My feelings on the 10th Anniversary event

Rowjoh · April 22

spartaxoxo wrote: »

.....Overall, I'd have to say my experience was the opposite of a celebration. It was work towards an item that I really, really wanted. And the tediousness of that work ruined the item for me.

I like quite a lot what ZoS does and I'm particularly looking forward to the next update and the new spell creation system, but for a big spectacular 10th year 'celebration', it has been underwhelming, unspectacular and unimaginative.

I didn't bother with the incessant grind fest for the rare motifs, instead I religiously logged all my chars on both servers day in, day out for the crafting writ loot boxes, which is tedium personified to say the least.

And the loot boxes themselves are a disappointment. Although there are a few decent rewards and drops here and there, there's such a plethora of base level rubbish and repeats, that it quickly became dull opening them all.

Sorry.

SilverBride · April 22

I want to add to this that I have never been affected by FOMO... until now. And the reason for that is because these styles are part of the 10 year anniversary event and are only available for a very limited time, and are a remembrance of this milestone anniversary.

With these drops so low it means that many will never get any of them, let alone all of them, and is ruining what should have been a fun and rewarding event.

Stafford197 · April 22

I’ve had a very poor experience with this event.
If ZOS releases an infographic about player engagement I will make it a personal point to never subscribe again.

Really unfortunate that such a big milestone for ESO, and the year of Spellcrafting/Scribing no less, has been totally soured.

skyrimfantasy · April 22

ApoAlaia wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

Blood_again wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

Yes, serious design flaws for an event are the players fault and should not be complained about.

We are the customers, if we don’t like the product we are allowed to tell the vendor what they are trying to sell us is not enjoyable.

This event was not enjoyable to many people.

That's your saying.

Mine is: it is players' choice to grind or not to grind.
I'm totally fine about people telling the vendor anything. It would be terrible if people didn't. Meanwhile I'm for congruity too.
You as a customer vote with your feet while sitting on the grind spot. You keep buying this "design flaw" with your ingame time, don't you?

Grind for hours or get no pages. Happy 10th anniversary!

Bad, bad, bad design.

Grind for hours and get no pages. Happy 10th anniversary!

TFTFY

This was my experience. I work a full time job and have a family so I don't have unlimited time to grind. I wanted only 2 of the styles so that's what I focused on. I ran 20 or so dolmens (about an hour) almost every day, and never got the page. Never got the other one I wanted either. I do appreciate the Roe I got in the purple boxes at least.

BlueRaven · April 22

Blood_again wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

My saying is:

Making awards available only through limited time, low drop chance, grinding is dumb. And people should be justifiably upset to be put into this position.

Grind for hours or get no pages. Happy 10th anniversary!

Bad, bad, bad design.

Yes, that is your saying. I see.
Now what is your choice?
Keep grinding and shout? Avoid grinding and keep shouting?
You are a customer. What's your customer's choice with this bad, bad, very bad design?

What does it matter? I am a beta tester consistent player who will get a grand total of zero pages when this is done.

Do I like the style pages? I would love them, yes.
Do I want to grind for them? Grinding is why I left wow, so not really.

I have played this game for ten [bleep]ing years, got all of the CE box sets when they were available, got the CE versions of the other chapters, I have 30-40 houses at this point, and for the 10th anniversary zos does this to me.

Great event, thanks a lot.

Elvenheart · April 22

Luke_Flamesword wrote: »

Event was terrible. I grinded all 5 pages and it took me something like 10-15hours. I thought that because I had unlucky rng, but I was shocked when I found out that my rng actually was lucky. Hardcore FOMO grind as celebration? Wow, that's really interesting idea to celebrate 10 years

But this is only the beginning. I wanted to grind pages on first days to focus on boxes later. But I was locked from PTS failure (I didn' even logged to live server, but I'm still banned). It's already week and today I expect nothing more than another info about next DAYS for waiting.

