What was learned from the Witches Festival

Recremen

• ZOS is fantastic at compounding rewards for things we would already want to do in game. With the recent One Tamriel launch, people wanted to be out fighting bosses, dark anchors, etc. What did we have to do to get Witches Festival rewards? Exactly that thing I just mentioned. Oh wait, but first you have to apply a free buff to yourself that gives 100% bonus XP. The horror!!
• Set design is still on point. The Witchmother's Lair was just plain phenomenal.
• Skeletons are continuously getting better. We saw some of the first proper Khajiit and Argonian skeletons in Wrothgar and they've been making improvements to the models ever since. It was nice to finally have a functional brain case in this most recent addition!!
• People resent Crown Store exclusive motifs, especially since crafted sets are falling by the wayside in the new dropped set meta (as a whole, there are still BiS niche uses for some).
• People resent Crown Store exclusive dyes.
• A combination of in-game earnable rewards (like the pumpkin mask) and Crown Store cosmetics (like the polymorphs, cat, and owl masks) is a delightful middle ground to strike.

Anything else?

STEVIL

Recremen wrote: »

• ZOS is fantastic at compounding rewards for things we would already want to do in game. With the recent One Tamriel launch, people wanted to be out fighting bosses, dark anchors, etc. What did we have to do to get Witches Festival rewards? Exactly that thing I just mentioned. Oh wait, but first you have to apply a free buff to yourself that gives 100% bonus XP. The horror!!
• Set design is still on point. The Witchmother's Lair was just plain phenomenal.
• Skeletons are continuously getting better. We saw some of the first proper Khajiit and Argonian skeletons in Wrothgar and they've been making improvements to the models ever since. It was nice to finally have a functional brain case in this most recent addition!!
• People resent Crown Store exclusive motifs, especially since crafted sets are falling by the wayside in the new dropped set meta (as a whole, there are still BiS niche uses for some).
• People resent Crown Store exclusive dyes.
• A combination of in-game earnable rewards (like the pumpkin mask) and Crown Store cosmetics (like the polymorphs, cat, and owl masks) is a delightful middle ground to strike.

Anything else?

Some people dont like having their character's loom changed in order to participate in an event or acquire an achievement. Appearance changes should be kept to a minimum or optional (not keyed to participation) for these events, especially ones as dramatic as the skeletal ones and used only when necessary. Even if the look change has a small benefit, thats fine, but dont let it be the trigger/key for all benefits of participation.

Fort me, as soon as i hit 100 skulls i stopped all use of witchmother - xp boost or no xp boost.

Number_51

STEVIL wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

• ZOS is fantastic at compounding rewards for things we would already want to do in game. With the recent One Tamriel launch, people wanted to be out fighting bosses, dark anchors, etc. What did we have to do to get Witches Festival rewards? Exactly that thing I just mentioned. Oh wait, but first you have to apply a free buff to yourself that gives 100% bonus XP. The horror!!
• Set design is still on point. The Witchmother's Lair was just plain phenomenal.
• Skeletons are continuously getting better. We saw some of the first proper Khajiit and Argonian skeletons in Wrothgar and they've been making improvements to the models ever since. It was nice to finally have a functional brain case in this most recent addition!!
• People resent Crown Store exclusive motifs, especially since crafted sets are falling by the wayside in the new dropped set meta (as a whole, there are still BiS niche uses for some).
• People resent Crown Store exclusive dyes.
• A combination of in-game earnable rewards (like the pumpkin mask) and Crown Store cosmetics (like the polymorphs, cat, and owl masks) is a delightful middle ground to strike.

Anything else?

Some people dont like having their character's loom changed in order to participate in an event or acquire an achievement. Appearance changes should be kept to a minimum or optional (not keyed to participation) for these events, especially ones as dramatic as the skeletal ones and used only when necessary. Even if the look change has a small benefit, thats fine, but dont let it be the trigger/key for all benefits of participation.

Fort me, as soon as i hit 100 skulls i stopped all use of witchmother - xp boost or no xp boost.

I'd agree with that. I never stopped using the brew, but all of my characters started using disguises even before the first day was done.

kadar

The string of festivals, while fun, have been pulling people out of Cyrodiil on PC NA it seems. The past month Cyrodiil has felt empty (possbily because everyone is out grinding sets/xp). I regularly check campaign populations and I haven't seen Azura's or Blackwater over 1 population bar in a long time. Haderus will sometimes reach 2 bars of EP at peak hours, and TF is only locked at Prime Time. This one is sad.

