U50 Feedback Thread for Thieves Guild Questline

ZOS_Kevin

This is the official feedback thread for the new Thieves Guild Questline. If you have specific feedback on the main story, please visit this thread so others can avoid spoilers. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

• Did you engage with the quest?
• Did you find it easy to get the Thieves Guild quests?
• Did you enjoy the quests? Please provide additional feedback to provide context.
• Did you find any quests to be problematic from either a directional or difficulty standpoint?
• Did you try this questline while using Challenge Difficulty? If so, please provide any feedback on the experience.

KingArthasMenethil

First thing I noticed is that the Lion Guard character you talk to during the first quest (who is a Captain) and well just about every base Lion Guard NPC while they were updated to Ancestral Breton they don't use their own actual Lion Guard style. While this style is called "Lion Guard Captain" it could really be used by every Lion Guard npc and just taking the helmet off important NPCs or officers.


Sorta want to avoid the issue I noticed with the "Nibenese Noble's Shawled Robe" where that costume is never actually used by anyone in Cyrodiil (Blackwood, West Weald and the Gold Coast) and hope that the Lion Guard will actually use their style. Ancestral Breton is fine for other factions it's just the Lion Guard does actually have a style now to use as a uniform.

KapiteinBoterham

Wdym new questline?

Are they removing content from the game?

KingArthasMenethil

KapiteinBoterham wrote: »

Wdym new questline?

Are they removing content from the game?

It's a sequel. Nothing is being removed.

KapiteinBoterham

Ohh I just read, more content (and more Quen) is always welcome!


Please don't forget about the animation bugs I posted about from Update 48 dear devs. Quality over quantity yo!

licenturion

Didn't start the quest yet but travelled around in the refreshed Glenumbra.

There isn't a thread for that so I will post it here.

The refresh is very subtle, but I love this. The water, the lighting, swamps and vegetation is much improved in places. Also beaches seem to have more clutter and look more modern. I also like that you took the feedback about the rock textures from the reworked starter zones and resculpted and retextured them now in Glenumbra. I hope the revamped starter zones get this treatment as well

I do hope we don't have to wait for 22 seasons if we only get 1 refresh per season. That's very slow

Some examples for people who don't have the PTS installed. (Crap phone quality, but it's about the contents, not the image quality)

Live:


PTS:


Live:


PTS:

Enodoc

A couple of UI/consistency notes before I start on the questline itself later this week:

• The popup warning of timeline continuity is nice, but it stayed on the screen for ages (I left Daggerfall and was near the Baelborne Wayshrine when it finally disappeared). The design of the popup is also inconsistent with the popup that warns of Prologue quests; overall I think the Prologue quest warning works better as a notification than this one, and would recommend using that style here as well.
• The questline seems to be marked as Zone Story quests and "part of the Zone Story for Glenumbra". This is incorrect and could confuse people who are trying to follow the actual Zone Story for Glenumbra. It also doesn't appear anywhere in the Zone Guide, and so isn't really a Zone Story at all.

I also notice that this questline (and the Sheogorath story) have been added to "Zone DLC" under the Stories Collection - I would recommend a separate section for these, since they are neither Zones nor DLC. Perhaps these two (and the four DLCs that were moved to Base Game) could have their own "Base Game" section under Stories.

FabresFour

If we die to Skaafin Zyax during the "Codex and Cartel" quest, the Skaafin does not respawn, preventing the quest from continuing:


visual bug on the texture during the quest Wolf Trap:

shadoza

Did you engage with the quest? I did.
Did you find it easy to get the Thieves Guild quests? I used my maxed out thief. It was easy to get the quests.
Did you enjoy the quests? Please provide additional feedback to provide context. It is a nice break. I do not like the timed quests and will not complete them. Since I am also an assassin, I want to kill stuff. Perhaps blends the two somewhere?
Did you find any quests to be problematic from either a directional or difficulty standpoint? The guild quests were not confusing or problematic for me. No.
Did you try this questline while using Challenge Difficulty? If so, please provide any feedback on the experience. No. I stopped using the challenge difficulty once I realized it was not paying gold. None. No gold for me.

