Overall, not bad at all.

If it becomes a recurring event each year, I'd like to see less emphasis on grouping with guild mates and more emphasis instead on grouping with others in general for the reward caches.

Also liked all the extra time we spent in Craglorn thanks to the event. My gear sticker book also thanks you

Are you enjoying the event so far?
I enjoyed it for the most part.

What have you liked so far about Zeal of Zenithar?
- Nice to have an actual festival place with NPCs to visit.
- Gold/AP/telvar discount was very useful.
- Reasonably easy to get dailies done and get reward boxes for many types of player.
- Possible to vary your eventing zones with bosses and world events, keeping it fresh.
- Random NPC encounters was a fun addition to explore.
- Nice to have the option to buy old Indrik pieces.

Has anything been confusing?
- Keys had to be Googled, no idea what those were before.
- Tricksy that gold discount did not apply to all gold vendors (e.g. bank space vendor)
- Daily quest stated only 'buy from another guild trader' but not how much.

Anything you wish was different?
- The idea of the festival grounds was nice, but it was much too crowded there. I could barely see the event NPC through the players/pets. I'd suggest having Fasaria appear at every event pavillion, even if the rest of the festival stuff is limited to Belkarth.
- Reward boxes of mediocre value. I got more valuable items from the 'normal' rewards on world events and bosses. Perhaps include more crafting supplies for furniture and/or furniture itself next time, that sounds like it would fit with the God of Crafts.
- Not enough activities for solo play beyond theft. The event is not as fun for players who are not in guilds. I'd suggest at least expanding the daily writ reward to once per *type* of writ, one for each school, or maybe have special event writs to make like the new life event has.

Are you enjoying the event so far?

• I loved this event - I think the introductory quest was engaging and lore friendly. As a result of this event, I joined a few new guilds. I grouped up several times for content I had not done yet, and got to talk to some new people. I'm extremely shy so this felt like a big deal!

What have you liked so far about Zeal of Zenithar?

• The way the rewards for this were structured encouraged me to reach out to others and group. Many people in my guilds formed groups and talked with each other more than we had before.
• The sales! I purchased some new houses during the event. I had saved up for one and am thrilled to have had some leftover gold to get a second, smaller home!
• The overworld encounters were interesting, and didn't feel boring after you saw them once. I appreciated being able to choose new options and see different outcomes (Looking at you, Begs-in-Wilds)
• I know a lot more about Zenithar now - this was extremely immersive, IMO. I'd love to see more of these with other deities!
• Belkarth was so lively! I enjoyed cruising around the shops and performers a lot.

Has anything been confusing?

• I still have a mysterious "prize winning radish," and don't think I ever came across the follow-up encounter for it

Anything you wish was different?

• I think the rewards should have dropped while grouped with friends, as well as guildies!
• If IC keys drop with boxes, they should be account bound instead of character bound.
• The Impresario group repair kit should be able to be laundered, like all the other drops obtained via thieving.

Any additional thoughts?

• Craglorn feels like a more suitable spot for the luxury furnisher... although I personally like visiting the Hollow City, too.
• Please continue bringing back NPCs like Naryu for future events
• Again, I would love to see these types of events done for other deities!
• I really loved having a new event like this and hope to see more like it in the future.

The event was nicely done. Bravo. The area made for the event was also very nicely done.

Some keys with the same name didn't stack while others, also the same name, did stack. Not sure what was special about the unstackable keys. As others have stated, it'd be better for us if the keys could be placed in our bank since we'd prefer to go to IC with a character properly geared for the area.

Great job!

I have earned around 10000 writ vouchers during the event, that was a lot of writs and reward boxes.
I got 2 boxes from grouping up and doing worls boxes.
My friend wasnt really interested in the event so logged off and played a different game, while i was doing my writs.

Although i appreciate to give an incentive to play with other players, real life often has different plans.
While im more interested in farming world bosses that drop nice style materials, my friend gets bored very quickly and doesnt want to do more than 2 or 3 bosses.

So im kind of really glad that master writs were an option too, but in retrospect the rewards were not worth it to me.
Most of it is unusable trash, unstackable inventory blockers, or things i dont need. The only new thing were lots of blue low level recipes, but lets be honest, they are just worth something if you want to be a completionist. They are of no use for a CP player, i would even dare to say they are of no use at all.
And the sheer amount of unstackable treasure maps really drove me nuts. I usually dont destroy them because i do enjoy a lazy sunday every now and then and go get some treasure maps and leads. But holy moly..... i had 3 mule characters worth full of treasure maps... I just destroyed them by the end. Please make them stackable!

The only 2 good things i enjoyed were: Group repair kits. These will be appreciated in our prog team. And i bought the last couple of houses that i didnt have yet, that are available with gold.
but this also brings me to the next problem, if there will be another Zenithar event again, there wont be any houses left for me to buy, because i doubt we will ever see small or medium houses that are able to be bought with gold again.

TLDR. I was really excited for the event, especially as a crafter who likes doing writs, but it turned out to be a inventory manangement game with very little rewarding rewards and i think i wont be hoarding writs or making a big effort in participating next time.

But hats off for trying something new, i do appreaciate it!

Are you enjoying the event so far?

I did enjoy it!


What have you liked so far about Zeal of Zenithar?

I was happy to see you guys try a new event! Very refreshing.

I was actually really excited about the keys! I've never really wanted to go play in the Imperial City before but when I found out I could get new loot if I was willing to fearfully sprint to a vault from my alliance base it encouraged me to explore the city and sewers more in general.

