A Response to "One Tamriel" criticism

dpencil

No, it's exactly like the dlcs. Have you not played with other people around in any of the dlcs? Everyone is battle leveled up to max. There's no need to formally group or anything.

ADarklore

keiyla_ESO wrote: »

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.

Honestly, I thought about this too... that perhaps in order for housing to work they needed to have it available to ALL players regardless of level and making players return to areas they no longer get any XP from would make it a bit less worthwhile. Further, it also makes me believe they plan to add additional quests back to older zones in future DLCs, and having them 'battle leveled' would make that entirely possible.

However, the negative thoughts are that with a measly 7M accounts, perhaps they realize that a major change is necessary to attract new players and bring back others who quit. The reason I think this is because a very short time ago ZOS stated that they, 'have no intentions of reworking older content'... and now here we are. So this 'One Tamriel' is either because of player housing and adding more content to older zones... or... because they're doing a lot worse than expected and need to try something to add more players to the game. Heck, even DCUO a couple of years ago had over 12M accounts and still growing... that was even before the game went to XBOX One. So yeah, ESO has a LOT of catching up to do.

Hallothiel

Still think it sucks.

And it's not like Skyrim. Yes you could wander wherever BUT there were places that were you had to just run away as was to low level to fight. So had to go & do quests / whatever to level up. And to access different gear or abilities

And there was a storyline that progressed - you could not just jump around as you pleased in that. Side quests yes; main quests no.

This just feels like a half arsed attempt to appease a certain group of players who don't seem to care about the story. Story?why have a story? Why don't they just sell level 50 characters so people don't have to bother with all that nasty levelling / progression / actually playing the game. And then give us levelled gear / potions etc so there would be no need for crafting & then everyone could run around happily without having to read or pay attention or do anything too strenuous.

Ffs. Give me strength.

BucFanJKE

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

Youre comparing apples to oranges here.

Why can't fruit be compared?

ausmack2014

Only thing that puzzles me is, why have factions with their own starter areas and playing zones if you then intend to make everything available to everyone? Why not just make the game one big open world from the beginning, where anyone could go anywhere once they created their character?

Even WoW has limitations on where you can quest. Yes, a Horde player can go to Elwyn Forest, but there are no quests there for them. Working as intended as far as I can see, since Elwyn Forest is an Alliance zone and the Horde shouldn't be there in the first place. This fulfils the "rpg" part of the mmorpg title. Even if you don't rp personally, the game retains that dividing concept and sense of identity.

I think the Cadwell quest line provides an excellent method of playing in other faction zones. Why it would need to be expanded beyond that I don't quite get.

MercyKilling

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

or assuming ZOS is going to botch it somehow.

Given the evidence that we have.......yeah. No faith. They've screwed almost everything else up royally, why not this?

Altaire

It's to bad 'outsiders' don't have to build faction in the foreign zones to be able to do quests. But that's too hard and most ppl won't want to spent that much time. They will come to harvest SkyShards and be off to next zone.
It could have added a whole new quest line. but the programmers are to lazy to add it and the players are to lazy to do it. Oh well;(

Mojmir

Game is still in beta,everytime zos speaks.

NovaShadow

The game is a laggy hellpot now.

Not to mention them stuffing all 3 alliances into the same instances.

Don't start complaining when you can't play cause the lag is insane, there's too many people or you keep crashing. This is what you want right? A PVE version of Cyrodiil where everyone is spamming the same stuff and lagging the server further into Oblivion.

Sure...it's gonna be a blast.

NadiusMaximus

Only way to make this "work" is to story in an end to the war. That would make Cyrodil at peace and open for a pve zone as another pvp area would be made, possibly a civil war in another land, or another faction to fight being released as playable. Molag Bal army faction please.

Tandor

Great opening post, I gave it an "insightful" but wish I could have given it an "awesome" as well.

For me the real benefit of One Tamriel will be the end to over-leveling in the base game. I'm stuck with three DLCs I can't visit yet because the characters I want to do them with aren't done with the base game for which they're already slightly over-leveled anyway. This will fix all that, as well as (hopefully) sorting out the lore mess that is Cadwells.

Elloa

DDuke wrote: »

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.

I totally disagree with you.
I outleveled the content the entiere duration of my leveling at release of the game. Not by one or two level, but by 7 to 10 lvl. Simply because I was doing ALL the quest, and doing Dungeons, or Cyrodill activities with my guild at the same time. I never grinded, but my quest where always grey, unchallenging, and un-rewarding. And that was NOT fun. Yet, I wanted to know the story.

