ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

In regard to the event quest item drops, while we did push a hotfix last week to make Vitrified Souls more easily available by adding them to Dark Anchors, we are making some adjustments to the other event quest item drop rates for Phases 2 and 3, so your time spent doing the event quests feels better. This hotfix is going out this afternoon (Oct. 21.)

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

We've also heard from you that the event rewards in Phase 1 don't feel as rewarding as you would like. We are increasing the drop rates for the Writhing Wall Furnishings in a hotfix this afternoon (Oct. 21). The change will be immediate once the hotfix is live. As a reminder, Wormwrithe weapon outfit Style pages and Caltrops, Bone Skill Style fragments become available as drops in Phase 2 as well.

• In regard to the feedback about the blue reward coffers, we are unable to make changes to the contents or drop rates of items within them, but we will keep all your feedback in mind as we design rewards for future events. For a little added context, while drop rates are something we can generally adjust via hotfixes, there are a limited number of hotfixes we can push between incremental patches and updates, and each in-game adjustment counts towards that limit.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Related to rewards feedback, we are also making some beneficial adjustments to Writhing Fortress boss rewards and drop rates in Phase 3 based on your Phase 1 and PTS feedback. Specifically, the Writhing Fortress bosses will award the equivalent of a Glorious Writhing Reward Coffer (gold.) Please note that players may still obtain only one Stirk Fellowship motif page per day from any source.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Your feedback on the general fun factor of this event and the daily quests and event quest item drops is also heard loud and clear, and is valuable as we plan out future events.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Lastly, we've seen some questions about what activities you can expect to see during Phases 1, 2, and 3, and if all event phases will be the same as Phase 1. Here's a breakdown:

Phase 1: Supply & Defense

• Daily Quests: Vitrified Souls, Supplies, Siege Camp Defense, and Crafting (6)
• Skirmishes at the Siege Camps
• Delves and Public Dungeons across Tamriel are taken over by the Worm Cult forces
• The latest installment of the Seasons of the Worm Cult story becomes available in Solstice

**Spoilers ahead! Don’t read beyond this point if you want to be surprised about Phases 2 and 3.**

Phase 2: The Assault Begins

• Daily Quests: Vitrified Souls, Supplies, Siege Camp Defense, and Crafting (12 – 6 new ones added that include Alchemy, Provisioning, and Enchanting)
• Siege Camp attacks will be more frequent and deadly as the forces from the Writhing Wall launch multiple attacks at once.
• Continue battling the Worm Cult forces in Delves and Public Dungeons across Tamriel

*The Daedra Ghishzor, a powerful Maldrith, appears as a world boss on Solstice when the servers are patched up with Update 48 content.

Phase 3: Fall of the Writhing Wall

• Daily Quests: Vitrified Souls, Supplies, Siege Camp Defense, and Crafting (6 – the new ones added in Phase 2)
• Siege Camp attacks continue with the same frequency and force as in Phase 2
• Continue battling the Worm Cult forces in Delves and Public Dungeons across Tamriel
• The Writhing Fortress opens for players

*After Phase 3 concludes, the Eastern Solstice zone opens and the final installment of the Seasons of the Worm Cult story is available.

Tyrobag wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Please note that players may still obtain only one Stirk Fellowship motif page per day from any source.

I have to say, this mentality is the problem. There should never be a hard cap stopping you from getting a drop. If you did the content to earn it, you should have an equal chance to get it. Does zos not remember how great the anniversary event used to be back when it was generous? People actually participated because there was a reasonable chance at getting something good. Now with these events I get my tickets and gold box then get out without bothering to earn any junk boxes. How about instead of trying to force people to log in every day, you make them want to log in because they're having fun?

UrQuan wrote: »

Thanks Jessica, that explains a great deal, and I guarantee it's the primary reason so many people (including myself) have been complaining about the drop rates for these event quests.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Sure, that was also a fake bar, but people felt good about farming dragons since ZOS was donating to a car rescue and people love cats. Now we’re fighting amongst ourselves to finally get to the other half of the content we paid for, and it’s just as basic as the first part.

agelonestar wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

twisttop138 wrote: »

Man you guys will communicate about whatever you can (thank you for that) to not address the elephant in the room. Friday you guys said you were discussing the large community complaints of rewards dropping very infrequently, making the grind for this event unfun. You guys went out of your way to state people thought it was unrewarding because the meter wasn't moving fast, I don't know how you could be so wrong. I'm told I shouldn't assign malice and I'm trying to stick to that but your communication around every issue but that is weird. Is it your intention that rewards should be scarce in this event or not?

