Maintenance for the week of May 11:
• PC/Mac: No maintenance – May 11

Time Spent Playing Has Increased Dramatically

  • twisttop138
    twisttop138
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭
    I cuncur. ESO has become a massive grindfest. Instead of content (be it paid or free) we get grind on top of more grind. And yes, i know what a battle pass is. But at least in other games that shall remain unnamed, battle passes DO offer some meaningful rewards.

    This is what a battle pass is for. Player engagement in already made content. It keeps players busy in between the smaller content drops we're going to be getting. That said, even with chapters we'd just be waiting for June at the moment. Some of us would be enjoying the new dungeons but there would mostly be a content gap. At the moment, zones are crazy busy, people are out doing stuff and then in a couple weeks night market will drop and we'll be doing that. Soon after that, new quests, new daily systems. Much of it reusing old stuff but that's just how it is now.

    As for the battle pass, it's 3 months. No need to drive oneself crazy trying to bang it out in a week or two. Pretty soon tome task will settle into the background and become part of the routine and you won't think about it much. As someone who's also played fallout 76 for a long time, Zos borrowed heavily from them for tomes. The tasks kind of just became part of how I planned my playing. It gets easier if you don't force it to become a grind.
  • TheGamerSeal
    TheGamerSeal
    ✭✭✭
    You don't need all the rewards from a tome. Focus on the exclusive collectibles first; renewable resources like Gold and Transmutation Crystals and progression helpers like Experience and Research Scrolls aren't that important.
    You do need a minimum of 20,000 tome points to unlock full access to the pages; this value may be more or less depending on which rewards you pay for, but if you want to get to the very last bonus page, you must have collected a minimum of 20,000 points.
    If, for some reason, you're out of surveys and treasure maps, you can use HarvestMap for finding resource nodes and in-world treasure chests. Or you can just buy them.
    Even with an add-on that points out node locations, you're still going to end up running all over the place once your surveys run out.
    • "Rather than offering you the illusion of valued feedback, we have taken the liberty of doing what we think is best anyway." -- Anonymous
    • "I should have known the gankblades were plotting to take over!" -- Anonymous
  • EvilMongoose47
    EvilMongoose47
    Soul Shriven
    This week My challenges were: trial, dangerous enemy, alchemy farming, group dungeon and Kvatch arena boss. Re-rolled trial to second dangerous enemy. Ran some pledges I hadn't done yet (Vaults of Madness and Banished Cells), picked up new pledge (Tempest) ran that. Camped Kvatch arena for about half hour with huge group. I harvest nodes naturally, but had like an hour to kill before work, all weekly was done in like 3 hours. 1000 enemies in Wrothgar, they say they are reworking that and you have plenty of time to get it done.

    Also, GamerSeal, me and you share a guild, I can share decent farming spots if you need
    Edited by EvilMongoose47 on 16 April 2026 03:39
  • TheGamerSeal
    TheGamerSeal
    ✭✭✭
    This week My challenges were: trial, dangerous enemy, alchemy farming, group dungeon and Kvatch arena boss. Re-rolled trial to second dangerous enemy. Ran some pledges I hadn't done yet (Vaults of Madness and Banished Cells), picked up new pledge (Tempest) ran that. Camped Kvatch arena for about half hour with huge group. I harvest nodes naturally, but had like an hour to kill before work, all weekly was done in like 3 hours. 1000 enemies in Wrothgar, they say they are reworking that and you have plenty of time to get it done.

    Also, GamerSeal, me and you share a guild, I can share decent farming spots if you need
    My weekly challenges were:
    • Defeat Qumehdi, Zaman, or Macius Cento (x5)
    • Kill 5 Citizens with the Blade of Woe (x5)
    • Kill 8 Dangerous Foes (x5)
    • Complete 1 Incursion (x6)
    • Complete 1 Trial (x2)
    I used all five weekly re-rolls (plus one from last week) and still received undesirable challenges (incursions and trials); mad dashes to dolmens, only to see them already finish before I could get to them, and getting organized into trials were the most time-consuming.

    It took ~5.5 hours to complete these. Alongside usual activities, such as crafting and chatting with guildmates, that total increased to ~6.25 hours. Assuming an additional ~30 minutes of gameplay per following day, that is ~9.25 hours per week - up from ~3.5 hours per week prior to Tamriel Tomes (~250% time increase).

    Unfortunately, completion time isn't consistent day-to-day or player-to-player; players will re-roll challenges they don't want, which always risks just getting another unwanted challenge.
    • "Rather than offering you the illusion of valued feedback, we have taken the liberty of doing what we think is best anyway." -- Anonymous
    • "I should have known the gankblades were plotting to take over!" -- Anonymous
  • cyberjanet
    cyberjanet
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    As of 18h47 today, I have abandoned Tomes entirely.
    Favourite NPC: Wine-For-All
    Mostly PC-EU , with a lonely little guy on NA.
  • twisttop138
    twisttop138
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭
    cyberjanet wrote: »
    As of 18h47 today, I have abandoned Tomes entirely.

