What satisfaction rating do you give Solistice? 85% here. Favorite part?

Veinblood1965 · June 23

Ok Solstice came out on PS4/5 last week and I have a few thoughts. I finally got the time yesterday to play for a few hours and it was not as bad as what I've read. I'm giving it an 85 percent on the satisfaction rating which is not bad at all.

Things I liked about it:

Hardly any of the invulnerable phases on boss mobs, thanks ZoS you listened. I was seriously done with the game if that continued, it was getting old fast....
The delves and public dungeons were quite detailed. They flowed well. The public dungeon was really well done, that had to have taken a lot of time to create.
The landscape was well designed, it looked great and was not all the same.
The zone itself was larger than I thought it would be after reading posts about how small it was. I take my time in new zones and walk "not ride" the entire zone breaking it into sections. I only explored a small corner of it yesterday which was nice.
So far the quests have not been run here and talk with this NPC, then run there and talk with that one over and over.

Things I did not like:

Not a lot of mobs in the overland other than the usual trash mobs here and there. It had the feeling of Blackwood. Well done zone but empty. There really needs to be more mobs added to zones that actually wander around with larger pathways. Most mobs just stand in the same spots other than a few humanoid ones who walk a few feet, dance or do something and walk back. I will give that some of the mobs were cool looking, the town or whatever it was that is on the southwest corner of the map had colorful mobs who looked like they were having meetings though, nice touch there btw.
Along the same line there really need to be a few tougher mobs scattered about other than world bosses. That was done well in some of the previous zones with Wandering World Bosses and some of the same in West Weald.
Very rarely do any of the buildings in the overland have actual doors you can use to enter and explore. There is a town that has houses built up on sticks like in Murkmire that had a lot of buildings and only one or two you could enter. The majority you could not. I think if you are going to take the time to design such a cool looking building then go the extra step and create the interior of a few just for looks, not just for when a quest is involved.

I was actually pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed it as much as I did yesterday. The best part IMO was the public dungeon.

I haven't tried subclassing yet though. Mainly due to time constraints.

Cooperharley · June 23

I think the zone is aight! I've liked other zones much better personally - Elsweyr, Western Skyrim & Summerset for example are phenomenal.

It just feels weird to me that we have argonians and high elves hanging out together in a tropical paradise as the setting for the worm cult rising again. I've been wanting some more dark and gritty feels to the game and less family friendly stuff being that this is an elder scrolls game.

I enjoyed it! Just would've enjoyed it much more if it was what was stated above

Supreme_Atromancer · June 23

I'm pretty satisfied. There are probably spoilers throughout my response, so take care if you're concerned!

I wasn't super blown-away excited to go to another random out-of-the-way island, but I think the environment is very beautiful and well-done.

On the one hand, I think the Shelltide story told in the zone was really compelling; the quality of the story is up there with the best. I felt things! On the other hand, it felt like the same Argonian themes we've seen a lot of already (albeit with different elements); the impression I keep getting from them is the pure-native fetishism. Which might just be the writers expressing an idea about the world, so it might be just personal taste. But I want to see more of the internal conflict and different aspects of the whole. I want the Argonians down in the moral mud with the rest of us!

I was quite looking forward to the return of the Worm Cult, and I was not disappointed; I really enjoyed the story and the pacing was great. The ending was suitably epic. Li'xal Pass was a highlight! I really enjoyed that the returning NPCs weren't overdone, and kept their tone. I really like Skordo in particular. And Gabrielle absolutely felt like the same character. One of my all-time favourite characters, btw. Just saying.

Shor's Stand objective was enjoyable (I particularly liked Speaker Sogrard, he's gruff and pessimistic(?) but not overdone); Tainted Leel story was an engaging story; I was happy that Vale of Revelry had some depth by having issues to explore- the feud felt very much like a Tamriel story, and an interesting juxtaposition; Broken Light temple was also good- I enjoyed exploring a little bit more about the supposed benevolent Prince, though I was confused about who Carisea was meant to be (according to diaries you find) vs. who she turned out to be. BTW, I really loved the architecture of the temple, particularly the sort of daedric-esque floor in the main chamber- its unique but has that traditional daedric element to it.

I'm having a blast with subclassing. Its given me more reason to be in game, its a LOT of fun, and its allowed me to build characters to MY vision, which was a major gripe of mine.

Veinblood1965 wrote: »

Along the same line there really need to be a few tougher mobs scattered about other than world bosses. That was done well in some of the previous zones with Wandering World Bosses and some of the same in West Weald.

I LOVE Wandering World Bosses. I'd love to see more.

