Q&A with Paul Sage on ESO Live #4

SantieClaws · October 2014

The most important question of all:

Are we there yet?

Gyudan · October 2014

Daenerys wrote: »

Are there any plans to address itemization for quest rewards? I'm still incredibly upset about Cadwell's Gold reward. But it is bigger than that, the entire game does not reward you in any meaningful way specific to your character. I am a mage, I want light armor that I can wear, not heavy junk to vendor. I want to be able to choose the reward, so I can select what is best for my toon.

What is the timeline on player housing? Can you be more detailed than soon? This has been my biggest problem with ESO since its inception. This doesn't feel like an Elder Scrolls game without housing.

Are you going to address the storage situation? Worst I have ever encountered. I have begged and pleaded, provided many long winded explanations though the weekly surveys we used to fill out on the PTS, and it remains an issue. I have to have an alt for alchemy, blacksmithing, enchanting, clothing, provisioning, and woodworking. That’s 6 alts wasted as bank mules! I enjoy alts- not bank mules. Though with the current veteran system of having to play through all 3 alliances it ruins the sense of loyalty and discourages alts anyways. It takes so much away from available play time, discourages playing altogether

What is up with hirelings? Why did you abruptly stop Pacrooti and others, then give me these new hirelings that give me useless junk or 5 voildbloom? Why did you ruin the story of the hirelings? I was really enjoying their mails. Then they all quit without notice, and these new ones talk to me like they've known me forever. Why? Why can't hireling mail be titled by hireling, for example Enchanting Raw Materials?

Why don't mails from the guild store tell me what I sold, and from what guild? Why are you so against a global or factionwide auction house? Why do you believe it is better to traverse around the globe, and have to use drop down menus to try and find that recipe I'm looking for? Why can't we type what we are looking for without an addon?

Are there any plans to address quality of life improvements? Why don't we have a barber? Why hasn't the lightning in character creation been addressed? Why does my character always look different in game than character creation?

Why do you think everyone just grinds in Craglorn? Why did you make the quests there phased?

What is the timeline on provisioning revamp? When will our mats and recipes become obsolete? Will we have any warning? Are renowned recipes in the game? Is Iron Chef even attainable?

Why are Crafting Writs so unrewarding for maxed crafters? Any plans to give players incentives to complete them?

When will fishing be addressed? Why can't we type and fish? When will we be able to use fish in provisioning recipes?

Are there any plans to add more skill books? Why do they end around lvl 40? I really enjoyed reading them, and do still check eidetic memory, but more would be nice.

Any plans for jewelcrafting? Since most of the glyphs are jewerly related, it would be so very nice for the two to work together.

Will horses ever get retextured? They look like they came from Morrowind...

I second Daenerys' questions and add a few:

1) Did you consider adding active animations for pets? At the moment all they do is follow us around and take inventory space, while randomly doing a few actions. A few pet-specific animations would make them more interesting companions. For example, /pet1 on the monkey makes him eat a fruit, /pet2 has him climb on the character's shoulders, etc.

2) Because of spellcrafting, don't you think the current split between 4 classes will become obsolete? Did you ever consider coming back to a system without classes, as it was in the previous Elder Scrolls games that everyone enjoyed? If everyone had access to all the class trees, most of the balancing issues in Cyrodiil would be solved. I know this also leads to new problems like skill point management, modifications of the passives and skills from different trees working too well with each other, but I think it's worth considering.

3) Any plans on improving the mundus boons? In my opinion, they are much weaker in this era than they were in the previous games
Tamriel Journal for reference.
For example, the lord increases Health by 100 for characters at level 50. For an avereage VR14 with 2500 base health, that is a 4% increase, which is not very meaningful.
A few examples of what modified stones could do (stats at level 50+):
- The Serpent: adds 10 poison damage on light and heavy attacks and 200 poison resistance
- The Steed: increases running and horse speed, the cost of sprinting is reduced by 5%
- The Apprentice (similar to Skyrim): increases magicka regeneration by 20%, reduces spell resistance by 200.
- The Thief: decreases detection radius from guards while stealing (justice system), increases damage from stealth by 3%

4) Can you tell us more about what cool stuff is next for weapon and armor crafters after update 5? (something other than motifs please) The new Twice-Born Star set is a nice addition but everyone will soon be able to craft it and people must have something to look forward to. Will crafters matter in the game economy some day? I feel that only harvesters do at the moment.

spoqster · October 2014

Hi Paul,

I think everyone is excited about the Champion System. As I understand you will remove ranks beyond level 50 and instead allow players to diversify and/or specialize.

