PSA: DROP THE "Kill 20 Arcanists" QUEST

tomofhyrule · July 2023

It's still not confirmed, but it's looking likely that this quest may be the cause of the new bug that desyncs your character's quest states. See the discussion here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/636606/quest-status-bug

If you have the bug, you'll notice that the zone guides in various zones will show a lot of things as uncompleted, even though you may have done the quests, and it may even leave certain quest hubs in unexpected states (e.g. the weather in Vvardenfell may be stuck in the state where the volcano's erupting). In general, the quests the zone guide says are completed tend to be in odd orders, e.g. the last quests finished but the first ones unfinished. The bug has also caused zones that have not been completed to look like they have been (most affected players are now showing 8/9 story quests completed in Necrom despite not touching the story quest. This does not allow you to redo quests, but it does leave the zones in this mismatched state.

While it seems mostly visual, it will end up locking you out of quest-locked zones, so you will end up blocked from finishing certain Chapter questlines that have quest-locked areas. Several people have also seen that Tales of Tribute queueing is also not working as the game assumes you have not done the tutorial, but it won't let you redo any quests.

I'd suggest that until this is investigated, it may be helpful to drop the "Kill 20 Arcanists" quest from your log for the time being.

ESO_player123 · July 2023

Those pesky Arcanists. Always meddling with fates.

Galiferno · July 2023

Just posted in that thread but I'll repost here. I did this daily for the first time today since I just barely started getting into pvping. Turned it in and logged off my main, and then the next time I logged on I noticed my Zone Guides in every zone I had 100% completion in were bugged. And zones I had barely ever touched were showing random things completed. I'm pretty worried this is low on ZOS' priority list and my main can potentially remain bugged for a long time, if not forever. It's pretty heartbreaking to pour countless hours into my main and then end up with this bug. I had just finished Cadwell's Gold for the first time, then did everything in Craglorn, and was gonna start Wrothgar. Now, I don't want to do anything related to zone completion cuz of this bug.

Just checked my Necrom progress. I have never touched any of the main quest in there, just daily quests and the public dungeons quests. But it's saying 8/9 quests finished for the main storyline.

acastanza_ESO · July 2023

Reported the same bug back on the 11th: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/635753/necrom-quest-progress-bugged

At least in my case though I'm pretty sure it didn't have anything to do with the kill arcanists quest.

Naftal · July 2023

My arcanist lost most of their skill points. Not really but the game thinks I haven't done almost any dungeons anymore and the quest givers in some dungeons even have the icon on them that I should be able to get a quest. Almost all dungeons and all public dungeons show as not completed in the map even though I've done them.

I think this happened after I reseted my arcanist build on armory station into one that didn't have almost anything unlocked.

I doubt the kill 20 arcanist quests has anything to do with this.

Four_Fingers · July 2023

I already completed the kill 20 arcs quest the first day, havent had any problems on PS anyway.

TinyDragon · July 2023

This might be why I can't play tribute anymore- it keeps telling me to do the quest to unlock it, but I've done it a long time ago and when I click the pick up quest button, I get an error!

tomofhyrule · July 2023

TinyDragon wrote: »

This might be why I can't play tribute anymore- it keeps telling me to do the quest to unlock it, but I've done it a long time ago and when I click the pick up quest button, I get an error!

Yeah, that's one of the things that happens with this bug. You should still be able to play NPC matches or queue on a different character, but until they fix it that character is also barred from queueing for Tribute.

That character is then also not able to do any quests that involve a quest-locked location, which is most story quests as well, so if you haven't done any zone quests on that character, you're not able to do those either.

Again, we still don't have confirmation if this is how the bug is caused (or if there are more than one way), but this is definitely common among people who were affected. I really hope some of the devs can comment on this bug soon because there are players who have been locked out of doing the game for over a month at this point, and there's been no word on a fix at all.

I know people like to say that every other issue is 'gamebreaking,' but when there's a bug that actively prevents you from doing the main quest of the chapter (one which is not on ESO+ and honestly hasn't really even gone on sale yet...), then there aren't many other ways to put it...

tomofhyrule · July 2023

Coming back after testing this on PTS, and I can confirm that the bug is caused by turning in the 'Kill 20 Arcanists' quest and then leaving Cyrodiil.