Compensation is nice and I was happy, but it's already so long and will be longer, that I start to think, that I wish I was not banned. I hoped I will have at least couple days of event to farm mats, style pages and transmutes, but oh well. I play ESO since 2019 and my longest break were 2-3 days so it's first so long break and it's forced which sucks.

What's worst - big part of community is so frustrated with this event grind, that they put so much hate into players like me, because of recompensation. I didn't even need all these style pages, because I already grinded them and 16k Seals are very nice, but still not worth all drama, emotions, trouble and ingame looses. People don't know and even don't want to think about all consequences of being locked like this, in time like this (double event - thieves celebration and anniversary - most profitable event ever), because they see only their frustration with grind and nothing else matters for them. This is sick situation, when players are against players nad I'm really sad that is how 10 years of ESO looks like.

ZOS is responsible mostly for terrible rng for these style pages (really, limited time and such a poor drop rate?) and doing nothing with it after first days of complains. They should just throw these pages for everyone, but of course at this point there will be frustration of players who already grinded it and they will be furious if everyone will get for free. At this point there are no good solution, but ZOS bring this on themselves, it could be avoided.

Well said. It’s a shame players should feel divided over this. ZOS chose how the five iconic style pages from years past would be available to the players, creating the grind and the chance that some players would not get them no matter how hard they grinded. The PTS fiasco was a terrible accident that overshadowed everything else, but still it is not the fault of the players so nobody should be mad at the locked out players because of what chose to fix it. People should be directing their opinions, their feedback, and their ire at ZOS instead of each other.

shadyjane62 · April 22

Today I actually downloaded another game for the first time in a long time.

Unfortunately I subbed for a year and got the Gold Road.

Both of which I regret.

Necrotech_Master · April 22

my experience with the drops was on the luckier side, but i would agree that the pure luck with low drop chance scheme was not the best option for this

my grind for drops took ~20 hours over 4 days, with a huge bulk of that (~17 hours) spent on the vvardenfell WB drops (particularly the barbas helm)

at a minimum they should have been buyable with tickets, so one could have chosen to get them for free by grinding, or used tickets

though i was more unhappy with all the other sources of ticket drain this event (the necessity to use the tickets to buy items for achievements, the cake slices and the extra mount confetti packs, which this was a whole other separate problem)

so while it sounds like i had a far easier time with the drops, there was a lot of this event in terms of the new rewards that i did not enjoy still

Melivar · April 22

I will start out with I did get all the style pages and for me personally only Summerset was lengthy grind 10+ hours who knows how many geysers. Still nothing like the grinds i have done in other games "looking at you WOW" so overall not to bad.

The drop rates could certainly be better, or I would have been all for some other alternative measure such as 100% achievements or something for zones/dolmen/geyser these could have been gotten or had some option to purchase.

The fact is I played more while the chase was still on than once I had them all. Still did my 18 characters worth of writs for the easy box rewards. But then if i couldn't find a quick trial group or anything going on with my guilds I logged off which is my normal pattern of play event or no event.

ZOS will have the data to review their intended version of success which was surely to get players engaged chasing the style pages which it has. How much the bad press on these forums and other social media platforms will be weighed for future events we shall have to wait and see. It is often a failed perspective that agreement or feelings of those who post on the forums represent the sheer volume of players across all the platforms actually playing the game.

Again happy grinding and good luck to all those still searching for their missing style pages.

kevkj · April 22

The player engagement metrics will be off the chain though and who can argue against that.

MJallday · April 22

Congratulations ZOS , for your 10th birthday you’ve made everyone hate you.

Hope you’re proud

spartaxoxo · April 22

Blood_again wrote: »

If it is too much for you, we can define it more freely as "blocking progress". We play easy, don't we?
In that matter the player is forced to finish the tutorial to visit other zones for example.

Now tell me, why did you ask me about force in the topic of the style pages drop?
It is not about buying Summerset to craft jewellery.
It is not a maelstrom staff, which was must have for respectable DD. Ask any elitist.
It is not about the lead to Kilt fragment, when people went crazy on Shadowfen waterplants for a few percent of their dps.
It is a style. Where is the inevitability? Who can't play further without them? Where is the blocker with no choice?

