Let's improve events, free thinking brainstorm session.

Veinblood1965 · March 2020

I was just reading posts about the Murkmire event and someone posted about how they hated having to get pieces of rewards to put together to get the reward which got me thinking. For me that sounds great until I actually log in and just was "given" the mount etc just by participating. Going with that scenario would I be comfortable participating in let's say 7 out of 10 days, or 5 out of 10 days or just logging in once to get a mount or whatever it was. In the end just getting it by logging in once would not feel like an :"event" and the zone would be pretty empty, I like the fact that Murkmire is packed with people during the event, it just feels more fun. So taking that further I think I'd be happy with getting the reward by logging in for half the amount of days an even lasts. But then if you think about it, that's what tickets, fragments etc are, just a way to keep track of how many times you participated with some folks getting a few more than others. My end result was I'd be happy with being able to obtain the reward by participating in 50% of the event days. Anything less wouldn't be as fun and anything more feels like a grind.

Regarding that, what percentage of days of an event would make you prefer?

Ok next part, and this is a free thinking brainstorm session. To YOU, what would be a great event? Lot's of event quests? One or two larger rewards? Free crowns? Gems?

Myself I'd like to see a few free gems or crowns tossed into a few loot boxes (between 5 and 10 per box). Then maybe some dailies along with one large event quest that takes a few hours to complete with the reward being access to an EVENT merchant that has a lot of items and you get to chose one. Armor, furnishings, mounts, an actual EVENT costume, something unique to that event.

Waynerx8 · March 2020

Not paid to do that for them.

Veinblood1965 · March 2020

Waynerx8 wrote: »

Not paid to do that for them.

Here's five dollars, now get to work

TheRealCherokeee3 · March 2020

It sounds blasphemous...but...maybe an Imperial City exclusive event? Extra AP and similar Midyear rewards since I can't just ask for Midyear to occur more

and it's such an unpopular area that inspite of the small size for an event, it probably wouldnt be overrun lol. But at least it would give that area a bit more use other than color locking zones and ganking the ever loving hell out of some poor curious random Pver.

Daimonion82 · March 2020

What I like in current zone events - double rewards for dailies and more resources from nodes. What I don't like - limited amount of event tickets we can hold, more and more indriks, and fragments bound to us. Indriks were nice reward at the beginning but now it's just too much of them. Fragments we can't trade or sell are terrible idea.
I would love to see more items designed specifically for event theme (like last years facepaint and crown from Jester Festival): outfits, mounts (not pets, please!), skins, personalities, furniture etc. I would point you at Star Trek Online - a couple of times per year there are really good event rewards (maximum tier starships for event progression and sometimes also other stuff, which can be bought with event currency). While quality of activities can be discussed (but they're always doable by everyone - I mean no Midyer Mayhem or so...), the main reward is always a big one, because you get special ship for free (well, for your time in game to be precise) and ships of this level are normally available only in STOs equivalent of ESOs crown store.

regime211 · March 2020

Veinblood1965 wrote: »

I was just reading posts about the Murkmire event and someone posted about how they hated having to get pieces of rewards to put together to get the reward which got me thinking. For me that sounds great until I actually log in and just was "given" the mount etc just by participating. Going with that scenario would I be comfortable participating in let's say 7 out of 10 days, or 5 out of 10 days or just logging in once to get a mount or whatever it was. In the end just getting it by logging in once would not feel like an :"event" and the zone would be pretty empty, I like the fact that Murkmire is packed with people during the event, it just feels more fun. So taking that further I think I'd be happy with getting the reward by logging in for half the amount of days an even lasts. But then if you think about it, that's what tickets, fragments etc are, just a way to keep track of how many times you participated with some folks getting a few more than others. My end result was I'd be happy with being able to obtain the reward by participating in 50% of the event days. Anything less wouldn't be as fun and anything more feels like a grind.

Regarding that, what percentage of days of an event would make you prefer?

Ok next part, and this is a free thinking brainstorm session. To YOU, what would be a great event? Lot's of event quests? One or two larger rewards? Free crowns? Gems?

Myself I'd like to see a few free gems or crowns tossed into a few loot boxes (between 5 and 10 per box). Then maybe some dailies along with one large event quest that takes a few hours to complete with the reward being access to an EVENT merchant that has a lot of items and you get to chose one. Armor, furnishings, mounts, an actual EVENT costume, something unique to that event.