The main quest crashed on me twice. Just stopped working suddenly without a hitch or a complaint.

KingArthasMenethil

After having gone though what I can of the Thieves Guild.

I like the low stakes of the questline as ESO got a bit too into trying to end the world in its main storylines.
I do quite like there's more options to getting around NPCs that's not killing them and I do like the focus more on stealth then killing which is very fitting for the Thieves guild then the mad cultists of the Dark Brotherhood and their "stealth is optional".

tomofhyrule

I do have a concern with offerring a "Do the new Thieves Guild Line" seasonal Challenge.

Obviously the point is to get people to do the new questline. But there are a lot of players who like to delay doing storylines specifically so they can experience it, and not have every quest objective drowned out in a sea of flashiness.

I personally usually waited to do the old main Chapter stories until August despite them releasing in June because I wanted the crowds to die down so I would actually be able to see the NPCs and the things I needed to do, instead of just following everybody and their brother through a series of spamming [E]. After all, look how the world is any time we have an event quest start up - that's how this questline is going to look.

Unless 100% of the quest is privately instanced, the quest objectives will be mobbed and it will be a miserable experience for players who are here for the story... which is ostensibly the most important thing you're pushing and you even called it out in the reveal. Pushing the players into doing the stories the second they release means nobody will be able to experience it without fifty flashbangs in your face at once, and you'll end up turning off a lot of your players who are here for stories.

IviRo

tomofhyrule wrote: »

I do have a concern with offerring a "Do the new Thieves Guild Line" seasonal Challenge.

Obviously the point is to get people to do the new questline. But there are a lot of players who like to delay doing storylines specifically so they can experience it, and not have every quest objective drowned out in a sea of flashiness.

I personally usually waited to do the old main Chapter stories until August despite them releasing in June because I wanted the crowds to die down so I would actually be able to see the NPCs and the things I needed to do, instead of just following everybody and their brother through a series of spamming [E]. After all, look how the world is any time we have an event quest start up - that's how this questline is going to look.

Unless 100% of the quest is privately instanced, the quest objectives will be mobbed and it will be a miserable experience for players who are here for the story... which is ostensibly the most important thing you're pushing and you even called it out in the reveal. Pushing the players into doing the stories the second they release means nobody will be able to experience it without fifty flashbangs in your face at once, and you'll end up turning off a lot of your players who are here for stories.

All of this will be added on a permanent basis, not a temporary one. This was also mentioned during the announcement and in the articles.
Here's what's coming:
- Thieves' Guild and Sheogorath quests
- New quest system: rumors and favors
- New PvP system
- Dynamic Events
- Difficulty
- Sage's Vault
- New trial
'All of this is included in the base version of the game'

The only temporary event will be the one related to the seas

SilverIce58

IviRo wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

I do have a concern with offerring a "Do the new Thieves Guild Line" seasonal Challenge.

Obviously the point is to get people to do the new questline. But there are a lot of players who like to delay doing storylines specifically so they can experience it, and not have every quest objective drowned out in a sea of flashiness.

I personally usually waited to do the old main Chapter stories until August despite them releasing in June because I wanted the crowds to die down so I would actually be able to see the NPCs and the things I needed to do, instead of just following everybody and their brother through a series of spamming [E]. After all, look how the world is any time we have an event quest start up - that's how this questline is going to look.

Unless 100% of the quest is privately instanced, the quest objectives will be mobbed and it will be a miserable experience for players who are here for the story... which is ostensibly the most important thing you're pushing and you even called it out in the reveal. Pushing the players into doing the stories the second they release means nobody will be able to experience it without fifty flashbangs in your face at once, and you'll end up turning off a lot of your players who are here for stories.

All of this will be added on a permanent basis, not a temporary one. This was also mentioned during the announcement and in the articles.
Here's what's coming:
- Thieves' Guild and Sheogorath quests
- New quest system: rumors and favors
- New PvP system
- Dynamic Events
- Difficulty
- Sage's Vault
- New trial
'All of this is included in the base version of the game'

The only temporary event will be the one related to the seas

Irrelevant. Where did they say it the Thieves Guild content was temporary? Theyre saying that people like continuity and that pushing people into the content is probably not what many people would like if they haven't done the first portion of said storyline.

