PTS Update 26 - Feedback Thread for Antiquities

Epona222

Kurat wrote: »

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.

That shouldn't be a huge surprise, Zeni already said when they announced the system that they were more novelty items rather than end game vet dungeon gear. Everyone who has a harvesting character is going to want the speed buff item mind you

saf227_ESO

The first time you talk to Gabrielle and she sends you to find the bottle - the map marker indicates that the bottle is in the building - but it's not. It should be one of those 'other instance' markers.

N/m. Apparently I found a different bottle. But the marker made it seem like it was the one I was looking for. The new tab & instructions can definitely be better.

LonePirate

As unintuitive as the initial quest was with regard to the scrying and digging, finding the leads is going to be a real pain. I found a lead that in a merchant's inventory which you could presumably buy. However, the merchant was in Cheydinhal and Cyrodiil is not in the list of zones where the Antiquities system is available.

It seems like the Antiquities system was designed to encourage people to revisit zones in the map and to provide a time sink as well. Until all of the leads are ferreted out and all of the items are located, it's going to be very slow going in the beginning.

Vandellia

Definately needs a good tutorial the total amount of confusion on how to use the skills and find things in a designated area is simply missing. I Love the new area but the artifact system as it currently exists is unusable confusing and honestly angers me enough to want scream in frustration

NeptunXIV

I've encountered 3 bugs/issues so far:

* Many times the dig spot won't even spawn. Not just a visual bug, you literally cannot interact with it. First time I encountered this was during the antiquity tutorial.
* Frequently getting the pop up during excavation saying the antiquity casing was broken, despite never touching it again once it's uncovered. And I mean nowhere near it.
* The scrying tool border is very pixel-y

Other than the bugs, I honestly have been really enjoying the system. But I do agree with the others that the tutorial is next to useless and doesn't explain the mechanics at all. It's pretty much a case of trial and error.

wolfie1.0.

So here is my initial Feedback:

like others have said the there needs to be a better tutorial. It is not intuitive at all, so the instructions need to be fleshed out in the quest details. The scrying mini game needs more details as well.

Excavation ok here is where i have key problems. you see the location tool that is supposed to help you located stuff quickly is color coded. for most players thats not a problem. For those of us that are color blind well that IS an issue. it took me 12 attempts at the digging game to get through the tutorial because i was essentially just guessing at random. while this may be fine for there tutorial, it wont cut it for the harder sites.

I did learn that there are some very small indicators that you marked something right or are close to the item. but they are small and hard to see and they dont persist at all. you can keep the colors if you wish but please add shapes or more obvious visual queues for those of us that struggle with color blindness. we want to be able to complete content, But we need other indicators OTHER than color to give us an idea. it can even be something as simple as adding a number, letter, or lore friendly animal or shape in the box into the box just something else please.

without these changes I will be forced to either not complete this content or have someone do it for me. neither are not fun considerations.

Thank you for your time.

Ynrael

As other people have said, the tutorial is buggy. There were a group of people standing around and someone had some spell effects running, so I had no idea what I was looking for in the courtyard, the mound wasn't visible in any case.
From the scrying minigame, I gather that the more "nodes" you manage to link to, the fewer map options appear. On the first go, I missed a couple and had three places highlit on the map.

The digging is a bit obscure but with a bit of trial and error I figured it out. What's not clear is the Bonus Item search, is that supposed to be random? So the faster you find the main item, the more attempts you have left to hunt for bonuses.

Confusingly, after I'd found a scrimshaw, it was still in my list so I scried again and came up with a second location. It seems that you can find the same type of item multiple times. Also found a lead to another item as a bonus item. How you find the dig site once you're in the right area is also unclear. I resorted to simply running back and forwards looking for a particle effect.

Ashtaris

Epona222 wrote: »

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

Yeah, it was about as clear as mud. The only way I found out about the new tab was someone mentioned it in Zone chat. Until then, I was running around trying to use that stupid Eye without much success And you are right, if they don't do something to clarify this, there is going to be a bunch of zone spam with everyone asking the same question.

Another problem is that I found a dig site in North Stormhaven where scamps were located. I could kill them off, but they would respawn quickly and attack before I could finish digging up the site breaking me out of the mini game. So basically this dig site was unable to be completed. I'm sure this is probably not the only place where dig sites and mobs are going to be a problem.

