In this thread I want to give my feedback for zereth Mortis, starting with the first day, and continuing as we continue to experience the zone.
One caveat I will state is that I did not do any of Zereth Mortis on PTR and experienced everything for the first time today.
Day 1.
I play on a small server. So while I know some people had issues with lag in Haven and multiple disconnects, I was only disconnected twice in the time I played today. During that time I did everything I could get my hands on. Every main and side quest, every rare I could find, every chest I could open, and every cave I could enter. I ended my day by conquering what I had failed earlier and reached the summit of the rock orbs to loot the scroll I had watched people ahead of me get with ease. And I did it without any assistance. No warlock, no priest, no 2 seater mount and no door of shadows. I logged out with pride still atop the summit.
Given all that, here are my Initial thoughts:
The good:
The zone is beautiful. The lush green biome and the desert biome are both brilliant and have their own thematic appeal. It’s a nice chance from the Maw and Korthia.
The quest line was intriguing, and not boring, overall a good pace.
The side quests were also interesting and I enjoyed them.
The rares are unique and have several interesting abilities that require interupts or dodging to defeat the rare.
The challenges to get some of the chests are fantastic. Handynotes was a massive help here, but gaining a buff to break a door or find a rune to open a barrier or jumping perfectly to reach a chest is awesome.
The bad:
The puzzles might have been my favourite part of the day, as I love puzzles, but I found the explanations on how to complete them very lacking. I’m sure this was intentional, but I did have a hard time figuring out how to complete them.
one of the chests I sought to open, through clicking 4 objects emitting a tone, in a specific order despaired the exact second I completed the order. I’m not sure if this was just bad timing, but it was frustrating to go through the effort of figuring out the order and getting nothing out of it.
many times today I was unable to mount up as I remained in combat long beyond what would be considered normal. Even dismissing my pet and shadowmelding did not drop combat for me.
Final thoughts:
Overall, it was very refreshing to have new content in a fresh zone. I enjoyed hanging out in discord with my guildies, and running all over for rares and chests and everything else. There were a few frustrating moments, but overall a smooth release (early even!) and I’m looking forward to logging into tomorrow to do it again.
My feedback would be to combine more shards Ive been playing since 3pm launch and seen ZERO alliance in warmode even after jumping shards for rares all day
Also we need to seriously stop being given 204 grey items. id rather just have the gold or not loot them at all with auto loot.
I don’t think this is unique to that particular chest, for me it seemed to despawn when others did it at the same time, and that also seemed to happen with a few other chests. If that is the problem, this is the same problem treasures had in Korthia, where the nodes were shared, and is probably a bug. (I’ve at least reported it as so!)
Engineer wormhole needs a Zereth Mortis port. They really need to do something about the people server hopping the second they get in a fight and start losing in warmode its getting pointless of giving a faction a higher reward if they wont even engage in the content
I’ve really enjoyed the zone thus far but will concur it’s a bit odd that there are multiple puzzles without any type of explanation. I find it a little fun but also confused not knowing. Further, I find it odd that there are entire portions of the zones our current quest Chapters have not forced us to explore yet, but we can explore ourselves (IE: The Dread Portal). I wish the quest designers provided an inkling of insight into those areas just so we have an idea of what is going on there.
I like the zone and how it looks, the first time you enter at the start point really feels magical. The number of quests at the start felt a bit overwhelming.
There are a lot of things to explore, which is fun but really hard without using external sites with hints. I personally don’t like those things that much. It always feels like missing things if you don’t watch certain guides.
The zone seems to be pretty big while exploring it on the ground. I think the feeling will get better once you can fly there.
I like the way the zone progress works (so far). Login do the quests, do the wqs for rep, be done in 10 minutes and then do whatever else you want.
I am VERY glad we don’t get kortha/the maw version 3 (so far) and I hope there isn’t something coming that will change this.
However it would be nice if the 3 day resetting quest would carry over progress if you fail to finish it just like korthia did. Also maybe add a bit more clarity to the fact that it’s actually a 3 day quest and not a weekly? Right now you can only see this information in the quest log.
