Maintenance on last event day

Cruxanero · July 5

The maintenance for next week is again planned in a way that makes it completely impossible for NA players to get the last event tickets, since the planned downtime covers all of the 4 hours after quest reset. Why is this still overlooked and not either maintenance moved or the event extended for a day?

moderatelyfatman · July 5

It's pretty much expected that you'll lose one day of tickets at most events due to maintenance.

scrappy1342 · July 5

"pretty much expected" is not "absolutely guaranteed" though. in this case, it's the latter. just adding to the ever growing list of reasons that i don't feel bad about dropping my sub and leaving the game. if they absolutely had to do maintenance on this day and not the day before or the day after, they should have at the very least pushed it to start 4 hours later as the event ended.

Danikat · July 5

Maintenance taking time out of events is expected, because it usually happens, but that doesn't mean it's acceptable.

Maintenance doesn't just happen, and neither do events. Both these things are planned and inititated by people, working at the same company. I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest they could set up some kind of shared schedule to make sure they're not disrupting each other's activities.

My work does exactly that - we have a shared calendar for conferences, social media campaigns and anything else that will impact multiple teams, and things like bank holidays, school holidays (because lots of people take time off when their kids aren't in school) and other external factors that might affect our planning, so we can all check when planning a new event to make sure we're not putting it on top of someone else's.

cozmic72 · July 5

Would it be an event without maintenance?

alternatelder · July 5

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

It's pretty much expected that you'll lose one day of tickets at most events due to maintenance.

Now some of us will be losing two days.

MidniteOwl1913 · July 6

cozmic72 wrote: »

Would it be an event without maintenance?

Better

tsaescishoeshiner · July 6

It seems overlooked because the only way to prevent it (across timezones) would be to only do maintenance completely outside of event windows. I think those extra few hours are bonus tickets, not tickets that are being taken away from people that anyone is entitled to.

And since reset is at 6AM ET and the event ends at 10AM ET, there would only be 4 hours until the event ends anyway. Most people aren't even available in the four-hour window, so for anyone who is, if maintenance ends early and they get a few tickets, that's lucky for them.

kevkj · July 6

It's simple stuff really, if no one person is able to know the scheduling of the other departments they won't be able to usurp control of the cash cow. I would do the same in their position.

Cruxanero · July 6

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

I think those extra few hours are bonus tickets, not tickets that are being taken away from people that anyone is entitled to.

The official event announcement states there are 39 tickets you can obtain, so tuesdays last 3 tickets in the 4 hour window are clearly intended to be obtainable. Which means the announcement is wrong for people on the NA server.

I can only speak for my guild, but we were assuring our members (especially the newer players), if they can be online in the last 4 hours before the event ends, they will get their 39 tickets. Some were planning their purchases with that in mind.

Grec1a · July 6

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

And since reset is at 6AM ET and the event ends at 10AM ET, there would only be 4 hours until the event ends anyway. Most people aren't even available in the four-hour window, so for anyone who is, if maintenance ends early and they get a few tickets, that's lucky for them.

For some of us it's evening prime time. Since the maintenance always takes place during our prime time, those extra three tickets aren't 'being lucky', they're just a small compensation for the inconvenience of not being able to play at least one evening a week... every week

davidtk · July 6

Wasn't maintenance at start of the Zenithar event?
Oh wait, yes it was because of Vengeance campaign...

MreeBiPolar · July 6

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

It's pretty much expected that you'll lose one day of tickets at most events due to maintenance.

It is not. The even announcement article states the number of tickets you are able to obtain, which includes that last day.

MreeBiPolar · July 6

@ZOS_Kevin - is there going to be the event extension or are last day's tickets and gold boxes gonna be in the mail?

With the maintenance July 8, 4:00AM EDT (8:00 UTC) - 10:00AM EDT (14:00 UTC), the last day of the event, which is July 8, 6:00AM EDT (10:00 UTC) - 10:00AM EDT (14:00 UTC) becomes completely unavailable. Even if the maintenance ends earlier, no one can reliably plan for that.

