Official Discussion Thread for "Zeal of Zenithar"

ZOS_Kevin · June 19

This is the official discussion thread for, "Your Labors Are Blessed During the Zeal of Zenithar In-Game Event"

"Honor the Trader God and he shall honor you with bonus rewards during this returning in-game event!"

LunaFlora · June 19

that outfit style is pretty cool!

where exactly is that image in-game, is it in East Solstice? i can see the Writhing Wall but don't recognise this

metheglyn · June 20

LunaFlora wrote: »

that outfit style is pretty cool!

where exactly is that image in-game, is it in East Solstice? i can see the Writhing Wall but don't recognise this

I don't know for certain, but based on the banners and the assets, I'm guessing it's the overland crafting station.

code65536 · June 20

LunaFlora wrote: »

that outfit style is pretty cool!

where exactly is that image in-game, is it in East Solstice? i can see the Writhing Wall but don't recognise this

The Tide-Born set crafting location in the north.

karthrag_inak · June 20

Still super stingy with reward boxes, yes? Khajiit is unimpressed. The first year of this event it was most enjoyable. Since then? Meh

Syldras · June 20

So we can get only a very limited amount through crafting but an endless amount through stealing? During a crafting event honoring the god of trade and honest work?

Looks like I won't be participating much, I guess.

SilverIce58 · June 20

Syldras wrote: »

So we can get only a very limited amount through crafting but an endless amount through stealing? During a crafting event honoring the god of trade and honest work?

Looks like I won't be participating much, I guess.

Right. I get that they changed it from being more open-ended with earning boxes, but all these restrictions on earning boxes "the good, honest way" does not sound fun in the least bit. All I'm excited for is the 10% discount on Bismuth Steam Baths.

Also, the outfit style reminds me of a PvE version of https://en.uesp.net/wiki/File:ON-costume-Siegemaster's_Uniform_(female).jpg

DarkPassions · June 20

That new reward outfit is pretty much just the Knights Aspirant style isn’t it? They just added a couple of bags to the belt and combined the hood/helmet?

TheMajority · June 21

Really tired of these re-hashed armor styles and do wish we would have the good looks from back in Elsweyr expansion on motifs back. Everything looks like leather in these days, even plate, and is ill fitting.

NotaDaedraWorshipper · June 22

Syldras wrote: »

So we can get only a very limited amount through crafting but an endless amount through stealing? During a crafting event honoring the god of trade and honest work?

Looks like I won't be participating much, I guess.

This was complained about last year too when they did these changes.

We finally got an event focused on crafting and trading, and the next year they changed it so it's just like the other events.

DenverRalphy · June 23

Syldras wrote: »

So we can get only a very limited amount through crafting but an endless amount through stealing? During a crafting event honoring the god of trade and honest work?

Looks like I won't be participating much, I guess.

If it's anything like last year, stealing doesn't do much good either,. As you can't launder the container, and the total number of contents inside can easily eat 100% of your daily allotment for fence interactions after 5 or 6 boxes. Last year I wound up with an inventory full of stolen loot rendered useless early on in the first day.

SeaGtGruff · June 23

NotaDaedraWorshipper wrote: »

Syldras wrote: »

So we can get only a very limited amount through crafting but an endless amount through stealing? During a crafting event honoring the god of trade and honest work?

Looks like I won't be participating much, I guess.

This was complained about last year too when they did these changes.

We finally got an event focused on crafting and trading, and the next year they changed it so it's just like the other events.

To be honest, I feel like the playerbase pretty much brought that on themselves by the way that some players were farming an outrageous number of event coffers each day of the event. That basically left ZOS with two choices-- either limit the number of event coffers that players can earn each day, or severely nerf the contents of the event coffers. Personally, I'm glad they chose to limit the number of coffers rather than nerf their contents.

DenverRalphy · June 23

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

NotaDaedraWorshipper wrote: »

Syldras wrote: »

So we can get only a very limited amount through crafting but an endless amount through stealing? During a crafting event honoring the god of trade and honest work?

Looks like I won't be participating much, I guess.

This was complained about last year too when they did these changes.

We finally got an event focused on crafting and trading, and the next year they changed it so it's just like the other events.

To be honest, I feel like the playerbase pretty much brought that on themselves by the way that some players were farming an outrageous number of event coffers each day of the event. That basically left ZOS with two choices-- either limit the number of event coffers that players can earn each day, or severely nerf the contents of the event coffers. Personally, I'm glad they chose to limit the number of coffers rather than nerf their contents.