Please see the test information here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7917905/#Comment_7917905

Again IF YOU HAVE THIS QUEST, DROP IT. DO NOT TURN THIS QUEST IN.

I can't say that this is the only way to bug your game, so some people may find it through other means. I can only confirm that this quest does initiate that bug though.

Again, a bugged character:

will not be able to queue for Tales of Tribute matches
will not be able to enter any quest-locked areas (including the Reaper's March public dungeon and the Dark Brotherhood sanctuary)
will not have the correct quest states shown in all zones (finished areas will show incomplete quests, while unfinished zones may falsely report quests as completed)
essentially will not be able to quest until the bug is fixed

Necrotech_Master · July 2023

havent noticed anything weird, but ive only done this quest on my pvp specific toon that has done little or no story quest content lol

i definitely completed this quest several times during the event lol

tomofhyrule · July 2023

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

havent noticed anything weird, but ive only done this quest on my pvp specific toon that has done little or no story quest content lol

i definitely completed this quest several times during the event lol

This is what I assume the issue is - some quest somewhere sets a flag, and then the 'Kill Arcanists' quest accidentally overrides it.

That means that if you don't have much questing done on the character who does the Bounty quest, you should be fine. But if you have a lot of questing data, it'll get borked.

zaria · July 2023

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Coming back after testing this on PTS, and I can confirm that the bug is caused by turning in the 'Kill 20 Arcanists' quest and then leaving Cyrodiil.

Please see the test information here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7917905/#Comment_7917905

Again IF YOU HAVE THIS QUEST, DROP IT. DO NOT TURN THIS QUEST IN.

I can't say that this is the only way to bug your game, so some people may find it through other means. I can only confirm that this quest does initiate that bug though.

Again, a bugged character:
will not be able to queue for Tales of Tribute matches

will not be able to enter any quest-locked areas (including the Reaper's March public dungeon and the Dark Brotherhood sanctuary)

will not have the correct quest states shown in all zones (finished areas will show incomplete quests, while unfinished zones may falsely report quests as completed)

essentially will not be able to quest until the bug is fixed

I say this is an very bizarre bug not the bug itself but why its triggered by the old the kill 20 players of X class and a new class.

tomofhyrule · July 2023

zaria wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Coming back after testing this on PTS, and I can confirm that the bug is caused by turning in the 'Kill 20 Arcanists' quest and then leaving Cyrodiil.

Please see the test information here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7917905/#Comment_7917905

Again IF YOU HAVE THIS QUEST, DROP IT. DO NOT TURN THIS QUEST IN.

I can't say that this is the only way to bug your game, so some people may find it through other means. I can only confirm that this quest does initiate that bug though.

Again, a bugged character:
will not be able to queue for Tales of Tribute matches

will not be able to enter any quest-locked areas (including the Reaper's March public dungeon and the Dark Brotherhood sanctuary)

will not have the correct quest states shown in all zones (finished areas will show incomplete quests, while unfinished zones may falsely report quests as completed)

essentially will not be able to quest until the bug is fixed

I say this is an very bizarre bug not the bug itself but why its triggered by the old the kill 20 players of X class and a new class.

I assume it has to do with the fact that 'Kill 20 Arcanists' was added as a new quest, but it's probably unintentionally reusing a questID that something else already uses.

That would explain why players who do the 'Kill Arcanists' quest but haven't done overland questing (like a PvP-specific alt) don't end up bugged, but players who have done a lot of questing around end up in a bugged game state.

For the time being, I'd say that it's only safe to do that quest if you are on an alt that hasn't done any overland questing. I'm hoping that ZOS will patch the misused QuestID soon to prevent anyone else from getting the bug, and then they can hopefully untangle the world states for those of us who did get it - because once it hits you, you're unable to do basically any questing at all.

Hea1y · July 2023

Will this get fixed? I've got a lot of stuff now grayed out because of this bug. Random stuff like White Gold Tower and Mournhold

ZOS_Icy · July 2023

Greetings,

This thread has been moved to the Quests and Exploration section, as it is better suited there.

Thank you for your understanding.

vsrs_au · July 2023

ESO_player123 wrote: »

Those pesky Arcanists. Always meddling with fates.

Yeah, those poxy proxies.