Official Discussion Thread for "Tamriel Tomes Season Zero Developer Update"

GuardianV

GuardianV wrote: »

Hamfast wrote: »

"Roll-Over Cap


Why is the rollover cap not equal to the amount of Tomes needed to unlock the last page minus the number of Tomes need to buy everything? In this season, we should be able to rollover at least 4,010 Tomes. Or at least make one of the items with unlimited purchases, like the one for gold, so we don't have to earn something we can never use.

It's great to see that they recognized this is a point of pain, and are in fact adding a gold exchange for unused.
Thank you ZOS for that update.

GuardianV

Great reply from the devs. Regarding the questions they are still considering:

1. Is there enough variety for the Weekly Challenges? - From a Solo PVE/Crafter, I thought there was. I was able to do all kill quests, antiquities and matt harvest challenges and was able to avoid PVP/Trial Challenges.

2. Are certain Challenges unpopular and frequently re-rolled or avoided? - Yes. But everyone has their preferences so nothing will appeal to everyone. One common problem though is that some of the challenges offer more total Tomes than others. Some were 360, most were around 400-450, and some were up to 500. It's hard to judge the popularity of a Challenge if there is an additional incentive to avoid certain ones. It would be best if all Challenges gave the same total Tomes. This could be done just by adjusting the amount that needs done for each Challenge, or the number of times it can be repeated. Personally I rerolled come harvest Challenges that I would have preferred to do because they only offered 360, while kill quests offered 420.

3. Does the pace of earning Tome Points feel right and rewarding? - Probably. because they varied it total Tomes its hard to compare but most Challenges granted 400-450 which was a good amount. If the end result was to even all the Tome rewards and they fell in that range, it should offer plenty for unlocking all the free things, or at least the things you would want if you have a premium version.

Necrotech_Master

code65536 wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom So, the thing that confuses me about all this:

If the threshold to unlock a page is always higher than the costs of the things on the page, then what's the point of having the cost at all? Why not just make all the things 0-cost? Since the thing that actually matters is the threshold of unlocking each page.

Having items cost things just makes things confusing and muddies the intent that I think you're trying to convey.

So, the first problem is that people are confused about Tome Points to unlock pages vs. Tome Points to redeem a reward. On more than one occasion, I've talked to people who were hesitant to redeem a reward because they thought it would set back their page progress. You're using Tome Points in two different ways, and it's confusing people who haven't gone and read the article or help page (and why should they? systems like this should be intuitive, and if someone needs to read paragraphs to understand how it works, then you've failed the "is it intuitive?" test)

The second problem is that it frames the situation differently, when you assign a cost to individual items. I'm sure you've noticed in this thread a lot discontent over auto-claims of rewards and expiring points. And I'm pretty certain that's all because you needlessly assigned values to these items. By explicitly associating points to these things, you're now getting people to think of these points as a currency that is spent. But that's really not what this system is about!

And because each page's threshold needs to account for both the normal and premium tier things, this means that non-premium users are faced with a huge excess of points that they will then get upset about losing because you're telling them that it's a spendable currency!

This system is about: earning points to unlock reward levels ("pages") in the same way someone would earn XP to unlock levels. That's it. Get rid of the whole notion of Tome Points as a currency. Get rid of the whole notion of spending Tome Points. All of this is unnecessary, confusing, and it's framing the whole system in a negative way.

You need to treat Tome Points like an XP bar, rather than a spendable currency. These Tome Points then unlock levels of reward ("pages"). Each page will have a bunch of normal and premium items. No costs associated with each item. And when a user unlock a page, they can redeem the entire page. This is a way, way simpler way of framing the system. One that's more intuitive and less confusing. And more importantly, it avoids all the problems that you're currently dealing with in this thread: because earning excess XP and blowing past the final level is something that people can understand and wrap their minds around and are okay with. But telling them that they're earning excess spendable currency that you'll then yoink away from them at the end of a season is just begging for pitchforks.

Because the threshold to unlock each page is high enough to "purchase" everything on the page, in the end, the system that I describe is effectively identical to the system that currently exists. Except that you're no longer framing Tome Points as a spendable "currency" and getting all the associated confusion and backlash.

i think this whole statement adequately sums up my frustrations with the system

in most other games battlepass systems, the tasks you do earn "seasonal xp" in a sort of xp manner, and then it has rewards you can just claim for free once you reach the thresholds, and it also might have rewards that need to be paid for (premium pass of some kind, of which these can either be in their own track or mixed in with the normal rewards, ive seen it both ways)

but with the tomes as its set up now, the tome pts are NOT just an xp meter, they are in fact a currency used to purchase the rewards from the track as well, and then to top it off the whole auto claim/excess conversion system seems downright a slap in the face ("here you can choose your rewards, but at the end of the season were just gonna spend all of your pts for you and then lop off anything over a certain amount" is basically what i see with this system)

twisttop138

JHartEllis wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

If the threshold to unlock a page is always higher than the costs of the things on the page, then what's the point of having the cost at all? Why not just make all the things 0-cost?

Tomes should be a pick-your-own rewards system, and what you're suggesting takes one crack in the system and rips it apart entirely.

Really hoping they move away from the autoredemption system and just add a few repeatable things that players can spend their points on. Or have players opt in to the gold exchange early ("I already picked out everything I want, please just give me gold for any extra Tome Points").

I agree that having Tome Points pulling double duty is a bit confusing, but ultimately navigable. If Tome Points were to only have a single role, I think it would be better to go the opposite route. Page progression could be more like "Complete (4) more Weekly Challenges or open a Tome Cache to unlock the next page." And then just have Seasonal Challenges give credit for 2 or 3 weekly challenges.

