for new DLCs - improve story line, avoid the same pattern, add choices with consequences

Quelios

ES Skyrim fan, many hours spent on that fantastic game, but the last ESO DLC - Greymoor could be more focused on story line. After so many years of ESO, I think there is a need for new approach, to keep the community excited and to add new players.

Chilly-McFreeze

And what do you propose? Better character writing? Not using the same trope every dlc? Challenging boss encounters? Choices with consequences?

Tapio75

I would certainly apreciate a whole new chapter, that does not bring ANY new lands or skill lines or anything like that to the game, but only a new aspects to existing stories focused on joining the opposing side, playing evil characters, having more consequenceses from actions and so forth.

I know being mainly an MMO now limits the game from its true potential, but maybe some of that could be unlocked by making the game more like real MMORPG

Quelios

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

And what do you propose? Better character writing? Not using the same trope every dlc? Challenging boss encounters? Choices with consequences?

Yes, this is the point, every new DLC is keeping the same pattern, risking to be boring from the beginning. The ES series may be an inspiration for ZOS for characters writing and boss challenging, while Witcher series may be an inspiration for choices with consequences.

Chilly-McFreeze

Quelios wrote: »

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

And what do you propose? Better character writing? Not using the same trope every dlc? Challenging boss encounters? Choices with consequences?

Yes, this is the point, every new DLC is keeping the same pattern, risking to be boring from the beginning. The ES series may be an inspiration for ZOS for characters writing and boss challenging, while Witcher series may be an inspiration for choices with consequences.

I must admit I haven't played far into W3, so I can't compare it. As far as MMOs go, I really really liked the flair and "immersion" of SWTOR. You felt important, capable and you could make some impact on the story.
Not having much impact was often explained with us not beingt the center of the universe in ESO, compared to sp TES games. Which was correct until some point. But after all these defeated end-of-the-world threads I can't take that position anymore.

TheShadowScout

One thing I really, really would love to see is diverging storylines... like, having a mainstory that can go one way or the other depending on player choices... while arriving at the same end point.

Like, for example, if they had made the Thieves Guild story playable from two sides, either the TG story we know, or playing through the same region, same plotlines... but from the other side, as officer in the iron wheel, dealing with corruption in the ranks and overzealous guards... until stumbling over a certain merchant princes dark past, and in the end, crashing the wedding with a warrant and conclude the story that way.

Also, more meaning to the small choices you make in variuous questings... like those "spare an enemies life or kill them" things, from maormer abmassadors flavor of justice to reachmen you can trick into touching a death ward, from altmer doctors facing a mothers vengeance or not to breton knights letting daedric dreams get the better of them...
Spare an enemy at some point, get help from them that bypasses a sidequest at some other point; or execute the enemy and get attacked by their kid in revenge as extra sidequest at some other point.
Spare an enemy at some point, get an extra bit of trouble at some other point when they turn back to their dastardly waysor execute the enemy and get an extra reward for dispensing harsh justice from a victim at some other point.
Spare an enemy at some point, get thanked with a feast (and free buff) by their family at some other pointor execute the enemy and meet their grieving family lamenting their loved ones demise at some other point.
All that sort of stuff would have little effect in the whole, but... make it a lot more fun to play (especially mutliple playthroughs)

But agreement for "more challenging" content, especially boss fights in the face of over-specialized characters - 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 its still something I would love, especially in an ESO where "put everything into offensive stat and burn down all opposition fast" is an annoyingly way too effective META at this time...

VaranisArano

i'd suggest making a Chapter that is a complete story, as opposed to feeling like aspects have been deliberately reserved for the Q4 DLC.

ImmortalCX

Each zone should have "some" areas that are not scaled to player level, so that noobs will get their butts kicked if they go in there, without sneaking and taking other precautions.

One of my favorite memories playing WOW, was as a mid level character, I snuck into a high level zone and was able to farm some reagent.

Killing even a single mob was an ordeal, and I had to be very careful to only pull one.

That is what ESO is missing. There is no sense of danger or accomplishment in normal world progression.

adriant1978

Problem with choices/consequences is the amount of developer resources required to maintain multiple different possible world states can get very large very quickly. See the Dragon Age series for an example of how this can be done really well, but also must be an absolute nightmare to keep straight in terms of allowing prior player choices to impact your plot as it moves forward.

Would be nice if ESO took a leaf out of SWTOR's book though. While the plot there always tends to move in the same direction, you get a lot more personal flavor as it does so because of the different tone your character can adopt when replying to NPCs. Even if the end result is the same it creates the illusion that your noble knight got there differently from your wise-cracking rogue or your ruthless warlord. Even fake choices are better than no choices. Maybe works better with a voiced protagonist though, which is something ESO doesn't have.

