Blackwood quest "Vinnus' Research" behind triple Deadlands PD RNG?

virtus753 · June 2021

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but there seem to be three levels of RNG to get through before you can pick up and do the first stage for the quest "Vinnus' Research":

1) You need to find one of the portals to the Deadlands open in one of 18 locations. Several may be active at once, but there seem to be no guarantees which one is up at any given point in time.

2) Once you find an open portal, you need to hope you get the top left starter island. There are three starter islands. Presumably there is a 33.3% chance of each? And yet in 8 portals I've found in the past 4 hours, only 2 sent me to that island -- the other 6 sent me to the bottom starter island, and none of them sent me to the starter island in the top right. Not nearly a big enough data sample to indicate the actual chance, but enough to show how quickly this is getting old.

3) Once you've gotten a portal that takes you to the right starter island, you need to hope that starter island sends you to the correct one of the two possible intermediate islands. The starter island in the top left can send you to the island directly south (which is the one you need to be on) or the island directly east (which is the one you need not to be on). It isn't possible to get between islands except by the portals that predetermine your path. If you're sent to the island to the east, you're SOL. Both of the times that I've gotten the correct starter island today, I've been sent to the wrong intermediate island. Don't bother trying to get between islands on foot: environmental fall damage puts a short and sudden stop to that before you even get a chance to test the lava...

I happened somehow to get the right combo to get this quest a few days ago. The reason I'm trying to get back to the correct island is because I shared the quest with a friend. They got one of the two quest items (the copy of Vinnus' notes), but not the stone that they now need to pick up on that island. Why doesn't the stone share with the letter, avoiding this whole mess?

Having my friend drop the quest and disband group before entering a portal in the overland resulted in the portal sending them to the wrong starter island (the bottom one), so they couldn't get the quest again.

prof-dracko · June 2021

It's not like it's a big quest, or even has a great reward. There's no reason to be so worked up unless you NEED to do every side quest as soon as possible. Keep doing portals and you'll get it eventually.

jle30303 · March 2023

I am now trying to get this quest - due to running short of other quests to do in Blackwood.

So far today I have entered 25 Oblivion Portals.

Of these, they've been split about evenly between the 3 primary islands. I immediately leave if I am sent to the wrong primary island.

But out of the ones which have sent me to the correct primary island... EVERY SINGLE ONE has sent me to the wrong secondary island: the portal has always sent me east, not south.

Is this just bad RNG, or are you a lot less likely to be sent to that particular island?

And is there anything, ANYTHING, controllable about this at all?

SilverBride · March 2023

I literally spent an entire day trying to get to the quest starter but every time I got the correct starting island it took me east instead of south. I gave up for the day and came back the next day and got to the correct island the first try.

There is no good reason why it has to be so hard to reach the quest giver. It's not like it gives a great quest reward. It's just one of those "I found this item and I'm returning it to you" quests.

Grizzbeorn · March 2023

SO many other quest-givers spawn in multiple locations, directly in your path (and are a supreme annoyance because of it), why can't they make this one function that way? Put the quest-giver in your path, regardless of which island you land on, or get shunted to.

"Begone, reeker..."

ZOS_Phoenix · March 2023

Greetings,

After further review we have decided to move this thread to the Quests and Exploration category, which we think is more appropriate for this topic.

Thank you for your understanding.

Carcamongus · March 2023

It's weird to have placed the quest start at such a difficult place. Compare that with the non-marked quest that rewards you with the (adorable) bog dog pet: the final part of it takes place in the Atoll of Immolation, but at the last section of the zone through which everyone passes to reach the boss. It seems like a lot of trouble for not a lot of reward.

jle30303 · March 2023

Well.

In the last three days, I have entered countless Oblivion Portals.

About a third of them have taken me to the NW starter island. So far so good. (If it is a different island, I turn around and go out again. No sense wasting my time.)

But, of all of those, EVERY SINGLE ONE WITHOUT EXCEPTION has directed me east, rather than south, when I get to the portal to the second island. I just cannot reach the island which actually has Vinnus's Note on it. I mean, this is something like 25-30 attempts.

(I tried entering portals from the Deadlands instead. The third one started me on the NW starter island, then the portal from that took me south, to the island I wanted... But the Deadlands version of that island does not have Vinnus's note or corpse on it.)

So. Is this a bug, or is there some other condition that must be fulfilled before you can be taken to the actually desired island? Before you can enter a portal that goes south, rather than east, from the NW starter island?

SilverBride · March 2023

@ZOS_Kevin

This is a very frustrating experience. All we want to do is reach this quest giver but it takes multiple tries before we finally get to him, if at all. This is just an average quest to take a found item to someone in town and doesn't offer any great rewards so the difficulty in finding it is way out of proportion.

Is this intended or is this a bug? Please check into this. Thank you.

virtus753 · March 2023

jle30303 wrote: »

Well.

In the last three days, I have entered countless Oblivion Portals.

About a third of them have taken me to the NW starter island. So far so good. (If it is a different island, I turn around and go out again. No sense wasting my time.)

But, of all of those, EVERY SINGLE ONE WITHOUT EXCEPTION has directed me east, rather than south, when I get to the portal to the second island. I just cannot reach the island which actually has Vinnus's Note on it. I mean, this is something like 25-30 attempts.

(I tried entering portals from the Deadlands instead. The third one started me on the NW starter island, then the portal from that took me south, to the island I wanted... But the Deadlands version of that island does not have Vinnus's note or corpse on it.)

