Why so difficult to play with friends?

ElderStorm

EDIT:

Since I am admittedly a terrible communicator, Another User Versispellis was kind enough to step in and help everyone make sense of what I was saying. This is EXACTLY the point I was trying to make, So i'm just going to post Versispellis's post here at the top.

I think OP may not have worded the point as efficiently as it could have been, which has led to a lot of confusion. I get what they're driving at though.

Here's my experience. I said this in another thread once recently, so I'm going to be repeating myself. I play most of the content with a friend. We've been working on those shareable overland quests lately--picking a map, and knocking out the chain of quests in an evening or two. Being able to group up and progress together isn't an issue. The disconnect comes from the fact that, as OP said, all of the quests are written very explicitly for one player. NPCs don't acknowledge that you weren't the only person in the room, and we're each having our own separate conversations. We can take the quests in completely different directions if we don't micromanage our individual decisions. It gets even sillier in escort situations, where we'll have two copies of a unique NPC following us around. Our characters aren't partners working together on a quest--instead, we're effectively playing alone, with the scant ability to see the ghost effects of one another's individual quests. It's bad. It's not as good as it could be. The fact that it's not unique to ESO and is seen in some other MMOs doesn't make it less bad


Original Post -- I can see why most didn't get what I was saying now.

Something I just don't get with MMOs. The goal is for the most part to play with friends, so why are these games (ESO no acception) built in a way that makes playing with friends a ROYAL PAIN IN THE A**!?

If I wanted single player questing where I was the sole hero everytime - I'd play a single player game, like skyrim.

Not only is it already confusing as to what game packages you need to so you can play with your friend, what alliance to pick so you start in the same location as your friend (made even more confusing with morrowind - and probably summerset) But then you can't even properly share quests, instead your just walking around with eachother hitting the same switches.

Some quests you can "share" some you can't, some are completed, some not, some are faction, some are main....on and on. It's so confusing. It seems needlessly so.

I'd love to see an update in the future that changes the way this is handled, so that friends can genuinely play together through the game.

Aliyavana

I mean most of the end game content is grouped based

sdtlc

1. One copy per player, that's common. It's not a boardgame, games with shared screen allowe multiple players per copy, this ain't one
2. Starting was per Alliance, now if both have Morrowind, or will have Summerset, you should start together
3. Actually the phasing and working together was a lot imporved
4. If you can't put the little effort needed to play with your friend, you should reconsider naming it friend

Kikke

Just what are you rambling on about? First, lets start with a history lesson on ESO.

Back before One Tamriel, if you were not of the same faction, you could not see each other at all. And bound too each starter area. You could do dungeons and trials with people from other factions but thats it. Then One tamriel came, and opened up the faction borders, scaled everything too your level (or rather you too their level). Every questing area got opened up without any level / faction restrictions. But sure, if you made a character on AD and your friend made a character on EP. Then one of you would have too travel too the other one. But apart from that all quests are the same for everyone.

Then morrowind came along, and now everyone of any faction start in morrowind, together. And from here you can travel anywhere and start questing were you please.

So just what is the problem? What else is needed too make this game even MORE newb friendly?

Quick edit: About the quest sharing, Guild quests, Main quest and chain quests are not shareable. And I like it as it is, makes the quest feel important instead of something I can go around giving other players.

Pink_Violinz

I mean, if you don't own a DLC you can't access it. I thought that was straightforward. Vvardenfell is a DLC zone so unless you own it you cannot get in.

Alliances mean nothing outside of Cyrodiil now. Yeah you'll start in different areas without Morrowind, but you can immediately port back to wherever.

Most quests can be shared so idk. Only some like Mage's Guild, Fighter's Guild, and the main story aren't shareable because it's a story line and the other guy is at a different spot in that story. I think it would be really odd if you just lost your soul and now you and your bud are sacrificing Sai to go kill Molag.

LordGavus

Best way to quest with a friend, group with them, then travel to them.
Now you might not be able to share some quests but you can still fight together and complete the quest at the same time.

ElderStorm

kikkehs wrote: »

Just what are you rambling on about? First, lets start with a history lesson on ESO.

