Fun event, spent most of the time in Cyrodiil with every char getting to level 3 rewards tier for the end of campaign rewards. Had a few issues with crashes there, particularly in the first week, with much better performance this past weekend

Echoing the painfully low drop rate on style pages and body markings. In fact, the drop rate was non-existent for me. I had tons of boxes from ROTW and didn't even sniff a drop for one of these.

The event itself is fun for PvPers but only because PvP is actually populated.
The means of earning tickets doesn't have much to do with PvP tho, especially in IC you're far better off just doing PvE to get your tickets and in cyro there is no dedicated PvP reward for actually pvping which is kinda backwards for a PvP event (double ap is nice but I can earn AP all year long)

Now the two elephants in the room:
Performance this year was rough, ofc not as bad normally but still pretty bad, this was negatively influenced by certain sets (dark convergence)

Even worse however is the current PvP balance that is about to become even worse with U33, this whole event was plagued by people stacking radiating regen in groups to achieve absurd amounts of passive healing which makes ball groups immortal and promotes a very unfun experience in PvP where you can only achieve kills by dropping multiple ults at the same time combined with harmony (which is op as well) and hoping that the opponent dies otherwise you'll be stuck in a long downtime where nothing happens until you have charged your ult again.

Also class balance this patch was bad magplar, magnecro and magdk are completely dominant and there is little to no point fighting either of those specs unless you play one of them as well, in case of magplars there is no point at fighting them at all, if they manage to find their living darkness button they can't die.

I've written a whole post describing the most blatant balance issues in PvP currently and with the next patch. https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/597180/biggest-pvp-balance-issues-on-live-and-pts-that-need-to-be-addressed#latest


As a summary, PvP lives from 2 things players and playability.
During an event we have the players but in the current patch we lack the playability (both performance and balance wise) and this heavily reduced the enjoyment of this event.

Note: I'm a PVPer. I appreciate that ZOS made it crystal clear that Mayhem is a PVP event celebrating all forms of PVP so that all the ticket activities were PVP activities!

That being said, I have some critical feedback.

Lack of a Below 50 Imperial City Campaign: Below 50 players can compete against fellow Below 50 players for 2/3 Event tickets in Cyrodiil and Battlegrounds. However, Imperial City was NOT given a Below 50 option, and so Below 50 players had to compete vs players with CP 160 gear in the campaigns available for 1/3 tickets This is unfair. (I saw at least one player with this problem. https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/599049/under-50-in-imperial-city)

Cyrodiil Town Quest Buildings: There are some quest-related buildings that require players to transition through a door, leaving them vulnerable to ground based AOEs as they transition. In the past, ZOS addressed this problem in Cyrodiil by taking the doors of the resource towers and in Imperial City by making the interior of quest buildings a safe zone.

Imperial City Daily Quest Loading: In order to pick up an Imperial City Daily Quest, we have to load into the District from the Sewers. If we want to be efficient and pick up multiple dailies at once, we have to load into a district, load into the sewers, load into a district, load into the sewers, load into a district, load into the sewers, load into a district, load into the sewers...and you get the picture. Loading, loading, loading. It would be an enormous Quality of Life change to get a Daily Quest Board in the Sewers where we can pick up ALL 6 dailies at one time, then head out into the Districts to do the quests. Basically just like we do now, but without the extra loading, loading, loading, loading ad nauseum. (Again, not a new request.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/598556/please-add-ic-quest-pickup-board-in-the-starting-area
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/585089/please-move-ic-quest-givers-to-bottom-of-ladder-or-make-quest-board/p1)

Split Event Tickets: During Midyear Mayhem Jan/Feb 2022, we got ALL 3 Event Tickets from any PVP activity. They were not split between Cyrodiil/BGs + Imperial City, thus allow players to choose their preferred activity and reducing the need for players to queue for two different zones. Is this something the Devs would consider going back to?

Dalsinthus wrote: »

The worst thing about the event this year was the drop rates in the style pages and body markings was extremely low. For all the millions of ap I earned, I only received 1runebox. I farmed a ton of bosses in IC and earned maybe 4 of the pages. This is too much of a grind and takes away from the fun parts of the event. Some calibration is needed here.

Second (or I guess third or fourth now) this. Not counting a few forays on alts to pick up tickets and grind for end-of-campaign rewards, I went from Tribune (Grade 2) to Prefect (Grade 1) this Mayhem on my main and got exactly zero Black Drake Marking boxes. Lots of siege that didn’t stack though.

