Writhing Wall Event (Bosses)

Mr_Klaus · October 17

I haven't seen this topic brought up, so here's this post.
Why replace the public dungeon bosses in almost every location? Why? They're not needed for daily quests, the invasion storyline doesn't lead to them, and they play no role in the event. They don't even drop any special loot (and what they do drop is a joke: a bottle and 20 gold coins. All those small interior items like mugs/barrels, books, and the like could have been put in the event quest boxes, like in other events). These bosses simply invaded us, entered a cave at the edge of the map, and sit there alone among zombies, vampires, bandits, and flowers, doing nothing. It's as if they decided to take a break in this cave from their worm family, alone. At the same time, they replaced the original dungeon bosses, which means you can't complete the dungeon completely, you can't get the achievement (you'll have to wait a month for U48 to release for the original boss to return and complete the dungeon), some of the undaunted quests are impossible to complete, and some people reported that they couldn't get the clues for excavations. This useless part of the boss event ruins the rest of the game, and for what purpose? It just happens. Why couldn't they have sent these bosses wandering around the open area or sending them to attack cities? This is an invasion, why did they lock them in caves? I can't imagine what it's like for newbies who enter the starting dungeon and instead of a regular boss with 200,000 health, see a boss with 1.8 million health and just don't understand what's going on.
Give the person who came up with this a candy reward and send them on vacation.
Ps: I understand that many have already completed all the dungeons and closed the locations, and they are not particularly concerned about this change, but do not forget about new players and those who have not yet completed the entire storyline.

Finedaible · October 17

I was also wondering what the point of invasions was. The "Field Marshal" bosses don't seem to drop anything unique, and the invading Daedra and Worm Cultist have worse drop rates for souls than farming Coldharbour. Literally no point to the invasions as far as I could tell.

ESO_player123 · October 17

These bosses do drop new furnishings, but I was also wondering why new players/alts should wait for a month before being able to properly complete delves/public dungeons.

Finedaible · October 17

I killed quite a lot of field bosses and only got like 1 single, really old furnishing that is a common drop from DOLMENS... If there are any new or unique furnishings it sure ain't worth your time farming them. Not that I care much for furnishings I'll never use anyway, this game just needs more useful rewards for the game-play loop as a whole.

Snip, a simple heavy sack is a better reward at this point.

prof-dracko · October 18

Worth also mentioning that they seem to be significanty stronger than usual delve bosses, making it near impossible for newer players who are hoping to just explore.

valenwood_vegan · October 18

Well one thing I'll say about them (besides the fact that they're static and repetitive and useless and add basically nothing to the event) is that they're a great demonstration of the overland difficulty problem.

They're strong enough that they will leave many delves and public dungeons inaccessible to some players, meanwhile I blew through them like they weren't even there and was so bored by the time I completed the golden pursuit that I have no interest in going near one of the invaded locations for the rest of the event.

Ishtarknows · October 18

Leads are definitely dropping from the bosses. I think my base game only Alt account picked up every one available lol. Most of the time they drop the usual boss stuff - zone gear, gold, some vendor trash - but I've had event furnishings too.

I'm sure the Devs changed something in one of the hot fixes though because the two bosses in Sanguine's Demesne could be killed one after the other and both drop a full loot haul, but now one always only gives gold. I assume there's now a cool down on boss loot, which is disappointing.

LootAllTheStuff · October 18

I would imagine they put the bosses in the delves and dungeons so that players without the season pass could fight them. I'm not sure the full consequences of this were thought through though, as highlighted in @valenwood_vegan 's comment.

The other thing about them is that the spawn rates seem very inconsistent (unless I'm comparing pre and post hotfix?). In the Alikr Desert delve where you normally encounter Thinks-with-Gears, they were spawning extremely rapidly, and a large group was in their fighting them. Yet in a couple of other locations (Siluum and one in Shadowfen) they were back to the usual boss timer.

Gabriel_H · October 18

Short Answer: Flavour
Long Answer: It would be a pretty poor invasion from another realm if they only invaded one place.

Syldras · October 18

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Long Answer: It would be a pretty poor invasion from another realm if they only invaded one place.

How does it serve the Worm Cult to occupy the Armature of the Inner Sea, which is a tiny and unremarkable Dwemer ruin in Stonefalls?

Gabriel_H · October 18

Syldras wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Long Answer: It would be a pretty poor invasion from another realm if they only invaded one place.

How does it serve the Worm Cult to occupy the Armature of the Inner Sea, which is a tiny and unremarkable Dwemer ruin in Stonefalls?

Foothold to the nearby towns. It's perfectly placed between two towns is it not? Honestly, some of y'all take this far too seriously. It's background flavour to an event, accept it and move on.

Syldras · October 18

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Foothold to the nearby towns. It's perfectly placed between two towns is it not? Honestly, some of y'all take this far too seriously. It's background flavour to an event, accept it and move on.

