Online talk:A Walk Above the Clouds

Policy on what to include on the page

By way of introduction: I am an old, veteran player of games that have "quests" for one's avatar to pursue.

During quests I habitually look around at everything, particularly for items such as Skyshards, while I search every nook and cranny of a village, farm, camp, cave, delve, or ruin, etc. Ordinarily I search every bookshelf and loot most containers -- as well as every corpse -- that I can. Nonetheless, even where its beam goes indefinitely upward a Skyshard can be very cunningly hidden. It may be visible only from a few specific spots, and, in some places, an avatar must move to a spot adjacent to a Skyshard before the player can see it.

Regardless, fighting and searching for other items and NPCs which are explicitly part of the quest often require all of my attention, time, and effort. In many instances and quests, NPCs re-spawn very quickly. Unless you are willing to fight the same NPCs two or three times in the same place, you cannot dally to loot containers or look about for chests, books, or a Skyshard beam. About all you can do is loot corpses and move on to the next fight. In my experience with ESOTU, whether your avatar is in a group doesn't affect how soon NPCs will re-spawn. (Be that as it may, dungeons do vary; sometimes they don't re-spawn until another player's solo avatar or another group enters the area, or enters the dungeon.)

Further, regardless of whether there is an actual time limit for completing a quest, its designer may explicitly urge the player to make haste to the next objective, or even to the next quest, rather than take the time to "look around and explore". (I could say a lot about that, but I'll spare you the grief, this time :-).)

Considering the foregoing, after I have completed all or almost all of the principal quests in a zone, I visit a website which offers map coordinates for the locations of its Skyshards, and make a list of them. Then I consult my character's Journal Achievements to see which Skyshards have already been found in that zone, and go hunting for the others. Of course, while I am hunting for them, my character often undertakes one or more "side quests" for some of the areas in which remaining Skyshards are located. (Usually I don't go after buried treasure or specifically hunt for locked chests and/or Lore Books.)

So, perchance a Skyshard is in a location which can only be reached during a quest, then my character had best not have completed that quest yet. With regard to "A Walk In The Clouds", the quest had already been completed, so the only feasible way which I found for my avatar to obtain the Skyshard at the Forelhost summit was to group with another player(s) who was currently pursuing the quest, "tag along" while helping them kill NPCs, then move to and use the Skyshard after it became accessible.

My reasons for reminding players about the grouping option for obtaining the Skyshard if their avatar completes "A Walk Above the Clouds" without obtaining it are:

(1) There is no "standard" context or strategy for seeking Skyshards, buried treasure, locked chests, or Lore Books (not all of which can be found by searching bookshelves). You are not likely to find all of these items if the only thing you do is undertake and complete quests. Rather, you are unlikely to find very many of them unless and until you explicitly search specifically for them. Which is to say that, ordinarily, the player also can look for these items at any time, whether during an NPC-given quest, or simply by making the hunt for them per se into their own "quest".

(2) After completing well over 200 quests, I have yet to find one in which a quest-giver, or another NPC with whom I must interact, discloses the existence of any of these items. This quest is no exception. They only talk about the Shard of Wuuthrad's Axe, never any other "shard" or any Lore Book per se.

Sometimes the goal is to find a document which, upon discovery, is coincidentally announced to be a Lore Book. During three quests, my character had to pick the lock on a door to enter a house, twice without a hint that my avatar would have to do that. Otherwise, I don't recall being required to pick a lock on a chest in order to obtain its content while pursuing a quest, although some items have been in unlocked chests. There have been a few quests during which my character had to find a "mound of dirt" and dig-up an item(s).

None of these mounds have been on any lists of, or maps showing, treasure sites. As far as I know, all of the "blue" Lore Books and other documents which my character has been required to find during quests also can be found, read, and "collected" without doing any quest at all. (Whether that is always so remains to be seen.)

(3) This quest is the only one that I have ever followed which is the only way to access the location of a Skyshard. The clue in the Journal Achievements list simply states "A walk above the clouds" without indicating that it is the name of a quest which the player must undertake -- not just a description of what their character must do to find it, or how the player might recognize its proximity to their character. The person who created and wrote the clue probably thought they were being clever, but the clue is basically worthless at best and deliberately deceptive at worst.

