If Events Were Reversed, Would You Still Be Upset?

Alchemical · December 2017

So, I was thinking about the spectacular garbage fire that the #10MillionStories event has been with a broken dungeon finder, abyssal drop rates, and a loot table cluttered with absolute garbage. Lots of people are rightly bent out of shape over how poorly it was handled. This even coming on the heels of a pretty underwhelming Thanksgiving (aka Black Friday) promotion. And I'm wondering... if they had 'swapped' these events if that might have turned out better?

Since Morrowind was on sale they gave everyone with a copy a 'free' mount. But what if instead during the Thanksgiving holiday they'd run an even which dropped reward boxes from Morrowind's overland content, including coveted Armiger and Morag Tong motifs or rare furnishing designs. And then, to celebrate 10 million players, they just gave everyone a mount. Not necessarily the coolest, fanciest apex mount, but a good will celebratory mount to equally thank all 10 million players who have stuck with the game so far.

I was disappointed in both, but honestly I think if they'd just 'swapped' these events I'd be 100% satisfied. It makes more sense to me for a celebration about players to reward all players equally, and a promotion to sell content involve incentive for doing that content (not unlike the Orsinium anniversary, which gave extra loot boxes and discounts on the dlc).

Obviously if you're 100% happy with both events as is then the topic is not for you.

SecretAtoz · December 2017

I am kind of neutral in random dungeon event at the moment, but absolutely sad that I didn't benefit much from the Orsinium event.

I couldn't even freaking complete 1 single vMA before the event ends... I was hoping I could do at least 1 vMA per a day but that plan went down the drain... I would of been happy if I could at least complete 1 but nope. Stage 9 is completely stupid. Never had that much trouble with 5, 6, and 7. Sure, 5, 6, and 7 were rough but 9 is on a different level... I guess I will try again once I hit close to cp 690.

Osteos · December 2017

Perhaps if they had left the boxes with the chance of getting the jackpot prizes, the mounts and houses, but also gave everyone who participated a reward. Now finding a reward everyone would be happy with...good luck with that!

Swtor just had an event that if you participated in 3 pvp or 3 pve group activities you received a new companion. ESO doesn't have companions but I think this is a better way to do these types of events.

Danikat · December 2017

I was going to say running the dungeon event over Thanksgiving would make sense because although it's only a holiday in 1 country and a normal week everywhere else it's a country which is a major part of ZOS's market so it would increase the number of people who could participate.

Then I remembered that: 1) Thanksgiving is traditionally for spending time with family and apparently this year there was massive grid-lock in some places because so many people were travelling for the holiday.
2) Guild Wars 1 had a special event every year on New Years Day and even though I played it almost daily for many years I was only able to do that event once because I'm normally away (seeing my family) over New Years. (And the one year I was able to do it being able to make the event was literally the only good thing about that day and not remotely worth it.)

So maybe it made sense that they choose that time to schedule the free give-away where the only requirement was "log in at any point during these weeks and you'll get a free thing" rather than the one which required playing for at least about 15 minutes a day.

But they could have kept the timing the same and swapped the promotions. I definitely agree that giving everyone the same 1 thing is a better way to thank players than giving us the chance to get RNG boxes that may or may not contain things some people might want (and others won't care about), and an event that requires getting in-game and playing is a better way to promote and reward buying an expansion.

Korah_Eaglecry · December 2017

Alchemical wrote: »

So, I was thinking about the spectacular garbage fire that the #10MillionStories event has been with a broken dungeon finder, abyssal drop rates, and a loot table cluttered with absolute garbage. Lots of people are rightly bent out of shape over how poorly it was handled. This even coming on the heels of a pretty underwhelming Thanksgiving (aka Black Friday) promotion. And I'm wondering... if they had 'swapped' these events if that might have turned out better?

Since Morrowind was on sale they gave everyone with a copy a 'free' mount. But what if instead during the Thanksgiving holiday they'd run an even which dropped reward boxes from Morrowind's overland content, including coveted Armiger and Morag Tong motifs or rare furnishing designs. And then, to celebrate 10 million players, they just gave everyone a mount. Not necessarily the coolest, fanciest apex mount, but a good will celebratory mount to equally thank all 10 million players who have stuck with the game so far.

I was disappointed in both, but honestly I think if they'd just 'swapped' these events I'd be 100% satisfied. It makes more sense to me for a celebration about players to reward all players equally, and a promotion to sell content involve incentive for doing that content (not unlike the Orsinium anniversary, which gave extra loot boxes and discounts on the dlc).

Obviously if you're 100% happy with both events as is then the topic is not for you.

Im not sure why they dropped the ball on the Black Friday deal. But I think this event would have been fine if they had simply done a better job with the Loot Table. They pretty much copied their approach to the Witches Festival here. Garbage drops that no one would need.

