A Response to "One Tamriel" criticism

dpencil

Criticim: RPing as loyal to your alliance makes no sense if you can go anywhere.

Response: You already can go anywhere once you are lvl 50. Pretend you're still RPing in Cadwell's Slver/Gold or just don't go to those zones early. You can choose to level exactly the way you did previously.

Criticism: Battle leveling the world removes the challenge.

Response: If you complete all quest content in the first two zones, you end up being outleveled for the entire rest of the base game's content if you don't skip anything. The most challenging content in the base game then becomes the solo Mage's and Fighter's guild quests, which are scaled to your level. For most players this change will make the game more challenging, not less, and most importantly it removes the outleveling penatly players face for participating in dlc, pvp, or group content while also playing the main zones. Now you'll be able to advance in all of the guilds simultaniously, do as much or as little of your home alliance's content as you want, gain xp boosts from random dungeons and playing pvp, and never have to worry about outleveling the rest of the content you haven't done yet.

Criticism: Battle leveling and freedom to travel everywhere removes the sense of progression and makes the idea of leveling pointless.

Response: A battle leveled level 20 character has fewer attribute and skill points than a level 50 character. They also don't have access to endgame gear. This does make lower level characters more limited and less powerful than their endgame counterparts. So there are still good reasons to want your character to get to higher levels. And as I said before, you don't have to go to other alliance zones or skip ahead if you don't want to. The game will provide the same kind of progression it would now if you played through all the zones on level, which usually doesn't even happen because you outlevel the content so fast now, especially if you take detours.

Criticism: Quest continuity will be broken if you skip to later areas.

Response: If you're doing the story for the first time and want to actually follow it carefully, don't skip ahead. If you've done it before, it likely won't matter, but if it does...don't skip ahead. Just because the option exists doesn't mean you have to take it.

Criticism: This change was not needed or requested. Don't fix what isn't broken.

Response: Battle leveling the dlcs was not a path ZOS originally had in mind when the game released in 2014. It was an experiment that was very well received by the community, and only really since the beginning of 2016 did ZOS officially decide to make all future dlcs battle leveled. It is because of this strategy of making dlcs immediately playable by new players, instead of using them as an endgame-only continuation (like a Wow level 80-100 expansion), that required consideration of battle leveling the base game. Anyone who has thought about leveling up a character while also playing through new dlc content has had to wrestle with the outleveling penalty. As more dlcs come out, the problem would get worse with every new release. One Tamriel opens the way for players to jump into the game fresh, hit the new exciting dlc content immediately, and then be able to go into the base game story without being outleveled. It incentivizes friends and guild mates to quest with lower level players because xp and loot will be appropriate to the character. This also should mean that the various underleveled sets we all wish were max will be available at max cp finally.

Criticism: This news only effects casuals, altaholics, and new players. I feel left out!

Response: We don't know yet what the remainder of 2016 has in store. We may hear more from Quakecon in August. Sure, we would have liked to get that info now, but if ZOS wants to save something for Quakecon, that's understandable. If you think about it, E3 is probably the better place to make an announcement that would be targeted at bringing new players in, while Quakecon makes more sense for the current community. And don't forget, if people are more apt to invite new players to play with them, or if more people decide to pick up the game because of the greater sense of freedom One Tamriel provides, that will mean an increased player base size and income for ZOS, which is good for all of us because it gives them more power to make more content. So even if it doesn't directly effect endgamers, it ensures more future endgame content.

Thank you ZOS for One Tamriel! It was the smartest move you could make to futureproof the base game from the many future dlcs we're sure to see in the years to come.

[Edited for typos]

Abeille

On your first point:

Thing is, there was an explanation before. Some sort of alternate timeline, some Meridia magic that put you there on the other factions. I was very fond of my Spinner's Story theory to justify why characters of other alliances in DLC maps remembered me if I didn't really do those things, too. Now it will be just regular questing, with no magical explanation.

