Writhing Wall Event Update

Dock01 · November 18

Youre right its not enough , you'll have to show it. Hope you can actually keep your word on improving. We’re giving real money for something clearly overpriced. I could’ve bought a new triple A game with that 50 to 88 bucks lol. Make everything fully new assets, animation, art, designs, interactions the whole thing, not recycled scraps. And make a bigger island instead of a tiny two part one. Remove cheaters in every sector, both pvp and farming. Stop with the fomo. It never worked in crypto or crypto games and it won’t work here. You’ll just antagonize people who don’t want the overpriced dlc. Be less anti consumer. I don’t have any hope for eso but whatever, we’ll see.

Aliniel · November 18

Unfortunately, for me, the trust has been broken way too many times. This is not the first disaster. And the way it was handled was pretty much the same as always. So, while I do believe you mean what you say, I also don't believe anything will change. Because we've been here before. And behold - we're here yet again.

With the state of imbalance this game has, and zero effort to balance things since the disastrous subclassing was introduced, I have decided to unsub and leave for greener pastures. And I have been very faithful. Very hopeful. But the faith has been ill placed. And the hope has been smothered.

This was supposed to be IT. The big change for the better. The chance to prove this game has yet much to offer. Yet, what we got was exactly the opposite of it.

Lexalious · November 18

What I don't understand is how you manage to keep releasing these buggy patches one after the other. Aside from Writhing Wall, weapon animations completely ruining the experience for a lot of us right now. People have paid real money to both and now not getting the service for it. You have a PTS server, why are you not using it to test these things?

8k seals is cool and all but not what most of us care about. We want stable game without gamebreaking bugs every patch.

shaggydog3b14a_ESO · November 18

Thank you! I appreciate the candor, and look forward to better things to come!

Jaimeh · November 18

I have a feeling the Fortress was always intended to come back, and the 'once in a lifetime' was a FOMO strategy to sell passes. And it 's logical, it's really beautifully designed, why would they spend that effort for something appearing only for a week, it never made sense. Still, not a good look for ZOS.

Enodoc · November 18

Erickson9610 wrote: »

It's an interesting decision to bring back the Writhing Wall event, which undermines its significance as a once-in-a-lifetime event. Should we expect future events like this to return as well?

A lot of us were saying since the beginning that even if the event is a one-shot, the Writhing Fortress itself should remain available. There's a significant difference between losing an event quest once the event is over, and losing a unique public dungeon that a lot of dev time went into (but perhaps not quite enough lol). Glad to see this was taken on board, and I wonder if they would have done this anyway eventually regardless of whether there were issues.

Skorro · November 18

@ZOS_NickG kudos for the apology, I appreciate it's never easy to take accountability and I appreciate the seals, thanks!

However do you guys happen to have any updates about the really abrasive game-breaking stuff, specifically for me the animation mess and the crown weapon packs, etc that aren't working?

I've had 2 friends come in and leave after a week because the game "just feels too clunky and jittery".

Malyore · November 18

As someone who actively chose not to buy any part of solstice or to even play during the event, I'd like to throw my voice in the mix that this communication, apology, and repayment is very refreshing and appreciated to see coming from ZOS. The only thing left I think that could be asked for is just to genuinely learn from the experience and to not repeat mistakes.
Thanks for the message, Nick. Considering the circumstances, it was a right choice to make.

BradTheNord · November 18

Great bringing the event back in January know means the wall breaker achievement is worthless I just spent 1.5 million on them collectibles to get caltrops achievement so I wouldn’t miss out and now there’s gonna be another time to get it…. This game man erghhhh

xR3ACTORx · November 18

Didn't expected any apologize. That's honestly refreshing. Thank you. Have a good day.

licenturion · November 18

This is great communication and acknowledgement and gives hope for the future.

I said this in another post yesterday; but if you start splitting pre-paid content in smaller releases you have to be firing on all cylinders all the time and quality control becomes extremely important.

CoolBlast3 · November 18

Thanks for this ZOS, good move.

