PTS Update 34 - Feedback Thread for High Isle (Zone, Quests, etc)

ZOS_GinaBruno

This is the official feedback thread for High Isle, mainly focusing on the zone, side quests, and other types of content found in the area. If you have specific feedback on the main story, please visit this thread so others can avoid spoilers. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

• Quests
  • Did you engage with the Main Story?
  • Did you find it easy to get the Main Story quests?
  • If you’ve already played through the High Isle Prologue Quest, did that and the main quest feel connected?
  • Did you engage with any quests outside of the main story? If so, which ones?
  • Did you find any quests to be problematic from either a directional or difficulty standpoint?
  • Did you complete any quests with a companion? If so, how was the experience overall?
• World Bosses
  • Did you fight any world bosses? If so, which ones?
  • Were any of them too easy or too hard?
  • Were mechanics clearly communicated?
  • Did you complete any world bosses with a companion? If so, how was the experience overall?
• Public Dungeons
  • Did you go into any public dungeons?
  • Public dungeons are generally balanced for two or more players of average skill and gear. Did you feel sufficiently challenged?
  • Did you go in with or without a companion?
• Zone
  • What did you think of the High Isle environment?
  • Did you encounter any new monsters you haven't seen before? What did you think of them?
• Volcanic Vents
  • Did you see any Volcanic Vents or Lava Vents? If so, what did you think of their general look and feel?
  • Did you try to fight in any of them? If so, how did the experience feel?
  • Did you find and play through the Volcanic Vent tutorial?
• Do you have any other general feedback?

tomofhyrule

It's a bit hard to take Bragas seriously regarding his accent.

I know there have been complaints about the Bosmer accent, but the brogue he has now is firmly established as a Reachman accent since the Greymoor storyline. It feels out of place.

Even his name sounds a bit more Reachman than Bosmer.

Can he be reconfigured to be a Reachman since his name and voice will match better?

EDIT: and yes, he has one flavor dialogue option that mentions he left Valenwood. If he goes Reachman and the line can't be rerecorded, it could easily be cut.
EDIT 2: Oh, he's really meshed into the world. I still stand behind the idea that based on his name and accent, he should be a Reachman.

richieh99

What did you think of the High Isle environment?

• The zone is amazing, looks great and has lots of little areas to explore.
• Although similar to Summerset, it has a completely different vibe - this is easily my new favorite zone in the game!
• The map feels so much larger than previous expansions - so much so that the render distance on the larger island now feels kinda low even on max
• The smaller island is very complex, I was forever checking my map - felt like I was truly exploring somewhere
• With its size, the Delves felt kind of difficult to find
• There were many intresting structures, but I was disapointed that (as has been the case with many expansions) simply discovering them marked them as 'completed' - Would be nice if their completion objective was something more... interesting - for example, activating something, completing a quest, speaking to an NPC who told you the history of the structure, and so on

Did you encounter any new monsters you haven't seen before? What did you think of them?

• Yes - they look great. Their uniqueness makes the whole zone feel new - this is a feeling I didn't have last year

licenturion

richieh99 wrote: »

What did you think of the High Isle environment?

• There were many intresting structures, but I was disapointed that (as has been the case with many expansions) simply discovering them marked them as 'completed' - Would be nice if their completion objective was something more... interesting - for example, activating something, completing a quest, speaking to an NPC who told you the history of the structure, and so on

Did you encounter any new monsters you haven't seen before? What did you think of them?

• Yes - they look great. Their uniqueness makes the whole zone feel new - this is a feeling I didn't have last year

That is a very good idea. Makes you more connected with the lore and zone.

I agree with all your points. Zone looks lovely. Art style but also the asset quality. It gets more painfullevery expansion to fast travel to the base zone which look so dated now when it comes to rocks and vegetation. I would be willing to pay 60 euros again for a whole asset swap.

Also shoutout to the composer again. Great new music and I hope the OST gets released soon after release.

richieh99

licenturion wrote: »

richieh99 wrote: »

What did you think of the High Isle environment?

• There were many intresting structures, but I was disapointed that (as has been the case with many expansions) simply discovering them marked them as 'completed' - Would be nice if their completion objective was something more... interesting - for example, activating something, completing a quest, speaking to an NPC who told you the history of the structure, and so on

Did you encounter any new monsters you haven't seen before? What did you think of them?

• Yes - they look great. Their uniqueness makes the whole zone feel new - this is a feeling I didn't have last year

That is a very good idea. Makes you more connected with the lore and zone.

