Zone guide bugged on alt characters

Alphawolf01A · August 25

When taking an alt toon to a zone they haven't been to yet, the zone guide checklist shows delves, dolmens and world bosses as completed, even though the map is blank. I have completed that zone on my main. Because the guide says it's done, I can't use it to "guide" new toons through a zone. It gives me a message that it's already completed. Maybe something to do with the "account wide achievements" interfering with it?

LootAllTheStuff · August 25

Some of the zone items work and some don't. If you navigate through as you describe, highlight the "Skyshards" category, and then press-hold the "Explore" button, it should start taking you through the list for that specific character. I *think* the same applies to wayshrines, but I haven't checked all the categories.

And yes, this is because of account-wide achievements.

YffresTrill · August 25

I don't believe this is considered a bug. It was widely reported as a problem when account-wide achievements were added, and ZOS never said anything about fixing it (they might not have even commented on it at all?).

I agree that this problematic and should be changed. You can vote on it here: https://elderscrollsonline-feedback.featureupvote.com/suggestions/725578/decouple-zone-tracking-from-achievements

I think it is highly unlikely that it will be changed, though, as it has not been commented on and I think most players probably don't care.

Alphawolf01A · August 25

LootAllTheStuff wrote: »

Some of the zone items work and some don't. If you navigate through as you describe, highlight the "Skyshards" category, and then press-hold the "Explore" button, it should start taking you through the list for that specific character. I *think* the same applies to wayshrines, but I haven't checked all the categories.

And yes, this is because of account-wide achievements.

As far as I can tell, only delves, dolmens and world bosses are affected by this "problem". And you are correct, tracking the skyshards can be used to locate the delves.

Alphawolf01A · August 25

YffresTrill wrote: »

I don't believe this is considered a bug. It was widely reported as a problem when account-wide achievements were added, and ZOS never said anything about fixing it (they might not have even commented on it at all?).

I agree that this problematic and should be changed. You can vote on it here: https://elderscrollsonline-feedback.featureupvote.com/suggestions/725578/decouple-zone-tracking-from-achievements

I think it is highly unlikely that it will be changed, though, as it has not been commented on and I think most players probably don't care.

I consider it a bug, because if I am taking a character to a new zone, for the favors quests, for example, and the zone guide doesn't do its job as intended, it doesn't make my work any easier, since that's what it's supposed to do.

P.S. I did up vote the link. Thank you for providing it.

PoveusRonin · August 25

This is one of my biggest complaints on account wide achievements. I like to run alts through the zone and it shows half that stuff as complete since I did it on my main. World Bosses and Dolmens do show on the map as completed once you get close enough to discover them without having to actually kill anything. The Delves you still have to get the skyshard but the boss is usually marked as complete.

It's weird in the case of Delves since many of them have quests in them that means they would not really be complete.

DoofusMax · August 26

Alphawolf01A wrote: »

When taking an alt toon to a zone they haven't been to yet, the zone guide checklist shows delves, dolmens and world bosses as completed, even though the map is blank. I have completed that zone on my main. Because the guide says it's done, I can't use it to "guide" new toons through a zone. It gives me a message that it's already completed. Maybe something to do with the "account wide achievements" interfering with it?

It's a bit of both. When you clear a delve for the first time, you get the "<delve> Explorer" achievement and that's a once-per-account thing. So for delves and World Bosses, the "completed" icons are tied to accountwide achievements. The exploration aspect of discovering something is per-character, however. Once a character discovers a location then the game checks achievements to see whether it has been completed or not. If so, then the place gets the white icon, but black if not. Public dungeons are a bit different because "completion" (white icon) is tied to the story quests inside and not to the "Vanquisher" or "Conqueror" achievements for the various bosses, but the character still gets the skill point for first time killing Group Event boss. The rest of the zone map is either discovery (per-character) or quest-completion (per-character), but delves and World Bosses are oddballs.

Alphawolf01A · August 26

DoofusMax wrote: »

Alphawolf01A wrote: »

When taking an alt toon to a zone they haven't been to yet, the zone guide checklist shows delves, dolmens and world bosses as completed, even though the map is blank. I have completed that zone on my main. Because the guide says it's done, I can't use it to "guide" new toons through a zone. It gives me a message that it's already completed. Maybe something to do with the "account wide achievements" interfering with it?

It's a bit of both. When you clear a delve for the first time, you get the "<delve> Explorer" achievement and that's a once-per-account thing. So for delves and World Bosses, the "completed" icons are tied to accountwide achievements. The exploration aspect of discovering something is per-character, however. Once a character discovers a location then the game checks achievements to see whether it has been completed or not. If so, then the place gets the white icon, but black if not. Public dungeons are a bit different because "completion" (white icon) is tied to the story quests inside and not to the "Vanquisher" or "Conqueror" achievements for the various bosses, but the character still gets the skill point for first time killing Group Event boss. The rest of the zone map is either discovery (per-character) or quest-completion (per-character), but delves and World Bosses are oddballs.

Correct. But the problem I'm having is that after I complete a zone on my main character, going to that zone on a character that has never been there, the map is completely blank. The previously completed delves, dolmens and world bosses are not shown, black or white. Since the account achievements consider them completed, the zone guide will not direct a new character to them. Meaning I have to explore the zone all over again, which defeats the purpose of the zone guide. Basically, the guide will only guide the player through the zone (for these 3 sets of destinations), once per account. Not per character.

DoofusMax · August 26

Alphawolf01A wrote: »

Correct. But the problem I'm having is that after I complete a zone on my main character, going to that zone on a character that has never been there, the map is completely blank. The previously completed delves, dolmens and world bosses are not shown, black or white. Since the account achievements consider them completed, the zone guide will not direct a new character to them. Meaning I have to explore the zone all over again, which defeats the purpose of the zone guide. Basically, the guide will only guide the player through the zone (for these 3 sets of destinations), once per account. Not per character.

That's the exploration part. As far as the game is concerned, a character in a new zone is a blank slate. They still have to discover everything in the zone and they get XP for doing that, but no, the zone guide doesn't point them to stuff where an achievement has already proc'd. I think that's more a side-effect of accountwide achievements than a bug. If it is a problem (I'm not convinced one way or the other), then it's not a new one. AWA came in Update 32, so over four years now

Alphawolf01A · August 26

Just because it's not a problem for you, doesn't mean it's not a problem for others. If the guide is only supposed to be a "once per account" thing then all the locations should already be shown on the map for subsequent characters, since the guide will no longer guide new characters to them. AWA has been a problem since it was introduced. Clearly it still is, or a feedback/suggestion wouldn't have been posted, as pointed out by YffresTrill above.

DoofusMax · August 26

Never said that it wasn't a problem, only that I'm not convinced on either position. My overall take on it is "was this a feature when you bought the game?" If yes, then you got what you paid for. If no, then it's maybe a problem. AWA was not a feature when I bought the game and I find it only mildly annoying, but it's not a game-breaker by any long stretch of the imagination.

LootAllTheStuff · August 27

With the recent change that made it so you could select specific Zone Explorer categories to find, it would be nice if that could be extended to all the entries on alt characters regardless of if you had the AWA or not. How easy that would be is another question, of course, but I don't think it would be game-breaking if players could choose to do that.