Linking two separate chapters like this, so that you can't even really finish the main story zone quest (by hiding it behind an epilogue) without having first completed the previous chapter, with the same character, is a very shady choice by ZOS.

Never mind Saviour of the Gold Road achievement, you cannot even get Hero of the Gold Road achievement without completing Necrom.

I feel sorry for players who bought the Gold Road chapter, thinking they could complete it all, only to find out, nah ah, you need to also go out and purchase Necrom if you want to finish the main story quest line and you need to go out and purchase other DLC's if you want to obtain the Savoiur of Gold Road achievement.

I too am having to re-do the Gold Road storyline on the same character that did Necrom, in order to get the skin. I wouldn't mind (except I probably still would) but the Gold Road storyline is full of tedium. Portals that lead to mazes that lead to more portals that lead to more mazes, that lead to more portals that lead to more mazes. Hordes of trash mobs (so many trash mobs in this storyline) that snare you constantly so it's like wading through mud and boss mobs that have needless invulnerable phases just to make everything, you know, take even longer. And if that didn't frustrate the player enough then there are all the recollective story scenes that you are forced to listen to... at a snails pace. Everyone of the quest NPC's walks so slowly and as for Leramil... Countless times I have had to log out and back in again to make her appear when I am supposed to talk to her. How is it that she is everywhere when you don't want her, telling you "Ah there you are. I have been expecting you." and then when you do, she's gone and done a bunk?

Gold Road just seems to have become such a grind. Ink. Scripts. The main story line being tied in with Necrom. Having to complete the Antiquarian Chase to feel you have completed the roleplaying/questing aspect of the chapter.

I may be late to the party here (mainly because I have been focusing on getting scripts for all my alts) but none the less...

Poorly done ZOS. Poorly done.

virtus753 wrote: »

It’s not a new thing that they’ve been making a number of goals (quests, gear, achievements) dependent on earlier paid content.

Since 2019, every main storyline has spanned two separate DLC entitlements and required both to be completed in full (on the same character) to get access to the capper quests and their achievements. The difference here is not that one release of paid story content requires the previous one for completion and achievements—that’s been happening for at least half the game’s lifetime—but that the second is now also temporarily marketed as a Chapter. Since there are never two Chapters simultaneously, however, anyone starting with Gold Road has only known Necrom as DLC.

It is not unique to Gold Road to purchase a Chapter and find you may need to get DLC too (possibly multiple) to get everything you want out of it. We ran into this years ago when antiquities debuted: four of the six original antiquities from Greymoor require access to another DLC as well (and each of the four requires a different one). Every antiquity since 2020’s Markarth has required multiple DLC to get, as every antiquity requires current access to Greymoor to scry and excavate. Now that recent updates have introduced retroactive antiquity achievements for older content, there is the same issue of needing multiple DLC to fully complete the antiquity achievements for zones that now have them.

Gold Road is part and parcel of this years-long game-wide trend of cultivating an ecosystem of interconnected paid content. It’s not an outlier here. I think we aren’t very likely to go back to a time when each DLC was fully self-contained. We haven’t been there for a long while now. And yes, potential players will definitely want to know that if they’re looking to be informed.

Which other chapters (or indeed DLC) require you to have purchased another chapter (DLC) in order to complete the "Hero of" or "Savior of" achievements? In other words, in order to purely complete the main story lines. Not anything additional, just the basic bread and butter story line?

As far as I am aware Necrom was the first chapter/DLC to do this for the "Savior of" achievement because of the antiquarian chase being a requirement.

Gold Road was the second for the "Savior of" and the first chapter/DLC to actually have a storyline (within the epilogue) that required you to purchase two chapters in order to complete not just the "Savior of" achievement but even the "Hero of" achievement.

It's just really poor imho that they cannot seem to release stand alone content anymore. And if, as you say, those days are long gone, then there absolutely needs to be transparency here so that customers are made aware that the content they have purchased cannot be completed without further purchases.

Before Necrom you could buy a chapter or a DLC and complete that Chapter/DLC's storyline (at least for the purposes of the "Savior of" achievement) without needing to buy further DLC's or Chapters in order to do so.

So in my case, I complete Necrom pre quest + complete zone story and then in Skingrad I got this quest.
Hope this helps someone.

Shara_Wynn wrote: »

virtus753 wrote: »

It’s not a new thing that they’ve been making a number of goals (quests, gear, achievements) dependent on earlier paid content.

