The Road Ahead - July 8, 2014

Jaxom

My dream as a Pink PowerRanger skulking in the shadows in Cyrodiil shal be realized!!! Can't wait for the "Oh god, it's the guy wearing a pink dress again"

Frankenstein359eb17_ESO

From left to right (and from top to bottom) :

- Scorpion (Mortal Combat)
- Iron Woman (cus boobs)
- Wonder Woman
- Green ... i mean Pink Arrow
- Captain Aldmerica
- Poison Ivy

arkanidous

it alll sounds great but only problem i have is with drop rates of lvl50 and v5 purple recipies that are breaking the economy i mean 850k to 1 mil for a v5 consumate recipie is plain stupid

GTech_1

@ZOS_GinaBruno‌
Miss Gina,
I would like to get some updates, if you have the time.

Heavy Armor skill tree:
I started a PTS thread about this a while back, and it has gathered some very good ideas from the community.
Link: forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/115908/skill-change-request-s-heavy-armor-skill-tree

• Has the Dev team considered any of these improvements?
• And are there any updates you can release on the future of the Heavy Armor tree?

Dye system:
IMO, the comments about the colors being a bit "cartoony" come from the glossy look (high reflectivity) of the armor coloring.

• Will the Dye system incorporate a way to reduce the reflectivity? Something like a "Glossy <-> Matte" slider?
• Also, will dye colors be gated behind achievements as some have speculated? Or will access to the colors be gained in some other way, such as a crafting skill passive?

Thanks for any info

demonlkojipub19_ESO

So how good will the creation of equipment be in the end when they start adding all the uber dropped gear? Will the crafter simply be reduced to the hireling and the upgrade mat reduction trait?

Daveon

Frankenstein359eb17_ESO wrote: »

- Green ... i mean Pink Arrow

Wrong franchise. That's Marvel's Hawkeye.

p_tsakirisb16_ESO

I would love to see the option to be able to craft VR12 armour by using lower level materials like eg Hide. (if we have level 50 clothing and 9/9 tailoring, or add another passive) Same should apply on all 3 crafts.

Why?

eg Khajiit hide medium armour, tampered to epic-legendary, looks really amazing, and similar to the one Lord Gharesh-ri has.
And possibly miles better looking, than trying to colour them with dyes.

Hamfast

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hamfast wrote: »

Armor Dyes does look promising, but the truth will be in the implementation...

Who will be able to Dye armor?

Will Dyes be crafted? By Who? At what (item) cost?

It looks like Dyes (or at least some Dyes) will be tied to achievements, how will one get those achievements? Will dye granted by the achievement require the achievement be repeated the next time you wish to use the dye?

Will Dyes be applied differently to different armor, to different armor types, to Different Crafting Types? Will I be able to dye/lacquer my weapons? (Dyes for Light and Medium, lacquer for Heavy, Stains for Wood)

Will Dyes, Like Traits, only be able to be applied when the armor is being crafted or can they be applied/reapplied later? will a light color dye cover a dark colored dye?

Will there be a separate "Wash" used to remove dyes?

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but the thousand words can explain a lot more things then the picture.

These seem like excellent questions for a future Ask Us Anything!

@ZOS_GinaBruno‌, I am still waiting for the "Ask Us Anything!" thread/discussion...

Any chance it will be soon?

Artighur

Daveon wrote: »

Frankenstein359eb17_ESO wrote: »

- Green ... i mean Pink Arrow

Wrong franchise. That's Marvel's Hawkeye.

Looked more like the Huntress (DC)

Elad13

Since it seems the next big issue is going to be how the color look too cartoonish... maybe this will catch someones eyes before the changes are made.

to appeal to a wide audience make the dyes like layers....1 dye would be more like a tint...2 dyes a little more vibrant and 3 dyes totally solid paint type look (like what is shown) this way you can have people on the more muted style happy and those on the "i want to stand out a mile away" side happy as well.....just an idea to fit a wide range of tastes.

Over all the new changes and the road ahead keeps my interest high enough to stay subbed....thank you for addressing issues...even when the results are not the best.

arkansas_ESO

For those complaining about pinks and blues being a part of the dye system, I'd like to point out that there's already pink and blue gear in ESO.





The problem isn't with the range of colors, it's with the bright colors being put on shiny plate armor. In the current game, heavy armor comes in mostly metallic colors. You've got your grays, your blacks, your golds, your blues, and a bold green from the Ancient Elf VR12 armor. There are no candy apple reds or canary yellows.

