Official Discussion Thread for "Update 44 Preview—Battlegrounds, New Companions, & More!"

ZOS_Kevin

This is the official discussion thread for, "Update 44 Preview—Battlegrounds, New Companions, & More!"

"Learn about the upcoming Update 44 base-game patch, including major changes to Battlegrounds, new Companions, and more."

LunaFlora

thanks for making a nonbinary companion.
i love Tanlorin already from what we've been told and shown.




Zerith also looks awesome! and it's cool that he's connected to Azura and from the past.



the Dwemer mines home in Greymoor Caverns looks beautiful and so does the Grand Gallery of Tamriel in the Rift.

the new Battlegrounds look pretty and i can't wait to try them out.

imperial city curation makes me very happy! i can finally complete my sets easily

Moonspawn

the 8v8 will be solo only, right? or will solos be getting matches against premades of 8?

Xandreia_

so annoyed that again pvp'ers have not been heard and instead of the Cyrodiil updates we have been begging for, for years there is BG updates... compared to the amount of Cyrodiil requests that have been posted over the years, BG requests have been minimal. even if cyrodiil updates were visual with changes to battle spirit and maybe rewards, so many pvp'ers would be happy compared to how many pvp'ers are now annoyed that again they have gone unheard!

I went into today's reveal with a open mind and left severely disappointed

LunaFlora

Xandreia_ wrote: »

so annoyed that again pvp'ers have not been heard and instead of the Cyrodiil updates we have been begging for, for years there is BG updates... compared to the amount of Cyrodiil requests that have been posted over the years, BG requests have been minimal. even if cyrodiil updates were visual with changes to battle spirit and maybe rewards, so many pvp'ers would be happy compared to how many pvp'ers are now annoyed that again they have gone unheard!

I went into today's reveal with a open mind and left severely disappointed

we were told in January that the pvp feature was not going to be related to Cyrodiil.

Xandreia_

LunaFlora wrote: »

Xandreia_ wrote: »

so annoyed that again pvp'ers have not been heard and instead of the Cyrodiil updates we have been begging for, for years there is BG updates... compared to the amount of Cyrodiil requests that have been posted over the years, BG requests have been minimal. even if cyrodiil updates were visual with changes to battle spirit and maybe rewards, so many pvp'ers would be happy compared to how many pvp'ers are now annoyed that again they have gone unheard!

I went into today's reveal with a open mind and left severely disappointed

we were told in January that the pvp feature was not going to be related to Cyrodiil.

i am aware which is why i said i was going into the stream with an open mind. its just annoying that time after time the pvp community are going unheard!

React

@ZOS_Kevin Could we have confirmation on group size limits for the two queues? The solo queue option, which brian wheeler said was being removed, was the only way to avoid fighting premades as a solo player. Will the 8v8 playlist allow 8 man groups?

karthrag_inak

3-sided battle was the high point of BGs for khajiit. Oh well, there goes battlegrounds.

Jsmalls

We as the PvP community have serious concerns for the PvP content being introduced with update 44 and for PvP content for years to come .

Introducing a 8v8 that is completely Open que will very quickly kill the content. There are players (like myself) that have been playing for 10 years and you're expecting new players to compete against us?

The same issue will exist for 4v4 if it's open Que. Pre-made 4 Man groups will decimate any uncoordinated group there is. Group comp is extremely powerful in this game with the cross healing and group buffs available. If you are depending on MMR to separate top tier players from average players then que times are going to be horrendous (what were are currently experiencing on Live). Additionally if I'm a high MMR player that means queuing as a Solo player would be a death sentence.

Not to mention the 1 life ruleset is going to push this content to low damage, Tanky builds, which the vast majority of the community agrees... ISN'T FUN. No one wants to sit there doing 6k DPS on a brick. You said it yourself on live, if you go into PvP expect to die. The one life ruleset punishes this. I'm very skeptical on this.

For the 8v8 open Que concept to succeed you would need to drastically nerf cross healing that is present (1 instance of each HoT is the bare minimum).

But ultimately... There is a reason why Battlegrounds is "dead" content. I know you'll never release the actual numbers but I know you have the data... Open world Cyrodiil is you're most popular PvP content and even that has dwindling numbers.

You need to build in PvP integration into the game at early levels and give new players an Area where they can actually grow as PvPers (< Level 50 Cyrodiil is a failure from things like running around with no mount speed to veteran players in all gold level 25 gear griefing the server).

There is strong evidence that battleground will be equally as low participation a month after this content releases.

Fix the servers, Update Cyrodiil, Save Cyrodiil.

