ESO Event Design, Rewarding Players or Burning Them Out?

BretonMage · November 13

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

I really don't see what the problem is. The fact that the rewards are so utterly abysmal is a good thing; it means that at most, you just get the three gold boxes a day, then ignore them and go do something else.

What if you wanted one of the rare drops, like the Caltrops style? If we were grinding for it at pre-2024 levels, most of us would be very close to getting it by now. But currently it seems that you practically have to make ESO your full-time job to get collectibles, which is not fun at all.

I'm not partaking in this lunacy of course, but I think it's a terrible move to make collectibles even harder to get than ever before, at a time when there are more games to play and less free time than the 2020-2022 era.

DragonRacer · November 13

I hate it, but I’ll keep playing the rest of the game

To add to those mentioning Coldharbour Surreal Estate… I remain completely gobsmacked that the “reward of equivalent value” for those who PAID CROWNS to already own that property had the chance to instead receive… a gold treasure you could sell to a merchant for 10,000 gold.

That house’s equivalent is 10k gold to you? Truly? If that’s the case, I’d love to see Crown Store items adjusted down to such an in-game gold value…

Gabriel_H · November 13

Vote: What Grind?

I have 1 toon. I've been doing 3 gold boxes per day for phase 2. I have 12/25 Writhing Boned and missing 4 style pages. (10 mins a day ish). If I did more boxes I'd have more, but I'm very disappointed P2 is P1 re-labelled. It means I'm not really engaged.

All MMOs have grind. ESO is much better than most. I quit playing World of Grindcraft for a reason. To call the event a grind is imo somewhat unfair. On one hand it's quite grindy compared to other ESO content, which has seen many great steps over the years to reduce the grind. The knocked down achievement amounts, gave us the stickerbook and transmutes, as well as curated coffers.

Gone are the days of having to run a dungeon 500 times to get the weapon WITH the trait you wanted or forking over 1m gold to a group member because they got the drop. Honestly, if people are feeling the event is a hard grind, then that is only because ZOS have done such a good job making the rest of the game less of a grind.

I still have nightmares about a rep grind in WoW. 16,000+ mob kills to reach max rep. Only about 12 mobs in one small area. Open world PvP server. Now that's a grind.

aetherix8 · November 13

It’s kind of fun, at least it breaks up the routine

code65536 wrote: »

aetherix8 wrote: »

Shards drop from blue boxes too, so they are worth farming.

I mean, everything can drop form blue. But at a rate that is so much lower than gold. And since it takes the same amount of time to get a blue as it does to get a gold, it means that the reward-for-time drops off a cliff with blues.

There was another thread, where I said that it was worth rerolling your first crafting quest to make sure that you get a profession from which you were still missing stuff. And someone in that thread said that you can get the plans from blues and that in fact, almost all of her plans came from blues.

But there was a catch: she was farming those blues on every character, so we're talking about over a hundred blues per day, whereas I was just getting my one gold. And yes, she's completed all the plans faster than me that way, but I've made good progress with just the gold boxes, and with how much longer the event has to go, I've no doubt that it will be completed before the end.

I'm not saying that blues are of zero value. But I'm saying that the value-to-time-spent ratio falls off a huge cliff with blues. And, most importantly, if you are patient, you will probably get everything from just golds. Sure, it'll take more time, but in case people haven't noticed, this is a long event. It's a marathon, not a sprint: pace yourself.

What I don't get are the people who choose to farm these low-value blues and then complain about the burn out, such as the OP of this thread. Just choose to get only golds. You'll still complete everything before the event ends, except this way, you're not driving yourself mad in the process.

I guess that depends on how a player is farming: if only on one character then the blue boxes are worth it, but if farming on multiple characters and accounts then the gold ones are enough to get all rewards, and getting the blue ones too only guarantees a burn out.

Razmirra · November 13

I hate it, but I’ll keep playing the rest of the game

It's becoming a chore to me. Max the craft dailies, maybe the camp and soul ones and just one gathering one. I won't always max out the camp/soul ones but might on one character.

Koshka · November 13

I hate it, this grind makes me want to uninstall

I'm

DragonRacer wrote: »

To add to those mentioning Coldharbour Surreal Estate… I remain completely gobsmacked that the “reward of equivalent value” for those who PAID CROWNS to already own that property had the chance to instead receive… a gold treasure you could sell to a merchant for 10,000 gold.

