PTS Update 42 - Feedback Thread for Gold Road Main Quest [SPOILERS]

Arizona_Steve

Going through this entrance while mounted is causing me to dismount:



I did have an issue with Groundskeeper Gaius not placing the map on the table. It might be because I clicked through the text too quickly. Logging out and logging back in took me back to the beginning of the conversation, and going through the dialogue more slowly allowed him to place the map on the table and the quest to progress.

Groundskeeper Gaius has great hair though

In many places Beragon's speech does not match the dialogue text.



I was unable to talk to Tribune Alea Idolus after the second use of the Echonir at Hoperoot. The quest marker was there but I was unable to click to interact. Logging out and logging back in resolved this. Yes, that is the Staff of Worms

arisenlicious

I'm doing the quest with Beragon, 'when the ground shook' and the subtitles for his line show 'Volatile Familiar' instead of Beragon. when talking with the Greenspeaker.

His name normal when speaking to me.

verminjerky

Respectfully, I'd like to offer some critical but constructive feedback.

Someone else mentioned that Ithelia looks uncanny. I agree, and she doesn't look correctly mapped onto her actions and model, and most of all, she looks unfinished. Her skin, face, and eyes look flat and unalive, the shapes of her features don't match her model, her animations look slightly slow and exaggerated. I really hope this is not the final version of this character, she needs refinement. I'm personally finding her appearance distracting, it's making it difficult for me to take her seriously.



I think her design is amazing, I know the artists worked incredibly hard on her and in many ways it shows, so please don't think I'm trying to be mean. She looks wonderful in the trailer and while I understand it's not possible to achieve that level of realism in the game, there are base game characters who look much better - in fact base game characters do look better.

Of these two characters (the Nord is Thane Oda Wolf-Sister), which one would you think is a lost goddess? And which would you think was released ten years after the other?



What's more, I took both of these screenshots. Oda I took years ago on an older computer with weaker hardware at much lower graphical settings. Ithelia I took on a new, high-powered gaming computer with my graphics cranked up. That's as good as she can be made to look.

For an older game, I think ESO's characters look very good and often have very memorable designs, so I know the team generally puts out excellent work. I really want this chapter to be a success - I'm super excited for it and for ESO's very own Daedric Prince! I really hope people love and embrace Ithelia, so I hope to see her looking as great as other characters do upon release.

Edit: Typo.

arisenlicious

Tribune Alea Idolus doesn't take the path up to the King in Hoperoot. Attempted to get a screenshot but my girl flew and ascended up to the upper level.

arisenlicious

Cannot progress quest in 'Hold the Line'. Tribune Alea tackled Shardmarshal into this pocket realm. It wants me to defeat the Shardborn, but no one is appearing. Alea is just fighting the Marshal by herself. I've tried to log out and log in. Did not work.

TheImperfect

arisenlicious wrote: »

Cannot progress quest in 'Hold the Line'. Tribune Alea tackled Shardmarshal into this pocket realm. It wants me to defeat the Shardborn, but no one is appearing. Alea is just fighting the Marshal by herself. I've tried to log out and log in. Did not work.

Yes this is the same thing happening to me.

Soarora

arisenlicious wrote: »

Cannot progress quest in 'Hold the Line'. Tribune Alea tackled Shardmarshal into this pocket realm. It wants me to defeat the Shardborn, but no one is appearing. Alea is just fighting the Marshal by herself. I've tried to log out and log in. Did not work.

Shooting the trebuchet let them start spawning I think, but the waves really are underwhelming. Take too long to spawn and once they get to a certain point, they just stop. There's no danger.

Arizona_Steve

TheImperfect wrote: »

Apologies, thought it was part of main quest but can now see it's a side quest.

Same issue here with "Hold the line". It is unquestionably part of the main quest.

arisenlicious

Soarora wrote: »

arisenlicious wrote: »

Cannot progress quest in 'Hold the Line'. Tribune Alea tackled Shardmarshal into this pocket realm. It wants me to defeat the Shardborn, but no one is appearing. Alea is just fighting the Marshal by herself. I've tried to log out and log in. Did not work.

Shooting the trebuchet let them start spawning I think, but the waves really are underwhelming. Take too long to spawn and once they get to a certain point, they just stop. There's no danger.

It’s later in the quest unfortunately. Thank you though!

ArchMikem

I'd like to make a point about Ithelia's character model.

People are having a problem with her, because she looks too real. It's obvious to me ZOS spent the effort to give her much more "Human" features, which includes imperfections. I looked at that comparison between her and Oda Wolf Sister someone used and Ithelia looks a LOT more natural and real. The only thing I agree on is her face looking "lifeless". Her resting face expression could be worked on, but her appearance itself is great.

verminjerky

ArchMikem wrote: »

I'd like to make a point about Ithelia's character model.

