[Megathread] Elder Scrolls Online

[stellvia]

I'm not feeling it so far. Put in about 2hrs on Sunday night before some weird disconnection happened and I died, so I logged out. Combat feels stiff and generic, and basically like playing a minorly updated version of Skyrim. Which as an MMO, doesn't work IMHO.

Having generic quests dumped onto you immediately upon exiting the tutorial with barely even an offhand comment also seems kinda lame. Commander Lady just sees you awake after washing up on shore and just says "Do crap for us"

[Lane]

Loot isn't soulbound. Meaning that if a PvE guild clears veteran content or Adventure Zones they can sell the loot they don't need, which only make the game even more casual friendly.

I like it.

Commander Lady just sees you awake after washing up on shore and just says "Do crap for us"

Sounds like you chose Ebonheart Pact. :P

[corebit]

I'm not feeling it so far. Put in about 2hrs on Sunday night before some weird disconnection happened and I died, so I logged out. Combat feels stiff and generic, and basically like playing a minorly updated version of Skyrim. Which as an MMO, doesn't work IMHO.

Having generic quests dumped onto you immediately upon exiting the tutorial with barely even an offhand comment also seems kinda lame. Commander Lady just sees you awake after washing up on shore and just says "Do crap for us"

'Generic' is becoming such an overused buzzword, it's hard to understand what people really mean by it anymore. What would be an example of 'non-generic' quest to you? Do you consider Skyrim quests 'generic' as well?

Also keep in mind there is only so much MMOs can do while needing to have thousands upon thousands of quests to keep the player busy until max level. There will always be an iteration of "kill this", "fetch that"

[corebit]

I can't say that I ever felt that the game kept sending me on 'kill this' or 'fetch that' sort of quests. Especially when you got random treasure maps thrown in, or for certain quests were expected to look for certain clues, had to sneak past guards, had to talk with NPCs to figure stuff out etc. I always was too drawn in by the storyline and the lore, which kept me wanting to keep questing. They did a pretty good job and people who dislike the questing in ESO probably didn't like questing in Skyrim either.

Exactly, I felt there was a pretty good variation of quests and none of them felt grindy at all. The MOST I was told to do was kill or collect 10 of X, and those are rare. Most of the time, you just kill someone or do something and voila, quest complete.

There are plenty of interesting and rather original quests. You feed a frog to full and race it in a competition in one. You grab a lizard/rat to distract the tavernkeep and steal a bottle of wine in another. Or my favorite quest, depending on the number of people you rescue, they help you up with a heist to steal damning evidence of the currrent ruler, where you need to disguise yourself as a servant, sneak past the sleeping guys to steal the key, and electrocute the guard unconscious to reach the final chest. No killing was involved at all.

[Deleted]

I can't say that I ever felt that the game kept sending me on 'kill this' or 'fetch that' sort of quests. Especially when you got random treasure maps thrown in, or for certain quests were expected to look for certain clues, had to sneak past guards, had to talk with NPCs to figure stuff out etc. I always was too drawn in by the storyline and the lore, which kept me wanting to keep questing. They did a pretty good job and people who dislike the questing in ESO probably didn't like questing in Skyrim either.

I agree, questing at it's very core is the same old questing, but they did an excellent job with the presentation and storytelling to make the questing actually enjoyable for the most part. It's subtle, but I almost never had the feeling that my goal was kill 5 mobs of some kind, but it was just something that happened naturally along the way to solve the issue at hand. Also the solid voice acting and some charismatic NPCs (<3 Razum-dar) really add a lot to the questing experience.

[Deleted]

For those who don't know the 0.18 patch notes yet. Someone at tamriel foundry posted them all :

http://tamrielfoundry.com/topic/0-18-patch-notes/

[Tekkommo]

The questing does do a very good job of hiding it, I would expect no less from an Elder Scrolls game mind you.

[Lane]

I agree, questing at it's very core is the same old questing, but they did an excellent job with the presentation and storytelling to make the questing actually enjoyable for the most part. It's subtle, but I almost never had the feeling that my goal was kill 5 mobs of some kind, but it was just something that happened naturally along the way to solve the issue at hand. Also the solid voice acting and some charismatic NPCs (<3 Razum-dar) really add a lot to the questing experience.

Yes to all of this. Basically exactly what I was going to say.

[Deleted]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKU91Tzxm5w from 4:30 information about adventure zones. It's aimed for 4 players (why-y-y-y) and open world thus zergable...

[Deleted]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKU91Tzxm5w from 4:30 information about adventure zones. It's aimed for 4 players (why-y-y-y) and open world thus zergable...

It says the zone in its entirety is 4 player oriented, with 12 player content on certain points. but open world means the 12 man things will get zerged bei dozens of players regardless.

[Deleted]

It says the zone in its entirety is 4 player oriented, with 12 player content on certain points. but open world means the 12 man things will get zerged bei dozens of players regardless.

Yeah, that would be absolute shit endcontent. I hope they make it 'instanced' quickly else it will be nothing but a zergfest without any difficulty or fun for anyone.

[Deleted]

I dont know if it is needed to be instanced. I can live with 4 man content being the peak of coordinated pve content. adding more people is not essentially changing the gameplay, just complicating the coordinating part, which usually only involves leaders.

But, if you do big group open world content, use dynamic scaling, so it stays challenging for larger groups. I heard that it is planned to be this way (hearsay) so 12 could just be the starting point. Wait for official information.