That house’s equivalent is 10k gold to you? Truly? If that’s the case, I’d love to see Crown Store items adjusted down to such an in-game gold value…

Yeah, it's really bad. 10k is nothing even for a newbie.

AvalonRanger · November 13

It’s just a grind, some folks don’t mind the hamster wheel

I got huge vault today!! Now good bye wall.

laniakea_0 · November 13

I hate it, but I’ll keep playing the rest of the game

DragonRacer wrote: »

To add to those mentioning Coldharbour Surreal Estate… I remain completely gobsmacked that the “reward of equivalent value” for those who PAID CROWNS to already own that property had the chance to instead receive… a gold treasure you could sell to a merchant for 10,000 gold.

That house’s equivalent is 10k gold to you? Truly? If that’s the case, I’d love to see Crown Store items adjusted down to such an in-game gold value…

crowns? what do you mean? you can get that one with gold too.

SilverBride · November 13

I hate it, but I’ll keep playing the rest of the game

AvalonRanger wrote: »

I got huge vault today!! Now good bye wall.

What is huge vault?

Maitsukas · November 13

SilverBride wrote: »

AvalonRanger wrote: »

I got huge vault today!! Now good bye wall.

What is huge vault?

I think they mean the Coldharbour Surreal Estate.

SilverBride · November 13

I hate it, but I’ll keep playing the rest of the game

Maitsukas wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

AvalonRanger wrote: »

I got huge vault today!! Now good bye wall.

What is huge vault?

I think they mean the Coldharbour Surreal Estate.

Oh. I never thought of it as a vault.

DragonRacer · November 13

I hate it, but I’ll keep playing the rest of the game

laniakea_0 wrote: »

DragonRacer wrote: »

To add to those mentioning Coldharbour Surreal Estate… I remain completely gobsmacked that the “reward of equivalent value” for those who PAID CROWNS to already own that property had the chance to instead receive… a gold treasure you could sell to a merchant for 10,000 gold.

That house’s equivalent is 10k gold to you? Truly? If that’s the case, I’d love to see Crown Store items adjusted down to such an in-game gold value…

crowns? what do you mean? you can get that one with gold too.

Not for 10k gold you can't, which I guess is the value ZOS assigned it for the event.

Destai · November 13

I hate it, but I’ll keep playing the rest of the game

@ZOS_Kevin So I know I've mentioned a few times that rewards need improving and wanted to revisit this thread with some suggestions on how. These suggestions are purely my opinion, and while informed by the sentiments of others, I'm only speaking for myself. In general, I think ZOS needs to focus less on managing engagement and more on ensuring things are fun and rewarding.

What are rewards?
Rewards are the attractive obtainable features that you get from an activity. Here's what I consider to be rewards, for events and non-events alike.

Outfit styles
Weapon styles
Motifs
Furnishings
Furnishing Recipes
Houses
Mounts
Non-combat pets
Mementos
Collectibles Fragments
Gold
Skill points
Double XP
Inspiration
Double Drops

Why should I participate in an event?
I do content to earn rewards and achievements, which themselves, should have rewards. If an activity doesn't have a reward, there's no incentive to do it.

My main motivator for events especially is new styles. If I see a cool style, I'll want to get it. I've spent a lot on outfit slots over the years, and enjoy dressing up on my toons. If something is an ultra-rare drop, I will not pursue it and may even abandon the event entirely.

Next big one is double drops. Especially on things like dungeons and trials, getting these is super valuable. Personally, I think dungeons should be double drops from the start, just to lessen the grind. It's just not fun running the same dungeon again and again because weapons only drop from one boss. There's a lot of content in the game, these events help manage completing it.

Last but not least, I love double XP. Personally, I think most events should be double XP. This is an 11-year old game, I would argue most people want to be max level and just enjoy the game. If I see double XP, I'll prioritize the game in my rotation to get some alts caught up.

Events with good rewards?

The Golden Pursuit that awarded the Attunable Crafting tables.
NLF is GREAT. It's double XP for almost a month. Even though I prefer events to be shorter, I don't feel like NLF overstays its welcome. Granted, I don't do the actual holiday events - because again - rewards. But the double XP, the ability to catch up on tickets and whatever else, is fantastic. Never shorten this. Ever.
The Orisinium event. The bugs aside, that was a good event. Getting double drops on MA was awesome.
Whitestrakes. Overall, good rewards, but that Ebonsteel Knight set needs to drop more.
Undaunted. Dungeons dropping curated weapons, amazing.

