I don't understand the point of "Favours"

Syldras · July 23

ESO_player123 wrote: »

I just can't understand why Urcelmo keeps blabbing his secrets to a random person. Today's letter (day15?) felt especially weird for some reason. Or may be I'm just fed up with this story that does not make much sense.

There's something that feels off about all of them. Like they're just some random stories, but the complete context is ignored: Who is writing these letters, who is receiving them, what motivations might the writers have, and how plausible it even is to write and send these letters. In case of Urcelmo's story, that's a particularly big problem (not that Holgunn telling a random person some very extreme secret about his past makes much more sense).

What I also find weird are these... jumps within the stories? The course of events often just makes no sense. Emotionally, the characters also don't really seem consistent throughout the story - their jumpiness makes them feel emotionally unstable, confused, or drunk, or something?! Especially Holgunn's letters come across as very weird, with him teasing the story about how he lost his eye for several letters, then telling us something extremely mundane, then suddenly telling us it wasn't the truth, letting us wait for several letters again, then coming up with an extreme story one would likely not want to tell a random person - and who knows what's next. Maybe he turns out to be a compulsive liar.

It's sad, actually. When Holgunn was announced as one of the Favor's questgivers, I was curious to learn more about him. Now I have a worse impression of him than the one I had before, just because he comes across as completely weird and random.

Same problem with Urcelmo. Him giving a random person all this critical info makes him look either confused or dumb, or, in any way, somehow not very skilled in what he's doing. In the base game story he seemed highly respected and fairly intelligent. These letters have not improved his characterisation in any way.

Honestly, if the writing remains like this, I think I'd prefer not to see Favors for (and letters from) more old characters in the future. In principle, I'm not against returning characters (in whatever way they might return), and I'd generally like characters gaining more background lore and more depth through coming up in new stories - but not if it's written as inconsistently and randomly like this.

guarstompemoji · July 23

They're different content for different interests.

They're alright. I'm glad they're here.

KalevaLaine · July 23

I must say... I like the favors.

Syldras · July 23

I have nothing against little chore quests for people who like them, it's the execution that feels sad.

There could be more variety instead of giving us the 100% identical feed animal task (or the mammoth hunts that always seem to fail, or the people needing sweetrolls, or whatever) several times within only 5 days. Let alone the tasks feel extremely generic and not really TES-related except for location, animal or food names.

Quests of the type "kill enemy x at location y" have already been criticized during the Wall event last year because it always leads to players fighting over the few enemy npcs at the location, which just isn't fun.

And if they put 5 animals for the animal feeding quest into the world, why not 5 different animal models instead of copypasting 5 clones? That would have taken only a few seconds more, but would have given the whole situation a more "realistic" (in-world) feel - like this could actually be a situation taking place in Tamriel - than the current "game-y" one of "obvious placeholder animal model for feed quest" (as in: "there needs to be something to feed" - but not really showing much interest in making it a plausible part of the fictional world).

They decided to give us more background lore on characters people have become (more or less) fond of in ealier stories through those letters, but instead of giving us the impression that we deepen our friendship with them, we remain the random stranger, but still, they tell us some secret and sometimes extreme life stories, which are written in a strange and confusing way and make no sense at all for the situation and for the whole context, and only make those characters seem weird.

I'd go so far to say that the whole thing would have been less disappointing if it were really just random chores from a writ board, without the shallow/generic and illogical narration bits (or flavor text snippets or whatever to call it) surrounding it.

agelonestar · July 23

Favors - ahem, Favours - are growing on me, mostly because they drop random leads from around Tamriel.

I'd like to see more of them, and more variety of tasks, but they're actually a good way to kill a little time and the rewards are pretty good for the effort.

katanagirl1 · July 23

The story from Holgunn must be there to satisfy those who want darker themes in ESO and also enjoy long-standing characters getting killed off after years of them being in story content. This kind of story would be okay for an NPC you just met but it does hurt my impression of Holgunn after doing the EP story quests. I don’t enjoy media that portrays such senseless violence against innocents, and I do not anticipate that in ESO stories so it was very disturbing for me. We see enough of this in news today and I go to the game to escape that. I guess I have not become desensitized to it like many others. Would they have actually shown this tragedy take place in the game instead of having you read about it? It’s probably worse since they let you envision it in your own mind instead.

