What are some positive ideas for next anniversary?

DewiMorgan

For the tenth anniversary, They aimed high, and missed in quite a few ways, but there'll be some good lessons from it. I doubt they'll be doing low-odds, non-linear-RNG everyone-loses grinds for any future event, for example.

What would you LOVE to see in future anniversary celebrations, as a way to genuinely celebrate another year of ESO? (bonus points if you can manage a non-snarky, genuinely positive idea, rather than "don't do X bad thing". I know. We're all a bit crispy after this event. But there are already so many threads of venting. Can we be optimistic in just one thread?).

My personal favorites of the things they've done before:
- https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/smolderscrolls - this was just silly and delightful. I love when devs have fun like this.
- Events where the whole playerbase worked together to hit targets (killing the dragons!), and so everybody won.

Things I'd love to see:
- Something that we could constructively build towards, rather than RNG or ticket-gathering. I'm thinking a quest that slowly became available day by day; so people could do the day 1 quest on the first day of the anniversary, day 2 on the second... or they could just wait and marathon them all after the event so long as they'd picked up the starter quest, since the quest wouldn't rely on NPCs that disappear after the event. That way, everyone would be able to complete it, so long as they signed in once over the event to grab the starter quest.
- A reward of a decorated house... only inn room sized, but with a few themed items of celebratory decor.
- The chef as a companion and houseguest, either buyable, or even as a reward for completing the event quest. Like the hobby-horse mounts aren't serious mounts, he wouldn't be intended as a serious companion, so perhaps no combat skills. Or silly, fairly ineffectual ones like "smack with fryingpan" (attack), "feed sweetroll" (heal) and "cloud of flour" (confuse). Perk: something non-game-impactful, like "eating a jubilee cake slice makes you sparkle." or low-impact "crafting a provisioning recipe occasionally also makes one sweetroll".

What would tickle you, in a future anniversary?

Wiseau

Couple things off the top of my head: Don't ban people for a mistake you made (yes ban the exploiters), don't make style pages damn near impossible to get, NO MORE MULTIPLE DAYS OF MAINTENANCE DURING EVENTS (seriously, just schedule them for after the event [snip]), don't promise to extend an event and then cut it short for only 1 server without compensation.

PTS people got compensated SO much, which yeah they should deserve some compensation, but honestly not 16k endeavors and not the entire collection of style pages for free. People were farming for days and days and never saw one. But some people who got temporarily suspended just got them handed over for nothing. Ridiculous.

[edited for profanity bypass]

HatchetHaro

I don't think they have learnt any lessons from this, honestly, either because the frustrations players have are fully intentional, or it's just how they do things. I mean, no response throughout the entire event regarding the horrific player experience? Yeah, that screams "fully intentional" to me.

Jaraal

Stop pushing out buggy content that causes these major problems.

Hapexamendios

Spread stuff out a little more. The dolmens were great for that at least because we had a lot of options. The geysers were abysmal.

HatchetHaro

Wiseau wrote: »

Couple things off the top of my head: Don't ban people for a mistake you made (yes ban the exploiters), don't make style pages damn near impossible to get, NO MORE MULTIPLE DAYS OF MAINTENANCE DURING EVENTS (seriously, just schedule them for after the event [snip]), don't promise to extend an event and then cut it short for only 1 server without compensation.

PTS people got compensated SO much, which yeah they should deserve some compensation, but honestly not 16k endeavors and not the entire collection of style pages for free. People were farming for days and days and never saw one. But some people who got temporarily suspended just got them handed over for nothing. Ridiculous.

Apparently 10 days of unfairly being locked out of our accounts = nothing LOL

[edited to remove quote]

SilverBride

No more grinds.

DewiMorgan

I've bolded and clarified the important bit.

HatchetHaro

DewiMorgan wrote: »

I've bolded and clarified the important bit.

I don't think positivity is on the mind of many players at the moment, so soon after all the pain points from all the players, locked-out or otherwise. You might get more responses aligned to your request perhaps a week or two down the line.

Erickson9610

I'd like to see a new Anniversary quest each year. This year was special because we got to help the chef's assistant — what if next year that storyline continues? Maybe next year a new character is introduced, or we gradually unravel some big mystery that concludes on ESO's 15th or 20th anniversary?

It'd be kind of like Companion rapport quests, where after a lengthy period of real-world time of getting positive rapport with them, they discover some new lead that progresses their overall storyline. I think that'd be engaging enough for players to return year after year!

Goodrods

Good to see a post like this, thanks

I really like the ideas of a server goal post set for completion of a certain themed zone. It has a bit of a push to do something that at certain levels that we know we're involved and getting a reward for it.
This year with the guild line and free zone was awesome (absolutely great bonus free horse IMO), we can only put our wishlist in for that again in another zone (please!). I think using zone completion or zone specific achievement to reach the different levels is a good idea and works to bring people to the website for completion stage meter and gets players doing all sorts of things DIFFERENT in the zone.
And in my opinion to really make it special each year, is if those old zones were updated to modern DLC standards graphics and sets.

Welcome back our players trying to make a difference on the PTS, we appreciate your work..

