Greymoor writing is disappointing and probably the least interesting to date (spoilers)

Anhedonie

Yeah, I know, story is secondary in an MMO to most people, but I think here it's actually very well done. I mean whole game up to this point. I might not have been as excited about certain dlc story lines, but overall they all range from good to great.
Well, not this time. I was actually holding off, since I have a couple of side quests to finish, but man it's hard to bring myself to do it after witnessing all that happened in Greymoor dlc.

King Svagrim. That revelation that you can see coming the moment you enter Blue Palace the first time was handled very poorly. "Haha, I'm evil and a vampire. Let me stand there and talk like your average anime villain." And yeah, that way too obvious and frankly, not too interesting.
Another issue - Swag King is your typical cartoon villain. No complexity, depth or different sides. Not to mention that his story involvement is too short and doesn't really allow him to open up.
Also, when he smashed that elixir bottle, that was a great opportunity to turn things into different direction, to add some drama. But what happens instead? "Yeah, don't worry, we have some more of that juice.". And then Svana does that pro-gamer move, drinks it and survives the harrowstorm. How cliche. Not only the way it happens, but there are no drawbacks, no side effects and potion works perfectly.
Fenn also survives the abduction just fine, no lingering effects or anything. Wow, much unexpected, so interesting.
Also, Blackreach is that super secret place, but every dog and their mother knows how to get there and goes there to the vacation like it's Hawaii or something.

Overall story impression: all according to keikaku*
*keikaku means plan.



All these memes and suggestions aside, Greymoor is a big surprise from the writing team and not a good one. I guess I got too used to the fact that you usually deliver.

Iccotak

Haven’t played Greymoor yet however, IMO, Best Story Arc (after base game) was Morrowind -> CWC -> Summerset.
Orsinium is a classic

I think Season of the Dragon main story was really rushed. Could have used a few more quests to flesh things out.
Good & memorable characters but “Elsweyr” & “Dragonhold” felt too separate.
And Kaalgrontiid was shoehorned into the ending with an anti-climatic boss fight.

I like that players could be in your instance as it is an MMO and I do think players should be able to take on the main plot together.
BUT Kaalgrontiid mechanics were for novice new players , not for long time players.

Hurbster

Well after turning Nocturnal into a Saturday morning mustache-twirling cartoon villain I'm not that surprised. Like all games the writing is inconsistent and I imagine different people wrote different characters.

I thought the writing in Elsweyr and Dragonhold was really good with some memorable characters.

Lintashi

My main problem with main quest, is currently Svana's absolute plot protection.

A young girl, grown in the palace, probably pampered all her life, goes alone into wilderness of Skyrim, wearing only light shirt, breeches and carrying a shabby bow. She founds lift into Blackreach, travels half ot the place, without having any problems with falmer, chaurus, then she infiltrates a camp full of vampire warlords, icereach withches and vampire hounds, drags out three adult harrowed, who barely move, and noone in the camp pays any attention to that! Also, it was painfully obvious, that both her parents gonna die, that her father will be villain in some capacity, and that Svana will be ruler in the end.

colossalvoids

Even worse than Elsweyr/year story was? Eh.

Anhedonie

Lintashi wrote: »

My main problem with main quest, is currently Svana's absolute plot protection.

A young girl, grown in the palace, probably pampered all her life, goes alone into wilderness of Skyrim, wearing only light shirt, breeches and carrying a shabby bow. She founds lift into Blackreach, travels half ot the place, without having any problems with falmer, chaurus, then she infiltrates a camp full of vampire warlords, icereach withches and vampire hounds, drags out three adult harrowed, who barely move, and noone in the camp pays any attention to that! Also, it was painfully obvious, that both her parents gonna die, that her father will be villain in some capacity, and that Svana will be ruler in the end.

Plot armour is abundant in both main and side quests in Greymoor dlc.

navystylz_ESO

Anhedonie wrote: »

Yeah, I know, story is secondary in an MMO to most people, but I think here it's actually very well done. I mean whole game up to this point.

Disagree. I think Elsweyr was worse than Western Skyrim.

Sleep724

Not surprising. Most video games, movies, tv etc have horrible writing these days.