Epona222

wtlonewolf20 wrote: »

So here is my initial Feedback:

like others have said the there needs to be a better tutorial. It is not intuitive at all, so the instructions need to be fleshed out in the quest details. The scrying mini game needs more details as well.

Excavation ok here is where i have key problems. you see the location tool that is supposed to help you located stuff quickly is color coded. for most players thats not a problem. For those of us that are color blind well that IS an issue. it took me 12 attempts at the digging game to get through the tutorial because i was essentially just guessing at random. while this may be fine for there tutorial, it wont cut it for the harder sites.

I did learn that there are some very small indicators that you marked something right or are close to the item. but they are small and hard to see and they dont persist at all. you can keep the colors if you wish but please add shapes or more obvious visual queues for those of us that struggle with color blindness. we want to be able to complete content, But we need other indicators OTHER than color to give us an idea. it can even be something as simple as adding a number, letter, or lore friendly animal or shape in the box into the box just something else please.

without these changes I will be forced to either not complete this content or have someone do it for me. neither are not fun considerations.

Thank you for your time.

Aye, there need to be other options for display of the "hot" "cold" scrying tries on a dig site. Giving a range of options is always better, whether options to change the colours in the settings menu, or maybe even have an option to have different icons display instead of colours, or have a sound effect play (that wouldn't work for me cos I'm hearing impaired, but it might be a good option for someone who was colour blind) -as always, the more options available in settings, the better, and the more accessible the game is.

jetplane_18

Using both a copied character and a fully-leveled template character. On the template I scried and excavated a couple of items and took template inventory leads before swapping to a copied character to get a taste of the actual experience.

The introduction quest is easy to find and the skill lines are quick to obtain. The actual tutorial however is a mess and needs rewriting. Specifically a quest step says to use your Antiquarian's Eye to scry for stuff when it means you to open the Antiquities tab in the quest journal. If the quest journal is gonna be specific it should be accurate. The tutorial excavation seems buggy. The template had no issue here but I had to relog on my copied character to see the excavation site.

For leads, I opened the template character and accidentally took all the leads included. However I ended up going into my copied character to explore Summerset (where I've completed all achievements) to check out what's up. Only found the Summerset map lead as sold by merchant npcs. The patch notes say the leads expire after 30 days but there is expiration date on the antiquities tab. Is the 30-day expiration a real thing? did someone forget to add expiration dates somewhere? are you guys removing this expiration?

Scrying and excavation are easy to understand. At least on their easy beginner forms. Scrying is very simple and I feel like the interface does little to explain how much energy I have and how to swap between the interactions. I like excavation a lot more. It's equally simple but much clearer. I managed to find the sites without much trouble.

I don't know how much the rewards appeal to someone like who has combed zones to complete quests/achievements. It feels like the minigames will become almost auto-solvable with enough skill points and that the real game is going to be the loadscreens between excavation sites.

He11cat

- Did you use a copied character or template? Copied
- What did you think of the introduction and tutorial quests? Were you able to find them? Someone in chat had to tell me about the new tab
- Did you discover any Antiquity Leads while playing? A few
- Did you understand how Scrying and Excavation worked? What did you think of them? Once I figured it out
- What did you think of the rewards themselves? All I keep getting in vendor trash, so they were eh
- Were you able to find the individual locations within dig sites within a reasonable timeframe? The cooldown on the eye is too damn long
- Do you have any other general feedback? A few bugs that popped up for me it seems. I got booted from the server twice for spamming while excavating, but I wasn't chatting with anyone. Also after scrying, I cannot use wayshrines from my map. I have to /reloadui every time to get them to work

tindomiel4

I used a copied CP810 character.

As everyone else has mentioned, the tutorial is incredibly obtuse. When someone in chat finally mentioned, after I spent minutes fruitlessly triggering the tool from a quickslot, that you have to use the Journal tab, I made it out to the courtyard but no dig site. I abandoned the quest, relogged, and when retrying briefly saw Gabriele say something about the journal. I never saw that dialogue the first time and don't know how I triggered it the second.