DewiMorgan

HatchetHaro wrote: »

I don't think positivity is on the mind of many players at the moment, so soon after all the pain points from all the players

...Yeah, that's fair comment. I'm feeling worn down by all the venting, but just because I am, doesn't mean others aren't still feeling that need to vent, and it's probably unreasonable of me to ask that of people.

Erickson9610 wrote: »

I'd like to see a new Anniversary quest each year. This year was special because we got to help the chef's assistant — what if next year that storyline continues? Maybe next year a new character is introduced, or we gradually unravel some big mystery that concludes on ESO's 15th or 20th anniversary?

A ten-year storyline? Pretty darn epic! ...Even literally, I guess.

To avoid punishing new players, it'd either need to be something that could be picked up after the first year, but there are many ways of dealing with that. Standalone chapters with throughlines that reward people playing the whole thing. Or perhaps nine unrelated quests, and then one wrap-up quest that ties together as many as you've completed? Or all already-released chapters could be played during the subsequent jubilees by those who'd missed them, which would mean they could also be playable after the tenth year too, getting longterm value from that investment of developer time. Hrm. Lots of ways to make it work!

I suppose some managers might argue that a quest that'll be available for only 2 weeks of the year should get less developer time than an always-available sidequest. But I suspect the stats from the jubilee quest will prove it got more player engagement than almost all other sidequests, making it well worth investing in.

You're right, that quest felt like one of this Jubilee's wins. For me at least, it really started the Jubilee out on the right foot.

Goodrods wrote: »

I really like the ideas of a server goal post set for completion of a certain themed zone. It has a bit of a push to do something that at certain levels that we know we're involved and getting a reward for it.

Ooooh. I like this idea! Especially with your idea of having the reward tied to a global-completion-meter instead of personal success. That'd mean that those of us who wouldn't want to unlock ALL of the zone in two weeks because we like to really savor the content (or we just lack the time to do so) would still get to contribute a little bit to the cause, and would still get to share in the "reward" (really just a celebration bonus) once the completion-meter gets completed.

Goodrods wrote: »

This year with the guild line and free zone was awesome (absolutely great bonus free horse IMO),

More good calls. I'd forgotten about these big wins for this event. So much for me being positive: I see how easily I forgot the good and focused on the bad! Thank you for the reminder.

evymyu233

i hope i can buy old jubilee cakes next time

g00dies

What started out as a snarky suggestion has developed into a quite viable proposition IMHO...

Have _all_ the developers, support teams, line management, functional leads, marketing depts etc.. play the game (visibly with identifying icons) for 4 hours each day during the event. Their choice of toon, and starting experience.

That would make me very happy... and the reward for them doing such would be invaluable.

DoofusMax

I'm going to set aside the abysmal drop rates on the special pages. RNG can be harsh, but when a lot of people are claiming to have done something a few hundred times without getting a drop, the rate is too low.

Beyond that, I think they dropped the ball on that front in two other ways. The first was making those pages bind-on-pickup. Had those been tradable like other event style pages, and were it possible to get more than one (that's a "100% dunno"), you'd probably have heard many fewer complaints about drop rates and more complaints about price-gouging.

The second was in putting more than half of those unique pages behind a limited number of drop locations (six WBs in Vvardenfell and six Geysers in Summerset). This may have sounded good in the brainstorming session, but it did not work well in implementation. Dark Anchors are plentiful enough to be tolerable and kinda fun. I even had to solo one location in Glenumbra with a lowbie Templar a couple of times because no one else showed up (newbies: it's not all that hard to do Dark Anchors - jump in). Those dozen locations in the expansion zones were a hot mess almost 24/7. If the team is going to do uniques as boss loot on a Tamriel-wide event, then spread the love around rather than confining it.

In spite of missing about half the event due to lockout, I enjoyed the general availability of the jubilee coffers. This is the main draw of the event for many of us and I think that part was reasonably well implemented. Yes, a lot of stuff in those coffers was stuff that I absolutely did not need and will probably never need (my bag runneth over with junk), but I'm also not a new player for whom a lot of that stuff would be golden goodies.

I'm of mixed mind on the event mount. Earnable mount is a fine idea and there are plenty of complaints about the lack earnables in general, so thumbs-up on that front. I'm less enthused about needing some number of fragments where a portion would have to be purchased with event tickets. OTOH, the 20-day event made for the potential of earning more tickets than a regular-length event and something needed to be a ticket-sink to compensate. So I grumble, but kinda get the idea.

Side note (memo to self): do not, under any circumstances, touch the PTS during an event, and think twice about touching it unless it's been a week or two after a major update goes up. Pete Townshend was right: "don't get fooled again!"

TX12001rwb17_ESO

I would make it so you get the page for the first boss incursion you do per day, problem is why were 2 of the artifact styles in vvardenfell, make it so every incursion in the game offers a reward that you only need to do once throughout the event.

- Dark Anchor
- Geyser
- Dragon
- Harrowstorm
- Atol of Immolation
- Volcanic Event
- Bastion Nymic

BlueRaven

It does not matter as this was a tenth anniversary and next year it’s just the 11th. It does not hold the same weight.