Not just the transparency, or even the seals as others have said, both of which are great- former the most important. But bringing back the Fortress. I'm hoping it remains permanently as it is honestly an extremely cool piece of content when it works.

Sarannah · November 18

Thank you for the acknowledgement and the write-up!

What about the event rewards? Mainly the phase 2 rewards. There was barely enough time in relation to the droprate to gather even half of these. Personally I can live with not getting the house as that was a rare special bonus, but I do feel terrible for missing half the phase 2 style pages and I am only at 14/25 for the caltrops style. (on PC NA I am at 24/25 for the caltrops style, but I have been massively farming for the house there)
Would it be possible to change all the event quests to the phase 2 quests and greatly up the chances for the rewards and remove the droptimer from these style pages, so these phase 2 rewards can be more easily obtained in the last few days of the event?

That said, I think the overall thought behind the event was good. Building up the army with daily quests, and to top it of with a special public dungeon event. It was mainly the massive amount of bugs and the much too low dropchances for the rewards that were the issue. With much higher drop chances for the rewards the first two phases could have been much shorter, no longer wearing players out or making it feel like a chore instead of a special event.

PS: The one style page per day limit during events has to go!

Last'One · November 18

ZOS_NickG wrote: »

We know that the Writhing Wall event has been disappointing for many of our players, and that you were looking forward to experiencing Phase 3 and the Writhing Fortress. This event has not met the quality standards you expect and deserve from us, and it certainly hasn’t been the experience we wanted to give you. For that, I’d like to sincerely apologize.

We understand that an apology only goes so far, so we wanted to share what we’re doing to address this.

First, as a thank you for your patience throughout all of this, we’re adding 8,000 Seals of Endeavor on Day 1 of the December Daily Login Reward Calendar rewards.

We’ve been working hard over the past days to tackle multiple issues with the Phase 3 experience and the Writhing Fortress. Today, we pushed the following Writhing Wall event hotfixes (full notes here):
We removed the flying phases from the encounter with Zysax, the Titan boss in the Writhing Fortress, to fix situations where it could sometimes become bugged and not completable. This also includes any instances where the quest “Support the Fellowship” was not correctly updating.

Walks-In-Ash and the Infernium will no longer get stuck in the Writhing Fortress, preventing further progression in the instance.

Skordo will now consistently appear when you go to hand in the quest “Support the Fellowship” at the siege camp in Solstice.

We investigated the possibility of extending Phase 3 of this event, because we want everyone to have more time to play the Writhing Fortress once these issues are fixed. However, extending the Writhing Wall event would introduce technical risks and unknowns that could result in additional issues, which we want to avoid. Because of this, we’ll let the event conclude on its current schedule, and then in early 2026, we will bring back the Writhing Fortress once we’ve completed additional internal tests and have had the chance to implement additional fixes.

We were trying something new with this event, but our execution ultimately didn’t meet yours or our expectations. This was not the experience we should have delivered. We hear your feedback on Phase 3 and the Writhing Fortress in addition to your feedback on Phases 1 & 2 (especially the grind, rewards, and required activities). We take this feedback to heart, and as the new Game Director, I want to personally assure you that we hear you, we will learn from it, and we will do better.

Thank you to everyone who has shared thoughts and feedback with us – especially the constructive criticism – and told us what you want and expect. It matters, and we are listening. We truly appreciate your longstanding dedication and support to us, each other, and ESO. I (and everyone here) look forward to forging a better path ahead with you.

Nick G, Game Director

I’d like to address this part of the statement: "This event has not met the quality standards you expect and deserve from us, and it certainly hasn’t been the experience we wanted to give you."

The problem is, I honestly don’t know what "quality standards" we are supposed to expect from ZOS anymore. ESO feels like it’s sinking, players are on a ship full of holes, and every time one gets patched, two more appear. I’m struggling to understand what we’re meant to hope for at this point.