I found a few leads while playing, I think mostly from stealing (but the PTS crashed and reverted progress several times during this, so it was difficult to track). I also located the (persistent?) tablet lead in the High King's palace chamber. I found only blue and purple leads, so I repeated green leads to level up. I twice was attempting to steal leads (both purple level, both in a container with other items), and "Loot All" failed. Reloading the UI, as suggested by chat, seemed to fix it.

Neither minigame gave any real instructions. Once I knew (again, from chat) what to do, it was obvious in hindsight. I do like the games, though. I haven't played long enough for their difficulty to increase, and I haven't had any issues with destroying the sites yet. Not sure how that works.

I've only gotten vendor rewards so far. I have leads for a furnishing and an adornment but cannot complete them yet.

I didn't know that the Eye could be used at the map areas until coming here to the forum after logging out (again, lacking instructions), so several of the dig sites took ages for me to find, even though I always got six hexes. Other players referred to visual effects (sparkles, etc.), but I saw no such effects on any of my dig sites, even after upgrading Keen Eye.

Overall feedback: PLEASE fix the instructions. Everything I learned about Antiquities, I had to learn from other players. Our community is fantastic that way, but no one should have to miss out because the player population is sparse or silent.

I've been very excited for this system, and, after pushing past the tutorial frustration thanks to friendly players, I'm really enjoying it. I hope it continues to improve.

[Re: the color clues... The lines around each square do change a bit from thin with orange to bright and swirly with green. I swear one of the interviews or ESO Live presentations earlier this year mentioned that there is a mode for color blindness. Either the minimal line changes are it, or maybe it's not implemented yet?]

Alentarlixia

Aliyavana wrote: »

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?

Didn't you ever hear from the Bosmer now called Traveled-a-lot? A few decades ago, she went vegan. Obviously the other Bosmer were really upset and saw their culture in danger, so she had to flee her homelands. She knew, she had no chance to escape by usual methods, her horse was too slow and she preferred to train dodge rolls instead of sprint. So she stole the Ring of the Wild Hunt and ran all across Tamriel to escape her carnivore brothers and sisters. After a long series of incredibles Adventures she ended up in Murkmire and decided to live there, as the friendly Argonians just tolerated her eating habits. So she changed her name, was called Traveled-a-lot and lived a long and satisfying life in Murkmire. When she died, she was buried and the ring was still on her finger.

And now you digged it out.

alterfenixeb17_ESO

Don't want to repeat myself so here is just a link to my report so far: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/6719125

Also I have tried to so today some green antiquity and same deal - no mound spawned at all.

Rake

• 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?

[*] Template and new character
[*] Compared to previous the combat quest is bad imho.
Enemy you fight gets stuck at 0 HP fast and then it looks silly.
Sparring quest from Elsweyr was way better
[*] Yes, several, in Blackreach
[*] I dont get it at all, especially excavating, cause game kicks me to desktop for "excessive message spam" whenever I try to excavate
[*] Didnt get to rewards yet
[*] Not yet
[*] I dislike how system looks a lot so far.

Shimmer

I love you guys, but there was no tutorial. Literally. Nothing explained to me that you cant just quickslot the eye in the intro quest to scry. Nothing told me to hit J then press E on the picture of the item I was supposed to find for the quest. It was frustratingly awful. I ran around for about 20 minutes until someone said it in zone chat. Thank you random person. You were my saving grace!

The first time you scry, the voiceover is completely confusing. Nothing she says makes any sense on what youre supposed to do in the minigame, and im still not 100% sure what i did to complete the piece....i just randomly clicked things.

starkerealm

Epona222 wrote: »

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

The dirt mounds spawning in seems to be slightly inconsistent at the moment. Not sure if they're actually bugged, but I can walk past an area four or five times without seeing anything, then on the next trip past the mound is there. This only happened with a few dig sites, however, so it could be user error? I'm not sure.

KMarble

Did you use a copied character or template?
Copied

What did you think of the introduction and tutorial quests? Were you able to find them?
Easy to find the quests. Not so easy to do due to a bug that prevented me from seeing the digging site.

On a bright note, I had plenty of time - while looking around to find something to interact with - to see other players digging and it was pretty cool that we're given a proper animation (I could see them kneeled with the tools by their side).

