I'm not sure where to put this so I'm putting it here-- why did you make us do the writhing wall quest to test the 2nd half of the story? Is the version on the PTS the version that players would experience after the writhing wall event has concluded or is it a part of the event? It was conceptually interesting but painful and confusing given that there were 3-5 of us doing a 20+ person job on suboptimal builds. I had to subclass mid event just to lessen the pain.

Additional comments on writhing wall:

• Repeatedly confusing. NPCs continue to yell directions even when the objective is complete (ex. break the crystal but the crystal is already broken and the bridge is up). The quests were also not updating correctly (ex. "clear a path to the colossus" but the path is already cleared, had me confused on what to do even though the path was right there).
• In the final boss fight, the grapples were hard to target. You have to blindly move your cursor around underneath the platform and ones I had clear line of sight on were not letting me use them.
• Because the final fight took so long (and we wiped 2x), the prince's constant directions were getting really frustrating. I knew what to do at that point.
• I'm not sure the lightning stacks will do anything when there's the total amount of people. Having to hide to cleanse the stacks was hardly a concern even with so few people.

Despite my frustrations, I hope that the attack on the writhing wall can be a part of future "celebrate Solstice" events. I can tell a lot of effort went into it and most people probably won't see the effort as I imagine on live everything will just be obliterated unless its heavily buffed. I think this kind of event is a step in the right direction (sans confusing quest directions and constantly repeating dialogue, it would be nice to have an event of this scale for each of the in-game holiday events instead of more fetch/fight this one thing quests) and reminds me of the turnout of GW2's world events, so it's a shame to only happen one time.

On a template alt, CP3600, having picked up 'The Worm Turns' from Azah:

We meet Skordo in the Grand Juncture Pass and he relays a dead Argonian's final words to us, before saying he'll head back to update Prince Azah.
But he then runs further east to the barricade at the top of the rise with the other soldiers, rather than heading back towards the Rampart Camp, and will repeat the same dialogue about taking Azah the news:

Standing too close to the altar (behind it) during the explosion in the "destroy the ritual altar" phase of Crossing the Wall can cause you to get stuck in the collision of the platform Mannimarco is on.



Now Mannimarco can properly catch these hands

Margravigne wrote: »

It's great that Mannimarco's note to Necromancer Hezsatari in the Tarnur Mine shrine location can now be read, but the 3 cultists
and their bone colossus still respawn far too fast - after only 15 seconds - so there's too little time to read it before they're back and interrupting you:
https://youtu.be/r0H8BRlvPhA

Whereas the cultists at the end of the Seacave have glitchy or nonexistent shields, with the only one visible sitting much higher than the ones at the other site:

+1 both of these. I couldn’t figure out why the first trio of cultists could only be interacted with one at a time until I ran into the second set and saw they were supposed to have shields.

I also ran into an issue in the Tenmur Mine where Darien said we were supposed to be following the chains and we were. 😕 I’m assuming that’s supposed to trigger if I go down the wrong branch.

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

Is there a way to progress the Eastern Solstice Main Quest line without being present at the completion of the Writhing Fortress?

I've been trying everyday since the PTS started but have never got near to completing the fortress quests.

I'm using a cp3600 template with as strong a build as I can make it.

Sorry, not currently - it will be possible after a later patch, but it won't be done on Monday's one from what we've been told so far.
At the moment, the only way any alt is getting past is by killing Zysax the titan/final boss.
You don't need to be part of the earlier sections, but you do need to be there to beat him if you want to achieve it.

Running a copied alt who's completed:
- Camlorn & Cath Bedraud / Rivenspire / MQ only to completion of Sancre Tor
- Fighters Guild Quest / Thieves Guild / Dark Brotherhood
- Summerset
But has not completed Alik'r / Bangkorai (both partials) or begun Coldharbour.
(Completed part2 questline in full without interference from the bug affecting alts who have completed Coldharbour.)
This is feedback from reviewing footage I recorded prior to the first patch, so please disregard anything that has already been resolved - once the Coldharbour bug is completely fixed I'll recheck everything while running the copy of my main through.

Feedback on The Worm Turns:
In the Junction Pass, after Skordo says he'll go update Prince Azah, he runs to a location in the opposite direction instead of back towards the Rampart Camp.

