Two Tutorials, Two Skill Points, Two Quests - Two Solutions

Enodoc

This is a collection of proposed solutions to address a bunch of issues/complaints surrounding the Morrowind tutorial quest, Broken Bonds. This is not another discussion on the issues themselves; there's already a thread for that.

Issue Summary:

• New characters get an extra Skill Point which existing characters cannot get.
• Existing characters cannot play the introduction tutorial quest Broken Bonds, missing out on quest content.
• Characters who play through Broken Bonds cannot play the Seyda Neen quest, Breaking Through the Fog, missing out on quest content.
• New characters cannot skip Soul Shriven in Coldharbour any more, forcing them through a tutorial-like experience.
• Existing characters don't all get the "Invitation to Morrowind" item in the mail, making an immersive start to Morrowind impossible.

Solution Summary:

• Enable all characters to play both Broken Bonds and Breaking Through the Fog, thus experiencing the whole story and getting the Skill Point.
• Allow players who have completed the Wailing Prison on a previous character to skip Soul Shriven in Coldharbour.

Broken Bonds
Broken Bonds is the Morrowind tutorial quest. If you create a new character and choose "Play Tutorial", you get this. If you choose "Skip Tutorial", you don't get it and can do Breaking Through the Fog instead. This proposal enables Broken Bonds to be played or skipped by existing characters. (If you've already skipped it on a new character, you don't get to make that choice again.)

As a quest under the "Main Quest" category, Broken Bonds is an auto-starting, non-abandonable quest, and as such, needs a trigger to start it off (much like quests in the Harborage Main Quest are triggered when you enter a safe city by the appearance of the Prophet). The trigger here would logically again be entering a safe city (since that trigger already exists), and would simply consist of the "Invitation to Morrowind" note magically appearing in your quest inventory. (This should be functionally similar to when the Prophet appears to call you to the Harborage and disappears again without you needing to talk to him; i.e., a scripted action which doesn't involve player interaction.)

This solves the issue of existing characters not all receiving the "Invitation to Morrowind" in the mail, as it would be deposited directly into each character's quest inventory instead. (It's in the quest inventory so it can't get accidentally deleted and doesn't take up any space. Since it's an auto-starting quest, the quest will already exist at this point to attribute the item to.) The text that was in the mail inbox could be repurposed to be the flavour text of the quest inventory item. The first objective would be "Talk to Captain Jenassa".

(Reading the letter at any point starts the "Divine Conundrum" quest, as it does now.) When you get to Jenassa, her spoken dialogue is the same, but you have a quest-specific response along the lines of "I need to get to Seyda Neen." which overrides the other options. The final dialogue selection, which usually triggers the blackout and porting to Seyda Neen, would instead trigger a popup box:

SKIP BROKEN BONDS
You have previously played through a tutorial with this character. You may choose to play through Broken Bonds with <<PCname>>, or skip it. [ Play | Skip ]

Choosing Play would place you on the ship as you are at the beginning of the current Broken Bonds quest. Ideally, the "Good Travels!" note would be replaced with your own "Invitation to Morrowind", and reading it would start "Divine Conundrum" if you haven't read it already. The rest of the quest would play out almost exactly as it does now; if possible, it would be good if all your equipment was temporarily removed at this point, and would be returned to you in the "Waterlogged Strong Box" that you get at the end of the quest.

When you are escaping across the island, it would be good if the other (NPC) prisoners were not visible, as rescuing them is part of the other quest. Having them nowhere to be found raises the incentive for wanting to come back later to find them.

When you finally leave the island and arrive at Seyda Neen to see the Governor, all dialogue previously applied to "Governor Salvi" would instead be given to "Governor Omellian", who would replace Salvi entirely for this quest. This sets up the scene for Breaking Through the Fog, and fits their characters better too. Completing this quest gives you the missing Skill Point that all new players already have, and the Waterlogged Strong Box gives you back your equipment.

Choosing Skip at Jenassa's dialogue would place you on the docks at Seyda Neen, where the quest would auto-complete and you'd get the missing Skill Point that all new players already have.

Completion of Broken Bonds would no longer mark the Seyda Neen objective as complete, as it has basically nothing to do with Seyda Neen anyway. (It should also not unlock the Soul Magic skill line, as that has nothing to do with this quest.)