After being able to excavate and locating the first antiquity, I found the dialogue with Danielle to be too vague. She tells you that you can go speak to the quest giver (can't remember her name) or to go out and find other antiquities.

Did you discover any Antiquity Leads while playing?
Yes, a purple one by killing a wolf near one of the sites in W Skyrim.

In regards to that one site, I used the Scrying Eye (thanks to the forum for letting me know how to use it) and the light it emits lead me nowhere. I kept going around in circles until I found a pile of dirt with the glowy lights.
I'm pretty sure I walked by that site a few times before I could see it. Not sure if the excavating site is relocated every time we use the scrying eye or if, like with the tutorial, the site was bugged.

Did you understand how Scrying and Excavation worked? What did you think of them?
I went to bed feeling extremely stupid. Once I was done with the tutorial, I tried going to zones where I completed the content to find digging sites. I used the scrying eye and got nothing.

I found the new tab in the journal by accident, btw. I didn't know what to do so I began clicking on everything until I got to the journal.

In that tab there are entries for antiquities all over Tamriel, and if you double click on them it opens a new window with 3 names. Clicking, double clicking and right clicking on the names do nothing. Is it supposed to do something?

One of the entries had the name of the high elf on the wheel chair. I'd talked with her before and when I did there was a small dialogue with no options for interaction. When I talked to her again after selecting one antiquity from the tab, she had another dialogue, with options to talk more, but nothing do with the antiquity.

Those names, are they NPCs you need to talk to? If so, where? I tried the one in Coldharbour because I knew where Danielle would be, but her dialogue there is the same as it is on live.

Why are those names listed? Should there be markers showing those NPCs on the map? Do I need to talk to them in order? I couldn't figure it out.

What did you think of the rewards themselves?
I only managed to dig up one site after the tutorial. I got a green ring from a set, but then again, I didn't expect to get anything cool from a low difficulty level excavation.

Were you able to find the individual locations within dig sites within a reasonable timeframe?
Not really. As I wrote above, the one site that I could find had me going in circles for a while and once I found the actual mound, I failed it because no matter where I clicked, the best I got was a yellow (gold?) square, and digging those lead to nothing.

After the failure I was given the option to drop the quest, but instead I used the scrying eye again and it lead me to another mound in the same area.

As pretty much everybody who posted already said, the tutorial is lacking in many ways. From not telling the player that hitting R and W only select the tool to use ( yeah, sometimes I can be very stupid), to which color means what.

Do you have any other general feedback?
It's hard to test this because I don't want to spoil the story, so I avoid talking to NPCs. My antiquities tab is populated with so many options it's overwhelming, but there are no clues about what to do with those and I couldn't find a way to start them.

At some point I began to wonder if I was being stupid or if there were glitches that prevented me from even starting some of the quests (?) from the antiquities system.

The leads expiring is something that I'm not too happy about. It might mean I'll have to drop what I'm doing and go after the other leads and/or the antiquity .

I like to take my time doing quests, poking around and talking to NPCs just because, but I have a very linear mind and once I start a story line, I like to concentrate on that and nothing else.

The antiquity system introduces an "item" that can drop from ANYTHING - talking to NPCs, killing enemies and innocents alike, stealing, doing normal content (delves, dungeons, trials, WBs...). Which means that even if I only stick to the stories in Greymoor, I could stumble upon leads that might take me on a detour or risk losing the lead if I can't "connect the dots" in time.

ectoplasmicninja

I used a max level template character.

I spotted the flier in Solitude pretty quickly, so I was able to find the place without a problem.

The system itself is not intuitive and user-friendly. If I hadn't noticed the new tab in my journal I would never have known to check there, so I had some teething problems.

I figured out scrying pretty quickly, and it's cool (and especially cool that you get more than one shot at it) but excavating? Excavating is not intuitive at all. I've excavated a couple master items and I'm still really none the wiser as to the finer points. I clicked places until I saw green, then I clicked the green squares more, and I used my shovel when I could. It didn't feel skill-based in the slightest but rather a combination of dumb luck and brute force...and an antiquarian would hardly be excavating relics using dumb luck and brute force. It just feels janky and awkward.

