Unstoppable (LC Trifecta) Lost to Invisible Skeleton Bug

Ezhh · January 28

Our group leader already submitted a ticket, but we decided to post here as well because this might happen to other groups.

On Sunday we completed Lucent Citadel with all hard modes. Our run time was 28:30 (under the 30 minutes required for the trifecta achievement) and we ended on 36/36 vitality with no deaths. The moment of joy soon soured, because the achievement wasn't awarded.

After going back through the trial we found a single enemy - a "Skeletal Necrotic" - standing undamaged where the second pack of enemies was encountered after defeating the first boss. This was the only enemy we were able to find, so we have to assume it's the only reason the achievement wasn't awarded.

The problem: this Skeletal Necrotic wasn't present when we originally engaged with the enemies in this location, meaning we had no way to defeat it, or to know it had been missed. This made it impossible to meet the conditions for the no death and trifecta achievements.

We've since heard from several end game players that there is a known bug where Skeletal Necrotic enemies are not correctly visible. It appears that they glitch and remain invisible/untargetable until some time after the other enemies in the area have been defeated. We've been told the issue was reported back on PTS, but it seems it was never fixed.

To make matters worse, the skeletons don't contribute to the trial score, so you also can't use the score to check that you haven't missed any.

As evidence the log can be compared to a recording made by one of our group members.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQXT9pgwW6I
At 5:58 in the recording, you see the last add in the trash pack die and there is clearly nothing else alive. You can also look to see there are no red dots in the navigation bar at this time, so we have no way to know there is anything still behind us.

https://www.esologs.com/reports/LCtvWhfjgY8c4ZwK?fight=6
This is the log for the same encounter. You can use the deaths of the last visible enemies to match the timing to 32 seconds into the logged fight. Here you can see on the log replay that the Skeletal Necrotic, despite not being visible to us, is still alive.

Losing a trifecta title, after months progressing it, due to a single weak trash add that bugged so it wasn't visible, is a very unfun experience. And while I'm fairly sure neither the ticket nor this post will lead to anything being done for our group (I'd love to be proved wrong), I hope it might give some increased awareness to anyone else who could get hit by this.

WAMB0 · January 29

Seems it is it time to once again ask: what happened to this tool ZOS wanted to create since Nov'21 ?

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7447948/#Comment_7447948
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8130751/#Comment_8130751

Since it has been over 3 years by now, surely there must be positive news about the progress, and that this case would fit perfectly to test the tool?

Ezhh · January 29

WAMB0 wrote: »

Seems it is it time to once again ask: what happened to this tool ZOS wanted to create since Nov'21 ?

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7447948/#Comment_7447948
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8130751/#Comment_8130751

Since it has been over 3 years by now, surely there must be positive news about the progress, and that this case would fit perfectly to test the tool?

Given the similarities to the missed PB achievements in the past (trifecta lost due to an add being effectively unkillable), it would be nice to hope for this, but I've neither seen nor heard anything to suggest this tool ever happened.

The most heartbreaking thing for us was being told the "invisible skeleton" issue was reported back on PTS, yet it went live like this anyway. The possibility that a trifecta could be lost in this way was known (though not by us), and instead of something being done to address it.... well, here we are.

isibaer · January 31

I would appreciate an offical message from ZOS at this Point.

Djennku · February 1

If anything comes of it, you can rest assured your group has done it once, and are completely capable of doing it again. You may not have the achievement this time, which yes is unfortunate BUT that doesn't mean it's the end. It only means you did it, and can always repeat that success over and over!

isibaer · February 1

Its about respect the peoples time.

Reginald_leBlem · February 1

Djennku wrote: »

If anything comes of it, you can rest assured your group has done it once, and are completely capable of doing it again. You may not have the achievement this time, which yes is unfortunate BUT that doesn't mean it's the end. It only means you did it, and can always repeat that success over and over!

This is an incredibly difficult trial.... sure they can do it again, but it's insane that they didn't get the achievement this time

Ezhh · February 1

It also breaks people's spirits. We were getting regular high vit runs up to the trifecta, now.... nope. While there are groups who can do things like this on demand and I have huge respect for them, there is zero guarantee we will get this again anytime soon, and we may well lose someone and have to effectively restart the prog.