Very rarely do any of the buildings in the overland have actual doors you can use to enter and explore. There is a town in that has houses built up on sticks like in Murkmire that had a lot of buildings and only one or two you could enter. The majority you could not. I think if you are going to take the time to design such a cool looking building then go the extra step and create the interior of a few just for looks, not just for when a quest is involved.

Yep. I guess it must be a development time thing, or a server load thing, but I'd absolutely love to see the end of the Chained Door, even if there's not all that much inside LET ME IN!!!

fall0athboy · June 23

Invulernable phases are fine but they really went way too much in West Weald.

I'm in the middle in terms of the zone. I would prefer it if the Soul Reapers showed which ones were active. "Wanderers of Western Solstice" is annoying because the An Argonian Education duo (Ormendhros and Tlineesh) do not show up, but the Culinary Pursuits duo (Fanasa Tedran and Shata-Tei) show up near-constantly.

But the zone is pretty. The town feels different from previous hub towns, which is nice.

I hate the public dungeon, and I do not know why.

I appreciate Sanguine actually got some new content.

Ryori729 · June 23

I would give it a low rating.

One of three world bosses resets. Two of the three go immune so not sure why the OP gave it a good rating on that point. But as someone said, it wasn’t as bad as Gold Coast.

I started the zone quest at 8pm last night. Finished it and two or three points of interest quests in Under four hours. That includes a few stops for world bosses and resources along the way. So just not much there. So in just a few days without even focused effort the gold bars are all filled on my main.

On the main quest, the dialog kept telling me about events my character was a part of. At points one NPC remembered me and others they didn’t. I understand that for new players, but felt off for NPCs that I have seen multiple times. There also seemed to be a few lore holes, but I would have to dig to see if that’s right.

I like some of the landscape in the beach areas. Otherwise it felt recycled. It felt like they just pulled from Murkmire and summerset. Some buildings were literally copies with a few furnishing changes. I get not reproducing effort, but it felt too much.

Not quite a solstice issue, but it seemed pretty dead. I would say that releasing it with subclasssing hurt the zone release. When people were asking for WB help in a brand new zone that only has 3 WBs in the first week, that’s just not like any release I can recall.

Supreme_Atromancer · June 23

fall0athboy wrote: »

I hate the public dungeon, and I do not know why.

I found that one particularly hard to navigate, and the map was frustrating lol. The way the cave and Coldharbor merged into each other was also pretty confusing and hard to read.

Ryori729 wrote: »

I started the zone quest at 8pm last night. Finished it and two or three points of interest quests in Under four hours. That includes a few stops for world bosses and resources along the way.

I took so much longer with it! Couple of evening sessions to finish it all. Not even including the rest of the quests. Obviously a fair bit less than usual, but I was OK with that.

On the main quest, the dialog kept telling me about events my character was a part of. At points one NPC remembered me and others they didn’t. I understand that for new players, but felt off for NPCs that I have seen multiple times. There also seemed to be a few lore holes, but I would have to dig to see if that’s right.

Yeah, I tend not to complain about it, but it almost seemed pointed this time round lol. There's one NPC that expresses disbelief that you could possibly not know... the thing you need to click to get all the dialogue. I get the need to rehash information and remind players who may have different levels of attention, or started the story months ago, but it'd be great if there was away to get to the same bits of information without making the PC seem like an idiot. I get the feeling from the flow of the writing that they are working with very strict word limits, so maybe its that.

Syldras · June 23

fall0athboy wrote: »

I appreciate Sanguine actually got some new content.

I would have appreciated it if it hadn't completely contradicted already established Sanguine lore. In case of the delve quest, it was extremely mild and the moral undertones seemed strange. In case of the overland quest, while some aspects were fun by itself, the quest conclusion ("Now everything's fine again, the revelers can have fun and go home again afterwards") was particularly lore-breaking.

Ryori729 · June 23

Supreme_Atromancer wrote: »

Ryori729 wrote: »

I started the zone quest at 8pm last night. Finished it and two or three points of interest quests in Under four hours. That includes a few stops for world bosses and resources along the way.

I took so much longer with it! Couple of evening sessions to finish it all. Not even including the rest of the quests. Obviously a fair bit less than usual, but I was OK with that.

Really? Everyone goes at their own pace but I don't feel I hurried though the dialog. Did some of the extra dialog after the quest objective was met to talk to more people. And detoured to any WB to see if it was up for the sticker book. First time through I read almost everything.

I really didn't try to burn through the content and I'm done with the map. The first day, I just wondered around finding the map spots. Talked to the random encounter people (missing one) Still some side achievements to go, but I've never finished a new zone, even the small ones like Galen, The Reach, ect this fast.