Tapio75

adriant1978 wrote: »

Problem with choices/consequences is the amount of developer resources required to maintain multiple different possible world states can get very large very quickly. See the Dragon Age series for an example of how this can be done really well, but also must be an absolute nightmare to keep straight in terms of allowing prior player choices to impact your plot as it moves forward.

Would be nice if ESO took a leaf out of SWTOR's book though. While the plot there always tends to move in the same direction, you get a lot more personal flavor as it does so because of the different tone your character can adopt when replying to NPCs. Even if the end result is the same it creates the illusion that your noble knight got there differently from your wise-cracking rogue or your ruthless warlord. Even fake choices are better than no choices. Maybe works better with a voiced protagonist though, which is something ESO doesn't have.

This is always the excuse all game developers use to explain poor quality single sided stories..

Yet the modding community can make all that free or give even better and more meaningful inconsequencel NPC's like Interesting NPC*s mod for Skyrim, that gives whole lot of exellent voice acted content yp just get to know people you talk to.

SWTOR had great story for all the characters i made and choices did make the characters different and our companions also reacted to our actions positively or negatively.

But still... What always amuses me is that developers cant seem to be able to do even the quarter of content quality some modders can do for basically free if donations are not counted... STO and NWN also had their way for players to make their own content which again was sadly cut out of the game for saving resources or whatever... Truly what i gathered, it was because people misused the content creator to get advantage to their characters in one way or another which in my opinion is a matter of "Who cares"... Player pay way too much attention to what other players should not be able to do.

ListerJMC

I thought Greymoor was a slightly different approach? I mean, initially Greymoor's story felt shallow to me, but now that I'm doing side quests (a number of which are linked heavily with the main quest, which I didn't realise the first playthrough) and reading more of the lorebooks I actually think it's really cool how it's like one big puzzle leading into Q3-4. I'm enjoying connecting all the dots while I wait for more!

I agree that it'd be awesome to have more impactful quest options though. That's something I really loved about Wrothgar's story, the choice you make at Paragon's Remembrance changes things about the route you take to the finale and it's a shame we haven't really seen that since.

Aptonoth

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

And what do you propose? Better character writing? Not using the same trope every dlc? Challenging boss encounters? Choices with consequences?

Don’t do their jobs for them. Let Zeni figure it out. I’m sure they can as they made great ones like Morrowind and Clockwork. I think my biggest issue is the arch’s are too small. Year of dragon dine too fast. Year of vampire too short. I would pick 1 big story to carry between two years and some key characters to develop.

Stories feel like they are going too fast without enough development.

santhoranb16_ESO

What i'd really like to see is also the possible to join once the "other" side if you like. Aka not "always" be the hero, world-safer, last resort and such. That ability to join the bad/selfish/rogue side in the story. That alone would be enough to pep the storys up if you got 2 ways to "clear" a chapter, one for the bads and one for the goods and you have to choose - WITH consequences.
And there i dont mean just negative for the bad side and positive for good choices, it shouldnt feel like doing "right or wrong". You should "win" too as on the rogue's side, just be very different.

Ghanima_Atreides

santhoranb16_ESO wrote: »

What i'd really like to see is also the possible to join once the "other" side if you like. Aka not "always" be the hero, world-safer, last resort and such. That ability to join the bad/selfish/rogue side in the story. That alone would be enough to pep the storys up if you got 2 ways to "clear" a chapter, one for the bads and one for the goods and you have to choose - WITH consequences.
And there i dont mean just negative for the bad side and positive for good choices, it shouldnt feel like doing "right or wrong".

I agree. This is what SWTOR does so well (or rather used to, before budget cutbacks meant that there would be a single storyline for all factions). You could be a Republic OR an Empire character, with several story arcs for each class, and if you were playing a Jedi it was nothing like playing a Sith. And there were consequences, ending with you defeating the enemy faction. It would be like sacking Solitude at the head of Svargrim's Harrowfiend army.

Unfortunately, that would mean double the resources - quests, voice acting, everything - not just for this chapter but the whole Year arc, to account for your previous choices. They just aren't going to do it.