Back before One Tamriel, if you were not of the same faction, you could not see each other at all. And bound too each starter area. You could do dungeons and trials with people from other factions but thats it. Then One tamriel came, and opened up the faction borders, scaled everything too your level (or rather you too their level). Every questing area got opened up without any level / faction restrictions. But sure, if you made a character on AD and your friend made a character on EP. Then one of you would have too travel too the other one. But apart from that all quests are the same for everyone.

Then morrowind came along, and now everyone of any faction start in morrowind, together. And from here you can travel anywhere and start questing were you please.

So just what is the problem? What else is needed too make this game even MORE newb friendly?

Quick edit: About the quest sharing, Guild quests, Main quest and chain quests are not shareable. And I like it as it is, makes the quest feel important instead of something I can go around giving other players.

Yes morrowind makes you start in the same place....but only if you both HAVE morrowind. So its another barrier players have to cross.

People who have morrowind get shoved in vardenfell to start and cant start with a friend who may not yet have morrowind. So its another consideration - another barrier to play. (Thats my point with that)

My point of my post is why on earth do they make mmos with majority single player quests that you then artificially "share" with someone. Rather than makw quests designed to be shared from the outset.

It feels artificial, it feels needlessly complicated. Its not AS fun as it could be.

So id love to see improvements on this in the future.

In stead of making more and more single player quests that you artificially share, make quests that are actually shared.

End game ia different. Im talking about sharing from the outset with a freind or friends along the journey.

Kikke

If your friend has morrowind, and you not. he can still teleport too you, and you both can do quests outside of morrowind.

Kikke

And for the quest to start for both at the same time (one person has to talk too the quest giver) This is already in the game for dungeon quests and trial quests. I assume we could ask ZeniMax to add this as a feature when questing overland in group.

Another edit: I still think Guild quests, Main quests and chain quests should still be personal only (only you can pick it up) as it would not make much sense any other way as many of these quests are bound too a solo zone

ElderStorm

kikkehs wrote: »

If your friend has morrowind, and you not. he can still teleport too you, and you both can do quests outside of morrowind.

Yes....which adds complication for new players.

Barrier ontop of barrier.

Its minor and overcome easily of course.. but when you couple it with other design choices the game becomes ironically less friendly to playing with friends.

The focus of updates in future, IMO, should be to reduce barriers and improve ease of playing together.

Questing in particular. Being the bulk of the game. The part where you are trying to engage your audience.

Not

"Hey come play our mulitplayer game - the actual multiplayer is at the end"

Kikke

Nope, I'm realy trying here. But I just can not see the problem. You just seem too set on their being an issue too begin with.
I know tons and tons of players that just LOVES how ESO has done the questing part. Even friends leveling trough it.

Also pro tip; you can left click your friends name on your friends list and teleport too him.

And about the quests. No! Just no. I tried! I TRIED TOO BE NICE! Guild quests, main story quests and chainquests are NOT shareable, should NOT be shareable. The rest of the quests can be shared, without issues. And again, I tried too give a suggestion on the quests, but instead of reading that and talking about that. You just continued whining about barriers?

The ONLY barrier in ESO is DLCs / Chapters. If you dont have it but your friends do. well, too bad. Time too use money for more gameplay.

ElderStorm

kikkehs wrote: »

Nope, I'm realy trying here. But I just can not see the problem. You just seem too set on their being an issue too begin with.
I know tons and tons of players that just LOVES how ESO has done the questing part. Even friends leveling trough it.

Also pro tip; you can left click your friends name on your friends list and teleport too him.

And about the quests. No! Just no. I tried! I TRIED TOO BE NICE! Guild quests, main story quests and chainquests are NOT shareable, should NOT be shareable. The rest of the quests can be shared, without issues. And again, I tried too give a suggestion on the quests, but instead of reading that and talking about that. You just continued whining about barriers?

The ONLY barrier in ESO is DLCs / Chapters. If you dont have it but your friends do. well, too bad. Time too use money for more gameplay.