How can ZOS make the game more rewarding?

Curation of drops.
Removing ticket caps.
Better coordinating maintenance windows.
Associating decade-old rewards with achievements rather than flooding inventories.
Adding new activities with new achievements and rewards each year to existing festivals.

What design practices should be avoided?

Miniscule chances on really attractive items (see the Staff of Worms debacle)
Forcing competition over limited resources to complete objectives. No one wants to spend their time farming something with a million other people just to complete a daily quest.
Progress bars. These have very poor optics, especially with the lower population that ESO currently has and the backend adjustments needed as a result. Frankly, I don't care who has internal bets or whatever. It doesn't matter to my gameplay experience. The negative fallout of the progress bar's reception does. And I think this is one of those things where ZOS really needs to look at how they're actually received, rather than how your teams want them to be received. IMO, ZOS's time is better spent elsewhere.
Engagement micromanagement. Too much focus is on "driving engagement" with things like once-a-day-drops, ticket caps, ultra-rare drops. Focus on the fun, respect people's time, and the rest will fall in place. If you're unsure about what fun actually is, which I'm starting to think is the case, open a discussion. Have a survey.
Sunsetting returning seasonal rewards. The Exorcised Coven Cottage is what made me mention this. While it's still earnable in-game, it wasn't available in the store. If you've done something for every year, keep doing it. You can always add more stuff.
Low-paying gold alternatives. So the Coldharbour house right - costs like a million. I want someone at ZOS to explain to me how 10k gold is a viable alternative to getting that drop

.

Is there anything ZOS needs to understand?
People want to get shiny new things in the quickest and most effective way possible. Lean into that. Events shouldn't be this all-consuming activity that hijacks one's entire play session. It should be something sprinkled in, or augment activities people are already doing.

code65536 · November 13

It’s just a grind, some folks don’t mind the hamster wheel

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Vote: What Grind?

I have 1 toon. I've been doing 3 gold boxes per day for phase 2. I have 12/25 Writhing Boned and missing 4 style pages. (10 mins a day ish). If I did more boxes I'd have more, but I'm very disappointed P2 is P1 re-labelled. It means I'm not really engaged.

All MMOs have grind. ESO is much better than most. I quit playing World of Grindcraft for a reason. To call the event a grind is imo somewhat unfair. On one hand it's quite grindy compared to other ESO content, which has seen many great steps over the years to reduce the grind. The knocked down achievement amounts, gave us the stickerbook and transmutes, as well as curated coffers.

Gone are the days of having to run a dungeon 500 times to get the weapon WITH the trait you wanted or forking over 1m gold to a group member because they got the drop. Honestly, if people are feeling the event is a hard grind, then that is only because ZOS have done such a good job making the rest of the game less of a grind.

I still have nightmares about a rep grind in WoW. 16,000+ mob kills to reach max rep. Only about 12 mobs in one small area. Open world PvP server. Now that's a grind.

Absolutely. There is a no-grind option for this event: just get the gold boxes each day, and then enjoy the rest of the game.

And people who do that were on pace to get everything by the time the event ended. I say "were", because ZOS caved to pressure and has now dramatically shortened the event.

So people who have taken a healthy no-grind approach to this event are now getting screwed by the people who chose to grind blue boxes and then complained loudly on the forums about their choice to grind blue boxes.

twisttop138 · November 13

I hate it, but I’ll keep playing the rest of the game

code65536 wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Vote: What Grind?

I have 1 toon. I've been doing 3 gold boxes per day for phase 2. I have 12/25 Writhing Boned and missing 4 style pages. (10 mins a day ish). If I did more boxes I'd have more, but I'm very disappointed P2 is P1 re-labelled. It means I'm not really engaged.

All MMOs have grind. ESO is much better than most. I quit playing World of Grindcraft for a reason. To call the event a grind is imo somewhat unfair. On one hand it's quite grindy compared to other ESO content, which has seen many great steps over the years to reduce the grind. The knocked down achievement amounts, gave us the stickerbook and transmutes, as well as curated coffers.