Breaking Through the Fog
Breaking Through the Fog is the Seyda Neen quest for existing characters and new characters who skip Broken Bonds. This proposal enables Breaking Through the Fog to be played by new characters who have also completed Broken Bonds.

Most of this quest works perfectly fine as it is already. The changes made above to Broken Bonds (primarily replacing Governor Salvi with Governor Omellian) allows this quest to come after Broken Bonds in the timeline, rather than appearing to run concurrently. As an added incentive to characters who completed Broken Bonds, this quest would enable them to solve a number of unanswered questions, such as finding out what caused their ship to crash, and to rescue the slaves that got left behind. This could even be an additional dialogue response that you can give to Deminah Salvi when accepting the quest (something along the lines of "I was on that ship!").

Somewhere during this quest there's mention of a flare/distress beacon/something that triggers the assault on the island, which is likely there to support the "concurrent timeline" angle, and is intended to be the same signal that Naryu fires off during Broken Bonds. This is never actually clarified, but it would be easier if one or other mention of the distress signal is cut.

Soul Shriven in Coldharbour
Soul Shriven in Coldharbour is the original tutorial quest, which takes place in the Wailing Prison and was once skippable by all new characters. It has now been repurposed as the first quest of the Main Story, with the tutorial prompts removed, but without any increase in its difficulty. This proposal enables the Wailing Prison to once again be skipped, like it was before, instead of players being forced through tutorial-like easy-mode combat situations.

As a side note, it would be good if the Journal entry for this quest didn't mention the fact that you died before that actually happens. If it's possible to hide that part of the journal entry before you arrive in the Wailing Prison, and make it visible then, that would be good.

The quest would proceed as it does now until you reach the Benefactor. The final dialogue selection, "What the...?", which usually triggers the blackout and sacrifice cutscene, would instead trigger a popup box:

SKIP THE WAILING PRISON
You have played through the Wailing Prison with a previous character. You may choose to play through it again with <<PCname>>, or skip it. [ Play | Skip ]

Choosing Play would trigger the sacrifice cutscene, and the quest would proceed as normal. Choosing Skip would port you to the boat/building in Port Hunding/Bleakrock/Eagle's Strand that you end the tutorial in, auto-complete the quest, and give you the necessary Skill Point, Skyshard, and Soul Magic skill line.

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These proposals serve to ensure all characters are able to complete all available content and aren't locked out of certain quests based on a decision they can't make, while also ensuring everyone gets the same number of Skill Points, and also making sure everyone has the opportunity to skip the tutorial-difficulty of the Wailing Prison like they always could do before.

ChildOfLight

Enodoc wrote: »

These proposals serve to ensure all characters are able to complete all available content and aren't locked out of certain quests based on a decision they can't make, while also ensuring everyone gets the same number of Skill Points, and also making sure everyone has the opportunity to skip the tutorial-difficulty of the Wailing Prison like they always could do before.

I am totally fine with your proposed solutions. Plus, I hope this issue gets the visibility and attention it deserves.


@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Aliyavana

You should post this in the ptr forum, as zenimax failed to mention it in their new update

Enodoc

aliyavana wrote: »

You should post this in the ptr forum, as zenimax failed to mention it in their new update

I thought about that, but it's got nothing to do with the current PTS content. This is a Live issue now.

Enodoc

Oh, and I forgot to add that this hopefully shouldn't be too hard to implement even for characters that have already started Vvardenfell content. The game knows which quests you have and haven't completed, so if it detects that Broken Bonds is incomplete, even if you have already completed Breaking Through the Fog, it should still be able to trigger. If completed after Breaking Through the Fog I guess Governor Salvi could remain as the person that you turn this quest in to, but equally, doing quests out-of-order has been a staple feature of ESO forever

Vrienda

I really hope ZOS do SOMETHING to allow us to get that missing skill point.

I've gotten almost all of them now. I can't afford to respec, so I rely on keeping up with the skill points to try different builds.
Levelling up my Alch and Enchanting recently wiped my skill points out.
All that's left are a few group event skill points and PvP, which I'd rather avoid.

A_Silverius

So can we still start this quest on existing characters that were created before morrowind?