I'd much prefer it if they would tone down the colors on shiny armor like plate armor, to help counteract the shine of the armor and remove that cartoony feel people are complaining about.

kirnmalidus

GTech_1 wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno‌
Miss Gina,
I would like to get some updates, if you have the time.

Heavy Armor skill tree:
I started a PTS thread about this a while back, and it has gathered some very good ideas from the community.
Link: forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/115908/skill-change-request-s-heavy-armor-skill-tree

• Has the Dev team considered any of these improvements?
• And are there any updates you can release on the future of the Heavy Armor tree?

Dye system:
IMO, the comments about the colors being a bit "cartoony" come from the glossy look (high reflectivity) of the armor coloring.

• Will the Dye system incorporate a way to reduce the reflectivity? Something like a "Glossy <-> Matte" slider?
• Also, will dye colors be gated behind achievements as some have speculated? Or will access to the colors be gained in some other way, such as a crafting skill passive?

Thanks for any info

Dye unlocks will be tied to achievements. They've made this pretty clear and the PTS 1.3 patch notes released today further clarify how it will work (http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/118546/pts-patch-notes-v1-3-0).

As far as the dye colors go, I'm personally OK with people being able to make bright/terrible combinations. I'll be using the closest colors I can find to camouflage and ganking the idiots in neon/power-ranger armor all day.

xgraceling

When can we expect this update? I may have missed it but I don't see a date mentioned anywhere for Update 3.

Selique

The colors are great. They aren't bad, and they FIT fine with the rest of the game. Nothing looked out of place in those screenshots.

WHY would anyone deny me the right to dye ANY piece of armor I make or loot the color I want? What if I told you you couldn't wear your drab boring colors because I don't like them?

Navithra

I'm sorry if someone already posted this, but I thought that I might throw my two cents at the folks at Zenimax Online!

You mentioned that you're working on combat. Since you're already poking at it with a stick, it's been suggested by several people that fatalities would be a lot of fun!

1. You aren't working with PG 13 game restrictions anymore. As a Rated M game, it opens the opportunity for some -awesome- animations, and of course a good dose of violence.
2. Fatalities give every player that second of 'Oh, damn, I'm awesome."
3. The over value of combat feels a bit more fun!

Otherwise, I feel great about the changes you're introducing. The change notes on PTS are awesome, and I'm glad you threw in a couple more emotes for us role-playing folks!

p.s.
I'm also really glad you're making additions to armor. I'd really like to see more diverse armor compared to current in game helmets and hoods. Some of the head gear looks a wee' bit silly.

- Navi.

DesertMouse

I am completely baffled by the calls to cut any "bright" choices from the armour dyes. The internal testers decided to have a little fun and mimic comic book characters with it, and people seem to be losing their minds over it. this is a system that I am very much looking forward to, and I hope that they keep the same ability to choose your style as the game keeps for most of its systems.

Please don't limit that choice because a few people don't like a colour. They don't have to use it, and it you aren't going to see 1000's of people running around trying to mimic burning crusade levelling armour looks. You may find a few people doing that, but that shouldn't ruin it for the rest of us.

arkansas_ESO

DesertMouse wrote: »

The internal testers decided to have a little fun and mimic comic book characters with it, and people seem to be losing their minds over it.

It's because we know it's possible for people to use these bright colors on armor. If the choice is there, people will use it.

DesertMouse wrote: »

Please don't limit that choice because a few people don't like a colour. They don't have to use it

But they will have to see it.


If toning down the colors on plate armor is off the table, then give me a way to turn off armor dying on my end. I'd rather not have any dyes at all than see gaudy armor combinations.

Rhoric

They aren't gonna change it cause you don't like bright colours. You are a vocal minority. I am fine with the colours. If people want to have an outlandish colour scheme that is their choice. If it makes them stand out from other players that is up to them not you.

timidobserver

I am amazed by the amount of people that are straight-faced and seriously saying "only dye colors that I like should be available."

kirnmalidus

Xnemesis wrote: »

a werewolf would be awesome if, when you have your Ultimate slotted, at 35% health you gain the "chance" to use a synergy that would let you go immune and change while gaining

- 25% increase to health regen while in combat
- 25% increase to stamina regen while in combat
- 10% heal when player kills an enemy monster or player
- CC immunity soft and hard cc
- 10% increase in damage against all Vampires
- Feeding increases time in form by 20 seconds stackable up to three times meaning if you kill three players you could feed on all three and have a minute.