(4) Note that the location of this Skyshard is in the open -- not in a cave, delve, or a building such as a tower, and arguably not "inside" a temple or the Forelhost Crypts per se. Given only the coordinates of its location, a player can spend a lot of time and effort fruitlessly searching for a path to reach the Skyshard from the perimeter of the Snowpeaks where Forelhost is located. Again, the "clue" is of no help if only because there is no indication that it is the name of a quest, let alone also disclosing that pursuing the quest is the only way to gain access to the Skyshard. Perhaps the clue should state "Quest above the clouds." instead.

At the scene, there is a very high snowbank between the Skyshard and the altar where the Dragon Priest is slain. So the player must "look around" and to the sky beyond the snowbank to see its beam.

Second, there is a path from the altar area to the Skyshard. However, a player cannot see the Skyshard at the far end of the path until their avatar is, at least, at its start. More to the point, the player cannot see any pile(s) of wood to kindle in order to recover from the effect of the cold after arriving at the path's start. In retrospect, there is no such pile of wood there, or along the path, if only because the avatar's Health doesn't decline much while following the path; it should be recovered normally after arriving at the Skyshard. Hindsight is not foresight, though.

Given the preceding experience with the effects of the cold and of the fires, a player cannot reasonably assume that their avatar's Health will not decline significantly while moving toward the path, and doing so without any prospect of recovering fast enough to survive, let alone to continue. (My avatar sprinted over the snowbank and used the Skyshard, but returned to the altar area by following the path to its start, then turned and watched as the other player's avatar moved to the path and followed it to the Skyshard.)

(5) After "A Walk In The Clouds" has been completed, there is no way that it can be repeated by the same player character. The location of the quest-giver moves from where she began to a location near the entrance/exit of the Forelhost Crypts, and her response to the avatar is to thank them for saving her life.

More to the point: an avatar cannot gather and use "kindling" to light the fires in order to survive, after re-tracing the route to the Forelhost summit, although the kindling remains shown as before, lying on the icy ground. That kindling can only be gathered and used during pursuit of the quest.

Perhaps an alternative would be using a large number of potions to periodically restore the avatar's Health; however, their cooldowns -- if not any undocumented limitations on using them -- might not allow potions to be sufficient. At least, the avatar must not fight Vosis, the Dragon Priest. In my experience, we can use only one potion while engaged in combat, and losing Health from damage that Vosis inflicts becomes compounded by the damage suffered from the cold while the avatar is not near enough to a fire that has been lit around the altar. Since the quest has already been completed, fighting Vosis probably should not be of concern, only whether the avatar can move to the Skyshard, use it, and return to the entrance/exit of the summint without freezing to death.

Also, in my experience, healing from a Twilight Matriarch familiar was useful, but not enough to allow my sorcerer to forego warming beside the fires kindled by my companion. At best, such healing could supplement the use of Health potions.

Consequently, if an avatar has completed this quest, then arguably the best way to reach the Skyshard's location is to group with another player(s) who are currently pursuing the quest. Only one is needed to use the kindling to light the fires that restore every group member's Health. Which is to say, that is how I did it. "Purists" who are accustomed to solo-player games may not like that, but acting in concert with other players to achieve goals is the inherent reason that a MMORPG even exists.

For what it may be worth: given the pace of events, I did not have the opportunity to investigate whether the Cold Resistance enchant on a ring was of any benefit in reducing the damage to the avatar's Health, e.g., by un-equipping and re-equipping the ring. My avatar equipped it upon arrival at the summit and it remained equipped while he was there, but any benefit from it was unclear.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST:

I wrote this essay because it seems to me that some wiki "editor" here is such an egomaniac that they expect EVERYONE to read each "walk-through" before undertaking any quest, just to see whether the entry contains any significant information which is not disclosed in-game (assuming there is anything to read at all). So that "editor" doesn't want my contribution to spoil their game -- not Bethesda's game -- right? Or is their issue that players who do not pursue quests should not have access to all of the Skyshards? If someone who does pursue quests does not happen to find a Skyshard, then that doesn't matter to someone who has such a belief, does it?

