Pointless

thebigMuh · May 2014

This is the main thing that comes to my mind with about 97% of the quests and encounters in this game.

I've had innumerable fights that I would describe as pointless in this game, but the last one took the cake:

I'm playing the same style I've been playing in every game since the good old pen & paper AD&D days - a paladin, with heavy armor and a big two handed sword. My class is Templar, primarily Aedric Spear, with a side dish of Restoring Light. I'm currently VR11, finishing up quests in Shadowfen, my VR8 area.

I'm on the quest "The Fangs of Sithis", and I had to 'subdue' a guy named Barvyn (turns out 'subdue' means 'reduce to 20% of hitpoints'...):
- VR8 Elite
- 8387 Hitpoints
- Dual Wield with all the trimmings

First I rocked in, not knowing he was a dual wield character, and he promptly dismantled me. OK, let's try again with a more measured approach - I slowly whacked away at him, trying to heal myself up in between.

But of course he is dual wield. Not only do his standard quick strikes hit me for 340 damage on softcapped armor (about 16% of my life per hit), but he also has an unavoidable attack that gives him a HoT, healing him for about 100 hitpoints per second.

So, while I'm wailing away at him, I notice his life stays at about 95% while my Magicka constantly goes down. And I'm thinking "Really, again?".

After about 20 minutes I defeated him with the incredible tactic of switching between my melee skills and stunning him with Blazing Spear, taking a few quick shots at him, and running away around a few broken columns in his room, regging Magicka with my staff and healing myself back up.

For twenty freaking minutes.

Who on earth thought this was an engaging, fun, interesting, balanced, enticing, or even just bearable (pick any combination of these) idea? The gameplay to 50 was really great. With a few exceptions (Harvesters in tiny rooms, I'm looking at you), the mechanics worked, fights got constantly more challenging but usually had a 'thing' that you could find out and that would allow you to defeat the encounter. But this?

Ever since hitting the VR levels, I've been getting constantly weaker with every level up. A simple pack of two Kagoutis is more dangerous than Molag Bal and Mannimarco together.

I actually forgot the point of my post while writing it; I guess it's just the sheer disappointment pouring out of me. They have this fantastic license of the Elder Scrolls (the freaking ELDER SCROLLS) to work with, and what they deliver is the *** child of WoW and... no idea what else. Especially the veteran levels feel like someone just opened the Excel sheet with all the monster stats (anyone in game development knows that Excel is the top designer tool!), applied a constant multiplier and said "Ah screw it, that will do."

I really hope they manage to do something more with this game

Ciao, Muh!

badmojo · May 2014

You're right, that post was pointless. I want my 3minutes back.

thebigMuh · May 2014

I can only offer to give you about 1:40', as that is what an average human should take to read this block of text. Sorry.

Ciao, Muh!

Sendarya · May 2014

No, I feel your pain.
I love this game. 1-50 had great quests, interesting and engaging dialogs and stories. Progression was mostly even, with a bump here and there.

Just in vet 1, and I am already feeling pain. It isn't the slow leveling, I don't mind. Obviously, sincecI have over 10 days /played and just hit vet 1 a few days ago I am not a rush to the end player.

I have also played hard, hard games. Not grind hard, but if you make a mistake the costs are high hard, such as original EQ (Corpse runs sucked), Shadowbane (your own friends could murder you and steal all your loot), and most recently The Secret World (I'm looking at you Dr Klein on NM mode, not to even mention Machine Tyrant!).

I mean, if I can beat the gatekeeper, and every NM dungeon in TSW, I freaking know how to dodge and move in combat. I can kite monsters for ages, I can switch builds and starts on the fly.

But vet levels in this game do remind me of nightmares. One mistake, just one, and kabam, dead. It would be fine really if the progression had smoothed into it, but I went from killing Molog Bol on my FIRST try (only heard to bring a heal and block the adds, other than that I had no idea how the fight would go), to struggling with trash in the first "solo" dungeon I entered in my vet 1 area. And I am wearing green through purple self crafted gear and staffs, I use top notch food buffs, and I know how to not stand in the goo!

It went from spamming 2 abilities and occasionally dodging or blocking a big attack to NO room for error. The learning curve was basically a vertical line between Coldharbor and vet 1. I think if they smoothed the difficulty in early vet zones, but left it as is in 5-12, it would be fine.

Also, I kind of feel like, why? I am not working up to better abilities, or even better gear really. I already defeated Molag Bali, there isn't even a good story reason for this super difficult progression.

I am not going to quit, this is by no means an I am u subbing post. It is just an I understand your frustrations post. I do enjoy seeing the content in the other zones, so I will keep going for that reason, though I think I might enjoy it more in it's "natural" form, from 1-50, I don't really want another alt. I have become attached to my 2 characters, and want to keep playing them, not reroll another alt so early in the game.

magickats242cub18_ESO · May 2014

Is this a good bye thread? Cuz it kinda reads like a good bye thread.

