[Megathread] The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited

[Witchblade77]

I hate to say it, but that post is right on the money. there used to be a game that did action combat incredibly well before they started doing their own strings of reworks that for me absolutely killed the game (cause not only they made combat less fun, but they systematically removed a crapton of playable content) - Neverwinter. what ESO has is... lets just say thank goodness its solo friendly with easy overland. cause it allows me to essentially ignore the hell out of meta and play actual diverse builds with lots of class abilities utilized within them, even though those builds severely underperform compared to meta. because I find it more fun. its too bad that the game discourages my kind of fun should I want to group for anything, ever outside of super extra casual occasional normal mode runs with 2 of my guilds where the only requirement is to be a warm non afk body that at least attempts to follow mechanics.

[Aliven]

Yeah it's so annoying because the rest of the game is really great and even underrated in a lot of ways.

Eh there are more problems but whatever. The thing that are IMO above average are pve content (quests, zones, dungeons, etc), lighting and voice acting. And hey, thats good because im fan od elder scrolls

[ro9ue]

This is an incredible post btw

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.co...omment_7420579

This is a great post but I would contend with one point. The point about WoW specs being rotationally deeper is true but this only matters depending on what content you're doing. You'll only notice rotational depth on very long boss fights, like raids, and it comes at the cost of really having little to no gameplay customization. I would say the 36 WoW specs are no different than having 36 moba heroes to choose from. They're all set and predefined.

If you're a casual player like myself, I don't do much of anything where a fight is taking over a minute. So on my Dragon Knight collecting crafting materials and finding treasure chests I can charge a mob, fire breath and execute and the fight is over. That is nearly identical to the solo experience in WoW. However, if you do a world boss or fight a rare mob where they have a larger health pool to get through, that's where ESO's combat starts to feel really boring and repetitive.

So the upside to ESO's system is that if I want to be a dagger wielding Nightblade who also uses a bow, I'm able to do that. If I want to use a staff or a 2h sword, I can do that too. The meta doesn't matter at this level of play, it's mostly for flavor. With WoW I functionally cannot use most of my abilities if I decide I want to use a bow on my rogue. I HAVE to use daggers as sub or assassin. I also can't heal or tank. The flexibility in ESO is nice. You can easily play something off meta in WoW heroic dungeons and their open world too, but you just don't have the option to.

The trade off for customization vs rotational depth is worth it for a player like myself.

[Tyris Flare]

This is a great post but I would contend with one point. The point about WoW specs being rotationally deeper is true but this only matters depending on what content you're doing. You'll only notice rotational depth on very long boss fights, like raids, and it comes at the cost of really having little to no gameplay customization. I would say the 36 WoW specs are no different than having 36 moba heroes to choose from. They're all set and predefined.

If you're a casual player like myself, I don't do much of anything where a fight is taking over a minute. So on my Dragon Knight collecting crafting materials and finding treasure chests I can charge a mob, fire breath and execute and the fight is over. That is nearly identical to the solo experience in WoW. However, if you do a world boss or fight a rare mob where they have a larger health pool to get through, that's where ESO's combat starts to feel really boring and repetitive.

So the upside to ESO's system is that if I want to be a dagger wielding Nightblade who also uses a bow, I'm able to do that. If I want to use a staff or a 2h sword, I can do that too. The meta doesn't matter at this level of play, it's mostly for flavor. With WoW I functionally cannot use most of my abilities if I decide I want to use a bow on my rogue. I HAVE to use daggers as sub or assassin. I also can't heal or tank. The flexibility in ESO is nice. You can easily play something off meta in WoW heroic dungeons and their open world too, but you just don't have the option to.

The trade off for customization vs rotational depth is worth it for a player like myself.

I definitely agree on the first part, when stuff dies in 5 seconds it doesn't make any difference. But then you do a world boss and you realize how unbelievably simplistic and sad it is without cooldowns or builder spenders or procs.


As for the second part, I think that's one of those illusion of choice things where having more choices is actually worse. For example, if paladins in WoW could equip a bow, some people would think that is cool. But all I would effectively do is mean that every DPS paladin would need to use a bow competitive content because it's ranged ans there's an insane number of melee.

[Edge-]

I definitely agree on the first part, when stuff dies in 5 seconds it doesn't make any difference. But then you do a world boss and you realize how unbelievably simplistic and sad it is without cooldowns or builder spenders or procs.


As for the second part, I think that's one of those illusion of choice things where having more choices is actually worse. For example, if paladins in WoW could equip a bow, some people would think that is cool. But all I would effectively do is mean that every DPS paladin would need to use a bow competitive content because it's ranged ans there's an insane number of melee.

I think this gets to a bit of one of the core issues with ESO: The "hardcore" community vs. the folks that just smell the roses.

For more serious play and all yeah, combat is garbage and requires too much bullshit around animation canceling, short-term buffs are annoying to keep up but are required so that there's something to do other than spamming your main damage skills, and there is a very real "illusion of choice" if you're going for optimal builds for harder content.

