Dynamic Encounters are soul-destroying, and not in a good Mannimarco Way

Kendaric · July 25

ZOS_JasonBarnes wrote: »

We’re also investigating several other areas, including:
• How encounters scale when larger groups of players are present
• Drop rates and the experience of pursuing specific rewards
• Better messaging and clearer ways to know when an encounter is active or approaching

We appreciate everyone’s patience while we review the feedback and work toward broader improvements to the system as a whole.

Please keep the feedback coming. We want to hear both the pain points you’re experiencing and your ideas for making Dynamic Encounters better.

The main issues I have with the encounters:

You basically need a ranged AoE attack. As a pure melee guy, most things (except for the end boss) are already dead before I can even get a hit in.
You need a bunch of players to finish them, which can potentially become a problem as more players have the rewards they want/need.
Personally, I did the Stonefalls DE 10 times for the werewolf skins. Will I ever do it again? Hell no. I'd rather pay gold for the Alessia outfit styles than farm them. All in all I'm not overly impressed by them which is in part because the world around them is still static.
The encounters are a nice system in theory, but the way they are implemented they just feel tacked on instead of a natural part of the world.

Ordinator199 · July 25

i ran it like 2-3 times, maybe will run it 2-3 times next week, seems pointless to me really.

sshogrin · July 25

ZOS_JasonBarnes wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. We’re gathering an incredible amount of data on the Dynamic Encounter system and are already discussing and working on adjustments going forward.

Many of the pain points raised in this thread are already part of those conversations. We want to continue investing in this system, make the encounters feel more dynamic and exciting, and improve how players track them and understand their progress.

One change I can confirm is that we plan to cut the respawn time in half. While this is not exactly the fixed hour and half-hour schedule being requested, Dynamic Encounters will be able to start every 15 minutes instead of every 30 minutes in Update 51. This should significantly reduce the amount of time players may spend waiting for the next encounter.

We’re also investigating several other areas, including:
• How encounters scale when larger groups of players are present
• Drop rates and the experience of pursuing specific rewards
• Better messaging and clearer ways to know when an encounter is active or approaching

We appreciate everyone’s patience while we review the feedback and work toward broader improvements to the system as a whole.

Please keep the feedback coming. We want to hear both the pain points you’re experiencing and your ideas for making Dynamic Encounters better.

I don't think waiting until Update 51 is a good idea, you need to make a "hot fix" within the next week or 2 to address the spawn times and drop rates at the very least.
People are already bored standing around waiting, and discouraged by the horrible drop rates.
Zone chat is filled with "Undynamic Encounter" messages, and messages about how unengaging standing around and waiting is. It's very, very boring and a huge waste of player's time to just have to stand and wait.

It's also really horrible to have leads drop from thieves troves. The lead drops for the new armory station or horrible. I've spent more than 14 hours to get the last lead, running around Glenumbra and Hew's Bane, and nothing. The dev team stated on a recent live stream that leads were going to drop 100% until you complete the codex for each lead, then go back to the "normal" drop rate, this is just not happening. Please fix ASAP all of the above.
@ZOS_JasonBarnes

tomofhyrule · July 25

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Jimbru wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Thanks for the update @ZOS_JasonBarnes the reduced time should help a lot.

I don’t have the Eel Pie recipe that supposedly had the drop rate increased, I don’t have all of the style pages, and I don’t have the gem yet. I did get the house fragment.

The good news on the style pages is that they're available on guild vendors. I ended up buying the last few I needed just so I would have it done.

As for the "drop rate increase" on the eel recipe: I don't have it yet either. Most people don't, and the few I've seen for sale have been for six digits of gold. It's been seeming like MAYBE one person in the crowd per round of the event gets the recipe. Yes, doubling the drop rate from 1 in 10K to 2 in 10K is technically an increase (I'm just saying that as an example, I don't know the actual drop rate) but if an increase is not actually visible to the players in the results, then it's not enough of an increase.

Yes you can buy the style pages, I did actually buy a couple, but the two I am missing now are the arm cops and the helmet, and they are listed for much more than the others for some reason, like perhaps they don’t drop as often for everyone else too. I did also price the recipes and saw the same prices, those are too high, I hoped I could get lucky enough to get a drop but it just isn’t happening.

I wonder if there is some mechanic that, on top of the drop rate, limits the number of players who can get the drop to the 1 or 2 that I also have been seeing. Several players have also said they got multiples of the recipe when many others have got none. Is there some other unrelated condition that is preventing some players from getting it as well? This all just doesn’t add up.

