Elder Scrolls Online

[Nopsi]

funny that so many people here are complaining about the monthly payment method... EQ1 was at that base too, wasnt it?

i liked the 20 minutes gameplay, more wasnt available for me this weekend, i got stuck at The Prophet (get a Skyshard) and the Support responded today [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

well, nvm, i will buy it, i will max lvl a few chars and try out some stuff - and then? well, let see [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Uteunayr]

Ah, ESO. Well, let me offer some reasons that I think this game is lackluster at best, and offers absolutely nothing to the MMO community, and even less to the TES community. This may not be something you agree with, and that's fine, but listen to my reasons. You may not weigh the same things with the same weight I do, and that can result in you still enjoying or liking the game, while I do not. For readers who have never played ESO's beta, or looked into the game's design philosophy, then consider how much these considerations are important to you.

Note, I start each paragraph from here on out with a brief phrase indicating what it is the paragraph is about. This is very long, but it focuses not on the payment model, but entirely upon gameplay, playstyle, and character progression. Don't read this if you don't want to read a very long, thought out critique of ESO as a game.

ESO v. WoW (Playstyle): Allow me to begin at the root that I hear many people shout, "this game is like WoW". This is not exactly true. In World of Warcraft, you are given 12-36 buttons that vary in function, which you use to survive and win in combat. This is not what ESO gives you. What you get with ESO is a combination of 6 possible abilities, one of which is an "ultimate", a very popular set up in more modern MMOs. In addition to these 6 possible abilities, you replace the auto-attack function with a left-click to attack, or hold left click to charge attack.

ESO v. WoW (Gameplay): This is fundamentally different playstyle, by which I mean the way that the player inputs their actions into the game world. However, what remains unchanged from the WoW structure is the gameplay, by which I refer to the way the world reacts and gives you things to act upon. Take an Orc Warrior in World of Warcraft, and as this Orc Warrior, you spawn into the Valley of Trials. From there, you do X number of quests, and then leave the Valley and move on to Sen'jin Village. Once you do X number of quests there, you move on to Razor Hill... And then the Barrens. By and large, these quests are brief parts of a greater whole.

WoW Gameplay, the Themepark: The WoW Style of This is the "themepark" model many refer to, as once you leave Sen'jin Village, you never have a reason to return there. EverQuest, prior to this, had an interconnected style, in which you would constantly double back upon yourself while exploring the world, to see things you have seen before, but new places within those same places (think about being a newb in Oasis, seeing the spectres, and returning there 20-25 levels later to kill them yourself). In this style, ESO is no innovation. It provides the same basic quest structure that WoW has made a standard in so many games. Even the more innovative MMOs out there do not offer a difference upon this system. You do quests, you exhaust the quests in that area, and then you move on to the next place to exhaust that. Instead of wandering around and exploring a world, you're being guided on a tour of the world, as a consumer, rather than just an explorer.

TES Gameplay, Questing in Skyrim: Now, this is what MMO players are likely used to, so this may be an issue to those of us (myself included) who abhor this style of gameplay, but TES fans are surely to find this the most atrocious. Take Skyrim, often considered one of the easiest of the TES games. Quests consume time. You get a quest escaping Helgen, and it guides you to Riverwood, which guides you to Whiterun. A good bit of time passes in this section. Next, you get the quest to go and find The Dragonstone. So you prepare, you get gold together, you buy what you need, you head out, run across the fields, fight a few things on the way for your safety, climb up the kills, get ambushed by bandits, break into Bleak Falls Barrow, ambush bandits, and on the way in, you find a guy wrapped up in spider webs. You free him, and he runs for it, and you chase him, kill him, and find a claw. What is this claw? What is it for? Does the game tell you? No. You pick up the guy's journal, and the claw, and continue onward in your quest. You get to a locked door after fighting through a few more puzzles and challenges, and you read the journal to break the puzzle of the golden claw, get inside the tomb, kill the top Draugr, and while doing so, you get imbued with the power of the Unrelenting Shout, as well as The Dragonstone.

ESO Gameplay, Questing in Skyrim: That is a quest in The Elder Scrolls. This is not what a quest feels like in ESO. One of the first quests I got as a Nord was to head north and find a guy. My compass pointed me to him, and I completed the quest, and got some cash. I then got a new quest to infiltrate bandits, and collect 3 pages. I did so in about 2 minutes, and completed the quest, got some cash. I then got a quest to go to the mine entrance, which took maybe 10 seconds. I completed that quest, got more cash, and went into the mine and killed something. I complete the quest, get some cash, and then went into an Oblivion Stone, kill two people, get teleported out, and complete a quest, and get some cash. And then I get a quest to go back out of the mine... Etc. You see what I mean. This isn't one grand adventure that you're embarking on. You are doing small iddy bitty things that do not equate to what a "Quest" is. This is what WoW questing is like, not what TES questing is traditionally like. Note, what I describe was delivered as the main quest, not a miscellaneous quest (as I have noticed some people say that the misc quests in Skyrim are also brief, but this isn't misc in ESO). Questing isn't as cumbersome, it isn't as epic, it isn't as rewarding, or as meaningful as it is to TES, or even EQ players who know what questing for something feels like in an Arthurian style.