Syldras · July 23

Day 16:

1. kill enemy type x
2. same
3. kill delve boss

Holgunn's messages becoming even more disconnected and random.

Urcelmo's make sense even less. Like, absolutely not at all. Unless some of the letters were written by an imposter, so one person didn't know what the other was writing. Or perhaps it's supposed to be a ruse for a traitorous courier, but then it wouldn't make sense to openly tell us about the real plans first and then suddenly come up with a fake message? Sadly, I fear it's just the usual randomness and disconnectedness we've already seen in earlier messages, not an actual part of the storyline.

katanagirl1 wrote: »

The story from Holgunn must be there to satisfy those who want darker themes in ESO

I, personally, enjoy darker themes. I enjoy big tragedies and writing that evokes emotions. That's why I loved many quests back in the Morrowind-CWC-Summerset story arc. The "problem" is that such a story needs time to develop. Having Holgunn just blabber it out to some stranger like it's some random, mundane thing makes it feel weird to me. To me it feels like it lacks seriousness if a serious topic does not get the scope to develop that it would need in a story. I guess also the feeling of it being very extreme (and like the violence was mundanized - is that even a word?) might stem from it coming up out of the blue, without being embedded in a longer, meaningful plot with an appropriate build-up.

Syldras · July 23

I guess my biggest issues with Holgunn's storyline are that it comes out of the blue, it doesn't fit how his character was presented before, and there's no logical way out of that situation and I doubt we'll hear anything about that, considering he only writes a short paragraph each time and there are only 4 messages left for him.

Zerith-var also had a very tragic backstory, but that felt completely different to me. It had the appropriate seriousness, there was context that made sense, it was well-written.

ESO_player123 · July 24

Syldras wrote: »

Day 16:

1. kill enemy type x
2. same
3. kill delve boss

Holgunn's messages becoming even more disconnected and random.

Urcelmo's make sense even less. Like, absolutely not at all. Unless some of the letters were written by an imposter, so one person didn't know what the other was writing. Or perhaps it's supposed to be a ruse for a traitorous courier, but then it wouldn't make sense to openly tell us about the real plans first and then suddenly come up with a fake message? Sadly, I fear it's just the usual randomness and disconnectedness we've already seen in earlier messages, not an actual part of the storyline.

katanagirl1 wrote: »

The story from Holgunn must be there to satisfy those who want darker themes in ESO

I, personally, enjoy darker themes. I enjoy big tragedies and writing that evokes emotions. That's why I loved many quests back in the Morrowind-CWC-Summerset story arc. The "problem" is that such a story needs time to develop. Having Holgunn just blabber it out to some stranger like it's some random, mundane thing makes it feel weird to me. To me it feels like it lacks seriousness if a serious topic does not get the scope to develop that it would need in a story. I guess also the feeling of it being very extreme (and like the violence was mundanized - is that even a word?) might stem from it coming up out of the blue, without being embedded in a longer, meaningful plot with an appropriate build-up.

Yes, the latest from Urcelmo is just a bunch of weirdness. Do they suspect that the mail to us is being intercepted? What took so long to realize that it's a bad idea to write secrets in mail sent to some rando that feeds cats and clears out some random locations.

Syldras · July 24

ESO_player123 wrote: »

Yes, the latest from Urcelmo is just a bunch of weirdness. Do they suspect that the mail to us is being intercepted? What took so long to realize that it's a bad idea to write secrets in mail sent to some rando that feeds cats and clears out some random locations.

Most of all: If the mail had been intercepted already, why would he tell us some random weird story now, that obviously is disconnected from the past few letters and makes no sense at all? The traitor would have already collected relevant info from the past few letters anyway, and would clearly notice that something is off now. Just generic thanks for the chore would have looked less suspicious.

