PTS Update 18 - Feedback Thread for Psijic Order Skill Line

Toc de Malsvi · April 2018

Aliyavana wrote: »

Toc de Malsvi wrote: »

Aliyavana wrote: »

Toc de Malsvi wrote: »

SodanTok wrote: »

DoonerSeraph wrote: »

SodanTok wrote: »

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

ToRelax wrote: »

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

I tried Imbue Weapon / Crushing Weapon on a bow build.

I found it impossible to light weave properly with this skill. The animation for the skill seems to be so long it leaves you with only a fraction of a second when you can get your light attack off. Most of the time it just doesn't happen. The only way I could get imbue to do any damage was to madly click the mouse button for light attacks while simultaneously madly clicking the key to cast the skill. This is not something I want to be doing on Live, especially when I can simply use a bow skill like poison arrow or scatter shot in that slot.

I had no problems with it. Are you weaving it like any other skill or trying to light attack after the skill?

I tried every rhythm of key clicks and mouse clicks I could think of. The problem seemed to be that I couldn't get anything else to happen while the skill animation was on-going.

I had no problem with this skill either. It could be slightly better but it was still very easy to weave with. LA+Imbue LA+imbue like any other skill.

But since I am already responding to bow related post in psijic feedback thread I must say:
This skill is very game changing for bow/bow in pve and pvp. I like it and I am happy it was added. Its only shameful the stamina morph is kinda boring compared to magicka one and that it has again (like warden) no synergy with bow. Both bow passives still only increase damage of bow abilities and light attack and dont affect this skill unfortunately.
Sometimes I would wish would be revisited, but dont expect much.

As for channeled acceleration (if i got the name right). Again very nice addition to bow/bow arsenal. Finally getting rid of the clunky, underperforming trap with 6s of minor force. The only issue is the animation feels... hm... unobvious to when it is supposed to end. So I find myself just spamming bar swap or light attack during it so i can keep the rotation going without too much delaying

I tried using Crushing Weapon with a double -bow build. I was a little disappointed. Yes, it is faster and the best way to use it is cutting the LA animation with Crushing. But I felt the damage was a little too low for a single LA. Maybe levelling the morph a bit could make it better (I'm a bit lazy, sorry), but I found no reason to use it instead of "Focused Aim" on my archer Stam Sorc.

So:
Focused Aim
Higher damage (even before hawks eye)

A little higher stamina cost

Benefits from Bow's passives (especially Hawk's Eye stacks)

1.1s cast time

Applies minor fracture (and a range increasing mark)

Crushing Weapon
Instant

Heals for 15% damage

Procs Spell Orb (which doesn't have that high damage btw)

Lower cost, but lower damage too

Can be cast with projectile in mid-air

Cannot be interrupted in PVP

Takes you out of stealth (AFAIK)

Maybe I'm being my usual scrub self, but I still see Focused Aim (even with the cast time) as a better option.

That is completely true, but also something that wont ever change. Its same case as cutting dive vs snipe on warden. You could make ranged surprise attack and snipe would outperform it.

Its partly the simple fact of snipe having cast time so obv being better than instant ability. And second is the continuous neglect regarding bow passives and they (completely missing) synergy with nonbow abilities.

But having instant ranged spammable is still very game changing for true combat performance which, contrary to dummy, not always allows for snipe to being used reliably or safely. For me, personally, the bad performance in trials also greatly affect if I choose to use snipe or instant spammable (main reason i main warden now).

On stamsorc it is very easy, since you can just slot both and use whatever fits that exact moment. On nightblade you cant much, but it does perform very well, mostly because NB has many abilities to use (less time for cast times) and you can weave much more light attacks with it. Havent compared snipe vs crushing yet, but crushing alone performed very well for me (40+k DPS). Warden is not really part of this, because there is barely time for cheap spammable in rotation that uses 2-3 sub assaults and cutting dive performs better anyway. And my expertise with templar or DK is very limited, still I think there is bar space for both abilities on both of them.

As for PVP. The value of crushing is very obvious. Not to replace snipe, but to support it.

So yeah I tried a build where I didn't have Snipe and it felt very lackluster. However when I use Crushing with Snipe it performed admirably. I won almost every dual with it and Snipe.

It is a very nice filler for PVP.

What build?

I'll pm you, can't give my secrets out to everyone.

How much does crushing blow heal?

It tool tipped for 20% of 6300 or so, I saw heals just under 1k mostly.

Ashamray · April 2018

Can you interrupt Meditate when target is CC immuned?

Thraben · April 2018

As many have said, the stam morph of Imbue Weapons is boring. No one needs that heal.

Make it apply a bleed or a minor debuff, please.

seitekisaki · April 2018

IMO...

Time STop

As it stands now the skill is probably awesome in groups, but it has the fatal flaw of either being interrupted by the faster morph or missing completely by the slower non channeled morph. The Non channeled morph takes so long to get ready that anyone can move out of its reach it needs to arm faster.

