Can we please have some "down time"?

decaffeinated · April 22

Preface: I need to get this off my chest. Please don't tell me how to play,

As if killing 1000 enemies plus 100 bosses wasn't enough to keep up with, now there's a short term Golden Pursuit. No, neither of those things fit in MY normal play schedule.

Can we have some down time? When I can choose what **I** want to do?

Can we just have some time with only 1 thing? Not constant new quests. new zones. etc? (while older zones remain bugged)

I am so burnt out on the game already, please ZOS, just let us PLAY sometimes!

Umbracat449 · April 22

But, you think zos IS telling you how to play?

decaffeinated · April 22

Umbracat449 wrote: »

But, you think zos IS telling you how to play?

Yes. I run a trading guild - that means 30 sets of daily writs across 2 accounts to barely have enough gold to run my guild.
I'd like to note that none of the Tome Challenges reward daily crafting writs.

I'd also love to be doing housing more - again not rewarded by any current "challenge".

I'd love to have more officers in my guild to help out - but no one is even willing to give 1 hour a week to the guild. I've been asking for years. While my current officers are leaving the game.

So yes, ZOS IS telling me how to play. The Tomes and Pursuits funnel your play to certain activities - this is one way all MMOs direct play.

Don't tell me to re-roll Tome Challenges - I do, and get the same or similar challenges 3-5x IN A ROW. Good for you people who get different things, I do not, on either account.

freespirit · April 22

Whilst I am enjoying most of the new stuff, when I logged in today and saw the Golden Pursuits, I just thought "nope not happening"

I just popped in here to have a read on my way to playing a single player game, too much overloading my brain on ESO atm!!

tomofhyrule · April 22

So… why did you have to get all 1000 kills and 100 bosses immediately?

You have literally three months for those. Those are going to be active until a month after the next update releases. There is the opposite of a rush for those things.

You had all of that time to just play, but you chose to grind it out ASAP. There’s a difference.

The reason they’re doing a short Pursuit is that this is the “get hyped for the Night Market” one, and then we’ll get another Pursuit then dealing with the Night Market. That one will last the entire length of the Night Market, until June 17.
So if you don’t want to grind it out immediately, then don’t. You have seven weeks.

Silaf · April 22

Diden't zos remove golden pursuits and daily endevors to put them in the tome with the intent of removing daily chores and stressing time limits?

I do actually appreciate having tings to do but i also want the freedom to leave the game for 1 week and go to the sea with my family without losing something.

The tome perfectly fit this need since you can open a sachel and recover the missed time but zos reintroduced a daily login objective in the tome and new golden pursuits invalidating the reason why the tome was created in the first place.

I'm on the side of people wanting tings to do but tomes+golden pursuits togheter feel like a strange design choice.

Can't wait to see tome+golden pursuit+event+night market timed zone active at the same time... and why not, let's trow pvp new veterancy mode in the mix too!

LunaFlora · April 22

the seasonal challenges are not required to do immediately, you have the whole season for most of them.
only exception is the Jubilee challenge, but still we had 14 days for that one.

decaffeinated · April 22

tomofhyrule wrote: »

So… why did you have to get all 1000 kills and 100 bosses immediately?

You have literally three months for those. Those are going to be active until a month after the next update releases. There is the opposite of a rush for those things.

You had all of that time to just play, but you chose to grind it out ASAP. There’s a difference.

The reason they’re doing a short Pursuit is that this is the “get hyped for the Night Market” one, and then we’ll get another Pursuit then dealing with the Night Market. That one will last the entire length of the Night Market, until June 17.
So if you don’t want to grind it out immediately, then don’t. You have seven weeks.

... because running around just killing things is not my normal gameplay. If I don't do it when it comes out, it won't get done.
Sorry to be inconvenient.

Recent · April 22

decaffeinated wrote: »

Umbracat449 wrote: »

But, you think zos IS telling you how to play?

