NPC Duplication (Mercenary Arcanist) (Quest: The Fateweaver Key)

Technica

I've come across 2 instances so far during the quest The Fateweaver Key, where I can seee 1 NPC (Mercenary Arcanist) duplicated multiple times standing inside one another.

PrinceShroob

In a lot of quests, if an NPC is following you, you'll see other players with generic versions of that NPC following them so you don't see multiple copies of the original NPC. For example, during "The Grip of Madness" in Southpoint, Daraneth follows you, but other players see a generic Mages Guild Apprentice instead.

I'm guessing that's done because these NPCs technically provide combat assistance. If an NPC doesn't actually help you fight, then you usually won't see a generic version.

The Mercenary Arcanists represent Azandar, and they're copying his movements, which is why they all overlap (Azandar's behavior is unusual since normally, when an NPC follows you, they continue to follow when you need to speak to them to update the quest, but Azandar moves to specific spots to speak to him). However, it's odd to see them at all, since while Azandar does follow you and does help you in combat, there's no fighting during the Cipher's Midden portion of the quest.

I would think the best solution would be to not have other player's Azandars visible during this portion of the quest.

wilykcat

The infinite quest npc follower clones. It's here in eso too 🙃.

Very common and it's especially cringe in world of warcraft. I remember in the shadow lands expansion when they came up with a new zone and quest line there was a quest follower npc and I saw over 100 clones of the same exact npc. Yikes 😬. That was the worst lag I've seen in my life of online gaming.

Maybe if the game had an option to hide quest npc followers options or a view npc follower on other players limit settings.