I agree with all your points. Zone looks lovely. Art style but also the asset quality. It gets more painfullevery expansion to fast travel to the base zone which look so dated now when it comes to rocks and vegetation. I would be willing to pay 60 euros again for a whole asset swap.

Also shoutout to the composer again. Great new music and I hope the OST gets released soon after release.

This is very very true - the base game looks extremely dated compared to the expansions. This year High Isle is so well desgined and crafted that the difference is even greater than ever before. The textures are so nice on High Isle, the density seems to be very well balanced to give the most detail yet not cause too much stress on my GPU (keeping it in line with all other zones in the game).

licenturion

richieh99 wrote: »

This is very very true - the base game looks extremely dated compared to the expansions. This year High Isle is so well desgined and crafted that the difference is even greater than ever before. The textures are so nice on High Isle, the density seems to be very well balanced to give the most detail yet not cause too much stress on my GPU (keeping it in line with all other zones in the game).

True. I get that remastering older stuff isn’t that high on their priority list but it would be nice.

I don’t expect full redesigns of the maps. Just some retextures and put in the new rock assets and vegatation/trees they have been using for years now since the first DLC’s. That would already make a huge difference for the visuals.

HumbleThaumaturge

Zone: Having a great time just exploring the new Zone. Great job (as always) by your team of artists and world builders. I love this zone: I love the landscape, seascape, the buildings and structures. Quite amazing and delightful.

Don't know if the sky changes in the Zone, but I'd like to have more sunshine (it was mostly overcast during my exploration). I'd also like to see more critters. I really loved the many critters in other Zones, such as Wrothgar.

Looking forward to more exploration and doing the quests.

Dimpfel

Shortly said: I really like the zone on the first look!

Long said:
I was just roaming around the cities and was travelling around the isles itself. So i just wanted to see the world itself. Nothing like quests or other content. I just wanted a first look. But still sharing my first thoughts of the chapter.

I case of quests i cant say anything, because i wanna keep that for release and not spoil me in case of Story.

Zone:
Well the isles themselves are really looking beautiful! The map still feels big, in case of the map size or its scaling in comparison to other zones.
I've also seen a few new interesting monsters, that i haven't seen before. But haven't fought them specificly.
I'm really in love with the capital. It's soo nicely build with detail! I really like the classic european mediveal style.
Also the island Amenos looks really interesting and feels like a real jungle. Also a interesting concept as a prison island tho.
It has a lots of different areas. Also that castle southwest on high isle(don't remember the name), where you can get Isobel, was really awesome! Love that knights vibe on there!

Other than that you see a lot of druid buildings and surfaces. F.e. that small druid village. Looks interesting to me and curious about the story behind it.


BUT to be fair... I was expecting a little bit more live outside the cities. Stuff like farms, fields maybe winerys and stuff like that. I haven't seen anything like that. In view of that high isle is feudal land.
I mean still there were some other castles, buildings, towers, ruins and so on. Interesting stuff i'm really interested about the quests and story. But still... I was expecting a little bit more live riding through the countryside of high isle at least.


A other thing that came to my mind looking at the map:
There's no temple/church for character changes in the city!? At least on the map.
I've seen that there is a chapel inside the city, but i couldnt go really inside it.
So maybe it isn't ready or done yet maybe?
I mean in case of a big capital city of a chapter, there should be a temple like in every bigger city!


So far i'm really excited for the chapter!

TheRimOfTheSky

Why are all the Great Bears just brown bears? Y'all made a million types of bears for mounts, just change the bears to Graysmoke Forge Bears or Tuxedo Bears or something

Treeshka

I like the environment but i did not like how it looks in the big Tamriel Map when you discover all the wayshrines since all those fifteen wayshrine covers the entire island and makes zooming in hard. I wonder if there is any chance to make the island appear much bigger in the big Tamriel Map so it looks more aesthetic there.

Aliyavana

i really hope druids are given their own unique motif style

fiender66

I've gone to the isle with an old char of mine and have started the main quest (currently I'm at the Shallows, not very much ahead then).

My feeling about the visual part is favourable, till now: env almost at the level of Summerset, npc interacting correctly, animations good (all in all, better than Blackwood, cheers).

The new accessibility mode, with the controller (DS4 in my case) directly enabled is a charm, and warmly welcomed.

In order to improve things I'm pointing to an issue I met right at the start: I was welcomed by two Jakarns standing very close to each other. One tried to send me to the introductory quest (that I had already done), the other correctly sent me to Lady Arabelle.

