Yes.
Yes.
Yes.

It was not that difficult for the most part, I think I cleared 4 or 5 areas. The only exception would be moonlit isles, that place was brutal. I will admit I am not the best at coordinated jumping puzzles. However, I was able to make it to the center and get the skyshard. It needs at least two more check points. One at the start of the long bridge activation just before the run up the rocks where you have to do that turn around jump on the ledge. And at the top of the platform where you need to jump back down on to the star road.

I feel there should be bridge activation on that platform. It’s not until you get to that platform before you see where you need to go, and by the time you figure it out you have run out of time to make a mad dash across all the bridges. So, you have to do the rock part again. However, I don’t think the jumping difficulty should be lowered in moonlit isles.

I played solo. I could see in moonlit isles there looks to be platform that requires a group to get to once you get to the center and have one person stay at the first check point.

I don’t think I found any of the secondary goals. Unless making it to that platform listed above is one.

Yes, the rewards were what I was expecting. I do like that the unlocked chests in the areas are worth looting.

I would run it again, right now mostly for the items to make poisons.

Moonlit isles needs a portal in the center back to the main vault lobby, I ran out of keys and could not get back. Dying only put me back at the center platform. I do like the environments, that lake house was surprising cool. And some of the traps in the mushroom area (I forget what is called) were creative.

[*] Was it clear how to access the Nowhere Vault and begin a run?
It took me a bit of time to locate it, up until I remembered it shows up on the map. After that it was fine.

[*] Did you understand how Nowhere Keys work and when/where they could be used?
For the most part.

[*] Was it clear what you needed to do within each room in order to progress?
The Lunar Wing, not immediately. It took looking around to get where I was supposed to initially go, but after that it was kind of a pain in the ass to put it mildly. I'll go into more detail in the feedback later.

The Arcanum Wing, it's...a bit more obvious, but there are annoyances with this one as well.

[*] How did the overall difficulty of the Nowhere Vault feel?
Frustrating, though less because of inherent difficulty and more because of level design itself.

[*] If you played solo or with a group, how did the experience feel?
I'm not really sure how much of a difference going in with a group would be, other than maybe others finding things as people look around. I went in on my own.

[*] Did you discover any secondary goals during your run? If so, do you have any feedback on them?
No, I didn't spend much time in the two Wings I tried because I got a bit too annoyed.

[*] Did the rewards feel appropriate for the time and number of keys spent within the Vault?
A few Chests I found contained loot that did not seem very interesting or desirable. It was nice to get some Fortunes, though it was such a small amount they might as well have not even been given to me.

[*] Did the variety of rooms and activities make you interested in returning for additional runs?
I didn't even get passed the initial two rooms of the Wings I tried, so...maybe?

[*] Is there any additional feedback on this feature?
The level design is HORRIBLY suited for playing on a character with anything beyond normal running speed, it feels like. I tried it on the character I've leveled for doing things like Heists and Pickpocketing. Her normal running speed is about the same as someone's full sprint with speed boosts.

In the Lunar Wing, it's stupidly easy to massively overshoot the initial platform you need to go down to for the bridge chain. In fact, it's too easy to overshoot a LOT of the things in there, because so many of the platforms are ridiculously small. The sheer number of times I went careening off into the abyss quickly made me irritated, and it was bad enough I was constantly having to toggle my Walk on and off (I can't Sneak to slow down because my Sneak speed is about normal running speed).

In the Arcanum Wing, it's at least a lot less easy to overshoot platforms and such. However, there are still issues. It's still easy for momentum to carry you over the edge of a mushroom and into the lava, which kills you MUCH faster than Overland lava does. You have MUCH less time to find somewhere safe to get to and then you need to hope you're where you can get to the portal back to the top. There are numerous places where if you land, you have literally NO choice but to fall down into the lava and, again, hope you can get somewhere safe before you die. There's also the poisonous mushroom that kill you almost immediately, which is far too fast considering at least one seems to be blocking the path to the Skyshard. They also reset too quickly; I was unable to figure out how to get onto the little pole leading up to that Skyshard because I had NO time between the mushroom resetting over and over. Finally, the lava bursts that do AoE damage on some of the platforms are in some REALLY bad places. The portal (or at least the one I found) at the bottom that sends you up onto the wooden platforms also puts you RIGHT in the range of the lava burst, and maybe I just have horrid luck, but it seemed every single time I used that portal, a lava burst would happen as soon as I loaded in and hit me.