Yes. I run a trading guild - that means 30 sets of daily writs across 2 accounts to barely have enough gold to run my guild.
I'd like to note that none of the Tome Challenges reward daily crafting writs

I'd love to have more officers in my guild to help out - but no one is even willing to give 1 hour a week to the guild.

Here is your issue, ..you are already overloaded with your trading guild responsabilities. Running a guild can feel like a job on its own. I've been officer of many guilds ...been playing eso since 2014. Just recruiting, crafting gear and helping members with questions or wayshrine ubers took up so much of my personal playtime that as soon as there was an event on i felt overwhelmed cos i didnt get much me time to enjoy the many game activities.

You dont have to do every challenge in the tomes challenges just enough to get the rewards you want. You will most probably have leftover points by the end of the calendar month to tick over to the next month.

I personally feel that all these new activities are a way for zos to lure younger people to eso cos younger kids get bored easily if they dont have a variety of set acivities for them to engage in. Im old, im still here no matter what zos throws at me i still love this game above all other games out there.

I hope you find the right balance for you. Fomo is real but you get to choose if you allow it to dictate how much you do in the game.

AzuraFan · April 22

Silaf wrote: »

Diden't zos remove golden pursuits and daily endevors to put them in the tome with the intent of removing daily chores and stressing time limits?

Agreed. I said in another thread that tomes should have made golden pursuits obsolete since they're the same thing - grinding out tasks for shinies.

Hugie · April 22

decaffeinated wrote: »

Preface: I need to get this off my chest. Please don't tell me how to play,

Can we have some down time? When I can choose what **I** want to do?

Can we just have some time with only 1 thing? Not constant new quests. new zones. etc?

I'm not going to tell you how to play...

But I am going to call you out on being silly. This game has already suffered from an embarrassing content drought since the Writhing Fortress and Eastern Solstice. There's been literally no new content since NOVEMBER, when Eastern Solstice debuted. It's April! It's been SIX MONTHS since we've had something new to do. As a fellow guild leader, I'm sure I don't need to tell you that that's made things very hard re: player retention!

The fact of the matter is, most players want new things to do -- and those who don't crave new and shiny are NOT being forced into it.

If you don't like golden pursuits or tome challenges, just don't do 'em. Play however the heck you want, but don't make outrageous claims like some giant faceless corporation is forcing you to log in and check off glorified checklists when all you want to do is spam writs. You wanna craft, go do it. YOU are the one choosing to (or not to) engage with activities that ZoS is proactively encouraging with their new reward frameworks, not them.

Now, if your complaint is that ZoS isn't adequately rewarding you for playing the way you want -- that's an entirely different rant from saying you're being "forced" how to play.

decaffeinated · April 22

Hugie wrote: »

decaffeinated wrote: »

Preface: I need to get this off my chest. Please don't tell me how to play,

Can we have some down time? When I can choose what **I** want to do?

Can we just have some time with only 1 thing? Not constant new quests. new zones. etc?

I'm not going to tell you how to play...

But I am going to call you out on being silly. This game has already suffered from an embarrassing content drought since the Writhing Fortress and Eastern Solstice. There's been literally no new content since NOVEMBER, when Eastern Solstice debuted. It's April! It's been SIX MONTHS since we've had something new to do. As a fellow guild leader, I'm sure I don't need to tell you that that's made things very hard re: player retention!

The fact of the matter is, most players want new things to do -- and those who don't crave new and shiny are NOT being forced into it.

If you don't like golden pursuits or tome challenges, just don't do 'em. Play however the heck you want, but don't make outrageous claims like some giant faceless corporation is forcing you to log in and check off glorified checklists when all you want to do is spam writs. You wanna craft, go do it. YOU are the one choosing to (or not to) engage with activities that ZoS is proactively encouraging with their new reward frameworks, not them.

Now, if your complaint is that ZoS isn't adequately rewarding you for playing the way you want -- that's an entirely different rant from saying you're being "forced" how to play.