As for abilities the wolf seems lackluster or unfinished. It would be nice to see a mitigation buff or damage debuff ability, an aoe or cleave ability, and a nice finisher.

Not sure what I would do with the wolf ultimate ability though maybe call in a pack of wolves? Or provide a group buff of some sort similar to the alliance buff?

That's a really decent idea actually, and all very lore-friendly, but if it had all of the stuff you listed from the get go and all the time it would be a tad OP.

I think some of the buffs you list should be passives that are active when it's slotted (so you have to earn/acquire and they aren't by default) or possibly morph based or from when you activate the ultimate.

For example the CC immunity is a bit much, if it is there at all it should be an actual ultimate (an answer to your question of what the ultimate would actually do), possibly a morph on a group buff ultimate you suggest like War Horn.

The health and stamina regen would probably work OK as the base buff, as those will be soft-capped by most players with min/maxed builds anyway.

zittylolb14_ESO

Another penalty imposed from the get-go that I totally dislike is the lack of gold that doesn't pay about half the items in a inventory of 60 items...there is even armor that pays no gold but you can pickup and or get from drops.....really what is the goal here in not paying for items that are actually worth alot more than O gold.

Great you can now pickup items that don't pay anything.....who came up with this one? ah yes confussuch the economy so players lack any gold....just keep grinding away until you cancel you sub? Wait you are making it easier to cancel subs? The logic in this game is so lame...typical corporation dummyness....lets make a killing that kills are long term profits but makes killer money now.....You folks are so stupidly-lame-brains...this game isn't fun...what fun was in it has worn thinned with every nerf you have imposed on us your sub-base....well till my sub runs out....no re-up so far Mini-zini-mini. Like angry joe has said just a avg-mmo, and you are continuing the trend down-ward still?
Shame on you Bethesda for letting a group of Failed game devs from DOAC
run rough-shodding-ness on the Elder scrolls name.

zittylolb14_ESO

I applaud the fixing of the laggy-frame-rate issue. But now that ppl want to pvp again there is a que-waiting list?? Yet no idea is given to us regarding were on the list one person is or the amount of time. Basic stuff here? Get out of the profits first mode and take care of your base or there will be no profits in the future??

_subjectnamehere_

zittylolb14_ESO wrote: »

Another penalty imposed from the get-go that I totally dislike is the lack of gold that doesn't pay about half the items in a inventory of 60 items...there is even armor that pays no gold but you can pickup and or get from drops.....really what is the goal here in not paying for items that are actually worth alot more than O gold.

Great you can now pickup items that don't pay anything.....who came up with this one? ah yes confussuch the economy so players lack any gold....just keep grinding away until you cancel you sub? Wait you are making it easier to cancel subs? The logic in this game is so lame...typical corporation dummyness....lets make a killing that kills are long term profits but makes killer money now.....You folks are so stupidly-lame-brains...this game isn't fun...what fun was in it has worn thinned with every nerf you have imposed on us your sub-base....well till my sub runs out....no re-up so far Mini-zini-mini. Like angry joe has said just a avg-mmo, and you are continuing the trend down-ward still?
Shame on you Bethesda for letting a group of Failed game devs from DOAC
run rough-shodding-ness on the Elder scrolls name.

They added items worth nothing because the Elder Scrolls crowd is used to playing immersive games...if you have played Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, 90% of the items you find around the world are not of any value to you, but they do add to the immersion and realism of the world. It is quite difficult (if not impossible) to make an MMO exactly like a single-player ES game.

+1, Zenimax.

Paralyse

This definitely has me hyped for the future of ESO! Unfortunately there are three things I have not seen addressed yet that worry me the most And one minor annoyance too.

1. Still can't group and quest with friends and have no way to help them do anything due to phasing. My NB is currently parked since I can't level him while my BFF is away from the game, if he does any questing it will "break" his ability to do quests with her unless she catches up from behind. This game needs to allow you to help your friends kill stuff and defeat tough encounters including the main story. I have had more than a few friends quit who are very casual gamers and simply unable to get past Mannimarco.