I get that this is meant to be challenging, and maybe I'll have better luck on a character that isn't so fast, but playing a fast character shouldn't be so frustratingly punishing. The main point of the Vault was that it doesn't focus as much on combat and instead on things like getting around the terrain in unique or interesting ways. But it's hard to do that when you're always flying off into the ether or sliding off platforms. Environmental hazards also shouldn't be able to kill you in like 2 seconds, either, because it very much inhibits the whole exploring thing when exploring is discouraged and punished by things yeeting you back to the start.

Which is another BIG problem from the bit I played. You die or mess up anywhere and you're sent all the way back to the start of the room. I don't know if maybe I just didn't get to any checkpoints or what, but there's little that's more frustrating in a game than platforming with few to no checkpoints, especially when the whole darn thing you're playing is one giant platforming game.

jumping puzzles are just terrible with this engine. Character movement is just bad for this kind of stuff. Always stuckin walls an then falling down etc.
then you have to wait for the switch reset. Its just bad I am sorry.

There should be a wayshrine directly to the entrance area, perhaps placed on the Mundus map similarly to Eyevea. Having to go through 2 additional loading screens (Glenumbra, Daggerfall Outlaws Refuge) is too much to ask for repeated visits.

Was it clear how to access the Nowhere Vault and begin a run?
Yes
Did you understand how Nowhere Keys work and when/where they could be used?
Yes
Was it clear what you needed to do within each room in order to progress?
Very much so, yes
How did the overall difficulty of the Nowhere Vault feel?
I think its near perfect
If you played solo or with a group, how did the experience feel?
It was fine solo but the curio room made me wish I had a group. I think it'd be fun to go secret finding with friends! But of course, that's only in theory... I will have to see if I can get people to help me test how it feels as a group.
Did you discover any secondary goals during your run? If so, do you have any feedback on them?
Yes and they fit smoothly into gameplay. I don't feel lost as to what to do with the information at all.
Did the rewards feel appropriate for the time and number of keys spent within the Vault?
I was pleasantly surprised by the rewards!
Did the variety of rooms and activities make you interested in returning for additional runs?
Yes. I want to do more runs right now but the doors won't open (submitted a bug report)
Is there any additional feedback on this feature?
I certainly hope that you all continue iterating on it. I'm glad to see some really unique concepts that make ESO feel more on par with how GW2 feels.

I do have an additional feedback, though... the reward room that's full of crafting nodes feels very lacklustre. If it was survey nodes or full of upgrade mats or full of furnishing mats... then it'd mean something. Now? Whatever, ignoreable.

I would like to run the Nowhere Vault again, but it seems to be locked behind RNG to get another Nowhere key.

The Gallery of Curios is way too time consuming. Lots of effort have been put onto these maps and have discovered 5 secrets so far and love the fun ways that discovering them has been implemented, but anytime I get to the Gallery of Curios, my journey through the nowhere vault slows down. My time in the Gallery of Curios can stretch to 30 minutes to an hour, while other maps don't give me this trouble.

I was so happy when I finished it the second time, but I accidentally exited through the wrong portal and ended up back to the nexus, and when I walked back through the Gallery of Curious reset and I had to find the objects again. I was very disappointed that I had to find the items again.

I would like it if there was some kind of indicator that makes the objects more obvious to find. This specific area is a HUGE time sink potentially. Can we please maybe add something like a whistle that prop hunt games use to make it more obvious where the objects are? I end up just brute forcing through all the glowing objects just so I can keep track of what areas I have inspected.

P.S. Quick lore question. One of the objects you are asked to recover from this room uses the Augur of Obscure model. Sage Voernet was a Psijic Monk, so did he interact with the Augur of Obscure at one point?

Very long post inbound

Okay, tried with another character who doesn't go zoom-zoom. I realized after reading some other peoples' posts that the Wings have individually named rooms, which...should have been obvious, but sometimes my brain no work.

I went back into the Lunar Wing this time and got a different starting room than the Moonlit Isles. It was one with the Cantor's and singing, didn't think the check the name of it. That one was neat and I really liked the sound design on the Cantors' singing. Seemed pretty straightforward, I poked around some but didn't seem to find any secrets. It was a bit short, would have been nice if it was longer.