I've been asking for a mentoring system (like Wildstar or FFXIV) or a Scaling system (like GW2 or the current DLC) since I started to test the game in july 2013. It was even not a BETA. And I was not the only asking for it.
Progression and leveling are outdated features in a MMO nowadays. Players need flexibility. The possibility to team up together easily NO MATTER the levels.

ESO should have been factionless, open, and levelless since its release. Better too late than never!

Elloa

Catches_the_Sun wrote: »

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.

That's actually what I proposed in the Beta, to allow players more freedom and the possibility to involve themselves or not in the Cyrodiil war. It actually make a lot more sense, to actively pledge your allegience to a faction than the system we have now.

This would be a great move in the right direction, in my opinion.

Lysette

Elloa wrote: »

Catches_the_Sun wrote: »

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.

That's actually what I proposed in the Beta, to allow players more freedom and the possibility to involve themselves or not in the Cyrodiil war. It actually make a lot more sense, to actively pledge your allegience to a faction than the system we have now.

This would be a great move in the right direction, in my opinion.

Yeah, this is basically like it is resolved in EVE online - there is faction war, but it is separated from the rest as in a different game mode. As long as one is not joining into faction war, it is an open world, where you can visit and live in all of the empire factions as long as your reputation there is not too bad. Whereas if you join faction war, you are no longer welcome in the opposing empires, but hunted down by their navy (and other faction war players of course). This feels a bit weird, as joining faction war is a bit like joining into a parallel universe, where different rules apply, even you are in the same universe with all other players - still it works well, if you can ignore the fact, that different rules apply dependent on your faction war status.

victorhrpereira

Munavar wrote: »

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.

Elloa wrote: »

I outleveled the content the entiere duration of my leveling at release of the game. Not by one or two level, but by 7 to 10 lvl. Simply because I was doing ALL the quest, and doing Dungeons, or Cyrodill activities with my guild at the same time. I never grinded, but my quest where always grey, unchallenging, and un-rewarding. And that was NOT fun. Yet, I wanted to know the story.

@Munavar The players shouldn't nerf themselves for challenge, the content should be buffed up so people start to consider teaming up with others (something like the Craglorn's difficult, doable for solo players, but still somewhat challenging), otherwise the game will continue as @Elloa said, unchallenging, and un-rewarding and if I may add, boring. Also, changing World Bosses and Anchors to be on par with the likes of Wrothgar would be nice.

Thornen

I honestly don't care about T1 either way besides from wasting dev time fixing something that isn't broken when it could be better spent bug squashing. As for battle scaling removing challenge, you can literally be brain dead and still do all open world pve in this game , I could sit my cat on my keyboard and I'm sure it can complete a zone for me, the only challenge in pve is vet dungeons,trials and some of the dlc world bosses.

Osteos

NovaShadow wrote: »

The game is a laggy hellpot now.

Not to mention them stuffing all 3 alliances into the same instances.

Don't start complaining when you can't play cause the lag is insane, there's too many people or you keep crashing. This is what you want right? A PVE version of Cyrodiil where everyone is spamming the same stuff and lagging the server further into Oblivion.

Sure...it's gonna be a blast.

A complete disaster in the making

Rohamad_Ali

Elloa wrote: »

Catches_the_Sun wrote: »

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.

That's actually what I proposed in the Beta, to allow players more freedom and the possibility to involve themselves or not in the Cyrodiil war. It actually make a lot more sense, to actively pledge your allegience to a faction than the system we have now.

This would be a great move in the right direction, in my opinion.

That's the way SWG worked . You started out neutral and had the option to stay neutral or join a faction in the war . The quests helped you to figure out which side you wanted to choose . It was a good system .

MornaBaine

EXCELLENT OP! And frankly, Cadwell's Silver and Gold never made any sense even with that ridiculous "explanation" grafted onto it. Invisible magic walls that keep you from traveling make zero sense either. Nor does being "magically" forbidden contact with anyone from "the other side" save in Cyrodiil. There have been many polls here in the forums showing that players overwhelmingly wanted open cross-faction play for a large variety of reasons. ZOS has been smart to listen.

Elsonso

Altaire wrote: »

It's to bad 'outsiders' don't have to build faction in the foreign zones to be able to do quests. But that's too hard and most ppl won't want to spent that much time. They will come to harvest SkyShards and be off to next zone.
It could have added a whole new quest line. but the programmers are to lazy to add it and the players are to lazy to do it. Oh well;(

Lazy programmers are not the problem. It is the players. Don't forget, the target market has to be able to complete the game, or whatever little part they are playing, in a couple of weeks. The game has to be scaled so that it can be completed in 2 months, which sounds like the average attention span of an ESO player.

Recremen

The only criticism I have is that now we can't scale dungeons down to easier difficulties for new or underperforming players, at lest if I'm reading into it correctly. Other than that, not really an issue and a pretty cool idea!

