Should High Isle and Amenos be separate zones?

APGaming

High Isle and Amenos are one contiguous worldspace in ESO. Zone chats in Gonfalon Bay are seen in Amenos Station. When on Amenos, you will get a "High Isle" loading screen, which is confusing to some people and a small lore annoyance to others.

For context: Zones can have split worldspaces and still be unified on the in-game map. Take, for example, Southern Elsweyr. Did you know, the island of Tideholm is actually a separate zone from Southern Elsweyr. It does not share a zone chat and it has a unique loading screen with a full-length teleport.

Should this be the case with Amenos? Think of it like Western Skyrim and Blackreach: GC. Both zones have separate music and zone chats, as well as better performance because of this. High Isle and Amenos have unique music but nothing else to separate them. You cannot swim from High Isle to Amenos or vice versa, and you must go through a loading screen to transfer islands. Amenos could have a unique loading screen of its own with this change. Why not separate them for continuity's sake?

Alternatively ZOS could rename the loading screen to "High Isle and Amenos" to match the name of the map. Including lore about Amenos on the loading screen would be nice too!

NOTE: I haven't tested Firesong PTS because I'm on console, but if Galen and Y'ffelon have the same problem it needs to be fixed here too.

What do you all think?

Amottica

Leave it as is

They are clearly part of the same zone and Zenimax will not change it per comments they have made about change requests on other content.

As it is they do not truly share the same zone map. The only thing I would change has the quest show on the map regardless of which island of the two islands we are on.

Hapexamendios

Leave it as is

No reason to change it. For one thing, when people are asking for help at WB or telling which vent is up, it is much better having them as one zone.

Danikat

Leave it as is

If I've understood you correctly you're saying the advantages of splitting them are:

• 1 additional image on a loading screen
• Slightly more precise location name on the loading screen
• Fewer people to talk to in zone chat

I really can't see that it's worth it, especially since I suspect for ZOS splitting one map into two is not a simple task. Also I'd consider fewer people in zone chat a disadvantage.

I assume the vast majority of people get to Amenos using the boat from High Isle or selecting one of the wayshrines on the map and in either case it will be obvious which island you're going to.

The only time I could see it being confusing is if a PC player is using an addon to automatically teleport them to High Isle and then finds the person it teleported them to is actually on Amenos so they have to go through an additional loading screen to get to their intended destination. (It would have to be a PC player using an addon to do it automatically, because if they were doing it manually they could ask the person they're teleporting to which island they're on.)

Smoky

Leave it as is

So many more important changes needed before this, I don't agree or disagree with you but just feel its down the list on changes needed but that's just from my view, maybe others feel stronger about this.

Anfieldkris

Leave it as is

I find it helpful to see high isle zone chat such as ‘x boss is up’ when in Amenos as I will often get a world boss quest in one location and a delve quest in the other, or be doing a vent in one and have the boss quest in the other. More important things to sort out imo.

SpacemanSpiff1

no. and the quest markers should be fixed on the map.

zaria

Leave it as is

SpacemanSpiff1 wrote: »

no. and the quest markers should be fixed on the map.

Yes doing WB or delve quests is a bit annoying as the map pointer does not point to the target but to the boat who is annoying.

Remathilis

Leave it as is

I'd prefer they were more linked so I could see map markers and active vents without jumping from the main city to High Isle to Amenos to see what's active.

Tandor

Leave it as is

I'm totally relaxed about it.

TaSheen

Leave it as is

Isn't a problem for me the way it is now.

Veinblood1965

SpacemanSpiff1 wrote: »

no. and the quest markers should be fixed on the map.

This! You get a gold star or at least and insightful! That is so darn annoying in those zones not being able to tell which direction or where the quest is currently at.

PrimusTiberius

I just wish the quest markers would show up, you know, If you're on High Isle and your quest in on Amenos, you should be able to see which wayshrine to travel to, its a QoL thing

Destai

Separate High Isle and Amenos into independent zones, but they still share the same zone map

Personally, I'm not a fan of the two-fer zones we've been getting since Greymoor. It just feels jarring. The quest markers aren't consistent either, especially with the gated cities we've also been getting.