The next room was one where you had to protect lanterns to light the room to the next, well, room. Didn't think the check the name for that one, either. It was VERY straightforward after just a bit of looking around, and seemed almost too easy to figure out. It was also very short and I think it would have been cool if you had to do some puzzle solving to find more bells to ring to summon the lights you need. One spawned at first and then all the other ones I needed spawned in a big group, which made it go by really fast. Not sure if that was a bug or not.

The third room was Moonlit Isles my behated. I'll say it, I HATE this room. The platforming is awful and it goes on for too long for how finicky jumping, momentum, and collision physics work in this game. After seeing someone else mention using Streak to get around that one to make it a little more bearable, I went into the Vault on my Sorc this time. The room is definitely easier to navigate with it, but even then wonky collision (such as when you jump against a surface and then slide along it horizontally until your jump ends and then you land on the ground) can get you stuck in spots where you have to jump into the void and reset your position. Please, for the love of everything, make the platforms a bit bigger. Even with my normal movement speed Sorc and toggling Walk, it's still too easy to overshoot the initial platform you have to drop onto.

The next room was what I assume to be a Treasure Room, called Magicka Flow Junction. Pretty simple, a LOT of Chests here, including a couple of the Wondrous ones that took some Keys.

I went into the Arcanum Wing next and got the same room this time I did before, Fungal Chasm. The spot where the mushroom was blocking what I thought was the Skyshard but turned out to be a checkpoint was gone this time?

Not sure if that's a bug or if it's intended for those mushrooms to have their locations randomized upon a new run. There's also a spot where you can jump onto what seems to be an invisible platform; I tried to get a screenshot but fell off before I could get one, and I couldn't get back to that spot without going clear back. I'll have to try to get it on another character since once you clear a Wing you can't go back into it. Anyway I got through this one fine this time, and Regenerative Shield came in handy for tanking the mushrooms and lava bursts.

The next room was the Hunt of the Watchers, which apparently has no map? It was pretty straightforward once I found one of the Glyphs and realized I was essentially collecting keys for the way out.

Custodian's Repository was the next room, I couldn't find whatever was supposed to be hidden, so I just went to the next room lol. Felt bad for mister Brain in a Jar, he seemed nice

The next room after that I forgot to check the name of because I got a call in the middle of it. Basically just a "survive several waves of mobs while tanking environmental damage" thing. It was pretty easy even without using the little Wisps that give you a bubble, since I had Regenerative Ward.

I have to agree that the Meditative Garden is...underwhelming as a reward room, especially compared to the Magicka Flow Junction's slew of Chests. The mat nodes need to function more like Survey nodes, they need to give like 40 of their respective mat and the Heavy Sacks should be double. There should also be at least a few Chests, including one Wondrous Chest.

I actually tried the third Wing this time and started in the Sinking Courtyard. Breaking the crystals is easy, but it's also super easy to get turned around. Luckily I managed to destroy the last crystal right before the first one would have respawned, otherwise I can see that one getting frustrating.

The Prison was a bit neat, asking the Prisoner for advice about his, well, prison, was a funny bit of dialogue, got a chuckle out of me. Despite him pointing out something about a painting, there didn't seem to be anything I could interact with in that room. Maybe I'm just dum and/or blind.

Haunted Undercroft was a bit repetitive but simple enough.

Gallery of Curios, I got the same items someone else did, Chalice, Stone Projection thing, and the Augur. This may well have been the MOST ANNOYING room after the Moonlit Isles. The first two Curios glowed blue, but the last one did not, and I spent probably at least thirty or so minutes just running around aimlessly picking up other Curios at random. That's not the annoying thing, though; the annoying thing was that it seemed at least a solid 70% of the time, interacting with a Curio would spawn a random enemy. It become very irritating. It would be fine if only the chests scattered around had the chance to summon enemies, but making it such a high chance for the Curios to do it too makes the whole thing take so much longer.

All that said, something odd happened. I don't recall seeing any Orrery Pieces in the first Wing. I got them from the other two Wings but only ended up with 5/8 after I was done. And because you can't go through a Wing again once you've done it (at least not right now, I imagine that's a bug), I'll have to do it again on another character and see if I actually get all the Pieces.