No we want a working game nobody cares about events at this point! This is the reason why we will continue to see a decline in performance fixed and new and old bugs happening because other players want more things added to the game which is probably part of the problem.

Linaleah · March 2020

IMO the problem with events lately is too much rng, not enough earning. not a fan of ticket cap, but I do like it that when I log in and do a thing - I get tickets which I can then spend towards assembling a mount. fragment system.. the problem with it is that its extremely rng dependant AND non tradable. before - if you were someone who didn't care for this pets or styles or whatever - you could trade them to people that do. now... if you are interested, but unlucky - your only recourse is crown store. and if you are not interested - well, too bad, you are ending up with fragments you have no interest and cannot trade - ANYWAYS.

trading not only mitigated rng and allowed people to participate in events on their terms... but it also introduced a lot of the social aspect. some people sold their fragments. and some - traded them with friends and/or guildies. this aspect is now completely missing, making events a lot more lonely in addition to being disenheartening.

IMO, rewards need to be tradable again. that would at least get us started on improving events. beyond that I honestly think events need to come with event specific activities. you know how jesters festival etc - have their own event quests? like that. just adding event drops (that may or may not even allow you to collect rewards, because rng) to normal activities just seems... lazy.

RD065 · March 2020

I'm curious how you know "vast majority of players..."

myskyrim26 · March 2020

A good event is a diversity of good rewards. They all should be obtainable during event. Like these - just examples:

- 7-piece pet. Every day you use an event memento and get 1 bound piece. And you have a chance to get unbound pieces from event quests/activities like killing bosess/boxes. It is important, because there are always players who miss the event and want to find missing items in guild stores.
- new style. Again, 1 bound page every day and a chance to find unbound for trade. How rare the unbound should be? Well, let them become expensive in guildstores. Those who want to grind can grind for making gold. those who hate grind just get their bound pages.
- free item. It is an event, a celebration. Let all players have 1 good thing per event without grinding, just for logging in once during the event. It can be a mount or costume.
- a store with unique themed furniture plans. Unbound. Some people don't want to collect Indriks or pets or styles. Furniture plans can be a good option for both crafters and those who want to make gold.

Tandor · March 2020

"A vast majority of players want..."

I didn't bother to read beyond that. Why people can't just say "I want" instead of trying to justify their post by claiming it's well supported before they've even tested it on other forum users is beyond me.

idk · March 2020

First of all any event will get old and tiresome. It is important to note that. However, most of Zos' events are really non-events as they are just encouraging playing the game we have day in and day out.

A real event would have it's own quests like we have with the Jester festival but also have some bosses. An instanced boss with Normal, vet, and vet HM settings is a great addition along with one or two large group world bosses that require more than just a few players to kill. Certainly, nothing that can be soloed.

A design along those lines would be a real event.

However, I would not suggest any of us know what a "vast majority" of players want. It seems to be a creative statement to try to get attention from Zos even though they can probably see right through it.

Alienoutlaw · March 2020

new quests and new rewards for those of us that dont really need to do these events as we have completed all the tasks and got the rewards yrs ago

Veinblood1965 · March 2020

idk wrote: »

First of all any event will get old and tiresome. It is important to note that. However, most of Zos' events are really non-events as they are just encouraging playing the game we have day in and day out.

A real event would have it's own quests like we have with the Jester festival but also have some bosses. An instanced boss with Normal, vet, and vet HM settings is a great addition along with one or two large group world bosses that require more than just a few players to kill. Certainly, nothing that can be soloed.

A design along those lines would be a real event.

I like this, it's kind of the same as to what I was thinking, but event bosses would be pretty nice. Things could be tweaked each year to make the same event flow differently. Maybe even reskin a Dragon or something into a flying clockwork engine for the Clockwork City Event.

ArcVelarian · March 2020

Well a global "Double everything" event that runs for a week once a year would be nice and simple.
Double AP,
Double Tel Var,
Double Daily Rewards,
Double Boss Drops (world bosses, delves, public dungeons, group dungeons, trials),
Double Resources from nodes (in every zone),
You get the idea.