What we should be taking away from this is that this is what we're getting from here on out with Events. The events wont be a "its a holiday, youre playing our game so heres some nice rewards". Itll be "We cant just give you these things, theres no compromise or middle ground. Youre going to have to grind and pray to RNGesus for some nice drops. How fun right!?".

xenowarrior92eb17_ESO · December 2017

Alchemical wrote: »

So, I was thinking about the spectacular garbage fire that the #10MillionStories event has been with a broken dungeon finder, abyssal drop rates, and a loot table cluttered with absolute garbage. Lots of people are rightly bent out of shape over how poorly it was handled. This even coming on the heels of a pretty underwhelming Thanksgiving (aka Black Friday) promotion. And I'm wondering... if they had 'swapped' these events if that might have turned out better?

Since Morrowind was on sale they gave everyone with a copy a 'free' mount. But what if instead during the Thanksgiving holiday they'd run an even which dropped reward boxes from Morrowind's overland content, including coveted Armiger and Morag Tong motifs or rare furnishing designs. And then, to celebrate 10 million players, they just gave everyone a mount. Not necessarily the coolest, fanciest apex mount, but a good will celebratory mount to equally thank all 10 million players who have stuck with the game so far.

I was disappointed in both, but honestly I think if they'd just 'swapped' these events I'd be 100% satisfied. It makes more sense to me for a celebration about players to reward all players equally, and a promotion to sell content involve incentive for doing that content (not unlike the Orsinium anniversary, which gave extra loot boxes and discounts on the dlc).

Obviously if you're 100% happy with both events as is then the topic is not for you.

If ZoS reading this they be like

Samadhi · December 2017

Alchemical wrote: »

...
I was disappointed in both, but honestly I think if they'd just 'swapped' these events I'd be 100% satisfied. It makes more sense to me for a celebration about players to reward all players equally, and a promotion to sell content involve incentive for doing that content (not unlike the Orsinium anniversary, which gave extra loot boxes and discounts on the dlc).
...

Would have been up for a black friday sale, or a pre-christmas sale on Crowns
to coincide with the event, and with the cash shop changes coming at the end of it
was not here for last year, could be suckered into festive thangs

Do not think reversal of the events would have changed much
except maybe people claiming that the mounts were to 'make up for' the less-than-appreciated event
but only available to people who spend on more than the base game

Mix · December 2017

I think they over-hyped the collectibles for the 10 million stories dungeon event.

There were some items that should not have been in the reward boxes (lockpick, carrot, white furniture plan that i heard of)

There was also some expectation that all the rewards would be crown store items by some players so naturally getting non-crown items would be disappointing.

I do like free things, but I also thought the chance at a pet or mount (single) would be higher - I didn't get either running 8 characters per day. (might sneak a couple in before the end tomorrow...but that is really early in the morning for me!)

Zaldan · December 2017

by now most if not everyone should be aware ZO$ couldn't run a *** up in a brewery

Foobiscuit11 · December 2017

To be honest, I was okay with both. I liked getting a mount for having Morrowind, especially a unique one. As far as the dungeon event, I only ran once per day and my biggest earning was the Imperial Mastiff pet. But I enjoy dungeon content and it was nice to get into the dungeons and revisit some old favorites.

Waffennacht · December 2017

It would have been cool to have multiple attempts per character, or not tied into a once every 20 hour timer

drkfrontiers · December 2017

Another MMO I played for about 4 years had the right formula (though I also qualify it at the end!).

Each EOY event they had a special, unique super cool reward which players would earn.

It cost 1000 in-game "tokens", and each time you ran a raid you earned 100. So after 10 runs you were guaranteed of a really cool prize.

Everyone look forward to the event and everyone walked away the hero.

It became so popular, that in time they moved all the elite gear into stores.

So in a ESO scenario, imagine each dungeon being associated with a set, and simply by running that particular dungeon you would unlock "tokens" for that dungeons rewards. You have complete control over what gear you want and can focus on that.

Just a thought.

PS. On a completely separate note, it would be really awesome if like houses, they had Guild Halls with projects the whole guild could contribute to

WARNING: The aforementioned model did add to my overall weariness of the game, as each event felt more and more like a grind because I knew what effort was involved. Random drops, strangely enough - because of their random nature was a lot more appealing, and fun in the end, precisely because of the chance of a big prize. I guess therein lies the secret of online gaming. The right amount of lure, and the right amount of fair play.

Jarryzzt · December 2017

I think that from a business perspective this was a very strange timing for the event.

Normally what one would expect is you block out, say, a week or ten days around a major holiday. For example, if one were talking about Thanksgiving week, it would be sensible to start the weekend before and end the Monday-Tuesday after. Christmas/New Year's you'd block off December 20 to January 3 or some such.

The rationale is that, on the one hand, you capture any increases in traffic over the specific holiday, for example due to students and schoolchildren not having classes; on the other hand, you have enough of a window to let everyone participate in the event without infringing on any "spending-time-with-family" types of holiday activities; and, on the third hand (!), since the holiday is still inside the "event block" you can legitimately theme the event around Santa Molag Bal or what have you.

Running an event not tied to a specific holiday or some other key date (e.g. Marvel Heroes used to time things to film release dates - to its detriment, as they'd inevitably rush out buggy content to meet the deadline) - that's fine so long as you strike a good enough balance between rewards/time invested so that the casuals do not feel like they are excluded. [It also helps to make sure the servers can take the bloody load beforehand, but no-one ever cares about trivial details such as this.] Which I did not feel this event really did, not as it was based around repeated dungeon runs (i.e. in my opinion requiring too much of a time investment to really benefit from the rewards...you know, accumulate a sufficient stock of lock picks or something).