Necrotech_Master

i think it sounds interesting, good to see that existing BG modes will still be included so there wont be any unobtainable achievements

i really really hope that for all that is holy, the companion intro quests are not ridiculously long if we are going to be forced to do them on every character

while i would really like to enjoy them, i likely wont get to use them much because depending on how annoying their quests are will determine if i bother unlocking them on more than 2 characters

deadpool3431

I think most people would agree that we wanted a cyrodiil update. Yes I know it was announced that we weren't getting one. I certainly did not expect to, but players in general don't like bg's. Pve'ers do them for xp and transmutes so I imagine that artificially boosts the popularity of it and makes it look like more people enjoy it.
People like to head into cyrodiil and see what mischief they can get up to without being on a timer. They can do all sorts of different things that they want to because it's a sandbox. I intend to try the new bg system, but I fully expect to treat it the same way I do the existing system and ignore it or use it as a time killer while waiting in the long GH queue. I'm old and busy. I don't have as much time to play as I used to. Would have been nice to see a cyrodiil update. New zone, new conditions , even just an updated battlespirit to kill heal stacking and reduce ttk would have been nice. I have a screenshot saved somewhere with 40something echoing Vigor on me from just standing next to a ball group. That's unnecessary and it's what makes people not want to play.

Tommy_The_Gun

My thoughts:
1. Battle Grounds & IC: Not my cup of tea, so I am neutral here. For as long as BGs & IC are not forced on me to do (Endeavours, mythic lead etc) it is fine I guess.
2. New Scribing skill: It looks like Ball Groups wet dream... Does the game really need another buff for the most broken play style that was pretty much never properly adjusted (and I mean like never & ever over 10 years) ? ? ? ?
3. New Companions: I was really thinking that it will be the High Elf that will be the necromancer & Khajiit will have other skills. Also.... a necromancer companion is something that would fit perfectly for an Argonian companion - Kinda like a tribe's shaman / witch archetype (female Argonian companion is something that will happen eventually).
4. Golden Pursuits: I am not sure what to think. "New activity" part is good, but I fear that it might be another "we want you to play this & that" type of mode that will exploit fomo. I prefer when ESO stays true to it's motto: "play as you want".

Aliyavana

please dont abandon balfiera. taking out the tutorial is fine, but we are now losing our only direnni content in the game. the base game is already oversaturated with ayleid content on base game high rock. now direnni are not going to have any content left. please do something again with balfiera in the future

Sarannah

Golden pursuits... is that similar to a battle pass in other games? Sounds interesting, but I am worried we are getting too much stuff with a fixed timer. Daily quests, daily dungeon, daily BG, daily endeavours, weekly endeavours, and now golden pursuits. At some point there will be no more time to actually play the game, but we start/are getting dictated on what to do with 100% of our playtime. This is a high risk for a game burn-out and a game starting to feel like a chore.

The new companions, can't wait!!! Love them already.

Not a PvPer, but I always found the three team 4-4-4 dynamic interesting. As when one team is stronger, you could face the other one. Also, how does this work for the daily BG reward? Right now only the top two teams get the daily reward, how does that work with only two teams? I'm actually worried for the PvP community, that 8 vs 8 is even less sustainable than three 4 man teams, as a BG of 8vs8 would now require 16 players instead of 12. And 12 was already often giving issues to fill the teams.

Very interesting: Quest pips for master writs? What does that mean exactly?

Is the new grimoire "Banner Bearer" a passive skill instead of a usable skill?

Request: Use all the old tutorials, except coldharbour, to introduce new companion unlocks in the future. So these areas are still playable and we have a reason to do so.

thegreeneso

I love the tutorial change. The OG tutorial does a much better job at pulling you into the story than Balfiera. It also immediately drops you into your alliance questline without any confusing portals. Great change.

Necrotech_Master

Sarannah wrote: »

Golden pursuits... is that similar to a battle pass in other games? Sounds interesting, but I am worried we are getting too much stuff with a fixed timer. Daily quests, daily dungeon, daily BG, daily endeavours, weekly endeavours, and now golden pursuits. At some point there will be no more time to actually play the game, but we start/are getting dictated on what to do with 100% of our playtime. This is a high risk for a game burn-out and a game starting to feel like a chore.

The new companions, can't wait!!! Love them already.

Not a PvPer, but I always found the three team 4-4-4 dynamic interesting. As when one team is stronger, you could face the other one. Also, how does this work for the daily BG reward? Right now only the top two teams get the daily reward, how does that work with only two teams? I'm actually worried for the PvP community, that 8 vs 8 is even less sustainable than three 4 man teams, as a BG of 8vs8 would now require 16 players instead of 12. And 12 was already often giving issues to fill the teams.