Well, who knows what (perhaps very trope-y) thing we'll learn next! Perhaps it will turn out he's really unwell after all - sitting in a sanitarium for confused elderly Altmer. Giving out chores about feeding cats and delivering sweetrolls to random people.

I also don't get all that blabbering about fearing to get corrupted by the Veiled Heritage, by the way. First, we already took care of them. Second, why would he be afraid of that in the current situation? I remember there were some "alternate reality" or dream/imagination scenes in the base game storyline about how the Dominion could have failed: The Khajiit not having a Mane, the Silvenar and Green Lady both dying, the Bosmer turning feral, - and one of these things was also about Urcelmo pacting with the Veiled Heritage and turning against Ayrenn. But the thing is: This was not real. It was just a vision how things could end badly. And of course one could be shocked when seeing this, but why should it turn into a real fear?

I almost suspect it to be a huge lore mistake, like someone not understanding that this was just some dream vision and not something that really happened in a past storyline.

Sithilid · July 24

I'm sorry, but I find these "favour" dailies utterly pathetic. I've done them since day one, but today is the last time.
You've got me killing world bosses for vendor trash, and a note full of unintriguing ramblings.
If someone involved in this isn't having a good laugh over this, it's the waste of a good joke.

orian34 · July 24

ESO_player123 wrote: »

Yes, the latest from Urcelmo is just a bunch of weirdness. Do they suspect that the mail to us is being intercepted? What took so long to realize that it's a bad idea to write secrets in mail sent to some rando that feeds cats and clears out some random locations.

Notice something odd about my last letter to you, Freerunner?

Hahaha, it was funny reading today's letter after seeing the comments here.

Syldras · July 24

orian34 wrote: »

Notice something odd about my last letter to you, Freerunner?
Hahaha, it was funny reading today's letter after seeing the comments here.

How convenient the spy only read exactly the one letter he was supposed to read, and not all those earlier letters telling us in detail about the military movements, suspicions about there being a spy, and investigations. I genuinely think it would make an ok plot for some kids tv show, but for TES with its adult audience, I honestly expect more.

Day 17:

1. kill world boss
2. kill enemy type x
3. kill world boss

Holgunn starts his newest letter with "You should have seen his face when I told him!" - Who? What? Why? Yes, of course one could reread the last message, but who writes letters like this? (Also, I finally found out the private message maximum until the mailbox is full.)

Arabelle: Herp derp wine! Herp derp sex! Fascinating that in Tamriel, even the most braindead person can become an embassador, a spy and a famous author. I guess some people would love the real world to be like this, too.

It's interesting that all three characters are supposed to be older adults, but none of them actually sound like they had the experience, knowledge and maturity one would expect from people of that age group.

Elvenheart · July 25

Syldras wrote: »

orian34 wrote: »

Notice something odd about my last letter to you, Freerunner?
Hahaha, it was funny reading today's letter after seeing the comments here.

It's interesting that all three characters are supposed to be older adults, but none of them actually sound like they had the experience, knowledge and maturity one would expect from people of that age group.

I think this says a lot about the writer(s), it would be like me trying to write letters from the point of view of an astrophysicist without knowing anything about astrophysics. 😂

I still think that if this wasn’t completely done by AI that AI somehow played a big part in it. It feels like it was some sort of test run for using AI to create a new game system. It will be interesting to see what the rumors system is like.

Syldras · July 25

The strangest thing to me is that, well, older adults are a big percentage of society. Even if one is still younger oneself, one always comes across older adults somewhere - family, friends, at school, at work, just while encountering random people outside - , hears about them, talks to them, so I guess most people would have a grasp at least about how an older adult character might think or behave? It's not some complicated niche topic that might be much too complicated for some layperson.

So if older characters sound like immature unreasonable teenagers, or scholars talk and reason like someone who is... not very smart, that's just bad writing, plain and simple.

I'm not saying this is the case, as I obviously don't know, but to me, if a writer does that, it feels very self-centered, as if the person was not capable or interested in taking a perspective different to their own in real life. Which is sad, since this is a very basic aspect of writing fiction.

