U39 - PTS Endeavours: more choice is less it seems

Destai

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all, we're following up on some of your feedback regarding the current Endeavors being tested on the PTS. For us, the function of the PTS is not only for the community to see and test content early, but it’s a way for us to test ideas in a number of ways.

We want to stress that the way Endeavors are currently arranged on the PTS is for testing purposes. However, when they are on the live server, they will be curated along with existing Endeavors to ensure there is flexibility in the kinds of Endeavors offered to players of various skill levels. As such, you should not see all five daily Endeavors tied to only completing dungeons, for example.

The same can be said for Endeavors that are tied to specific Chapters or content. The goal is not to make all the Endeavors for the day or week tied to owning a Chapter. The Endeavor changes on the PTS are designed to add more diverse ways to earn Seals on the live server, while also maintaining that everyone has a number of options to do them each day/week while playing the game.

We hope this helps provide some clarity on the thought process regarding the Endeavors currently on the PTS. We are listening and relaying your feedback to our teams, so please continue to share your ideas and input. Thanks all.

Unless ZOS is increasing the amount of available options per day/week, I don't see how any change is going to diversify how we get seals. What's the problem the devs are trying to solve with these changes? I get they're for testing, but testing for what?

DragonRacer

Isn't all of this "with a guildmate" stuff gonna ultimately hurt Dungeon Finder? Generally folks either run a fully-formed group, two-man dungeons with companions as filler, or just full on jump into Dungeon Finder to PUG it. If everyone is having to group with guildmates to complete endeavors, that's gonna drain the Dungeon Finder pool that day/week, I would think.

There's already an event focused around teaming up with guildmates, literally right around the corner - Zeal of Zenithar. And it's already having its biggest solo player part - loot boxes from master writs - nerfed this year by limiting the number of loot boxes for master writs.

And I say this as someone who runs basically daily with my BFF, who is also a guildmate, so this doesn't affect me, but I'm concerned how it is going to affect others and an entire grouping system.

StarOfElyon

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

Daily


Less choice: complete "1 Trial" or "1 Dungeon" has become complete a named Trial/Dungeon.
Including activities that relatively few people do, like ToT and Geysers, actually reduces the choice for most people. Sneaky.
Speaking personally there isn't one thing among those five that I would do.

Weekly


Not so bad, but 350 kills is a lot more than the 150 - 250 we usually get for poison, class or weapon kills.

All we needed was the rate of gain to be increased! That was all!

NolansGoons

In general, I don't loath the idea of there being more encouragement to do some specific bits of content that maybe don't get much traffic in the group finder queues like certain dungeons, I don't even hate Endeavors being used for that purpose. But I certainly am not a fan of Trials being included, never really have been, since that's very high-tier content that even on normal is not easy to complete with random groups. Nor am I fond of "group" and "guildmate" being added as modifiers to some of these... I would encourage anyone to break out of their shells and partake in the social aspect of ESO, but the game itself prompting you to do so with rewards is... uncomfortable, to say the least.

I hope any overhaul of the Endeavor system means more ways to earn seals outside of filling up bars in that menu, or if it does remain that way at least make it more open, like maybe instead of only being able to complete 3 of the dailies and 1 of the weeklies, you can still complete the other possible endeavors, and just earn a discounted amount of seals/other rewards from them. then you could perhaps add one or two more daily options available per-day, and one or two more weeklies as well, so you can still have some of those more content-specific endeavors available for those who have/want to complete them, while not alienating those who can't/don't wish to as befits the content they can access, their skill level, and their personal interests and playstyle.

Eldartar

If this goes live, no more endeavors for this SOLO Player.

sshogrin

It seems that ZOS isn't paying attention to their forums or customer feedback. The daily endeavors on the PTS are not reasonable at all. They will alienate their player base and lose so many players it's not funny. Do they NOT want people to do endeavors? Do they want their player base to dwindle more?
The specific dungeon/trial for a daily is horrible. Looking at these daily endeavors and what it takes will be so time consuming and make the game feel more like a job than being fun. There are a lot of players that don't do group content, don't force them to do that. There are many players that don't have the 3-4 hours a day to complete these endeavors either. As one commenter stated, there are a lot of people that can't complete some of these dungeons and trials on normal without people carrying them, it's going to really *** off a lot of players. The players that have ESO+ will cancel their plus subscription, and they will no longer be making any money.
I'm not sure they actually listen to their customers. Support tickets that I submit have proven that to me.
I hope someone from Zos actually reads this thread and they change things quickly. People have even started complaining on Twitter and other social media platforms about this. I hope the community managers and mods take note, and I hope they start scrambling to change things, or scrap this idea all together.
As far as Tails of Tribute, I don't think that it was customers that asked for a very time consuming in-game card game. When they talked about it in their recorded stream announcing it, it was a developer that stated "I always wanted a game like this in ESO", which I take as the developers doing their own thing and NOT listening to their customers.
ESO is a great game, I've played since Beta. I love the game, stuff like this will make me not want to play anymore, and I do end game content and raid lead for a vet trial group.
PLease take not ZOS, Gina, Jessica, and the rest. The people have spoken, listen to your customers.

