ESO still has a lot of untapped potential (Suggestions/daydreaming thread)

VerboseQuips

I decided to write this after I posted in the RNG boxes discussion. I realized that, despite the obvious fact that ESO is now far better than it was on release, this very long thread pointed more and more to a bleak future for ESO (and I am myself very worried, as I told there). Thus I thought it could be nice to offer another, brighter vision for the future. As anyone who met Yffre's Spinners may know, mythopoeic forces are very strong on Nirn, and a fear shared by a large community can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Therefore, some optimism can't hurt.

What will follow will thus be a mixtures of hopes, wishlists, fan-fictionesque suggestions and stuff I would expect from any Elder Scrolls game. So here we go, here is my dreamt vision of the future of ESO.
Disclaimer: Every single time I make a suggestion/daydreaming thread for an Elder Scrolls game, I get verbose and sesquipedalian. Now you know the origin of my pseudonym.



Crafting Enhancements

Let's start with the Alchemy. It could be made better and deeper by

• Adding a hireling who sends you some ingredients
• Changing the name of the poisons. The potions had a nice variety of names: sip, potion, elixir, essence… Poisons should have such names. The Roman figures feel a bit lazy. Come on, you can think of secretion, venom, poison, pestilence, toxin, whatnot…
• Adding a third type of solvent (vapors?), which allows to create grenades – throwable potions. These would allow to create some area effects, either positive or negative, or a mix of both, affecting whoever gets in the area – friend or foe.
• Adding new ingredients with new effects: elemental damages (Fire, cold, shock, all three), elemental vulnerabilities and resistances, fear, hallucinations (create illusory foes), damages to werecreatures (for example, with canis root and aconit?), damages to daedra, luminescence, and so on.
• Adding a new type of alchemy ingredients allowing to change upgrade the quality of the potions and poisons and make them blue, purple or gold. It could be called, for example, a catalyst.
• Daily writs should ask us to make poisons and grenades, not only potions.

Then we'd also get some entirely new crafting skills: Jewelry, Spellcrafting/Calligraphy and Carpentry/Engineering. All of these would come with their hirelings and daily crafting writs.
Jewelry would allow us to craft and enhance accessories, which would be made visible on the charcaters, depending on what else they are wearing (a glove can hide a ring, heavy armor probably hides neclaces).
Spellcrafting would allow us to create new spells (or spellbooks) obviously, as we did, for example, in Morrowind or Oblivion. Calligraphy could be a subdiscipline of either Spellcrafting or Enchanting, and would allow us to create scrolls. Scrolls would be consumables that can be slotted in the action bar. One can think of them as single-use spells. They would require little or no stamina/magicka/health. Scrolls would require two ingredients: paper and ink. The paper (papyrus, parchment, vellum, …) would determine the level/CP rank of the scroll, while the ink would determine its quality, from white to gold. There would be daily scroll writs.
A Carpentry/Engineering skill could maybe allow us to build siege weapons, housing upgrades and furniture. It may or may not be included in the woodworking skill.

There is still much room for new crafting styles. Here is a list of new motifs I could think of

• Cultural motifs: Ra Gada, Crown, Nede, Nibonese, Colovian, Lilmothiit, Barsaebic, Cantemiric, Kothringi, Chimer, Reachmen, Maormer, Antique Falmer, Ayleid, Ashlander, Goblin, Riekr, Rieling, Naga, Imga, Trollkin, ...
• Daedric motifs: Maelstrom, Spiderkith, Aureal, Mazken, Auroran, Lustrant, Herne, Dremora, Xivilai, Shardai, Vermai, Nocturnal, Knights/Priests of Order ...
• Faction-based motifs: Fighter’s Guild, Mages Guild, Order of the Lamp, Order of the Blades, Eyes of the Queen, Ring of Daggers, Hidden Armigers, Worm Cult, Morag Tong, Thalmor, Ysgramor's Companions, House Hlaalu, House Redoran, House Telvanni, House Indoril, House Dres, House Dagoth, House Sotha, Fate Bearers, Cult of the Ancestor Moth, Tribunal, Baandari, Silver Dawn, Red Sails, Red Rooks, Knights of the Flame, Lionguard, Knights of the Dragon, Glenmoril, Shad Astula, and I am probably forgetting a lot...
• Religious motifs: We already have the Trinimac and Malacath Cult, we have the Order of the Hours and it seems that an Akatosh Chantry motif is coming, let's add to the list the Order of Arkay and the Knights of the Circle, the House of Dibella and Order of the Lily, the Temple of Kynarteth and the Kynaran Order, the School of Julianos and the Mentor Knights, the Benevolence of Mara and the Maran Knights, the Temple of Stendarr and the Crusaders/Stendarr’s Vigils, the Resolution of Zenithar and the Knights of Iron, but also the Cult of Satakal, the Citadel of Ebonarm and so on...
• Material-based motifs: Ebony, Bonemold, Stahlrim, Mithril, Amber, Madness Ore, Chitin, Nacre, Ivory, Coral, Adamantium, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Domina, Orichalc, Meteoric Iron, Meteoric Glass, Aetherium (although this later one is probably lore-breaking)

