Writhing Wall Event | How can we go faster?

StihlReign · November 2

If this Event is a race, how can we go faster? It seems like no matter what we do there is no ebb and flow. Is there no tightening? What is going on here? Why can't we improve position, why does it feel like we're slowing down when there are tons of players and then feel like we're making progress when there are small groups of 6-10 (Saturday mid-day through evening on PCNA) only to see the progress slow to a crawl out of nowhere. We've done 12hr, 6hr and half hour calculations and nothing quite feels right or feels like progress. I've seen a bunch of Alik'r Desert zone leaders come over, watched a few experienced trial groups, experienced dps and tanks, they're all having difficulty getting the zone to make impactful progress.

ZOS Why does this server v. server competition (race) feel so off?

duagloth · November 2

Artificial difficulty, they already proven that they can move slider. They rolled us back on PC na on the first day.
Too many bugs,heavy/light attacks aren't registering correctly, drops are still abysmal.

SilverBride · November 2

This feels nothing like a race to me. It's like trying to run in cement shoes. I have not seen a single post of anyone enjoying this.

In light of the considerably negative experience this is creating for virtually every player, I implore ZoS to PLEASE speed this up and just get it over with so we can enjoy the rest of the content.

Syldras · November 2

I'm not sure why I'd want to participate in a "race" when not even the most basic conditions for a fair competition are met:
- Everything feels intransparent; they already said that percentages are different for every server, but there's never any explanation how they look like and what exactly we need to meet (except for that not very detailed percentage bar).
- The calculation for different servers feels skewed (too big differences in percentage gain on different servers within the same timespan to feel correctly calculated).
- Percentages can be altered by ZOS at any time at will.
- Not everyone even has the same conditions to participate (console servers won't get the world boss until November 12).

Shawn_PT · November 2

If they want to speed this thing up, then they need to speed the drop rate as well. How many days has it been now? I have two, and only two, bone fragments. On the other hand the turtle scales keep dropping. WHY!

MasterOfWisdom1618 · November 2

It doesn't matter how this event can be sped up since there a numbers which can be modified in the background by ZOS. Thats why there is no point doing anything more cuz you only suffer negative consequences. The only think which can be done is doing nothing and force ZOS to raise up numbers.

Lucasl402 · November 2

MasterOfWisdom1618 wrote: »

It doesn't matter how this event can be sped up since there a numbers which can be modified in the background by ZOS. Thats why there is no point doing anything more cuz you only suffer negative consequences. The only think which can be done is doing nothing and force ZOS to raise up numbers.

Yep. I couldn't imagine the PR nightmare if somehow ZOS didn't have enough players to meet the goal, so the goal will be met, one way or another.

DenverRalphy · November 2

Or.. rather than moseying around grumbling, the players can just buckle up and ride it through to the end. Get it over faster so we can bring an end to it sooner rather than later.

SilverBride · November 2

I tried to participate at first. I did all the daily quests on one character every day, but it got to be too much. So I started just doing 3 for the gold coffers because by then the Witches Festival was in full swing. All this to see our progress go up 0.1 per hour.

Plus the aggravation of dealing with outdated style pages and motifs and recipes that only sold if I priced them extremely low.

So I stopped doing any daily quests, and I stopped doing the Crow and Hollowjack and called it a day.

Barovia87 · November 2

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Or.. rather than moseying around grumbling, the players can just buckle up and ride it through to the end. Get it over faster so we can bring an end to it sooner rather than later.

While I understand your point - namely that we aren't in control of what ZoS does or doesn't do, and the only real power we theoretically have is our participation to get this grueling Event over with in order to access content we've already paid for - I can't see how that advice is practical.

ESO is a game. It's something we all theoretically log into in our limited free time as a fun, leisure activity. Asking thousands of people to all individually decide to do something un-fun and grindy in their finite free time "for the greater good" is just... absurd. And insulting to everyone's time. We paid for entertainment. Not whatever heinous drawn-out mess this is.

The problem here isn't players doing their part and chipping in. The problem is that it was ever structured like this in the first place let alone released like this, and there's no accountability from ZoS beyond vague assurances that they totally hear us and maybe they'll do better next time while they continue to ask for our money. They still haven't given us the content we paid for last time, of course. That's gated by terrible content and vague, oft-manipulated stats in an artificial marketing-engineered "race".

Awful practices. Of course people are opting out. People have better things to do, and the rewards are not on par with the grind they're asking or the content they're actually providing.

Danikat · November 2

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Or.. rather than moseying around grumbling, the players can just buckle up and ride it through to the end. Get it over faster so we can bring an end to it sooner rather than later.

That would be counter-productive. ZOS have a schedule for when the event will end and cannot allow it to fail, but also won't allow us to go too fast or even change the order servers are going to finish.

If players try to get it over with sooner they'll change the requirements to slow us down, as they have before. If we ignore it then they'll artificially increase progress, as they have before. Therefore the sensible thing is to do no more than you want to for your own interest and/or rewards you want and spend the rest of your time on something worthwhile until the event is over and content pass owners finally get what they've already paid for.

alternatelder · November 2

Alik'r Desert zone leaders...what?

DenverRalphy · November 2

Danikat wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Or.. rather than moseying around grumbling, the players can just buckle up and ride it through to the end. Get it over faster so we can bring an end to it sooner rather than later.

That would be counter-productive. ZOS have a schedule for when the event will end and cannot allow it to fail, but also won't allow us to go too fast or even change the order servers are going to finish.

If players try to get it over with sooner they'll change the requirements to slow us down, as they have before. If we ignore it then they'll artificially increase progress, as they have before. Therefore the sensible thing is to do no more than you want to for your own interest and/or rewards you want and spend the rest of your time on something worthwhile until the event is over and content pass owners finally get what they've already paid for.

Doesn't matter if they slow it down to ensure the first place winner doesn't land on it until U48 drops for consoles. There are still 5 other servers to progress. If I were a PCNA player, I'd be strongly considering making a push to end the misery sooner. Especially given that they already have U48.

valenwood_vegan · November 2

Barovia87 wrote: »

Of course people are opting out. People have better things to do, and the rewards are not on par with the grind they're asking or the content they're actually providing.

Yeah this, lmao, I have a job already. Not looking to simulate another one - if the game's not fun, I'm not going to grit my teeth and grind it out, I'm going to do something fun with my free time.

virtus753 · November 2

Shawn_PT wrote: »

If they want to speed this thing up, then they need to speed the drop rate as well. How many days has it been now? I have two, and only two, bone fragments. On the other hand the turtle scales keep dropping. WHY!

Because those are items that are explicitly meant to be available throughout the event and beyond. Some players just started (or came back) with Phase 2. Some will start (or come back) in Phase 3, or after the event. They can now collect the Haj Mota too, and meanwhile we still will be able to collect the Caltrops style. Even if the event ended right now, we’d all still be able to get all of the drops for both items, so that shouldn’t hold ZOS back from letting us get to Phase 3 in a timely manner.

SilverBride · November 2

When can this be over? What is the soonest they will allow this to end?

Syldras · November 2

SilverBride wrote: »

When can this be over? What is the soonest they will allow this to end?

For PC it's basically already ready (since update 48 which was about a week ago - when suddenly antiquity dig sites and daily quests were spawning for East Solstice), for consoles not before November 12.

ArchMikem · November 2

SilverBride wrote: »

When can this be over? What is the soonest they will allow this to end?

The event notification for this when you log in says about 20 more days. Even though it's a "Race" ZOS still has a planned schedule to release East Solstice regardless. Since people are catching on to this, a sense of "what does it matter" is taking hold, and I feel they're gonna stop bothering with the dailies en masse which will slow down the progress bar. Probably forcing ZOS to manipulate it again.

I know it sounds boring or upsetting, but I feel ZOS shouldn't have changed up the status quo. They had a good thing going with Chapters. At least with those, ALL they had to do was make sure their Writers stayed up to par.

At least everyone can know that this "Once in a lifetime Event" really will be just this once.

lillybit · November 2

virtus753 wrote: »

Shawn_PT wrote: »

If they want to speed this thing up, then they need to speed the drop rate as well. How many days has it been now? I have two, and only two, bone fragments. On the other hand the turtle scales keep dropping. WHY!

