My feelings on the 10th Anniversary event

spartaxoxo

So, I finally got all of the event style pages. It took me 104 fishing pulls, 113 dolmens, 24 geysers, and 373 Vvardenfell total boss kills for both pages. I grinded these items in that order. This took me about 44 hours and 6 minutes over the course of the event. This does not include downtime to do things like deconstruct and loot boxes or travel between boss spawns when I needed to switch up scenery. It was an incredibly frustrating experience.

The reason for this frustration is that when my luck got particularly bad (in particular the boss grind), I started to wonder if all my time spent grinding would be for nothing. At one point, I came across a Buoyant Armiger motif I still needed in a chest while traveling between bosses. Rather than feel happy that I finally found another piece, I started to fret that it meant all my good luck was gone for the day. I felt the same when I pulled an Aetherial Dust from my anniversary box loot. Irrational, perhaps. But when you're dealing with an RNG system that has never had its workings explained, and you seldom get multiple very rare pulls in a day, I think it's an understandable feeling. Thankfully, this turned out not to be the case as I got the last page I needed (Sunna'rah) the same day.


Zone chat at the beginning of the event started happy enough. People were excited for their favorite event. I myself joked around too. I would joke that I was jealous of someone getting a drop (at that time I didn't actually feel that way, soon that would change). I made some riddles, modified from ones I found online, that were ESO themed and gave away stuff. It was a good experience. Unfortunately, things didn't stay that way. As the days went on, the rants started coming in. The jokes got more bitter. But mostly, there was a stony silence.




The forums were no different. The complaints started getting louder and louder as the event drew on. And it felt more and more likely that people will have sunk a lot of time into the game for something they were never going to get, despite meeting all the requirements and putting in the effort, due to sheer bad luck. I felt my mood getting worse and worse about the entire thing. I had hoped that when I finally got my last page, I would be overjoyed. And I was, for a brief moment. I yelled out gooaaallllll in zone chat and let a guild know I had it because that guild had players still looking for it. And seeing it was actually possible from others kept me focused on being able to do it too. It was highly motivating to see others get their loot. But after that brief moment, I thought about all it took to get it done. And unlike when I finally, finally got flawless in VMA or the trifecta in VVH. I didn't feel like "Wow! Challenge overcome!" And think about all the good and bad times I had in there. No, I just felt bitter. Gone were the outfits I had planned. I legit can't remember them any longer. Absent was the sense of accomplishment. What a waste of game time.

The event grind had a negative impact on the rest of the event too. Since I had to spend most of my game time grinding out the style pages (since I very much wanted them) and doing the Thieves Guild related endeavors (which were fun), that left absolutely no time for the dailies I usually do. I didn't really do writs. I didn't take my shot at the rare plans from the prologue dailies. I didn't get to enjoy the double exp on my alt by farming up the areas I had in my mind. I didn't get to try for purple vampire plans (something I had thought I'd do when I first saw the news page and that world events were added). There was no guild Craglorn or Harrowstorm groups to join and shoot the breeze with guildmates. There was nothing but only grind.


Overall, I'd have to say my experience was the opposite of a celebration. It was work towards an item that I really, really wanted. And the tediousness of that work ruined the item for me. If you read this whole thing, thank you for your time.

tsaescishoeshiner

Other than fishing, the grinds were terrible. Other than improving the droprates, the pages should have been available for tickets. I just hope they realize that this wasn't fun.

Also ... the weapons don't even have glow effects like undaunted arms packs! After all that farming lol.

mbeetley_ESO

This is why I'm DONE WITH THIS EVENT. Celebration my ass. It's a SLOG. I haven't spent nearly that amount of time trying to farm these things, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna let ZOS steal more of my time. I'll go do things I enjoy. Do I want Sunna'ra? YES, Do I want it bad enough to spend time in the stocks? NO. ZOS, figure it out. Create an achievement to "defeat X number of world bosses in Vvardenfell and then give the reward for meeting that limit. Then rather than wasting hours and hours trying to get a random drop, we have a goal.