I decided I will maintain my Spinner's Story approach to it regardless. I'm a roleplayer, I'm used to ignoring some gameplay mechanics in favor of a coherent lore.

AnnieBeGood

dpencil, that actually makes good basic sense. Thankyou.

sadownik

@dpencil

"Response: If you complete all quest content in the first two zones, you end up being outleveled for the entire rest of the base game's content if you don't skip anything. The most challenging content in the base game then becomes the solo Mage's and Fighter's guild quests, which are scaled to your level. For most players this change will make the game more challenging, not less, and most importantly it removes the outleveling penatly players face for participating in dlc, pvp, or group content while also playing the main zones. Now you'll be able to advance in all of the guilds simultaniously, do as much or as little of your home alliance's content as you want, gain xp boosts from random dungeons and playing pvp, and never have to worry about outleveling the rest of the content you haven't done yet."

Why not do it GW2 style? You cannot outlevel content because you are downleveled 0 of course you are still much stronger than players on lvl range of the map, but there is still challenge and you can die.

DDuke

dpencil wrote: »

Criticism: Battle leveling and freedom to travel everywhere removes the sense of progression and makes the idea of leveling pointless.

Response: A battle leveled level 20 character has fewer attribute and skill points than a level 50 character. They also don't have access to endgame gear. This does make lower level characters more limited and less powerful than their endgame counterparts. So there are still good reasons to want your character to get to higher levels. And as I said before, you don't have to go to other alliance zones or skip ahead if you don't want to. The game will provide the same kind of progression it would now if you played through all the zones on level, which usually doesn't even happen because you outlevel the content so fast now, especially if you take detours.

A battle leveled level 20 character has the exact same stats as a level 49 character, thus those attributes points just became worthless. Skill points don't matter, you need only one DPS skill and one healing skill on your bar to complete all of the leveling content.

You do not need level 50 stats to complete any of the leveling content - if you did, the game would be broken from the get-go for new players as everything is now on the same linear scaled difficulty.

And no, you do not "outlevel" the content - not unless you grind rather than quest.
Source: 8 max level characters leveled up by questing.


A successful game design leaves higher level areas in the game to serve as carrots to keep playing, and also to add danger to the game world. The character progression removing aspect of "One Tamriel" is the opposite of successful game design.

dpencil

@sadownik I couldn't speculate why ZOS opted for upleveling vs downleveling. They made that choice with Orsinuim and it was well received. Now it's just a matter of being consistent between base game a dlcs.

Korah_Eaglecry

From my perspective the people complaining just havent let it sink in yet. Theyre either knee jerk reacting with all kinds of assumptions (like the any race any alliance perk) or assuming ZOS is going to botch it somehow.

DDuke

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

From my perspective the people complaining just havent let it sink in yet. Theyre either knee jerk reacting with all kinds of assumptions (like the any race any alliance perk) or assuming ZOS is going to botch it somehow.

Or maybe they have seen battle leveling in games like Oblivion & Skyrim and know how that ruins games.

Catches_the_Sun

Criticism: Alliances & PvP no longer make a lick of sense. I'm supposed to be dumb enough to believe that we're all running around Tamriel like one big happy family with a war going on in Cyrodiil? Are we supposed to be oblivious to this? The battle in Cyrodiil has no impact in the game whatsoever. I was naive enough to think that Matt Firor, with his DAOC background, understood the principles that made AvA meaningful in the game. Players of different alliances running around together outside of the war in Cyrodiil has the opposite effect.

As you can tell, I hate the idea. I would have loved it, had they kept the alliances separate. In DAOC, people cared about the war going on in the Frontier because it impacted the entire Realm. Owning Relics (scrolls) impacted everything, not just "in the PvP zones". You never saw the enemy players outside the Frontier (Cyrodiil) and when you saw them in the Frontier, you couldn't understand their speech. There was a great deal of Realm pride, as everybody wanted to contribute to owning the Relics (scrolls in ESO). There was also a certain mystery around the enemy...you knew they played the same game you did, but you couldn't access each other's zones and couldn't speak to one another. It felt like a real war...like a real struggle, and it made for addictive RvR gameplay. This "One Tamriel" is making Cyrodiil feel like an oversized glorified arena that has zero impact on the game.