I think also that repeatables on a bonus page that takes a lot to unlock is the best way to get people to spend down excess tickets. Repair kits, packs of gold materials, xp scrolls, packs of gold and packs of crowns, maybe packs of keys. Worthwhile stuff that people would want to grind for. I actually don't mind the auto claims, and the gold conversion. I think this is a brand new thing for the studio. I would rather they make mistakes and experiment then just go find a former EA sports monetization guy who doesn't like the IP or something to bring in more money.

To @code65536 point. I was actually surprised they didn't have some kind of pass xp you earn with an amount of currency you earn per level up. I think separating it like that would've been more intuitive. Everyone understands leveling up.

At the end of the day, it looks like they're taking feedback. I keep saying this is a new thing for them. It's gonna have to be dialed in. I hope people are able to keep giving feedback on what they would like to see. This pass is already more generous than their competitors in ways and worse in others. With some changes and better rewards on the pass, I think we could have a winner. One that makes the studio money, their main concern, and gives the players cool stuff. We just have to understand that this is replacing chapters for yearly revenue. At 4 seasons a year it evens out to what I would spend on a chapter preorder. It's not going to go away, but if they keep listening, it'll fade into the background as just another gameplay loop that compliments the game.

allochthons

just begging for pitchforks.

Begging for Pitchforks is my new Rage Against the Machine cover band.

While I think the TP to gold conversion is the best short term solution, and thank you for that, I think all of Code's post on page Two is excellent. There is a ton of confusion around Tome Points, re-rolling, and the whole system. I see it in guild chat, in zone chat, and on discord.

Also, there are a significant number of people who play ESO who have never encountered a battle pass in a different game. That's neither good nor bad, but I think there's a fair bit of assumption about what players will Just Understand, and that is a big source of a lot of the confusion. Not all of it, but some.
Please run the written articles, plus the planned changes, past someone who has not used a battle pass before.

twisttop138

allochthons wrote: »

just begging for pitchforks.

Begging for Pitchforks is my new Rage Against the Machine cover band.

While I think the TP to gold conversion is the best short term solution, and thank you for that, I think all of Code's post on page Two is excellent. There is a ton of confusion around Tome Points, re-rolling, and the whole system. I see it in guild chat, in zone chat, and on discord.

Also, there are a significant number of people who play ESO who have never encountered a battle pass in a different game. That's neither good nor bad, but I think there's a fair bit of assumption about what players will Just Understand, and that is a big source of a lot of the confusion. Not all of it, but some.
Please run the written articles, plus the planned changes, past someone who has not used a battle pass before.

The confusion is very real. I try to be the guilds information officer and I was very surprised the amount of members in that guild and my other ones that just had no idea what was going on. Never experienced a battle pass. Had no idea things changed even. People that thought the game was closing after the removal of daily log ins and endeavors. The lack of solid in game information has been hard for many people. I was very surprised to learn that there is a not insignificant number of players that do not want to go outside the game for information. That don't think you should have to. Zos needs to do better, not just on that but a lot of tomes roll out was a mess. Yes they're fixing the egregious stuff but it shouldn't have gotten so bad.

Eliahnus

If you do all the weekly challenges, the tome caches will never be used, so the caches you get as a ESO+ subscriber are completely worthless.

Additionally, the premium plus reward is only a costume we pay 15€ for, since the 2 additional caches are worthless. Of course, this is a no go. Was is so difficult to add some extra good stuff ?

Finally, converting tome points into gold at the end of the season feels insulting for veteran players, even at 1:10. Many players will learn their lesson when this will be pushed through; there will be far less engagement with the weekly challenges after this.

Also, in the EU we pay in € not in $, which makes the cost for us about 18% higher. As usual.

twisttop138

Eliahnus wrote: »

If you do all the weekly challenges, the tome caches will never be used, so the caches you get as a ESO+ subscriber are completely worthless.

Additionally, the premium plus reward is only a costume we pay 15€ for, since the 2 additional caches are worthless. Of course, this is a no go. Was is so difficult to add some extra good stuff ?

Finally, converting tome points into gold at the end of the season feels insulting for veteran players, even at 1:10. Many players will learn their lesson when this will be pushed through; there will be far less engagement with the weekly challenges after this.

Also, in the EU we pay in € not in $, which makes the cost for us about 18% higher. As usual.

To be fair to the studio, that's actually pretty generous. Many battle passes, you lose all extra currency at the end of the season. Them trying to do something to compensate us is commendable. It shows they're open to trying to make this battle pass better.

We're stuck with it. It's not going away. Chapters are not coming back. I've been pretty brutally critical of Zos since 2025. Enough to earn to time outs. Battle passes are not meant to be something that really benefits the player. That said, I believe the devs at Zos are kind of stuck in the middle. They wanna make the best game possible for us, the C suite... So they're doing what they can in the confines of what they've been given. They're also pretty new to this. That they're listening to feedback and acting on feedback is a good sign. There's going to be some growing pains. We just have to keep letting them know what we like and don't like about the system within the knowledge that it's here to stay largely in the form we see now.

My hope is that they get the UI squared away and that next season the rewards are actually decent rewards. Not stuff from the crown store team that was buried in a drawer that they thought wouldn't sell. Oh and common craftable furnishings. Like really? So patience is probably the key here. We'll know by season 3 if we have a system that will be a winner.