Miscellanous additions to the crafting system:

• Weapon dyeing
• Put the hirelings’ letters in the eidetic memory
• Maybe add the Celerity Runestones theorized by Camilonwe of Lilandril.
• Each zone should have its own three craftable sets: no more redundance, each zone becomes more unique.

That's it for the crafting, which was a big chunk.



Hircine's Hunting Grounds + Vampires revamped

This update would add more werecreatures to the game: werebears, werecrocodiles, werelions, werevultures, wereboar, wereshark, werebats, possibly even a weredaedroth as a final boss of something? Some of these could be playable.
There would be a new, joinable faction of werewolves and vampires hunters (the Silver Dawn? Stendarr's vigils? Hircine-related thing?) with its own skill and questline. Similarly, werecreatures, vampires would gain access to a questline (of about the same length as other factions) and everyone would get some repeatable quests. For example, daily hunting challenges (PvE), weekly hunting group challenges (PvE), daily 1vs1 PvPvE hunting challenge (kill or get killed, be the first to kill some prey, ...), daily 1vs4 hunting challenge (1 werecreature player with Hircine’s or blessing (the prey) vs 4 ‘hunters’ players (which can be werecreatures or not) – the goal for the prey is to escape the hunters, with or without killing some or all of the opponents).
The DLC would also add a hunting and gathering skill. The Keen Eye passives could perhaps be moved in this skill. Other passives could include better looting from killed creatures, invisibility while fishing, speeding up the fishing process (the skill could be named after that stealable item that is supposed to attract fish - its French name is Appoisson, I don't know the English one), stuff like that. New techniques could be introduced with this skill, like falconry. The type of 'bird' you're using could be a new type of cosmetic item in the Crown Store. There are already lots of possibilities: hawks, snow hawks, bone hawks, felsaad terns, vultures, eagles, herons, bats, hornet, harpy, daedric things, Dwemer drone...
There would also be a trophy room where we could see the collectible trophies we obtained on pedestals, along with a descriptive plate, a bit like the House of Orsimer Glories. The fishing trophies could also be displayed on mural plates or in an aquarium. New trophies would be added for creatures which still don’t have theirs, like Welwas, elks, antelopes or echateres.

A new kind of cosmetic upgrade would be introduced: fur painting for werecreatures.
A new creature would be added: Lamae’s Shrieking Winds (possibly something similar to the Ice Wraiths?).

Here is an idea of story that could fit the DLC theme.

There are many things in the Mundus that come in sets of three. Skyshards. Guardian constellations. Stamina/Magicka/Health.
We already met Soul-shriven and Mind-shriven people. I put forward the hypothesis that there exist a third type of Shriven people. The Body-shriven. These are probably ghost-like ethereal beings whose body is alive somewhere in Coldharbour, confiscated by Molag Bal and tortured by his minions. These confiscated bodies aren't only a toy for the Prince, they have a purpose. Through Dreugh magic, He uses them as incubators, to create Mortal-Daedric hybrids.
There is a precedent: Vivec Himself became a Body-shriven during the Pomegranate Banquet. It is said that Molag could only have his temporarily beheaded body, while Vivec's head (possibly a metaphor for his mind and soul?) had to counsel Nerevar. Yet their marriage gave birth to demons and monsters that Vivec had to Chase.
Of course, the hybrids created by the mating of ordinary mortals and lesser Daedra are less dreadful than the ones created by the wedding of a Prince and a living God. Yet they remain extremely dangerous. The aforementioned weredaedroth could have been created in the process, if Hircine tricked the God of Scheme into capturing the body of someone infected with the Hunter's curse.
Vampires would have a good reason to chase such hybrids, because Lamae hates Bal and impedes His schemes. Werecreature would chase them because they would be challenging preys, from Hircine's viewpoint. And the vampire and werewolf hunters would chase them for the obvious reason that they are a new and particularly horrific type of abominations. Therefore, these hybrids would be a unifying theme for the DLC.