Mettaricana

All for this haven't had an impactful choice since wrothgar. Do one route slogara survives other route she dies but the high elf buddy lives same ending but certain friends didnt make it. Now if they appear in a future dlc it could be the ones that survived rather than retconned our decisions just to sell a dlc storyline with dragons *cough lyris/sai* (as far as sai sahan he played so little role in dragon guard he could have easily stayed dead if that was your choice with no impact to the story that the generals daughter couldn't have filled the roll for) i love reason to replay a dlc but with no choices the single play through is enough unless a skill line progress holds ya back during it. I didnt appreciate veya coming back regardless of our choices in morrowind, our companions quest choices over ruled by plot hole armor thicker than the bread that nord made in elswyer. Its like every time we make what seems like a life or death choice the devs and writers just flip us the bird and yank the dead back into relevance... give its a few more dlcs and years and im sure mannimarco will pop back up regardless if ya released him or not. Or aelif from fighters guild magically plot holes back to life in a later dlc.

Starlock

Ghanima_Atreides wrote: »

Unfortunately, that would mean double the resources - quests, voice acting, everything - not just for this chapter but the whole Year arc, to account for your previous choices. They just aren't going to do it.

They can. I don't doubt that they can pull in the resources. Right now, Zenimax Online is hiring for pre-production of a new IP that, if you look at the positions, is going to be some sort of massive, open world games-as-service MMO type title. They are also hiring several people to help with ESO as well (though whether that's an expansion of the team or replacing employees who left isn't clear). They've got the resources. They can do it. No question.

It used to be the team doing the real work on this game one-upped themselves with every DLC release. They've got a lot of talent already, and they certainly have the resources to pull this off. It's more a question of whether or not the folks in charge are willing to depart significantly from the formula to do something a bit new and different. It could be they want to, even, but are being held back because investors don't like risk.

Ghanima_Atreides

Starlock wrote: »

Ghanima_Atreides wrote: »

Unfortunately, that would mean double the resources - quests, voice acting, everything - not just for this chapter but the whole Year arc, to account for your previous choices. They just aren't going to do it.

They can. I don't doubt that they can pull in the resources. Right now, Zenimax Online is hiring for pre-production of a new IP that, if you look at the positions, is going to be some sort of massive, open world games-as-service MMO type title. They are also hiring several people to help with ESO as well (though whether that's an expansion of the team or replacing employees who left isn't clear). They've got the resources. They can do it. No question.

It used to be the team doing the real work on this game one-upped themselves with every DLC release. They've got a lot of talent already, and they certainly have the resources to pull this off. It's more a question of whether or not the folks in charge are willing to depart significantly from the formula to do something a bit new and different. It could be they want to, even, but are being held back because investors don't like risk.

Oh I don't doubt that they have the resources, the issue is that they won't use them. They'll invest most heavily in the things they believe will make them the most money - Crown Store stuff, this new game you're saying they are developing (and which I had no idea about). Meaningful choices in story quests aren't a priority, and frankly they never really have been (and what choices did use to exist have dwindled to pretty much nothing now, or have been outright retconned *coughlyriscoughsaicough*).

Plus, I think that Greymoor has been suffering from Skyrim nostalgia overload...they banked heavily on that, given the care with which they reconstructed the environments and included as many references as possible to places and characters from Skyrim...hoping it would be enough to keep players happy.
Morrowind was similar, except IMO they did invest more into making more than a shallow nostalgia trip.

Iccotak

To be honest, I did not think this was going to be a great year for elder scrolls online. I thought this year that we are going to get an OK chapter story, we will get some changes, and there would be a lot of focus on performance. Also Covid-19 has made everyone’s lives stressful and difficult.

The developers have already released one major update in which we had to re-download the entire game. And as we’ve seen them discuss so far there are more updates planned in the future to improve performance.

And seeing as how I like to use the player made add-ons to improve my experience, I think I will wait a little while before I get back on again.

I think that with our feedback this year we could see some improvements in 2021.

Dusk_Coven

Tapio75 wrote: »

SWTOR had great story for all the characters i made and choices did make the characters different and our companions also reacted to our actions positively or negatively.

The paradigm is different here. The storylines do not follow a linear progression and the devs said they don't want it that way. They want new players to be able to jump in at the current story line and choose which one they want. That means they can't really have choices have consequences because they aren't going to redo old content to account for all the permutations of which story line -- or even bits of story line -- you did next.
This has already resulted in people coming back from the dead with basically a lame reason ("I don't know I just woke up").

With linear story progression you can have choices actually matter more, but it locks story development in different ways.
SWTOR tracks a lot of choices and with the linear story they can. But even then, as the story progresses with new chapter releases, it becomes more and more of a spaghetti. They tried one reset at KOTFE/KOTET to make it more manageable when they effectively ended a lot of companion stories except for romances. If they hadn't, it would be just nuts handling the cases, which takes away time from developing the overall storyline.