So. Is this a bug, or is there some other condition that must be fulfilled before you can be taken to the actually desired island? Before you can enter a portal that goes south, rather than east, from the NW starter island?

I should add that at the time this thread was made, the Deadlands existed only as a public dungeon accessed via portals in Blackwood. They renamed it to Atoll of Immolation when the Deadlands released as its own zone later that year.

We know from loot tables that the Atoll of Immolation accessed from portals in the Deadlands is not the same thing as the Atoll of Immolation accessed from Blackwood. So whatever good they might have done in renaming the PD was erased in creating two PDs that are called the same thing and look exactly the same but are not the same for the purposes of loot and this quest.

Kevin, if you’re reading this by any chance, can you please also pass along how hopelessly confusing this is in general? Both the quest specifically and the search for motifs and plans and such in general. There is no way to tell from the PD names or the PDs themselves that there are key differences. Some of my guildies have wasted days farming in the wrong one - and it’s completely understandable that people would look in the wrong PD for this quest, which can’t be obtained there.

It’s just a mess all around right now.

Necrotech_Master · March 2023

i agree that the atoll has always been a mess

its technically classed as a public dungeon, and the instances appear identical for both blackwood and the deadlands (though they are different), and to add to the confusion they are even named the same

when the deadlands released, i initially had assumed they even lead to the same zone because they are in all respects functionally identical (outside of the loot tables)

i think i got this side quest, but purely random chance (its hard to remember since it was at least 1.5 years ago now lol)

SilverBride · March 2023

To clarify, all my attempts to reach this quest were from portals in Blackwood.

jle30303 · March 2023

About two dozen more attempts to reach the correct island today. (All from Blackwood portals: not Deadlands).

Six of those attempts, started me off in the correct primary island (the NW one).

On ALL SIX occasions, the portal at the end of the primary island sent me east, to the wrong secondary island. Instead of sending me south, to the desired secondary island.

This is now over 40 times.

This cannot be purely RNG. There must be some other factor at work here. Is there some condition, some stipulation that must be fulfilled before one can travel south rather than east from the NW primary island? Or is there a bug that makes one always go the same way?

if so, is there a similar (but irrelevant) bug with the other islands too? Like, if you go to the southern island, are you always sent the same way there?

virtus753 · March 2023

When I went back with a friend to get them the quest, it felt random. I tried every island. Each starter island had a chance to go to either of the two adjacent islands. Beyond that, there was no way to control it. Porting to someone already in the PD sent me to a random starter island, which resulted in the same RNG for choice of secondary island.

I do believe it is RNG, since there didn’t seem to be any way to influence it, and I’m sorry it’s treating you so poorly.

SilverBride · March 2023

The law of averages would expect a player to be sent to the South Island approximately 50% off the time since there are only 2 possible outcomes. But as has been shown by multiple players, it almost always sends the player to the East Island.

This is not just RNG.

They need to either fix this or move the quest giver to the starting island because the amount of time and effort it takes to find him is way out of proportion to the importance of the quest and its rewards.

virtus753 · March 2023

SilverBride wrote: »

The law of averages would expect a player to be sent to the South Island approximately 50% off the time since there are only 2 possible outcomes. But as has been shown by multiple players, it almost always sends the player to the East Island.

This is not just RNG.

They need to either fix this or move the quest giver to the starting island because the amount of time and effort it takes to find him is way out of proportion to the importance of the quest and its rewards.

Unfortunately there’s no way for us to see how many players get sent where. It’s possible (even probable) that the players who get frustrated by this are the ones who post here about their poor experiences while players who get there quickly don’t post because they don’t have a problem. Getting six heads or six tails in a row does not mean the coin must be rigged. For every player who gets sent to the wrong island six times out of six, there is likely a player who gets sent to the right island six times in a row. The chance of each of those things happening is 1.5625% if there is a 50% chance of being sent from the right starter island to the right intermediate island. That’s going to happen to someone at some point when you’ve got a game with 20 million accounts and at least that many characters. Granted, not all of them will be doing Blackwood portals, but we’re still talking potentially, realistically, millions. The experiences of three or four players compared to numbers that large cannot prove this isn’t RNG. What it can prove is that this is a very, very frustrating situation with no apparent safeguard in place to help us reach the content in question in a reasonable time period.

Even if they have not repeated this very problematic and easily avoidable situation in subsequent DLC, they have not done anything noticeable to address this one. With that I most certainly agree.

AllNightPlayer · August 2023

I just wanted to remind the devs, that the RNG is still broken. I can’t get to the correct 2nd island. Please, change this quest and put Vinnus on each of the 3 starter islands. There’re always more then one location to start/get a quest. Why is this one hidden?

SilverBride · August 2023

AllNightPlayer wrote: »

I just wanted to remind the devs, that the RNG is still broken. I can’t get to the correct 2nd island. Please, change this quest and put Vinnus on each of the 3 starter islands. There’re always more then one location to start/get a quest. Why is this one hidden?

I can verify that this is still broken. Maybe it's not a big deal for everyone to miss one quest in one zone but for a completionist such as myself it is.

I do every quest in every zone on every character and even after all these years I still enjoy them. Having this one unreachable is beyond frustrating.

This isn't even a special quest with a special reward so there is no reason for it to be so difficult to reach, which is what makes me believe it was not intentional but rather a bug.

Please make it so we are taken to the South Island as often as the East one, or better yet place the quest giver on the first island. Please.

Mooncake · October 2023

I'm sure this is not RNG or a bug. This is by design. They need us to spend countless hours in-game to spike up the playtime KPI.