Stardance (talk) 04:05, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

I am not sure, but I believe this discussion might do better on the Community Portal, as it is more on the general policy, as I indicated in the section header I added. —MortenOSlash (talk) 08:35, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Regarding the skyshard specifically, I asked for verification on the situation because locking out a skyshard after quest completion seemed abnormal. Vordur responded with: the peak stays open after the quest, and there are permanently lit torches along the way to the skyshard. It's still possible that the quest has to be started to get to it, though. While that second situation has yet to be investigated, the note was removed because it specifically referred to something that was deemed untrue - you do not need to be on the quest to get the skyshard.

We then move on to what belongs on a quest page, which I agree would be a discussion for the Community Portal. As it stands right now, specifics that are not related to the quest do not go on the quest page; since the skyshard is not related to the quest, details on its acquisition would go on the Forelhost place page.

I apologise for leaving a bad taste in your mouth, as it were, but I hope this goes some way to explaining what Vordur, Sarthes and I did to the note. --Enodoc (talk) 09:48, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

It's me again:

You can debate what belongs on a quest page all you want. I don't care. What belongs on a quest page is useful information as to how to complete the quest. Period. That is what I was looking for when I read it. Idiot that I am, I added a couple of notes, one of which was removed without any explanation as to why. I added them to benefit other players. I did not do it because I wanted to be dragged into some obtuse internal editing debate about policies conducted in a manner which is effectively censorship. FYI, I have some experience as a writer and as an editor, so my attitude is "been there, done that, don't care to return". It is no wonder that so many of the quest pages are devoid of information if this is how you treat your contributors. Why aren't you writing them yourself? "Merciless" my ass. Get a clue, we have other things that we would rather do.

(1) The Forelhost Skyshard is not "locked out" after the quest is completed. (I made that very clear in my remarks in this "discussion".) An avatar can return to the summit to find and use the Skyshard (i.e., if they did not do that while they were there before), and they can do so without fighting Vosis the Dragon Priest. However, while an avatar is on the summit, they steadily lose Health because of the extreme cold. So, at a couple of locations on the way, avatars gather kindling which they subsequently use to light fires at various spots; each fire negates the loss of Health from the cold while the avatar stands near it, thus allowing their Health to regenerate.

Unfortunately, an avatar can gather kindling only during the course of pursuing the quest, so they cannot do that during a subsequent visit. If the Experience Level of the avatar is high enough, then they might have enough Health capacity as an attribute to make it feasible to (1) equip jewelry with the Healthy trait to increase it, and/or with enchants to increase Health regeneration, and (2) use several potions to replenish Health, so that lighting the fires might be unnecessary. Arguably, at least at Level 41 or even higher, probably your best option to return to the summit is to join a group in which at least one member pursues the quest and gathers kindling to light those life-saving fires.

(2) Someone appended a note to the quest page walk-through to question whether it is necessary to "have the quest" in order to access the location of the Skyshard. In my experience, it certainly proved necessary to have the quest in order to follow the only route to the location of the Skyshard. But I suppose if my experience is not good enough for you, then you are obliged to try to find another route yourself. Or ask Bethesda. Maybe they will tell you, if you claim to represent UESP Wiki.

One thing that I can definitely affirm from experience is that there is no other path up the mountain that will give an avatar access to the Skyshard (unless and until Bethesda creates one, if ever).

For what it may be worth: I didn't know that the clue "A walk above the clouds" referred to a quest before I went hunting for the remaining Rift Skyshards that I had not already found and used. The Tamriel Journal Skyshard Hunter ( http://tamrieljournal.com/eso-skyshard-location-map/ ) has a zone map showing their locations, and the user can put the mouse cursor on each Skyshard location to obtain its map coordinates. The tool also distinguishes between those that are "in the open" (including ruins) and those which are within a cave, delve, or dungeon. So I expected that there would be a typical path to the one on the Snowpeaks where the Forelhost Crypts are located.

