Feedback for Zeal of Zenithar Event

opaj

Are you enjoying the event so far?
I loved it. Perhaps one of my favorite events, and I've played since beta.

What have you liked so far about Zeal of Zenithar?

• Themed around lore in a way that's believable as something the actual citizens of Tamriel would celebrate, as opposed to DLC celebrations, for example.
• The fairground at Belkarth and the new world events were so much fun to discover and explore.
• The event centered around activities that are often overlooked, like crafting and treasure hunting.

Has anything been confusing?
Maybe not confusing, but was it intentional that the boxes contain so many unbankable items? And that stolen Zenithar boxes can't be fenced, and neither can their contents?

Anything you wish was different?

• It seems like Festival encounters were based on whether you completed previous chapters. Because I have a lot of characters and I don't 100% the content on most of them, this made the encounters overly rare and repetitive when they did occur. It would be nice if there were more encounters from other DLC and major base game quests. (Or maybe there were and I just missed them? I was at the fairgrounds a lot, but you never know!) (Also I acknowledge that this is a request for "more", not "different.")
• I like that this event had a focus on crafting, but in a way the Jubilee event is also unofficially about crafting. Having these two events back-to-back may have been a little repetitive, so I wonder if Zeal of Zenithar could be later in the year next time.

Any additional thoughts?
Please keep fleshing out events just like you did this one!

Iselin

Overall, not bad at all.

If it becomes a recurring event each year, I'd like to see less emphasis on grouping with guild mates and more emphasis instead on grouping with others in general for the reward caches.

Also liked all the extra time we spent in Craglorn thanks to the event. My gear sticker book also thanks you

theoriginalpickle

Are you enjoying the event so far?

The event itself was okay there were definite positives to someone who hasn't done everything i'm by no means a new player but i've stopped and only recently come back to ESO which was a benefit for me. The grouping aspect was okay but not great if you didn't have an active guild or if parcel farming burn out occurred which i did for many of my guilds.

What have you liked so far about Zeal of Zenithar?

- No one talks about it but the 100% inspiration was actually very handy i was able to cap my main crafter on alchemy and jewellery which was a slog for the last 4 levels before the inspo. I managed to cap jewellery on a new toon i've been working on as my secondary character which is awesome and helpful.

- I was able to finally get some very good purple companion gear which i've never seen drop otherwise some of it i sold to make a lot of money (i'm not a rich player this was really helpful) and gear up my companions.

- it was an indirect bonus but i've gotten closer to maxing my Bastion doing Dolemen runs with a group which means every dolemen he was leveling like crazy i even told a few new guildies about it and they had bastions running too.

- The recipes i had missed a lot of those because of my down time so i've gotten a lot of things i'd missed out on including furniture drops i was pleased about.


- Extra crafting items the alchemy in particular has been amazing i've got nearly a full stack of dreugh wax now.

- IC keys once i knew what to do and where to go i didn't have to many problems with gankers, although in a timezone where everyone's asleep so there was a few people on but usually we left each other alone as i think we were all PVERS. (i do agree though they shouldn't be character bound) even got a few kills and some skyshards i was missing.

- Extra Telvar stones are really helpful i was able to get some expensive runes to help finish my MC off, although it would be helpful to make it more clear that they need to be banked otherwise you loose them. It isn't clear the banker had a drop down for currencies apart from gold.

- Indrinks are cool i finally got my first mount but couldn't afford the rest of the berries for an upgrade which was annoying and completely unnecessary.

Has anything been confusing?

Yes sort of the Telvar stone banking was not clear and it would be appreciated to make it a little clearer for new people.

Anything you wish was different?

- Allowing enough tickets to be able to buy and upgrade an indrik mount. (a random person gifted me tickets so i could get my first mount and they had to pay for that which i dont agree with, you already monetise everything else clearly you aren't hurting for money Zenimax.

- Not requiring guild groupings to receive parcels. i wanted to group up with friends and randoms as most of my active guilds didn't want to do any parcel farming. I was left either trying to tack onto a group or spent more time asking repeatedly in guild chats for people to join and at least idle in the zone so i could get the parcels. It was annoying and disheartening as no one wanted to play with me. Made worse because all my guilds are American so the time zone difference meant i only got night owls and the anti social people.

