Syldras wrote: »

SkaiFaith wrote: »

So I'd say quests like these will be appreciated both by those with little time per day and those that find annoying having to skip through dialogues or needing to read.

I have little time to play each day (about 1 to 2 hours per evening), which is particularly the reason why I want to do something that feels interesting and meaningful in that time. If I have only half an hour of time, I'd rather use it to play 1 real story quest instead of 3 chores.

I see chores as filler content for when there's a total content drought and just nothing else to do anymore. I'd think people who have lots of time to play ESO would reach that point earlier than people who only have little time.

But... You know there have been players that for years have just logged-in to do "Seals of Endeavors" tasks and immediately turned off... It's a reality that can't be dismissed - it's a type of players that exist and have the same right to have some content catered to them. Nothing can make everyone happy...
Sure Tome tasks already give something similar but one and the other are not exactly the same.

EDIT: I also suspect the kind of players really enjoying Favors is probably one that despise having to wait 30 minutes hoping for one of the new Encounters and just skip them.

Favors are just a cop out for real content to add more fluff time sinks in a game full of lame grinds.

The story aspects don't add anything interesting or new, they are simply here to fill the void with fluff to act like it's new content so that they can say they've done something.

DoofusMax wrote: »

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.

It's honestly really cool that ZOS put in stories (for each hireling) in something that's completely optional, I kind of feel bad for not reading them for the first few months, I would just let them pile up and claim then end of week. It's a bit off topic, but it just goes to show how much flavor the game has for what 98% of players will just see as "oooh I got some mats in the mail"

Day 5. Well, that was a weird day for me.

The first quest I took was for Arabelle, and it was finished immediately because I obviously had done that quest already, 10 years ago?! It was something about helping some other npc - sadly, after that long time I sometimes don't even remember anymore what it was about and the quest log didn't really get into detail much.

Anyway, the quest log said I should "hear that npc's news". For a moment, I was positively surprised. I thought they had actually placed that npc there somewhere and had us have a chat about what they've done since we've last met - new npc voiced dialogue after all! - Well, that feeling of positive surprise didn't last for long, since I looked for the quest marker and it just pointed at a letter pinned at the very writboard we had taken the quest from. So, again, no real npc interaction.

What made it even a bit stranger is that the letter sounded like we had just helped them - not a longer time ago. So, if I imagine someone had not done that quest before, they would be sent from the writ board to that quest location, do that quest normally, get personal thanks from that npc, then return to the writ board, and get a letter stating exactly the same thanks once more? Or how does it look like in case one had not done that side quest before?

Then I wanted to do Urcelmo's quest and it was exactly the same: Had already done it, got a letter, got the reward.

I then travelled to do Holgunns's quest - and again, already done it.

All three quests today were just taking the quest from the writ board, finding out I already did it a decade ago, then click the letter at/next to the writ board, and get the reward. Done within minutes, all three of them. Had I not read the letters (I do appreciate that they created new letters!), it would have been even much shorter.

Now, the thank you letters in the mailbox: Urcelmo was babbling about weakness and honor again, Holgunn's letter was extremely short, and Arabelle talked about Lord Bacaro's betrayal and the Steadfast Society. It really made me wonder what would happen if a character had not played the High Isle storyline before? Would there be an alternative letter for those players? Otherwise that would be a huge spoiler?!

SkaiFaith wrote: »

But... You know there have been players that for years have just logged-in to do "Seals of Endeavors" tasks and immediately turned off... It's a reality that can't be dismissed - it's a type of players that exist and have the same right to have some content catered to them. Nothing can make everyone happy...

I'm aware that there are vastly different people playing ESO who all like different things. That's the very reason I decided to give another perspective of someone from the "people with little playtime" crowd, and stated that for me, having little time means not wishing for short, simple stuff done within minutes, but the very opposite: Focussing on what feels most interesting and meaningful to me, and, if time is too scarce, ignoring/postponing everything that feel less meaningful. And I know that I'm not the only person who decides what to do in ESO based on this way of thinking. So I think it's useful to state that, in case there's really a misconception (I don't know, obviously) that complex, immersive writing was for people with lots of freetime, and people with little time prefered short, superficial 1-minute story snippets instead. Sure, some might do. But it can't be generalized.

SkaiFaith wrote: »

EDIT: I also suspect the kind of players really enjoying Favors is probably one that despise having to wait 30 minutes hoping for one of the new Encounters and just skip them.

Well, I despise standing around half an hour waiting for an event to start - or perhaps not - , too. Like I said, I only have limited time every evening, so if I log into ESO, I want to do something which feels worthwhile to me, not stand around and wait. I don't skip those new locations, I want to experience each of them once at least, to see what it's about. But as long as there's no timer, I can't see myself doing these events 30x for the achievements. At worst, that's 15 hours waiting time in total. That's a lot of time to be logged in and actually do nothing in game. Sure, that time isn't completely lost - I sit in front of my screen and read - , but if I log into the game, I want to play, not do something else (let alone the waste of energy when the computer is running without actually being used). But there's a whole thread about that.

They are all rather easy, similar to Cyrodiil town quests, the daily repeatable cap was increased with U49 or 50. I think they might be decent fodder fills for new players.

I don't understand why the make desserts quest took without warning my sugar skulls instead of the banana bread my character made

Day 6, for me, was 1x kill delve boss in specified zone (so the same as day 1), and 2x kill specified enemy type at specified location. Which, the first time, meant standing around waiting because all enemies were already dead, and the other time it was fighting with other players over the few enemies that there were. Same experience and problems as during the Wall event daily quests last year. In general, these tasks begin to remind me a lot of that event, just without voiced dialogue and npcs, and with written flavor texts and letters instead. My main issue with them so far is that they repeat much too fast and many feel generic.