Bucky Balls

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

"Since then, the development team has been paying close attention to the community’s reaction[/i]

Been ignoring me since January 2026 and others who still have not received their subscription related tomes , though.

So all that would be a fail: the avoidable failure to actually check each account and subscription status for 2026, preferring instead to make erroneous assumptions about when subscriptions are renewed. A rookie mistake as such assumptions most often are. This then followed by pointedly ignoring any reminder or flagging of said failure delivered through the limited communication vectors available: support tickets, one in Jan of this year which, if responded to timeously or at all by a real person, would have provided an opportunity for developers to head off this failure and enabled a proper, comprehensive and fully inclusive solution rather than the broken, short-sighted path chosen. Leaving this forum and the rest as the less than desirable and apparently equally dysfunctional alternatives for communication.

My experience of "has been paying close attention" has for MONTHS actually been <remain silent>.

And my reaction: if my account remains uncredited with the full value of my subscription (missing tomes!) there is no incentive for me to pay for anything further in this game at all nor interact with 'seasons' in any form; the avoidable developmental failure described has prejudicially locked me out of engagement. Further, even if remedied (missing tomes!) then I am still at a disadvantage due to the time-limited durations of the 'seasons' - a fortnight gone and nothing to show for it.

Jp112233454

First i would like to thank the Devs for creating Tamriel Tomes for veteran players like me who don't like the grind but love the story, gameplay and everything in between. I have been doing the weekly Tamriel Tomes in 2-3 days with 1 seasonal completion each week for the first 2 weeks of this system. I love the fact that I don't have to spend more then 2- 3 days of grinding for 400+ transmutation crystal, 125 Writ Vouchers, the many custumes/cosmetics/morphs/potions/poisons/animals/mount, 50,000+ Gold/tel var stone/alliance points, and much more. While i could suggest that you think about increasing the rewards for Writ Vouchers without sacrificing any value that this Tamriel Tome offers in future Tamriel Tomes. But as far as what you have shown and done with Tamriel Tomes, I as a long time player and fan that started with Elder Scrolls V Skyrim when it first came out am happy that you are considering players like me who are Solo players and are not big on grinding away at things. Thank you ZOS Devs for all your hard wrok for us long time fans of the series and game.

FlopsyPrince

I am not sure if I missed it, but I would really appreciate removing the chance to get the same item I rerolled earlier. I just lost one option on PS5 EU because the last of my rerolls gave me the Arena choice, one I had previously rerolled. Consider allowing us to go back to 1 we rerolled if we don't like what we ended up with, especially if we are out of rerolls!

I do not want Trials, Arenas, ToT and some other specific things.

I am perfectly fine getting duplicates of ones I have either completed or have on my list. I suspect that will be removed but it does make it easier to have multiples that proceed at the same time!

twisttop138

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

I am not sure if I missed it, but I would really appreciate removing the chance to get the same item I rerolled earlier. I just lost one option on PS5 EU because the last of my rerolls gave me the Arena choice, one I had previously rerolled. Consider allowing us to go back to 1 we rerolled if we don't like what we ended up with, especially if we are out of rerolls!

I do not want Trials, Arenas, ToT and some other specific things.

I am perfectly fine getting duplicates of ones I have either completed or have on my list. I suspect that will be removed but it does make it easier to have multiples that proceed at the same time!

I know my wife would love this. I get all my trials, dungeons and arenas knocked out fast but we had to reroll all hers except dungeons since I can take her through just us. I'm also bummed IA doesn't count for arenas.

Kiyakotari

Aashiana wrote: »

It says you can "contact Customer Support here" until April 30, but when I go there I can find no way to ask for it. None of the categories seem to apply, and there isn't an "other" category to use. Please let me know how specifically I can get my tome point caches refunded.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin

Can we get an answer on this? I wanted to refund a couple of the caches I opened, as I also did not realize that the Points would not roll over. Unfortunately, there is no category that seems to fit this issue on the support page.

virtus753

Kiyakotari wrote: »

Aashiana wrote: »

It says you can "contact Customer Support here" until April 30, but when I go there I can find no way to ask for it. None of the categories seem to apply, and there isn't an "other" category to use. Please let me know how specifically I can get my tome point caches refunded.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin

Can we get an answer on this? I wanted to refund a couple of the caches I opened, as I also did not realize that the Points would not roll over. Unfortunately, there is no category that seems to fit this issue on the support page.

Jessica mentioned two categories for getting help with caches here:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/690307/how-are-premium-tokens-and-caches-of-tome-points-calculated-seems-bugged/p4

These options appear when filing a ticket from the website. They may be the closest categories for getting caches restored in addition to the retroactive credit issue Jessica was directly addressing. The first one certainly applies; the second would fit caches gotten from ESO+. Also note the end of the post where she mentioned that Support would sort out the right category even if the ticket were not filed using one of those two options. (That’s the case for all help tickets, as far as I’m aware.)

AzuraFan

ShadowStrikerr wrote: »

2.) Premium Plus Rewards Feel Worse Than Free Tier
We both purchased Premium Plus expecting the top-tier rewards to be worth it, only to realize that the rewards on the top paid tier are actually worse than the bottom free tier.

I genuinely don’t understand how things like Crown Crates, Trade Bars, Endeavors, and other high-value rewards ended up on the free track, while the paid track is filled with items many players won’t even use.