VaranisArano wrote: »

Imperial City Daily Quest Loading: In order to pick up an Imperial City Daily Quest, we have to load into the District from the Sewers. If we want to be efficient and pick up multiple dailies at once, we have to load into a district, load into the sewers, load into a district, load into the sewers, load into a district, load into the sewers, load into a district, load into the sewers...and you get the picture. Loading, loading, loading. It would be an enormous Qaulity of Life change to get a Daily Quest Board in the Sewers where we can pick up ALL 6 dailies at one time, then head out into the Districts to do the quests. Basically just like we do now, but without the extra loading, loading, loading, loading ad nauseum. (Again, not a new request.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/598556/please-add-ic-quest-pickup-board-in-the-starting-area
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/585089/please-move-ic-quest-givers-to-bottom-of-ladder-or-make-quest-board/p1)

Second all of this! I tried to share quests to cut down on some of the loading pain for groupmates but it really shouldn’t be necessary.

1). The items from the Pelinal boxes were incredibly dull. It took all the fun out of turning in a quest or getting Rewards of the Worthy. With most events, there is a sense of excitement from getting an event box. You won't get something cool from every box, but you get something cool often enough where you get a buzz of excitement from opening one. Not with the Pelinal boxes.

2). The "trying to make fetch happen" aspect of Imperial City. It feels like the move from 3 event tickets for PvP activity of your choice to 2 event tickets for Cyrodiil/Battleground and 1 event ticket from IC was to force everyone to go into IC. Making the style pages drop from IC bosses again felt like forcing players into IC. At some point, you might want to ask yourself why Imperial City is so unpopular and why, given any other option, people will take the other option. So you take away other options. You are making every effort to funnel players into IC while seemingly ignoring why you have to go to such lengths to get people into this piece of content. And then you not only funnel people into IC, you made drop rates exceedingly rare in effort to keep people in IC.

I have a feeling (1) and (2) are connected. You didn't want players to farm Pelinal boxes because you can get them anywhere PvP happens. And if there was good stuff in them, people would go to those other places, not IC. The whole event felt like there was a fun factor sucked out of it to push people into content that most players find the least fun content in game. Again, maybe it is time to ask how to make IC more fun, instead of how to make rest of event less fun so IC does not look as bad by comparison.

we were supposed to get boxes?

There were few things that i didnt like:

1) New rewards only in IC. Why we cant get those in Cyrodiil or BGs? Each time there is a new style its going into IC. Why ppl are losing those rewards just because They play "diffrent" PvP?

2) Tickets Split. Its PvP event not IC event. If u rly want to split tickets then give 2 for first daily u do and 1 for second daily. Stop pushing ppl into IC every time u can (Year One event says "Hello").

3) Reward Boxes. The only good reward i saw there was Hakeijo. Small amount of Tel Var were ok too. The rest was rather bad. A note that i didnt get any tatoos from the boxes. My advice here is to give alchemy materials for potions.


Soo overall: It doesnt feel nice when u miss event rewards because u prefer diffrent PvP activity.

Note at the end that i was doing only BGs. I gave up at IC after 2 days because its just wasnt enjoyable for me.

It's been a couple of years since I did any significant pvping in Cyrodiil, but this time around I felt like taking advantage of the double AP to boost my rank up so I was there for a few hours or more almost every day of the event. (Got from rank 39 to almost 43, using tortes most of the time.)

I probably opened around 500 Pelinal boxes and got exactly one Black Drake markings runebox (which thankfully contained both the body and face markings). That's a ridiculously low drop rate. My very limited time killing bosses in IC produced two of the new style pages, so that was better, but judging by prices in guild traders, it could and should have been a lot better. I ended up buying all but one of my style pages with tickets.

With most events, I just find the most efficient and/or fun way to get my tickets each day and call it good. I didn't personally have issues getting tickets, since I did my IC quests ahead of time and was doing Cyro stuff almost every day anyway (and if I need a quickie, there's always the flame atros in Chorrol). I appreciated getting 3 tickets per day instead of 2, since it felt like I was earning rewards from the Impresario a lot faster.

Because this event enticed me to do more active playing on top of just getting my daily tickets, the rest of my feedback is more related to my experiences in Cyro rather than specifics of the event.

I didn't even bother queuing for Grey Host, which is my home campaign, because I knew the queue times and lag would be horrendous. So I hopped around the temporary campaigns or occasionally Ravenwatch, depending on where my faction had a low pop bonus and preferably was seeing some action. Generally this meant trying to find something to do on a relatively dead campaign, or trying to take keeps or resources on a campaign where another faction was already dominant. It was frustrating on some nights to repeatedly get steamrolled by unkillable ball groups as we were on flags or sieging the inner door, knowing that as soon as that group showed up we were done and our work was for nothing. I usually just roll with setbacks like that, but when it keeps happening and you can't get anything done it kind of makes you wonder why you're bothering.