Subclassing, while maybe intended to bring flexibility, has seriously damaged the lore, identity, and fantasy that originally made ESO unique. Class identity has been watered down, and the game now feels like it revolves almost entirely around DPS numbers rather than creativity, immersion, or meaningful variety. That shift has taken away a lot of the fun.

Just days ago, ZOS replaced animations due to "lack of memory" (come on…), and now we have broken animations in the game as well. Can we really call this "quality standards"? Is this what we "deserve"?

So, when you ask us to expect better, I genuinely don’t know what "better" means anymore. At this point, a broken event unfortunately feels consistent with the direction things have been heading. It gives the impression that ZOS is no longer focused on preserving what made the game special or delivering long-lasting quality.

So please, instead of finding new ways to break the game even further, could we actually receive the "quality standards" that Zenimax claims to offer? Please, the real quality standards, not what we’ve been getting lately.

I say this not out of hate, but out of disappointment, because many of us still care, even if it’s getting harder to believe.

MasterSpatula · November 18

Seals of Endeavor are nice.

But sincere expressions of culpability and acknowledgments that this event didn't meet appropriate or promised standards mean so much more for me.

I wouldn't say it's renewed my enthusiasm for the game just yet, but it has certainly lessened some of the pessimism I've been feeling lately.

TheOubliette · November 18

Fantastic.

WE LOVE ACCOUNTABILITY! It's really heartening to see someone own it, when things fall flat, and it's pretty rare to see.

Thank you, @ZOS_NickG

twisttop138 · November 18

This is a real buck stops here attitude post and I'm here for it. That said, where is this communication around other matters? We have more than just this specific event, and more specific to this event that hasn't been addressed. I keep reading that our French players did not get French language for the event and Eastern Solstice as advertised and they will not get what they paid for at all since this event will end. Combat balance, broken animations, the list is legion. There shouldn't have to be a complete revolt and mass sub cancellation to get the attention of the studio. Let's also be fair a letter and half the seals needed to buy something cool are kind of the least they can do.

That said, let us hope that this is a sign of communication to come and that many people very much appreciate it but this isn't really action, it's words. I will say it's probably more then the previous director would've done, he was a head in the sand kinda dude.

I choose to believe that this is a good sign for communication and appreciated accountability but we should strive to not get to this point. This year has been a not great year for content overall and I fear what's to come. I look forward to hearing your letter about the upcoming year and hope very much it's not full of self congratulatory back patting as previous years and addresses the issues and is very frank about what to expect next year. No more oh we are so excited for what's coming but oh man, we just can't tell you. Stay tuned because it's so amazing but aww we just can't tell you yet. So thank you sincerely, for open and honest communication and accountability. This helps to repair some of the trust and goodwill lost over this year.

Kelinmiriel · November 18

Thank you. I certainly appreciate the openness, the apology, the 8k seals of endeavor, and also having the Writhing Fortress return again in January. When I found out that it would only be available for a week, it seemed a bit unfair to those who had purchased the Content Pass who might not have a chance to play during that brief time, especially since they hadn't known ahead of time to plan for it.

As others have mentioned, I also hope that January won't be the last time we'll see the Writhing Fortress. I really enjoy it. I can see why it's a limited time - it really wouldn't work well unless there are a lot of people running it, so I expect after the initial excitement fades, it would get a lot more difficult. But to bring it back, perhaps once a year, would be great.

Yes, this was billed as a "once in a lifetime" event. But it was also something of an experiment. ZOS was trying to do something new and different. Some parts of it worked better than others. Maybe we should be open to accepting it if they feel it could've been done better, and try to continue to adapt and improve - which seems to be exactly what's happening.

FranklesConina · November 18

Huge thanks for the message owning the mistakes and for being so open with the community.

I was fortunate to experience it when it went live on PCEU and it was confusing and wonderful and fun in every way! Excellent work on the content, it's a fantastic dungeon!! Really annoying that the bugs then happened. I think more of us need to bite the bullet and actually play on the PTS to help find the bugs before things go live. I tend not to as I like to experience content the first time on the 'live' server, but I will reconsider this and try to make some time for testing. I don't know if there's a way to incentivise the community to participate more in this, and I don't know if it would have sufficient impact, but it's a thought.