Recremen

STEVIL wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

• ZOS is fantastic at compounding rewards for things we would already want to do in game. With the recent One Tamriel launch, people wanted to be out fighting bosses, dark anchors, etc. What did we have to do to get Witches Festival rewards? Exactly that thing I just mentioned. Oh wait, but first you have to apply a free buff to yourself that gives 100% bonus XP. The horror!!
• Set design is still on point. The Witchmother's Lair was just plain phenomenal.
• Skeletons are continuously getting better. We saw some of the first proper Khajiit and Argonian skeletons in Wrothgar and they've been making improvements to the models ever since. It was nice to finally have a functional brain case in this most recent addition!!
• People resent Crown Store exclusive motifs, especially since crafted sets are falling by the wayside in the new dropped set meta (as a whole, there are still BiS niche uses for some).
• People resent Crown Store exclusive dyes.
• A combination of in-game earnable rewards (like the pumpkin mask) and Crown Store cosmetics (like the polymorphs, cat, and owl masks) is a delightful middle ground to strike.

Anything else?

Some people dont like having their character's loom changed in order to participate in an event or acquire an achievement. Appearance changes should be kept to a minimum or optional (not keyed to participation) for these events, especially ones as dramatic as the skeletal ones and used only when necessary. Even if the look change has a small benefit, thats fine, but dont let it be the trigger/key for all benefits of participation.

Fort me, as soon as i hit 100 skulls i stopped all use of witchmother - xp boost or no xp boost.

That's a good point! 100% agree. I was able to mitigate the issue a little bit by putting on a disguise, which overrode the image change, but that meant no beautiful armor, no costume, nothing else.

praxis

I loved the event, except I was so tired of seeing armies of raggedy skeletons everywhere. I would even get confused as to which alt I was on sometimes because everyone was identical.

By the end of the first week, most of my friends were so sick of looking the same so they just stopped using the buff -- and these were the same people who refreshed cake on every alt the night that event ended to get every second of extra xp.

We had all these great spooky costumes and polymorphs and dyes that could have been really fun to play with all month but instead we got identical blah everywhere and zero diversity.

Recremen

The_Outsider wrote: »

The string of festivals, while fun, have been pulling people out of Cyrodiil on PC NA it seems. The past month Cyrodiil has felt empty (possbily because everyone is out grinding sets/xp). I regularly check campaign populations and I haven't seen Azura's or Blackwater over 1 population bar in a long time. Haderus will sometimes reach 2 bars of EP at peak hours, and TF is only locked at Prime Time. This one is sad.

It's purely temporary, I assure you, and probably has more to do with acquiring the new gear than participating in the events. I'm finally caving and getting dropped sets to wear most of the time, because I'm completely done with dragging my group down using an inferior setup. But that means more time spent away from the PvP I love. :-/

kadar

Recremen wrote: »

The_Outsider wrote: »

The string of festivals, while fun, have been pulling people out of Cyrodiil on PC NA it seems. The past month Cyrodiil has felt empty (possbily because everyone is out grinding sets/xp). I regularly check campaign populations and I haven't seen Azura's or Blackwater over 1 population bar in a long time. Haderus will sometimes reach 2 bars of EP at peak hours, and TF is only locked at Prime Time. This one is sad.

It's purely temporary, I assure you, and probably has more to do with acquiring the new gear than participating in the events. I'm finally caving and getting dropped sets to wear most of the time, because I'm completely done with dragging my group down using an inferior setup. But that means more time spent away from the PvP I love. :-/

I hope you're right!

Enemy-of-Coldharbour

It lasted too long.

Nestor

I enjoyed the festival although I got a little tired of the Skeleton look, it was confusing with Alts.

I do miss the crowds around the various Dolmens and World Bosses though. Of course I am still farming for certain sets as I don't have the ones I want completed. I also got a good look at the Trait Drop rate, and you know what, it's pretty balanced as to what you get. Of course half of what you get is useless. But Prosperous is no more or less common than any other trait.

It was a good event, it did get people out and at least farming the gear. I hope that some people set out to get one set, but ended up trying others to find out a different way to do things than the Meta tells them too.