People are having a problem with her, because she looks too real. It's obvious to me ZOS spent the effort to give her much more "Human" features, which includes imperfections. I looked at that comparison between her and Oda Wolf Sister someone used and Ithelia looks a LOT more natural and real. The only thing I agree on is her face looking "lifeless". Her resting face expression could be worked on, but her appearance itself is great.

Mmmkay.

OgrimTitan

You will be universally hated for erasing Ithelia again.

Players who don't care about lore and setting on the bigger scale will hate you because this solution kind of robes them from the satisfaction on the emotional level, leaving the feeling of no impact of all of their actions.

Players who care about the the setting and it's developement will hate you for pulling a big change and then taking it all back.

And most of all, this trick just doesn't work from the meta perspective. You go full "Remember the new guy?" trope - it's fine. But then you delete 'the new guy" again. While it may work in-universe, it certainly doesn't work for the audience. What is the point of trying to delete something you just made a public knowledge? How can something be "deleted" from a fictional universe that completely depends on and feeds on it's audience who can't just unremember the thing?

The logic of "She wasn't present in chronologically future games" doesn't make any sense to any person with a bit of reason. The world we see is sandbox with 100 people and 1 000 000 dungeons. It's an obvious shrinked, schematic miniature purposely omitting billions of locations, items, creatures and things.. Yet there are people who unironically say ESO isn't canon, because "I don't see no books about Three Banners War in my single titles". Will Three Banners War also be erased by Hermaeus Mora? Or raised and burned from the records by True-Sworn?

This comment will be lost among other opinions. But I must try to knock on Haven's door anyway, because I can't be silent in this case.

Soarora

ArchMikem wrote: »

I'd like to make a point about Ithelia's character model.

People are having a problem with her, because she looks too real. It's obvious to me ZOS spent the effort to give her much more "Human" features, which includes imperfections. I looked at that comparison between her and Oda Wolf Sister someone used and Ithelia looks a LOT more natural and real. The only thing I agree on is her face looking "lifeless". Her resting face expression could be worked on, but her appearance itself is great.

She does look very human, I’ll give them that. But there’s still inhuman errors such as the way her mouth moves and, the image posted doesn’t show it very clearly, but her eyelids aren’t shaped right. The crease is more ~ shaped, which isn’t how anyone’s crease looks like. That plus the lack of light in her eyes makes her really look uncanny rather than just weirdly detailed.

owaindraig

On the second to last quest when fight Toresard he just vanishes once his life is up and everyone stands aroumd - no way to advance it - yet people are commenting on the quest "in memory of" which is after this so some of you got past this point? What am I doing wrong? II can defeat him just fine. But then after he flies in the air nothing happens

WhiteCoatSyndrome

For the quest ‘Seeds of Suspicion’, lots of Beragon’s dialog audio is assigned to the wrong text.

Kaivalya

I visited the specified locations of two of the initial three objectives of "Paths of Chaos" and found nothing at either of them except NPC's offering other quests. If those quests are required for progression on the zone story quest, give them diamond icons instead of arrows. Ideally, make them sub-objectives of "Paths of Chaos". If "Paths of Chaos" is my tracked quest, they should show up as mostly-white diamond icons instead of black arrows or mostly-black diamond icons. At least in original game zones, it can cause confusion (and maybe even quest-breaking glitches) if you pick up zone story quests that you haven't been ~naturally led to yet, so white diamond icons please.

WhiteCoatSyndrome

Was finally able to complete Hold the Line. 🎉

Kaivalya wrote: »

I visited the specified locations of two of the initial three objectives of "Paths of Chaos" and found nothing at either of them except NPC's offering other quests. If those quests are required for progression on the zone story quest, give them diamond icons instead of arrows. Ideally, make them sub-objectives of "Paths of Chaos". If "Paths of Chaos" is my tracked quest, they should show up as mostly-white diamond icons instead of black arrows or mostly-black diamond icons. At least in original game zones, it can cause confusion (and maybe even quest-breaking glitches) if you pick up zone story quests that you haven't been ~naturally led to yet, so white diamond icons please.

I think this is because you can do those particular quests out of order and complete them before you start the main quest.

Belhawk1

Hold the Line quest is still bugged. I go thru the portal and no shardborn appear to fight me. I did take it order, but did the Inn quest 1st since it was my option.

WhiteCoatSyndrome

EDIT: Eventually I will learn to put bugs in the Bug thread and feedback in the Feedback thread, not vice-versa. 🤦‍♀️

ArchMikem wrote: »

I'd like to make a point about Ithelia's character model.