And yet the Craglorn box farm is left untouched. That gets abused during Zenithar and Jubilee both. And no steps taken to mitigate.

Destai · June 23

New style looks pretty cool! Sounds like the rewards are a bit stingier than I would've hoped, so I'll probably just get that style and be done with the event. This event is a bust for me - really wish it rewarded crafting more.

WhiteCoatSyndrome · June 23

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

To be honest, I feel like the playerbase pretty much brought that on themselves by the way that some players were farming an outrageous number of event coffers each day of the event. That basically left ZOS with two choices-- either limit the number of event coffers that players can earn each day, or severely nerf the contents of the event coffers. Personally, I'm glad they chose to limit the number of coffers rather than nerf their contents.

But the whole point of events is to farm coffers. How is completing a ton of Master Writs different from camping a Dolmen/World Boss and mowing it down with a dozen other people every five minutes for a Plunder Skull, other than Master Writs require engaging with the game in the ‘off’ season to acquire them? Assuming 200 Master Writs stockpiled, that would have been equivalent to (200 bosses * 5 minute cooldown)/60 minutes in an hour = 16 2/3 hours of dedicated boss grinding. So a dedicated weekend, or even a single day if one were to go all out. And the Writs cost materials, the bosses don’t barring the occasional repairs.

Aylish · June 23

I guess they rather want us to hoard less master writs during the year. It‘s saved data that they want to avoid.

The way the event is now: You actually have 13 days x 7 professions = 91 writs to have in stock to get the maximum for the event.

For the initial event years back players could hoard endlessly (even in mail) which was a ton of data to save…
And due to the PTS tests month before the first event, they actually did that. I know I did it with hundreds of writs and I was comparatively harmless as I don‘t even have 20 chars to generate writs.

karthrag_inak · June 23

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

To be honest, I feel like the playerbase pretty much brought that on themselves by the way that some players were farming an outrageous number of event coffers each day of the event. That basically left ZOS with two choices-- either limit the number of event coffers that players can earn each day, or severely nerf the contents of the event coffers. Personally, I'm glad they chose to limit the number of coffers rather than nerf their contents.

Why? Why did they have to do anything? Khajiit did approximately 700 sealed writs the first time this event happened and from all those boxes the most noteworthy and memorable consequence of this was a stack of ~160 group repair kits, of which this one still has 126. Big deal.

There are many many alternative mechanisms for hoarding reward boxes for the various events, none of which have ever been touched, but this one, which once favored "power crafters" (for lack of a better term) gets gimped because "Oh Dear, the writ hoarders!!! Oh no!" <-clutches pearls->.

Folks still hoard writs, folks have always hoarded writs - folks still hoard all kinds of things. Khajiit is cp3600 and still has over 900 sealed writs along with 300 more of the new format "unknown" writs ready to go. Khajiit also has way over 14k surveys, over 200k writ vouchers, and approx 2-3 bil worth of various resources in his craft bag. Should all this somehow be gimped because it is outrageous? (which khajiit freely admits)

tsaescishoeshiner · June 23

I much prefer an event that doesn't incentivize hoarding sealed writs the rest of the year or mindlessly doing daily writs over and over. To me, it's a good mix of crafting, promoting playing with a guild, and something interesting for stealing (which is its own type of toil).

SeaGtGruff · June 24

DenverRalphy wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

NotaDaedraWorshipper wrote: »

Syldras wrote: »

So we can get only a very limited amount through crafting but an endless amount through stealing? During a crafting event honoring the god of trade and honest work?

Looks like I won't be participating much, I guess.

This was complained about last year too when they did these changes.

We finally got an event focused on crafting and trading, and the next year they changed it so it's just like the other events.

To be honest, I feel like the playerbase pretty much brought that on themselves by the way that some players were farming an outrageous number of event coffers each day of the event. That basically left ZOS with two choices-- either limit the number of event coffers that players can earn each day, or severely nerf the contents of the event coffers. Personally, I'm glad they chose to limit the number of coffers rather than nerf their contents.

And yet the Craglorn box farm is left untouched. That gets abused during Zenithar and Jubilee both. And no steps taken to mitigate.

I'm not certain what you mean by "the Craglorn box farm," but if you mean getting reward coffers by clearing those celestial rifts, I think there's a difference between that and farming a huge number of reward coffers from completing master writs-- namely, how accessible each activity is to all players versus just a subset of players.