Also, a way to quit directly once logged out could be handy. By now one has to go back, restart and then quit, least I've missed something.

ArchMikem

richieh99 wrote: »

What did you think of the High Isle environment?

• The zone is amazing, looks great and has lots of little areas to explore.
• Although similar to Summerset, it has a completely different vibe - this is easily my new favorite zone in the game!
• The map feels so much larger than previous expansions - so much so that the render distance on the larger island now feels kinda low even on max
• The smaller island is very complex, I was forever checking my map - felt like I was truly exploring somewhere
• With its size, the Delves felt kind of difficult to find

@richieh99

All of that is really encouraging to hear. I've always wanted larger, more expansive lands that really help you feel lost in. Does High Isle have a lot of streams running through? Not rivers but the small rocky ones you can find in Greymoor and Blackwood etc.

Tratrix

Public Dungeons
Did you go into any public dungeons? Both. Delves - also.

Did I like it? No.

In 2 words, current PTS is empty as hell. One (Red coin?) is a circle with several mobs, 2 sub areas, closed central area, and ZERO interactive objects. So you run a circle, solo it with any good char 300+ CP and there is nothing you can worry about.

Second is small hybrid of Vayrest + Karnwasten open dungeons, small and tricky. It is just tiny! And again, without anything to loot inside, there is literally zero reasons to go into! You go once, grab the skillpoint, you leave another proxy dungeon.

And this is my main opinion about current PTS - apart from quests and new card game, there is LITERALLY ZERO content to test. Roads are empty. POI are empty. Zero NPC, tons of locked doors, zero content to explore. I don't like it and if that won't be changed - I'm not buying, sorry.

You made nice LODs, but the world is dead. And since you last chapters were empty hell for the urn looters, I may assume that there won't be any nice points to farm again. So - sorry, but it scares me, and I don't want another static location, like Deadland or Blackwood.


there is nothing in Public Dungeon, except walls and couple of mobs.


Everything on that coast is presented - 1 lootable clam, 2 mobs.


one mob, several stones - and that's all on the scene


Literally ONE road encounter I was able to find. If encounter means a couple of unlootable containers


housing on the stream. Usual houses are not open on PTS


And that is a shipyard - nice location to be revealed, but just EMPTY dead

I can clearly see how your designers were "inspired" or... taking ideas from Witcher 3 Blood and Wine DLC. But the main difference between High Isle and Toussaint - Toussaint pretended to be alive.

Please, stop giving us static unlootable containers in empty dead world! Give us something to explore, loot and farm!

Cireous

These outside gardens I'm seeing are making me jealous. We want these kind of things for our houses

Soon, pretty please?

Other than that, environments look good, if not quite a bit empty of inhabitants. Some areas could use some vegetation as well. Others are almost mystical looking and dream like, very high quality.

Beaches could use more assets. They seem really unfinished. Like others have posted, though, at this point, the artwork is finished, so... yeh, um.

It used to be that the landscaping was one of the only things we could count on to never miss, especially in a area wholly imagined by ZOS. Wonder why that isn't quite the case any more.

Feels very hit or miss wandering around. Either an area has been given a lot of love and is completely amazing or it has barely been touched at all and is extremely bland and lifeless.

Sorry

However, I love Gonfalon Bay. Eye dopamine everywhere, inside and outside of the buildings. So many well-decorated homes to ransack and not many locked doors. Love the rustic sea-faring style of it all. The colored doors, the shutters, the thatched rooftops. The almost hidden nooks under stairwells. I even like the ugly walls that look like they've taken countless ill-fated watery beatings through out their history.

Haven't been to the second island yet. I hear it's awesome, forestry and immersive. Will save that for launch.

richieh99

ArchMikem wrote: »

richieh99 wrote: »

What did you think of the High Isle environment?

• The zone is amazing, looks great and has lots of little areas to explore.
• Although similar to Summerset, it has a completely different vibe - this is easily my new favorite zone in the game!
• The map feels so much larger than previous expansions - so much so that the render distance on the larger island now feels kinda low even on max
• The smaller island is very complex, I was forever checking my map - felt like I was truly exploring somewhere
• With its size, the Delves felt kind of difficult to find

@richieh99

All of that is really encouraging to hear. I've always wanted larger, more expansive lands that really help you feel lost in. Does High Isle have a lot of streams running through? Not rivers but the small rocky ones you can find in Greymoor and Blackwood etc.

