The only issue I have is that it's called "Worm Cult Bed, full".
For that, it's rather empty

If it helps you, imagine that's the opulent and dramatic-looking bed crafted for the King of Worms himself. Since Mannimarco doesn't live barefoot in a cave in this era yet, he surely needs a bed.

sure it would be useful for Malacath's Band of Brutality to get a buff

For this first run, I'm on a copied alt who's completed pretty much everything relevant (MQ / guild quests / Cadwell's Gold / all DLC Chapters / Zone questlines) and I'll be focusing on quests and dialogue.

I'm having loads of fun so far, and I love the ghostly 'screaming souls' addition to the Writhing Wall's animation when you're up close, but I have a few things to ask about already (several are repeats from last PTS which weren't resolved or responded to).

The 'revive point' wayshrine inside Tarnur Mine still has an activation prompt visible (not interactive though) which I've also noticed on PC/Live recently:


The binding energy flows to the shrines, not from them as the dialogue states it should, can this animation be reversed?
https://youtu.be/PBPJbkNA2ys

With the delve quests, Darien will only act as a follower on the way to the first location (per previous PTS patches), but I'd noticed even then his dialogue is different depending on which point you visit first, and it seems more relevant with the 'first / second' location dialogue if you visit Li-Xal Pass before Tarnur Mine, vs the other way around.
(I'll record a clean run of this later showing both versions with all dialogue and post the link as an Edit)

These lines still only trigger after we examine the points in the Wall, despite Darien being the one who's supposed to locate and 'react with' the distortions so we can see them:
First location is Tarnur Mine:

Second location is Li-Xal Pass:


It's great that Mannimarco's note to Necromancer Hezsatari in the Tarnur Mine shrine location can now be read, but the 3 cultists and their bone colossus still respawn far too fast - after only 15 seconds - so there's too little time to read it before they're back and interrupting you:
https://youtu.be/r0H8BRlvPhA

Whereas the cultists at the end of the Seacave have glitchy or nonexistent shields, with the only one visible sitting much higher than the ones at the other site:


Also, Darian delivered his 'destroy it' line mid-fight in Tarnur, rather than closer to the shrine itself afterwards:


In the Sea Cave shrine location, Darien delivers his 'destroy it' line once we reach the foot of the stairs leading to it, which is much better placement, but the line used seems to be more relevant if this was the first shrine we'd found:


Then after the Fissure Ruins delve, why does Darien imply he'll be coming along once we've made the initial breach in the Wall? He doesn't switch to follower mode, and there was no sign of him at any point on the way to the Wall, at the portal, or in the Writhing Fortress' pocket of Coldharbour. Nothing. He stayed right here and just repeated himself when I came back to recheck:

Is the line intended for a different quest?

These might need the colour saturation dialled up (left are blue, right are orange, for those who're struggling):

I have no issue differentiating colours (qualified gemologist with a zero on all color blindness tests), but even I find these too washed out in-game when they're all on the same setting and other effects are going on all around me, so they could be a big problem for players with genuine sight issues.
Another solution might be to have a different symbol for each version?

With the introduction of Monomyth and Subclassing, Malacath seems to have lost its place in buildcraft. Since every character now benefits from major force, even after factoring in all sources of critical resistance (e.g. impen trait, rallying cry, etc.), Malacath never comes out on top. The original appeal was that while it might not always outperform critical damage builds against opponents who ignored crit resistance, it was the clear winner when facing those who did invest in it.

I really think this mythic needs an adjustment.

I don;t know what people were expecting.

Vengeance was a test. It was a test to see if ZOS could have the large scale battles with good performance they envisaged for Cyrodiil if they removed much of the overcomplicated calculations that have historically tanked the server.

Some people seemingly interpreted this test as "can ZOS finally discover whatever was tanking the server and then press a magic button so Grey Host (GH) would have excellent performance." That was not going to happen. ZOS already tried a whole bunch of tests in the past to limit the calculations on Live: smaller groups, skill cooldowns, no proc sets, no buffs/heals outside group, etc., and even all of these at the same time, and none of that worked. They tried raising the pop caps and decided that was a no go. How exactly would a test that removed all the calculations in the game while having a much higher pop cap end up with keep all the calculations and have a performant Cyrodiil?

Because the Vengeance I test showed it was possible to have a performant Cyrodiil with big battles and it had positive reception, they have continued in that direction. I don't think things have changed. What ZOS is doing is trying to press the envelope to see just how many calculations (i.e., how much character customization) we can have before Vengeance turns into GH.

