[Megathread] Elder Scrolls Online

[Nerevar]

TES is an action RPG. To make it into a hotkey, tab targetting wow combat system would be like making a street fighter MMO with a turn based pokemon combat system.

There are several action rpg mmos. They can be made. The EQ/WoW/Rift/Swtor/Lotro/Aion/Allods/ all others like them combat system is not the only MMO combat system.
Besides, its been done to death.

Warcraft 1-3 were RTS, what's your point?

Besides, they already said the combat system from the SP games will be there, you'll just have 5 extra hotkeys to manage your skills, because you won't be able to pause your game in an MMO to change a spell or something else.

[OrcsRLame]

There hasn't been or isn't a successful way to integrate action RPG elements into an MMO due to either the clunkiness of action-locking (Tera) or latency (GW2).

Ever played DDO?

[Edge-]

There hasn't been or isn't a successful way to integrate action RPG elements into an MMO due to either the clunkiness of action-locking (Tera) or latency (GW2).

Tera is a successful integration of action combat into a MMO. The systems and mechanics are all fully functional. Your (and others) dislike of the animation locking is subjective and completely independent of the functionality of the combat system.

If you want some other examples, both Vindictus and Dragon Nest are two other MMO's that have great action combat systems.

I don't see what latency has to do with GW2 though (which is a hybrid action/static combat system), as latency affects any online game regardless of type or genre.

[Flaks]

I'm going to say that Vindictus, while it's the only TRUE action multiplayer RPG, isn't really even an MMORPG in the sense we're thinking when we talk about ES:O. I think most people think of open world games where people can join massive raids etc. Something that doesn't happen in Vindictus.

PvP also just flat out sucks balls with action combat in MMO's. The clunkiness of combat with people doing a bunch of attacks in one direction while the other player is going in the entirely opposite direction just gives you a feeling of suckage. This problem doesn't quite show up in the hotkey system unless the ability is a skillshot.

[RoninaThorstone]

There hasn't been or isn't a successful way to integrate action RPG elements into an MMO due to either the clunkiness of action-locking (Tera) or latency (GW2).

I haven't experienced more latency in gw2 than other games.
You also completely forgot vindictus.
And Tera's action locking is much less of an issue than it was in AoC.

You point out exactly what TESO should be an arpgmmo.
Those games can be improved on and thus TESO has new, fertile ground to capitalize on.
We've reached a peak on what can be accomplished with the limited design of rpgmmo combat. You see the same thing in the diablo/tl/poe. There's only so much you can do with that genre.
Its done to death. Throwing more games into the pile isn't going to change that.

[Flaks]

I agree, and I would love to see a successful action combat system in ES:O even and especially when it's hybridized with a hotkey system. It's just that I don't have a lot of faith in that aspect after, personally, not liking it in other games. Except Vindictus. If they could port a Vindictus system over to an MMO successfully I'd cake my pants. But I don't think any server can take that kind of smoothness of attacks and animations.

[RoninaThorstone]

I think most people think of open world games where people can join massive raids etc. Something that doesn't happen in Vindictus.

PvP also just flat out sucks balls with action combat in MMO's. The clunkiness of combat with people doing a bunch of attacks in one direction while the other player is going in the entirely opposite direction just gives you a feeling of suckage. This problem doesn't quite show up in the hotkey system unless the ability is a skillshot.

Just so its clear, vindictus does have large raids.

Also, the second part is completely subjective. If you don't like it, that's fine. There's about 5 times more MMOs that use WoWs combat system (which you could play) than a tera/vindictus system. Which means 5 times the competition for TESO if it chooses to get all cloney.

---------- Post added 2013-02-11 at 04:06 AM ----------



^ this is how the archers attacks should have worked in tera. And how ranged should work in TESO (with first person view option as well ofc)

That, paired with a cross between GW2 and vindictus melee combat. GW2 tends to give you more movement, less tied to your attacks, than vindictus but some is needed to make melee balanced in pvp (dodgeable / avoidable) and to make the combat visceral. (Too many Lan duels involve the lans just missing each other over and over. So dial that back a little)

[Allyrion]

But making an MMO with the look and feel of skyrim? i wouldnt pay for it.

Also ES games have been designed to be a solo experience. I have been playing Skyrim for the past few days and having tones of ppl running around would just kill it. It doesnt work.

When designing an MMO design it like an MMO and not like a single player game. When you get in the beta and decide that an MMO type of ES game is not for you then dont buy it or play it come release. But dont think that the devs need to make Elder Scrolls the Online Game to be successful or to be fun to play. Lots of ppl play MMO's and like that style of play. Yea you may like the Morrowind-Skyrim experience but how many games have put that experience in an MMO world? Not many. Prolly because there is little market for it despite what a handful or more forum posters and ES fans might say.



