My only gripe with daily/weekly activities

Netheniel

Destiny, Fallout 76, Marvel's Avengers, SW:TOR, GW2. These are games that come to mind when I think about other developers implementing a daily/weekly reward system, and they all share the exact same psychology. Maintain a healthy gamer population by encouraging players to return to their games on a daily basis to complete specific jobs in exchange for some reward.

In of itself it's a fine idea, except for the fact that the daily/weekly activities have no logical purpose. It's a make-work project that steers gamers away from playing the game to perform some checklist series of artificial tasks. I would love for game developers to acknowledge that every aspect of their game is fun and would simply reward a returning player for participating in any of those activities. Whether I feel like doing # harrowstorms, # dragons, # daily quests, # dungeons, harvest # nodes, fish # spots, open # chests, sell # items in the market, capture # keeps, kill # players, etc. All of these activities should be included as part of a daily because these are elements that make your game a game, and returning players can continue to enjoy doing what they want to do without feeling left out. Add new daily NPCs (fishermen, treasure hunters, antiquities researcher, Silvelles trading merchant, etc.) that players can engage in dialog with, perform the daily activity, and be given their unique endeavour currency. It would be so much more immersive compared to these horrible systems adopted today.

Obsidian3

I am playing SWTOR right now and Galactic Seasons which is exactly the same as Endeavor's sucks ass. I only do it if I have time, the rewards suck, just like endeavor's.

We all know these types of systems are just to appease the EU, because they have been cracking down on loot crates (Gambling).

ADarklore

Funny... I keep hearing players talk about these things... but I've never once done any daily or weekly activity. I just play the game, do my quests... it wasn't until last night I even saw the word "Endeavor" even show up on-screen after apparently completing something I never even knew was a thing.

VaranisArano

ADarklore wrote: »

Funny... I keep hearing players talk about these things... but I've never once done any daily or weekly activity. I just play the game, do my quests... it wasn't until last night I even saw the word "Endeavor" even show up on-screen after apparently completing something I never even knew was a thing.

Endeavors only started yesterday. You can see what the daily, and eventually weekly, tasks are in the Groupfinder menu.

You might have skipped dailies - those are the blue quest arrows like Crafting Writs, close three dolmens for the Fighters Guild, kill a World Boss in a DLC zone, etc.

SeaGtGruff

So far, I've gotten 3 out of 5 endeavours on PC NA both yesterday and today just by doing dolmens with Mirri, which is now a part of my daily routine, along with doing crafting writs on multiple characters.

It was a little different on PC EU, since I haven't acquired Mirri and Bastian yet on that server, but I was easily able to satisfy the endeavours' requirements by substituting some other semi-regular activity in place of doing dolmens.

My point is that-- so far, at least-- endeavours have given me additional rewards just for doing things that I've been doing, or am now planning to do, as part of my normal, everyday gameplay. How can that be a bad thing or a failure?

peacenote

I just wish that they would provide some happy medium for people who play regularly but can't play daily. For example, accrue additional endeavors on the first day after a break, but capped of course. I work a lot and daily login isn't always feasible, but I play for hours the days I do play.

kargen27

I'm still looking at this as a small bonus for things I do anyway. If I miss a day or two a week (or more) no big deal. In the end no matter how many I get they will not let me purchase any game changing stuff or things I need. They may some day let me get for free something I kinda want.

Sylvermynx

kargen27 wrote: »

I'm still looking at this as a small bonus for things I do anyway. If I miss a day or two a week (or more) no big deal. In the end no matter how many I get they will not let me purchase any game changing stuff or things I need. They may some day let me get for free something I kinda want.

Yes, that's me too;. Generally I log in every day, but can't for the next couple (kids coming to stay). And again in Sept and Oct - more kids (1 set for just another couple days; then the other set for two weeks almost - and while daughter and SIL are both gamers as I am, well, there's a lot of stuff to get through while they're here....)

Is what it is - and what it is is Real Life.

VaranisArano

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

So far, I've gotten 3 out of 5 endeavours on PC NA both yesterday and today just by doing dolmens with Mirri, which is now a part of my daily routine, along with doing crafting writs on multiple characters.

It was a little different on PC EU, since I haven't acquired Mirri and Bastian yet on that server, but I was easily able to satisfy the endeavours' requirements by substituting some other semi-regular activity in place of doing dolmens.

My point is that-- so far, at least-- endeavours have given me additional rewards just for doing things that I've been doing, or am now planning to do, as part of my normal, everyday gameplay. How can that be a bad thing or a failure?

I answered a similar question on another thread, but I see Endeavors as something bigger than just "free stuff." When I look at the bigger picture, they are a very mixed bag.

Endeavors are not some gift out of the goodness of ZOS' heart. They are specifically a response to growing calls for the video game industry to regulate Crown Crate gambling.

I despise Crown Crates. It's not just the gambling for a chance at something I want. The whole system is unfavorable to players, including locking old costumes up in crates, or splitting new outfit styles into seven pages sold separately just to make their lower reward tiers look full. We'd be better off as a playerbase if ZOS retired Crown Crates for good and had to put everything in the Crown Store.

Endeavors helps perpetuate that system! Its not just that ZOS can point to Endeavors as "Look at how no one has to gamble if they don't want to." Look at the variable Crown gem to seals ratio - your Seals are worth less if you spend them on lower value items. That's ZOS encouraging us to save seals for high tier items, and to gamble with Crates for the more common lower tier items. We don't have to gamble, but boy, ZOS wants us to.

Consider the Knight Aspirant style - one of those outfit styles broken up into 7 pages for the completionists to either gamble for or, now, spend 7000 seals on. More seals, if you count the two higher tier helms. By the time you get the whole set, it's 11,000 seals and a smart player can do the math and realize that they'd be mathematically better off saving their seals for the much, much rarer Radiant Apex mounts and just gambling for the style pages.

I also note that if you want more than a few items from a Crown Crate season - say if you wanted the whole Knight Aspirant style - you probably won't acquire enough Seals in that season (depending on the weekly amount, admittedly). Again, that's encouragement to gamble for whatever you didn't get. This is totally inferior to the ideal of being able to directly buy whatever item you wanted from the Crown Store.


Now, for players who're just like "You know, I'll just pick up my free stuff every once in a while. Endeavors are fine," well, maybe they are satisfied.

As for me, I see Endeavors as propping up a system that's very unfriendly towards players and I'm not at all grateful to ZOS for designing a long term grind that's still all about monetizing Crown Crates under the guise of "free" stuff.


TLDR:

rpa

In my previous game of choice I ended piling up thousands of the earanble store currency I never used by playing and just ignoring store most part. In that game it dropped from doing an activity which gave any exp, with a cooldown of like 7 mins, up to soft cap per week (or somtething like that). Sub tripled the rate and cap. This looks just like it, only unnecessarily complex implementation.

MirandaSharp

VaranisArano wrote: »

Now, for players who're just like "You know, I'll just pick up my free stuff every once in a while. Endeavors are fine," well, maybe they are satisfied.

Yep, that's how I look at the endeavors system. And yes, I'm very satisfied

katanagirl1

I had hoped that in addition to the Endeavors there would also be an easier way to buy more items directly with crowns rather than crown crates. Is that definitely not happening?

If there was an item I really wanted I would consider buying crowns to get it, but I absolutely will not buy tons of crown crates and get poisons and other low level stuff to convert into gems to get it.

tgrippa

They want people to be logging in daily, even if it’s for 10 minutes. The daily ‘reward’ crown potions were not enticing enough to pump up the daily engagement metrics, hence this new system is now being brought in.