What parts of the system worked toward a positive play experience?
It was nice to see something new in 3 of the base game zones.
If any, what suggested improvements do you have for the Favors system, based on your time engaging with the system?
The tasks requested by the favors are just too mundane to be interesting, at least the day one tasks. One was a fetch quest and another was to kill a delve boss. If they build up to something more, that might be ok, but I'd definitely like to see more interesting challenges with more interesting rewards.
Did you have an issues engaging with Favors?
Nope
Please provide any additional feedback for Favors.
While the daily rewards might be appropriate for the tasks, neither are compelling. I was hoping for a system that was worth engaging with for its own sake, but right now this feels like little more than a chore that I'll probably do just long enough to get a capstone reward and then ignore it forever.
The OP seems to be taking this entirely too seriously. "Optimal" in their view is the old economist bit about there being no bills left on the sidewalk, but as soon as "optimal" enters the conversation, then it stops being entertainment and becomes a business. Are they playing to be entertained or are they playing to accumulate goodies which have no value outside of the game? He who has the most toys when the servers shut down is not the winner.
If you're doing a full seven (or six if you don't have Summerset for JC) on 20 characters every day, you're probably getting a decent amount of Surveys. Use those to help with any mat harvesting Challenges you get.
I do agree that a lot of the specific ones (like having to kill specific kinds of Atronach) are more annoying. A lot of the specific ones should be generic (kill X number of Atronachs, kill X WB, do the Group Event in X Public Dungeon, etc), because as it is funneling people into the same limited area makes for VERY frustrating incidents of not getting credit for certain kills, waiting for mobs/bosses to respawn instead of being able to go to different places, and so on.
It also makes it easier to achieve because someone might do a lot of WBs but only in a specific Zone, or they might farm a certain Public Dungeon for things and be able to do the Group Event there. Forcing people into specific areas has never been a popular and ZOS knows this so I don't get why they keep doing it.
Especially since there are generic ones like "Clear a Trial" and you aren't forced into doing specific ones. Why be forced into doing specific WBs or Public Dungeons?