- Stacking of keys and parcels it would have been helpful to stack all keys in parcels to save inventory space, also if you didnt do enough dmg on a dolemen boss which tended to happen with competing groups you'd miss out which is nonsense when it gets burnt down in 5 seconds.

Any additional thoughts?

- Allow any type of grouping to receive parcels to allow for randoms to enjoy the event if active guilds aren't available.
- Even number of tickets to drop so a base indrik and one upgrade can be obtained without needing to purchase.
- Improve drop rate of rare gold/telvar stones i've seen one person post about it on reddit and nobody else seemed to get them ever.
- Improve recipe drops over all id like an opportunity to able to grab rare gold recipes.
- Parcels dropping on all daily crafting.

tiriusavarao

Are you enjoying the event so far?
I enjoyed it for the most part.

What have you liked so far about Zeal of Zenithar?
- Nice to have an actual festival place with NPCs to visit.
- Gold/AP/telvar discount was very useful.
- Reasonably easy to get dailies done and get reward boxes for many types of player.
- Possible to vary your eventing zones with bosses and world events, keeping it fresh.
- Random NPC encounters was a fun addition to explore.
- Nice to have the option to buy old Indrik pieces.

Has anything been confusing?
- Keys had to be Googled, no idea what those were before.
- Tricksy that gold discount did not apply to all gold vendors (e.g. bank space vendor)
- Daily quest stated only 'buy from another guild trader' but not how much.

Anything you wish was different?
- The idea of the festival grounds was nice, but it was much too crowded there. I could barely see the event NPC through the players/pets. I'd suggest having Fasaria appear at every event pavillion, even if the rest of the festival stuff is limited to Belkarth.
- Reward boxes of mediocre value. I got more valuable items from the 'normal' rewards on world events and bosses. Perhaps include more crafting supplies for furniture and/or furniture itself next time, that sounds like it would fit with the God of Crafts.
- Not enough activities for solo play beyond theft. The event is not as fun for players who are not in guilds. I'd suggest at least expanding the daily writ reward to once per *type* of writ, one for each school, or maybe have special event writs to make like the new life event has.

Gaebriel0410

I loved the event, especially because it was very different to what we usually see. The best thing was the added encounters throughout the world, and judging by what I heard and read, I didn't even see half of them. I liked how it added a feeling of mystery and adventure.

I also really liked the world modifiers for vendors, wayshrines etc. Both that and the encounters made it feel more global if that makes sense, as opposed to the way more localized and focused events we usually see.

I really hope those elements of Zenithar's Zeal will be incorporated into the existing events, or used for future events!

Also please make Craglorn the new spot for the luxury furnisher, going to Coldharbour for it just feels so out of place.

RazzmaTaz

Are you enjoying the event so far?

• I loved this event - I think the introductory quest was engaging and lore friendly. As a result of this event, I joined a few new guilds. I grouped up several times for content I had not done yet, and got to talk to some new people. I'm extremely shy so this felt like a big deal!

What have you liked so far about Zeal of Zenithar?

• The way the rewards for this were structured encouraged me to reach out to others and group. Many people in my guilds formed groups and talked with each other more than we had before.
• The sales! I purchased some new houses during the event. I had saved up for one and am thrilled to have had some leftover gold to get a second, smaller home!
• The overworld encounters were interesting, and didn't feel boring after you saw them once. I appreciated being able to choose new options and see different outcomes (Looking at you, Begs-in-Wilds)
• I know a lot more about Zenithar now - this was extremely immersive, IMO. I'd love to see more of these with other deities!
• Belkarth was so lively! I enjoyed cruising around the shops and performers a lot.

Has anything been confusing?

• I still have a mysterious "prize winning radish," and don't think I ever came across the follow-up encounter for it

Anything you wish was different?

• I think the rewards should have dropped while grouped with friends, as well as guildies!
• If IC keys drop with boxes, they should be account bound instead of character bound.
• The Impresario group repair kit should be able to be laundered, like all the other drops obtained via thieving.

Any additional thoughts?

• Craglorn feels like a more suitable spot for the luxury furnisher... although I personally like visiting the Hollow City, too.
• Please continue bringing back NPCs like Naryu for future events
• Again, I would love to see these types of events done for other deities!
• I really loved having a new event like this and hope to see more like it in the future.

Marronsuisse

What have you liked so far about Zeal of Zenithar?