UrQuan

DDuke wrote: »

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.

Absolute baloney. Take a battle-leveled level 4 to Wrothgar and see how his stats compare to a max-level character. Protip: the max-level character is going to be far far better, thanks to those skill points (yes your skills matter - especially passives), thanks to the ability to be as granular as you want with exactly where your stats go, thanks to having access to much better gear, thanks to having CPs, etc.

DDuke wrote: »

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

Also absolute baloney. If you didn't out-level the content then you skipped a lot of stuff. Every single one of my characters was getting greyed-out quests by the 5th full zone of their home alliance, and that's without any grinding at all, without doing any PVP, without doing most of the group dungeons, and even skipping about half of the world bosses and dolmens. In other words, that's just from doing all of the quests, all of the delves, all of the public dungeons, about half of the world bosses and dolmens, and maybe a quarter of the group dungeons.

Lynnessa

DDuke wrote: »

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

Yes, you do. It wasn't that bad at first, but after numerous changes that increase the speed of levelling, it's almost impossible not to outlevel open world content. It makes levelling in the world extremely boring.

I wish it had been "One Tamriel" from the get-go. Can't wait for it to be implemented.

Lysette

Lynnessa wrote: »

DDuke wrote: »

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

Yes, you do. It wasn't that bad at first, but after numerous changes that increase the speed of levelling, it's almost impossible not to outlevel open world content. It makes levelling in the world extremely boring.

I wish it had been "One Tamriel" from the get-go. Can't wait for it to be implemented.

The extra skill and attribute points we get on lower levels are very helpful as well - I just made 2 new characters and they have a much easier time around due to these extra skill and attribute points.

Korah_Eaglecry

MercyKilling wrote: »

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

or assuming ZOS is going to botch it somehow.

Given the evidence that we have.......yeah. No faith. They've screwed almost everything else up royally, why not this?

Nice hyperbole.

Eshelmen

If I was a new player and everything was battle scaled, I'd be completely annoyed at my falsified stats. I want progression earned on my own.. not some permanent stat boost to assist me.

Silverado

I'm confused! Does one Tamriel mean we will all be the same level no matter where we are or only when we travel out of our own faction areas? I guess I'm mainly asking about the first 50 levels.

poodlemasterb16_ESO

LOL. If I faceroll the game, which I did before it was nerfed several times since I last played, where would I find a challenge? I'll go do the Overfiend again, almost got him last time.

My strategy, since not long after the game came out, was to play well below the content I was doing, to make it fun.

You lot would call the original game a Dark Souls remake, it was actually hard for a short while, when it came out. The howls of fury soon put that to bed.

Amiliana

When I heard about One Tamriel I got a flashback to when the developers destroyed Final Fantasy XI. They made everything too easy for us veterans for reasons we did not understand, and isnt this game supposed to be from 18 (PEG) anyway? With this change, they rather encourage a younger crowd to play and chase away us adults.

Craglorn, they lowered the levels, but kept the player requirements for many quests? Doesnt make much sense, and it being soloable for almost anyone now is not fun at all. It is supposed to be a more "elite" area, but far from it now.

Easier in Imperial City and Sewers? We got really disappointed with this as it was a challenge to fight the roaming bosses etc. Now the sewers are flooded with random people who keeps whining about being killed.

Crafting resources I really hope will not be scaled to the area, as I am still gathering from all areas to help guildmembers in various levels.

Battle-level... already when starting ESO, I fought monsters way higher than my own level. Also when making a special build, I go to a harder zone, both to get better exp and to get more of a challenge. I should not have to "just remove gear" to get this, then I'd rather stop paying and move to another game.

We are still waiting to see what the last decision will be, but if everything will be made easier, I suspect that a big amount of players will leave ESO, stop paying for subscription as minimum.

In all honesty, they should focus more on a new area, new DLC and to fix the PvP performance.

That's my few cents..

PS. Forgot to comment the alliances. I dont mind being able to travel freely, being able to play with people from other alliances. It does makes sense, as you still keep your own colors after all. DS.

MasterSpatula

Elloa wrote: »

Progression and leveling are outdated features in a MMO nowadays. [snip

ESO should have been factionless, open, and levelless since its release. Better too late than never!

@Elloa, you're literally talking about everything I care about, everything that I play for. Progression and that sense of growth is why I'm here. Progression of my character. Progression of the storyline (which does require a certain amount of linear progression.). A sense of import and meaning to my choices (including my choice of Alliance).

You don't like any of that. That's fine. It's a great big world full of plenty of things for everyone.

Only it's not, because damn near everything is already aimed at people who want what you want. And yet, one of the few times someone gives me what I'm looking for just has to be taken away.