Very interesting: Quest pips for master writs? What does that mean exactly?

Is the new grimoire "Banner Bearer" a passive skill instead of a usable skill?

Request: Use all the old tutorials, except coldharbour, to introduce new companion unlocks in the future. So these areas are still playable and we have a reason to do so.

from another topic on going on feeding info from the stream, banner bearer will be a toggle, that will have to be double barred to stay active during weapon swaps, and while toggled on provides basically a passive aura

Zachary_Shadow

Aliyavana wrote: »

please dont abandon balfiera. taking out the tutorial is fine, but we are now losing our only direnni content in the game. the base game is already oversaturated with ayleid content on base game high rock. now direnni are not going to have any content left. please do something again with balfiera in the future

I assume that's why they are retiring that tutorial and bringing back the main quest as the tutorial. Given how many tutorials ZOS introduced before the Balfiera one became the standard and highlighted ESO's "choose where and how you play" style, I can't see why they'd change it once more besides wanting to use the Isle and the Adamantine Tower elsewhere. That's my hope, at least, as these tutorial changes highlight how much time and money was used in the previous tutorials that could have been used elsewhere given players can't play them any longer (which was and still is a missed opportunity given the context they provide when starting in those Chapters).

colossalvoids

Have a lot of concerns about BGs but will reserve it until actual patch notes and testing by some other competent players, retired from testing myself quite a time ago. It might be a good thing if the players are heard in all PTS cycles, unlike some recent years and if it would come polished without relying on us to bug report everything, you have paid peeps for that.

Companions are no opinion topic, doesn't matter in a slightest.

New daily system sounds terrible tbh as all the FOMO things like endeavours or daily rewards just decreased my will to engage with those and the game in general. More of those things ain't gonna help. Imo rewards should be static and content based, you are doing some of the hardest and trickiest things in game - the best rewards, you're just participating in random activities - pat on a back, good job, that's the game. Tot things locked behind tot play, housing with crafting and housing, PvE related mythics and general gear from PvE etc.

Tldr: reward system is bad, it's continue to be bad no matter how many free junk you throw on top. People want good and likeable things, also not random junk - not a trebuchet emote for PvP or a dance or a memento from trifecta. Things like emperor manor/castle, mounts and high quality motifs, obviously high demand gear like some ability altering weapons were for pve and pvp years ago.

Ingenon

My thoughts:
1. Battle Grounds & IC: I only do PvP when there is an event that requires me to do something in Cyrodiil/Imperial City/Battlegrounds to get the event tickets. Hopefully the folks that like PvP will enjoy this part of the update.
2. New Scribing skill: Not sure how I would use Banner Bearer from the Support Skill Line since I rarely PvP. But if it can be useful for a PvE trial or dungeon group, then I will need to look at this more.
3. New Companions: I want the new passive perks! Not sure if the new companions will get unlocked on all my alts, I already have alts that only have 2 companions unlocked, and I already have 6 companions leveled.
4. Golden Pursuits: I am not sure how this will work for me. There are days I don't get to play at all, or just for a few minutes. And other days where I have enough play time to complete a DLC trial. But if the Golden Pursuit limited time windows are at least multiple days, then I would enjoy them.
5. New Houses: They look nice! However, I already have multiple houses, and some of mine are still are not decorated.

Necrotech_Master

my overall perception of the changes:

• BG updates: it sounds interesting, the current system had a horrible MMR system that made me not want to play it because it constantly matched me up against full pvp tryhard sweats purely because ive been around the system so long, so i think in general this is a positive because now it will have a competitive and casual modes, kind of like tribute
• IC updates: really happy with more curated gear, might actually be able to finish that gear out now, will be interesting to see what other items are added to the new vendors
• companions: more interested in the necromancer than the other dk, though i am interested to see what skill differences the dk has compared to bastian. and for the love of god please dont make the intro quests ridiculously long
• golden pursuits: not a huge amount of info on this but it sounds like an alternative type of endeavor, which i wouldnt mind having some more variable tasks to do to add variety
• new houses: always like my free ports lol, almost up to 80 houses and probably only have a small handful which have any actual work into them
• bringing back the old tutorial: i love this, and to be honest i never did any other alternate tutorial in this game lol, i think it makes sense considering the main focus of the game is molag bal and the planemeld

princesspurpleblob

LunaFlora wrote: »

the Dwemer mines home in Greymoor Caverns looks beautiful and so does the Grand Gallery of Tamriel in the Rift.

Where is info/pics on this?? I didn't see it in preview notes.