Any player can join a player guild, group with one or more players from that guild, go to Craglorn, and close celestial rifts. It's an activity that is equally available to all players, therefore all players can farm the same numbers of reward coffers that way if they wish.

In contrast, there are various factors which determine how many-- if any-- master crafting writs a player can obtain from doing the daily crafting writs. I'm not certain what all of the requirements are-- whether or not one has reached the maximum level in a given crafting line, how many traits one has researched in a given crafting line, and maybe how many motif styles one has learned? But in any case, that is something which the average player might find less accessible, and skewed much more in favor of long-time players who've mastered all crafting skill lines, researched all traits, learned a large number of motif styles (not just partially, but fully), and who can generate a greater number of master writs by doing daily crafting writs on multiple characters who are qualifying master crafters. Players who are at a disadvantage by not fitting the bill are likely to feel rather disgruntled about what they might perceive as lopsided treatment during the event, if you see what I mean.

Personally, I don't care one way or the other, because on one hand I've got a large number of master writs stashed away until I'm able to learn those specific motif styles on those specific items (which I can easily do for most of them by purchasing the appropriate motif pages from guild traders), and on the other hand I'm not into grinding large numbers of daily reward coffers during events. So I earn a modest number of reward coffers each day out of choice, and don't concern myself with how many everyone else is able to earn each day.

BahometZ · June 24

It would be good if Zos could revisit the profile of this event. It doesnt feel thematically consistent or rewarding. It's honestly difficult to get enthused for.

WhiteCoatSyndrome · June 24

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Players who are at a disadvantage by not fitting the bill are likely to feel rather disgruntled about what they might perceive as lopsided treatment during the event, if you see what I mean.

You mean like how players who don’t PvP much feel disgruntled about Whitestrake’s Mayhem because it is, surprise surprise, a PvP event, which remains in place and ungutted? Or people who don’t like running Dungeons feel left out during the Undaunted Celebration? Or people who didn’t buy DLC XYZ aren’t catered to during events centered in that DLC? I didn’t buy the season pass and I’m not the only one, should ZOS cancel the Writhing Wall event because I can’t/won’t participate?

Point is, if events get left out and homogenized because some part of the player base does not 100% enjoy or engage with it, there would be very few events. So I don’t see why Zeal of Zenithar should have been singled out; some of us put a lot of time and resources into maxing out our crafting and would like it to not be Witches Festival 2.0.

SeaGtGruff · June 24

WhiteCoatSyndrome wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Players who are at a disadvantage by not fitting the bill are likely to feel rather disgruntled about what they might perceive as lopsided treatment during the event, if you see what I mean.

You mean like how players who don’t PvP much feel disgruntled about Whitestrake’s Mayhem because it is, surprise surprise, a PvP event, which remains in place and ungutted? Or people who don’t like running Dungeons feel left out during the Undaunted Celebration? Or people who didn’t buy DLC XYZ aren’t catered to during events centered in that DLC? I didn’t buy the season pass and I’m not the only one, should ZOS cancel the Writhing Wall event because I can’t/won’t participate?

Point is, if events get left out and homogenized because some part of the player base does not 100% enjoy or engage with it, there would be very few events. So I don’t see why Zeal of Zenithar should have been singled out; some of us put a lot of time and resources into maxing out our crafting and would like it to not be Witches Festival 2.0.

(1) I never stated that my comments were actually reflective of any particular reasons why ZOS chose to change how reward coffers for doing master writs works; I'm merely trying to consider the situation from different viewpoints. No one but ZOS knows what their actual reasons for anything are. Nevertheless, I feel like they do try to be fair toward players of all levels, and the way the master writs reward coffers originally worked seems to me like it had an unintended potential to be grossly abused by a select group of players-- which, surprise surprise, is exactly what happened-- while other players did not even have the ability to capitalize on that oversight if they'd wanted to. It was grossly unbalanced, and grossly abused-- IMHO-- so it doesn't seem too surprising to me that the rules got changed to prevent that from reoccurring. But as to why ZOS made the change, only they know, and I don't claim that my proffered explanation is at all accurate or relevant.