I'm all on board with the concept though - it's a great excuse to explore the map, if we needed an excuse, and I love that we can earn furnishings and cosmetics and even a mount this way. But excavating definitely needs to be refined somehow, IMO.

Vicarra

• Did you use a copied character or template? - I'm on EU, so I used a template character CP810
• What did you think of the introduction and tutorial quests? Were you able to find them? - Given that the template characters start with antiquities maxed, I only found the introduction to the Circle by accident when I was robbing everyone in Solitude. The introductory quest worked just fine, but I only knew that I had to scry via the journal because I saw someone say so earlier in zone chat. Had I not seen that, I would have struggled as I saw others struggling. The game needs to do a better job of leading players to the correct part of the menu because people were using the Eye as a tool via their quickbar and couldn't understand why scrying didn't work. I spent a lot of the afternoon coaching people on how to use it.
• Did you discover any Antiquity Leads while playing? Only one, from a strongbox. When I didn't find any more, I opened the sack of leads provided on the template character. I heard from other players that they had had them drop from monsters - since I didn't kill many mobs today, maybe I was looking in the wrong places.
• Did you understand how Scrying and Excavation worked? What did you think of them? It took some time for me to understand how the systems worked, and the excavation in particular was unnecessarily complicated by the fact that the tutorial screens didn't show up for me until long after I didn't need them anymore. So, for example, the one that explains fissures didn't appear for me until after I'd already completed about 15 excavations (and lost a lot of time through blowing them up accidentally). It would be far more helpful to have a fully realised tutorial at the start, as I felt I was basically on my own and I can only imagine how difficult it's going to be for players for whom English is their second language to deal with this system and trying to get help from others. That being said, once I did finally start to successfully complete them and got into the rhythm of it, I found it largely quite relaxing and enjoyable to do them. Just took me a while to get there.
• What did you think of the rewards themselves? I have only really bothered to hunt down the furnishings so far because I want to know how they look, but the ones I've found so far I'm very happy with. They are unique and interesting.
• Were you able to find the individual locations within dig sites within a reasonable timeframe? For the most part, yes. I tried to find the stained glass window in Northern Elsewyr, but couldn't find the excavation site at all, and using the Eye to triangulate didn't work - I suspect the mound was missing because the arrow produced by the Eye did not appear at all, no matter where in the spawn area I was.
• Do you have any other general feedback? The arrow produced by the Eye should be more pronounced. It was hard for me to tell which direction it was pointing in because both sides are too similar in width. There was one excavation site that was located too close to some very fast spawning mobs, so I got pulled out of the minigame about 6 or 7 times because the mobs spawned every 30 seconds or so. This was in northern Stormhaven, by the steps. Otherwise, I had no issues excavating beyond not understanding what I was doing at first, and as I said, once I figured it out I found it very enjoyable and I'm very pleased with the system overall.

Elsonso

Did you use a copied character or template?

Copied.

What did you think of the introduction and tutorial quests? Were you able to find them?

I found the starting quest on the wall of the building in Solitude. I guess that guy was not supposed to be posting them everywhere, but it worked out for me.

For the initial tutorial, I was confused about the scrying thing-a-ma-bob to determine whether I was worthy. I must have missed where it was located on the table, as I thought it was an inventory item of some sort. Eventually, I noticed it behind me.

When asked to skry, I was not sure how to do that, and did not figure it out in the game. I referred to the patch notes, then saw the extra tab on the map screen. If something told me in the game, it did not connect in my head.

There is an overlap problem with the scrying from the map, by the way. The tutorial pops up a panel discussing your success that has an "ALT" to exit, but that is not what you do. Instead, you press E to clear what is behind it, then close the map, then you can press ALT.

When I went to get the bottle that was lost, the magic sparkly mound never appeared, so I spent some time trying to figure out what to do next. Thankfully, the game crashed and kicked me out. Never thought I would say that, but when I logged back in and repeated what was rolled back, the mound was there.

Oddly enough, when I did this again, on a second character, the same thing happened. I logged out and logged back in, but my progress was lost and I was rolled back to the point where I talked with Gabrielle and I had to scry again before I could go out and look for the sparkly mound. The sparkly mound was there the second time.

