In your opinion, what are the strong and weak points of Gold Road?

Greeding

After playing through Gold Road, I noticed some major areas of improvement and other areas ZOS has taken steps backward on.

Starting with the strong points:
-The writing has improved, especially when compared to Blackwood. I had a few new favorite quests, such as the Fort Colovia quest, and the Terror of the Weald. A lot of the characters feel fleshed out and not one-dimensional.
-The zone itself is beautiful and new imperial assets are always nice.
-Connecting to previous existing lore, such as the Temple of Julianos, putting Sutch in the zone, and accurate topography seen in Oblivion

Weak points:
-The zone really feels lifeless and stuck in time. Nothing changes, such as when you save a town, the enemies are still present and it makes you feel like you've completed nothing.
-Scribing attempts to breath new life in combat, but right now its just a bare-bones system with not much use, and will probably bottle neck the few useful abilities and not add much diversity to builds. The storyline for scribing felt a bit lazy too, using old Summerset assets and previous existing zones to give you more "Do this 3 times, talk to this person, repeat" quests.
-The amount of locked doors and sparse chests, sacks, and bags make the zone feel claustrophobic. Not only does this make recipe hunting a pain, it also neglects the explorers and roleplayers of the community.

What are your thoughts of the strong and weak points of Gold Road?

Rkindaleft

I think the zone is really pretty but I don't think it actually did anything better overall when compared to previous chapters outside of how the zone and delves look. I've ranted about this before but I'm not a fan of paying the same price for the chapter given the noticeable reduction in content. To me it feels like they just slapped on the Scribing system to a Q4 Zone with a couple of extra features to sell it as a chapter.

To me the chapter has several issues like:

1) The map isn't any bigger than say Western Skyrim above ground and that chapter came with essentially 2 zones to make up the difference.
2) As you said, too many locked doors and inaccessible areas make the zone feel really unfinished and superficial.
3) Bosses and the world event are REALLY annoying with all the immune phases, making bosses into boring time sinks that serve no purpose other than to pad out the play time and thus I don't want to participate in the dailies outside of the delve quest.
4) I know some like it but in my opinion the main questline felt pretty rushed and the ending was unsatisfying, we needed way more lore on Ithelia and a Q4 Mirrormoor zone to tie out the story, its not a questline I have an interest in doing on multiple characters. Not to mention half of the story is instead Wood Elf drama where that could've been used to dive deeper into Ithelia's background instead of just retracing her steps from the past.
5) Scribing is way too tedious and grindy and also unfriendly to alts.

Outside of the trial (which I think is the best in years) this is the first chapter I have felt that I didn't get my money's worth out of.

EdjeSwift

To speak on this first:

Greeding wrote: »

-The amount of locked doors and sparse chests, sacks, and bags make the zone feel claustrophobic. Not only does this make recipe hunting a pain, it also neglects the explorers and roleplayers of the community.

What are your thoughts of the strong and weak points of Gold Road?

I actually have found West Weald to be quite full of containers, chests, sacks and bags; just not in the town. The delves are rich in terms of containers and the wilds of West Weald boast a number of spots where containers are plentiful.

As for pros and cons, I'm fine with the chapter, I got my money's worth in terms of dollars per hour of entertainment. The content is sparse in terms of what a chapter should give us, the companions being pushed to Q4 hurt the chapter, companions have been a big part of the chapters for me in terms of content and longevity, I love grinding out their skills and levels but without them I'm in serious maintenance mode right now. I don't even know if the U43 update will rope me back into the game to any serious degree.

MYM burnout is gonna be real so we'll see later this month how U43 falls out but overall I am very much in line with the other forum post about losing interest in West Weald quick; I've just run out of stuff to do in the new chapter, got enough ink to last me for a while, got my script grinds done; I'm pretty much down to an IA run a day at most outside of my daily log ins & endeavours. The new anniversary event doesn't even rate on the scale of bothering with for me.

xylena_lazarow

From a PvP main standpoint

Strong: Scribing system adding a lot to PvP builds, Seducer mythic a welcome addition to the meta, Skill Styles are a lot of fashion fun, West Weald is a pretty zone, the world bosses and Mirrormoor dolmens can be fun

Weak: Scribing is blocked by a daily time gated chore grind that takes you away from West Weald and has you repeat decade old base game delves and overworld quests, heavily punishes players who want Scribing on alts

FlopsyPrince

The promised Quality of Life improvements are very disappointing so far.

tincanman

Strong points: they are still working on new content.

