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Battle Deadly Vampires & Stop a Terrible Ritual In ESO Update - MMORPG.com
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Battle Deadly Vampires & Stop a Terrible Ritual In ESO Update - MMORPG.com
Zenimax Online Studios announced upcoming content to Elder Scrolls Online in a blog post Friday as part of its ongoing Season of the Dragon in the imminent Scalebreaker DLC.
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I wonder who paid you to post this because the Lore alone is worth playing.
The combat drives me crazy in ESO. It just isn’t enjoyable at all. Everything else is so good but the combat is why I play the game off and on.
It's rare for games to have 100 cumulative hours of scripted/unique content. The only reason anyone plays beyond that scripted content is for the quality of that content, the emergent gameplay value, mods/user content, and/or the community built around a game.
An MMO is not an exception to this. It has to be designed and developed just like every other game. The pivotal difference with an MMO is the fact that it is "massively multiplayer" and consequently has a communal/social component that isn't reflected in other types of titles.
Kind of why there's much ado about how live service is handled for an MMO too, as if the title doesn't support community of have a compelling reason to invest into the game beyond the scripted content, then it just becomes a game for "content locust" to consume and move on from.
Most games are unlikely to be able to break away from that though, so even MMOs, it's hard to expect more than a "standard" amount of play time from them before most are done with it.
Care to name a couple?
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
That seems like a pretty minor difference to me. Different in a significant way to me would be something like spellcrafting or zone wide group events.
"Year of the Dragon" is definitely different marketing but it's the same old 1 major + 3 minor DLC in a year they have been doing since they dropped the sub.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Personally, I don't like to toggle the toolbar. Maybe I'm old and my response time is slow or I'm too chill. But, I can't play like a hyperactive turbo spaz, huffing, puffing, and grunting smashing keys.
I just need things to fire off when I need it to without worrying the toolbar didn't flip fast enough or at all. It's fine playing casual solo content (I just use 1 bar and never toggle), but I feel like I fall behind when I compete (as it should be IMO).
I like ESO though.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
It just takes a run or two to figure out the specific trick for each one of them. And then it becomes a source of frustration in 4 man groups when someone new to the dungeon who doesn't know the choreography is in your group. It separates the player base into the "knows" and "knows not"
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Just so we're on the same page, I'm not answering for others. The toggle "problem" is my own.
I don't think you thought that, but I just wanted to be clear for others reading the comments.
There are many that have floor plates that have to be activated simultaneously by two or more players to open passages, things that need to be carried from one spot to another to stop a boss from being invulnerable (Mazatlun and others) etc.
I've done all of these dungeons tens of times and it's actually rare in ESO to have one without some sort of required environmental interaction during key boss fights.
Like I said, I'll have to see for myself what they have done with the 2 new dungeons in this DLC before I'm convinced it really is something new and not just a different mechanic trick like they all have.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
My own gripe with ESO combat, which I enjoy in general, is the fact that it's kind of just a camouflaged version of a different system that's represented as a more action-based one. It pulls off the appearance well, but it has some fundamental hiccups because of how it was initially developed.
The issue being, when it first got to a closed beta state where people of the community had contact with it, it was discovered that it was much more of a classic tab-target MMO with you selecting targets and a more standard hotbar. The basic combat features were in part absent, and the rest was set up similar to Age of Conan, but simpler. The backlash from this lead to them retooling things and pushing the action styled combat with a reticle into the game.
Thing being, that reticle is just a "soft target". The game is still doing the same thing as if you had clicked or tabbed onto a mob, and the combat runs the same type of calculations. ESO has just had the hit/miss values min/maxed (possibly actually removed at this point) so that the game just runs off "is there a target".
Which works, mostly. The gripe comes in that they rushed this redesign at the beginning of the game, and it was painfully obvious while the game still had stability issues because people could range with melee attacks and ranged attacks could be made without really facing a target.
Some of that can still happen, but the system has been cleaned up alot and with the servers themselves more stable, it has less opportunities for egregious errors in tracking characters or mobs in facing and placement.
But that system is still there, and it is in part why the animation canceling thing is such a big factor, because all the original skills were designed as action-cooldown or channeled skills. When you take that kind of design, and stick it in a more action oriented system, it breaks how those cooldowns were supposed to work and the subsequent pacing of action.
It's also why we have never seen a deep change to that element, or "solution" to the animation canceling. They'd have to rewrite a really big chunk of the game's core code that leaves it in a very impractical state.
TL/DR;
The game uses target-locking on the back end and reskinned mechanics from a different style of intended gameplay, that is the perpetual source of problems like the occasional hiccups seen in combat and some of the often lambasted issues around animation canceling.
Might just chalk that up to opinion, as I really just don't think of the things you just mentioned as puzzles.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Or in other words, some of the first physics objects in the game.
But you dismissively call the previous ones "gimmicks" and have some faith apparently, sight unseen, that this time the new things don't deserve to be called "gimmicks."
I'm not following your logic nor share your faith.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
1) The mechanics you cited were all often not even puzzles as they had clear/sole purpose, and most of the time an NPC tells you what it is.
2) All the previous content is isolated to the point at which it shows up in the dungeon, with no emergent or alternative value.
3) The new objects are physics objects. Which, while by itself may not mean their debut should have alot expected of them, that the game will support physics objects and their use means alot for what can be done with future content.
It's easier to follow logic if you follow the conversation.
And then there is of course the fact that ESO is a medieval weapon + magic game... lol
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED