Thoughts/review of the new Hearts week event so far?

scrappy1342 · February 13

hey, the hat is totally worth it!

i'm enjoying it so far. personally, i would have done the first iteration of the event as learning about the actual holiday and focusing on mara before having sanguine step in and try to mess with it, but i'm no writer. i'm only about halfway through the questline. i turned in the not-sabotaged instruments... and nothing happened. that was a real bummer. i guess i'll have to do it on an alt at some point if/when they fix it.

the choice to have to go to that specific delve and only kill that one boss for the first part of the quest chain was a HORRIBLE choice, but there's several threads on that already. surely zos gets it by now >.> the quest was even worded in such a way that we could have just stepped out the door and encountered any random mob in combat and it would have logically satisfied what that npc was looking for.

love the decorations around the towns. i guess the only other thing i would have done differently would be to put some furniture for tickets on the impressario. but i'm glad they didn't this year because most ppl are going to be saving tickets to convert to trade bars and it's a short event window

LunaFlora · February 13

Lovely quests and easy to get event boxes.

i also love the Heart's Day Duelist outfit style, pretty and without tassets and loincloths.
The roses are cute, but it does make me wish for more Dye Channels

emilyhyoyeon · February 13

I like it more than I thought I would. The companion gift items in particular are really cute. I love the little things like that that are mundane and develop the world and characters more. Something really cool about seeing things like the one for Bastian that's a book about dunmer tatooing.

An honorable mention to the Azandar tea gift and Isobel caramel candy gift because I personally would really love those

It also makes me really hope we get more companions. I really wanna see a bosmer and orc friend.

xencthlu · February 13

I'm a big fan. I loved the quests and their stories and characters. What made the biggest difference for me over other events was how all the quests were in one location. It made them feel connected and relevant to each other, and I could just focus on their content instead of having to care about the logistics of getting from one place to another. In other events, it really seems like the meat of the event is travel, because that's what we spend most of our time doing when we sit down to try to do event quests and content. What you spend most of your time doing is what the game is really about. It's tedious and disengaging.

Not so during Heart's Day. It felt much more like a festival, a coherent celebration because we spend our time in one place, engaging with different aspects of the concept. It reminded me of LOTRO's seasonal events, which I have a fond regard for (and LOTRO's community enjoys much more than ESO's community enjoys its own events.) I cannot stress enough how much I like having all the event's story content in one physical location. Please do this more. Please revise other events to do this. Hell, add in some kitschy corny festival games on the side, so I have a reason to linger at the main festival. I live for that junk.

I don't love having a five minute cooldown on boxes, but I have noticed these boxes are a lot more rewarding than many similar events. Each one seems to always feature one of each possible reward type, and since I care about some rewards more than others, I feel like each one is catering to me. I appreciate that the boxes include the go-to event reward pool, but also Companion Gear, a niche reward that's theoretically available outside of the event, but much more rarely. It means I'm not feeling FOMO and I still feel like I'm getting a valuable reward from this activity. If the tradeoff of not getting as many boxes comes with the benefit of getting better stuff in boxes, by all means. I am happy to make that tradeoff.

The GP had a good balance of work to reward this time. I was really excited to get a bunch of housing editor exclusive furnishings. I could take or leave the emote. I agree it's pretty comical, and that does mean I am less interested in using it, but I don't hold that against the event or the GP. The other rewards were more than enough for me, and again, it was easy to get all of them. I probably would have gotten them by accident.

Heart's Day is probably my favourite event in game now. Including the famously rewarding anniversary. I'm a simple woman. Give me furnishing plans and don't make me use wayshrines to get them, and I'm happy.

FlameDark · February 13

I like the rewards from the boxes and the golden rewards I VERY much approve of special furnishings for it.

However, events need to be spread out more. I do not like events where we all have to go to the same zone (I couldnt even see the quest givers half the time it was so crowded) and especially not pile us all into the same dungeon. There was better ways to do that.

Overall it was a nice little event. Just needs some fine tuning and better planning.

Eva13 · February 13

NeoniKa wrote: »

I'm finding it very disappointing. In the site it's advertised that we should get Mara’s Parcels from delve bosses, world bosses and Infinite Archive bosses, but it's not at all true. At least at my end. I'm not sure if it's bugged, but most world bosses and most Infinite Archive bosses don't drop anything. In fact, very few bosses drop it. Oh! And also treasure chests, I only got a Mara’s Parcel from the first one, and that's it, the others didn't drop anything.