The premium rewards are so bad compared to the free rewards that I initially confused the two. I thought the premium rewards were under the word "Premium." I only realized later that no, the premium rewards are above, within the orange frame. But I was initially confused because most of what I would buy, useful stuff like currencies, motif book, furniture, etc., are mainly free rewards. Whereas stuff like poisons, drinks, meals, etc. are above the word "Premium." Yes, there are a few shinies in premium, but all the junk is there too.

The premium rewards need to be beefed up. I understand they wanted the same amount of seals in the free tier to replace endeavors, but otherwise if there's going to be junk, it needs to be free. If you can get all the useful stuff at the free tier and only a few shinies at the premium tier, where's the incentive to buy the premium?

code65536 wrote: »

You need to treat Tome Points like an XP bar, rather than a spendable currency. These Tome Points then unlock levels of reward ("pages"). Each page will have a bunch of normal and premium items. No costs associated with each item. And when a user unlock a page, they can redeem the entire page.

This is absolutely brilliant! What a great suggestion.

I was one of the players who hesitantly bought a low cost item to see if it affected how many tome points I'd need to unlock the next page, because I wasn't sure. But yeah, since the amount of tome points required to unlock pages is higher than the cost of the items on the page, why have tome points? Brilliant suggestion from @code65536.

allochthons

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

I am not sure if I missed it, but I would really appreciate removing the chance to get the same item I rerolled earlier. I just lost one option on PS5 EU because the last of my rerolls gave me the Arena choice,...

twisttop138 wrote: »

I know my wife would love this. I get all my trials, dungeons and arenas knocked out fast but we had to reroll all hers except dungeons since I can take her through just us. I'm also bummed IA doesn't count for arenas.

In Update 50 (at least as it stands on the PTS), rerolls past what we already have will be purchaseable by gold.
Searching on the Patch Notes for "500" will pop you right to it:

You can now obtain additional rerolls for Weekly Challenges by spending gold.
This is in addition to the five free Weekly Challenge rerolls every week.
The initial cost for additional rerolls is 500 gold, increasing up to a maximum of 10,000 gold with subsequent use. This cost resets back to 500 gold every Tuesday after the weekly reset.

But I agree, if we reroll a challenge, it should not come back up on any rerolls.

twisttop138

allochthons wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

I am not sure if I missed it, but I would really appreciate removing the chance to get the same item I rerolled earlier. I just lost one option on PS5 EU because the last of my rerolls gave me the Arena choice,...

twisttop138 wrote: »

I know my wife would love this. I get all my trials, dungeons and arenas knocked out fast but we had to reroll all hers except dungeons since I can take her through just us. I'm also bummed IA doesn't count for arenas.

In Update 50 (at least as it stands on the PTS), rerolls past what we already have will be purchaseable by gold.
Searching on the Patch Notes for "500" will pop you right to it:

You can now obtain additional rerolls for Weekly Challenges by spending gold.
This is in addition to the five free Weekly Challenge rerolls every week.
The initial cost for additional rerolls is 500 gold, increasing up to a maximum of 10,000 gold with subsequent use. This cost resets back to 500 gold every Tuesday after the weekly reset.

But I agree, if we reroll a challenge, it should not come back up on any rerolls.

Yeah the rerolls for gold is a great thing. I had an idea that it would just be filler in the battle pass. Fallout 76 has rerolls for free on different pages and some for tickets. But this is a much better way.

FlopsyPrince

One question on "refunding" the caches: Can I wait until near the end and be OK? I open all 13 of mine on PS5NA and just converting the ones I have now back will probably still put me over the 2000 limit since I will earn more along the way and basically have nothing I would want to spend them on. (I don't need more potions or deluxe food for example.)

Can I say "convert all now" and then make another ticket near the end of the month to convert up to my 13? I am a bit concerned about forgetting about it and completely missing out.

Tyralbin

@ZOS_Kevin

Is there going to be another way to get the Premium or Premium+.

We should be able to get them the same way we get crowns.

I won't be buying them at all if the ingame option is the only one available.

shadoza

"Is there enough variety for the Weekly Challenges?" No. I keep getting the same collect cloth from plants quest.
"Are certain Challenges unpopular and frequently re-rolled or avoided?" No. I used 11 rerolls trying to get rid of group content challenges (group dungeons, areas, Trials, PvP) I ran out of rerolls and am stuck with take keeps, which is what I do NOT want to do. It is so frustrating trying to find challenges I can do alone that I do not feel like doing challenges anymore.
"Does the pace of earning Tome Points feel right and rewarding?" The resource node challenges became boring when the resources are exhausted and challenge is to find a map that hasn't been farmed beyond the respawn points.
And others... The first week was fun. I was able to collect resources, complete challenges as I did quests and during normal play. This week. Nothing. There is a lot of spawn-camping, overcrowding at group events, and path resource farming going on so finding anything casually is not happening now. For me, this is not playing a MMORPG. This feels more like competitive farming.

Increase the respawn rate or maybe limit the repeat to separate days. Find 15 Runes on this day x2. Must wait for next day to find runes again. Players using add-ons for resource finding whether it is a material node or a treasure box have an advantage over those that play the game as it is presented. I think players should not be encouraged to rely on cheap tricks to complete simple challenges.

Tystna

I’ve spent a lot of time analysing the new Tomes system, both from my own experience and through community discussions. To keep this organised, I’ll start with some constructive feedback on the mechanics, follow up with a critique of the currency systems, and wrap up with a mathematical breakdown and actionable suggestions.

