2 most recent companions require Public Dungeons?

FlopsyPrince · February 2024

Am I correct that both of the 2 latest companions require running through Public Dungeons to get them?

SilverBride · February 2024

They sure do and their quest chains are longer than previous ones. This is why I'd love the option to unlock them on other characters once we've done it once.

FlopsyPrince · February 2024

SilverBride wrote: »

They sure do and their quest chains are longer than previous ones. This is why I'd love the option to unlock them on other characters once we've done it once.

I have been unlocking a LOT of them since I restarted on console as well recently. It gets VERY tedious.

Though based on history, the only likely way we will get it is in the Crown Store.

I only did part of the chain on both since returning in November 2023. I am not sure I will both grinding that 40+ times.

Same with all the companion upgrade quests.

SilverBride · February 2024

They did it with the ToT tutorial, so why not this too?

If these were short fun quests it would be different, but I didn't enjoy either of these.

FlopsyPrince · February 2024

SilverBride wrote: »

They did it with the ToT tutorial, so why not this too?

If these were short fun quests it would be different, but I didn't enjoy either of these.

ESO can and should be much more alt-friendly.

Even World of Warcraft seems to have gotten that message, with automatically sharing wayshrines, no additional cost. I think that is coming up, but it was publicized. ESO would benefit from a lot of that.

Araneae6537 · February 2024

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Am I correct that both of the 2 latest companions require running through Public Dungeons to get them?

Yes, but you can avoid the bosses — not like you have to complete the public dungeon as part of their unlock quest, although I usually did for the achieves or XP. I MUCH preferred Sharp and Azander’s unlock quests to the those of the High Isle companions, personally! Isobel’s especially was just long and tedious and silly and I haven’t been able to bring myself to do it a second time.

FlopsyPrince · February 2024

Araneae6537 wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Am I correct that both of the 2 latest companions require running through Public Dungeons to get them?

Yes, but you can avoid the bosses — not like you have to complete the public dungeon as part of their unlock quest, although I usually did for the achieves or XP. I MUCH preferred Sharp and Azander’s unlock quests to the those of the High Isle companions, personally! Isobel’s especially was just long and tedious and silly and I haven’t been able to bring myself to do it a second time.

Ember's quest is the simplest. Doing the 3rd choice then the 2nd for Isobel eliminates needless travel back and forth, but yes, hers is fairly long. Not as long as the Necrom ones however, at least the part I have completed. I still have steps to go.

I am assuming the group events in these are also a pain. I cannot do one in High Isle solo due to its nukes, so I wait for someone else to come, something that will likely be rough when Necrom is not new. It was rather sparse even when I tried, making challenging fights even more risky to complete.

ADarklore · February 2024

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Araneae6537 wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Am I correct that both of the 2 latest companions require running through Public Dungeons to get them?

Yes, but you can avoid the bosses — not like you have to complete the public dungeon as part of their unlock quest, although I usually did for the achieves or XP. I MUCH preferred Sharp and Azander’s unlock quests to the those of the High Isle companions, personally! Isobel’s especially was just long and tedious and silly and I haven’t been able to bring myself to do it a second time.

Ember's quest is the simplest. Doing the 3rd choice then the 2nd for Isobel eliminates needless travel back and forth, but yes, hers is fairly long. Not as long as the Necrom ones however, at least the part I have completed. I still have steps to go.

I am assuming the group events in these are also a pain. I cannot do one in High Isle solo due to its nukes, so I wait for someone else to come, something that will likely be rough when Necrom is not new. It was rather sparse even when I tried, making challenging fights even more risky to complete.

So are these your first companions to unlock? You could always unlock Mirri and Bastian first, since their quests are the easiest, and then have one of them set to healer, I prefer Mirri or even set Bastian as tank. As others also noted, you can easily avoid the bosses altogether and just deal with the mobs, which is what I do.

With that being said, being I have 1880 CP, even on a low level character I have no problems completing these quests without a healer companion; I am also typically run my Heartland/Fortified Brass training-trait set. I know I could complete the bosses, but choose to skip them so I can complete them later when I return to the Telvanni Peninsula to complete all the quests.

Beilin_Balreis_Colcan · February 2024

Ember's was nice and short, in fact I was surprised at how short.

BlueRaven · February 2024

Like most gameplay “improvements” Necrom related, the quests were pretty terrible. I did them and got them on the alts I wanted for them, but I will happily never do them again.

What I find really insufferable is getting Sharp to increase his “likes” meter, I have basically given up on him at this point.

Grizzbeorn · February 2024

I have Mirri, Izzy, and Ember unlocked on my main, and Izzy and Ember each individually on a couple of alts, and I have Sharp and Zander unlocked on 1 character (one of my alts who doesn't have any of the other companions unlocked).

