The Elder Scrolls Online
- Thread starter Anomander Rake
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Flake
Golden Knight of the Realm
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Kirun
Buzzfeed Editor
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Exactly. Something that is completely not the fault of the game. This isexactlythe point I'm making. The vast majority of MMO players prefer to solo, not group. Why? Well, most of them are typically pretty anti-social. Secondly, having to deal with other people is usually a horrible experience. So, rather than deal with all of that, most players choose to solo. Guess when they group? At the end-game. Why? Because that's when the game startsforcingthem to.
Did you not do pickup groups in EQ? DAoC? AC? Hell, any "good 'ole day!" game you can name? They were even worse, because in those games, if you got in with a group of morons, you stood to lose a wholelotof time.
This. Expecting the game designers toforcegrouping on the players, in an attempt to then force "socialization", isn't going to work anymore. You haveplentyof tools at your disposal to be a social butterfly in modern MMOs. It isn't the fault of developers that you aren't taking advantage of them.
So, do it? Nothing is preventing you from venturing into higher level zones and doing exactly this. Other than your own laziness/unwillingness to challenge yourself.
That was a response to someone asking what I do to make the solo questing more fun and challenging.
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So I played through the quests/starting areas for all three factions this weekend; I took one char (Pact templar) to 8, and then a Covenant sorc as well as a Dom thief to 6 and through the completion of those areas' (Bleakrock/Stros M'Kai/K-something for Dominion) quests. Let me say this: Those are some really great quest-lines. Once you get past how different ESO is from most MMOs: the slower button-press/action timing, the vague class/weapon/armor ability setup/etc., I am amazed at how well it worked for me. The tutorial area is still easily one of the worst of any MMO I have played but after the first time it can be done in less than 5 min, and then you are off to three VERY different environment with totally different quests. It really is amazing how the three really don't share anything other than a common format at times but the story/setting/context is so completely different; nothing mirrored/borrowed/shared between any of the three.
I was terribly worried prior to this weekend I wouldn't like this but I have to say, ESO kept me from harvesting/building in EQNL and the other games I have been playing lately. There is still polish to be done and Lord only knows what the rest of the game looks like; it could easily go off the rails quickly, no doubt. It may not be the next big thing and it might be old past a certain point but I can certainly see spending 3+ months with it later this spring. Completely the opposite experience from my time with Wildstar: I went in to that being excited and came out very nonplussed. This I went into thinking the worst and came out really anticipating launch.
I was terribly worried prior to this weekend I wouldn't like this but I have to say, ESO kept me from harvesting/building in EQNL and the other games I have been playing lately. There is still polish to be done and Lord only knows what the rest of the game looks like; it could easily go off the rails quickly, no doubt. It may not be the next big thing and it might be old past a certain point but I can certainly see spending 3+ months with it later this spring. Completely the opposite experience from my time with Wildstar: I went in to that being excited and came out very nonplussed. This I went into thinking the worst and came out really anticipating launch.
I didn't think I'd like the game either but when I think about what all I did this weekend and then consider the fact that I can complete my factions quests and then go do the other factions starter quests at a higher level difficulty with better rewards I think I could be kept busy with this game.
Flake
Golden Knight of the Realm
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Imagine the market they could have realized without that mindset. The one that WoW came and swept out from underneath them to the tune of 10M+ players in a short amount of time. As far as blunders and lack of foresight go, this has to be up there with Jay Wilson and ET.
Note to keen young developer currently reading thread:
If you can make an "endless" procedurally generated universe with spaceships, travel, cities, and lake dungeons, and populate everything procedurally with enemies and Diablo (2) style loot, I will give you a kidney.
While that may be true, the massive downside to leveling/grinding in TESO is that the character progression is complete ass.
Let's compare TESO to an ancient dinosaur named EQ1. And yes, I've played both games this year.
In EQ1 you can and should grind mobs, but you actually feel good as you progress and get stronger. You feel more and more accomplished thanks to levels, AA's, gear (sotta) and even achievements (achievements also provide you more AA's.) Is it slow and tedious most of the time? Fuck yes it is. But you still feel something as your character goes from shit tier to 3k+ AA's to god tier 7k+ AA's.
In TESO, you DO NOT feel like your character gets stronger. Getting more stats and gear DO NOT improve your character in a meaningful way. Your character scales solely based on its skill levels and not your equipped gear or weapons and those skill points level automatically. Also you have retarded soft caps when it comes to leveling one of three stats.