End of Season & Tome Mechanics
I haven´t read all the answers in this thread, but I stand with what some of them said:

• exchanging the excess TP into gold might affect the in-game economy negatively - please do NOT do that!
• repeatedly purchasable rewards (not only on bonus pages!) like consumables and currency would be a great option to spend the "excess" TP on intentionally
• the option to choose the reward auto-claimer sounds great!
• the amount of rewarded TP feels imbalanced (more on this below), which makes the possibility to reroll into a game of luck - I actually liked the "do 3/5 and 1/3" mechanic with endeavors better!

About the Challenges

"Is there enough variety for the Weekly Challenges?"
For a start, yes. I certainly hope you bring back some variety when it comes to kill-challenges or some craft X of Y like with endeavors.

"Are certain Challenges unpopular and frequently re-rolled or avoided?"
Certainly the ones that grant less points over all..

"Does the pace of earning Tome Points feel right and rewarding?"
No. It actually feels very random, because you used the *wrong variable to determine the amount of points rewarded*. I understand that you wanted to rate the easy tasks with less TP and the more difficult with more (counting the requirement of social interaction as difficulty). On paper, this makes logical sense, but in practice, the effect is contrary to your goals: motivate players to play and buy more (Premium).

My experience as long-term semi-casual daily PvE small group/solo player
In the first week I tried just keeping the challenges I had, since I collect resources anyway all the time and do enjoy it. Also I was afraid to end up with having to do trials (with my raid group on holiday) or PvP. But it turned out that collecting wood takes a lot more time than the other stuff - even when using surveys at the end, which actually took out the fun of randomly spotting a node. Killing 25 Fire or Storm Atronachs I could also level skills and fighting at Kvatch Arena also counted for the 1000 foes kill-challenge. Taking more time and giving less points as total reward, this material collecting challenge felt very unprofitable and more like a chore than the faster and better paid ones. Also being able to combine challenges with each other or with in-game activities like levelling, Undaunted pledges, etc. feels more rewarding, since it requires strategical planning (which actually is a gameplay loop), but also good rolling luck (which I had in week 2).
Maybe when it comes to resource collection more general challenges like "collect X resources" (not specific ones) would be less frustrating.

Reactions of the community (various German and English twitch streams, discords, guild chats) *
It seems that less experienced and especially more casual players, who already are reluctant or just don´t have time to put a lot of work into playing, are having a harder time to earn tome points, which makes them frustrated and less motivated to play. Some even categorically refuse the whole challenge/tome system.
The more progressive player base also seems to not enjoy the randomness of challenges, saying: "So it´s based on luck how much points you can earn, that seems unfair."
*(As a freelance dressmaker, writer, and editor, I have the flexibility to monitor a lot of community channels during the day!)

What should be the determining variable
I get that buying Premium is effectively buying the time to do it later and - thanks to simultaneous unlocking progress with multiple tomes and the increased challenge repeatability - even more efficiently. (It should be quite obvious. But a lot of players are caught up in frustration and didn´t follow your news channels as closely as I did.)
So you almost had it right: It´s time. - The problem is that the duration of a task can vary depending on when one plays. But actually even at quite late hours Kvatch Arena and the Spell Scar in Craglorn are full of people who even randomly invite without any chat activity needed. The mobs and bosses go down so quickly, you could actually miss it. This means that tasks that you can do in a group (or just running along) are in general less time consuming than those you have to do alone (solo arena, looting treasure chests, harvesting nodes,...). Therefore solo-tasks should actually be rewarded higher, even if they are considered to be casual content.


Some random feedback

• Please add a more effective filter in Crown Store (especially GCB) that also suppresses category names completely if you already purchased all items of it.
• Not only bulky armour please! I know it´s more realistic, but then please vary the patterns and have some more with vertical lines so my curvy char can look as good as the curvy me irl (Did I mention I´m an irl-dressmaker? So I know it´s possible!). Maybe do a community contest, the winner gets to design the armour for next Season´s Base Tome ;-)

The Damage Done: Overcomplicated Systems

Following your news channels closely and playing ever since beta, I do not have any problems to understand the system. But I do have guild members (engineer students btw) who are really struggling to understand it, because it is so complicated and in some parts doesn´t make sense (and apparently they don´t read my guides!). Let me elaborate.

I get that the unlocking-by-earning mechanic you use with the Tomes as well as the Night Market´s faction vendors and the upgradable home is some kind of reinvented "reputation" system. What I don´t get is: Why??? Why invent the wheel anew?! What´s wrong with traditional reputation farming?!

And what was wrong with the Seals shop (except that it might have lowered the Crown sales)?! Yes, getting rid of the Event Tickets cap was the right call. I absolutely like the Gold Coast Bazaar (only a bit disappointed it´s not a place located somewhere at the Gold Coast). But turning them into Trade Bars.. idk.. And adding Tome Points (with an icon so similar to gold coins) and Favors (Night Market) on top? - Do we really need so many currencies?! Wouldn´t it have been sufficient to change the interval of Endeavors into weekly and seasonal, add the option to buy Event Tickets with Seals and have the Gold Coast Bazaar accept those..? - Well, what´s done is done. Just.. if you should ever think about introducing yet another currency: Please don´t.

While the unlocking-by-earning does work in the Night Market environment of factions, applying it to the seasonal reward system is counter-intuitive - at least to players who didn´t purchase the Premium Tome and now probably never will just because..
I guess you can´t replace the unlocking-by-earning TP with something simple as ..elapsing time (like you did with adding new challenges over time) to extend the time we play?