I've made a handful of new characters since Necrom was released, and I don't even bother unlocking companions anymore.

Re-running their unlock quests over and over and over and over and over is BOOOOORING.
NO ME GUSTA; won't do it anymore.

Adremal · February 2024

BlueRaven wrote: »

Like most gameplay “improvements” Necrom related, the quests were pretty terrible. I did them and got them on the alts I wanted for them, but I will happily never do them again.

What I find really insufferable is getting Sharp to increase his “likes” meter, I have basically given up on him at this point.

I for one found them to be the most enjoyable companion quests ever released. They were definitely an improvement over Bastian & Mirri's snorefests. The "like" meter is also much easier to raise, especially on Sharp, he doesn't dislike anything you'd normally do and he pretty much likes everything you would - picking up alchemy nodes and heavy sacks for instance, plus his big ones are simple dailies, one of which new so people would do it anyway, and the Ashlander hunt one takes what, 3 minutes? Both give 125, so that's 250 a day just out of simple dailies, I was surprised by how quickly the meter got up.

SilverBride · February 2024

Sharp's quest in Gorne was the worst of any Companion to date for me. That place is like a maze and I finally sort of figured out a path that I didn't get stuck in dead ends constantly and unlocked him on all my characters back to back while it was still fresh in my mind.

It's a shame too because he's definitely one of my favorites, but the experience was not the least bit enjoyable.

ADarklore · February 2024

Adremal wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

Like most gameplay “improvements” Necrom related, the quests were pretty terrible. I did them and got them on the alts I wanted for them, but I will happily never do them again.

What I find really insufferable is getting Sharp to increase his “likes” meter, I have basically given up on him at this point.

I for one found them to be the most enjoyable companion quests ever released. They were definitely an improvement over Bastian & Mirri's snorefests. The "like" meter is also much easier to raise, especially on Sharp, he doesn't dislike anything you'd normally do and he pretty much likes everything you would - picking up alchemy nodes and heavy sacks for instance, plus his big ones are simple dailies, one of which new so people would do it anyway, and the Ashlander hunt one takes what, 3 minutes? Both give 125, so that's 250 a day just out of simple dailies, I was surprised by how quickly the meter got up.

^THIS! Sharp was the easier companion to level up because he rarely dislikes anything; the only thing I find he really dislikes is visiting the outfit station and destroying items of value that you could sell. He likes it when you repair your gear, drink potions, fish, etc... all on cooldown timers. But the Ashlander daily and defeating a difficult monster are all easy to do as well.

Tandor · February 2024

Out of interest, are people who complete all the companions' quests on all their characters doing so because they intend to use all the companions on every character, or simply through some sense of completionism?

Bear in mind with the public dungeons that all you have to do is the companion's quest, you can ignore everything else.

SilverBride · February 2024

Tandor wrote: »

Out of interest, are people who complete all the companions' quests on all their characters doing so because they intend to use all the companions on every character, or simply through some sense of completionism?

Both.

Tandor · February 2024

Since my last post, I completed Azandar's Public Dungeon on my own in about 15 minutes including killing one unrelated boss and and picking up the skyshard.

SilverBride · February 2024

Tandor wrote: »

Since my last post, I completed Azandar's Public Dungeon on my own in about 15 minutes including killing one unrelated boss and and picking up the skyshard.

The public dungeon part is only one step in a long quest chain. The Companion quests this time around were a lot longer and included more instanced content than ever before. Not a fun trend.

JustLovely · February 2024

There are six companions already. What can the new ones do that the other six can't?

ADarklore · February 2024

JustLovely wrote: »

There are six companions already. What can the new ones do that the other six can't?

Have different personalities, races and classes (we're still missing Necro).

As for the length of the new companion quests... I can usually complete Sharp's in about 15/m and Azandar's in about 20/m. I completely ignore most mobs in the dungeons and, since I've done all companion quests at least 20 times each already, I can zip through them pretty quickly.

Morimizo · February 2024

We may find ourselves longing for the day of companion quests in sections of public dungeons; the next two are coming in a 'PvP Update' in quarter 4, and might task players to venture to the Imperial City, for instance.

I'm sure it will be fine, tho. ...Right?!?

Hapexamendios · February 2024

It's not hard at all. I completed both on my new arcanist under level 10.

SilverBride · February 2024

Hapexamendios wrote: »

It's not hard at all. I completed both on my new arcanist under level 10.

No one said it was hard. But it is long and tedious.

Araneae6537 · February 2024

It’s good that there are variety for different players. I’ve liked Sharp and Azandar’s unlock quests best to date. Bastian’s was interesting and I would have liked Mirri’s if there had been more dialogue options for the player and/or NPCs’ responses based on the player’s race and actions. I just really don’t like the High Isle ones. The quests seemed so silly and a waste of time considering they earn little to no XP for me or any current companion. I found Sharp’s quest easy to get pulled into and I liked both of the new Public Dungeons so it was content I didn’t mind doing again.

