PTS Update 46 - Feedback Thread for Season of the Worm Cult Main Quest [SPOILERS]

ZOS_Kevin · April 14

This is the official feedback thread for the Seasons of the Worm Cult Part 1 Main Quest. In order to limit spoilers for those that don’t wish to see them, please post your feedback or bug reports here. Thank you!

licenturion · April 14

@ZOS_Kevin I am doing the main quest like I always do, because when it releases on live servers it is too crowded and very immersive breaking when the main quest path is full of dead bodies instead of enemies.

So far no bugs but I do have a question how this thing with the wall is going to affect replayability after the public wall event is completed, the wall removed and the second part of the zone accessible...

So far the quests I have done are all about the wall. How are you planning to solve this in the future? Is the wall going to be instanced per player? Or is the wall gone, but what with all the quests referencing this strange wall?

I saw this concern also brought up a few days ago in the general forum. So I am wondering how you will handle this.

Also there is no new login or region music. I assume this will come later?

Paulchen1107 · April 14

I wanted to see the supclassing thingy. but in skill tree there is a writing that the quest 'a study in discipline' is needed. I tried to get the quest in crown store but I need the Level 50 hero achievment. but I creat a char on subclassing. so I don't know why I have to not the achiev I need to use it.

Varana · April 14

@Paulchen1107

Paulchen1107 wrote: »

I wanted to see the supclassing thingy. but in skill tree there is a writing that the quest 'a study in discipline' is needed. I tried to get the quest in crown store but I need the Level 50 hero achievment. but I creat a char on subclassing. so I don't know why I have to not the achiev I need to use it.

There is a "known issue" entry about that in the patch notes - you need to use a different template for the time being.

ghost_bg_ESO · April 14

when searching for Vanus at the ruins it should somehow be marked to wait at the spots for Gabrielle to summon him instead of climb to the top(or whatever was said in the quest) as it takes some time not moving and out of combat.

licenturion · April 14

ghost_bg_ESO wrote: »

when searching for Vanus at the ruins it should somehow be marked to wait at the spots for Gabrielle to summon him instead of climb to the top(or whatever was said in the quest) as it takes some time not moving and out of combat.

I had the same issue. If I didn't see your post I would have thought I was hardstuck.

I would be good to add something to the quest as 'Tip: group with Gabrielle on the indicated locations'.

Gabrielle was so slow in all the corridors that she was very far behind me to trigger the objectives. so I ran out of the building and had to redo the whole level twice because I couldn’t get back in through the door.

licenturion · April 15

Finished the main quest.

My feedback:
- the zone is varied and pretty, but the part we can access yet is extremely small
- main quest has interesting action oriented gameplay. Feels like way less 'blabla' and the quest has more a feeling of urgency compared to the previous years. I also liked the platform section a lot.
- I played the quest with a new basic character without special build and did not allocate CP points. There was some actual challenge during the boss sections which made fights a lot longer, epic and exciting. I wonder how this will go with my real optimised character...
- I experienced no bugs at all. There was 1 moment that was not very clear what I had to do (see post above)
- No new zone music for the zone and no new boss music (yet)
- I hate the new delivery model now that I see this in practice. The main quest is very very short. I listened to all the conversations and I clocked in around 2 hours for the whole story. The zone is so small and has many shrines so there is also no travel time or sightseeing involved either. Waiting 6+ months for the next small bit really puts a damper on things and it is making me think about just waiting to buy the pass until the second part comes out and binge all the content then. Then there will probably be sales and there will be a decent amount of content because this is not it and really doesn't feel worth the hefty price tag yet. I was hoping there would be more content with the new formula and increased price, but so far it feels really like something like 'Galen', which was given away for free back in the day.

Freelancer_ESO · April 15

Bugs:

Prince Azah kept having one of his early dialogues as an option during later quests.

Feedback:

Quality wise it wasn't my favorite main quest story by any means but, it wasn't my least favorite either. It was rather predictable that a

sacrifice

was going to be made before it actually happened. On the one hand it was nice to see some familiar faces again but, it can make Nirn feel rather small. Length wise, it felt really short for a main quest chain. ZOS might want to provide more detail regarding what else is coming up in the season because it's looking a bit underwhelming for $50 for me at least at the present.