[corebit]

Yeah, that would be absolute shit endcontent. I hope they make it 'instanced' quickly else it will be nothing but a zergfest without any difficulty or fun for anyone.

Maybe the boss will scale to the number of players like GW2 did.

I like it and I believe Zenimax did the right decision here instead of attempting to do another form of "raids" and trying to compete with WoW the king of raiding, which we all know is a futile attempt. So why not do something different?

You will never, ever beat WoW at raiding. Blizzard has mastered it down to an artform. Any game that tries to compete with WoW at PVE raiding will die a horrible death.

However, the raiding scene has been declining in recent years. More and more people are just fed up with that instanced treadmill. Just look at the raiding participation in WoW which has taken a significant drop since WotLK. Raiding is no longer the end-all-be-all endgame PVE that people are accustomed to. Look at new and upcoming games like Destiny, where the entire focus is on small groups.

[Deleted]

Maybe the boss will scale to the number of players like GW2 did.

I like it and I believe Zenimax did the right decision here instead of attempting to do another form of "raids" and trying to compete with WoW the king of raiding, which we all know is a futile attempt. So why not do something different?

You will never, ever beat WoW at raiding. Blizzard has mastered it down to an artform. Any game that tries to compete with WoW at PVE raiding will die a horrible death.

However, the raiding scene has been declining in recent years. More and more people are just fed up with that instanced treadmill. Just look at the raiding participation in WoW which has taken a significant drop since WotLK. Raiding is no longer the end-all-be-all endgame PVE that people are accustomed to. Look at new and upcoming games like Destiny, where the entire focus is on small groups.

Don't mind the new content, I actually like the idea alot it should just be instanced as what will happen now is that there will be 'hard bosses' aimed for 12 man that will get rushed by 80 players at once and get killed in seconds. As that what is happening in wow, any world boss is getting zerged in minutes and as zenimax has a megaserver that will mean that there are always plenty of people (100ths) to do those kind of things. Thus the endgame will be turned into a no-difficulty zergfest where people will complain in hours that it isn't fun and it lags too badly. The idea is good but how they are intending to do it is just absolute shit. I have no problem with this if it were instanced but openworld this will suck very badly.

[Tomazooma]

I have to ask how much loot people are getting?
I spent a little time over the weekend playing for the first time, and got to lvl 4. By then I was still using my prison rags and bow from the first room of Colharbour.
No armour, weapon, or recipes dropped. No gear from quest rewards (AD faction, first isle). Mobs only seemed to drop crafting items like hides (or junk).
Didn't make it to a town to try crafting, maybe I missed a quest that pointed me that way?

Should I be looking to craft more gear for myself, or was it just my usual bad luck?

[Deleted]

I have to ask how much loot people are getting?
I spent a little time over the weekend playing for the first time, and got to lvl 4. By then I was still using my prison rags and bow from the first room of Colharbour.
No armour, weapon, or recipes dropped. No gear from quest rewards (AD faction, first isle). Mobs only seemed to drop crafting items like hides (or junk).
Didn't make it to a town to try crafting, maybe I missed a quest that pointed me that way?

Should I be looking to craft more gear for myself, or was it just my usual bad luck?

Little bit of bad luck perhaps, loot can drop off the initial mobs after the tutorial, but I mean... level 4 is probably less than an hour for people who aren't completely new, so it's hard for them to give much new gear in that time, and you shouldn't really need any gear upgrades to take down the mobs at that level.

[corebit]

I have to ask how much loot people are getting?
I spent a little time over the weekend playing for the first time, and got to lvl 4. By then I was still using my prison rags and bow from the first room of Colharbour.
No armour, weapon, or recipes dropped. No gear from quest rewards (AD faction, first isle). Mobs only seemed to drop crafting items like hides (or junk).
Didn't make it to a town to try crafting, maybe I missed a quest that pointed me that way?

Should I be looking to craft more gear for myself, or was it just my usual bad luck?

Just keep doing quests. By the time I finished Kenarthi's Roost (the first AD island), I was mostly geared in greens.

Don't mind the new content, I actually like the idea alot it should just be instanced as what will happen now is that there will be 'hard bosses' aimed for 12 man that will get rushed by 80 players at once and get killed in seconds.

Yes, I agree with you. Hopefully they scale the bosses just like GW2 so they aren't zergable.

[Tekkommo]

I found it far easier to craft Heavy gear, as you could get mats from mines, which there was quite a lot of in caves. So if you struggle to get decent loot drops, crafting is probably the best way to get gear.

I struggled to craft any medium or light gear as I could only get mats from destroying gear (yeah I shouldn't use the word destroying there), there must be other ways of obtaining those mats which I just haven't worked out.

All in all, crafting looks awesome!

[Deleted]

I found it far easier to craft Heavy gear, as you could get mats from mines, which there was quite a lot of in caves. So if you struggle to get decent loot drops, crafting is probably the best way to get gear.

I struggled to craft any medium or light gear as I could only get mats from destroying gear (yeah I shouldn't use the word destroying there), there must be other ways of obtaining those mats which I just haven't worked out.

All in all, crafting looks awesome!

Material for medium armor drop from some creatures like wolfs, mudcrabs etc, while light armor is made by extracting some mats you get by harvesting plants (I think it was Jute, some plant with yellow flowers for the lowest level gear).

[mickybrighteyes]

Personally I found better loot from extraction all around by the time I was about 10.

Sure, the iron/maple/jute nodes were littered about and I found a few good places to farm rawhide (in AD and DC regions) but it seemed easier to amass materials simply through the extraction and destruction of other loot items.