    I read this as a old time explorer log.

    Day 645. We have not seen land for 45 days. Supplies run short and the men lose hope. I have cried out to tomes for guidance but am met with only silence.

    Day 702. Our water is gone and the men have turned to eating shoe leather. I have abandoned Tomes entirely. The silence deafens.

    Edit spelling.
    Edited by twisttop138 on 16 April 2026 19:41
  • PoveusRonin
    PoveusRonin
    ✭✭✭
    I think it ends up balancing out overall. For me, it has reduced my play time as daily endeavors gave me the want to log in daily to do content. Where as this system, I only log in daily if there is an event going. I did my 5 on the first day and now have no reason to persuade me into logging in until next reset.

    The system itself is not too terrible but some changes like drop a new one of the 5 daily for the first 5 days instead of dumping them all on reset day might get people more interested in going in. They could still pile up to 12 like they do now, and those who mostly play on the weekend could log in to see all 5 had dropped for them.

    I'm sure there are other methods that might work better but something different might get me playing more than I do now currently.
  • TheGamerSeal
    TheGamerSeal
    ✭✭✭
    I think it ends up balancing out overall. For me, it has reduced my play time as daily endeavors gave me the want to log in daily to do content. Where as this system, I only log in daily if there is an event going. I did my 5 on the first day and now have no reason to persuade me into logging in until next reset.

    The system itself is not too terrible but some changes like drop a new one of the 5 daily for the first 5 days instead of dumping them all on reset day might get people more interested in going in. They could still pile up to 12 like they do now, and those who mostly play on the weekend could log in to see all 5 had dropped for them.

    I'm sure there are other methods that might work better but something different might get me playing more than I do now currently.
    It seems that you're spending less time playing per week, which I believe is the opposite of what developers usually intend for their games - less playtime means lower engagement overall, which doesn't look nice on the little chart set up in the ZeniMax conference room.

    Personally, I was logging in every day to complete craft dailies and/or chat with guildmates, long before even endeavors came along - endeavors just fit a rhythm I was already used to. With Tamriel Tomes, and more time-consuming systems on the horizon, I've been considering giving up what I enjoy doing to reduce my time spent playing.

    Spreading challenges out across the week might be better than what we have now, but I'm not sure how something like that could be implemented without either peppering the screen with multiple deadlines or accidentally re-introducing the endeavor system that was apparently so terrible.
    • "Rather than offering you the illusion of valued feedback, we have taken the liberty of doing what we think is best anyway." -- Anonymous
    • "I should have known the gankblades were plotting to take over!" -- Anonymous
  • Trier_Sero
    Trier_Sero
    ✭✭✭✭
    None of the tasks take more than 1 hour to complete as long as you know what you doing. So thats 5 hours per week at most.
  • TheGamerSeal
    TheGamerSeal
    ✭✭✭
    Trier_Sero wrote: »
    None of the tasks take more than 1 hour to complete as long as you know what you doing. So thats 5 hours per week at most.
    Five hours per week would be acceptable, but that's not the case; additional factors like traveling to each challenge location, having a conversation with guildmates, completing daily quests, playing zone stories, and literally anything else outside of those challenges all increase the time spent playing.
    • "Rather than offering you the illusion of valued feedback, we have taken the liberty of doing what we think is best anyway." -- Anonymous
    • "I should have known the gankblades were plotting to take over!" -- Anonymous
  • virtus753
    virtus753
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    This week My challenges were: trial, dangerous enemy, alchemy farming, group dungeon and Kvatch arena boss. Re-rolled trial to second dangerous enemy. Ran some pledges I hadn't done yet (Vaults of Madness and Banished Cells), picked up new pledge (Tempest) ran that. Camped Kvatch arena for about half hour with huge group. I harvest nodes naturally, but had like an hour to kill before work, all weekly was done in like 3 hours. 1000 enemies in Wrothgar, they say they are reworking that and you have plenty of time to get it done.

    Also, GamerSeal, me and you share a guild, I can share decent farming spots if you need
    My weekly challenges were:
    • Defeat Qumehdi, Zaman, or Macius Cento (x5)
    • Kill 5 Citizens with the Blade of Woe (x5)
    • Kill 8 Dangerous Foes (x5)
    • Complete 1 Incursion (x6)
    • Complete 1 Trial (x2)
    I used all five weekly re-rolls (plus one from last week) and still received undesirable challenges (incursions and trials); mad dashes to dolmens, only to see them already finish before I could get to them, and getting organized into trials were the most time-consuming.