No reply to the ticket yet btw. We're actually not sure if it's still open because it's not showing on the site at all. We would really appreciate a response and some communication about this.

Ezhh · February 2

Here's a clip of one of the skeletons bugging out and being unkillable. It's not quite what happened to our group (it also didn't show in the navigation bar for us), but this shows a skeleton inside a wall which we can't damage. It's exactly what happened with the groups who lost PB a couple years back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJbf2iKGAzc

isibaer · February 3

We got clapped by a Bug and ZOS is still quiet...

Sadzonka · February 3

Just adding my voice to this—our group put in so much time and effort to get this trifecta, only to lose it to an invisible add we had no way of knowing about. Now we have to spend even more of our personal time re-running the trial for something that wasn’t our fault. Really hope this gets some attention so others don’t run into the same issue.

isibaer · February 11

Its incredible that ZOS is just ignoring this bug and ignoring the effort the group was putting in this raid.
Dont mind me wrong, but its feels like they do not even care.

Ezhh · February 13

We've finally had some communication back from the ticket telling us achievements cannot be granted and offering us nothing at all. However we've been told separately that achievements can be granted. Which is really the case? I don't know.

I also want to note here that every reply has suggested they know this is a genuine bug. There hasn't been so much as a hint that this might not be a bug or that we did something wrong ourselves.

We all know that when the PB bug happened people were at least given the trifecta mount, so I cannot understand why our group is not being offered the same as a minimum.

@ZOS_Kevin I'm sorry to ping, but this has been left mostly ignored quite a while now. It shouldn't be so hard to get help for a bug this serious. Can we please get some assistance?

ZOS_Kevin · February 13

Hi all, thanks for the ping. After checking in, it seems like the team has this bug (from when the thread went up in Jan.) and they have reproduced the issue. They are working on a fix now. No ETA at the moment, but the bug is actively being worked on.

Ezhh · February 13

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all, thanks for the ping. After checking in, it seems like the team has this bug (from when the thread went up in Jan.) and they have reproduced the issue. They are working on a fix now. No ETA at the moment, but the bug is actively being worked on.

Hi Kevin,

Really appreciate you responding on this.

Could you please let us know if something can be done for our group? Can we at least get the mount in the same way that it was done for people who had the PB bug a couple of years back? I also understand that a tool was being worked on to fix achievement issues caused by bugs such as these. Was this never created?

There's no guarantee we can complete this a second time, so any help would be very welcome.

BahometZ · February 13

I admire the diplomatic way OP has gone about this. I'd have a bunch of undiplomaric words if this happened to my team. What a shemozzle.
Hope you get the outcome you seek.

Koshka · February 16

This really should be fixed, and I think it a situation like this ZOS should retroactively unlock the achievements.
These new trifectas are really hard, they literally take months of progging and it is not as easy as just "do it again". Focus and motivation are very important for this, and I can imagine how they feel after getting their victory taken away like this.

Ezhh · February 18

Answer today via ticket:
(typo is as per the ticket)

I regret to inform that, due to tools limitation, neither Customer Support nor the development team is able to make asjustments or grant achievements to player accounts. I am also sad to report that we are not able to grant the Achievement reward (Refulgent Mirrormoor Steed) for the issue faced.

So this confirms the tool we were told was being worked on years back was never created and that now even less support is given to groups encountering such serious issues than it was back when people lost PB due to something very similar.

The ticket goes on to suggest a "workaround" and then to ask us to check if it helps. This is a bit difficult: in our last run as a full group we lost the trifecta to a disconnect on Xoryn. We have had multiple people disconnecting in recent raids because the server barely seemed stable this last week. And to hammer the nail in the coffin, we've now lost a group member as well, so it's literally impossible for us to get this as a group anymore and we would have to give a new person the time to learn, just to "check" a "workaround".

This entire experience has been made needlessly more frustrating due to how hard it is to get meaningful communication from ZOS.