ESO Character Progression: A closely related subject is character progression, something that I think is terribly disappointing as far as a game is concerned. ESO gives you, at character creation, 4 generic classes, which give you access to a small, select number of class skills, as well as weapon skills, armor skills, and the like. But these are unique to your starting class. As you progress, you unlock more advanced classes, which are similar to D&D's "Prestige Classes". However, these are rigid classes. So, if you begin as a fighter style (I forget the lore based name they assign to it), you are always that, and then just expand upon that style. You cannot, as is classic to the TES experience, switch up what you do, or blend things to make unique classes.

TES Character Progression: Although TES games like Morrowind and Oblivion both had classes, the classes were nothing more than pre-designed synergistic combinations of abilities. You were able to customize, instead of selecting a class, to take different combinations of abilities that, even if they were not synergistic, they were fun for you to play. So you could take Marksmanship, Destruction, Heavy Armor, Stealth, and Acrobatics. Why not? Sure, Heavy Armor may not fit, but fuck, it's a game! Have fun! In Skyrim, the new approach was to not offer any classes, and instead just drop the player into situations with numerous different paths to take (use the bow, use magic, use sword and board, use two handed), and give the player the chance to go in any direction they want. This is the inherent TES experience. This is what ESO lacks entirely.

An Alternative Based On a Past MMO: The sad truth is that this signifies to me that Bethesda is simply attempting to imitate other MMOs, rather than trying to innovate. And even in imitating rather than innovating, they do not even imitate a system that works best for their fans. Think about the TES Skyrim progression. As you level, you gain perk points. These perk points are rare, and so you may level up by doing archery, but you spend your perks in 1 handed as that's your focus, but you've capped it. The way you allocate your perk points defines the strengths and weaknesses of your character, in conjunction with gear. This does not lend itself to a game that gives you limited options to select based on class, if you want to keep the essential TES Experience... A game has offered a system that offer a reasonably TES experience to players in a MMO environment, and that game was one that came about before WoW's dominance, and one that is pretty much only known for the progression system it offered: SWG.

SWG Progression: In SWG, you had 250 skill points. All players had these, and you can never truly consume them, only have them tied up. So how it worked was simple. You are a blank slate. You have starting "professions": artisan, entertainer, medic, scout, marksman, or brawler. So, what do you want to do? Artisan branches into Weaponsmithing, Armorsmithing, Architecture, and Droid Engineering. Entertainer into dancer, musician, and the like. Medic into Doctor. And so on, and so on. When you decide to take a starting profession, the skill "Novice <profession>" ties up X number of skill points (15), so you now have 235 left. As you do things pertaining to your profession, you gain experience in the different aspects of your profession. When you get enough, you can get trained, which consumes the experience, and ties up more skill points. The idea is that you can combine anything you want up to 250 skill points. So, you want to be a Commando/Architect? You take Brawler and Marksman to branch into Commando (not taking the full tree in either Brawler or Marksman, only those needed for Commando), take Novice Commando, and everything in Commando, as well as take Artisan, and everything to become an Architect. But lets say you decide you don't want to do it anymore, you don't like being an architect. You can surrender your Architect skills, get back your Skill Points, and reinvest them in new talents.

How ESO can benefit from SWG: Imagine Skyrim's talent system, but expanded. One in which you can have, at any one time, 50 perks from the talent trees. You can work your way up One Handed and Destruction, or Two Handed and Alteration, and distribute your points to take both full trees. Or you can spread them over a wide range of different trees, and take less from each. The only restrain is you cannot go over 50 perk points. Decide you don't want to go Two-Handed and Alteration, but want to go Alteration, Restoration, and Heavy Armor? Delete your perks, freeing yourself from the 50 cap, and reinvest the perks elsewhere. This would let you have a system that is still inherently TES, but versatile enough to be MMO capable.

Conclusion: But ESO ultimately feels lackluster if you're a gamer like me that has played pretty much every MMO that has ever come out, and has become weary of the stagnation in MMO innovation that came about due to WoW's success. If you're looking for something brand new, something shiny, something awesome, ESO is not it. If you are not like me, and you can still take a great deal of fun from questing themeparks, and limited structured progression systems, then you will be more than happy with ESO. As for me, my only hope is with EQN. No, it will not be EverQuest as we know it, and while it doesn't offer that innovative of a progression system (basically the same as TSW, GW2, and other pseudo-horizontal progression systems), it does offer the first real, interesting chance for dynamic gameplay that is driven by the "adventure" grind, rather than a creature grind (EQ1) or quest grind (WoW, ESO, EQ2). This is primarily due to the idea of having NPCs form their own camps, and work in a more dynamic way, than having a strict structure that is necessary in both creature grind and quest grinds, as this creates a more randomized experience in which players can make their own fun, rather than being guided. So, that's why EQN is pretty much my only hope beyond P1999. I had hopes ESO would innovate, but I have not seen that, and although I thought it was likely they wouldn't innovate, I am highly disappointed that they didn't imitate something better than the WoW gameplay structure, and a similar character progression structure that mine as well be the WoW class and talent system. It is ultimately very sad.