A_Silverius · March 2020

Horse racing, jumping puzzles, drinking games for octoberfest, skyrim snowball fight for christmas, timed egg hunt in a hedge maze for easter, timed hide and seek in a haunted castle/mansion for halloween. Could go on but they will probably be broken anyways if implemented. Got all these ideas from LOTRO which has the best and most fun holiday events

taylorwilenskiub17_ESO · March 2020

Well for one, you shouldn't have be forced to participate in multiple events throughout the year to get a single mount (Indrik).

Not event related, but they need to make more skins/mounts attainable by completing content in game and not make them only purchasable through the Crown Store with the best ones being locked behind RNG/loot boxes.

I'd like to see events be more Quest oriented and not just farming dailies to get double the gear. For example, they could create a new public dungeon that only appears during the event that is greyed out otherwise or simply disappears. Here you could achieve unique loot - perhaps the same set pieces you'd obtain elsewhere but it has a specific unique name to it as a means to show off the achievement of completing.

Anything that's different from simply farming dailies/wb/dolmens to get double the gear drops and event tickets. It's just the same crap recycled time and time again.

The Imperial City event was great because while it's more or less the same as others, you are fighting other plays which keeps the engagements fresh and unpredictable.

Donny_Vito · March 2020

I'm honestly not sure trying to change events will make them better.

Not all events are going to be fun for everyone. I hate Murkmire, so no matter what you do there is going to make the event enjoyable for me unless I can do the event without going to the zone at all, which defeats the purpose. I really enjoy going around Wrothgar so I will participate in that event almost every day.

Chaos2088 · March 2020

what would really be good about events.......if there was less of them.

redspecter23 · March 2020

I don't mind most events really. I think Murkmire was a huge miss for so many reasons, they should be ashamed of themselves for thinking it up.

Chance at a box is confusing. It might as well drop on the first mob kill as the chance to drop is high anyway. Even better, have it drop off your first daily completion to make it even easier to see.

The chance of an additional box is so low that it's unfarmable, meaning players typically get their first "easy" box then move on to other things, ignoring the event. If your goal is to get people to leave the event zone as fast as possible, you need to examine your goals.

Chance at a box for a chance at a fragment which is bind in pickup is bad. Not only is it not completely apparent how it works with duplicates, but nobody even knows the drop chance. Some were even getting multiple pieces in some boxes.

If ZOS pinpoints the person responsible for these decisions and places them in some other room in the building while discussing future events, it would probably be for the best.

Donny_Vito · March 2020

Chaos2088 wrote: »

what would really be good about events.......if there was less of them.

You are right. Events do feel a bit saturated with how many there are now, and this trend will only continue as they add new zones.

As someone else said, it's best to just ignore some events and then focus your time on others that interest you. Trying to grind every single pet, momento, etc... is going to get you frustrated with the logistics of the events.

Starlock · March 2020

Honestly, they can keep doing what they're doing provided they kick the predatory monetization to the curb. There's a trivially simple fix to that problem - remove event tickets from the cash shop.

If event tickets must stay in the cash shop, events should NEVER be designed in a way that forces or coerces players into the cash shop to earn event rewards. Event rewards should be earned by playing the actual game. If it isn't possible for players to earn event rewards by playing the actual game, those "event rewards" are nothing of the sort. They should be sold directly in the cash shop to make it transparently obvious what the intention is. The duplicitous design of our most recent "event" is disgusting and should never, ever happen again.

Given I have absolute confidence the racketeers *are* going to design something like this again, I'm not offering any suggestions for future events. They'll just warp them into new con games to prey on customer's wallets. No thanks.

Nerouyn · March 2020

Alienoutlaw wrote: »

new quests and new rewards for those of us that dont really need to do these events as we have completed all the tasks and got the rewards yrs ago

Yeah this.

One thing I think Secret World Legends gets right is every year their events come with a little bit of new story content.

That's not cheap, but if ESO wasn't running "special" events nearly every single day of the year, they could probably manage to create and voice record one new simple quest and insert that into the game, alongside such quests from previous years so new players aren't missing out.

oregonrob · March 2020

A few years ago, events came about once a quarter and you looked forward to them. Now they seem to come at least once a month and in some cases only a couple of weeks go by and there is another event. It would be nice to get a bit of a breather.