As for the gem drop rate being so low, I don’t understand that one either. We got the mythic from the questline but are being prevented from upgrading it. Why?

The reason those pages are so much more expensive is that each of the Dynamic Encounters only drops certain pages. Auridon's is the only one that drops helm, hands, and shoulders. Since Auridon's doesn't drop anything else unique though like the skill style fragments or the recipe or leads, that one's not getting run near as much as the other two. As such, its unique drops are more expensive.

Elvenheart · July 25

ZOS_JasonBarnes wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. We’re gathering an incredible amount of data on the Dynamic Encounter system and are already discussing and working on adjustments going forward.

Many of the pain points raised in this thread are already part of those conversations. We want to continue investing in this system, make the encounters feel more dynamic and exciting, and improve how players track them and understand their progress.

One change I can confirm is that we plan to cut the respawn time in half. While this is not exactly the fixed hour and half-hour schedule being requested, Dynamic Encounters will be able to start every 15 minutes instead of every 30 minutes in Update 51. This should significantly reduce the amount of time players may spend waiting for the next encounter.

We’re also investigating several other areas, including:
• How encounters scale when larger groups of players are present
• Drop rates and the experience of pursuing specific rewards
• Better messaging and clearer ways to know when an encounter is active or approaching

We appreciate everyone’s patience while we review the feedback and work toward broader improvements to the system as a whole.

Please keep the feedback coming. We want to hear both the pain points you’re experiencing and your ideas for making Dynamic Encounters better.

Thank you for this information! It’s nice to know the issues are being considered and something will happen soon to help.

For me, the biggest problem with the abysmal drop rates on things like the gem for the Prowler’s Talisman is that it starts making me wonder if something‘s wrong with the game, and makes me farm the activity to get it out of the way, which then makes me start to dislike the activity and want to never participate in another similar activity. If I could get the item before it gets to that point, I would still enjoy the activity and if I see one up in the zone would participate rather than run the other way, and I would look forward to new things like that being added to the game instead of feeling a sense of dread.

Edited to add: I’m not saying I want things like the gem to just be given to me the first time every time, I’m just saying there needs to be a better chance of getting them before we start feeling frustrated, like a system that guarantees the drop after a certain number of unlucky attempts just so we would always know there would be a definite end to the grinding. Right now, knowing that I could play for the next 10 years doing Dynamic Encounters every day and still not get the gem makes me not want to do it at all.

katanagirl1 · July 25

tomofhyrule wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Jimbru wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Thanks for the update @ZOS_JasonBarnes the reduced time should help a lot.

I don’t have the Eel Pie recipe that supposedly had the drop rate increased, I don’t have all of the style pages, and I don’t have the gem yet. I did get the house fragment.

The good news on the style pages is that they're available on guild vendors. I ended up buying the last few I needed just so I would have it done.

As for the "drop rate increase" on the eel recipe: I don't have it yet either. Most people don't, and the few I've seen for sale have been for six digits of gold. It's been seeming like MAYBE one person in the crowd per round of the event gets the recipe. Yes, doubling the drop rate from 1 in 10K to 2 in 10K is technically an increase (I'm just saying that as an example, I don't know the actual drop rate) but if an increase is not actually visible to the players in the results, then it's not enough of an increase.

Yes you can buy the style pages, I did actually buy a couple, but the two I am missing now are the arm cops and the helmet, and they are listed for much more than the others for some reason, like perhaps they don’t drop as often for everyone else too. I did also price the recipes and saw the same prices, those are too high, I hoped I could get lucky enough to get a drop but it just isn’t happening.

I wonder if there is some mechanic that, on top of the drop rate, limits the number of players who can get the drop to the 1 or 2 that I also have been seeing. Several players have also said they got multiples of the recipe when many others have got none. Is there some other unrelated condition that is preventing some players from getting it as well? This all just doesn’t add up.

As for the gem drop rate being so low, I don’t understand that one either. We got the mythic from the questline but are being prevented from upgrading it. Why?

The reason those pages are so much more expensive is that each of the Dynamic Encounters only drops certain pages. Auridon's is the only one that drops helm, hands, and shoulders. Since Auridon's doesn't drop anything else unique though like the skill style fragments or the recipe or leads, that one's not getting run near as much as the other two. As such, its unique drops are more expensive.

Yes I had read that elsewhere on the forums. I can buy those, but am waiting to see if more pages enter the traders and the price drops. I am more concerned about the recipe. These low drop rates result in other lucky players effectively fleecing the unlucky players by charging so much for something that should be obtained by anyone spending some time doing these DEs. I have complained before about ZOS being enablers for this activity. If there is also some unintended and unrelated conditional flag like the one that caused players to be unable to get the lead from a particular Solstice world boss for a while then even more so.