Pirates of the Abecean

This update would add seafaring and underwater exploration to the game. There are plenty of interesting places that could be added in such an upgrade: the vicinity of Yokuda and Pyandonea, Thras, Cathnoquey, Esroniet, Yneslea, the Eltheric Islands, Sheogorad, Vounoura, the Dreugh's Castles of Glass and Coral, Cybiades, Balfiera... Of course, this would lead to new skills, like seafaring and underwater.

We would finally meet the Sloads and their airships.

You could set sail with an independant pirate crew (maybe the Red Sails, or Velehk Sain's crew) or an explorers' team with its own questline. You could also join an Alliance war fleet or corsair team. This would lead to 12vs12 PvP naval battles, governed by the new 'Naval tactics' skill of the Alliance War section.

And of course, a sea-based DLC wouldn't be complete without fighting gigantic sea monsters.



Intelligence networks

The name of these factions would depend on your Alliance. For the Daggerfall Covenant, it would be The Ring of Daggers, for the Aldmery Dominion, it would be The Eyes of the Queen, and for the Ebonheart Pact, it would be the Hidden Armigers.

They would add a spying skill in the alliance war section. Each of them would have a questline that could be accessed during your main PvE campaign, which could send you to zones belonging to other Alliances, which is now possible with One Tamriel. The faction would also allow for repeatable quests: daily quests for the spying factions would include PvE quests and small-scale PvP missions. Both PvE and PvP quests would award gold, alliance points and items/crafting style pages, and both PvP and PvE quests would contribute to provide perks to your alliance in Cyrodiil. For example, for every N (big number) daily PvE quests that are completed with all the optional steps, siege weapons cost a bit less to members of your alliance, or your walls get more difficult to take down, or consumable last a bit more to reflect the fact that your supplying lines are well protected, and so on. This would allow PvEers to feel more involved with their Alliance, and to help their PvP friends.
The repeatable quests in these factions would feature a variety of objectives like rescuing an imprisoned agent from an enemy base before their will gets shattered by interrogators, or before they get killed, or kill themselves to avoid interrogation, or providing them with a poison to enable them committing a fake suicide, with non-lethal toxins, or obtaining information from a traitor in an enemy base, extracting a covert agent before she gets identified, identifying a traitor, or evacuate/destroy the secret reports in an ally base before the base gets taken over by an enemy alliance, poisoning an enemy supply of water or food, cutting their supplying lines, killing a messenger and delivering a false message, or substituting a message without killing him, sabotaging shipyards, stealing an artifact, and the list goes on. For the small-scale PvP, as the objectives for the opposite teams are unsymmetrical (and not necessarily mutually exclusive), one could imagine various formats: 1vs1, 2vs2, 4vs4, 1vs4, 2vs12 and so on. Sabotaging a shipyard could require a small team of four, obtaining information from a traitor is best done alone, taking control of an enemy base could require a dozen… Of course, you wouldn’t initially know who is an NPC and who is an enemy player, nor would you know your opponent’s objectives, nor even how many they actually are. One could imagine that every mistake a player commits (like taking too much time in one given room, failing to open a door, being seen by a witness and so on) would create a clue, and if members of the opposite team gather the clues, they could become able to identify their opponents, or discover what their objective is, so as to prevent their success and gain additional rewards.




Cadwell's Platinum – the fourth Alliance

Ok, this would be a BIG update, like ESO 3.0. The new player in the alliance war would be the Cyrodiilic Empire.

It’s three basic races could be the Imperials (obviously), the Reachmen and the Akaviri men. In case three human races would be too boring, I also thought to Minotaurs of the Belharza bloodline, or intelligent Goblins from Fearfrost or the old Hroldan, but I guess it could create some problems.
Its intelligence network would be the Order of the Blades.