I love the little yelp of protest from Raz when Darien mentions his idea to us, as well as their comments about Darien's lack of stealthiness (I'm also relieved Raz doesn't appear to have mentioned my Vestige's connection to the Dark Brotherhood or what happened in Anvil to Darien... yet?).

The 'Monthly Report from Dark Adept Bruhlz' found in the Wormcult camp whilst 'rummaging' has a spelling error:


(very excited by the reference to the ballista back in the Crystal Tower showing up in one of Darien's lines on the Eastern Overlook!)

Meeting Azah at the bridge, he and the soldier beside him were sunk into it, but he popped out when we drew close enough to trigger his greeting, leaving the soldier behind:


Already noted in bugs, but there are duplicate NPCs at the ballista positions if we run back into the camp after lighting the signal fire - no sign of Walks-In-Ash or Azah, though:




Once up the ladder and into the Hold's midden vault, Darien spawns in near the base of the stairs and runs back towards us. He'll then stop at the base of the stairs when we reach that point, and face the far wall to deliver his ambient line, regardless of where we stand:


At the Gate, if we approach too quickly, Darien will miss his mark and not deliver his line about there being two winches, even if we're not yet in position, let alone having pulled on it.
After we open the gate into Gristmung Hold for our allies to enter the Fortress, once we move from our winch Darien will sprint to our location then follow us back to where the others are standing (or wherever we go), can he be slowed to a more natural pace, or sent to a spot to deliver his line facing Skordo before then rejoining us?

Darien practically clipping to us:
https://youtu.be/4NDF875M6u0
If I run straight over to Skordo, his dialogue almost overlaps with Darien's during their banter.

Inside the Keep, in the soul flayer workshop Chamber, if we get within range of the table with the note on it too quickly, Darien's ambient line about 'anything important' will interrupt his one about the 'large monstrosity', cutting it off mid-line:


I also had an incident when entering that room at too sharp and angle where Darien became stuck at the edge of the doorway and his dialogue couldn't be triggered, until I ran far enough away for him to reset to my positition and resume following me.

Speaking to Jeetra through the closed gate, her dialogue has a discrepancy between the audio/on-screen text:


(When he can't get the Light to respond, being called 'Champion' by Darien hurt, but if I thought that was painful, I hadn't seen anything yet... although having Walks call us 'friend' a moment later, when she usually says 'champion' was a nice touch)

Margravigne wrote: »

Feedback on The Worm Turns:

Running my zero-shared-history-prior-to-Solstice template-alt though to recheck a few points and catch the differences, and a couple of things jumped out:

When breaking the portal anchors, the quest markers over the two we're able to smash are set rather high. Depending on the players' POV, they might not realise only two are meant for us, and Darien gets his pick between the others. Could these be lowered a bit to make this more obvious?
Also, Darien doesn't always complete his animation to smash a portal anchor, and won't at all if he's interrupted by combat.

If Darien is spoken to after smashing the last portal anchor but before the second note is found, he will still have this dialogue:


I didn't find anything else new (except the response options for Darien, which had replaced the 'flirty' choices with a 'grim' one in both interactions, due to not meeting the requirements on this alt for his romance to unlock).

After completing 'The Worm Turns' but before picking up 'Hunt For The Great Mage'; while speaking with Walks-In-Ash there is a spelling error in the on-screen text of her dialogue:

Feedback on The Deep Tombs of Xul-Haj
Running on my CP3600 zero-shared-history Template:

If Darien is spoken to immediately upon exiting Jeetra's house, this is his dialogue screen if you haven't moved away first:


And his 'Out-of-Bounds' line triggered between there and the village's gateway leading to the road, while heading towards the quest marker:

(it also triggers if we run the other way around her house to reach the road)

Once at Xul-Haj, speaking with Deetra before entering will give a repeat of her dialogue from:

all the way to this, despite the change in location making her last line sound misplaced:


A few dialogue discrepancies between the audio and on-screen text once we're inside:




With the trap-door, Darien disappears through before it opens, and the player can run out over the empty air without falling:
https://youtu.be/lJy__r36uKM
Could a temporary, invisible snare be placed to 'trip' the player if they attempt to follow while the trapdoor is open?

