Harrowstorms problem

Agalloch · May 2020

Last night I waited over an hour to spwawwn a harrowstorm...I was bored to wait more so I quit the game and gone to sleep.

Why the respawn time is so big?

What's the point to have so many harrowstorms if they spawn probably on time per day?

I was glad to see so many harrowstorms but when I saw these awful spawn rates ....

ZOS must fixed them and make them to have the same spawn rate like a dolmen or geyser.

Its boring to w8 over an hour and no spawn .

English is not my native language.

Integral1900 · May 2020

I waited half an hour, then I wandered off

Assuming it was just glitched

If I see one I will join in but I don’t have the patience to sit around for them

Just set the timer to match the dark anchors and leave it at that

Thoragaal · May 2020

Agalloch wrote: »

Last night I waited over an hour to spwawwn a harrowstorm...I was bored to wait more so I quit the game and gone to sleep.

Why the respawn time is so big?

What's the point to have so many harrowstorms if they spawn probably on time per day?

I was glad to see so many harrowstorms but when I saw these awful spawn rates ....

ZOS must fixed them and make them to have the same spawn rate like a dolmen or geyser.

Its boring to w8 over an hour and no spawn .

English is not my native language.

It was brought up in an interview yesterday.
"Q: Is there any plan on making the respawns for Harrowstorns shorter? People are sometimes waiting >20 minutes for these.
A: Shouldn't happen. I will make a note"

ShadowNoob · May 2020

Maybe they work like dark anchors and only spawn if the currently active one is deafeated?

Flaminir · May 2020

After an hour and a half trying to do the daily 3 harrowstorms) I gave up.

Agalloch · May 2020

Its a shame to w8 hours ...respawn rate is abysmal.

DarcyMardin · May 2020

I’m still waiting — haven’t even seen one yet (except in the distance) despite playing only in the Western Skyrim and Blackreach since the new chapter launched. I’ve discovered plenty of Harrowstorm sites and hung around a few with other people waiting them to spawn, but no luck so far. Please speed up the re-spawn times.

Jaraal · May 2020

I was waiting at a Harrowstorm area and the sky was clear. Then I noticed a storm on the horizon, and thought, cool this one will be spawning soon. So I waited another 10 minutes, and nothing happened. But I kept watching that storm on the horizon.... surely the players were almost done defeating it?

So I finally decided to ride over to that storm, on the odd chance that no players had engaged it. But this zone was packed and laggy as hell, how could that be the case? When I got there, there were a couple of players standing there, and the red storm was down on the ground..... but no mobs. Weird. So I waited another 10 minutes at this storm, nothing happened. I asked the zone if there was something we needed to do to trigger the mobs, nothing. I opened the map (which was bugged from scrying, yay), didn't see anything like the convenient moving dragon icons of Elsweyr that at least gave you an idea of where to go.

After a while, I decided to go back to where I was before, since obviously this funnel cloud I was standing in was broken. When I got there, the sky was clear, and then I heard the three NPCs speaking in my mind, the funnel cloud descended like in the other spawn place, and mobs actually appeared.

So, are these things bugged? Are there supposed to be fake storms, like there are fake dig sites? How does one trigger the storms, or are they random? And why can't we have an assisting map locator for Harrowstorms like we have for dragons?

ZOS_Finn · May 2020

Thanks for the reports folks.

Regarding Harrowstorms, the ones in Blackreach are not tied to the ones in Western Skyrim so you should be able to have Harrowstorms in each place. Also, if a Harrowstorm is up, it needs to be defeated before a storm at another site will spin up, which is the same as Dark Anchors and other world events.

Traveling to a storm and having the effects present but not the monsters sounds troubling so we will look into that.

HelixUnited · May 2020

waited almost 2 hours for one last night, once iv done them all once definitely wont be doing them as the dailies

EmEm_Oh · May 2020

Darn it, I got in yesterday and saw one of those immediately but was doing antiquiries. My luck I try to find one today and...and....

ZOS_Finn · May 2020

Harrowstorms are, by nature, chaotic events and the forces controlling them are not as predictable as one might think. If a Harrowstorm has not shown up at a designated location recently, it may behoove you to seek them elsewhere.

In short, Harrowstorms are more random than say... Dark Anchors. They are not a set pattern and there is no guarantee that not seeing one at a specific location for any given time will result in it showing up soon.

SolidusPrime · May 2020

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

Harrowstorms are, by nature, chaotic events and the forces controlling them are not as predictable as one might think. If a Harrowstorm has not shown up at a designated location recently, it may behoove you to seek them elsewhere.

