Where are all the RPG elements like choice and consequence in ESO?

TheGreatBlackBear

Too many quests (if not all quests) in ESO boil down to "X person is in trouble so you need to go to Y place and kill someone, fetch an item or kill someone while fetching an item" and it's soooooo boring. What if I wanted to be a villain? Do the storywriters ever stop to consider that not everyone is a an entirely good person and that maybe, just maybe the protagonist has morally grey moments? Take Elsweyr for example, why should I care that these cats want to take their homeland back? What if I wanted to side with the Usurper Queen? What if I wanted to initially side with the Usurper Queen then later betray her and rule for myself? Look at Wrothgar, what if I met Kurog and decided that he's a stand up guy and and I want to work as to ensure that he remains on the throne and realises his dream for a modern Orcish Kingdom? I could go on and on but you get the idea. It seems like the writers here have an idea about a story they want to tell and force you to act it out as opposed to letting you write your own story. That's not an Elder Scrools RPG. I'm not saying that that isn't an effective storytelling tool because it can be. (Look at Final Fantasy X for example) However, this is an ELDER SCROLLS game. Choices and consequences should exist and they should matter.

Nemesis7884

the things you want work in a single player game where the world only has to revolve around you...they dont work in a multiplayer game where everyone needs to be able to group up with everyone in the same world regardless of choices and consequences...

In fact at gamescom matt firor gave an interview to gamestar that i recommend to anyone where he specifically adressed this and how when they initially had these types of choices and consequences implemented when eso started it caused a lot of issues...

Ohtimbar

Quest design is a problem in the entire rpg genre in my opinion. Even the main series games offer little in the way of real choice and consequence. Most rpg quests boil down to; go, kill, loot, return.

Real choices require dev time and art assets which could instead be used to create even more dull filler quests, hats, reskins etc. Open world games seem even worse in this area than the more focused titles of olde.

El_Borracho

You are confusing Skyrim with ESO. Like @Nemesis7884 said, you can't allow someone to make a decision that can possibly affect another's game. For instance, the the main quest line of Auridon. If you had the choice to go against Queen Ayrenn, it would change the dynamic of Auridon, blow up future quests, and make annual events make no sense.

VaranisArano

Its not actually true that the TES games have freedom of choice and consequences in the way you suggest.

As The Elder Scrolls series has gotten more complex, it generally doesn't let you side with the designated villains. The most you can do is ignore the main quest.

Daggerfall was the last time you could outright hand victory to a villain (and then the Dragonbreak nixed your choice by going with ALL the choices.)

Morrowind doesnt let you side with House Dagoth. The Devs originally considered it, but it got cut.

Oblivion doesn't let you side with the Mythic Dawn. You can't side with Mannimarco in overthrowing the Mages Guild.

Skyrim doesn't let you side with Alduin. You can pick the victor of the Civil War and take over the Volkihars (but even there, you have to kill Harkon), but you can't team up with Miraak.

Thing is, true freedom to join the enemy takes a lot of development time, effort, and money to design and voice act what's effectively an alternate questline. The more complex the game and the faster the release schedule, the less likely you are to get those choices. That's why we havent had that complete freedom even in the recent single player games.

ESO, like the most recent TES games, doesnt give you complete freedom to side with whoever you want.

TheGreatBlackBear

Saying you can't have branching quest outcomes because of how it'll affect other people's world is foolishness. Looking at those towns that are infested with daedra or pirates or whatever type of enemies. When you clear them via the related quest they transform into a regular town with inhabitants and merchants but that doesn't mean that the next player won't have the quest to do the same and save the town. Likewise the towns don't magically become enemy infested again once you beat the quest. Regardless of whether or not other people have done so. And if you really want to make that argument, then the consequences could be shown in a slideshow/cutscene form at the end of the quest line fallout New Vegas style. There's absolutely no reason to not have branching options in quests.

TheGreatBlackBear

VaranisArano wrote: »

Its not actually true that the TES games have freedom of choice and consequences in the way you suggest.

As The Elder Scrolls series has gotten more complex, it generally doesn't let you side with the designated villains. The most you can do is ignore the main quest.

Daggerfall was the last time you could outright hand victory to a villain (and then the Dragonbreak nixed your choice by going with ALL the choices.)

Morrowind doesnt let you side with House Dagoth. The Devs originally considered it, but it got cut.

Oblivion doesn't let you side with the Mythic Dawn. You can't side with Mannimarco in overthrowing the Mages Guild.

Skyrim doesn't let you side with Alduin. You can pick the victor of the Civil War and take over the Volkihars (but even there, you have to kill Harkon), but you can't team up with Miraak.

Thing is, true freedom to join the enemy takes a lot of development time, effort, and money to design and voice act what's effectively an alternate questline. The more complex the game and the faster the release schedule, the less likely you are to get those choices. That's why we havent had that complete freedom even in the recent single player games.

ESO, like the most recent TES games, doesnt give you complete freedom to side with whoever you want.

I agree with you that even in other TES games you didn't have complete control over everything. But storylines had paths, and options and differences that could be made. There's nothing like that in ESO.