When you compare mobs from both games, there are many varieties of mobs of varying difficulties in EQ1, whereas mobs in TESO come in shitastic tiers such as "level 2 mobs" or ""level 5 mobs" and of course the dreaded "linked group of lv 7 mobs that are a skill check to see if you got your stock cc skill yet!" Sure, some mobs have gimmicky skills that have some flavor, but one fact remains...
Everything in TESO is on rails. Your stamina points are on rails. Your quest hubs are on rails. Your mob progression is on rails. Your gear progression and your skill progression are on rails. Oh and btw, other then discovering new sections of the map, you are forced to quest to level, PERIOD. If you think grinding is viable, you are seriously a big dumb dumb. And if you disagree with that fact, it doesn't make you or not make you a grinding masochist. Guess why? Because a fucking 13+ year old mmo is MORE FUN than this game is.
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Daidraco
Golden Baronet of the Realm
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Ukerric
Bearded Ape
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Uh? You just said it. The game WILL force you to group. At the end game.
So, is that going to work, or is that not going to work. It's one or the other.
What we're arguing, and have been for a number of years, in a number of threads, is whether or not mainly-solo play has aPLACEin MMOs. I solo a lot. In every single RPG I play. That's the big difference: I don't play MMOs to solo; solo I can do in plenty of games that are specifically made for it, and usually offer much better storylines, with a much more important role (in those games, I am really the Hero, there's no Hero coming to KS me or anything).
I solo in MMOs because that's the barrier that is placed to me before I get to the place where there is a healthy population to group with. It's not because I'm inherently anti-social or whatever, it's because, from 1 to 60 it is genuinely HARD to find people to group with, because people are being told, by the game, that they should solo, and thus they do. And when they get told that they should group, why, they do.
(as an aside, it's why EQ implemented mercs and the like. Because, at that point, finding a group while levelling is hard, and thus you need to find a way to bring them to the game part where you find other players to group with)
Do you get it now? It's not a rant about people soloing, it's a rant about the game telling you to play a single-player solo RPG, then charging you a sub for it because "it's a MMO". That's the crux of the Forbes rant about TESO. Why should I pay a monthly sub to play a single-player RPG? And that's because... I need to play a single-player RPG before I reach the MMO part. What we're complaining here is that the concept of "levelling content", as implemented (in the form of linear on-rail solo questing) is not a good fit for the MMO genre, but, since WoW did it, and they got showered in money, everyone does it.
(except that, in TESO's case, there does not appear to be a MMO part, outside of some nebulous PvP battles and a very small number of dungeons that don't affect your character. Pretty much like GW2... but GW2 doesn't charge you a monthly sub)
My understanding of WOW was it was doing slightly better than EQ until Korea and China realized Blizzard had made an MMO....
On a different note, I personally hate AAs. I think they're terrible. Asta, the game you are describing has very little in common with original EQ, also.
Tearofsoul
Ancient MMO noob
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Agreed. It's not just that they are bad artistically (i.e. sneak animation looks like your character is going to take a dump). The animations are also non-responsive and feel completely disconnected from inputs and when the damage is applied. The combat simply has zero impact or weight to it.
Having just played BnS Cn for a bit, the combat in this game is a complete joke.
Utnayan
I Love Utnayan he’s awesome
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Hey look, GW2 with zerging, an ability to leave a campaign anytime you want leaving it not persistent, horrible animations and unresponsive combat.
Thanks for showing this to people here who haven't experienced something some of us have experienced months ago and have seen zero changes based on months of feedback.
It really is a combination of every bad MMO feature/mechanic condensed into one product. If you were to intentionally make an awful MMO, it would be TESO
Miele
Lord Nagafen Raider
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I'm subbed at two games already, plus one for the wife. I'm not gonna touch another sub based game until I'm done with the others, something I don't foresee right now. For me, yes, sub is a problem, because as much as I love games, I have a budget for them and won't go beyond the allotted amount.
I kinda like the ES serie in the first few levels, because as Kreugen said, it's fun being risking your life every few steps, then I always get bored when my power gets too much for monsters to handle.
You're also pulling numbers out of your ass when you talk about "the majority". Researches stated that f2p games thrive thanks to a minority of whales and mid spenders despite a fuckton of free2play players.