What do you want to see done well in ESO?

[Blazer Miles]

Hi Escapist,
Haven't seen many posts about this, which I thought was odd, as it looks like the game is coming along wonderfully; with a lot of effort put in to keep it true to Elder Scrolls spirit. It has its flaws, sure, but any game does really, and while they may just be showing us the "good" and hiding away the bad stuff, i'm still willing to trust them here.

Regardless of that, I figured I'd ask what in particular people want to see done (and done well) in ESO?
Personally, I have a whole list of things I want to see (some of which have been done), but in the interests of keeping my opening shorter, I'll just list one: I really want to see a lot of role-playing aspects, not necessarily huge stuff, but just lots of little things which I think would contribute to the atmosphere of the game; all you have to do is look at how excited people got about sitting in the latest pokemon games to see how much of a difference small things make.
I was reading an article where someone mentioned that there is a /drunkdance emote, which I found quite amusing, and that's the kind of thing I'd love to see.

Hopefully this doesn't turn into an MMO flame war...

/flameshield


Captcha:

Blog this

Not really sure if that could be considered relevant.

 

[Remus]

I want to see all the little details outside of cities that make Elder Scrolls games so great, like an abandoned house with naught but clothes and a forgotten diary describing in detail the reasons for the house's abandonment. Details like this can easily lead to quest opportunities, like perhaps a family who had their most dear heirlooms stolen by goblins in a nearby cave. Modern RPGs are great in that they can often tell a story without telling a story. This is what I want to see. Give me areas in which casual passers by may go to game forums describing what they saw so others may prescribe meaning to the screenshots.

 

[Blazer Miles]

Agreed, that'd be great; I think that they're trying to go that way, although how well they manage it remains to be seen.

I think I'd also like to see them expanding into other races a bit, like the Maormer (Can never spell those guy's names), or the races of Akavir. Hell, they could probably use Akavir for expansion-like material, and I'd love it if they take advantage of opportunities like that.

 

[piinyouri]

They're already doing the one thing I want to see done well, quite fantastically in my opinion. That being the combat.

 

[Flutterguy]

More classes, well just one class that can heal besides paladin. Also I want all the joinable factions present in the game: East empire trading company, the great houses, native tribes, and the roughly 40+ joinable factions which have exhisted throughout the series providing it is correct for the time-period.

I guess the first one would be a bit easier, hopefully we can get a naturalist or shamanistic type healer. However the way the whole deadra-god system works it really doesn't make sense unless you bend the rules. I used restoration to some extent in every elder scrolls playthrough whether I was a rogue warrior or mage.

 

[Auberon]

Staying true to the fluff first and foremost. A NORD sits in Mournhold in the golden age of ALMSIVI... what was Almalexia smoking? Basically whole Pact is contrived just because ZO wants three factions, and Skyrim/Morrowind/Black Marsh just happened to be close provinces. Seeing as Nords loved invading Resdayn during Chimer, and the latter have enslaved Argonians for eternity.

 

[Barbas]

Much like Remus has said before me, the devil is in the details. What I don't want to see is a series of vast open stretches of barren land and wasted space with no interesting clutter or meaningful encounters.

 

[INVALIDUSERNAME]

Having seen the game first hand, I can definitely say that there were three big things that really irritated the hell out of me with a game that's going to try and double dip with a subscription AND a micotransaction store:

1) The animations are God awful. The jumping is basically just you lifting off with your legs up to your belly button, and it looks absolutely ridiculous. The running was the same "stick-up-the-ass" feel that SWTOR had, and things like running with your weapon out looked clunky as hell. Your torso is apparently completely independent of your legs because they don't work in unison at all.

2) The environments were drab and ugly. Now, I never got to Skyrim, but having seen the starting zone in Elsweyr and Stros M'Kai in Hammerfell, I can safely say these places were ugly. They use the same drab ass colors that Skyrim had instead of giving the place any sort of distinctive appeal, so everything was the same muddy brown/faded-orange/grey. This isn't even going into the other nuances of the environment: the palm trees in a place like Stros M'Kai were maybe 7 foot tall and had this nasty, blocky look to them. The mobs standing around one of the quest hubs were literally just standing there. Maybe one or two patrolling mobs, and the rest are just standing face to face, waiting for some poor bastard to walk up to them and aggro them, and a couple more are standing there, leaning against a stack of crates or a sofa or something.