Now about the rewards. They are much better than what I was getting from the random dinky Chests scattered here and there through most of the rooms (aside from the Wondrous Chests, those were good). Of note after all three Wings I got:

11 Spectral Dissolution Ampoule
3 Chameleon Tincture Phial
Gem of Cunning
A whole slew of Gear for the Stickerbook
A whole slew of Furnishing Plans I didn't know yet
A number of Furnishings
Several Treasure Maps
Numerous Gold Gear to decon
LEADS:

I do like that Leads can be sold, that's nice, and it prevents a person from being buried under Leads that they'll never both trying to get. Or Leads that a person might want to get a couple of times (namely Furniture) but then not need a million of. The rewards do seem good, and I would certainly run the Vault numerous times considering how much stuff I can use in some way or sell if I don't need it I can get. Please, PLEASE do not mess with the drop rates of these things! The rewards here are a perfect example of how to do things, having RNG that actually favors the player instead of working against them. It encourages people to keep going through rather than frustrating them and driving them away.

Is it safe to assume there will be more Wings in the future, perhaps? There were other doorways that currently either don't work or can't be reached, so I'm guessing (and hoping) this will be expanded on in the future. Maybe there can be rooms that make use of grapple points or something? Perhaps a few more things with puzzles?

• Was it clear how to access the Nowhere Vault and begin a run?
  Not really. The entrance is tucked behind multiple areas, which makes returning to the Vault more cumbersome than it needs to be. I would strongly prefer direct access through a Wayshrine. You already showed us the exterior of the Vault itself during the Thieves Guild questline, and that would make an excellent staging area for the Vault. Give that exterior its own Wayshrine and have the Vault entrance lead from there. Something similar to the Wayshrine area used for the Scribing system would make the Vault feel much more like its own permanent destination rather than an activity hidden inside another hub.
  
• Did you understand how Nowhere Keys work and when/where they could be used?
  
  Yes, though some of the doorways were slightly bugged and required me to reset the instance before I could properly use the keys.
  
• Was it clear what you needed to do within each room in order to progress?
  Somewhat. The initial starting point of the Moon Path room was difficult to discover at first.
  
• How did the overall difficulty of the Nowhere Vault feel?
  Modest, and about right for general play. Nothing felt overly taxing. The jumping/platforming mechanics of the engine caused the most trouble. I experienced situations where I overshot gaps, failed to jump when intended, or completely lost momentum before a jump, resulting in falling into lava or off the course. The difficulty itself wasn't the problem; the movement system occasionally made some of the challenges feel more frustrating than difficult.
  
• If you played solo or with a group, how did the experience feel?
  I played solo. I don't feel that groups add much to the actual room gameplay beyond potentially allowing additional runs through shared key usage or increasing the speed at which rooms are completed. The discovery of the Vault's secrets may provide a stronger reason for social/group play, however, since solving those together could be a more interesting cooperative experience. Though as mostly a solo player, I intend to do that solo as well.
  
• Did you discover any secondary goals during your run? If so, do you have any feedback on them?
  I deliberately avoided pursuing most of the secondary goals so that I would have something to discover and look forward to when the content is actually released. I would also like to experience some of the secret content organically, rather than spoil all of it during PTS testing.The mount is the main driver for me to pursue these secrets. I don't actively hunt achievements, but I am a big fan of Gryphons and Quasigriffs, and the coloration on this one is particularly appealing. It feels like a reward that will be well worth the inevitable hassle of uncovering all of the secrets, especially as I will be doing so solo.
  
• Did the rewards feel appropriate for the time and number of keys spent within the Vault?
  After four full runs, I encountered a Jackpot Chest Room twice. The loot from those rooms was well worth the time and key investment. The normal runs were less exciting by comparison, but I think that gamble is part of the appeal of the system. The Meditative Gardens, however, was mostly a letdown as a special room. I expected at least survey-quality resource nodes, especially when comparable resources can be gathered in Cyrodiil without spending keys or solving puzzles. I think this room would be much more interesting if it contained higher-quality resource nodes, perhaps even some unique nodes specifically for furnishing materials such as Hardwood. That would give the room its own identity as a resource Jackpot rather than simply providing a collection of standard resource nodes. The Antiquity Lead drops were also more annoying than helpful. For multi-part Antiquities, I would strongly prefer a single tradeable item that awards one of the pieces you do not already possess rather than having every individual lead exist as its own inventory item. This would substantially reduce both inventory clutter and Guild Store clutter.
  
• Did the variety of rooms and activities make you interested in returning for additional runs?
  For the puzzles and lore, no. For the loot, yes. The randomized room rotation helps keep the experience from being completely static, but if the primary purpose of the rotation is simply to make players replay the same small collection of rooms, I worry that the novelty will wear off fairly quickly. The loot system is what currently gives me the strongest reason to return.
  