But for folks playing more at my speed, the combat can be annoying but not dreadful, and the choice is fairly real. Like, I'm following a solo guide now, but I wasn't really following it while leveling (and for a bit post-50) and my first character, a Magplar, was entirely self-made. Both performed 100% fine for all open world and normal group content (regular dungeons, all overworld content) simply because you don't need crazy DPS for anything if you have the patience. And in normal dungeons, you're likely gonna get carried by some well geared players anyways.

Like, I'm likely to switch up my build a bit once I get my gear made and have a better handle on how it plays with those sets. Not sure if I like the 2h/bow combo or if I might want to try DW since it seems like my build has fairly good AoE to begin with.

[Tyris Flare]

I think this gets to a bit of one of the core issues with ESO: The "hardcore" community vs. the folks that just smell the roses.

For more serious play and all yeah, combat is garbage and requires too much bullshit around animation canceling, short-term buffs are annoying to keep up but are required so that there's something to do other than spamming your main damage skills, and there is a very real "illusion of choice" if you're going for optimal builds for harder content.

But for folks playing more at my speed, the combat can be annoying but not dreadful, and the choice is fairly real. Like, I'm following a solo guide now, but I wasn't really following it while leveling (and for a bit post-50) and my first character, a Magplar, was entirely self-made. Both performed 100% fine for all open world and normal group content (regular dungeons, all overworld content) simply because you don't need crazy DPS for anything if you have the patience. And in normal dungeons, you're likely gonna get carried by some well geared players anyways.

Like, I'm likely to switch up my build a bit once I get my gear made and have a better handle on how it plays with those sets. Not sure if I like the 2h/bow combo or if I might want to try DW since it seems like my build has fairly good AoE to begin with.

I really don't think it's just those communities. I've never done anything remotely hardcore in this game and it is still really apparent. The moment you go into later zones the bosses/events and stuff is like 4x more difficult and it becomes a lot more noticeable. Just did one of the blood dolmen things in Skyrim and you're being chased by 2 million health mobs and everything hits you for 10k+. The ones in old world dolmens have what, 60k?

[Edge-]

I really don't think it's just those communities. I've never done anything remotely hardcore in this game and it is still really apparent. The moment you go into later zones the bosses/events and stuff is like 4x more difficult and it becomes a lot more noticeable. Just did one of the blood dolmen things in Skyrim and you're being chased by 2 million health mobs and everything hits you for 10k+. The ones in old world dolmens have what, 60k?

Huh, I skipped ahead to Blackwood for the companion and the world bosses were definitely harder - I couldn't solo some of them at all. And honestly that's still fairly "fine" for me since they're supposed to be group content.

The dolmen...those are the rift portals, right? I'll have to keep an eye out when I start getting into expansion content but I don't recall them being any different in Blackwood than in older zones.

[Witchblade77]

I really don't think it's just those communities. I've never done anything remotely hardcore in this game and it is still really apparent. The moment you go into later zones the bosses/events and stuff is like 4x more difficult and it becomes a lot more noticeable. Just did one of the blood dolmen things in Skyrim and you're being chased by 2 million health mobs and everything hits you for 10k+. The ones in old world dolmens have what, 60k?

I don't think those are soloable even if you are one of the hardcores. I'm fairly certain that they deliberately tried to make them group content again unlike original dolmens that have been adjusted to be soloable and they scale the number and toughness of mobs the more people there are... which does exactly jack squat when they are in a zone where people run dolmen trains. that said... try those blood dolmens during events involving skyrim/markarth. they drop then just as quickly as Alik'r dolmens.

but anyways, yeah, you do feel some of the issues with your spec when you get into later content... but not nearly as badly as in GW2 for instance. so there is still some build flexibility as long as you don't care about hardcore meta.

[Tyris Flare]

I don't think those are soloable even if you are one of the hardcores. I'm fairly certain that they deliberately tried to make them group content again unlike original dolmens that have been adjusted to be soloable and they scale the number and toughness of mobs the more people there are... which does exactly jack squat when they are in a zone where people run dolmen trains. that said... try those blood dolmens during events involving skyrim/markarth. they drop then just as quickly as Alik'r dolmens.

but anyways, yeah, you do feel some of the issues with your spec when you get into later content... but not nearly as badly as in GW2 for instance. so there is still some build flexibility as long as you don't care about hardcore meta.

The lack of difficulty cues is pretty funny.

[Kathandira]

Need to level her up and get some gear, I still get annihilated by those 3 million health world bosses.

Though I'm also doing potato dps at <15k with my crafted hundig's rage/nightmother stuff.

...3? All the ones I come across are 1.8M HP (or split up between multiple bosses)

And hey...that's more damage than I do! I don't even have my Hundings set yet and am on my final weapon line to level up (1h/shield) before I can actually go back to my proper 2h/bow setup. I think my solo DPS is usually between like...8-15K?

Which target dummy are you parsing on?