THAT'S HOW YOU EARN A REWARD.

DoofusMax

Other issues which are not event-related aside, I had a pretty good time until those other issues arose. I generally didn't (and don't) care much about the style pages, but the chance of a drop on top of some jubilee coffers was enough incentive to go do a bit of grind.

World Bosses in Vvardenfell were an early target for me. I ran through them once for the achievements (never picked up all six for some reason), but I had to wait on respawns for most of them. This is pretty much the case with any event where World Bosses drop something in addition to their normal loot, so was not completely unexpected. Geysers in Summerset were a bit of a hot mess. The hordes of trash mobs create a lot of visual clutter on their own and the hordes of pets (and Arcanist beams) just made it worse. For both of those, the lag on mob corpse despawning is perhaps something ZOS should look at for future events. I pretty much threw in the towel on those two after one pass for the achievements.

The rest was pretty fun. I was being reasonably diligent about knocking out Fighters Guild dailies for the extra rewards, some rapport gain with Mirri (some of my toons hadn't done much other than acquire her), and a couple of toons who hadn't yet maxed out the skill line. The style page would have been a nice drop, but it wasn't something I was actively seeking. I didn't mess with Alik'r because that's always a bit of a mob scene (and I never got a daily for that zone), but the other zones were fun. Same basic idea with Bolgrul's dailies, Mages Guild dailies, and the zone dailies other than Vvardenfell WB and Summerset Geysers (Jubilee coffers on top of the daily coffers). I worked one of my toons through the Dragonguard Operative achievement before being locked out (started on that before the event). It wasn't strictly necessary since I already had the chest unlocked on another toon, but jubilee coffers are jubilee coffers, so why not?

As for the rewards, I wasn't extremely thrilled that I was going to have to spend event tickets for the mount, but figured I could work around the 12 or 15 event tickets it would require and still be on-track for an Indrik morph later in the quarter. How many would depend on whether I could squeeze in during the window between server reset and the end of the event in my time zone. I gar-ohn-tee that I had zero plans to spend event tickets on cake slices, though (nice try, ZOS, but that one ain't happening in spite of your dangling an achievement linked to those).

By this point in my playing with ESO, I'm a bit jaded on the jubilee coffers. I was mainly in it for the motif chapters since I've got a backlog of Master Writs needing motifs. The rewards inside were otherwise pretty much what I expected and had I not been playing for a few years and had a bunch of mats, I'd have been extremely happy to get those. The only real "woo-hoo!" in there was an Aetherial Dust or two, but the few bits of Nirncrux were appreciated.

So, yeah, a pretty good time for me if I set aside the Vvardenfell World Bosses and Summerset Geysers (and the hot mess from PTS - I still want my very own "Pwnd by PTS 2024" title, though).

blktauna

I see I wisely ignored the grind "prizes" because I knew there'd be no real way of getting them. While I have more time than most this strikes me as seriously disrespectful of the players' time.How mant hours are you expected to grind here? The drop rates are stupid If one has a job and family and IRL things to attend to, how much time is expected to be spent in game? Thats asking alot no matter how exciting and eventful the event.

Its bad enough players were expected to use tickets to secure the anniversary mount, but the amount of graft needed is simply unacceptable for adults who have a job and a family and outside obligations.

Desiato

Is it not okay for a game designer to implement rewards that are rare and intended to be a nice surprise for the lucky or a reward for the truly determined?

I fell into the latter category. I exercised my agency to choose to go down a path I knew could be arduous and that I may ultimately end up empty handed in some cases.

One item did take more time than I would have preferred, but I did not feel wronged in any way because I chose that path.

It was for an optional nice to have item that my characters do not need, so I was not worried about it. Not having it wouldn't have prevented me from performing optimally or getting into certain kinds of groups. It was no big deal.

