PTS Update 26 - Feedback Thread for Antiquities

ZOS_GinaBruno

This is the official feedback thread for Antiquities. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

• Did you use a copied character or template?
• What did you think of the introduction and tutorial quests? Were you able to find them?
• Did you discover any Antiquity Leads while playing?
• Did you understand how Scrying and Excavation worked? What did you think of them?
• What did you think of the rewards themselves?
• Were you able to find the individual locations within dig sites within a reasonable timeframe?
• Do you have any other general feedback?

Epona222

Copied character.

I can't work out what I am supposed to be doing when Gabrielle tells me to scry for the Bottle of Proving. I use the scrying thing but can't work out what to do next. The cooldown is annoyingly long

I'll come back with more feedback if/when I can get the thing to work

Epona222

OK worked it out but only because someone nearby had already done so and used /Say to tell us to look in Journal at the new tab. It is about as clear as mud - needs clarification through the quest tracker - have it say "Open journal and find the new scrying tab" for clarity

Epona222

The instructions for how to scry are utterly meaningless - "claim facets next to facets you already own" - which facets do I already own? I see various symbols, but don't know what they represent. The mechanics of this mini-game need better explanation.

Epona222

Am now on "Retrieve the Antiquity" - how? What do I need to do now?

I am actually an intelligent person, the purpose is to point out some glaring flaws in the antiquities tutorial instructions - for my sake I hope this is improved when it goes live, otherwise I know everyone is just going to be asking constantly how to do this

Epona222

I can see someone else interacting with the ground - is that somehow blocking everyone else from trying it? If so that needs to change - we're only on PTS and there are like 30 people here trying to do it

Alarra

I had to have someone tell me about the new tab in the journal, because I had no idea how to scry and it's not very clear.

I too am stuck on the retrieving/digging step: a friend who had media access a few weeks ago says that when you go to the scryed location, you're supposed to be able to press E, but it's not letting me do that.

I'm using a copied character, if that affects anything.

Saucy_Jack

Question - via the patch notes, I know a box of leads is provided in top-level inventory. Is it still possible to hunt down the leads in the wild? Or are the inventory leads the only ones available to us on the PTS?

Epona222

OK seems it is broken for some people - some here are able to dig after they have scried, others of us are not getting E prompt

Epona222

Having a chat with other people, I am on a copied character and cannot dig, someone else on a copied character can dig, so that isn't it.

Alarra

Tried abandoning and picking up the quest again a couple times. For a while when I was back on the step to scry for the bottle, it wouldn't show up on the list of things to scry for, but finally reappeared when I clicked one of the other zones in the list and went back. Still not getting an interactable spot to dig.

EDIT: Tried on another character with the same results, but after getting kicked back to the login screen, the quest seems to have reset itself and finally the mound of dirt appeared and let me dig.

Epona222

Tried abandoning and restarting several times - apparently a dirt mound should appear that you can interact with, that isn't happening for me. Going to try a different character.

Am on a copied character (Lyra Iulus)

Epona222

BTW thanks to everyone there who was describing what is supposed to happen, that helped work out that it wasn't that I was doing it wrong - it is actually borked

Epona222

OK I travelled to a different zone then back to Solitude, the quest had reset so I spoke to Gabrielle and scryed again, this time I got the dirt mound.

Now I have unearthed the object but do not know how to pick it up out of the trench.

I mean seriously OMFG this is obscure - I was an archaeologist IRL btw, it should not be this difficult to understand - have some key prompts or more info in the quest tracker/journal, anything, please...

Epona222

OK did it - there needs to be more explanation of the mechanic. It wasn't clear that I needed to keep removing soil until bonus items had been found.

BTW despite common depictions in movies, archaeologists do not tend to use brushes - they blur the edges of strata and make it more difficult to distinguish between different deposits. Just saying

DarknDarker

It definitely needs better explainations, especially the part about it being in your journal, if nobody had said that in chat I wouldnt have found it.

DeathStalker

I agree with others that better explanations of what to do are needed. I got lucky when I went out to dig it up and someone said in chat to log out and log back in to get the digging part to work right and it did.

TheStarfighter

I have a question when this go live, on a main who had done the quest in all the zone do we will get the lead "find from quest" like said in the natch potes because otherwise i will be very sad

Epona222

I think the fact that the scrying tool is a collectible and can be hotkeyed leads people (quite reasonably) to attempt to use it that way. The notification system tells you that you have a new tool and points you to the collections UI - where quite naturally you think "that is a tool I need to use, so I'll hotkey it now". Nothing actually points you towards the journal, it is not intuitive.

Aliyavana

Ring of the Wild Hunt (Ring) (Requires Murkmire) - 1 – Increases your movement speed by 15% while in combat. Increases your movement speed by 45% while out of combat.

According to the lore, Wild hunts are a bosmer thing, what is a bosmer relic doing in Murkmire?

Edit: Patch notes didn't specify why it required Murkmire, but to clarify, I checked in-game and the ring is split into 5 pieces and one of them requires Murkmire to obtain. The part that requires a serpent piece so that's not bad.

fierackas

Thanks for those testing. Does it still loom like a crappy mobile game aimed at 3 year olds?

