I think events like Writhing Wall are the completely wrong approach to ESOs survival

Nemesis7884 · October 8

Not only do I personally not like such a very short term temporary / one time event since I am extremely busy at the moment and will hardly have any time to participate - and it just doesnt feel good for someone who has played and supported the game since beta to probably miss out on an event and everything related that is one time only...I think im not a lone and a lot of people like being able to enjoy eso's content at their own time table rather than being forced into someone elses...

But also from a current game and ZOS company status this does not make any sense to me...

Msoft seems to "downsize" everything gaming related; ZOS has lost a lot of employees - so Microsoft obviously wants to increase results with fewer resources... but ZOS is exactly doing the opposite at a time when their own resources are dwindling. A temporary one time event pretty much has the worst recourses spent to content time imaginable.

How does that make any sense in the current situation and to attract new players and keep existing ones busy and as much / as long in game as possible??

Zos should much rather use their shrinking resources to leverage / enhance existing content and create new content and systems that is not temporary but persistent and repeatable - like the IA (Dont get hung up on IA its not specifically this but just as an example of a persistent system) etc. etc. no?

TLDR: Instead of a lot of effort for one temporary one time event a year I think limited resources are better spent on twice the persistent zone / system I can engage with persistently over time with varous characters at my own time table

spartaxoxo · October 8

FOMO and new stuff build hype

Four_Fingers · October 8

If this was the last event ever I might agree, but there will be more.
And I can't remember the last time I played IA, gets boring, where once again all you need is the right build.

joergino · October 8

While I agree with you in principle, I have to disagree vehemently that horrible stuff "like the IA" would be better. For me that was one more sign that my money is not appreciated and that I am no longer wanted in this game.

Maitsukas · October 8

Not the first time the "big community effort" events have had limited time rewards to not make a return.

licenturion · October 8

I played it on the PTR and the mini-trial/dungeon they created looks great.

It is just a shame this will get deleted after 2 weeks. It is a waste of resources in my opinion when games delete content. They should just convert this into a solo arena and add it the solstice zone quest

SolarRune · October 8

I get the point being made, but asking for more stuff like IA that is so boring is also not the answer

Avran_Sylt · October 8

licenturion wrote: »

I played it on the PTR and the mini-trial/dungeon they created looks great.

It is just a shame this will get deleted after 2 weeks. It is a waste of resources in my opinion when games delete content. They should just convert this into a solo arena and add it the solstice zone quest

Have they stated that will be deleted?

My thought is that they mention that General Zasimba and the Fellowship Siege Camp dailies will remain due to the insinuation that the Strik Fellowship/Sunport Rampart dailies (the dual user engagement quests) will be retired (as they want to keep solstice as an encapsulated paid expansion afterwards, while not completely shunning players that didn't buy the expansion during the event).

Not saying they're being very clear on the topic though...

It's likely that the delve incursions will be turned off on event end, but it's likely such a feature will be used for future events (albeit themed differently).

Narratively they may just say that the Writhing Fortress is sealed, yet the manner of seal could be workshopped in such a way that the seal is formed from the perpetual imprisonment of the souls therein. An eternal vigil is setup to keep the threat of those prisoners subsided, the Stirk Fellowship welcoming incursions from prospective adventurers. (Hard-mode public dungeon for a title). But that's a guess on my part, they didn't state it was remaining after the event.

The Siege Camp daily quest rewards, and the Siege camp encounter itself both drop everything that the Writhing Coffers will drop. And this reward source remains even after the event.

My guess is at most all that will be missed if not participating is the slow community rollout of content (drip feeding new content with intervals designed to garner greater community interaction without being binge-able) and the community meta-game of racing to see who can unlock what the fastest.

The language used in the article is probably vague either because of poor communication or marketing speak to try to leverage FOMO for extra sales.

Tyrobag · October 8

They want snapshot numbers. If game population plummets immediately after, that doesn't matter as long as they peaked high enough with the FoMO model to give them something to show the higherups that don't know about video games and won't look any deeper. FoMO has worked for them so far, why not lean into it even harder?

Syldras · October 8

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

licenturion wrote: »

I played it on the PTR and the mini-trial/dungeon they created looks great.

It is just a shame this will get deleted after 2 weeks. It is a waste of resources in my opinion when games delete content. They should just convert this into a solo arena and add it the solstice zone quest

Have they stated that will be deleted?

They said it will remain open for a week (after the boss has been defeated for the first time), so - yes. And I agree that it feels like a waste of efforts to me, as it is an interesting dungeon and clearly a lot of work went into it (I've played it on PTS). Why not preserve that so it contributes to the game long-term?

