PTS Update 42 - Feedback Thread for West Weald

Khressandra

Rustwall manor- and Rustwall catacombs in particular- should have a thieves trove, as a "we can get anywhere" kind of flex.

Syldras

WhiteCoatSyndrome wrote: »

Complaint about the winery quest: we just finished establishing that this stuff is lethal to vampires and then the moment we walk in the door, Fennorian IMMEDIATELY takes a glass of the stuff and drinks it. *headdesk* And admits to drinking it. Is this mer suicidal? Why not just pretend to drink like a sensible person??? Or don’t take the glass at all, because none of the other vampires did?

Confirms my theory that that poor boy is no vampire at all, but just a goth - and an alcoholic ("My flask! Bring me my flask!" - We never got any proof about what's inside that flask anyway. Can't we take him to a rehab clinic in Alinor or something?).

No, seriously. I didn't play the entire quest, I just had a look at the initial dialogue and already found that questionable. But this really makes it even worse.

ThelerisTelvanni

I just noted that the mages and fighters guild in Skingrad are both missing living qauters for the residential members. I think that is kind of immersion breaking. I perfer it when the world feels actually beliveble.

Enodoc

The new "Three Points Wayshrine" is unnecessary, it's like 10 feet away from the wayshrine at Leftwheal, and further away from every other location than either of the wayshrines at Ontus or Feldagard Keep.

If you've got Wayshrines to spare, go pop one near Cicatrice and/or Merryvale in Northern Elsweyr instead

Khressandra

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

Zone

What did you think of the West Weald environment?
Skingrad looks quite nice but, has a somewhat disappointing amount of blocked doors

I agree. For being a "big city", it has very little to do in there. Why are so many houses blocked? This is true of all the locations, really. It makes the entire zone feel rushed.

ArchMikem

I have a concern that Skingrad, like many "Cities" before has been horribly scaled down, to where it's more a glorified Town with walls.

Does anyone feel like it's too small?

kaushad

Quests
Did you engage with the Main Story?
Half of it. I think that you should give PTS accounts the Achievement for completing prerequisite quest series, as you have in previous years.
Did you find it easy to get the Main Story quests?
Apart from above issue and a bug or two that was resolved in patches, yes.
Did you engage with any quests outside of the main story? If so, which ones?
Almost all the single player quests I could find. Exceptions include some Skingrad dailies and the guzzards that I didn't find.
Did you find any quests to be problematic from either a directional or difficulty standpoint?
Perhaps the Wendir quest could have made the tiles in puzzle near the end more visible; the trail was a little faint.
World Bosses
None. I'm waiting until there are abundant players to help i.e. on the live servers.
Mirrormoor Incursions
As above
Public Dungeons
Did you go into any public dungeons?
Yes, but I don't have strong opinions about the difficult; having tried with loss optimal player characters.
Zone
What did you think of the West Weald environment?
Pretty and diverse. Based on the promotional art, I was afraid that everything was going to be orange, but even outside Dawnwood and Wildburn, it's only like that at certain times of day, so I appreciate it then. I also really like how there's a mixture of urban and rural settings. High Isle lacked towns to illustrate mainstream Breton civilisation. They had their city and then isolated docks, shipyards, castles and Amenos Station. Whereas West Weald has a city, with vineyards on its outskirts, country estates and a few towns/villages. I do wish there was another place like Hoperoot. Woodhearth's vertical architecture is quite impressive, but I don't think there's anywhere quite like Hoperoot. An obvious idea would a player home, although that would be a bit exclusive.
Did you encounter any new monsters you haven't seen before? What did you think of them?
I'm happy enough with Tharrikers. I'd like a bit more lore about them, but maybe I just haven't found it. I'd like to know a bit more about crystaljacks too? Why dragonflies? Do have a purpose in Ithelia designs? Do they and mirrorworms have some special purpose in the ecology of her sphere? Again, maybe the information is there, but I haven't found it.
I think the mirror textures could be difficult on the eyes in higher difficulty content. That's something I find unpleasant about Tho'at Replicanum fights. But I haven't actually felt that way in the Gold Road content that I've tried.

Likes

• Compared other chapters, Gold Road is both grounded in Tamrielic culture and based on a fantasy, existential threat. While the Dawnway and Recollection are no more than a fringe of the Bosmer, they could only be Bosmer. Whereas the dragons in Elsweyr, for example, could have been anywhere.
  They also present the resurrection of a more or less discarded piece of lore: the Wild Elves. The Wild Elves of Daggerfall are far cry from the necropolis building sorcerers of TESIV and for all book says about them being hidden, they're extinct so far as players know; even Snow Elves are more alive. But if Bosmer with Ayleid ancestry are practising Ayleid heritage, are they not Ayleids? In hindsight the original concept of Wild Elves was quite similar to that of Wood Elves, so what if in future TES content, some Wood Elves in the wilderness of Cyrodiil are Wild Elves?
• Ithelia turned out to be a lot more interesting that I expected. In Necrom, she was just a Daedric Prince who would never achieve enough relevance to feature in older TES games. Now that we've met her and learnt what she does, she's interesting and her goal is sympathetic, although I don't quite understand the function of the Loom.
• Using Fargrave was a great way to get my attention. Fargrave is a wonderful novel feature of ESO lore, and it deserves further development.
• I was delighted to meet an NPC self-identifying warden. It feels like ESO has made player classes, written some books about them and then forgotten about them. This enhances the lore of spellcasting in TES and makes ESO player characters feel more like part of the TES world.