Ah, right, the letters. Holgunn's was very short and very strange if one thinks of it as a "real" letter; he only told me it was time to tell me the story about how he lost his eye - but he didn't tell me. The letter's sole content was that he was going to tell me. Guess he'll do that next time? But that's not really how people write letters, is it?

Urcelmo's letter was a bit ironic as it concluded with him saying that in war, one can't be careful enough. After telling me all kind of sensitive info, including about a guy he is observing and investigating because he suspects him to have some kind of bad motives, being a spy or criminal or something. He even tells me that guy's name. It comes across as so careless again, telling a random stranger about ongoing secret investigations.

And well, Arabelle was Arabelle. I already couldn't stand her in High Isle. But people like different things, so fine with me. At least her letters fit her character how it had been introduced in earlier content.

I just wished they would have thought a bit more about how plausible these letters are when writing them. Writing a nice little story is one thing, but it should also be checked if it makes sense for the supposed writer to tell some random errand runner these things.

Today's a lucky day for me: Coil of Satakal; Tide-Glass Beads; Sacred Resin. One from each daily Favour.
Awesome.

I'm a little confused that if we have had access to these characters from questing, including going so far as to actually have an HQ in Arabelle's home, why we'd be going through these third parties.

It seems it should be addressed in some way why we would not want to speak directly to people we already know.

I suppose this works so they don't have to cover players knowing the NPCs or not.

anadandy wrote: »

Regarding the favor giver acting as if they don't know the player. Urcelmo covers this is one of his letters (the second one I believe) where he says he never knows who his freerunner will be. So, he doesn't necessarily know it's "us". I'm assuming the same goes for the other two, but that is speculation on my part.

Edit: The actual letters were posted in another thread, and what Urcelmo says is the handler (so to speak) assured him the job will go to the same agent as last time. That's what I was meaning. The jobs seem to be managed by a third party and semi-anonymous, which would explain the "Ive never met you before" tone. Not elegant but I'm ok with that.

We are providing proof that these tasks are being completed, but I guess we forgot to sign it with our character’s name or something.

The only way it makes sense is if he never hears who does the job. That makes the military secrets part make less sense though.

Day 7:

2x kill world boss in zone whatever... (5th or 6th time, I think?). One boss kept getting resetted because people were pulling it out of its location...

1x feed animals (3rd time). This time some vermin animals, but still I was supposed to feed them. Since nowhere was stated that the food was poisoned or infused with some repellent (and the animals looked fine after feeding them), I'm not exactly sure how feeding wild animals pestering a village helps, but whatever... An errand runner is not supposed to ask questions, right? If the people of Woodhearth get eaten now, I'll tell their widowers and widows to thank Urcelmo.

Holgunn said yesterday he was going to tell me about how he lost his eye. Didn't tell me that today. I guess he has already forgotten about it again, or perhaps it's the big finale story bit on day 20.

Syldras wrote: »

Day 7:

2x kill world boss in zone whatever... (5th or 6th time, I think?). One boss kept getting resetted because people were pulling it out of its location...

1x feed animals (3rd time). This time some vermin animals, but still I was supposed to feed them. Since nowhere was stated that the food was poisoned or infused with some repellent (and the animals looked fine after feeding them), I'm not exactly sure how feeding wild animals pestering a village helps, but whatever... An errand runner is not supposed to ask questions, right? If the people of Woodhearth get eaten now, I'll tell their widowers and widows to thank Urcelmo.

Holgunn said yesterday he was going to tell me about how he lost his eye. Didn't tell me that today. I guess he has already forgotten about it again, or perhaps it's the big finale story bit on day 20.

Well, the task said "Bait" not "Feed" if I remember correctly. But the animals indeed looked fine and lively after the feeding:

AScarlato wrote: »

I appreciate your effort on this and hope the 20 days is worth it. This all seems very tedious/boring to me personally, and of course a big step down from full quests. I'm fine just letting others do them and getting the TL/DR from them lol.

Sometimes they drop nice leads as rewards (though I didn't get anything really spectacular so far - just duplicates of furnishings I already had, but nice furnishings at least; nothing completely new, no leads for mythics - but that's just rng), but the tasks themselves are really just boring filler content.

Also, I've sadly been told that this...

Syldras wrote: »

Arabelle talked about Lord Bacaro's betrayal and the Steadfast Society. It really made me wonder what would happen if a character had not played the High Isle storyline before? Would there be an alternative letter for those players? Otherwise that would be a huge spoiler?!

...is indeed the case. That's really disappointing! On the one hand the letters treat the player character like strangers, on the other hand, they have no problem spoiling the big plot twist of one chapter story. I know, it wasn't a surprising plot twist at all, but still.

I've been enjoying them so far. I really like that they're varied, so it's not "another day, another delve" sort of thing. Yesterday, I had to kill a world boss, but today I got to feed some kitties and rescued a naughty bantam guar. Those were cute quests, they made me smile.

I enjoy Urcelmo's letters, Arabelle's tend to ramble on a bit but I'm sure she'll get to the point eventually. Haven't done Holgunn's ones yet, keep forgetting to go to Stonefalls.

anadandy wrote: »

Today Holgrunn sent me to help an NPC in Ivarstead. Turns out, it was pointing me to do a base game side quest I'd never done on this character. It was an easy one and I thought that was pretty cool.

There is one of these for each board. ZOS chose the quests based on player completion. These 3 were among the lowest completion rate (less than 5%).