Trimmed quote for brevity.

Anyway, as I suspected, we have a difference in viewpoint on what is forced. You appear to not consider any situation with cosmetics to be able to be forced because it doesn't block gameplay progression.

I disagree. For one thing, I don't believe that any aspect of the game to be above criticism. Even the cosmetics should feel fun and fair to obtain for the players that enjoy the playstyle that it comes from (or are at least neutral towards it).

For another, when it comes to obtaining items in the game, regardless of what they are, I look at the player agency in how they obtain the item.

Let's take a look at another cosmetic item, for an example.

There are style pages that occasionally drop from defeating the last boss of a dungeon.

I don't mind the occasional grind, so I have farmed these before. Both for profit or just to add to my personal collection. You'll find little complaints from me about them. Or from the broader playerbase.

Why? You can grind for them and they only drop for a limited time basis.

Well, it's because once a player decides to obtain this item, they have a choice in how to obtain it.

They can grind it out in a dungeon.
They can buy the style page at a premium from someone else who grinds it.
For some pages, they can also spend Archival Fortunes to get it from the Infinite Archive. A currency they can obtain at anytime and then hold onto it for when they want to spend it.

So, even though the dungeon style pages are LTO and grindy, few people truly complain. Because those who decide to go for them aren't forced into a singular option.

By making them have the trifecta restrictions of being bound, LTO, and rare, the developers have forced those who decide to get the event style pages into a single playstyle. Because there is only one option for obtaining them.

That's what turns an activity that many don't mind or even enjoy, into one that is unpleasant to the majority of the playerbase. On the poll for this, more than 80% of respondents said they didn't like this cosmetic grind. That includes respondents such as myself that doen't mind the occasional rare item grind.

It's on the players to pick content they think they will enjoy. But it the developer's responsibility to ensure that when people select a piece of content, it is fun and fair to the majority of people who'd enjoy that type of content. And I think the overwhelmingly negative response to these pages shows that they failed at that objective.

Ofc, maybe their playdata shows different. We don't have access to that. I can only speak to what is being shown here and what I have seen in-game.

Melivar · April 23

spartaxoxo wrote: »

That's what turns an activity that many don't mind or even enjoy, into one that is unpleasant to the majority of the playerbase. On the poll for this, more than 80% of respondents said they didn't like this cosmetic grind. That includes respondents such as myself that doen't mind the occasional rare item grind.

It's on the players to pick content they think they will enjoy. But it the developer's responsibility to ensure that when people select a piece of content, it is fun and fair to the majority of people who'd enjoy that type of content. And I think the overwhelmingly negative response to these pages shows that they failed at that objective.

Ofc, maybe their playdata shows different. We don't have access to that. I can only speak to what is being shown here and what I have seen in-game.

Snipped to the last section only.

But that 80% of responders is out of 500 or so total. Most polls never hit more than 250.

That's likely a smaller portion of the player base than End Game Raiders and Hardcore PVPers of which the general forum consensus is less than 1% and shouldn't necessarily be allowed to dictate what goes on in the game for reasons.

I certainly won't be sad if future drop rates are better but as a gamer I also know that this is the way things are. I personally won't be offended if the drops rates where made significantly better for the remainder of the event either as it no longer affects me.

spartaxoxo · April 23

Melivar wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

That's what turns an activity that many don't mind or even enjoy, into one that is unpleasant to the majority of the playerbase. On the poll for this, more than 80% of respondents said they didn't like this cosmetic grind. That includes respondents such as myself that doen't mind the occasional rare item grind.

It's on the players to pick content they think they will enjoy. But it the developer's responsibility to ensure that when people select a piece of content, it is fun and fair to the majority of people who'd enjoy that type of content. And I think the overwhelmingly negative response to these pages shows that they failed at that objective.

Ofc, maybe their playdata shows different. We don't have access to that. I can only speak to what is being shown here and what I have seen in-game.

