Playing an Argonian would be so much more fun if you could actually swim underwater

Glorious_Platypus · August 23

All I'm saying. Title. You live by the lizard you die by the lizard. Lizard begot lizard. Okay now I'm just typing random stuff.

But really. Why can't we swim underwater? It's the WEIRDEST thing about this game and it makes ESO feel like some kind of cheaper version of the mainline games when it isn't. In every other TES game you can. I've always enjoyed exploring at the bottoms of lakes and stuff.

- Finding that random chest that pirates chucked overboard because they were about to boarded by the Imperial Navy or something?
- That chestpiece that's sitting there unexpededly and it's 98% covered with sand and grime and the only reason you saw it is because it just happened to catch the sun against the metal as you were swimming by? It's like Golum finding the One Ring or something.
- Stumbling across an entrance to an underwater cave system and there's little pockets of air and stuff in there and you find something in it that starts a whole new quest.

It just makes exploration so much better. It adds something.

Above land exploration = fine. Underwater exploration = monkey brain lights up.

DoofusMax · August 23

If you hadn't noticed, there is currently nothing below the surface of the water. ESO is not like Skyrim where the land surface was built and then traversable/swimmable/explorable water was laid on top. Water in ESO IS the surface and mostly falls into three categories: shallow enough where you can mostly move the same as on land, deep enough to trigger the swimming animation (with associated movement penalties), and "off limits" (usually populated by "slaughterfish" or something that eats your health bar to reinforce the "don't go here" idea). Traversable underwater areas in ESO require a zone transition. I'm not claiming that something like that couldn't be done in some future content expansion, but it would literally require rebuilding the world from the ground up to extend it into existing content areas. I suspect that you might enjoy the upcoming "High Seas of Tamriel" stuff, but it's still mostly two-dimensional movement across the ground with some effects to mimic an underwater experience.

Glorious_Platypus · August 23

DoofusMax wrote: »

If you hadn't noticed, there is currently nothing below the surface of the water. ESO is not like Skyrim where the land surface was built and then traversable/swimmable/explorable water was laid on top. Water in ESO IS the surface and mostly falls into three categories: shallow enough where you can mostly move the same as on land, deep enough to trigger the swimming animation (with associated movement penalties), and "off limits" (usually populated by "slaughterfish" or something that eats your health bar to reinforce the "don't go here" idea). Traversable underwater areas in ESO require a zone transition. I'm not claiming that something like that couldn't be done in some future content expansion, but it would literally require rebuilding the world from the ground up to extend it into existing content areas. I suspect that you might enjoy the upcoming "High Seas of Tamriel" stuff, but it's still mostly two-dimensional movement across the ground with some effects to mimic an underwater experience.

All they need to is add the "ground" that's under the water and make sure it stitches correctly to the shore, for all the water areas in Tamriel. Not a big ask at all.

AvalonRanger · August 23

Playing an Argonian would be so much more fun if you could actually swim underwater

I also said same opinion several years ago.

But....

If this game mech actually realize, then we need Argonian player for specific mechanism for
the grouping dungeon.

So, negative.

Glorious_Platypus · August 23

Glorious_Platypus wrote: »

All they need to is add the "ground" that's under the water and make sure it stitches correctly to the shore, for all the water areas in Tamriel. Not a big ask at all.

Seriously if you get the work flow down and sick a team of 10 interns on it they'd get it done in like a week

CatalinaWineMixer2 · August 23

I do think they should increase the Argonian swimming speed. It seems underwhelming now that we have mount swimming. It makes more sense that Argonians would be faster in the water than mounts. I am definitely not opposed to them adding underwater features later on down the road but it seems unlikely as that would be a massive undertaking. Still, I'd like to see that

DoofusMax · August 23

Glorious_Platypus wrote: »

All they need to is add the "ground" that's under the water and make sure it stitches correctly to the shore, for all the water areas in Tamriel. Not a big ask at all.

Don't forget "populating" that underwater environment, jiggering the engine to support sustained z-axis movement, and adding a breathing or breath-holding mechanic to all races. Probably a Red-Bull-all-nighter coding problem. Easy-peasy, right?

Glorious_Platypus · August 23

Well I mean there already is z axis movement because otherwise we wouldn't be able to walk up and down a hill

DoofusMax · August 23

Glorious_Platypus wrote: »

Well I mean there already is z axis movement because otherwise we wouldn't be able to walk up and down a hill

Your z-axis movement is held within some distance above the navmesh and clearing ground obstacles requires some deviation from that. You can change that by sitting on a mount, but it's still some distance above navmesh, plus or minus. You can violate that for very short intervals with jumping and falling is "descend to navmesh," with some calculation for fall damage when warranted. Surface swimming (even mounted) adheres to that basic structure.

My comment about "sustained z-axis movement" was referring to the ability to navigate while remaining outside that "distance from navmesh, plus or minus" parameter. In keyboard terms, that would be WASD plus something else to ascend/descend on the z-axis. What the game currently does for climbing (Iadders, ropes, etc.) is mostly a teleport where you interact and appear at the other end. For "High Seas of Tamriel", the diving bell is a zone transition and not anything like the similar contraption in AC Black Flag, for example.

Your original ask was for something more akin to the swimming system in Black Flag, I think. That's not something to knock out in a weekend (even one fueled by Red Bull (hashtag-notasponsor)). It took ZOS just over ten years to get to "who knew mounts could swim?" but they did that by adapting and applying the existing movement system to mounts and adding appropriate swimming animations. I'm not saying that it wouldn't be a cool add to the game, but definitely not a mere bagatelle in terms of development.

Glorious_Platypus · August 23

I was definitely being more tongue-in-cheek /smart alec, than actually saying "we can run up a hill so we should be good to go with diving underwater!"

But thank you all the same

katanagirl1 · August 24

Like they said, the water is the surface. You can only move in the z direction along a surface.

DrMedBorn · August 24

just do it already. Every game has this.

Its_MySniff · August 24

There isn't much of a point to do this. What are they gonna do, put a chest with garbage in it? Throw some armor on the sea floor? If It's ever done, make sure that going underwater is worth the effort. As things stand I believe underwater exploration would be a let down. Cheers.

valenwood_vegan · 12:27AM

I'm not a coder, and I don't work on ESO, but I definitely know I could whip this together in 48 hours!

Glorious_Platypus · 1:01AM

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

I'm not a coder, and I don't work on ESO, but I definitely know I could whip this together in 48 hours!

Exactly. Who does ZOS think we are, some kinda IDIOTS? I could probably do it in under 45 /s