While looking for that path, I explored the entire perimeter of those Snowpeaks twice. I examined two or three sections of the perimeter at least three times. A few places look as though passage upward is possible, but I always found that either they lead to a dead end, or my avatar simply cannot jump high enough to go there. While doing this, I saw other players attempting the same thing, and never had any reason to suspect that anyone found a path that I had not.

Of course, eventually I came across an upward path, where I examined the corpse of a woman and found a note. That path was already shown on the avatar's Map, so I continued exploring the Snowpeaks perimeter. After finding no other path, I eventually returned to it. Near the beginning, the path forks with one branch leading to a delve which I entered and completed. Then I returned to the fork and continued up the mountain on the other branch. Along the way, I found a woman freezing to death at an extinguished fire, and she offered a quest to gather kindling to relight it to warm her.

At first I did not accept the quest, because I was intent upon exploring the path to find and use the Skyshard. So I proceeded up the path, which led to a structure with a door into the Forelhost Crypts. I discovered that the paths to the left and to the right of the structure connect behind it, so that the avatar merely walks in a circle around it. If memory serves, my avatar tried to open the door to the crypts but could not do so.

As I returned down the path to the woman, I could not find a way to proceed upward from any point along the path, so I accepted her quest. After my avatar gathered kindling and lit the fire that allowed her Health to increase, she offered a quest to investigate the Forelhost Crypts, and I accepted it.

After gaining access via the door, whenever my avatar was in the open on my way up I looked around for other paths, mostly to see whether they would lead to a treasure chest or to a Lore Book, etc., While doing that, I never found a "shortcut" that would allow my avatar to continue upward without passing through the next door. ....

In sum, short and fine: access to the summit where the Skyshard is located is blocked by walls of rock that an avatar cannot climb. The only route to reach the summit is inherent to pursuing "A Walk Among the Clouds". The path passes through structures and tunnels which have doors that will not open unless the avatar(s) are pursuing the quest or have already completed it.

Note: the avatar is not required to summon Vosis the Dragon Priest, then fight and defeat him, unless the player wants to recover the shard of Wuuthrad's Axe to complete the quest. It is possible for an avatar to find a route from fire-to-fire and move to the start of the path that leads to the Skyshard. It helps a lot to know that such a path exists, even if the player doesn't scan to see the Skyshard's beam.

By the way, it would not surprise me if Bethesda has received numerous bug reports and/or feedback from Skyshard hunters who cannot find a path to the Skyshard, before they eventually realize -- if ever they do -- that pursuing the quest "A Walk Above the Clouds" could give them access to it. The quest is not offered until they have helped the freezing woman. :-\

TTYL (not!)

Stardance (talk) 00:25, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

You need to have unlocked Forelhost in A Walk Above the Clouds in order to access the skyshard, but you don't have to be on that quest. I tried it out yesterday, I was able to go back there with my character that has long completed this quest. If getting to the top of forelhost is too hard for you, nothing's stopping you from grouping, but as it's not necessary, it doesn't need to be mentioned here (especially since it actually has nothing to do with the quest itself, given the fact that this note is intended for the case that you have already completed it). The Skyshard's mention in the quest walkthrough is sufficient. -- SarthesArai ^Talk 00:46, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

What's more, at the summit, immediately after the emerging from the doorway, there's a trail of permanently lit torches that leads right to the skyshard. By running from torch to torch and warming yourself up to full health near each one, you can get to the skyshard very easily, without any need for other players, kindling, or restorative potions or spells. It's likely that these torches were put there for that purpose specifically. --Vordur Steel-Hammer (TINV1K) 02:14, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

I've condensed the notes down; the long-windedness bordered on trivial. From the discussion above, I still have no idea if the fires remain lit or not after you've completed this quest, so if someone can confirm or deny that then please feel free to adjust the page to match. Requiring someone to start a quest in order to reach a skyshard isn't unique or noteworthy, but requiring someone to actually be on that quest would be. I've assumed it's the latter. —Legoless (talk) 22:33, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

The fires don't remain lit, but the torches I mentioned are always lit no matter the circumstances, and since you can use them to warm up just like the fires, they're more than enough to ensure you'll safely get to the skyshard, without any outside help, potions, or spells. --Vordur Steel-Hammer (TINV1K) 02:41, 30 November 2015 (UTC)