I don't mind waiting! At times I've chosen to wait for a dragon instead of traveling to one. I've waited for Dolmens, World Bosses, Dungeon Bosses, Delve Bosses and Abyssal Geysers BUT at no time have I ever waited for over an hour for a spawn like you can with these Harrowstorms.

No indication where they may be spawning, no idication when, absolutely nothing to do WHILE you wait, a total waste of playtime. Impossible to travel to them to "check" or to "join" an active one because unlike the Abyssal Geysers the wayshrines are not at all condusive to this kind of travel.

And on top of all that the drops are abysmal.

I want to want to do all the content, but this is way too much even for a completionist like me.

Like the rest of the zone they are visually incredible, the sound design is brilliant and the gameplay mechanics are engaging even if they do include the same un-telegraphed one shots that the dragons have become notorious for.

But given the fact that I don’t think I’ve ever received anything more than five hundred gold worth of loot and on rare occasions some alchemy ingredients that are gonna be so hard to come by they might as well not exist

1 un-telegraphed one shots even if you are not in any aoe and have no effects on you
2 the wayshrine placement is terrible
3 random appearance means that you pretty much have to blunder into one in the few seconds before the Zerg nukes it
4 after the first few weeks when the crowds get bored/fed up, completing these things will be almost impossible given how remote and random they are
5 rewards are not worth it, I’ve got far more loot for a lot less effort from trash mobs
6 unlike the crimson nirnroot the other two alchemy mats seem aimed at pvp... I promise you the pvp crowd are not going to do these things given the sheer effort involved combined with almost none existent drop rates

Gythral wrote: »

Wing wrote: »

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

we can talk about the rewards, but otherwise i think they are awesome

the technical aspects of the encounter are fine, I have no doubt that the spent quite some time on them, and the mechanics are very nice.

that is not the problem

its the supporting structure around them as I have listed further above:
-spawn time
-spawn alert or tracking
-shrine proximity / travel time
-spawn rotation
-rewards

Most of these sum up the whole "chapter", along with could use a year of 2 more debuging...

ZOS would saying "working as intended". The more time you spend doing something, the more opportunity for a crown store hit and/or longer subscription period. Streeeeeeeetch the content.

Nulami wrote: »

Inaya wrote: »

I don't mind waiting! At times I've chosen to wait for a dragon instead of traveling to one. I've waited for Dolmens, World Bosses, Dungeon Bosses, Delve Bosses and Abyssal Geysers BUT at no time have I ever waited for over an hour for a spawn like you can with these Harrowstorms.

I was waiting last night at a storm location. Waited so long that the game kicked me for lack of activity.

Still not sure if I'm going to pick up that daily quest again.

Yep, I haven't done the daily since. One and only one I did took me 3 days

Agreed with most of feedback here.

I've barely done more than a couple 'kill quests' for Harrowstorms because it's just too much of a time waste hunting down active ones. Combine that with how far some of them are from shrines or that they are split up between two zones, it's just annoying and not a good experience.

There should be an active indicator like dragons on the map for them with a way to tell when they are about to spawn so you have time to travel, they are not like anchors where there are only three of them in the zone and spawn on a rotation, the RNG aspect is fine I guess, but what's the goal? To make us port around, ride half way from a wayshrine to a storm location to see if it's up, ride back and repeat this at the next location endlessly. I seem to have a 50/50 shot of zone actually communicating when asked about storms up and that's at launch, how bad will this be six months from now with lower pop in the zone? Even with the dragons spawning on a rotation, we still saw them move around the map before landing so knew they would be active soon and had a combat indicator on them that even showed when they passed half health to see if it was worth trying to make it there in time.

And yes, the rewards are lackluster. The zone drops aren't that great to begin with, so the chance at getting the same thing from them you get from a random chest is meaningless. The vampire crafting mat isn't even guaranteed, when you should get one per storm. It's a basic crafting style mat, not perfect roe! And the daily reward coffer is the same as the other two, no reason to care if you miss it, just do the faster and easier daily dungeon and world boss and save the next couple hours of your life. I just don't see any reason to even do Harrowstorms past if you want the initial clear or maybe if you want the daily repeatable achievement.

Finally, a cosmetic type of complaint. The storms look cool, good design there, but the NPC 'encounter' before the storm needs to be something besides the same group of campers saying the same things at the center of every storm spot before it spawn at every location on both maps. It was cute the first time, and we are used to things getting old in an MMO because of how repeatable everything can be, but there should have been at least 4-5 different groups of NPCs doing different things at different locations to get disturbed by the spawning storm. This is the least important of issues with the storms, but it does make it feel like corners were cut in developing.