Gone are the days of having to run a dungeon 500 times to get the weapon WITH the trait you wanted or forking over 1m gold to a group member because they got the drop. Honestly, if people are feeling the event is a hard grind, then that is only because ZOS have done such a good job making the rest of the game less of a grind.

I still have nightmares about a rep grind in WoW. 16,000+ mob kills to reach max rep. Only about 12 mobs in one small area. Open world PvP server. Now that's a grind.

Absolutely. There is a no-grind option for this event: just get the gold boxes each day, and then enjoy the rest of the game.

And people who do that were on pace to get everything by the time the event ended. I say "were", because ZOS caved to pressure and has now dramatically shortened the event.

So people who have taken a healthy no-grind approach to this event are now getting screwed by the people who chose to grind blue boxes and then complained loudly on the forums about their choice to grind blue boxes.

I don't think the event was a huge grind. Mostly because after leading some guild groups I'm the first week I grew to really dislike the event, thinking it pretty low effort and badly done. So I got my gold boxes and in phase 2 got the new crafting quests. I just think the event as a whole was bad, but if you think just a few complainers on the forums caused them to call an audible, I don't think you've seen much of other parts of the internet. Reddit, YouTube, hell even IG comments on posts I saw while scrolling. I've seen pics of steam reviews. The villagers we're unhappy man. The negative feedback was so much that they just ended it. At the end of the day, we can't control what Zos does but I think more people will be happy it's over then not. Ymmv.

DoofusMax · November 13

It’s just a grind, some folks don’t mind the hamster wheel

As far as the overall event design, I'm going to have to go with a "meh" or "meh +" overall. There are some parts of it that I like, but those are countered by parts that I don't.

To lead with the good stuff, I think the larger idea of community/server progress to achieve a goal is an interesting one. I'm less fond of "we know you paid for this content months ago, but we're not going to let you access it until <thing> happens on your server" and do not think that aspect was well-considered. I have been enjoying the siege camp incursions as a dolmen on steroids. I'll also note that I mostly did the dolmen because I was trying to fill out the Draugr motif chapters, but I did not turn up my nose at the one guaranteed script per day. They're otherwise pretty uninteresting unless you're a new player. I also think they fit pretty well into the larger Solstice zone story and the event produced tangible changes in the overland. For those who haven't bothered to look, the point in the wall just east of the Rampart camp has physically changed over the course of the event. I don't think it's something you'd notice on a day to day basis, but it has been changing as the server progress meter has crept upward. Overall, the event has been a very interesting concept that mostly suffered in the implementation.

Most of the bad stuff has been discussed ("raged at" in many cases), but those mostly fall into excessive length coupled with underwhelming rewards, which you can take as "fruitless grind" if you wish. I'm partially in agreement on the rewards side of things, but differ somewhat with the OP's take on it. If an event's tasks are reasonably interesting, then I'm good with it. The gold coffers (and event tickets where applicable) are usually an incentive to participate in that thing during my gaming sessions, but I'm not much of a coffer-chaser. I'll chase motif chapters, but once my crafter has learned all the chapters of a motif, there isn't a whole lot of incentive to chase more. I'll collect outfit style pages, but have little interest in them once collected and extras don't hold much value after the first few days as the market gets flooded. Plus I really don't like being drowned in some of the other rewards (Jester's boxes and banners, anyone?). As long as the activity is at least somewhat interesting, then I'm generally good with it, but cannot claim to be especially enthused. Yeah, sure, OK, I'll go gather the stuff for your sparklers (again), but only as a diversion from what I'd otherwise be doing (again for the thousandth time).

BretonMage · November 14

Destai wrote: »

[*] Engagement micromanagement. Too much focus is on "driving engagement" with things like once-a-day-drops, ticket caps, ultra-rare drops. Focus on the fun, respect people's time, and the rest will fall in place. If you're unsure about what fun actually is, which I'm starting to think is the case, open a discussion. Have a survey.

Thanks for this post, you deserve all the awesomes for it. I feel like this is what's going awry at the moment. Rewards are increasingly focused on rarity, with ultra rare rewards and nested RNG being common now, and I've increasingly felt that my time is not being respected. ESO was grindy before, but what it's becoming now is beyond grindy. The extreme rarity of certain rewards is puzzling because I can't decide if ZOS wants us to give up, or wants us to grind more. I can't grind more, I value my time and I just won't.