In short, Harrowstorms are more random than say... Dark Anchors. They are not a set pattern and there is no guarantee that not seeing one at a specific location for any given time will result in it showing up soon.

Thank you for the clarification. It is helpful.

alewis478b14_ESO · May 2020

So you're saying, they are too random for people to actually want to do them and since they require quite a few players, very soon, nobody will ever do them.

Marcusorion1 · May 2020

Thanks for the explanation of why they are unpredictable however please explain why you made them a Daily Event that requires 3? Seems to favour those players that can be in game for the majority of the time and is a disadvantage to those players that can not ( disadvantage being the loss of timely chances of loot, motifs and achievement fulfillments )

This is quite different from any other daily events in old and new dlc's/chapters

Flaminir · May 2020

It takes 1-2 hours to do a single harrowstorm daily...
If the spawn of these is going to be as it is now how about dropping the daily quest requirements down to just one?

b101uk · May 2020

alternatively, people who don't have the time need not actually do the harrowstorm daily quest, thus freeing up their time for all the other content they do have time for.

lucky_Sage · May 2020

It took me over a hour to complete 3 harrowstorms

Jeremy · May 2020

Agalloch wrote: »

Last night I waited over an hour to spwawwn a harrowstorm...I was bored to wait more so I quit the game and gone to sleep.

Why the respawn time is so big?

What's the point to have so many harrowstorms if they spawn probably on time per day?

I was glad to see so many harrowstorms but when I saw these awful spawn rates ....

ZOS must fixed them and make them to have the same spawn rate like a dolmen or geyser.

Its boring to w8 over an hour and no spawn .

English is not my native language.

Yeah the respawn time on them is way too long to try and wait for them.

I already quit worrying about that daily.

ProfessorKittyhawk · May 2020

The explanation the dev or whoever gave isn't acceptable. If you're going to make it a daily thing and want players to do them, they need to have a shorter, more consistent respawn time. They can be random, just make them soawn quicker.

And not doing the dailies shouldn't be the answer either as people do them for the rewards and achievements, especially when the motifs are made available.

Prrasha · May 2020

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

Also, if a Harrowstorm is up, it needs to be defeated before a storm at another site will spin up, which is the same as Dark Anchors and other world events.

The same, except for the World Event that has been on everyone's mind the past year... Elsweyr dragons. All five dragons could be up at once between the two zones.

Also, dragons show up on the map window when they're active.

And dragons have two map icons, one for "more than 50% health" and one for "less than 50% health", so you can judge if it's worth wayshrining and running across the zone to them. (With multiple mobs at a harrowstorm this might be less easy to calculate... use the total witch pike health, or just the number of witch pikes still standing?)

Anyway, the harrowstorms have none of that map information, and can't be up all at once like the dragons. A huge step backwards in player-friendliness.

b101uk · May 2020

ProfessorKittyhawk wrote: »

And not doing the dailies shouldn't be the answer either as people do them for the rewards and achievements, especially when the motifs are made available.

why must ALL dailies be trivialised as far as some notion of time constraint just to please the quick fix brigade, when the extra time it takes could be accounted for by a marginally higher drop-rate chance for said motifs, thus giving relative parity.

ProfessorKittyhawk · May 2020

b101uk wrote: »

ProfessorKittyhawk wrote: »

And not doing the dailies shouldn't be the answer either as people do them for the rewards and achievements, especially when the motifs are made available.

why must ALL dailies be trivialised as far as some notion of time constraint just to please the quick fix brigade, when the extra time it takes could be accounted for by a marginally higher drop-rate chance for said motifs, thus giving relative parity.

In an mmo with scores of dailies to do and even more rewards and motifs for completionists to collect, playing a game shouldn't become a full time job in order to get the things you want. Dailies should be able to be done in a reasonable amount of time, and the respawn rate of world events like Harrowstorms should be in line with others like dark anchors, abysmal geysers, and dragons. Especially with as many as there are between Western Skyrim and Blackreach. Do people have to do them? No. But that is still no reason to expect anyone to take an hour or more to complete one daily quest.

b101uk · May 2020

ProfessorKittyhawk wrote: »

b101uk wrote: »

ProfessorKittyhawk wrote: »

And not doing the dailies shouldn't be the answer either as people do them for the rewards and achievements, especially when the motifs are made available.

why must ALL dailies be trivialised as far as some notion of time constraint just to please the quick fix brigade, when the extra time it takes could be accounted for by a marginally higher drop-rate chance for said motifs, thus giving relative parity.