After positioning the second of the stones in the first cistern chamber, this ambient line from Jeetra cut off (may have been interrupted by combat?) and she then resumed speaking with an earlier line as though the task was still incomplete:
https://youtu.be/7wV1gURaMZo

With the second set of stones, after positioning the first stone (and opening the first gate blocking the second stone), Jeetra has no dialogue for this. Pushing the second stone through the gate (both gates), its animation was missing, causing it to clip forward with each hit while in close proximity to the gate:
https://youtu.be/B4uFl4z9ams
Once the first stone is repositioned to unlock the second gate, Jeetra will deliver an appropriate line:


After finding Darien, he doesn't follow us but remains standing in place whilst we continue on with Jeetra to find Vanus. He will eventually appear and resume following us once we go through the door into the Xul-Haj Funerary Temple.
Also, Jeetra will randomly use a 'tread water' swimming animation instead of a standing idle through this section. It seems to resolve itself after going through the same door/loading screen:
https://youtu.be/OWCGpYoIuq8

I may have paused to listen to Mannimarco's gloating a little too close to where the mobs began to spawn in, because as soon as they did Darien ran past me and entered combat. His ambient diaglogue then overlapped with Mannimarco's lines. I'll retry this from a hopefully safer distance on my next run.
https://youtu.be/2hty_I3J9BA

At the new base camp, there's a discrepancy in Azah's dialogue between the audio and on-screen text:

For some reason even though it is my active quest in my Journal, the marker in my compass for 'Crossing the Wall' is dark:

And the commentary for it when 'centered' in my compass is trying to point me back to speak with Azah, which was several quest stages ago. (copied alt on v11.2.2)
There is also still a marker for his position below the Rampart Camp visible on my compass, despite him no longer being there:

Still there even after completing the Fissure Ruins Delve and being told to speak with Skordo about his plans for once the Wall is breached.

Not sure if this is supposed to be a review or a bug thread? Anyway, now, after my review in this thread (where I gave statements on all side quests I found, plus general comments)...
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/683120/pts-update-48-feedback-thread-for-eastern-solstice
...I'd also like to write about my experience with the East Solstice main quest. Just a few notes on what ever felt worth a remark while playing through it.

First of all: Thank you very much for unlocking the East Solstice quests for us without having to run through the Writhing Fortress again! It's a horrible hassle if you're just 5 people (or even less) and I honestly wouldn't have tested quest content another time if I had needed to run through that fortress a second time. It's a fun dungeon, it really is (and I think it's truly a pity that people who join ESO later will never see it since you intend to remove it again after the Wall event - it would work really well with npc companions or scaled to player numbers), but not if it takes you 3 hours or more because there's not enough people around.

Part 6:

I liked that part about Darien losing his light. It was truly surprising (mostly because I didn't expect it to be extractable), and the emotional reaction made the situation interesting. Generally, when the story gets emotional, the writing is good. It's exactly this which makes a story interesting - emotional aspects that make us actually care about the characters and the world the story takes place in.

The criticism I have is that in the current story, there would have been lots of situations where we could have learnt much more about the characters involved - but it rarely happened. We saw that with Darien (so much it basically felt more or less like a Darien story), which I did like, but I'd have liked to see the same about other characters, too. Why don't we ever learn more about who Mannimarco actually is? "Evil magalomaniac cult leader, evil for the sake of evil" is such a boring cliché - and we have background lore that Mannimarco is more than that. What's with his rhetoric and diplomatic talent, for example? And how did he become who he is now? Also: Why don't we ever discuss Vanus Galerion's captivity? It must surely have been a time that had a big emotional or mental impact on him, but even if we're basically friends at this point, we don't talk a word about it. It's especially strange since Vanus and Mannimarco are very central characters to TES lore as a whole, but we basically don't know much about them as people at all, and most that we know is just from lorebooks, but not actually seen anywhere in game.

Part 7:

Ballistas aiming at your own fortress so your enemy can conveniently use them to attack you didn't make much sense. Logical congruency is important for me.

I liked the extra dialogue options for characters who've completed earlier content, like mentioning we've already destroyed a Great Shackle once.

The new dangerous Worm Cult invention getting revealed as being Soul Reapers, just bigger... let's say it was a little disapponting since it's just the same thing and nothing new at all. And how do you even transport them, inconspicously, to some village? They're huge! Also feels like a logical implausibility.

Locations looked impressive, as usual.

Quests felt rather short though. I think each one took about half an hour.