I am liking the zone so far, lots of rares and treasures.
Once flying is unlocked it will making hunting for rares and treasures a lot easier, but right now I am enjoying using the venthyr ability and shadow step to get to some of those high up treasures
Had a few issues with lag, mostly with Hirukon. I was in a group to kill it, started the fight had serious lag and then once it died everyone was stuck in place and unable to loot (no loot was mailed either)
I am looking forward to seeing how this place opens up as we progress though the chapters of the story.
I love the vendor that sells BoA tokens for anima, finally a use for all my saved up anima! I have managed to gear up a few alts through this method. Also being able to skip to chapter 3 on alts is another great addition
Biggest minor annoyance for me rn with the zone is when you do a puzzle it puts you in first person camera. So players can stand in front of you and block your puzzle
A key thing for me was the cypher knowledge and having to travel back and fourth to check on upgrades etc, perhaps implementing a minimap button so that it can be accessed while you are in the zone from anywhere? To allow you to check and upgrade while you are also in - world playing.
The rest of the zone I love, I could do without the puzzles but that’s because I am not a very puzzling loving person haha. The rares are great, the chests are easy to find and obtain, even if a little bit of parkour is required.
I love the aesthetic and the scenery, it’s gorgeous and the zone feels alive, despite being in the Shadowlands.
I enjoy the fact we can kill rares more than once a day, as it encourages helping others.
The treasures. I know they aren’t everyone’s favorites, but I enjoyed the jumping puzzles even if they made me want to pull my hair out because I have Trailblazer, which makes me overshoot half the jumps. I had to go all the way back to haven, change my talent, then go back. I figured if I don’t like them, I can just wait til flying and get them that way. But I enjoyed them. I even stayed at the top until someone came by trying to get up, invited them to a group, and used my Swapblaster to get them up before moving on.
The Cypher Equipment. I know we only have a few of them right now, but the ones we have are nice. My only issue with them is the movement speed one doesn’t stack with similar effects like the guild perk. Why even have that as a Cypher Equipment option if you get no benefit from it in a guild?
Cons:
As Worldpvp noted, the sharding seems to be working TOO well. On launch day, sharding seemingly was broken altogether in Zereth, as everyone on a single server was in the same shard for the first few hours. So I wonder if in the emergency to fix that, they set the threshold for a new shard to be formed too low? There’s a ton of people on Proudmoore, but I rarely see them out and about. I see more of them in Korthia still. I’ve joined quite a few rare groups hosted by people from Proudmoore and almost all of them phased me into another shard.
Some of the rares are significantly overtuned. I posted about this in General Discussion and reaction is mixed. Some agree, some disagree. There are rares, like Akkaris, that take 8-10 minutes to kill. And part of this is that, yes, people will tag and afk. This means they’ll add essentially 1 million health to a rare then contribute no damage except auto attacks. Right now, this is good during the day because it gives people time to get to the rare. But once we have flying, it will become a complaint, 100% guaranteed, by most people. On top of this, it makes those rares practically impossible to kill during the off-hours of the server. Even with the LFG system it doesn’t help.
Pocopoc. Listen, I LOVE Pocopoc. So much. But if he pings me one more time for a concordance I’ve already deciphered or one that I can’t decipher yet, I’m going to throw him into the abyss. He also seems to ping random places where there’s nothing there constantly. Also, the fact his costume resets every single time he gets resummoned is annoying, especially since he’ll be resummoned anytime we take flight.
The bugs. Right now, there’s a few treasures that are bugged, as well as two rares. (That we know of). The Overgrowth is bugged and only killable the first time after a server reset. The bulging vines that are supposed to spawn to make it attackable just don’t spawn again. Then there’s the Engulfer. There’s like an 80% chance that the Matriarch will never start the event to spawn it. She’ll just sit there, then despawn 5 minutes later.