Initially I was quite excited, I was already planning to spend the whole weekend collecting these rewards, but in the end, since it's just a matter of luck or this is all bugged, I'll just finish the achievements and give up. Theoretically the event was attractive, in practice it's not convincing.

I guess it's bugged. I did two world bosses? delve boss and a ton of resources nodes and haven't got any event tickets or parcels

anadandy · February 13

I've been reading that players can get a special mail from companions after giving them a gift, but only certain gifts and getting a gift in the first place is subject to RNG. This feels..bad. The potential is there for not ever seeing those special letters in such a short event.

I have gotten 1 gift so far, a blue one for Azander. I gave it to him and got a line of text the equivalent of the old [Azander liked that] and...that's it. Underwhelming.

I do appreciate a new event though.

Enemoriana · February 13

anadandy wrote: »

I've been reading that players can get a special mail from companions after giving them a gift, but only certain gifts and getting a gift in the first place is subject to RNG. This feels..bad. The potential is there for not ever seeing those special letters in such a short event.

I have gotten 1 gift so far, a blue one for Azander. I gave it to him and got a line of text the equivalent of the old [Azander liked that] and...that's it. Underwhelming.

I do appreciate a new event though.

Letters are from purple gifts.
Gifts drops quite good, and they are not bound. So even if you will not get gifts you need from boxes, just buy them in guildstores in last days of event, they would be cheap.

anadandy · February 13

Enemoriana wrote: »

Letters are from purple gifts.
Gifts drops quite good, and they are not bound. So even if you will not get gifts you need from boxes, just buy them in guildstores in last days of event, they would be cheap.

Thank you for the information, that is helpful! I still feel like relying on guild stores at the end of the event and the RNG of the gifts (my RNG is historically bad, I've gotten one blue gift so far) takes the excitement out of the event, at least for me. Maybe this weekend will be kinder to me

Lugaldu · February 13

I like that the event includes proper quests, not just "go to xyz and bring me xyz".
I also want to say that I think the decorations in the cities are very well done. Maybe a little kitschy, but it fits the event. I also like that the decorations include NPCs standing around, drinking, dancing, feeling sick... like in front of the tavern in Mournhold.

AzuraFan · February 13

SilverBride wrote: »

I don't like the quests and only did them on one character.

I like the event, but this is the first time I've skipped quest dialogue. I found some of it excessive and just wanted to get on with continuing the quest. But I really liked that they added a whole new quest line.

I also like the many ways you can get boxes, though it does seem bugged. I haven't always received a box when I expected to get one.

Also, for what there is to do (longish questline, golden pursuit, achievements), one week isn't long enough. I would have preferred a normal 10-day event. Funnily enough, I voted in another thread that one week was enough, but that was based on other events. Now that I've seen this event, I would prefer more time. I don't like feeling rushed.

But the gifts are a nice touch, and the decorations around town are great.

Anyway, overall a thumbs up.

whitecrow · February 13

I liked the quests, pursuits were quick and easy (already got them all) and the rewards are very nice.

Sad that I missed the hug though, and expected a bit more from Samara's.

AvalonRanger · February 13

What kind of theme of "Hearts week event"?

For example, undaunted event = group dungeon.
Then..."Hearts week event" is what?

ESO_player123 · February 13

AvalonRanger wrote: »

What kind of theme of "Hearts week event"?

For example, undaunted event = group dungeon.
Then..."Hearts week event" is what?

Doing staff in a company (players or companions), not playing alone?

Renato90085 · February 13

it new,so better than other old events I've played for 8 years
and i like chest easy drop group repair.

Maythor · February 13

I enjoyed the event, new things are fun. I liked the hat and gloves of the style pages the most!

I disliked the RNG on the gold companion ring, and the limitations in getting it. Why can our master crafters not create gear for companions and upgrade to gold already? Edit: Companion gear as a whole (due to the rare RNG nature of it's drops), is extremely unfun.

Not to mention the bad feels for having an event around levelling and companions when all of my companions have long since been levelled. Where are the new companions? At this point I don't even need a quest .. could we not get a blank generic companion and just make them ourselves .. that would avoid so many restrictions since we could head cannon our own character. Choose a race, class and have some generic voice responses in terms of cheers, and noises of approval or whatever. If we could make one for each race that would work for me .. I'd like multiples!

SaffronCitrusflower · February 13

They should have that one boss in the delve have way more HP because one person with one strong attack can kill them, then everyone else waiting has to spend another 10 minutes and hope the same thing doesn't happen again.