Where I think it is fair to critique ZOS is even when they have something people seemed genuinely excited about, they still don't communicate clearly as to their vision and intention. They have not come out and said that GH would continue to be supported even if a Vengeance was implemented on Live. They hinted on their latest Livestream that the Live PvP we have now would continue to be supported. But hinting is not clear communication. It's quite clear that as much as many people like Vengeance, quite a few people who enjoy the PvP on Live do not. They are paying customers. They have to participate in this dubious season pass model, and ZOS can't even communicate to them what they would be paying for. They haven't even come out and tell us their plans for Vengeance. This is unacceptable.

So we have to guess and speculate. It looks like ZOS intends some form of Vengeance campaign will be a PvP option. A lot of people are saying it. What isn;t clear is whether or not GH will remain an option. It should. ZOS has supported different versions of PvP for over a decade now. Things would be a whole lot easier if they came out and told us.

What @MashmalloMan brings up is another important matter.

Like many people, I am disappointed that there isn't any meaningful combat changes. But, unlike many folks here, I was 100% expecting there to be no meaningful combat changes. Did people pay attention to the titles that were on the reddit AUA?

Associate Content Director, Associate Content Director, Narrative Director, Gameplay Design Director, Executive Producer, Creative Director, Studio Head, and, "Combat & PvP Director." The combat team is a tiny part of ZOS. It got even smaller when Combat & PvP were merged into the office of the same person (which happened years and years ago, late 2018 I think). I've said for years the pace of ZOS's combat updates were too slow, too uneven, and too incomplete. People always pushed back on me and said, "Well it's not the "combat" update. Really? People were satisfied with one combat update a year? That's low expectations. Back in 2015 and 2016, when I wasn;t being charged an annual pass, I was getting meaty combat changes every update. I often disagreed with what ZOS was doing. But you know what we didn't have? Incomplete systems like Hybridization. Placeholder terrible skills like Gravelord's sacrifice just waiting to be updated. We had some confidence that even if Templars weren't competitive, they would get an update before I graduated college.

As much as I enjoy Vengeance, if I were a competitive PvE player, ran progression trials, or were really invested in trying to play a solo class rather than subclassing, I would cancel my sub and not buy the annual pass. ZOS isn't an indie studio; ESO has nearly made 2 billion dollars according to numerous reports. Yet the studio sees combat as a minor part of the ESO experience such that they can pretend the same office can develop Vengeance while addressing all the unfinished combat problems that still plague the game from update 35, unfinished Hybridization, subclassing, and scribing. It's really hard not to draw a connection between Vengeance and the scant changes in Update 48.

People would be a lot more receptive to Vengeance if they were told that GH would continue to be an option for them and the needed combat changes that affect the whole game were not put on hold.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Stones: Warrior is going to disappear when ws damage combines, how great would it be to introduce Crit Resist in its place. Super flexible, this would be helpful for theory crafting and work in no cp environments.

I feel like this is one of the main reasons why they haven’t finished hybridizing yet is things like that. “We need to shoehorn this thing in” conflicts with “try to keep some semblance of the lore”

We have a +Weapon Damage Mundus in the Warrior and a +Spell Damage in the Apprentice. A lot of people say “yeah, just combine it and make one the crit resist!”

So what’s the logic of making the Warrior, which is all about attacking things, lose its offensive bonus to pick up a defensive one? Why not keep Warrior as the +Damage and change the Apprentice to +Resist?

Sure, no difference for most people. But there are people who will riot either way because of the lore - we already have a lot of people still raging that the Bosmer racial passive, that they’ve had since Arena, got changed because “we shouldn’t overlap with Khajiit” (and it’d probably have made more sense logically for the catfolk to get the detection and let the elves keep the stealth)

Now if you ask me, I’d rather go back to separate stats over hybridization, but that ship sailed a while ago. Heck, I think it’d be really cool to bring back elemental weakness/resistance mechanics.

I understand your point, but you can't focus on the lore junkies as a priority. ESO has multiple priorities, and I'd say lore is a little down the list, especially 11 years into the game. First would be gameplay, it's fundamentally the most important part, things should be fun, it should match the games vision, and ZOS should know when to bend or break the rules to fit that idea. Mundus Stones are one of those area's that are incredibly flexible.

If we want to get nit picky about it, Mundus effects have changed in pretty much every ES game for no logical reason to the lore. The same could be said about racial passives. In ESO, some of them aren't even remotely close to what were offered in more recent titles. There's definitely a line in the sand for some effects vs others where some are non negotiable, and others are flexible. At the end of the day, these are video games, and the fun of the game is what matters most.

You're right though, ZOS is probably overthinking it and being afraid of hurting peoples feelings, so they just ignore the problem entirely. They can't please everyone, they shouldn't be afraid to grow or they'll stagnate and that's much worse than offending someone. Plus, if they were really worried about that, they would of added stealth back to Wood Elf, but racial passives are a whooooole other problem entirely. Sometimes I'm convinced ZOS just doesn't like giving what we want to spite us.