Writhing Wall Event – Consolidated Messaging Thread

Syldras · October 20

scrappy1342 wrote: »

if it helps at all, you can pick what quest you want to do for him. i don't know about your server, but mine, ruby ash lumber isn't worth listing on the trader. i vendor it when it clutters up my inventory. but if we're being perfectly honest, rubedite and ruby hide are about the same. i vendor those also.
anywho... you can pick which quest he gives you. i found this out on accident the first day. i didn't realize i needed to keep talking to him forever (another annoyance with these quests). he told me to make bows and i ran off to make bows and realized as i was running away that he still had the blue V over his head. so i came back and he wanted me to make arm cops. if you want to make bows and he gives you something else to do, just tell him goodbye. you don't even have to accept and abandon the quest like in cyro. just say goodbye before you even accept it

Yes, I'm aware of all that. What I'm saying is: How is that good quest design if a crafting quest reward generally (except for some occasional rare drops) has a lower worth than the materials you need to use to complete the quest? Doesn't matter if one can remove skill points or create a new character with level 1 in all crafts. From my point of view, the reward should always be higher than the mats you invest into it. It shouldn't be neccessary to rearrange things or create a new character just to get some simple crafting quest done.

valenwood_vegan · October 20

Syldras wrote: »

Yes, I'm aware of all that. What I'm saying is: How is that good quest design if a crafting quest reward generally (except for some occasional rare drops) has a lower worth than the materials you need to use to complete the quest? Doesn't matter if one can remove skill points or create a new character with level 1 in all crafts. From my point of view, the reward should always be higher than the mats you invest into it. It shouldn't be neccessary to rearrange things or create a new character just to get some simple crafting quest done.

Right lol, it's supposed to be this like amazing exciting one of a kind event. Not something that requires workarounds and mental gymnastics to convince us that it's ok, if only one just follows these steps that make it a little more efficiently terrible.

scrappy1342 · October 20

Syldras wrote: »

Yes, I'm aware of all that. What I'm saying is: How is that good quest design if a crafting quest reward generally (except for some occasional rare drops) has a lower worth than the materials you need to use to complete the quest? Doesn't matter if one can remove skill points or create a new character with level 1 in all crafts. From my point of view, the reward should always be higher than the mats you invest into it. It shouldn't be neccessary to rearrange things or create a new character just to get some simple crafting quest done.

i said nothing about changing skill points, using a lower tier or doing anything other than clicking "goodbye" and talking to the guy again. this is with top tier mats, which are pretty worthless at this point, which is another HUGE problem with this game right now. the rewards may be bad, but it's still not more than you are investing. you get a small amount of mats back and 160 or so gold that more than covers the 15g each for the style stones. if you get a pattern or a style page back, it's worth it. the chances of getting a pattern back is pretty awful, but i've picked up 3 or 4 of them so far doing this on one toon and we're just now a week into it. maybe in the next phase when there's more things added to the loot table, the odds won't be so bad.

i certainly never said it was a good quest design. it's a crappy situation, but they aren't going to change it any time soon. when someone posts something like this to help someone out, even if it doesn't help you, it helps other ppl who did not know.

jle30303 · October 20

Syldras wrote: »

scrappy1342 wrote: »

if it helps at all, you can pick what quest you want to do for him. i don't know about your server, but mine, ruby ash lumber isn't worth listing on the trader. i vendor it when it clutters up my inventory. but if we're being perfectly honest, rubedite and ruby hide are about the same. i vendor those also.
anywho... you can pick which quest he gives you. i found this out on accident the first day. i didn't realize i needed to keep talking to him forever (another annoyance with these quests). he told me to make bows and i ran off to make bows and realized as i was running away that he still had the blue V over his head. so i came back and he wanted me to make arm cops. if you want to make bows and he gives you something else to do, just tell him goodbye. you don't even have to accept and abandon the quest like in cyro. just say goodbye before you even accept it

Yes, I'm aware of all that. What I'm saying is: How is that good quest design if a crafting quest reward generally (except for some occasional rare drops) has a lower worth than the materials you need to use to complete the quest? Doesn't matter if one can remove skill points or create a new character with level 1 in all crafts. From my point of view, the reward should always be higher than the mats you invest into it. It shouldn't be neccessary to rearrange things or create a new character just to get some simple crafting quest done.

You might have noticed that the regular daily crafting writs are the same: with the low-level materials, you get back more materials than you consume, with the high-level materials, you get back less materials than you consume...

But you also get XP and gold. Admittedly not a great amount of either, but that's what they're actually for. Getting materials back is a sideshow: the XP and gold is, and has always been, the principal reward of doing quests.

Admittedly it's so slight that right now it's only worth doing it for the gold box and its potential other contents, it's not worth doing any of the dailies for blue boxes.

jfgribbin · October 20

I am missing something here. They said that listened the feedback and in doing so they adjusted the percentages of completion on each servers. I know that a lot of people were complaining about the grind of the event and that is fair to complain about. But doesn’t shortening the time to complete Phase 1 also shorten the time to acquire the rewards that being offered. Each quest giver is giving 6 quests a day; so 24 daily quests but only 3 quests can give the gold rewards. So wasn’t the slower progression better to get more chances for the RNG to hand out the chances to get all of the rewards? Not a complaint; just a thought.

