Veteran Volenfell is the buggiest Dungeon in game. [PC-NA]

baratron · April 14

FAO @ZOS_Finn and other Dungeon Devs:

Veteran Volenfell has had a large number of show-stopping bugs for years. Tonight we ran it repeatedly for the Veteran Pledge and ran into several of them.

[1] The Story quest breaks Reliably and Repeatedly
You're in the Guardian's Skull, you fight the boss, and someone who isn't on the quest pulls the first lever to open the door. Then you get outside and the player on the quest can't interact with the second lever, breaking the quest permanently. (You have to Abandon it and start over.)

Whereas most Story quests fix themselves if you continue, Blood and Sand does not.

Ticket ID#: 250308-003009

[2] Stuck in Combat after Final Boss
In Veteran Volenfell, Tharayya removes the Guardian's Eye and summons hordes of skeletons. Therefore after finishing the final boss and exiting through the tunnel, you remain in combat for AGES. This can prevent looting of any chests which spawn on this side of the Dungeon, as well as preventing trading of gear between players, and teleporting to other zones. You *can* leave the group.

This bug has existed as long as I remember, and my memory is long.

Images show the red edge to the screen which occurs during combat, as well as the "You cannot do that in combat" message in the top right of the screen.

Ticket ID#: 250413-005121

[3] THIS ONE IS NEW! The Final Boss RESETS Hard Mode BY ITSELF
We ran 3 x Veteran Volenfell Hard Modes tonight and on ALL THREE occasions, the Hard Mode reset.

On the first occasion, I read the Hard Mode book before the Tank reached the room. We saw the white flash and each boss went from 1.225m to 1.447m HP. Then when the Tank entered the room and Taunted the red boss, it jumped in position and its HP immediately reset to standard Veteran 1.225m.

We thought that this was because the Tank was not previously in the room at the time of reading the HM book, so we wiped, read the book again, and we got two keys for completing the Dungeon.

Players here were @uespguild (on Mx Inventory Management), @Eurymachos (on Laurient Saklin), @XJDHDR (on Dar'zaddhar), and @hberke (Tank who joined only for the final boss, we three-manned + Companion'ed up to there, on Valyr Breyln).

Ticket ID#: 250413-005090

On the second occasion, someone else read the Hard Mode book before I had gone through the door. They had seen the white flash and the bosses were already on 1.447m HP when we started the fight, but as soon as the Tank Taunted a boss (not sure which one), its HP immediately reset to standard Veteran 1.225m. So I yelled at everyone to wipe and we read the book again. However, we only got one key for completing the Dungeon.

Players here were @baratron (on Arzhela Petit), @Eurymachos (Zealous Hunter), @XJDHDR (Olaf Silver-Mane), and @jle30303 (on Xavier Malatete).

Ticket ID#: 250413-005133

On the third occasion, we were all ready to go before reading the Hard Mode book. I literally took a screenshot to "prove" that we had read it. But as soon as the fight started, the boss health reset to standard Veteran 1.225m.

We had to wipe three or four times before managing to get the Hard Mode to "stick", and we're not sure what we did differently on the attempt that worked. Maybe started the fight absolutely immediately after reading the book? Hard to know.

Players here were @baratron (on Alix de Feu), @Eurymachos (on Laurient Saklin), @XJDHDR (on Narrul Gro-Barrbash), and @Wicked_Shifty (on Wicked Shifty).

It's very upsetting to go to the effort of doing a Hard Mode only to receive the rewards of a standard mode because the Final Boss has reset itself. At least this was only Volenfell and not one of the really difficult Veteran DLC dungeons with lots of Achievements, but still. It's the unpredictability of the bug which makes it so worrying. Players want to know for certain whether they are doing Hard Mode or not. The white flash is supposed to be the proof to everyone that we're in HM, so we definitely should not have that happen and then only get one key!

@Eurymachos has ESOlog records of these runs as well as local video recordings from his perspective, and he will be posting those in this thread. I will also update the names of the characters in each run.

Eurymachos · April 14

Logs are at https://www.esologs.com/reports/R8rxm9BnFKwj3VPq. The ESO Logs uploader got a bit confused and conflated the first two Volenfell runs making things look a bit odd.