Thevampirenight

i actually loved the story though it was a bit predicatable in some ways.
I loved the way we had to work with Fenn, Lyris and Svana. I hope we can get more quests like that in the future.
It makes the story not just about you but shows that you are just one of the heros of the story and all of you are needed to fix and stop the big bad.
Without your companions you cannot beat them. Which is pretty neat and I liked they did that with the chapter.

I wrote this Theory thread in January and most if not all of it came true.
Gray Host returning- Happened, Reachman and Witches happened. King Emeric asking the Ravenwatch to look into whats happening. Happened as well. That is why Fenn got sent out to check out what the Draugr Kin were doing. So all of what I said basically came true. I basically thought it was going to happen like this and I was right on the money this time around.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/508999/theory-chapter-might-involve-the-return-of-the-gray-host-a-vampire-werewolf-army

Shantu

As much as I'd like to enjoy any ESO story line, particularly chapter's main one, I eventually find myself just clicking through the dialog to get it over with. A reflection of stale stories and uninspired voice acting. Subsequent running through the quests with additional characters for skill points becomes a painfully annoying task.

The only notable exception, for me, is encountering Naryu Virian in the game. The voice acting is so exquisitely entertaining it captures my attention every time.

TheShadowScout

Anhedonie wrote: »

King Svagrim. That revelation that you can see coming the moment you enter Blue Palace the first time was handled very poorly. "Haha, I'm evil and a vampire. Let me stand there and talk like your average anime villain." And yeah, that way too obvious and frankly, not too interesting.

I knew the revelation would come from the moment I heard of his orders to the Jarl of Morthal... I mean, "leave the pikes alone" from a "punch first, look later" nord??? That showed the king was on the side of the harrowstormers, at least to my fantasy conspiracy-tale sharpened mind...

Anhedonie wrote: »

Another issue - Swag King is your typical cartoon villain. No complexity, depth or different sides. Not to mention that his story involvement is too short and doesn't really allow him to open up.

Reading between the lines, I can see a bit more depth... but it isn't really shown, just very weakly implied. How his lack of faith in his daughter and inability to let go of his grudges and kingship drove him to seek eternal (un)life to keep his rule over Solitude forever... it is a classic tale, but agreed, it could have been explored with a lot more depth. A lot more fluff to show how the kings faith in others was eroded over the time of his rule, how he considered his daughter useless as heir and thus became ever more stuck in holding on to the crown, until he would sacrifice all the people just to keep the land in his hands, etc.

Anhedonie wrote: »

Also, when he smashed that elixir bottle, that was a great opportunity to turn things into different direction, to add some drama. But what happens instead? "Yeah, don't worry, we have some more of that juice.". And then Svana does that pro-gamer move, drinks it and survives the harrowstorm.

Actually she does that -before- the king breaks the bottle - he does his move when she comes back with the now proven elixir, hoping to finally win his approval with her help... And when he does break it, its a bit of a issue as they may now have the recipe, but have to go out and grab some stuff to make more of the elixir... but just don't have the time to get enough done to keep everyone safe, and thus have to scramble to stop the final huge harrowstorm, yes?

Anhedonie wrote: »

Fenn also survives the abduction just fine, no lingering effects or anything.

Look at him just after the rescue. Hunched over, desperately clinging to his flask... yeah, he bounces back quickly enough once he is back in solitude and far, far away from that alchemists lab, but the effects are there if you look for it...

Anhedonie wrote: »

Also, Blackreach is that super secret place, but every dog and their mother knows how to get there and goes there to the vacation like it's Hawaii or something.

Some do, some don't. And its not that secret a place, obviously... I mean, the friggin dwemer lifts are there in the landscape! (personally I wish all the entraces had been well hidden, a cave in the mountainface leading to a lift there, a cellar tunnelling into dwemer access halls here, a secret door near an ancient shrine over there... but... alas.)

Lintashi wrote: »

My main problem with main quest, is currently Svana's absolute plot protection...

Agreed, I for one would have preferred to see her escorted by Lyris, and changing into armor, at the very least. Heck, I definitely would have added one or two scenes where she almost dies and has to be rescued in the nick of time to show that a princess title gives no armor value..

