loveeso wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

loveeso wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

loveeso wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

loveeso wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Two copies of the same enemy at the same spot and players can only interact with one sounds way more immersion breaking than occasionally running into who is hitting harder than you in a multiplayer setting, imo. Then again, because this isn't a single player game, I don't expect to always be the strongest on the map.

They’re not standing in the same spot during combat—mobs and players move constantly. As mentioned earlier, the alternate copy only appears when a player from a different difficulty tier approaches.

Ghost-phased figures don’t break immersion. If anything, they enhance it—just look at how well it works in Souls games.

And if that’s a dealbreaker for your immersion, let’s be honest: ESO already breaks it in far more jarring ways. Players chatting with NPCs you can’t see, enemies you just killed respawning like nothing happened, heroic actions that leave zero impact on the world… 😉
This isn’t Mass Effect. The immersion ship sailed long ago—and it wasn’t even a lore-friendly ship. 😉

The souls games I have played had other players be ghosts not enemies.

I don't recall ever seeing a player chatting with an NPC I couldn't see. Respawning enemies are a normal part of games. Heroic actions do leave an impact narratively and sometimes we even get to see it, which is my favorite.

The immersion ship is very much still here. And the story is the most popular piece of content in the game.

Re: Souls—other players, enemies… what’s the difference in this context? There were such enemies and even ghost-phased NPCs you couldn’t attack or interact with under certain conditions. That you didn't encounter them or don't remember doesn't change the fact.

Anyway, fair enough. Glad you feel immersed and impactful in ESO. Some of us just measure “impact” differently—and that's okay. You do you 🙂

The difference is, for example, when I run into a boss that I struggle with, I can call a stronger ghost to help me rather than having to watch a stronger ghost make mince meat of my bosses doppelganger while I sit there feeling dumb. And in this game, it would mean that stronger player wouldn't be able to help me either. So, let's say I'm a new player and I sit around waiting for someone to help me kill a boss. It takes 15 minutes and then the person runs up and attacks and suddenly they're both ghosts. And now I gotta wait even longer while watching a fight I can't participate in. That would feel pretty lame.

It looks like you didn’t read my earlier comments before replying. The scenario you just described wouldn’t happen—you wouldn’t end up waiting.

Re. Souls: we are also talking about two different things.

I did read. You said it would be still be spawned. I'm saying if I needed help, I would be waiting. And then another person arrived but they can't help me because they're on a different setting. An enemy being able to be attacked when I'm not able to kill it by myself is meaningless in that scenario.

The others ghosts I see in souls is PvP.

Well, that’s not what I wrote.

Not being able to solo an overland enemy in ESO? Honestly, having enemies like that would be a welcome change
Still, there’s no reason to deny higher-skilled players a meaningful challenge just to force them into easy mode for the sake of helping with content others can’t handle without them.

Anyway—no hard feelings. Hope you have a great rest of the week 🙂

What do you mean by you wouldn't have to wait if not the enemies would not be spawned by both players then? Sorry. Just a bit confused then, genuine question.

Lots of options to provide vet players with stuff while still keeping same instance imo. I agree that vets should have difficulty options. 🙂

i miss making friends with templars. i used to enjoy getting minor sorcery from them, they enjoyed minor savagry from me. i would provide aoe cc support to them cuz they're so slow, they provide an anchor for me. i was unable to heal very well.... he struggled to get people into beam range. together we made a great team.

he no longer needs my support to get people into beam range, or to peel a group off of him. i no longer need his off heals or execute.

he quit playing.

this goes on and on. wardens would seek out templars and plars wardens. nbs would look for dks. we needed each other. we WANTED each other.... now everyone has everything. another social pillar of the mmo that created friendships, stories, experiences.... thrown to the wayside.

excellent game design i look forward to seeing which feature is gutted next. i hear its leaderboards? less is more! less rewards. removal of class ranks. we may as well just delete peoples alts at this point.

where is that "we're killing it" meme? insert here.

Ilumia wrote: »

Well the worm cult sure seems to enjoy imprisoning people in style. They may not know of human rights, but they do know gothic art.

Man the upcoming worm cult furnishings are some of, in my opinion, the best looking in the game. While I love housing, between work, kids and trying to do raid nights and guild activities with my limited play time, I don't get a lot of time for it. That said, looking through the pics for the upcoming furniture has inspired the outlines of a couple builds I'd love to do and will probably wipe me out for gold lol. I very much look forward to seeing what the community creates with these especially with Halloween right around the corner. I suspect home tours will have many delightful necromancer sanctums.

Edit for spelling worm cult as work cult. Bit of a fruedian slip maybe?

I recently watched a YouTube video showcasing the new furnishings found on the PTS. (Not datamined). There are a couple Stonenest Argonian seats that look like stone lazyboys. Problem is, there is no place for their tails!
Any species with a tail the size of your leg, sticking out your backside, would design the chairs to accommodate said tail.
This has been a bit of a pet peeve of mine for years, and seems like a bit of an oversight on the devs part. Not trying to give anybody a hard time, this game is loaded with little details that always impress me. Just, someone didn't think it through all the way.

Meiox wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

Frayton wrote: »

What does everyone think?

He's right.

So do you think that balancing is not important because a "meta" doesn't need to be followed?