Snipped to the last section only.

But that 80% of responders is out of 500 or so total. Most polls never hit more than 250.

That's likely a smaller portion of the player base than End Game Raiders and Hardcore PVPers of which the general forum consensus is less than 1% and shouldn't necessarily be allowed to dictate what goes on in the game for reasons.

I certainly won't be sad if future drop rates are better but as a gamer I also know that this is the way things are. I personally won't be offended if the drops rates where made significantly better for the remainder of the event either as it no longer affects me.

Generally speaking, you only need to 300-500 respondents of a representative sample for a poll on here to be fairly valid. The more the better, but if you can hit that threshold, you can start drawing conclusions. Ofc forums always skew more towards how core users feel. But those are generally speaking the people most likely to engage in grind anyway.

Soraka · April 23

Yes the forum polls are generally not the most accurate. However, I don't see a lot of people in zone chats grinding talking about how much fun they are having, unless it's in a bitter sarcastic manner.

Granted the grinding is horribly boring so I'm not there 24/7 watching and tallying what I read. I do an hour or two and then wander off to do something fun.

Elvenheart · April 23

Today, when I logged on and saw the weekly endeavor, I looked at the three choices and ended up picking the one for defeating 75 dangerous foes. That was my first choice. Then, I decided whether I wanted to just get them over the next seven days in the normal course of play, which probably would have happened, or if I wanted to get them out of the way by grinding for them. I chose to grind, my second choice. I then went to a spot that I liked for grinding dangerous foes when I need to and happily grinded away, always knowing throughout the grind approximately how much more time it would take to make it to 75 at the rate I was going. I knew I would get there because every dangerous foe I killed added one to my total. The same is true if it had been kill 200 dangerous foes, or 1,000 dangerous foes, It would’ve just taken longer, but I would have seen progress every day and know that the goal is in sight.

If the endeavor had said instead every time you kill a dangerous foe there is a very small chance it will complete the endeavor, that would’ve been a different story. I could grind dangerous foes all week long and still have a chance of not getting the endeavor before the end of the week. Who would choose that option if there was a better one? With the way they did this event, rng with a low drop rate, there will most likely be people who have grinded during the entire event who never get what they’re looking for. That’s what’s awful.

peacenote · April 23

Agree with OP. Due to a variety of things happening in my life right now, I can see clearly I won't have time to get these styles before the event is over. I used a little free time on the fishing, and got that one. I moved on to dolmens and that's where I'm stuck. Days until the event are over are all work days. As someone who's been around since beta and makes an effort to snag all of the special event stuff, it's disappointing.

Desiato wrote: »

Is it not okay for a game designer to implement rewards that are rare and intended to be a nice surprise for the lucky or a reward for the truly determined?

While "okay" could mean different things to different people, from the context used, I would say "yes"' and that this is a common occurrence in MMOs. However, you didn't put all of the criteria in your sentence. If you were to say: "Is it not okay for a game designer to implement rewards that are rare, limited-time, non-tradable, and drop during an event specifically intended to commemorate a ten year anniversary, and marketed to its customers as a celebration for them, and have those rewards be a nice surprise for the lucky or a reward for the truly determined?" ... I would say no!

It is an extremely problematic model to put limited-time rewards behind an RNG drop model, especially when the items are likely to be most appealing to long time customers who pride themselves on being in the community for a long time. In fact, I can't immediately bring to mind any other time ZOS has done this. (The closest thing was the event rewards where we were not told for a very long time if they were ever coming back, but even for those we are now starting to see this as the indrik berries were re-released and we're seeing those "yesteryear" drop bags at the Impresario.) In my mind, this feels extra bad because ZOS had a known and understood model for event style pages, which is that drops were unbound but ones purchased through tickets were bound. And to top off the sundae with a cherry, players locked out of their accounts are now getting these style pages (to be clear I am 100% in favor of the compensation; no issue with that) which just shines a huge spotlight on how troublesome this whole model is. By giving the locked out players the style pages, they're basically adding legitimacy to the concept that it's a valid complaint that these players might be upset at losing access to these limited-time items. Well, can they also not see how upset players who farmed and farmed and farmed and failed might be, as well?

