A rant about the increasing grind time to get event motifs

Hvíthákarl · September 2022

Greetings! First and foremost, as stated in the title, this is a rant. This is me yelling at a cloud. Don't expect this to be a serious, data-backed analysis of the stuff I'll talk about.
Secondly, this is written from the perspective of someone who usually can't spend many hours grinding event stuff. "Just grind it" ain't useful feedback, given said context.

So I've been trying to get my hands on that sweet Oaken Order Armor they've added with this event. I really dig both the design and the theme. As usual, I logged in, did my dailies... you know the drill. I did not get it on the boxes awarded by the quests, but I didn't worry about it -I was sure I'd get it on the boxes dropped by vents or world bosses, anyway-. No luck. Shrugged, logged in my 2nd account and repeated the process with the same result... maybe it wasn't my day, so I just called it a day. So today I logged it, did the same and... you guess. Nothing. I really want the armor, though, and since today I had time enough to spare. I decided to grind it for a while. One hour, two, three, four...

...Still nothing. I scratched my head and started asking in /zone, guildmates etcetera. Most of them have told me the same, the luckiest ones got to loot a single Oaken page. Fellow /zone pals more or less the same, with a few lucky ones that did get their motif both days. I start thinking about it, and realize this has been a thing that's been slowly snowballing over time. And it frustrates me.

I played ESO back when there was no daily limit on how much motifs you could get. You just played the event, which rewarded you with a generous amount of motifs you could either trade for gold or store in your guild bank so future newbies could have access to them, no grind asked. For me that was wonderful, since I could bring new friends to ESO and hand them a bunch of cosmetics, making them feel welcome and wanting to further engage with the game. I adored that.
Now? You can barely get enough of them for yourself (and you may even need to spend tickets for missing pieces, see my 2nd initial point). Don't even think about giving motifs out unless you're real lucky. Everything's carefully calculated so you don't get many extra pages. The drop rate has been slowly decreasing, more so this year, to the point that getting the full armor is a chore, rather than rewarding. Imho they should tweak both the daily limit (if not removing it) and the drop rate so you don't have to spend hours to get a motif page. This is getting out of hand.

Necrotech_Master · September 2022

the problem they have had in the past is when the drops are so freaking common they just overload your inventory and become worthless as each acct only needs to learn it once (remember jephrine paladin style pages? lol)

i agree though that with too low of a drop rate, it makes it feel impossible to earn without buying them (either with tickets, or on guild stores with gold)

Billium813 · September 2022

> Motif drop rates are too low

I hear this a lot... except, Iv never had any issues getting all the motif pages with minimal effort by doing the following:

Only open event boxes until you get a motif page. Then stop until 24hrs passes. There is an invisible 20 hour cooldown on page drops that players don't realize. So they open like 500 boxes one day, then experience crazy drop rates and complain. I open like 6-10 boxes per day, sometimes less, and get all the pages, one day at a time. I always stop after getting the first page for the day. I used to open like 100 per day and farm boxes during the events. Then I realized how terrible the drop rates were after the first page and I stopped. It's as easy as that.

The only problem I ever see is that the dropped motif pages are NOT curated, so getting duplicates happens often. For that reason, trading most pages 1:1 in zone chat allows me to complete everything by the end of the event.

EZPZ

Hvíthákarl · September 2022

Billium813 wrote: »

Only open event boxes until you get a motif page.

Which ain't happening for me and a lot more people on this event. Drops hace gotten sl abysmally low we ain't getting motifs even after opening a bazillion boxes.

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

the problem they have had in the past is when the drops are so freaking common they just overload your inventory and become worthless as each acct only needs to learn it once (remember jephrine paladin style pages? lol

Yeah I totally see your point and think they could tweak rates to achieve an intermediate position. But if I had to pick my poison I'd rather get more than less, so they can be given to later arrivals

.

Maythor · September 2022

One more disappointment! Day two, no style pages.