Syldras · October 20

scrappy1342 wrote: »

i said nothing about changing skill points, using a lower tier or doing anything other than clicking "goodbye" and talking to the guy again. this is with top tier mats, which are pretty worthless at this point, which is another HUGE problem with this game right now. the rewards may be bad, but it's still not more than you are investing. you get a small amount of mats back and 160 or so gold that more than covers the 15g each for the style stones. if you get a pattern or a style page back, it's worth it. the chances of getting a pattern back is pretty awful, but i've picked up 3 or 4 of them so far doing this on one toon and we're just now a week into it. maybe in the next phase when there's more things added to the loot table, the odds won't be so bad.
i certainly never said it was a good quest design. it's a crappy situation, but they aren't going to change it any time soon. when someone posts something like this to help someone out, even if it doesn't help you, it helps other ppl who did not know.

I had no intention to criticize your suggestions or the ones the poster before you made - in fact I think they are useful. The whole thing I wanted to say is that I personally have my workaround to the problem (I just do that quest on a low level side character I still have), and the reason I wrote my earlier post was that I'm not content with the quest design itself. It was meant as critique towards the game. It's just not rewarding. And I think we clearly agree on that.

jle30303 wrote: »

You might have noticed that the regular daily crafting writs are the same: with the low-level materials, you get back more materials than you consume, with the high-level materials, you get back less materials than you consume...
But you also get XP and gold. Admittedly not a great amount of either, but that's what they're actually for. Getting materials back is a sideshow: the XP and gold is, and has always been, the principal reward of doing quests.
Admittedly it's so slight that right now it's only worth doing it for the gold box and its potential other contents, it's not worth doing any of the dailies for blue boxes.

The big difference to the daily crafting quests, from my point of view, is that those have a high chance to drop golden mats that sell well (especially dreugh wax which ranges at about 9k-10k gold per piece, or chromium plating that is at about 6k right now, I think). Plus master writs to get currency to buy goods from Rolis. Survey reports also drop quite often and each one of them drops enough raw material so after refinement you get about 100 of a material at once, plus possible tannins/resins, and often at least 1 golden material. I'd say I get about 2-3 master writs and survey maps each per day, on one character (sometimes even more, sometimes a bit less, but that seems to be about the average). Now compare that to the event crafting boxes where you usually get between 2 and 20 of a standard material back, plus some tiny amount of gold. Not sure if they also might drop some master writ or survey report sometimes, but the chance seems to be much lower.

wolfie1.0. · October 20

It seems to me that there is a cool down on quest drops that is causing much of the frustration.

I say this because in player saturated areas the drop rate is lower than if you fight in isolation in areas where mobs have been undisturbed longer. Similar to how plunder skulls work.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom · October 20

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

It seems to me that there is a cool down on quest drops that is causing much of the frustration.

I say this because in player saturated areas the drop rate is lower than if you fight in isolation in areas where mobs have been undisturbed longer. Similar to how plunder skulls work.

Hey @wolfie1.0. what quest drops, specifically? We've checked the drop rates on our end, and drop rates for quest items changing based on player saturation is not a factor. What could be happening, though, is all mobs have a credit list limit of 12 players. If you're in a heavily populated area, it's entirely possible that credit list cap is being hit and you aren't getting credit, and conversely the related quest item drop, as often as you would in a lower-populated area.

Eclipse318 · October 20

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

What could be happening, though, is all mobs have a credit list limit of 12 players. If you're in a heavily populated area, it's entirely possible that credit list cap is being hit and you aren't getting credit, and conversely the related quest item drop, as often as you would in a lower-populated area.

....Why?

But seriously... why do this? It's like how other group bosses only drop cherry stuff for the top X number of heavy hitting DPS, meaning that healers and sometimes tanks routinely get nothing but like 12 gold for helping to kill a multi-million point foe.

"Great meal, great service, here's your 1-cent tip."

Why is slanting the entire game to favor the heaviest hitting DPS players still a thing after 10 years?

twisttop138 · October 20

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

It seems to me that there is a cool down on quest drops that is causing much of the frustration.

I say this because in player saturated areas the drop rate is lower than if you fight in isolation in areas where mobs have been undisturbed longer. Similar to how plunder skulls work.

Hey @wolfie1.0. what quest drops, specifically? We've checked the drop rates on our end, and drop rates for quest items changing based on player saturation is not a factor. What could be happening, though, is all mobs have a credit list limit of 12 players. If you're in a heavily populated area, it's entirely possible that credit list cap is being hit and you aren't getting credit, and conversely the related quest item drop, as often as you would in a lower-populated area.