APGaming

Separate High Isle and Amenos into independent zones, but they still share the same zone map

For clarification to alot of this, I am a fan of zone chat, and I definitely think they should still share, it just wouldn't be the case if they split them. The advantages to the split are:

-More Volcanic Vents active at any given time (since they would have separate cooldown timers.)
-Amenos would be recognized as a region of its own. (I personally love this island, more than High Isle. And it deserves to be at least mentioned on the zone loading screen considering it's 40% of the zone.)
-Better performance in both zones.

That being said I just wanted to see how everyone else felt. My friend pointed out during the event that it's annoying sometimes with the vents and treasure maps/surveys saying they're in High Isle but not really.

wolfie1.0.

Leave it as is

Leave it as it is. It's hard enough 5o navigate to them with how tiny they are. Make them bigger on the world map

ghastley

Leave it as is

Since the dailies are given for the combined zone, they need to stay as is.

LannStone

Leave it as is

I'm glad somebody brought up the lack of quest markers. That's been bugging me ever since the zone came out. It's like they put in wayshrines and don't expect anybody to use them!

Amottica

Leave it as is

APGaming wrote: »

For clarification to alot of this, I am a fan of zone chat, and I definitely think they should still share, it just wouldn't be the case if they split them. The advantages to the split are:

-More Volcanic Vents active at any given time (since they would have separate cooldown timers.)
-Amenos would be recognized as a region of its own. (I personally love this island, more than High Isle. And it deserves to be at least mentioned on the zone loading screen considering it's 40% of the zone.)
-Better performance in both zones.

That being said I just wanted to see how everyone else felt. My friend pointed out during the event that it's annoying sometimes with the vents and treasure maps/surveys saying they're in High Isle but not really.

There is no benefit to Amenos being recognized as a region of its own. Most of us clearly do not care about that and think the current design is just fine.

Caveat, we would like quests markers to show up regardless of of which island the quest is on.

Better performance is questionable since instances are created when the zone fills up leading to negligible performance changes if any at all.

Having more volcanic vents active is not a big deal since the current design works fine. Certainly not worth the effort to make such changes.

As I stated earlier, Zenimax will not be changing the design and we know this per comments they have made previously when large numbers of players complained about a design aspect of a chapter. Zenimax said they would not change the artistic design as that is what they chose. This is no different.

spartaxoxo

Leave it as is

The only thing it needs is the quest markers fixed.

Necrotech_Master

Leave it as is

spartaxoxo wrote: »

The only thing it needs is the quest markers fixed.

100% this (and the same goes for any other "mini" city zones like leyawiin in blackwood, or solitude in western skyrim)

APGaming

Separate High Isle and Amenos into independent zones, but they still share the same zone map

So based on the feedback in this thread it appears we need a further linkage of High Isle and Amenos into a single zone instead of this weird split nonsense. To make it clear to new players that these are still not one contiguous landmass, I suggest ZOS look at this option:

APGaming wrote: »

Alternatively ZOS could rename the loading screen to "High Isle and Amenos" to match the name of the map. Including lore about Amenos on the loading screen would be nice too!

They also need to standardize quest markers across the zone, when in Gonfalon Bay and out in the zone, either island. The problem now is because the boats to Amenos currently function as "doors" so they get the door quest marker by default. If and when they fix this, they need to implement it in other areas that are divided by a "door". For example, Solitude and Western Skyrim, Leyawiin and Blackwood, etc.

Someone also brought up the scaling issue on the world map making navigation harder on the world map. The Systres Archipelago needs a zoom window similar to CWC or Artaeum but on the Tamriel world map.

We also need clearer naming for the sections of menus like antiquities and set pieces, treasure maps and crafting surveys, as well as what zone a guildie is in for ease of travel. Rename all of this to "High Isle and Amenos" and we'd have much less confusion and a more polished and consistent game.

@ZOS_GinaBruno
@ZOS_EdStark

AcadianPaladin

Leave it as is

. . . but fix quest markers. For some of the dailies the quest description tells you where the WB or delve is, like, I need to go to delve X in nornthern Amenos. That is very helpful but if fixing the quest markers is not practical, add full consistency so every delve/WB daily contains such a description.