• Is there any additional feedback on this feature?
  I'm curious whether the Nowhere Vault is intended to be an evergreen system or primarily a one-off activity. When I first heard about the Vault, I assumed it was going to be a framework that could be expanded over time. The ability to add additional Wings, potentially with a yearly release of new Wings leading toward a new hidden reward, was my original interpretation of what the Vault could become.
  
  As it stands, if the Vault is simply a permanent key-to-loot converter, I feel that would be a significant waste of its potential. The Wing format seems particularly well suited to expansion. A Wing could be relatively small and self-contained while allowing you to experiment with unusual mechanics, environmental puzzles, traversal mechanics, or other gameplay ideas without having to build an entire dungeon or zone around them.
  
  It could also easily become a recurring activity tied to the larger yearly theme, with new Wings eventually leading to a new unique reward in the Sage's Trove. This would give the Vault a role similar to the other new systems being introduced: Dynamic Encounters can receive new world events, Favors can receive new mini-questlines, and Rumors can introduce emergent activities.
  
  I very much expected the Vault to eventually become another evergreen content framework rather than simply a loot generator. With the shift from Chapters toward the Tome model and the resulting reduction in the frequency of large traditional content releases, I think the Vault has the potential to fill a very useful niche: a permanent, expandable, puzzle/exploration activity that can receive small additions throughout the year. The current Vault is a good foundation. I'd just hate to see the system simply stop there.
  

People believe as they believe on the inconvenience issue and I'll disagree a bit. Since Nowhere Vault is associated with the Daggerfall Thieves Guild stuff, then "Reacquisition board in the Den and look left" doesn't strike me as a huge ask. But I'll grant the multiple transitions as being an annoyance. The Hew's Bane Den at least has a moderately convenient exterior entrance, but Daggerfall requires passing through the Outlaw Refuge to reach.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

I haven't touched it myself really at all since I don't like to play with story spoilers before we get them, but I will echo the questions about why this isn't an instance you can port to from the map the same way all Dungeons/Trials/Arenas and the Infinite Archive work. That alone really raises questions about how much this has to do with the TG (from the little bits I talked to Urli at the beginning, it seems it's more an extraplanar thing and it didn't mention the thieves guild at all), and why it has to be accessed only from that location.

Now I haven't done the new TG questline yet, so I don't want to dig too far, but I really have to just ask:
Why?
Like... why is the 'big permanent feature of 2026' (which is the only permanent new content system this entire year) inexorably linked to one guild? And one that lives in a morally grey area at that? Some players really care about playing to a certain morality, so to make people who prefer the lawful playstyle feel unwelcome is... certainly a choice.

"but but but just make an alt! or just do it anyway and headcanon that it's not true!"
Not the point. I shouldn't have to do things like that. Besides, how well did that "headcanon you're not part of the evil guilds" work when you did Blackwood's story and were forced to tell Eveli you were in the Brotherhood?

Really, does the game say "you're excluded from the lore of the Scribing sequence if you have unlocked the Dark Brotherhood line?" No. It even gives different dialogue options for players who have done the entire MG line, and also those who have not touched it. So while Scribing is linked to the MG, it's not a prerequisite to be part of that guild to play with it, and it's written in such a way that it still follows whether or not you are.

It seems like the Nowhere Vault is not part of the TG, at least by Urli's designation. And yet, you're forced to go into the Glenumbra (loadscreen) and then to the Daggerfall Outlaw's refuge (loadscreen) to get into the secret new TG area (not a full loadscreen, but a different area) to get into the Vault (loadscreen). And if your character doesn't touch any unlawful guilds, then that's a whole lot of empty space they're going through since the new TG area hasn't been established.

Eh, imo there's a big difference between taking part in stuff your character wouldn't do, like killing or stealing, and just needing to get to some place via a specific place that's loosely linked to those things. You don't HAVE to do any TG related stuff to access the Vault, and the Outlaw Refuge can be headcanoned as anything else that makes sense for the character (aka it doesn't have to be linked to a place your character wouldn't set foot in).

We really should have an entrance we can access straight from the map regardless, I will agree. It would be a lot less tedious than port to Daggerfall loading screen, enter Outlaw Refuge loading screen, enter...secondary Outlaw Refuge?...loading screen, and then enter Vault loading screen.