This is a little beyond ridiculous given that this same problem has happened before, had to be dealt with before, and should have never happened before with *PLANNED* maintenances.

Islyn · July 6

Danikat wrote: »

Maintenance taking time out of events is expected, because it usually happens, but that doesn't mean it's acceptable.

Maintenance doesn't just happen, and neither do events. Both these things are planned and inititated by people, working at the same company. I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest they could set up some kind of shared schedule to make sure they're not disrupting each other's activities.

My work does exactly that - we have a shared calendar for conferences, social media campaigns and anything else that will impact multiple teams, and things like bank holidays, school holidays (because lots of people take time off when their kids aren't in school) and other external factors that might affect our planning, so we can all check when planning a new event to make sure we're not putting it on top of someone else's.

This honestly actually annoys me a LOT. I am playing ticket catchup and I would have appreciated all days.

BergisMacBride · July 6

I think is most likely a result of the maintenance and content/events teams not communicating with each other. ZOS could and should do better in this regard, IMO.

ZOS did say there would be 39 tickets available for Zenithar, which includes the last morning of the event. Maintenance time completely blocks the last 3 tickets for me and many others.

I always plan ahead so that I have 12 tickets by the time the event ends, so I can start the next one with the maximum to spend. I didn’t see the announcement until after I had spent down to zero on Friday, thinking I would get back to 12 on Tuesday morning. Looks like I’ll have to purchase 3 to make that happen now, unless ZOS extends the event or pushes maintenance back a day. Their maintenance schedules are usually set in stone, so it would probably be an extension, if anything at all.

@ZOS_Kevin, could we at least get a response on this when y’all are back from the holiday weekend?

Elvenheart · July 6

In my opinion, since this almost always happens with events, all events going forward should just end on Mondays instead of Tuesdays.

Cruxanero · July 6

Elvenheart wrote: »

In my opinion, since this almost always happens with events, all events going forward should just end on Mondays instead of Tuesdays.

Maintenance is usually on monday though, only occasionally on tuesday/wednesday, when things like holidays/patch schedules get in the way. This week it was moved to tuesday because it is necessary to end the vengeance event. Unfortunately, they overlooked that Zenithar is also running and ends on the same day (the same problem applies to the AP/golden vendor not being available during vengeance, even though the event discount is a major factor of the Zenithar event).

barney2525 · July 6

coulda sworn they advertised 39 possible tickets

code65536 · July 6

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

It's pretty much expected that you'll lose one day of tickets at most events due to maintenance.

Elvenheart wrote: »

In my opinion, since this almost always happens with events, all events going forward should just end on Mondays instead of Tuesdays.

Those statements are patently false. It absolutely is not "pretty much expected", nor does this "almost always happen".

ZOS has been very good about scheduling planned maintenance to not be on the last day of an event. The last time we had an event cut short by maintenance was the 2024 anniversary, but those were special circumstances surrounding the PTS data corruption. And before that, I can't even remember.

This is clearly a case of a communication/coordination failure at ZOS, but it is not something that "almost always happens".

Rishikesa108 · July 7

Cruxanero wrote: »

Elvenheart wrote: »

In my opinion, since this almost always happens with events, all events going forward should just end on Mondays instead of Tuesdays.

Maintenance is usually on monday though, only occasionally on tuesday/wednesday, when things like holidays/patch schedules get in the way. This week it was moved to tuesday because it is necessary to end the vengeance event. Unfortunately, they overlooked that Zenithar is also running and ends on the same day (the same problem applies to the AP/golden vendor not being available during vengeance, even though the event discount is a major factor of the Zenithar event).

So the fact is that two events should not happen together...

MreeBiPolar · July 7

Rishikesa108 wrote: »

Cruxanero wrote: »

Elvenheart wrote: »

In my opinion, since this almost always happens with events, all events going forward should just end on Mondays instead of Tuesdays.