Lol you are entirely missing my point. Also- you seem to think that you are coming at this argument from some position of authority...I'm wondering why? Also I don't require you to "be nice" and if you feel you need to "be nice" to someone in an argument then perhaps you shouldn't get involved in the first place....

But since you were being so nice I'm going to be SUPER SUPER SUPER FANTASTICALLY MAGICALLY ADORABLY AND ANNOYINGLY nice to you.

I do not want main quests or faction quests to be shareable after the fact.... My problem is that they were WRITTEN as single player quests to begin with. It seems very silly to me in an MMO.

Its a multiplayer game yet a huge emphasis on single player content AND most of the encountered quests are essentially single player quests where you have the option to artificially attach other players to them by "sharing"

I feel like there is much missed opportunity, so.....in FUTURE it would be good if they could create content that enables player to play through the game, together more easily, in a shared story.

Get it, you lovely lovely wonderful person?

Tan9oSuccka

kikkehs wrote: »

Just what are you rambling on about? First, lets start with a history lesson on ESO.

Back before One Tamriel, if you were not of the same faction, you could not see each other at all. And bound too each starter area. You could do dungeons and trials with people from other factions but thats it. Then One tamriel came, and opened up the faction borders, scaled everything too your level (or rather you too their level). Every questing area got opened up without any level / faction restrictions. But sure, if you made a character on AD and your friend made a character on EP. Then one of you would have too travel too the other one. But apart from that all quests are the same for everyone.

Then morrowind came along, and now everyone of any faction start in morrowind, together. And from here you can travel anywhere and start questing were you please.

So just what is the problem? What else is needed too make this game even MORE newb friendly?

Quick edit: About the quest sharing, Guild quests, Main quest and chain quests are not shareable. And I like it as it is, makes the quest feel important instead of something I can go around giving other players.

I don’t think he’s rambling at all. Questing with friends is extremely wonky. It encourages more solo play than I had imagined.

For example even dailies are odd. Fetch twenty widgets and kill the boss dailies. Sometimes it works for the whole group when collecting widgets, sometimes it doesn’t.

I’ve tried bringing new friends to ESO and the instancing/sharing/questing was a huge turn off for many of them.

I’d like to see it kind of like the Borderlands system. Crown sets an active quest for all party members. You can do other stuff, but the dialog and phasing etc matches up for everyone in the group.

MattT1988

This game isn’t a traditional MMO. It was designed to pull in Elder Scrolls fans as well as MMO players. I think your being a bit nit picky here OP. There’s nothing stopping you from questing with your friends.

Conduit0

ElderStorm wrote: »

kikkehs wrote: »

Nope, I'm realy trying here. But I just can not see the problem. You just seem too set on their being an issue too begin with.
I know tons and tons of players that just LOVES how ESO has done the questing part. Even friends leveling trough it.

Also pro tip; you can left click your friends name on your friends list and teleport too him.

And about the quests. No! Just no. I tried! I TRIED TOO BE NICE! Guild quests, main story quests and chainquests are NOT shareable, should NOT be shareable. The rest of the quests can be shared, without issues. And again, I tried too give a suggestion on the quests, but instead of reading that and talking about that. You just continued whining about barriers?

The ONLY barrier in ESO is DLCs / Chapters. If you dont have it but your friends do. well, too bad. Time too use money for more gameplay.

Lol you are entirely missing my point. Also- you seem to think that you are coming at this argument from some position of authority...I'm wondering why? Also I don't require you to "be nice" and if you feel you need to "be nice" to someone in an argument then perhaps you shouldn't get involved in the first place....

But since you were being so nice I'm going to be SUPER SUPER SUPER FANTASTICALLY MAGICALLY ADORABLY AND ANNOYINGLY nice to you.

I do not want main quests or faction quests to be shareable after the fact.... My problem is that they were WRITTEN as single player quests to begin with. It seems very silly to me in an MMO.

Its a multiplayer game yet a huge emphasis on single player content AND most of the encountered quests are essentially single player quests where you have the option to artificially attach other players to them by "sharing"

I feel like there is much missed opportunity, so.....in FUTURE it would be good if they could create content that enables player to play through the game, together more easily, in a shared story.