ZOS_Hadeostry · November 14

Greetings,

After removing some unnecessary back and forth from this thread, we would like everyone to keep posts on the subject at hand, civil, and constructive.

If there may be any questions in regards to the rules, please feel free to review them here

katanagirl1 · November 15

I hate it, but I’ll keep playing the rest of the game

I’ve been doing the gold boxes from the camps and souls, and all boxes for the crafting dailies. I still need the Meridian Lens Apparatus plan and the Carnaval plan. So I haven’t got burnt out doing that much.

I planned to keep doing the dailies for the Caltrops fragments, I only have 12 now, but the camps were deserted today, only 2 or 3 other players there. The fragments are 100k each in guild traders. It seems the difficulty of the camp spawns were increased with Phase 3, I got one-shot by some of the enemy attacks, and there are more mobs than Phase 2 I think.

I’ve been happy to just do this and move on to other things in the game and hope for better luck the next day. Today however, after doing the Writhing Fortress and being unable to complete the quest and turn it in, I was almost ready to uninstall. What a disappointing ending to a disappointing event.

AcadianPaladin · November 15

It’s kind of fun, at least it breaks up the routine

I'm afraid I voted too early (before phase 3 began). As a good citizen of Tamriel I happily did about 8 daily Stirk quests to help progress the bar and that fit into the 'didn't mind' category. Along comes phase 3. Enter Writhing Fortress. There were plenty of other players so I wasn't really in danger but the chaos, confusion, scarcity of ballista parts triggered my 'NOT FUN!' switch so I ported out with no intent to come back. I refuse to play 'herd ball' or run around confused. Very disappointed in having to call the culmination of this DLC a fail.

BradTheNord · November 15

I hate it, this grind makes me want to uninstall

Every now and again the topic of reward structure appears on the forum & up until now I’ve stayed quiet on the subject but I’ll leave you all with how zos really feel about rewarding players ….

A few years back when Rich Lambert used to stream on Twitch, he would interact & be very open with chat about the game and the plans for it.

So I asked him Hey Rich …. Q: why is it that I can slog for months to get master angler and all I get it a title ? Why not a cool gold rod skin or something to show my accomplishment to stand out ?

In which Rich replied with

A: The reward is the journey you took & knowing you went through all that to get master angler….. then he did like an awkward laugh & moved on to answer another viewers question.

And from that exact moment I knew I would never grind anything in this game again …. If they can’t respect my time at the bare minimum I ain’t doing any of these silly grind fest “events”

scrappy1342 · November 15

I hate it, but I’ll keep playing the rest of the game

SilverBride wrote: »

Maitsukas wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

AvalonRanger wrote: »

I got huge vault today!! Now good bye wall.

What is huge vault?

I think they mean the Coldharbour Surreal Estate.

Oh. I never thought of it as a vault.

pretty sure something got lost in translation. estate, vault ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

LadyLethalla · November 16

I hate it, this grind makes me want to uninstall

I've been playing this game on two platforms since mid-2015 - this game has been a BIG part of my life for over a decade at this point. I have had a couple of small breaks, but always came back. Now, though... Same old "holiday events", same meh rewards; WW is a different type of event, sure, but there are still very meh rewards and so I am actually wondering now why I'm bothering. I've had a bit of FOMO over the years, but... Tbh I was expecting to be doing stuff non-stop for this. I'm actually doing the bare minimum because it's not engaging at all.

As another complaint... three nights ago when I logged in, it was like I was a brand new player. It wouldn't let me skip the intro graphics. I had to pick a server. Had to agree to 4-5 agreements. Had to pick a country when I finally got in the game (that's a new one). Then when I couldn't use my controller and died in a fight, I found out all my settings had reverted to default - AND then I had to agree to an Add On terms of use. What the actual... apparently this didn't happen to anyone I spoke to in the guild at the time?? It took several hours over 3 nights to get all my settings back how they were and my add-ons working properly. And after all that, I went into the WW PD and the quest didn't progress.

I'm a patient person, but I do have limits and I feel like it's pretty close.

Jestir · November 16

I hate it, but I’ll keep playing the rest of the game

The first 2 parts of this event just shouldnt have been a thing

Get rid of that and you don't have the overlap with the witches festival or a month of awful dailies with poor rewards then I would think the writhing wall would have had a general positive reception compared to what it had gotten

And ya know, maybe it shouldn't be the buggiest thing the game has ever seen