So Tomes are nothing new? Events since November were nothing to do?
Ok sure. If that's your way to play, have fun!

tom6143346 · April 22

I mean I criticize ZOS a lot, but nothing forces you in this case to do any of this . If it’s to much just don’t do it and if you do otherwise sorry to say but that sounds like a you problem. I just leave out what I don’t want to do or don’t have timeto do. Should be pretty simple.

decaffeinated · April 22

tom6143346 wrote: »

I mean I criticize ZOS a lot, but nothing forces you in this case to do any of this . If it’s to much just don’t do it and if you do otherwise sorry to say but that sounds like a you problem. I just leave out what I don’t want to do or don’t have timeto do. Should be pretty simple.

What if I actually want the rewards? Because I'm really into the game?

Especially since I'll have to wait 5 or more years (IF the game is around then) to MAYBE be able to get these in the Bazaar?

No, event burnout is a thing. ZOS admits it's a thing. And I'm not the only one who feels this way. Told a friend there's a Golden Pursuit too, and they don't even want to log in today,

Hugie · April 22

Hey, I'm not the one complaining. I've kept busy and am enjoying engaging with the reward frameworks. But no, of course they're not "new content." They're screens asking us to mindlessly repeat the same old content that's been in the game for years. It's just endeavors and daily login rewards crammed into a rather uninspired interface, with more rewards thrown in (which is welcome).

In any event, I understand that you're frustrated and I understand being overloaded by what the game is "asking" (not forcing) you to do. I hope you're able to get over the burnout (happens to all of us) and find joy in the game again. I just think it's silly to ask for "some down time" and "no new quests/zones/etc." when we have not had NEW content in 6 months.

PoveusRonin · April 22

Silaf wrote: »

Diden't zos remove golden pursuits and daily endevors to put them in the tome with the intent of removing daily chores and stressing time limits?

I do actually appreciate having tings to do but i also want the freedom to leave the game for 1 week and go to the sea with my family without losing something.

The tome perfectly fit this need since you can open a sachel and recover the missed time but zos reintroduced a daily login objective in the tome and new golden pursuits invalidating the reason why the tome was created in the first place.

I'm on the side of people wanting tings to do but tomes+golden pursuits togheter feel like a strange design choice.

Can't wait to see tome+golden pursuit+event+night market timed zone active at the same time... and why not, let's trow pvp new veterancy mode in the mix too!

There is no reason you have to worry about the daily login. They honestly need to take it out. You will get more points than you can use if you do the weekly and have satchels as you mentioned above.

The golden pursuit has nothing required and is just a fun activity for people who want more to do. The seals are easy if you craft as 3 days of doing crafting dailies gets you 6 of the 8 needed. Just find 2 more with your play style and poof, this one is done.

wolfie1.0. · April 22

decaffeinated wrote: »

Umbracat449 wrote: »

But, you think zos IS telling you how to play?

Yes. I run a trading guild - that means 30 sets of daily writs across 2 accounts to barely have enough gold to run my guild.
I'd like to note that none of the Tome Challenges reward daily crafting writs.

I'd also love to be doing housing more - again not rewarded by any current "challenge".

I'd love to have more officers in my guild to help out - but no one is even willing to give 1 hour a week to the guild. I've been asking for years. While my current officers are leaving the game.

So yes, ZOS IS telling me how to play. The Tomes and Pursuits funnel your play to certain activities - this is one way all MMOs direct play.

Don't tell me to re-roll Tome Challenges - I do, and get the same or similar challenges 3-5x IN A ROW. Good for you people who get different things, I do not, on either account.

I think the best way to approach these things is an if it happens it happens, but im not going to put much effort into making it happen.

Thats the attitude I have. A good chunk of whats in the Bazaar are from past pursuits. So if I don't get it done then I believe I will find it there.