Everstorm

I was a bit annoyed by the Morthal part where the mainquest and the townquest don't interact. I just saved the earls daughter and he doesn't even mentioned it.

REiiGN15

Fits Skyrim's crappy writing. Wasn't a fan of that either.

Malthorne

I am a few quests into to msg and I found myself being easily distracted and looking at my phone or discord during the story dialogue last night. I felt no desire to continue the new adventure so I logged off and did other things.

Hopefully it will get better, but it just seems like the same ole generic ESO quest line where you “save the princess.” We are the lapdog who, once again, does all the heavy lifting for the zones ruling authority. Please tell me the story deviates from that stale formula?

UGotBenched91

Shantu wrote: »

As much as I'd like to enjoy any ESO story line, particularly chapter's main one, I eventually find myself just clicking through the dialog to get it over with. A reflection of stale stories and uninspired voice acting. Subsequent running through the quests with additional characters for skill points becomes a painfully annoying task.

The only notable exception, for me, is encountering Naryu Virian in the game. The voice acting is so exquisitely entertaining it captures my attention every time.

Hmm uninspired voice acting? I think the voice acting is done quiet well for the most part.

Celephantsylvius_Bornasfinmo

For myself I found that the dark brotherhood chapter was nicely done and also the main quest against molag bal...the rest...well yeah.

MrDenimChicken

REiiGN15 wrote: »

Fits Skyrim's crappy writing. Wasn't a fan of that either.

in my opinion skyrim had much more of an epic story line, and in general just seemed more interesting. Maybe it's the fact that ESO has all these other players around you breaking immersion, or there are so many quests that seem to be copy and pastes of each other...but in general the Skyrim quests seemed to be much more intriguing and immersive.

VaranisArano

Malthorne wrote: »

Hopefully it will get better, but it just seems like the same ole generic ESO quest line where you “save the princess.” We are the lapdog who, once again, does all the heavy lifting for the zones ruling authority. Please tell me the story deviates from that stale formula?

So what I'm hearing is that ESO chose to rip off Oblivion again?

Specifically, you spend the whole game doing fetch quests for Martin Septim all so he can save the day at the last second

Iccotak

I really liked the Molag Bal story arc and I think one of the reasons is because each faction had several zones that were part of a connected story. It could take its time with both the primary & secondary plots.

Same for the Daedric War arc which had three zones as well as a couple of dungeons that hinted what was to come.

Season of the Dragon was two zones and four mostly unrelated dungeons.
It had a complete first & second act but rushed the third act.

Because ESO made the subscription optional, requiring each quarterly update to be bought separately, it can’t have a clear through line between them because people will play them out of order ( 🤦‍♂️ )
ESO really needs a Story Order guide for new players.

I think ZOS should consider looking into their season formula in the future. I can see the appeal of have one year story with one theme but it could use more story/quests for the main story. I don’t want to do a Chapter storyline and think “That’s it?”
Same goes for the season.

MartiniDaniels

UGotBenched91 wrote: »

Shantu wrote: »

As much as I'd like to enjoy any ESO story line, particularly chapter's main one, I eventually find myself just clicking through the dialog to get it over with. A reflection of stale stories and uninspired voice acting. Subsequent running through the quests with additional characters for skill points becomes a painfully annoying task.

The only notable exception, for me, is encountering Naryu Virian in the game. The voice acting is so exquisitely entertaining it captures my attention every time.

Hmm uninspired voice acting? I think the voice acting is done quiet well for the most part.

Tbh.. it's hard to say. Even if we take Lyris... same actress voiced Commander Shepard... ton of remarks from Shepard are still memes in bioware/masseffect community. Of course game was not so popular as Skyrim or W3, so maybe not everybody knows it, but those who knows... you will be never be the same after completing ME1-3 with Femshep.
Lyris on the other hand... I guess she is fine and one the most recognizable characters of ESO. But do you remember her phrases? I don't.

Maybe ESO has best voicing/writing in MMORPG genre... but in comparison to single player or single player campaigns of multiplayer games... unfortunately, no, not even close. Maybe it is combination of factors, like other players around, lack of epic fights, lack of notable rewards - and that lackluster gameplay de-values writing and voicing (i.e. you simply don't believe NPC).