    It took ~5.5 hours to complete these. Alongside usual activities, such as crafting and chatting with guildmates, that total increased to ~6.25 hours. Assuming an additional ~30 minutes of gameplay per following day, that is ~9.25 hours per week - up from ~3.5 hours per week prior to Tamriel Tomes (~250% time increase).

    Unfortunately, completion time isn't consistent day-to-day or player-to-player; players will re-roll challenges they don't want, which always risks just getting another unwanted challenge.

    A tip for the first one: the first two bosses listed are a pair of liches that make up a singular world boss. Because they’re two different mobs, they count as 2 for the 5 required when you defeat the encounter. I did the encounter only three times to max it out the once, so from first kill to last it took just over 10 minutes instead of twice that.

    This is the same thing where tripartite bosses at dolmens can give three event boxes (one each) when they happen to be chosen to spawn.

    Might make it easier/faster/more appealing to some players.
  • PoveusRonin
    PoveusRonin
    ✭✭✭
    Spreading challenges out across the week might be better than what we have now, but I'm not sure how something like that could be implemented without either peppering the screen with multiple deadlines or accidentally re-introducing the endeavor system that was apparently so terrible.

    I don't see how it would create multiple deadlines dropping 1 a day for the first 5 days instead of dropping all 5 at once? I thought the whole point is they do not expire, so how would a deadline become a thing?

    I don't think they considered the endeavor system terrible as much as they had to expand upon it in order to monetize it. While I'm not one who is going to purchase the premium tomes, great on them for any additional funding they can pull in.

    I think they could have just used a similar system to the golden pursuits that pop up occasionally and it would have been more engaging than this has been so far.
  • Trier_Sero
    Trier_Sero
    ✭✭✭✭

    Five hours per week would be acceptable, but that's not the case; additional factors like traveling to each challenge location, having a conversation with guildmates, completing daily quests, playing zone stories, and literally anything else outside of those challenges all increase the time spent playing.

    So you complaining about actually playing the game? What?
  • Nemesis7884
    Nemesis7884
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    Isnt it a good thing if your time playing a game increases? It means you have things to do and fun...? I consider that good i dunno...
  • TheGamerSeal
    TheGamerSeal
    ✭✭✭
    virtus753 wrote: »
    This week My challenges were: trial, dangerous enemy, alchemy farming, group dungeon and Kvatch arena boss. Re-rolled trial to second dangerous enemy. Ran some pledges I hadn't done yet (Vaults of Madness and Banished Cells), picked up new pledge (Tempest) ran that. Camped Kvatch arena for about half hour with huge group. I harvest nodes naturally, but had like an hour to kill before work, all weekly was done in like 3 hours. 1000 enemies in Wrothgar, they say they are reworking that and you have plenty of time to get it done.

    Also, GamerSeal, me and you share a guild, I can share decent farming spots if you need
    My weekly challenges were:
    • Defeat Qumehdi, Zaman, or Macius Cento (x5)
    • Kill 5 Citizens with the Blade of Woe (x5)
    • Kill 8 Dangerous Foes (x5)
    • Complete 1 Incursion (x6)
    • Complete 1 Trial (x2)
    I used all five weekly re-rolls (plus one from last week) and still received undesirable challenges (incursions and trials); mad dashes to dolmens, only to see them already finish before I could get to them, and getting organized into trials were the most time-consuming.

    It took ~5.5 hours to complete these. Alongside usual activities, such as crafting and chatting with guildmates, that total increased to ~6.25 hours. Assuming an additional ~30 minutes of gameplay per following day, that is ~9.25 hours per week - up from ~3.5 hours per week prior to Tamriel Tomes (~250% time increase).

    Unfortunately, completion time isn't consistent day-to-day or player-to-player; players will re-roll challenges they don't want, which always risks just getting another unwanted challenge.

    A tip for the first one: the first two bosses listed are a pair of liches that make up a singular world boss. Because they’re two different mobs, they count as 2 for the 5 required when you defeat the encounter. I did the encounter only three times to max it out the once, so from first kill to last it took just over 10 minutes instead of twice that.

    This is the same thing where tripartite bosses at dolmens can give three event boxes (one each) when they happen to be chosen to spawn.

    Might make it easier/faster/more appealing to some players.

    I know! I almost included a "thanks, ZOS" side note on that bullet point, but decided to keep focused on the response I was making instead of adding side notes.
    • "Rather than offering you the illusion of valued feedback, we have taken the liberty of doing what we think is best anyway." -- Anonymous
    • "I should have known the gankblades were plotting to take over!" -- Anonymous
  • TheGamerSeal
    TheGamerSeal
    ✭✭✭
    Spreading challenges out across the week might be better than what we have now, but I'm not sure how something like that could be implemented without either peppering the screen with multiple deadlines or accidentally re-introducing the endeavor system that was apparently so terrible.