Get it, you lovely lovely wonderful person?

What you want is effectively forced group content and that is a giant NOPE. As someone who played MMOs where soloing is nearly impossible, I will tell you exactly what happens when you force grouping. Option 1, you can only play the game when your friends are online and in game and anytime you want to play but your friends aren't on you're just SOL. Option 2, you spend more time spamming in zone/lfg chat looking for other people to join you to do your quests than you actually spend questing.

There is a very good reason that MMOs in general have moved towards being solo player friendly outside of dungeons and if you don't like that, than my recommendation is that maybe MMOs aren't for you and you should look into coop games instead.

FloppyTouch

PvP best way to play with friends imo laugh die get some kills being idiots together

Coatmagic

I don't actually know of any game that I play that makes questing with friends what you seem to think it should be...?

In each one you and your friend(s) have to 'meet up' and then either go out and start together, share current, etc.,
and personal quests are always just that ~ personal.

I haven't had questing buddies in ESO since start, and though they've opened the world up a lot, there's still one thing you need to keep in mind (in any mmo really):

If you want to quest together, then you cannot come online when your friend(s) are not and work on the quests you're supposed to be doing together. But, I mean, that's common sense... isn't it?

ElderStorm

Conduit0 wrote: »

ElderStorm wrote: »

kikkehs wrote: »

Nope, I'm realy trying here. But I just can not see the problem. You just seem too set on their being an issue too begin with.
I know tons and tons of players that just LOVES how ESO has done the questing part. Even friends leveling trough it.

Also pro tip; you can left click your friends name on your friends list and teleport too him.

And about the quests. No! Just no. I tried! I TRIED TOO BE NICE! Guild quests, main story quests and chainquests are NOT shareable, should NOT be shareable. The rest of the quests can be shared, without issues. And again, I tried too give a suggestion on the quests, but instead of reading that and talking about that. You just continued whining about barriers?

The ONLY barrier in ESO is DLCs / Chapters. If you dont have it but your friends do. well, too bad. Time too use money for more gameplay.

Lol you are entirely missing my point. Also- you seem to think that you are coming at this argument from some position of authority...I'm wondering why? Also I don't require you to "be nice" and if you feel you need to "be nice" to someone in an argument then perhaps you shouldn't get involved in the first place....

But since you were being so nice I'm going to be SUPER SUPER SUPER FANTASTICALLY MAGICALLY ADORABLY AND ANNOYINGLY nice to you.

I do not want main quests or faction quests to be shareable after the fact.... My problem is that they were WRITTEN as single player quests to begin with. It seems very silly to me in an MMO.

Its a multiplayer game yet a huge emphasis on single player content AND most of the encountered quests are essentially single player quests where you have the option to artificially attach other players to them by "sharing"

I feel like there is much missed opportunity, so.....in FUTURE it would be good if they could create content that enables player to play through the game, together more easily, in a shared story.

Get it, you lovely lovely wonderful person?

What you want is effectively forced group content and that is a giant NOPE. As someone who played MMOs where soloing is nearly impossible, I will tell you exactly what happens when you force grouping. Option 1, you can only play the game when your friends are online and in game and anytime you want to play but your friends aren't on you're just SOL. Option 2, you spend more time spamming in zone/lfg chat looking for other people to join you to do your quests than you actually spend questing.

There is a very good reason that MMOs in general have moved towards being solo player friendly outside of dungeons and if you don't like that, than my recommendation is that maybe MMOs aren't for you and you should look into coop games instead.

Mmm nope, You are arguing against things I never said....at no point did I say players should be forced INTO multiplayer quests. I'm saying do NOT make quests that FORCE players to play single player only AND improve the way that quests are shared between players. I.e write them in such a way that they can be easily shared, and build a grouping system that allows the experience to properly share quests between players.

This does not require a simplification of story or impede players ability to play in a single player mode.

As to suggesting I play a different game because you disagree with me: if everyone agreed with the implementation of everything in the game - then the game would end up pretty trash. As a developer myself - we welcome feedback, specially negative feedback. So Ill be sticking with this game, and i'll continue to point out things I don't like.