I liked the festival grounds. It was fun poking around and looking at everything and seeing how things changed throughout the day. Cameos from favourite characters were also really nice. It would be neat if there were some kind of fun activity to do like a lottery to play once a day or even just more things you can interact with like how you can pet the dogs. All this stuff makes it feel like an actual festival happening in the game's world, rather than a meta event that happens just for players in their journals and inventories.

For the event itself, I have no idea if I got lucky or if drop rates really were better, but I appreciated having the style page drop every day within the first few parcels opened; the drop rate seemed equally good between the gold and purple parcels. I found the Daedric Celebration to be an extremely unrewarding grind I have no interest in repeating, but I'm glad I gave festivals another chance.

Anything you wish was different?

Only one parcel for regular crafting writs per day per account seemed a tad lean... I'd love to see a few more, maybe one for each type "durable goods" writ per day per account?

Dojohoda

The event was nicely done. Bravo. The area made for the event was also very nicely done.

Some keys with the same name didn't stack while others, also the same name, did stack. Not sure what was special about the unstackable keys. As others have stated, it'd be better for us if the keys could be placed in our bank since we'd prefer to go to IC with a character properly geared for the area.

Great job!

maximusrex45

I enjoyed the Zeal of Zenithar even this year, but encountered a few pain points, and also have some thoughts for improvement.

The Crafting Research scrolls offered in the boxes cannot be Fenced or Laundered, so if you got the scroll in a box that was stolen on a character with no use for it, your only option is to destroy it.

Maps need to stack. Having to stop playing with my friends to go and use maps because they are making inventory and event box management a PITA isn't a particularly fun mechanic.

Keys need to be Account Bound. While I tried to keep the focus on my main character, I inevitably wound up with boxes, and by extension, keys on alts I don't necessarily need or want them on.

Companion gear overload. I appreciate the thought here, but I got around 200+ companion gear items, and only two were the slot/trait/quality I needed to either want the item for use, or to use it to upgrade the quality of the item my companions were already wearing. Companion gear needs to be a less winning the lotto type of system in the game. When you clog my inventory with gear I don't want, can process for mats, can't upgrade, can't use to learn the traits on, it just feels like a waste and aggravating. ESO has a great crafting system for gear already, I am amazed ZOS decided to ignore it for drops that are almost impossible to get the one you want.

Considering the crafting focus of the introductory quest, and of the festival grounds setting in Belkarth, I was disappointed that the rewards focus was so heavy toward Provisioning while very minimally dropping plans for the other crafting skills, and the furnishing mats needed to make them. Hopefully next year most crafting patterns that drop in the world can be added as rewards in the boxes, as well as mats like mundane runes, heartwood, regulus, bast, etc.

ShinyBacon

I have earned around 10000 writ vouchers during the event, that was a lot of writs and reward boxes.
I got 2 boxes from grouping up and doing worls boxes.
My friend wasnt really interested in the event so logged off and played a different game, while i was doing my writs.

Although i appreciate to give an incentive to play with other players, real life often has different plans.
While im more interested in farming world bosses that drop nice style materials, my friend gets bored very quickly and doesnt want to do more than 2 or 3 bosses.

So im kind of really glad that master writs were an option too, but in retrospect the rewards were not worth it to me.
Most of it is unusable trash, unstackable inventory blockers, or things i dont need. The only new thing were lots of blue low level recipes, but lets be honest, they are just worth something if you want to be a completionist. They are of no use for a CP player, i would even dare to say they are of no use at all.
And the sheer amount of unstackable treasure maps really drove me nuts. I usually dont destroy them because i do enjoy a lazy sunday every now and then and go get some treasure maps and leads. But holy moly..... i had 3 mule characters worth full of treasure maps... I just destroyed them by the end. Please make them stackable!

The only 2 good things i enjoyed were: Group repair kits. These will be appreciated in our prog team. And i bought the last couple of houses that i didnt have yet, that are available with gold.
but this also brings me to the next problem, if there will be another Zenithar event again, there wont be any houses left for me to buy, because i doubt we will ever see small or medium houses that are able to be bought with gold again.

TLDR. I was really excited for the event, especially as a crafter who likes doing writs, but it turned out to be a inventory manangement game with very little rewarding rewards and i think i wont be hoarding writs or making a big effort in participating next time.

But hats off for trying something new, i do appreaciate it!

Mascen

Overall I really liked the concept and spirit of the event. There were some bugs/problems but many people here have already articulated them in great detail, so I'll try to focus on pointers nobody has said yet AFAIK.