Aliyavana · April 15

I hope Gabrielle Benele gets great character development this dlc. Completed the very first quest and happy to see that she is the temporary Mages Guild leader while Vanus is away. While I don't expect her to become Divayth or Vanus-tier skill overnight (they have centuries of experience over her) I hope she develops her magical powers and show her magical potential. Elder Scrolls needs more relevant Breton mages as I feel they get shafted.

I will give feedback as I complete the story

Soarora · April 15

I was glad to see that Vanus still yells often; that's the main thing I remembered about him. It was also nice to see that he was altered to look older, I hope that the model change has been or will be done to other Vanus instances, though I don't know how I feel about the haircut.

I was also pleased to see the return of meaningful deaths. The past few years of questing didn't make me feel anything but annoyed as they were so predictable and had no feeling behind them.

It's good to see Gabrielle go (taking out the competition

) but I feel like her sacrifice didn't really make sense due to Darien's nature. The way she talked about him sounded like he's a mortal who died but it's been repeatedly heavily implied that he's more like a cyborg or demiprince and lives whenever Meridia desires him to. Did Gabrielle not know about that? I did notice that Darien's last dialogues show that the writers do remember the nature of his condition, which I was pleased to see. I hope that we get to learn more about his condition in part 2 (particularly as to what he is) as information on people like him is rather limited.

The NPCs remembering me also feels off. It's like they don't remember me until I go through all the dialogue and click the very obvious "this dialogue option appears once you've done the required quest" option. Like, yes, I fought with you before. I saw you in Summerset. Why do I have to wait until you're done explaining things to me before you remember I was there?

Aliyavana · April 15

Soarora wrote: »

I was glad to see that Vanus still yells often; that's the main thing I remembered about him. It was also nice to see that he was altered to look older, I hope that the model change has been or will be done to other Vanus instances, though I don't know how I feel about the haircut.
I was also pleased to see the return of meaningful deaths. The past few years of questing didn't make me feel anything but annoyed as they were so predictable and had no feeling behind them.

It's good to see Gabrielle go (taking out the competition ) but I feel like her sacrifice didn't really make sense due to Darien's nature. The way she talked about him sounded like he's a mortal who died but it's been repeatedly heavily implied that he's more like a cyborg or demiprince and lives whenever Meridia desires him to. Did Gabrielle not know about that? I did notice that Darien's last dialogues show that the writers do remember the nature of his condition, which I was pleased to see. I hope that we get to learn more about his condition in part 2 (particularly as to what he is) as information on people like him is rather limited.

The NPCs remembering me also feels off. It's like they don't remember me until I go through all the dialogue and click the very obvious "this dialogue option appears once you've done the required quest" option. Like, yes, I fought with you before. I saw you in Summerset. Why do I have to wait until you're done explaining things to me before you remember I was there?

Oh no, that is dissapointing to hear. I was hoping for the further development of the mage

of the breton race ZOS has built up the most of. I don’t expect her to become as a skilled as the top mages of the verse like shalidor or divayth fyr overnight, but was hoping they would plant the seeds to ensure maybe we will see development to that direction. Maybe we wouldn’t see her at that level during ESO, but maybe she could be mentioned in a future timeline TES game as one of the Breton mage greats.

Soarora · April 15

Aliyavana wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

I was glad to see that Vanus still yells often; that's the main thing I remembered about him. It was also nice to see that he was altered to look older, I hope that the model change has been or will be done to other Vanus instances, though I don't know how I feel about the haircut.
I was also pleased to see the return of meaningful deaths. The past few years of questing didn't make me feel anything but annoyed as they were so predictable and had no feeling behind them.

It's good to see Gabrielle go (taking out the competition ) but I feel like her sacrifice didn't really make sense due to Darien's nature. The way she talked about him sounded like he's a mortal who died but it's been repeatedly heavily implied that he's more like a cyborg or demiprince and lives whenever Meridia desires him to. Did Gabrielle not know about that? I did notice that Darien's last dialogues show that the writers do remember the nature of his condition, which I was pleased to see. I hope that we get to learn more about his condition in part 2 (particularly as to what he is) as information on people like him is rather limited.