Did you discover any Antiquity Leads while playing?

I think that it said I found one at the second dig site as bonus material, but I don't think I actually have one. I was not fast enough on the screen capture to get that message.

Did you understand how Scrying and Excavation worked? What did you think of them?

Scrying. I still don't know what I am doing there. I am clicking on groups of stuff in the minigame, but why I am doing this is beyond me. I click. UI widgets change. I group things so I can change more widgets. Some blue bar on a lozenge moves. The UI seems more complicated than it needs to be. What is the point? There is no feeling that I am doing something useful or helpful.

Excavating is fairly obvious, once you do it the first time. Scry first to find, then dig away. I was on my second one before I realized that there was a timer, and my third one before I found the timer. I get why there is a timer, but it seems to contradict the idea of being careful with these things while being encouraged to whack away as fast as possible.

The trowel helps, but is a dangerous tool. It said I damaged the artifact, but I checked and it looked fine.

One place I got confused is that we may have to excavate all around the artifact, or we don't get it. You must get the popup saying that you got it. Just uncovering it is not enough. Once done a few times, this is understood, but still.

If there are mobs in the area, I expect them to respawn and attack, kicking me out of the dig. I consider this a general problem with ESO. Mobs should simply not spawn within aggro range of a character. If we can be kicked out by attacks, then there is a trolling factor here as nearby players could kite mobs over to do AoE damage to players doing digs. Yay! Good luck trying to find and report that person, too!

What did you think of the rewards themselves?

I have only received the one artifact, but more than one of them. The bonus items look like Justice items and treasure chest loot. So far, I am well on my way to cornering the Nord Scrimshaw Pendant market. It is a niche market, but I think I can own it. If you want one, you know who to call!

Were you able to find the individual locations within dig sites within a reasonable timeframe?

Yes

Do you have any other general feedback?

Her bottle is still listed in my leads. Why is her bottle still in my list of things to scry? I am not sure if this is a bug, or what the bug is, if it is. It is invalid, but it is still there. Meanwhile, the other lead that I have seems to be the gift that keeps on giving. I have found a few of them, and can go for more! I am not sure if that is intended or a bug.

This appears to be an alternative to the Justice System (pick pocketing, thievery) that is more complicated and takes longer. Less bounty. The upside appears to be Mythic Items, but I expect that those will rarely be seen.

The scrying game play is, to not mince words, bizarre. Very complicated. Again, I think I get the mechanics, but it does not connect to the game. If you had decided to have us arrange bows on unicorns according to color and size (the bows, not the unicorns), it would be no less connected.

Was the memento the first pass at the scrying, before the minigame was added? In any case, it is helpful but has two problems. First, it should work outside of a dig zone to point at the dig zone. If it should not do that, then it should not work at all outside of a dig zone and should not have a cooldown if you try. It is easy to step outside of the zone. Second, it should have a shorter cooldown.

Vicarra

I forgot to mention, given that the fissures can sometimes appear on the squares below the "energy bar" when excavating it would be helpful if this bar was located elsewhere, preferably not on top of the dig site. I've accidentally blown up these squares because I didn't realise there was smoke there.

ectoplasmicninja

After reading these other posts, I would like to add that I have yet to encounter a tutorial screen for either scrying or excavating, and have no idea what a fissure is. Also, there being a timer on excavation is news to me unless having the skill line maxed removes this feature. I don't know what the two arrows in the middle of the dig screen are for or do except have bars that fill when I click squares which then lets me use the shovel. See how I sound like a clueless dimwit? Please give us some more immediate and more explicit instructions as to how to actually play these minigames.

resdayn00

Day 2 report.

I can safely say that I have a pretty good grasp of how the two minigames work. Here are my thoughts on them and the whole system in general.

Scrying:
Scrying should be tweaked. Even on the hardest difficulty, once you max out Future Focus and Line passives, everything else becomes obsolete, as you can simply reach all of the targets with the help of Line. If the player understands the basics and has the two passives I mentioned, the minigame becomes repetitive, and always done in under a minute with all the points captured.

