PTS Update 30 - Feedback Thread for Blackwood Zone & Quests

ZOS_GinaBruno · April 2021

This is the official feedback thread for Blackwood, mainly focusing on the zone, side quests, and other types of content found in the area. 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:

Quests
- Did you engage with the Main Story?
- Did you engage with any quests outside of the main story? If so, which ones?
- Did you find any quests to be problematic from either a directional or difficulty standpoint?
- Did you complete any quests with a companion? If so, how was the experience overall?
World Bosses
- Did you fight any world bosses? If so, which ones?
- Were any of them too easy or too hard?
- Were mechanics clearly communicated?
- Did you complete any world bosses with a companion? If so, how was the experience overall?
Public Dungeons
- Did you go into any public dungeons?
- Public dungeons are generally balanced for two or more players of average skill and gear. Did you feel sufficiently challenged?
- Did you go in with or without a companion?
Do you have any other general feedback?

Lady_Rosabella · April 2021

Completed writs quests, in Leyawiin, to get a layout of the crafting stations but did not find a writ turn-in area in the city. Will you be putting those in the city? It's crazy to have the convenience of doing the writs there and then have to travel to another zone to turn in your writs.

fboostb16_ESO · April 2021

I'm over 30 min in and still on the first quest. Are you serious. The immutable and unbreakable convention of any RPG game is one city, one quest, secondary loiation optional. Whoever designed this must have never played any role playing game.

fboostb16_ESO · April 2021

The first "quest" is really 3-4 quests.There is no sense of progression when a single quest drags on like this. And it is the first quest players experience in the new area. Game desing much?

fboostb16_ESO · April 2021

Ok next quest: run to the far corner of the map, fun.

fboostb16_ESO · April 2021

Dungeon boss is bugged, lifts up his staff, nice bone animation floating around, but no kill.

fboostb16_ESO · April 2021

Run back all the way, no portal? Double fun.

grizzledcroc · April 2021

How do ships go upriver xD?

fboostb16_ESO · April 2021

Outlaw refuge map doesn't work.

rpa · April 2021

Because EU I crated a new char and did the tutorial with no issues until end. (Except it was bit ...underwhelming. And lots of bookshelves, some I could and some could not interact with at least one bookself interacted as stack of books instead of bookshelf.) When I got to 'choose your destination room' with ports to various zones, after talking with the Whatwasthenameofthatelflady and noticing that nothing happened except loud music at (I assume) Blackwood portal and taking time examining all portals, (I assume) Blackwood one did still not work for me except music. Either bugged or it happened because I do not preorders. Anyway, I went instead to Vvardenfell and wayshrined Leyawiin outskirts with no issues and did some early parts of the zone quest.

(When has DB started to leave letters to victims? They certainly did not when I got to Silencer.) Next I'm supposed to check someone's manor at Leyawiin or something. My initial impression was bit too much of pointless running around.

fboostb16_ESO · April 2021

Better pacing on quest 2, finished after defeating the mini boss. Bur running to the far corner of map and back, idk.

RaddlemanNumber7 · April 2021

Do you have any other general feedback?

There's no separate section for the new tutorial, so I'll leave my feedback here.

There didn't seem to be anything hinting that the armoury room is there, other than the door interact itself. The quest markers point away from the armoury, to a different door. Too easy for new players to miss it completely. Getting armour and armour skills is important.
My character emerged from the tutorial with Skyshards showing 0/3. Assuming this is not a bug, what is the interaction with the skyshards in the tutorial supposed to teach a new player about how they are supposed interact with skyshards, and the reward they receive, in the rest of the game? Nothing it seems.
I chose to port out from the new tutorial to Stros M'Kai, arriving on the docks. This points the new player at the quest giver Captain Kaleen. The hooded figure is nowhere to be seen. If the new player takes Kaleen's quests, and follows that questline from Stros to Betnikh, and then goes on to Daggerfall, they will at last meet the hooded figure. If the player then does the Soul Shriven in Coldharbour quest, as I did, this will drop them right back where they started in Stros M'Kai. What a confusing mess.

fboostb16_ESO · April 2021

Quest 3 running to the other corner of the map. only from the center, but still. I think i see a patern emerging.

fboostb16_ESO · April 2021

My main problem with these long quest is that i do them while queueing for a random normal dungeon. When I return from the dungeon I get reset to the start of the delve and redoing it is not really fun.

Fischblut · April 2021

Do you have any other general feedback?

