the other thing to consider is that sorcs are notorious for cheesing dummy parses

half of the stuff some people use for dummy parses doesnt work well in normal content

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I honestly think people hold non-binary characters to a higher standard than other characters. Like complaining about pronouns. Wisteria is a spy for the Garland Ring and a high level person within their organization. Tanlorin is her lover. Yes, the enemies would know who Tanlorin is and therefore can be expected to use the correct pronouns.

More often I see Tanlorin's gender being used as a shield so people who dare to criticize this character's writing can be silenced by labelling them as "bigots".

But yes, I actually agree that people might have higher standards when it comes to Tanlorin. Specifically LGBT+ people, actually, including people who aren't cis. I've discussed Tanlorin in my "circles", and there are people who are more than unhappy with the fact that the first non-binary character that got a bigger narration in ESO is such a dumb, obnoxious character. For many people, especially outside the USA, Tanlorin was their first contact with the topic. At all. Non-binary is not a concept in many countries; unless you follow US-American media, you won't know it even exists. People tend to stereotype, so if this is what "a non-binary character" is presented them as, what impression does that leave? Are LGBT+ people, including trans and non-binary people, not allowed to be concerned about that "representation"?

I also didn't see anyone complaining about Tanlorin's gender in this thread, by the way, just people wondering if it's plausible that enemies would know - fine, if Wisteria told them - and respect it. I don't think an enemy would be respectful.

What was also discussed was how the topic of people who aren't, or don't identify (or aren't identified by their society, which is another different thing), as either male or female could be turned into an interesting story clearly related to TES lore. If ZOS wants to make it a topic in a future story (I know it was not the topic of Tanlorin's story, but how this specific topic could come up in ESO came up in the discussion here), there's so much TES lore already there that could be built upon.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Tanlorin is also not good at everything. And is absolutely not a perfect character. Tanlorin is childish, insecure, and canonically annoying to some people.

It's a really not very intelligent person with a much too high status in the story for that level of intelligence. Too capable, and of course admired by oh so many people. It feels implausible, and that's why I said this character feels like some "Mary Sue" type character. Which isn't exactly perceived as good, skilled writing by many people.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

As for Tanlorin being childish. She has significantly less education than other Altmer and copes with trauma with humor. Which is actually a fairly common form of coping for people with depression. It's not crazy that a young adult from an abusive home has less formal education than others and uses humor to cope.

I had several friends who had a horrible life when growing up. They were intellectually absolutely on my level. I've come across the assumption, too, many times, that people who had a bad family necessarily grew up to be somehow "damaged" (mentally ill, or uneducated, or socially struggling, etc) and honestly? It's a prejudice hurting the people in question, because it makes other people immediately think of them as less capable than they really are. Which can cause trouble when it comes to school or job issues. Also, people might think of them as being troubled and therefore difficult to be around, which might make them avoid them, which is another problem.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

As for the style of humor, it is very much US early 2000s coded. I wouldn't be surprised if a Millennial American wrote it.

Then all I can say is that it doesn't function abroad. To make clear: ESO is an American product, so I don't expect it to cater to the humour of other countries. But I still want to mention that it doesn't function, as that might be interesting to know if one tries to sell a product internationally.

twisttop138 wrote: »

There should 100% be challenging content for people that can't or don't want to do vet. It's the newest dlc dungeon and we're in the era where dps are doing crazy numbers.

Um. You realize that the power creep isn't free, right? ZOS didn't press a button to magically make everyone's attacks do X% more damage. You have to do things to claim that power. You need to subclass. You need to update your gear. You need to make sure you have a proper build. If you don't do any of that, if you are still running a pureclass mag NB with False God and Mother's Sorrow like it's 2019, then you will still be doing damage like it's 2019 and there's been absolutely zero power creep for you (actually, there's been a slight power nerf).

The people who are "doing crazy numbers" are keeping up with the meta. They're reading build guides, updating their gear, playing around with subclassing, and... wait, are you sure that these are people who "can't or don't want to do vet"? Because people who do that don't belong in normals in the first place.

You have no idea what kind of people normal content is actually supposed to target. They're people who play casually, who don't update their builds, and who put skills on because it sounds nice, not because they read a guide. Or maybe they're experienced players, but leveling a character with a RND, so that character doesn't yet have a proper gear and skills. Or maybe a new player who hasn't collected the gear and is still wearing a mish-mash of stuff that they found and who doesn't know that this specific dungeon is newer and harder than the others they've seen.

If people want a challenge, that's why vet and vet HM exists.

For the record, I'm the kind of person who only does DLC dungeons on vet HM. Normals (and even regular vet) are not intended for me, so why would I want to have normal difficulty jacked out of the comfort zone for people that normals are actually intended for?

twisttop138 wrote: »

You can make the argument that it's harder than other dlc dungeons, sure. Agreed. But there is no reason to nerf it.

I dunno, "out of line with expectations" sounds like a good reason to me.



(I do want to clarify, though, that I don't completely fault ZOS for the poor balance of normal Naj. The kinds of people who test new DLC dungeons on PTS are probably not the kind of people who the normal mode is intended for, so I feel like normal doesn't get much testing and feedback as a result. Personally, all the feedback that I gave during PTS was for vet HM and I never set foot in normal until well after the live release.)

I have 20 characters (all races), its never easy to find the right looks. You will always struggle with things that dont fit.
There are so many cosmetic options in this game that it is just logical that some choices wont go with others.

JemadarofCaerSalis wrote: »

I don't know how active you are in fandom spaces (not just writing, but just in general talking about games/stories), but there are a LOT of people out there that cannot stand to have anything negative said about their favorite characters, and they dislike it when people like characters they hate.

I'm active in BG3 communities, and I see this a lot there. People really take those characters quite seriously, to the point where one girl claimed she changed her IRL name to "Astarion" and had close to breakdowns over disagreements over that character.

Fortunately I haven't run into that for ESO characters. If it has, I am completely unaware of it. The most heated discussions I have had over ESO is usually about people feeling very strongly about Jakarn. But that is still a far cry over what I see in other fandoms.

Major_Mangle wrote: »

Remove offensive AoE caps and I can guarantee you that the ballgroups you claim gets clapped will wreck havoc in Vengeance.

LMAO "offensive AoE caps"? Tell us you run in a human centipede in Gray Host without telling us you're a ball grouper. See? The highly vocal minority who thinks their silly niche play style actually takes skill.