive beyond what is normally meted out and dealt back in PvE combat....loads of catharsis opportunities there.

As I pointed out, however, voting is a difficult mechanic to pull off, designwise, and the effort required to get it right is ultimately wasted if it's on anything less than a major design question which stands to inform future design and production direction.

_

Any additional thoughts?

Many.

When I notice that one concerns the recent Secrets of Telvanni event, I'll add it here....

DoofusMax

For whatever my take might be worth at this point, I had a blast with the Telvanni event. About the only gripe (if you can call it a gripe) was that I wanted the music box, but ended up with the book. Maybe change that to a "pick one" reward rather than "here's what the community said you get" reward?

As a suggestion from someone who does (did - I'm retired now) survey research, a very valid concern was raised by other players on the presentation of the reward choice. Unless the response set needs to be in a particular order (scaled responses, for example), it's good practice to randomize responses to work around respondents who click-through. Since the choice between the book (Yensa) and music box (Tralise) was a static presentation with Yensa as the selected choice for those who clicked through, the result biased toward that choice. I think the number of responses was sufficiently large that the warranted conclusion is that a majority favored the book, or minimally favored Yensa for lore/dialogue reasons, but I'd still recommend randomization if you decide to use this mechanic in the future.

I do not know if this was intentional, RNG, or what, but the drop rate for the parchments and coffers seemed to be much lower in Apocypha than on the Peninsula. This could also be that there are fewer harvest nodes and opportunities for drops there and it just seemed lower because of that.

Even including those things, it was a fun event and well worth the time spent. Thanks.

Dojohoda

I liked it, how busy it was and especially the double harvesting nodes and the reward boxes. I appreciate the house, pet, and markings.

Regarding the music box and the book, that could be improved. Did we get the book because of:

• easy-peasy click-through
• with or without knowledge of the book, players had researched and preferred that sister
• player knew about the book from the off-game announcements and made the selection on purpose.

In other wonderments: How many licks does it take to get to the center of the tootsie pop?

Purdue University reported that its licking machine, modeled after a human tongue, took an average of 364 licks

ZOS_Kevin

Thanks everyone for your feedback here. We'll pass this thread along to our events team for their review of the event. Please feel free to continue to add any relevant feedback, but we will move this from being pinned on the Recent tab.

Dayhjawk

It would have been nice to have the things we were voting for, out beside their names... like Joe (Music box), Dan (Tome). Also would be nice to have a confirmation popup once you selected a option, that we couldn't smash thru, and you had to actually click on, or have the options rotate, so the same option isn't at the top that ppl can smash thu.

Hamfast

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

[*] What did you like about Secrets of the Telvanni?

Overall, it was as well done as most events. Double drops from Harvesting are always good, but some of the explanations were... questionable...

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

[*] Was there anything that was confusing or frustrating?

The page drops were very sporadic, by the end of the first day I had found 5, another person said he had 400 (and offered to send me some) and a friend had almost 100 and did send me some... I did the Sanity's Edge trial about 8 or 9 times, over the whole period, and in 1 I gained 15 pages.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

[*] Was there anything you wish was different?

2 things, First is the page drops and reward boxes, they needed to be more consistent across all accounts and characters, perhaps 1 in every reward box. Second is the voting for book or music box... I am married and my wife plays and now I have to hear every day how she hates the book and wanted the music box and how could anyone want the book...to keep my house peaceful, I have to listen and agree, even if one of our good friends wanted the book and admitted it.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

[*] How did you feel about the Ebony Dwarven Scarab pet, Nightmare Nest body and face markings, and Kelesan’ruhn house as the community event reward?

I don't care about the bug, (Scarab pet) don't like the skin (I don't like most of the skins in the game) but the house is nice.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

[*] What are your thoughts on the player voting through Tralise (to unlock the music box) or Yensa (to unlock the book furnishing)?

As I posted above, this brought discord (not the app) to my house... what I did not put in is that I did not much care, I would be happy with either...As some have pointed out, the first choice would be the one chosen by those clicking through. Perhaps a better idea would be to allow for an account bound "Reward" for turning in the page and X number could be turned in for the book or for the music box, this way those that wish to can make the extra effort to get both.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

[*] Any additional thoughts?

Beyond the idea about the book and the music box, and a more consistent drop rate for boxes or pages... nope, nothing more

Erissime

Obviously, one would like everything earned for free, so there is no question about the rewards. They are all great and welcome. The drop rates also felt decent for just about anything during the event - pages for the new quest included ( also available and outside the quest - but then one ought to play the game a little in order to figure that out - so hit and goers would end up on the whining side of things). I adored that there were so many furniture drops through the boxes, but none of them listed at the impressario - made the surprise all the more sweeter! And of course great help towards the new house (which was the big highlight of the rewards! Keep that up!) - and of course, the pet and the markings felt a bit like a monthly reward but still nice and welcome, a bit like two months in a go for that matter! I also liked the choice - hard one!