The NPCs remembering me also feels off. It's like they don't remember me until I go through all the dialogue and click the very obvious "this dialogue option appears once you've done the required quest" option. Like, yes, I fought with you before. I saw you in Summerset. Why do I have to wait until you're done explaining things to me before you remember I was there?

Oh no, that is dissapointing to hear. I was hoping for the further development of the mage
of the breton race ZOS has built up the most of. I don’t expect her to become as a skilled as the top mages of the verse like shalidor or divayth fyr overnight, but was hoping they would plant the seeds to ensure maybe we will see development to that direction. Maybe we wouldn’t see her at that level during ESO, but maybe she could be mentioned in a future timeline TES game as one of the Breton mage greats.

I feel like it’s possible she’s not gone forever, or maybe that’s just me being used to ZOS bringing back everyone who dies. But Darien said Meridia sent him with a purpose and, like I implied, I don’t understand how the relic worked on him because I’m not sure he has a soul. It can be argued there was no transfer of a life for a life. The relic is also corrupted but Meridian. I hope if she does come back they don’t inherently end up together though.

Margravigne · April 15

EDITED TO RELOCATE CERTAIN POINTS TO THEIR RELEVANT THREADS
Couple of audio / onscreen text discrepancies:

When first approching Skordo to begin the quest, his dialogue's audio starts with "Good, I was hoping to run into you..." but his onscreen dialogue text starts with 'Good, I was hoping I'd run to you.' which doesn't make much sense:

After picking the 'Kind' option when speaking to Gabrielle and hearing her reaction, I abandoned the quest and reran it to get the responses to both the other options. Unfortunately the quest hadn't reached a completion point before we get to the Temple with Raz, but by that point I couldn't bring myself to go back to the palace and rerun that whole thing with Gabrielle a fourth, fifth or sixth time just to see what his responses would be and then reset my options back to where I'd want them.
So can we please have some extra completion points, so we only have ONE conversation with these options per quest stage?
(And you'd probably be able to sell a few "Quest Reset" tokens in the Crown Store to people who accidentally complete on one choice then change their minds, if that's something that can be created?)

The dialogue option "What do we do next, Prince Azah?" has been active in discussion with him on multiple occasions since first meeting him on Solstice right through to the end of the storyline, is this supposed to repeatedly be available like this?

After

speaking to Wormblood's projection in the Regent's study, Gabrielle becomes the only character we can speak to, the others have no prompt at all.

This is the first instace I noticed this happen, but it also happens

after Gabrielle's sacrifice in the Colored Rooms, before using the Light to open the barrier we can't speak with anyone.

Why do so many dialogue situations sound like they're aimed only at players who are encountering everything for the first time? Even though my character has completed all relevant content, the 'recognition' lines from npcs are tacked on at the end of info-dump conversations. Surely it's possible to remove the more "I have the memory of a goldfish" questions and add some lines emphasising shared history based on what we've completed?
Because this discussion with Skordo

at the end of everything had me howling in disbelief:

But after all of that, just wow. That story packed one heck of an emotional punch, especially given some of the available dialogue based on the player's chosen responses.
I'm going to need a few days to recover before I run that again on an alt to take a closer look at things.

Paulchen1107 · April 15

Varana wrote: »

@Paulchen1107

Paulchen1107 wrote: »

I wanted to see the supclassing thingy. but in skill tree there is a writing that the quest 'a study in discipline' is needed. I tried to get the quest in crown store but I need the Level 50 hero achievment. but I creat a char on subclassing. so I don't know why I have to not the achiev I need to use it.

There is a "known issue" entry about that in the patch notes - you need to use a different template for the time being.

I create a new character and NOT choose 'subclassing' but 'full level 50, 3600 cp' char. with this one I could buy the quest in crown store and follow it. Now I can do subclasses with it.
It's wierd you CAN'T use subclasses if you choose 'subclassing' on creating a char ^^
I don't know why ZOS confuses ppl that much if they are willing to take the unconvinience and time playing on pts to help to improve the game.