As it is, many people are upset that they can't get the anniversary cakes, if they failed to do the quest during the event. And THAT is a two minute activity. You probably had something pretty major going on in your life, or were new enough that you didn't understand about the cake quest, to miss it. For these style pages, players could spend hours and hours towards them, and still exit the event empty-handed.

While ZOS is within their rights to do this if they want, it doesn't really feel "ok" to me. It feels like the exact opposite of a celebration.

And, by the way, I've always loved the Anniversary event for the boxes. It's been my absolute favorite. This has put a bit of a damper on it for me.

MidniteOwl1913 · April 23

Elvenheart wrote: »

Today, when I logged on and saw the weekly endeavor, I looked at the three choices and ended up picking the one for defeating 75 dangerous foes. That was my first choice. Then, I decided whether I wanted to just get them over the next seven days in the normal course of play, which probably would have happened, or if I wanted to get them out of the way by grinding for them. I chose to grind, my second choice. I then went to a spot that I liked for grinding dangerous foes when I need to and happily grinded away, always knowing throughout the grind approximately how much more time it would take to make it to 75 at the rate I was going. I knew I would get there because every dangerous foe I killed added one to my total. The same is true if it had been kill 200 dangerous foes, or 1,000 dangerous foes, It would’ve just taken longer, but I would have seen progress every day and know that the goal is in sight.

If the endeavor had said instead every time you kill a dangerous foe there is a very small chance it will complete the endeavor, that would’ve been a different story. I could grind dangerous foes all week long and still have a chance of not getting the endeavor before the end of the week. Who would choose that option if there was a better one? With the way they did this event, rng with a low drop rate, there will most likely be people who have grinded during the entire event who never get what they’re looking for. That’s what’s awful.

Yes, in fact the first time you (for instance) kill the WB you have *exactly* the same chance to get the item as the 1001 time. That's the soul-crushing truth. And if you get the thing on try 1002, all but the last one was wasted. *This* is what I hate most about grinding on ESO.

peacenote · April 23

Blood_again wrote: »

Also if you want ZOS to change something, stop playing content you hate. Don't think they are blind. They see you play that content, and it is a bold sign "Do it again". :

This is flawed logic in ESO and something I not only doubt is true, but actually hope isn't true. Think about all of the debates about PvP vs PvE. Casual vs. Endgame. Solo vs. Group. This game appeals to lots of different players and, as it is, many players only do certain kinds of content while that content, for others, is why they log in every day. Some people not playing the content hopefully doesn't set off any alarm bells for ZOS. Otherwise they'd stop making trials. And cancel Midyear Mayhem. Delete unpopular leads from the game. And so on. Not everyone does everything.

Plus, in a situation like this, where there are styles people would like but the method of obtaining was not fun, ZOS doesn't even have a way of knowing which factor made the "content" to be disliked --perhaps players don't like the styles, or they want a different kind of reward (pet/mount/personality/etc), or are turned off by the grinding, or they are turned off by the type of grinding (hate fishing for example). The nuanced feedback being shared can only really can be explained through the forums, social media, zone chat, etc., and I truly can't imagine that ZOS would look at the average number of people not fishing or not doing dolmens and conclude "This was a miss."

h9dlb wrote: »

Why is everyone wasting their time? They will be in grab bags in 11 months.

I wouldn't be so sure of this given the fact that these styles were handled differently than regular event styles.

Sepultura_13 · April 23

I have no FOMO. A year IRL which was completely FUBAR showed me how futile FOMO is. I did the Twitch streaming thing for 5 years, trying to become a "stream team" member...what a waste of my time. I should have spent that time IRL with the people who really mattered to me.