You can’t entirely fault other players for charging a lot for something that is so rare either, but it’s not helping things in the economy that ZOS killed (on console at least) with shorter guilds listing times a while back. 1 million gold would take me about a month in earnings from daily crafting writs and PvP rewards. This recipe is not a Velothi Triptych that comes from a super rare chance at a safebox in Vvardenfell either yet the price is comparable. Yes, there are supply and demand issues right now because of the newness of the item but it also proves my argument because of the ridiculously low supply.

method__01 · July 25

by the time you adjust the timer and rest, there will be no1 to do them,people are already tired from low drop rates
no sense respawn timers and the loot,only the upgrade gem forces me to play now,I'm over 70 and nothing
Also by adjusting the drop rate from 0,000000001% to 0,00000001% means nothing

Dalsinthus · July 25

CatalinaWineMixer2 wrote: »

ZOS_JasonBarnes wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. We’re gathering an incredible amount of data on the Dynamic Encounter system and are already discussing and working on adjustments going forward.

Many of the pain points raised in this thread are already part of those conversations. We want to continue investing in this system, make the encounters feel more dynamic and exciting, and improve how players track them and understand their progress.

One change I can confirm is that we plan to cut the respawn time in half. While this is not exactly the fixed hour and half-hour schedule being requested, Dynamic Encounters will be able to start every 15 minutes instead of every 30 minutes in Update 51. This should significantly reduce the amount of time players may spend waiting for the next encounter.

We’re also investigating several other areas, including:
• How encounters scale when larger groups of players are present
• Drop rates and the experience of pursuing specific rewards
• Better messaging and clearer ways to know when an encounter is active or approaching

We appreciate everyone’s patience while we review the feedback and work toward broader improvements to the system as a whole.

Please keep the feedback coming. We want to hear both the pain points you’re experiencing and your ideas for making Dynamic Encounters better.

This is some great news! These types of events are something I and many of our Guild members asked for! I am so very glad to see them. There is a lot of potential. Please consider offering Holiday and Weekly ones, rotating rewards and perhaps even Group Finder ones.

I could not disagree more - I hate dynamic encounters with the fire of 1,000 suns. Yet I’m glad that someone enjoys them and I am genuinely curious as to why. Would you mind explaining what it is you like about these things? I promise not to argue about it, I just want to hear a different perspective because these things have killed my enjoyment of the game.

sleepy_worm · July 25

I can only speak for myself, but I like dynamic encounters a lot (though I admit there are some rough edges). I think telling a small, low-impact story mostly through gameplay instead of dialogue is good for the game. These little events add character to the world.

However, they would be far too easy to miss without being guided there. As of now, the only thing guiding people there is other players. This is nice and all, but it means people are spending upwards of 30 minutes not playing the game in order to help guide others to the dynamic encounters. While an in-game announcement would be immersion-breaking, it's really the best way to alleviate the length of the respawn timer.

Anyway, I'm still a fan of the system. I'm someone who sits in the same instance with a timer and answers /say questions about how long it's been. I have time to help guide people while I do chores and play with my cats. It works for me. But it could work for everyone, not just people like me, with just a few changes.

indyfan1202 · July 26

ZOS_JasonBarnes wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. We’re gathering an incredible amount of data on the Dynamic Encounter system and are already discussing and working on adjustments going forward.

Many of the pain points raised in this thread are already part of those conversations. We want to continue investing in this system, make the encounters feel more dynamic and exciting, and improve how players track them and understand their progress.

One change I can confirm is that we plan to cut the respawn time in half. While this is not exactly the fixed hour and half-hour schedule being requested, Dynamic Encounters will be able to start every 15 minutes instead of every 30 minutes in Update 51. This should significantly reduce the amount of time players may spend waiting for the next encounter.

We’re also investigating several other areas, including:
• How encounters scale when larger groups of players are present
• Drop rates and the experience of pursuing specific rewards
• Better messaging and clearer ways to know when an encounter is active or approaching

We appreciate everyone’s patience while we review the feedback and work toward broader improvements to the system as a whole.

Please keep the feedback coming. We want to hear both the pain points you’re experiencing and your ideas for making Dynamic Encounters better.

Honestly? You could change the respawn time to an hour if you would either A: Implement an in-game timer similar to the Night Market's skirmishes; or B: set the Dynamic Encounters to start every hour on the hour.