The devs did say that this content can stand alone as its own, but timeline wise, after doing this and meeting Quen in Daggerfall, unless they change something with her earlier character, the Quen in Abah's Landing is not going to recognize you as that was literally in the past timeline wise.

DoofusMax

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Unless 100% of the quest is privately instanced, the quest objectives will be mobbed and it will be a miserable experience for players who are here for the story... which is ostensibly the most important thing you're pushing and you even called it out in the reveal. Pushing the players into doing the stories the second they release means nobody will be able to experience it without fifty flashbangs in your face at once, and you'll end up turning off a lot of your players who are here for stories.

I'm partially in agreement with this sentiment, but will point out that about the only times I encountered other players were at the quest pick-up and turn-in phases. Not at all uncommon to see 3-5 other players at those times and then see/encounter no one while actually being in story locations. Since I did not see any indicator that this was going to a solo instance, I'm suspecting that groups will be able to do them together, but they are not "general public quest areas." Dresan Keep, for example, had several players in the areas which are generally "Glenumbra overland," but no one but me and Azandar once passing into the story-quest area. But yes, those general public points are undoubtedly going to turn into visually uncomfortable mob scenes as soon as it hits the live servers. And still no word on "please give me a setting where I can turn off other players' visual effects" will mean moving to Flashbang City.

I'm more in agreement on the seasonal challenge and we saw the effect of that as soon as that "kill 1000" in the Year One zones hit Tomes.

tomofhyrule

IviRo wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

I do have a concern with offerring a "Do the new Thieves Guild Line" seasonal Challenge.

Obviously the point is to get people to do the new questline. But there are a lot of players who like to delay doing storylines specifically so they can experience it, and not have every quest objective drowned out in a sea of flashiness.

I personally usually waited to do the old main Chapter stories until August despite them releasing in June because I wanted the crowds to die down so I would actually be able to see the NPCs and the things I needed to do, instead of just following everybody and their brother through a series of spamming [E]. After all, look how the world is any time we have an event quest start up - that's how this questline is going to look.

Unless 100% of the quest is privately instanced, the quest objectives will be mobbed and it will be a miserable experience for players who are here for the story... which is ostensibly the most important thing you're pushing and you even called it out in the reveal. Pushing the players into doing the stories the second they release means nobody will be able to experience it without fifty flashbangs in your face at once, and you'll end up turning off a lot of your players who are here for stories.

All of this will be added on a permanent basis, not a temporary one. This was also mentioned during the announcement and in the articles.
Here's what's coming:
- Thieves' Guild and Sheogorath quests
- New quest system: rumors and favors
- New PvP system
- Dynamic Events
- Difficulty
- Sage's Vault
- New trial
'All of this is included in the base version of the game'

The only temporary event will be the one related to the seas

Ok, but that’s not the point.

Sure, we can all do the TG questline whenever we want. That’s not the concern.

The concern is offerring a Seasonal Challenge to do so. Those are only in existence for a season.

That means players need to choose between a) spam the questline during the season to get the rewards, or b) get to experience the questline without 50 million people flashing their sparkleponies in your face and running through empty delves since the whole server is there.

MoonPile

Are we supposed to be able to progress "The Nowhere Keys" quest?

I talk to Abrasia in the market then nothing happens. I even tried to abandon and restart this quest, redo pickpocketing the key in the crypt correctly, then talk to Abrasia, and it's the same: can't progress. I also tried to run all around the market and go to the den to see if I can talk to anyone else to progress, but there's nobody.

(Pickpocketing the key in Dwynnarth is bugged if you accidentally aggro the guy then de-aggro and pickpocket. You still get the key but the quest doesn't recognize this, and forces you to kill him for it. But if you're curious like me and increase the difficulty before fighting him, he can actually run away, leaving you with no key, which then forces you to tell your pal you don't have it – even while it's in your inventory.)