In an mmo with scores of dailies to do and even more rewards and motifs for completionists to collect, playing a game shouldn't become a full time job in order to get the things you want. Dailies should be able to be done in a reasonable amount of time, and the respawn rate of world events like Harrowstorms should be in line with others like dark anchors, abysmal geysers, and dragons. Especially with as many as there are between Western Skyrim and Blackreach. Do people have to do them? No. But that is still no reason to expect anyone to take an hour or more to complete one daily quest.

yes its an MMO with scores of dailies, but as I said not all dailies should be tailored to the quick fix brigade, and NO they don't need to be exactly in-line with dark anchors, abysmal geysers, and dragons as far as time or order predictability.

GhostOfAnEra · May 2020

Sometimes one harrowstorm would spawn twice, whereas another I would be at won't spawn at all. Or if I leave a ritual site to go to another one, the one I was at previously all of the sudden spawned and the ritual boss is almost dead after 30 seconds of porting and going to other ritual site.

Definitely bugged as hell.

ZOS, just set a timer like the dolmens and don't let these spawns be random.

Oliviander · May 2020

b101uk wrote: »

yes its an MMO with scores of dailies, but as I said not all dailies should be tailored to the quick fix brigade, and NO they don't need to be exactly in-line with dark anchors, abysmal geysers, and dragons as far as time or order predictability.

You are right about that.
it should at least be fun
which it is not the way it is now !

Chryseia · May 2020

So after doing about 75 of these, its really not so bad once you know what to look for. Four of them can be seen directly from 2 wayshrines without moving. 1 requires a short run from the wayshrine before you can see it. 1 requires a long run. with decent loads, it takes about 1 minute to check 5 of the 6 spots.

There is about 1-2 mins between when one goes down and the next goes up (purely from my observation, but possibly skewed because of random chance RE which spot I checked first). There is NOT a lot of downtime that I have seen between them being up, and the waits are not long at all as long as you hunt them instead of waiting for them to come to you.

THAT BEING SAID, I wholeheartedly agree that these would be much better if you added an active storm icon to the map. It feels like a step backwards from dragons, where I could see where they were from the map without having to physically observe them from my character. It also appears to be leading to a lot of confusion and frustration for people who are trying to do these events.

Czeri · May 2020

Something is wrong with the rituals. I've played all previous chapter releases and never was it such a problem to encounter the world events. I have managed to participate in only one ritual so far. Considering the daily requires 3, I'll only be able to turn it in once a week at this rate.

Jaraal · May 2020

Prrasha wrote: »

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

Also, if a Harrowstorm is up, it needs to be defeated before a storm at another site will spin up, which is the same as Dark Anchors and other world events.

The same, except for the World Event that has been on everyone's mind the past year... Elsweyr dragons. All five dragons could be up at once between the two zones.

Also, dragons show up on the map window when they're active.

And dragons have two map icons, one for "more than 50% health" and one for "less than 50% health", so you can judge if it's worth wayshrining and running across the zone to them. (With multiple mobs at a harrowstorm this might be less easy to calculate... use the total witch pike health, or just the number of witch pikes still standing?)

Anyway, the harrowstorms have none of that map information, and can't be up all at once like the dragons. A huge step backwards in player-friendliness.

All of this.

With so many problems currently in the game, why make Dolmens 4.0 harder, more unpredictable, and more time consuming than the previous three iterations? It seems counterintuitive..... but based on past developer logic, not surprising.

Agalloch · May 2020

I don't want to complete a daily in one week.

Or ZOS could change the daily in weekly quest.

Dusk_Coven · May 2020

ProfessorKittyhawk wrote: »

The explanation the dev or whoever gave isn't acceptable. If you're going to make it a daily thing and want players to do them, they need to have a shorter, more consistent respawn time. They can be random, just make them soawn quicker.

And not doing the dailies shouldn't be the answer either as people do them for the rewards and achievements, especially when the motifs are made available.

If the respawn is too high, especially combined with a fairly convenient route, people might farm them like Alik'r dolmens. And if the devs are trying to avoid that, then I'd rather see the daily reward or daily quest conditions improved than to make the group event too easily farmed. Even then, they have to be careful that people with a lot of alts won't try to farm the dailies in addition to the group event itself.

Whatever they do, it needs to have a sensitivity to the fact that the player base is constantly looking for exploits.