Dr_Con

TELL ME WHERE EVERYTHING IS ALL OF THE TIME!

TELL ME WHICH WAYSHRINE TO GO TO

DONT LET ME DISCOVER IT FOR MYSELF

HAVE THE BOSSES BE SAME NAME AS THE MAP PIN MARKERS AND THE QUESTS

SATISFY ME, MAKE THE GAME EASIER

ONLY PEASANTS USE BOATS TO CROSS BETWEEN ISLANDS

LET ME FAST TRAVEL TO THE BOSSES

GIVE INTO MY DEMANDS!

ArchangelIsraphel

Leave it as is

Leave as it is. It was a blessing during the event to be able to call out and recruit people in High Isle while standing at a boss in Amenos. And it was great to be able to join a group and get a quest share from someone over in Amenos. If this were changed, I know for a fact Amenos would turn into a dead area where it's difficult to recruit for bosses and get dailies done because no one wants to linger there.

APGaming

Separate High Isle and Amenos into independent zones, but they still share the same zone map

Dr_Con wrote: »

TELL ME WHERE EVERYTHING IS ALL OF THE TIME!

TELL ME WHICH WAYSHRINE TO GO TO

DONT LET ME DISCOVER IT FOR MYSELF

HAVE THE BOSSES BE SAME NAME AS THE MAP PIN MARKERS AND THE QUESTS

SATISFY ME, MAKE THE GAME EASIER

ONLY PEASANTS USE BOATS TO CROSS BETWEEN ISLANDS

LET ME FAST TRAVEL TO THE BOSSES

GIVE INTO MY DEMANDS!

Well this is just arrogant. It's a lore consistency issue. Amenos is NOT High Isle. It's a separate island. In that case, I shouldn't be told by the game I'm entering into High Isle's world space, it's just lazy and incorrect. The game doesn't tell you you're entering Western Skyrim when you teleport to Blackreach. You can't call a region/zone "High Isle" if a large portion of the zone is not High Isle. The same problem happened with Northern Elsweyr (but in reverse) and ZOS fixed it two patches later. The zone was called Elsweyr on the map and Northern Elsweyr in the loading screen. The former was incorrect because it was not all of Elsweyr. The opposite problem is true with High Isle and Amenos. Group them together, call it High Isle and Amenos and then the issue is null and void. Is it too much to ask for a simple fix to a lore inconsistency in this game?

HerrKeinTipp_MrNoTip

I didn't want to vote coz: 'leave it as is, but fix the TERRIBLE bug where you have to be on the right island to get anything close to a useful quest waypoint' isn't the same as 'leave it as it is'.

Unbelievably buggy to even launch, let alone still be there.

Danikat

Leave it as is

Just curious: if the issue is lore consistency do you have the same objection to zones like Bangkorai or Reaper's March which cover what the lore says are several distinct areas? Those two in particular cover areas of two separate provinces (High Rock and Hammerfell for Bangkorai, and Valenwood and Elseweyr for Reaper's March).

Bangkorai is only really the name of the pass in the middle of the map, the upper area is the Kingdom of Evermore and Mournoth (which is sometimes part of that kingdom, sometimes part of Wrothgar, sometimes independant, depending on local politics) and the south is the Fallen Wastes which is geographically the Alik'r Desert and usually part of the Kingdom of Hammerfell.

The Covenant maps have a lot of examples like this because Daggerfall (the game) had such a massive map, but there's similar 'merged' maps all around ESO, so I'm surprised it's seen as an issue this time.

APGaming

Separate High Isle and Amenos into independent zones, but they still share the same zone map

Danikat wrote: »

Just curious: if the issue is lore consistency do you have the same objection to zones like Bangkorai or Reaper's March which cover what the lore says are several distinct areas? Those two in particular cover areas of two separate provinces (High Rock and Hammerfell for Bangkorai, and Valenwood and Elseweyr for Reaper's March).

Bangkorai is only really the name of the pass in the middle of the map, the upper area is the Kingdom of Evermore and Mournoth (which is sometimes part of that kingdom, sometimes part of Wrothgar, sometimes independant, depending on local politics) and the south is the Fallen Wastes which is geographically the Alik'r Desert and usually part of the Kingdom of Hammerfell.