Maintenance is usually on monday though, only occasionally on tuesday/wednesday, when things like holidays/patch schedules get in the way. This week it was moved to tuesday because it is necessary to end the vengeance event. Unfortunately, they overlooked that Zenithar is also running and ends on the same day (the same problem applies to the AP/golden vendor not being available during vengeance, even though the event discount is a major factor of the Zenithar event).

So the fact is that two events should not happen together...

... Which is increasingly harder even after some of the events got clumped together and/or dropped entirely. We often jokingly refer to the cadence of the ESO events as "the neverending celebration". With the majority of the remaining events being a mindless grind that's a marked opposite of fun, maybe the concept should be revised...

virtus753 · July 7

code65536 wrote: »

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

It's pretty much expected that you'll lose one day of tickets at most events due to maintenance.

Elvenheart wrote: »

In my opinion, since this almost always happens with events, all events going forward should just end on Mondays instead of Tuesdays.

Those statements are patently false. It absolutely is not "pretty much expected", nor does this "almost always happen".

ZOS has been very good about scheduling planned maintenance to not be on the last day of an event. The last time we had an event cut short by maintenance was the 2024 anniversary, but those were special circumstances surrounding the PTS data corruption. And before that, I can't even remember.

This is clearly a case of a communication/coordination failure at ZOS, but it is not something that "almost always happens".

The PTS update for U47 was also originally scheduled for Monday but pushed to Tuesday. (Thank you for getting that added to the dev tracker.) If Monday had to be cleared of maintenance work on the PTS for some reason, perhaps that same reason forced live maintenance to be scheduled for Tuesday instead of Monday as well. The change of plan for the PTS occurred after Gina posted the announcement, so it seems to have been something on relatively short notice that caused the rescheduling.

Sturmfaenger · July 7

I've been buying repair kits from the impresaria the last days, because I already have everything else. There's more treasure maps one can ever dig out, and the clothing style doesn't look sooo great, besides the style pages are cheap in the guild store right now.

So what if ZOS realized "Uh oh, we wanted to do everyhing on monday, but look, its the long independence day weekend and lots of people want to spend some days with their families there - lets do this on tuesday instead of monday."
Compared to EU, the US have much less holidays than we have here.
And its not easy to sleep while the company your company belongs to fires tons of people and you don't know if you will keep your job or not.

Let them have their free day - we players can very well do without some digital nick-nacks none of us really needs.

MreeBiPolar · July 7

Sturmfaenger wrote: »

Let them have their free day - we players can very well do without some digital nick-nacks none of us really needs.

Technically, none of us really needs the game at all. That doesn't mean it should fail at every step and be ok with that.

E.g., my daughter (who's pretty late to the game) is trying to get the indriks (which are not exactly available 24/7 365 days a year, but phase out over the seasons), and getting short those tix WITHOUT PRIOR KNOWLEDGE does mess things up because if it was known, it at least could have been planned for.

Sturmfaenger wrote: »

PC/EU

Oh, yeah. Makes sense.

Rufusstan · July 7

I thought I'd get away with this as a UK based player. But I have ben caught at both ends this time. For me (currently UTC+1), I can usually got up and do the basics of the last day quickly before the servers go down or they go back up just before server reset, leaving me enough time to at least get the final tickets if nothing else. I know I'm lucky as most people on a normal work schedule have no chance because of how the day goes.

This time however, as the servers go down at 5am and the server reset is in the middle of downtime, I have no chance to get on during the last day of the event (short of getting up in the middle of the night). As an earlier poster has mentioned, I already have most of what I want, but its the principle of not getting what was promised

code65536 · July 7

virtus753 wrote: »

If Monday had to be cleared of maintenance work on the PTS for some reason, perhaps that same reason forced live maintenance to be scheduled for Tuesday instead of Monday as well.

