I don't understand the point of "Favours"

Mashille · July 9

ESO is already abundant with simple and mundane daily quests to do things like complete Delves etc.

If someone can enlighten me as to how Favours are somehow anything more than additional mundane daily quests to add to the already bloated pile please tell me. But from what I can tell, these aren't really anything different, apart from the abstract notion that they're supposedly for a particular NPC?

Have I missed a reason why favours are anything more than this?

SkaiFaith · July 9

"mundane daily quests" are what some of us have requested - we wanted more repeatable content just like Craglorn had but all over the world, not only in DLCs... So they listened and now we have them.
Some of us are happy about this

Firstmep · July 9

SkaiFaith wrote: »

"mundane daily quests" are what some of us have requested - we wanted more repeatable content just like Craglorn had but all over the world, not only in DLCs... So they listened and now we have them.
Some of us are happy about this

I feel like a tiny little bit more effort could've been put into these.
This looks like something the team threw together in a day.

Mashille · July 9

SkaiFaith wrote: »

"mundane daily quests" are what some of us have requested - we wanted more repeatable content just like Craglorn had but all over the world, not only in DLCs... So they listened and now we have them.
Some of us are happy about this

I mean fair enough if people want to do it. Happy for you guys, was just wondering if there was more to the system.

Because I feel like it's being introduced as if "Favours" are a different mechanic to any other daily delve, world boss, or incursion daily. Like the Fighters Guild, Mages Guild, Undaunted, or DLC zone dailies. But they just seem like more daily quests to me. So I don't get the need of acting like it's a new system.

YffresTrill · July 9

I have yet to try these as I prefer to do quests after the hype dies down for a bit, but my understanding is that they come with a daily mail from the NPC after completion, similar to hirelings? Anyone who has tried these, are you able to weigh in on the depth/quality of these messages?

I dislike dailies as a concept and only do them more than once for achievements, but I am curious about this message element of these particular ones.

Firstmep · July 9

YffresTrill wrote: »

I have yet to try these as I prefer to do quests after the hype dies down for a bit, but my understanding is that they come with a daily mail from the NPC after completion, similar to hirelings? Anyone who has tried these, are you able to weigh in on the depth/quality of these messages?

I dislike dailies as a concept and only do them more than once for achievements, but I am curious about this message element of these particular ones.

Only done the first set so far, the mails were a couple of paragraphs. I'm sure there are lore buffs out there who care for this stuff but for me it's just another mail I gotta delete.
I was hoping for some special rewards but only dropped zone set pieces afaik.

SilverBride · July 9

I don't even know what favours are, or most of the new things being talked about like nowhere keys and dynamic encounters. I never took the time to look into them because they just sound like more tasks.

Destai · July 9

I'm with you OP. It seems like a whole quest chain over existing quests, just to get a few posters or something.

I wanted a more robust, evergreen system. They're not really giving us much of that type of content. I think maybe Sages/Nowhere Vault will be more like that, but time will tell. I'm just not seeing why I should even bother with this system.

Based on what they said, there's some motivation to get people to experience quests rarely seen. But like, in 10+ years haven't discovered those quest, is it really that big of a deal? What's the motivation here? Not seeing it.

Ravenshadow6513 · July 9

Mashille wrote: »

ESO is already abundant with simple and mundane daily quests to do things like complete Delves etc.

If someone can enlighten me as to how Favours are somehow anything more than additional mundane daily quests to add to the already bloated pile please tell me. But from what I can tell, these aren't really anything different, apart from the abstract notion that they're supposedly for a particular NPC?

Have I missed a reason why favours are anything more than this?

Each day you unlock more story (via mail) from each of the three alliance lore characters - like what you'd see from crafting hirelings. The drops from the boxes are also curated drop from dungeons, arenas, and trials. I got at least six things for my stickerbook yesterday from doing them on a couple characters. I'd say a win.

tsaescishoeshiner · July 9

The rewards for one day of all 3 were not worthwhile.

I think the point for them is more the unlockable interactions (and short story quests) with the NPCs after you do enough. If that means that I do these until I unlock the thingies and no more, fine by me. But they could be more interesting dailies.

As a side note, they really need to stop assigning "kill delve boss" quests. It means getting there and waiting 5 minutes for a respawn with nothing to do. What's worse is if you pass the "trigger" point that causes the boss to respawn for newly arrived players, meaning the person who got there before you just kills it and you then have to wait the full 5 minutes.

Lugaldu · July 9

Yesterday I only completed the first task for Lady Arabelle, and what struck me as negative is the lack of any acknowledgment in the letter that we already know each other from High Isle. The letter feels completely out of place.
It also sounds like you'll never actually meet her in person during those missions.