Hey Jessica, I don't want to speak for anyone but I will give you what I'm seeing. You go to an area, inside or outside the circle. You kill 10 trolls, for example, and get nothing. Many times 0 loot at all. The body won't be yellow. Or you'll get less loot then you normally would, like 2 gold and that's it. Then you'll kill a troll and get 1 fat. The. 4 more and get nothing. What people are wanting, is for the enemies to drop the needed thing 100% of the time.

I myself don't take issue with this. We put large groups together and get it done. My hope is that, as stated Friday, you were discussing the actual amount of rewards or lack there of. Killing a couple dozen marshals and getting no furnishings is crushing. (Factoring in the 5 minute cool down) Opening a couple dozen boxes to get nothing but a blue weapon is terrible. Is this what you guys intended?

Aquatorch · October 20

The Monomyth lead from Jode's Light in Reaper's March is not dropping because of the event.

wolfie1.0. · October 20

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

It seems to me that there is a cool down on quest drops that is causing much of the frustration.

I say this because in player saturated areas the drop rate is lower than if you fight in isolation in areas where mobs have been undisturbed longer. Similar to how plunder skulls work.

Hey @wolfie1.0. what quest drops, specifically? We've checked the drop rates on our end, and drop rates for quest items changing based on player saturation is not a factor. What could be happening, though, is all mobs have a credit list limit of 12 players. If you're in a heavily populated area, it's entirely possible that credit list cap is being hit and you aren't getting credit, and conversely the related quest item drop, as often as you would in a lower-populated area.

Its seems to be any of the vertified souls locations as well as the supplies quest. These are just examples but i have varied my farming across multiple locations, accounts, characters, player density, mob density, and instances, in group and out of group.

In my experience (anecdotal and subject to RND i know) it seems that in areas where mobs are being killed very quickly, and especially quickly on spawn that the drop rate is lower than if you go to a location that doesnt have many players around killing the mobs.

For example: Cold harbour public dungeon. very good location for souls since mobs are almost all daedra with applicable drops. following with another player both tagging mobs (while grouped or both solo) the drops appear to be slower or not dropping if killing them as they spawn. If you wait a minute or two for the spawns to "set" then drop rates seem more normal.

The only cases when i have seen the 12 person rule seem to apply is when there is one or more players actually grouped up and those groups are competing for spawns in the same area and then it comes into play, or in seige camps or dolmens where that ussually happens.

but this appears to be isolated from that. I will grant that this could be my own latency/connection issue, or a very RNG experience, or just a general perception issue about having to compete with others for drops. but it just feels off.

but if nothing is wrong then nothing is wrong. i appreciate the listening.

scrappy1342 · October 20

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

It seems to me that there is a cool down on quest drops that is causing much of the frustration.

I say this because in player saturated areas the drop rate is lower than if you fight in isolation in areas where mobs have been undisturbed longer. Similar to how plunder skulls work.

Hey @wolfie1.0. what quest drops, specifically? We've checked the drop rates on our end, and drop rates for quest items changing based on player saturation is not a factor. What could be happening, though, is all mobs have a credit list limit of 12 players. If you're in a heavily populated area, it's entirely possible that credit list cap is being hit and you aren't getting credit, and conversely the related quest item drop, as often as you would in a lower-populated area.

yeah, i agree with "why?" always wondered this myself. does not appear to be a limit of the game, as everybody who attacks a dolmen, dragon, harrowstorm, etc gets credit. but the mobs that are in question here are not going to last long enough for 12 players to hit them. quite often, you're lucky if you get 2 or more players hitting the same target. i've had them "dry up" similar to urns/containers when there are no other players around either. i tried switching locations, as others have suggested when that happens, but it does not seem to help. so for now, i just stay at my current favorite location and stick with it. if something like this is done in the future, you should really consider X amount of kills rather than quest items. with so many players competing for the same targets, even X amount of kills can be a hassle, but at least you don't have to deal with bad rng on top of it.

ApoAlaia · October 20

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

It seems to me that there is a cool down on quest drops that is causing much of the frustration.

I say this because in player saturated areas the drop rate is lower than if you fight in isolation in areas where mobs have been undisturbed longer. Similar to how plunder skulls work.

Hey @wolfie1.0. what quest drops, specifically? We've checked the drop rates on our end, and drop rates for quest items changing based on player saturation is not a factor. What could be happening, though, is all mobs have a credit list limit of 12 players. If you're in a heavily populated area, it's entirely possible that credit list cap is being hit and you aren't getting credit, and conversely the related quest item drop, as often as you would in a lower-populated area.

Which is what has been raised every time there is an event that is supposed to 'bring players together to achieve x'... that the caveat 'unless you are player #13 or above in which case you are welcome to join but we have no drops for you' seems rather bizarre.

I can tell you that it doesn't feel good having to go gather the souls elsewhere because there are already 12 players in a party and the moment one of them gets within range of the incursion well... no souls for anyone else.