AliasRed

This is a pretty disappointing turn of events In regards to daily endeavours.

Specific dungeons is just going to be a big mess due to half or well over half the player base trying for the same endeavour completion (better hope the respawn timers are adjusted to reflect how quick and how often the bosses are melted).

As for trials being added, who thought that would be a good idea? Anyone who isn't able to jump on voice coms (which I would think is a decent amount of middle/older aged players) is going to find it very hard to even get in a group for doing a trials, and even if they do they will have to clear an hour/hour and a half in their free time to complete said trial with zero interruptions.

The alternative way to get nice things is being upgraded from a grind to almost a second job it seems.

Or maybe ZOS is just trying to make it so laborious and painful that it becomes easier to just bite the bullet and buy the nice things in the store with the little money you have free from your first job

Maybe this will be the nudge I need to have a look at Baldurs Gate 3.

Morimizo

I really hope that these brilliant new ideas for diversifying the endeavors will not just encompass trials, dungeons and battlegrounds, but also:

Complete 2 Clothing Surveys Craglorn III, with a guildmate;
Deconstruct 25 CP 160 Legendary Dark Convergence sashes, with a guildmate;
Refine 2000 Platinum dust, with a guildmate;
Harvest 350 Columbine from Murkmire, with a guildmate;
Complete 10 quests in Bal Foyen, with a guildmate.

I understand that these might take slightly more time than the original endeavor system, so humbly suggest that all seal rewards should be increased by 10%!!!


/s, and to more sincerely respond to their "diversity" of this system, the ES quote is once again very appropriate:

"Don't serve me Guar bleep and tell me its Colovian Brandy"

Vrienda

I already skip days with overly tedious dailies. If this goes live I might not even bother with the daily login reward knowing there”s no quick endeavours for me to do.

RaddlemanNumber7

Patch 9.1.1
Necrom event now running.
No change to the Endeavours we've been getting on PTS

Lady_Galadhiel

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

Patch 9.1.1
Necrom event now running.
No change to the Endeavours we've been getting on PTS

FantasticFreddie

Kyne's Aegis??? As a DAILY??

NoxiousBlight

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

Patch 9.1.1
Necrom event now running.
No change to the Endeavours we've been getting on PTS

lol. My only endeavor that I would complete that day: "Don't log onto ESO, with a guildmate."

BergisMacBride

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

Patch 9.1.1
Necrom event now running.
No change to the Endeavours we've been getting on PTS

Thanks for posting these.

Copy\paste named dungeon\trial, add guildmate requirement, rinse\repeat. Seriously beginning to wonder if these are the only types of activities we are going to see with the new endeavors (ToT and world event ones excepted). Still waiting for fishing ones or any new ones like those on @tomofhyrule's list, but not holding my breath.

FantasticFreddie

The named content, and "with an x' should not exist, period.
I don't play ToT, or do any fishing, but "complete one ToT match" or "catch/filet 5 fish" (pretty sure 5 is a reasonable number) would make excellent additions.
Some other fun ones might be "visit 2 player houses"-- an excellent one for a friend or guildmate requirement-- or "Use 2 momentos"

"Complete a random normal dungeon/battleground" would be good additions as well. Again, not things I ever really do, but accessible to people overall.

starkerealm

Capture a town in Cyrodiil. It's nice to see ZOS implement endeavors which may actually be impossible to complete on that day, depending on how Cyrodiil rolls, unless you have alts in other Alliances.

Elsonso

So... Complete 1 dungeon with a Guildmate is now 2 dungeons? Next week will it be 3?

valenwood_vegan

The more I've thought about it, I'm actually quite excited by this change. I've gotten into a maybe not so productive habit of logging in to ESO every day to check on the endeavors (and usually complete them)...

if the new ones look anything like what we're seeing on PTS, I think I'll have a really easy time breaking that habit and spending my time on something more enjoyable. So thank you ZoS, for working so hard to cure my irrational desire to log into ESO regularly, I really appreciate it.

vsrs_au

They might as well just rename them to "Group Endeavors".

KlauthWarthog

So far, it seems like the theme of this update is less "QoL and bugfixes", and more "arbitrary restrictions".

Carcamongus

This is the same thing I wrote in the general discussion thread. I figure maybe here my views will have a greater chance of being taken into account. In any case, it's at least another negative feedback in the tall pile of negative feedbacks.

If they increased the number of possible endeavors we can do per day and week I wouldn't mind these new additions. Of course I don't expect them to do that and I doubt they'll change course, even though a lot of people are saying these "exciting" new endeavors are bad. Yes, they're adding diversity simply by coming up with new endeavors, but those are so restrictive they'll actually reduce what many people can get done. Is the intention to reduce the amount of seals players get, thus forcing them to use crowns if they want shiny stuff? Note: that was a question, not a statement.