Syldras · July 9

All I can say is that if this was an attempt to create quest/story content in a ressource-saving way (as in: doable with reduced finances and staff), then sadly, I can only say it doesn't do it for me.

I did the first three tasks yesterday, and the quest I got were 2x kill random delve boss in given zone, and 1x delivery quest. Or, more precisely: Take task from writ board, go kill enemy, get reward from box. Or, respectively, take task from writ board, take item out of box, fast travel to village, put item in box, return to writ board to take reward from box (which doesn't even make much sense - it says we leave prove in some box, but we never actually get any proof during the quest - likely we're supposed to imagine that part?). It's not been any more than that - no npc interaction, no dialogue! So basically just random chores that don't feel meaningful in any way. This is not what I'm looking for when I want to play story/quest content in ESO (or any rpg, really).

It's not the first time - the Night Market daily quests in the combat zones had the same principle: Read task on some paper, do whatever, fetch reward from box. Sure, this saves time and money, there is no need for npc creation, and no voice actors need to be hired. But unfortunately, these are the very things that made questing in ESO/TES appealing: Getting to know the different regions, cultures, people, and fully voiced dialogues.

And the hireling reward letters treating us like we never interacted with those npcs before is also a bit sad. I'm not sure what kind of story will unfold, maybe it will interesting at least (though I find it a strange principle to do random tasks to get a story by letter, instead of our character actually participating in a story) - we'll see. The first letters were just introductory, basically telling us who those 3 people are.

Oh, and the vampire quest npc next to the writ board quacking around all the time is also annoying, but that's a different issue.

Ravenshadow6513 · July 9

Ravenshadow6513 wrote: »

Mashille wrote: »

ESO is already abundant with simple and mundane daily quests to do things like complete Delves etc.

If someone can enlighten me as to how Favours are somehow anything more than additional mundane daily quests to add to the already bloated pile please tell me. But from what I can tell, these aren't really anything different, apart from the abstract notion that they're supposedly for a particular NPC?

Have I missed a reason why favours are anything more than this?

Each day you unlock more story (via mail) from each of the three alliance lore characters - like what you'd see from crafting hirelings. The drops from the boxes are also curated drop from dungeons, arenas, and trials. I got at least six things for my stickerbook yesterday from doing them on a couple characters. I'd say a win.

Just to follow-up here. I was mixing up the rewards from dynamic encounters and favours. Currently, it looks like the item sets you get from Favors are overland sets from that alliance. However, you can also get furnishings, antiquity leads, recipes, etc.

(Can't find the edit button, it hides from me)

AzuraFan · July 9

Syldras wrote: »

All I can say is that if this was an attempt to create quest/story content in a ressource-saving way (as in: doable with reduced finances and staff), then sadly, I can only say it doesn't do it for me.

I'll admit that I was disappointed when I did the first one yesterday (deliver something to someone). Then today I got one for "kill a WB in Reaper's March." I was hoping for more complex quests. The letters are a nice touch, but they aren't a substitute for actual gameplay. Also, they're not the type of thing I'd do more than once, so once I've competed the 60 quests, that's it for me as far as favours go. Still, favours will start off my gaming session for the next 58 days.

AzuraFan · July 9

Destai wrote: »

Based on what they said, there's some motivation to get people to experience quests rarely seen. But like, in 10+ years haven't discovered those quest, is it really that big of a deal? What's the motivation here? Not seeing it.

The best way I've found to discover side quests I might have missed is to hunt lorebooks. I've completed all the zones story-wise, and did all the side quests (I thought). But I've come across three so far that I had somehow missed, because a lorebook was located in the area.

DoofusMax · July 9

The impression which I'm getting from the Freerunner missions is that ZOS tried to blend a couple of things. The first was simply "more repeatable quests." The boards did a reasonably good job with that and didn't even require bringing in voice talent since you read the notice instead of an NPC reading it to you. The quests aren't any great shakes and are generally pretty mundane stuff, but there is a whole series for each of the three notables.

The second is an aspect of the game that many players completely overlook: telling a story over time. People with the Hireling crafting passives mostly just see "free mats," but each of those materials deliveries is accompanied by a letter and a story evolves throughout the course of collecting them. For the original Hireling mails, it takes most of a year (300 days) for the individual Hirelings' stories to play out. I think we got a new set of mails starting in a recent update, but the character who has the Hireling passives has been collecting those mats for over four years now and I'm honestly in the "collect my free mats and move on" camp these days.