Ultimately, I enjoyed the journey. But had I not, I would have no regrets because to most humans this would be a nice problem to have. I was made stronger by the process because my resolve was tested and I passed.

katanagirl1

I saw the same thing in zone chat and waiting for world boss respawns as the event went on. At first, excited posts and people using emotes and chatting while waiting for the respawn and such. Then after a few days zone chat went mostly silent and people’s avatars were just standing around doing nothing while waiting for the respawn because everyone was so burned out.

spartaxoxo

Desiato wrote: »

But had I not, I would have no regrets because to most humans this would be a nice problem to have. I was made stronger by the process because my resolve was tested and I passed.

I've dealt with serious real life issues. I don't play games to have my "resolve" tested and "come out stronger." I play them to have fun. I like a challenge not a punishment. YMMV.

But, I said it before in another thread. I don't mind something being rare. I don't mind something being bound. I don't mind items being limited time only. It is the combination of the 3 that made this so awful. Next time, they should pick 2.

blktauna wrote: »

I see I wisely ignored the grind "prizes" because I knew there'd be no real way of getting them. While I have more time than most this strikes me as seriously disrespectful of the players' time.How mant hours are you expected to grind here? The drop rates are stupid If one has a job and family and IRL things to attend to, how much time is expected to be spent in game? Thats asking alot no matter how exciting and eventful the event.

Its bad enough players were expected to use tickets to secure the anniversary mount, but the amount of graft needed is simply unacceptable for adults who have a job and a family and outside obligations.

I am an adult with a job. But, I agree with your overall point.

colossalvoids

Yep, it doesn't sound like a celebration as they've never thought about it as it's the thing I believe. It's just easy do drop some pages into the loot tables and be it. Personally I've handled this differently. I've just played another game heavily doing just a bit of activities on and off and still got all the pages relatively quickly. If I'd be staying for hours running from dolmen to dolmen days after days I'd be definitely feeling bad about it, happily I'm more in indifferent camp.

amig186

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I didn't take my shot at the rare plans from the prologue dailies.

Prologue dailies? What are those? Legit question.

Overall I can agree with your assessment, I'm just glad I was able to get the 3 motifs I got without turning the grind into a 2nd job.

Muriel_La_Strega

I could be banned if i say my feelings about this event

Vrienda

I enjoyed it but I got all my style pages relativly quickly. Just needs some smart bad luck protection next time they do something like this. It was fun to grind overworld content I usually ignore for a change.

katanagirl1

amig186 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I didn't take my shot at the rare plans from the prologue dailies.

Prologue dailies? What are those? Legit question.

Overall I can agree with your assessment, I'm just glad I was able to get the 3 motifs I got without turning the grind into a 2nd job.

Probably referring to those Elsweyr prologue dailies in Courmount that have a chance to reward rare purple Khajiit furnishings like the skooma bubbler and the enchanted brazier.

spartaxoxo

katanagirl1 wrote: »

amig186 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I didn't take my shot at the rare plans from the prologue dailies.

Prologue dailies? What are those? Legit question.

Overall I can agree with your assessment, I'm just glad I was able to get the 3 motifs I got without turning the grind into a 2nd job.

Probably referring to those Elsweyr prologue dailies in Courmount that have a chance to reward rare purple Khajiit furnishings like the skooma bubbler and the enchanted brazier.

Yes. This is what I meant.

Blood_again

Congrats on obtaining all five!

I got my last one on Thursday. I went to run geysers for 1-1.5 hours when I was in the mood. It took 8-9 sessions with huge pauses in total, so it was about 170 geysers.

What I see on the forum is a strange attitude towards these style pages. Players somehow take it as "This style should be provided to me anyway," while it was declared rare.
All the negativity connected with styles is just a consequence of this attitude, I think. People grind endlessly, they are exhausted, they are angry at rng and ZOS, they want ZOS to change something or to report to them... Why?
More than that, I've seen people wrote that they had to grind, that ZOS made it to them, compared it with slavery, etc. You know, like they did it against their will. Seriously?