They had the right ideas from the start, and continue to stray from them. They wanted the scrolls to impact all areas. They wanted Guilds to fight for territory in Cyrodiil to place their guild merchants. They wanted the 3 Alliances to be separate and have that same DAOC feel. All gone, gone, gone.

sadownik

dpencil wrote: »

@sadownik I couldn't speculate why ZOS opted for upleveling vs downleveling. They made that choice with Orsinuim and it was well received. Now it's just a matter of being consistent between base game a dlcs.

Right, forgot about dlc issues.

xboxone1Q

The one tamriel tells me there is no point of trying or wanting to play this anymore. Because they will just downgrade it because people are lazy. So you can't hit vet 16 we will help you out. You have low guys we got you. You want to explore it all go ahead now we got you etc. Whats next is the grass to op now, let's downgrade that to since people don't like a challenge anyway.

luen79rwb17_ESO

Very well said OP!

I think this is a very positive change despite the fact that I don't get any personal benefit out of it since I already completed all 3 alliances.

There's still progression with this system but it's not as vertical as a traditional themepark MMO.

I can totally bet they will sooner than later remove the 1-50 Leveling and replace it with Champion System from the beggining.

All in all, this is a nice move to make ESO more ES, which was one of the major objections from several ES fans since launch.

I like it!

Korah_Eaglecry

DDuke wrote: »

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

From my perspective the people complaining just havent let it sink in yet. Theyre either knee jerk reacting with all kinds of assumptions (like the any race any alliance perk) or assuming ZOS is going to botch it somehow.

Or maybe they have seen battle leveling in games like Oblivion & Skyrim and know how that ruins games.

In Single Player games maybe. But this is an MMO and they behave differently. Youre comparing apples to oranges here.

dpencil

@DDuke How you distribute your attribute points does matter. Put all your points in magicka and it will be higher than the others, etc. This is true for battle leveled characters too. True, the effect on overall attribute numbers won't be as great as they are now, but they will still have some effect on stat distribution.

Yes the base game content is pretty easy and you don't "need" much to complete. One Tamriel won't be making the game easier unless you had a habit of going into zones that were way above your level.

When I leveled my main, I was 10 levels over the mobs in Grathwood when I finished it and moved into Greenshade. I did no grinding, just completed everything to do in Kenarthi, Auridon, and Grathwood, a few dungeon runs with some friends, and a little time getting trounced in pvp. I was never able to get back to where mobs were not at least 5 levels below me, even at vet ranks. The one exception was Craglorn, which I intentionally went to right when I hit v10 so I could experience that on level. And that was by far the most fun and challenging questing I had in the game.

MasterSpatula

DDuke wrote: »

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

From my perspective the people complaining just havent let it sink in yet. Theyre either knee jerk reacting with all kinds of assumptions (like the any race any alliance perk) or assuming ZOS is going to botch it somehow.

Or maybe they have seen battle leveling in games like Oblivion & Skyrim and know how that ruins games.

This. And maybe they were playing SWTOR when Bioware scaled the whole game. Maybe "they" even gave it an honest try for several months before giving up in disgust and coming back here to ESO, a game that hadn't been ruined by this utter disaster of a mechanic.

kadar

Catches_the_Sun wrote: »

Criticism: Alliances & PvP no longer make a lick of sense. I'm supposed to be dumb enough to believe that we're all running around Tamriel like one big happy family with a war going on in Cyrodiil? Are we supposed to be oblivious to this? The battle in Cyrodiil has no impact in the game whatsoever. I was naive enough to think that Matt Firor, with his DAOC background, understood the principles that made AvA meaningful in the game. Players of different alliances running around together outside of the war in Cyrodiil has the opposite effect.