1. Timing/event dates
I made a thread about making this a yearly thing some time ago and I think this would be great to do as a thing in the dog days of summer between Whitestrake's Mayhem and Halloween. Because of this I'd suggest having Zeal of Zenithar during the last week of August and the first of September since it would be fitting for Labor Day.

2. Special event-only furnishings
The Breton Spellsword outfit was nice as was Zanil Theran being around all week. But much like New Life, Jesters, Mayhem, and Jubilee, unique furnishings that you can only get during the event really make it special. Alternatively, maybe you can have the vendors around the event site sell hard to find items like paintings at the painters stall and imperial furniture at the carpenter's stall or crown store only small items like the imperial medallion crest, Jone/Jode lanterns, etc.

3. More ZoZ event locations
Nice as Belkarth was done the loading time lag was crazy so definitely expand ZOZ to other locations to ease the traffic. In this regard, I think the square where the Leyawiin wayshrine is would be perfectly fitting given the Chapel is dedicated to Zenithar; it would give Leyawiin a vibe similar to the Feast of San Gennaro in Little Italy.

4. Special limited time set crafting stations
Crafted sets are generally looked down upon as not meta and only good for leveling characters, so maybe take a few currently non craftable sets prized by the endgame community and make them temporarily craftable at the event site after meeting certain requirements or with an X Items per day limit so the market doesnt get flooded. Sets available would rotate every few days or so.

Thanks. I hope you guys at ZOS take it to heart and seriously consider my proposals.

birdnipple

Are you enjoying the event so far?

I did enjoy it!


What have you liked so far about Zeal of Zenithar?

I was happy to see you guys try a new event! Very refreshing.

I was actually really excited about the keys! I've never really wanted to go play in the Imperial City before but when I found out I could get new loot if I was willing to fearfully sprint to a vault from my alliance base it encouraged me to explore the city and sewers more in general.

I also really liked how many recipes dropped because my crafter hadn't learned a lot of them before, and the ones I already knew could be sold!

I also like the flexibility of the ticket-giving daily. It wasn't stressful to do on days where I didn't have long to play and it was nice to be able to choose between multiple themed activities to complete it.

I loved that the indriks came back too. I burned out on ticket collection during the original run of the blue indrik and was so sad because it was my favorite, but now I finally have one AND its baby C:


Has anything been confusing?

The keys were initially kind of confusing just because I hadn't seen them before and I was forced by the character bind to deal with them instead of throwing them in my bank.

I also noticed significant confusion in zone and guild chats with people not understanding that you have to group with guild members to get boxes. I don't remember how clear or unclear the event info was about that but I agree with everyone saying the boxes shouldn't be limited to groups with guild members in them.


Anything you wish was different?

The keys really needed to not be character bound. I know I just said that them being character bound encouraged me to go play in the Imperial City but I heard a lot more often from players who deleted them for inventory management reasons.

The descriptions of each key should be modified to say that they're used in the Imperial City or their respective dungeon. You're inevitably going to drop completed keys to players who haven't been in the vaults before and the keys themselves only say what kind of chest the key is for, not where you find such chests. It's easy enough to look up but it's always much nicer when you don't have to go out of your way to search something.

All crafting writs should drop a box and not just the first one. I assume by not enabling this you guys were trying to avoid repeating how the anniversary event works but it feels kind of weird with the event allegedly being about crafting to... not really be awarded much for daily crafting? Even just being awarded a box for each type of writ for the first daily completion per account would feel much better. I only have so many master writs and so much gold to buy more master writs!

Players should get box drops from any group, not just guild groups. I like the idea of trying to encourage people to join and interact with guilds but it also becomes a horrible bottleneck to the event when nobody from your guilds is available to play the event with you.
Maybe being grouped with guildmates could increase drop rates for some of the more desirable items instead? That way people would still be encouraged to interact with guilds more but they wouldn't feel like they were being punished for being in a guild that happens to be quiet at the time they're playing.

More event locations would have been nice... I did love the setup in Belkarth but the player load packed into that area meant that it often took several seconds for player and NPC character models to load in. The game doesn't seem to prioritize loading NPCs over loading player characters so a lot of the time when I talked to Fasaria she was just invisible while players loaded in around her. Weird loading order is very preferable to frame drops but it's awkward to talk to an invisible NPC.


