Vengeance Issues (noted after U50)

DoofusMax

A few issues with Vengeance that are worth pointing out. Context matters here, so this is in the context of the other campaigns being removed and players only having a choice between Grey Host and Vengeance. Since this seems to be "permanent" (noting "we might turn on other campaigns from time to time if necessary" was the gist of the explanation), then Vengeance is the replacement for the other campaigns.

First, AP earned in Vengeance does not seem to be counting for Alliance War rank after exiting. I just earned 25K AP in Vengeance which should have been enough to push that character up to Rank 5 (Tyro, Grade 1). This did not happen and they are at the same Alliance War rank (Recruit, Grade 2) they had before entering. Additionally, 25K AP should have been enough to generate a Rewards for the Worthy coffer, which did not materialize, either.

Second, antiquity leads can drop in Vengeance (got the Ayleid King skull lead in a delve), but the Antiquarian Eye cannot be slotted in Vengeance. Good luck getting into pop-locked Grey Host to follow up on that lead.

Third, PvE "discoverable" locations (Wenyandawik, for example) are not discovered even when standing right on top of them. There's nothing which needs to be done for that particular location (it shows "Quest Hub" on the map, though), but it remains undiscovered. Mundus Stones cannot be discovered, either, and interacting with them just produces a "not enabled in Vengeance" message.

Fourth, resource nodes visually spawn as Level 1 nodes (Iron, Jute, and Maple) and drop CP150 resources (Rubedite, Ancestor Silk, and Ruby Ash), but neither of those align with the character's level or crafting passives.

This is not a slam at Vengeance (there are other threads on other forums for that particular discussion) as much as it is to point out that if Vengeance is supposed to be the replacement for all the other campaigns, then it needs to have the appropriate functionality of the other campaigns. "The devil is in the details," as the old adage goes, and the details have been left behind in the desire to push out Vengeance.

ZOS_Kevin

Hi @DoofusMax. For this issue, "AP earned in Vengeance does not seem to be counting for Alliance War rank" . We have a couple of follow up questions as we continue to investigate.

1. What platform are you playing on?
2. Are you running any Addons? If so, could you disable them and see if that resolves the issue?

Ilsabet

DoofusMax wrote: »

Second, antiquity leads can drop in Vengeance (got the Ayleid King skull lead in a delve), but the Antiquarian Eye cannot be slotted in Vengeance. Good luck getting into pop-locked Grey Host to follow up on that lead.

Antiquities aren't dug up in Cyrodiil, so that's not an issue. All of the leads sourced in Cyro are found in other zones. (For example, the Ayleid skull is dug up in Glenumbra.)

DoofusMax

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi @DoofusMax. For this issue, "AP earned in Vengeance does not seem to be counting for Alliance War rank" . We have a couple of follow up questions as we continue to investigate.

1. What platform are you playing on?
2. Are you running any Addons? If so, could you disable them and see if that resolves the issue?

I do run addons, but they're the same addons that I was using during all the previous Vengeance campaigns where this was not happening. There hasn't been anything new in my addons for a couple or three years aside from addon updates. I'll give it a try, but would not bet the family farm on it making a lick of difference.

You do raise an interesting question on platform, however, because this was PC EU and I've never done Cyrodiil on EU, other than the Level 10 tutorial (three times in about five years, and two were in the past couple of months).

MoonlightShadow

Since Mundus Stones bonuses are disabled in Vengeance, it makes sense they would disable the use of them overland in Vengeance. Hopefully they will fix registering with that map that you found them, even if you can't use them.

MoonlightShadow

As to the resource nodes. It makes sense. Your crafting skills lines are probably disabled in Vengeance (making your crafting skill 0, or maybe 1 (even if you have it fully leveled outside Vengeance). Which then triggers the default behavior of a CP level character without the skill line improved which will result in minimum and maximum level nodes available for you to harvest.

DoofusMax

@ZOS_Kevin : following up with today's testing. Everything the same (account, addons, etc.), but went into Vengeance on PC NA (change the variable which is simplest to change and retest).

1. Resource nodes were 50/50. Visually, about half spawned as Level 1 nodes (Iron, Maple, Jute) and about half spawned as CP150 nodes. All dropped CP150 stuff, which was appropriate to the character's level. I don't have any low-levels on PC NA and didn't feel like making a new character just for Vengeance, so that part remains an open question. Side-note that the Keen Eye passives are disabled in Vengeance (because reasons, I suppose).
2. PvE exploration remains iffy. Points of Interest would change to "discovered", but other stuff remained "undiscovered," even when standing on top of it or interacting (failing to in the case of Mundus Stones).
3. AP accumulated as expected, Rewards for the Worthy were in the mailbox when I left Cyrodiil (and generated the audible "donk" when earned), and campaign reward tier progression advanced as expected. Oddball observation with regard to repair kits, however. Repairing to 100% took two interactions. I could start a repair, move out, and restart and it would progress to 100%, or I could start a repair, progress to ~98%, and then have to start again to get to 100%. This might be a side effect of the Minstrel personality, however. It has problematic animations in other situations. I didn't remove the personality to test that, however.