[Lune]

^

I read your entire novel and I agree with most of it, some correct observations about the way their system works and how it might not appeal to us.

However, I need to point out that:

Originally Posted by Uteunayr [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

ESO Character Progression: A closely related subject is character progression, something that I think is terribly disappointing as far as a game is concerned. ESO gives you, at character creation, 4 generic classes, which give you access to a small, select number of class skills, as well as weapon skills, armor skills, and the like. But these are unique to your starting class. As you progress, you unlock more advanced classes, which are similar to D&D's "Prestige Classes". However, these are rigid classes. So, if you begin as a fighter style (I forget the lore based name they assign to it), you are always that, and then just expand upon that style. You cannot, as is classic to the TES experience, switch up what you do, or blend things to make unique classes.

...is mostly inaccurate. Each class has three subdivisions you can put points into to specialize in certain things. You can put your points into just one, two, or all three sections as you level. You're not really "unlocking" a new class, so much as you're using your points to build your own class.

In no way do you "begin as a fighter style" and get stuck that way. I think pretty much every class has at least one tree that synergizes as well with magic/ranged styles as it does with melee.

Let's say you choose a Nightblade, which has a lot of rogueish choices that work well with a stealthy character. Well it just so happens that the assassination tree has a ton of abilities that just flat out increase the shit out of your killing power, and IIRC only one skill in that tree has anything to do with stealth. So you can make a Nightblade, put points into Assassination, Two-Handed swords, and Heavy Armor, and you have a warrior type character who is good at doing bursty damage and has some nice ways to counter healers and finish people off. Even more, you can put a point (or more) in Strife in the Siphoning tree and you have a warrior-type char with killing power who can lifetap and snare people.

There are a ton of different combinations that are surprisingly effective if you approach the skills creatively. Further, you can keep putting points into multiple weapons and multiple subdivisions in your class and switch around at will. From what I saw, you get enough points to where you can diversify pretty liberally if you want to.

Ultimately, the class sytem is TESO is something I really like; it's probably my favorite class system in any MMO or Elder Scrolls game to date. Otherwise, I share most of your other gripes.

(Last beta I played a Nightblade - Bow wood elf. Leveled bow, medium armor, and strife tree. Used the ranged utility snares/lifetaps/stuns/CC from strife to complement my bow skills. Next one I might try a Dark elf dragonknight flame wrath or whatever it's called. Light armor, destruction staff, and ranged fire abilities, amounting to something of a ranged fire mage with access to some neat DK skills.)

[Uteunayr]

Originally Posted by Lune [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

...is mostly inaccurate. Each class has three subdivisions you can put points into to specialize in certain things. You can put your points into just one, two, or all three sections as you level. You're not really "unlocking" a new class, so much as you're using your points to build your own class.

In no way do you "begin as a fighter style" and get stuck that way. I think pretty much every class has at least one tree that synergizes as well with magic/ranged styles as well as it does with melee.

Let's say you choose a Nightblade, which has a lot of rogueish choices that work well with a stealthy character. Well it just so happens that the assassination tree has a ton of abilities that just flat out increase the shit out of your killing power, and IIRC only one skill in that tree has anything to do with stealth. So you can make a Nightblade, put points into Assassination, Two-Handed swords, and Heavy Armor, and you have a warrior type character who is good at doing bursty damage. Even more, you can put a point (or more) in Strife in the Siphoning tree and you have a warrior-type char with killing power who can lifetap and snare people.

There are a ton of different combinations that are surprisingly effective if you approach the skills creatively. Further, you can keep putting points into multiple weapons and multiple subdivisions in your class and switch around at will. From what I saw, you get enough points to where you can diversify pretty liberally if you want to.

Ultimately, the class sytem is TESO is something I really like; it's probably my favorite class system in any MMO or Elder Scrolls game to date. Otherwise, I share most of your other gripes.

(Last beta I played a Nightblade - Bow wood elf. Leveled bow, medium armor, and strife tree. Used the ranged utility snares/lifetaps/stuns/CC from strife to complement my bow skills. Next one I might try a Dark elf dragonknight flame wrath or whatever it's called. Light armor, destruction staff, and ranged fire abilities, amounting to something of a ranged fire mage with access to some neat DK skills.)