@ZOS_Kevin I'm again sorry to ping you, but why can't we get at least the same treatment as the groups that lost PB? There's an actual precedent for the mount to be provided in these cases. I don't want to badger you, but it shouldn't be so hard to get a straight answer on this. Every communication we've received agrees this is a bug (why else offer us a "workaround"?), so it doesn't look like the reason is linked to support not agreeing that we earned it fairly. It shouldn't be a technical limitation because it's been done before. What's going on?

I'm sad to say it's feeling very much like our group simply isn't high profile enough to be worth the bother. This is a horrible message to take away from this.

Messi · February 19

Ezhh wrote: »

Answer today via ticket:
(typo is as per the ticket)
show previous quotes

I regret to inform that, due to tools limitation, neither Customer Support nor the development team is able to make asjustments or grant achievements to player accounts. I am also sad to report that we are not able to grant the Achievement reward (Refulgent Mirrormoor Steed) for the issue faced.

So this confirms the tool we were told was being worked on years back was never created and that now even less support is given to groups encountering such serious issues than it was back when people lost PB due to something very similar.

The ticket goes on to suggest a "workaround" and then to ask us to check if it helps. This is a bit difficult: in our last run as a full group we lost the trifecta to a disconnect on Xoryn. We have had multiple people disconnecting in recent raids because the server barely seemed stable this last week. And to hammer the nail in the coffin, we've now lost a group member as well, so it's literally impossible for us to get this as a group anymore and we would have to give a new person the time to learn, just to "check" a "workaround".

This entire experience has been made needlessly more frustrating due to how hard it is to get meaningful communication from ZOS.

@ZOS_Kevin I'm again sorry to ping you, but why can't we get at least the same treatment as the groups that lost PB? There's an actual precedent for the mount to be provided in these cases. I don't want to badger you, but it shouldn't be so hard to get a straight answer on this. Every communication we've received agrees this is a bug (why else offer us a "workaround"?), so it doesn't look like the reason is linked to support not agreeing that we earned it fairly. It shouldn't be a technical limitation because it's been done before. What's going on?

I'm sad to say it's feeling very much like our group simply isn't high profile enough to be worth the bother. This is a horrible message to take away from this.

I am not sure why you keep referring to "That PB group" or something along those lines. I was simply told to do PB all over again when that happened to my group years ago. It extended our prog by about another 4 months.
And mate, to be real with you, you are not the first nor will you be the last to lose a trifecta to bugs. We have had to reset MULTIPLE times a night due to bugs.
I do wish that they fixed all this so we would never have to deal with these sort of conversations. Let us hope they do better in the future because trust me man I know how frustrating it can be. Anyways good luck to you and your team man.

isibaer · February 19

Imagine ZOS would care about the Players who face such bugs and Help them.

Oh ZOS asked to do it again after a workaround... That is pure Help. Thx alot.

Maybe the Servers are stable... Oh no they arent.

Ezhh · February 19

Messi wrote: »

show previous quotes

Ezhh wrote: »

Answer today via ticket:
(typo is as per the ticket)

I regret to inform that, due to tools limitation, neither Customer Support nor the development team is able to make asjustments or grant achievements to player accounts. I am also sad to report that we are not able to grant the Achievement reward (Refulgent Mirrormoor Steed) for the issue faced.

So this confirms the tool we were told was being worked on years back was never created and that now even less support is given to groups encountering such serious issues than it was back when people lost PB due to something very similar.

The ticket goes on to suggest a "workaround" and then to ask us to check if it helps. This is a bit difficult: in our last run as a full group we lost the trifecta to a disconnect on Xoryn. We have had multiple people disconnecting in recent raids because the server barely seemed stable this last week. And to hammer the nail in the coffin, we've now lost a group member as well, so it's literally impossible for us to get this as a group anymore and we would have to give a new person the time to learn, just to "check" a "workaround".

This entire experience has been made needlessly more frustrating due to how hard it is to get meaningful communication from ZOS.