As you can tell, I hate the idea. I would have loved it, had they kept the alliances separate. In DAOC, people cared about the war going on in the Frontier because it impacted the entire Realm. Owning Relics (scrolls) impacted everything, not just "in the PvP zones". You never saw the enemy players outside the Frontier (Cyrodiil) and when you saw them in the Frontier, you couldn't understand their speech. There was a great deal of Realm pride, as everybody wanted to contribute to owning the Relics (scrolls in ESO). There was also a certain mystery around the enemy...you knew they played the same game you did, but you couldn't access each other's zones and couldn't speak to one another. It felt like a real war...like a real struggle, and it made for addictive RvR gameplay. This "One Tamriel" is making Cyrodiil feel like an oversized glorified arena that has zero impact on the game.

They had the right ideas from the start, and continue to stray from them. They wanted the scrolls to impact all areas. They wanted Guilds to fight for territory in Cyrodiil to place their guild merchants. They wanted the 3 Alliances to be separate and have that same DAOC feel. All gone, gone, gone.

Hmm. I agree, I'd rather the alliances were kept seperate. Choosing your alliance for new players will revolve around which color you like better... Why not battle level the zones, like planned, but keep the current separation? Just to lump the populations all together?

keiyla_ESO

One thing I haven't seen brought up regarding this change, is housing.

Which is odd because it's the first place my brain went when this was announced. It makes perfect sense to me that the game would have to have merged servers and content before any kind of housing can be worked in or implemented.

It would of course depend of what kind of housing they're looking at, but there are an awful lot of empty areas in the map. If they were to implement instanced housing like star wars or Warcraft, they might need merged servers so your cross faction friends can come see your digs. And if they wanted land-grab housing ala Archeage, swg, or vanguard, they'd need the ability for anyone, of any faction or level, to be able to see everyone else .

For the latter, I was really excited for the upcoming change, merely for the possibilities.

Danksta

"This also should mean that the various underleveled sets we all wish were max will be available at max cp finally."

Are you sure about this? Or is it an assumption? If it's the latter that's a bold assumption, seeing as there are plenty of sets that drop in dungeons that don't scale to VR16/CP160.

Overall I like the idea of "One Tamriel", but I am concerned about the gathering of materials and how that will scale.

Rex-Umbra

100% Agree with OP.

dpencil

@Catches_the_Sun It looks like youre just repeating the first criticism I dealt with in the OP. Do you find it offensive to play in the Cadwell zones now? And why should other players be penalized from playing together if they want to just because you don't want to associate with players from the other alliances. That is your choice to make. Let them make theirs.

Sylveria_Relden

It's really too late now, they've already let the Khajit out of the bag... good luck getting them back in.

I do agree the alliances should have been kept separated from release- but that also would have meant they would have had to develop more content for later levels instead of lazily introducing the "Cadwells" series with Champion levels and all that.

As far as the "here and now", there's Cyrodil as the "New Frontiers" area to play in- but as far as the rest of the world Zenimax has chosen to keep it PvE-only. I doubt very seriously at this stage of the game they're going to introduce open-world PvP or anything remotely close to it in order to satisfy the PvP-centric masses.

Also, I understand their "reasons" wholeheartedly- I just don't agree with their decisions. That said, I can do either of two things with it, 1) keep playing with the limitations they've set forth or 2) quit playing and move onto something with more resemblance to my tastes.

nimander99

Rex-Umbra wrote: »

100% Agree with OP.

Yup.

Catches_the_Sun

dpencil wrote: »

@Catches_the_Sun It looks like youre just repeating the first criticism I dealt with in the OP. Do you find it offensive to play in the Cadwell zones now? And why should other players be penalized from playing together if they want to just because you don't want to associate with players from the other alliances. That is your choice to make. Let them make theirs.