Things to consider
The ESO community is highly analytical. When the excess TP doesn't offer tangible value, it creates a feeling of frustration rather than motivation to upgrade to Premium. It also can feel punishing to pay real money for a Premium Tome, only to realise you still have to grind heavily to unlock the items you paid for.
Maybe put the "better" rewards at the bonus pages accessible for everyone and let Premium just be some TP caches, the infinite Tome access and maybe one automatically granted Premium reward. I mean, earning more points requires you to play more, which makes it more likely to purchase Eso+, which is what you want, right?

Some numbers to interpret
My calculation so far is (thanks to UESP for their helpful documentation work):

• earnable in 14 weeks: 26.300~42790 TP/Season (+10% Eso+!)
• TP needed to unlock all 12 pages: 20.000 (unspent!)
• TP needed to purchase all rewards:
  - Base: 15990
  - Premium only: 15940
  - Total: 31930

(Not just) my conclusions:

• Base players have to earn more TP than they can spend or keep to unlock all pages. This feels like you´re not taking our time seriously.
• Premium players with bad rolling luck might not be able to buy all the rewards - except they put in more work (I guess this is also what increased challenge repeatability addresses).
• The only players not being frustrated are those Premium with good rolling luck - which is only a part of your peer group A, so not ideal.

My suggestions:
For Season 0:

• (non-recurringly) increase the transition-cap to 4000TP
• increase the stack count of tri-pots!!!

For future Seasons:

• Option 1: Adjust the total amount needed to buy everything of the Base Tome to the amount needed to unlock all the pages - this way people also intentionally have to earn the 2000TP if they want a head start (which is not something you should just grant imo!)
• Option 2: Implement "strategic planning" gameplay loop: Make it impossible that players can purchase all of the rewards, but have to decide (what actually benefits their play style maybe?). This might displease your A+ peer group "the collectors", so maybe make it so that the Premium bonuses can get it all.
• consider making consumables (or even collectibles) tradeable at inherent price (and maybe repeatedly purchasable)
• keep having one attractive Premium reward on page 1 for 0TP Premium buyers can show off (and fix it if it´s bugged like the clipping of the personality atm!)

Thanks for taking the time to read this massive wall of text. I hope these numbers and suggestions are helpful for tweaking the system going into Season 1!

peacenote

First off, I want to say I greatly appreciate that ZOS is listening and trying to apply feedback in a more transparent way. (I do actually think they always tried to listen but their old schedule made it difficult to make significant changes to things.)

I think you can see the feedback being applied in Tamriel Tomes. The trouble is, in some cases the baby was thrown out with the bathwater, from my perspective.

Feedback I have seen over the years about daily logins or endeavors that they obviously tried to address with Tamriel Tomes:

-More interesting free rewards not behind hard achievements
-Complaints about having to pick up low value rewards that just take up space
-People disliking a daily checklist
-People pointing out issues with too many people swarming an area for narrow scoped endeavors
-People disliking missing out on rewards if they can't log in every day (FOMO)
-People complaining about not liking the mix of tasks in daily or weekly endeavors
-People disliking when high value endeavors were things they didn't want to do, so they felt pressure to do them to obtain the rewards
-People disliking the chapter model and not being able to access new content without a purchase (so now monetization is swapped from content to another, additional cosmetics model instead)

The Seasons model and the battle pass address these complaints.

However, instead of fully improving on what we had before, it comes with some tradeoffs that introduces new issues for people who were happy with the old model (daily login/endeavors) along with a whole bunch of confusion.

Some examples:
-I truly miss the dailies. I liked logging in and drinking two drinks and feeling good about myself. Yes I can log in and do something towards a weekly but it is not the same. I wish we had a mix of both still
-The free rewards we can access and obtain for truly just logging in, during busy times, are significantly diminished
-My friends don't have the same endeavors as me, so it isn't as fun to do them as a group
-We are now using currency to buy currencies! I just want to drink my two drinks and get some endeavor seals!
-FOMO was moved from a 30 to 90 day cycle, AND monetized. Yikes. Yes, there is more flexibility in how you obtain the rewards, but without paying up, those rewards turn into a pumpkin, never to return. Which is a bigger deal now that they are more interesting!
-The Crown Store, and the crown/gem/seal system has allowed me to generally just buy the cosmetics I'm interested in. Everything else was free, attached to achievements, daily login, etc. Having to spend money beyond those currencies to buy a season pass, with the inability to buy just one thing in the pass with crowns, gems, or seals, is extremely frustrating.
-The whole thing is some kind of delayed gratification system which is also very frustrating if you're someone who likes to be rewarded directly for an accomplishment, which I am. Before it was: login, get a tangible reward. Do endeavors, get seals. Spend money on crowns, use crowns to buy what you want. This tome system SLOWLY unveils challenges, which give points, which unlocks pages, which eventually leads to claiming rewards that don't line up directly with a specific activity OR spending money. It is very unsatisfying to interact with, imo.