Mettaricana

Iccotak wrote: »

Haven’t played Greymoor yet however, IMO, Best Story Arc (after base game) was Morrowind -> CWC -> Summerset.
Orsinium is a classic

I think Season of the Dragon main story was really rushed. Could have used a few more quests to flesh things out.
Good & memorable characters but “Elsweyr” & “Dragonhold” felt too separate.
And Kaalgrontiid was shoehorned into the ending with an anti-climatic boss fight.

I like that players could be in your instance as it is an MMO and I do think players should be able to take on the main plot together.
BUT Kaalgrontiid mechanics were for novice new players , not for long time players.

My god was kaalgrontiid the worst fight in series lets repeatedly freeze the other dragon fly around and land back on the same towers and repeat the same tactics over and over till i die.... "noooooo im dying this can't be i was almost a god how can my tired repetition tactic of doing the same predictable thing 4 times in a row possibly fail how does this hero have plot armor so thick that my glorious plan could falter?!?!?!?"....... bruh really...? Just because it has dragons in the foght doesn't make it a cool well thought out final battle...

Iccotak

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Maybe it is combination of factors, like other players around, lack of epic fights, lack of notable rewards - and that lackluster gameplay de-values writing and voicing (i.e. you simply don't believe NPC).

Exactly, you just don’t take the story as seriously when the main boss of the story is easily beaten. When the main boss has mechanics that a novice player could navigate it makes your victory feel handed to you.
It feels patronizing when NPCs treat you like a hero of the whole world when it was so easy to do.

Am I saying that the bosses need their own Dungeon or Trial?
The “mini-dungeon” set up for main bosses is good but they could make it more challenging and encourage players to work together in order to defeat them. ZOS needs to stop making Solo content so easy.
Mannimarco & Molag Bal used to be difficult and it was rewarding when you beat them.

ZOS tried to have each main boss of Craglorn in a Trial to little success but then again that was because you had to have a party to do anything there, including each quest step.

In my opinion, this is an MMO and as consequence the threat of the year should take a effort (solo or group) to defeat otherwise I have less reason to care

Iccotak

Along with my previous comment I think ZOS could work on storytelling framing of important scenes and moments like they do with the intro cutscenes of each chapter.

If ZOS wants us to care about the characters then consider making moments of drama and high tension for them because otherwise we will not care about them.

Malthorne

VaranisArano wrote: »

Malthorne wrote: »

Hopefully it will get better, but it just seems like the same ole generic ESO quest line where you “save the princess.” We are the lapdog who, once again, does all the heavy lifting for the zones ruling authority. Please tell me the story deviates from that stale formula?

So what I'm hearing is that ESO chose to rip off Oblivion again?

Specifically, you spend the whole game doing fetch quests for Martin Septim all so he can save the day at the last second

Now you’ve got me hoping Svana turns into an Avatar of Akatosh 🐉 at the end

Vevvev

I actually like Svana in the beginning but the longer the story went on the more obvious it became she had some pretty powerful plot armor. In fact only in hindsight now am I starting to see the holes all over the plot, and I found it quite sad we didn't actually get to fight the big bad. I wish they kept Svargrim alive and didn't make him into the final boss fight of the chapter. It made for an oh **** moment but the way the main characters resolved the issue felt like the second and third seasons of Stranger Things.

There was not as much risk as there could have been, and when you were in Greymoor keep surrounded by the statues I expected to get overrun like in the Volenfell dungeon. A never ending tide of Gray Host fighters trying to kill you but that didn't happen either. Instead it was predictable waves one after the other.... At least the leader of the Gray Host in interesting. I like how they wrote him and actually explained why he's doing what he is doing. Not because he's super evil, which he totally is, but for freeing his "family".

TheShadowScout

Iccotak wrote: »

The “mini-dungeon” set up for main bosses is good but they could make it more challenging and encourage players to work together in order to defeat them. ZOS needs to stop making Solo content so easy.
Mannimarco & Molag Bal used to be difficult and it was rewarding when you beat them.