This was the first time I actively played in Cyro since the introduction of the ball group killer sets (which were a not-small reason why I stayed out of Cyro after they came out). On the plus side, I was never pulled off a wall by Dark Convergence. However, my experiences with Dark Convergence and Plaguebreak confirmed that it's not fun to play against those sets, and if/when I do go back to Cyro, it'll probably be on the no-proc campaign.

I didn't have any significant lag issues, probably because I wasn't playing on poplocked campaigns.

So, pluses:

Double AP is great for rank progression, especially with low pop bonuses. Adding event campaigns makes it easier to avoid long queues and lag and adds options for finding action and bonuses.

It's nice to see new rewards like style pages and other cosmetics added for each event. I also made use of the 2-ticket grab bags to pick up a couple of the older shield/staff things I didn't already have, and I appreciated how cost-effective that was.

3 tickets per day is better than 2, especially when you're buying style pages with tickets because they have a crappy drop rate in the wild.

I didn't have an issue getting my tickets each day, partly because I knew to stock up on the more problematic dailies ahead of time.

And minuses:

The drop rate of the markings runebox(es) was abysmal and the Black Drake style pages could have been a lot better.

The contents of the Pelinal boxes isn't anything special, especially when you've been around for a while and you're primarily in it for the new event shinies. Having to farm the new style pages from IC bosses rather than getting them from event reward boxes is kind of limiting.

Aspects of pvp play in Cyro, not specific to this event, actively make playing in Cyro less fun; these primarily involve unkillable groups wearing sets designed to kill groups that just kill everybody else instead.

Suggestions:

Publish an official list of the older items included in the grab bags, so people can see what's available before they decide to spend their tickets.

Have more no-proc campaigns among the temporary event campaigns.

Maybe offer a free home campaign switch on the first day of the event, so that people who know they're not going to get much action on Grey Host their usual home campaign can get in on a leaderboard without having to blow a bunch of AP.

I originally planned to more or less sit this event out because I'm not a fan of pvp in general. I was just going to get the tickets, pick up some discount motifs from the guild traders, and that would be it. Maybe sneak into the sewers to kill Molag Bal to unlock the dye.

Completed IC tickets quests before the start, cause pve farming with a chance of getting ganked and losing your stuff is the worst kind of pvp of all.

Day 1 I turned in my quests for the tickets. Day 2 I finished all town quests and got the last few skyshards I was missing. On day 3 I discovered zerging in Cyrodiil and did that until two hours after the event ended and my last scroll expired.

Started at level 5, ended at 34. Made about 21 million ap. Got three black drake paint boxes. Had much fun. Unlocked many dyes, which made me happy.

I didn't notice any performance issues. No lag.

My feedback would be the same every year. What I like the most about MYM is the amount of players that participate and the resulting increase of population across all PVP areas.

well it is always fun to get more alliance points, and having a lot of players to play with is great.

BUT.
Every strategy is ruined here. People are only focused on farming. I've seen, like every year, defenders not defending and prefering to attack something else to get AP. No fight, no lag, of course.
I've seen factions dominating entirely the map, making people leaving to another campaign where their faction is dominating, which make on these campaign people leaving too. I've seen cyrodiil ruined.

I'm happy it is now finished.

@ZOS_MattFiror and @ZOS_GinaBruno both previously mentioned making more frequent events aimed towards the PVP community.

Myself and others previously proposed making "Midyear Mayhem" into "Monthly Mayhem" -- a monthly week or weekend event of double AP -- instead of only twice per year. This would greatly rejuvenate the PVP community.

Numerous online live-service PVP games feature double-EXP weekends. Dungeons and Battlegrounds already provide daily EXP bonuses in addition to the innumerous EXP scrolls from login rewards, crown crates, and other sources; however, sources for AP buffs and bonuses are extremely scarce in comparison.

ZOS/ESO should adapt to the competition as well as respect and value player's time by offering double-AP weekends every month instead of only two weeks per year.

I had fun during this event. However, I think that since this is a PvP event, there should be more incentives for actual PvP. On Xbox there’s a huge group of players that just takes turns flipping a keep. This has gone on for years now and I think that players look forward to this rather than the joy of PvP. Killing players should have an additional modifier during these events. For example, keep ticks can still give double AP, but actually killing someone should give quadruple AP. This would encourage people to actually engage in PvP instead of running away, avoiding fights, or playing tanky builds that don’t die, but can’t kill anyone.