The Update would add seven new zones, as for the other alliances. For the two, smaller starting zones, I thought to Olenveld and Roscrea (though we don’t know how big the latter is), but I guess it could also be a smaller patch of land in Cyrodiil itself. For the five zones, I have thought of the following: Haafingar (Solitude, Dragon Bridge, Meridia’s Altar …), the Reach (Markarth, Hroldan, Snowline, Fearfrost, …), Falkreath Hold (Falkreath, Neugrad Watch, Heldon? …), Colovian Highlands (Sutch? Brina Cross? Fang Lair?), Blackwood (Leyawiin, ...).

The Cyrodiil main PvP zone would get expanded consequently, possibly with the Weald (Skingrad) and Bravil, or something else, in order to make room for the newcomers. One could even add two new forts around the Imperial City, like Urasek and Homestead, for example. Crowning an Emperor would now require to control Eight forts around the Imperial City. Yes, like the Divines. Or the number of fragments of the Staff of Chaos. Or the Spokes of the Wheel. Or the lesser Towers around White Gold. Eight is an important number.

It would also be an opportunity to add a Class Morph: you'd get to choose between two or three entirely new skills to add to your class.



The big event: Daedric war
This one is even BIGGER, possibly ESO 4.0. This Upgrade would tell the story of the Alliances, the Fighters' Guild and the Mages' Guild in the aftermath of the events of Coldharbour. It will also start with the opening of the Clockwork city, as announced by the Prophet. My guess is that it will have something to do with the Coldharbour Compact.
We would get new PvP zones in Oblivion, which don't rely on the Alliance War mechanics, but rather on an Obedience. The Daedric War would have its own Skills, like the Alliance war.

I don't write any story suggestion here, because I really have no idea what they intend to do with this foreshadowed war. But I am genuinely interested in seeing where they will bring us with it.

Here is what character progression would look like once the update goes live.
Lvl 1: you wake up in the Wailing Prison. You escape, arrive in Tamriel and can roam freely in any zone. You don't belong yet to any alliance.
Lvl 10: You are strong enough to be recruited by an Alliance. If you own the 'any race in any alliance' upgrade, then you can choose which Alliance you want to serve. Otherwise it is linked to your race. There is a quest that allows you to be recruited. Completing this quest grants you access to Cyrodiil, and to your Alliance's war fleet.
Lvl15: You are approached by the Intelligence Network of your Alliance. You get a quest to prove yourself worthy. This unlocks the faction and its skill and perks.
Lvl 40: If you successfully completed your Alliance questline as well as the Intelligence Network arc, this unlocks the 'Messages across Tamriel' mission in the Intelligence Network faction. This is now a true quest, where you have to complete objectives in order to convince the other leaders to meet on Stirk. If you already did quests for those foreign leaders, they will recognize you and react accordingly. Then you get a 'war fleet' quest bringing you to Stirk, and you have to secure the island and its surroundings for the meeting. The meeting unlocks access to Coldharbour as before.
Lvl 50: You gain access to the Champion system. If you completed the Coldharbour story arc and the main quest, you gain access to 'Aftermath' questlines for your Alliance, your Intelligence network, your war fleet as well as for the Fighter's Guild and the Mages Guild. Level 50 also unlocks the Class Morph.
CP 30: You gain access to a new quest in which you have to choose an Obedience. An obedience is a side in the Daedric War. You gain access to new PvE zones for the main story of the Daedric War, and to new PvE zones. A large one, for example the realm of Shade Perilous in Evergloam, or something entirely new. And a smaller one, about the same size as the Imperial City: the Battlespire. Cyrodiil and the Imperial City would still be Alliance War PvP, but in these new PvPs zones, you would fight for your Obedience, not your Alliance.