In the time that I spent on High Isle I did see a number of streams. They were very atmospheric and beautifully intergrated into the landscape. I hope that ZOS continues this asthetic in the Q4 DLC. The water in general is very nice around High Isle too.

ajkb78

It's a small thing, but rather immersion-breaking: the zone feels similar in size to other chapter zones, but on the map zoomed out to where you can see all of Tamriel it looks tiny, maybe the size of Betnikh. It should be considerably bigger on the map (and this is a really small quibble but it also probably ought to be closer to High Rock, really: it seems unlikely that the Altmer wouldn't have taken it off the Bretons at some point, with it being so close to Summerset).

ajkb78

Tratrix wrote: »

Public Dungeons
Did you go into any public dungeons? Both. Delves - also.

Did I like it? No.

In 2 words, current PTS is empty as hell. One (Red coin?) is a circle with several mobs, 2 sub areas, closed central area, and ZERO interactive objects. So you run a circle, solo it with any good char 300+ CP and there is nothing you can worry about.

Second is small hybrid of Vayrest + Karnwasten open dungeons, small and tricky. It is just tiny! And again, without anything to loot inside, there is literally zero reasons to go into! You go once, grab the skillpoint, you leave another proxy dungeon.

And this is my main opinion about current PTS - apart from quests and new card game, there is LITERALLY ZERO content to test. Roads are empty. POI are empty. Zero NPC, tons of locked doors, zero content to explore. I don't like it and if that won't be changed - I'm not buying, sorry.

You made nice LODs, but the world is dead. And since you last chapters were empty hell for the urn looters, I may assume that there won't be any nice points to farm again. So - sorry, but it scares me, and I don't want another static location, like Deadland or Blackwood.


there is nothing in Public Dungeon, except walls and couple of mobs.


Everything on that coast is presented - 1 lootable clam, 2 mobs.


one mob, several stones - and that's all on the scene


Literally ONE road encounter I was able to find. If encounter means a couple of unlootable containers


housing on the stream. Usual houses are not open on PTS


And that is a shipyard - nice location to be revealed, but just EMPTY dead

I can clearly see how your designers were "inspired" or... taking ideas from Witcher 3 Blood and Wine DLC. But the main difference between High Isle and Toussaint - Toussaint pretended to be alive.

Please, stop giving us static unlootable containers in empty dead world! Give us something to explore, loot and farm!

This was the case also with Blackwood. Most overland trash mobs appeared in a later PTS.

Tratrix

ajkb78 wrote: »

This was the case also with Blackwood. Most overland trash mobs appeared in a later PTS.[/quote]

It's not about trash mobs. It is about small objects, lootable containers, misc NPC, POI (road encounters, small shrines, story points etc). Current PTS lack everything.

In case they add some more resource spawns, 10 containers on the whole map and zero point of interest for farmers - this chapter will stay in line with the previous born-dead chapters

Darkstorne

ajkb78 wrote: »

It's a small thing, but rather immersion-breaking: the zone feels similar in size to other chapter zones, but on the map zoomed out to where you can see all of Tamriel it looks tiny, maybe the size of Betnikh. It should be considerably bigger on the map (and this is a really small quibble but it also probably ought to be closer to High Rock, really: it seems unlikely that the Altmer wouldn't have taken it off the Bretons at some point, with it being so close to Summerset).

Nah, nothing unusual about that. Zone sizes have rarely corresponded to map sizes. Starter isles are all far larger than the Tamriel map suggests. Bal Foyen too is probably one of the biggest discrepancies in zone/map size. And really, if immersion is key to you, it's the larger zones with tiny map sizes like High Isle that would be the most immersive

phantasmalD

Do you have any other general feedback?

For the most part High Isle has pretty good wayshrine coverage, but there's one major deadzone (outlined with red):

Without the red outline:

This area has 4 notable POIs, most notably the delve, Shipwreck Shoals, but also the WBs, Faun Falls and Serpent Bog, and the Stonelore Forge and Craft set station.

Since these are repeatable daily objectives an additional wayshrine covering at least a portion of this deadzone would be greatly appreciated. Somewhere around Stonelore Forge and Craft would be a decent location for one as that would service the upper 3 POIs just fine.

FeedbackOnly

I am disappointed it's so dark. Why are color palettes still so gloomy and grey? I was promised pretty things again

Sunflowers should be bright as the sun...not closer yellow of dir 🌞☀️🌻

Waited awhile at lava vent and nothing happened

CyberOnEso

The zone and Gonfolon Bay look beautiful, obviously.

Just wanted to say I really appreciate the return of the Giant Clam resource nodes from Summerset!