We're working on getting you all an answer to the rewards question. I was hoping we'd have that for you today, but we need a bit more investigation in the morning to determine what is possible.

While we do that, we'd like to ask a couple related questions for future event consideration. We've seen concerns about the rewards coffers drop rates and contents, and the Writhing Wall furnishings drop rates. While we are still investigating options, if we were able to increase the drop rate for the Writhing Wall furnishings, would that help ease some of the frustrations?

For the rewards coffers, is the low drop rate for the more desirable items the biggest frustration, or are the items contained in the coffers not what you'd like to see? Or is it a combination of those two?

The "more desirable items" being the ones below under "a low chance at" from the event article.

Rewards from the coffers available from Vitrified Souls quests include:

• A piece of gear from a Western Solstice set, with a chance of a second
• A chance at a style item for the Fellowship of Stirk crafting style (one is guaranteed in Glorious coffers)
• A low chance at one of the following items (one is guaranteed in Glorious coffers)
  • A page of a Wormwrithe armor outfit Style
  • A page of a Wormwrithe weapon outfit Style (from Phase 2 onward)
  • A fragment for the Wormwrithe Haj Mota pet
  • A fragment of the Caltrops, Bone Skill Style (from Phase 2 onward)
• A chance for a sellable treasure of varying value (one is guaranteed in Glorious coffers)
  • This reward has a very low chance to be replaced with the Coldharbour Surreal Estate if you do not already own it, or with a sellable treasure of exceptional value if you do.

I’m a long-standing player - I’ve been here since 2014. Here’s my take:

1. There are four quest givers, yet only 3 golden reward boxes. That makes no sense.
2. The golden reward boxes are mostly filled with junk - where are the higher value, more desirable rewards? Getting a style page or motif drop doesn’t seem guaranteed - far from it. And only two significant rewards for an event that lasts as long this? That’s just crazy.
3. The blue boxes are entirely filled with junk. The is literally no incentive to completing more than 3 quests per day. I have completed the golden pursuit on 3 accounts - I haven’t had anything in the blue boxes except weapon/armour drops. They’re not even good sets! You could, for example, put sets in here I haven’t got in my sticker book. That would be a better incentive than bad zone sets, which I don’t need.
4. Getting anything of value from the camp boss chests is one a million. Again, no incentive for the average person.
5. Your main “prize”, the Coldharbour estate, is a kick in the teeth for anyone who already bought it (as I have, more than once!). Where’s the similarly valued alternative for your long-standing players? You guys always screw over your best customers.
6. The golden pursuit and community rewards are lazy. Another pet, another mount….zero creativity given the scale of the “world changing” event. Previous golden pursuits have been better, previous community events have been much, much better.

This whole event feels like the Temu version of previous years. The whole thing feels untested, drops rates suck, and the rewards themselves were grabbed from the discount bin by the back door.

This year has really left a bad taste in my mouth, and has coloured whether I would buy a “season pass” in advance ever again.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

dmitya wrote: »

kind_hero wrote: »

dmitya wrote: »

I'm sorta embarrassed by the player base for this negative feedback... What do we usually get with an expansion- a middling introductory quest to connect the two new zones? Instead we have a main storyline continuance, dungeons monsters temporarily updated all across Tamriel reflecting the invasion, and we have three distinct stages of an event connecting the two zones you usually get with an expansion. The repeatables are like a festival thrown in on top of that.

I am personally happy that the repeatables are easy to do. I don't want to have everything very involved because sometimes I want to watch tv while I play and sometimes I want to be focused with the game as the entertainment or challenge.

It was a very cool way to introduce two halves of a zone and the story is engaging and also feels impactful on the world rather than just another expansion spliced on.

To the fans who are so critical of a third of a segue of the yearly content: get a grip. To the devs: this is a good additional direction provided that the creativity continues on multiple fronts.

Good for you that are enjoying this event. Most people in this thread don't.

Let me say I am a constant player since the beta. I have played through all the expansions, I have seen a lot in ESO. I really love the game, and I also love the housing system. So, my criticism is very friendly, I supported this game with my sub for so many years, and applauded each time they open a new zone.