Miscellanous additions

• Each delve should have its own quest, and each zone should have daily delve quests and daily world boss quests, so as to esnure that all zone is worth re-visiting.
• Some guards should be endowed with lanterns in every city.
• Mounted fight and jousting. This would add the opportunity to use weapons and spells from atop your mount. It would also allow players to enter PvP jousting tournaments. Maybe new weapons could be introduced specifically for mounted fight (polearms?). There would be a new skill with, passive, active and ultimate abilities. Mounted enemies would be added to the game world.
• New weapons: Polearms crafted with the woodworking skill, limited or not to mounted fight, like spears, halberds, war scythes, forks, flails, stave slings (or fustibali - these are probably not easy to use on a war mount). Scepters (one-handed magical weapon), also under the woodworking category. Slings (one-handed ranged weapon, first weapon crafted through the clothier's skill). Crossbows, made using the aforementioned engineering skill. Cesti, to fight with one's fists. Throwing weapons like darts and shurikens (maybe an active ability of the Intelligence network skill?).
• Useful pets like a monkey assistant trained to lockpick doors for you, or an Alfiq assistant able to distract a guard for you, or a Soulbug assistant able to fill soulgems for you, or a dog assistant which starts to bark whenever he sees a treasure chest.
• Add new Exploration Achievements, where you'd be requested to meet your hirelings in the wilds.
• Add a handfan emote
• Fix the wayshrines of Eyevea and the Earth Forge

Crown store

This will just be a long list of possible additions to the Store without much explaination - I don't really see what else I could add, but I guess it's kind of tedious to read. My apologies in advance.

Costumes and accessories
Please tweak all the existing costumes so that we can equip their hat separately.
Add an ashreeds hat.
Add a variety of handfans.

Mounts

Real-world creatures (still living nowadays):
Ibex, deer, elk, antelope, chamois, goat, sheep, okapi, zebra, donkey, pony, Ardennes horses (but give them another, lore-friendly name, like Reach draft horse for example), puma, boar, bull, ox, yak, bison, rhinoceros, ostritch, cassowary.

Tamriellic or Daedric creatures (some of them, like the rhojiit, would require some explainations in order not to be lore-breaking):
Durzog, Welwa, bristleback, echatere, fellrunner, unicorn, rhojiit, snow rhojiit, auroch, fabricant, snow wolf, hell hound, draugulf, giant snake, giant mudcrab, giant scorpion, giant spider, giant hornet, chaurus reaper, wamasu, mammoth, Dwemer beetle, giant Dwemer spider, giant beetle, mantikora, Clannfear, gryphon, hippogriff.
Depending on whether or not one considers unused concept art as a legitimate source on Elder Scrolls lore (I do), one could add this one too:
Mites of Order

Other things which are not in current lore but could be made sense of...
Undead versions of other mounts (ethereal, skeletal, zombie, fossilized, frozen, burnt, ashes...), ember mare (an equivalent of the frost mare coming from Infernace), dire fox (something like the coming Colovian wolf, but vulpine, possibly related to the Lilmothiit), husky-pulled sled, some other Dwemer animunculus, animated statue of a mount, deer-unicorn, monoceros, cocatrice, woolly rhinoceros, thylacine, dinosaur-like creature from Argonia (who doesn't want to ride ceratopsidae?), frost ostritch, some Daedric bug-horse, Kyne-related Aedric bulls (some relatives of Morihaus).

Pets

Real-world creatures (still living nowadays):
Squirrel, Flying Squirrel, Rabbit, Scorpion, Monkey, Fox, Fennec, Peafowl/Leucistic peafowl, Rooster, Raven, Parrot, Heron, Rat, Snake.

Tamriellic or Daedric creatures:
Hell Hound, Death Hound, Snow Wolf, Draugulf, Ash Hopper, the glowing centipedes in Craglorn (I don’t remember their name), Wormmouth, Thorn Gecko, Soulbug, Torchbug, Homunculus, Imp, Harpy, Daggerback, Craglorn Daggerback, Snow Fox, Chub Loon, Phoenix, Skeever, Baby horker, Baby Grahl, Baby Troll, Baby giant wasp, dro-m'Athra cat, Wisp, Gremlin.

Other things which are not in current lore but which could be made sense of...
White Raven, Small Watcher, Dwarf horse, Small Gargoyle, Ghostly pet, Spriggan-based vegetal pet.





... All this to say that ESO still has some big potential to grow in scope, epicness, awesomeness and sheer size, for the next (at least) five years. And I gave some example of features I thought would make great additions to the game. This would easily bring us to 2021... And after that, I guess TES VI will be on the horizon.

I guess this thread could now be used to share hopes and suggestions for a positive and bright ESO future. All remarks or reactions to what I wrote are, fo course, welcome.


Note: I intend to edit this post so as to add links and references for less known lore factoids.