Imbue Weapons

Right now weaving is still a bit difficult. Also, using it with overload shows no animation and there is no tell for when it is active and not active.

RaddlemanNumber7 · April 2018

Graphic bug and request for more explicit directions for the quest The Shattered Staff

There's a missing icon when you have collected all four staff pieces.

Please can we get some more explicit directions about following the breadcrumb trail of lights. The two times I have done this quest I have activated the blue/black time rift near St Pelins chapel and then been at a complete loss as to what to do next. I know Celarus tells us in passing, but it's very easy to forget that when there are so many other things to be thinking about in the game.

Darlon · April 2018

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

Graphic bug and request for more explicit directions for the quest The Shattered Staff

There's a missing icon when you have collected all four staff pieces.

Please can we get some more explicit directions about following the breadcrumb trail of lights. The two times I have done this quest I have activated the blue/black time rift near St Pelins chapel and then been at a complete loss as to what to do next. I know Celarus tells us in passing, but it's very easy to forget that when there are so many other things to be thinking about in the game.

Activate the blue thingy and then follow the trail of white glowing markers to the spot where you have to dig something up.

Iselin · April 2018

Darlon wrote: »

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

Graphic bug and request for more explicit directions for the quest The Shattered Staff

There's a missing icon when you have collected all four staff pieces.

Please can we get some more explicit directions about following the breadcrumb trail of lights. The two times I have done this quest I have activated the blue/black time rift near St Pelins chapel and then been at a complete loss as to what to do next. I know Celarus tells us in passing, but it's very easy to forget that when there are so many other things to be thinking about in the game.

Activate the blue thingy and then follow the trail of white glowing markers to the spot where you have to dig something up.

Just want to add that depending on your position, you may need to turn around to see where the first glowing marker is. The very first one I did just happened to pop-up behind me and it took me a couple of minutes to figure out what I was supposed to do next.

After that it's very simple since the markers have a directional glow pointing to the next marker and they're close enough to each other that if you have your view distance set to max you'll likely see 2 or 3 of them showing clearly the direction they're pointing.

Aliyavana · April 2018

Stam morph of imbue weapons is underwhelming compared to mag morph

robted1 · April 2018

This quest has a very nice story line. I agree with the sentiment that there are too many rifts to close. Maps were enough to find them but a bit of work. Very good experience for a newish character to explore the world. Most interesting rifts were those that after locating were still difficult to get to. The light paths were interesting but some easier than others. The most difficult was the one in Alikyr as the desert has so many shiny objects that obscure the light balls. Maybe that one could be improved.

JPcrazysquirrel3 · April 2018

Leveling up the skill line is definitely a dull and obnoxiously repetitive grind.
I also loathe the fact that I worked all last weekend on progressing through it, only to find the last quest bugged, then discovered I had lost all progress when Monday's PTS patch rolled out.

nessie3 · April 2018

i havent read all the replies of this thread in detail so apologies if i am repeating something that has already been pointed out.
i notice on the quest line it states - seal breaches in stonefalls and morrowind - but the quest map is called - morrowind and skyrim. i assume this is a mistake.

i would like to say i am enjoying the 'hunt', as i geocache irl so find the maps pretty good. i can see it won't please everyone, but sometimes the journey is as important as the arrival - again as irl. i love the game graphics and spend ages looking all over the place - not really interested in fighting all the time, so i think there will be many players out there who will enjoy this part of the game (and probably won't vocalise their feelings).

nessie3 · April 2018

sorry i meant
quest stonefalls ans skyrim
map morrowind and skyrim

guh

SwampRaider · April 2018

I hope somebody is developing an add-on to assist with leveling the skill line

Lord_Ninka · April 2018

Were you able to find the Psijic Portals?

Barely. It took me 45 minutes of concentrated searching (in Reaper's March) before I found my first Psijic Portal. Pretty depressing. And I didn't even see a single other player during that time who could have been snatching them.

If so, did you understand what types of loot you get from them?

Not entirely, but I thought it was very similar to a chest, but with that chance mentioned in the patch notes of getting infused jewelry or materials for same

Did they feel rewarding for the difficulty in finding them?

No, not at all. The loot was about the same as (probably actually less than) from two intermediate chests, I'd say, and I could just as easily have found and looted 20 chests in those 45 minutes. Unless the spawn rate, number of locations and/or loot is drastically increased I will not bother to look for them again. I like occasionally hunting for chests and thieves troves, but Psijic Portals just feel like a waste of time to search for.

nessie3 · April 2018

just to clarify...i was talking about the psijic skill line quests not the portals...which i wouldnt spend time hunting for. i assumed they would be like treasure chests, that are already in the game, and a nice surprise when you find one. i have found a few portals on my travels and think the contents would be ok in the live game... but i am not a very high level so would be happy with any old junk!