Auldwulfe · September 2022

Nice to know about the cooldown - well, that's a number of wasted boxes, but I can make that up.
One question, do they still drop the motif if you have a stack of boxes after the event?

Auldwulfe

FluffWit · September 2022

I've haven't done much but I got a style page first two days and promptly sold them for 10x what I'll have to pay to get em out of a trader in a weeks time.

katanagirl1 · October 2022

Yeah, I used to love giving away extra stuff to guildies during events. Now I have to sell duplicates (if I get any) in the guild trader to buy ones I don’t have, or use tickets. Been that way for maybe a year or more.

I don’t know why we can’t be rewarded for playing instead of punished. I got one page yesterday but none today.

DirtyDeeds765 · October 2022

I like that they're kinda rare. Why do you think they should be abundant? Just because they were in the past?

I think its cool that they're not dropping every other box. Makes them more valuable, in a financial sense and otherwise.

You aren't entitled to style pages. Earn them.

FluffyBird · October 2022

DirtyDeeds765 wrote: »

I like that they're kinda rare. Why do you think they should be abundant? Just because they were in the past?

I think its cool that they're not dropping every other box. Makes them more valuable, in a financial sense and otherwise.

You aren't entitled to style pages. Earn them.

They are a limited time offering, you can't grind them over some long time, if the drop is low, you have to live in the game for the duration of event, which can only lead to burnout.

Buying them in the end of the event is an option, but only if you were personally unlucky, not if everyone had a hard time getting the style. Also, some people want to earn everything themselves.

And one-per-day limit is a pile of guar dung, telling me that they fail to entice us with actual gameplay to log in daily and have to resort to such gimmicks that, honestly, kill the joy of farming.

Without the limit there would be too many? Obviously not the ZOS's reason, remember those spider pet parts, they were a meme.

Hvíthákarl · October 2022

So far the feedback has been amazing! After giving it another thought today, and taking into account some stuff that's been said I've come with an idea, so hear me out:

They would be capped at three daily pages.
1st, golden event box: Guaranteed bound motif page you don't already own. If you've already completed it, you have instead a 50% chance to get any unbound event motif page from the golden box.

Purple boxes: 50% chance of getting any unbound event motif page. After that, you have a 10% chance of getting a third one so those interested in playing funny coin numbers would have to earn it.

Your thoughts? How would you improve it? Maybe you have a different idea?

Jaimeh · October 2022

I think if they did a guaranteed page each day with the golden coffer it'd be great, and then you could grind the purple boxes for extra goodies if you wanted. But they also sell tickets in the store, so I guess they want to entice people to buy them in order to complete their collections.

Kiralyn2000 · October 2022

DirtyDeeds765 wrote: »

I like that they're kinda rare. Why do you think they should be abundant? Just because they were in the past?

I guess it all depends on what the intended goal the devs have for the event. Is it for everyone who participates to get a set of the style? Or is it for only the fortunate/rich to get them? If it's the first, then the rates are too low.

I think its cool that they're not dropping every other box. Makes them more valuable, in a financial sense and otherwise.

Ah, you seem to be a trader type. Of course you'd like anything that adds a new valuable commodity for you to enrich yourself with.

You aren't entitled to style pages. Earn them.

I've always found this attitude interesting/frustrating. What's the self-defined limit of "earned" vs "given"? How many hours of gameplay does one have to do for you to consider them to have "earned" it? Do they have to grind 1 hour? 2? Is anything less than 3 hours a day being "given" the rewards?
And what about the ones who RNG blesses, and get the drops on their first daily box? Did they earn it?