I have a backup of the encounter.log file and if I get around to it, I'll write a program to split the encounter log up in way such that the ESO Logs uploader won't have an opportunity to get confused.

Eurymachos · April 14

The characters I was using were

Laurient Saklin
Zealous Hunter
Laurient Saklin

hberke was playing Valyr Breyln for the final boss(es) on the first run.

virtus753 · April 14

It’s become something of an annual tradition to post about the reset issue with HM:

2021: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/592081/volenfell-hardmode-bug-warning-for-today

2022: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/598384/hm-vet-volenfell-only-gave-one-key

2023: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/627413/volenfell-hm-bugs-out

2024: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/662362/did-pledge-volenfell-hardmode-and-got-only-one-key

Reddit also seems to have a few posts on it.

I wonder if it’s related to bosses resetting in trials, like Cloudrest and LC.

baratron · April 14

Eurymachos wrote: »

Logs are at https://www.esologs.com/reports/R8rxm9BnFKwj3VPq. The ESO Logs uploader got a bit confused and conflated the first two Volenfell runs making things look a bit odd.

I have a backup of the encounter.log file and if I get around to it, I'll write a program to split the encounter log up in way such that the ESO Logs uploader won't have an opportunity to get confused.

Well, bugger. At least all of the character names were different between Run 1 and Run 2:
[1] @uespguild (on Mx Inventory Management), @Eurymachos (on Laurient Saklin), @XJDHDR (on Dar'zaddhar), and @hberke (on Valyr Breyln).

[2] @baratron (on Arzhela Petit), @Eurymachos (on Zealous Hunter), @XJDHDR (on Olaf Silver-Mane), and @jle30303 (on Xavier Malatete).

But we really need that log to be reliable so we can figure out what actually happened!

baratron · April 14

virtus753 wrote: »

It’s become something of an annual tradition to post about the reset issue with HM:

2021: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/592081/volenfell-hardmode-bug-warning-for-today

2022: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/598384/hm-vet-volenfell-only-gave-one-key

2023: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/627413/volenfell-hm-bugs-out

2024: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/662362/did-pledge-volenfell-hardmode-and-got-only-one-key

Reddit also seems to have a few posts on it.

I wonder if it’s related to bosses resetting in trials, like Cloudrest and LC.

It's been going on THAT long and I've never heard of it before?!

People in the 2023 and 2024 threads were blaming temporary pets such as the Warden netch, Nightblade shade, and Necromancer Wraith - but were any of us using those? I know I saw a NB shade at some point but I'm not sure if it was @XJDHDR's Dar'zaddhar or @Eurymachos' Zealous Hunter.

The worst run for resets was the third one. Here there were no Class temporary pets, but there were Werewolf pack wolves. Could they do it?

Eurymachos · April 14

Volenfell encounter logs on ESO Logs for each run are at

These logs have been post-processed by me. They look fine, but if anyone wants access to the original encounter.log file just sing out and we can arrange a file transfer.

virtus753 · April 14

baratron wrote: »

virtus753 wrote: »

It’s become something of an annual tradition to post about the reset issue with HM:

2021: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/592081/volenfell-hardmode-bug-warning-for-today

2022: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/598384/hm-vet-volenfell-only-gave-one-key

2023: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/627413/volenfell-hm-bugs-out

2024: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/662362/did-pledge-volenfell-hardmode-and-got-only-one-key

Reddit also seems to have a few posts on it.

I wonder if it’s related to bosses resetting in trials, like Cloudrest and LC.

It's been going on THAT long and I've never heard of it before?!

People in the 2023 and 2024 threads were blaming temporary pets such as the Warden netch, Nightblade shade, and Necromancer Wraith - but were any of us using those? I know I saw a NB shade at some point but I'm not sure if it was @XJDHDR's Dar'zaddhar or @Eurymachos' Zealous Hunter.

The worst run for resets was the third one. Here there were no Class temporary pets, but there were Werewolf pack wolves. Could they do it?

I’m honestly not sure. It’s been a thing with certain dungeons (especially Volenfell, but also CoH1, FL, FH) and trials (especially Cloudrest, HoF, and now first boss LC) for a while. There are probably more I’m missing. In the trials we all have to be aware it could happen so we don’t waste ults - or, in the case of LC, don’t stand on the pads too soon, since a reset reactivates the pads and immediately causes anyone on them to be teleported to the other side. In LC it does not reset HM, however, perhaps due to the banner being a toggle rather than a readable. In Cloudrest HM is not activated the same way either, and HoF chickens and triplets don’t have their own HMs. So the HM reset issue is more apparent with dungeons like Volenfell.