I have met Jarl Woof, and I was absolutely not ready for such cuteness and fun

https://youtu.be/x4VSyMXcQo0

We danced so much that he was tired

https://youtu.be/J2ZitYLjFfU

Overall I loved the new zone. It is very large, and so far I haven't found any mountains blocking my way through the map - I could ride in any direction without having to take detours.

fboostb16_ESO · April 2021

The mannequins from the clothes store should be available for player homes and configurable to show plaer costumes. A real crown store opportunity here guys.

ectoplasmicninja · April 2021

I would like to register my displeasure in the fact that this new tutorial basically makes every other previous tutorial entirely irrelevant. Yes, each chapter has done that, but many of us have been asking to be allowed to choose our own start point, and I was excited that we were finally going to get that with Blackwood...but this is not what we meant.

I want to go back to Firemoth Island and be able to play through that again, or back to Eldbur Sanctuary, or Star Haven Adeptorium. Remove the skillpoint, I just want the experience because it feels like a more organic start to my adventure. I don't think owning more chapters should give you fewer starting options. More options are always better.

Please give us the option of playing through any of the tutorials so we can truly choose where we begin our experience on Tamriel.

fboostb16_ESO · April 2021

Map for Daedlands: The Ashen Forest doesn't work

fboostb16_ESO · April 2021

After leaving the Inevitable i have two Celias and two Destrons.

fboostb16_ESO · April 2021

Again a quest: Weapons of Destruction leads me through many different realms with no save point for the random normal dungeon queue. There should be one before you enter the Sanctuary.

fboostb16_ESO · April 2021

Pyre of ambition, Listen to Mehrunes Dagon: No spoken dialogue.

fboostb16_ESO · April 2021

Suggestion: split every quest in two and the first one in three parts so they can be done comfortably while queueing for dungeons.

fboostb16_ESO · April 2021

Overall I really liked the style and the lighting, much more than I thought I would, the high fantasy style and the deadric style work really well. I enjoyed the voice acting, but after the performace for Khamira in Elsweyr almost everything is an improvement.

RemanCyrodiil_I · April 2021

Elsonso · April 2021

Do you have any other general feedback?

Staffing suggestion. The person who did the transparent invisible walls along the Elsweyr border north of Leyawiin, west of Undertow, needs to be assigned to more productive work next time around.

Seriously, I hope that when this launches, there won't just be invisible walls blocking the way.

JD2013 · April 2021

Fischblut wrote: »

Do you have any other general feedback?

I have met Jarl Woof, and I was absolutely not ready for such cuteness and fun

https://youtu.be/x4VSyMXcQo0

We danced so much that he was tired

https://youtu.be/J2ZitYLjFfU

Overall I loved the new zone. It is very large, and so far I haven't found any mountains blocking my way through the map - I could ride in any direction without having to take detours.

Well, I know what I'll be doing for hours at a time

that is so cute!

RemanCyrodiil_I wrote: »

It's a lovely detail that you can see the White-Gold Tower from some places with clear weather.

Wow that's a really nice detail!

Aliyavana · April 2021

In the quest Competition and Contracts, Greywyn Blenwyth appears. he is an important figure in lore though his race hasn't been confirmed. https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Greywyn_Blenwyth

His is depicted in PTS as Altmer, but his name sounds more Breton as evident here https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Breton_Names

I hope that his race is changed to Breton to better fit his name.

phantasmalD · April 2021

I've yet to do anything other than exploring, so I'll just leave generic feedback:

Wayshrines

Please, for the love of god, stop being so stingy with Wayshrines. A zone of this size needs more than 8. Or more accurately, more than 7. Because there are 2 wayhrines within running distance near Leyawiin, for whatever pointless reason. The lack of sensible wayshrines is what killed Northern Elsweyr and why nobody is doing dragons and WBs outside of events, so please take preemptive actions.

Pictures to illustrate my point:

The red circles show the wayshrines area of influence, marking the POIs that are within reasonable riding distance.

See how redudantly the area around Leyawiin is covered? 3 out of 8 wayshrines are essentially dedicated to the exact same area and almost nothing but one-time quest stuff is located there. Meanwhile the east is almost completely barren.

I haven't checked yet but i assume the dailies in Blackwood follow the established formula, sending you to WBs/delves. I can tell you right now that 4 out of 6 WBs are too far for me to bother with the dailies outside of maybe getting the achivement.

Therefore here's a proposed fix, green denoting the new or moved wayshrines:

While there are still uncovered areas and a bit of redundancy, thiswould overall be a much more balanced coverage, providing reasonable shortcuts to daily objectives. (Which is what a wayshrine should do)

Northern Elsweyr - Blackwood gate
Thank you for keeping in mind the importance of zone gates.

But please don't forget to mark in on the northern Elsweyr map as well, draw a road leading up to it so people are aware of its existence.

Stone bridges on Niben
I know this is kind of a remnant of TES IV's design, but these are vastly illogical. There's no way for ships to travel past them , even tho the Niben is supposed to be one of the busiest rivers on Tamriel (in peace time, at least)
Consider replacing them with very sensible drawbridges; it's not like new assets need to be made for that, they already exist and are used within the PvP Cyrodiil zone.