ElderStorm

Coatmagic wrote: »

I don't actually know of any game that I play that makes questing with friends what you seem to think it should be...?

In each one you and your friend(s) have to 'meet up' and then either go out and start together, share current, etc.,
and personal quests are always just that ~ personal.

I haven't had questing buddies in ESO since start, and though they've opened the world up a lot, there's still one thing you need to keep in mind (in any mmo really):

If you want to quest together, then you cannot come online when your friend(s) are not and work on the quests you're supposed to be doing together. But, I mean, that's common sense... isn't it?

Not sure what your point is? You're just reiterating what the facts are about the game.

JKorr

If friends wanted to play together, why would they pick different alliances in the first place? Its kind of evident if you want to play with your friend, and your friend picks yellow/red/blue that you should too. If they pick the same alliance [which kind of sort of makes sense, really] they will start in the same place.

Because "story" parts of the game will be solo. However, just like "pick the same alliance as your friend" thing, it kinda makes sense that you need the same areas in your game as your friend has if you want to play together. If you don't have Wrothgar, but your friend does, then you can't go there. If you have Morrowind and your friend doesn't, then he can't go there.

ElderStorm wrote: »

kikkehs wrote: »

Nope, I'm realy trying here. But I just can not see the problem. You just seem too set on their being an issue too begin with.
I know tons and tons of players that just LOVES how ESO has done the questing part. Even friends leveling trough it.

Also pro tip; you can left click your friends name on your friends list and teleport too him.

And about the quests. No! Just no. I tried! I TRIED TOO BE NICE! Guild quests, main story quests and chainquests are NOT shareable, should NOT be shareable. The rest of the quests can be shared, without issues. And again, I tried too give a suggestion on the quests, but instead of reading that and talking about that. You just continued whining about barriers?

The ONLY barrier in ESO is DLCs / Chapters. If you dont have it but your friends do. well, too bad. Time too use money for more gameplay.

Lol you are entirely missing my point. Also- you seem to think that you are coming at this argument from some position of authority...I'm wondering why? Also I don't require you to "be nice" and if you feel you need to "be nice" to someone in an argument then perhaps you shouldn't get involved in the first place....

But since you were being so nice I'm going to be SUPER SUPER SUPER FANTASTICALLY MAGICALLY ADORABLY AND ANNOYINGLY nice to you.

I do not want main quests or faction quests to be shareable after the fact.... My problem is that they were WRITTEN as single player quests to begin with. It seems very silly to me in an MMO.

Its a multiplayer game yet a huge emphasis on single player content AND most of the encountered quests are essentially single player quests where you have the option to artificially attach other players to them by "sharing"

I feel like there is much missed opportunity, so.....in FUTURE it would be good if they could create content that enables player to play through the game, together more easily, in a shared story.

Get it, you lovely lovely wonderful person?

Unfortunately the demographic they might have been aiming at were people who have played the single player Elder Scrolls world games. You are the Nameless Hero, you are the Nerevarine, you are Akatosh's chosen Champion of Cyrodiil, you may even grow to mantle the daedric prince of Madness, you are the dragonborn chosen by the aedra and destiny to protect the world. In ESO, you are the Vestige. Others might be in the world, but you are the hero. Doing adventurer guild quests, running dungeons, doing battlegrounds or fighting the war is fine as group activities, but in the main story? Sorry, the hero is not my friend over there. Same thing for the Fighter's and Mage's guild quests. If friend can go pick up the books from Uncle Sheo, why should I bother? Someone else is investigating the daedric interference in the FG, so I should bother to tag along why? I much prefer to have the story solo content; it makes more sense in a world that carries on lasting effects. In the one public dungeon I always make the dunmer keep his promise to the Crowmother. Other players kill her. Some players kill them both. Why should my world get changed because my friend likes to settle everything by killing everyone they can?