Also trying to blend PVP and PVE like the Midyear event attempts to do, doesn't seem to work smoothly. Why can't the Midyear event have an event in the PVE area, yielding PVE items, while offering a PVP event that offered items of interest to PVP players at the same time? Many will do one or the other and some will do both. If this model works, it could be done for other events as well giving PVP players something to look forward to more than a couple of times a year, while not requiring PVE players to do something that they do not like to do.

Finally, if event tickets continue, we need to find another mount. I really do not need to see a zombie indrik.

Jayne_Doe · March 2020

Whatever they do, the overarching goal should be that players shouldn't have to grind to get the specific event rewards.

Events are limited-time and designed either to celebrate a particular holiday or anniversary or the release of particular content. Since the events are limited-time, there shouldn't be any real grind involved - such as the insane grind for the Murkmire event. Neither should it be entirely reliant on RNG.

We want to have fun and celebrate, not spend 7.5 hours mindlessly grinding mobs and hoovering up every single node to end up with 2 additional boxes. Only reason I did that farming is because I wasn't getting many pet frags. I've gotten 4 of those, but 6 memento frags. Rest of my boxes have been nothing but a blue treasure paired with either a green treasure, a random style mat, or a green-quality gear piece. With the drop rate on the boxes being so low, such junk is not warranted nor rewarding. If the drop rate had been even half what it is for the Witches Festival, then it would at least be acceptable.

Yes, we had a guaranteed box every day, but those boxes were not guaranteed to have a frag in them. I feel like I wasted 7.5 hours of my life on this event. I got so frustrated that I abandoned doing the one thing I was looking forward to during the event, and that was the dailies, esp. the Rootwhisper dailies, which are kind of a pain - the double boxes were enough to get me to try and make a dent toward that achievement, but after the first weekend, I just got in for my tickets and one box. Only on the following weekend did I try to grind again, which was utterly fruitless.

Either have guaranteed rewards if the drop rate will be this poor or up the drop rate significantly to justify the utter junk some of the boxes had in them - esp. when the rewards are entirely reliant on RNG.

This kind of grind is fine for rewards that are permanently in the game. But for events, the point is to enjoy it and get the rewards, which all players should obtain by actually playing the content - doing dailies, even the quest storyline, not mindlessly grinding mobs and competing with other players doing so. My spouse did the entire Murkmire quest storyline as well as most sidequests and didn't get a single box from doing so. We did the dailies, twice each day (until we quickly tired of doing them), and only once did I get a box from killing a mob in one of the delves while doing the daily.

There just shouldn't be a grind for event rewards, since the events are limited-time, and it's a celebration. Let us get the rewards with a tolerable amount of effort, that involves doing the content, not mindlessly grinding.

krachall · March 2020

I don't mind the ticket system. I also love the double daily quest rewards. I like double resource nodes even though they are actually FAR worse than farming in another zone due to the number of people farming them.

The biggest problem I have with events is that bad-anime-cartoon-looking-joke-of-a-mount, The Indruk.

First, the Indruk mount is just bad. It's a very zone specific, race specific, and unique look that appeals to a very limited number of players. If it were the pinnacle grind reward for a Summerset event, I'd still hate it but it would make sense. However you made this one specific, unique, narrow-appealing mount the global grind reward for every event! That is, honestly, daft. Now, don't think for a minute that I don't understand why you did this. You did it because it allows you to launch events with a few button clicks instead of having to put creative effort into each event. You just turn stuff on and turn stuff off. Easy Peasy.

Here's how the ticket grind system SHOULD work:

Each event has an event-themed mount. Indruk for sommerset, Echelon (sp? lol) for Wrothgar. Wolf for DB. Wamasu for Murkmire. Faction horses for Mayhem, etc. etc. etc. I'm not a creative so I'm just throwing examples out there.

The mount should cost around 3/4 of the total number of tix available for the event. So if there are 36 tickets available during an event, the mount should cost 24. Do that "buy a fragment" thing if you need to. The mount should remain available for one event after its spotlight event. So if you need two events to grind 24 tix, you can still get that mount. if you get behind, you have to wait a year.

A year later, you can buy the same mount during the event. But you can also buy a re-skinned version of that specific mount. So if you're a hardcore grinder and get your mount the first year, you can buy a reskinned version the next year.