Other than that, it was an OK event. Had some new stuff, even though the companion rapport boxes are basically meaningless, it's still something new. It made it over the bar for calling it a special event, but just barely. I'll get tickets for two more days to get my stock back to max and not play the last couple days of event.

SkaiFaith · February 13

I am enjoying it.
The "help the adventurers' party" quest was my favourite.
I'm farming WBs without a hurry since there's a 5 mins cooldown.
There's plenty of good stuff to sell and make money.
Happy to get lots of recipes and plans.
Style pages' drop seems right.
I originally thought we wouldn't have an increase in Companion Gear drops but it seems like I'm getting those fairly enough.

I would have just wanted more purple gear, since they still seem a rare drop and hard to find on traders despite the event running - add that you need a specific trait and it can become a bit frustrating. (To be fair, their drop should probably be increased in general, not just the event... But maybe I'm biased because they are super rare on console due to population)

Overall awesome, especially the decorations, which would make for good furnishings!
I genuinely hope, since this event has dedicated achievements, that they decide to make it a recurrent event every year from now on.

EDIT to add I also appreciated the associated Golden Pursuit - well done!

valenwood_vegan · February 13

I found the event to be cute and lighthearted, but overall boring and not significantly different from other eso events. Grind some things we've grinded before, get some boxes with annoying cooldowns [EDIT to clarify - I have been running IA and the cooldown is annoying in that context] and lots of junk in them, and a few new items that are primarily of interest to newer players. Like, my companions are already max level and max rapport and everything.

I did appreciate the quest chain in place of repeating a few dailies. Sending players to kill one specific delve boss was a poor choice. The quests seemed buggy or unfinished in some places.

The boxes have too much of the same old junk in them like blue recipes and plans that are already worthless because they've been given out in a million other boxes.

The golden pursuit was nice and easy to complete while just playing regularly (or doing some event themed stuff). I found the rewards to be fine, but they would be a little weak for someone who doesn't do housing I think. A cosmetic in place of one of the furnishings might have had wider appeal.

Liked that there are new achievements for the event, but it felt bad that they only reward one time boxes. A title or a dye or something to actually work toward and remember the event by would have been preferable.

Overall feels like a nice concept of an event that was perhaps rushed / unfinished.

Elvenheart · February 13

Mascen wrote: »

Overall I think it's a great new addition to the event lineup. The quest chain was well crafted and I do like the idea of events having quest chains like that with new ones added every year rather than repeatables. The addition of companion gifts was very cool as well. Meanwhile the event outfit looked fun and I know quite a few people who want just the hat.

Only qualm I have was that if you got a bad gold companion ring, that was it, but maybe there's always next year for an aggressive gold ring rather than paying an arm and a leg for one in guild traders.

I agree with all of this, but especially about the ring having random traits. I wish a list had come up that allowed us to pick a ring in the trait we want.

Soarora · February 13

NotaDaedraWorshipper wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

So far, I’ve actually been really enjoying it. I’ve been retired from being an overlander. Solstice quests didn’t encapture me enough to finish them. But I love the big kitty man and Sanguine (the Sanguine quest I had heard was well-written and I have to say, I agree. So much so that I’m going to do it again just to check out the other options! On my Sanguine-themed character, no less!). It’s also nice to have new achievements to chase as after 7 years, I’m tired of almost all of the events.

And here I thought all of them were bad to some degree and I dislike this portrayal and appearance of Sanguine as much as the Jester's Festival one. Which of course you can't even mention how extremely similar they are. Only Kuzam-jo mentions when the quests are done how he once attended a Jester's Festival and how that Samuel and Samara smelled the same. Smell the same, behave the same, and almost look the same even wearing the same outfit. Yet the only one the Vestige could think Samara reminds them of is Darien.
Would've been more interesting if the priest of Mara khajiit was actually a Sanguine cultist and the hints to him being it was subtle.

Only thing I liked was that one could do the quests in different ways that supported one or the other more.

The other quests weren't that better, the first needing to go to a specific delve was a terrible decision from a gameplay point of view, and the third felt so utterly pointless. Why are we helping these advenuterers? Why aren't they talking to eachother like adults and friends? Instead of having some stranger do these things while they roll their thumbs.