One of the things I love about ESO is how lone-wolf-friendly it is. I can do most of my daily activities on my own and choose to group on my own terms (e.g. random dungeon, helping a guildmate, etc). Having to complete an endeavor with a guildmate, while doable, feels like someone forcing me to socialize. And before someone comes with the old argument "nobody's forcing me to do anything", if I want the seals, I have to get something done. People like me, who find it difficult to be social, or who for whatever reason don't belong in any guilds will be negatively impacted by this type of endeavor.

NolansGoons

@Carcamongus I second the idea of adding more possible daily and weekly endeavors to increase the actual available diversity, and keeping player choice in completing said endeavors as wide as possible with these new, awfully specific ones. I would add that it may also be an interesting idea to toss around and test to, on top of that, either make more seals available from other sources, or make it so the other endeavors after the first 3 dailies/1 weekly are still available to complete, but the seals you'll get for doing so will be a smaller portion than the first 3/1.

Zenzuki

An idea...

Why not just add a new "tab" within each main category.

Meaning... under each daily and weekly header, create a tab and rename what is currently live now to: "Solo"

Then create a new tab labeled: "Group"

Then sort out and place into each appropriate tab, whichever endeavor falls into whichever category.

They can just leave the number of TOTAL doable endeavors at one and three for all weeklies/dailies. It would just be 1/6 or 3/10.

This way...

• Solo players would have an assortment of things to choose from for whatever they already do/can do.
• Groups players/guilds would have new things to do and possibly things to add to their guild activities schedule.
• Players who do a bit of both will have more options of things of which to pick, depending on their mood/time available.

Doing this could also allow ZOS to add different SoE values to these activities as they will be listed in completely different tabs (no mixing and matching per solo/group based endeavor).

And considering the longer/harder group based activities being what they are, they should reasonably garner a bit more Seals for the additional time/effort needed to accomplish them. I personally can't see the solo folks (me being one of them) taking much grievance with this as: (1) The activities in the group category would still be there to do if they wanted to give it a go for the extra seals, and (2) For most solo-centric players, an additional amount of extra seals wouldn't even move the needle in getting them to care even remotely in bothering with most of what we're seeing in these "new" options.

This seems like an actual fair and realistic addition that could be called a "QoL" change where the whole playerbase gets some "new shinies" without one particular subset of the playerbase losing a chunk of what is currently on offer.

This idea could of course be tweaked and/or added to if I missed something or some of you fine forumites having any additions.

Thoughts?

Belegnole

Is unfortunate that diversifying means more restrictive. It's horrifying that as a solo player I'm basically being told not to play. So, I guess they no longer want my money.

RaddlemanNumber7

They're starting to repeat. If I spot anything new I'll post it.

Tandor

Belegnole wrote: »

Is unfortunate that diversifying means more restrictive. It's horrifying that as a solo player I'm basically being told not to play. So, I guess they no longer want my money.

In fairness, bear in mind that they are only putting the new ones on PTS, so you'll still have the existing one but some might appear less often due to the new ones being added to the list. However, they will not all appear together on Live as they are on PTS.

That said I'm very critical of them anyway, they just suggest the motivation is not to increase their diversity but to reduce the number of Endeavours people actually do because people aren't buying as many Crown Crates since the Endeavour system was introduced.

HappyTheCamper

A I said before (and received arguments against) these new endeavors are not creative or unique. They’re just more restricted versions of the current ones.

At what point will they start saying “Complete 8 dungeons with a guild mate while playing as a nightblade”?

SilverBride

HappyTheCamper wrote: »

A I said before (and received arguments against) these new endeavors are not creative or unique. They’re just more restricted versions of the current ones.

At what point will they start saying “Complete 8 dungeons with a guild mate while playing as a nightblade”?

Or "Complete 8 dungeons with a guild mate while playing as a nightblade wearing this specific set."

Where do we draw the line?

Kendaric

SilverBride wrote: »

HappyTheCamper wrote: »

A I said before (and received arguments against) these new endeavors are not creative or unique. They’re just more restricted versions of the current ones.

At what point will they start saying “Complete 8 dungeons with a guild mate while playing as a nightblade”?

Or "Complete 8 dungeons with a guild mate while playing as a nightblade wearing this specific set."

Where do we draw the line?

Let's take it the whole way... "Complete 8 dungeons with a guild mate while playing as a nightblade wearing this specific set using only class abilities."

Lady_Galadhiel

Kendaric wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

HappyTheCamper wrote: »

A I said before (and received arguments against) these new endeavors are not creative or unique. They’re just more restricted versions of the current ones.

At what point will they start saying “Complete 8 dungeons with a guild mate while playing as a nightblade”?

Or "Complete 8 dungeons with a guild mate while playing as a nightblade wearing this specific set."

Where do we draw the line?

Let's take it the whole way... "Complete 8 dungeons with a guild mate while playing as a nightblade wearing this specific set using only class abilities."

Complete 8 dungeons with a guild mate while playing as a nightblade wearing this specific set using only class abilities during night time.