What I missed were lorebooks - were there any? So far I only saw letters about recent events - basically telling us what just happened or where we need to go next. But that's not the background lore for places, events or people that makes the fictional world interesting for me.

Part 8:

One lorebook, finally!

After that quest, I took a break from the main questline to focus on side quests, so I'll have all npcs available at the usual end of story party that I expected.

Part 9:

I liked the puzzle type that was first used in Elsweyr, I think? No bugs this time, too. Also thanks a lot for the reset button in case something bugs out - I remember one cube getting stuck back then in Elsweyr(?), with no way to reset it.

Part 10:

Why are all those Stirk camps that huge if there's no one except for us five or six people?

The need to pass by Mor Naril already on our way from the wayshrine to the new camp also was a little strange, as it spoilt the huge mystery that Mor Naril was still supposed to be at that point of the story.

Part 11:

Mor Naril is an impressive location. I liked it a lot. Strangely, the situation didn't really feel dangerous, though - maybe because we still had enough time to gather at the entrance with some people and have a chat. What was strange (and made me wonder whether it's bugged) was that only a few people showed up despite my character having done all East and West Solstice side quests to that point. Actually, I only saw the people from the Argonian and the Nord village from West Solstice, and Prince Naemon from the East, and that's it. There was also no way to get them to actually help you (they only had a bit of dialogue), which was also a little disappointing, since in the base game main quest a decade ago you could actually choose npcs you helped in the Coldharbor side quests as a fighter to assist you - you could even choose a lamia back then, and they all had special abilities to help you.

The idea of controlling Voskrona guardians wasn't bad - although the combat aspect wasn't really interesting because they were absolutely overpowered and basically invincible. It's also a pity that Tso-Nassa tells you about having different choices, but in the end you have none at all - you can just agree to control the guardian. There were no other dialogue options.

Vanus Galerion claiming (in personal dialogue with us, not as an open statement to everyone around) he hated Mannimarco since the first day he saw him was a blatant lie from his side. Now, I understand why he would claim that, but why can't we say a thing if we've completed Summerset before? We've seen the events of the past in the Traitor's Vault on Artaeum; we know they've been close friends (or even lovers) as students. Why can't we tell Vanus that we know? It would have been a great opportunity to give his character more depth and to add to his (and Mannimarco's) background lore. Generally, we never get any dialogue option to ask him how he feels, how his last months have been, etc. This would have contributed to the story so much, it would have helped much more than that "Vanus runs away again" throwback moment.

Then, inside Mor Naril, I was happy to see a Worm Cult book - but it was uninteractable. I honestly want to be able to read books I see, they shouldn't be just decorations!

Okay, later we come across Wormblood's journal, and that's indeed interesting and more of the type of writing I would have wished to see in this story, but it still wasn't that much. Sadly, Wormblood was generally a case of "missed opportunity": We never learn anything about him, he feels like a soulless placeholder, nothing else. I had hoped for much more, especially since that introduction news article on him had different speculations about who he might be, including whether he might be related to Mannimarco. Which could have become an interesting story - I fully expected some more Mannimarco (+ family) background lore, especially since the main theme of (West) Solstice seemed to be "heritage", and we ended up on an island inhabited by a (formerly) necromantic Altmer clan. It was disappointing to see the story ending without anything on that.

The end fight also wasn't that spectacular. Mannimarco revives like, what, 4 times? We know he can, so why don't we try to stop him earlier and need to repeat it that often? For the Voskrona fight, the same applies that I wrote earlier: We're undefeatable, so it's not really a challenge. And even with the revives, the whole fight lasted for maybe 3 or 4 minutes, I think?

Not even 5 minutes until we stomped Mannimarco into the ground again. I asked myself: What was this for? That poor man was dead for a decade, returned to live for maybe 3 or 4 months (after a lot of fuss about his resurrection), did whatever off-screen, and now we killed him again. Did we get anything of interest of him in the meantime? Did his return add anything to TES lore? An Inversed Planemeld instead of a normal one. Soul Flayers instead of Soul Reapers. That's barely anything. So much more could have been made of the situation the story began with.

And at the end, there wasn't even a real party. No one showed up except for our Stirk troupe. There generally wasn't much dialogue.