I usually unlike every companion with my crafter main and then any other character I think they would fit with, character or skill-wise, or ideally both.

Erickson9610 · February 2024

Morimizo wrote: »

We may find ourselves longing for the day of companion quests in sections of public dungeons; the next two are coming in a 'PvP Update' in quarter 4, and might task players to venture to the Imperial City, for instance.

I'm sure it will be fine, tho. ...Right?!?

We don't know much about the Companions in Q4 this year. On the one hand, it'd be awesome if we could bring our Companions into PvP, but it'll likely never happen for performance reasons. The Q4 update teased some new PvP feature, but it releasing at the same time as the Companions doesn't necessarily mean there's a link between the two.

KlauthWarthog · February 2024

Tandor wrote: »

Out of interest, are people who complete all the companions' quests on all their characters doing so because they intend to use all the companions on every character, or simply through some sense of completionism?

Bear in mind with the public dungeons that all you have to do is the companion's quest, you can ignore everything else.

I got both Necrom companions on all characters, but only got the others on my main.
Clearing all the public dungeons is a thing that I always do for all my characters, so I had no reason not to get the companions while doing that on Necrom.

FlopsyPrince · February 2024

SilverBride wrote: »

Hapexamendios wrote: »

It's not hard at all. I completed both on my new arcanist under level 10.

No one said it was hard. But it is long and tedious.

Exactly!

Commenting on something doesn't mean it is too hard in all cases, just unenjoyable, past perhaps the first time.

Hapexamendios wrote: »

It's not hard at all. I completed both on my new arcanist under level 10.

Try doing it on 40-50+ alts....

I am someone who has done the Alikir quest line at least 40 times and I find these very tedious.

Aislinna · February 2024

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Try doing it on 40-50+ alts....

No thank you, I really, really don't like doing tedius tasks and doing something 40-50 times seems the definition of tedium to me.

FlopsyPrince · February 2024

Aislinna wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Try doing it on 40-50+ alts....

No thank you, I really, really don't like doing tedius tasks and doing something 40-50 times seems the definition of tedium to me.

And that is my point, in agreement with SilverBride.

The game can and should be much more alt-friendly in areas like this.

The OP was just asking the question however to confirm what I thought.

ADarklore · February 2024

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Morimizo wrote: »

We may find ourselves longing for the day of companion quests in sections of public dungeons; the next two are coming in a 'PvP Update' in quarter 4, and might task players to venture to the Imperial City, for instance.

I'm sure it will be fine, tho. ...Right?!?

We don't know much about the Companions in Q4 this year. On the one hand, it'd be awesome if we could bring our Companions into PvP, but it'll likely never happen for performance reasons. The Q4 update teased some new PvP feature, but it releasing at the same time as the Companions doesn't necessarily mean there's a link between the two.

Exactly. My opinion is this... because only about 20% or so of ESO players actively participate in PVP, which doesn't add up to many DLC sales. So, by including two new companions WITH the DLC, this means more people who don't PVP are likely to purchase it- those that don't have ESO+ anyway.

Elsonso · February 2024

ADarklore wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Morimizo wrote: »

We may find ourselves longing for the day of companion quests in sections of public dungeons; the next two are coming in a 'PvP Update' in quarter 4, and might task players to venture to the Imperial City, for instance.

I'm sure it will be fine, tho. ...Right?!?

We don't know much about the Companions in Q4 this year. On the one hand, it'd be awesome if we could bring our Companions into PvP, but it'll likely never happen for performance reasons. The Q4 update teased some new PvP feature, but it releasing at the same time as the Companions doesn't necessarily mean there's a link between the two.

Exactly. My opinion is this... because only about 20% or so of ESO players actively participate in PVP, which doesn't add up to many DLC sales. So, by including two new companions WITH the DLC, this means more people who don't PVP are likely to purchase it- those that don't have ESO+ anyway.

Well, honestly, I think that the reason they moved the companions to 4Q is to give something to the PVE crowd. Otherwise, 4Q would just be this new PVP content.

I don't think that it is for DLC sales, though. I think the new PVP content will be base game, or at least free in the Crown Store. I don't believe they have the PVP community here to support monetization right now. ZOS seems to be moving away from Zone and overland style content, so I expect the new content will be a "stage" upon which we play. Similar to Infinite Archive, which is a succession of stages, or Battlegrounds, where a stage is picked. Maybe Infinite Battlegrounds?

As for companions, I think they will also be base game, but I have always reserved the thought that ZOS will eventually roll out Direct-To-Store companion content. This could be the year for that, I guess. I think they stand a much better chance of monetizing some cool flashy (literally) Daedric companions than any sort of PVP content.