Elvenheart · July 26

Dalsinthus wrote: »

CatalinaWineMixer2 wrote: »

ZOS_JasonBarnes wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. We’re gathering an incredible amount of data on the Dynamic Encounter system and are already discussing and working on adjustments going forward.

Many of the pain points raised in this thread are already part of those conversations. We want to continue investing in this system, make the encounters feel more dynamic and exciting, and improve how players track them and understand their progress.

One change I can confirm is that we plan to cut the respawn time in half. While this is not exactly the fixed hour and half-hour schedule being requested, Dynamic Encounters will be able to start every 15 minutes instead of every 30 minutes in Update 51. This should significantly reduce the amount of time players may spend waiting for the next encounter.

We’re also investigating several other areas, including:
• How encounters scale when larger groups of players are present
• Drop rates and the experience of pursuing specific rewards
• Better messaging and clearer ways to know when an encounter is active or approaching

We appreciate everyone’s patience while we review the feedback and work toward broader improvements to the system as a whole.

Please keep the feedback coming. We want to hear both the pain points you’re experiencing and your ideas for making Dynamic Encounters better.

This is some great news! These types of events are something I and many of our Guild members asked for! I am so very glad to see them. There is a lot of potential. Please consider offering Holiday and Weekly ones, rotating rewards and perhaps even Group Finder ones.

I could not disagree more - I hate dynamic encounters with the fire of 1,000 suns. Yet I’m glad that someone enjoys them and I am genuinely curious as to why. Would you mind explaining what it is you like about these things? I promise not to argue about it, I just want to hear a different perspective because these things have killed my enjoyment of the game.

For me, I like the concept of Dynamic Encounters because they make the world seem more alive, if they were done correctly. By that I mean, don’t lock something behind them with a super rare drop rate with them being the only source in the game for the item so people have to farm them. I said earlier if the gem was easier to get I would still do the encounters if I came across them in the world, but now if I get it, I would never want to do another one again if I can help it. It would be nice if there were several activities in the world one could do to get the same thing, like if the gem could be found in lockboxes, chests, furniture, by pickpocketing, etc. At least it would break up the monotony of grinding for it.

CatalinaWineMixer2 · July 26

Dalsinthus wrote: »

CatalinaWineMixer2 wrote: »

ZOS_JasonBarnes wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. We’re gathering an incredible amount of data on the Dynamic Encounter system and are already discussing and working on adjustments going forward.

Many of the pain points raised in this thread are already part of those conversations. We want to continue investing in this system, make the encounters feel more dynamic and exciting, and improve how players track them and understand their progress.

One change I can confirm is that we plan to cut the respawn time in half. While this is not exactly the fixed hour and half-hour schedule being requested, Dynamic Encounters will be able to start every 15 minutes instead of every 30 minutes in Update 51. This should significantly reduce the amount of time players may spend waiting for the next encounter.

We’re also investigating several other areas, including:
• How encounters scale when larger groups of players are present
• Drop rates and the experience of pursuing specific rewards
• Better messaging and clearer ways to know when an encounter is active or approaching

We appreciate everyone’s patience while we review the feedback and work toward broader improvements to the system as a whole.

Please keep the feedback coming. We want to hear both the pain points you’re experiencing and your ideas for making Dynamic Encounters better.

This is some great news! These types of events are something I and many of our Guild members asked for! I am so very glad to see them. There is a lot of potential. Please consider offering Holiday and Weekly ones, rotating rewards and perhaps even Group Finder ones.

I could not disagree more - I hate dynamic encounters with the fire of 1,000 suns. Yet I’m glad that someone enjoys them and I am genuinely curious as to why. Would you mind explaining what it is you like about these things? I promise not to argue about it, I just want to hear a different perspective because these things have killed my enjoyment of the game.

If you have ever played Fallout, you can see the potential behind these. Specifically look up "One Violent Night". Dane Rogers will forever bring a smile to my face😎 And "Invaders from Beyond" These are essentially world events, though Fallout is much smaller than Eso, so it may be that we get Zone ones rather than world. Hopefully both. This is an added System and I am very proud of Zos for doing it this way. It means they can add/change rewards, adjust them, expand upon them and many other things, very easily now that it's been built.

It seems like farming because they are brand new and we are starved for content. The truth is, they aren't meant to be farmed. If we had 10, 20, or even 60 of these around Tamriel, it would rejuvenate the Realm. It will not seem as 'Dynamic' right now because they just introduced these in a small cautious way. I dont blame them at all. They are low on staff and resources.

If you're just doing something for rewards and you're not into story or activity content, anything will seem stale. These stories are small right now and the activities are a little more serious than some of the Fallout ones like "Moonshine Jamboree". But there are so many ways they can go. They can have hilarious ones for the Jester's Festival, Halloween Events and so many other things.