I think it's a true statement that meta doesn't need to be followed. In practice that means you will do lower damage than you could be doing in trials, you might not make it on to teams, and you'll be outmatched in PvP constantly. This argument doesn't address the fact that in certain environments, performance measured against other players matters. Most people don't want to be unnecessarily gimped. They are essentially punishing being creative when creative builds underperform so much compared to what's meta.

you can try to balance as much as you want, there will allways be a meta.
People even choose a race where they get just a small benefit over another race, therefore if the second best build would be 1% less effectiv they would still just use the meta build

While it's true that there'll always be a meta, I don't believe that's a good excuse for not trying to balance the game properly. A meta build can deal over 20% more DPS than some off-meta (or pure class) builds at the moment, and it'd be nice if that gap was reduced a bit in my opinion.

DenverRalphy wrote: »

JeroenB wrote: »

Odd question perhaps, but am I missing something obvious regarding acquiring the Nirnhoned traits?

I know you get one item of a random type by completing the Craglorn questline.

My understanding is that the only way to get more traits is to buy items crafted with that trait from Guild Traders, at a cost of hundreds of thousands of gold for each individual item type. Collecting them all would cost several million gold, and that assumes they're even available. (Taking the daggers suggested in this thread, TTC currently lists a grand total of one single Exemplary Nirnhoned Dagger for 250,000 gold on PC-EU.)

You can buy nirnhoned gear from the traders relatively cheap. On PSNA Potent Nirncrux is currently selling 13k-15k, so you can just buy that and have someone craft a nirnhoned weapon for you. Fortified Nirncrux even cheaper for nirnhoned armor items.

This and if in an semi decent guild you can get someone to make nirm gear for research if you give them a nirm trait stone.

Balance after subclassing has been brought up a lot here on the forums. After a Reddit "Ask Us Anything" and other attempts to communicate with the community, players are still confused about what's going on with balance. Rich Lambert gave an interview recently where he gave us a very insightful take about the issue:

“I'm really happy with it, overall, just the amount of customisation that is now possible as a result of that is mind-blowing,” he says. “There's a ‘meta’, right? People say this is the only way you can do a thing. I love going against that, pushing the boundaries, and showing this group does it this way, and that works for them, but this works for me.

“I think overall it's been really positive in the community. I mean, obviously, there's feedback, especially at the top end, where they're like, ‘Now everything's the same.’ Only because you want it to be that way.”

“We went in eyes wide open,” he says. “We’re confident enough that we know the system's going to work, but we're also confident that players are going to find unique combinations of things, or do things that we didn't necessarily think about and potentially break things. We were comfortable with that. We knew that was going to come.”

Full interview here: https://www.thegamer.com/elder-scrolls-online-interview-directors-leads-sublassing-controversy-balancing-stop-killing-games/

I think it's interesting that ZOS is comfortable with the imbalance that subclassing causes because of the freedom of choice it gives. It's also interesting to see the common argument that meta is just something that the players make up and it doesn't need to be followed. What does everyone think?

I mean, obviously, there's feedback, especially at the top end, where they're like, ‘Now everything's the same.’ Only because you want it to be that way.”

This rings a little out of touch or sort of cavalier, imo. Of course people at the top end would love to be more creative with their playstyles, but some fights are designed in a way that you need to optimize in very specific combos to clear. I would love for the devs to show us a quite off-meta composition clearing hard encounters with decent times/vitality.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

We chose Reddit because the layout and upvoting make it easier for the team to find and address relevant questions in an AMA format. Reddit also does a better job of keeping conversation threads together. We have tried to find a ways to replicate that here on the forum, but it isn't built for that.

I know this was a fun thread, but I thought I would provide an answer incase anyone was wondering.

You understand that not everyone that plays your game are the type to hangout on Reddit, yes? Seems to me that if you pick a platform that has a reputation that you are choosing to limit your audience. <== My done-with-Reddit-years-ago opinion.

Most players only have a limited amount of time they can play each day. Sure, you can probably clear all pve content including vet trials with an off meta build, but it'll be slower. That means more chances for individual players to make mistakes and more mechanics to deal with, which'll further slow the group down on top of the lower damage. It's not a matter of players wanting everything to be the same.

Also, I don't want to join a group and feel like deadweight. Even if I'm just playing with friends, I'd feel like an *** if I told them "I know we could have an easier time running this and maybe enough time to run it multiple times tonight if I hump the meta, but I want to feel unique so we won't be able to farm it as many times, deal with it."

Most folks aren't chasing the meta in pve because big numbers are the only thing that makes them Feel Alive, they're doing it because they want to fully contribute to the groups they join.

Then, of course, pvp. I play a relatively off meta build there. Do you think I don't know it puts me at a disadvantage vs meta builds? Do you think it feels good to feel neglected by zos, knowing I'd have an easier time if I gave up on trying to make the playstyle I enjoy (ranged, soulcleaver magblade) work? At least I'm playing nightblade which... is still a nightblade, even if I'm running a worse version of nightblade. It could always be worse, I could be a necromancer enjoyer.

Rich is just telling people who enjoy off-meta classes or playstyles "play how you want and deal with being at a disadvantage, have fun fighting uphill with an arm cut off". PVP is a competitive environment, there's always going to be a meta but the difference between a player chasing after the meta and one just playing a class or build they enjoy is far too large compared to a couple years ago.

How often do you get into a fight now and see Storm Calling and Assassination together, with animal or spear to round it out and of course healing soul + vitality script for a burst heal? How often do you see smallscale/solo builds (shockingly) choose to run Restoring Light for a defensive line, instead of bone tyrant or draconic? It's almost like some skill lines/combos are so much stronger than the competing options that you'd need to be a masochist to not use them.