Regardless, in my experience doing the 'gathering' quests on multiple accounts there is a substantial difference between the drop rate of fat/sap (by the way, humanoid hostile NPCs drop fat too.. even though they are slavers I tell myself that I am actually taking the fat they've gathered from their corpses rather than you know, harvesting human fat for the quest) and furs/essences.

The latter I'd say 1 in 2 mobs drop the relevant items, the former more like 1 in 10. I have lost count - and in fact I have disabled an addon that keeps track of these things to spare myself the knowledge - how many snakes (that can also drop sap) and murder plants stranglers I have killed per day. Same goes for wasps(that drop fat for some reason)/slavers/crocs/etc.

DenverRalphy · October 20

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

It seems to me that there is a cool down on quest drops that is causing much of the frustration.

I say this because in player saturated areas the drop rate is lower than if you fight in isolation in areas where mobs have been undisturbed longer. Similar to how plunder skulls work.

Hey @wolfie1.0. what quest drops, specifically? We've checked the drop rates on our end, and drop rates for quest items changing based on player saturation is not a factor. What could be happening, though, is all mobs have a credit list limit of 12 players. If you're in a heavily populated area, it's entirely possible that credit list cap is being hit and you aren't getting credit, and conversely the related quest item drop, as often as you would in a lower-populated area.

Can you explain how the siege camps looting works? Because from what I've witnessed, you don't necessarily need to tag enemies to get vitrified loot drops. For example, running solo I'll be killing monsters on one side of the siege camp, then when done I'll run over to help the other side of the siege camp with their monsters, and arrive to find a bunch of dead bodies of which I had zero interaction with, but for some reason they're all lootable for me. Meanwhile those who actually were there to fight those monsters didn't get squat. Then on the flip side, on other occasions I can arcanist beam everything that walks in the entire camp, and see zero lootable drops.

Credible_Joe · October 20

Content congestion is either a fully intended game feature, or too technically problematic to address.

Unfortunately, the studio is always silent when speculating as to which is the case. Or, I've never seen studio outreach on this topic. Maybe super early when bot farms were swarming delve bosses at launch? Other than that I can't think of this specific issue being acknowledged as a problem.

Either way, this is the core issue that dissuades me and many others from participating in events and chapter launches. Whatever gameplay and content that's been designed and is being presented is completely obscured by overwhelming demand. Many don't even have anything to engage with, especially with credit and loot caps involved.

Not sure if it will ever be addressed or acknowledged. It's kind of a good problem to have from an optics perspective; easy to demonstrate the game's engagement and popularity. But the rub will still be there for the players in the dogpile; they aren't having a good time, with a a marginal amount being excluded entirely due to the congestion.

Destai · October 20

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

It seems to me that there is a cool down on quest drops that is causing much of the frustration.

I say this because in player saturated areas the drop rate is lower than if you fight in isolation in areas where mobs have been undisturbed longer. Similar to how plunder skulls work.

Hey @wolfie1.0. what quest drops, specifically? We've checked the drop rates on our end, and drop rates for quest items changing based on player saturation is not a factor. What could be happening, though, is all mobs have a credit list limit of 12 players. If you're in a heavily populated area, it's entirely possible that credit list cap is being hit and you aren't getting credit, and conversely the related quest item drop, as often as you would in a lower-populated area.

Ok, so couple of questions.
1. Why does that mechanic exist in the first place? It discourages group play and the fun from being in a horde of other players.
2. Why isn't there a visual queue for "you're player 13 in that list and aren't getting anything" beyond just not getting anything?
3. Is anyone reviewing the "fun factor" of these design decisions? Unless you can confirm "yes", I'm going to assume the official statement is "no". Regardless, seems like there's really good feedback as to how things actually play out vs. how they sounded on the design board. Hope you guys are reviewing that.

Like I said in another recent thread, I hope you guys are truly appreciating how this event has landed and why it's reception has been so poor for so many.

ZOS_Kevin · October 20

Hi all. After investigating some user reports, we have confirmed that there are some instances where completing a Writhing Wall event crafting activity will result in you spending more materials than you receive in your rewards. This was not our intent and unfortunately this issue is not something we are able to hotfix. We have a bug in for the team to investigate and looking to see if there is an opportunity to fix this during U48 launch. We have added this update to our dev tracker.

twisttop138 · October 20

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all. After investigating some user reports, we have confirmed that there are some instances where completing a Writhing Wall event crafting activity will result in you spending more materials than you receive in your rewards. This was not our intent and unfortunately this issue is not something we are able to hotfix. We have a bug in for the team to investigate and looking to see if there is an opportunity to fix this during U48 launch. We have added this update to our dev tracker.

Man you guys will communicate about whatever you can (thank you for that) to not address the elephant in the room. Friday you guys said you were discussing the large community complaints of rewards dropping very infrequently, making the grind for this event unfun. You guys went out of your way to state people thought it was unrewarding because the meter wasn't moving fast, I don't know how you could be so wrong. I'm told I shouldn't assign malice and I'm trying to stick to that but your communication around every issue but that is weird. Is it your intention that rewards should be scarce in this event or not?