Because those are items that are explicitly meant to be available throughout the event and beyond. Some players just started (or came back) with Phase 2. Some will start (or come back) in Phase 3, or after the event. They can now collect the Haj Mota too, and meanwhile we still will be able to collect the Caltrops style. Even if the event ended right now, we’d all still be able to get all of the drops for both items, so that shouldn’t hold ZOS back from letting us get to Phase 3 in a timely manner.

How will we get drops? I'm pretty sure all the dailies except the camp one are going away after the event ends. I'm sure the gold box from that one will go away too and it'll just be a bog standard daily box. Will fragments start dropping from camps?

It's not really their style to have event specific drops continue after events have finished. If so, why am I even bothering with the event at all if I can just do camps after for the caltrops style?

liliub17_ESO · November 2

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

Yeah this, lmao, I have a job already. Not looking to simulate another one - if the game's not fun, I'm not going to grit my teeth and grind it out, I'm going to do something fun with my free time.

Same. I do three gold boxes on each account and then go do something - anything - fun with the small remainder of my evening.

SilverBride · November 2

20 more days?!

LordDragonSlayer · November 2

Not sure about the going faster bit but honestly, this has been IMO the worst release/event ever. It feels like there was no thought into how to do this release/event

The whole premise is hey lets have these quests that need to be done over and over for 2 to 2.5 weeks, then when you think you are done, no. Guess what we will make you do it again for another 2 to 2.5 weeks but we will just rename the quest.

I am not even sure it really matters if the quests are done or not. I am convinced that ZOS just moves the slider as they see fit. I really wonder what would happen if no one did any of the event quests for 48 to 72 hours. Would it go unnoticed?

My real question is who at ZOS or whomever is developing this event thought this would be a great idea? IMO, this is the fastest way to get rid of your player base. Heck , what do I know about gaming, I have only been doing it for 45 to 50 years and refuse to spend money where it will be wasted.

SilverBride · November 2

Do the quests even do anything or does the progress just continue at a set rate?

carthalis · November 2

SilverBride wrote: »

20 more days?!

I don't think I've got the will or patience to do this for another 20 days, I'm just doing the three quests to get the gold boxes and then going off to do something else. The monotony of this event is such a killer

SilverBride · November 2

carthalis wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

20 more days?!

I don't think I've got the will or patience to do this for another 20 days, I'm just doing the three quests to get the gold boxes and then going off to do something else. The monotony of this event is such a killer

I stopped doing all of the quests a few days ago and will not do another. In my opinion the wall already won because it completely destroyed my motivation.

Danikat · November 2

SilverBride wrote: »

Do the quests even do anything or does the progress just continue at a set rate?

According to ZOS each quest completed contributes a tiny bit of progress towards the overall completion. The exact amount is different on each server to allow for different populations. But on all of them the amount it contributes is so small that you won't see the percentage bar move noticably when you turn in a quest. Also, I think even the in-game ones don't update in real time, I think they only tick up every few minutes.

It's possible it just ticks up at a set rate (or more likely with some variation so it's not too uniform), we would have no way of knowing based on the information we have available, so it comes down to whether you think ZOS would do that and then lie about it, and whether it would be worthwhile for them to do that.

Grafahel · November 2

I wonder if it matters what quest you do, like does a crafting quest do as much for progression as a boss? I've honestly only been doing some Stirk quests because I haven't explored Solstice at all and I don't like breaking open a new zone just for some event dailies.

SilverBride · November 2

I am asking how this works and whether progress is completely dependent on just the quests. Or could there also be some progress based on how many players are on a server and how fast they should be progressing?

Danikat · November 2

SilverBride wrote: »

I am asking how this works and whether progress is completely dependent on just the quests. Or could there also be some progress based on how many players are on a server and how fast they should be progressing?

ZOS have not given us any specific details. The event announcement says "As you complete daily quests and defeat cultists and Daedra from Coldharbour, you help your server progress through the event. You can see your server’s current phase and progress on the Battle for the Writhing Wall event page or within your in-game Activity Finder."

I think it was in the livestream that they said each server had their own targets (in response to people who were concerned lower population servers couldn't compete with the bigger ones). I can't find it written down, but I haven't searched every single article.

But from what ZOS have said that's the only way the number of people on a server matters. Just logging in doesn't do anything, you need to complete the quests if you want to help your server progress.