(these kind of things always make me remember a silly thing from early-expansions WoW. In those days they had raid vendors - every boss you killed/raid you completed got you some points, once you had enough you could buy some of the raid gear directly from the vendor, rather than being totally at the mercy of RNG.
So one day, someone posts "Does anyone else think this patch's raid vendor prices are a little high? They seem like they could use a bit of a tweak." And someone immediately screamed at them "so you want a full set of gear mailed to you on login?!?!?!" So, yeah. This idea that anything below X effort is "entitled" and "given", while anything above X effort is "earned" has always felt a bit odd to me.

)

..the "it needs to be rare to have any worth to me" thing as well. Again, WoW stories - the devs wanted more than a handful of people to participate in raids. So they made them "more accessible." At which point some people yelled on the forums about how their fancy raid gear "was now worthless!!!!" Not because it lost it's super-high stats, not because it lost it's set bonus. But because other (presumably 'unworthy') people had it. Again, incomprehensible to me. It should have value for it's game utility/stats, or because you think it looks nice. Not because "I have it and you don't!"

edit: personally, the only parts of the style I have some interest in are the pants & shoulders. Easily obtainable from the Impressario with the 12 tickets I have carried over from the last few events.

Tempest_Adastra · October 2022

I've been discussing this with other players a lot lately. Event style drops have been getting harder and harder to come by and it's upsetting and stressing out a lot of players. We started feeling things getting tougher 6 months ago or so.

Let's look at the recent Whitestrake's Mayhem event. I've played this game since launch and have always enjoyed playing Cyrodil during these times and having big epic battles. BUT, this year I had to sit in the Imperial Sewers/City for hours most day's just to get a style page. I was so burnt out I didn't even participate in Cyrodil beyond getting tickets. This event went from being one of my favorite events to an awful experience.

I felt this a bit during the Zeal of Zenithar event but at least during this event getting boxes was not that difficult so the abysmal drop rate was a bit easier to work around.

High Isle is bothering a lot of people because now we have an abysmal drop rate AND we don't even have a guaranteed method (outside of dailies) to get boxes. Not sure exactly if a cooldown as been put in place on drops or the rates are just far lower... but I can say anecdotally people in all my guilds are feeling it. People aren't having fun. There is constant complaining. People are getting burnt out.

I love this game and I love collecting all the styles which is perhaps why this is so stressful. It's easy to say if you aren't having fun just stop... but I want the styles and collectibles! Having said that, I am getting to a point where I am ready to just give up on events because I'm not having fun anymore. I would love to see some change here. I don't think it's healthy for the game to be stressing people out in this way. My guild chats, which are usually very positive, are full of people complaining and venting while grinding this event.

Blinx · October 2022

I don't know what's worse, getting no event page, or getting the same one 3 days in a row....sigh

shadyjane62 · October 2022

I know you said "don't say just grind it" I have heard that many times. Now I just don't do events.

Kingsindarkness · October 2022

Not trying to be contrary...but I'm not noticing much of a difference...I mean hasn't it been this way for a while now?

Tempest_Adastra · October 2022

Kingsindarkness wrote: »

Not trying to be contrary...but I'm not noticing much of a difference...I mean hasn't it been this way for a while now?

It has been. The drop rate for style pages has been bad for a while now. It feels even worse now because of whatever has been done to coffer drops. I think it wouldn't feel nearly as bad if we were guaranteed a coffer for each vent or WB.

For example, assume the style page drop motif was a 10% chance from boxes. If you have a guaranteed drop from a world boss then your chance that the activity yields a page is 10%. If now all of a sudden you have a 30% chance to get a drop from a world boss, the chance that the activity yields a page is reduced to 3%. Thus increasing the grind by 233%.

Amottica · October 2022

People also complain because they think motif drops are too high, which prevents being able to sell them for big bucks.,

I think RNG plays a big role in all of this on a personal level. Even OP notes their comments are not data-driven. It is also still early in the event.

SeaGtGruff · October 2022

Billium813 wrote: »

Only open event boxes until you get a motif page. Then stop until 24hrs passes. There is an invisible 20 hour cooldown on page drops that players don't realize.