Darlon · April 2018

Lord_Ninka wrote: »

Were you able to find the Psijic Portals?

Barely. It took me 45 minutes of concentrated searching before I found my first Psijic Portal. Pretty depressing. And I didn't even see a single other player during that time who could have been snatching them.
If so, did you understand what types of loot you get from them?

Not entirely, but I thought it was very similar to a chest, but with that chance mentioned in the patch notes of getting infused jewelry or materials for same
Did they feel rewarding for the difficulty in finding them?

No, not at all. The loot was about the same as (probably actually less than) from two intermediate chests, I'd say, and I could just as easily have found and looted 20 chests in those 45 minutes. Unless the spawn rate, number of locations and/or loot is drastically increased I will not bother to look for them again. I like occasionally hunting for chests and thieves troves, but Psijic Portals just feel like a waste of time to search for.

Have to agree mostly here... found a couple, mostly in other zones than Summerset though, but they seem pretty sparse...

loot was quite good in my case though.. (might have been bad luck in your case, or good luck in mine)

Got an examplary infused ring from one (will be quite valuable, especially in the early days) and the trait material from another....

Siliziumdioxid · April 2018

Short question in between: should the shield while blocking passive of the psijic order be able to proc Infernal Guardian?

Hillis118 · April 2018

I see a lot of people saying they have a hard time using the map to find the portals. I found them fairly easy. I wonder if everyone realizes the maps show a 3 zone region of the World Map? Once i made that realization the portals were not that difficult to find.

Enodoc · April 2018

Overall, the skill line is pretty reasonable, but the quest line doesn’t do the Psijic Order justice. It's nowhere near the quality of the base game or DLC Guild questlines, and doesn’t deserve to be labelled as one.

Part of the problem is that the reasonably reasonable (but still way too short) Staff of Towers quests are completely overshadowed by the “Press E to Continue” quests (quests which in and of themselves are only superficially relevant to the story, and really exist solely for levelling). The concept of the time breaches is a good one in theory, but the current implementation of that concept is really boring. It’s just artificially padding out what is actually a very short storyline (there are really only three quests with any substance, two of which are glorified “Press E” quests themselves). The provided maps are also way too vague for quest directions; when questing, if the UI map is not specific, the provided in-world directions must be. The provided maps are much more suited to exploration than questing.

The current Questing and Levelling path therefore goes like this:

Joining Quest – Find 9 breaches in Summerset
Levelling Quest – Press E in the Iliac
Tedious Levelling Quest – Breaches Again?: Frost and Fire Edition
Staff of Towers Storyline – Part 1: Breaches can Sometimes be Useful After All
Tedious Levelling Quest – Here We Go Round The Graht-Oak Tree, Please Press E
Tedious Levelling Quest – Haven’t we been here before?: Deja-vu in the Swamps
Staff of Towers Storyline – Breaches with Purpose, Part 2
Tedious Levelling Quest – Gotta love breaches, right mate?: Doomcrag Edition
Tedious Levelling Quest – Didn’t We Do This Already, Part IX: Return to Craglorn
Staff of Towers Epic Finale – WGT: Lost in Time (feat. The Augur of the Obscure in: “Once more into a Breach, eh?”)

The main focus of this is to move away from making the levelling feel such an integrated part in the story, and instead make it a nice and varied part of the game as a whole. Instead of completing one story quest, and then being given two levelling quests with fixed targets of nine breaches each, the breaches should be more dynamic with the rest of the world. There are 60 breaches across all of Tamriel (9 for each map including Summerset, except in Craglorn where there are only 6) – as soon as you gain the skill line and are able to ‘See the Unseen’ (which currently only applies to the Psijic loot portals), you should be able to see all 60 breaches as well, without needing to be on any quest. Going up to a breach at any time and closing it would grant 5 Rep towards the skill line advancement, and you could do that in any zone at any time. The Augur of the Obscure isn't even necessary for this; all the breaches show up when you're nearby anyway, without ever activating the Augur’s “Psijic Sight”. The quest-related breaches in The Shattered Staff and The Towers' Remains are present throughout as well, and only make use of that ability after finding the breach, in order to follow the trail of rifts to the fragment dig point.

Once a story quest is completed, you could still get a map or two of breaches in a particular area, but there would be no quest directly attached to that; they would be used for guiding exploration, rather than advancing a quest. As mentioned above, these maps are much more suited to exploration rather than quests anyway (like the treasure maps and crafting surveys). The maps for Rivenspire and Craglorn were a lot better than the others, but that’s likely because they were only covering one zone rather than three, allowing for a bit more detail to be shown. If that amount of detail can be added to the other maps, they would be more useful. This exploration-based approach would also be much more organic than saying “here’s 9 more breaches, go close them all right now”.