SkaiFaith · July 10

If I have to be honest, initially I was skeptical of these when I first heard of "favors" but after seeing how they got implemented I absolutely love them!

Thing is, months ago I walked, yes no-mount and no sprint, from Daggerfall to Windhelm helping whoever I found along the way.
That experience changed how I viewed the game.
I used to "be hyper-efficient" teleporting every 5 seconds and sprinting on mounts even for 5 meters.

But after that experience I thought: It would be cool to have a system that lets you be a "mail man" and sends you across Tamriel, to just enjoy the ride and NOT teleport...
Obviously Devs did the right thing not imposing a restriction on how you want to travel.

I am loving this new feature so much that after using Savior of Nirn and Star-made Knight titles for years, now I've been rocking Freerunner - which is probably one of the easiest titles to get XD

I feel like you have to go the extra mile by yourself to enjoy these. Call it RP if you wish. Otherwise they would be just another quick go from A to B.
Overall I think it is good, both for the game and for the gamers, 'cause it incentivize us to slow down and enjoy the time we can spend in Tamriel, in ESO.

EDIT: can always take them on Vestige difficulty for a challenge.

Maitsukas · July 10

Firstmep wrote: »

I was hoping for some special rewards but only dropped zone set pieces afaik.

I did get a lead for Oakensoul and Ancestral Nord from Urcelmo's and Holgunn's Favor boxes, so they can probably help with lowering the grind for some of the terrible drop rate ones.

IncultaWolf · July 10

Lugaldu wrote: »

Yesterday I only completed the first task for Lady Arabelle, and what struck me as negative is the lack of any acknowledgment in the letter that we already know each other from High Isle. The letter feels completely out of place.
It also sounds like you'll never actually meet her in person during those missions.

This was the only thing I didn't like about it. Came here to say the same thing.

Syldras · July 10

Day 2:
- Fetch stuff from one location, bring it to a different location.
- Kill world boss.
- Deliver item.

The letters vary between a random story snipped about having killed mudcrabs, some babbling about duty and the Dominion or so, and an old Lady I don't care for telling me very private aspects of her life story because I killed two random bosses for her on 2 successive days... I mean, maybe some interesting little story will develop through the letters over time (or perhaps not), but it does feel a bit random.

YffresTrill · July 10

I just got around to trying these. I was pleasantly surprised that there was a Freerunner NPC I could speak to next to the boards who provided some (albeit limited) context for what we were doing, as I have not seen anyone else mention that.

I was also surprised that I could do all three dailies on one character. It seems I misunderstood the marketing for this system, but it sounded to me like it was faction-dependent and we would only be able to do the one for our character's faction. I guess I am fine with it being like this, but I liked the flavour of it being performing favours for someone involved with your faction in particular.

I was not pleased to see that the dialogue with the board itself does not actually specify what task you are being asked to complete, and that the only way to see details is to check the quest journal. I do not normally read the quest journal unless I am confused about something (I play with Immersive Quests) and this felt very inconsistent with how quests are normally handled in the game. Strange design decision. I suppose they were trying to save on writing time?

Regarding the tasks themselves, I had two to kill delve bosses in a specific zone, and one to perform a delivery to a specific location. The context offered in the quest journal was limited, and the tasks did not feel meaningful. The delve objectives in particular were very unsatisfying. I had to stand around waiting for the boss to spawn, then get a hit in while five people beamed the boss down. It is of course to be expected, but these sorts of objectives are just not fun at all, especially if you are playing on a higher difficulty and would like some sort of satisfaction from completing them. At least I had the option of going to any delve in the zone -- I can only imagine how bad it would be if it was a specific one.

As others have mentioned, I was disappointed to see that the faction representatives did not acknowledge our previous acquaintance in the first mails, but I am willing to overlook this if the mails are entertaining as they progress. I did enjoy hireling mails before they became the same every day, so this is the bit that will keep me doing these (until those run out of course).

I don't know what the reward pool is, but I really don't care about rewards.

(Edit for typo.)

Syldras · July 10

SkaiFaith wrote: »

Overall I think it is good, both for the game and for the gamers, 'cause it incentivize us to slow down and enjoy the time we can spend in Tamriel, in ESO.

It's great you enjoy this new system a lot. I'm genuinely happy for you, and for everyone else who has lots of fun with this.

For me personally, Favors bring nothing new or meaningful to my roleplay. I don't need incentives for roleplaying my character when it comes to mundane, everyday life situations. If I want to ride or walk, I do that. If I want to use a silt strider to travel across Vvardenfell, I just do (and yes, I know Favor quests, for now, only take place in base game zones). Sometimes I just sit down in a tavern and listen to the bard, just because I want to.