No, Cadwell's Silver & Gold stories account for my current ability to explore the other Alliance's zones. The fact that I will ONLY see EP in those zones right now makes it okay. I'm completely fine with that. I am not okay with all 3 Alliances being together in overland zones while there's a WAR going on in Cyrodiil. How can you not find that ridiculous? Wait until housing comes out and the Aldmeri emperor moves in next door, lol. This is a laughable change from a PvP perspective. Cyrodiil has just become one large arena that has no impact in the "real world" of Tamriel. Next, they'll just allow us to change our Alliance affiliation in the "Alliance War" menu. The conflict in Cyrodiil is meaningless, and that's a damn shame.

Munavar

They battle leveled up to maximum level in order to address the fact that there may be many characters of any level running around in the same zone. It is a lot easier to 'add' to those players below level 50 'one time' per game session {on load or when leveled} than readjust every player (up or down) as they enter a zone.

Keep in mind that gear is battle leveled as well. Scaled in relation to the level of the gear to the player's level.

Any one looking for a challenge; do not assign CPs, wear white level 10 gear (or no gear); place all your attribute points in the 'other stat' for your build and do not assign skill points. That is about as difficult as you are going to make it. Even then, I suspect, that mudcrab will still not be much of a threat.

Neoauspex

I don't think One Tamriel makes Cyrodil significantly less meaningful, but I agree with the sentiment @Catches_the_Sun... it would simply be nice if Cyrodil was more meaningful.

One Tamriel could work really nice with a justice system or toggleable PvP: Caldwell could give you a disguise with which to romp around wherever, but if you take the disguise off in another faction or go to another faction before you have it, you're fair game. I doubt they revisit that idea though.

I do think they will be making more efforts with PvP in the near future. The changes to Imperial City are at least symbolic of that intent.

Tekyn

Neoauspex wrote: »

I don't think One Tamriel makes Cyrodil significantly less meaningful, but I agree with the sentiment @Catches_the_Sun... it would simply be nice if Cyrodil was more meaningful.

One Tamriel could work really nice with a justice system or toggleable PvP: Caldwell could give you a disguise with which to romp around wherever, but if you take the disguise off in another faction or go to another faction before you have it, you're fair game. I doubt they revisit that idea though.

I do think they will be making more efforts with PvP in the near future. The changes to Imperial City are at least symbolic of that intent.

This sums it up nicely. I think that there should be a way to toggle world PvP. You're over-complicating it though. Just make it someone you talk to in whatever city your faction uses for resetting stats. Just someone standing by the shrines. Personally I'd make it so you can't use wayshrines to teleport while it's active either, just to make it interesting.

dpencil

@Danksta Yes I am assuming (and hoping) that all gear will be level scaled to your character when you get it. That's how it works with the dlcs, and if the purpose of One Tamriel is to bring the base game into line with how the dlc's work, I don't see why we shouldn't expect the gear to scale. It is true that there are still some lingering v12-14 sets in dungeons, but we've already seen ZOS make Sanctum Orphidia fully scaled. I think we all were expecting that they'd do the same thing with the other trials and DSA eventually. This is most likely it. And if not right when One Tamriel drops it's definitely in the pipeline.

Another way to think of it would be to say that any mob or chest wouldn't have any inherent level anymore for purposes of distributing loot. It's not like the zone is still lvl 20 and drops lvl 20 loot. The loot will scale. That was confirmed in Matt's post. The only question might be if they keep a cap on some sets until they are able to properly rebalanced them for endgame use.

@Catches_the_Sun I do agree with you that it would be better if there was some world wide impact to the Cyrodil campaign. I'm not sure why they took away the buffs to PvE we had before for our alliance doing well. I would love for that to be back or some other benefit. That is a pretty tangential issue though.