Bethesda is hands down the best at building a world to play in. Even if there is nothing going on in the game, there is something to look at.

DeadlyRecluse

Enemy-of-Coldharbour wrote: »

It lasted too long.

Kinda agree here, tbh. Absolutely great event for most of the reasons listed, but I would have preferred a more forgiving droprate and a shorter duration. I suppose this allowed for more people to participate, however.

praxis wrote: »

We had all these great spooky costumes and polymorphs and dyes that could have been really fun to play with all month but instead we got identical blah everywhere and zero diversity.

This is a fantastic point. The legendary drop was the masks, which you never got to see around halloween, because everyone was polymorphed. Same with the motifs and crown store masks. You didn't really see the halloween stuff until after halloween.

hiyde

One note on the polymorph that people might find helpful in the future:

You can toggle the Witch's Buff OFF by hitting "C" and then right clicking the buff.
(I assume there's a similar way to do it on consoles). Yes, you can shut off other temporary buffs as well.

I used the Witch's buff when I was earning XP and then turned it off when I was done so I could revert back to my Hallowjack Gear.

-H

Katahdin

The_Outsider wrote: »

The string of festivals, while fun, have been pulling people out of Cyrodiil on PC NA it seems. The past month Cyrodiil has felt empty (possbily because everyone is out grinding sets/xp). I regularly check campaign populations and I haven't seen Azura's or Blackwater over 1 population bar in a long time. Haderus will sometimes reach 2 bars of EP at peak hours, and TF is only locked at Prime Time. This one is sad.

I think the new proc sets had more to do with people not in Cyrodil. People don't like to be killed by someone's underwear.

Rouven

I don't want to come across as negative but apart from the initial quest I missed the vibe a little.

All in all the mechanic was "kill boss mob for holiday loot". Nice thing here obviously the relative freedom on where to go.

As for ideas I would look at Lotro or GW2 perhaps, Lotro had a nice haunted house and horse races I believe. In GW2 jumping puzzles but I don't think that works here.

But puzzles in general could be a good theme, Sheogorath having his fun with us maybe, transforming us into daedra rats and we're hunting for the cheese...

JD2013

Liked it a lot.

The New Life Festival seems to have a lot more achievements and things to do.

However kudos to ZOS for their first holiday event. Here's to many more.

xaraan

I agree with most of your points, except the crown store exclusive motif. Not that I like the idea, but forum complaints aren't an indicator of it's failure, how much money they made is going to be the indicator as to it's success/failure.

Publius_Scipio

It's was ok. You can only thank ZOS for a little extra fun. Best thing about it was the xp buff. But personally it was repetitive after a while for me, filled my inventory with a ton of duplicate recipes and motifs, never got any masks. Kinda got bored having to run around boss to boss for the sole purpose of plunder skull for the chance of mask.

DRXHarbinger

The cooldown ruined it imo. The skulls should have stacked as well, farming sets whilst getting skulls killed the bank.

Motif drop rate was way too common, on 1st day try hards were trying to sell pages for 100k. Now 90 gold.

Delimber

Enjoyed it.

STEVIL

Enemy-of-Coldharbour wrote: »

It lasted too long.

Slight defense... the bug which killed the skull counter for a week led then to extend it a week.

Nestor

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

Kinda got bored having to run around boss to boss for the sole purpose of plunder skull for the chance of mask.

I got about 4 of one of the masks, so of course I went out and bought the other mask at the tail end of the even when they were going for 25K. And, yes, you know what that means. I got the other mask as a drop not 30 minutes after buying it.

Going to hang on to them for a bit then sell them.

Recremen

xaraan wrote: »

I agree with most of your points, except the crown store exclusive motif. Not that I like the idea, but forum complaints aren't an indicator of it's failure, how much money they made is going to be the indicator as to it's success/failure.

