Update 44 is now available for testing on the PTS! You can read the latest patch notes here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/categories/pts
Maintenance for the week of September 23:
• PC/Mac: No maintenance – September 23
• PC/Mac: No maintenance – September 23
Creative Feedback and Incentives From a Fan
I think it's actually very important right now with the 6 month console delay to give appropriate feedback to the developers rather than just the equivalent to hate mail. I think they've gotten enough of that. As someone who has followed this game since it's announcement and tried to give appropriate feedback through beta testing, here's a list of what I love, and what I hate.
Things I enjoy about ESO
-Graphics: I will still defend this game and say it's the best looking MMO on the market. It strays away from conventional over stylized animation and environment design. Which is something many of us were looking for and you just about hit the nail on the head.
-Combat: The developers have obviously had their hands full with this one. Animations bugging out and sometimes not registering. Occasionally having a splinter of wood stop your forward momentum. Hidden Blade. But through all of that I have had a blast with the combat of ESO. As a Nightblade CCing a mob in a group of three and then placing marked target upon the second mob, stealthing and then critting the third mob.. And all I am going to say is thank you for bringing back formidable CC to PvE content.
-Crafting: While I think it needs more depth in later levels, I think there's time to add it before the console launch (I'm not a developer but I'm hopeful).
-Questing: I think the quest dialog has acted quite seamlessly in the transition between Elder Scrolls single player games and ESO. The voice acting was excellent although at times I wish Zenimax would have been able to hire a couple more. But overall it's not a deal breaker.
-Dungeons: I've done far, far too many dungeons. I was in one of the most progressive raiding guilds in WoW TBC - Wotlk. And I can completely %100 see what Zenimax is going for. And if they can just get some of the combat registering correctly and smooth out some animations they could really do something special with the raid mechanics. Because truthfully they're quite a bit of fun.
-PvP: I like the PvP. But I also have issues with it. Which I'll get too shortly.
The subjects listed above I feel that Zenimax doesn't need to spend too much time on in terms of polish. The things below that I am about to bring up are things that may be built into the engine itself. Although I am not a developer therefor anything I state is just speculation.
Things I don't like about ESO.
-The Open World Phasing System: I completely understand that this is both a single player and multiplayer experience. And I absolutely embrace and enjoy it. When it's not in the open world. I enjoyed my time in the single player quest line and quite frankly It's nice to get away from people because they can suck. But not being able to go back and help a friend complete his or her quest because you've already completed it? That one in my opinion was a mistake. In the single player story it was fine. It really wouldn't make much sense after all to phase a friend into Coldharbour because essentially that would kill him. But when you walk up to a fortress in the open world and go, "Man this would be so much fun if I could invite my friend to come help me out with this!" But when he shows up? He can't even see you. And if he can see you he can't see what you're attacking. I'm not sure how hard of a fix this is for the devs but I feel as though if you are partied with someone you should not only be able to see them, but also whatever it is they are attacking and furthermore help them attack it. UNLESS it's in a single player story that takes place out of the open world.
-View Distance: Optimization is always going to be an issue obviously, but for someone who is running a formidable system this NEEDS to be increased. Some people say it's fine but it's really not. And I don't mean to sound terribly mean, but it makes the game feel a little cheap. You have great graphics around you until you realize that it's the lack of view distance in front of you that allows for it. I'm hopeful this can be fixed.
-The Weather System: Cold Cuts has trench foot. I'm going to go ahead and say in most zones that are inland it's raining 75% if the time if not 80% of the time. I live in Seattle so perhaps this is my own issue but I found myself literally FTing to other zones just in search of a beam of light. At first I just thought it was because I was playing Daggerfall but upon hitting Veteran content I realized it was a worldwide issue. Was Tamriel experiencing global warming 1000 years ago?