A visual oddity the team might consider addressing. All of today's stuff was done as I walked from Bloodmayne to Chalman to do a Scouting mission. EP had stashed an Elder Scroll in Chalman by the time I got close enough for Chalman to show on the compass and the quest marker was hiding behind the scroll. Maybe keep quest markers on top of everything else?

ZOS_Kevin

Thanks for the additional testing on NA, @DoofusMax. Were you able to do the same test on EU again? And were you able to test that add-ons were not creating a problem on the EU account? I know it's a longshot, but just want to make sure we rule that out.

DoofusMax

MoonlightShadow wrote: »

Since Mundus Stones bonuses are disabled in Vengeance, it makes sense they would disable the use of them overland in Vengeance. Hopefully they will fix registering with that map that you found them, even if you can't use them.

Yeah, that was my primary concern with those. Having them disabled in Vengeance is fine, but they are included as part of the Zone Guide and need to be discoverable.

MoonlightShadow wrote: »

As to the resource nodes. It makes sense. Your crafting skills lines are probably disabled in Vengeance (making your crafting skill 0, or maybe 1 (even if you have it fully leveled outside Vengeance). Which then triggers the default behavior of a CP level character without the skill line improved which will result in minimum and maximum level nodes available for you to harvest.

That's probably true, but there is a disconnect in there somewhere. The character I used on EU is around Level 46, so they should be harvesting Rank V materials based on character level and I think their crafting passives are also at Rank V (I try to keep the two sync'd). The visual node spawn is showing one thing, but the harvest drop is giving something different, and neither matches up with what the character should be getting. Even if crafting passives are disabled, about half those nodes should have been dropping level-appropriate resources and they weren't.

My NA testing this morning couldn't completely test that because all my NA characters are CP150+ with matching crafting passives, but they consistently harvested CP150 mats even though the nodes visually spawned as Rank I or Rank X nodes (about 50/50 chance for either). If the crafting passives are disabled (don't know, but I suspect that's the case since Keen Eye isn't working), the node harvests should be either 100% character-level appropriate or 50% character-level and 50% RNG or whatever, but that's not what happened with the EU character.

I'll go fiddle with EU again in a little while and see if anything changes. This might all be something which could have been resolved with a simple /reloadui. I didn't try that, but relogging and rejoining the campaign should produce the same effect.

DoofusMax

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Thanks for the additional testing on NA, @DoofusMax. Were you able to do the same test on EU again? And were you able to test that add-ons were not creating a problem on the EU account? I know it's a longshot, but just want to make sure we rule that out.

I will go do that in a bit. I'm not going to disable all addons, however, because Keen Eye is disabled and I'll need Harvest Map to point me to the node locations. I'm all for testing, but I'm not running over half of Cyrodiil to blindly find resource nodes which would otherwise be glowing if Keen Eye weren't disabled. Not claiming "Bad devs! No soup for you!", but there are limits to what I'm willing to undertake for Science.

EDIT: I did my time as a graduate RA where "what's the 13th Amendment?" was department policy. (joke if it weren't obvious)

DoofusMax

@ZOS_Kevin : kind of a mixed bag of some good, some meh, and a small bit of "needs work." All addons except HarvestMap were disabled with a /reloadui before loading into Vengeance with my EU character.

1. Resource nodes: better, but still mixed. Nodes visually spawned as either level-appropriate Rank V (Yew, Ebony, Ebonthread, or Copper) or Rank I (Maple, Iron, Jute, or Pewter). Regardless of what they looked like, they all dropped CP150 mats. One oddity is that Jewelry nodes always dropped Platinum Ounces (as opposed to Dust). Cuts out the middle-man at the crafting table, but it also means no upgrade mats. Runestone nodes were all over the place as far as Potency runes go. I got everything from Rank I runes up through Rank V runes (Potency Improvement is Rank IV for the character, but Rank V would be level-appropriate), but no CP150 Potency runes. Not sure what to make of that, but Essence and Aspect dropped as usual. Heavy Sacks were also all over the place when it came to leveled mats. Ran into a chest yesterday which wouldn't let me pick it (failed to note the location, but initially thought "no lockpicks in Vengeance"), but found a couple of others today which did.
2. Zone guide locations were also mixed. Some locations (Weye and Thalara's Winery, for example) showed as discovered when I opened the map later, but no on-screen message indicating discovery. Other locations (Mundus stones, especially) remained undiscovered. The Mundus stones which I (un)discovered yesterday showed as discovered today, so perhaps the toggle for that is leaving Vengeance. No conclusive data either way until I rejoin the campaign, but the hypothesis fits the observation for the moment. Delve completions proc'd the appropriate achievements, however, and showed as cleared on the map thereafter.
3. Fishing might be weird. Not for this character as they have no perks, have not acquired Sharp-as-Night, have no food buffs (don't even have the recipe for Artaeum Pickled Fish Bowl yet), but did have appropriate bait. The fishing spots worked for them as they would in any PvE zone (more bait than trophies). The thought which occurred was that the hunt for the Cyrodiil trophy fish might be compromised in Vengeance for players who have those perks/buffs since everything except Vengeance stuff is turned off. Still, it's only 12 trophy fish and persistence will pay off over the long haul.
4. AP did accumulate for this character this go around. Their Alliance War rank gained a level and their campaign reward tier progressed, but they didn't earn enough AP today to generate a Rewards for the Worthy coffer, so no idea. Quest reward coffers were in inventory upon leaving Cyrodiil, however. I'm sure someone in the Pact will excuse my outright laughter at the announcement that a Grand Warlord defeated a Recruit in Cropsford. At last... the land is now safe from the Recruit menace. Would you like a medal for that or a chest to pin it on?