I didn't say it failed, though, I said that people resented it. I myself bought it because I felt pigeonholed as a crafting expert into getting it, which made me resent having to do it. And my assertion that it is resented overall isn't based only on forum input (which, regardless of what people say, is a totally valid population sample), but also on in-game reactions, guildies, zone shouts, etc.

magnusthorek

I learned that gathering 100 of anything is pain in the ass

gard

Katahdin wrote: »

The_Outsider wrote: »

The string of festivals, while fun, have been pulling people out of Cyrodiil on PC NA it seems. The past month Cyrodiil has felt empty (possbily because everyone is out grinding sets/xp). I regularly check campaign populations and I haven't seen Azura's or Blackwater over 1 population bar in a long time. Haderus will sometimes reach 2 bars of EP at peak hours, and TF is only locked at Prime Time. This one is sad.

I think the new proc sets had more to do with people not in Cyrodil. People don't like to be killed by someone's underwear.

Death by Victoria's Secret

SantieClaws

Khajiit learnt one thing. Never to trust a free drink if it is green and offered from a cauldron.

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

AlnilamE

Enemy-of-Coldharbour wrote: »

It lasted too long.

Are you on PC? It was extended by a week because of the bug with the achievement, so it did indeed feel a bit long. I think otherwise it would have been fine.

OP: The Argonian and Khajiit skeletons were my favourite part. As tired as I was of seeing skeletons towards the end, I never got tired of my argonian. :-)

bellanca6561n

I did not participate in it as I put a lot of thought and work and crowns into my characters' appearance but I thought it was wonderful.

Most holiday events in MMO-Medieval style online games are like country fairs complete with sack race style mini-games that delight some but annoy the bejeeeus out of others. You get a silly prize usually such as this mount I got from a festival in Lord of the Rings Online with kegs of beer, beer steins and a pretzel tack motif.

Yes, we all got tired of the bat swarms, Army of Darkness locust swarms of undead players and such but, as others noted, the event was extended for a very good reason.

The only thing it lacked that other such festivals have, in my view, is charm.

Hard to define charm.

xeNNNNN

STEVIL wrote: »

Recremen wrote: »

• ZOS is fantastic at compounding rewards for things we would already want to do in game. With the recent One Tamriel launch, people wanted to be out fighting bosses, dark anchors, etc. What did we have to do to get Witches Festival rewards? Exactly that thing I just mentioned. Oh wait, but first you have to apply a free buff to yourself that gives 100% bonus XP. The horror!!
• Set design is still on point. The Witchmother's Lair was just plain phenomenal.
• Skeletons are continuously getting better. We saw some of the first proper Khajiit and Argonian skeletons in Wrothgar and they've been making improvements to the models ever since. It was nice to finally have a functional brain case in this most recent addition!!
• People resent Crown Store exclusive motifs, especially since crafted sets are falling by the wayside in the new dropped set meta (as a whole, there are still BiS niche uses for some).
• People resent Crown Store exclusive dyes.
• A combination of in-game earnable rewards (like the pumpkin mask) and Crown Store cosmetics (like the polymorphs, cat, and owl masks) is a delightful middle ground to strike.

Anything else?

Some people dont like having their character's loom changed in order to participate in an event or acquire an achievement. Appearance changes should be kept to a minimum or optional (not keyed to participation) for these events, especially ones as dramatic as the skeletal ones and used only when necessary. Even if the look change has a small benefit, thats fine, but dont let it be the trigger/key for all benefits of participation.

Fort me, as soon as i hit 100 skulls i stopped all use of witchmother - xp boost or no xp boost.

this ^ I hated being a skeleton for it. It was so damned boring. I wanted my mohawk back

Danikat

I thought it was fun at first but it got dull and repetitive after a while and it would have benefitted from having more to do than simply farming bosses.

I know it was their first festival, and I'm hoping they'll improve on it in the future, but as it was I only really played it for a few days, then I'd only apply the buff if I knew I was going to be fighting a boss anyway. I also wished I could turn the skeleton effect off.

IrishGirlGamer

JD2013 wrote: »

Liked it a lot.

The New Life Festival seems to have a lot more achievements and things to do.

However kudos to ZOS for their first holiday event. Here's to many more.

Agreed.

It was a start and, at first, I was kind of "Meh." But I still drank the potion, wore a disguise, and just rolled with it.

And I was pretty excited when I found the scarecrow mask. Not that I've ever worn it but, yeah, it's there and I have it - right next to some other things I'll probably never use again like the whistle from Crows Wood, the Chattering Skull, and a bunch of other collectibles.

Nestor

gard wrote: »

Death by Victoria's Secret

Out of all the possible ways, this one might not be too bad.....