Paulchen1107 · April 15

There is no animation on 'Radiating Regeneration' on pts. but it seems to heal. it's a bit confusing because char does nothing when you cast it xD

Margravigne · April 16

Running through on an alt who's completed most of DC/MQ/Summerset, and when in the throne room of the palace in search of the Regent I ran into a few bugs.
After examining the stained rug Prince Azah fired off a generic Redguard idle line about something my character had done at Tava's Blessing, and how it was an honour to meet her.
Once I'd entered/exited dialogue with him the expected idle line about the bloodstains indicating someone had been stabbed here fired, but I had to interact with him to force it.

Interaction with Walks-In-Ash was completely normal, but after I read the note behind the throne (and it would be nice to have it disappear once we do this, since it becomes a quest item in our inventory and we show it to ), nothing else happened.
I went upstairs to speak with Skordo, who hadn't yet called to show us his clue, and he said this:

That screenshot was taken after I left and re-entered the building, only to find everyone grouped in the middle of the room together:

Meanwhile the quest marker / green overlay had disappeared from my compass and Viniama is sitting upstairs but there's no option to interact with her.

Re-entering the palace yet again triggered Mirmal's second line and Skordo's about checking upstairs, and they all ran to their markers, but I still had no quest markers and progress was frozen.
So I abandoned the quest and went back out to pick it up from Azah again, this time going through all dialogue options instead of only what was needed to acquire the quest.
Finally the quest progressed wtih Skordo giving his line from upstairs, but while his onscreen text says 'someone' his audio sounds more like 'something', but I'll need to hear it again to confirm:

I don't know what else other than the number of dialogue lines I ran through when accepting the quest could have caused this, but I've made a note to try the same steps on another character if I get a chance.

Margravigne · April 16

This discussion with Prince Azah circles back around to the same dialogue option when followed:

Wouldn't it make more sense for both of these two lines from the previous 'page' to both be dialogue exits?

Margravigne · April 16

This dialogue option is in red even when hovered over, but the only other line is "Goodbye", should this be this colour?

*** HIDDEN DUE TO MASSIVE SPOILER TO QUESTLINE ***

Paulchen1107 · April 16

does someone know in which container I find dreugh wax? I go through each one again and again and I can't find it

WhiteCoatSyndrome · April 17

Plot was middle-of-the road; serviceable but predictable. Some of that is unavoidable given what’s recorded in the history books, but I wasn’t surprised once the entire quest line. 😕 I was actually more surprised to see Keshu, and that was a side quest!

+1 for Azah’s dialogue persisting through the whole quest line, it’s especially bad at the very end because he has a very similar line right next to it.

Soarora wrote: »

I was also pleased to see the return of meaningful deaths. The past few years of questing didn't make me feel anything but annoyed as they were so predictable and had no feeling behind them.

It's good to see Gabrielle go (taking out the competition ) but I feel like her sacrifice didn't really make sense due to Darien's nature. The way she talked about him sounded like he's a mortal who died but it's been repeatedly heavily implied that he's more like a cyborg or demiprince and lives whenever Meridia desires him to. Did Gabrielle not know about that? I did notice that Darien's last dialogues show that the writers do remember the nature of his condition, which I was pleased to see. I hope that we get to learn more about his condition in part 2 (particularly as to what he is) as information on people like him is rather limited.

The NPCs remembering me also feels off. It's like they don't remember me until I go through all the dialogue and click the very obvious "this dialogue option appears once you've done the required quest" option. Like, yes, I fought with you before. I saw you in Summerset. Why do I have to wait until you're done explaining things to me before you remember I was there?

+1 all of this. I also thought it was a little odd

when Wormblood started yelling that he wasn’t supposed to be the vessel and gets taken over - he went through all this and he wasn’t planning to volunteer for that? Who was he going to use then? I guess he could have had a gullible lackey on standby or something, but it’s never explained.

Margravigne wrote: »

Running through on an alt who's completed most of DC/MQ/Summerset, and when in the throne room of the palace in search of the Regent I ran into a few bugs.
After examining the stained rug Prince Azah fired off a generic Redguard idle line about something my character had done at Tava's Blessing, and how it was an honour to meet her.
Once I'd entered/exited dialogue with him the expected idle line about the bloodstains indicating someone had been stabbed here fired, but I had to interact with him to force it.