I took the style rarity as a simple fact: it is possible that I won't obtain some of them. Maybe I won't obtain any single of them at all. There is no any problem if it happens, because it is rare.
That's why I went to drop spots only when I was in the mood to grind a bit. I wasn't in a hurry. I remembered that I could leave the spot at any moment I wanted. So I did, when I wanted to do something else instead of spending hours and ours there.
You know what? I didn't suffer any single minute while I grinded it. And the moment I got the page was a moment of clear happiness with a lucky drop, with no mixed feelings like "I'm finally free" because, umm... I was free all this time.

So I'm curious: who imprisoned all those struggling people on the grind-spots but themselves?
Who spoiled their anniversary, as they said, and made it the worst one?

SilverBride

This is hands down the worst anniversary event ever when it should have been the best. And all because of the extremely low style page drop rates.

This needs to be corrected.

DigiAngel

So..ZOS has two kinds of gating:

• Cosmetic/mats are usually gated by time (chance of drop, or kill X many somethings)
• Power/Useful utility is gated with money (Summerset - Jewelry, Necrom - OP Archanist, Gold Road - Scribing).

With that in mind, this event has been no different then any other event ZOS puts on. There's always a time gate, or ticket expense for whatever. I've not purposefully grinded for anything outside of "normal" gameplay, but I HAVE been knocking out WB's while waiting in dungeon queues or trials to fill up. My results:

• 6 Perfect Roe
• 1 Aethereal Dust (just got that today

That's it for items of any use. I continue to get the same handful of style sheets (which I care nothing about) over and over and over again. The rest of the items have been sporadically useful (YAY for 20 rough oak) or, just like that jester event, complete trash which I sell or destroy.

The fact that ZOS chose to have bosses drop items and only the top 12 damage dealers get the goodie is....really bad for newer players who, not only had to already fight miserable RNG, but practically have NO chance given the circumstances. Just because it's an "anniversary" event doesn't change ZOS into being generous. That said, the compensation to the poor folks who got locked out showed they at least knew the impact...so good on them for that.

tl;dr: Standard, time gated, RNG weighted ZOS event.

spartaxoxo

DigiAngel wrote: »

tl;dr: Standard, time gated, RNG weighted ZOS event.

This part is objectively incorrect. There are very few event items ZOS decided to handle in this way.

The only other ones that I can recall was the Gravestake Memento and the Voriplasm pet both which were part of the Murkmire Celebration Event in 2020. The Sovereign Sow ones work this way NOW but they were guaranteed during the inaugural year iirc. The Gravestake/Voriplasm similarly received immense pushback and ZOS did not do this again for 4 years.

It is extremely rare for items to have the combination of bound, limited time only, and rare. The vast majority of rare events items were tradeable. So that if you had particularly awful luck, you could buy it from someone who didn't. And those who enjoyed grind could profit off of being in the very rare minority of players.

The vast majority of ultra rare grind items are available 365 days a year, permanently. So that someone intent on getting that item can do that grind at times that make sense for them. The ones that are also limited are mostly tradeable.

There's absolutely nothing standard about the style pages this year. Anyone who actually grinds out all the items from events can speak to that.

katanagirl1

Blood_again wrote: »

Congrats on obtaining all five!

I got my last one on Thursday. I went to run geysers for 1-1.5 hours when I was in the mood. It took 8-9 sessions with huge pauses in total, so it was about 170 geysers.

What I see on the forum is a strange attitude towards these style pages. Players somehow take it as "This style should be provided to me anyway," while it was declared rare.
All the negativity connected with styles is just a consequence of this attitude, I think. People grind endlessly, they are exhausted, they are angry at rng and ZOS, they want ZOS to change something or to report to them... Why?
More than that, I've seen people wrote that they had to grind, that ZOS made it to them, compared it with slavery, etc. You know, like they did it against their will. Seriously?