Do you still play Morrowind every day of the week? Do you still play Oblivion? Im sure you pop in Skyrim from time to time right? Why does a fickle MMO crowd that moves from game to game a bad thing for TESO? I doubt there are millions of players playing skyrim every week. Why would they all of a sudden play an MMO version of it every day? An MMO needs to be an MMO, single player games are single player games. You better cater to the MMO crowd that likes your game cuz those will be the ones playing it longest, not the single player crowd that wants their game to be online.

There's a huge misunderstanding here about what we (or at least, I) are asking for. No one is asking for the single player experience in an MMO. Your point about about warcraft is completely irrelevant. RTS and RPG's are completely different type of games.

I don't deny there are very different considerations when making an MMO versus a single player game. But don't fool yourself. An MMO is a multiplayer RPG. I'm not asking for a single player Elder Scrolls or even a co-op elder scrolls. I definitely want a game designed around many players. RPG and MMORPGs alike come with all sorts of design differences. MMO. They can strip away the single player parts all they want, I don't care. But the RPG parts only need refinement (such as from Morrowind to Oblivion to Skyrim).

Maybe we disagree what constitutes a single player experience. Cause to me, first person view isn't in that. Combat designed around that isn't either. It doesn't need to be like Skyrim, but catering to a style of play Elder Scrolls is really known for and got famous over? What's wrong with that?

They're doing it with their level system already, they're catering to the elder scrolls way there. I'd like to hear from them why they can't in this respect. Also, we don't even know for 100% that they're taking it out. I'll be disappointed if they do.

Also, you don't know any better than the rest of us what's best for the game, so don't tell us how to think. Tell us what you'd like to see in the game, and if you think it'll be a mistake if they carry certain elements of Elder Scrolls from another game....that's fine. Leave it at that. You're being condescending.

While that's true, I think the success of the game is going to depend a lot on finding a balance, and I don't mean game balance. The game needs to feel and play like Elder Scrolls wherever possible, but it needs to work mechanically as an mmo. You can't have racials that do crap like nullify entire character builds passively, (Morrowind and Oblivion Breton magic resist racial says high) but having diversity between the races would be a good thing as long as it doesn't break the game.

I'm also under the assumption that this game will have a big pvp element, and while perfect balance doesn't matter, it's no fun if you run into someone that is immune to your damage and can two shot you because of their race/build.

I agree with you entirely. Players always find what's best or loopholes to exploit. I don't agree that everything needs to be homogenized to achieve balance, but you can't have an exploiting ruining the fun for other players. Especially if they're paying a subscription.
There's not a simple answer there. Blizzard may have gone pretty far but they're still fighting players that want things other people have.

[Window]

Does anybody know if the dark brotherhood will be a player faction or just make some sideline enemy appearance
may be a game breaker for me

[marukale]

Just so its clear, vindictus does have large raids.

Also, the second part is completely subjective. If you don't like it, that's fine. There's about 5 times more MMOs that use WoWs combat system (which you could play) than a tera/vindictus system. Which means 5 times the competition for TESO if it chooses to get all cloney.

---------- Post added 2013-02-11 at 04:06 AM ----------



^ this is how the archers attacks should have worked in tera. And how ranged should work in TESO (with first person view option as well ofc)

That, paired with a cross between GW2 and vindictus melee combat. GW2 tends to give you more movement, less tied to your attacks, than vindictus but some is needed to make melee balanced in pvp (dodgeable / avoidable) and to make the combat visceral. (Too many Lan duels involve the lans just missing each other over and over. So dial that back a little)

In that video the arrows seem to fly pretty fast, which kind of goes against TES where flight path was important. You had to lead your target, at least you did when playing from any sort of range. So when it comes to PvP where latency is concerned it seems there are a couple of options but all of which break away from how archery works in TES:
1) Make arrows fly faster (and possibly reload faster) - ie go down the FPS route which has been shown to work well with moderate latencies
2) Tab targeting - you don't have to aim at all ie how WoW works, works well with a high tolerance to latencies
3) Target locking / homing arrows - the arrow will hit whatever you were aiming at when you released the arrow regardless of movement of the target
4) Large hit boxes/splash damage - the arrow will do damage to something that it gets close to, similar to long range rockets in fps where splash makes up for targets moving.
5) Arrows do increased damage to make up for the fact they will miss a lot - similar to a sniper rifle in an fps where you must lead your target, typically overpowered in PvE where leading a target is easier.

Based on the information so far it seems as though they are going with target locking along with a soft tab targeting system to choose who you hit if there are multiple enemies in front of your cross-hair when you fire. Its a bit of a shame as I really liked the long range sniping in Skyrim, and I don't really care much for PvP so would be happy with the old archery system.

---------- Post added 2013-02-11 at 11:43 AM ----------

Does anybody know if the dark brotherhood will be a player faction or just make some sideline enemy appearance
may be a game breaker for me

They said guilds from the TES series will be included and players can join them, but they are NPC led, as opposed to player guilds which will also exist. I don't know if the dark brotherhood was listed as counting in that or not. I remember them mentioning them so they are in the game somewhere. It will be interesting to see how the guilds work, if they are tied to faction's locations, or if they have branches in each faction's zones.

