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Elder Scrolls Online - The Pressing Issues in ESO - MMORPG.com
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Elder Scrolls Online - The Pressing Issues in ESO - MMORPG.com
No game is perfect, it’s the sad reality. We typically look beyond the problems and see the good in the game we play. No one likes to focus on the negative aspects. Today, I plan to do just that and see what ZoS could do fix some of my most pressing issues in Elder Scrolls Online. The problems I am going to talk about are discussed daily between the multiple guilds I belong to and immediate friends.
Comments
I've never liked the combat in Elder Scrolls Online as most characters I've created just didn't do well. With their recent class advisor I have to admit that my build is a bit better but it seems so involved. I would much rather have it be more like "combat" mount and blade style/Skyrim/Oblivion style but that's just me and I think most players want skills, Skills!, SKILLS!!!
I'm fine with the way the auction house is because I just don't believe in auction houses. I prefer player run stores and moving from one to another. Makes the cities feel more like cities with their shops and stalls.
This system is "sort of" close to that in that if one npc doesn't have what you are looking for you can move to another.
I don't really use the crown store as I haven't found much I want. Their outfits are well done but none are to my taste.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I think this is because they designed the system for a console/controller in mind. I miss the days of WOW and EQ where I had a ton of different skills/spells.
Problem is, ESO isn't even close to being the right game to have limited skill bars. There aren't enough skills, niche skill designs, or complex mechanics to make it a buildcrafting game.
- Lack of auction house. The system in place could be called imersive, but it is far from practical and compared to an auction house it feels like I am wasting my time trying to buy something. For this reason I completely ignored trading in ESO. Which is a first for me in a MMORPG.
- I find combat boring after a while. I am not sure what the issue is exactly. GW2 has a similar limited setup, weapon based skills and action combat. But for some reason I don't get bored with GW2 combat and skills.
Maybe it would be better if they let you change builds for free and in an easy way like in GW2, so you can experiment more. Because that is definitely one of the things I like in GW2. I also think it makes sense for a class system with limited skills setup.
But still ESO is a great game, thanks to One Tamriel update.
The class system feels out of place, but the skill-based progression itself is terrific. I wish more games had this. Class skill lines would be better if they were like every other skill line--where you could mix & match, and to encourage specific use of current class-based groupings, you add morphs and passives that link to other skill lines in the current class-based organization.
Weapon skills: 1h & shield and 2h should become dependent on health (or at least contain morphs for it). That would leave DW & Bow for stam only, and the 4 staves for mag only. Add 1h option (without anything in 2nd hand) pegged to mag and stam (with some unique bonus that starts out competitive w/ mag or stam-only weapons and lessens as one pool gets significantly larger or smaller than the other) to allow for some good ol' swordmage playstyle. And by competitive, I'm being intentionally vague--maybe 75% is competitive, maybe 80%, maybe 50%? That's what playtesting's for.
Equipment: 2h weapons and staves should be allowed double enchantments and count as 2 items for set bonuses (as long as at least one other set item is equipped) in order to bring the fewer item slots into line with DW or S&B.
I could go on, but after playing the game for several years, those are my 4 biggest complaints w/ the current system.
I don't use player run markets, as I have my own crafters, and the times I have used them, I find them pretty useless. Among other things, they concentrate on high level items, so that low level alts or new players don't have any place to buy things. I'm guessing this is because the guilds that have city markets require large sales per week to be a member, so low-level items are simply not a priority. This concentrates the game on level cap players, even though as best I can tell there is a very large unserved alt/new player market.
I have to say I don't find the combat in ESO exciting. I don't really know what it is. I don't have a prejudice about tab targeting vs. action. If a game has tab targeting, fine. If it's action combat, fine. I prefer melee tanks and rangers, two specs that don't get a lot of love form ESO.
Me too. And the fix could be very easy: just have all weapons and all weapon skills base their damage off either stamina + weapon power or magicka + spell power, whichever is higher and have their heavy attacks regenerate also whichever of your two pools is higher.
They already have many skills in the game that regenerate whichever of the two is higher. They just need to expand that concept to work with weapons as well.
This would also help ESO feel more like the single player ES games where you can truly use any weapon at full effectiveness instead of having a limited choice of half of them depending on stamina vs. magicka builds.