I disagree. Each class has 3 subdivisions, yes, but other classes do not get those other subdivisions. So, you have the spellcaster catch all, and the fighter catch all, the two that I played extensively over a number of different beta weekends. The fighter catch all never had access to the spell tree the spellcaster catch all did to summon an imp. No matter what I could do to my fighter, he would never, ever be able to go down the spell line to conjure. This is not TES style, this is far closer to what WoW had for ages, with three subdivisions of each class in which you invest talent points into. Sure, you can put points in each, and as you put points in each, you unlock new abilities, and this is true of both games, but for all the illusion of choice, it always comes down to a rather simple minmax based on the broad class. In WoW, you were never able to make a Holy Warrior, unless you rerolled your Warrior into a Paladin, but then you're not a Warrior, and you better hope you enjoy Paladin more than Warrior if you wanted to be a Holy Warrior. Similarly, my fighter catch all in ESO couldn't access the talent trees that the spellcaster catch all could.

If you start a fighter, you're always a fighter, you just vary it upon a pre-designed theme, rather than one of your creation. You start a paladin, you're always a paladin, only vary slightly upon the theme. Similarly, you start a fighter catch all, you're always a fighter catch all, with variations upon that theme, never grabbing beyond. So I disagree when you say "In no way do you "begin as a fighter style" and get stuck that way." Tell me if it has changed and you now have access to every single talent tree in the game for any class you pick. And then tell me what the heck the purpose of a class is if those options are there. The class servers only to constrain, and TES isn't about constrained options in progression.

You will never have the freedom to fully design a unique character in the game, as your choices are constrained to a limited subdivision of the basic catch all class. You are not given all the tools, you're given limited tools in which to design your character. You make a Nightblade, and you can put points into Assassination, but you cannot put them into something another basic class would get, to use those abilities. You are inherently playing a class with limited range, rather than having a grab bag of stuff to go for, which is traditional TES, and the style that TES is about.

You like the ESO system, I think it is among the most horrendous systems ever designed, as it takes one of the best RPG series out there, and corrupts it with the ghost of WoW progression in the worst possible way. It is truly an abomination. The only reason I label it as the most horrendous, even though I find it to be pretty much equivalent to WoW's earlier talent system, is that ESO follows in the legacy of TES, and that holds it to a higher standard. Bethesda should know better.

Horrible system. Absolutely atrocious.

[MrSparkle001]

Originally Posted by Uteunayr [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

TES Character Progression: Although TES games like Morrowind and Oblivion both had classes, the classes were nothing more than pre-designed synergistic combinations of abilities. You were able to customize, instead of selecting a class, to take different combinations of abilities that, even if they were not synergistic, they were fun for you to play. So you could take Marksmanship, Destruction, Heavy Armor, Stealth, and Acrobatics. Why not? Sure, Heavy Armor may not fit, but fuck, it's a game! Have fun! In Skyrim, the new approach was to not offer any classes, and instead just drop the player into situations with numerous different paths to take (use the bow, use magic, use sword and board, use two handed), and give the player the chance to go in any direction they want. This is the inherent TES experience. This is what ESO lacks entirely.

Besides the fact that I didn't read anything about PvP I want to say that this is inaccurate. This last weekend I tested a sorcerer specced in bow and a dragonknight specced in two-handed. Those are universal skill trees, same as the armor skill trees, guild skill trees, the world skill tree, and if you want to count them the crafting skill trees (I don't count them, they're not for combat).

The traditional TES character skill system will not work in a MMO. One character should not be able to tank, melee DPS, bow DPS, magic DPS, summon, heal and stealth, but that's exactly what all my TES characters can do.

The characters I made this past beta were vastly different from the ones from the previous beta. Previous beta I mostly tested a two-handed summoning sorcerer concentrating on the summoning tree. This beta I tested mostly a bow-using storm calling sorcerer concentrating on the bow tree. The two couldn't be any more different, and the fun thing is the way I combined storm calling with bows is completely different from the way a nightblade or dragonknight or dark magic sorcerer would. I also tested a dragonknight concentrating on the two-handed tree. Any character in the game can concentrate on the two-handed tree but a dragonknight will perform different, and did completely outperform my summoning sorcerer who only had a few points in two-handed and many points in summoning. My bow storm caller outperformed them both, and now I wonder if a destruction staff storm caller would do even better or how much different a bow dark magic user would be.

The fact that there's only five slots for skills also means players will probably have very different abilities in PvP even if they're the same class and concentrating on the same trees. I quickly find myself starved of skill slots even though I haven't advanced many levels yet. When I finally get that new skill at level 20 in a tree, what existing skill do I bump to use it? Bumping one skill out of five means you have to adopt a different combat strategy and rotation.

I don't think I would like a character skill system where you could pick and choose from any of the skills ingame, or at least progress down any tree you wanted. I think it would downright lame to combine the dragonknight's draconic power line (it's tanking line) with storm calling or anything from templar.