To complement this, there could be a daily quest available directly from one of the other Psijics, targeting one of the base-game delves (but not the ones used for the Undaunted dailies), where you would have to go and fix a localised temporal anomaly within, caused by the lasting effects of the Planemeld rather than the Staff of Towers. Right now there are no Psijic Order dailies, putting this Guild at a repeatability disadvantage compared to the others. Completing that quest would give you 15 Rep, and would be available again the next day. Rather than the tedium of just continuously searching for breaches across zones (although that would still be available to reward exploration), having 15 different delves to go to, with creatures inside to kill and a higher reward for completion, would make this process more engaging. Once enough Rep has been gained to unlock the next quest, Celarus could appear via Psijic projection to give it to you (it’s shown in the last breach-closing quest that this is something he can do).

Something else that would make the levelling process more engaging was suggested by someone here already – having some temporally-displaced creatures near each breach that require destroying in order to seal the breach itself (the presence of these creatures would also make the breaches themselves a bit easier to locate – they’re rather hidden by themselves). Josajeh says herself after the first quest that she hopes they aren’t getting more dangerous; the presence of monsters at all the open-world ones after the first set on Summerset would confirm her suspicions. Celarus mentions “time-storms” at one point, and those would certainly be more interesting if they actually existed. The breaches could continue to grow in intensity and change with each level gained rather than being the same thing over and over.

Beyond that, another potential avenue for levelling the skill line to break up the tedium of the breach collection would be to give a Rep reward for returning each of the Relicmaster’s stolen items from the Vault of Moawita. There are 20 relics, and at 10 Rep per relic, that would get you a good way through the skill line too. The Relicmaster himself appears at the end of the storyline to recover the Staff of Towers, so it would be good to tie together his relic collection with the skill line levelling.

The proposed Questing and Levelling path (keeping the Staff recovery quests as they are) therefore goes a bit like this:

Joining Quest – The Psijics’ Calling (The quest would end upon finding the Augur, immediately giving you ‘See the Unseen’ and allowing all the breaches to appear in the world)
Freeform Levelling and Dailies – Gain 30 Rep
- Find breaches in Tamriel – 5 Rep each
- Fix a temporally-dislocated Delve – 15 Rep per daily quest
- Recover lost Relics – 10 Rep per relic
Staff of Towers Storyline – Part 1: The Shattered Staff (rewards 30 Rep)
Freeform Levelling and Dailies – Gain 30 Rep
- Find breaches in Tamriel – 5 Rep each
- Fix a temporally-dislocated Delve – 15 Rep per daily quest
- Recover lost Relics – 10 Rep per relic
Freeform Levelling and Dailies – Gain 30 Rep
- Find breaches in Tamriel – 5 Rep each
- Fix a temporally-dislocated Delve – 15 Rep per daily quest
- Recover lost Relics – 10 Rep per relic
Freeform Levelling and Dailies – Gain 30 Rep
- Find breaches in Tamriel – 5 Rep each
- Fix a temporally-dislocated Delve – 15 Rep per daily quest
- Recover lost Relics – 10 Rep per relic
Staff of Towers Storyline – Part 2: The Towers’ Remains (rewards 30 Rep)
Freeform Levelling and Dailies – Gain 45 Rep
- Find breaches in Tamriel – 5 Rep each
- Fix a temporally-dislocated Delve – 15 Rep per daily quest
- Recover lost Relics – 10 Rep per relic
Freeform Levelling and Dailies – Gain 45 Rep
- Find breaches in Tamriel – 5 Rep each
- Fix a temporally-dislocated Delve – 15 Rep per daily quest
- Recover lost Relics – 10 Rep per relic
Staff of Towers Finale – The Towers’ Fall (rewards 30 Rep)

Total amount of Rep required (300) is equivalent to the total number of breaches from just the maps (60) at 5 Rep per breach, but is split differently, and also incorporates the other suggested sources of Rep mentioned above (relics and delve dailies), as well as direct rep rewards from the quests. The Augur, after collection, would remain technically in your bag throughout, to allow for his dialogue on the breaches to continue. All unclosed breaches would be disabled following the end of the final quest (since their cause has been rectified and the skill line is complete), but the daily delves would continue for incidental Psijic rewards, since the chronosynchronicity of delves remains a persistent issue, and can be considered unrelated to the breaches caused by the Staff of Towers.

Overall, the concepts of the Psijic Order storyline are very good, but the way it has been implemented doesn't put it anywhere near the other Guild storylines in terms of player engagement or replayability. It’s something you want to get through quickly in order to get the skills, rather than something you want to get involved in and enjoy for its story. Basically, it doesn’t feel like it sits alongside the deeply engaging Guild quests we’ve come to expect from either the base game Guilds or the DLC Guilds.