[Deleted]

Does anybody know if the dark brotherhood will be a player faction or just make some sideline enemy appearance
may be a game breaker for me

They have been announced to be in the game, however, nothing has been announced as to how it will act within the game.

[RoninaThorstone]

So when it comes to PvP where latency is concerned it seems there are a couple of options but all of which break away from how archery works in TES:
1) Make arrows fly faster (and possibly reload faster) - ie go down the FPS route which has been shown to work well with moderate latencies

Yes, that is the one I am a proponent of. I believe it to be the lesser of evils.

Also, around 1:24 this kia switches to long bow. Is that more to your liking than the short bow he starts out using?

[marukale]

Yes, that is the one I am a proponent of. I believe it to be the lesser of evils.

Also, around 1:24 this kia switches to long bow. Is that more to your liking than the short bow he starts out using?

The long bow seems to basically have a longer reload ie takes longer to draw which is more along the lines of TES system but the arrow still flies too fast for my liking.

One nice thing with how TES works, compared to games like WoW is the ability to "cast" your attack then hold it until you have a target. ie you can draw back the bow and then stand there waiting for the target to appear, it seems a nicer way to approach exploration as you have to decide between being prepared and moving quickly, so hopefully we will still get that (this did lead to me occasionally accidentally killing people when playing skyrim on the PS3 as I would try to enter a door with by bow drawn, then get bored during a loading screen and put the controller down, once the loading screen finished it detected you weren't drawing your bow anymore so would fire automatically).

[Allyrion]

They have been announced to be in the game, however, nothing has been announced as to how it will act within the game.

I wonder if there'll be any daedric prince type quests. The short ones, not necessarily like an oblivion crisis type expansion.

[Deleted]

At what point during the second era is the game set? I was going to play a breton but if vivec etc is in, then i will go dark elf.

[OrcsRLame]

At what point during the second era is the game set? I was going to play a breton but if vivec etc is in, then i will go dark elf.

The game is set during the height of the Tribunal's power. This is after they've had hundreds of years to master the use of their powers, but still ~300 years before they lose Sunder and Keening to Dagoth Ur.

Or was it 300 years till the birth of Tiber Septim? Meh, I'm tired and may be fucking up my dates, and I'm too lazy to fact check. They're definitely still active and at full power at this point though.

[Deleted]

I am not normally a lore fanatic but the elder scrolls certainly make me feel like it, the Tribunal and the Dwemer are the two most interesting things about TES for me so i guess i will probably play a Dark elf, hopefully they have books etc in the game. I noticed in the video above they talk about the dwemer, i was always under the impression that the dwemer vanished because their leader was trying to make them all immortal and take them to a new plane/realm, or something along those lines.

[Tabbycat]

I am not normally a lore fanatic but the elder scrolls certainly make me feel like it, the Tribunal and the Dwemer are the two most interesting things about TES for me so i guess i will probably play a Dark elf, hopefully they have books etc in the game. I noticed in the video above they talk about the dwemer, i was always under the impression that the dwemer vanished because their leader was trying to make them all immortal and take them to a new plane/realm, or something along those lines.

The Dwemer disappeared during the Battle of Red Mountain when Kagrenac used Keening and Sunder on the Heart of Lorkhan. It is believed that when the Dwemer disappeared they became the skin of Numidium, which was the God that the Dwemer were trying to make. But no one really knows for sure what happened to them.

[OrcsRLame]

The Dwemer disappeared during the Battle of Red Mountain when Kagrenac used Keening and Sunder on the Heart of Lorkhan. It is believed that when the Dwemer disappeared they became the skin of Numidium, which was the God that the Dwemer were trying to make. But no one really knows for sure what happened to them.

Close, but not quite. It's unknown if it was Kagrenac or the Tribunal that struck the final blow to the heart that made the Dwemer disappear. Kagrenac's notes also implied that Anumidium's ascension was designed to be used more than once. It's possible they became the Divine Skin, or they may have simply been destroyed. The process may have worked exactly as Kagrenac intended, but it may have also backfired in some way. That's why the detail of who actually struck the heart is such an important one. Even if it was Kagrenac though, that's no guarantee that everything happened as he envisioned.

Personally, I'm inclined to think it was a failure. If he did design Anumidium to ascend more than one group of people, then there must have been some way to leave behind instructions, or to communicate with the mortals, to aid in their ascension. Since Kagrenac hasn't been heard from since, and Anumidium just became a toy for the Tribunal and Dagoth Ur, I believe that his plan ultimately was a failure.

[Tabbycat]

I honestly hope we never find out what really did happen to them. Part of what makes the Dwemer so interesting is the mystery that surrounds them.