Syldras · July 25

Day 18:

1. Kill "strange creatures that crossed the border from Stonefalls to Eastmarch". First thought: Did the Rift just suddenly disappear, or something? Then I noticed when looking at the map: These animals are in the very North of Eastmarch?! Then went to the location - and found out that these alien Morrowind creatures were in fact... wolves, a bear and a giant.

2. a quest already done

3. another quest already done

Well, that was a short day.

Letters were as usual: Holgunn sent me some disconnected rambling 6-liner, Arabelle stated she needs alcohol (Who would have guessed?! To make this at least a little bit educative: This clichéd character type is colloquially called "Schnapsdrossel" in German - how is it called in other languages?), and Urcelmo shortly refers to "the events" in High Isle and Solstice, but at least not spoiling the storyline for new players this time.

Ilsabet · July 25

For anyone who hasn't done the "catch longfin in Stonefalls" quest yet, I discovered that you can use any longfin you already have (which presumably means you can also buy it from guild traders). I hope those poor starving people enjoy the fish that's been sitting in my alt's bag for literal years.

Elvenheart · July 25

Ilsabet wrote: »

For anyone who hasn't done the "catch longfin in Stonefalls" quest yet, I discovered that you can use any longfin you already have (which presumably means you can also buy it from guild traders). I hope those poor starving people enjoy the fish that's been sitting in my alt's bag for literal years.

Obviously, things that sit in our bags experience a sense of timelessness, like a magical preservation system is just automatically in place. 🙂

ESO_player123 · July 25

Syldras wrote: »

orian34 wrote: »

Notice something odd about my last letter to you, Freerunner?
Hahaha, it was funny reading today's letter after seeing the comments here.

How convenient the spy only read exactly the one letter he was supposed to read, and not all those earlier letters telling us in detail about the military movements, suspicions about there being a spy, and investigations. I genuinely think it would make an ok plot for some kids tv show, but for TES with its adult audience, I honestly expect more.

Day 17:

1. kill world boss
2. kill enemy type x
3. kill world boss

Holgunn starts his newest letter with "You should have seen his face when I told him!" - Who? What? Why? Yes, of course one could reread the last message, but who writes letters like this? (Also, I finally found out the private message maximum until the mailbox is full.)

Arabelle: Herp derp wine! Herp derp sex! Fascinating that in Tamriel, even the most braindead person can become an embassador, a spy and a famous author. I guess some people would love the real world to be like this, too.

It's interesting that all three characters are supposed to be older adults, but none of them actually sound like they had the experience, knowledge and maturity one would expect from people of that age group.

I've been spending more time reading your summaries than doing actual favors. Please keep them coming. It looks like it's becoming my favorite daily (reading your summaries that is, not favors).

Syldras · July 25

ESO_player123 wrote: »

I've been spending more time reading your summaries than doing actual favors. Please keep them coming. It looks like it's becoming my favorite daily (reading your summaries that is, not favors).

Thanks, I also enjoy this thread more than the Favors!
And my messages are logically consistent at least, I guess.

ESO_player123 · July 25

Syldras wrote: »

Day 18:

1. Kill "strange creatures that crossed the border from Stonefalls to Eastmarch". First thought: Did the Rift just suddenly disappear, or something? Then I noticed when looking at the map: These animals are in the very North of Eastmarch?! Then went to the location - and found out that these alien Morrowind creatures were in fact... wolves, a bear and a giant.

2. a quest already done

3. another quest already done

Well, that was a short day.

Letters were as usual: Holgunn sent me some disconnected rambling 6-liner, Arabelle stated she needs alcohol (Who would have guessed?! To make this at least a little bit educative: This clichéd character type is colloquially called "Schnapsdrossel" in German - how is it called in other languages?), and Urcelmo shortly refers to "the events" in High Isle and Solstice, but at least not spoiling the storyline for new players this time.

Yes, very strange creatures from Stonefalls indeed. The giants has been camping literally next to this supposed "invasion spot" for ages. And there are also packs of wolves sprinkled around the same spot. The locals must have had too much mead to report these "strange creatures".