I was enjoying the questline; I don't normally like to spoil them on PTS but kept going out of interest and curiosity. But there are A LOT of bugs, which I reported in-game. Mainly and ironically, stealth often doesn't work as expected, and all of the random detections are frustrating.

Also, are we supposed to be able to get the achievement "Get Away from it All" during this PTS cycle? Is it related to these Thieves quests?

Lastly, I agree with Tom. If the Tomes event is held at the same time this quest releases, it will "force" players to do this right then, with immersion broken by shiny mobs.

arctangent

MoonPile wrote: »

Are we supposed to be able to progress "The Nowhere Keys" quest?

I talk to Abrasia in the market then nothing happens. I even tried to abandon and restart this quest, redo pickpocketing the key in the crypt correctly, then talk to Abrasia, and it's the same: can't progress. I also tried to run all around the market and go to the den to see if I can talk to anyone else to progress, but there's nobody.

(Pickpocketing the key in Dwynnarth is bugged if you accidentally aggro the guy then de-aggro and pickpocket. You still get the key but the quest doesn't recognize this, and forces you to kill him for it. But if you're curious like me and increase the difficulty before fighting him, he can actually run away, leaving you with no key, which then forces you to tell your pal you don't have it – even while it's in your inventory.)

I was enjoying the questline; I don't normally like to spoil them on PTS but kept going out of interest and curiosity. But there are A LOT of bugs, which I reported in-game. Mainly and ironically, stealth often doesn't work as expected, and all of the random detections are frustrating.

Also, are we supposed to be able to get the achievement "Get Away from it All" during this PTS cycle? Is it related to these Thieves quests?

Lastly, I agree with Tom. If the Tomes event is held at the same time this quest releases, it will "force" players to do this right then, with immersion broken by shiny mobs.

If you encounter Abrasia in another location in the marketplace the quest will proceed. I found her again in the far SW of the quest circle.

MoonPile

arctangent wrote: »

MoonPile wrote: »

Are we supposed to be able to progress "The Nowhere Keys" quest?

I talk to Abrasia in the market then nothing happens. I even tried to abandon and restart this quest, redo pickpocketing the key in the crypt correctly, then talk to Abrasia, and it's the same: can't progress. I also tried to run all around the market and go to the den to see if I can talk to anyone else to progress, but there's nobody.

(Pickpocketing the key in Dwynnarth is bugged if you accidentally aggro the guy then de-aggro and pickpocket. You still get the key but the quest doesn't recognize this, and forces you to kill him for it. But if you're curious like me and increase the difficulty before fighting him, he can actually run away, leaving you with no key, which then forces you to tell your pal you don't have it – even while it's in your inventory.)

I was enjoying the questline; I don't normally like to spoil them on PTS but kept going out of interest and curiosity. But there are A LOT of bugs, which I reported in-game. Mainly and ironically, stealth often doesn't work as expected, and all of the random detections are frustrating.

Also, are we supposed to be able to get the achievement "Get Away from it All" during this PTS cycle? Is it related to these Thieves quests?

Lastly, I agree with Tom. If the Tomes event is held at the same time this quest releases, it will "force" players to do this right then, with immersion broken by shiny mobs.

If you encounter Abrasia in another location in the marketplace the quest will proceed. I found her again in the far SW of the quest circle.

I ran all around yesterday and didn't see her or anyone else around the market, but I'll try again later, thank you. Hope this will get fixed.

DoofusMax

MoonPile wrote: »

Also, are we supposed to be able to get the achievement "Get Away from it All" during this PTS cycle? Is it related to these Thieves quests?

Open question on completable, but it's mostly unrelated to the Thieves Guild stuff. I believe the four fragments drop from the final chest at the Dynamic World Events. No idea if they are curated drops or we're at the mercy of RNG, but I strongly suspect the latter.

MoonPile

DoofusMax wrote: »

MoonPile wrote: »

Also, are we supposed to be able to get the achievement "Get Away from it All" during this PTS cycle? Is it related to these Thieves quests?

