Tome Challenges (the un grouping of ESO)

Lapin_Logic · April 3

The new Tome system is nice, but it has a fatal flaw.

You have different challenges than your group/friends, so you end up playing on your own while you both complete challenges.

At least the old endeavour system used to be the same challenges for each person, and Golden pursuits have a a'la-Carte list of challenges to both decide to complete together. Tomes is literally "You camp a boss in Wrothgar while I farm wood and a boss in Stonefalls... see you in a few hours."

It would be nice if there was some "Sync to group" style of function at least because this has become annoying after just one day.

Pcgamer · April 3

My thoughts exactly. My partner returned to eso so we could play together.
We do dungeons together
We do IA together and we would work on golden persuits and endeavors together most times

With the new tome system we cannot group up togegher cos we have diffesent activities to each other and moving forward it will keep us playing apart for most of our time ingame.

tsaescishoeshiner · April 3

While that may seem to be true at first, this week had one specific world boss, one dungeon, and one trial in the rotation, encouraging players to play together.

My world boss was packed, and my guilds were doing the trial together.

So it does mean you can't do your Tome quest with any specific friend, it seems to be promoting social play in a new way, maybe encouraging new connections.

twisttop138 · April 3

I'm telling you, in a game as big as this, with as many people that play, you do not want everyone to get the same set of challenges. It can get vicious and nasty. Even in a much smaller game with a huge map, fallout, it gets bad because everyone knows where to go for the different stuff. Need 14 soap, and you know where to get it? So does everyone else. It's an unfortunate bi-product of a battle pass.

JemadarofCaerSalis · April 3

twisttop138 wrote: »

I'm telling you, in a game as big as this, with as many people that play, you do not want everyone to get the same set of challenges. It can get vicious and nasty. Even in a much smaller game with a huge map, fallout, it gets bad because everyone knows where to go for the different stuff. Need 14 soap, and you know where to get it? So does everyone else. It's an unfortunate bi-product of a battle pass.

This is how I feel.

I remember the complaints that popup each time a golden pursuit, or some sort of activity, required everyone to go to a specific activity, whether it be a delve or dungeon or whatever.

TheSherryOnTop · April 3

While I'd like the Tome Challenges to be more unified like Endeavours were, I can understand why they didn't make it like that. Imagine everyone on Tamriel having to farm 15 woods 6 times in a week (or in the case of the first week, in four days) to get their Tomes. That's not going to work out.

LunaFlora · April 3

i like being able to re-roll Weekly Challenges.
And if friends have different challenges i will happily help them even if i have others.

zaria · April 3

twisttop138 wrote: »

I'm telling you, in a game as big as this, with as many people that play, you do not want everyone to get the same set of challenges. It can get vicious and nasty. Even in a much smaller game with a huge map, fallout, it gets bad because everyone knows where to go for the different stuff. Need 14 soap, and you know where to get it? So does everyone else. It's an unfortunate bi-product of a battle pass.

For many of the endeavors I agree, also stupid behavior from people who did not understood how the game work.
On some special mob you have to kill like the infamous shades, and everybody ran around as crazy or wait for 5 minutes ready to dump an ultimate the millisecond the target spawned.

But for named group dungeons at least you should be able to share them, same with named trials. I say also world bosses.
And why can we not share pledges.Another QoL thing,

GatheredMyst · April 3

I don't think unification is a good idea, all for the reasons given by others above.

And honestly... The fact that it isn't didn't bother my friends and I. We just grouped up and traded turns tackling objectives. The variety was nice.

DoofusMax · April 3

twisttop138 wrote: »

I'm telling you, in a game as big as this, with as many people that play, you do not want everyone to get the same set of challenges. It can get vicious and nasty. Even in a much smaller game with a huge map, fallout, it gets bad because everyone knows where to go for the different stuff. Need 14 soap, and you know where to get it? So does everyone else. It's an unfortunate bi-product of a battle pass.

I'll second that thought. For those with short memories, think back to the Writhing Wall event and the fetch dailies with the accompanying Golden Pursuits to complete those fetch dailies.

Hapexamendios · April 3

I'm glad they're different. Offers a nice variety.

Orbital78 · April 3

twisttop138 wrote: »

I'm telling you, in a game as big as this, with as many people that play, you do not want everyone to get the same set of challenges. It can get vicious and nasty. Even in a much smaller game with a huge map, fallout, it gets bad because everyone knows where to go for the different stuff. Need 14 soap, and you know where to get it? So does everyone else. It's an unfortunate bi-product of a battle pass.

Agreed to a point. If they used more generalized targets like dragons, or heck any incursions that benefit from more players. I wasn't a fan of specific dungeon or trial bosses.

AcadianPaladin · April 3

OP has a valid point that also occurred to me. I actually consider it an advantage though. I used to absolutely hate endeavors that drove the entire game population to the same spot at the same time to complete the endeavor. That is one of the first things I noticed about the tome tasks - I'm not competing with other players because they generally have different tasks than I am pursuing.