And yeah... an AH. We've learned to live without one but it's not ideal.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
And the DLC dungeons while great aren't in line with the base game dungeons. There are several that I skip completely because they aren't worth my time. Now while I look forward to new content I know I won't be doing the dungeons all that often or ever in some cases. And that sucks.
Even if you're perfectly able to do them, when they pop as a random you typically have to go through the hassle of replacing the many people that quit as soon as they realize that the luck of the draw placed them in Bloodroot or ROM dungeon. And then there's all the additional drama in them when one or two of the ones who stick it out just figure out that what worked for them in Banished Cells just won't cut it here... more quits or kicks and more waits to replace.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Having 30+ skills/spells on your hot bars isnt going to automatically make the combat good.
The combat isnt fluid, intuitive or engaging so matter how many skills you have your hot bars it would still be bad.
The other things on the list like a universal auction house would be great but the biggest problem is the combat. Playing the game feels like a chore because of how boring the combat is.
The Auction House "System"
Just like others have said, the lack of an AH bugs the hell out of me. Compared to the other MMOs we have played, ESO is ridiculous for gold sinks. We bought two copies of the Imperial Edition just because of how absurdly over-priced the starter horses were at the launch. Still, between bags and vault space... ESO is stupidly expensive. And the only way to really make the gold you need is to be in trade guilds. At launch, I was in three social guilds and a few trade guilds. By the end of the second year, I had dropped out of all but one of my social guilds to replace them with trade guilds. I don't even bother with social guilds since I need to be in as many trade guilds as possible to grind out the gold to unlock everything in the game. Some day, I might cut down to a few trade guilds and go back to joining social guilds... but that's going to be a while. (Especially since I've started over on the EU servers recently.) Like, once I have all my vault upgrades and all of my characters' bags and mounts upgraded, and enough gold in savings to unlock at least my son's bags and vaults and a few million extra for Outfit changes.
The Crown Store Pricing
The other thing that is ridiculously overpriced in ESO is literally everything in the Crown Store. I started on the NA servers in the Beta (even though I was living in Russia) since most of my gaming friends were in the US and Canada. My wife, son, and I moved to Germany a few years ago, so when my son started showing an interest in ESO (he still prefers SWTOR) I started some characters on the EU servers. And that's when I discovered that "account-wide unlocks" are only *actually* account-wide if you buy them through the store on the website. If you buy crowns through the store then buy them in-game (which mostly costs the same price...) it only unlocks them *for that server*. So if you play on the NA and EU servers, the Crown cost is actually *double* what it says in the store. I don't actually object to anything that is in the Crown Store, but I'd only buy most of it if it was 30-50% of the current cost.
So we will sometimes buy cosmetic fluff through the store, but only with ESO Plus crowns (though I did once buy a bunch of crowns for my account during a 50% off sale)... I will never buy anything like an unlock through the store. DLCs and expansions I only buy with cash now.
The Outfit System Pricing
The Outfit System is a great system. Possibly my favourite outfit *system* from any game I've played... but charging $13 per slot per character for something that most games let you unlock with in-game gold, less than a cup of coffee's cost in real world money, or more often your choice of either... there is no way I'll pay as much for ONE SLOT as it costs for a whole other character and MORE than some of the DLC expansions. In most games I have *at least* four slots unlocked, and it's usually closer to 7-10, and that's per character. In ESO, I have the one freebie per character... and that's it...
It's still a great game, and overall I'm happy with it... but the nonsense with the lack of a central AH, the Crown Store gouging, and the Outfit disaster have really had me gritting my teeth...
*Our son is just over 3-and-a-half, and he already has his own account for when he's older...
(And 1 post? ...I've been on MMORPG.com since 2008... I am pretty sure I have posted more than that...)
Either this is an attempt at humor or the writer has never been on these forums.
Appease the masses and make global AH
Make the once a day/per character loot box reward from million player event permanent and add contents to it like stuff that has been removed from the game over the years.
No MMORPG has a design that demands anyone to use 30 skills in combat, or anywhere. I think we should not veer into exaggerations to attempt to prove a point.