3) The combat. It was a clickfest at early levels and it sucks. The archery is nothing like previous Elder Scrolls, opting instead to have the arrow fuckin' curve into the enemy, and the magic was just me spamming left click on my staff over and over again. The enemies don't recoil when hit with power attacks, so it lacks any of the feedback that something like Oblivion has which, while Elder Scrolls generally has shit combat, at least makes it FEEL like you're hitting something with a power strike. Instead of staggering when they're hit, they just eat it and keep whacking you.

The game is definitely huge looking, and it seems to be TRYING to capture the feel of Elder Scrolls but it really just feels cheap. I, personally, didn't find that in the time frame I was able to play it that I could really settle in and enjoy the game. Maybe it gets better in late game, but the levelling was painfully slow, so I'm going to be thrilled to see how many people stick with it until they hit whatever the hell the level cap is.

My opinion though. Like I said, the game looks like it at least has potential, and the core is definitely there, but it was so rough around the edges for a game coming out in a few months that it really is going to need one hell of a spit-shine to match the visual eyecandy of something like WoW's newer environments or Guild Wars 2's fluid ass animations.

 

[faefrost]

Make it a true open world, and not yet another theme park on rails. Let me wander into places where I will get stomped on. Let me learn through pain and misadventure. Don't hold my hand.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Staying true to the fluff first and foremost. A NORD sits in Mournhold in the golden age of ALMSIVI... what was Almalexia smoking? Basically whole Pact is contrived just because ZO wants three factions, and Skyrim/Morrowind/Black Marsh just happened to be close provinces. Seeing as Nords loved invading Resdayn during Chimer, and the latter have enslaved Argonians for eternity.

And it was Almalexia herself who summoned Ysmir Wulfharth, the immortal Underking, and Shezarr who goes Missing, also known as Shor and Lorkhan, Incarnate, because she, and the rest of the Tribunal, could not stop an invasion of the Kamal.

People seem to forget that 90% of the ALMSIVI's powers were fictional BS, made up as propaganda, this was true even during Morrowind.

There were never as supremely powerful as they claimed, they could not stop Dagon from leveling cities, they could not stop the might of the Empire, and they could not stop the Akaviri.... all during their supposed "height of power".

 

[chaser5000]

More classes, well just one class that can heal besides paladin. Also I want all the joinable factions present in the game: East empire trading company, the great houses, native tribes, and the roughly 40+ joinable factions which have exhisted throughout the series providing it is correct for the time-period.

I guess the first one would be a bit easier, hopefully we can get a naturalist or shamanistic type healer. However the way the whole deadra-god system works it really doesn't make sense unless you bend the rules. I used restoration to some extent in every elder scrolls playthrough whether I was a rogue warrior or mage.

There will be 16 total classes but only 4 to choose from the start, I'd bet there is a more healer focused one in there. I'm sure there will also be ways outside of classes to improve your restoration skill.

Honestly I doubt we will see that many factions, almost certainly not 40+.

 

[Catrixa]

I want to be able to spend 30+ minutes working out my character's eyebrow height, watching the beginning of some epic tale I'm about to embark on, then being handed the reins so I can throw all of that away and steal fancy goblets from rich people all day. From what I've seen of ESO so far, it's boring, unmodable Skyrim with other people running around and taking all of the good treasure. The combat is lovely, first-person view is lovely, the fact that sneak is technically in the game is lovely, but I'd love to feel like I'm actually playing a character who does things because that's what they do (e.g. steal things, pick flowers to smash into powerful flower juice, make billions of knives so they can make one good hat, etc.). Right now it looks like you're playing an Elder Scrolls game, but it feels like a thinly veiled same-old MMO. Which is fine and all, but if I'm going to play an MMO, I've got a lot of better choices already...

 

[gyrobot_v1legacy]

A better potrayal of the Altmer. Right now Altmer are the butt end of all jokes.

 

[piinyouri]

A better potrayal of the Altmer. Right now Altmer are the butt end of all jokes.

It;'s funny because all my friends who played Skyrim first hate and will hate Altmer forever because of the Thalmor.
My retort is "Not all Altmer are that way!" or "They didn't use to be that way.", but then I remember some of the NPC's in Morrowind and how stuck up they were. Elf nazis they were not, but they've always been a bit shit headed with a permanent smug look glued to their face.

Spoiler: You have something to saaaay to me?