[Uteunayr]

Originally Posted by MrSparkle001 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Besides the fact that I didn't read anything about PvP I want to say that this is inaccurate. This last weekend I tested a sorcerer specced in bow and a dragonknight specced in two-handed. Those are universal skill trees, same as the armor skill trees, guild skill trees, the world skill tree, and if you want to count them the crafting skill trees (I don't count them, they're not for combat).

The traditional TES character skill system will not work in a MMO. One character should not be able to tank, melee DPS, bow DPS, magic DPS, summon, heal and stealth, but that's exactly what all my TES characters can do.

The characters I made this past beta were vastly different from the ones from the previous beta. Previous beta I mostly tested a two-handed summoning sorcerer concentrating on the summoning tree. This beta I tested mostly a bow-using storm calling sorcerer concentrating on the bow tree. The two couldn't be any more different, and the fun thing is the way I combined storm calling with bows is completely different from the way a nightblade or dragonknight or dark magic sorcerer would. I also tested a dragonknight concentrating on the two-handed tree. Any character in the game can concentrate on the two-handed tree but a dragonknight will perform different, and did completely outperform my summoning sorcerer who only had a few points in two-handed and many points in summoning. My bow storm caller outperformed them both, and now I wonder if a destruction staff storm caller would do even better or how much different a bow dark magic user would be.

The fact that there's only five slots for skills also means players will probably have very different abilities in PvP even if they're the same class and concentrating on the same trees. I quickly find myself starved of skill slots even though I haven't advanced many levels yet. When I finally get that new skill at level 20 in a tree, what existing skill do I bump to use it? Bumping one skill out of five means you have to adopt a different combat strategy and rotation.

I don't think I would like a character skill system where you could pick and choose from any of the skills ingame, or at least progress down any tree you wanted. I think it would downright lame to combine the dragonknight's draconic power line (it's tanking line) with storm calling or anything from templar.

I'd point you to the long conversation that preceeded over the past 2-3 pages, I elaborate further that just because there are shared trees does not take away from the rigidity offered by classes, and it will create... You know what, just go read it. I must have written a novella at this point on the subject in this thread.

Further, in the post you are quoting, but further down, I address how a more TES skill system would work in a MMO environment, and that it was effectively implemented over a decade ago.

Again, this was all addressed in the past 2-3 pages of discussion, and I am not about to retype everything.

[Grimfan]

Not to mention you unlock new trees as you progress through the game and discover things. You meet a group of individuals called the Undaunted which have group/raiding abilities that you can put skill points into. There is a fighters guild and a mages guild which both have lines that you can go down with their own special abilities and ways to level those trees. Eventually you will have werewolf and vampire lines, they are already talking about the thieves guild and dark brotherhood and each player can join these factions and make use of their skills if they wish to do so and this feels really Elder Scrolls to me.

I don't agree with your initial long post either, I don't feel like the questing is the same as WoW. Yes, you get your hand held through some things, but quests and locations are in off the path areas. There are very few quests in the main hubs and a lot of your adventures will make you feel like you're actually exploring the game world rather than just being led through one area after the next.

[Grimfan]

I really hate the quote system but I think without it we cannot really have a discussion so I'll just try.

Originally Posted by Uteunayr

Yes, but is Dark Magic 100% identical to what I could take under the fighter tree? If so, that sounds homogenized. It would be better if I had the option to take Dark Magic, or something under the fighter tree. Dark Magic may synergize well with melee, but it is the only way you can delve down that path, when fighter offers a number of others. So, if you want to be a heavy fighter/dabbler in conjuration, you're SOL. There are plenty of other styles just like this in which your shit out of luck, and jolly well fucked from the class system. This is common in many games, but other games don't come from the background of TES, which is one of vast RPG freedom in character development.

The idea is that each character class has three different trees that are magic only. These trees are generally divided into three different properties, one being really unique to a class and the other two having a little overlap from what I have seen. For instance, Dragon Knight gets a tree that probably makes it better tanks than the other three, but you could probably build a different kind of tank type without too much difficulty. But yeah, they're not identical.

You ignored the fact that a lot of important and potentially character defining skills are actually found in game rather than given to you in the beginning. Because of the limited skill slots, and because the passives sometimes work for out of class skills, the ones that you start with might not even be potentially important. This means that there are builds out there that might be some from the Mages Guild, your weapon, and maybe one from the werewolf as well, and you might have a completely different playstyle with a Destruction Staff than say someone that is a Sorcerer, uses a couple skills from the dark magic line, a couple from lightning etc.

The builds for the first few weeks are going to be unique and deep and you might not even know what your group mates or pvp enemies are doing even from their gear/weapon. That is unlike WoW where if you are a Druid, and you meet a Paladin in battle you already know within about two minutes what each is capable of.