This does not fit my experience during this event.

On the first day of the event, I found two different pages of the event style on the same server (PC NA), by the same character (my main), from purple event coffers obtained just hours apart (if that long) by harvesting resource nodes and killing mobs on the way to the various fishing holes and scenic sites for the holiday quest.

There was not even a daily reset between the two pages; both were found before the daily reset which would have ended the first day of the event.

In contrast, I found no pages that day on the other server (PC EU). I did eventually find one page on the other server, but if I'm not mistaken it was on the third day of the event-- also found in a purple event coffer by killing a mob on the way to a delve. So far that's the only page I've found on that server, but I haven't been grinding resource nodes and mobs yet.

On the first server (PC NA), I eventually got a third page on the third day of the event, but it was a duplicate of one of the two I'd found on the first day. I don't think it was from a golden event coffer; I think it was from a purple event coffer, although it was from turning in either a delve daily or a world boss daily rather than from harvesting resource nodes and killing mobs.

My conclusion is that the most reliable way to grind for the event style pages is to harvest resource nodes and kill mobs. And as for your chances to get a page, it seems to be just pure RNG. There is no "20 hour cooldown"-- maybe during past events, but not during this event. And one of the ESO streamers did an unofficial test on the first day of the event which indicated that there's probably a 5-minute cooldown between finding event coffers in resource nodes. However, I want to repeat that I have definitely been finding event coffers by killing and looting mobs in addition to harvesting resource nodes.

moleculardrugs · October 2022

Hvíthákarl wrote: »

Greetings! First and foremost, as stated in the title, this is a rant. This is me yelling at a cloud. Don't expect this to be a serious, data-backed analysis of the stuff I'll talk about.
Secondly, this is written from the perspective of someone who usually can't spend many hours grinding event stuff. "Just grind it" ain't useful feedback, given said context.

So I've been trying to get my hands on that sweet Oaken Order Armor they've added with this event. I really dig both the design and the theme. As usual, I logged in, did my dailies... you know the drill. I did not get it on the boxes awarded by the quests, but I didn't worry about it -I was sure I'd get it on the boxes dropped by vents or world bosses, anyway-. No luck. Shrugged, logged in my 2nd account and repeated the process with the same result... maybe it wasn't my day, so I just called it a day. So today I logged it, did the same and... you guess. Nothing. I really want the armor, though, and since today I had time enough to spare. I decided to grind it for a while. One hour, two, three, four...

...Still nothing. I scratched my head and started asking in /zone, guildmates etcetera. Most of them have told me the same, the luckiest ones got to loot a single Oaken page. Fellow /zone pals more or less the same, with a few lucky ones that did get their motif both days. I start thinking about it, and realize this has been a thing that's been slowly snowballing over time. And it frustrates me.

I played ESO back when there was no daily limit on how much motifs you could get. You just played the event, which rewarded you with a generous amount of motifs you could either trade for gold or store in your guild bank so future newbies could have access to them, no grind asked. For me that was wonderful, since I could bring new friends to ESO and hand them a bunch of cosmetics, making them feel welcome and wanting to further engage with the game. I adored that.
Now? You can barely get enough of them for yourself (and you may even need to spend tickets for missing pieces, see my 2nd initial point). Don't even think about giving motifs out unless you're real lucky. Everything's carefully calculated so you don't get many extra pages. The drop rate has been slowly decreasing, more so this year, to the point that getting the full armor is a chore, rather than rewarding. Imho they should tweak both the daily limit (if not removing it) and the drop rate so you don't have to spend hours to get a motif page. This is getting out of hand.

I’m okay with the event grind, just make the events last 4 weeks instead of 2, because I don’t have time to play ESO even though I would love to play and grind for the items. We can also get more event tickets to buy from the Imperrsio

gariondavey · October 2022

0 drops in 4 days from the gold box + 1 epic box each day.
@ZOS_Kevin do you know why this drop rate is lower than previous events?