Open question on completable, but it's mostly unrelated to the Thieves Guild stuff. I believe the four fragments drop from the final chest at the Dynamic World Events. No idea if they are curated drops or we're at the mercy of RNG, but I strongly suspect the latter.

Good to know the source at least, thanks!
Odd that it isn't actually TG, given the theme of the house and items.

WhiteCoatSyndrome

I am frustrated that we still are REQUIRED to sit through a mandatory summary of what we are doing/have done at several points in the quest line. It’s incredibly immersion breaking. It’s a waste of time for those of us who pay attention. Stop it please!

Also why did

Seline bring her Nowhere Key to the ambush? She could have left it with her father.

shadoza

Really getting frustrated at having voices claim to have witnessed a crime and call non-existent guards. I get an automated bounty. No one was there. I was alone in the room.
I was in the thieves den, opened a box without crouching. Another call for the guards and automated bounty. Again, I was alone in the room, no one was there to see me. Where did the voice come from?
Having the game mechanics create a sighting when one could not have happened in frustrating. A player should not have to fight game mechanics.
I really do not want to continue this quest. It feels more annoying than rewarding.

DoofusMax

OK, a fix one quest-breaker bug only to run into another in the Sage's Vault.

Character selection showed that the character was still in the Vault, but they were actually on the Glenumbra shore near the boat to the island. Getting back to the point where they got stuck was reasonably trivial. The Dwemer traps part had to be redone, but everything up to that section was cleared (a couple of Hadolids, IIRC) and mostly just following the quest marker. No companions on the way back in but the keeper resummoned them when I reached him.

The Staff, Crown, and Tome puzzle seems to be working correctly. I'm not sure whether I got lucky on the Tome or the difference between the floating one and the "wrong" one is so subtle that I couldn't tell, but I took a best guess and it turned out to be correct.

The alternating doors puzzle worked as intended. I took a moment to check while doing that one and noticed that my Challenge Difficulty had reset to Adventurer (another thing which needs fixing), so I changed it just before the final door opened. After stepping through the portal and being reunited with my fellow thieves, we were standing in front of a new portal. Miskeyed and took a step backward rather than a step forward and portaled backward to the start of the doors puzzle, which had reset and all doors were closed with no helper to open the gates. Dead-end busted with no way forward and no portal backward. Abandoned the quest and had to go back to Daggerfall to pick it up again.

EDIT: Restarted from the beginning, followed all the previous steps (noting that the first spinning blades trap has some tight timing; have to announce that the way is clear immedately upon using the viewer the second time), back through the alternating gates puzzle, took the portal to the Nexus, DID NOT miskey and ended up back at the start of the alternating gates puzzle before ever interacting with the new portal. Gates were closed, but had no collision, so I could just run through them to the Nexus portal again. After that it was just cycle back to the gates, use the portal, try to step, cycle back to the gates, use the portal... dead-end busted.

Going to note that fixing this for PTS3 means that I'll have to restart the entire Thieves Guild quest since it will be EU characters. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, "more testing time is better than less."

Freelancer_ESO

@DoofusMax

I found that you can progress past that eventually if you try over and over and over and over when you get teleported back to run thru again... Took like 5 times on my first char thru and like 15 times on my second.

Did you engage with the quest?

Yeah.

Did you find it easy to get the Thieves Guild quests?

Yeah

Did you enjoy the quests? Please provide additional feedback to provide context.

Yeah, I had enough fun to run it on a second character to see what was different. I really liked that at times you were able to actually fail but still progress and that your choices made somewhat different outcomes. I'll put more detail in the spoiler thread later.

Did you find any quests to be problematic from either a directional or difficulty standpoint?

The puzzle difficulty seemed to drop a bit later in the quest line. It might be better to have harder puzzles that are skippable via combat rather than having puzzles that are too easy.

Did you try this questline while using Challenge Difficulty? If so, please provide any feedback on the experience.

I did it on Adventurer and most of it on Master. The traps really really hurt on higher difficulties.