Credit must be given however for the final quest in White-Gold Tower, which was certainly going along the right lines of an epic Guild storyline; if there were a few other quests like that one, fully exploring the lore of the Staff of Towers fragments (and the other Towers themselves), it would be a pretty good questline.

On that note, there are a bunch of portal-type archways in the room where Celarus is found which are never used, and I wonder if there was originally going to be a more involved romp through time and space to recover the Staff of Towers which actually involved using all those portals. If that is the case (and indeed, even if it isn't), I would much rather do away with the current questline (keep the breaches to level the skill line, but scrap the quests completely) to allow ZOS to refactor the Staff of Towers story to something that is deserving of the label “Guild storyline” and is on par with the Thieves Guild or Mages Guild storylines, rather than two short quests of running around breaches and digging stuff up. The final quest can pretty much remain as-is, but it really needs a proper set of in-depth fragment recovery quests before it. Of course this couldn’t be done in time for Summerset’s release, but I’d be happy to forgo any PSJJJJ faction quests and wait for a fully-developed Staff of Towers storyline for release in a future update.

Proposed Questing and Levelling path (with full Staff recovery quests, using the Loremaster’s unused portals):

Joining Quest – The Psijics’ Calling (The quest would end upon finding the Augur, immediately giving you ‘See the Unseen’ and allowing all the breaches to appear in the world)
Freeform Levelling and Dailies – Gain 30 Rep
Staff of Towers Storyline – Part 1: The Shattered Staff (First 4 Fragments)
Freeform Levelling and Dailies – Gain 30 Rep
Staff of Towers Storyline – Part 2: (Fifth Fragment)
Freeform Levelling and Dailies – Gain 30 Rep
Freeform Levelling and Dailies – Gain 30 Rep
Staff of Towers Storyline – Part 3: (Sixth Fragment)
Freeform Levelling and Dailies – Gain 45 Rep
Staff of Towers Storyline – Part 4: (Seventh Fragment)
Freeform Levelling and Dailies – Gain 45 Rep
Freeform Levelling and Dailies – Gain 45 Rep
Staff of Towers Storyline – Part 5: (Eighth Fragment)
Freeform Levelling and Dailies – Gain 45 Rep
Staff of Towers Finale – The Towers’ Fall (rewards 15 Rep)

That also breaks up the monotony of levelling a bit better, by giving a quest in between each levelling section. Again, the amount of Rep required is the same, but split so that in this version, nothing directly comes from the quests, except from the last quest still being required for Rank 10/Undo (basically meaning the remaining breaches would be disabled once you hit 9, and the relic recovery and dailies would be suspended until you hit 10).

On a side note, it seems no-one appears to know where the Iliac Bay region is. If they do remain as quests (and I hope there’s a convincing argument here for why they shouldn’t), it would be worth changing the quest objective to be specific; instead of “Seal Breaches in the Iliac Bay Region”, it should say “Seal Breaches in Alik’r, Glenumbra, and Stormhaven”. Valenwood is a much more well-known name, but the objective should still say “Seal Breaches in Grahtwood, Greenshade, and Malabal Tor” for consistency. Meanwhile, including Deshaan as part of the Black Marsh map is wholly incorrect; Mournhold is the capital of Morrowind, for Seht's sake. There isn’t really any appropriate region name that combines both Deshaan and Shadowfen. Of course if the levelling quests are removed and it becomes a general exploration-based levelling system with different daily delve quests, as suggested, clarifying these objectives wouldn’t be relevant anyway (although the map names would still need fixing).

Seraphayel · April 2018

@Enodoc

Take my awesome, you deserve it.

Pennytence · May 2018

In my opinion Time Stop could use a rework. I was hoping to be able to use one morph as an aoe cc on mobs while tanking (considering there are chains for everyone now, I figured it was time to widen the tank pool - if only for fun). However, I forgot that pulling a mob gives them cc immunity - essentially letting the chained mob dance away again without me being able to do anything about it, even with this new and shiny ability.

So, please, make one of the morphs an immobilize instead. Maybe let both be instant cast, but move the longer delay to Borrowed Time? And perhaps make Time Freeze an aoe immobilize with a synergy that stuns? Idk, I don't have any good ideas. I'm just hoping that it doesn't come to live and I'm granted this very interesting ability - but it's essentially useless because the mobs I really want to lock in place are immune.

Aliyavana · May 2018

with the nerf to light attacks today, id like to see a 20 percent increase in damge to the next light attack on the stamina spammable crushing blow so it can be like it is pre nerf and be more competitive with elemental weapon post nerf

Footfalls · May 2018

Overall, the skill line is pretty reasonable, but the quest line doesn’t do the Psijic Order justice. It's nowhere near the quality of the base game or DLC Guild questlines, and doesn’t deserve to be labelled as one.