The Covenant maps have a lot of examples like this because Daggerfall (the game) had such a massive map, but there's similar 'merged' maps all around ESO, so I'm surprised it's seen as an issue this time.

In these cases, Bangkorai for example, the name of the pass gave the entire region the name. When an NPC for example calls the zone by name, they call it Bangkorai, regardless of which subzone they're referencing. With the Systres, they are four separate islands and not one NPC or piece of lore refers to Amenos as High Isle. High Isle is one entity because of the singular nature of the word "isle"; when separated by a body of water, this excludes Amenos from that region, unlike the situation in Bangkorai. It's not so much that the environment is different, it's the geography that separates them and what the NPC accounts reflect.

Dr_Con

APGaming wrote: »

Dr_Con wrote: »

TELL ME WHERE EVERYTHING IS ALL OF THE TIME!

TELL ME WHICH WAYSHRINE TO GO TO

DONT LET ME DISCOVER IT FOR MYSELF

HAVE THE BOSSES BE SAME NAME AS THE MAP PIN MARKERS AND THE QUESTS

SATISFY ME, MAKE THE GAME EASIER

ONLY PEASANTS USE BOATS TO CROSS BETWEEN ISLANDS

LET ME FAST TRAVEL TO THE BOSSES

GIVE INTO MY DEMANDS!

Well this is just arrogant. It's a lore consistency issue. Amenos is NOT High Isle. It's a separate island. In that case, I shouldn't be told by the game I'm entering into High Isle's world space, it's just lazy and incorrect. The game doesn't tell you you're entering Western Skyrim when you teleport to Blackreach. You can't call a region/zone "High Isle" if a large portion of the zone is not High Isle. The same problem happened with Northern Elsweyr (but in reverse) and ZOS fixed it two patches later. The zone was called Elsweyr on the map and Northern Elsweyr in the loading screen. The former was incorrect because it was not all of Elsweyr. The opposite problem is true with High Isle and Amenos. Group them together, call it High Isle and Amenos and then the issue is null and void. Is it too much to ask for a simple fix to a lore inconsistency in this game?

you've totally sold me.

You don't make a map of Hawaii without including Maui.

They should expand the map to include Galen.

CONSISTENCY FOR ALL!

FOR THE ARCHIPELAGO!

APGaming

Separate High Isle and Amenos into independent zones, but they still share the same zone map

Dr_Con wrote: »

APGaming wrote: »

Dr_Con wrote: »

TELL ME WHERE EVERYTHING IS ALL OF THE TIME!

TELL ME WHICH WAYSHRINE TO GO TO

DONT LET ME DISCOVER IT FOR MYSELF

HAVE THE BOSSES BE SAME NAME AS THE MAP PIN MARKERS AND THE QUESTS

SATISFY ME, MAKE THE GAME EASIER

ONLY PEASANTS USE BOATS TO CROSS BETWEEN ISLANDS

LET ME FAST TRAVEL TO THE BOSSES

GIVE INTO MY DEMANDS!

Well this is just arrogant. It's a lore consistency issue. Amenos is NOT High Isle. It's a separate island. In that case, I shouldn't be told by the game I'm entering into High Isle's world space, it's just lazy and incorrect. The game doesn't tell you you're entering Western Skyrim when you teleport to Blackreach. You can't call a region/zone "High Isle" if a large portion of the zone is not High Isle. The same problem happened with Northern Elsweyr (but in reverse) and ZOS fixed it two patches later. The zone was called Elsweyr on the map and Northern Elsweyr in the loading screen. The former was incorrect because it was not all of Elsweyr. The opposite problem is true with High Isle and Amenos. Group them together, call it High Isle and Amenos and then the issue is null and void. Is it too much to ask for a simple fix to a lore inconsistency in this game?

you've totally sold me.

You don't make a map of Hawaii without including Maui.

They should expand the map to include Galen.

CONSISTENCY FOR ALL!

FOR THE ARCHIPELAGO!

See even the guy whose caps lock is broken came around