Weak points: too ginger.

Rkindaleft

I see the orange thing argued here on the forums a lot.

Am I the only one who doesn't hate the saturated autumn look of the zone?

JiubLeRepenti

According to me, its strongest point was the trial. I had alot of fun doing it in vet and the last part between 2nd and last boss was very cool and brought new mechanic.

The worst part for me was the end of the main quest. I was expecting a bit much for the 10th anniversary. And the skin looks rly bad imo.

pklemming

A container should be a container... always. If it looks like a bag or a box, it should be openable.

Gold Road was all kind of meh. it was a very pretty meh, but Meh, all the same.

Scribing could have been good, but it felt like an unfinished mess, with poor maths by zos... again... making the required item to scribe few and far between for most people.

Bugs on release, with one boss showing up every couple of hours(now fixed.

Overland bosses with immune phases(no one likes these).

Poor mob balancing, making one of the public dungeon group boss harder than some of the world bosses.

Apart from 'pretty', I am struggling to find a plus point of this expansion. Nothing drew me in, it was just content to clear, with literally nothing being memorable.

The trial was interesting, but not pug friendly at all. This seems to not have been considered when making the trial. The HM knot mechanic is a little overtuned, but a reasonable challenge. it is a shame there is only one decent set from there.

Supreme_Atromancer

I think they've done a stunning job on the world aesthetics. That's a big highlight for me. The attention to detail is astonishing. The lichens on the bedrock in the northern part of the zone, for instance. The architecture, stunning. Hoperoot was breath-taking. Everything that Valenwood ValenSHOULD have been. I love that the zone is connected to other zones in multiple ways. My one criticism is that maybe the zone could have had more verticality?

I'm only up to part 3 of the main quest, but have done a lot of side quests. So far the writing has been very good. The zone stories make the West Weald feel very connected to the rest of the world, and that has resonated very strongly with me. IMO its some of the best writing so far. Love it.

I don't really get the think with the Dark Company. I LOVED the idea of the vignettes, but don't really understand why they were doing what they were doing.

I liked Scribing, and am very thankful the developers have implemented it. I can guess why they would want to go gently, gently with it. Right now, I've done all I can do with the system, made 2 skills I use, and am now really just accumulating ink I have no real use for. I can see a lot of potential for the system, and I hope it grows into all that potential. I hope we get the chance to use grimoires multiple times in the future (one grimoire can have multiple great possibilities you might want to use at the same time). And personally, I'd love to see some exploration-based skills eventually.

lardvader

Have yet to spend more time there but the music for this chapter is amazing! Beneath autumn leaves

loveeso

Yeah, I agree with what others said about scribing. It is just too much grind for someone who has a lot of characters, like different supports or tanks for different group setups, and so on. Don't buy till they fix it unless you have only one character or just love to waste your life on grinding .
Recent Reviews on Steam: Mostly Negative.

Ashryn

I love the beauty of the zone, especially the look of Nature taking back the buildings in the Valenwood parts, and that we have finally gotten a little bit more of Bosmer lore. I am disappointed, though, that we only have a smattering of new Wood Elf furnishings...and they could be a little bit more imaginative! Hoperoot was lovely, but I am not happy that it is locked off once you do the quest.

I enjoyed the quests, including scribing, and felt the writers did a better job on them then in the recent past chapters. The bosses and incursions (dolmens) were fun. Scribing could have excellent possibilities in the future, but I do feel that they have weakened those skills too much, since they don't really replace any of my usual skills with anything better. As to the vanity skill styles re-coloring...not very exciting at all to me.

Loved Skingrad! Just like a real medieval city and the details were nice. Loved the widow singing at the grave site, the architecture, the colors.... Definitely NOT liking all the unlockable doors and lack of containers to loot inside and out!

All in all...a beautiful chapter with an interesting story, but way too short of a chapter that could have benefited from more content.

Veinblood1965

Immune phases on bosses. It's getting me to where I am seriously considering waiting till after the next chapter is out before buying it. Take the Incursions for example...

• Get three side bosses down to 1.2 mill health EACH with their own immune phases
• Get the main boss down a bit who goes immune
• get three mini bosses down a bit in health
• back to main boss who then goes immune
• get three side bosses down a bit in health
• kill said main boss, sigh....

Add to that all the world bosses have immune phases except one

there's got to be a change, it's not about it taking longer, it's just aggravating, how about a teleportation boss who if you get too close, or use an AOE or if you don't roll dodge YOU are stunned for 10 seconds, something, anything but these inv phases please.

