Anyone for the Writhing Fortress??? FINALLY Completed

Margravigne · September 19

Currently at 2nd boss, extra numbers would be very welcome

Margravigne · September 19

Three of us camping on the final boss Zysax the Titan if anyone would like to jump in and help complete it?

Margravigne · September 19

Over a hundred views, and only one person briefly stopping by?

Zysax: "Have you brought enough to defeat me?"
Vestige: "Dude, there's only three of us here, obviously not."

Zysax: "I grow bored with your lack of courage."
Vestige: "Not as bored as I am of you resetting when we haven't all died."

Zysax: "Did you think you could escape unscathed?"
Vestige: "No amount of therapy will resolve this trauma, I am scarred for life."

Margravigne · September 19

Finally.

That was awful.

To the person who arrived and battled through it with us, you're awesome.

I'm going to go pass out now.

Finedaible · September 19

*Looks at timestamps*

Bro, were you in there for 12 hours?

Sadras · September 19

Haha that would have been me, and likewise! I was so glad to see people still assembled. Can't believe we actually did it.
And now it's a good deal later than planned, but it's done! Time to pass out too.

Margravigne · September 19

Purgatory - we took breaks to do other stuff, but yeah, we were in there for most of that, and I think we'd already been going for 2-3 hours by the time I posted this.

Lots of sitting around and waiting between attempts if one of us three had to drop off for a bit, and there were maybe 5-6 people who joined up for a little while, but unfortunately only one at a time.

I may have lost my mind for a bit there:

(this was also my third alt to complete it, so I'm probably certifiable by anyone's standards)

Margravigne · September 19

Sadras wrote: »

Haha that would have been me, and likewise! I was so glad to see people still assembled. Can't believe we actually did it.
And now it's a good deal later than planned, but it's done! Time to pass out too.

Thank you so much!
Have a good rest, it's very well deserved.

Sadras · September 20

Margravigne wrote: »

I may have lost my mind for a bit there:

This is the best thing in the world, purgatory well used!

Margravigne wrote: »

Thank you so much!
Have a good rest, it's very well deserved.

You're so welcome, and thank you, I never could have done that on my own.
Let's all recover

Finedaible · September 20

What did you get as far as rewards?

Margravigne · September 20

Finedaible wrote: »

What did you get as far as rewards?

From the final boss chest? Oh, that was hilarious... two of us only received a generic blue-level armor piece, I think mine was a Sash of Health or something? I'll check to see if I was recording at the time and post what each of us got once I log into my PC later. Loot really hadn't been our priority so we just had a laugh about it and moved on to turn the quest in and pick up the next one, which was our goal all along, and that was worth the whole 14 hours and then some.

I'd run a copy of my main on day 1 and she got stuck early in the first Eastern Solstice quest 'The Worm Turns' because of a bug affecting alts who'd completed Coldharbour (which has been found, fixed, and willl be in the next patch), then ran a CP3600 template, who had less 'meaningful' dialogue because she had no previous content completed.

I was putting myself through this (third clear of the fortress) so I could progress the questline on a copy of an alt who had done about half of the MQ/DC but not started Coldharbour. Two of us actually speedran ran these alts (me on copy, her on template) through Rivenspire and Summerset while our other groupmate had to do something else for a few hours and we were waiting for more people to show up randomly or in response to this thread, so that certain dialogue options would become available without triggering the bug, but there are lines we'll still receive different versions of or miss completely without Coldharbour being completed.

I could have waited until the Writhing Fortress became optional for quest progression in a later patch, (it has been mentioned that once the Wall Event is completed on Live it won't be necessary to defeat the fortress in order to move on to the next quest, so players who get to this point in the game after the launch-hype crowds have moved on won't have to suffer the way we did). But we don't know exactly when that patch will happen yet.

Or I could have waited a few days for the first patch and continued on the copy of my main (which I will anyway after completing the remaining quests on this alt, since my main has done all previous dlc/zone questlines and will get the most 'recognition' in the different versions of dialogue available).

But the point was to see which previous content would be needed to trigger certain lines, and now we know.

If you want your Vestige to be able to tell Darien they're in love with him almost immediately after crossing the pass, go do Summerset first (this will unlock it for either copy or template alts regardless of whether they've also done any part of the dc zone or main quest)
The more base game/dlc quests involving the returning NPCs you've already completed, the more references to past events will appear in conversation with them, and for people who've been playing for years and who's Vestige has history with these NPCs, it's incredibly rewarding to have some little mentions of those encounters added.