If I were making updates, I would think about:
-adding some dailies
-allowing the purchase of at least a single page tome, if not each individual item, with crowns and gems, but balance it so the pass is the best "deal"
-allowing the season to be purchased and gifted with crowns and gems
-have a group re-roll feature so everyone in the group can align on the same challenges and consider having the whole community start on the same schedule
-integrating the interface into the same place as the Crown Store, Gold Coast Bazaar, etc
-having some challenges award a small amount of seals, gold, etc along with Tome Points... maybe just the dailies?
-further generalizing challenges (dig up 3 green leads as opposed to specific ones, kill bosses in 3 different zones as opposed to naming the zones, etc.)
-give more Tome Points for logging in daily and/or, as others have suggested, have Tome Points only be to earn your way through the pages, not also a way to buy the items. Once the page is open, all the items should be available without having to "buy" them with points
-consider periodically allowing season purchases to come back, like crown crates, so players can have another chance to buy the pass and keep the content around

Personally I'm not really enjoying the battle pass concept. It doesn't feel as rewarding to me as the previous system, because of how removed the rewards are from the actual activities, and because there are no quick dailies, and I feel like I have a lot less control in my shopping and reward choices, and I just dislike all of that. Yes, I know that Crown Crates give you very little choice when just starting out as a player, because it forces auto claiming of rewards, but once you've played for a bit and built up some crowns or seals, it really is a decent experience for targeting the rewards that are the best for you. The additional layering of one free guaranteed reward a day also felt more engaging.

Danikat

twisttop138 wrote: »

allochthons wrote: »

just begging for pitchforks.

Begging for Pitchforks is my new Rage Against the Machine cover band.

While I think the TP to gold conversion is the best short term solution, and thank you for that, I think all of Code's post on page Two is excellent. There is a ton of confusion around Tome Points, re-rolling, and the whole system. I see it in guild chat, in zone chat, and on discord.

Also, there are a significant number of people who play ESO who have never encountered a battle pass in a different game. That's neither good nor bad, but I think there's a fair bit of assumption about what players will Just Understand, and that is a big source of a lot of the confusion. Not all of it, but some.
Please run the written articles, plus the planned changes, past someone who has not used a battle pass before.

The confusion is very real. I try to be the guilds information officer and I was very surprised the amount of members in that guild and my other ones that just had no idea what was going on. Never experienced a battle pass. Had no idea things changed even. People that thought the game was closing after the removal of daily log ins and endeavors. The lack of solid in game information has been hard for many people. I was very surprised to learn that there is a not insignificant number of players that do not want to go outside the game for information. That don't think you should have to. Zos needs to do better, not just on that but a lot of tomes roll out was a mess. Yes they're fixing the egregious stuff but it shouldn't have gotten so bad.

I agree with all this.

There's definitely an underlying assumption that everyone has enough experience with battle/season passes (and the similarities and differences between the two) that ZOS just needs to specify how theirs are different to some generalised typical model, but that only works for those players who genuinely are familiar with several passes from other games.

It shouldn't be a surprise that a lot of ESO players aren't familiar with it. ZOS have said many times they know this game attracted a lot of TES players who hadn't played an MMO before and they say they design the game with both them and the MMO audience in mind, but it often seems like it's one or the other, and this is one of those times. All the marketing and information around this system is clearly aimed at people who have played lots of online games with a seasonal, pass-based model before, and ignoring those who have not, or have had very little to do with it.

I've sort-of encountered season passes before, but only in Among Us and my involvement with that system is limited to being told at the end of a match I have some points, so I go to a menu which looks like a maze and click on cosmetic items until I run out of points. I've never learned how it works and certainly never looked into buying one.

My main frame of reference is the Wizard's Vault in Guild Wars 2, which is explicitly not a battle/season pass but is similar to one (I think the main difference is there is no paid version) but that's also quite different from Tamriel Tomes. For one thing you can just buy the rewards you want once you have enough points to pay the individual item's cost, there's no secondary, higher cost just to buy things from that page/tier/whatever.

That's the main thing putting me off engaging with this system right now - the page unlock costs make the free items far more time consuming to get than they appeared to be at first. I have 1,903 points, more than enough to buy all the free items from page 5 but apparently I need another 1,327 points just to get permission to do that.

To get access to Bonus Page 2 I have to earn 15,230 points (I'm currently on page 4, I can't check what it was at the start) but buying every single item in the free version of the tome will only cost me another 11,170 points. Meaning I'll have 4,060 left over. And that's assuming I buy everything, including the items I don't want and cannot use.

I know I can turn the excess points into a trivial amount of gold, but the problem for me is having to earn 4,060 useless points, meaning I'll need to waste time completing several weekly challenges I could otherwise skip, to get points I cannot spend and cannot save, just because the pages have an arbitrary unlock cost which seems to have been based on the assumption that everyone would happily throw money at you for the junk in the paid version.

FlopsyPrince

shadoza wrote: »

"Is there enough variety for the Weekly Challenges?" No. I keep getting the same collect cloth from plants quest.
"Are certain Challenges unpopular and frequently re-rolled or avoided?" No. I used 11 rerolls trying to get rid of group content challenges (group dungeons, areas, Trials, PvP) I ran out of rerolls and am stuck with take keeps, which is what I do NOT want to do. It is so frustrating trying to find challenges I can do alone that I do not feel like doing challenges anymore.
"Does the pace of earning Tome Points feel right and rewarding?" The resource node challenges became boring when the resources are exhausted and challenge is to find a map that hasn't been farmed beyond the respawn points.
And others... The first week was fun. I was able to collect resources, complete challenges as I did quests and during normal play. This week. Nothing. There is a lot of spawn-camping, overcrowding at group events, and path resource farming going on so finding anything casually is not happening now. For me, this is not playing a MMORPG. This feels more like competitive farming.

Increase the respawn rate or maybe limit the repeat to separate days. Find 15 Runes on this day x2. Must wait for next day to find runes again. Players using add-ons for resource finding whether it is a material node or a treasure box have an advantage over those that play the game as it is presented. I think players should not be encouraged to rely on cheap tricks to complete simple challenges.