Destai · October 20

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all. After investigating some user reports, we have confirmed that there are some instances where completing a Writhing Wall event crafting activity will result in you spending more materials than you receive in your rewards. This was not our intent and unfortunately this issue is not something we are able to hotfix. We have a bug in for the team to investigate and looking to see if there is an opportunity to fix this during U48 launch. We have added this update to our dev tracker.

Thanks for the update.

Let's do a recap of the current major issues with this event.
1. Blue boxes don't drop many rewards. You've yet to address that.
2. Players outside of the top-12 DPS in encounters don't get drops - both event rewards and quest drops.
3. The bars were adjusted twice in an attempt to make people feel rewarded, rather than quickly addressing the drop issues. This created the perception that ZOS was pushing the event along.
4. Players lose mats when doing the crafting daily.

Can you please explain why players should be participating in the event at this point? With rewards being scarce, and ZOS not acknowledging that issue, it seems like there's very little incentive to actually participate in the event right now. Curious what your perspective is.

Erissime · October 20

Destai wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all. After investigating some user reports, we have confirmed that there are some instances where completing a Writhing Wall event crafting activity will result in you spending more materials than you receive in your rewards. This was not our intent and unfortunately this issue is not something we are able to hotfix. We have a bug in for the team to investigate and looking to see if there is an opportunity to fix this during U48 launch. We have added this update to our dev tracker.

Thanks for the update.

Let's do a recap of the current major issues with this event.
1. Blue boxes don't drop many rewards. You've yet to address that.
2. Players outside of the top-12 DPS in encounters don't get drops - both event rewards and quest drops.
3. The bars were adjusted twice in an attempt to make people feel rewarded, rather than quickly addressing the drop issues. This created the perception that ZOS was pushing the event along.
4. Players lose mats when doing the crafting daily.

Can you please explain why players should be participating in the event at this point? With rewards being scarce, and ZOS not acknowledging that issue, it seems like there's very little incentive to actually participate in the event right now. Curious what your perspective is.

This genuinely feels like a poor attempt to justify the change of content delivery, which switched from one big chapter in the summer with an epilogue in autumn, to this year-pass thing , in which neither the summer chapter doesn't feel much by comparison with the former ones, and likely the epilogue won't be big either. So why not add a surogate content in between, on account of the yearly fest based on the latest chapter release, but tweak it just enough to feel more ... interesting and content-like. Alas, it does neither. And leaves a sour taste behind, since it's neither content, nor festival. But it's somehow still called a festival. Without tickets. What's with the "earn x event tickets" weekly endeavour thing btw? Where do we earn those from at this time? Or is that yet another glitch?

tomofhyrule · October 20

Erissime wrote: »

What's with the "earn x event tickets" weekly endeavour thing btw? Where do we earn those from at this time? Or is that yet another glitch?

That’s for the Witches Fest event which starts Thursday.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom · October 20

twisttop138 wrote: »

Man you guys will communicate about whatever you can (thank you for that) to not address the elephant in the room. Friday you guys said you were discussing the large community complaints of rewards dropping very infrequently, making the grind for this event unfun. You guys went out of your way to state people thought it was unrewarding because the meter wasn't moving fast, I don't know how you could be so wrong. I'm told I shouldn't assign malice and I'm trying to stick to that but your communication around every issue but that is weird. Is it your intention that rewards should be scarce in this event or not?

We're working on getting you all an answer to the rewards question. I was hoping we'd have that for you today, but we need a bit more investigation in the morning to determine what is possible.

While we do that, we'd like to ask a couple related questions for future event consideration. We've seen concerns about the rewards coffers drop rates and contents, and the Writhing Wall furnishings drop rates. While we are still investigating options, if we were able to increase the drop rate for the Writhing Wall furnishings, would that help ease some of the frustrations?

For the rewards coffers, is the low drop rate for the more desirable items the biggest frustration, or are the items contained in the coffers not what you'd like to see? Or is it a combination of those two?

The "more desirable items" being the ones below under "a low chance at" from the event article.

Rewards from the coffers available from Vitrified Souls quests include:
A piece of gear from a Western Solstice set, with a chance of a second

A chance at a style item for the Fellowship of Stirk crafting style (one is guaranteed in Glorious coffers)

A low chance at one of the following items (one is guaranteed in Glorious coffers)
A page of a Wormwrithe armor outfit Style

A page of a Wormwrithe weapon outfit Style (from Phase 2 onward)

A fragment for the Wormwrithe Haj Mota pet

A fragment of the Caltrops, Bone Skill Style (from Phase 2 onward)

A chance for a sellable treasure of varying value (one is guaranteed in Glorious coffers)
This reward has a very low chance to be replaced with the Coldharbour Surreal Estate if you do not already own it, or with a sellable treasure of exceptional value if you do.

shadoza · October 20

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

twisttop138 wrote: »

Man you guys will communicate about whatever you can (thank you for that) to not address the elephant in the room. Friday you guys said you were discussing the large community complaints of rewards dropping very infrequently, making the grind for this event unfun. You guys went out of your way to state people thought it was unrewarding because the meter wasn't moving fast, I don't know how you could be so wrong. I'm told I shouldn't assign malice and I'm trying to stick to that but your communication around every issue but that is weird. Is it your intention that rewards should be scarce in this event or not?