Part of the problem is that the reasonably reasonable (but still way too short) Staff of Towers quests are completely overshadowed by the “Press E to Continue” quests (quests which in and of themselves are only superficially relevant to the story, and really exist solely for levelling). The concept of the time breaches is a good one in theory, but the current implementation of that concept is really boring. It’s just artificially padding out what is actually a very short storyline (there are really only three quests with any substance, two of which are glorified “Press E” quests themselves). The provided maps are also way too vague for quest directions; when questing, if the UI map is not specific, the provided in-world directions must be. The provided maps are much more suited to exploration than questing.

The current Questing and Levelling path therefore goes like this:

Joining Quest – Find 9 breaches in Summerset
Levelling Quest – Press E in the Iliac
Tedious Levelling Quest – Breaches Again?: Frost and Fire Edition
Staff of Towers Storyline – Part 1: Breaches can Sometimes be Useful After All
Tedious Levelling Quest – Here We Go Round The Graht-Oak Tree, Please Press E
Tedious Levelling Quest – Haven’t we been here before?: Deja-vu in the Swamps
Staff of Towers Storyline – Breaches with Purpose, Part 2
Tedious Levelling Quest – Gotta love breaches, right mate?: Doomcrag Edition
Tedious Levelling Quest – Didn’t We Do This Already, Part IX: Return to Craglorn
Staff of Towers Epic Finale – WGT: Lost in Time (feat. The Augur of the Obscure in: “Once more into a Breach, eh?”)

The main focus of this is to move away from making the levelling feel such an integrated part in the story, and instead make it a nice and varied part of the game as a whole. Instead of completing one story quest, and then being given two levelling quests with fixed targets of nine breaches each, the breaches should be more dynamic with the rest of the world. There are 60 breaches across all of Tamriel (9 for each map including Summerset, except in Craglorn where there are only 6) – as soon as you gain the skill line and are able to ‘See the Unseen’ (which currently only applies to the Psijic loot portals), you should be able to see all 60 breaches as well, without needing to be on any quest. Going up to a breach at any time and closing it would grant 5 Rep towards the skill line advancement, and you could do that in any zone at any time. The Augur of the Obscure isn't even necessary for this; all the breaches show up when you're nearby anyway, without ever activating the Augur’s “Psijic Sight”. The quest-related breaches in The Shattered Staff and The Towers' Remains are present throughout as well, and only make use of that ability after finding the breach, in order to follow the trail of rifts to the fragment dig point.

Once a story quest is completed, you could still get a map or two of breaches in a particular area, but there would be no quest directly attached to that; they would be used for guiding exploration, rather than advancing a quest. As mentioned above, these maps are much more suited to exploration rather than quests anyway (like the treasure maps and crafting surveys). The maps for Rivenspire and Craglorn were a lot better than the others, but that’s likely because they were only covering one zone rather than three, allowing for a bit more detail to be shown. If that amount of detail can be added to the other maps, they would be more useful. This exploration-based approach would also be much more organic than saying “here’s 9 more breaches, go close them all right now”.

To complement this, there could be a daily quest available directly from one of the other Psijics, targeting one of the base-game delves (but not the ones used for the Undaunted dailies), where you would have to go and fix a localised temporal anomaly within, caused by the lasting effects of the Planemeld rather than the Staff of Towers. Right now there are no Psijic Order dailies, putting this Guild at a repeatability disadvantage compared to the others. Completing that quest would give you 15 Rep, and would be available again the next day. Rather than the tedium of just continuously searching for breaches across zones (although that would still be available to reward exploration), having 15 different delves to go to, with creatures inside to kill and a higher reward for completion, would make this process more engaging. Once enough Rep has been gained to unlock the next quest, Celarus could appear via Psijic projection to give it to you (it’s shown in the last breach-closing quest that this is something he can do).

Something else that would make the levelling process more engaging was suggested by someone here already – having some temporally-displaced creatures near each breach that require destroying in order to seal the breach itself (the presence of these creatures would also make the breaches themselves a bit easier to locate – they’re rather hidden by themselves). Josajeh says herself after the first quest that she hopes they aren’t getting more dangerous; the presence of monsters at all the open-world ones after the first set on Summerset would confirm her suspicions. Celarus mentions “time-storms” at one point, and those would certainly be more interesting if they actually existed. The breaches could continue to grow in intensity and change with each level gained rather than being the same thing over and over.

Beyond that, another potential avenue for levelling the skill line to break up the tedium of the breach collection would be to give a Rep reward for returning each of the Relicmaster’s stolen items from the Vault of Moawita. There are 20 relics, and at 10 Rep per relic, that would get you a good way through the skill line too. The Relicmaster himself appears at the end of the storyline to recover the Staff of Towers, so it would be good to tie together his relic collection with the skill line levelling.