Other issue about having a lot of "has to be shared" story content; if your friend has RL interfering and can't play, are you willing to wait until they can because you can't do the content without them? If you do the story without them, how far should you be able to progress before the storylines split, and you *can't* play together anymore in that story? Personal preference; they keep the balance they have now with group activity and solo stuff.

thumpthing

You're not playing the right game, sorry Seems like you're looking for more of a Borderlands 2 co-op experience?

Apache_Kid

Anyone saying that questing with another person is easy in this game is wrong. Some quests, interacting with and acquiring objectives count for only one player and sometimes for everyone in the group. My very first experience with this game was with a friend going through and questing together and we had quite a few headaches trying to make sure we each picked up all the same quests and were always on the same objective.

Furthermore, it would be nice if a player could share a quest with you that you have already completed, so you could see the markers and be in the same instance and help them through the quest or just re-play it with them. The fact that this isn't in the game already is actually kind of mind-blowing.

Kiralyn2000

<Thinks back to other MMOs I've played, where you couldn't easily join/share with others if you were in a quest chain, where "phased" map segments kept friends from questing together, etc....>

Honestly, this game seems much more "group up and do whatever you want" than other MMOs I've played. /shrug


And the whole "but we started in different zones" thing is trivial - you can go to and start in any of them, and the wayshrines for it should be unlocked from the beginning.



(hmm.... is Any Race/Any Alliance part of the base game now? Or do you have to buy that from the crown store? Because I've had that for so long that I honestly can't remember when I had to care about where I was starting with any character....)

Spacemonkey

ElderStorm wrote: »

Yes morrowind makes you start in the same place....but only if you both HAVE morrowind. So its another barrier players have to cross.

People who have morrowind get shoved in vardenfell to start and cant start with a friend who may not yet have morrowind. So its another consideration - another barrier to play. (Thats my point with that)

My point of my post is why on earth do they make mmos with majority single player quests that you then artificially "share" with someone. Rather than makw quests designed to be shared from the outset.

It feels artificial, it feels needlessly complicated. Its not AS fun as it could be.

So id love to see improvements on this in the future.

In stead of making more and more single player quests that you artificially share, make quests that are actually shared.

End game is different. Im talking about sharing from the outset with a freind or friends along the journey.

- People who get shoved in Vvardenfell can immediately teleport for free to their friend who may not yet have morrowind.
- There is much more shareable content than individual content in that most of the shareable content is repeatable and the single player content is not. I do agree that they could visually distinguish share vs not-shareable the same they distinguish repeatable(blue) vs not-repeatable.
- Its an mmo, everything is artificial and FUN is subjective. The game will never be as fun as it could be for everyone.
- They make more and more shareable quests with each DLC (fyi)

This isnt about End Game, I agree. However I recently started a new character with a friend and we've been having a blast playing in Vvardenfell and about 50%+ of the quests we are doing as we follow one another are completely shareable in that we each complete part of the objectives for on another and the quest does complete for both of us. 'Main quest lines' seem to be the consistant exception - and because of the heavily individual nature of their stories, it does make sense. But then Main quest lines do not make up the majority of the game. (In the entire Vvardenfell zone, that boils down to Vivec, Balmora, and Sadrith Mora quest lines, with the addition of AldRuhn, Gnisis, Suran and Tel Mora that have 30 min questlines each and that while not shareable can be done together - every delve quest is shareable, the 24 dailies are shareable, and every overland quest is shareable)

The difficulty in sharing I have experienced is when you attempt grouping/sharing with one 'veteran' character and a new one. Some quests while shareable are not repeatable meaning there will be a lot of 'sharing' failures on the part of the new character. Not to mention event-driven areas that will have you both land in different instances etc... As much as it may be annoying, the best is to make a new character with your friend until they are 'end-game' and then play with whichever character you want.

freespirit

It's really not that hard to play with a friend........

To start with stick with base game content only, form a group with said friend or even marry him/her(Pledge of Mara) for that extra xp . Remember to pick the same Alliance if you want to pvp together and the "Any race any Alliance" purchase means you or your friend don't have to be limited to a race that you may not wish to play.

Make a rule that only leader picks up quest AND then immediately shares them, that way you are always at same point in the quest, obviously there are quests that can't be shared as has already been mentioned.