Epilogue:

That was fine again and compensated for the earlier situation a bit. As I wrote at the beginning of this post, when the story gets emotional, the writing is fine. I never cared for Darien at all, but I did feel a little sorry for him now. The whole Darien story we got here wasn't bad - the disappointing thing to me was that there wasn't much emotionally powerful narrative content in this chapter, except for this.

Conclusion:

Don't get me wrong, I'm not writing all this to be negative. If it was about complaining, I wouldn't have played through all this on PTS - twice. I wouldn't have written two long posts about this, this one and the one in that other thread. I've joined ESO over 9 years ago, been playing every day since then, even if it's just half an hour on some days - but I've been a permanent member of the playerbase for a long time now. I remember the wonderful stories we got in the base game, and in the Morrowind-CWC-Summerset story arc (which many players still think of as the golden days of ESO), I remember stories that made one think for a longer time, that included morally grey decisions and dilemmas. I remember in-depth characterizations of characters that went far beyond clichés. I know what's possible because I've already seen it in ESO.

Now, Part 1 of the Solstice story was actually promising. It led to many questions about lore or about what someone might be planning or what might be happening - the problem is that in the end, we got nothing like that ("another planemeld, another soulreaper" was not the fascinating answer I had hoped for). We got nothing about Wormblood's background - he's just gone. As if he never existed. Okay, Mannimarco had a moustache for 4 months, fine. It's gone again now. With Mannimarco. Whom we also didn't learn more about at all. Why did Molag Bal even release him from Coldharbor after his betrayal? If he wasn't released, but fled - why were they still cooperating now? Why was the Worm Cult still worshipping him? If there's no plausible explanation somewhere, it looks like a lore mistake.

This whole situation - with Mannimarco vs Wormblood (Wormblood's soul surely being enraged about what has happened to his body) and Mannimarco as the betrayer of Molag Bal - would have been an opportunity to have them become antagonists somehow, to create a schism between the Worm Cult and Molag Bal, and to basically transition Mannimarco and his cult more to how we see him later on the timeline - in Daggerfall. Where the Cult had no relations to Molag Bal anymore and Mannimarco even served as a questgiver. Morally grey Mannimarco would have been really interesting. Us needing to sign a truce and being forced to cooperate with him against Wormblood or Molag Bal would have been splendid, if well-written.

Then we had the situation of Vanus Galerion being Mannimarco's prisoner. Two former close friends finding themselves in that situation centuries later - another great opportunity for an emotionally/psychologically interesting story leading to character changes and maybe unexpected situations. Still, nothing happened.

So many opportunities for interesting stories, deeper characterizations and lore, and instead we got a rather formulaic "defeat the evil baddie who's evil" story without any nuance. Straightforward doesn't always mean bad, but it's not neccessarily interesting for an epic story. I've seen people complaining about ESO's stories having become too same-y and too formulaic quite often on this forum. Always this "defeat the Daedric Prince - because otherwise the world will end". It doesn't really make a difference if it's not a Daedric Prince but a Daedric Prince's mortal clerk this time. Why nothing more complex in terms of storytelling? Intrigues, traitors, complicated situations political or otherwise. There are so many possibilities.

And then there's the emotional aspect. Apart from Darien, most characters didn't come across like individuals with emotions. They might have 1 specific quirk each ("flirty", "brash", "evil"), but except for that, they mostly just feel like props of a story - only there to do some specific thing. I don't have the feeling they get written as people first and foremost. Still, we're told to be "friends" with lots of them. I'd actually like to see more depth when it comes to npcs we meet. Why are the companion characters rather well-liked as characters? Because we actually get to know them more - as people, naturally, we see how they react in different situations, we know what they like and dislike and that beliefs and opinions they have. Of course I know the time we spend with quest npcs is limited in comparison to that, but I still think that going deeper in their characterization would be possible.

The last thing is the background lore - for me that's a main interest for playing ESO. Also in that regard, it seemed to be less content this time than in earlier chapters. In the base game every tiny delve had some lorebook at least, telling us about the location or something that happened around there. Some villages had half 4 or 5 lorebooks just to tell us about the region and the people living there. I didn't see that anymore in East Solstice. Of course I like beautiful landscapes and buildings as much as everyone else, but just nice looks isn't enough for me - I want to learn about that fictional world we see in game. If a chapter introduces more new Worm Cult furnishings than new Worm Cult lore, the balance feels weird to me, no matter how much I might like the furnishings (I do find them awesome).