Harrowstorms problem

bearbelly

I haven't messed with these yet, except to jump in on a couple that were already under attack by players, so I'm not familiar with how they are *supposed* to work.

I was on my way to a dig site yesterday, in the western portion of Western Skyrim, when I looked up and saw a storm spinning, so I took a detour to see if I could catch it in time.

When I got there, the storm was spinning, and there were the three travelers sitting at the center of the site right under the vortex. But nothing else was happening.
I even walked up to the travelers and spoke to all three of them, and still nothing happened.
I waited there for roughly 20 minutes, and nothing changed; storm continued spinning, travelers sat there, nothing happened.

So I'm correct in thinking that's *not* the way it's supposed to go?

What DOES trigger the ritual when it's not bugged?

Jaraal

Wildberryjack wrote: »

I've pretty much given up on these. I'm not going to sit around for hours hoping to catch one. If I'm near one when it pops while questing I'll head to it but otherwise just forget it.

I was digging up antiquities and exploring the zone with an alt for over an hour, and only once did anyone ask if a storm was up. I told them Northern Watch had been up for some time, but was bugged. Before I logged off, I went back, and it was still broken.

So, yeah. Not even a month into the new expansion, and harrowstorms are dead content.

Galwylin

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

Harrowstorms are, by nature, chaotic events and the forces controlling them are not as predictable as one might think. If a Harrowstorm has not shown up at a designated location recently, it may behoove you to seek them elsewhere.

In short, Harrowstorms are more random than say... Dark Anchors. They are not a set pattern and there is no guarantee that not seeing one at a specific location for any given time will result in it showing up soon.

Isn't this making the assumption folks just love riding around the map? Since they spawn in designated places I'm not sure the random nature is what we're seeing. Those in the north are especially obnoxious as they "randomly" are far from a wayshrine. Why not simply have the map icon flash red when active to save the travel time? I'm sure a lot of us have the pleasure of not finding one nearby only to travel to the northern ones only to have it defeated as we approach. I think some fun needs to be injected and little less chaos which really doesn't seem to be serving a purpose here. And surely you know how these will fair after a few months.

xS Foxy

It's ever bug on Xbox, ever the same waste time ...

Jaraal

bearbelly wrote: »

What DOES trigger the ritual when it's not bugged?

The lead encounter dev explained how they are supposed to work in the first half of the first page of this thread.

carly

I'm enjoying the harrowstorms but the rewards are somewhat lacking. Can we at least have furniture plans that drop in the satchels like they do in Elsweyr please?

MasterSpatula

carly wrote: »

I'm enjoying the harrowstorms but the rewards are somewhat lacking. Can we at least have furniture plans that drop in the satchels like they do in Elsweyr please?

They do.

They're just preposterously, nonsensically rare.

BlueRaven

I am really hoping the patch tomorrow addresses some of these concerns.

Agalloch

Lazy fix for HS "The Harrowstorm daily quest now requires one Harrowstorm to be completed, down from three, and awards more gold and experience for completion."

Why reduced requirement?

They only needed a faster spawn rate and to spawn more than one in the same time.


English is not my native language.

bearbelly

Jaraal wrote: »

bearbelly wrote: »

What DOES trigger the ritual when it's not bugged?

The lead encounter dev explained how they are supposed to work in the first half of the first page of this thread.

Nope.

The stuff the dev talks about on the first page does not include the information about which I was asking.
He talked about the need to defeat a storm before another one will spawn at another site.
And the fact that "no monsters" is troubling and needs to be looked into.
He did not mention what action of ours triggers the monsters to appear.

The storm I was at was already spinning. That's not the condition I allude to as "triggered."
I walked up to the three travelers sitting under the vortex. I am assuming that those individuals were not the bad guys, because I engaged in mundane, non-adversarial dialog with all three of them.
But nothing happened. Even for several minutes after I talked to and then moved away from the travelers.