Nah on the "players work together" thing, it would be such a vexation having to wait for another player to show up in times when the expansion is no longer new and hightly frequented...
But agreement for "more challenging" - as I posted before:

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Personally I -love- involved bossfightts where you cannot just plow them under with the weight of your CP and endgame gear. Or even a halfway decent character. The final stonefalls fight was a good one in this regard, yeah, exactly through that scripted first stage to set it up... Molag Bal is the same, with the "power of the divines" setup to -make- an "impossible" opponent beatable, fluff-wise.

And yes, some bosses really need a bit more "oomph" behind them, to make their fights more enjoyable. And not just more HP, but... more mechanics! Vox for example would do well with running to each soul well at 50% HP and healing up to full while involvnerable and spawning ghostly or daedric adds. The orc Thane could also use a mechanic like that, use all those spirits.

Another mechanic I would love to see is one where you have to figure out something to make an protected boss beatable... like so many of the minigames (or more like microgames)...

...for example, you could have an boss with an elemental shield, and four pillars with elements, pick the right one to buff yourself up to get past the shield, which changes every 20% HP...

...or you could have a boss powered/healed by minions hiding to the side, on balconies or in doorways... needing you to track down and defeat those first to make the boss vulvnerable... while evading the boss... or maybe the old "koschei" shtick, a boss that cannot be damaged... until you figure out its not the boss you need to attack, its whatever the boss hid their life in! Like the innocent looking pet chicken in the corner or whatnot.

...or you could have a boss that halfway through the fight casts a spell that completely changes the battle in some way... possibly by adapting to your attacks so far; so when attacked with ranged weapons, could cast a permanent fog that makes it impossible to target from more then five meters away, or when attacked with melee, a swamp that reduces movement and disables gap closers...

...or you could have more bosses that have specific weaknesses like Falchou... especially ones which are less storyline-sticks-your-nose-right-in-it obvious, but take a bit of figuring out yourself. Like a permanently invisible ranged opponent in a multi-room area, and you can go into a water filled room to spot their approximate location from where they displace the water to attack...

Heck, I especially want a "mirror fight" someday, where you fight a copy of yourself... that mirrors EVERY attack, and ALL the damage either way. Then wait and see who figures out that you can win by stopping to fight and sheating your weapons... (its a classic!)

...and that or more like it is strill stuff I would adore seeing in ESO!

Malthorne wrote: »

Now you’ve got me hoping Svana turns into an Avatar of Akatosh 🐉 at the end

Nah, its her daddy who turns...

Tho its really not her who does much, its more the people around her, and she is just along for the ride, providing that touch of legitimacy to get all the other people there to get along with the good ideas the king rejects out of hand.

Vevvev wrote: »

...and I found it quite sad we didn't actually get to fight the big bad.

That didn't surprise me in the least.
I mean... it was the same in elsweyr, where the baddest dragon of them all in this era only gets thrown into the sky, to return for dragonhold... and it will be the same with the Ashen Lord, who we will have to deal with ijn the fall DLC, yes?

Faulgor

navystylz_ESO wrote: »

Anhedonie wrote: »

Yeah, I know, story is secondary in an MMO to most people, but I think here it's actually very well done. I mean whole game up to this point.

Disagree. I think Elsweyr was worse than Western Skyrim.

I will say that Elsweyr had at least much better presentation. I can't recall a single interesting locale or cinematic effect in Greymoor. Usually the main quest locations get more ... strange as you progress, e.g. Clockwork City in Morrowind, Crystal Tower in Summerset, the moons in Elsweyr, whatever that Hist-adventure was in Murkmire. There was nothing like that in Greymoor.
Don't say Blackreach, we literally go there in the prologue quest and can stroll around from the beginning. What a wasted opportunity.

Elsweyr also at least had interesting side quests to make up for the main story (e.g. the Ashen Scar, Skooma Cat, insights into Akaviri culture, etc). Is there any compelling story in the whole of Western Skyrim?
A stranded ship on a frozen coast (hello, is Wrothgar a joke to you ZOS?)? An Orc mining operation going bad (again ... Wrothgar, hello?)? A daedric cult shrine overrun by some other baddy? None of this is worthy of a chapter.
It's as if someone in the design meeting said "I'd really like to do this story again we've told a dozen times, but this time with less polish and more women".