Kesstryl

I like how you really feel like you are on an island in the middle of the ocean. Amenos jungle is beautiful, and contrasts with High Isle which is more plains like. I like all the goats in the high places of the island, that's a different. My Templar wants to join the Steadfast Society, wish there was a way for our chars to join different factions like that. I'm sure others would have loved joining the Morag Tong in the Morrowind chapter. Please consider letting us join these diverse groups, even if only in name or title like you did with House Ravenwatch, it makes us feel more part of the world.

This has nothing to do with High Isle itself, but it does to this update: Thank you for giving Count Ravenwatch back to our alts. I tested him and he was there, and I was happy.

James-Wayne

I will add more detailed overview of the content later but for now @ZOS_SoundMaster I've only listened to the intro and a few in-game music tracks so far but man, you knocked this one out of the park mate! Music is so incredibly amazing in this chapter, it just works!

I really cant wait to hear the full soundtrack. Thank you!

Contraptions

I won't comment on the quests, WBs, delves or PDs. There was no indication in the patch notes or any news that there were significant changes to these compared to previous overland content, and thus should be as easy as ever.

The volcanic vents feel like reskinned abyssal geysers and are comparable in difficulty imo. The final boss is just a copy and paste of the havocrel bosses from the Deadlands. Lol. Didn't find the tutorial.

The zone itself feels like a mix of Summerset and Murkmire with Breton makeup on it. Large breton castles and primitive breton druid huts with large open empty fields in between on High Isle + dense jungle on Amenos. I don't hate this aesthetic, but I wasn't wowed by it either like I was by say Clockwork City or Vvardenfell. It just feels like something I've already seen before. It doesn't help that most of the main High Isle is VERY reminiscent of Summerset in that it feels almost too clean and barren, even in the wilderness.

I was glad to see that the number of wayshrines in the zone was improved compared to last few chapters. In general, the number of wayshrines feels ok but placement needs improvement. I have sketched my proposed changes below. Green lines indicate that I feel the wayshrine is within 10- 20 seconds of mount time (60 speed + major gallop) to a location that is likely to be repeatedly visited (WBs, vents, delves). Red means I think the distance is too long. Yellow and dotted lines indicate proposed new wayshrine locations and player routes.



For Amenos, the northern most wayshrine is a good spot. The rest could be shifted slightly to allow better access to the WBs and vents. Due to the mountain blocking it, the Monard Falls WB should be better served by the Serpent Hollow wayshrine.



High Isle is less ideal. There is a significant lack of wayshrines in the south and center of the island and most delves are located in very inconvenient locations. I propose adding a whole new wayshrine (black circle) near Albatross Point to better serve the 2 WBs and craft station nearby. In addition, a path through the mountain that allows access to the nearby WB from Stonelore Grove wayshrine would be my suggestion, as that waysrhine cannot be easily moved without making it too near to Castle Navire or too far from the druid village. Shifting Castle Navire wayshrine a bit further west would also allow easier access to the vent and delve.

Glacku808

Hey - personally, I find that it rains way too often. Sure its nice for it to rain sometimes, makes it seem refreshing - but I have played in mostly rainy weather and that is upsetting because High Isle was advertised as this island like get away and yet its barely sunny.

Misscapefox

Zone feedback:
Love the contrast between High Isle and the Amenos Jungle. The jungle is especially well done- really captures that closed in feeling of a dense forest. I think it would be neat if there were more/different ambient sounds in the jungle to help highlight how wild and dangerous it is.

High Isle is def my new favorite zone- lots of little secrets and details tucked away and I keep stumbling on something new. I liked the new monsters that I encountered- they felt fresh and new. Really enjoying the art style/environment very much.

wenchmore420b14_ESO

Can't finish Main Quest as it is bugged for me.
Some of the side quests are pretty good.
More redundant writing, i.e. "Who are you again".
Tales is pretty fun, but not a main feature worth.
Colors and textures more muted than I thought they would be.
Lack of assets. This is a Navy/Pirate Island, but yet ships, coast lines, etc empty and/or non explorable. Compare to Khenarthi's Roost, very lacking. To many invisible walls/ slaughter fish.
Amenos Isle is a nice zone. Still exploring it though.

Just my 2 drakes...
Huzzah!

WhiteCoatSyndrome

I want to give a thank you to the animators/monster designers for fixing the Hadolids’ bubbly putty necks. It was really creepy and it looks much cleaner now.

saf227_ESO

Can anyone tell me how to get to Amenos the first time? Is it only through a quest, or is there a boat or something you can take regardless of questing?