Excavating:
I'll separate this into two parts, finding the digging site and the excavating minigame.
- The digging areas seem to randomly switch between pre-coded areas around the map. Within the area, the digging sites also seem to be predetermined, although multiple digging sites are possible within one area. I can verify this because by accident(?) when scrying in Bal Foyen immediately after excavating a treasure, the same area got pinpointed, and the same digging site I just finished excavating appeared again next to me, but this time with the new treasure. That was a fast process. The sites are usually easy to find, but the geography of the map can make it tedious at times.
- The excavation game is fun to do. Once the mechanics are clear, it's also very easy. I can't really say much more, it's not as repetitive as Scrying, because we need to find the treasure.

Leads:
I'm still not sure how to approach finding leads. Yesterday I couldn't find any except for the ones found during excavations. Today I managed to find two, a blue one in a random container through thieving in Vivec city, and a legendary one in a Psijic Portal in Artaeum. I find it really confusing that we don't know which zone a lead is found in. The legendary one seems to be part of the Thrassian Stranglers, and is shown in 5 zones, but 4 of them didn't show it under the Scryables, and the 5th zone is Eyevea which I can't access on the PTS. Also the leads don't appear as items in your inventory, but automatically added to the Antiquities menu, which makes it even more confusing. I haven't found a single one from chests, monsters, fishing, or talking to merchants. The ones I found during excavations are always the same route: Green gives blue, blue gives purple, purple gives nothing, next green can give blue, which seemingly won't give you a next purple. I wonder how rare the rest of the leads are, which frankly make up most of the system.

Antiquities:
The items and the descriptions are really interesting for those of us who love the lore. I love it how each codex entry tells a different aspect and by the end we get a rough understanding of the history of the item.

tinythinker

Epona222 wrote: »

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 wrote: »

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

Yeah this is me for the last 20 minutes.

EDIT: Didn't have to drop the quest. Left the zone, came back, scryed again, and the mound was there this time

Linaleah

tutorial is worthless, i'm sorry. it doesn't explain anything properly and to add insult to injury, you CAN ask Gabrielle for clarification.. but only AFTER you finish tutorial. its also buggy where the site with a bottle does not appear and you have to relog to get it.

the digging for bonus items also seems very weird as i couldn't figure out where you even should be digging for the,. the box just goes blank and I ended up clicking squares at random

so far it seems incredibly unfun and just not very well designed. and i LIKE minigames like that normally.

oh yeah, used my imported character, got a blue lead from finishing green site... lead that i couldn't do cause i was missing a necessary skill which i wouldn't be able to get for a while. early rewards seem... almost insulting. all this work for green treasures that i can steal in seconds? i understand that there is a leveling process, but green treasures seem like a brushoff, even early on. it did not feel rewarding to me. anything else would have been nice. furnishing mats, cheap furnishings, something. not just green treasure and oh.. I got a white dagger

I'm literally half way to resubscribing to WoW earlier then i planned on, just to get a palate cleanser via WoW's archaeology...

fxeconomisteb17_ESO

Perhaps I will be taking a look at this - as a sort of gameplay pastime - but I don't think these are actually bringing
any excitement to the game. I don't know who would break an important 5 piece bonus. Make a one antiquity slot ?
Hell, that would be interesting.

SniperDaria

Been playing on a copied character yesterday and today. I had no trouble excavating green and blue items in Western Skyrim, Auridon, Grahtwood and Greenshade, but when I tried in Northern Elsweyr I was able to scry the location, but when I went there the tool didn't work. I got no pointer. Tried relogging that did not fix it.

Fontecc

Did you use a copied character or template?

-Template (PC/EU player)

What did you think of the introduction and tutorial quests? Were you able to find them?

1- The Antiquarian House should really really have its own icon or something to highlight it on the map. I was only able to find it because of the patch notes where they mentioned the location + the name of the NPC. So I just looked at the quest marker. It's a bit underwhelming considering this is a major skill line requiring quite a bit of time and skill points;

2- The tutorial itself, I share the same opinion of other people in here, I was using the Antiquarian's Eye Tool and looking around the house instead of going into the Journal menu and opening the Antiquities tab. This should be clarified. As for the rest, whilst properly scrying and excavating, I had no problems nor did I experience any bugs. However, I had already used my skillpoints on all the passives (my objective was another);

Did you discover any Antiquity Leads while playing?

