Making ESO more Elder Scrollsy. Breaking away from the standard MMO formula.

NotSo · July 2015

This message is brought to you by my mad phone typing skills.
Stop giving my discussions and comments responses about being too much work. That is literally the worst excuse for anything.

All stat progression in MMOs are built around going from 0 to max. This formula has beed used as the progression basis for the ES games aswell. Although in ES games, it becomes a more of a character defining aspect because the world levels with you. So while your focused stats might be growing, any stats you dismiss start to fall behind. A new character might start out fairly strong with a sword but after 20 levels of neglect and spell slinging, their swordsmanship is sub-par and their ability to cast magic is far more powerful. It's all relative to the world leveling with you. We have to maintain that feeling of character definement; without the world leveling with you, and without you leveling past the world.

Game progression in MMOs focuses on leveling up and quest progression, while restricting you to level appropriate zones, either by directly locking you out of higher level areas, or simply clobbering you with difficult mobs. ES's game progression is built solely on quest advancement with no restriction on zones (well. . . mostly. 90% of map is open to exploration at level 1) and uses leveling as character definement. This is a huge factor for that ES leveling feel, that's why I'm mentioning it.

Anyways, onto some results of design in all mmos that I think are crummy. Starting the game as a level 1 welp and ending the game as a demi god. Ok people really like to feel as though they have gotten substantially stronger over their efforts in any game. And I don't fault anyone for that. But it's not the same as fighting a tiger in real life, and fighting your hundredth tiger (no, I have not fought any tigers). I'm not coming back after 50 levels and flattening that tiger with one fist. So I hope you know where I'm comimg from when I say that the only way to make an entire mmo world "level" with 5000+ players is to get rid of vertical progression. (Some will still exist but I'll talk about it later). The entire world would be built for a level 1 and stats on all character levels would be that of a level 1. I know being a new mmo player and seeing high level players taking on huge monsters is cool, but most ESO players are either experience MMO players that burned themselves out of that phase or they're returning ES players who were not at all expecting that when they joined the game.

In order to keep level progression but also keep a firm horizontal growth, every time you get a stat up, you also get a stat down. Every level 1's base stats would sart at 50 (out of a range of 1 to 100) before applying modifiers. 50 health (translated amount up for debate), 50 magicka, 50 stamina, 50 attack power, 50 spell power, 50 defense, ect. ect. ect. These would be influenced by armors and weapons at the start, and be boosted (vertical progression) by passives, enchantments, and buffs. When you level up, you get to allocate (lets say) 5 points from any of those stats into any others. Basically everyone starts as a very rounded character who is neither bad nor especially good in any one stat. But a higher level character would be pulling from stats they least often rely on and pushing into more important stats for their build. Tallying up their stats, they'd have just as much as a level 1 (before afforementioned boosts).

Computer is still in shipping so I'm not going after specifics with numbers and proof of concepts.

To include armor/weapon tiers, they'd still contribute to vertical progression but only boosting stats by 2 - 3 points on a tier to tier basis.

Players just starting out would be able to play in endgame content, though they wouldn't be as effective or as skilled as a veteran player. Early content can be enjoyed by high level characters. Everybody in pvp is on fairly even grounds, even before Battle Spirit. Any aquired skills beyond those first 5 slots are purely horizontal progression. Game completely opens up. NotSo stops complaining about how ESO is just skinned MMO.

Not quite the wall of text that a lot of other contributers can achieve, but if you read then I am thankful.

NotSo · July 2015

Gidorick · July 2015

I really like the idea of a give and take in stats. If you want to be a REALLY powerful Stamina Fighter... you're crap with magic. If you want to be REALLY powerful with magic, you have pretty low health.

I know this is "The Elder Scrolls" so bringing another franchise into this is silly but here it goes: I always really liked how, in Dragonlance, Raistlin Majere was physically really weak but he was a powerful mage.

I really like this idea @NotSo. It seems like it would be a really effective way to create balance in the game. Characters who wanted to be spell swords could never be as good as a straight mage or a straight fighter.

I'm not sure if this would make the game more "elder scrolls"y but it sure would make it more interesting!