People put a lot of items on their bars because it's convenience and faster than going to their skill/spell book for utility and world interaction skills. For example, a lot of FFXIV players have a bar where they put shortcuts to swap between the classes they play. There may be 5 classes, you gonna count those, too? The emotes they put on their bar?
In WoW I had all of my damage skills in "Focus Macros" on my bars because I use a Tartarus and Naga to play the game. I'd bind my Potions/Clickies, etc. to the Naga and have shifts on my Tartarus so that I can Depress the thumb pad to cast on a Focus Target - amazingly efficient when multi-dotting on a Spriest or Warlock, for example.
The combat in ESO was likely designed with Consoles in mind. Because consoles are limited in terms of buttons on the only input mechanism that can be assumed to be there (controller), they had to do something to get around it.
Personally, I think GW2 did this better. Classes mean more in GW2, and while I dislike weapons defining skill availability, GW2 does have just as many slots devoted to class skills, and weapon skills are not the same across classes.
ESO also has a bad class system. I actually think they should have gone with more distinct classes. Right now, class does't mean much in the game, because so much is completely dictated by your weapon and armor. I also think racials play too big of a role. You may prefer a race, but it may be out of the question simply because another race's passives are simply too good to pass up for the type of character you want to play.
I don't think it's that great of an MMO. It's a good multiplayer RPG (what they're calling it now), but I could never play it as an MMO because its too lacking in variety - ironically - and it doesn't allow me to build a character that even approximates what I prefer to play in a game despite the open build system... This is a problem that I don't have with most games with set classes, because the developers of those games actually make sure to accommodate for most of the most obvious play preferences (again, ironic).
And a huge pet peeve of mine when running dungeons in this game (using the drop finder)... People make the content take 3x as long to complete, because they're busy running around searching every crate, bag, chest, whoever in EVERY ROOM. Extremely annoying, and time sucking.
1 Broken record FFXI sub class is the way to go for several reasons and NOT just about classes but for reasons pertaining to the entire game.
2 broken record again,pvp should never influence a rpg because it ruins everything pve can do because yes pvp needs to be balanced and NEVER will be in a rpg.
3 Auction:Most certainly should be in every game,as well the game should have a really good economy to allow it to flourish.I noticed FFXIV when launched tried to remove it as well and aim for retainers,so i can only assume devs figure it to be an added cost they don't want to deal with,which is lame,you can't have your cake and eat it too.Yet again FFXI also allowed players to sell wares,a sort of auction house on individuals.You would look over the players wares and if an item had a price tag,you auto buy it and sometimes players would label an item for $1 bazxillion,meaning they would listen to offers.
What i don't like and yes i am being hypocritical here,is these AH's that have bidding and you have to wait for the final price to go down.I am not a mind reader but i would assume that MOST people go looking they want it NOW and don't want to wait 1-2-3 days.
Correct on one aspect,no game is perfect but since i played FFXI i feel all the games are getting worse aside from graphics.I mean that was 2002 when it released,i figured 16years later i would see improvements on those systems but i see MUCH lazier designs,so good luck expecting Zeni/Bethesda to start improving their game.If anything i bet most devs are looking for ways to make more money with little effort,hence all the recent influx of games rehashing themselves.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Yes, it undoubtedly was. All of ESO was. It's not a windowed game, you can't have two things up at the same time unless it's programed to pop up at the same time. You can't access your crafting skills unless you're at a crafting station, you can't even check what recipes you have or what you've researched. You can't move the camera around when you are moving, which means no cool screenshots galloping on your mount unless you're into tail shots and the backs of heads.
The console-based limitations are extensive and definitely hurt the game, making it feel restrictive, which it is. It probably effects more aspects of combat than just the skill limitations and the funky weapon switch.
It's sad that it does have these issues that could be improved. The good news is most agree on what needs to be improved. That's the first step to improving. They've made a ton of enhancements over the past year and I believe they will keep going.
for physical , u have way more options dw , bow , 2h , 1h shield (tanks)
now specs , u have 3 lines , 1 is mostly dmg , other tanking / healing , and suppor/ cc , some are mixed bag that u can convert into dmg cc or even tanking healing.
stamina vs magicka : another issue thats has been in need of fixing.
in the end u have options but the meta game is what its.
and yeah AH and upgraded combat animations need to happen...they look so cheap and lazy.