I suggested these because I often consider it unfair to the Developers to compare their work to other games, but this is something Zos/Bethesda are already doing and have done well. They need only look among their own people to take these to a much higher level. It should be very easy for them to do this.

This kind of content will be exciting for new players. It includes Solo and group players and goes well with Overland Difficulty. I like the little stories they offer and the activities are fun and interesting, like leading away the horses and putting out the fires.

I ask that you look into some of the ones I listed and give the Devs a chance with this. It's still in its infancy but I suspect they can do amazing things with these. Ive already seen them do it. They are asking for feedback and things that would make these more enjoyable. I hope there is more discussion about it and hopefully they will become something you enjoy.

Calastir · July 26

Got kicked from server after wating for 25 minutes, so 5 minutes before DE started. Fun times.

Ingenon · July 26

I do not like Season One Dynamic Encounters because:

They have a 30+ minute timer between occurrences
There is NO count down in zone. I don't know when the next DE will start if I travel between zones. Therefore, I cannot travel between zones looking for the shortest wait time.
The ZOS version of RNG has given me a "seed" value for my account that rarely gives me Alessian Style Pages (two so far), and never (so far) given me Granny's Eel Pie recipe. Thank the divines ZOS RNG has given me the Gem of Agility and the Baffling Bann Dar Note. I have seen comments by some folks have done fifty plus DE with no Gem of Agility.

ellmarie · July 26

Yeah, not doing this anymore. I logged on this morning and Glenumbra just ended. So I thought that if I go to Auridon and do the wait, I can time the rest. No....I followed a rotation of Auridon, Stonefalls and Glen and stacked it about 5-10 mins each after yesterday. Not today. My controller actually went offline between time so it was more than 15 mins between.

Riinaraiith · July 27

[snip]

So you want all the rare stuff, right from the update, on a scheduled timer, with guaranteed drops?
And what will you do with all your remaining time until the next update?
Brag about how "you found it first"? Good grief, if that is what your life is about in an MMO, I feel sorry for you.
It won't be much of a rarity and achievement if everyone gets it like that.
Not to mention what it would do to the Guild Merchants.

There's just no "Try or Die. And then try some more." mentality for games these days.
Pathetic.

Admittedly, the DE's (as well as the NM) is utterly useless. It's zerging for minimal profit.
And the FreeRunner quests are abysmal. "Please take the note on the table next to this board and claim your reward from the box on the other side of the same board." Really ZoS?
Second Thieves Guild storyline? Meh. Done in a day. If the game doesn't lock on transitions.

You know what helped me?

Deleting 2 older characters and starting anew. I got more achievements, rare plans, missing stickerbook equipment and gold from that in a day than playing my main for a week.
Go put some effort in the game. Because the challenge is there. You may not like it, but that would be a you-problem.
[edited for flaming]

The_Drop_Bear · July 27

Riinaraiith wrote: »

[snip]

So you want all the rare stuff, right from the update, on a scheduled timer, with guaranteed drops?
And what will you do with all your remaining time until the next update?
Brag about how "you found it first"? Good grief, if that is what your life is about in an MMO, I feel sorry for you.
It won't be much of a rarity and achievement if everyone gets it like that.
Not to mention what it would do to the Guild Merchants.

There's just no "Try or Die. And then try some more." mentality for games these days.
Pathetic.

Admittedly, the DE's (as well as the NM) is utterly useless. It's zerging for minimal profit.
And the FreeRunner quests are abysmal. "Please take the note on the table next to this board and claim your reward from the box on the other side of the same board." Really ZoS?
Second Thieves Guild storyline? Meh. Done in a day. If the game doesn't lock on transitions.

You know what helped me?

Deleting 2 older characters and starting anew. I got more achievements, rare plans, missing stickerbook equipment and gold from that in a day than playing my main for a week.
Go put some effort in the game. Because the challenge is there. You may not like it, but that would be a you-problem.

Pot Kettle Black
[edited to remove quote]

JimFord047 · July 27

I keep saying this to people, the biggest problem in ALL of ESO is not knowing whats happening or how to do!

The reason Everyone is running about the same is simply a person works out something that works makes a video and everyone copies it.... Simply Boring!

I appriciate the thoughts that have went into an idea , but if they are thoughts in your head thats no use, how about telling people HOW to USE it! You might get a lot more variety in the game with even better results!

