ESO Golden Pursuits could lead to even more FOMO from the playerbase

Update 44 of ESO is introducing a new concept - Golden Pursuits. These events could have days, weeks, or months between them, and are all limited-time affairs. It’s yet another event type added to an MMO that is bloated with event types. I think it’s a potentially very neat idea, but I can also see it leading to players being frustrated. The feeling of FOMO (fear of missing out) is incredibly powerful, and no player likes to feel guilted into running content.

Golden Pursuits are something the ESO developers could fix and adjust over time, but only time will tell if this new Update 44 feature will be popular or not. While these Golden Pursuit activities will probably feel familiar to players, is it going to be worth it? Let's discuss.

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ESO's Golden Pursuits offer huge rewards but could leave players feeling heavy FOMO

I’m torn on how I feel about Golden Pursuits in ESO - I like the idea of getting huge rewards, like gold, mounts, and things of that nature, for taking part in in-game activities. The only screenshot I’ve seen of these was all incredibly grindy gameplay. A player on the forums uploaded something from the PTS, that was called the Hero’s Odyssey.

These Golden Pursuits are interesting concepts, but perhaps a bit too chaotic (Image via ZeniMax Online Studios || ESO Forums/LunaFlora)

We saw part of the track in the screenshot, with a variety of objectives, like “Kill X foes with Class Abilities”, “Sell X items to Merchants”, and “Steal X items from the environment”. The ultimate reward of 60,000 coins really isn’t that bad. Others rewarded a mount and a costume at the end.

That said, here’s where I think the problem lies with Golden Pursuits in ESO - it’s going to guilt players into completing a bunch of content they may not be interested in doing. After all, you don’t want to miss out on huge rewards of gold, mounts, or cosmetics. Who would? I’m all for having more great rewards based on stuff players are already doing, like killing monsters.

Be that as it may, to put it behind limited-time events, instead of something players can complete at their leisure is not something I can support. After all, just look at myself - I only have so many hours in the day to play an MMO or two, not to mention other games I cover. Knowing I have to log in to see if a Golden Pursuit is even available in ESO is kind of frustrating to begin with.

Make the times make sense, and the rewards worthwhile (Image via ZeniMax Online Studios)

There’s a very fine tightrope to walk here. If you give players plenty of time to do this, and not just “Oh, you have two days to complete all these objectives”, it could be an amazing feature. I’m not completely against it. Otherwise, we’re just adding more events to a game that probably has too many.

If these Golden Pursuits could replace some events, and give players bigger rewards to seek out, that would probably be great. The biggest problem with these is not knowing when they’re going to take place. Having these take place at known intervals, I think, would help players a great deal in investing their time in a way that fits them.

I want to see Golden Pursuits in action before I judge them one way or another. I enjoy ESO, and like to hop in every now and again, but I don’t want to feel like I must log in and actively play for hours just to not miss out on something really cool. One of the reasons I enjoy this MMO is that I feel like I can play it fairly casually. I don’t want that feeling to change.

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