Don't get me wrong I really enjoyed the zone, it is well designed, good quests and dialogue, scribing is interesting, great scenery. A step up from some of the other recent zones. It's just the phases have been present the last few expansions and they are getting worse.

tsaescishoeshiner

Strong point: Betu
Weak point: Needs more Betu

Honorable mention: Caledonia Gregorious (needs her own DLC pronto)

Necrotech_Master

stuff i liked:

• the idea and flexibility of scribing, and looking forward to seeing it fleshed out some more
• the story was pretty decent
• the trial is fun

stuff i did not like:

• the main story spent too much time on the recollection wood elves than ithelia, there was only a handful of quests actually involving ithelia that she felt more incidental than the main focus
• ink grind for scribing, the entire system feels unusable with the quantities of ink that actually drop
• too many bosses with immunity phases, its awful for WBs, but i found it to be kind of OK for the mosaics because it gave time to get there, but it would be more annoying to complete if you were solo or small group, even some of the public dungeon bosses have immunity phases

the actual zone was alright, the forest area was kind of annoying to navigate at times, and the no-mans land of the wildburn area was kind of interesting though it didnt feel like there was much there, the rest of the zone i felt like it was too one-note in terms of color

Pelanora

Rkindaleft wrote: »

I see the orange thing argued here on the forums a lot.

Am I the only one who doesn't hate the saturated autumn look of the zone?

It's very very very pretty at sunrise

joergino

In addition to all the weak points mentioned already:

Wayshrines that don't allow you to mount up

Silaf

Weak points:

1: Meta exist. All the sets and the new scribing feature aren't meta so 99,99% of players are not using them (except maybe the rare 1 skill in PvP).
This does damage the economy too since there is less request for new materials and crafting materials.

2: Copy pasting the same map and elements from previous dlc simply reskinning the content. Is getting old after 10 years...
Same number of elements on the map dolmens are the same daily quests ecc...


Strong points:

1: Finally a new mainline story INTRODUCING NEW LORE!!! And it's actually well done in my opinion.

2: Styling is a success.

3: A great free house for completing the zone and a new skin for completing all the main quests in the game aknowledging the work done in 10 years.

4: Great look for the map. Skingrad is a well designed city. A little minus for unaccessible areas like hoperoot tough.

Mathius_Mordred

loveeso wrote: »

Yeah, I agree with what others said about scribing. It is just too much grind for someone who has a lot of characters, like different supports or tanks for different group setups, and so on. Don't buy till they fix it unless you have only one character or just love to waste your life on grinding .
Recent Reviews on Steam: Mostly Negative.

You do know that you only have to do the 5 minute intro quest on other characters to access the scribing right? Also, I've accumulated enough scripts on my main to fully spec out at least 4 other alts now. Hardly a grind at all.

Hapexamendios

I like the story. The boss immunity phases is a mechanic that is used way too much and needs to be sent to Oblivion never to return.

Shara_Wynn

Positives:

1. The crafting area is the best in the game with everything close together.
2. Wayshrines are situated fairly close to each world incursion event which makes them quick and easy to get to.
3. World incursion events are back to being open to everyone (unlike Nymics).
4. Some of the furnishing pieces are just lovely, with the addition of "clutter" pieces to make houses seem "fuller".
5. The new motif dropping from delves and world bosses is pretty nice looking.
6. The new dye from the Trial is really nice.
7. The zone itself is stunning. Yes I love those orange sunsets/sunrises in the Sutch area.
8. Skill Styles are a nice addition. I can't wait for these to be expanded to include more colors and class skills.
9. Some of the animations on the scribed skills are really fun.
10. Some really interesting craftable and overland sets.

Negatives:

1. I am missing the new companions.
2. Invulnerable phases on everything.
3. Linking a previous chapter (Necrom) to the completion of the main story line of The Gold Road.
4. Tedious main story quest line that HAS to be done with the same character that did the Necrom main story line.
5. Including the Antiquarian Chase in the "Saviour of" achievement.
6. It feels like there is very little to steal from the environment.
7. Having to obtain scripts for all your alts. They should at least have made these tradeable.
8. Lack of luminous Ink drops.
9. Scribing needs a LOT of tweeking. There is hardly ANY scribed skills that are better than regular skills.
10. Scribing is a total gold sink if you have multiple characters.