As far as getting Jubilee boxes, they don't drop from dolmens or WBs when the "poachers" are constantly camping on them. I've lost count on how many boxes I should have gotten from many instances, only to lose out to some poacher who spams the same move and is wearing some OP gear to assist them.

old_scopie1945 · April 23

I just feel burned out. The event just makes me feel so depressed with the game that I feel less and less like playing each day.

Blood_again · April 23

spartaxoxo wrote: »

So, even though the dungeon style pages are LTO and grindy, few people truly complain. Because those who decide to go for them aren't forced into a singular option.

By making them have the trifecta restrictions of being bound, LTO, and rare, the developers have forced those who decide to get the event style pages into a single playstyle. Because there is only one option for obtaining them.

That's what turns an activity that many don't mind or even enjoy, into one that is unpleasant to the majority of the playerbase. On the poll for this, more than 80% of respondents said they didn't like this cosmetic grind. That includes respondents such as myself that doen't mind the occasional rare item grind.

It's on the players to pick content they think they will enjoy. But it the developer's responsibility to ensure that when people select a piece of content, it is fun and fair to the majority of people who'd enjoy that type of content. And I think the overwhelmingly negative response to these pages shows that they failed at that objective.

Yes, our understanding of "being forced" in the game is different.
I see your point. If the question is "Could devs organize the event better?", my answer is "Yes, sure, it could be better." I can't see where to disagree here.

Meanwhile my main point was against exaggerating the devs responsibility for what players do, like "Look, they've made me grind for extra long hours".
You can see at your comment: "those who decide to go for...", "the developers have forced those who decide to...". I found your formulating quite good. Because it shows that "being forced", in your understanding, consists of at least two parts: game design and players' decision.

I want to focus on the moment, that in your interpretation the player's decision is basic, and devs do bad design on top of it. It sounds like that. "The developers have forced those who decide to get the event style pages into a single playstyle".
In my interpretation players do their decisions in the context of the game design, so the game design is basic in the situation. Like "I decided to get the style, that was locked behind a grind wall".
See the difference? Maybe that's the key element of our disagreement.
In my model I change my decision to grind and go questing instead, if I feel frustrated.
In your model, as I see, I should blame devs for spoiling my nice ingame goal, but I hold to my decision and keep grinding. Because my decision was first, and the game design is the second and should be changed over that.
Makes sense?

Don't get me wrong. I will blame the unpleasant design too. It is natural. But now I'm interested in the ingame behaviour element.

Blood_again · April 23

peacenote wrote: »

This game appeals to lots of different players and, as it is, many players only do certain kinds of content while that content, for others, is why they log in every day. Some people not playing the content hopefully doesn't set off any alarm bells for ZOS. Otherwise they'd stop making trials. And cancel Midyear Mayhem. Delete unpopular leads from the game. And so on. Not everyone does everything.

Players' activity statistics are bread and butter for any game development if they have supported the game for years.
Some time ago ZOS published data on how many dolmens were destroyed for the whole time, how many world bosses were killed etc.
If you think that they hold this data just to show a total sum to players, I won't persuade you.

I guess that the dev team are able to build different activities diagram for each day and hour of the last year, if they need to. It may cost, but possible.
How many people started the activity and how many succeeded - a basic parameter to monitor. This is about those style pages too, yes.
Also they hardly use playing darts or running a black chicken to decide where to put a new lead.
It is not about alarm bells, but about changing percents. Because of bread and butter.

katanagirl1 · April 24

Blood_again wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Maybe they should have referenced the drop chance with some terms indicating “serious players only”, like this will be your life for probably the entire event? A sort of challenge accepted? Well, it’s hard to envision that being considered a celebration type of event for many of us.

They marked it as rare, but dolmens and fishing are not a veteran content by any meaning. It would be really strange to have some dolmen drop marked as "for serious players only".
It is just a rare drop from spots which are easily available for any player. I guess it is one of the prerequisites to that "It should be provided" attitude. Like: easy content - easy gained.