The alt skip. This has also been discussed at length in General Discussion. The game doesn’t warn you how much you lose out on by using the alt skip to Zereth Mortis. You lose out on a ton of reputation, something like 20 Renown Catchup Levels, supposedly 150 Cyphers (I see everyone saying this but haven’t seen confirmation), as well as the Cypher Equipment. That’s a LOT, and I actively feel punished for using the skip. Especially since there’s no other way to gain that specific cypher equipment. Other skips in the past only missed out on basic things.
One of the things I’d like to see improved in the future is make it so tagging a rare doesn’t increase its health until you’ve used like 3 abilities on it. This is so the people actually killing the rare aren’t punished by people auto attack afking.
Also, although I’ve already tamed all of them except one, I really encourage Blizzard to NOT make rare spawns in new zones tameable in the future. Have that happen in the next major patch when the content isn’t technically “current” anymore. I do it at 3 AM when no one is online, so it doesn’t affect anyone, but there are people who do it in primetime and put the rare on cooldown for hundreds of people. This is especially annoying if the rare can drop something people desire, like a mount, pet, or a neat transmog, or if it has a very long respawn, or a combination of them all. (Here’s looking at you, Soundless)
My main gripe is that I really think the Cypher system needed some more thinking about the progression experience. As it stands, I am hoarding Cyphers to unlock all my Understandings as soon as their pre-requisite research finishes. This is coming at the cost of not interacting with all the cool upgrades beneath them in fear that I’ll timegate myself further by not having the Cyphers ready if I spend them early. I want to interact with Pocopoc getting a wardrobe and other cool things, but I can’t justify to myself delaying the other Understandings until I have more Cyphers than they cost.
Perceptive Pocopoc is also very frustrating. It should only send me to something that’s new to me, like if a Lore Concordance has changed in status for me or something. It’s also extremely frustrating that the minimap dot goes away whenever I get close to it.
It’s very clearly supposed to be an echo of the Trained Gromit Carrier in Korthia, but when he does notice something (besides just the minimap dot) and tries to lead me to it manually, he just kinda spazzes out and leads me to nothing or stands in place.
Pocopoc needs to stop pinging Lore Concordances that I’ve already added to the machine, or that I can’t decipher. It doesn’t help and it’s annoying as heck.
Pocopoc pings puzzle chests you’ve already solved for the day, and as such, can’t see or interact with. This leads to him pinging essentially nothing.
I have not upgraded Pocopoc to ping the Jiro, but he still does. This is probably not intended.
Why does Pocopoc’s costume disappear EVERY SINGLE TIME he respawns? It should be permanent until we change it, much like the Abominations for Necrolords.
Why can we not set our hearthstone to Exile’s Hollow? We are there WAY more than Haven.
Why do daily quests not give reputation? I understand Firim and the Brokers in the desert aren’t affiliated with the Enlightened, but as the Enlightened said when they accepted our aid, they just want us to help defend Zereth Mortis. This is doing that, even if it’s not through the Enlightened. As such, the Enlightened SHOULD give us reputation for it.
If a rare isn’t up every day, we need a way to tell if they ARE up so we don’t waste hours camping. For instance, when Xy’rath is spawning, the area around them is filled with dead Broker corpses and broker stuff. When they aren’t spawning, it’s empty. It’s an easy way for us to tell if they’re spawning. To my knowledge, none of the other rares on a rotation have this feature.
And the biggest thing:
Why do the “flight paths” in this zone not act like teleports like on Argus? Are you telling me the mortal races have more advanced technology than the beings that created literally everything?
This is one of the most immersion breaking things I’ve experienced in WoW. It’s the first time I genuinely had a “What” reaction to something simple as a flight path.
Please replace the flight paths with teleports. At most, you’re going to save people like 10 seconds, but it will help the immersion of Zereth Mortis, as flimsy as it is right now, immensely.
That said, I’m still enjoying the zone. I can’t wait to see more unlock.
More to come, but just a quick one while I am finally fighting Iska, Outrider of Ruin for the first time.
As far as I can tell, the puddle that heals the rare for 5% every second has no indication of when it is getting dropped. If the player holding aggro isn’t paying attention or has sow reaction time, the rare just never dies.