Originally Posted by Uteunayr

WoW quests were off the main path areas. The questing is remarkably similar to what it is in WoW. Explain what it is that makes ESO questing distinctly different from WoW. It still works in a themepark structure, it still works based on pumping out massive quantities of quests quickly, rather than making them epic. You say you disagree, but with what? That there are few quests in the main hubs?

So there are two different major quest lines in TESO, and if you wanted to you could just go straight down them and progress too fast, this is especially apparent depending on which faction you choose because I only noticed this for the first time when I went Aldmeri Dominion and was level 7 in a level 12 area because I didn't explore enough. Anyway one questline is your main story quest which is the "Epic" quest of the Elder Scrolls branch, it doesn't end whenever you leave the beginning area, the Prophet keeps talking to you for a long time, and eventually I'm sure you take the fight to Molag Bal as they've talked about it being the first multi-group instance.

The second long story-line quest is the intrigue within your capital city, both of the factions that I tried had really long quest lines that while they did give you rewards from quests in the middle of them, they were really part of the same line.

So there's that, you were talking about how quests were just short do this and do that, but I think that those quests have really long and enduring storylines and are pretty memorable.

As far as normal questing being different from what is in World of Warcraft, I quit WoW when Cataclysm came out, so they might have changed their design philosophy, but the way that I remember it in WoW is that you literally went to a quest hub and gathered 5-6 quests and went out and started doing them. Sometimes, and only in the areas that the quests sent you, you might find another quest or an item that gave you a quest. If you were really lucky and they felt like doing something interesting you might find something silly you could do for an achievement.

This is the same design that Aion took, the same that Rift took, the same that Tera took, the same that TSW took for the most part, the same that GW2 took with the exception of their public quests, the same that... do you see what I'm saying? The idea is that they have areas already planned for you to go to and your content is along those areas.

Since you've only played the beginning area of TESO I will try to keep my knowledge limited to that to put some perspective in it for you. If you decide in the Skyrim area not to save all the people that are moving on to the next area with you, you can do that. You can actually advance at a very quick pace out of the tutorial/noob island. This is because the main story quest does not take you to the spider caves, it does not take you to many of the off path areas in the lands of Skyrim. You can advance to the next area (presumably to never come back) without ever doing 90% of the content on the noob island.

The further you move on, the more apparent it gets that you need to start exploring and instead of only sticking to the main path where the game sends you, you need to start going off the paths and into the mountains to explore. If you did this in WoW or Rift, you MIGHT get an achievement for getting to some high place and jumping off, if you do this in TESO you get rewarded with experience, gear, sometimes skill points, etc.

Anyway I already explained why I feel their system is different. We can agree to disagree if you'd like though, you're really combative and I don't really feel like making this a fight or whatever.

If you don't play the game I don't really care, but comparing it to WoW is really just wrong, it's about as far as it gets from the WoW quest system and it is about as close as you can get to making a Elder Scroll MMO without making it a gigantic sandbox like a lot of people would enjoy. I think that a sandbox would be good too, and yes it is a theme park MMO and I am sure I'll get bored with that eventually, but at least it has some promising systems in place to hopefully keep my interest for longer than the other games you listed up there.

[Uteunayr]

Originally Posted by Grimfan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The idea is that each character class has three different trees that are magic only. These trees are generally divided into three different properties, one being really unique to a class and the other two having a little overlap from what I have seen. For instance, Dragon Knight gets a tree that probably makes it better tanks than the other three, but you could probably build a different kind of tank type without too much difficulty. But yeah, they're not identical.

And in that way, each class has a forced, distinct playstyle, rather than one that grows organically through your choices in a progression system, as is the case in every TES game. That's a bad TES system.

Originally Posted by Grimfan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You ignored the fact that a lot of important and potentially character defining skills are actually found in game rather than given to you in the beginning. Because of the limited skill slots, and because the passives sometimes work for out of class skills, the ones that you start with might not even be potentially important. This means that there are builds out there that might be some from the Mages Guild, your weapon, and maybe one from the werewolf as well, and you might have a completely different playstyle with a Destruction Staff than say someone that is a Sorcerer, uses a couple skills from the dark magic line, a couple from lightning etc.

I do not ignore this, but it is irrelevant to the point. The point remains that there are talent trees that are exclusive to specific classes, which will force general playstyles upon a character, rather than making it an organic experience as is traditional in TES, and what TES fans are used to. You don't get that in ESO, and you will have to reroll your character entirely if you ever want to shift that core play style.

Originally Posted by Grimfan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The builds for the first few weeks are going to be unique and deep and you might not even know what your group mates or pvp enemies are doing even from their gear/weapon. That is unlike WoW where if you are a Druid, and you meet a Paladin in battle you already know within about two minutes what each is capable of.