But what they should have done was;

Make the mount related to the original main story line (Mannimarco’s or the Emperor’s steed would have been nice.)

No low percentage grinds.

A nod to players who have been here for years would have been nice.

Maybe introduce a short epilogue quest involving the main story line from the base game.

Graphical improvements of the original zones.

MreeBiPolar

Better communication. Much better, not just getting from negatives on a 1 to 10 quality scale.

Danikat

I like the idea of a new quest chain (but not one that requires you to log in every single day). Something new to do would both feel more like a celebration and maybe help people focus less of the rare rewards.

I don't care about stupidly rare drops, I didn't even attempt to get any of them, but when the entire "event" is purely bonus items for grinding old activities it's not surprising that's what players focus on. Your options are aim for some/all the new drops or ignore the event entirely and doing nothing different is certainly not a celebration.

Carcamongus

It's hard to get optimism out of me even on a good day, and the desire to say harsh things is strong... but let's see if I can pull this off.

Have characters from the stories completed by the player pop up here and there, a bit like the cameos at the camp during Zenithar's.

Add more artifact replicas, though not 5, and with much better drop rates.

Add interesting random encounters, like those from Zenithar's. I just realized ZoZ felt far more celebratory than this jubilee. Well, a funeral might also feel more celebratory. Erm, right, go easy on the harsh comments.

Allow all cakes to be purchasable regardless of participation in previous events.

Add jubilee-related furnishing plans with generous drop rates, similarly to what was done with Witches Festival.

Introduce a not-hard-to-get non-combat pet Dwemer automaton that carries cake for the player. Because if we can eat cake while riding an odd horse with glittering flatulence, why not have our own cake assistant?

Have the Impresario sell some jubilee-related decorations.

Blood_again

I would like to see all the Daedric Princes take part in the celebration. In some kind of event quest, for example.
It can be organized by bringing the cakes to them, like bringing a celebration all over Tamriel. Cake can be obtained in the way that is welcomed by Prince; the location is according to them.

So it could be:
- Pickpocket the cake or steal it from the box. Bring it to any outlaw's refuge where the figure of the Nocturnal is waiting for you.
- Turn some cultists into a sweet roll. Bring it to Uncle Sheo in any Mages guild.
- Take a nightmare cake from any sleeping NPC. Bring it to Vaermina in any spider delve.
etc.

Grant achievements for these cake tricks, not ticket spending.
Allow players to eat the mentioned cakes with visible non-combat buffs obtained. So players could show their alignment and play with each other around it.

WhiteCoatSyndrome

I want to know which Daedric Prince(s) has been on Chef Donolon’s waitlist for a Jubilee Cake.

Hapexamendios wrote: »

Spread stuff out a little more. The dolmens were great for that at least because we had a lot of options. The geysers were abysmal.

I see what you did there! 😉

Destai

First and foremost, a stable event.

Second, more rewards unique to the event. Granted unconditionally. I find mounts, houses, furniture, style pages to be the most attractive.

Wiseau

A working functioning event, and devs that don't drop the ball so hard they ban innocent people and then punish everyone else by taking the servers down early.

MafiaCat115

I'd love a proper community event, like what there is for the chapter releases where there is a bar we all work to fill. Maybe something like we need to get 1 billion jubilee boxes or something (random number, can be different based on backend stats of what would be a good goal). The special pages and rewards could be tied to that meter instead of RNG that leads to more frustration than anything else. It would also allow the community to do whatever content they wish to get boxes and rewards instead of being railroaded to a certain type of content.

Also, it was a cool idea having nods to the early days of the game, like with Trueflame from fishing. Maybe we could have more styles and systems implemented that were either never released or phased out over the years. I also like the ideas of having it relate more to the main story and making these special 10 year anniversaries stand out compared to other Jubilees.

Katheriah

The idea of the unique stylepages was cute, the droprate was just too bad.

OtarTheMad

A unique anniversary story arc, separate from whatever the main quest is of the zone. At the end you get a unique reward but also one key with a choice of between three chests.

I also like blood_again’s idea of Daedric Princes being involved. Imagine Sheo lends us Wabbajack and we get to turn NPC’s into something random, even something bad lol.

reazea

Limited time event items should be tied to event related activities, NOT EARNED THROUGH 20 HOUR MINDLESS GRINDS OF OLD CONTENT THAT MAY OR MAY NOT EVER RESULT IN SUCCESS.

I'm sure all those players online and their hours played looked great on a participation report, but it was HORRIBLE for the players and ZOS' reputation.

AvalonRanger

1, No rare drop, not anymore.
2, Don't set special drop reward at the narrow zone.
It should be scattered all over the Tamriel and any daily mission.

DewiMorgan

Wow. I did NOT expect to be clicking so many "awesome" upvotes in this thread.

OtarTheMad wrote: »

I also like blood_again’s idea of Daedric Princes being involved. Imagine Sheo lends us Wabbajack and we get to turn NPC’s into something random, even something bad lol.

Well I mean... For Sheo, it'd *have* to be cheesecake, wouldn't it?

spartaxoxo

Take out the grind, keep the cannoli