I don’t remember the Jester’s Festival one very well. But I like that Samara just seemed incredibly bored with the festivities and wanted to bring in her/his own traditions since it is his summoning day. I actually was thinking Kuzam-jo was secretly a Sanguine cultist and was glad he was not, as I’m extremely tired of the extremely obvious “plot twists” ESO has. That said, now having done that quest twice, I feel like more could have been done with it. She doesn’t even react when you bring her the “wrong” thing. Certainly she would have noticed, but her reaction is exactly the same whether you brought her the wrong or right thing. The flirting at the end was weird too, as it seemed you could only choose one option… except you can just talk to her again to choose another option. They also all fail, regardless of what you did (bring right or wrong items). This makes sense but it’s also anticlimactic. Could’ve had it be a curse/bless situation where if you brought the wrong things, she turns you into a goat for a minute. Do the right things and you’ll be given a speed boost. Or something.

I actually liked the adventurers quest. It felt like a dungeon group of longstanding friends who are having an argument, it happens. People tend to be pretty bad at communication realistically, but given how long they seem to have been friends for (and that it’s happened before), I got a sense that after a while to cool down, they would have made up. They probably didn’t necessarily need our help… we just happened to intrude.

valenwood_vegan · February 13

Soarora wrote: »

Certainly she would have noticed, but her reaction is exactly the same whether you brought her the wrong or right thing. The flirting at the end was weird too, as it seemed you could only choose one option… except you can just talk to her again to choose another option. They also all fail, regardless of what you did (bring right or wrong items). This makes sense but it’s also anticlimactic. Could’ve had it be a curse/bless situation where if you brought the wrong things, she turns you into a goat for a minute. Do the right things and you’ll be given a speed boost. Or something.

Yeah I forgot to mention this but I agree, this did seem like a blatant missed opportunity to do something more interesting or interactive. I get that this is a mmo and not bg3 or something and they can't really make these huge changes to the world state based on our dialog choices, but they could at least have some more varied reactions and responses and some trivial consequences like you suggested, and at least make the player feel like their choices had some meaning.

heimdall14_9 · February 13

i like this event as its new but there is a few pain points i have as well ( for next event )
1) devle boss being limited to 1 on main quest ( open it up to any devle boss in craglorn )
2) pickpocketed citation not being able to launder at an fence ( make them so they can be or make them not stolen )
3) not all guilds having citations ( fix PSIJIC guild to act more like the other guilds , PSIJIC has been an player pain point since its release )
4) make better GOLD awards , RINGS are nice but can we get ARMOR next time ??????? 7 days = 7 gold items 1 per day in golden box . with this event being once an year it wouldn't hurt the game to put in GOLD GEAR and it would give the players more reason to do this event year after year , tho i do like that major gold drops are limited we should get at less 1 per day outside of styling page that becomes vendor trash 2nd time around any event

Misty · February 14

My experience has been a nightmare with this event. First I could not find the darn event. I'm a new player and don't know the maps and no proper instruction in how to get there are given. I spent days traveling overland to find it. And why did they not unlock the wayshire at that location?
And secondly the quest to kill Ariana at-fara is near impossible. She spawns ever 10 minutes but only takes one shot to kill her so only one player can kill her at a time resulting in you having to que and wait a few hours for your turn.
Not fun.

FlameDark · February 14

Misty wrote: »

My experience has been a nightmare with this event. First I could not find the darn event. I'm a new player and don't know the maps and no proper instruction in how to get there are given. I spent days traveling overland to find it. And why did they not unlock the wayshire at that location?
And secondly the quest to kill Ariana at-fara is near impossible. She spawns ever 10 minutes but only takes one shot to kill her so only one player can kill her at a time resulting in you having to que and wait a few hours for your turn.
Not fun.

For future events, you can "buy" the holiday quest in the crown store. It's free, but it will begin the quest and tell you exactly where to go for the rest. I do believe if you follow the marker it will show you where to go even if you dont have the wayshrine (boat, cart, ect).

Abelon · February 14

Overall okay, but multiple things seemed a bit unfinished and some are just bugged?

The first quest with the play went pretty well, but the ending was weird. The one guy gets on stage and reads a few lines, my screen goes black multiple times to... I assume symbolize time skips during the play? Was a bit weird because for a second there I though my game was broken or something. The actor who was supposed to fight, and who I went to the delve with, to show him how... Never fought. Actually he just didn't participate in the play at all, so I'm confused why that was part of the quest. It couldn't have been that hard to put him on stage and make him do a single combat animation once, right? Was just a bit jarring tbh.