In my thinking, and this is not any sort of slam on Vengeance, part of the issue here is that Vengeance was sent out to PTS and the live servers as a means to improve server performance and increase player pops in Cyrodiil. I don't recall anyone telling us to test it as a full replacement for the normal campaigns, including all the fiddly PvE stuff. There is an old researcher adage which says that you can't get the right answer until you ask the right question (or "your data can be no better than the conditions under which it was collected"). The testing parameters for Vengeance did not align with the use to which y'all eventually decided to put it. If you don't test for the fiddly bits, then the fiddly bits come back and annoy you. Again, not a dig at Vengeance as much as food for thought going forward.

DoofusMax

Back with a bit more data to add to the collection. Same EU character (Level 49 when loading into Vengeance), but all addons reenabled.

1. AP gained as normal. Got the "donk" cue that a Rewards for the Worthy had been earned (it was in the mailbox upon exit), Veterancy advanced as expected, and generally no idea why the earlier issues with AP, but it all seems to be working fine again.
2. Resource nodes still behaving as before: visually presenting as either Rank I or Rank V resources, but always dropping one (and only one) CP150 raw resource and Jewelry nodes dropping one (and only one) Platinum Ounce rather than a Dust. Alchemy nodes behave normally, but occasional double-harvests (no idea why). Runestones pretty much the same: Rank I or Rank V Potency runes and the rest dropping as they normally do. If I had to speculate (I don't, but I'm gonna), the game's choice of node presentation seems to be that it knows what character level resource is appropriate, but defaults to Level 1 because crafting passives are disabled, so 50/50 chance of one or the other like you'd see with a character whose level and passives don't match. It's the CP150 drops that have me scratching my head, but why only gear/jewelry resources and not the Runestone nodes, too? Both are supposed to work the same in terms of character and crafting passive levels controlling leveled drops.
3. Overland discovery is still wonky. The Atronach and Apprentice mundus stones which were initially showing as undiscovered, but discovered when I rejoined the campaign yesterday, were undiscovered again. Cropsford Armory, which I discovered yesterday and was showing on the map as discovered was undiscovered today. Vlastrus Armory got discovered today (I triple-checked that it was showing "discovered"), so I'll check the next time I load in with that character.
4. New stuff (happened before, but didn't mention it): intermittent boosts to movement speed at inconsistent places. Sometimes near keeps, but not all. Sometimes near keep resources, but not all. Sometimes near towns, but not all. Sometimes when reaching the bottom of an incline, but not always. Sometimes after a kill, but not always. Sometimes "just to mess with your head" (out of the blue in the middle of nowhere). It doesn't last for more than a couple of seconds, so it's almost like the short boost from Quick Cloak (except that this character doesn't dual-wield and has no skill points into that skill line) or maybe Hasty Retreat (except no bow, no points into bow skills, and no preceding roll dodge). It's not even consistent between sprinting and normal running, but it never happens while mounted. I suppose it could be a minor issue if someone happened to be PvP'ing at the time, but it was just an oddity for what I was doing.
5. Animations: this is an "ouch!" and I'm not sure what to attribute it to. Transparency: I'm normally a NA player where my ping on the NA servers is seldom more than 100 aside from a few seconds immediately after logging in with a character. My normal ping for the EU servers is around 200 but not much below when it does drop (~180 maybe?). Ping in Vengeance is very consistent with that, so I don't think that's the cause of the issue. At any rate, PvE combat has animations issues. For example, a PvE opponent might have a delay where their health bar is empty, but they just stand there and then fall over after a second or so. The game knows they're dead because attacks always miss them (like firing into empty space), but there's a delay before the display/animation catches up. There have also been occasions where they died, but their health bar still showed about 6K health remaining (pretty sure that "play dead" isn't among their move sets). It's only PvE mobs, however; PvP opponents don't do that (very small number of observations because I'm usually the one dying in those cases). Again, an oddity rather than a major issue.