Useless cities

Rudrani

This was my first “hometown” in ESO. Twin Arches, right outside Hallin’s Stand. It’s been about two years since I’ve even been there, but once it was my spot every single day. Halin’s Stand is basically a useless city. No undaunted, and I think even no crafting writs. Such a shame. I wish ZOS would rethink how they assign writ boards and undaunted spots, so there aren’t as many useless but awesome cities.

zvavi

There was a thread a while ago about bringing more undaunted around the world. My answer didn't change.
No. Because it will split zone grouping even more.

SeaGtGruff

It seems to me that each zone basically has one city that's intended to be "the main city" in that zone, meaning the one where the crafting writ boards and the turn-in crates are.

This "main city" is not necessarily the largest one in the zone, and does not necessarily have any player housing available, but by virtue of its crafting writ boards and turn-in crates it seems to be where players are expected to "live," or hang out from day to day, while they're residing in that zone and aren't running around doing quests or other activities.

There are all of the crafting stations needed for doing writs, which means there's a tavern or inn where players can craft food and drink and buy basic recipes from a chef and a brewer, a Mages Guild and various related "magely" support buildings with vendors and crafting stations for alchemy, enchanting, and jewelry, as well as a Fighters Guild and various "warrior" support buildings and vendors who sell armor and weapons (even if no one but rank noobs ever buys the armor and weapons), a bank, an outlaws refuge, an outfit station, at least one guild trader, etc.

There might be one or more additional cities in that zone which are almost suitable for day-to-day living, having a few or even several of the facilities needed by a "main hub city," but they will lack some of the key facilities that characterize a main hub-- in particular, no crafting writ boards, no turn-in crates, and no outlaws refuge. But otherwise they are "almost" main hub cities, and in fact might even be larger and have more guild traders than the zone's "real" main hub city.

And then there are cities or towns or farms that typically don't have any facilities to speak of, which are usually besieged by an enemy alliance or overrun by some kind of threat-- plague, ghosts, spiders, giants, daedra, etc. They seem to exist mainly as places where you need to do portions of their zone's questline, or just miscellaneous quests. In some cases they have a few facilities that become available once you've saved the day there.

Hallin's Stand is the latter type of city.

Is this a good design? I don't know. It's an interesting design, but it doesn't always seem to make a lot of sense.

For example, Vulkhel Guard is clearly meant to be the main day-to-day hub city in Auridon, since it has the zone's only outlaws refuge, as well as the crafting writ boards and turn-in crates, and is even where the Impresario shows up whenever an Event is in swing-- yet it has only one guild trader, whereas Skywatch has several guild traders as well as slightly larger player housing.

Abd then there's Davon's Watch, which doesn't even have any player housing, whereas Ebonheart has "the free" player housing in the EP alliance, as well as more guild traders than Davon's Watch.

UGotBenched91

I like the small “dead cities.” I find the community that is there is a lot nicer and less try hard then the communities that camp around undaunted areas.

Sengra

I like them as well. They're the only cities where roleplayers are almost free from griefing if they want to do open world RP.

Yellow_Monolith

I really like Kvatch. I wish there was an undaunted enclave there and a writ zone.

Vevvev

Yeah it seems the closest city to the starting area of the zone's main quest is going to be the main city except in certain scenarios. (i.e. Alinor, Wayrest, Mournhold, and Elden Root.)

Even if another city or town is bigger it's classified as a minor settlement and thus the devs didn't put anything there. See the same thing with cities in the minor DLC zones like with Markarth lacking a writ board despite having the best crafting area and an outlaw's refuge.

SilverIce58

At the very least, there should be writ boards and turn ins at the main city in every zone. You shouldn't have to leave the zone youre questing in to go do writs in another zone.

Muttsmutt

writ locations and undaunted in every city is what i always say.
oh and BG stuff too i guess.
only master writs be relegated to capitals only.

Sarannah

ZOS should place undaunted, crafting writ boards/turn-ins, all merchants, banker, and PvP guys in every city(and anything I forgot). And create a chat dedicated to grouping.

vestahls

Not everything needs to have a functionality. Having less circulated places, out of the way, is only realistic.

That said, it would be cool if we could kill NPCs and take over their houses like in the other games.

idk

vestahls wrote: »

Not everything needs to have a functionality. Having less circulated places, out of the way, is only realistic.

Pretty much this. It makes sense that the larger cities would have more to offer just as our larger cities have more to offer while smaller cities tend to enjoy their peace and quiet.

I really do not think those NPCs that live in smaller cities think their city is useless. It is where they eke out their living, meet their spouse, and raise their invisible children.

Salvas_Aren

i would love to see full banker and merchant assistants. and a fence. (no, we dont have a fence.)

i dont see why they cant have that functionality, if the game prospers as zeni tries to convince us all the time, there is little to no risk that towns would go from overcrowded to underpopulated.

SeaGtGruff

idk wrote: »

It is where they eke out their living, meet their spouse, and raise their invisible children.

In Tamriel, children should be unseen and not heard, apparently!

The Nords once tried a "Let's let our kids run around wild in the streets" social experiment in Skyrim, but most of the kids were very rude to the adults, so it's uncertain whether the Nords considered their social experiment to be an embarrassing failure or a huge success.

Norith_Gilheart_Flail

There's something about the Gold Coast, and Kvatch that it is just the main city for all my characters.

I like it's look,the Arena is a fun distraction, and I own Erstwhile Sanctuary.

ImmortalCX

Bonus points for an "open air" banker that you don't have to open a door to reach.

Starlock

I'm less bothered by "useless" cities (to my mind not really useless) than useless vendors.

Why is it when I visit a stable and see a neat mount in said stable, it is nowhere to buy from that vendor? I can clearly see the mount sitting there, indicating that this stable merchant should have this mount for sale. So why don't they? [This is a rhetorical question sadly - the reason is greed/monetization]

Regular vendors could stand to be improved too. They're terrible. Why don't any of the blacksmiths want to sell our characters honing stones or dwarven oil? Why don't they sell us tempered items at all? Why aren't they the NPCs you go to in order to reconstruct set items that are blacksmithed? Why don't they sell random set items from the zone they are in? The in-game merchants basically don't do anything. And that's annoying.