We're working on getting you all an answer to the rewards question. I was hoping we'd have that for you today, but we need a bit more investigation in the morning to determine what is possible.

While we do that, we'd like to ask a couple related questions for future event consideration. We've seen concerns about the rewards coffers drop rates and contents, and the Writhing Wall furnishings drop rates. While we are still investigating options, if we were able to increase the drop rate for the Writhing Wall furnishings, would that help ease some of the frustrations?

For the rewards coffers, is the low drop rate for the more desirable items the biggest frustration, or are the items contained in the coffers not what you'd like to see? Or is it a combination of those two?

The "more desirable items" being the ones below under "a low chance at" from the event article.

Rewards from the coffers available from Vitrified Souls quests include:
A piece of gear from a Western Solstice set, with a chance of a second

A chance at a style item for the Fellowship of Stirk crafting style (one is guaranteed in Glorious coffers)

A low chance at one of the following items (one is guaranteed in Glorious coffers)
A page of a Wormwrithe armor outfit Style

A page of a Wormwrithe weapon outfit Style (from Phase 2 onward)

A fragment for the Wormwrithe Haj Mota pet

A fragment of the Caltrops, Bone Skill Style (from Phase 2 onward)

A chance for a sellable treasure of varying value (one is guaranteed in Glorious coffers)
This reward has a very low chance to be replaced with the Coldharbour Surreal Estate if you do not already own it, or with a sellable treasure of exceptional value if you do.

"[*] A fragment for the Wormwrithe Haj Mota pet" This chance is so low that my friend has only 2 out of 25. If the chance is so low, why does it require so many? Do you not want the players to have the pet?
" This reward has a very low chance to be replaced with the Coldharbour Surreal Estate if you do not already own i" I think only certain players will see this reward. Not a real reward if only 1 or 2 get it. <== my opinion.

Virenic · October 21

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

For the rewards coffers, is the low drop rate for the more desirable items the biggest frustration, or are the items contained in the coffers not what you'd like to see? Or is it a combination of those two?

Speaking only for myself, I've found the drop rates for the desirable items to be fine, but the contents of the coffers are not what I'd like to see and are not in line with previous chapter events. I have plenty of extra haj mota fragments and the drop rate for the style pages and motifs seem in line with previous events. However, unlike in previous chapter events, the coffers only come as quest rewards and do not drop from bosses or from harvesting, which does make getting the style pages a little more difficult.

However, in the past, these event coffers would have also included furnishing recipes for the zone, as well as zone surveys and treasure maps. The treasure maps were a great way to make some progress on the zone's antiquities, the furnishing recipes gave players a way to make money (by selling them) and gave players that are into housing a way to get the newer furnishing recipes without tedious farming of containers. Having the maps and plans drop from event coffers also drove down their market price for those who are interested in buying them but didnt want to pay the premium prices that newer plans command on the market. In previous chapter events, coffers would have also included the other motifs associated with the zone (so in this case, tide-born and coldharbour dominator rather than just stirk fellowship).

Basically, the coffers in the current event don't offer any real ongoing incentive to farm them. As others have pointed out, once you've earned your daily gold coffers, there's little reason to keep going. The limited selection of event furnishing plans that drop from the crafting quest coffers gave that incentive for a short time, but there were so few that players were quick to earn them and their prices have dropped considerably.

AzuraFan · October 21

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

For the rewards coffers, is the low drop rate for the more desirable items the biggest frustration, or are the items contained in the coffers not what you'd like to see? Or is it a combination of those two?

I don't have an issue with the golden reward boxes.

The blue reward boxes often only drop a piece of overland equipment. Overland equipment isn't anything special, and anyone who has completed the first half of Solstice already has it all. I would have expected better rewards in those, maybe lots of gold, or rare crafting ingredients, or the furniture plans. Anything that would entice players to do more than just the three quests you need to get your daily golden boxes. That's the biggest disappointment for me in terms of rewards.

Reginald_leBlem · October 21

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

twisttop138 wrote: »

Man you guys will communicate about whatever you can (thank you for that) to not address the elephant in the room. Friday you guys said you were discussing the large community complaints of rewards dropping very infrequently, making the grind for this event unfun. You guys went out of your way to state people thought it was unrewarding because the meter wasn't moving fast, I don't know how you could be so wrong. I'm told I shouldn't assign malice and I'm trying to stick to that but your communication around every issue but that is weird. Is it your intention that rewards should be scarce in this event or not?

We're working on getting you all an answer to the rewards question. I was hoping we'd have that for you today, but we need a bit more investigation in the morning to determine what is possible.