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I really don't think it's just those communities. I've never done anything remotely hardcore in this game and it is still really apparent. The moment you go into later zones the bosses/events and stuff is like 4x more difficult and it becomes a lot more noticeable. Just did one of the blood dolmen things in Skyrim and you're being chased by 2 million health mobs and everything hits you for 10k+. The ones in old world dolmens have what, 60k?

From what I remember, that was something that kind of annoyed me about the Event design. The old world ones can be done easily with 1-3 casual players. The newer ones need more people (at a casual level). And once those zones are no longer the most relevant content, it is like pulling teeth to get people to help you. Especially annoying since those are linked to Dailies for crafting materials and others goodies.

[Tyris Flare]

Which target dummy are you parsing on?

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From what I remember, that was something that kind of annoyed me about the Event design. The old world ones can be done easily with 1-3 casual players. The newer ones need more people (at a casual level). And once those zones are no longer the most relevant content, it is like pulling teeth to get people to help you. Especially annoying since those are linked to Dailies for crafting materials and others goodies.

Personally I was just looking at the dps number on my UI mod. Obviously not representative of anything in a <5 sec fight with stuff in the world but a little more useful on skull boss fights.

Anyway yeah, the gulf between stuff is just so jarring. Running through Skyrim melting packs of guys in seconds, then find a skull boss with 3 million health who can kill you in 2 seconds. The gradient between stuff is so sudden.

[Kathandira]

Personally I was just looking at the dps number on my UI mod. Obviously not representative of anything in a <5 sec fight with stuff in the world but a little more useful on skull boss fights.

It matters a little. Some different target dummies have different resistances (unless that has been changed in the past two years). The smallest of them (300k hp) does not have any resistances, and goes down like a lead brick. The 3mil hp one doesn't have resistances, but takes around 60s on average to kill. The big boys though, have resistances and could take between 2m - 4m to kill pending on your build and rotation.

It really matters which dummy you are using. While you may see 15k dps on the Precursor, you may see only 1/2 of that on the 3mil Skele due to needing to repeat your rotation more than 1 time.

I should add, I am only asking so I understand where you are at damage wise. This isn't a lead in to other questions or probing. I'm just curious is all lol.

[Edge-]

Which target dummy are you parsing on?

None, just periodically checking what my DPS is from whatever mod I have that tracks that shit (dps/hps total damage in combat etc.)

[Tyris Flare]

Yeah I mean, I'm considering this "practical" DPS. If I finish a skull boss at like 10k while rolling around and shit that's pretty high for me. Sad

[Kathandira]

None, just periodically checking what my DPS is from whatever mod I have that tracks that shit (dps/hps total damage in combat etc.)

Yeah I mean, I'm considering this "practical" DPS. If I finish a skull boss at like 10k while rolling around and shit that's pretty high for me. Sad

I'm so used to playing on consoles, that I forget that mods track actual practical DPS. lol.

[Edge-]

I'm so used to playing on consoles, that I forget that mods track actual practical DPS. lol.

Mods baybee!

Seriously though, I doubt I could realistically play the game without them at this point. And I'm not even super heavily modded, just a handful of QoL/minor UI mods and a few map mods so I know where quests are and track resource nodes and shit.

[Witchblade77]

Mods baybee!

Seriously though, I doubt I could realistically play the game without them at this point. And I'm not even super heavily modded, just a handful of QoL/minor UI mods and a few map mods so I know where quests are and track resource nodes and shit.

same, honestly. and the irony is most mods I have are part of base UI in other games (like minimap and being able to move my ability bars around the screen). to be fair, after years and years they did finally add better sorting to inventory, multicrafting and trader UI search function... but still...


aaanyways, another thing about target dummies is that raid dummies have all the debuffs automatically added (and if I remember correctly you also get periodic synergies for the purposes of resource restoring) so your dps would be higher, because it imitates playing in an optimized group but without having to move.

but yeah, I only ever consider practical dps for myself. doesn't matter how much I can pull on a dummy when even the slightest need to move/interrupt/block - makes it plummet.

[Tyris Flare]

Mods baybee!

Seriously though, I doubt I could realistically play the game without them at this point. And I'm not even super heavily modded, just a handful of QoL/minor UI mods and a few map mods so I know where quests are and track resource nodes and shit.

I played on console for a while a few years back. It is terrible comparatively without mods.

[Kathandira]

I played on console for a while a few years back. It is terrible comparatively without mods.

The lack of mods was one of the reasons I eventually stopped playing.

I really really wish they would allow account transfers. i'd love to take my account to PC. But last time i checked, they do not allow migrations.

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aaanyways, another thing about target dummies is that raid dummies have all the debuffs automatically added (and if I remember correctly you also get periodic synergies for the purposes of resource restoring) so your dps would be higher, because it imitates playing in an optimized group but without having to move.

Yup! Raid dummies totally get all buffs and debuffs and provide periodic synergies.

Though there are training dummies that have a ton of HP that do not. No one ever used them for anything more than decoration lol. It was all about the 3mil and 6mil dummies until the raid one came out.

[Witchblade77]

reminder, expac announcement today on twitch in about 3 hours. free pet as a gift if you connect your twitch account (if you have one) to eso account