If I dont get my tomes completed by near end of the season? I will consider buying the premium to allow me to claim stuff later.

Tome Challenges? I will reroll till I get ones I do passively, and then see how it goes. If I dont complete them with reset then I will just wait till I have more and do them.

Danikat · April 22

I've been feeling similar. I know it is possible to ignore all the announcements and notifications and pop-ups demanding your attention on menus and rewards and little bitty tasks (that quickly add up to quite a bit of time if you only have an hour or so to play each day) but it's annoying to feel like I'm having to clear or avoid all this junk to get through to the game I actually want to play.

If I wanted to deal with endless notifications about semi-related stuff in front of my game I could play browser games for free.

LunaFlora · April 22

Silaf wrote: »

Diden't zos remove golden pursuits and daily endevors to put them in the tome with the intent of removing daily chores and stressing time limits?

I do actually appreciate having tings to do but i also want the freedom to leave the game for 1 week and go to the sea with my family without losing something.

The tome perfectly fit this need since you can open a sachel and recover the missed time but zos reintroduced a daily login objective in the tome and new golden pursuits invalidating the reason why the tome was created in the first place.

I'm on the side of people wanting tings to do but tomes+golden pursuits togheter feel like a strange design choice.

Can't wait to see tome+golden pursuit+event+night market timed zone active at the same time... and why not, let's trow pvp new veterancy mode in the mix too!

They only removed Daily Login Rewards and Daily Endeavours.
Daily tasks are gone, Tomes have Weekly and Seasonal Challenges.
The daily login Challenge is just there to give you 15 Tome Points every day, you can get more than necessary points from doing the other challenges throughout the Seasons.

Golden Pursuit campaigns are never just 1 day either.
the Seasons intro post from January also made it clear Pursuits would stay

https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/69137

i do understand that Pursuits with Tome Challenges can be a lot, but they are not necessary to do daily and plenty of them are possible to complete at the same time.

FlameDark · April 22

If you want the rewards, but dont want the feeling of ONLY doing that with your time, then pace yourself! Do 50 or 25 wrothgar kills a day, find 10 or even 5 delve bosses and kill those in a day (one loop around a single public dungeon would do it), doing two undaunted dailies a day gets you 8 of the needed golden requirements (doing a pledge, completing a dungeon while grouped and kills while grouped). Then spend the rest of your day doing what you want.

Athory · April 22

I swear, I really don’t understand players in ESO. I just don’t.

Do we have too much currency now? Yes, we do.
Do we have too many things to do? Yes, we do.
Do we have more places to get different rewards? Yes, we do.

But here’s the thing: we don’t have to do everything. We can skip what we don’t care about.

Seriously, it’s a good thing for the game to have more content than we can handle. That’s how you get diversity. Some players enjoy one type of content, others prefer something else, some don’t like any of it, and some enjoy everything. That’s fine.

ESO gives us things to do in the game. Whether the rewards are good or bad, it’s still better than just paying for loot boxes. That’s healthy for the game. Don’t have time to do everything? Then just do what you can.

I’m not saying I love everything in the game. In fact, I really dislike all the nonsense around Subclassing, DPS chasing, logs, gatekeeping, toxicity, and all that. But I genuinely appreciate that ZoS keeps giving players things to do.

Let’s recognize that this is good for the game. None of this content is hurting anyone’s gameplay. Instead of complaining about having options, let’s focus on pushing for the changes that actually matter.

Vonnegut2506 · April 22

I would really love to understand how people can claim optional events require their participation and then complain about it. People have choices on what to do. If you want a break, take a break. If you don't want to kill 100 bosses of any kind, don't. Get some actual willpower and don't let some optional content overpower it.

Tandor · April 22

AzuraFan wrote: »

Silaf wrote: »

Diden't zos remove golden pursuits and daily endevors to put them in the tome with the intent of removing daily chores and stressing time limits?

Agreed. I said in another thread that tomes should have made golden pursuits obsolete since they're the same thing - grinding out tasks for shinies.