Should approaching them trigger the "active" ritual; the monsters; the part where we fight to "defeat" the storm?

One might assume that is the case, but if it is, then why do they have dialog that the player has to initiate?
(they don't just start talking as you approach; you have to "choose" to talk to them by pressing 'E')

If simply approaching the travelers was the trigger, you wouldn't have the chance to initiate their dialogs.

Obviously the "active" portion of this storm did not get triggered.
So, what is the trigger supposed to be?
This isn't a dev question. Any player who has been at a properly functioning storm before it ramps up knows what the trigger is.

Agalloch

I hope at the next patch ZOS will put more incentive for doing HS . The rewards are bad.

Hurbster

Harrowstorms are a deliberate, manufactured thing. We learned this in the story. So how are they random again ?

Varana

bearbelly wrote: »

Obviously the "active" portion of this storm did not get triggered.
So, what is the trigger supposed to be?
This isn't a dev question. Any player who has been at a properly functioning storm before it ramps up knows what the trigger is.

There is no trigger for players. When the game decides that a storm becomes active, the monsters will appear by themselves.
The travellers get consumed when a storm is activated.
What you experienced, was exactly the bug that people talked about earlier: visible FX but no actual storm.

bearbelly

Varana wrote: »

bearbelly wrote: »

Obviously the "active" portion of this storm did not get triggered.
So, what is the trigger supposed to be?
This isn't a dev question. Any player who has been at a properly functioning storm before it ramps up knows what the trigger is.

There is no trigger for players. When the game decides that a storm becomes active, the monsters will appear by themselves.
The travellers get consumed when a storm is activated.
What you experienced, was exactly the bug that people talked about earlier: visible FX but no actual storm.

Thank you for taking the time to answer my question.

Jaraal

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

Also, if a Harrowstorm is up, it needs to be defeated before a storm at another site will spin up

Seems like the dev already answered what the trigger was (defeating the previous storm). But I'm glad someone was able to clarify it for you.

PoppaVape

@ZOS_Finn Last night I waited @ Gloomforest Ritual Site for an hour and a half. Counted 7 calls for Dwarf being up. Gloom never once spawned. This does not seem random, this seems broken.

Wildberryjack

PoppaVape wrote: »

@ZOS_Finn Last night I waited @ Gloomforest Ritual Site for an hour and a half. Counted 7 calls for Dwarf being up. Gloom never once spawned. This does not seem random, this seems broken.

You were there too? I was getting SO mad! Eventually I decided to head to Dwarf and got there just as they were about to finish it and OMG I managed to tag the main boss and get credit. Then they said Miner's was up AGAIN so I hauled butt there and again managed to tag the final boss and get credit. Then to my shock they yelled out that Gloom was finally up so I ported as close as possible and just tagged the final boss in time. I mean!

It was Miner's and Dwarf for quite a while spawning, it took Gloom hours to finally come up. I totally agree that it doesn't seem so "random" when it's bouncing back and forth between two of them with the third seemingly out of the loop. Frustrating too.

kathandira

Agalloch wrote: »

Last night I waited over an hour to spwawwn a harrowstorm...I was bored to wait more so I quit the game and gone to sleep.

Why the respawn time is so big?

What's the point to have so many harrowstorms if they spawn probably on time per day?

I was glad to see so many harrowstorms but when I saw these awful spawn rates ....

ZOS must fixed them and make them to have the same spawn rate like a dolmen or geyser.

Its boring to w8 over an hour and no spawn .



English is not my native language.

I simply don't wait. I way shrine around all 4 corners till I find an active one. Usually takes at most 10 minutes.

TequilaFire

Really makes the Harrowstorm Chaser achievement frustrating.

JohnnieKBaller

kathandira wrote: »

I simply don't wait. I way shrine around all 4 corners till I find an active one. Usually takes at most 10 minutes.