@ZOS_Kevin I'm again sorry to ping you, but why can't we get at least the same treatment as the groups that lost PB? There's an actual precedent for the mount to be provided in these cases. I don't want to badger you, but it shouldn't be so hard to get a straight answer on this. Every communication we've received agrees this is a bug (why else offer us a "workaround"?), so it doesn't look like the reason is linked to support not agreeing that we earned it fairly. It shouldn't be a technical limitation because it's been done before. What's going on?

I'm sad to say it's feeling very much like our group simply isn't high profile enough to be worth the bother. This is a horrible message to take away from this.

I am not sure why you keep referring to "That PB group" or something along those lines. I was simply told to do PB all over again when that happened to my group years ago. It extended our prog by about another 4 months.
And mate, to be real with you, you are not the first nor will you be the last to lose a trifecta to bugs. We have had to reset MULTIPLE times a night due to bugs.
I do wish that they fixed all this so we would never have to deal with these sort of conversations. Let us hope they do better in the future because trust me man I know how frustrating it can be. Anyways good luck to you and your team man.

From what I recall it took a few groups hitting the bug before they started doing it. But it's something they 100% did after a certain point. I followed it really closely because I was progging PB myself at the time, and also because I ran (still do) a large trial Discord where we had people showing up asking for the PB role despite not having the achievements unlocked, but having the mount to use as evidence they were in one of the groups this applied to. So the precedent to at least unlock the mount was set from there.

I'm really sorry you went through this as well, and it's wrong you had to do it again. They should treat people at least the same now as the best outcome we've seen in the past though. At least that way trial players could be reassured ZOS will be consistent and do what they can, and we could all be a bit less concerned about game-breaking bugs like this.

ZOS_Kevin · February 19

@Ezhh Can I get the ticket number your group lead submitted for this? Sorry if I missed it earlier. With that info, we can chat with the team and see what we can do.

Ezhh · February 19

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

@Ezhh Can I get the ticket number your group lead submitted for this? Sorry if I missed it earlier. With that info, we can chat with the team and see what we can do.

Thanks Kevin.

It should be:
250204-002574

Please let me know if there's anything else you need from us.

Veinblood1965 · February 20

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

@Ezhh Can I get the ticket number your group lead submitted for this? Sorry if I missed it earlier. With that info, we can chat with the team and see what we can do.

That's nice of you to look into this for them. I don't do trials but can't imagine months worth of practicing and missing that due to a bug.

Necron77 · February 25

Finally we did the Trifecta again and this time it was working.

But still no correct answer from ZoS about the bug or a tool to give achieves...

Anyways... This chapter is closed for me.

Messi · February 28

Necron77 wrote: »

Finally we did the Trifecta again and this time it was working.
But still no correct answer from ZoS about the bug or a tool to give achieves...

Anyways... This chapter is closed for me.

Congratulations all!!!! Mount pics??

isibaer · February 28

Yeah ZOS will not help you at all. Sad to say this. They could've prove themselves but you see, that they dont even care. Hopefully noone else will run into that Bug.

Ezhh · February 28

Messi wrote: »

Congratulations all!!!! Mount pics??

Thank you!

isibaer wrote: »

Yeah ZOS will not help you at all. Sad to say this. They could've prove themselves but you see, that they dont even care. Hopefully noone else will run into that Bug.

I am just left not understanding why communication is so difficult. I guess we'll never know why we weren't offered the mount when this has been done in the past, or why the tool mentioned so long ago seems to have never happened.

Kevin - if you are still looking into this, I've been contacted by quite a few players who find this very concerning, including guild leaders outside the server we play on. I've had players tell me they are reconsidering trying to move into trifecta-level trial groups because their faith in ZOS handling problems is gone. Another has told me they won't get ESO+ again after seeing how ZOS handled this, and one of our group has now left the game. It might not be obvious, but things like this are damaging.

We've been told communication will improve and we've been asked about the problems trial players face, but little ever seems to change and lessons rarely seem to be learned. I hope no other groups experience this, but please have something in place to make sure they are treated consistently and fairly in the future if they do. We all understand bugs will make it into the game - the real issue is how they're handled when they have negative consequences for players.