Indeed. I don't understand why we still have golden pursuits.

While I understand some people claiming that one of the reasons behind these sorts of thing is to encourage players to think outside the box and try activities they don't normally do, the fact is that most of us do the activities we do because we enjoy them and won't try other activities because we already know that we don't enjoy them.

I checked out the new golden pursuits and found only seven that I would be interested or able to run, for which I would only get a couple of markings that are of no interest to me as I've never used markings and see no reason to do so now. As it happens, even if I were to run all the other pursuits the rewards wouldn't be of any real benefit to me. Then I checked out the current Tomes challenges and found only two out of twelve that would fit my playstyle. Yes I could do some rerolls but my experience of that mechanism is that it simply rerolls more of the same.

Of course these things are all optional and I could just stick to the adventuring that is my main reason for playing this or any other similar game, but these days I'm left with the feeling that in order to reach that part of the game I have to push my way past these other distractions that are nothing to do with the ESO that I fell in love with 12 years ago. Even then, if for example I happen across a treasure chest and open it as I have done these past years I am asked to claim a challenge for doing so and can't clear the screen and move on until I've done so.

It's just not why I've been here since 2014 without a single break until now, and it simply doesn't feel right.

So yes, I agree with the OP and the title to this thread, let's have a break from all these things and just be able to log straight into the meat of the game and the real content which I strongly suspect is why most of us are still here.

xencthlu · April 22

I really wanted to do a bunch of Vengeance. I wanted to do the 4x4x4 battlegrounds. I want to test on the PTS and do some home building on the PTS while the NA mirror is active. I have to do my tome challenges. There's this golden pursuit now.

I think these could have stood to be spaced out. I want to do everything! I like everything! I only have 24 hours in a day.

I think I'm going to have to make some hard choices, and I don't like that.

SilverBride · April 22

Hugie wrote: »

decaffeinated wrote: »

Preface: I need to get this off my chest. Please don't tell me how to play,

Can we have some down time? When I can choose what **I** want to do?

Can we just have some time with only 1 thing? Not constant new quests. new zones. etc?

I'm not going to tell you how to play...

But I am going to call you out on being silly. This game has already suffered from an embarrassing content drought since the Writhing Fortress and Eastern Solstice. There's been literally no new content since NOVEMBER, when Eastern Solstice debuted. It's April! It's been SIX MONTHS since we've had something new to do. As a fellow guild leader, I'm sure I don't need to tell you that that's made things very hard re: player retention!

There is nothing silly about the OP's post. I feel exactly the same way they do.

It's sensory overload to have multiple weekly and seasonal Tomes, and then a Golden Pursuit that almost every objective has to be done in a group, and it's been a week since an Event so we will probably see one of those soon, too. And none of these are content. They are tasks.

Content used to be stories and new areas and an occasional new class. Not things like "Group up with 1 person from each of your 5 guilds and harvest 1000 Columbine in starting zones".

tomofhyrule · April 22

There’s another level of devious here.

The complaint is “I feel compelled to do everything but I am burnt out.” Essentially, the complaint is to have a period where special rewards are not offered. But… if you don’t do the tasks, do already don’t get the rewards. But that’s not enough to just ignore the tasks and rewards; no, nobody should have rewards.

So it really looks like “I don’t want other people to get rewards because I personally am burnt out.”

ESO is an MMO, which means they want you to have lots to do. Nothing to do means dead game. It’s up to us to not make it a job.

And if it does feel like a job? Stop. You’re not being forced to play. You’re not being forced to run writs to keep a guild alive. If you are not having fun managing your guild and it leaves you no time for anything else and all of your officers are leaving and nobody from the guild is pitching in… then maybe consider folding the guild. If people wanted the guild active, they’d help run it. And you deserve to do what you want to.

AScarlato · April 22

I think we just need to take personal responsibility for our free time.

