PTS Update 43 - Feedback Thread for Witches Festival

ZOS_Kevin

This is the official feedback thread for Witches Festival. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

• How do you feel about the distribution of rewards during this event?
• Did anything not function to your expectations?
• What are your thoughts on the Lord Hollowjack encounter?
• Do you have any other general feedback?

Aliyavana

this isn't live in pts yet, correct? always excited for halloween adjacent things

Aliyavana

Im liking that we finally see Hollowjack and I hope to see a similar boss fight for the New Life Festival as well. They already have that story about hircine's aspects fighting over the sun from https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:From_Old_Life_To_New and this interview https://en.uesp.net/wiki/General:New_Life_Festival_Interview that they can adapt to a boss fight

seecodenotgames

I haven't tested anything related to the event yet this year, but one thing I noticed while I was in one of my houses was I kept hearing werewolf noises.

At first I thought a player had spawned in my house and was using the werewolf abilities, but there was no one there just the sounds every few minutes. Not sure if this is intentional,.

Pelanora

I hope the balance of motifs is more new fewer old, as the guild bank just fills up with all the old motifs noone wants....

RaddlemanNumber7

The prep quest for entry to the Hollowjack Trial is really weak design. Go to a meaningless location in Tamriel, have a short conversation with a "victim" of Hollowjack, portal to Detritus, run along a unilinear corridor, click on a white arrow, get returned to Tamriel, talk to the "victim" again. Repeat that procedure twice more. No combat, no puzzles, no chance of even taking a wrong turn. Just a time sink. Glad I won't be doing it on Live.

Erorah

Disappointed with the new quest for Witches Festival, The Lord of Fear.
As one poster said above, the prep quest is unremarkable.. But then the challenge to fight Hollowjack is of trial level - or at least WB.
Not only can one not find enough players to test this fight on the PTS, there is no 'Advanced Solo' version of this to do.

Not sure how others have felt about it. I do not know many pts testers among my peers. This is unfairly penalizing solo players. And while it will be easier DURING the Live Witches Festival, as there will be enough players around to group with, anyone with off-prime play time will simply be unable to do this quest daily.

Still, unable to test.

Nilandia

Ran through the Hollowjack quest last night with a friend. I ran as DPS, and my friend as tank.

I wasn't paying too much attention to the dialogue, as I plan on focusing on that on the live game. The plot seemed fairly straightforward and linear. I was running a template character, and I was really feeling the lack of wayshrines. Fortunately I'd used the item to give me ownership of all the houses, so I had at least some teleport points and a fully trained mount.

The painting of the areas of Detritus, however, was excellent. The area of the orc victim was particularly good. I had a small startle at one point in that area that even I had to appreciate, despite how much I hate jump scares due to being so sensitive. I did notice one point where pumpkin specters were walking along an overhead bridge. On my screen, there were gaps in the bridge, so at points it looked like the specters were walking on thin air. My friend, however, didn't have the gaps on their screen.

The fight with Hollowjack was unique in a mostly good way. There were some very spooky moments, like when you had to crouch to keep from getting spotted while scaring off the crows. I'm glad I brought an arcanist so I could cleave into all the adds or it might have gotten overwhelming.

The resource drain was particularly punishing, as it took us a bit to figure out the scarecrows were connected to the mechanic. The debuff having a crow icon and stack indicator was a good clue, though. Once we handled them, the fight became a lot easier. At least the resource drain didn't affect my ulti!

My main critique of the fight is the constant use of fear. It's extremely thematic, of course, so I would expect fears. But it came so frequently that we often were chain feared from one into another. Combine that with the resource drain so we often couldn't cast any abilities, and I spent a good portion of the fight unable to do anything except running away from things. I'd use a potion for a burst of resources, only to go back to regretting my choice of running Velothi a few moments later.

Granted, it was just the two of us. It may be easier with more people, so we could handle the scarecrows better and spread out the AOES. Even so, we were eventually able to clear on our first attempt.

Side note: I'm not sure if it was intended, but I'm glad I was able to self-rez during the fight instead of having to wait on my friend.

I haven't gone back to check, but I'm going to assume that we'll need to run the full quest every day. I could see this becoming a bit tedious if it's the same quest day after day. A way to jump straight to the fight would be nice.

The rewards themselves seemed a tad bit underwhelming. I don't remember everything that we got in our plunder skulls, but my friend got a fragment for the new owl pet, and I got a purple Apocrypha furnishing which I'm hoping is new. I'm not sure if the rewards were worth the effort, though perhaps other people might disagree. At the very least, a guaranteed drop for something like a style page or fragment would be nice. Make it worth the effort of obtaining.

Overall, I enjoyed the spookiness of the experience, but I can see it becoming a bit of a slog trying to do it every day. Since the quest giver is in the event area, it should be possible to find people to group up with, but it may still be off-putting for solo players. I do appreciate the challenge for a duo, but I could do without the constant CC.