Elvenheart wrote: »

And to the two or three people that liked the event and the rarity of the drops, of course your feelings about the event are just as valid for you as our feelings are for us, and your arguments provided a nice counterpoint to ours. But this isn’t a case where a group of people are evenly split on a matter. Judging from the forum poll and number of unhappy comments from A LOT of players, a very huge amount of loyal paying customers did not like the way this was handled. ZOS stands to gain more by listening to the majority in this case.

I totally agree, feelings of all the people participated are valid. My point is to accept all the feedback, not the written only. Many people just play the game instead of writing.

I'm convinced that audience vote with their wallets and feet. If people keep playing the content, they support it.
1. I see some people written they quit grinding for the styles. Their choice is valid and respectable. It is a clear feedback to ZOS.
2. I see some people grinded like crazy or kept forth and back into it (like me) until having their styles. Their feedback is clear too, even if they didn't write anything.
There are also people with controversial feedback:
3. People got their page but found it frustrating (like OP). It is understandable, but we have a fork for the next time here:
3.1. People who will avoid this type of drop next time. It is clearly negative feedback after reaching the goal for the first time.
3.2. People who will get back to grind next time despite their voiced frustration. It would rather be positive feedback, even if these players wrote some negative comment again. This group clearly find something attractive in this grind, but they are not so eager to voice it.
4. People who keep grinding while moaning on the forum and zone chats. This group support the content with rare drop by continious grind. They play the grindspots regularly, make a crowd there, raise the statistic of cleared spots. But they declare it as a pure suffering and unacceptable situation, blaming all around.

While I accept players' choice to grind or not to grind, I would like to see the mentioned groups realize their choice too.
Guys, it is your choice to play every dolmen and geyser or not. Every time you run to the next Vvardenfell boss or sit on the spot, you choose to play this content. Not ZOS, not the evil rng, but you.

Also if you want ZOS to change something, stop playing content you hate. Don't think they are blind. They see you play that content, and it is a bold sign "Do it again". Because yes, they would gain more this way.
Really, this is the day I tell people how to fight against my interests

I did not mean that the content is end game quality activities, which obviously it is not. I was referencing the “serious inquiries only” tag that you see for items of high value not generally available to most people. Serious in this case meaning you would be willing to spend the entire event grinding for this stuff and possibly not get it. ZOS is know for rare drops but as many others have pointed out, that has not been coupled with a limited time availability. This goes way beyond what most people were expecting.

Everyone is free to express their opinions, but I’m not sure that playing devil’s advocate or invalidating other players feelings is a good tactic at this time.

peacenote · April 24

Blood_again wrote: »

peacenote wrote: »

This game appeals to lots of different players and, as it is, many players only do certain kinds of content while that content, for others, is why they log in every day. Some people not playing the content hopefully doesn't set off any alarm bells for ZOS. Otherwise they'd stop making trials. And cancel Midyear Mayhem. Delete unpopular leads from the game. And so on. Not everyone does everything.

Players' activity statistics are bread and butter for any game development if they have supported the game for years.
Some time ago ZOS published data on how many dolmens were destroyed for the whole time, how many world bosses were killed etc.
If you think that they hold this data just to show a total sum to players, I won't persuade you.

I guess that the dev team are able to build different activities diagram for each day and hour of the last year, if they need to. It may cost, but possible.
How many people started the activity and how many succeeded - a basic parameter to monitor. This is about those style pages too, yes.
Also they hardly use playing darts or running a black chicken to decide where to put a new lead.
It is not about alarm bells, but about changing percents. Because of bread and butter.

I'm not saying they don't have that data, or they don't use it to think of ways to encourage people to revisit certain types of content. They certainly do and they've told us as much.

I am saying that this type of data does not give enough info to express certain nuances, especially the sentiments the OP is expressing. I'll use myself as an example.

I fished until I got that style pattern. Then I did some dolmens. Haven't succeeded in getting that drop. I never tried for the other patterns. Based on my regular gaming habits, they might be able to conclude that I fished specifically to try and get that pattern. Because I rarely fish. SLOWWWLY working towards my Master Angler. They probably couldn't conclude that I did the dolmens to try and get the pattern, because I often join the dolmen trains, especially on characters that need to level jewelcrafting (and I used such a character for my dolmen trains). And since I did fish, there's no way for them to know, based on my data, if I didn't try the other grinds because I was against them or didn't like the rewards or what.