Any additional thoughts?
I really love some of the other ideas I've seen in here, especially
A) adding more guild traders to the event area to be active only when the event is going (bonus points if they continue to hang around after the event but have something snarky to say about being on break)
B ) giving the merchants in the event area some really cool, event-specific items and/or a rotation of unusual rare stuff to sell
C) adding known 'glitched books' to the area around the bookseller for eidetic collection (fantastic idea to whoever said that, it's a location that feels exotic enough to pull off something that meta I think. Another good area for that would be Fargrave but I don't think a bug workaround should be DLC-locked.)

I liked that the indriks came back but I feel like their parts should cost less now that they're on their second run. Like if you didn't get them the first time around your booby prize for waiting/missing out should be that they're easier to get than they were the first time. Especially since you have a limited number of tickets dropping per event and the first run cosmetic items consume most of those.

I also really think that event tickets need to be less harshly capped or have their cap removed. This is a critique for all events, not just Zenithar of course. I think I heard that you at least get a warning before you lose extra tickets now but it feels really unnecessary and stress-inducing to cap it at 12 tickets. If you guys want to sell more tickets, why not put multipacks of them in the Crown Store with discounts for buying in bulk instead of capping your entire inventory of tickets at 12? People love to feel like they're getting a deal. That way people who don't want to or can't buy crowns can prioritize what they want to buy and save tickets between events and people who are fine with buying tickets can get everything they want immediately. I imagine the ticket gifting event was also a good way to boost ticket sales and wouldn't mind seeing that happen every time the Impressario is open. I liked exchanging tickets with my bestie and being rewarded with a slightly discounted pack of crates

Ulfhethinn

Single daily quest for tickets was good, also having multiple ways to complete.

We need less inventory spam. Research scrolls should have been the crown store version, so they stack with what we get each month, not the writ versions (why are they even different types). More things need to stack and not be character bound - only one time things like leveling rewards should be character bound.

Getting a lot of harder to find recipes was nice. But there is a glut of the common ones - a vendor or event for turning in recipes with oversupply (eg Rose Day Tea), even if 10 to 1, for something. Goes for gold rune boxes too, which are just saturated in the economy.

Would prefer having no guild grouping requirement. This doesn't fit all playstyles.

FlopsyPrince

Ulfhethinn wrote: »

Single daily quest for tickets was good, also having multiple ways to complete.

We need less inventory spam. Research scrolls should have been the crown store version, so they stack with what we get each month, not the writ versions (why are they even different types). More things need to stack and not be character bound - only one time things like leveling rewards should be character bound.

Getting a lot of harder to find recipes was nice. But there is a glut of the common ones - a vendor or event for turning in recipes with oversupply (eg Rose Day Tea), even if 10 to 1, for something. Goes for gold rune boxes too, which are just saturated in the economy.

Would prefer having no guild grouping requirement. This doesn't fit all playstyles.

They don't want you to speed research too fast, unless you pay Crowns! That is why 2 versions exist. One has a day long (20 or 24 hours, I forget) cooldown. That makes it a real pain!

Rooatouille

I know I'm late to the party, but I wanted to echo one sentiment I've seen including the annoyance of the IC keys being character bound and not account bound as well as add one more tidbit:

Given the close proximity of the releases of Zeal and Tales of Tribute, I would like Tales of Tribute matches to drop Zeal event boxes in addition to the other ways of getting them. I realize this would break the theme of being grouped with guild members, but I hope we do away with that requirement for future Zeal events and I think it'd be a good way to incentivize Tales of Tribute gameplay as well as thematic in that every hard working craftsman needs a way to left off steam after a long day at the workshop.

FlopsyPrince

Rooatouille wrote: »

I know I'm late to the party, but I wanted to echo one sentiment I've seen including the annoyance of the IC keys being character bound and not account bound as well as add one more tidbit:

Given the close proximity of the releases of Zeal and Tales of Tribute, I would like Tales of Tribute matches to drop Zeal event boxes in addition to the other ways of getting them. I realize this would break the theme of being grouped with guild members, but I hope we do away with that requirement for future Zeal events and I think it'd be a good way to incentivize Tales of Tribute gameplay as well as thematic in that every hard working craftsman needs a way to left off steam after a long day at the workshop.

I would hate to see too much gated behind the card game, or anything at all gated behind it. I did not like it at all, even if others love it.