Immersion Suggestion From a Fan

Krynethos

Hey there!

Just wanted to throw in my early impressions of the game and give some specific feedback.

Overall this game is one of the best mmos I have ever played hands down. I am the type of gamer who values immersion. In typical elder scrolls fashion the world seems more alive than most mmos. Guild Wars 2 had great art but everything felt cookie cutter and bland to me.

There is one very crucial thing that I would like to change, however.

Suggestion:
All of the obvious time and effort put into lore, storytelling and a vibrant world is wasted without good instancing for certain parts of quests.

Since I am low level I will just give an early example in the starter isle.


{Spoiler}
The Mourning Stone questline had a lot going for it. It had mystery, npcs that seemed interesting, context and undead skeletons with a bit of puzzlework and dungeon delving. Who could ask for more in a story quest?

But when I see 5 other players have already killed all the skeletons it really kills it for me. I am looking forward to an eerie dungeon mystery with an epic evil boss fight and it is trivialized because players ahead of me have cleared the content.

When I see a player ahead of me go to the runes in the correct order and run through the door... its not much of a puzzle anymore.
{Spoiler}

These sorts of quests could really use a player instances. Its one thing to invite your friends to a cool quest. Its another to have the whole megaserver with you

Literally I could go on and on about how awesome the world is. Npcs really feel like they contribute and towns are full of bustling people on everyday tasks. They even greet you when you walk by! Wow! There is an ecosystem to areas and monsters interact with one another. Certain monsters are dominant predators, etc. When I go places I see butterflies, birds, rats, crabs and other things that really add to the immersion. When I realized I could catch a butterfly and use it to fish... as someone who has played mmos since I was a teenager, this is a whole new level for me. It really captured what I loved about Oblivion the first time I played it.

But since it is an mmo it is about playing with others. I realize that. But there are really good ways of being able to do both. Instancing lets you have immersive content while still being able to adventure with others in an open world outside the instanced quests.

Neverwinter does this well, but it falls short in the opposite side of the spectrum. Areas feel closed in without much room for exploration. And it is very linear.

I think with a little bit of instancing ESO could really be the one to get it right and hit the middle ground where things are just balanced right.

So much has been done right already, it just needs that last piece of the puzzle.

lesso

Some areas are already instanced as is if your in the main world type quests then chances are other players will be either in front or behind you, being a healer myself I like to run up to them watch them fight until almost dead then heal them and smile.

I get that you wanted to solve the puzzle yourself or kill the monsters but you don't have to watch others solve it and you can wait for the monsters to re-spawn or perhaps try to take on the mentality of oh someone beat me too it (similar to real life) no point reinventing the wheel and continue on your way.

Talmet

Or, you can behave as if the game was real.

If it was, and you were running into a cave to kill some skeletons & a big bad boss skeleton and stuff...what would you do if you saw someone else fighting the skeletons?

You could just stand there and watch sure...or you could run up and fight the skeletons together. You can talk to the other person if you want, but you don't have to, you can just be two adventurers who happen to meet in a cave killing skeletons.

As for the puzzles, you can watch other players, or not. I tend not to, because most of the time I assume the order the other players are doing is wrong....when in doubt, assume a random person you meet is doing something wrong. Maybe they are correct, but most/all people are dumb at least sometimes, and some people are stupid always...so on average, people do things incorrectly more often than correctly.

Krynethos

The problem isn't that I find someone battling the skeletons.. its that I find 10 people standing around and the skeletons already long dead.

The sheer amount of people standing in one compact area means having enemies to fight is often hard. Maybe that will get better outside of the starting areas?

As to instancing currently being in place... sure... but then I just have a bunch of people fighting invisible things all over the place. Its like half way instancing and is almost as bad.

lesso wrote: »

Some areas are already instanced as is if your in the main world type quests then chances are other players will be either in front or behind you, being a healer myself I like to run up to them watch them fight until almost dead then heal them and smile.

I get that you wanted to solve the puzzle yourself or kill the monsters but you don't have to watch others solve it and you can wait for the monsters to re-spawn or perhaps try to take on the mentality of oh someone beat me too it (similar to real life) no point reinventing the wheel and continue on your way.

I don't quite follow the logic there to be honest. To enjoy the game I should change my mentality to ignore the parts of the game that make it not fun? If I could do that, theoretically I could simply enjoy any game at all by just mentally forcing myself to enjoy what it has to offer.

I enjoy the structured multiplayer mmos have to offer in the form of pvp and dungeons, open world exploration/confrontation, etc. But when dealing with story elements and dungeon delving in quests, I often simply feel it is better to have more control over your environment through instancing. It just works better with atmosphere and telling a story imo.