What you are saying above is true, the story continues, the invasion affects every area of the world, the devs came up with this wall which most likely wasn't easy to do from a technical point of view.

However, as someone who has played the content, and especially events - I usually don't skip any event - trust me when I say, this isn't something new or original. Don't look at the wall, just see the reskinned dolmens, fetch quests, and grind for loot boxes. I get it there will be something else in later phases, but people who have done this a lot of times, are bored already.
And it's fine as another event like Witches, when you do bosses and delves for more lootboxes, we all love and hate that, but otherwise it doesn't inspire me. The event doesn't make me feel there is any real danger to Solstice, let alone to Tamriel. Maybe it would have been different if we had invading world bosses in the main capitals, the skybox change, undo some planemeld in cities in real time and so on. I wish it was different. I paid for this pass more than for last year's DLC, and can't say I am having more fun, or this content will be memorable as Summerset or Orsinium.

My point is that the comparison is flawed and everyone is acting out of false comparisons... You are all acting like this 1/3 of an event is itself 'The Yearly Pass'... it's not- it's just a single link in a chain between the two zones of an 'expansion'. My further point is it is much more than we used to get in that capacity in the past (small little introduction quests). We can't compare the 'season pass' vs. 'expansion' until we have the full content which is now like 50-65% known. I like the new format better and it is weird that anyone would be critical of it. It will be fine to say as a whole the new 'season pass' is worse than the prior 'expansions'- but we aren't there yet.

Except for the fact that the PTS exists, and players who use it have seen the whole thing by now. Literally anyone could jump on PTS right now and see the other part.

If I’m expected to pay $50 for something that gets meted out over time, why do I need to hand over $50 upfront? Why not just pay as things come out?
(And then, if there’s a part I don’t want - or I already get for free via a sub - then I wouldn’t have to pay for it)

Also, none of this changes the fact that the game was horrifically mismanaged this whole year, and even for half of the previous year. The “Housing Feature” from U43? Half of an addon PC already had instead of what that community has been begging for. The “PvP Content” from U44? A rework of a less-popular PvP mode into an even less popular version, which now made several achievements unobtainable or prohibitively difficult at best coupled with a stream that turned away most of the players it was trying to entice. The big “Selling Point Feature” from U46? A free update that utterly destroyed the balance of the game despite all warnings that exactly that would happen, and no effort since to fix it. The big “Once-in-a-lifetime Event” from U47-48? A series of dailies with minimal rewards that lasts over a month, culminating in a Public Dungeon they’re deleting from the game a week after it drops. And over an over, all we get from the devs is “tee-hee, we have cool stuff coming but it’s a secret and we’re not telling! nyah nyah 😜“
Seriously, the only thing they did this year that was universally appreciated was that they taught horses how to swim.

If people weren’t already frustrated with the game, they’d be fine with the event. But frustration is running high, and we were told that everything was building up to this (implying that they were slow on balance or making new stuff because this was going to be something huge) and it’s a basic event. So… why did we not get balance then? Why so little content? Did this event really make up for missing what we used to get?
Also let’s not forget that one entire supported language doesn’t have its voiceover, which means they will never get to play this event (that they paid for!) in their language. That’s just obscene.

Besides, there are a few really frustrating parts of this event we haven’t had before.
One, the event itself spoils the story. Like Walks straight up says that Gabrielle is dead, whether you played the story or not. The (beautiful) key art pic has Darien front and center, who by this point should be dead twice over. Was it necessary to spoil the story? They really couldn’t have done that better?
Two, it’s pitting players against each other. Most players choose a server based on what they have access to and where they live, so “server pride” isn’t even as important as Alliance pride. But now they’re making this a stupid competition - and not only that, but each server has a different end goal (and they’re not gonna tell us what it is), so it’s all a totally fake competition. This means the ‘losing’ server is just gonna be frustrated because it’s not like they have much control over it in the first place. Compare that to something like Dragon Rise - all players worked together regardless of server to fill the bar. Sure, that was also a fake bar, but people felt good about farming dragons since ZOS was donating to a car rescue and people love cats. Now we’re fighting amongst ourselves to finally get to the other half of the content we paid for, and it’s just as basic as the first part.