Dont care about travel time, rewards or map visibility as at least the Skyrim one are visible from far away. Main issue is being able to predict/see which storm is up and reach it in reasonable time. Easy fix for that I can see, one that wouldnt go against dolmen/geysir design or caused reshuffle of wayshrine locations is to start the storm way earlier in the process of harrowstorm mechanics (for 'immersive' warning) or like suggested show on map storm that is about to start.

xaraan wrote: »

I seem to have a 50/50 shot of zone actually communicating when asked about storms up and that's at launch, how bad will this be six months from now with lower pop in the zone?

This is also something that should be noted.

I have asked in zone where the active storm is, and there is usually no response. And then, only seconds later, I will spot it, announce to the zone that "Harrowstom X is up", and arrive just in time for several players to be finishing it. They will stand around for a few moments, then everyone ports. And still no zone chatter about storm locations, except the dummy (me) who let everybody else know too late and who will receive the ire of other players who are already porting/riding to a now extinguished storm.

So, it occurred to me that what is happening is there is an organized group farming these things, and they have characters from other accounts parked at each one of the possible ritual sites. Once one pops, the active players port to the one camping the spot, and they engage it as soon as they can get there.

Now I'm not against farming, or organized groups, but this is effectively cutting the solo player out of the content since there are no active storm map markers, like there are with dragons. If they were to perhaps add that feature, as well as a couple more strategically placed wayshrines, I think most of the issues with the harrowstorms would be solved (other than the currently unattractive loot.)

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

Hey Folks!

Thanks for the feedback and we absolutely hear you on the core issues you mentioned. We are taking a look at the Harrowstorms and how to reduce some of the pain points.

And we appreciate you conversing with us and letting us know you hear our issues and are looking for solutions. Thanks!

ZOS_Finn wrote: »

Hey Folks!

Thanks for the feedback and we absolutely hear you on the core issues you mentioned. We are taking a look at the Harrowstorms and how to reduce some of the pain points.

Wanted to jump in again to this thread and thank you for 1) taking the time to respond, and 2) offering us some hope things will change.

I agree that the rewards are a bit lacking. Making vile coagulant a guaranteed drop would help a lot with a housing community pain point RE crafting vampiric furniture. In my observation after tracking vile drops in 50 harrows, I had a drop rate of 42.5%.

RE spawn times, its actually only a few mins between one storm dying and the next being active, if that helps. There is no point in scouting for the new one until a couple of mins have passed - you won't see it from a distance for at least that long. Most of the time, the new one spawns in 2-3 mins.

RE blackreach v. western skyrim, it is actually FAR easier to find the active storm in west skyrim - despite having more possible storms. That is because from one location (literally on top of morthal wayshrine without going anywhere) you can check and monitor 4 storm locations. This means that to check all 6 sites, you only need to check 3 vantages. This is not possible in blackreach - you have to check all 4 separately. To check the northern two storms in west skyrim, you do have to make a short run to get to a vantage, but its a shorter run than say, checking miner's in blackreach.

So, if your horse is slow, don't wait at a specific site - wait at morthal wayshrine. You can see 4 from there, and if a different one is called, you are already right on top of the wayshrine for faster travel.

I have done somewhere between 400 and 500 harrows at this point. On average, doing 3 for the daily takes about 30 mins. It's really not that bad, but it does require knowledge about vantages/tempo, and a willingness to chase an active storm rather than wait at a site. THAT BEING SAID, I agree, they really should add an active map icon, like with dragons. This is an unnecessary step backwards, and not having icons encourages players to play in a way that was *not* intended (i.e., waiting at a site rather than doing the active storm).

Wing wrote: »

the technical aspects of the encounter are fine, I have no doubt that the spent quite some time on them, and the mechanics are very nice.

that is not the problem

Then you haven't done them late at night when you're lucky to get 4 people to show up. One way Dragons were a step backwards from Geysers and Dolmens is that Dragons didn't adapt the amount of adds to the number of players present. Harrowstorms take this error and multiply it by orders of magnitude.

MasterSpatula wrote: »

Wing wrote: »

the technical aspects of the encounter are fine, I have no doubt that the spent quite some time on them, and the mechanics are very nice.

that is not the problem

Then you haven't done them late at night when you're lucky to get 4 people to show up. One way Dragons were a step backwards from Geysers and Dolmens is that Dragons didn't adapt the amount of adds to the number of players present. Harrowstorms take this error and multiply it by orders of magnitude.