Other opinions

• West Weald seems to have random creatures from everywhere, I even found and "Island Moth" in an Ayleid ruin. Stick to the fauna of Gold Coast, PVP cyrodiil, Reaper's March and Craglorn, and dedicated new creatures, not fauns, hadolids and kagouti.
• Why are NPCs talking about Cyrodiil as somewhere separate from the West Weald? And where exactly do they mean? As we've previously understood it, the Gold Coast, West Weald, PvP Cyrodiil, western Blackwood and the space between the latter two are all Cyrodiil. It's not as people in the West Weald want to distance themselves from the rest of the province; they're loyalists of empire with no emperor. There's the Colovia/Nibenay divide, but they aren't saying "Nibenay". We know that some places east of the mountains on the West Weald border are also called part of Colovia such as Chorrol and the Colovian Lowlands. Are they part of "Cyrodiil"? Is Cheydinhaal? If so, why are they considered distinct from western Colovia, but part of the same region as upper Nibenay? The geography is obvious, especially with the ESO border, but I'd like to have heard more about what makes both the Strid Vale and the northwestern Nibenay catchment Colovian. Maybe a history book about the settlement of the Great Forest, the eastern Colovian Highlands/western Jerrall Mountains and what was the eastern West Weald in TESIV.
• Tribune Alea is very modest about her magical acumen. Seriously, she casts some sort of ward/shield on player and whatever that spirt horse charge spell is and however effective it may be, it's fairly impressive. Either has a supply of magical scrolls or enchantment or she's a spellsword. I don't think think NPCs should be taking routine use of spells for granted.
• There were some rather boring loading screen texts. Since the beginning of ESO, a lot of interesting deas have been included under loading screens to various locations, but in Gold Road, more of them either don't tell us anything new or they're repeating something that we'll hear from an NPC anyway.

SoulPL

The West Weald Treasure Maps are too difficult for me.
I found 7 locations with chests for Treasure Maps, but the last two are unreachable for me.
I'm talking about:

West Weald Pre-Purchase Treasure Map III - which looks easy to find because the picture is full of details, but in practice it doesn't help. I ran for a total of 2 hours in this forest and did not find such a configuration of paths and trees.



The illustration for West Weald Treasure Map III can show any location (from any game ).
There are twisted branches, so it suggests the forest area near Vashabar, a rock, a meadow with flowers and plants specific to this forest. Without success.



I don't think it was supposed to be that difficult.

Did you engage with the Main Story?
Yes, apart from the last 3 epilogue quests

Did you find it easy to get the Main Story quests?
Yes

Did you engage with any quests outside of the main story? If so, which ones?
most of them, about 30 they are OK, I had fun

Did you find any quests to be problematic from either a directional or difficulty standpoint?
I had no problems in the latest version

Did you fight any world bosses? If so, which ones?
No, its hard to solo them for me

Mirrormoor Incursions, Were you able to locate these?
yes, all

How many other players joined you?
none, I'm from an incompatible time zone

How was the level of difficulty?
looks hard

Public Dungeons
Did you go into any public dungeons?
yes, both

Public dungeons are generally balanced for two or more players of average skill and gear. Did you feel sufficiently challenged?
Yes

Did you go in with or without a companion?
solo

Zone, What did you think of the West Weald environment?
Nice, I like it

Did you encounter any new monsters you haven't seen before?
yes


Do you have any other general feedback?
Nice zone, it seems to be well packed with content

Syldras

WhiteCoatSyndrome wrote: »

Complaint about the winery quest: we just finished establishing that this stuff is lethal to vampires and then the moment we walk in the door, Fennorian IMMEDIATELY takes a glass of the stuff and drinks it. *headdesk* And admits to drinking it. Is this mer suicidal? Why not just pretend to drink like a sensible person??? Or don’t take the glass at all, because none of the other vampires did?

I've finally played this whole quest on PTS now and... seriously: The whole thing is so obviously unrealistic, even with the usual suspension of disbelief. It's so obviously constructed, without really applying logic.

Even if you tell yourself that Fennorian is just really, really, really thirsty (all of a sudden) and the scent of the wine is horribly hard to resist - it still remains obvious that he drinks it mainly because ZOS' writers wanted to get rid of the last glass of wine (that has to be there because it was meant for the servant of the last vampire to join the party - which is Fennorian in this case) because the player isn't supposed to drink it. It would have been better they've made up that it was accidentially spilled or something, but anyway...

