Did you complete the fortress?

Yes. I completed it on my copied main character who had progressed through the Solstice questline up to the objective to clear the Fortress.

How many players were present?

It's hard to say since everything was so chaotic and people were spread out throughout the instance. I'd guesstimate around a dozen by the time we all got to the last boss. Probably 4-6 on the harvester boss, which was the first one I did, and then more joined in as we made our way toward the last boss.

Which was the hardest encounters? Easiest?

They were all probably harder than they needed to be, given that I spent much of my time not really knowing what I was supposed to be doing, so we were doing a lot of flailing around without making progress. Also I missed the boss on the east side, so I don't know what that encounter is like. Nevermind I just realized the colossus was the boss on the east side. I think the one I missed was the infernium.

I'd say the harvester wasn't bad once enough people understood the ballista mechanic to deal with the wards, so maybe that was the easiest? And the titan was probably the hardest because there was a lot going on and it was hard to even target the big boy.

Also they would all suck without a lot of people, so I second the calls for dynamic scaling based on how many players are there.

Was it fun?

Ehhhh...

It'll probably be more fun on Live with more people and more who know what they're doing. I enjoyed the epic feeling of a big group assaulting a wide-scaling fortress and making progress on multiple fronts at once, so the concept is good. But in practice, especially without a big group, it feels like more of a slog than an exciting dungeon rush.

Particularly for my first time going through it, I'd say it was more confusing and overwhelming than fun. Other than disembodied NPCs shouting out vague instructions, and the one Stirk Fellowship mage guy who told me about the balls I could break for a shield, I had no guidelines about what I was supposed to be doing so I had to figure out a lot of stuff on the fly (like the orange/blue ballista mechanic and the fact that there were grapple points to get around). I got the sense that a lot of other people were also confused and just fighting whatever mobs were swarming them without a clear objective.

Also after talking to a few people I have realized that I missed a bunch of stuff including NPC interactions that are supposed to happen at the beginning of the instance. When I got there, the only NPC I saw was Keshu, so I wasn't able to talk to Azah or Walks-in-Ash or Mirmal or anybody else. I presume this is because the instance was in-progress and a lot of the objectives had already been completed. So if any of those NPCs had helpful explanations, or if any of those completed objectives were designed to teach me about mechanics, I missed out on all of them. (I'm also annoyed in general about not getting the chance to talk to everyone.)

Did the time to complete feel right?

It took significantly longer than I expected, especially for a necessary step in main quest progression. It'll probably be faster on Live with more people, but I'll still need to set aside a substantial amount of time to make sure I can complete it in one sitting. (Especially since if you can't complete the final objective before you have to leave, it means you'd have to start all over again with a new instance, so all that work is wasted.) And since the time investment is completely dependent on the number of people and the amount of wheel-spinning you have to do to get anywhere, the probability of a drawn-out slog is relatively high.

How long did it take?

I spent about an hour actively participating. Some objectives had already been completed, so I'd estimate that I experienced only about 60% of the content in the instance within that timeframe.

Any additional feedback?

• The orange and blue wards need to be made waaaay more distinct. It's way too hard to tell that there's even a difference between them.
• The encounters that involve ballistae get significantly less wheel-spinny once the barrels of repair parts spawn in. I presume that's something that happens after a certain amount of time has passed? If we have to rely on the green circles to spawn after killing mobs, then we end up spending more time grinding mobs than using the ballistae to actually progress the boss fight. So more barrels plz. Okay nevermind upon second visit I see that the barrels are there from the beginning, so we can chalk that up to yet another "I don't know what I'm doing yet" moment.
• Where is Darien during the Writhing Fortress operation? His earlier dialogue suggests that he's coming with the group, but then he's nowhere to be seen. If he's staying behind to guard the main camp or something, then this should be acknowledged either by him or by another NPC. (And if the choice to have him stay behind is related to his "condition" after recent events, then it would be good to have that established too, and to know if that was his choice or if another NPC insisted on it, and how he feels about it in the latter case.)
• Please find a way to make the grapple points way more obvious. I spent a stupid amount of time running through bathwater trying to get back up to a bridge before someone told me I could grapple up there.
• The mob spawns could stand to be toned down, especially in areas where the actual objective involves interacting with the environment (like repairing and firing ballistae). Especially for solo players or small groups, the trash mobs can completely interfere with progress.
• Having the portal entrance (the blue circle) right next to the gold tunnel to eastern Solstice is confusing, especially since the quest marker is currently marking the tunnel. Also that's where Skordo ran when he was leading the way to the Fortress. Like you're going the wrong way bro.

A couple more things to add while attempting to run my third alt through this:

For the Titan:
Please give us a barrel at the entrance before it starts. Just one, back near the landing platform, please?
Otherwise it's the usual feedback of the grappling hooks needing more range on their activation points, the shouted instructions becoming annoying (especially when it's been a few hours because it's deserted).

I can't wait to run this with proper crowds, and then never have to ever do it again unless I'm feeling nostalgic and deluded that it wasn't really as soul destroying as I remember it being, surely?

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Long story short, though, the boxes should not reference Sanguine and his desire to spread love across Tamriel, it should be Mara. Sanguine should be a part of the event, but in the same way that his is the old (and much less sanitized) version of the holiday that is 0% wholesome.

I fully agree.

And while I like to see Sanguine interfering in the Mara priest's event (the fair in Belkarth is supposed to be held/organized by him, after all), I don't think the priest should be accepting of it. Right now, his stance basically seems to be "Yeah, that's Sanguine, and that's fine! Love for everyone!" or something... I know there is lore about Mara accepting "love of all forms", but I'm very sure this doesn't include the daedra, let alone Daedric Princes.

It's a strange tendency we see lately. Daedra being shown as harmless, people being fine with them. The cathedral in Sunport has daedric and aedric shrine alikes, not even seperated, but directly standing next to each other on the same altar. The general stance seems to be to show tolerance as a great ideal - just that it seems rather strange for the location this game takes place in - Tamriel, also called "The Arena" (and that's for a good reason: there are all kinds of conflicting forces at play, all the time).