Anhedonie

Faulgor wrote: »

navystylz_ESO wrote: »

Anhedonie wrote: »

Yeah, I know, story is secondary in an MMO to most people, but I think here it's actually very well done. I mean whole game up to this point.

Disagree. I think Elsweyr was worse than Western Skyrim.

I will say that Elsweyr had at least much better presentation. I can't recall a single interesting locale or cinematic effect in Greymoor. Usually the main quest locations get more ... strange as you progress, e.g. Clockwork City in Morrowind, Crystal Tower in Summerset, the moons in Elsweyr, whatever that Hist-adventure was in Murkmire. There was nothing like that in Greymoor.
Don't say Blackreach, we literally go there in the prologue quest and can stroll around from the beginning. What a wasted opportunity.

Elsweyr also at least had interesting side quests to make up for the main story (e.g. the Ashen Scar, Skooma Cat, insights into Akaviri culture, etc). Is there any compelling story in the whole of Western Skyrim?
A stranded ship on a frozen coast (hello, is Wrothgar a joke to you ZOS?)? An Orc mining operation going bad (again ... Wrothgar, hello?)? A daedric cult shrine overrun by some other baddy? None of this is worthy of a chapter.
It's as if someone in the design meeting said "I'd really like to do this story again we've told a dozen times, but this time with less polish and more women".

Yeah, I was having Vietnam flashbacks nonstop while doing side quests in Western Skyrim.

Ahnog

I thought the story was great.

Faulgor

Anhedonie wrote: »

Faulgor wrote: »

navystylz_ESO wrote: »

Anhedonie wrote: »

Yeah, I know, story is secondary in an MMO to most people, but I think here it's actually very well done. I mean whole game up to this point.

Disagree. I think Elsweyr was worse than Western Skyrim.

I will say that Elsweyr had at least much better presentation. I can't recall a single interesting locale or cinematic effect in Greymoor. Usually the main quest locations get more ... strange as you progress, e.g. Clockwork City in Morrowind, Crystal Tower in Summerset, the moons in Elsweyr, whatever that Hist-adventure was in Murkmire. There was nothing like that in Greymoor.
Don't say Blackreach, we literally go there in the prologue quest and can stroll around from the beginning. What a wasted opportunity.

Elsweyr also at least had interesting side quests to make up for the main story (e.g. the Ashen Scar, Skooma Cat, insights into Akaviri culture, etc). Is there any compelling story in the whole of Western Skyrim?
A stranded ship on a frozen coast (hello, is Wrothgar a joke to you ZOS?)? An Orc mining operation going bad (again ... Wrothgar, hello?)? A daedric cult shrine overrun by some other baddy? None of this is worthy of a chapter.
It's as if someone in the design meeting said "I'd really like to do this story again we've told a dozen times, but this time with less polish and more women".

Yeah, I was having Vietnam flashbacks nonstop while doing side quests in Western Skyrim.

I think the only somewhat original one that stuck with me was Nchuthnkarst. I also enjoyed roaming Labyrinthian again, so I'll probably just stick to the public dungeons.

Freeflyer212

Iccotak wrote: »

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Maybe it is combination of factors, like other players around, lack of epic fights, lack of notable rewards - and that lackluster gameplay de-values writing and voicing (i.e. you simply don't believe NPC).

Exactly, you just don’t take the story as seriously when the main boss of the story is easily beaten. When the main boss has mechanics that a novice player could navigate it makes your victory feel handed to you.
It feels patronizing when NPCs treat you like a hero of the whole world when it was so easy to do.

Am I saying that the bosses need their own Dungeon or Trial?
The “mini-dungeon” set up for main bosses is good but they could make it more challenging and encourage players to work together in order to defeat them. ZOS needs to stop making Solo content so easy.
Mannimarco & Molag Bal used to be difficult and it was rewarding when you beat them.

ZOS tried to have each main boss of Craglorn in a Trial to little success but then again that was because you had to have a party to do anything there, including each quest step.

In my opinion, this is an MMO and as consequence the threat of the year should take a effort (solo or group) to defeat otherwise I have less reason to care

I agree! Solo cotent is too dang easy, especially when you are overpowered. You cut through enemies like paper and barely walk away with a scratch.