While we do that, we'd like to ask a couple related questions for future event consideration. We've seen concerns about the rewards coffers drop rates and contents, and the Writhing Wall furnishings drop rates. While we are still investigating options, if we were able to increase the drop rate for the Writhing Wall furnishings, would that help ease some of the frustrations?

For the rewards coffers, is the low drop rate for the more desirable items the biggest frustration, or are the items contained in the coffers not what you'd like to see? Or is it a combination of those two?

The "more desirable items" being the ones below under "a low chance at" from the event article.

Rewards from the coffers available from Vitrified Souls quests include:
A piece of gear from a Western Solstice set, with a chance of a second

A chance at a style item for the Fellowship of Stirk crafting style (one is guaranteed in Glorious coffers)

A low chance at one of the following items (one is guaranteed in Glorious coffers)
A page of a Wormwrithe armor outfit Style

A page of a Wormwrithe weapon outfit Style (from Phase 2 onward)

A fragment for the Wormwrithe Haj Mota pet

A fragment of the Caltrops, Bone Skill Style (from Phase 2 onward)

A chance for a sellable treasure of varying value (one is guaranteed in Glorious coffers)
This reward has a very low chance to be replaced with the Coldharbour Surreal Estate if you do not already own it, or with a sellable treasure of exceptional value if you do.

It's a combination. Blue boxes are totally worth it. Put some materials in there, some furnishing plans occasionally, something. They are just junk now. Gold boxes are meh. Not very many pet fragments, not a lot of interesting stuff at all. Maybe my drop rates are unusually bad, but I've gotten a total of 2 motifs.

wolfie1.0. · October 21

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

twisttop138 wrote: »

Man you guys will communicate about whatever you can (thank you for that) to not address the elephant in the room. Friday you guys said you were discussing the large community complaints of rewards dropping very infrequently, making the grind for this event unfun. You guys went out of your way to state people thought it was unrewarding because the meter wasn't moving fast, I don't know how you could be so wrong. I'm told I shouldn't assign malice and I'm trying to stick to that but your communication around every issue but that is weird. Is it your intention that rewards should be scarce in this event or not?

We're working on getting you all an answer to the rewards question. I was hoping we'd have that for you today, but we need a bit more investigation in the morning to determine what is possible.

While we do that, we'd like to ask a couple related questions for future event consideration. We've seen concerns about the rewards coffers drop rates and contents, and the Writhing Wall furnishings drop rates. While we are still investigating options, if we were able to increase the drop rate for the Writhing Wall furnishings, would that help ease some of the frustrations?

For the rewards coffers, is the low drop rate for the more desirable items the biggest frustration, or are the items contained in the coffers not what you'd like to see? Or is it a combination of those two?

The "more desirable items" being the ones below under "a low chance at" from the event article.

Rewards from the coffers available from Vitrified Souls quests include:
A piece of gear from a Western Solstice set, with a chance of a second

A chance at a style item for the Fellowship of Stirk crafting style (one is guaranteed in Glorious coffers)

A low chance at one of the following items (one is guaranteed in Glorious coffers)
A page of a Wormwrithe armor outfit Style

A page of a Wormwrithe weapon outfit Style (from Phase 2 onward)

A fragment for the Wormwrithe Haj Mota pet

A fragment of the Caltrops, Bone Skill Style (from Phase 2 onward)

A chance for a sellable treasure of varying value (one is guaranteed in Glorious coffers)
This reward has a very low chance to be replaced with the Coldharbour Surreal Estate if you do not already own it, or with a sellable treasure of exceptional value if you do.

Basically, its a combination of both, but as others have stated its mostly in the blue coffers where the issues lie.

The event is designed on aggressively completing as many quests as possible. The glorious boxes are on par with other glorious rewards from other events like the witches festival.

However, the blue boxes are of lower quality and value than standard plunder skulls. To the point where from a value perspective, If players are given a choice between collecting Writhing wall quests and farming plunder skulls plunder skulls will win out. I expect progress on the wall to slow down a bit as a result. Even for us that have collected plunder skulls from prior years.

Its that much of a difference in the drops. Especially when the bulk of the coffers just give you overland gear that we have been collecting for the last few months. These gear pieces would have been great 6 months ago, but at this point its kind of a waste.

There isnt anything in the blue boxes that drops with enough consistency to warrant continued farming beyond the glorious boxes.

This situation actually creates an incentive amongst players that it would be better to ONLY do glorious boxes and slow down event completion to extend the event as long as possible in order to maximize glorious box drops. Even if its only 1 or 2 days longer.

Ilsabet · October 21

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

We've seen concerns about the rewards coffers drop rates and contents, and the Writhing Wall furnishings drop rates. While we are still investigating options, if we were able to increase the drop rate for the Writhing Wall furnishings, would that help ease some of the frustrations?

For the rewards coffers, is the low drop rate for the more desirable items the biggest frustration, or are the items contained in the coffers not what you'd like to see? Or is it a combination of those two?