I also really liked how many recipes dropped because my crafter hadn't learned a lot of them before, and the ones I already knew could be sold!

I also like the flexibility of the ticket-giving daily. It wasn't stressful to do on days where I didn't have long to play and it was nice to be able to choose between multiple themed activities to complete it.

I loved that the indriks came back too. I burned out on ticket collection during the original run of the blue indrik and was so sad because it was my favorite, but now I finally have one AND its baby C:


Has anything been confusing?

The keys were initially kind of confusing just because I hadn't seen them before and I was forced by the character bind to deal with them instead of throwing them in my bank.

I also noticed significant confusion in zone and guild chats with people not understanding that you have to group with guild members to get boxes. I don't remember how clear or unclear the event info was about that but I agree with everyone saying the boxes shouldn't be limited to groups with guild members in them.


Anything you wish was different?

The keys really needed to not be character bound. I know I just said that them being character bound encouraged me to go play in the Imperial City but I heard a lot more often from players who deleted them for inventory management reasons.

The descriptions of each key should be modified to say that they're used in the Imperial City or their respective dungeon. You're inevitably going to drop completed keys to players who haven't been in the vaults before and the keys themselves only say what kind of chest the key is for, not where you find such chests. It's easy enough to look up but it's always much nicer when you don't have to go out of your way to search something.

All crafting writs should drop a box and not just the first one. I assume by not enabling this you guys were trying to avoid repeating how the anniversary event works but it feels kind of weird with the event allegedly being about crafting to... not really be awarded much for daily crafting? Even just being awarded a box for each type of writ for the first daily completion per account would feel much better. I only have so many master writs and so much gold to buy more master writs!

Players should get box drops from any group, not just guild groups. I like the idea of trying to encourage people to join and interact with guilds but it also becomes a horrible bottleneck to the event when nobody from your guilds is available to play the event with you.
Maybe being grouped with guildmates could increase drop rates for some of the more desirable items instead? That way people would still be encouraged to interact with guilds more but they wouldn't feel like they were being punished for being in a guild that happens to be quiet at the time they're playing.

More event locations would have been nice... I did love the setup in Belkarth but the player load packed into that area meant that it often took several seconds for player and NPC character models to load in. The game doesn't seem to prioritize loading NPCs over loading player characters so a lot of the time when I talked to Fasaria she was just invisible while players loaded in around her. Weird loading order is very preferable to frame drops but it's awkward to talk to an invisible NPC.


Any additional thoughts?
I really love some of the other ideas I've seen in here, especially
A) adding more guild traders to the event area to be active only when the event is going (bonus points if they continue to hang around after the event but have something snarky to say about being on break)
B ) giving the merchants in the event area some really cool, event-specific items and/or a rotation of unusual rare stuff to sell
C) adding known 'glitched books' to the area around the bookseller for eidetic collection (fantastic idea to whoever said that, it's a location that feels exotic enough to pull off something that meta I think. Another good area for that would be Fargrave but I don't think a bug workaround should be DLC-locked.)

I liked that the indriks came back but I feel like their parts should cost less now that they're on their second run. Like if you didn't get them the first time around your booby prize for waiting/missing out should be that they're easier to get than they were the first time. Especially since you have a limited number of tickets dropping per event and the first run cosmetic items consume most of those.

I also really think that event tickets need to be less harshly capped or have their cap removed. This is a critique for all events, not just Zenithar of course. I think I heard that you at least get a warning before you lose extra tickets now but it feels really unnecessary and stress-inducing to cap it at 12 tickets. If you guys want to sell more tickets, why not put multipacks of them in the Crown Store with discounts for buying in bulk instead of capping your entire inventory of tickets at 12? People love to feel like they're getting a deal. That way people who don't want to or can't buy crowns can prioritize what they want to buy and save tickets between events and people who are fine with buying tickets can get everything they want immediately. I imagine the ticket gifting event was also a good way to boost ticket sales and wouldn't mind seeing that happen every time the Impressario is open. I liked exchanging tickets with my bestie and being rewarded with a slightly discounted pack of crates

Ulfhethinn wrote: »

Single daily quest for tickets was good, also having multiple ways to complete.

We need less inventory spam. Research scrolls should have been the crown store version, so they stack with what we get each month, not the writ versions (why are they even different types). More things need to stack and not be character bound - only one time things like leveling rewards should be character bound.

Getting a lot of harder to find recipes was nice. But there is a glut of the common ones - a vendor or event for turning in recipes with oversupply (eg Rose Day Tea), even if 10 to 1, for something. Goes for gold rune boxes too, which are just saturated in the economy.

Would prefer having no guild grouping requirement. This doesn't fit all playstyles.

They don't want you to speed research too fast, unless you pay Crowns! That is why 2 versions exist. One has a day long (20 or 24 hours, I forget) cooldown. That makes it a real pain!

Rooatouille wrote: »

I know I'm late to the party, but I wanted to echo one sentiment I've seen including the annoyance of the IC keys being character bound and not account bound as well as add one more tidbit:

Given the close proximity of the releases of Zeal and Tales of Tribute, I would like Tales of Tribute matches to drop Zeal event boxes in addition to the other ways of getting them. I realize this would break the theme of being grouped with guild members, but I hope we do away with that requirement for future Zeal events and I think it'd be a good way to incentivize Tales of Tribute gameplay as well as thematic in that every hard working craftsman needs a way to left off steam after a long day at the workshop.

I would hate to see too much gated behind the card game, or anything at all gated behind it. I did not like it at all, even if others love it.