method__01

story wasn't bad, the pub dungeons specially the Ayleid one are fantastic imo (wish they drop some Ayleid plan too, like the tall bookcase that eludes me al these years) and delves very well designed -like al previous chapters
i liked the long scribing quest too,not the scribing skills that much but ok ,maybe in the future

what i dont like is the immunity faces of some bosses -Fang and Talon fe
and the yellowish -orange of the landscape ,for farming mats its a killer for eyes ,same for snow in other areas

S2RDK

I think it is a very nice chapter - I only have one issue with it - After completing it with my main char, I really don't feel the big urge to take my 8 other chars through. I liked it a lot, the first time.

barney2525

well, weak points are obvious. Its a soft metal and its heavy.

doesn't take long before there is a lot of uneven road with potholes.

whitecrow

Greeding wrote: »

The zone really feels lifeless and stuck in time. Nothing changes, such as when you save a town, the enemies are still present and it makes you feel like you've completed nothing.

Isn't that pretty much true of most of the game?

agelonestar

Maybe it's just me, but I thought Gold Road was the best executed new Chapter since Summerset.

I genuinely don't think there are any significant "negatives".

loveeso

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

loveeso wrote: »

Yeah, I agree with what others said about scribing. It is just too much grind for someone who has a lot of characters, like different supports or tanks for different group setups, and so on. Don't buy till they fix it unless you have only one character or just love to waste your life on grinding .
Recent Reviews on Steam: Mostly Negative.

You do know that you only have to do the 5 minute intro quest on other characters to access the scribing right? Also, I've accumulated enough scripts on my main to fully spec out at least 4 other alts now. Hardly a grind at all.

Hey Obviously, I wasn't talking about the quest but the following (per character):

11 grimoires (for now, more will probably be added with future updates)

21 focus scripts
20 signature scripts
26 affix scripts

67 scripts in total (for now, more will probably be added with future updates)

1 x luminous ink for each script applied to a grimoire each time you do it (3 skills per grimoire = 3 x luminous ink)

So, for 20 characters, it would be:

220 grimoires
1340 scripts
660 x luminous ink if all grimoires used on each character just once (more if multiple times, and obviously, less ink if not all grimoires used)

That's quite a grind in my grimoire but ofc we may disagree as to what constitutes a grind

Necrotech_Master

Shara_Wynn wrote: »

Positives:

1. The crafting area is the best in the game with everything close together.
2. Wayshrines are situated fairly close to each world incursion event which makes them quick and easy to get to.
3. World incursion events are back to being open to everyone (unlike Nymics).
4. Some of the furnishing pieces are just lovely, with the addition of "clutter" pieces to make houses seem "fuller".
5. The new motif dropping from delves and world bosses is pretty nice looking.
6. The new dye from the Trial is really nice.
7. The zone itself is stunning. Yes I love those orange sunsets/sunrises in the Sutch area.
8. Skill Styles are a nice addition. I can't wait for these to be expanded to include more colors and class skills.
9. Some of the animations on the scribed skills are really fun.
10. Some really interesting craftable and overland sets.

Negatives:

1. I am missing the new companions.
2. Invulnerable phases on everything.
3. Linking a previous chapter (Necrom) to the completion of the main story line of The Gold Road.
4. Tedious main story quest line that HAS to be done with the same character that did the Necrom main story line.
5. Including the Antiquarian Chase in the "Saviour of" achievement.
6. It feels like there is very little to steal from the environment.
7. Having to obtain scripts for all your alts. They should at least have made these tradeable.
8. Lack of luminous Ink drops.
9. Scribing needs a LOT of tweeking. There is hardly ANY scribed skills that are better than regular skills.
10. Scribing is a total gold sink if you have multiple characters.

there are unbound scripts that can drop, but they are exceptionally rare, ive only seen a handful of people link them since gold road came out

i get significantly more scripts just opening various daily boxes, and put extras in my bank to trade to alts that need them, and with the 3 per week that can be bought from the scholarium, i dont feel i will ever have to buy an unbound script

Rkindaleft

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

the main story spent too much time on the recollection wood elves than ithelia, there was only a handful of quests actually involving ithelia that she felt more incidental than the main focus

This is my main complaint about the story as well. TBH the best quest in the whole questline was the one where she's sitting at the inn and you talk to her. We really needed more Ithelia and less wood elf drama especially considering that it was like half of the questline while not really being that related to the main story outside of retracing her steps.

TaSheen

Rkindaleft wrote: »

I see the orange thing argued here on the forums a lot.

Am I the only one who doesn't hate the saturated autumn look of the zone?

No. I love it. Fall (and winter too) is my "home season".