I took the style rarity as a simple fact: it is possible that I won't obtain some of them. Maybe I won't obtain any single of them at all. There is no any problem if it happens, because it is rare.
That's why I went to drop spots only when I was in the mood to grind a bit. I wasn't in a hurry. I remembered that I could leave the spot at any moment I wanted. So I did, when I wanted to do something else instead of spending hours and ours there.
You know what? I didn't suffer any single minute while I grinded it. And the moment I got the page was a moment of clear happiness with a lucky drop, with no mixed feelings like "I'm finally free" because, umm... I was free all this time.

So I'm curious: who imprisoned all those struggling people on the grind-spots but themselves?
Who spoiled their anniversary, as they said, and made it the worst one?

Maybe they should have referenced the drop chance with some terms indicating “serious players only”, like this will be your life for probably the entire event? A sort of challenge accepted? Well, it’s hard to envision that being considered a celebration type of event for many of us.

I have heard other players say that rare drops happen more often when fewer players are on, and I have seen some of that myself. What if, in addition to the top 12 dps limit for boss drops, there is a hard limit on the number of players who get rare drops like style pages at any time? It kinda feels like that. I am only speculating of course.

EDIT: typo

Carcamongus

I'm horrified my ordeal to get the 5 pages can be considered "lucky" in comparison with many other people's experiences. It's absurd that for many the choice is to grind hundreds of geysers, dolmens and/or WBs or give up on a time-limited item they want. I can understand a tough grind to get a mythic, since it's something that affects gameplay and the player can farm leads at their convenience (this doesn't mean I agree with extremes, such as the Shadowfen water plants lead or the one from Murkmire safeboxes). But this is supposed to be a celebration and the style pages are just cosmetic, not part of the meta. When it's over, the pages won't drop anymore.

This is my 10th anniversary too and it doesn't feel celebratory, especially when a decision by the devs, the abysmal drop rates, is spoiling the fun for so many. This also makes me fear for the next 10 years, especially if these sorts of decisions become more frequent. Add to that the PTS fiasco and it's hard to feel in the mood to say hooray, even though my account wasn't locked.

SilverBride

540 boss kills for me so far and still no Sunna'rah drop.

Happy Anniversary...

Carcamongus

SilverBride wrote: »

540 boss kills for me so far and still no Sunna'rah drop.

Happy Anniversary...

I hope your luck changes for the better.

dcrush

ZOS really needs someone on their team who asks “ok, but is this fun for the players?” whenever something like this gets proposed.

Elvenheart

@spartaxoxo, I could have written most of this post myself in that my experiences and my feelings about this event are very similar, but I could not have put everything so eloquently. I really really hope someone at ZOS that can make a difference sees this and all the other posts out there about what this event did to so many of us.

And to the two or three people that liked the event and the rarity of the drops, of course your feelings about the event are just as valid for you as our feelings are for us, and your arguments provided a nice counterpoint to ours. But this isn’t a case where a group of people are evenly split on a matter. Judging from the forum poll and number of unhappy comments from A LOT of players, a very huge amount of loyal paying customers did not like the way this was handled. ZOS stands to gain more by listening to the majority in this case.

SilverBride

Carcamongus wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

540 boss kills for me so far and still no Sunna'rah drop.

Happy Anniversary...

I hope your luck changes for the better.

Thank you.

Blood_again

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Maybe they should have referenced the drop chance with some terms indicating “serious players only”, like this will be your life for probably the entire event? A sort of challenge accepted? Well, it’s hard to envision that being considered a celebration type of event for many of us.

They marked it as rare, but dolmens and fishing are not a veteran content by any meaning. It would be really strange to have some dolmen drop marked as "for serious players only".
It is just a rare drop from spots which are easily available for any player. I guess it is one of the prerequisites to that "It should be provided" attitude. Like: easy content - easy gained.

Elvenheart wrote: »

And to the two or three people that liked the event and the rarity of the drops, of course your feelings about the event are just as valid for you as our feelings are for us, and your arguments provided a nice counterpoint to ours. But this isn’t a case where a group of people are evenly split on a matter. Judging from the forum poll and number of unhappy comments from A LOT of players, a very huge amount of loyal paying customers did not like the way this was handled. ZOS stands to gain more by listening to the majority in this case.