We don't need every single cosmetic they offer us for free. It's nice of them to add these things but if it's too much just skip something.

Just ask - will you really use this pet? If not just take it easy. If not this pet, than anything else that comes out. I used to spend a lot of my time on tasks for items I never use, and that's really on me. If you dont' get this, there are lots of others just like it and it's not a big loss.

Umbracat449 · April 22

decaffeinated wrote: »

tom6143346 wrote: »

I mean I criticize ZOS a lot, but nothing forces you in this case to do any of this . If it’s to much just don’t do it and if you do otherwise sorry to say but that sounds like a you problem. I just leave out what I don’t want to do or don’t have timeto do. Should be pretty simple.

What if I actually want the rewards? Because I'm really into the game?

Especially since I'll have to wait 5 or more years (IF the game is around then) to MAYBE be able to get these in the Bazaar?

No, event burnout is a thing. ZOS admits it's a thing. And I'm not the only one who feels this way. Told a friend there's a Golden Pursuit too, and they don't even want to log in today,

This is opportunity cost and opportunity cost is a real dilemma and can be really hard situation to be in. "If i choose to do this thing, I cannot also do that thing, and that has costs I'm finding it hard to deal with"

But, zos can't solve that for you, else, it will annoy everyone else who balances the opportunity cost differently.

Alas, the only way through this dilemma is to decide how to choose and how to choose between downsides and how to manage the downsides of that choice.

I think it's right to call out that the challenges and seasonal model can get the balance wrong between things to do that retain players and encourage spending-- and making play feel like an obligation. I don't think you're alone in feeling that the balance might be off. It's an important balance, and games can get it wrong.

Play still needs to be play, and maybe the challenges have too many pages or are two expensive or or.....zos needs to keep an eye on that. But as it's a core industry mechanism, presumably they're aware of needing to get that balance right.

I found this on the internet:

"Over the last decade, retention- and revenue-based models have delivered enormous financial success and become the default operating system of the game industry.

But their limits and side effects are now painfully visible.

The next challenge is not to abandon monetization, but to design it differently:

in ways that don’t erode trust,
that don’t turn play into obligation,
that allow creative teams to breathe,
and still sustain studios in a volatile market."

But the answer i think is to tweak challenges, length of tomes, expense per page. Not drop it altogether. Or at least not without some other way to provide goals when there's no new other content, and so ways to generate revenue.

Probably none of this is any help to you, but i myself don't want the game to turn into being all about doing these weekly things, even though I am happy enough to mostly ignore them, and so are not quite in your boat.

valenwood_vegan · April 23

If an individual needs downtime, it's really up to them to determine that and arrange that for themselves. It's ok to skip things. The world will not stop turning when we need a break.

It's also true that maybe zos is overdoing things at this exact moment, a lot of these systems are new. I personally think there's been a long period without any content and there isn't enough to do in the game for a long-time player, and I'm glad they're trying new systems and new types of content (soon). Hopefully they can tweak it and find a spot that's right for most people.

But OP sounds burned out kind of beyond something that will be solved with some tweaking of tasks and schedules, and a break might be a good thing. It's ok to play less or take a break or step back. A live service game can't afford to stop and wait for us though.

LootAllTheStuff · April 23

xencthlu wrote: »

I really wanted to do a bunch of Vengeance. I wanted to do the 4x4x4 battlegrounds. I want to test on the PTS and do some home building on the PTS while the NA mirror is active. I have to do my tome challenges. There's this golden pursuit now.

I think these could have stood to be spaced out. I want to do everything! I like everything! I only have 24 hours in a day. I think I'm going to have to make some hard choices, and I don't like that.

Why do you feel that you *have* to do the Tome challenge? What is keeping you from ignoring it and just doing the things you want to do? Not attacking you - I genuinely want to know why you feel compelled to do this thing you don't want to do.

Rohamad_Ali · April 23

You have to let go of all of it. Free your mind.