Second quest with Samara, the lovers by the pond part, is clearly just outright bugged. I take the choice to pick weaker instruments without the crazy enchantment, bring them to her. For some reason it is still the creepy crazy music that plays, whereas I'd expect some normal music... And then the NPCs just do nothing. Literally nothing happens. Samara told me to watch, but well, there wasn't anything to see. She also doesn't react in any way later, why would she not recognize that I brought different instruments? Feels like the choice only existed in the singular dialogue before, and aside from that nobody ever developed anything different to happen, same music, same actions (that don't play out, but whatever).

Like people already mentioned, flirting dialogues are technically the choices with the red, aka you take one and that's it. Except you can go to Samara again and again, and pick all of them, and then do it yet again if you want to. So then they either shouldn't be marked red, or someone forgot to turn off the ability to retry them.

The hug for Kuzam-jo is a nice idea, but first of all most players just didn't get to see it because they were lost in a pool of players and summons, and whatever else. Second of all if you're mounted it just doesn't play. Needless to say, that shouldn't happen. It's a simple check. Either it should forcibly dismount you, or it should throw you out of the dialogue and tell you to dismount. It should not skip the entire quest conclusion without even telling you why though.

Event boxes sometimes drop, sometimes don't, seemingly completely randomly. I can't find any logic in it. Companion constantly summoned, kill a world boss, nothing. Is something not registering? No idea.

Due to the event length, none of this will be fixed obviously. Not sure if it will be fixed later or ever. Looks kind of rushed to me. There aren't even that many dialogues, choices or quests. Yet clearly none of it was tested.

Destai · February 14

Abelon wrote: »

Event boxes sometimes drop, sometimes don't, seemingly completely randomly. I can't find any logic in it. Companion constantly summoned, kill a world boss, nothing. Is something not registering? No idea.

Due to the event length, none of this will be fixed obviously. Not sure if it will be fixed later or ever. Looks kind of rushed to me. There aren't even that many dialogues, choices or quests. Yet clearly none of it was tested.

I have been noticing this too. Just doesn’t seem like the boxes are dropping from enough sources. Even with the original article it wasn’t clear, and now in game, it’s inconsistent.

valenwood_vegan · February 14

You know, I guess I have one additional thought to add - unlike some recent events where zos tried to show increased communication as problems or questions arose... it seems like they've gone back to the usual silent mode for this event.

liliub17_ESO · February 14

Pro:

Short event, doesn't drag on for seemingly forever
Rewards are decent, though I **really** wish the devs would 'figure out' out to code for "you got this motif page yesterday, here's a different one instead".
Fourth quest was endearing. A big old hug to finish off the questline - perfect.
Endeavor rewards are nice, easy to achieve. I adore the stuffed cat and if that was the only reward, I'd have been happy. If they'd had both of the stuffies in the reward, it'd have been purrfect!
Everything is contained in one map.

Con:

Quest markers are messed up on the first quest - confused me , and noticed several remarks of the same in chat.
Second quest ... I don't know. Requiring theft doesn't sit well. I'm not a prude ands was able to complete it with all four accounts easily, but it does seem a bit odd to require a criminal act just to satisfy some weird NPC who wants to be edgy and cannot be bothered to do anything for herself.
Third quest was exponentially longer than the first two. It wasn't more difficult, only more annoying to traipse all over.
RNG swings waaaaaaaaay too widely. On one account, the most usual award has been common crafting (like logs of whatever wood) and an unusual (like terne plating). On another account which doesn't do hardly any crafting, suddenly out of a purple box pops out 5 glass eyes of Mora! Not complaining about that at all since it's the first time I've ever seen the things even after playing Necrom on two accounts, but surely would have appreciated such a generous bounty on an account which actually needed/used or had any intention of doing the map(s) that would lead to more. I despise Necrom.
The last Endeavor reward, the emote ... ick. So, how do they say? ... cringe, that's it.

Disclaimer: I returned to ESO after a several week hiatus only for the stuffed cat reward

. And on the two NA and two EU accounts, I've only done the holiday questline though this weekend I may go ahead and do a few more for the boxes.

Carcamongus · February 14

I like the event's simplicity and the quests were quite interesting. The 4th one caught me by surprise, so my reaction in real life was the same as my character's in game. It's good to hang out with Mirri again and so far I've managed to avoid touching torchbugs or butterflies by accident (and probably jinxed it by saying that). The Golden Pursuit was also nice and easy to finish. My major complaint is the event is too short.

Speaking of Hearts Week, when is Sanguine's Rose coming back in stock? This would have been the right time, I think.

Edit: I did jinx myself and accidentally invaded a torchbug's personal space the next time I got in game.