Just sayin'

Birfreben_Kinghelred · May 2014

Have you ever played an elder scrolls game on anything but Novice?

reggielee · May 2014

hate to say it but you are experiencing what me and some others are experiencing... is the gameplay enjoyable enough to keep the sub going and one that has to be addressed by the devs, the lack of long term game play. I do recommend starting another different class on another zone and enjoy that new experience until that isnt fun anymore, then if nothing changes to your liking... move on

Sendarya · May 2014

bothnutz wrote: »

Have you ever played an elder scrolls game on anything but Novice?

I don't think the real problem is that vet zones are too hard, but that progression is extremely uneven between lvl 49 and vet1.

If people have not had a lot of experience with truly difficult games, there is no training here. It goes from very easy spam 1112 done! to kill groups of 3 mobs and not even needing to dodge or block most stuff, to Molag Bal, which is honestly roflmao easy, to having 2 kaguti faceroll you with no learning curve in between.

The progression is less than smooth. This is, understandably, causing some people some issues. If 2 trash mobs feel more difficult than Molag Bali, then there should be some sort of ramping up of difficulty between those 2 encounters. As it stands, there is not.

thebigMuh · May 2014

magickats242cub18_ESO wrote: »

Is this a good bye thread? Cuz it kinda reads like a good bye thread.

Just sayin'

Nope, I'll at least finish all the quests that are here. I guess I'm just bored, and hope they come up with something that tickles my fancy.

bothnutz wrote: »

Have you ever played an elder scrolls game on anything but Novice?

Sure, and finished all of them. Did you know that difficulty settings didn't exist in ES games until it was introduced in a Morrowind patch? The Bethesda guys know how to make a riveting game without having to rely on imaginary difficulty. Story and exploration. Even though I've sunk more than a thousand hours into e.g. Oblivion, I'm sure if I fire it up and ride into the wilderness I'll be able to find an elven ruin that I've never seen before. And maybe there would be even a quirky little quest in there, without anyone leading me there on a leash...

I also happened to make (one of) the Chrysamere mods for Skyrim, which contains a rather nasty end boss. She's actually incredibly easy to defeat if you use your brain (and the Chrysamere you just picked up), and can one-shot you if you don't. Always gave me the giggles to see people whine on the steam comment section about how stupid that boss is, and they can't kill it with their fully tricked out characters.

But that's just the thing - I don't mind difficulty. If I fail to block, dodge or interrupt, I deserve to die. But enemies like the one I mentioned on top (and countless others before and after him)? There's no skill involved. My options are:

- Steamroll over the content in a group. Always an option in MMOs, but currently a bit difficult in the higher VR zones because everyone and their ma is in Craglorn looking for gratification in Trial grinds. Also, none of my friends are playing ESO because I refuse to give them a recommendation so far.

- Cave and pick one of the FOTM builds. I guess I'd be able to squish more of the content easily if I dress up in a bathrobe and wave around a destruction staff, like pretty much everyone else. Definitely not an option.

- Be tenacious. My current approach, but it just shows how stupid the design really is. They could also just randomly blank my screen for 10 seconds per minute. 'Oooh look, I managed to defeat the ebil big Foozle even tough I was blinded, how awesome is this!'.

Ciao, Muh!

Winnower · May 2014

When they nerfed the level 1-50 bosses several times, they did everyone a disfavor. The original content was harder, from back in beta up through the patch where they nerfed Doshia and several other fights.

I kept trying to tell people that if you didn't learn to do fights like Doshia the way they were that they were gonna be paying for it later.

I remember when we wiped in Fear on EQ1 and our hated enemies - the *other* raid guild [- had to drop what they were doing, and additionally recruit other players on the server to help come in and do a massive corpse run. It took 6-8 hours before everything was copacetic again, and it taught everyone involved a lot about what working together and community was.

The object lesson is that adversity - the right kind of aversity - makes games that people remember a long time.

This game should be hard. But it should be hard from the time you exit the tutorial on.

Veteran ranks have been easy everywhere I've been able to recruit others to work together in groups. And sometimes a real P.I.T.A. when I can't.

But people who play MMOs mostly don't think like that anymore.

Gisgo · May 2014

I need to know this Barvyn guy's build because my DW doesnt scare anyone...

Dayel · May 2014

I figured by the time I have leveled 4-5 characters to 50, the matter will be fixed. My 50 sorcerer is waiting for my level 12 Templar and my level 14 Nightblade and all three are doing just fine. I think time will cure the problems noted.

fyrefenix · May 2014

i dub this game, the elder mages online! -featuring archers

fyrefenix · May 2014

mean while when two veteran 4 beetles are too much for a nerfed templar to handle

aleister · May 2014

The stupidly low armor soft cap is one of the main things holding back melee'ers right now.