Invisible walls on the water near Pantherfang Chapel
I assume this will eventually be replaced with slaughterfishes but I think they start too far out from the wall. The walls are pretty unscalable, so no harm in letting players swim all the way up to it :B

Xanmeer building style
This is more of a note for the future, but consider creating a second style for argonian xanmeers. One of the biggest dangers Black Marsh is facing is that all the areas will end up collapsing into a single mash of indistinguishable landmass. In other words, that all the areas will end up looking the same. Having a second architecture style would greatly help preventing this.
(like how dwemers have slightly different alternate styles, helping Markarth and Volenfell to stand apart)
Even just a slight colour swap would go miles.

To end on something positive:
I love all the gorgeous waterfalls.

Especially the one south from Pantherfang Chapel.
And all rivers/lakes, prob the most serene looking zone up to this point.

PS:
Now that a more sensible location for it exist, can we move the entrance to Grand Topal Hideaway over to Blackwood? It's currently located in southern Grathwood, but it would make more sense in Blackwood in my opinion as it's much closer to the island and it IS an argonian themed home.

Aliyavana · April 2021

phantasmalD wrote: »

I've yet to do anything other than exploring, so I'll just leave generic feedback:

Wayshrines

Please, for the love of god, stop being so stingy with Wayshrines. A zone of this size needs more than 8. Or more accurately, more than 7. Because there are 2 wayhrines within running distance near Leyawiin, for whatever pointless reason. The lack of sensible wayshrines is what killed Northern Elsweyr and why nobody is doing dragons and WBs outside of events, so please take preemptive actions.

Pictures to illustrate my point:
The red circles show the wayshrines area of influence, marking the POIs that are within reasonable riding distance.

See how redudantly the area around Leyawiin is covered? 3 out of 8 wayshrines are essentially dedicated to the exact same area and almost nothing but one-time quest stuff is located there. Meanwhile the east is almost completely barren.

I haven't checked yet but i assume the dailies in Blackwood follow the established formula, sending you to WBs/delves. I can tell you right now that 4 out of 6 WBs are too far for me to bother with the dailies outside of maybe getting the achivement.

Therefore here's a proposed fix, green denoting the new or moved wayshrines:

While there are still uncovered areas and a bit of redundancy, thiswould overall be a much more balanced coverage, providing reasonable shortcuts to daily objectives. (Which is what a wayshrine should do)

Northern Elsweyr - Blackwood gate
Thank you for keeping in mind the importance of zone gates.
But please don't forget to mark in on the northern Elsweyr map as well, draw a road leading up to it so people are aware of its existence.

Stone bridges on Niben
I know this is kind of a remnant of TES IV's design, but these are vastly illogical. There's no way for ships to travel past them , even tho the Niben is supposed to be one of the busiest rivers on Tamriel (in peace time, at least)
Consider replacing them with very sensible drawbridges; it's not like new assets need to be made for that, they already exist and are used within the PvP Cyrodiil zone.

Invisible walls on the water near Pantherfang Chapel
I assume this will eventually be replaced with slaughterfishes but I think they start too far out from the wall. The walls are pretty unscalable, so no harm in letting players swim all the way up to it :B

Xanmeer building style
This is more of a note for the future, but consider creating a second style for argonian xanmeers. One of the biggest dangers Black Marsh is facing is that all the areas will end up collapsing into a single mash of indistinguishable landmass. In other words, that all the areas will end up looking the same. Having a second architecture style would greatly help preventing this.
(like how dwemers have slightly different alternate styles, helping Markarth and Volenfell to stand apart)
Even just a slight colour swap would go miles.

To end on something positive:
I love all the gorgeous waterfalls.
Especially the one south from Pantherfang Chapel.
And all rivers/lakes, prob the most serene looking zone up to this point.

PS:
Now that a more sensible location for it exist, can we move the entrance to Grand Topal Hideaway over to Blackwood? It's currently located in southern Grathwood, but it would make more sense in Blackwood in my opinion as it's much closer to the island and it IS an argonian themed home.

agreed with the wayshrines being too little

heaven13 · April 2021

Lady_Rosabella wrote: »

Completed writs quests, in Leyawiin, to get a layout of the crafting stations but did not find a writ turn-in area in the city. Will you be putting those in the city? It's crazy to have the convenience of doing the writs there and then have to travel to another zone to turn in your writs.

There is a writ turn in. I can't remember exactly where; the map didn't update with quest markers until I got closer to it but it's not too far away from the crafting area and wasn't through any doors. It's a line of boxes in little spots that look like vendor stalls along a wall. I love it. I'll probably be moving my characters here.

Cireous · April 2021

Why so gloomy Blackwood? Needs more sunshine, makes me sad.

Invisible walls everywhere.

/end critique