-Interactive Options: Well I know Zenimax wants to make this a single player experience or as much as possible. And as someone who loves both single player games and multiplayer games, it's not working. MMO's need to be a vibrant and interactive community otherwise it just feels like a bunch of unhappy jerks walking around in the rain. The game needs dueling, chat bubbles, more pets, random mount drops.. things to give players a little more incentive to say things like, "Woah nice mount where did you get it?" or "Cool pet!" It promotes interaction, guild creation and friendships and all that happy crap. But it's a fundamental feature if you want to call yourself an MMO. And without it ESO feels like it's having a bit of an identity crisis.
-Scrolling Combat Text (That's built in): THEY HAD IT! And it was done so perfectly. Small text font that was thin and seemed to blend into the character seamlessly. It looked great and blended so well. Why oh WHY did Zenimax not include this into ESO's release or at least made it optional! Now if I want to use SCT I need to use that horribly ugly addon.
-The Animations: I like the textures and features. Overall I like how the characters look. But they're animations, hate to say it. Be a little more stylized. Keep it adult but they need some AFK animations. An occasional shrug here or there. It somewhat feels like I'm playing a manakin.
-Veteran Ranks: I can't pinpoint what's wrong. I like grinding and I like things to be difficult. But there's something a miss. I think it's a great idea but the incentive just isn't there. Maybe it's the fact that mobs do infact give such little EXP. Some of us do prefer grinding mobs rather than questing from time to time. It gives players a sense of freedom to do as they choose without being forced fed quests. Up the EXP. Drop the vr5 requirement for dungeon loot and increase the EXP gained from mobs.
-PvP issues: There's a couple of things. I don't know what the issue is but no matter what I have my settings at whenever I get near a major battle my weapon swap takes ages to register. Right around seven seconds.. Secondly over time I feel as though the zone is going to need a little bit of a face lift. It feels a bit bland to roam around alone. Perhaps the addition of more ground clutter if possible. Perhaps more critters. There needs to be more nodes for people to farm and fight over. The one thing that bothers me more than anything else is the mount timer. You attack someone you essentially can't mount for 30 seconds. It needs to be immediate in my opinion.
I wrote this because I see so many people sending them hate mail on a daily basis throughout the week, without giving them any constructive feedback. I am a fan of Zenimax and wish them the best of luck. I hope I didn't hurt any feelings, but something tells me the devs at Zenimax are becoming callassed.
Things I enjoy about ESO
-Graphics: I will still defend this game and say it's the best looking MMO on the market. It strays away from conventional over stylized animation and environment design. Which is something many of us were looking for and you just about hit the nail on the head.
-Combat: The developers have obviously had their hands full with this one. Animations bugging out and sometimes not registering. Occasionally having a splinter of wood stop your forward momentum. Hidden Blade. But through all of that I have had a blast with the combat of ESO. As a Nightblade CCing a mob in a group of three and then placing marked target upon the second mob, stealthing and then critting the third mob.. And all I am going to say is thank you for bringing back formidable CC to PvE content.
-Crafting: While I think it needs more depth in later levels, I think there's time to add it before the console launch (I'm not a developer but I'm hopeful).
-Questing: I think the quest dialog has acted quite seamlessly in the transition between Elder Scrolls single player games and ESO. The voice acting was excellent although at times I wish Zenimax would have been able to hire a couple more. But overall it's not a deal breaker.
-Dungeons: I've done far, far too many dungeons. I was in one of the most progressive raiding guilds in WoW TBC - Wotlk. And I can completely %100 see what Zenimax is going for. And if they can just get some of the combat registering correctly and smooth out some animations they could really do something special with the raid mechanics. Because truthfully they're quite a bit of fun.
-PvP: I like the PvP. But I also have issues with it. Which I'll get too shortly.
The subjects listed above I feel that Zenimax doesn't need to spend too much time on in terms of polish. The things below that I am about to bring up are things that may be built into the engine itself. Although I am not a developer therefor anything I state is just speculation.
Things I don't like about ESO.