Elvenheart · October 8

This is just my guess, but I think the one-time limited part of this event has been in planning for a very long time, longer than all the layoffs and shifts in focus occurred. Although I understand and somewhat agree with the OP, I’m fine with something limited like this just as long as it’s rare.

I had taken a break from WoW when they did their Scarab Gate one-time event thing, heard about it after the fact, and have remembered missing that ever since, creating a negative memory associated with that game. And now DCUO has switched to CONSTANT limited-time events for every event in an awful format that really makes you have to sign in and do multiple activities almost every day of the event or pay their version of crowns for every day you miss that irritates me to no end and makes me play that game less.

Stamicka · October 8

Yea ZOS put themselves in a really difficult position. For years and years they've been doing everything they can to get more new players and to keep the solo casuals happy. They keep the majority of the game extremely easy, water down the combat, focus mostly on zone releases, and put a lot of emphasis on events.

I think that a lot of the solo casual crowd is very seasonal. They'll log in for events and they'll complete whatever zone is released. It seems like the majority of ESO's player base is like this now.

ESO would actually have much more longevity by keeping it's endgame scene alive. If PvP combat, balance, and performance were good, ESO would have a steady and profitable population for years. PvP keeps itself fresh even with minimal content additions because every encounter is different. Even Cyrodiil, one of the oldest zones in the game would be thriving still if they gave PvPers some more love.

With endgame PvE, if it wasn't for power creep, update 35, and account wide achievements, there would be a thriving long term population too. People would spend months or even years trying to get certain achievements back when they were difficult and you actually had to strive for them. Even after earning those achievements, some players wanted it on multiple characters or they just wanted to beat their best score so they had more to do. Now combat itself isn't as fun and most content has been trivialized by the amount of damage. Then of course, account wide achievements made replaying content a bit less rewarding.

The devs say they want ESO to last 30 years, but they continue to give long term players the least attention. Giving players good combat, good performance, good rewards, and something to strive for would go a long way.

Nemesis7884 · October 8

IA was just an example to underline the principle not the specific content.. and saying it got boring after months and months of use vs a 2 week only event kinda underlines this as well...

Just always keep in mind how much dev time such an event takes vs how long you get content out of it.

If i can have such a one time event a year that disappears after a week and i need to be lucky to be around to enjoy that one time vs a persistent zone (or system) that is twice as large and i can engage x months later with various characters i much rather have the later...

Vonnegut2506 · October 8

IA got boring before they even changed the name and got rid of most of the bugs. Please no more repetitive trash killing arenas with recycled assets.

tomofhyrule · October 8

Stamicka wrote: »

Yea ZOS put themselves in a really difficult position. For years and years they've been doing everything they can to get more new players and to keep the solo casuals happy. They keep the majority of the game extremely easy, water down the combat, focus mostly on zone releases, and put a lot of emphasis on events.

This, I think, is a major factor that a lot of people want to ignore.

Sure, we all know about the standard “but but but SteamCharts aren’t everything!” argument regarding the population, but we can definitely see the trend there of a spike after a release and then a slow decline until the next thing releases. ESO very much is seasonal and not constant. Heck, even many of ESO’s StreamTeam is either no longer creating content (at least for ESO - a lot of them are playing GW2 right now) or the content they do create is mostly along the lines of “ESO is cooked!!!1!!11!”

That does mean that if ESO wants to survive, it needs more. More zones. More quests. More events. More things that’ll just end up burning out the population until they get fed up and leave.
And we already see that for all of the forum arguments of “just give us a patch with only bugfixes and quality-of-life stuff instead of new things!” that just doesn’t really work. They’ve done that twice already, and the fact that nobody remembers the Q3 patch for the two previous years was just that shows how important those patches are.

And as you said, the removal of individual achievements and the complete homogenization of character builds due to things like hybridization and Subclassing are making things a lot less interesting for vet players. Like for example, I have finished every 4-man achievement in the game, so what should I do with my dungeon group until we get more? And a lot of vets are saying similar things. So once we get what we need, now what? Are we expected to just leave the game until the next patch? Seriously, even the daily login rewards have been giant nothing burgers the past two months.

ZOS is between a rock and a hard place right now. The balance is a disaster and is actively pushing vets away, and instead of addressing it, the Combat Team is hard-focusing their “PvP for PvErs” mode and the devs are hoping that this FOMO event will get enough casual players to grind dailies and carry the game until New Life.