In fact, let me clarify this further:

In Geysers, a new group of mobs would be added to every wave for every two players who joined (1 group for 1 player, 2 groups for 3 players, etc. (up to a limit, of course)). If you beat a certain timer, a more difficult "general" boss would spawn. If not, a normal boss would spawn. All of this was good. It meant the more players that showed up, the harder the Geyser would get. And the better those players did, the harder the Geyser would get--up to a limit, of course.

With Harrowstorms, the longer the storm is up, the more enemies spawn, regardless of how many players are present or how well they're doing (from what I've been able to tell, at least). This actually makes sense from a storytelling perspective, but from a gameplay perspective, it's simply atrocious. It means that the fewer players present, the harder the HS gets, and the poorer those players' performance, the harder the HS gets. That means if you show up at 3AM PST to a storm that's already been up a while and manage to get two other players to show up, you end up with four 3-bar bosses chasing you around, filling the ground with red, casting CCs and one-shots at you (if you're me, at least). But, if you have a decent-size group there at the storm as it forms, you kill it quickly before bosses start to spawn, and it's a complete cakewalk.

The idea that anyone would think this is anything but awful boggles my mind.

@MasterSpatula

RE harrow difficulty, they are only difficult if players ignore the ghost mechanic. I have duoed many of these with a guildie (and I do basically no damage). It was late at night, so sometimes someone else would show up, but never more than a couple. Did it take a while? Yes. Was it hard? No.

Stun the ghosts. Or kill them, but stunning is better. If the ghosts never get to the pikes, those elite horrible mobs (*glares at shrikes*) never spawn. the waves of small, normal adds will still spawn, but those are very easy to deal with and only spawn a few at a time.

One player can easily take care of all the ghosts. I do it all the time. All you have to do is slot that psijic stun bubble skill, I forget the name - the one that lets you stun everything in a bubble at range. Then just... stun all the ghosts. Once stunned, they never start moving again (unlike with immobolize, after which they will start moving again). As long as one ghost from its wave remains alive, that wave of ghosts will not spawn again.

Eventually, the wave of ghosts will despawn on their own without anyone killing them, but you do have time after stunning all ghosts on each pike to deal damage to one pike (poorly, if you are me) or regain resources, etc. Just make sure to keep an eye on when the first wave you stunned starts to despawn, so you can go re-stun the new wave on each pike again.

RE killing vs stunning, killing all the ghosts in a wave makes the wave respawn faster, meaning more ghosts will have to be dealt with. stunning them means that that wave will be standing still, not moving towards a pike, for the maximum amount of time before despawning. As such, if you are trying to do this late at night or with only a couple of friends, stunning is the way to go. Further, if you have bad DPS and cant kill them fast enough, stunning will solve the problem. On a related note, if you see someone at the harrow stunning the ghosts, there is no need to kill them also. That will just make them respawn faster.

Ive literally fallen asleep on my keyboard waiting over an hour at one for it to spawn.
Ive waited over an hour multiple times and a couple of times for an hour and a half just trying to complete that one on a character.

Im sure ZoS wants us to be so bored "playing" the game that we are falling asleep.

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO wrote: »

The game, like most games, has at least some mechanics that are all about making people wait. While you are waiting to do content, you are not grinding it to boredom and burning out on it, and if you are forced to do things slowly, the new content they develop will last longer before people stop playing.

I'm not saying it's particularly bad in ESO, or even that it's necessarily bad in general to slow people down a bit when they are playing a game, but it is most assuredly by design. The clear and informative announcement of active dragons on the Elsweyr maps made that content too quick and efficient. It became less of a social hunt and more of a well coordinated slaughter assisted by an efficient information system.

Having us waiting, not having complete information, and talking about that amongst ourselves, makes good sense for the developers, and I'd say it really doesn't take away from the fun for us.

On a much related note, I'm disappointed in the passive from the new skill lines that makes treasure chests shine like beacons. I was bad at spotting them, but that was the whole point. Next step up in obviousness would be to have them spin and bob up and down in the air with shiny sparkles, figuratively shouting "look at me". Some games do it like that. I like that at least some things are low key and not blindingly obvious in ESO. We'll see if it lasts.

Or you just feel like the content is grindy and not fun and you just stop playing.