-The Open World Phasing System: I completely understand that this is both a single player and multiplayer experience. And I absolutely embrace and enjoy it. When it's not in the open world. I enjoyed my time in the single player quest line and quite frankly It's nice to get away from people because they can suck. But not being able to go back and help a friend complete his or her quest because you've already completed it? That one in my opinion was a mistake. In the single player story it was fine. It really wouldn't make much sense after all to phase a friend into Coldharbour because essentially that would kill him. But when you walk up to a fortress in the open world and go, "Man this would be so much fun if I could invite my friend to come help me out with this!" But when he shows up? He can't even see you. And if he can see you he can't see what you're attacking. I'm not sure how hard of a fix this is for the devs but I feel as though if you are partied with someone you should not only be able to see them, but also whatever it is they are attacking and furthermore help them attack it. UNLESS it's in a single player story that takes place out of the open world.
-View Distance: Optimization is always going to be an issue obviously, but for someone who is running a formidable system this NEEDS to be increased. Some people say it's fine but it's really not. And I don't mean to sound terribly mean, but it makes the game feel a little cheap. You have great graphics around you until you realize that it's the lack of view distance in front of you that allows for it. I'm hopeful this can be fixed.
-The Weather System: Cold Cuts has trench foot. I'm going to go ahead and say in most zones that are inland it's raining 75% if the time if not 80% of the time. I live in Seattle so perhaps this is my own issue but I found myself literally FTing to other zones just in search of a beam of light. At first I just thought it was because I was playing Daggerfall but upon hitting Veteran content I realized it was a worldwide issue. Was Tamriel experiencing global warming 1000 years ago?
-Interactive Options: Well I know Zenimax wants to make this a single player experience or as much as possible. And as someone who loves both single player games and multiplayer games, it's not working. MMO's need to be a vibrant and interactive community otherwise it just feels like a bunch of unhappy jerks walking around in the rain. The game needs dueling, chat bubbles, more pets, random mount drops.. things to give players a little more incentive to say things like, "Woah nice mount where did you get it?" or "Cool pet!" It promotes interaction, guild creation and friendships and all that happy crap. But it's a fundamental feature if you want to call yourself an MMO. And without it ESO feels like it's having a bit of an identity crisis.
-Scrolling Combat Text (That's built in): THEY HAD IT! And it was done so perfectly. Small text font that was thin and seemed to blend into the character seamlessly. It looked great and blended so well. Why oh WHY did Zenimax not include this into ESO's release or at least made it optional! Now if I want to use SCT I need to use that horribly ugly addon.
-The Animations: I like the textures and features. Overall I like how the characters look. But they're animations, hate to say it. Be a little more stylized. Keep it adult but they need some AFK animations. An occasional shrug here or there. It somewhat feels like I'm playing a manakin.
-Veteran Ranks: I can't pinpoint what's wrong. I like grinding and I like things to be difficult. But there's something a miss. I think it's a great idea but the incentive just isn't there. Maybe it's the fact that mobs do infact give such little EXP. Some of us do prefer grinding mobs rather than questing from time to time. It gives players a sense of freedom to do as they choose without being forced fed quests. Up the EXP. Drop the vr5 requirement for dungeon loot and increase the EXP gained from mobs.
-PvP issues: There's a couple of things. I don't know what the issue is but no matter what I have my settings at whenever I get near a major battle my weapon swap takes ages to register. Right around seven seconds.. Secondly over time I feel as though the zone is going to need a little bit of a face lift. It feels a bit bland to roam around alone. Perhaps the addition of more ground clutter if possible. Perhaps more critters. There needs to be more nodes for people to farm and fight over. The one thing that bothers me more than anything else is the mount timer. You attack someone you essentially can't mount for 30 seconds. It needs to be immediate in my opinion.
I wrote this because I see so many people sending them hate mail on a daily basis throughout the week, without giving them any constructive feedback. I am a fan of Zenimax and wish them the best of luck. I hope I didn't hurt any feelings, but something tells me the devs at Zenimax are becoming callassed.
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