Reddit posters likewise speculated that it was players/their pets being outside an invisible boundary for the fight area, and I’ve heard that mentioned when it’s happened during progs. But having seen this a number of times now on Zily/BatMan in LC, I really don’t see how anywhere in that room is out of bounds. Things will attack us to the edges of the rooms during the fight. No player or pet is hanging out near the entrance when we pull. We’re starting from a point between the entrance and middle pads on either side. If anyone were still near the door, we’d figure they aren’t ready and would wait for them. I wonder if there are multiple potential causes for the same symptom.

baratron · April 14

virtus753 wrote: »

Reddit posters likewise speculated that it was players/their pets being outside an invisible boundary for the fight area, and I’ve heard that mentioned when it’s happened during progs. But having seen this a number of times now on Zily/BatMan in LC, I really don’t see how anywhere in that room is out of bounds. Things will attack us to the edges of the rooms during the fight. No player or pet is hanging out near the entrance when we pull. We’re starting from a point between the entrance and middle pads on either side. If anyone were still near the door, we’d figure they aren’t ready and would wait for them. I wonder if there are multiple potential causes for the same symptom.

Considering that this is particularly a problem with Veteran Volenfell, I wonder if the issue is simply the position of the Hard Mode readable. It is very close to the door in the "corner" of the room.The bosses aggro if you step too far into the room, so everyone tends to huddle around the readable.

I can't actually picture the boss room of Veteran Crypt of Hearts I in my head, so I'm not sure where the Hard Mode readable is. Though I'm now tempted to take a group of characters with various class skills there, and see if we can figure out that reset. I've never seen it happen, but I also don't think I've ever been there with a Werewolf in wolf form.

MasterSpatula · April 14

Blackheart Haven would like a word.

Eurymachos · April 14

I captured most of the run with the Steam video capture system and I've managed to get it uploaded to YouTube at

https://youtu.be/ORVLSVfsrHw.

The following timestamps are where we can see that Hard Mode has been reset. Each is the first time the reset happens in that run and the scroll was read just a few seconds before the timestamp. I am not blessed enough to be allowed to create chapters in YouTube videos.

28:55 (w. companion) / 38:25 (w. player tank)
1:18:11
2:03:39

baratron · April 14

Eurymachos wrote: »

28:55

1:18:11

2:03:39

First Run:
@uespguild (on Mx Inventory Management), @Eurymachos (on Laurient Saklin), @XJDHDR (on Dar'zaddhar), and @hberke (on Valyr Breyln).

The first reset is just after 38:16 when @hberke joins us in the Dungeon. We do a ready check, berke pulls the red Boss, and it immediately snaps back into position, respawning the Scroll of Glorious Battle.

It was seeing the readable back on the ground that made me realise that Hard Mode had reset! I didn't notice the HP of the bosses until later.

Second Run:
@baratron (on Arzhela Petit), @Eurymachos (Zealous Hunter), @XJDHDR (Olaf Silver-Mane), and @jle30303 (on Xavier Malatete).

We read the Scroll of Glorious Battle for the second run at 1:17:59. Again, I (female Templar Healer in purple near the entrance) noticed that the book was back on the floor, so we wiped around 1:19:00. There's a long pause while I lay dead on the floor submitting my bug report.

We read the Scroll of Glorious Battle again at 1:20:55. You can see in the video BUT I DID NOT NOTICE WHILE PLAYING that the readable had reset. This was the run that we only got one key for.

Third Run:
@baratron (on Alix de Feu), @Eurymachos (on Laurient Saklin), @XJDHDR (on Narrul Gro-Barrbash), and @Wicked_Shifty (on Wicked Shifty).

We read the Scroll of Glorious Battle at 2:03:46, almost instant boss reset. Intentional wipe at 2:04:03.

We read the Scroll again at 2:04:50, and the bosses snapped back to their original positions at 2:04:54. However, I didn't see the readable on the floor this time so assumed that we had the Hard Mode, so we continued to the end of the fight and got two keys.