I appreciate ZoS trying new things for us, moving away from predictability (much as I personally dislike change). I'm glad that the team are willing to take feedback to heart and I hope that it is helpful to future design.

Blood_again · November 18

The update is appreciated. Thank you for patching the things fast.
You get risks with making a new type of event, we all got the results. The new is always risky.
Well, don't give up, guys, you can do better! I'm looking forward to seeing further nice and interesting events from your team.
I hope to try the full variant of last boss battle in the fortress in Feb. Because the fortress itself looks really amusing.

LadyBriala · November 18

ZOS_NickG wrote: »

We know that the Writhing Wall event has been disappointing for many of our players, and that you were looking forward to experiencing Phase 3 and the Writhing Fortress. This event has not met the quality standards you expect and deserve from us, and it certainly hasn’t been the experience we wanted to give you. For that, I’d like to sincerely apologize.

We understand that an apology only goes so far, so we wanted to share what we’re doing to address this.

First, as a thank you for your patience throughout all of this, we’re adding 8,000 Seals of Endeavor on Day 1 of the December Daily Login Reward Calendar rewards.

We’ve been working hard over the past days to tackle multiple issues with the Phase 3 experience and the Writhing Fortress. Today, we pushed the following Writhing Wall event hotfixes (full notes here):
We removed the flying phases from the encounter with Zysax, the Titan boss in the Writhing Fortress, to fix situations where it could sometimes become bugged and not completable. This also includes any instances where the quest “Support the Fellowship” was not correctly updating.

Walks-In-Ash and the Infernium will no longer get stuck in the Writhing Fortress, preventing further progression in the instance.

Skordo will now consistently appear when you go to hand in the quest “Support the Fellowship” at the siege camp in Solstice.

We investigated the possibility of extending Phase 3 of this event, because we want everyone to have more time to play the Writhing Fortress once these issues are fixed. However, extending the Writhing Wall event would introduce technical risks and unknowns that could result in additional issues, which we want to avoid. Because of this, we’ll let the event conclude on its current schedule, and then in early 2026, we will bring back the Writhing Fortress once we’ve completed additional internal tests and have had the chance to implement additional fixes.

We were trying something new with this event, but our execution ultimately didn’t meet yours or our expectations. This was not the experience we should have delivered. We hear your feedback on Phase 3 and the Writhing Fortress in addition to your feedback on Phases 1 & 2 (especially the grind, rewards, and required activities). We take this feedback to heart, and as the new Game Director, I want to personally assure you that we hear you, we will learn from it, and we will do better.

Thank you to everyone who has shared thoughts and feedback with us – especially the constructive criticism – and told us what you want and expect. It matters, and we are listening. We truly appreciate your longstanding dedication and support to us, each other, and ESO. I (and everyone here) look forward to forging a better path ahead with you.

Nick G, Game Director

Its always difficult to say when you failed, but being honest with your community is always the best step, leaving us in the dark is never the way.

This was never the way you done things in the first few years of this games life and this is a good step towards returning to the team that put the players/community first and made a beautiful game together. As an old player, *** happens, we admit our mistakes and move on.

As you mentioned the apology-seals will be in the daily rewards for December.. so they're for everyone, even the people who didn't pay for the pass, this may cause some further backlash and massive disapproval of any future passes you release. What will happen with the current pass now?

Smaxx · November 18

Just mentioning this here, so far the Writhing Fortress was a nice and new approach to a kind of cooperative raid where you just get in and boss fights are actually about team work and not just skimping around or avoiding instant death mechanics or tedious gauntlets that feel unnecessary annoying with pickup groups. I like that approach, but I also understand that it's not ideal since you wouldn't be able to guarantee the required amount of players around the clock throughout the year.