LunaFlora

princesspurpleblob wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

the Dwemer mines home in Greymoor Caverns looks beautiful and so does the Grand Gallery of Tamriel in the Rift.

Where is info/pics on this?? I didn't see it in preview notes.

they were shown in the livestream
https://www.twitch.tv/bethesda/v/2247685867?sr=a&t=3966s

WySoSirius

Sarannah wrote: »

Golden pursuits... is that similar to a battle pass in other games? Sounds interesting, but I am worried we are getting too much stuff with a fixed timer. Daily quests, daily dungeon, daily BG, daily endeavours, weekly endeavours, and now golden pursuits. At some point there will be no more time to actually play the game, but we start/are getting dictated on what to do with 100% of our playtime. This is a high risk for a game burn-out and a game starting to feel like a chore.

Couldn't agree more . The constant FOMO work ethic in this game is getting to be too much

16BitForestCat

As a nonbinary person myself (and a member of an ancient indigenous society that has always acknowledged more than two sexes/genders as Just Simple Fact), I'm really pleased to see more nonbinary representation in ESO.

Though Tanlorin's hair brings me to my longstanding QOL request yet again: please let us dye our hair without changing the hairstyle! I really, really, really want my Azure Ombre hair with the Barbaric Windblown style I prefer (in the absence of other longer, messier hairstyles. Still want hair like a Nocturnal Shrike since that's closest to my [also nonbinary] character's own in canon. XD)

Also, the tutorial should never have been changed away from "Soul Shriven in Coldharbour" to begin with, though I do really prefer the way you start the quest now, with the "Hooded Figure" (yeah, honey, we recognize you *LOL*). Much more interesting to me than just waking up in a cell in Coldharbour already Soul Shriven. Changing the tutorial quest away from that only confused new players and made a lot of longtime players grumble at the unnecessary change and how it confused those new players. So I really do like that we're going back. Great job!

But this comes to another longstanding QOL request: please don't throw away all those other tutorial quests! A lot of them were really fun, and I'm sad I only got to experience most of them once before they were deprecated in favor of the next shiny new tutorial. Can you please just make the deprecated tutorials into normal quests everybody can do? They can be integrated into the zone story they're associated with or something.

ketsparrowhawk

Jsmalls wrote: »

We as the PvP community have serious concerns for the PvP content being introduced with update 44 and for PvP content for years to come .

Introducing a 8v8 that is completely Open que will very quickly kill the content. There are players (like myself) that have been playing for 10 years and you're expecting new players to compete against us?

The same issue will exist for 4v4 if it's open Que. Pre-made 4 Man groups will decimate any uncoordinated group there is. Group comp is extremely powerful in this game with the cross healing and group buffs available. If you are depending on MMR to separate top tier players from average players then que times are going to be horrendous (what were are currently experiencing on Live). Additionally if I'm a high MMR player that means queuing as a Solo player would be a death sentence.

Not to mention the 1 life ruleset is going to push this content to low damage, Tanky builds, which the vast majority of the community agrees... ISN'T FUN. No one wants to sit there doing 6k DPS on a brick. You said it yourself on live, if you go into PvP expect to die. The one life ruleset punishes this. I'm very skeptical on this.

For the 8v8 open Que concept to succeed you would need to drastically nerf cross healing that is present (1 instance of each HoT is the bare minimum).

But ultimately... There is a reason why Battlegrounds is "dead" content. I know you'll never release the actual numbers but I know you have the data... Open world Cyrodiil is you're most popular PvP content and even that has dwindling numbers.

You need to build in PvP integration into the game at early levels and give new players an Area where they can actually grow as PvPers (< Level 50 Cyrodiil is a failure from things like running around with no mount speed to veteran players in all gold level 25 gear griefing the server).

There is strong evidence that battleground will be equally as low participation a month after this content releases.

Fix the servers, Update Cyrodiil, Save Cyrodiil.

You don't speak for the entire pvp community. My guild (which is battlegrounds-focused) is ultra hyped for this update.

Jsmalls

@ketsparrowhawk

I see you semi regularly in Solo Que BGs (I prefer Cyrodiil which is where I spend most of my time PvPing)

Are you aware that solo que is being eliminated and you will have no choice but to go up against coordinated 4 mans?

I'm not saying this content won't have a niche, it absolutely will, and I'm looking forward to aspects of it. But let's not pretend BGs isn't struggling right now. Group ques are a disaster for que times in higher MMR. And solo ques aren't exactly quick...