Syldras · July 25

ESO_player123 wrote: »

Yes, very strange creatures from Stonefalls indeed. The giants has been camping literally next to this supposed "invasion spot" for ages. And there are also packs of wolves sprinkled around the same spot. The locals must have had too much mead to report these "strange creatures".

Since I started playing Favors, I have the impression that half of Tamriel seems to be drunk all the time.

Now, for a short sudden moment, I imagined doing quests for Mannimarco (like back in TES2 Daggerfall) - we already know he will return, after all! Then again, his letters would probably be "Herp derp Planemeld! Herp derp Molag Bal!" No, thank you.

Syldras · July 26

Day 19:

1. deliver alcohol to Arabelle some random basket right next to the writ board
2. a quest already done
3. another quest already done

That was boring. Go to writ board, turn quest in immediately, 3x today.

With those quests already done in the past (10 years ago...), it's really a problem I have no clue anymore what they were about, and the new thank you letters are too vague to remember anything about what happened either. It might be a better experience for new players who have not done them yet, but in that case I wonder if getting both a personal thank you from the quest npc and then the thank you letter immediately afterwards isn't basically extremely repetitious?

Urcelmo's most recent letter also made me roll my eyes. In yesterday's letter, he told me the spy/traitor had disappeared - today he told me that guy showed up in his camp, and he killed him with one strike. How friendly of the spy to show up there without any good reason just so Urcelmo could kill him because the story needs to be over! It's letter 19, after all, so tomorrow is the last day, which probably ends with some flowery thank you message. Or perhaps some ramblings about honor and duty. We'll see.

Arabelle mentions alcohol in her letter again (she's really a one trick pony). I bet tomorrow's letter will also be about alcohol. Either that or sex.

Holgunn wants to become a farmer. Which reminds me: Maybe I should become a farmer, too. Or even better: Return home to Port Telvannis and become a vvardvark breeder, rearing the finest vvardvarks of all Tamriel and selling them to rich Dunmer nobles as pets. I bet that's more fulfilling than running errands for drunk people.

ellmarie · July 26

-Kill harpies in Bergama....nothing there.
-Collect Wamasu Lightning....one wamasu there and trying to hit A to collect, thing died before I could do it....so wait for respawn?
fun...

Syldras · July 26

ellmarie wrote: »

-Kill harpies in Bergama....nothing there.

Those take half an eternity to respawn. I already thought that quest was bugged, but after waiting for a longer time, they did suddenly appear.

AzuraFan · July 26

Syldras wrote: »

ellmarie wrote: »

-Kill harpies in Bergama....nothing there.

Those take half an eternity to respawn. I already thought that quest was bugged, but after waiting for a longer time, they did suddenly appear.

For some quests, they spawn just for you. I had that one yesterday and was riding around the indicated area looking for harpies. When I doubled back, they'd spawned for me but I'd ridden by too fast to see them appear. You can tell when mob quests spawn for you because there will be around 3 waves (the next wave spawns after you've killed a wave), and when you've killed the final wave, you get the completed message.

SeaGtGruff · July 26

For the "kill a delve boss" Favors, I pick a delve I haven't done in a while. The other day I got one for Bangkorai, so I decided to do Rubble Butte, the delve just north of Hallin's Stand. I was surprised to see a quest marker pop up inside, and realized I had never done the quest in that delve for some reason. I'd clearly been through there before, because I'd collected the skyshard and the delve was marked as "completed." So I got to do a previously-overlooked quest that had a fun little story to it.

AlienSlof · July 27

Syldras wrote: »

It's interesting that all three characters are supposed to be older adults, but none of them actually sound like they had the experience, knowledge and maturity one would expect from people of that age group.

^^ This! ^^

Speaking as an experienced writer and older person, the biggest rule-of-thumb with writing is: write about what you know. These letters come across as having been written by someone who doesn't really know the subject. Zerith-var's story is particularly well-written, but that writer was sadly amongst the people let go. I suspect they have new, younger writers in (who cost less in wages), but don't have the necessary life experiences to make it sound plausible.