VaranisArano

TheGreatBlackBear wrote: »

Saying you can't have branching quest outcomes because of how it'll affect other people's world is foolishness. Looking at those towns that are infested with daedra or pirates or whatever type of enemies. When you clear them via the related quest they transform into a regular town with inhabitants and merchants but that doesn't mean that the next player won't have the quest to do the same and save the town. Likewise the towns don't magically become enemy infested again once you beat the quest. Regardless of whether or not other people have done so. And if you really want to make that argument, then the consequences could be shown in a slideshow/cutscene form at the end of the quest line fallout New Vegas style. There's absolutely no reason to not have branching options in quests.

A single instanced town or city is a good bit different from instancing entire zones and storylines per player, particularly in an MMORPG that's designed for players of all levels to be able to do content together.

You'd have more of a case pre-One Tamriel, but doing it now would be very difficult, even assuming ZOS were willing to instance whole zones and their storylines.

Starlock

Computer RPGs - even the best of the best - are always limited in terms of how their narratives are structured. There are limits intrinsic to the medium itself. Code has to be programmed, and can only allow for finite scenarios and parameters. Because of this, computer RPGs can never mimic a good tabletop RPG session, but the best of them try as much as possible to do so. I only see this changing if and when highly sophisticated artificial intelligence is put in charge of a computer RPG.

When developing a proper RPG, storytelling is paramount regardless of the medium we are talking about. As someone who has GM'd for years, party cohesion and narrative cohesion are significant considerations when setting up a campaign. That necessarily means limiting options so we can actually tell a good story together. There can't be infinite options, even in the most flexible of cooperative storytelling media. I expect much less flexibility when the inherent limitations of computer programming are involved. The long and the short of it is that all good storytellers to some extent force a narrative because otherwise the story lacks direction entirely.

ESO is not at the top rung of storytelling as far as RPGs are concerned, but it also isn't at the bottom. While the stories are fairly linear, the storytelling and lore is top notch. Where this game lacks is in branching dialogue options that help define your character and - in most quests - lack of player choice. But this is not atypical of the computer RPG medium by a long shot. Having played another so-called MMORPG within the last year, ESO is head and shoulders above that sorry excuse for an RPG.

I don't know where I was going with this. I suppose I'll end in that it is important to hold realistic expectations and recognize the importance of a driving narrative when it comes to designing any RPG in any medium.

Kel

TheGreatBlackBear wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Its not actually true that the TES games have freedom of choice and consequences in the way you suggest.

As The Elder Scrolls series has gotten more complex, it generally doesn't let you side with the designated villains. The most you can do is ignore the main quest.

Daggerfall was the last time you could outright hand victory to a villain (and then the Dragonbreak nixed your choice by going with ALL the choices.)

Morrowind doesnt let you side with House Dagoth. The Devs originally considered it, but it got cut.

Oblivion doesn't let you side with the Mythic Dawn. You can't side with Mannimarco in overthrowing the Mages Guild.

Skyrim doesn't let you side with Alduin. You can pick the victor of the Civil War and take over the Volkihars (but even there, you have to kill Harkon), but you can't team up with Miraak.

Thing is, true freedom to join the enemy takes a lot of development time, effort, and money to design and voice act what's effectively an alternate questline. The more complex the game and the faster the release schedule, the less likely you are to get those choices. That's why we havent had that complete freedom even in the recent single player games.

ESO, like the most recent TES games, doesnt give you complete freedom to side with whoever you want.

I agree with you that even in other TES games you didn't have complete control over everything. But storylines had paths, and options and differences that could be made. There's nothing like that in ESO.

There are in fact quite a few quests with choices in ESO.
Someone started a thread awhile back.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/125726/spoilers-quest-choices-full-list-all-factions

Might not be everything you wish it to be, but it's far from saying "there's none".

El_Borracho

@TheGreatBlackBear but you're talking about uprooting major story lines. I get what you are saying about how they've handled overlapping content, but that isn't the same as siding with Molag Bal. What you would end up with is a bunch of incongruous story lines and follow-up quests that make no sense. Like I said earlier, if you sided against Queen Ayrenn, it would make no sense that you would later be told to throw a mudball at her during an annual event, let alone expect all of Auridon to look like it does now.

baratron

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

the things you want work in a single player game where the world only has to revolve around you...they dont work in a multiplayer game where everyone needs to be able to group up with everyone in the same world regardless of choices and consequences...

In fact at gamescom matt firor gave an interview to gamestar that i recommend to anyone where he specifically adressed this and how when they initially had these types of choices and consequences implemented when eso started it caused a lot of issues...

Do you have a link to that article? I'm having difficulty finding it.

eso_lags

not in eso

Araneae6537

I don’t think OP’s wish would be feasible outside of small instances and these already exist, as in the Auridon college you can challenge those running it or not (at least I assume it ends differently if you tell the headmaster he’s doing a great job instead of calling him out for his abuses). As has been pointed out, choices that would change not just a small thing but the entire direction of the campaign aren’t only not feasible in an MMO, but in single player games as well, even BioWare, which generally does the best job of letting you determine your character and their actions. For instance, in the original Dragon Age, you can determine the fate of kingdoms but you still have to ultimately face the dark spawn.

But I would like more small choices in ESO and every game really, like the stories in SWTOR. You may not be able to change the overarching story from its course but you had a lot of options in your own story along the way and your actions would impact how NPCs interacted with you. I would very much like that in ESO, although I realize it would require recording a lot more voice acting to properly respond to different characters and choices.