You could also have racial mounts available during all events for people who want to spend tix but don't want the event mount or a reskinned version of a mount they already have. So some standard Senche, Guar (why do I keep wanting to type GWAR?! \m/), bears, sabrecats, etc.

Having one of the most divisive mounts you ever made be The One True Mount that all grinds lead to is absurd.

Enemy-of-Coldharbour · March 2020

I'd gladly give up all events for a properly working game.

Cavedog · March 2020

What good are events if a major portion of the game is unplayable?

Cavedog · March 2020

oregonrob wrote: »

A few years ago, events came about once a quarter and you looked forward to them. Now they seem to come at least once a month and in some cases only a couple of weeks go by and there is another event. It would be nice to get a bit of a breather.

Also trying to blend PVP and PVE like the Midyear event attempts to do, doesn't seem to work smoothly. Why can't the Midyear event have an event in the PVE area, yielding PVE items, while offering a PVP event that offered items of interest to PVP players at the same time? Many will do one or the other and some will do both. If this model works, it could be done for other events as well giving PVP players something to look forward to more than a couple of times a year, while not requiring PVE players to do something that they do not like to do.

Finally, if event tickets continue, we need to find another mount. I really do not need to see a zombie indrik.

Ya, seems weird, but yep. Fewer events, with better quality events would be better IMO. As the events work it now, it seems they are mostly just trying to keep us logging in daily.

Mr_Walker · March 2020

The RNG fragments system is steaming garbage.

It was always good to do event activites, and get an item which I could use, or trade, or sell, if I so chose. There was always that nice little bit of excitement opening the box.

Now, though. Here's 10 rubedite ore and a green treasure. Wow, disappointment is just what I wanted in a rewards box! Thanks Zos!

Eifleber · March 2020

Well I like the double rewards system and the fact that there's always people around helping with WB kills.
That way it's much faster/easier to farm complete sets.

But for the rest, there actually isn' t anyting that i want in the impressario's shop, which is kind of disappointing.
I find the choice in rewards really meagre for a festvity. I played GW2 before and it's just no comparison what this is concerned.

Rave the Histborn · March 2020

Veinblood1965 wrote: »

I was just reading posts about the Murkmire event and someone posted about how they hated having to get pieces of rewards to put together to get the reward which got me thinking. For me that sounds great until I actually log in and just was "given" the mount etc just by participating. Going with that scenario would I be comfortable participating in let's say 7 out of 10 days, or 5 out of 10 days or just logging in once to get a mount or whatever it was. In the end just getting it by logging in once would not feel like an :"event" and the zone would be pretty empty, I like the fact that Murkmire is packed with people during the event, it just feels more fun. So taking that further I think I'd be happy with getting the reward by logging in for half the amount of days an even lasts. But then if you think about it, that's what tickets, fragments etc are, just a way to keep track of how many times you participated with some folks getting a few more than others. My end result was I'd be happy with being able to obtain the reward by participating in 50% of the event days. Anything less wouldn't be as fun and anything more feels like a grind.

Regarding that, what percentage of days of an event would make you prefer?

Ok next part, and this is a free thinking brainstorm session. To YOU, what would be a great event? Lot's of event quests? One or two larger rewards? Free crowns? Gems?

Myself I'd like to see a few free gems or crowns tossed into a few loot boxes (between 5 and 10 per box). Then maybe some dailies along with one large event quest that takes a few hours to complete with the reward being access to an EVENT merchant that has a lot of items and you get to chose one. Armor, furnishings, mounts, an actual EVENT costume, something unique to that event.

Ok ultimate brain storm mode.

How about we stop listening to those people. If they have a PVP event they complain that they have to PVP and the rng is awful and they're quitting the game. If they have a PVE event they complain they have to PVE and the rng is awful and they're quitting the game.

See the theme?

They also never have anything real to back it up with, no screenshots, no significant data on drop rates. It's always the same exaggerated "I only got 1 drop all event and I accidentally deleted it" or "How am I supposed afford all this with event tickets, see ZOS is trying to make money" but they fail to mention that it's only day one of 13 or that they don't have to buy 3 berries this event, that they get released per event to give you multiple chances to get them. All those details are conveniently left out because in reality the average player can easily get all the pieces from the events but those players arent the ones posting and complaining. The players that expect every other enemy to drop a strongbox and to get every event item on day 1.