Until the min-max builds come out, which always happens anytime you have extremely limited options. What is the min-max in WoW in which you have classes with three unique builds? It will not be made different if you have extra talent trees that are shared (armor/weapons/quest ones, etc), because the class system will encourage a very specific style of leveling up, with specific armor/weapon/quest talents taken to maximize the output of the core class abilities. But that didn't happen in Skyrim. Sure, everyone can agree Blacksmithing and Enchanting are OP as fuck... But One Handed versus Archery? Destruction versus Sneak? Which is better? Which is the minmax? Or for a MMO comparison, Commando/BH vs Commando/Teras Kasi (SWG), or how about Elemental/Pistols vs Elemental/Shotguns (TSW)? Neither ended up the minmax in the end, because no one was restricted, and no one character had core, fundamental uniqueness that could not be changed after creation.

Sure, in the first few weeks of WoW, people had "unique and deep" builds, but they quickly melted away into a minmax. You'll learn what others have, and you'll know within two minutes going against a sorcerer what they are capable of, as a minmax will always come out when you have rigid structures like class.

Originally Posted by Grimfan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

So there are two different major quest lines in TESO, and if you wanted to you could just go straight down them and progress too fast, this is especially apparent depending on which faction you choose because I only noticed this for the first time when I went Aldmeri Dominion and was level 7 in a level 12 area because I didn't explore enough. Anyway one questline is your main story quest which is the "Epic" quest of the Elder Scrolls branch, it doesn't end whenever you leave the beginning area, the Prophet keeps talking to you for a long time, and eventually I'm sure you take the fight to Molag Bal as they've talked about it being the first multi-group instance.

The second long story-line quest is the intrigue within your capital city, both of the factions that I tried had really long quest lines that while they did give you rewards from quests in the middle of them, they were really part of the same line.

So there's that, you were talking about how quests were just short do this and do that, but I think that those quests have really long and enduring storylines and are pretty memorable.

You mean that 30 quests have a really long and enduring storyline. Quests in ESO are the effective equivalent to a task in pretty much any game, or stages on a quest in Skyrim, but they are treated as distinct quests. Sure, the game has a "main questline" and "secondary questline", but this isn't something unique from World of Warcraft. In Cataclysm (the start of a new story arc), you get to choose your starting position (Hyjal vs Vash'jir), and the story that progresses from that leads directly into going to Deepholm, which builds upon the story of Hyjal or Vash'jir, depending on which you did. Upon finishing the Deepholm "quest line" of around 120 quests, the events that take place there necessarily lead you to Uldum, which in turn leads you to Twilight Highlands, culminating in the rise of the Bastion of Twilight, one of the main raids.

So, I see no difference between what you describe, and what WoW does. There is a vast difference between that, and quests the way EverQuest handles it, and in which TES handles it, in which you are not given thousands of micro-quests along the way, but are given general goals, and left to go about it your own way. You're not lead by the hand through areas, which is the feeling ESO gives through their questlines.

Originally Posted by Grimfan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

As far as normal questing being different from what is in World of Warcraft, I quit WoW when Cataclysm came out, so they might have changed their design philosophy, but the way that I remember it in WoW is that you literally went to a quest hub and gathered 5-6 quests and went out and started doing them. Sometimes, and only in the areas that the quests sent you, you might find another quest or an item that gave you a quest. If you were really lucky and they felt like doing something interesting you might find something silly you could do for an achievement.

The quest structure I describe above for Cataclysm was still true in Lich King, in which you selected your entry point (Howling Fjord or Borean Tundra). You gather a bunch of quests in the main hub there, your base, which guides you through a story which brings you around that area, which guides you to Dragonblight, which leads you to meeting the dragons, uncovering the truth of the infinite dragonflight, and seeing the betrayal of the undead when you try to break into Icecrown. With that defeat, you are given options to help others around the area, in the other zones of Northrend, which lead you into Icecrown. Once broken into Icecrown, you begin the assault, and the questline ends with the beginning of the raids.

But by and large, people became very disinterested because the quests are shit out upon you. It's the same thing ESO does, and with their current system, the same exact outcome is going to happen, in which people want to click quickly through any quest chat and rush to quest objectives to level up a new character, because their first character (a sorcerer) couldn't be what they wanted, so they had to reroll a fighter.

Originally Posted by Grimfan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

This is the same design that Aion took, the same that Rift took, the same that Tera took, the same that TSW took for the most part, the same that GW2 took with the exception of their public quests, the same that... do you see what I'm saying? The idea is that they have areas already planned for you to go to and your content is along those areas.

Yes, and these are all WoW clones as far as game design is concerned. TSW innovated only insofar as their progression system is concerned, but it remained an entirely run of the mill MMO experience founded in the WoW model. And it was boring as shit.

Originally Posted by Grimfan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Since you've only played the beginning area of TESO I will try to keep my knowledge limited to that to put some perspective in it for you. If you decide in the Skyrim area not to save all the people that are moving on to the next area with you, you can do that. You can actually advance at a very quick pace out of the tutorial/noob island. This is because the main story quest does not take you to the spider caves, it does not take you to many of the off path areas in the lands of Skyrim. You can advance to the next area (presumably to never come back) without ever doing 90% of the content on the noob island.