People are having a problem with her, because she looks too real. It's obvious to me ZOS spent the effort to give her much more "Human" features, which includes imperfections. I looked at that comparison between her and Oda Wolf Sister someone used and Ithelia looks a LOT more natural and real. The only thing I agree on is her face looking "lifeless". Her resting face expression could be worked on, but her appearance itself is great.

Her eyes are too big for her face compared to the other NPCs in the game. The effect is very Shadow over Cyrodiil. She’s a Daedric Prince so looking alien is fine…but in that case she doesn’t look alien enough for it to seem like an intentional choice.

EDIT AGAIN:

Notes on Gold Road main quest now that I’ve finished it and had some time to reflect:

• Capstone questline makes up almost half the West Weald story arc, and it’s the important half. Not keen on having the climax require previous DLC when both were/are CHAPTERS! I’d’ve put the fight with Ithelia in West Weald alone and made the capstone Vaermina/Peryite trying to stop the player from repairing the tears with the artifacts out of spite. Would have made that part less boring too.
• Too much of the questline is dependent on, “Yes, Proxy, I know helping Ithelia regain her power is directly contrary to what old Mora told you to do, but go ahead and do it anyway!” It’s very forced. It might have worked better if Ithelia herself didn’t know who she was and the power restoration was accidental, or if the entire previous questline wasn’t founded on trying to stop her from returning. It’s bad enough I’m half tempted to play the zones in reverse order on live.
• No mention of how Akatosh, Dragon God of linear time, interacts/interacted with the Daedric Prince of the multiverse. This seems like something he and/or Ithelia should care about and ought to at least warrant a lorebook or optional line of dialogue.
• I like how Ithelia’s crystal formations rearrange themselves depending on her mood. I was worried she was just going to be a generic angel design with broken glass wings, but at one point it’s a dress and crown formation - more expressive and creative than I was expecting.
• Ithelia’s face looks off. Her eyes are outsized compared to the other NPCs, it looks like she was ported in from a different game.
• I did like the use of the camera on Ithelia’s introduction at the Outcast Inn.
• Gadayn getting wiped out of existence/thrown into the multiverse and then plopped out again at the end felt contrived both ways. Should have pulled a Darian and kept him ‘dead’ as another quest hook (yes I noticed Leramil’s IOU hook, that doesn’t change my opinion), and he really needed a more convincing way to ‘die.’
• I’m conflicted about having main quests as optional sidequests before their designated point in the story. On the one hand, I’m glad ZOS is experimenting, and it’s thematically appropriate for Ithelia and her sphere. On the other, in this particular instance it was a bit confusing - I’d grabbed every quest in the zone I could find and got the Outcast Inn quest mixed up with the Ayleid maze quest, and couldn’t figure out why they were so repetitive until I got further into the story.
• I really, really liked the Outcast Inn quest; it was lore-heavy, visually appealing and did a good job introducing us to Ithelia and her powers/sphere. More like this please!
• Making the NPCs summarize everything that happened with non-optional dialogue needs to go die in a fire. Seriously, stop doing it!
• Fargrave being originally part of Mirrormoor really needed more time to breathe. If it belonged to Ithelia, what were the Bearers? Her minions? Opportunists who saw the abandoned Daedric plane and thought ‘sweet, free land!’? How are the current residents reacting to everything being engulfed in glass shards? What were the current residents doing with the Loom before Ithelia showed up, what were their theories about it?
• Sorilen and Nantharian being bad guys was really obvious so I’m glad the in-game reveal wasn’t dragged out.
• None of the major friendly NPCs were unbearable which was nice.
• I wasn’t really expecting Ithelia to make an impact so sending her to the real world writing her out at the end didn’t really surprise me. That said, the fact that it didn’t surprise me in and of itself is kind of disappointing.
• Mora being okay with both of us remembering seems a bit odd given that the mere act of remembering her caused so much trouble the first time around. My understanding is that everyone forgetting she exists is a requirement for destroying Ithelia’s place in the mythic, if someone mantles her later on all this effort was for nothing.
• This was minor, and easy to miss, but having Tribune Alea note that the bugs around the estate garden were from ‘deep underground’ and then Hoperoot having dragged Ayleid ruins out of the ground into the sky in a later quest was some nice continuity.

On the whole I thought this questline fell in the middle. It wasn’t bad but it could have been much better.

ArchMikem

Oh, the dialogue still treats the player like a 5 year old with a short attention span? Hooray.

Khressandra

Minor issue: when mixing the drink in the Many Paths quest, the carafe looks full before the drink is added; it should be empty and then look full afterwards.

Khressandra

Issue: starting The Untraveled Road, the quest says look at the Skein of Secrets. Beragon and Leramil both said their lines, so I can move on, but there was no image of the Skein showing the location.