Since 2019, every main storyline has spanned two separate DLC entitlements and required both to be completed in full (on the same character) to get access to the capper quests and their achievements. The difference here is not that one release of paid story content requires the previous one for completion and achievements—that’s been happening for at least half the game’s lifetime—but that the second is now also temporarily marketed as a Chapter. Since there are never two Chapters simultaneously, however, anyone starting with Gold Road has only known Necrom as DLC.

It is not unique to Gold Road to purchase a Chapter and find you may need to get DLC too (possibly multiple) to get everything you want out of it. We ran into this years ago when antiquities debuted: four of the six original antiquities from Greymoor require access to another DLC as well (and each of the four requires a different one). Every antiquity since 2020’s Markarth has required multiple DLC to get, as every antiquity requires current access to Greymoor to scry and excavate. Now that recent updates have introduced retroactive antiquity achievements for older content, there is the same issue of needing multiple DLC to fully complete the antiquity achievements for zones that now have them.

Gold Road is part and parcel of this years-long game-wide trend of cultivating an ecosystem of interconnected paid content. It’s not an outlier here. I think we aren’t very likely to go back to a time when each DLC was fully self-contained. We haven’t been there for a long while now. And yes, potential players will definitely want to know that if they’re looking to be informed.

Which other chapters (or indeed DLC) require you to have purchased another chapter (DLC) in order to complete the "Hero of" or "Savior of" achievements? In other words, in order to purely complete the main story lines. Not anything additional, just the basic bread and butter story line?

As far as I am aware Necrom was the first chapter/DLC to do this for the "Savior of" achievement because of the antiquarian chase being a requirement.

Gold Road was the second for the "Savior of" and the first chapter/DLC to actually have a storyline (within the epilogue) that required you to purchase two chapters in order to complete not just the "Savior of" achievement but even the "Hero of" achievement.

It's just really poor imho that they cannot seem to release stand alone content anymore. And if, as you say, those days are long gone, then there absolutely needs to be transparency here so that customers are made aware that the content they have purchased cannot be completed without further purchases.

Before Necrom you could buy a chapter or a DLC and complete that Chapter/DLC's storyline (at least for the purposes of the "Savior of" achievement) without needing to buy further DLC's or Chapters in order to do so.

Sorry for the delay in response.

I absolutely agree with you that players and potential players should be aware of this move towards interdependence between various bits of paid content. And I am with you in the disappointment at losing much of the self-contained content.

I'm very ambivalent about these retroactive achievements being added myself. On the one hand, it's kind of nice seeing credit for things I accomplished but which weren't originally achievements. On the other, it means I now have incomplete sections that were formerly shown as completed, which feels like the goalposts have been moved on me. I distinctly remember that feeling when they went back and added achievements for werewolf and vampire. At that point everything under Character was marked completed, but then I had to go back and finish the "new" (really old but never recognized) goals. I'm dealing with the same thing with the fish filleting achievements. Achievements for retroactive content with no retroactive credit feels bad.

When I began playing, each instance of paid content (there were no Chapters at that point) was much more self-contained. New things might have made us go back to old content (like events), but the interdependence wasn't anything like it is today.

For the specific situation with Necrom quests being required to enable Gold Road quests that are part of the "basic bread and butter story line" (not quoting that in a confrontational way - I like how you phrased it): I believe this is related to how the Q4 DLC was cancelled beginning from last year. I do not know whether ZOS originally designed Gold Road to be Necrom's Q4 DLC, as some have suggested, but it would make sense to me. It certainly feels more like previous Q4s in scope, regardless of whether it was ever initially intended to be released in Q4 or whether it was always intended to be released in Q2.

But even previous Q4s had separate achievements for the capping quests, and I did already agree (and am happy to reiterate my agreement here) that the capping quests should have a separate achievement in Gold Road as well. We would still have a situation where to complete all of Gold Road's achievements we need to have done Necrom as well, but at least it would be consistent with previous content in terms of clearly demarcating self-contained Gold Road quests from content that depends on both Necrom and Gold Road. I know that putting both the main questline for Gold Road and the capping quests in the same overarching achievement has caused confusion, and I wish they hadn't done that.

Unfortunately, if modifying achievements still requires replacing them (see the way they used to do it for Permanent Tenant up until 2022), then there is no easy option to hive off the capping quests into their own achievement as I agree they should have been from the beginning. It would make everyone who has already done Gold Road's main questline repeat all of that (on a different character, of course), and then also the capping quests if those had been done too.