Yes, a few!


Antique Map furnishing you can get in most zones by having the respective Pathfinder achievement



A couple of the basic treasures, it just goes back & forth between green & blue with no real progress (except codex) to anything else


A really nice furnishing that I randomly got while killing mobs in Betnikh.




FOUR! of the same Mythic item piece while clearing World Bosses in Alik'r Desert. Not a bad drop chance but am I really supposed to receive repeated items with no real reward? Didn't even get more codex for it. (Image below) This doesn't seem right somehow, will write more about this in the last topic;

Did you understand how Scrying and Excavation worked? What did you think of them?

Scrying:
-Will probably need to start from the beggining with no passives but, once you get them all, it's not extremely difficult nor extremely easy to figure out the puzzles. Overall, I think you did a great job balancing things here!
-The Antiquarian's Eyes needs a bit shorter cooldown. As for the rest, never had a problem figuring out the direction and getting to the treasure! Works really well!

Excavation:
-I must have missed the fissures or ways an excavation can fail. I'm still trying to grasp this part, but understand the important use of all the tools.
-The rock layers are well distinguished and easily evaluated.
-The augur at the beggining of the excavation needs to mark better or use different colors or symbols. Had a colorblind friend watching me do it and he didn't understand how I figured out where to dig. Greens and reds look the same to him. The glowy lines don't seem enough.

What did you think of the rewards themselves?

-I didn't find any Ancestral races motifs in 50 excavations, was expecting to get a bit better RNG here. As for the rest, got an Ebonshadow motif while digging in the Clockwork city and the rest was the usual overland gear and basic items to sell. It's okay-ish but I am worried about the Ancestral races motifs.

Were you able to find the individual locations within dig sites within a reasonable timeframe?

-Yes, most of the time is spent digging rather than looking where to dig!

Do you have any other general feedback?

1- Testing out in Alik'r on a character with no zone achievements I was able to do Pathfinder and get the map furnishing, in order to complete the 3 part codex I have to buy the lead from the vendor yet again and receive one more furnishing after excavating? Seems I am repeating myself for something untangible.


2- My objective was to gather information or pieces of the Ebon Dwarven Wolf mount, wanted to confirm my suspitions for 17 pieces in: 5 zones x 3 alliances + coldharbour + western skyrim, as the patch notes suggest. I picked the zone Alik'r Desert as it was easier for me to navigate in. During this time, on a non-achievement character (template), I succeeded in:
-World Bosses (to somewhat reasonable success) I managed to get the same 4 pieces of the mythic necklace.

Yet I failed to find any Leads in:
-Delve bosses
-NPCs (talking, pickpocketing, killing)
-Public Dungeon
-Fishing
-Groups of mobs
-Chests
-Dolmens/Dark Anchors

Overall I was able to find 5/10 antiquities of Alik'r and I have no idea how to get the rest...




3- Tested out earlier clearing all Antiquities in the clockwork city and was only able to get leads from the basic treasures that they provide in each zone. Clearing mobs, world bosses, delve bosses, you name it, didn't provide me with the last anquity lead (which is a furnishing). Really bad luck or am I looking in the wrong place?


And so TL;DR: Scrying and Excavation is fine as it is, the rewards seem okay, though I mostly got useless things and not exclusive to excavation. Progression seems unexistent, rotating between 3 treasures, the rest was rare to get or was repeated and didn't count towards Codex. Needs to be more clear as where to get the remaining treasures, improve the drop chance for leads or make them come from a variety of sources rather than a single, established one.


That's all I can remember for now, will post again If I have any more feedback!

Internet_Mask

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

• What did you think of the rewards themselves?

The furnishings are great but would work better if be stored in the collections tab instead of the inventory so they wouldn't need to be repeatedly farmed for. (i.e, the same way that the talking skull rewarded at the end of the Psijic questline is stored.)

Mystic items are great but need more incentive to pursue for character's that don't actually need them. A style page rewarded alongside visible mystic items such as the breastplate would give players who didn't actually need the items a reason to pursue them.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Do you have any other general feedback?

To account for the possibility of poor RNG players should be able to exchange leads at a vendor (orange for orange, purple for purple, etc,) for the rewards that actually interest them.