Also, on the subject of the rewards - enough with the worthless white food filler. Just don't put it in at all. What's the point of it? It's just pointless filler. All my characters have a supply of way better food. Why do they insist on putting filler in reward coffers anyway?

Syldras · July 27

AlienSlof wrote: »

Speaking as an experienced writer and older person, the biggest rule-of-thumb with writing is: write about what you know. These letters come across as having been written by someone who doesn't really know the subject. Zerith-var's story is particularly well-written, but that writer was sadly amongst the people let go. I suspect they have new, younger writers in (who cost less in wages), but don't have the necessary life experiences to make it sound plausible.

I don't think they hired anyone new. Also, these quests were written before the lay-offs.

But I generally have the feeling that this has somehow become an issue in many games today. I don't necessarily believe it has to do with having younger writers - many game studios in the 1990s and early 2000s consisted almost entirely of young people, including their writers, but still they managed to write interesting stories, and I never had the feeling that older npcs felt completely out of character either, back then.

I think it's more about how, with which mindset or principle, many stories are often written today. Generally, I feel there's more of a focus about what a writer personally wants to convey, or enjoys, or likes to write, and less consideration to actually lean into the fictional world and setting and focus on who a specific character is, how they would act in that specific setting, how their chracter and world view might be shaped by growing up in that fictional world/culture, or similar. Again, that's just the impression I get with today's game writing, in many games.

Syldras · July 27

Day 20:

Holgunn's task: A bandit attack had happened, something was lost. Quest objective says "Find the lost courier". Quest description tells me I'm supposed to find lost documents and the courier (Who is obviously not lost then?) had info on in which direction the bandits fled. Okay, so I go to the place marked on the map, and find a destroyed carriage. The text tells me this was the bandits' carriage (So they're driving around carriages attacking postmen now or what?), but it was destroyed somehow, no one knows why or by whom. Anyway, I'm supposed to "follow the traces"... These traces/items are placed so far away from another, one can't actually search for them, but only run from quest marker to quest marker. The traces lead me to a Worm Cult lair - obviously they attack random bandits riding carriages and steal documents now. Or maybe they didn't, as the location was completely empty, so who knows who actually stole the documents, which were then lying around there to collect. So, I pick them up and find out that one is actually a long sappy letter and it turns out that Holgunn had talked to someone else about the letter exchange he had was us. And in this letter, even our name is mentioned - but we're still treated as a random stranger all the time, even in the last letter that we receive after turning in this last chore. Wonderful.

Let alone today's after-quest letter is a weird again. It says "When you will finish my last favor, please look out for...", which sounds like this is a future thing, right? But the achievement is already unlocked and I somehow doubt there will be another thing tomorrow?! It's most probably a mistake and this letter should have been received before doing today's favor, not afterwards. I don't know, really.

The good thing is that this was a little quest at least. I had hoped that most of the Favor system were like this.

2. Urcelmo's task: A magical item was stolen from the Mages Guild. So I went to the marked location, needed to run from quest marker to quest marker to collect stuff, and then, for some reason, kill an old enemy npc who's at that location anyway. There was also a letter, which made it feel at least a bit like some quest (though I had somehow expected more after Holgunn's last task), but everything was very vague again. Then turn in at writboard.

Urcelmo's letter is babbling about resisting the enemy's mind control again (When did that ever happen in Urcelmo's storyline, seriously now?). Except for that, not much. It's the last letter and he still has no clue who we are.

3. Arabelle's task: Some scouts went missing. I fast-travelled to the location, which conveniently was directly at a wayshrine, and the quest just disappeared from my questlog. There's also a bugged book that's not clickable in that area, though I'm not sure if it's for this quest or an old bugged book. Anyway, the quest is gone. It can be picked up again at the writboard, but when arriving at the next location, it will always auto-delete from the questlog again (I wish Arabelle could just auto-delete too). That's it. Then again, who wants a poster of Arabelle anyway?!