The most desirable event rewards are things that are new and/or that we can't get anywhere else. So in this event that would be the Wormwrithe style pages, the Stirk Fellowship motif pages, the fragments for the haj mota pet and the Caltrops skill style, and the new furnishing plans. The Coldharbour house is also a big-ticket item that would be a welcome draw for those who don't have it (assuming they care at all about housing).

Currently you can hope for one of these items per day with the guarantee and maybe one motif page on top of your style page or pet fragment. That's a long haul considering how many you need to complete the collection. (There is a chance to get more than one per day, but you're better off saving your boxes to open on subsequent days once you've gotten your guarantee.)

The rewards that don't feel worth the effort include set gear (which will be decon junk for anyone who's already filled their stickerbook), mats that simply replace the mats we used for the quest, and most sellable treasures. So basically the vast majority of the contents of the blue boxes. This is why, as many people have said, it doesn't feel rewarding to continue to grind blue boxes after getting the three gold boxes each day.

As far as the furnishings, since they're directly farmable from grinding bosses, increasing the drop rates would make this activity feel more worthwhile. Nobody likes spending hours farming to have little or nothing to show for it.

Destai · October 21

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

We're working on getting you all an answer to the rewards question. I was hoping we'd have that for you today, but we need a bit more investigation in the morning to determine what is possible.

The update is appreciated. Hopefully this is something that can be fixed sooner than later. I'm limiting my event participation to once a day, at most.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

While we do that, we'd like to ask a couple related questions for future event consideration. We've seen concerns about the rewards coffers drop rates and contents, and the Writhing Wall furnishings drop rates.

I feel like the existing feedback in this thread, this other thread, and PTS should have already answered your questions. Yet again, a fiasco could've been prevented if ZOS acted on PTS feedback.. I really don't get why you guys have PTS at this point.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

While we are still investigating options, if we were able to increase the drop rate for the Writhing Wall furnishings, would that help ease some of the frustrations?

Yes, that would. But it's not just furnishings, every reward associated with the event needs increased drop rates. I did the dailies on 5 toons a day, for about a week, and got only one style page. I've mostly gotten the zone set drops, and even then, those aren't curated. Those are wasted rewards.

The only thing that kept me doing the event was the guaranteed Stirk Motif drop in the Glorious Coffers. After doing the dailies for a few days, I decided just to go buy the motif pages and be done with the event. The quests themselves are not fun and I'm not going to slog through them for a miniscule chance at other rewards.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

For the rewards coffers, is the low drop rate for the more desirable items the biggest frustration, or are the items contained in the coffers not what you'd like to see? Or is it a combination of those two?

For me, the bigger frustration is the low drop rate for desirable items. People are going to want any item you guys put on a page with a cool picture. New styles, mounts, motifs - obvious stuff here. Not getting that within a reasonable timeframe is just discouraging.

ZOS needs to better appreciate how your marketing excites us and how it also creates drama for all of us when a rewarding experience isn't delivered. I was absolutely furious when the Stirk Motif didn't drop initially. I had waited the whole year for that to come out, and it almost got bungled. Stuff like that really embitters people towards ZOS. With all of the "once-in-a-lifetime" messaging, you guys really primed us for disappointment.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

The "more desirable items" being the ones below under "a low chance at" from the event article.

Rewards from the coffers available from Vitrified Souls quests include:
A piece of gear from a Western Solstice set, with a chance of a second.

A chance at a style item for the Fellowship of Stirk crafting style (one is guaranteed in Glorious coffers)

A low chance at one of the following items (one is guaranteed in Glorious coffers)
A page of a Wormwrithe armor outfit Style

A page of a Wormwrithe weapon outfit Style (from Phase 2 onward)

A fragment for the Wormwrithe Haj Mota pet

A fragment of the Caltrops, Bone Skill Style (from Phase 2 onward)

A chance for a sellable treasure of varying value (one is guaranteed in Glorious coffers)
This reward has a very low chance to be replaced with the Coldharbour Surreal Estate if you do not already own it, or with a sellable treasure of exceptional value if you do.

None of these should be a low chance drop.

Here's my suggestions.

Zone set drops should've been curated, double drops.
The Coldharbour Surreal Estate should've been tied to either the Golden Pursuit or quest completion for the expansion.
Stirk Motif guaranteed drops should've been working from day one. Being curated would be appreciated.
Guaranteed Wormwrithe style drop in Glorious Coffers and from Daedra & cultists.
Haj Mota fragment dropping from any Coldharbour-aligned mob.
More abundant furnishing drops like we see in other events.
A chance to get items like the current crown crates, Seals, transmutes and other attractive rewards. You'd see people flock to this event if there was a chance at getting crown crates.

You guys need to be far more generous with the rewards than you are. Your art teams put in so much great work, and it's a shame that so much content is left to either RNG or timed deals. When the rewards are earnable, it's usually a time-gated event like this where there's no guarantee of getting anything. That's not fun. That doesn't make me want to support the game.