Example Nirnhoned Staff, I keep being told that it is useless, better with this or that, but if you look at a lot of the Armours / Spells / Effects they all say "... The Higher your weapon or Spell Damage ..." you cannot get any higher weapon damage than Nirnhoned, but it simply does not help in a lot of cases.... Why??? thats a question for the person who came up with this to impart!!

So that aside, My problem is NO DROPS, not sporadic , or Low , NONE!! and i probably play more than you. Yes having staggered start times in the regions make sense for Server Load Balance, and in turn the problem of notifications , but simply telling people the gap between server starts and an approximate time would help a lot!

And for MY un-Favourite part, the drop rate changes are a waste of time until you get the R&G to a reasonable level, dropping a pile of useless junk is as bad as not dropping the item required! So how about collating Missing items from the whole game , as an incentive. I do not PVP so doing dynamics for PVP Gear for the sticker book, would be apriciated, more than Ruby Staffs.

I kind of get the idea behind the Dynamics, and i kind of understand that now you do not have a load of QC / Testers in house. Possibly making the PTS more desirable , ie linking in a house oe something into the actual game would get more in testing for you, you systems are still going to get the results! but possibly listen to the feedback more, and act upon it more "dynamicly" , if 20 people say "that not good" and 2 say "yeah Great" , the majority is a NO, DO NOT DO THAT or at least rethink it!!

The only thing your Really doing here is Killing off the idea before you really get it off the ground, read along the lines "stick you finger into the blender! Did that work for you?, Ah ok we can have 9 more attempts!" most will stop before they lose 1, and the guilds / forums are a powerfull place, if all say bad, then why bother!

Calastir · July 27

Even more bugs after todays maintenance. Enemies wont load, final boss wont load even though I ran along with players in the same instance and got some chests some of the time. /reloadui didnt help either. Wasted 90 minutes and still no final reward. The fun times feel endless.

redlink1979 · July 27

Same frustation over here: too much time between each DE and the gem drop ratio needs to be increased. I did 3 DE and I'm already tired of them.

GibbsieUK · July 27

It doesn't even seem to work correctly anyway. I completed one the other day, and immediately went to the next one to get bored waiting for it to start (as previously done), only to find it had already started. Got to the end location too late. Where was the wait time? Did it actually start during the one I had just completed?

Putting that aside - these are so boring. Just want the Gem now. As soon as I have that, I can never do these again.

Of course, my plan to never again to do the equally boring, poorly written and buggy favors is taking longer to come to fruition as well, as they started repeating before I have completed each available favor for each person. I just want the achievements to close that off. Please end!
I mean - the amount of these where the quest indicator drops out before you have handed it in is amazing. Isn't this basic coding? You have to check to see it is still for the same quest and not another one from your quest log
Or the general area is a white marker, then when you enter the area it changes to black for the NPC or whatever you are looking for.
They mention the letters you get at the end of the favors as similar to the hireling letters. Difference is, those were actually quite well written, with some actual humour. I don't even bother reading these anymore. I do not care about those characters, or whatever "character arcs" for them you have come up with.

Why do they have to collate feedback from the players all the time? They should have a pretty good idea what isn't going to be popular by the amount of times they have been told previously.
Don't like grinding. So grinding with interminable waiting added.
Not keen on fetch quests - at least stop with having fetch quests having to be carried out from certain areas only. So fetch quests still carried out from certain locations only. (If you want a delve boss killed - have it as ANY delve boss. Don't restrict to one area. Loot 3 lockboxes? Any lockbox from the map. Again - don't restrict to one area. Pickpocket items? Get the idea?)

Oh yes - from the Night Market - "Base game armor as a reward!?" I'm sure they won't give that again with this part of the new season. Oh - wait! They did!

I'll leave it there. Not sure if I'll even get on it today - issues with xbox being down for hours so far.

MasterSpatula · July 27

While I appreciate that ZOS is "listening to feedback," I can't for the life of me figure out why they ever needed this feedback.

Spending an hour-and-a-half (because just like how I'm incapable of showing up to the subway station at any time other than when my train is pulling away, I'm incapable of showing up to one of these at any time other than right after it ended) every day for miniscule chances at low-drop-rate RNG rewards is just plain not a thing you need to be told is bad.

Grafahel · July 27

Definitely agree with @CatalinaWineMixer2
These things can be a really fun addition but the problem is that everyone's just farming them, now I get that that's something you need to account for in an MMO since there's a lot of people who just want to see number go up and don't really care about the content, but I don't think these are activities made with the idea of 100 people camping around and blasting everything in 2 seconds to jump to the next one.
I tried to do 2 of them and I was like 'well I'll come back to this when every grindfarmer has got their shiny and it's just something for people who enjoy it' because right now it's not fun, but that has more to do with how players approach it.

peacenote · July 27

One sub-theme "hidden" in the I've noticed as people are discussing the DE's is why they are running them, while simultaneously saying how much they don't like them.