Expand that out across the whole population. There's just so many parameters. Of course they will see an increase in those activities because you'll never get everyone to boycott something because of the way it was implemented. Of course they will see some people succeed, and some people fail. None of that will give them the data that some people succeeded but are disgruntled/disillusioned now, and that some people specifically decided not to try because of the grind, because that behavior pattern is indistinguishable from someone who is not interested in obtaining the reward but doesn't object to the grind. They cannot look at that data and, from it, determine what percent of the population objected to how the style pages needed to be acquired.

Which is why not buying an expansion, not renewing ESO+, and/or not buying Crowns (and, to an extent, probably refusing to log in and play at all) are all clear way customers can show displeasure, but avoiding an activity is not that strong of a message (in my opinion), and therefore not the greatest advice, because if you're still logging in, and playing different content instead, ZOS can easily conclude you happily chose to spend your time that way, as opposed to concluding that you are boycotting the activity.

tsaescishoeshiner · April 24

Whenever we grind something unreasonably rare like this, it's important to ask ourselves:

Do I want to use this item or reward?
Am I enjoying the content that I'm doing?
When I decided to farm this, did it feel like I really had a choice?

If the answer to all 3 is "no" ... maybe take a break. Give yourself a choice. Of course, we often realize this too late and are already burnt out.

"Completionism" sounds like a valid way to really enjoy games by checking off boxes, right? But it can be dangerously close to perfectionism, compulsivity, and giving FOMO the reigns.

It's important we take care of ourselves by resisting compulsive or FOMO-type behaviors in games and hobbies (obviously, some people have extra issues with them for a variety of reasons—take extra special care, no judgement here).

I had to come up with this because of this event grind lol. I found ways to make it enjoyable and social before eventually giving up. I respect that some people don't have to think so hard about it, and just stop when they want to.

Blood_again · April 24

katanagirl1 wrote: »

I did not mean that the content is end game quality activities, which obviously it is not. I was referencing the “serious inquiries only” tag that you see for items of high value not generally available to most people. Serious in this case meaning you would be willing to spend the entire event grinding for this stuff and possibly not get it. ZOS is know for rare drops but as many others have pointed out, that has not been coupled with a limited time availability. This goes way beyond what most people were expecting.

Everyone is free to express their opinions, but I’m not sure that playing devil’s advocate or invalidating other players feelings is a good tactic at this time.

If ZOS marked the game content this way, it would be just great.
Honestly, I have no idea how to implement a classification that is valid and clear at the same time for so many different activities. But I would love having it in ESO.

While I really play the devil's advocate from time to time, I accept players' feelings as totally valid and I ask their opinions.
More than that, I hope their opinions will be taken into account one way or another. If not, the game goes in the totally wrong direction.

Anyway, I'm grateful to people who support the content I like despite their frustrations. I appreciate their time and efforts, no matter whether they believe in their contribution to statistics or not.
I understand they are motivated by the drop. I wish the rngesus be kind to all those players, who keep trying for the last day of the event. Good luck to them.
I hope they will get the drop they are looking for. Everybody will benefit from it.

Destai · April 24

dcrush wrote: »

ZOS really needs someone on their team who asks “ok, but is this fun for the players?” whenever something like this gets proposed.

This.

I think this concern should be taking front and center, over whatever is driving the current event design - increased revenue from tickets, event participation, ticket retention, whatever it is. Make it fun first, and then the rest will follow.

The only fun things about this event were the double XP and daily quest reward boxes. But, that feels like any other event to me. I don't see how any part of this event, and 10 year celebration so far, have truly celebrated the game to me. No part of this felt like a reward or a thank-you for playing the game for 10 years. Decisions to make mounts and pages harder to obtain felt unfair.