But talking about new things, the entire choice was utterly confusing in the beginning, and I found myself re-reading the quest multiple times and trying to find hints about the sisters, as to which one's giving what exactly? Sure there was this beautiful backstory depicting each sister's personality type, but I did not find that much hinting on their rewards. I mean for all I care I almost voted for Tralise, although I knew from the start that I wanted the book, only and only because I thought - well she is more introverted, guess she's gonna be the one into reading more!? So perhaps adding obvious words like "book" or "music" even as hints into these short stories would help. The fact that although checking the event page on the first day despite what was stated on the first page upon clicking on each picture their names were inverted did not help a single bit. Also the npc's change of place after the first delivery was nowhere hinted at, and I found myself going to the original event quest giver and looking for the guy in vain, thus loosing actually one day of voting - and I have only found him by the impressario tent in Necrom because I needed to grow my horse on my new arcanist, but of a truth I stick to base-game impressario tents, and if it weren't for that instance I would have never found him as I never go in newer zones setups of this sort. Nothing warned me that it'll be a change of scene.

Overall the choice in itself was of course very different from other years, and wonderfully intriguing, seeing that both are highly desirable rewards and the fact that it leaves a sweet-bitter taste afterwards I also liked. Very much unlike ordinary events! (sweet for the earned book in this case, bitter for the music-box loss). I confess I like this level of intrigue much much more than a benevolent surprise of "Here have it all and be happy everyone!" in the end. I daresay if such a surprise would have come at the end I'd have been much less impressed by it all. So KEEP the hard choices!

Now if I were to have any additional thoughts on it all - I will start with the actual rewards-collecting moment. I missed this year the whole opening of box within box within box thing. And of a truth, this is the beauty ( for me) of any such things - opening boxes! I also missed the extra attuning crafting stations given each year at such events among the rewards - and even the "trash" mats and bits and rests of ordinary things, when piled up in boxes like that have an extra appeal about them, so don't loose that in the future, please. Also if possible in the future please make it more clear about npc changes of location (perhaps plant them at every impressario tent in game!?) and add some more obvious hints on potential reward choices. I also agree with what someone wrote about the choices - swap them some time so the ones just clicking around and always choosing 1st will mingle with those truly voting. Should make things more interesting in the future! I do not agree with the idea of a third choice- neutral. I figure most will just choose that, cause it's easiest, and we'll up getting nothing if we were to be left to our own devices. So not that, ty. Other than that, I think it was a successful event crowning a successful chapter, for which the whole team deserves genuine congratulations - and may the future be equally inviting!

KAT0MI

What did you like about Secrets of the Telvanni?

For me I always love dunmers and dunmer territories so having an event in these areas are great in itself. The rewards were perfect for me as there was a nice balance between furnishings and furniture plans. It also seems like you guys heard our request to have community events yeild a house and I am really happy you guys are still keeping this.

Was there anything you wish was different?

The voting for rewards seemed awkward. Like every chapter you guys seems to stick to a colour scheme but I will still complain about it. With necrom you would think you guys would pay more tribute to the great houses colour schemes instead of making all these furniture rewards lime green because of apocrypha.

Two zones but it seems like all your focus was on the daedric plane.

How did you feel about the Ebony Dwarven Scarab pet, Nightmare Nest body and face markings, and Kelesan’ruhn house as the community event reward?

I could always use more pets but they have no function outside of furniture. Instead of body markings I will never use, I would have loved an emote that allows us to interact with our non combat pets.

Don't get me wrong I am a goblin for collectibles so I do appreciate the body markings.

Like I mentioned above I appreciate it alot that you brought back a house reward for a community event.

What are your thoughts on the player voting through Tralise (to unlock the music box) or Yensa (to unlock the book furnishing)?

Honestly I expected backlash because players don't always share the same tastes and for collection goblins like myself, why not both. However I would be ok with you guys doing furture housing or outfit contests with the other item given as prizes to the participants. Like the Halloween hosing contest you have going on now. That music box would be an amazing prize.

Any additional thoughts?

To summerize my major points above;

1. I believe that the community events should always give house houses like you have done (except for the last community event). You listenen and I am really happy about it.
2. Give new life to wanting pets. Add some interactive emotions that allows us to carry or pet them. Then these pet rewards feel more worth it. Also you can give these emotes away during these events.
3. Next time there are prizes, try to balance them out to the zone and make them equal. So instead of a music box it should have been two furniture books. One based on Necrom's Texts the other being the Tome you gave away. Or both being music boxes but one is apocrypha music or necorm based music (Though a lot of people I spoke to were more impressed with a book that can open and close then another music box). Also make the events more equal as well. Even if many players are unaware of the voting process, they will always do both or the easiest quest to complete.
4. I love the voting you did. And I would love it more if the prizes are still able to be gotten even if it means further down the road. Not crown store purchases because I will more than likely ignore them because it feels cheap to purchase something that I could have gotten for free.