And it is not really the best news for ZOS and its apparent direction, which has been to release more things to encourage us to replay content. Think about it - we've seen a lot of major things drop, including subclassing, overland levels, some of the class upgrades, Tomes. It's all stuff that can be only enjoyed by doing what you've done before, again.

What I'm reading is people who are desperate for new content. New stories to work through, new goals to complete (fragments to collect, achievements to achieve, etc.). The biggest issue, to me, is that the DE's are primarily THE new thing. If DE's were released simultaneously with, say, a new land and a new story, they would be a small add-on that we could do in between other things. We wouldn't need to farm them right out of the gate because there'd be a ton of other stuff to do.

But if you are a longtime player who is here mainly for the stories...this is it. There isn't a lot to do, you've finished everything, and getting the things from the encounter is a major part of the content you received in the drop... well, you're going to stand around and wait for them and check off those boxes.

"Dynamic encounters" shouldn't be like that. They should be something you decide to join or stay for because they happened to pop up while you were there. They should help make the world feel more alive. They should not be the thing you chase and the main reason you're playing that day.

I like the dynamic encounters. If they're up, I do them. If I have a free bit of time, I'll travel and around and check if they are up. But I don't stand around and wait for 30 min. But people ARE doing that and I think it's not a great sign.

I could be wrong. But I think new stories, new dungeons, new places to explore, etc. all scratch a different kind of itch than re-running a trial for a drop or re-running a dungeon to get a no death achievement, or checking out a world boss on higher difficulty to see what it's like. I like doing all those things, but sometimes I'm in the mood for revisiting, and sometimes I'm in the mood for something new. We need both.

Kallykat · July 27

ZOS_JasonBarnes wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. We’re gathering an incredible amount of data on the Dynamic Encounter system and are already discussing and working on adjustments going forward.

Many of the pain points raised in this thread are already part of those conversations. We want to continue investing in this system, make the encounters feel more dynamic and exciting, and improve how players track them and understand their progress.

One change I can confirm is that we plan to cut the respawn time in half. While this is not exactly the fixed hour and half-hour schedule being requested, Dynamic Encounters will be able to start every 15 minutes instead of every 30 minutes in Update 51. This should significantly reduce the amount of time players may spend waiting for the next encounter.

We’re also investigating several other areas, including:
• How encounters scale when larger groups of players are present
• Drop rates and the experience of pursuing specific rewards
• Better messaging and clearer ways to know when an encounter is active or approaching

We appreciate everyone’s patience while we review the feedback and work toward broader improvements to the system as a whole.

Please keep the feedback coming. We want to hear both the pain points you’re experiencing and your ideas for making Dynamic Encounters better.

I appreciate this communication. It sounds like you are aware of the main pain points players have with Dynamic Encounters. Hopefully we will see some people suggesting creative solutions and not just reiterating the problems.

For me, the first bullet you listed will become less important with time (although I'm glad it's still on your radar and part of the discussions). The second bullet is a problem across content, not just in Dynamic Encounters. If there's going to continue to be an RNG element to drops, I'd love to see a curated system. If there are seven items of a particular rarity that are potentially rewarded in the final chest, for example, we should at least get them each once before getting repeats. That way someone who is looking for a particular reward knows that they'll get it by the seventh go if not sooner. This would be great for event style page drops too.

Right now, I think the priority pain point is the third bullet. It's already been suggested to start the encounters on the hour and half hour precisely. I think it would be even better to telegraph the start times in game, however, so players who are new or not plugged in to the schedule through out-of-game sources can still get the message. I'm wondering if it wouldn't be enough to just have some kind of countdown icons on the zone map that indicate how close the event is to its start. Maybe use the current icon but with a small 10 or 5 or 1 at its corner. I know some people suggested the type of countdown timer used for Night Market Skirmishes, but I personally don't like to have too many things popping up on my screen or too many UI elements. I'd rather just be able to go to where I can easily get the information in game when I need it, and when I don't need it, it's out of sight and mind. Another thought is to have an item in the DE start location in game that can be interacted with to get either the countdown until the next event or to actually start the event (with a short cooldown between uses).