QUESTION
Have you considered lowering the level cap to 20 in this context? This would have a few advantages:

Endgame: Players reach endgame quicker, which is great for dedicated PVP players and competitive dungeon players.
Play as you like: This will allow players to freely choose between story, group and PVP play. Essentially, new players could compete in Dragonstar Arena after a few days of play and still not be horribly over-levelled when they return to the story.
Exploring: It will give players a true sense of exploration if 14 out of 15 zones are of the same level (rather than feeling locked into a progression system).
Grouping: This would make it much easier to help out another player who is questing in a different zone.

Thank you very much for your answers!

EDIT: Thought I might clarify. I'm referring to the vertical progression in terms of increased attribute points, gear strength and hidden modifiers (if there are any). I'm obviously not suggesting to cap the number of skill points or other aspects of horizontal progression.

MornaBaine · October 2014

Tapio75 wrote: »

Hey!

The game is good oriented at moment, will we see implementation of evil gameplay in some point? For example, necromancy, Evil storylines and guilds.. Evil options for quest choices.

I would cheerfully level up at least 2 more "evil" characters if that were an option! So my question is, "Will we ever see more "moral flexibility" in the game? Will it be possible to play an Abner Tharn type character at some point?

helediron · October 2014

Could you make every quest repeatable? Then there would be plenty of players for e.g. Missing Guardian. And I'd like to visit Dringolth occasionally, but now i can't... When leveling a sixth alt, i'd like to pick and choose and repeat some favourite quests for XP. Else i just grind anyway.

Gythral · October 2014

Is the fundamental lack of a working trade economy going to be addressed?
The present system limits the sales of goods by requiring everyone to be in a 'tiny' trade guild, and to the few that have hours to spend checking all the guild traders to find what they want, it also limits newer players to only the stock in the few traders that are in the zones they have opened up!

At present there is no way to create a buy order, short of shouting in the guild & zone chats, is this something that you are going to address?

Tabbycat · October 2014

Question #1:

Can you elaborate a bit more on the longer, more classically styled large group content (read progressive raids) that you all are considering adding at some point in the future?

What made you all change your minds about adding more traditional "raid" content?

Question #2:

Any plans to make the UI system more informative and user friendly?

Gyudan · October 2014

helediron wrote: »

Could you make every quest repeatable? Then there would be plenty of players for e.g. Missing Guardian. And I'd like to visit Dringolth occasionally, but now i can't... When leveling a sixth alt, i'd like to pick and choose and repeat some favourite quests for XP. Else i just grind anyway.

1) Foil the bloodthorn plot
2) Save King Casimir's Life
3) Get a skill point
4) Repeat forever.

But if abuse issues are solved, sure, go ahead.

spoqster · October 2014

helediron wrote: »

Could you make every quest repeatable? Then there would be plenty of players for e.g. Missing Guardian. And I'd like to visit Dringolth occasionally, but now i can't... When leveling a sixth alt, i'd like to pick and choose and repeat some favourite quests for XP. Else i just grind anyway.

Repeatable quests are a horrible idea in IMHO. It vastly reduces the sense of achievement players get when completing it. See Cyrodiil.

randolphbenoit · October 2014

helediron wrote: »

Could you make every quest repeatable? Then there would be plenty of players for e.g. Missing Guardian. And I'd like to visit Dringolth occasionally, but now i can't... When leveling a sixth alt, i'd like to pick and choose and repeat some favourite quests for XP. Else i just grind anyway.

I think we just need Daily Quests on the town boards along with crits...

zhevon · October 2014

Hey ... for 6 months there have been constant breakage/changes to NB skills; this looks like it will be neverending and many of us are frustrated. May NBs please be allowed to change their character class since the road ahead for us continues to have lots of pitfalls and there seems to be no consistency in the class?

helediron · October 2014

Gyudan wrote: »

helediron wrote: »

Could you make every quest repeatable? ... snip ...

1) Foil the bloodthorn plot
2) Save King Casimir's Life
3) Get a skill point
4) Repeat forever.
... snip ...
But if abuse issues are solved, sure, go ahead.

haha, Casimir, sure. Scratch that skill point from repeating, and yeah, that's pretty much it. Would be an alternative to hircine/scorpions and lower level public group dungeon grinding. After level-up, move to next area, save the next Casimir.

@spoqster, this is for older players, who have done everything already few times. New players can and probably will stick to the story. I, after repeating main quest five times, won't get much that achievement feeling anyway.

@randolphbenoit, dailies are already appearing. Every quest should be "daily". I remember running in other MMOs some favourite XP-quests daily. WE chose the ones we liked for that.

No one touched the worst problem, Craglorn group starving. Many would have wanted to help the people struggling to form a group for Celestiol Investigator quests, but they couldn't, because the quests were not repeatable.

Thank you for all the comments, but I refrain myself from further discussion. This is a Post Your Question thread after all.