2. Dungeons -- Currently there is no reason to run dungeons again once you completed it, you can't get more loot, the XP sucks... I would suggest you pick a Dungeon of the Day that offers special rewards as an incentive to run the content more than once. Also, every boss kill (named NPC) should drop at least one item specific to that boss, 100% of the time. Nothing is worse than finally killing some big bad levelled NPC and getting a couple of GP and a potion. In addition to that the dungeons should be reworked to scale with number of players, so that anyone from 1 to 20 can group up and run them and thei difficulty of the NPCs and encounters would change appropriately.

3. Ridiculously slow levelling of Enchanting. My VR1 Sorc has 30-40+ levels in Clothing, ALchemy, etc. Enchanting is like 9, despite disenchanting what has to be several hundred glyphs. Disenchanting a glyph barely moves the XP bar. As a result by the time you hit VR1 you are lucky to e able to make level 25 glyphs even DE'ing every glyph you come across and burning all your excess crafting runes to make more glyphs.

Minor annoyance: The speed at which you learn new abilities is difficult if you change your mind on game play. I decided to level resto staff at VR1 so that I can defeat Molag Bal. After doing every skyshard in AD and part of Cyro, doing the intro Cyro quests, and doing every AD quest I could find that wasnt done, while remember to switch to my resto staff/bar when turning in..I got a lousy 19 levels in Resto. Including killing every world boss in AD. There needs to be a "catch up" mechanic where if you hit a high level and want to level something else (bows, 2h, resto, whatever) the first, say, 20-30 levels are earned very very fast compared to normal. This allows players to pick different weapon styles later in their game experience (if I had known VR dang near REQUIRES resto staff to survive, I would have levelled it the whole way.)

hrdndv_ESO

I am still pushing for an innovative way to put leveled monsters in the dungeons like Oblivion so that all dungeons are always fun to play. The problem with players of a wide range of abilities can be handled individually by leveling the amount of damage they do and the amount of damage they take on an individual basis. It would be as though every dungeon was at a different level for each player. The monsters and dungeons would still be graded so that low level players would have to stay out of dungeons over their heads but high level players would always be challenged and receive leveled rewards. This would be the first step to opening up the world and removing a lot of the walls.

zittylolb14_ESO

They added items worth nothing because the Elder Scrolls crowd is used to playing immersive games...if you have played Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, 90% of the items you find around the world are not of any value to you, but they do add to the immersion and realism of the world. It is quite difficult (if not impossible) to make an MMO exactly like a single-player ES game.

+1, Zenimax.[/quote]

Don't fool me beach? I have played skyrim and you get alot of stuff....comparing skyrim to TESO.....TESO is a desert with no water just illusions on the horizon about later we have plans for that....wait till quake-con were you can ask us anything...LAME...this game reminds me of EQ and why I stopped playing it....

zittylolb14_ESO

barbg88ub17_ESO wrote: »

And yet Auriels Bow North American is still unplayable, but we are going to worry about stupid stuff, window dressing.

I just got off Auriels bow NA and blue-meanies have every keep and everything in between.....hence you are right...>Unplayable because of population imbalances.
The server is up but basically unplayable.
You get penalized for being a guest and no credits because Zenimini is to lazy to make cross-server points work....imagen people play low population servers because they still get credit...the whole setup of this game is lame-lame-lame...to many road-blocks not enuf rewards....we have a carrot on a stick you can not even see and we keep chasing a dream?...Yes the best MMO ever...NOT.
You were like Angry Joe said just avg....since that reveiw....it has dropped below avg....it basically su-ks this game...I have 3 more months of a sub but I am at the point why even bother to play.

zittylolb14_ESO

Just keep sitting on your hands and do nothing Zinimini...the max on the end you don't even deserve that.

Paralyse

zittylolb14_ESO wrote: »

barbg88ub17_ESO wrote: »

And yet Auriels Bow North American is still unplayable, but we are going to worry about stupid stuff, window dressing.

I just got off Auriels bow NA and blue-meanies have every keep and everything in between.....hence you are right...>Unplayable because of population imbalances.
The server is up but basically unplayable.
You get penalized for being a guest and no credits because Zenimini is to lazy to make cross-server points work....imagen people play low population servers because they still get credit...the whole setup of this game is lame-lame-lame...to many road-blocks not enuf rewards....we have a carrot on a stick you can not even see and we keep chasing a dream?...Yes the best MMO ever...NOT.
You were like Angry Joe said just avg....since that reveiw....it has dropped below avg....it basically su-ks this game...I have 3 more months of a sub but I am at the point why even bother to play.

