[Megathread] Elder Scrolls Online

[puppypizza]

Most do. The wolves, if I remember correctly, only had a wind up attack which allowed for easy killing. Almost every single humanoid enemy I faced would still land all basic attacks despite my circle strafing.

Yeah, I noticed that one. I was testing to see how the game calculated melee and ranged hits, like some are talking about now. The bite attack seemed to have a built-in 3 yard range or whatever you measure range in, where you would still get hit even with some space between you, but once you go past the threshold the attack would miss. You would not have to do a double-tap dodge to avoid the attack, so I guess it's like an invisible AOE attack. But a good bit of the time was also the wolf trying to even face me.

I was trying to see how many of the attacks in the game you could juke or dodge like in Skyrim. Ranged definitely does the curved bullets thing, but melee had a few you could dodge. Not like it helped though, since the AI would always run straight for you and not worry about its own preservation.

Right...cos killing 62 murlocks so I can get 10 eyes isnt grinding....ok. I have not had one single quest that resembles that and I am much higher level than you are.

Kill swamp things until you get 3 branches, kill pirates until you find the widget, kill bandits to get 3 items off of them, kill wizards to get 4 stones... The game was full of them where I was playing.

[corebit]

I actually really enjoy WoWs current questing. So far WoW has the most intuitive quest mechanics ranging from air combat to turret gunning. Though I still give swtor max points on questing not because of the actual quests themselves, but because of conversation dialogue. ESO's questing was Skyrim-esque in terms of npc dialogue and after that it was simple pick up eggs and throw them at npcs or go click on things they tell you to click on. I even encountered a real kill quest, and I thought those days were done.

One thing for sure is that ESO's dialogue is MUCH MORE sustainable than SWTOR's in terms of production and cost. No cinematics, no player voice, no dialogue trees, and NPC lines are all fairly short and simple. Whether or not they will have good player retention down the line is another topic, but at least they don't need to bust their balls and break the bank to continue making same quality quests and dialogue in their future expansions.

While playing SWTOR I always had the fear that Bioware could never keep up with the class stories, because they crammed all that stuff in every single quest. It was insane.

[Edge-]

One thing for sure is that ESO's dialogue is MUCH MORE sustainable than SWTOR's in terms of production and cost.

Everything is more sustainable than SWTOR's method. There's a reason why the expansion of class specific stories is basically off the table, with planetary storylines being the primary thing going forward.

[Sharuko]

Though I still give swtor max points on questing not because of the actual quests themselves, but because of conversation dialogue.

SWTOR questing was great at first, but eventually I space bared all of them because listening to everything got tedious. People in beta were complaing that ESO didn't have enough mobs to kill and I think some reviewers stated that. ESO never told you to kill "this many people", the quests were designed like Skyrim in the fact that you still had to kill things but the objective was different.

[mickybrighteyes]

TBH, I wish quests in games were less gimmicky (with stuff you ONLY see during the quest or stuff only really useful during the quest).

More like quests introduce gameplay mechanics or advance a story. Those varied quests that show gameplay you will never see again get old fast.... like the 'non-violent' questline in burning steppes, or the leading an army bit in uldum... never seen again =/

Solo play gets old when your character never has to change their playstyle very far from the raid model.

[Sharuko]

While playing SWTOR I always had the fear that Bioware could never keep up with the class stories, because they crammed all that stuff in every single quest. It was insane.

I remember quite a few people having that fear, and a lot of people saying it is BioWare they can do it. But they just couldn't, it is way too much for an MMO. I liked it but it was overdone. ESO is a good middle ground in terms of VO and the fact that I can easily skip the text and go to the objective if I wanted to. I wasn't stuck in a pseudo cut scene.

- - - Updated - - -

Kill swamp things until you get 3 branches, kill pirates until you find the widget, kill bandits to get 3 items off of them, kill wizards to get 4 stones... The game was full of them where I was playing.

You will always kill things in RPGs. The good ones hide that grind. But you will never find kill 10 of anything in this game, I actually think they take it to the other extreme.

[mickybrighteyes]

Everything is more sustainable than SWTOR's method. There's a reason why the expansion of class specific stories is basically off the table, with planetary storylines being the primary thing going forward.

How much was stuffed in the starter world stories alone?

[puppypizza]

You will always kill things in RPGs. The good ones hide that grind. But you will never find kill 10 of anything in this game, I actually think they take it to the other extreme.

You will always kill things in MMOs. Good RPGs give you ways around killing, even Elder Scrolls games did. What I was saying was that once past the beginning, even ESO wasn't trying to hide it.

The difference between telling me to kill exactly 10 things or to "find a widget from a bandit" after killing 10 of them is threadbare.

[Sharuko]

You will always kill things in MMOs. Good RPGs give you ways around killing, even Elder Scrolls games did. What I was saying was that once past the beginning, even ESO wasn't trying to hide it.

The difference between telling me to kill exactly 10 things or to "find a widget from a bandit" after killing 10 of them is threadbare.

In most RPGs you kill things. Some RPGs give you a way to do things without killing, even WoW lets you do things like that with a rogue. Skyrim does the same exact thing, go find this sword in a cave. Fine you go to the cave, then you have to kill 20 bandits to get to the sword. It is the same exact formula.

[mickybrighteyes]

In most RPGs you kill things. Some RPGs give you a way to do things without killing, even WoW lets you do things like that with a rogue. Skyrim does the same exact thing, go find this sword in a cave. Fine you go to the cave, then you have to kill 20 bandits to get to the sword. It is the same exact formula.

don't forget that sword is also located right next to a spot that triggers more bandits and or undead to appear.