NotSo · July 2015

@Gidorick
Thanks so much for the input. . . thought for sure another one of my posts was sinking into the depths.
Though not strictly pulling from a specific stat to push another stat, you could technically have a high magicka and stamina aptitude but seriously lose out on defense and health pool.

Anyways, I am trying to come up with a progression structure that best complements the way that Elder Scrolls games sort of build you up into your playstyle. Of course, you can't have the traditional Elder Scrolls means of leveling the world with hundreds/thousands of players all running around. So the next step was to keep the world's level static and adjust your own stats from there.

I originally decided to post because of another thread arguing that ES shouldn't be all about the endgame like most other MMOs. I figured if you could run anywhere and quest anywhere, you were basically endgame all the time. I know all my playthroughs of Oblivion and Skyrim have all had drastically different roads travelled, ESO has been a very strict path. I think it really needs to open up if it's going to stay afloat for more than a few years.

Gidorick · July 2015

NotSo wrote: »

@Gidorick
Thanks so much for the input. . . thought for sure another one of my posts was sinking into the depths.
Anyways, I am trying to come up with a progression structure that best complements the way that Elder Scrolls games sort of build you up into your playstyle. Of course, you can't have the traditional Elder Scrolls means of leveling the world with hundreds/thousands of players all running around. So the next step was to keep the world's level static and adjust your own stats from there.

I originally decided to post because of another thread arguing that ES shouldn't be all about the endgame like most other MMOs. I figured if you could run anywhere and quest anywhere, you were basically endgame all the time. I know all my playthroughs of Oblivion and Skyrim have all had drastically different roads travelled, ESO has been a very strict path. I think it really needs to open up if it's going to stay afloat for more than a few years.

I can agree with this. I had considered suggesting Skill Point and Stat atrophy to where the older a skill is or stat is the less effective it becomes until... it's useless. So players would continually level and if they wanted to remain good at one skill, they would always have to "upgrade" it because if they don't, the player would loose their skills.

I've never suggested that because... well... people would hate it. lol

NotSo · July 2015

I know exactly where you're coming from, but maintaining stats (in this case) would become a chore. So for the time beimg, I'm leaving stat allocation as player choice with every level up. There are a few things already in game that are enough chores for me

daily quests for achievement, hireling mail, trait research, horse feeding (which I gave up on, cuz my gold stash ran dry).

Some of my days in Oblivion were spent tanking all the scamps of that cursed staff just to level my blocking and armor skills.
No. I think player choice would be the best road for this thing. Buuuuuut since you mentioned it. It would be very cool to flip a toggle in the menu that would build your character based on actions taken. For that seemless, fully immersive gameplay.

SOLDIER_1stClass · July 2015

The leveling system you describe is almost identical to how Final Fantasy 2 leveling system works, except for the decrease in a certain skill with the increase of another.

I would not mind stat growth to be based off of usage however, I do not want one stat to go down because one goes up. Instead states you use will go up while ones you do not use will stay static and ones you use rarely would slowly grow.

The positive for a negative leveling system just is not my style.

Sausage · July 2015

ESO is quite innovative already. Sure the standard formula is there but I bet some new players to the genre doesnt even see it, they see ESO as whole different kind of game. Thats why I tip my hat to Zen, because they had the courage to do something else and one reason why Im still playing.

NotSo · July 2015

@SOLDIER_1stClass
My goal with this give/take scheme is to keep new players within arm's reach of veterans. I mean, they would have to be if the whole world was built to allow near infinite number of roads to game completion.

@Sausage
A new player won't recognise it, but a ES player will know it isn't anything like an ES game, and an MMO player will hold everything to a completely different standard. Catering to any side is hard. ESO would do best to be an ES game first, and a fresh take on the MMO genre second. Changing solo content to allow groups would not hurt either (talking about all main quests / guild quests).

lathbury · July 2015

i like it but this also has a cap after which point it becomes a gear treadmill mmo as once you have your stats where you want them the only carrot left to dangle is gear progression.
which it kinda of is already with the undaunted sets and master weapons rather than these i would like to see maybe passive skills unlocked that buff your group for doing dsa etc the same with pvp