Believe it or not, some of us don't care about PvP.

Not even a little bit.

Slamming the entire game as being bad just cause one minor part of it upsets you is stupid. Cyrodiil could be a broken, worthless nonevent not visited by anyone evr and it wouldn't change my opinion of the good PvE aspects one bit.

joeparadis_ESO

@ZOS_GinaBruno‌

I have a little bit of feedback on the patch 3 changes:

Armor Dyes: While I think the superhero mockups were pretty funny. I'm not sure I'd like to see a whole bunch of neon colored people running around. This is particularly peculiar and immersion breaking for us stingy role players and lore mongers. Would it be possible to add an option within the "gameplay" settings to turn off super bright colors? or maybe reduce it to a "lore friendly colors" option only so that all player's armor renders within a certain color range?

Also I noticed that many of the colors make the armor look "plastic" will there be armor polishes as well? so that you can make the metal trim more shiny/metallic looking?

And lastly will the player have default dyes available to them? or will it be like all of the other crafting trees where you have to find or purchase the dyes? I would prefer the latter as it expands the economy within the game. I don't want anything for free.

Guild Updates: I like these changes alot however I see a big problem you will run into with the "Auction" system needed in order to get a kiosk/stall to sell guild items publicly. This will easily become a 122 slot monopoly where the smaller/poorer guilds become excluded because they can't compete or grow to compete with the larger guilds. This system needs to be more fleshed out so that ANY guild that is at least a certain size (say 100 members or more) with a certain amount of items in their store (again at least 200 items) can sell their goods publicly. Maybe it's saving up and purchasing a stall that they can place in the wild somewhere or making the build kiosks/stands instance based and random? An auction only caters to the rich guilds and they will quickly monopolize the available slots. You have to make it possible for the smaller guilds to build their stores and their funds.

Werewolves: Werewolves need a serious overhaul. As many other users have pointed out they kinda suck even with the recent changes. Here is what I suggest to fix WereWolves:

1. Reduce the Ultimate cost to something more sensible. It simply takes too long to generate in comparison to other ultimates, this is also one of the main deterrents to anyone building up the WW tree.
2. Add Strong Health & stamina regen. Werewolves in lore have always been super quick and super fast healing monsters. ESO Werewolves are made of paper. Make Health regen for Werewolves similar to casting a healing spell or drinking a potion for the duration of the transformation. And maybe buff stamina regen a little more as well.
3. Nix the poison susceptibility. Never in any WW story have I ever seen them susceptible to poison and every damn archer in the game uses poison arrow so you're dead before you know it even while still in human form. The silverbolts ability is enough to counter WW. But maybe also add a couple other "silver" skills that can combat undead and WereWolves but which are also not very good against normal living targets. Why? unlike vampires who have CONSTANT power Werewolves are only powerful for a short period of time. So players should have to slot special abilities to kill WW to compensate for the fact that they are only powerful when transformed.
4. Slightly better passive health and or stamina regen while human. Nothing huge but maybe a 2/4/6% stam/health regen buff as you level up WW.
5. More active abilities. 2 active abilities are pretty lame. A really cool 3rd ability I would love to see is a knockback attack similar to the "uppercut" 2 handed sword ability that tosses people around and stuns them (think WW power attack in skyrim) Another cool active ability could be a "bite" attack that causes severe bleeding or disease dmg as a DOT and disorients them at the same time (or as a morph).
6. Berserker Morph - one of the passives here is that my attacks get faster and faster with each swipe... call me crazy but I don't really notice a speed difference here. This needs to be boosted a bit so that this effect is actually noticeable.
7. Change the damage to not be based on stamina but rather on weapon damage. it should be 2x your characters melee weapon damage. That keeps it consistent and consistently powerful enough to be called an "ULTIMATE" if push comes to shove I'd rather have ability and passive buffs over ultimate cost generation if these make WW TOO overpowered.

Stamina Builds: One of the reasons why stamina builds are broken is because nearly EVERYTHING uses stamina. Running, jumping, sneaking, dodging, blocking and THEN action skills. The cost for running, jumping sneaking and blocking need to be reduced DRASTICALLY to have stamina builds make sense. once you can do that then it make more sense to have a stamina build. To avoid reducing them too much you can also have stamina increase at the same amount as health (by +15 instead of +10 each point) when you upgrade your attributes.