Additonally maybe follow up all DLC events with an explorers event so players with only base game can join in the festivities and not feel excluded. Maybe have it as a claimable crown store thing for people without the DLC (Like the free plus events you guys have).

Overall I was really happy with the event. I look forward to others like it in the future.

DarcyMardin

[*] What did you like about Secrets of the Telvanni?

It was nice to see the area crowded with other players for a change. I like the furnishing and furnishing recipes that I got. Increased resources from nodes was good too. I was also able to fill out my sticker book for the zone sets because of the extra drops.

[*] Was there anything that was confusing or frustrating?

Yes, the initial quest was confusing, with two tasks, one of which, the BN, proved to be ignorable, although it took me a while to figure that out (I play solo, and trying to solo the BN didn’t go so well!). It was also frustrating on day 1 when absolutely nothing I did resulted in any gold pages for the daily quest. On day 2, I figured out that resource nodes were the best source of these…but everybody else figured that out too, so the node battle got a bit brutal out there.

I did a world boss quest every day for the tickets (on 3 accounts) and gathered resources for pages for the daily. I did a few delve quests, too, but killing WBs was much faster. Never did the group BN thing.

[*] Was there anything you wish was different?

Sure. I wish everything in this game were soloable. Or that we had useful AI companions with whom to construct our own teams for harder content.

[*] How did you feel about the Ebony Dwarven Scarab pet, Nightmare Nest body and face markings, and Kelesan’ruhn house as the community event reward?

Don’t care about the pet or the markings, but love the house. Thank you for that!

[*] What are your thoughts on the player voting through Tralise (to unlock the music box) or Yensa (to unlock the book furnishing)?

Given that one third of the players, at least, were disappointed with the outcome, I thought it was a bad idea that shouldn’t be repeated unless you give out both rewards at the end.


I generally like events, and this one turned out to be pretty good.

Sarannah

What did you like about Secrets of the Telvanni?

Loved that everything in the zone could drop pages for the event quest, so doing anything was possible. Due to how often the pages dropped, this prevented burn-out as it was basically impossible to do the page quest on all 20 characters every day.

The reason why I participate in events, is to get all the style pages. Being able to get them all during this event is what made the event fun and made my time feel precious. Whereas other events where we can't get all the style pages, or their droprate is too low, it feels like I am wasting my time even playing during that event.

Was there anything that was confusing or frustrating?

Moving the quest NPC wasn't fun, but was only a minor inconvenience. The world is too large to try and find one random NPC, hehe.
And it was unclear if we were still able to vote after we reached 100% on the community meter.

Was there anything you wish was different?

Event-wise, there should be a forced page drop every 15-20 minutes to prevent dryspills. Exploring -wise, Apocrypha not having any green/blue leads makes it aimless to explore.

There also needs to be a solution for extremely rare resources during events. Mainly psijjic portals, thieves throves, and jewelry nodes(jewelry nodes are getting fixed with the U40 jewelry changes). During events it becomes basically impossible to find any of those resources(add-ons do not help in that regard either) if you are not mounting around. Maybe diguise psijjic portals like regular nodes. Not sure how to fix thieves throves though. Some players only target/farm those extremely rare nodes, making it really unfair to those casually exploring.

How did you feel about the Ebony Dwarven Scarab pet, Nightmare Nest body and face markings, and Kelesan’ruhn house as the community event reward?

Never use markings, but loved the house and pet.

What are your thoughts on the player voting through Tralise (to unlock the music box) or Yensa (to unlock the book furnishing)?

Was a bit confusing... like, were we still able to vote after we reached 100%? This was unclear. In-game it was also unclear what either of them did or what they were for. It would have been better to place the options next to eachother horizontally in the dialogue, with captions about what they are for:
Yensa (Tome) - Tralise (Music Box)
Maybe a way to preview both items in-game would be cool. As the tome was quite unimpressive compared to the screenshot.

Even though I didn't mind having to pick one. Having to choose one reward means everyone loses out though. The ones who wanted the music box will feel like they missed out on it, and the ones who choose the tome will miss out on the music box as well.
Would be better to expand the community event to 120-125% and grant both those items at that percentage. This way everybody wins. Or grant the losing item for 5 event tickets during the next event, this way the winning item would only be available sooner, instead of being the only one available. Another options would be to let players pick which item they get first, and make the second item available as a reward during the next event.