I totally agree, feelings of all the people participated are valid. My point is to accept all the feedback, not the written only. Many people just play the game instead of writing.

I'm convinced that audience vote with their wallets and feet. If people keep playing the content, they support it.
1. I see some people written they quit grinding for the styles. Their choice is valid and respectable. It is a clear feedback to ZOS.
2. I see some people grinded like crazy or kept forth and back into it (like me) until having their styles. Their feedback is clear too, even if they didn't write anything.
There are also people with controversial feedback:
3. People got their page but found it frustrating (like OP). It is understandable, but we have a fork for the next time here:
3.1. People who will avoid this type of drop next time. It is clearly negative feedback after reaching the goal for the first time.
3.2. People who will get back to grind next time despite their voiced frustration. It would rather be positive feedback, even if these players wrote some negative comment again. This group clearly find something attractive in this grind, but they are not so eager to voice it.
4. People who keep grinding while moaning on the forum and zone chats. This group support the content with rare drop by continious grind. They play the grindspots regularly, make a crowd there, raise the statistic of cleared spots. But they declare it as a pure suffering and unacceptable situation, blaming all around.

While I accept players' choice to grind or not to grind, I would like to see the mentioned groups realize their choice too.
Guys, it is your choice to play every dolmen and geyser or not. Every time you run to the next Vvardenfell boss or sit on the spot, you choose to play this content. Not ZOS, not the evil rng, but you.

Also if you want ZOS to change something, stop playing content you hate. Don't think they are blind. They see you play that content, and it is a bold sign "Do it again". Because yes, they would gain more this way.
Really, this is the day I tell people how to fight against my interests

SilverBride

Giving up on something we really want and are doing all we can to get it isn't going to send a message to anyone. It's only going to make it 100% certain we will never get what we are going after. I don't believe in shooting myself in the foot to make a statement that probably won't even be noticed.

[Edited to condense and clarify]

aussie500

Loved the event, big improvement on last years paltry haul of anniversary boxes for my crafters, and there seemed some real goodies in them unlike last year. Loved the decorations all over the place and the addition of the cake slices. New improved cake quest area for each zone showed someone put a lot of thought into the jubilee event.

I am never much at chasing style pages, if it is not fun I am not going to do it. All 3 accounts got the fishing one easy, doing it while waiting for the dragons to land. Got the staff from the WB and and the Dolmen style page for my main account, neither of the other accounts had any luck with anything else. I will still try for the geyser one again before the event ends, if I do not get it at least I get plenty of anniversary boxes to console myself with.

Blood_again

SilverBride wrote: »

Telling players not to grind for something that is part of the 10 year anniversary and only available for a short time is not a solution.

Giving up on something we really want and are doing all we can to get it isn't going to send a message to anyone. It's only going to make it 100% certain we will not get what we are going after. I don't believe in shooting myself in the foot to make a statement that isn't going to have any effect or even be noticed.

If you read it carefully, I'm convinced that it is players' personal choice to grind or not to grind, which way and how long. Their choice, their responsibility for it.

I guess you keep double shooting yourself in the foot while participating in the grinding crowd statistics and probably suffering from it at the same time. How it feels after 2.5 weeks?

Alaztor91

The Geyser Staff was an exceptionally awful grind, even though I managed to get boss credit most of the time. I can only imagine how miserable it must be for the people that still don't have that one unlocked and can't even get boss credit for the purple boxes.

These style pages were a straight regression to pre-Transmute Station vMA Sharpened Inferno Staff days, that's like ignoring 7+ years of multiple RNG QoL introduced to the game.

Never combine low drop chance + bound on pickup + limited time only.

SilverBride

IF we want these unique 10 year anniversary styles then we have no other way to get them. That isn't OUR choice.