My point is that I was surprised they ran this event when they did - and didn't really understand what the business point was other than to increase server traffic between two holiday seasons in the US (to the detriment of the servers, naturally). If I were them, I would have run the event over Thanksgiving and then did a string of sales leading into Christmas, then another event starting December 20. But I am obviously not them, and what-do-I-know-I-am-just-a-nobody, etc. Throw in the, shall we say, paucity of the rewards for a number of players, and we are where we are.

Separately I also agree that it is a better idea to structure events around prizes that you know can be attained if you did X (RNG prizes given out as complements to "fixed" prize tiers). There is no player disappointment this way - you know that to get prize X you are going to have to grind through A, B and C some N times. Either you do it, or you go for a lower-tier prize, or you just log in a couple of times for some minor RNG prizes and the event atmosphere. WoT has had this nailed down for years, for example, and probably some other MMOs as well. You want players to see their progress towards a tangible goal which is what drives more traffic. Extending the loot box philosophy to event prizes only really works if either a) you can grind out a lot of loot boxes per given unit of time (so even casuals have a good chance of getting a decent drop eventually); or b) you up the drop rate to where everyone can ultimately get the top tier prizes (which is silly, but certainly an option). One box per 20-30 minutes of game time per character per 20 hour window is...not it.

Bottom line. I don't think ZOS has done an optimal job in scheduling or structuring this particular event, based in part on my experience with other MMOs and how they do events. That said, I never "cared" very much to begin with (in part as there was no tangible thing to progress towards other than "run dungeons and hope the RNG is kind to you"), so this is more of a symptom of ZOS management/design philosophy than anything to stage virtual protest rallies over.

Jayman1000 · December 2017

I just list as tank using tank gear bought in a guild store, Im not tank CP specced, but that's not at all necessary for normal dungeons. I still do the tank role, but for most of the run I just do dd since the tank role most of the time is obsolete because many players are so OP for normal. This is not fake tanking, so I suggest you do this too, you will get much quicker into the queue without problems. I wait usually 2-5 seconds before it asks me if Im ready.

Jawasa · December 2017

I think the dungeon event was fine. Did it on 3-6 chars almost everyday and got vs costum and imperial warhorse. Not what i hoped for but Thats rng. Then i made some money, maps, keys and clockwerk formula. It's not like They would give you 100% chance of crown store stuff.

randomkeyhits · December 2017

Can't say I was impressed with the Morrowind sale on EU PS4, don't know if the NA PS4 was the same or not (betting not)

If you didn't have the game and bought it on sale during the mount offer, congratulations you got a mount and the game at a nice price.

If you wanted to upgrade while the upgrade was on sale then you had to wait until after the mount offer expired which I thought was a crazy thing to do as it sends a really bad message. Existing player base? meh... we already have most of your money, pony up the full price or go without the mount. You can have one or the other, free mount or cheap upgrade path.

As I said, not impressive.

Jade1986 · December 2017

I did get a ton of undaunted keys, that was nice, and the imperial warmount, but seriously, aside from that i got a load of garbge across 32 attempts.

Psyonico · December 2017

If Events Were Reversed, Would You Still Be Upset?

People are always going to be upset about events, but they'd be equally upset if there weren't events (see the lack of a crown sale).

Long and short, you can't make some people happy

Kalante · December 2017

I thought about an event were there are hidden chests scattered all over cyrodiil and you had to find them. They could contain high amounts of gold mats like maybe 10 temps 10 wax or whatever. Something worth getting. I really haven't cared for any event zos ever does because most of the things are just straight up garbage and i know ill never win anything.

Bhaal5 · December 2017

Just be happy if the events "worked as intended" rathrler than the halfed baked, untested, botched stuff we've been getting lately
Also a server that could actually handle having more than 6 people on the map at one time

MasterSpatula · December 2017

I love how you end your complain post by shutting down anyone who might have a different opinion.

I'm not underwhelmed by the 10million subscribers event because I expected almost exactly what I got. I know who ZOS is by now. They're people who think RNG rewards with ludicrously low drop rates of anything desirable is good game design. Now, despite the fact that there's no defense for there being even one single human being who thinks that, that is who ZOS are.

For me, it was just an excuse to do a lot of dungeons and maybe, just maybe, beat some patently absurd odds. If you expected any more than that out of the event, it's on you.

That doesn't mean I'm impressed with the event or even happy with it. Though, it was really more of a giveaway gated behind an activity and nonsensical RNG than a true event. And I just can't get too worked up over stingy people who didn't in any way imply that their giveaway was going to be non-stingy being stingy. It turned out to be exactly what I expected it to be.

Slick_007 · December 2017

what platform has the dungeon finder been broken on? im on pc na and havent once had an issue with it through this event. am i just that lucky? or does it work for me because i dont have all the addons that everyone else has?