Interaction with Walks-In-Ash was completely normal, but after I read the note behind the throne (and it would be nice to have it disappear once we do this, since it becomes a quest item in our inventory and we show it to ), nothing else happened.
I went upstairs to speak with Skordo, who hadn't yet called to show us his clue, and he said this:

That screenshot was taken after I left and re-entered the building, only to find everyone grouped in the middle of the room together:

Meanwhile the quest marker / green overlay had disappeared from my compass and Viniama is sitting upstairs but there's no option to interact with her.

Re-entering the palace yet again triggered Mirmal's second line and Skordo's about checking upstairs, and they all ran to their markers, but I still had no quest markers and progress was frozen.
So I abandoned the quest and went back out to pick it up from Azah again, this time going through all dialogue options instead of only what was needed to acquire the quest.
Finally the quest progressed wtih Skordo giving his line from upstairs, but while his onscreen text says 'someone' his audio sounds more like 'something', but I'll need to hear it again to confirm:

I don't know what else other than the number of dialogue lines I ran through when accepting the quest could have caused this, but I've made a note to try the same steps on another character if I get a chance.

Also ran into this.

Soarora · April 17

WhiteCoatSyndrome wrote: »

Plot was middle-of-the road; serviceable but predictable. Some of that is unavoidable given what’s recorded in the history books, but I wasn’t surprised once the entire quest line. 😕 I was actually more surprised to see Keshu, and that was a side quest!

+1 for Azah’s dialogue persisting through the whole quest line, it’s especially bad at the very end because he has a very similar line right next to it.

Soarora wrote: »

I was also pleased to see the return of meaningful deaths. The past few years of questing didn't make me feel anything but annoyed as they were so predictable and had no feeling behind them.

It's good to see Gabrielle go (taking out the competition ) but I feel like her sacrifice didn't really make sense due to Darien's nature. The way she talked about him sounded like he's a mortal who died but it's been repeatedly heavily implied that he's more like a cyborg or demiprince and lives whenever Meridia desires him to. Did Gabrielle not know about that? I did notice that Darien's last dialogues show that the writers do remember the nature of his condition, which I was pleased to see. I hope that we get to learn more about his condition in part 2 (particularly as to what he is) as information on people like him is rather limited.

The NPCs remembering me also feels off. It's like they don't remember me until I go through all the dialogue and click the very obvious "this dialogue option appears once you've done the required quest" option. Like, yes, I fought with you before. I saw you in Summerset. Why do I have to wait until you're done explaining things to me before you remember I was there?

+1 all of this. I also thought it was a little odd
when Wormblood started yelling that he wasn’t supposed to be the vessel and gets taken over - he went through all this and he wasn’t planning to volunteer for that? Who was he going to use then? I guess he could have had a gullible lackey on standby or something, but it’s never explained.

I think that's what they needed Vanus for, which makes sense to me given Mannimarco and Vanus' history.

Margravigne · April 17

The portal Walks-in-Ash says she "will" open had already opened

behind Darien while he was talking.

Could the timing on this triggering be changed to after she announces she will open it?

WhiteCoatSyndrome · April 17

Soarora wrote: »

I think that's what they needed Vanus for, which makes sense to me given Mannimarco and Vanus' history.

It has to be a willing sacrifice though, and it was mentioned that coercion wouldn’t work so EX: torturing Vanus until he agreed to be sacrificed wouldn’t work.

FabresFour · April 17

hmm, Vanus wasn't captured in the Earth Forge... LOL, he was captured before that...

Sachsen71 · April 17

@ZOS_Kevin the PTS patch notes state that the Bismuth Steam Baths house can be purchased with gold after completing the "Solstice Grand Adventurer" achievement.

Can anyone tell whether this achievement can be completed in U46 in June? Or do we have to wait until Q4 2025 when the rest of Solstice becomes available after the Wall event?

This will help me a lot in making future housing purchase decisions.

FabresFour · April 18

Alright, I’m finishing the quest, but there’s something I find strange about this story. In the final mission, we see our allies changing armor—for example, Razum-dar himself starts wearing the Stirk Fellowship outfit. I find it VERY odd that the player doesn’t have access to that outfit.

I understand it will probably come later as an outfit style, but still: this is the uniform of a Fellowship that we’re not just a part of—we lead the story. We’re the ones who push everything forward. If our allies got the uniform, why don’t we get it right away as well? It’s... weird?