It's amazing to me how many don't get how this works. If it's taking an hour for one particular harrowstorm to spawn, it means that a different one is up and isn't being closed. They could probably use your help in closing it! But no, people will just sit there and wait.

It baffles me when people ask "Any harrowstorms up?" It's like, "wow... you literally only have to look at the sky to see which one is currently active, but you can't be bothered to do ANYTHING for yourself..."

You can literally see every harrowstorm in Western Skyrim from 2 wayshrines, barring the below grounds ones, which don't have any effect on the above-ground ones...

SonOfSoma

I find the easiest thing to do is to wait at Morthal wayshrine...
That way you can see if 3 storms in the distance start.

Phaedryn

I am confused by this thread...

I just assumed that HS followed a simple set of rules.

1. Only one can be active at a time.
2. Once one is defeated another spawns at a random location.

I never wait for one, since I assumed they spawned randomly any specific one could take hours to spawn. Instead I just jump to a couple of wayshrines and find the currently active one.

I have never spent more than 5-10 minutes looking for a harrowstorm. When doing dailies I don't even bother looking since I am most likely going to see a couple as I am completing the other daily quests.

I see a lot of people here asking for the respawn to be shortened or for more than one to be active at a time, but that would be horrible for the economy given the value of the drops. As it is it is absurdly easy to jump from active harrowstorm to active harrowstorm.

Again...I don't get this thread at all.

Inaya

Back when this thread was started (June) the storms did indeed take forever to spawn. The reason the last 3 posters "don't get it" is because by the time they commented on this thread the respawn was fixed. LMAO for a bad necro

Phaedryn

Inaya wrote: »

Back when this thread was started (June) the storms did indeed take forever to spawn. The reason the last 3 posters "don't get it" is because by the time they commented on this thread the respawn was fixed. LMAO for a bad necro

Ahh...I guess I should have looked at the date of the original post, my bad. Given the current event I just assumed it was a current thread rather than a necro.

JohnnieKBaller

Inaya wrote: »

Back when this thread was started (June) the storms did indeed take forever to spawn. The reason the last 3 posters "don't get it" is because by the time they commented on this thread the respawn was fixed. LMAO for a bad necro

Looking back at the comments now, I see what you mean. It was bumped and I stay in "recent" on the forums.

But that still doesn't justify the constant "any harrowstroms up?" comments in zone all the time.

ElCapitanAmericano

I am amazed by how many people are confused about how the Harrowstorms work.

• Only one storm can be up at a time

• As soon as one finishes then another spawns

• People are constantly posting in zone chat which Harrowstorm is up

• The storm spawns randomly at any of the locations both above and underground

joerginger

Not only those basics seem to be confusing, but the actual harrowstorm mechanics seem so, too. The quest giver clearly tells us something like "I would start with the witch pikes." Many players seem to hate this piece of advice and instead try to get everybody else killed by ignoring the witch pikes.

MyKillv2.0

I stated my opinion of Harrowstorms...

[snip] My advice learned the hardway, keep it positive

[Edit for discussing disciplinary action.]

rpa

Today I found 2 storms with storm effect up at same time, both with travellers in middle and no mobs. I went to do other things. By zone chat one storm eventually started proper and got done and the other started after that and got done too.
Not at all sure if other players saw it, both storms had players idling like nothing out of ordinary was happening. (I tried to ask if the storm was bugged but got no answer.) So it may or may not be some kind of client side bug.

InRetrospect

GhostOfAnEra wrote: »

Sometimes one harrowstorm would spawn twice, whereas another I would be at won't spawn at all. Or if I leave a ritual site to go to another one, the one I was at previously all of the sudden spawned and the ritual boss is almost dead after 30 seconds of porting and going to other ritual site.

Definitely bugged as hell.

ZOS, just set a timer like the dolmens and don't let these spawns be random.

You guys obviously didn’t read their response because they said they’re the same as dolmens. They’ve gotta be completed before another can pop up.