You can collect surveys and get 6 steps in the collection goals for each time. That makes it go faster. And the PS5 even has a nice addon that shows where they are an where to go to reset them now. (It would be even better if I could collect more than 1 at a time, but at least I know exactly where they are now.

Supreme_Atromancer

Is this currently a good thread for general feedback on Tomes?

I'm finding the rewards unmotivating. I looked through all the pages, there was very little that I felt like I was really interested in. I did participate in pursuing Tome points this time, but I'm finding myself wondering why I should bother. I'm not cynical- I really want a reason to engage the system, and stuff to be excited about.

Skill styles are a great idea; I love the possibility of customising the appearence of my spells. But what if I don't care about Vigor, or whatever random alotment of 3 styles go out in any particular Tome season? That's not exciting or motivating for me, then. Meanwhile, it seems I might have to wait for years before the styles I envision for my character concept become available. The same would go for customised actions. People have put up a lot of cool ideas on the forums and elsewhere since they came out.

A lot of the aesthetic of armour and weapon styles I find myself not liking, too- which results again in little motivation to chase Tome points. I really don't jive with the random bits of pointy metal and overly busy look. I like more subtle, traditional aesthetics- particularly those inspired by the single-player TES games, including the earlier ones.

I did like the furnishings- but I don't like that you can only buy one instance of them. If you could buy multiple, it would lessen the pain of the steep Tome point gate you need to earn.

Anyway, just my perspective. I love ESO. Keep up the good work.

twisttop138

Tomes as a system is decent at its core. There is some definite things that need to be fixed. To be fair to Zos, it very much appears that they are open to feedback. They are open to fixing the things in their power to fix. We have to keep something in mind. I would be willing to bet that most of the every day development team did not want to include a battle pass in ESO. These aren't decisions made at their level. They just have to execute what the C suite orders. I'm trying to give them some patience and understanding for this.

It's important to keep in mind what a battle pass is. It's a way to keep players busy on content that's already produced, saving money on development costs as well as a way to make money from players paying to get rewards doing old content. They're put in a game because they're proven to work. You can say, I'm not motivated by rewards, but it's proven that a large portion of players will fear missing out on those rewards and pay into the system. That's why I laughed when they said they wanted to eliminate fomo. Now, I'm not saying a battle pass is good or bad, this is just what it's for.

If done in a good way, it can become a great background thing that rewards players for doing tasks and just be an unobtrusive part of the game. We just have to really hope Zos doesn't fall into the trap so many games have, where pretty much all the seasonal content you get is the pass and everything serves as a way to get you into buying it. I don't think we're in danger of that here. It's already made the game world lively. There's people in tons of obscure places, out of the way WBs and public dungeons. As someone that played during the release of TG, DB and Wrothgar, I am overjoyed seeing these awesome zones bustling with people. I can usually make good gold on motifs and stuff from these older zones and that is gone now and that's a good trade. I don't care about pixel fake capitalism.

In the end, what would be the best thing is that tomes fades into the background and is just a thing peppered into our gaming routine. Something that just enhances the flavor and gives us cool stuff while doing it.

There's a few things I think would help but it's just 1 guys opinion. The main thing is the REWARDS. Next seasons are already looking a bit better. But this season really screamed crown store rejects from the back of a drawer that they were certain wouldn't sell. The rewards need to be on point. I also think that all tasks should award the same points, with the chance of rerolling an epic challenge that gives more points and has a harder challenge. This also could act as a gold sink since rerolls will cost gold after your free ones run out. It enhances customization and makes it so folks aren't punished for picking the challenges they want. I also think they should work in some smaller point, no reroll daily challenges for low points for extra flavor. Of course these are just one guys opinions.

FieryPhoenix

My thoughts on Tomes:

1. Not enough variety of tasks, rerolls often just result in you getting back the task you were attempting to avoid. I’m not going to be spending gold to reroll tasks if this isn’t fixed.
2. Rewards are uninspiring. The premium tier contains nothing I would ever spend real money on which is baffling as you’d think they’d really want to motivate you to spend money as this is replacing chapters. Some one else described them as Crown store rejects and I agree. The remainder of the items seem to be aimed at new players and aren’t useful to me. Step up the rewards quality on all tiers of the Tomes.
3. Allow me to opt out of auto-claim. If I didn’t buy it, I don’t want it. Don’t force these upon me or I will just avoid engaging with this system going forward.
4. Get rid of having to unlock pages. Most pages have only 1 or 2 rewards that I actually am interested in (which is mostly just the currencies). Being able to purchase the currencies repeatedly would be preferred.
   

lillybit

Out of interest, has anyone said if rerolls will carry over to new seasons? With the ramping price scale being introduced with buying for gold it would be nice to stockpile them, but don't really want to do that if they'll vanish at the end of a season

twisttop138

lillybit wrote: »

Out of interest, has anyone said if rerolls will carry over to new seasons? With the ramping price scale being introduced with buying for gold it would be nice to stockpile them, but don't really want to do that if they'll vanish at the end of a season

Iirc isn't there a limit to how many you can have at one time? 12? Can anyone confirm if I'm just seeing a face on my toast here.

lillybit

twisttop138 wrote: »

lillybit wrote: »

Out of interest, has anyone said if rerolls will carry over to new seasons? With the ramping price scale being introduced with buying for gold it would be nice to stockpile them, but don't really want to do that if they'll vanish at the end of a season

Iirc isn't there a limit to how many you can have at one time? 12? Can anyone confirm if I'm just seeing a face on my toast here.

I know you can't have more than 12 challenges but haven't heard the same for rerolls, could have missed it tho