Elderscrolls has been unique in my experience in that it's one of the few games that does actually give you the tools to avoid most combat situations (ganted usually you'll NEVER complete half the main quest lines present that way).

[mickybrighteyes]

Considering even spell staffs require stamina to use the related weapon skills ... ?

they use magicka not stamina.

Short answer atm is you'll be gearing and speccing both stam and magicka, as no one not affected by an NDA has any real knowledge beyond lvl 20ish gearing? Or did people get lucky in Cyrodiil?

edit: what I saw of gear in the low end was just regen boost and fortify resource. very little else in terms of performance enhancing. Felt like more stuff would be gained from adding in more passives from skill lines than gear for awhile =/

[corebit]

Everything is more sustainable than SWTOR's method. There's a reason why the expansion of class specific stories is basically off the table, with planetary storylines being the primary thing going forward.

That's why I shake my head at all the ESO-SWTOR comparisons. They are almost nothing alike. All the people screaming: "OMG another SWTOR fail!!1" just gets on my nerves sometimes.

The voice work is quite minimal compared to SWTOR. Basically zero cinematics, everything is shown in-game. No class stories, just a "main quest" across three different factions. Endgame PVP is nothing like Illum. It remains to be seen about endgame PVE and that's one of my concerns, but saying it will share the same fate as SWTOR's massive bleeding did in 2012 is just completely off the mark. It's all a combination of the above and massive positive hype that led to a disappointment and exodus. All that quality during leveling just couldn't keep up.

By contrast, ESO has nothing like that, is actually getting a ton of negative hype to begin with, and the starting experience is described by most media as generic, slow, and boring, but many are turning their opinions as they level up and experience more of the game. It's almost like the reverse of SWTOR.

Not saying ESO will do amazing, I don't tend to prophesize, I just enjoy the games for what they are. Simply saying all the "This will fail like SWTOR" are silly and need to stop.

[Sharuko]

Not saying ESO will do amazing, I don't tend to prophesize, I just enjoy the games for what they are. Simply saying all the "This will fail like SWTOR" are silly and need to stop.

I agree that the SWTOR comparison is not valid at all, I think even SWTOR would have done way better with single servers instead of the 140+ they had at launch. The comparisons end at big budget + big name developer + big IP. We will have to see if the bugs + end game comparisons are valid after launch.

Also, in terms of negative hype/hate. It is the best thing to happen to the game, and I still stand by it. It needs more hate and anti-hype. I don't like the fact that some of the hype is turning positive. Hype and high expectations will kill MMOs even good ones.

[puppypizza]

In most RPGs you kill things. Some RPGs give you a way to do things without killing, even WoW lets you do things like that with a rogue. Skyrim does the same exact thing, go find this sword in a cave. Fine you go to the cave, then you have to kill 20 bandits to get to the sword. It is the same exact formula.

Ok, so you've gone from "always" to "most". What are you trying to argue about? Someone said that there were no "kill X number" quests in ESO, and I pointed out examples where there were.

And you could just sneak past the bandits in that cave and steal that sword.

[Sharuko]

Ok, so you've gone from "always" to "most". What are you trying to argue about? Someone said that there were no "kill X number" quests in ESO, and I pointed out examples where there were.

And you could just sneak past the bandits in that cave and steal that sword.

You playing word games? You kill things in RPGs that is the nature of the genre. There are some RPGs were you can get away with a 100% passive run. You can do an almost pacifist run in Skyrim but people don't play it that way. Again, Bill Murphy from MMORPG explained this questing method. The objective is usually not killing things but other objectives, the killing things is usually not the objective. I am not expecting a complete Skyrim experience but in terms of quest design they hide it very well at least compared to most if not all MMOs.

I was actually so hungry to kill things when playing, I went to a field and started killing things because the quests didn't give me enough things to kill.

[mickybrighteyes]

Ok, so you've gone from "always" to "most". What are you trying to argue about? Someone said that there were no "kill X number" quests in ESO, and I pointed out examples where there were.

And you could just sneak past the bandits in that cave and steal that sword.

In skyrim, unless it was a radiant quest, that sword would have been booby trapped and you'd be locked in the room with whatever spawned until it died.

[mickybrighteyes]

That is not what ESOhead says...

it's what beta said. The activated abilities for destruction and restoration staves utilized magicka. The rest of teh weapon skills used stamina, and the only thing you spent stamina on while using a staff was dodging, sprinting, blocking, sneaking, and interrupting?

this is about what I saw in game while betas was up.
edit:

I also like how it says players can convert one another to vampirism and lycanthropy. and how emperors ae like just THAT much better than everyone else.

[Sharuko]

That is not what ESOhead says...

Pretty sure that is a typo.

[Tidezen]

Ok, so you've gone from "always" to "most". What are you trying to argue about? Someone said that there were no "kill X number" quests in ESO, and I pointed out examples where there were.

And you could just sneak past the bandits in that cave and steal that sword.

I honestly don't remember a single quest like that myself. Maybe it was one I missed. The closest that I remember were a couple ones where you needed to kill a bandit for a disguise, or a couple items, but it was 100% drop. Or one that was "Kill the Goblin King" but that's a direct assassination. There's a whole guild devoted to that very thing in the ES universe. So if it's just that you never want to kill, well, yeah, there are plenty of quests where that will happen. Tamriel's a pretty violent place, always has been.

[Thunderball]

Yet NB and DK class spells still require magicka to use?

All the class abilities require magicka to use.