I think the logic here should follow what you did with the Dragonguard: release the outfit style, sure, but also create a slightly different, simplified costume that represents the Fellowship. Otherwise, all the NPCs end up suited up and ready for action, and we look out of place. We should feel like part of the Fellowship! We were there when it was founded!

Freelancer_ESO · April 18

Sachsen71 wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin the PTS patch notes state that the Bismuth Steam Baths house can be purchased with gold after completing the "Solstice Grand Adventurer" achievement.

Can anyone tell whether this achievement can be completed in U46 in June? Or do we have to wait until Q4 2025 when the rest of Solstice becomes available after the Wall event?

This will help me a lot in making future housing purchase decisions.

I earned Solstice Grand Adventurer on the PTS so, unless they change the requirements between now and live you should be able to do it. You will need to do virtually all of the quests to get it as it requires 16 quests and the update doesn't have that many more quests than that.

Lylith · April 18

main quest is broken for me as is the ghosthunter quest.

main quest was missing items in the corey. crypt (accompanied by skordo) to continue quest and the ghosthunter quest final fight would not initiate.

the boss just laid down, died, and shot out a red spark that did nothing.

Aliyavana · April 19

FabresFour wrote: »

Alright, I’m finishing the quest, but there’s something I find strange about this story. In the final mission, we see our allies changing armor—for example, Razum-dar himself starts wearing the Stirk Fellowship outfit. I find it VERY odd that the player doesn’t have access to that outfit.

I understand it will probably come later as an outfit style, but still: this is the uniform of a Fellowship that we’re not just a part of—we lead the story. We’re the ones who push everything forward. If our allies got the uniform, why don’t we get it right away as well? It’s... weird?

I think the logic here should follow what you did with the Dragonguard: release the outfit style, sure, but also create a slightly different, simplified costume that represents the Fellowship. Otherwise, all the NPCs end up suited up and ready for action, and we look out of place. We should feel like part of the Fellowship! We were there when it was founded!

agreed

ghastley · April 19

Freelancer_ESO wrote: »

Sachsen71 wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin the PTS patch notes state that the Bismuth Steam Baths house can be purchased with gold after completing the "Solstice Grand Adventurer" achievement.

Can anyone tell whether this achievement can be completed in U46 in June? Or do we have to wait until Q4 2025 when the rest of Solstice becomes available after the Wall event?

This will help me a lot in making future housing purchase decisions.

I earned Solstice Grand Adventurer on the PTS so, unless they change the requirements between now and live you should be able to do it. You will need to do virtually all of the quests to get it as it requires 16 quests and the update doesn't have that many more quests than that.

Was that all side quests or do you need to do quests in association with delves, dungeons etc.? I could only find 14 side quests, but there may be a couple more items to find from the wreck.

Edit: I have answered my own question. Once I found the third missing shipment for Geneve, an extra quest started that I had npt counted. But it does look like you need ALL the side-quests.

IldaraFathryon · April 20

I have some varying levels of concern about the character writing for Gabrielle, Darien, and Skordo from having played through the main quest as available currently.

If you play a character that has completed all related story content prior, you would've have spoken to Gabrielle in Greymoor during the Antiquity questline and informed her of the events of Summerset. If memory serves me, but I'd have to replay it, even on the Live prologue quest for Season of the Worm Cult, Gabrielle makes a passing reference to working for the Antiquarian Circle, so that suggests Solstice should be taking place post Summerset/Greymoor.

But when you speak with her on Solstice, she only speaks of the events of the Coldharbour questline.

Same issue for Darien; when you speak to him in Solstice, he describes himself as 'fighting the Worm Cult and Molag Bal his whole life'. Except that's not true; in the base game and pre-Coldharbour, we interact with him a lot in mundane/local (relative to later events) affairs across the Daggerfall Covenant zones.

You mention Summerset to him? All he says is "Right." and then immediately moves on from the subject, even though that entire questline with him was very...emotionally charged? It feels as if there's some serious memory loss in our cast members, and I am running under the assumption that this is going to be addressed in later story content in the latter half of the Season.

Don't get me wrong, I am so very happy that we have him back, but from a continuity stand point, it feels lacking at present.