The proposed Questing and Levelling path (keeping the Staff recovery quests as they are) therefore goes a bit like this:

Joining Quest – The Psijics’ Calling (The quest would end upon finding the Augur, immediately giving you ‘See the Unseen’ and allowing all the breaches to appear in the world)
Freeform Levelling and Dailies – Gain 30 Rep
- Find breaches in Tamriel – 5 Rep each
- Fix a temporally-dislocated Delve – 15 Rep per daily quest
- Recover lost Relics – 10 Rep per relic
Staff of Towers Storyline – Part 1: The Shattered Staff (rewards 30 Rep)
Freeform Levelling and Dailies – Gain 30 Rep
- Find breaches in Tamriel – 5 Rep each
- Fix a temporally-dislocated Delve – 15 Rep per daily quest
- Recover lost Relics – 10 Rep per relic
Freeform Levelling and Dailies – Gain 30 Rep
- Find breaches in Tamriel – 5 Rep each
- Fix a temporally-dislocated Delve – 15 Rep per daily quest
- Recover lost Relics – 10 Rep per relic
Freeform Levelling and Dailies – Gain 30 Rep
- Find breaches in Tamriel – 5 Rep each
- Fix a temporally-dislocated Delve – 15 Rep per daily quest
- Recover lost Relics – 10 Rep per relic
Staff of Towers Storyline – Part 2: The Towers’ Remains (rewards 30 Rep)
Freeform Levelling and Dailies – Gain 45 Rep
- Find breaches in Tamriel – 5 Rep each
- Fix a temporally-dislocated Delve – 15 Rep per daily quest
- Recover lost Relics – 10 Rep per relic
Freeform Levelling and Dailies – Gain 45 Rep
- Find breaches in Tamriel – 5 Rep each
- Fix a temporally-dislocated Delve – 15 Rep per daily quest
- Recover lost Relics – 10 Rep per relic
Staff of Towers Finale – The Towers’ Fall (rewards 30 Rep)

Total amount of Rep required (300) is equivalent to the total number of breaches from just the maps (60) at 5 Rep per breach, but is split differently, and also incorporates the other suggested sources of Rep mentioned above (relics and delve dailies), as well as direct rep rewards from the quests. The Augur, after collection, would remain technically in your bag throughout, to allow for his dialogue on the breaches to continue. All unclosed breaches would be disabled following the end of the final quest (since their cause has been rectified and the skill line is complete), but the daily delves would continue for incidental Psijic rewards, since the chronosynchronicity of delves remains a persistent issue, and can be considered unrelated to the breaches caused by the Staff of Towers.

Overall, the concepts of the Psijic Order storyline are very good, but the way it has been implemented doesn't put it anywhere near the other Guild storylines in terms of player engagement or replayability. It’s something you want to get through quickly in order to get the skills, rather than something you want to get involved in and enjoy for its story. Basically, it doesn’t feel like it sits alongside the deeply engaging Guild quests we’ve come to expect from either the base game Guilds or the DLC Guilds.

Credit must be given however for the final quest in White-Gold Tower, which was certainly going along the right lines of an epic Guild storyline; if there were a few other quests like that one, fully exploring the lore of the Staff of Towers fragments (and the other Towers themselves), it would be a pretty good questline.

On that note, there are a bunch of portal-type archways in the room where Celarus is found which are never used, and I wonder if there was originally going to be a more involved romp through time and space to recover the Staff of Towers which actually involved using all those portals. If that is the case (and indeed, even if it isn't), I would much rather do away with the current questline (keep the breaches to level the skill line, but scrap the quests completely) to allow ZOS to refactor the Staff of Towers story to something that is deserving of the label “Guild storyline” and is on par with the Thieves Guild or Mages Guild storylines, rather than two short quests of running around breaches and digging stuff up. The final quest can pretty much remain as-is, but it really needs a proper set of in-depth fragment recovery quests before it. Of course this couldn’t be done in time for Summerset’s release, but I’d be happy to forgo any PSJJJJ faction quests and wait for a fully-developed Staff of Towers storyline for release in a future update.

Proposed Questing and Levelling path (with full Staff recovery quests, using the Loremaster’s unused portals):

Joining Quest – The Psijics’ Calling (The quest would end upon finding the Augur, immediately giving you ‘See the Unseen’ and allowing all the breaches to appear in the world)
Freeform Levelling and Dailies – Gain 30 Rep
Staff of Towers Storyline – Part 1: The Shattered Staff (First 4 Fragments)
Freeform Levelling and Dailies – Gain 30 Rep
Staff of Towers Storyline – Part 2: (Fifth Fragment)
Freeform Levelling and Dailies – Gain 30 Rep
Freeform Levelling and Dailies – Gain 30 Rep
Staff of Towers Storyline – Part 3: (Sixth Fragment)
Freeform Levelling and Dailies – Gain 45 Rep
Staff of Towers Storyline – Part 4: (Seventh Fragment)
Freeform Levelling and Dailies – Gain 45 Rep
Freeform Levelling and Dailies – Gain 45 Rep
Staff of Towers Storyline – Part 5: (Eighth Fragment)
Freeform Levelling and Dailies – Gain 45 Rep
Staff of Towers Finale – The Towers’ Fall (rewards 15 Rep)

That also breaks up the monotony of levelling a bit better, by giving a quest in between each levelling section. Again, the amount of Rep required is the same, but split so that in this version, nothing directly comes from the quests, except from the last quest still being required for Rank 10/Undo (basically meaning the remaining breaches would be disabled once you hit 9, and the relic recovery and dailies would be suspended until you hit 10).