SammyKhajit · October 2022

This one has received three gold pages but all from the purple boxes. It is strange.

FlopsyPrince · October 2022

It should have absolutely no correlation to the number opened during a day, or even opening them only during the event.

I regularly find I forgot to open an event box until much later on one of my alts. I still had one with a full PvP buff (which was wasted) from the last PvP event.

This is too much of a grind in too many ways already, especially for many alts.

wolfie1.0. · October 2022

First i think we need to understand that there are what appear to be different items we are talking about so here are the options so far:

Event Style Pages - Drops ONLY from event boxes or is purchasable via event tickets
Motif Pages- These are pages that are included in event boxes, but can also be earned outside of events
Event Specific Motif Pages - not applicable to High Isle event, but is for other events

Based on the context the OP is referring to Style Pages specifically. Personally i don't want them dropping like water in a flood, but guarantying at least 1 per day seems legit to me with a 30-50% drop rate for the more standard boxes depending on the drop rate of the event boxes.

Elendir2am · October 2022

I got 4 event style pages and all of them were braces.
Curse you RND, curse you daedric prince of damnation and grind.

SammyKhajit · October 2022

Elendir2am wrote: »

I got 4 event style pages and all of them were braces.
Curse you RND, curse you daedric prince of damnation and grind.

This one agrees with you but just curious as to which daedric prince would best suit grinding for gears and drops? One of the divines would be more likely, like that silly Stendarr god of labour and toil etc.

SeaGtGruff · October 2022

As I more or less mentioned before, the best way to get the pages seems to be to farm purple coffers from overland, rather than from doing the dailies per se. I've gotten purple coffers from harvesting resource nodes, killing and looting mobs, and opening and looting treasure chests. I also got two pages on the same character within an hour or two of each other on the first day of the event, while running around visiting fishing holes and other locations for the initial event quest, so there does not seem to be a 20-hour cooldown. But the RNG is, as usual, highly variable; after getting two within hours of each other on the first day, I got no more until maybe two days later. Plus, getting a purple coffer from a resource node, corpse, or treasure chest is equally subject to wildly variable RNG, with coffers dropping nearly every 5 minutes in some cases but then suddenly being impossible to find for up to an hour.

In summary: Be patient, and don't give up, and eventually you should get lucky and find some.

Sarannah · October 2022

Was going to post how stupid this hidden 20h timer is... but I got another oaken style page less than 20h after getting one yesterday. So either it is an 18h or less hidden timer, or the droprate is just incredibly low with no timer. I love this, as this means we can keep farming those style pages if we want.

And I open the event boxes immediately whenever I get one to drop.

Have gotten boxes from mobs, resource nodes, containers, thieving, etc. There does seem to be a hidden 5 min cooldown on the purple event boxes, and sometimes it takes like 15 mins to get another.

PS: Have gotten many motif pages, these are simply random drops depending on luck.

HerrKeinTipp_MrNoTip · October 2022

I just grind my daily writs on 18 max toons...which isn't a grind for me, it's 40-90 mins of end-of-work-day reset. Between the mat drops I can sell, the surveys I can collect and get mat drops I can sell from, and the master writs I can do in a big chunk and get a heap of valuable writ tickets and much XP.....I will just buy these motifs.

I had maxed out the entire game prior to high isle. I haven't yet filled in the last six or nine sets but I will soon due to them being attached to more and more master writs I get....but I won't be grinding for them.

Spend more in game gold, earnt in less in game time, to avoid in game grind. That's my ethos for this. YMMV

jaws343 · October 2022

gariondavey wrote: »

0 drops in 4 days from the gold box + 1 epic box each day.
@ZOS_Kevin do you know why this drop rate is lower than previous events?

I mean, you only opened 8 boxes it seems. That may be the reason why the drop rate is low, you haven't really participated in the event enough to have enough chances at dropping the pages.