I'm glad ZOS is thinking about ways to make the world feel more real and interesting, even when the first pass doesn't hit the mark. I'm looking forward to seeing others' suggestions for how to improve the system. I hope we can put our heads together to come up with tenable solutions because I'm sure a lot of effort has already been invested, and I think there is potential here.

karthrag_inak · July 27

Khajiit has done many of them (all achievements they are responsible for, got recipe, couple dozen of the ingredients for recipe) , and in general enjoys them a great deal. They are something else to do and as such khajiit welcomes them

Not every activity has to be steak and taters on khajiit's menu. These encounters....these are delightful bag of snack chips. Sometimes that's all that's called for.

This one does hope for some more substantive content in the near future - hopefully the trial will provide that.

katanagirl1 · July 28

karthrag_inak wrote: »

Khajiit has done many of them (all achievements they are responsible for, got recipe, couple dozen of the ingredients for recipe) , and in general enjoys them a great deal. They are something else to do and as such khajiit welcomes them

Not every activity has to be steak and taters on khajiit's menu. These encounters....these are delightful bag of snack chips. Sometimes that's all that's called for.

This one does hope for some more substantive content in the near future - hopefully the trial will provide that.

Would you have enjoyed them as much if you had not gotten the recipe? So far all I have gotten is the fragment for the house, the skill style fragments (which weren’t a guaranteed drop), and a couple of style pages. Still don’t have the recipe or the gem for upgrading the mythic.

I can put up with content I do not enjoy for a considerable amount of time, but there needs to be enough rewards within that time so I can stop doing those things without having to shell out millions in guild traders or go without the upgrade for the mythic because that can’t be bought.

EDIT: typo

Romilly · July 28

wow, I posted this out of frustration 4 days ago, and I'm amazed about how many people agreed with me.

I've yet to see the DE gem - which is the reason I'm farming it so hard. But I must have done another 6 a day - so I'm probably at 50 DE's so far, and no gem stone. One of the problems we all face is that low probability RNG is really frustrating, almost impossible to estimate, especially when the event is so MEH. There's definitely a sense that after 50 times, that my RNG seed is bugged or something. But if you told me that the probability was 1 in 100, then I might be less concerned. Not knowing that is hard to live with. Right now, I'm pretty sure after 50 event failures that my p(getting a gem) is 1 in 73, with 50% confidence. However, with 20% confidence this could be as large as 1 in 225...

I'm still doing Heists for the last piece of the new house, and I like doing Heists, so this isn't bugging me at all.

kind_hero · July 28

Increasing the spawn timer is a band aid...

Let people chose what activities they want to do, let them plan their playtime. So, the idea of having these spawn at fixed time periods, is reasonable.

Also, there has to be a way to update the map system to show dragons or other events like DE, by just opening the map.

As a veteran player, I really don't like this direction the game has taken. What I mean by this is that you have players competing over spawn points, like troves, instead of working together in the open world. You are building animosity between players, because when everyone farms troves or treasures for a specific lead or key you placed with a low drop rate in those crates, as a player, I won't like to see another player, and will even try to avoid them. This doesn't help the game. It builds frustration, people are just chasing things until it becomes tiresome.

Also, when you have dynamic events which don't require many players, but you have dozens of them spawning abilities and such, you are also annoyed, because you don't feel like you are participating or seeing what is going on. I have done these DE several times, and still have to see what is really happening. Besides, why am I collecting keys, when I can't do anything with them so far? How does this work as a reward?

You are trying this approach for several years, even though so many people tell you they are being burned out. Try to listen to the people who really care, those who take from their personal time to come and write feedback for you, to make the game better. None here wants to make the game worse... we all want to see it thrive and be a place to have tons for fun for years to come!

Usureki · July 28

ZOS_JasonBarnes wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. We’re gathering an incredible amount of data on the Dynamic Encounter system and are already discussing and working on adjustments going forward.

Many of the pain points raised in this thread are already part of those conversations. We want to continue investing in this system, make the encounters feel more dynamic and exciting, and improve how players track them and understand their progress.

One change I can confirm is that we plan to cut the respawn time in half. While this is not exactly the fixed hour and half-hour schedule being requested, Dynamic Encounters will be able to start every 15 minutes instead of every 30 minutes in Update 51. This should significantly reduce the amount of time players may spend waiting for the next encounter.

We’re also investigating several other areas, including:
• How encounters scale when larger groups of players are present
• Drop rates and the experience of pursuing specific rewards
• Better messaging and clearer ways to know when an encounter is active or approaching

We appreciate everyone’s patience while we review the feedback and work toward broader improvements to the system as a whole.

Please keep the feedback coming. We want to hear both the pain points you’re experiencing and your ideas for making Dynamic Encounters better.

This sounds awesome, thanks for being responsive to the community in both development and communication! Keep up being awesome!