On a side note, it seems no-one appears to know where the Iliac Bay region is. If they do remain as quests (and I hope there’s a convincing argument here for why they shouldn’t), it would be worth changing the quest objective to be specific; instead of “Seal Breaches in the Iliac Bay Region”, it should say “Seal Breaches in Alik’r, Glenumbra, and Stormhaven”. Valenwood is a much more well-known name, but the objective should still say “Seal Breaches in Grahtwood, Greenshade, and Malabal Tor” for consistency. Meanwhile, including Deshaan as part of the Black Marsh map is wholly incorrect; Mournhold is the capital of Morrowind, for Seht's sake. There isn’t really any appropriate region name that combines both Deshaan and Shadowfen. Of course if the levelling quests are removed and it becomes a general exploration-based levelling system with different daily delve quests, as suggested, clarifying these objectives wouldn’t be relevant anyway (although the map names would still need fixing).

I agree with you fully, the levelling experience in the Psijic Guild is a complete joke when compared to the other DLC guilds like the Thieves Guild and the Dark Brotherhood. The Psijics have the absolute worst kind of MMO quest - go to these 9 places and press X. Now do this 5 more times.

This is an incredibly mind-numbingly dull and boring grind even on one character. Simply put, the main problem is that the gameplay is not interesting whatsoever, and a major step down in gameplay compared to previous guild skill lines.

Just compare gaining ranks in the Psijic Guild to levelling up in the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood. The TG and DB dailies were actually interesting for a thief or assassin to do, you had to steal things, pick pockets, or kill people. You even had daily heists and sacraments. You had to stealth to avoid guards. You had bounty penalties if you were caught. This is what I'd call involving, fun gameplay.

My personal suggestion is to add time-shifted monsters to the time rifts. Reduce the amount of breaches to like, 3-5 per quest to keep the grind time the same, but have the player fight waves of random time-displaced enemies at each breach. We could have things like Oblivion guards leaving the breach saying "HALT! YOU HAVE VIOLATED THE LAW!" or just whatever monster models you have at hand (there's plenty of models you can use ingame, sand gargoyles, Haj Mota, vampires, anything you can think of really). Lore-wise these monsters could have become insane and can't be reasoned with, give them a line or two of dialogue as well for flavour purposes to indicate this.

Maybe physically time-travelling monsters aren't lore friendly, so have them be ghostly echoes instead, and give them a ghost effect. Run this by the Loremaster if not sure.

Please ZOS, you will be heavily criticized if Psijic time breaches remain as they are upon launch. They are without doubt a terrible downgrade in gameplay compared to the previous DLC Guild Lines you've done (TG, DB), which in comparison were fantastic. The skills themselves are great, but the questline (except for the end) is just awful.

Footfalls · May 2018

ignore, double post

Newton's_bane · May 2018

The deliberation passive does not seem to work. It does not apply the major protection buff when using any of the psijic order skills. Tested it out with srendarr which shows the major protection buff just fine on resto ultie.

ToRelax · May 2018

Newton's_bane wrote: »

The deliberation passive does not seem to work. It does not apply the major protection buff when using any of the psijic order skills. Tested it out with srendarr which shows the major protection buff just fine on resto ultie.

It's not shown, but it's active.

This is a test server; please, test stuff. x)

Newton's_bane · May 2018

If it is not shown it is a bug, right? xd But thx for the info did not know it was active even if it is not shown

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO · May 2018

Newton's_bane wrote: »

If it is not shown it is a bug, right? xd But thx for the info did not know it was active even if it is not shown

What the guy means is actually test it. IE, actually take damage, then take the same damage when channeling a skill, then compare them. If the damage is 30% lower, it is working, if not, then it is not.

danno8 · May 2018

Newton's_bane wrote: »

If it is not shown it is a bug, right? xd But thx for the info did not know it was active even if it is not shown

I wouldn't rely on addons for PTS. Maybe try turning on the games own buff tracker for starters. You should really only test actual numbers though, not just if an icon is appearing or not.

Also the damage reduction won't be a full 30% since all DR are multiplicative with every other in this game (So you can never quite reach 100%, thankfully).

Zer0oo · May 2018

The cast time on time stop feels way longer than the tool tip states.