Margravigne · September 20

Sadras wrote: »

Margravigne wrote: »

I may have lost my mind for a bit there:

This is the best thing in the world, purgatory well used!

Margravigne wrote: »

Thank you so much!
Have a good rest, it's very well deserved.

You're so welcome, and thank you, I never could have done that on my own.
Let's all recover

I don't think I'll ever fully recover from that experience, but sleep has worked wonders.

And that's really sweet of you! After so many repetitions of Zysax's three lines in the background (I'd left my alt in the /sitdrink emote pose and was doing something else on another screen while we were taking a break) I started snarking back at him:

Zysax: "Have you brought enough to defeat me?"
Vestige: "Dude, there's only three of us here, obviously not."

Zysax: "I grow bored with your lack of courage."
Vestige: "Not as bored as I am of you resetting when we haven't even wiped."

Zysax: "Did you think you could escape unscathed?"
Vestige "No amount of therapy will resolve this trauma, I am scarred for life."

I was posting stuff like that and a few images into our group's shared server, and it evolved from there. I'm going to get a better-posed screenshot to use and make a version to post on Tumblr after the Wall Event has been run, but a couple of us dumped a load of 'your dialogue as ship-posts' stuff into Darien's tag on there earlier this year if you want a laugh.

Sadras · September 20

Margravigne wrote: »

But the point was to see which previous content would be needed to trigger certain lines, and now we know.
If you want your Vestige to be able to tell Darien they're in love with him almost immediately after crossing the pass, go do Summerset first (this will unlock it for either copy or template alts regardless of whether they've also done any part of the dc zone or main quest)
(snip)

Since I just got to the conversation, I can add more data for Science for anyone who needs it:

I got the options too with a different set-up, namely the neutral default line, the friendly "we're pals" kind of line and the romance line.
The character I'm doing this with is a copy who has done the Daggerfall Covenant and the Coldharbour invasion and finished the base game main quest that way. He has not finished Summerset, although he started it and got as far into the beginning as it took to get to Artaeum (to unlock Psijics and the best Antiquities spam location lol).
During the end of the West Solstice half, when we talked in the palace, after Darien had just been brought back, he asked where we had last met, and I didn't get a Summerset option so I don't think that counts, although we did meet briefly at his distraction manoeuvre in Shimmerene. I chose the assault on Coldharbour (the "actual" most recent one for my character).
So it seems there are some options to get this.
(I took the friendly route though so I can't say anything about how the conversation goes.)

Edit - Adding a detail: No character on this account has finished Summerset; I know it from console, so account-wide achievements can't play into what I'm getting here.

Also, love the responses to Zysax in the other post, and that is totally the mindset I imagine during this ordeal lol.

Margravigne · September 20

Sadras wrote: »

Since I just got to the conversation, I can add more data for Science for anyone who needs it:
I got the options too with a different set-up, namely the neutral default line, the friendly "we're pals" kind of line and the romance line.
The character I'm doing this with is a copy who has done the Daggerfall Covenant and the Coldharbour invasion and finished the base game main quest that way. He has not finished Summerset, although he started it and got as far into the beginning as it took to get to Artaeum (to unlock Psijics and the best Antiquities spam location lol).
During the end of the West Solstice half, when we talked in the palace, after Darien had just been brought back, he asked where we had last met, and I didn't get a Summerset option so I don't think that counts, although we did meet briefly at his distraction manoeuvre in Shimmerene. I chose the assault on Coldharbour (the "actual" most recent one for my character).
So it seems there are some options to get this.
(I took the friendly route though so I can't say anything about how the conversation goes.)

Edit - Adding a detail: No character on this account has finished Summerset; I know it from console, so account-wide achievements can't play into what I'm getting here.

So I guess that alt got stuck at the bridge with Azah shortly after?

(If you don't mind, rather than keeping this post actively updating I'm going to message you)

Sadras · September 20

Indeed, there we stand on the bridge, and that ends the PTS adventure for this weekend lol.
And yes, please feel free to message me!

Margravigne · September 20

Finedaible wrote: »

What did you get as far as rewards?

Umm.... yeah:

One person between the four of us received a Shard of Writhing Bone, another got a blue Ancestor Silk Epaulets of Magicka. It was not boss-level loot, and definitely not representative of what we'd just done, but I'm pretty sure that's something yet to be added - hopefully the devs finish populating his loot table while we're still testing rather than wait to surprise us on Live.

Finedaible · September 20

I see. Thanks for sharing the information @Margravigne