About the rediculousness of having to play nice with other alliance players in your zone or being in their zone as opposed to being in your own alliance's instance of any particular zone...I'll grant that it's a fair point if RPing hate for other alliance players is your thing. Of course, then you really shouldn't use the group finder tool either, since it can put you together with members of other alliances. And don't participate in any multi-alliance guilds, or buy from multi-alliance guilds, since you would be supporting traitors. How many players do you really think care deeply enough about RPing alliance allegiance to play that way? By contrast, how many players do you think have buddies in other alliances they'd like to play with in overland content, and aren't going to care at all that their characters (from a lore perspective) shouldn't even be friends?

Hallothiel

So does this mean as a VR16 / cp whatever - if I decide to go back to my 'starter' zone I will not be able to joyfully solo it to get the dolmens / group dungeons etc I want for being a bit of a completionist. They will now level to me & I will be forced to group to do them?

That sucks.

Catches_the_Sun

dpencil wrote: »

@Danksta Yes I am assuming (and hoping) that all gear will be level scaled to your character when you get it. That's how it works with the dlcs, and if the purpose of One Tamriel is to bring the base game into line with how the dlc's work, I don't see why we shouldn't expect the gear to scale. It is true that there are still some lingering v12-14 sets in dungeons, but we've already seen ZOS make Sanctum Orphidia fully scaled. I think we all were expecting that they'd do the same thing with the other trials and DSA eventually. This is most likely it. And if not right when One Tamriel drops it's definitely in the pipeline.

Another way to think of it would be to say that any mob or chest wouldn't have any inherent level anymore for purposes of distributing loot. It's not like the zone is still lvl 20 and drops lvl 20 loot. The loot will scale. That was confirmed in Matt's post. The only question might be if they keep a cap on some sets until they are able to properly rebalanced them for endgame use.

@Catches_the_Sun I do agree with you that it would be better if there was some world wide impact to the Cyrodil campaign. I'm not sure why they took away the buffs to PvE we had before for our alliance doing well. I would love for that to be back or some other benefit. That is a pretty tangential issue though.

About the rediculousness of having to play nice with other alliance players in your zone or being in their zone as opposed to being in your own alliance's instance of any particular zone...I'll grant that it's a fair point if RPing hate for other alliance players is your thing. Of course, then you really shouldn't use the group finder tool either, since it can put you together with members of other alliances. And don't participate in any multi-alliance guilds, or buy from multi-alliance guilds, since you would be supporting traitors. How many players do you really think care deeply enough about RPing alliance allegiance to play that way? By contrast, how many players do you think have buddies in other alliances they'd like to play with in overland content, and aren't going to care at all that their characters (from a lore perspective) shouldn't even be friends?

It's not even about Roleplaying, it's about making sense. Players from every Alliance are going to be running around oblivious to the fact that they're at war with each other. Surely you understand how ridiculous that is. Surely you can see how this changes Cyrodiil to more of a mindless Arena instanced feel, rather than a war/conflict that impacts all of Tamriel. Why are we even choosing Alliances in the first place, when this change comes?

I'm going to make a prediction. At some point in the future, you won't choose an Alliance at character creation. Only those players who wish to participate in Cyrodiil will choose their Alliance in the Alliance War screen and can change with the same restrictions that they can currently change their campaigns. "One Tamriel" is a move in this direction.

dpencil

@Hallothiel If you go back to your starter zone at cp160 or above, the mobs will be cp160, yes. I wouldn't think that would be an issue though. I'd think you should be able to solo dolmens and group dungeons as long as you are not fully tank or healer speced. In which case, perhaps having a dps setup for your character in solo situations would be a good idea.

Alternately, since it's not releasing till the Fall, you could work on getting your low level zone completions now if you enjoy the cakewalk.

Hallothiel

@dpencil

But how would that work if, as was said, higher level players can go & play with noob friends? Would they have to go through the formality of forming a group with the lower player in charge?

Just seems that it would be better if rather than this they actually put some effort into new end game content. Or just decent new content.