Mobs like this, like the Stargorger, NEED to be movable by abilities like death grip . We’ve been in combat for 7 minutes and he’s at 100%.
My thoughts on Zeris Mortis after the first few days:
To help put some of my comments in context, I’ve spent a lot of time on the PTR and tested it extensively since it went on line.
Without getting into a great amount of detail I’ve been for the most part very impressed with the implementation of feedback into the what has become the patch as most people are now experiencing it.
Flying was changed to be available after about two weeks rather than over two months.
The vendor that sells 226 greens for anima was made much more alt friendly by separating the ring and trinket tokens and adding a neck token. I would have liked to see the weapon token broken into main hand / off hand but that’s not a big item at all.
The mechanism to gain reputation in the zone was originally designed to require that about 29 rares be killed a day with much less contribution by daily and world quests. The reputation gain from rares is now trivial and should be increased but not at the expense of the current gains and pacing provided by dailies and world quests.
Changes and additions to conduit level catchups were implemented, however if these are not going to be readily available somewhere (the loot tables for dungeons don’t show that they are all available as drops and none are dropping from quests so far) at least 2 additional catchup tokens need to be added that are equally available to PvE and PvP players within the content of their choice.
The cypher console was originally very heavily time gated (much more than even now) such that it would have taken several weeks just to get past the cooldowns even if you had currency. (IMO even the existing time gating is unnecessary and an impediment to game play and should be removed.)
In short a big thank you and recognition is due to the development team on these issues. Voices were heard and changes were made. These are items that the majority of the payer base would not be aware of. There are other items as well but to me these are the really big ones. These changes have, I believe, dramatically improved the playability and enjoyability of the area. In fact it is no exaggeration that I likely would have unsubbed had the version of the early PTR gone live, and I suspect a lot of other players would have come to the same conclusion had they been given that version to play.
There are a lot of great items included by others above that I won’t touch to avoid repetition.
The really big items for me that I love and dislike:
The world is BEAUTIFUL, the art team really hit it out of the park this time! It’s SO nice to have a bright and pleasant environment to play in. Not everything needs to be dark and foreboding! It genuinely makes me play more.
Some the the quests are very new and interesting! I like the “ice fishing one” and the “freeze the mob in a decagon” one. For some reason those make otherwise boring quests super fun.
Big fan of the Creation Catalyst idea and would like to see the transmogs of the raid sets available sans stats for casual solo players. Maybe let cypher equipment be reskinned through the Catalyst with available charges but keep the stats the same. A recolor of the raid set models would make someone like me super happy!
LFR gear is essentially useless at the iLvL that it is now and even though the fight mechanics are easier (although not much easier than normal TBH) the logistics of herding cats through three bosses where the raid comp changes on every pull is a lot more challenging. In the last tier I ran 6 toons a week through LFR for WEEKS for transmogs. I ended up being the default raid leader most of the time since I did each wing 6 times on the first day and ended up knowing the fights inside and out for every role. Teaching a brand new group of people each fight, every single time, like it was the first time for them ever, boss after boss, week after week is no easy feat. Do not underestimate the challenge involved from a leadership point of view. The people that make those LFR runs work well deserve a medal.
Renown is now OLD CONTENT! I can not understand why in ZM, having done 4 days of “playing the game”, my alts (I’m doing 5 alts in ZM currently, I have an R80 in each of the 4 covenants either active or inactive) that have changed covenants for various reasons (generally related to the results of new class and covenant balancing) have only received 2 renown this week so far. Both from the bi weekly “Patterns Within Patterns” quest. I feel like renown gain past 40 is being treated as some new thing we are doing for the first time rather than what it really is, something I and most people have already done a half dozen or more times already. This is infuriating, gimps the character to near uselessness for the content that is starting in the new season next week, and is entirely needless. I should be getting a renown every time I turn in a ZM quest, do a BG, finish a dungeon or kills a raid boss at this point! I would much rather spend the time it will take to grind renown with the current system to fish up the Hirukon goop! (which is what I’m going to go do now while I wait for daily reset
(so far) and I hope there isn’t something coming that will change this.