However, I think it would be really neat as a kind of recurring event, even if one would just skip trying to explain it lore wise on why it happens.

Sadras · November 18

This was good to read; I really appreciate this turn towards clear and honest communication lately, and this apology in particular. The seals are also extremely welcome, thanks for that, too! Apology accepted.

I also think this solution with the Fortress is a good call. It's really fun, I got lucky and had either bug-free or low-bug and still completable instances, and I hope everyone who wants to can experience it as it should be next round. Totally worth it.

I'd like to say at this opportunity that I very much appreciate you guys trying new things, both gameplay- and narrative-wise, down to the little details that make the world come more alive, natural quest flow, new focus on writing, characters, keeping us involved in the story and so on. There've been many little touches and innovations across Solstice, and they haven't gone unnoticed, thanks a lot for that in particular. This is what made me the most optimistic about ESO's future after some earlier admitted scepticism. And I'd much rather have a team that looks to the future and tries new things and breaks a few proverbial kwama eggs in the process than stagnation. If it took the stumbles of this year for that, and if we can now get to a more solid ground QA-wise, I'll gladly take it.
(That said, I would also like a functioning Eastern Solstice questing environment next, as others have said above.

)

Anyway, keep this new spirit of both innovation and accountability up, I'm actually greatly enjoying this expansion overall and am sticking around.

colossalvoids · November 18

Appreciate accountability here. Hopefully talk would live up to player expectations and real lessons are learned, both from the event and poor patch launch riddled with issues and pushed live without attention to player's feedback.

I do hope also that devs are looking at the game broader now if they indeed want to succeed having Microsoft on their backs, maintenance mode with poor quality content isn't rolling and game needs to get back on track it was at around Elsweyr/Skyrim still, at the very least. It's quite obvious the game was set to be a passive income for them since around acquisition but that aged not exactly well for the game itself.

FinneganFroth · November 18

Great move. Honestly, I didn't really care about the bugs. This game is my release from the real world and I'm just happy I have something like ESO to enjoy after a long day of grinding IRL. The event in phase I was typical and expected, phase II was way too repetitive and needed rethinking, and phase III when it worked was awesome.

The point here is, you have a massively dedicated fan base. Posts like this show you guys understand that, but please let the "suits" know ZOS can't take that for granted. Keep on keeping on, you guys have developed an amazing world and I'm always looking forward to the next thing around the corner (new ToT deck please 😊). Thanks for this gesture, honestly.

minnowfaun · November 18

Thank you for the ownership and transparency in this apology. I really appreciate it and it goes a long way to making me feel better about the situation. I really hope we can continue to see this kind of ownership and transparency in the future. I feel heard and seen. And I'm so thankful you pushed the fixes. Keep up like this please

Ezhh · November 18

Thank you - this is the right kind of response (the tone and ownership more than anything else).

Like many others, at this stage I find it hard to believe anything will really change, but if you can engage with us like this more often it could make a difference. There are a lot of long standing issues going unaddressed and plenty of us still hoping you might turn things around.

SjornParadox52 · November 18

Don't ever do anything like the stuff in this chapter again, it's too boring and nonsensical to only allow half of a tiny island accessible until the event is complete. I like exploration in areas that are actually giant and plenty to offer, no restrictions. take western skyrim for instance, that was amazing. But solstice? It's just a laughing stock, not worth touching. Let these woes be a lesson for the future ok? Don't want the same thing to happen twice. And hope no money is wasted this time.

Ingenon · November 18

Thanks for this update!

Looking forward to the 8,000 seals. Also looking forward to early 2026, when you will bring back the Writhing Fortress once you have completed additional internal tests and have had the chance to implement additional fixes. Because I enjoy the Writhing Fortress mobs of enemies, the chaos, and the different players doing different activities to progress the quest completion.

Resresi_Willowwind · November 18

thank you very much! apart from the bugs and the uncertainty resulting from them, i found the writhing wall fortress an interesting new experience! apologies fully accepted, good luck to all of you for the months ahead!