Mettaricana wrote: »

All for this haven't had an impactful choice since wrothgar.

Expect even less of your choices to matter outside any current story chapter going forward.

Everest_Lionheart

ListerJMC wrote: »

I thought Greymoor was a slightly different approach? I mean, initially Greymoor's story felt shallow to me, but now that I'm doing side quests (a number of which are linked heavily with the main quest, which I didn't realise the first playthrough) and reading more of the lorebooks I actually think it's really cool how it's like one big puzzle leading into Q3-4. I'm enjoying connecting all the dots while I wait for more!

I agree that it'd be awesome to have more impactful quest options though. That's something I really loved about Wrothgar's story, the choice you make at Paragon's Remembrance changes things about the route you take to the finale and it's a shame we haven't really seen that since.

The side quests are what really makes the story to me. I’ve played through some DLC zones a few times now like Elsweyr, Orsinium and Vvardenfell. My main character I played all of those side quests concurrently with the main quest and my alt played through the main quest only to get the skill points. It’s such a different experience if you skip all of the side stuff and shallow would be a great word to describe it.

I think some of the trouble coming out of the base game is a sense of quest overload. Fortunately you can get away with skipping some of the side quests in the base game and some zones you need to because the main story is 20+ quests long already. I found covenant and pact to be very quest heavy where AD was story driven. I’m still powering my way through covenant to finish Cadwell’s gold and I am definitely quest fatigued!

That’s good to know that Greymoor is somewhat impacted by side quests in that it fleshes out the story. I’m still waiting for XB1 to release, they pushed it another day though. But I’ll quest and side quest my way though it until the end. I’ve learned my lesson from the other DLC and your post helps confirm it.

ListerJMC

Everest_Lionheart wrote: »

ListerJMC wrote: »

I thought Greymoor was a slightly different approach? I mean, initially Greymoor's story felt shallow to me, but now that I'm doing side quests (a number of which are linked heavily with the main quest, which I didn't realise the first playthrough) and reading more of the lorebooks I actually think it's really cool how it's like one big puzzle leading into Q3-4. I'm enjoying connecting all the dots while I wait for more!

I agree that it'd be awesome to have more impactful quest options though. That's something I really loved about Wrothgar's story, the choice you make at Paragon's Remembrance changes things about the route you take to the finale and it's a shame we haven't really seen that since.

The side quests are what really makes the story to me. I’ve played through some DLC zones a few times now like Elsweyr, Orsinium and Vvardenfell. My main character I played all of those side quests concurrently with the main quest and my alt played through the main quest only to get the skill points. It’s such a different experience if you skip all of the side stuff and shallow would be a great word to describe it.

I think some of the trouble coming out of the base game is a sense of quest overload. Fortunately you can get away with skipping some of the side quests in the base game and some zones you need to because the main story is 20+ quests long already. I found covenant and pact to be very quest heavy where AD was story driven. I’m still powering my way through covenant to finish Cadwell’s gold and I am definitely quest fatigued!

That’s good to know that Greymoor is somewhat impacted by side quests in that it fleshes out the story. I’m still waiting for XB1 to release, they pushed it another day though. But I’ll quest and side quest my way though it until the end. I’ve learned my lesson from the other DLC and your post helps confirm it.

Yeah! The thing I like about Greymoor which I haven't seen before is that the Main Quest NPCs will suggest you help the NPCs in the areas you visit (i.e. do the side quests). They'll make comments as you do them or if you've already done them they'll acknowledge it. Within these side quests you gain a lot more information about why the enemy is selecting these locations/people to attack, if you skip the side quests the info you get is basically "I don't know" and you don't get as detailed a story. It's all pieces to a puzzle and I thought it was neat, anyway! Certainly made the side quests feel more impactful than normal.

alewis478b14_ESO

It's kind of too late. I mean, they gave you the option to sacrifice someone in the original main story line, and then used those characters in future content. Must be cheaper to use voice actors already under contract? i don't know but it's lame.

Starlock

alewis478b14_ESO wrote: »

It's kind of too late. I mean, they gave you the option to sacrifice someone in the original main story line, and then used those characters in future content. Must be cheaper to use voice actors already under contract? i don't know but it's lame.

They probably weren't under contract, though. The voice actors for those characters are used exclusively for those characters, as far as I'm aware. They would have had to negotiate a new deal to get them to reprise their roles. No, the decision to have those major characters return was probably more of an appeal to nostalgia for marketing purposes. Secondarily, their incorporation doesn't tell a bad story either (though I can't speak for Greymoor).