SantieClaws · October 2014

Every quest being daily would make no sense at all. Will that village get invaded by goblins every single day? Will that ghost feel the need to put right its wrongful death every day? Will that ship get shipwrecked every day? Will that Khajiit need a secret shipment of moon sugar every day (wait scrub that last one ...). It will be like Tamriel Groundhog Day (maybe burrowing guar day or something).

Gilvoth · October 2014

i would like to ask paul the following question -
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/136794/how-are-you-going-support-assassin-rogue-type-characters-in-the-future#latest

glak · October 2014

Diverted discussion on repeatable quests to
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/137018/why-theme-park-rides-quests-should-not-be-repeatable

LunaRae · October 2014

Any update on Guar's as mounts & Murkmire? I need to become one with the Hist.

briandivisionb16_ESO · October 2014

Cyrodiil
From the guild summit Eric recognized that the current meta of stacking in AoE and said that distributing damage throughout a group isn’t the gameplay ZOS wants; you said you want large groups of abilities to be vulnerable to AoE and afraid of AoE.

With regards to this,

1.) When can we expect to see changes to AoE caps?
2.) Have you considered fall-off damage % not only for damage, but also for heals and stun duration(cc)?

Many thanks!
BrianDivision of Tamriel Foundry.

Guppet · October 2014

Is it poseible to have keen eyes have a filter? I mean allow me to choose which of my keen eye skills are active, so I can have just plants highlighted or wood, so I can turn off things I'm not actively wanting to find at that time.

Garbrac · October 2014

briandivisionb16_ESO wrote: »

2.) Have you considered fall-off damage % not only for damage, but also for heals and stun duration(cc)?

Many thanks!
BrianDivision of Tamriel Foundry.

At the summit they mentioned they wanted AoEs (such as Impluse) to become a PBAOE. If you've ever played DAoC you'll be familiar with this.

Where the Center of the AOE does the most dmg and as you become further and further from the center the dmg would decrease.

If they did that to Heals, I would probably end up quitting. It is already a pain in the arse to get people to stand in the circle to get healed, let alone trying to get them to stack on the center for the highest heals. Same with Breath of Life or similar healing spells. If they did a fall off % based on the distance from the caster, the healer's job would become increasingly more difficult as they'll have to stand near, if not on, the person they want healed.

I am all for the fall off for AoE Dmg spells just not healing.

glak · October 2014

Garbrac said it better.

WraithAzraiel · October 2014

They going to post a link for this or do we have to search and get lucky?

LonePirate · October 2014

WraithAzraiel wrote: »

They going to post a link for this or do we have to search and get lucky?

You probably just need to be lucky. Or you could go here.

Gedalya · October 2014

Hey Paul! Love the game.

Question 1:
Can we expect any additional playable races in the future? Such as the Maormer or the upcoming Naga?

Question 2:
In Morrowind there is a character Yagrum Bagarn, the last of the Dwemer; and in Skyrim there is a quest around the last of the Snow Elves. In terms of time frames both would exist in the world of ESO; any chance we will see a unique quest involving either?

david.haypreub18_ESO · October 2014

My main question is, 'Does ZOS currently consider the classes to be balanced?' What aspects of class balance is the team currently looking at?

ZOS_TristanK · October 2014

Thanks for all of your questions! ESO Live is on now, so be sure to check it out here: http://www.twitch.tv/zenimaxonlinestudios.

If you can't tune in just now, don't worry. You'll be able to view the episode after it airs on our Twitch channel.

(Spoiler alert: Jason Leavey's hair will be heavily featured.)

Gyudan · October 2014

Apart from the art and music at the beginning, I think this live was extremely disappointing.
Eric Wrobel was much better in the previous one.

Hadria · October 2014

Will there be any future updates to the weather system? I had a thread asking for more intense weather and got a few good replies from people interested in it also! I know its not a huge thing but it's the lil things that count

theyancey · October 2014

Will there be any new solo PvE content, when, and will it be enough to cause many of us to resub?

Garbrac · October 2014

theyancey wrote: »

Will there be any new solo PvE content, when, and will it be enough to cause many of us to resub?

There are two new zones coming (no ETA) Muckmire and Orcsinium (sp?). These zones aren't like Craglorn, they are designed similar to the other zones in the game. Focused on Questing, POIs, etc. Should definitely be something to resub for, in my opinion.

After having an unbelievable opportunity to sit down and discuss lore with Lawrence at the Guild Summit, I can't wait for Muckmire, and learn more about the Argonian ways of life.

Elsonso · October 2014

Muckmire.

Q&amp;A with Paul Sage on ESO Live #4

Q&A with Paul Sage on ESO Live #4