I really hope ZOS tries to get vets back, but a lot of the comments that many of the devs have made really make it feel like ESO is less of “an MMO that allows you to play solo content” and more of “a solo experience that you can share with friends if you choose, assuming you don’t mind people shining lasers in your face in your medieval-ish fantasy world.”

And the worst part: it’s not like there has to be a conflict. There are things they could add that multiple groups of players could enjoy, like Classes: RPers can make a new character, casuals get to play with mixing and matching new skills, vets get more to theorycraft with, PvPers get new enemy tactics to fight against, and the like.

kevkj · October 8

I hope the Writhing Wall event changes my life.

minnowfaun · 12:10AM

tomofhyrule wrote: »

The balance is a disaster and is actively pushing vets away, and instead of addressing it, the Combat Team is hard-focusing their “PvP for PvErs” mode and the devs are hoping that this FOMO event will get enough casual players to grind dailies and carry the game until New Life.

I feel this so much.

Also there are just so many little things going wrong with the game right now. Sweepers and Reapers practically non-existent. Known bugged companion and achievements quests not being fixed. Animals half in rocks, walking under water. Like after the maintenance the overworld shifted by the animal paths did not shift with it. So many things.

wolfie1.0. · 12:51AM

Maitsukas wrote: »

Not the first time the "big community effort" events have had limited time rewards to not make a return.

While true, non of those we have seen i. ESO have involved content that wont make a return ever. They have all been activities you csn still do in game.

StackonClown · 5:33AM

tldr - fighting a wall is meh

Pops_ND_Irish · 6:56AM

If I don't like Withering Wall, I hope my life doesn't suffer !!!!!! I may have to not participate in it.

hehehe

Mrnetch3211 · 7:01AM

I missed the last Jubilee event so I didn't get the cake, I literally have all the cakes but the last one. Almost made me want to quit.

Destai · 4:28PM

Yeah, I agree. I'm really curious how they arrived at a one-time event as a substitute for actual permanent content. Especially with such a light year content wise, just seems odd to me.

Just seems like people have been clamoring for more rewards, more permanent stuff to do. There was a lot of talk from them about having new tentpole systems, so it's bit odd that the biggest feature of the year isn't permanent.

I've been thinking that most of my issues with the game, and why I don't really play as much any more, is the lack of things to do. Especially rewarding things. This event looks cool, but once I get the Stirk motif, I'm not prioritizing it. Who knows, maybe I'll love it. But this isn't the future I want for this game.

spartaxoxo · 4:33PM

Destai wrote: »

Yeah, I agree. I'm really curious how they arrived at a one-time event as a substitute for actual permanent content.

They didn't though. They have had a one time event for the new chapter for years now. People complained events had gotten stale and they should more for them for a while now. ZOS listened and this chapter event is more elaborate than any previous one.

The content for this time of year is the second half of the zone.

metheglyn · 4:40PM

Destai wrote: »

Just seems like people have been clamoring for more rewards, more permanent stuff to do. There was a lot of talk from them about having new tentpole systems, so it's bit odd that the biggest feature of the year isn't permanent.

I thought subclassing was meant as the biggest feature of the year, whereas the battle of the writhing wall was always going to be short-term.

Kartalin · 5:14PM

ESO has had several events over the years where players collaborate to achieve a particular goal, but this is the first time it's focused on a particular location in this fashion. It's an MMO, they should be having events like this much more frequently. So it's okay if you don't want to participate, but at least they're trying to do MMO things still instead of expanding the casual single player experience that they've always been so focused on.

Avran_Sylt · 5:21PM

Syldras wrote: »

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

licenturion wrote: »

I played it on the PTR and the mini-trial/dungeon they created looks great.

It is just a shame this will get deleted after 2 weeks. It is a waste of resources in my opinion when games delete content. They should just convert this into a solo arena and add it the solstice zone quest

Have they stated that will be deleted?

They said it will remain open for a week (after the boss has been defeated for the first time), so - yes. And I agree that it feels like a waste of efforts to me, as it is an interesting dungeon and clearly a lot of work went into it (I've played it on PTS). Why not preserve that so it contributes to the game long-term?

Hmm, probably, though I took that to mean the event itself, not access to the public dungeon.

agelonestar · 6:44PM

I have always enjoyed the community effort tasks, but building this into the “chapter” in an already minuscule map has cheapened the whole thing.

I feel totally ripped off this year. I sub and I always bought the chapters, and this year I bought the season pass - but what I’m getting for my money with the season pass is shocking not-value for money.

2025 content (lack of it!) is what’s going to drive players away. If I joined this year, I’d wonder what the hype was about.