What I seek from quests is that they provide some meaningful, interesting story that, in a way, adds to my player character's biography, or basically contributes to character development. At best, something that includes some difficult situation, with decisions needing to be made - moments that make me think: What would my character do? How would their personality play out in that situation? How would these events shape them as people? Of course it doesn't need to be huge daedric invasions all the time, a few more light-hearted, less dangerous or more "normal" situations are fine, too. But having 60 quests of being some random delivery guy doesn't add much to my character's life story.

AlienSlof · July 10

SkaiFaith wrote: »

If I have to be honest, initially I was skeptical of these when I first heard of "favors" but after seeing how they got implemented I absolutely love them!

Thing is, months ago I walked, yes no-mount and no sprint, from Daggerfall to Windhelm helping whoever I found along the way.
That experience changed how I viewed the game.
I used to "be hyper-efficient" teleporting every 5 seconds and sprinting on mounts even for 5 meters.

But after that experience I thought: It would be cool to have a system that lets you be a "mail man" and sends you across Tamriel, to just enjoy the ride and NOT teleport...
Obviously Devs did the right thing not imposing a restriction on how you want to travel.

I am loving this new feature so much that after using Savior of Nirn and Star-made Knight titles for years, now I've been rocking Freerunner - which is probably one of the easiest titles to get XD

I feel like you have to go the extra mile by yourself to enjoy these. Call it RP if you wish. Otherwise they would be just another quick go from A to B.
Overall I think it is good, both for the game and for the gamers, 'cause it incentivize us to slow down and enjoy the time we can spend in Tamriel, in ESO.

EDIT: can always take them on Vestige difficulty for a challenge.

I never upgraded my questing cat's mount up to 60 speed for that same reason. Sometimes it's nice just to trundle along and take in the veiws - especially as she rides a mammoth. Good view from up there!

Vrienda · July 10

They are kind of nothing content but I also kinda appreciate them as a way to get more annoying-to-obtain leads easier. They're optional and fairly quick to do so I appreciate their presence even if they're not exactly thrilling gameplay wise.

Story-wise I think they made a mistake, the letters we get from these high up and important leaders are basically them rambling at us, not knowing who we are (Or that we've actually helped them in person a lot). I'd rather have had one NPC we actually -talk- to who has a new comment or quip for the specific task we have to do and see an evolving story with them, once we've seen all the interactions maybe we get a quest to tie up their story and future quests truly do become random notice board quests until their story is continued in a future patch or a new NPC appears to replace them.

SkaiFaith · July 10

AlienSlof wrote: »

SkaiFaith wrote: »

If I have to be honest, initially I was skeptical of these when I first heard of "favors" but after seeing how they got implemented I absolutely love them!

Thing is, months ago I walked, yes no-mount and no sprint, from Daggerfall to Windhelm helping whoever I found along the way.
That experience changed how I viewed the game.
I used to "be hyper-efficient" teleporting every 5 seconds and sprinting on mounts even for 5 meters.

But after that experience I thought: It would be cool to have a system that lets you be a "mail man" and sends you across Tamriel, to just enjoy the ride and NOT teleport...
Obviously Devs did the right thing not imposing a restriction on how you want to travel.

I am loving this new feature so much that after using Savior of Nirn and Star-made Knight titles for years, now I've been rocking Freerunner - which is probably one of the easiest titles to get XD

I feel like you have to go the extra mile by yourself to enjoy these. Call it RP if you wish. Otherwise they would be just another quick go from A to B.
Overall I think it is good, both for the game and for the gamers, 'cause it incentivize us to slow down and enjoy the time we can spend in Tamriel, in ESO.

EDIT: can always take them on Vestige difficulty for a challenge.

I never upgraded my questing cat's mount up to 60 speed for that same reason. Sometimes it's nice just to trundle along and take in the veiws - especially as she rides a mammoth. Good view from up there!

Awesome

Syldras wrote: »

SkaiFaith wrote: »

Overall I think it is good, both for the game and for the gamers, 'cause it incentivize us to slow down and enjoy the time we can spend in Tamriel, in ESO.

It's great you enjoy this new system a lot. I'm genuinely happy for you, and for everyone else who has lots of fun with this.

For me personally, Favors bring nothing new or meaningful to my roleplay. I don't need incentives for roleplaying my character when it comes to mundane, everyday life situations. If I want to ride or walk, I do that. If I want to use a silt strider to travel across Vvardenfell, I just do (and yes, I know Favor quests, for now, only take place in base game zones). Sometimes I just sit down in a tavern and listen to the bard, just because I want to.