I belong to a small guild that gets together monthly and we certainly used to sometimes focus on cleaning up endeavors for anyone who needed them. I don't envision that will change. I may have all my tasks completed but am totally happy focusing during our guild get togethers on helping others complete whatever tasks they may need. Just like in the past when one guildie was farming a set, we would form a dungeon group and run that dungeon two or more times, passing set items they needed to help them fill out the set pieces they needed.

Dreadslayer · April 3

I think the weekly challenges are against solo players out of 5 I can do 1 solo.
The rest you need a group for, and the one I can do is a 4-man dungeon I can solo but again out of 2 options I can only do 1 because the other has levers requiring 2 players

peacenote · April 4

Lapin_Logic wrote: »

The new Tome system is nice, but it has a fatal flaw.

You have different challenges than your group/friends, so you end up playing on your own while you both complete challenges.

At least the old endeavour system used to be the same challenges for each person, and Golden pursuits have a a'la-Carte list of challenges to both decide to complete together. Tomes is literally "You camp a boss in Wrothgar while I farm wood and a boss in Stonefalls... see you in a few hours."

It would be nice if there was some "Sync to group" style of function at least because this has become annoying after just one day.

Oh... no.

While I absolutely understand the points others are making about crowds of people being funneled to one place, I'm also remembering all the times the endeavors inspired my friends and I to start with a particular activity... together.

We could have had both! I think I wrote a post about this earlier, but if the endeavors were a little less specific they both would not cause stampedes and make it easier to do with friends if you want, while not impeding solo'ers from soloing if that's what they prefer. Here are a few ideas:

Kill x delve bosses
Kill x world bosses in 3 different zones
Clear x rounds in IA, solo, with a friend, or a companion
Use 25 different wayshrines
Browse at 5 different guild stores
Complete 15 repeatable quests
Complete x Public Dungeon Group events in Ebonheart Pact Zones
Heal or damage x number of players in PvP (including duels)
Kill x enemies who are sorcerers (PvE or PvP)
Open 500 containers, chests, and/or lockboxes.

You get the idea. The fact that the tasks sometimes have so much specificity is the problem. They could add variability by saying x different places or x different kinds without picking WHICH ones.

If that model was followed, then the schedule could have been the same for all of us, and re-rolls could then be applied if people wanted, but they'd at least have the chance of having the same goals as their friends if they want.

This news is pretty disappointing to me.

Tyrobag · April 4

Ironically, endeavors rarely required you to do group content. In fact it was often things that were detrimental to have everyone piled in one place (flesh atronachs, void creatures, etc.). Now that everyone has separate tasks, it starts giving us stuff that requires grouping.

bmnoble · April 4

To me one of the main things that needs to change is the re-spawn times for world/delve/public dungeon bosses, on one hand the tomes spread players out to reduce the numbers showing up for one target, only to counter act that by requiring you kill the target multiple times preventing the amount of people hanging around from reducing.

It is the one thing I absolutely hate about shared open worlds whenever they designate a target, needing to wait around because you missed your shot at killing the target or needing to do it again even if you managed to get credit for killing the target.

karthrag_inak · April 4

....OR you and your friends all get the opportunity to do many -different- things as you help them with their tasks and they help you with yours. Because...you know....playing with friends and all that.

to-MAY-to, to-MAH-to.

CatalinaWineMixer2 · April 4

Struck out pretty badly on re rolls this time. If anything, it just adds gasoline onto the bonfire of my already bad rng. I think it was designed to get us to play with more people outside of our guilds which isnt a bad thing. I found myself helping others to do a lot of the tasks

Lapin_Logic · April 4

twisttop138 wrote: »

I'm telling you, in a game as big as this, with as many people that play, you do not want everyone to get the same set of challenges. It can get vicious and nasty. Even in a much smaller game with a huge map, fallout, it gets bad because everyone knows where to go for the different stuff. Need 14 soap, and you know where to get it? So does everyone else. It's an unfortunate bi-product of a battle pass.

I wasn't meaning everyone in the entire game getting the same challenges, just the ability for my group to sync out "Camp Corinthiac in Wrothgar for 30 minutes" then we are at least in proximity to eachother doing nothing rather than each being solo, or all of us camping multiple bosses all night for 'Thrilling' gameplay

Lapin_Logic · April 4

GatheredMyst wrote: »

I don't think unification is a good idea, all for the reasons given by others above.

And honestly... The fact that it isn't didn't bother my friends and I. We just grouped up and traded turns tackling objectives. The variety was nice.

If time isn't an issue its dandy, but for the most part its not as easy to fit in as endevours were.

Lapin_Logic · April 4

karthrag_inak wrote: »

....OR you and your friends all get the opportunity to do many -different- things as you help them with their tasks and they help you with yours. Because...you know....playing with friends and all that.

to-MAY-to, to-MAH-to.

With a million other players sat at a boss, blitzing it in 3 seconds, then sat waiting for it to respawn 5 minutes later... I have had better multi player boiled eggs on a timer.

Again its another system that stops you from "playing your way"