Sturmfaenger wrote: »

So what if ZOS realized "Uh oh, we wanted to do everyhing on monday, but look, its the long independence day weekend and lots of people want to spend some days with their families there - lets do this on tuesday instead of monday."

No. The Live server maintenance was pre-planned for Tuesday and was scheduled for the Vengeance campaign. It has nothing to do with Microsoft taking a chainsaw to the studio (that's probably why PTS was delayed) and nothing to do with the holidays

Remember, Vengeance requires server downtime to activate and and it requires server downtime to de-activate. When they announced the dates for Vengeance as June 30 to July 8 (or 9th for console), they were effectively also announcing maintenance on June 30 and July 8 (or 9th for console).

I expected something like this to happen, when I saw that the Vengeance end date was the same as the Zenithar end date. I had a tiny sliver of hope that maybe they would schedule maintenance differently (e.g., start it at 10 AM Eastern, when Zenithar ends) (this was unlikely since they almost never start maintenance that late into the day), but nope, it's scheduled to end when the event ends.

This was clearly a failure caused by an oversight with their planning/scheduling, not the result of special circumstances.

SeaGtGruff · July 7

I suppose there's a chance that the maintenance will be completed early and we PCNA players will be able to log in and get our last day's tickets, golden coffer, and maybe one or more purple coffers-- if it ends early enough that we have time to dig up a treasure map or antiquity and do a daily crafting writ and some master writs. We could even have the daily writ and master writs done the day before and ready to turn in.

But honestly, I'm not going to fret about it. I've already collected all pages of the new and old event styles, bought all costume fragments and morphed the pet, combined the pet fragments into a new pet, and purchased all the fragments needed to make still another pet after that. I'll be ending the event with 8 tickets on PCNA, or 11 tickets if maintenance ends early and I can earn a final day of tickets.

I've still got 1 more of the new style pages to collect on PCEU, but I've got a few duplicate pages I can try to trade for it, or buy it with tickets, or buy it with gold from a guild trader-- although my gold reserves on PCEU are so depleted that I won't buy it with gold unless it's being sold at a low enough price. If I get the final page on Monday, I'm thinking of just skipping the last day of the event on PCEU to stay even with PCNA.

But that's me. And I know there are probably many other PCNA players who don't especially care that they'll have to miss the last partial day of the event. It's the players who actually need those final 3 tickets who are hurt by this, and I feel bad for their loss. Still, it's just a game, so we should put it in proper perspective compared to things that truly matter in life. That doesn't make the scheduling conflict okay, or mean that ZOS can't do things better in the future; but neither do I think it's helpful to be really upset or angry about it.

Deanathrae · July 7

It would be good to hear from ZoS on this.

Since, if maintenance happens as planned, it is impossible to get the tickets promised for the event.

Vonnegut2506 · July 7

I do find it humorous all of the complaining that there is nothing to spend tickets on for this event earlier in the week has now been replaced with outrage that there are only going to be 36 tickets available for some people instead of 39. It's like this forum just pinballs from one complaint to another.

code65536 · July 7

Vonnegut2506 wrote: »

I do find it humorous all of the complaining that there is nothing to spend tickets on for this event earlier in the week has now been replaced with outrage that there are only going to be 36 tickets available for some people instead of 39. It's like this forum just pinballs from one complaint to another.

I do find it humorous that you didn't notice that the person complaining about having nothing to spend tickets on is not present in this thread.

And if you read that other thread, then you would have seen that there were people who responded by saying that they appreciate the extra tickets because they have past event collectibles to catch up on.

There's a lot of "nope, this doesn't affect me, so I can't fathom how this could possibly affect anyone else" in this thread.

(Personally, I don't care since I have excess tickets and I was also kind of expecting something like this. But I know new or returning players who are counting every last ticket because they're playing catch-up, and I also know players who are current on collectibles, but who are impacted by this because they had already dumped too many tickets on repair kits, not expecting this curveball.)