What I seek from quests is that they provide some meaningful, interesting story that, in a way, adds to my player character's biography, or basically contributes to character development. At best, something that includes some difficult situation, with decisions needing to be made - moments that make me think: What would my character do? How would their personality play out in that situation? How would these events shape them as people? Of course it doesn't need to be huge daedric invasions all the time, a few more light-hearted, less dangerous or more "normal" situations are fine, too. But having 60 quests of being some random delivery guy doesn't add much to my character's life story.

Thank you. You brought up an interesting observation. I don't want to dismiss your valid point, but I want to propose what could be one reason that makes this feature very enjoyable to some - "Netflix paralysis" aka "Choice paralysis".

While these quests don't add much, they take away the paralysis the player can have being overwhelmed by that vast amount of content.
Sure some players can Roleplay without the need for it, but some others like me appreciate to be given a direction. Could we just kill any base game world boss we want for roleplay? Yes. But that's when we get paralysed, just like when people scroll the Netflix catalogue for 2 hours ending up not watching anything.

This is why I asked for something like this before.
EDIT: and if I had no alts, I'd also be already asking for more of these to be added in the future XD

Malprave · July 10

This content is a complete snooze. Waste of resources. Not a disappointment on the same level as the Writhing wall debacle because it didn't have nearly that level of hype but a disappointment none the less.

Disappointed to see content like this still coming out in 2026. It certainly doesn't make a case against the layoffs. Yeah, I went there.

AzuraFan · July 10

Maitsukas wrote: »

I did get a lead for Oakensoul and Ancestral Nord from Urcelmo's and Holgunn's Favor boxes, so they can probably help with lowering the grind for some of the terrible drop rate ones.

You got leads? You just gave me a solid reason to do them even after I've finished them all!

metheglyn · July 10

I have only done the first round of quests for all three NPCs, but I liked them. The Freerunner npc standing by the board gave some interesting context for the system when I talked to her, and though there's no quest-related need to interact with her, it's nice that she's there for world-building.

Once you take the quest notice from the board, you do get an item in your quest inventory that tells what it is--basically the same thing as what shows up in the quest journal, but it's nice to have a related quest item to read without opening the journal. You also get an item in your quest inventory to turn in to the box as proof, which is another nice detail. For the two favors that involved killing a delve boss, the item was box, presumably containing the delve boss' head or something; for the delivery quest, the item was thank-you note by the people to whom I made the delivery.

The letters from the NPCs are nice, too, and hint at a developing story. I'm thinking we get to find out why Holgunn is called One-Eye, and we might get a look behind Urcelmo's crusty, formal Altmer Battlereeve persona. I couldn't really get a feel for what Lady Arabelle's story might be--her letter was the least interesting to me. Seemed a bit too coy for being an introductory letter of thanks.

As for the rewards, I got some stickerbook items I hadn't yet collected, and the one from Urcelmo had a lead for an absolutely lovely Khajiit-themed mirror which I promptly dug up and put in my house.

Overall, I'm pleased with the system, though the first favor I did for Holgunn mentioned something about Walks-in-Ash also wanting us to do something, yet that wasn't reflected in the actual task. It's possible I misunderstood, and it was Walks-in-Ash's request that led to the delve being in Shadowfen, but I did think it would be a multi-part favor.

I think this is a good way for them to get small chunks of story content into the game.

Vonnegut2506 · July 10

I've done all three of them for three days now, and I like them. They are quick, easy to do, and give some more mail interactions which is nice since I had the daily hireling ones done a long time ago. They aren't the greatest content addition in the game's history, but I still enjoy them more than IA or ToT combined.

Gabriel_H · July 10

Mashille wrote: »

ESO is already abundant with simple and mundane daily quests to do things like complete Delves etc.

If someone can enlighten me as to how Favours are somehow anything more than additional mundane daily quests to add to the already bloated pile please tell me. But from what I can tell, these aren't really anything different, apart from the abstract notion that they're supposedly for a particular NPC?

Have I missed a reason why favours are anything more than this?

Normally new zones come with new daily delve/WB/WE quests. There is no new zone this year, but they still added quests.

This is also a new way of adding quests that they are trying out. So the system could be expanded in the future.

Mattymoo92 · July 10

Lugaldu wrote: »

Yesterday I only completed the first task for Lady Arabelle, and what struck me as negative is the lack of any acknowledgment in the letter that we already know each other from High Isle. The letter feels completely out of place.
It also sounds like you'll never actually meet her in person during those missions.

They don’t know who we are because they don’t know who is doing the freerunning, our name doesn’t get mentioned to them I guess

That’s the reasoning even though I agree with you completely