    I don't see how it would create multiple deadlines dropping 1 a day for the first 5 days instead of dropping all 5 at once? I thought the whole point is they do not expire, so how would a deadline become a thing?
    My mistake; you're right - they don't expire. Still, I'd rather have access to them all in one day so I can devote one long session to running all across Tamriel OR choose to do one challenge per day.
    I don't think they considered the endeavor system terrible as much as they had to expand upon it in order to monetize it.
    I don't understand why they didn't transfer the existing endeavor tasks over to the battle pass challenges - seems like energy put into something that would have been better used elsewhere. Personally, I did not have a problem with the endeavor system - I could just skip "Kill 5 Iron Atronachs" and do three easier tasks.
    • "Rather than offering you the illusion of valued feedback, we have taken the liberty of doing what we think is best anyway." -- Anonymous
    • "I should have known the gankblades were plotting to take over!" -- Anonymous
  • TheGamerSeal
    TheGamerSeal
    ✭✭✭
    Trier_Sero wrote: »
    Five hours per week would be acceptable, but that's not the case; additional factors like traveling to each challenge location, having a conversation with guildmates, completing daily quests, playing zone stories, and literally anything else outside of those challenges all increase the time spent playing.

    So you complaining about actually playing the game? What?
    No, I am not complaining about playing the game. The problem here is that the battle pass significantly increases the time spent playing. I enjoy playing short sessions of ESO, and this system was not designed around respecting that, regardless of how much the PR team likes to emphasize it.
    • "Rather than offering you the illusion of valued feedback, we have taken the liberty of doing what we think is best anyway." -- Anonymous
    • "I should have known the gankblades were plotting to take over!" -- Anonymous
  • TheGamerSeal
    TheGamerSeal
    ✭✭✭
    Isnt it a good thing if your time playing a game increases? It means you have things to do and fun...? I consider that good i dunno...
    It depends on why your time spent playing has increased. If your time has increased because you're having fun, then the answer's yes; if your time has increased because there's more things to do, then the answer's no.
    • "Rather than offering you the illusion of valued feedback, we have taken the liberty of doing what we think is best anyway." -- Anonymous
    • "I should have known the gankblades were plotting to take over!" -- Anonymous
  • AScarlato
    AScarlato
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭
    Isnt it a good thing if your time playing a game increases? It means you have things to do and fun...? I consider that good i dunno...

    Not all of the tasks are what I would call "fun."

    I don't want to be all doom and gloom. I really do like some of the rewards. I got some cosmetics I missed because they came out when I didn't feel like playing, or before my time with the game. That's very nice. Happened to luck out and see things I both did not have, and actually would want. That's really great.

    I would LOVE the tome if I could more tailor my playtime to things I like. For me that is things like World Bosses, Dungeons, Battlegrounds, and Story Questing. Most of those do have tome tasks, aside from Story Questing as far as I am aware. But it's RNG.

    Thigs like Gathering, and each gather being it's very own task that seems to clutter my book every week, is not it. I think someone suggested having categories we could pick instead of getting each different gather for most of our rerolls, so we can both have FUN and work on getting rewards.
  • TheGamerSeal
    TheGamerSeal
    ✭✭✭
    AScarlato wrote: »
    Isnt it a good thing if your time playing a game increases? It means you have things to do and fun...? I consider that good i dunno...

    Not all of the tasks are what I would call "fun."

    I don't want to be all doom and gloom. I really do like some of the rewards. I got some cosmetics I missed because they came out when I didn't feel like playing, or before my time with the game. That's very nice. Happened to luck out and see things I both did not have, and actually would want. That's really great.

    I would LOVE the tome if I could more tailor my playtime to things I like. For me that is things like World Bosses, Dungeons, Battlegrounds, and Story Questing. Most of those do have tome tasks, aside from Story Questing as far as I am aware. But it's RNG.

    Thigs like Gathering, and each gather being it's very own task that seems to clutter my book every week, is not it. I think someone suggested having categories we could pick instead of getting each different gather for most of our rerolls, so we can both have FUN and work on getting rewards.

    "Harvest 15 Materials" is a much more reasonable goal than having seven individual "Harvest 15 (Insert Crafting Profession) Nodes" that could fill up your entire task list.
    • "Rather than offering you the illusion of valued feedback, we have taken the liberty of doing what we think is best anyway." -- Anonymous
    • "I should have known the gankblades were plotting to take over!" -- Anonymous
Sign In or Register to comment.