We make this work for groups of up to 24 in Cyrodiil/IC so for 2 of you should be easy peasy......

Finally if you enjoy the base game enough then is the time to think about whether you and your friend want to buy the same content, by that time any grouping quirks should be a thing that you understand and can deal with.

dan958

I definitely agree that the starting zone for all players should be the base game, rather than Morrowind or the upcoming Summerset.

I do not know how easy it is for new players, because I am not a new player. When I was a new player, there were not different expansions. However, I have seen plenty of people ingame and on the forums/reddit that have started in Morrowind and do not know how to get to the main base-game.

Serjustin19

1) At times, our friends leave for new game and don't return. 2) At times when you really love a faction. If your friend other side in Cyrodiil. We just love to attack each other and still be friends. 3) PvE friends want try other things and want alone time. 4) PvPer at times solo and not be with friends on same side. 5) ESO gives us many choices be play like a MMO. Or Play like a Single game. It's why I love ESO and we get to choose. What we best feel comfortable with.

pantaro30

ElderStorm wrote: »

Something I just don't get with MMOs. The goal is for the most part to play with friends, so why are these games (ESO no acception) built in a way that makes playing with friends a ROYAL PAIN IN THE A**!?

If I wanted single player questing where I was the sole hero everytime - I'd play a single player game, like skyrim.

Not only is it already confusing as to what game packages you need to so you can play with your friend, what alliance to pick so you start in the same location as your friend (made even more confusing with morrowind - and probably summerset) But then you can't even properly share quests, instead your just walking around with eachother hitting the same switches.

Some quests you can "share" some you can't, some are completed, some not, some are faction, some are main....on and on. It's so confusing. It seems needlessly so.

I'd love to see an update in the future that changes the way this is handled, so that friends can genuinely play together through the game.

because most mmo's are designed like single player games and focus on a story and not player interaction. while games like eso,ff14 and swtor it's not really surprising but still disappointing.

inthecoconut

Maybe you don't know yet (I didn't until recently), but you can teleport to your friend by opening your friends list and there should be an option when you select them. It usually pops up for me once joining their party anyway "do you want to travel to party leader."

I start in Vvardenfell and just teleport to my friend who starts on faction islands. He's Ebonheart and I'm Daggerfall. Since we are playing together, we just grab up quests at the same time so I haven't experienced any problems with not being able to share.

dennissomb16_ESO

MMOs have morphed over the years. In the early days questing/leveling was slower and often more challenging. Grouping for questing/leveling was a little more common and sometimes even needed.

Fast forward to now and most major MMOs consider questing a solo activity and group play is designed for dungeons, raids, special events, and PvP

inthecoconut

dennissomb16_ESO wrote: »

MMOs have morphed over the years. In the early days questing/leveling was slower and often more challenging. Grouping for questing/leveling was a little more common and sometimes even needed.

Fast forward to now and most major MMOs consider questing a solo activity and group play is designed for dungeons, raids, special events, and PvP

I don't disagree that the "open-world" content isn't very challenging, especially with a group. But that doesn't seem to be OP's complaint, whom seems to feel that playing with friends is somehow inconvenient. I find it interesting that OP has these feelings, since I came to the exact opposite conclusion.

In fact, you don't even need to be in a party to get credit for killing things despite having multiple people attacking the same target. Gone are the days of competing with your fellow gamer to "tag" enemies because only 1 of you would get the reward. So even without parties, I don't feel discouraged for participating with other people as I encounter them organically within the game.

In a party, most quests will grant credit to the whole party even if only one member of the group completes an objective.

You can fast travel to your party leader or any of your friends to get to them instantly, even if they are way on the other side of Tamriel.

Most quests can be shared with a few exceptions (Main story, guild quests). I'd say that 90% of the content in this game is cooperative-friendly.

In my point of view, I don't see how the game could make it any more convenient for you to play with your friends. In fact, again, 90% of the time I exclusively play with a group and have never experienced any frustration with playing together using all of the features, systems, and mechanics mentioned above. We log in, party up, travel to party leader, and hit the world together with no issues.