Part 1 of this year's story tells us they're not planning to invade Tamriel. They have different plans and at most are collecting souls to fuel the Wall so they remain undisturbed in East Solstice. Collecting souls in some Dwemer ruin? Or in a delve full of skeletons? How does that make any sense? It could have easily been written in a way that makes more sense for the story.

whitecrow · October 18

I haven't gotten anything memorable from the field marshals, and they are pretty tough to solo. We deserve a reward.

Gabriel_H · October 18

Syldras wrote: »

Part 1 of this year's story tells us they're not planning to invade Tamriel. They have different plans and at most are collecting souls to fuel the Wall so they remain undisturbed in East Solstice.

... which they achieve by incursions into Tamriel (aka the Soul Reapers). The 1st part of the story was about the Worm Cult's desire to resurrect Mannimarco which they have now done, and so they moved onto other goals.

Syldras · October 18

Gabriel_H wrote: »

... which they achieve by incursions into Tamriel (aka the Soul Reapers). The 1st part of the story was about

I didn't want to go into detail because I didn't want to spoil the story for people who haven't played it yet...

Anyway, I know exactly what their goals are since I have finished the whole story on PTS - twice, for testing reasons. And an invasion into whole Tamriel still isn't their goal. From the narrational perspective, having them hide anywhere from some shabby Dwemer ruin to the daedric pocket realm of Crow's Wood (which is part of the Evergloam) just makes no sense.

Mr_Klaus · October 18

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Short Answer: Flavour
Long Answer: It would be a pretty poor invasion from another realm if they only invaded one place.

No one's talking about invading a single location. They could have placed them in open areas at any given location, instead of shoving them into caves to replace the original bosses. It's even more comical when a dungeon has four original bosses and two from the event (what's the point of changing two out of six?). It's pointless. It can't even be called an event backdrop, since the boss simply sits alone in a cave, and the only thing that gives it away is a blue blip on the world map. The event backdrop is a wall (which we ultimately won't destroy and will remain standing), the event backdrop could have been random battles between the Worm Cult and the army on the road and a giant boss marching towards the city. Honestly, it seems like the developers didn't know how to make the event large-scale and just slapped blue blips on the map.

FlameDark · October 18

Can they at least phase the dungeon if you haven't completed it yet... Or at least count the Marshals or whatever at the end as part of the achievement for clearing it. Now everyone who hasn't done them is locked out of clearing it and a couple of achievements until the event is over...

SkaiFaith · October 19

I think what I get is this causes a lot of hate against the worm cult and a strong will to cancel them from the face of Nirn - sounds like it's working as intended XD

Treeshka · October 19

They could have simply added different versions of the delves or public dungeons. Upon porting in player can decide which version they want to enter, invaded or the original.

Gabriel_H · October 19

Mr_Klaus wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Short Answer: Flavour
Long Answer: It would be a pretty poor invasion from another realm if they only invaded one place.

No one's talking about invading a single location. They could have placed them in open areas at any given location, instead of shoving them into caves to replace the original bosses.

Technical limitations.
Open world instances have a higher player cap than delves/PDs.

magnusthorek · October 19

prof-dracko wrote: »

Worth also mentioning that they seem to be significanty stronger than usual delve bosses, making it near impossible for newer players who are hoping to just explore.

Plus, some of them replace an existing boss. The other day when killing watery creatures was on Endeavours, I went to Crow's Wood Public Dungeon in Stonefalls to kill the wisps around the Wispmother boss and to my surprise it had been replaced by a Field Marshal. Now, I've finished that place and got my achievement 10 years ago or so, what about a newcomer playing it for their first time?

Gabriel_H · October 19

magnusthorek wrote: »

prof-dracko wrote: »

Worth also mentioning that they seem to be significanty stronger than usual delve bosses, making it near impossible for newer players who are hoping to just explore.

Plus, some of them replace an existing boss. The other day when killing watery creatures was on Endeavours, I went to Crow's Wood Public Dungeon in Stonefalls to kill the wisps around the Wispmother boss and to my surprise it had been replaced by a Field Marshal. Now, I've finished that place and got my achievement 10 years ago or so, what about a newcomer playing it for their first time?

ZOS have already stated that anyone achievement chasing will simply have to wait a few weeks. It's a whole of world event, there is going to be disruption.

Ursadoom · October 19

Yeah, this is a bit annoying since I want the achievements for completing these delves and public dungeons. I would also say that it takes the local flavor out of the delves when you fight the same Worm Cult mooks across all of the delves.

Ravensilver · October 21

I'm up to around 60 camps now (because I often need 2-3 camps for the souls), and I've seen neither Watcher nor Scamp so far.

lillybit · October 21

Ravensilver wrote: »

I'm up to around 60 camps now (because I often need 2-3 camps for the souls), and I've seen neither Watcher nor Scamp so far.

I think they may be phase 2 bosses - they're the only ones I'm missing too, on both PS and PC. I've been doing all 6 camp dailies on both each day and usually a couple extras