Edit: Kevin made a post saying 8v8s will have a max group que size of 4 players. This is definitely something very positive. No MMR in 8v8 will still lead to a very poor experience for a lot of players though (keep in mind I'm making this statement for the community, I PvP at a very high level and will greatly benefit from a system where there is no MMR... But I'll still feel bad doing it.)

RaddlemanNumber7

I'm most interested in the revamp of the old Wailing Prison tutorial. I've a feeling that writing Norianwe and the Balfiera tutorial out of my character backstories is going to be a pain. Starting at the Zero Tower links into so much old Lore, I love it.

Major_Mangle

Absolutely love the changes coming with this update, not only regarding the battlegrounds but some of the QoL changes and new updates for scribing and IC looks amazing.

Please keep the competitive 4v4 for groups. If people want a somewhat decent solo experience for battlegrounds limit how many you can queue as in the 8v8 instead (maybe limit it to duo at most?). But don't change the 4v4 format. A competitive scene should cater to a group focused audience imo.

Elsonso

ketsparrowhawk wrote: »

Jsmalls wrote: »

We as the PvP community have serious concerns for the PvP content being introduced with update 44 and for PvP content for years to come .

Introducing a 8v8 that is completely Open que will very quickly kill the content. There are players (like myself) that have been playing for 10 years and you're expecting new players to compete against us?

The same issue will exist for 4v4 if it's open Que. Pre-made 4 Man groups will decimate any uncoordinated group there is. Group comp is extremely powerful in this game with the cross healing and group buffs available. If you are depending on MMR to separate top tier players from average players then que times are going to be horrendous (what were are currently experiencing on Live). Additionally if I'm a high MMR player that means queuing as a Solo player would be a death sentence.

Not to mention the 1 life ruleset is going to push this content to low damage, Tanky builds, which the vast majority of the community agrees... ISN'T FUN. No one wants to sit there doing 6k DPS on a brick. You said it yourself on live, if you go into PvP expect to die. The one life ruleset punishes this. I'm very skeptical on this.

For the 8v8 open Que concept to succeed you would need to drastically nerf cross healing that is present (1 instance of each HoT is the bare minimum).

But ultimately... There is a reason why Battlegrounds is "dead" content. I know you'll never release the actual numbers but I know you have the data... Open world Cyrodiil is you're most popular PvP content and even that has dwindling numbers.

You need to build in PvP integration into the game at early levels and give new players an Area where they can actually grow as PvPers (< Level 50 Cyrodiil is a failure from things like running around with no mount speed to veteran players in all gold level 25 gear griefing the server).

There is strong evidence that battleground will be equally as low participation a month after this content releases.

Fix the servers, Update Cyrodiil, Save Cyrodiil.

You don't speak for the entire pvp community. My guild (which is battlegrounds-focused) is ultra hyped for this update.

You are OK with the new battlegrounds replacing the 3-way ones?

MAOofDC

karthrag_inak wrote: »

3-sided battle was the high point of BGs for khajiit. Oh well, there goes battlegrounds.

Yeah this is the one decision I don't understand. Can they not have two different versions of battlegrounds? They have already said the tri fights might return so why take them away in the first place?

Wolfkeks

1. Major Battlegrounds Update
I like the idea of new bgs but I'm not sure how I feel about loosing 4v4v4 in the process. I reserve judgement until I tried it. The new format where you can turn into a werewolf or vampire lord looks fun though! Had hoped for some Cyro news but oh hey.



2. New Companions
So far they look interesting. And they choose good voice actors!

Choosing Darin De Paul for Zerith-var is a good choice! The voice actor of J Jonah Jamerson from Spiderman 2 is extremely talented but I couldn't help but think him saying "The Vestige: Threat or Menace?"
Quest line wise it looks like Zerith-var will be a devoted cat while Tanlorin is more mischievous. (According to Andrew)


For Vico Ortiz it looks like this will be their first voiceactor role in a video game but they did an really good job with their role in Our Flag Means Death so I can't for Tanlorin's voice


Not sure how I feel about companions going into the crown store. Looks like a slippery slope tbh.

3. Scribing Powers Up (Your Whole Party)

As a slowpoke I'm still working on the other Scribing Powers so not much to say here
Banner Bearer looks good though. But needs to be tested on PTS.

4. Update to the In-Game Tutorial

Add more to Er-Jaseen, the Argonian holding the door please!


While I'm happy they're gonna improve this intro I kinda hope they would bring back a way to play through the other older tutorials like the one from Elsweyr.

5. Imperial City Itemization Improvements

Thank you! Curation was needed!

6. Golden Pursuits

Depends how they implement it. Hoping it won't be a big grind but more of something fun to do now and then.

7. New Skill Styles

Need more colors!