Then we met that woman from Summerset that knew Fennorian before he became a vampire. Of course - accidentially, in a far away country, and surrounded by vampires. While I appreciate giving Fennorian more backstory, this seems too much of a coincidence here.

Next she tells us that she would never marry a vampire because of the shame and disgrace and because being a vampire would lead you to be a social outcast, basically a beggar on the streets. But - she did. And the vampire is obviously not a beggar, but the wealthy owner of a winery. Which she never realized before (although vampires are visually recognizable in Tamriel and that man surely must have fed on someone once in a while).

Then she muses: Yes, there's something suspicious about her husband, he spent so much time in the wine cellar (He's the owner of a winery, of course he does?!) and, quote, "never consummated marriage" with her. Isn't that a brilliant conclusion? If your husband obsessively spends his whole time on his job, rarely talks and never sleeps with you, he's most probably a vampire! By the Three, my ex must have been a vampire, too! - No, that was a joke.

But seriously, the whole thing... it's not really convincing. It's a pity because I actually like Fennorian, would love to hear more about his background, and the whole "vampire meeting at a winery" thing might have looked cliché from the beginning, but it's still a nice setting, in my opinion.

ArchMikem

Syldras wrote: »

WhiteCoatSyndrome wrote: »

Complaint about the winery quest: we just finished establishing that this stuff is lethal to vampires and then the moment we walk in the door, Fennorian IMMEDIATELY takes a glass of the stuff and drinks it. *headdesk* And admits to drinking it. Is this mer suicidal? Why not just pretend to drink like a sensible person??? Or don’t take the glass at all, because none of the other vampires did?

I've finally played this whole quest on PTS now and... seriously: The whole thing is so obviously unrealistic, even with the usual suspension of disbelief. It's so obviously constructed, without really applying logic.

Even if you tell yourself that Fennorian is just really, really, really thirsty (all of a sudden) and the scent of the wine is horribly hard to resist - it still remains obvious that he drinks it mainly because ZOS' writers wanted to get rid of the last glass of wine (that has to be there because it was meant for the servant of the last vampire to join the party - which is Fennorian in this case) because the player isn't supposed to drink it. It would have been better they've made up that it was accidentially spilled or something, but anyway...

Then we met that woman from Summerset that knew Fennorian before he became a vampire. Of course - accidentially, in a far away country, and surrounded by vampires. While I appreciate giving Fennorian more backstory, this seems too much of a coincidence here.

Next she tells us that she would never marry a vampire because of the shame and disgrace and because being a vampire would lead you to be a social outcast, basically a beggar on the streets. But - she did. And the vampire is obviously not a beggar, but the wealthy owner of a winery. Which she never realized before (although vampires are visually recognizable in Tamriel and that man surely must have fed on someone once in a while).

Then she muses: Yes, there's something suspicious about her husband, he spent so much time in the wine cellar (He's the owner of a winery, of course he does?!) and, quote, "never consummated marriage" with her. Isn't that a brilliant conclusion? If your husband obsessively spends his whole time on his job, rarely talks and never sleeps with you, he's most probably a vampire! By the Three, my ex must have been a vampire, too! - No, that was a joke.

But seriously, the whole thing... it's not really convincing. It's a pity because I actually like Fennorian, would love to hear more about his background, and the whole "vampire meeting at a winery" thing might have looked cliché from the beginning, but it's still a nice setting, in my opinion.

I'm going to assume this Woman from Fennorian's past is also Altmer, and the Winery owner is Imperial?

So she's stating being with a Vampire (of the same Race) would bring shame and disgrace, but she's just fine Marrying a lowly Human, bearing his kids, and living in Cyrodiil?

Syldras

ArchMikem wrote: »

I'm going to assume this Woman from Fennorian's past is also Altmer, and the Winery owner is Imperial?

Yes.

ArchMikem wrote: »

So she's stating being with a Vampire (of the same Race) would bring shame and disgrace, but she's just fine Marrying a lowly Human, bearing his kids, and living in Cyrodiil?

Yes, a lowly human, who - what a coincidence - happens to be a vampire, too. Which she hasn't realized before we tell her, because - why not. Although the "bearing kids" thing doesn't really work, because - for whatever reason - vampires don't do that stuff (I suspect it might have to do with having no heartbeat and bloodflow, so it's more of a technical problem). Which she, of course, has to tell us (because we are certainly totally eager to know whether this random woman ever slept with her husband or not).

To be fair, she states that her family cares for wealth more than anything, so her marriage to the Imperial winery owner is motivated by him being wealthy. It's still a big question though why she hasn't just married a wealthy Altmer on Summerset instead. Maybe even one with a winery. It's not that they don't have something like that on their own island.