Epona222

fierackas wrote: »

Thanks for those testing. Does it still loom like a crappy mobile game aimed at 3 year olds?

I think the problem I was having with the minigame for scrying was that I was expecting more - I just clicked on groups of symbols with no rhyme or reason and it worked, I don't understand the point of making me click mindlessly a few times - it's like one of those premium rate phone in quizzes where the question is really easy but just having you phone in on a premium number without a question runs afoul of gambling laws - ie. the scrying minigame seems utterly pointless.

I am going to try it some more, maybe it is more meaningful with higher difficulty items.

fierackas

Epona222 wrote: »

fierackas wrote: »

Thanks for those testing. Does it still loom like a crappy mobile game aimed at 3 year olds?

I think the problem I was having with the minigame for scrying was that I was expecting more - I just clicked on groups of symbols with no rhyme or reason and it worked, I don't understand the point of making me click mindlessly a few times - it's like one of those premium rate phone in quizzes where the question is really easy but just having you phone in on a premium number without a question runs afoul of gambling laws - ie. the scrying minigame seems utterly pointless.

I am going to try it some more, maybe it is more meaningful with higher difficulty items.

Thanks, not going to bother with this expansion then

Epona222

OK looks like you CAN hotkey the eye thingy and when you are out in the wilds searching for the dirt mound it will put a blue ball of light pointing you towards the dirt mound. You have to have already scryed for the item though and have the general location marked on the map.

I have found 1 lead from a thieves trove and another from a chest so far for different items.

Kurat

Not enough set items. And they seem kinda weak and useless. No one is gonna give up monster set or 5 pc bonus for them. I'm not gonna waste skill points and time for this garbage.

resdayn00

The minigames are not really straightforward at first, but easy to understand after a couple of tries. Both scrying and excavating gets more difficult as you progress, requiring you to think about your steps. It seems like a really fun thing that you can do whenever you want. I personally feel very positive about this new feature so far.

My only issue is, how rare are leads supposed to be? So far I only found leads by doing scrying. It seems that the basic green antiquities are available to scry without leads, but after those, I’m not sure how to go further. I went through the whole city of Anvil checking every container, talking to every merchant, pickpocketing npcs, cleared a delve, looted some chests and resource nodes and found zero leads. Are they supposed to be this rare? The description in the help menu gives you the feeling that they are easy to find because they are everywhere, but it seems like they are nowhere. I’ll need to do more testing.

Epona222

OK once I got past the buggy tutorial quest and worked out what to do (no thanks to the terrible tutorial which doesn't actually explain stuff like "go to your journal page and find the new tab" or how the scrying thing works once hotkeyed, or what the minigames actually are in terms of mechanics - truly terrible effort there Zeni, sorry) it is SO MUCH FUN!!!

Once out in the world using the system I am having a blast.

Please for the love of the Divines improve the tutorial instructions though otherwise lots of us are going to be spending a significant amount of time every day trying to explain it to people

Epona222

And yes the scrying thing DOES do something when hotkeyed, after you have done the initial scry and are at the dig site you can use it hotkeyed to help find the dirt mound

Icy

Picked up the quest, had to come here to the forums to work out how to scry (more information in game to direct players to Journal please).

Solved the puzzle - but the start point at the bottom of the screen should be more prominent (flashing?) as my first instinct was to click on the empty space.

Scryed successfully and went outside to the dig - but there was no mount of dirt to interact with. Abandoned the scrying bit, but couldn't pick it up again from Gabrielle.

Abandoned the quest, re-scryed, went outside, and STILL no pile of dirt.

I had to re-log to get the giant pile of dirt with sparkly lights (impossibly to miss, unless it's not there... )

(No addons, existing full level character).

Saucy_Jack

Epona222 wrote: »

OK looks like you CAN hotkey the eye thingy and when you are out in the wilds searching for the dirt mound it will put a blue ball of light pointing you towards the dirt mound. You have to have already scryed for the item though and have the general location marked on the map.

I have found 1 lead from a thieves trove and another from a chest so far for different items.

BUG: despite being in the dig site area, using the hotkeyed eye did absolutely nothing for me - no lights, no animation, no nothing. The ONLY thing that happened was that the cooldown timer for the eye began.

AgentZenish

Okay. The Antiquities system seems right up my alley, but it is not intuitive from the beginning.

The Tutorial *needs* work. Like, an active pop up to tell you to go to your Journal and press E to Scry the Bottle. The first thing I did was quickslot the Antiquarian's Eye thinking that would do something. It took me about 5 minutes, multiple characters and someone telling me to go to my Journal until I figured out how to start.

Which brings me to my second point - The Light from the Eye pointing you in the direction of the dig site needs to be more obvious. Supposedly it's pointing in the direction, but it's REALLY hard to say. It needs a more directional light, and not just a ball of light over my head.

Also the cool down on the Eye is really long - even 10 seconds shorter would be good.

The minigame is what it is.

Overall, I like the system, I do a lot of mat farming for relaxation some times and I can see myself doing this along side it.