That's fine, but this isn't much different, again. You can skip a healthy amount of content in WoW, which is what most people end up doing when faced with doing the same quest line over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, any time they want a different play style experience. The gameplay remains rigid, it remains unchanging. Heck, at least in EverQuest, doing a camp two different times will come out with two very different experiences on the grounds that there is randomization in your play style. Sure, you may have wrecked Charasis basement last time you were there, but this time you go, your charms break a toon, roots are getting broken, etc. The dynamic experience is built based on the random chances of play style in EverQuest. The dynamic experience in TES has always been the adventure of doing each part of the quest, and interacting with unscripted things (random giant attacks, random dragon assaults, random patrols, random stuff that doesn't happen twice in a row the same way). The dynamic experience in EQN (presuming we take what they say as absolutely true) is that the mobs do not settle in the same place twice, they act in different ways based on the dynamically changing environment based on the ways players interact with it. This is what WoW, TSW, WoW, ESO, GW2, and pretty much every MMO since WoW that has been too cowardly to try and innovate has lost. Two characters along the same path will have a significantly similar experience, as quests grant you a scripted, singular experience that does not vary along the same lines. When these quests are short, and quickly delivered as part of grander storylines, rather than being steps upon a greater quest, each step is delivered as a scripted follow up to the last to hold your hand and guide you from area to area. It is pathetic and patronizing. There's a reason TSW's only major feature many people took away from it was the Investigation quests, which make you go above and beyond this handholding in today's games.

Originally Posted by Grimfan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The further you move on, the more apparent it gets that you need to start exploring and instead of only sticking to the main path where the game sends you, you need to start going off the paths and into the mountains to explore. If you did this in WoW or Rift, you MIGHT get an achievement for getting to some high place and jumping off, if you do this in TESO you get rewarded with experience, gear, sometimes skill points, etc.

Exploration rewards achievements, experience, loot, and side-quest that you would not otherwise find in WoW. This isn't different than a themepark in which you're brought area to area to explore that area, consume all the content, and then move on never to return.

Originally Posted by Grimfan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Anyway I already explained why I feel their system is different. We can agree to disagree if you'd like though, you're really combative and I don't really feel like making this a fight or whatever.

Do not mistake being very outspoken and opinionated for combative. I am not emotionally invested in this conversation in the least.

Originally Posted by Grimfan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

If you don't play the game I don't really care, but comparing it to WoW is really just wrong, it's about as far as it gets from the WoW quest system and it is about as close as you can get to making a Elder Scroll MMO without making it a gigantic sandbox like a lot of people would enjoy. I think that a sandbox would be good too, and yes it is a theme park MMO and I am sure I'll get bored with that eventually, but at least it has some promising systems in place to hopefully keep my interest for longer than the other games you listed up there.

To say it is "as far as it gets from WoW quest system" makes me question how you're on a classic EQ forum, given that EQ is *significantly* further away from WoW than ESO is. Classic EQ is as far away from WoW's quest system as you get today. Lets see...

EQ is furthest away. EQ Live doesn't grind quests, but it does grind kill tasks to put a cherry on the top of the creature grind that is traditional to EQ camping, so I'd say Live is probably the next furthest away, tied with DAoC and SWG, both of which offered the "task grind" style of creature grinding. After that, I'd put ESO, TSW, TOR, and other quest grinding main-storyline games, and then put WoW, as there isn't one unified story, but broken up between expansion packs.

I will not be playing the game, and anyone who reads what I have written, and can identify with my position in regards to other games, they will heed my warning, and avoid the game as well. Others who identify better with your position, and believe that there is a difference between the quest-grind, themepark style in WoW and other games listed, and therefore ESO is also distinct, they will heed your advice. You encourage those like you to get into the game, and I discourage those like me from buying the game so that we can get beyond having the same damn MMO published year after year to continue the stagnation in innovation that has hit MMOs. Stagnation from WoW really is the only explanation as to how you have EQ, and then DAoC, and then SWG, and City of Heroes, and then hit WoW, and for the next decade, have nothing but rehashed ideas. I am amazed when people talk about how great and innovative WoW is with the new "Garrisons", meanwhile I just sit here and say that SWG did this a decade ago, EQ and DAoC both instituted guild halls. And that pretty much all the new "innovations" we see are rehashes of the same exact stuff, rather than steps forward. That's why my only hope is for the dynamic creature system and non-quest grind structure EQN is proposing.

[innocent51]

Forbe's article is quite bad.
However TESO isnt a good game. Its hardly more than a sub-GW2 surfing on Elder's Scroll licence without adding anything new. Its (probably after FF14) the MMO with the least new ideas.