(2) As far as PvP events, or Undaunted events, those are activities which are accessible to everyone. Cyrodiil (and Imperial City?) might be inaccessible to characters who haven't reached Level 10 yet, but that diesn't take long at all. And players can walk into dungeons without needing to join the Undaunted first, so AFAIK there are no prohibitive level restrictions on those event activities, either. Whether or not a player chooses to engage in activities which are accessible to them is quite another matter, so it seems somewhat disingenuous to equate choosing to sit out an event because the activities aren't to ones liking with being unable to exploit an unintended oversight in how something worked to the same outrageous extent as players who were fully capable of exploiting that oversight. When PvP events come around, there are forum members and streamers who bend over backward to show non-PvP players how they can still earn event tickets and reward coffers each day while avoiding PvP as much as possible. If players choose to ignore those suggestions, that's their right, but the consequences of missing out on event tickets and reward coffers is on them, because they had the capability to earn those things but chose not to.

Jaimeh · June 24

I'm not a big fan of this event, so I do the bare minimum to get the day's tickets, but I get why crafters may feel disappointed (also, not to mention that a lot of people have already used up their saved writs to level subclassing...). I suppose the best way to farm more boxes would be running IA with a guildmate.

allochthons · June 26

ZoS, please do rethink this event.
When it first started, I loved it because it was unique! There was plenty to do that didn't involve killing worldbosses with guild mates, which we do for other events.

Crafting is a solo activity, and it was great to benefit from that. Now with the crafting cut back so drastically, it's become Yet Another Event to be Weary of. And Event Burnout is very real.

I'm not saying this because I'm a solo player. My guild slots are full. I also have 15 fully leveled crafters, about half of which are 9-trait crafters, and my main crafter knows all the (non-solstice) motifs, so I can do any master crafting writ. And I have two fully leveled thieves, so I can engage with this event no matter how it's structured.

But you took something fun and unique, and made it boring. I'll get my tickets, a few purple boxes, and buy a few things on discount, and call it a day.

Ashjunkie · June 26

@ZOS_Kevin This is broken. The website says: A tradeable outfit style page for the new Zenithar Battlesmith outfit style armor. If you’ve already earned a Zenithar Battlesmith style page for the day, you have a chance to instead get a style page for a past Zeal of Zenithar event set such as the Gold Road Dragoon outfit style armor, High Rock Spellsword outfit style armor, Kwama Miner’s Kit armor outfit style, or Ashen Militia weapon outfit style.

So, if I haven't gotten a new one, I shouldn't be getting old ones. Yet, here I am with no new ones and getting old ones.

[img

That is my whole loot log from the beginning of the event until I got the old page without getting any new page.

code65536 · June 26

@Ashjunkie It seems like the new pages drop (exclusively, maybe?) out of the gold boxes from the quest, and not from the common purple boxes (which would be consistent with how other events work, but would also be in contraction to the text of the article, in which case, the article may be inaccurate).

Ingenon · June 26

@Ashjunkie Looking at your loot, it doesn't look like you earned a gold color Zenithar’s Sublime Parcel box from doing the event daily quest "Honest Toil", which is given by Fasaria at the Belkarth Festival Grounds in Craglorn. Also, doing the "Honest Toil" quest is how you get the three event tickets per day. When I completed the "Honest Toil" quest today I got a style page for the new Zenithar Battlesmith.

karthrag_inak · June 26

Yep - made it through 2 characters and it was as disappointing as khajiit remembers. You should not call this a crafter-friendly or crafting-oriented event when it does not even reward "honest toil" nearly as much as other events, such as the anniversary event, do.

Very disappointing.

Tallon_IV · June 26

"Trade with Guild Traders" isn't working.

Appears there's a hidden amount you have to spend.

LunaFlora · June 27

Tallon_IV wrote: »

"Trade with Guild Traders" isn't working.

Appears there's a hidden amount you have to spend.

the amount to spend has always been 10k gold

Sachsen71 · June 27

From the article:
In addition, you can earn Zenithar’s Delightful Parcel boxes by participating in the following activities:
...
Each time you defeat a world boss while grouped with a player who is in at least one of your player guilds.

Is this a 100% drop chance as long as you're in top 12 DPS on that boss?

The reason I ask is because a guild member and I just tested the conditions. We were grouped. He was in Solstice, I was in my player home. He killed a WB and did not get a purple box. I then went to Coldharbour and killed a WB while he stayed in Solstice, and I did not get a purple box either. Note that I was the only player killing the boss in Coldharbour. This means one of three things:

1. The drop rate from killing world bosses is not 100% like we thought
2. There is some condition that requires grouped guild members to be either in the same zone or at the same boss
3. There is a bug

@ZOS_Kevin any clarification?