Zenimax could learn from other MMO's

Aertew

Yes, ESO is a great game. No I'm not saying WoW, GW2 ect are better. But zenimax could make ESO a lot more fun by learning from other MMO's.



/rant


WoW let's you use all your abilities, and while alot of people disagree I think it would be nice to see PC player at least have bar switching work like GW2, where you switch weapons but keep 10 abilities. With ESO 2 ultimate would stay.

WoW pet classes are something that I see as great. right now sorc and Warden make us keep our abilities slotted which is annoying. Let us switch it out but then nerf it so it's not OP. Try lowering pet damage by %15 first on PTS. Even if it's weak at least we can consistently use it. Then give the %15 damage back on activation of the ability. This would let us keep the pet but make it so if you want the full damage you slot the ability.

Necromancer really needs at least 1 cool undead ability. No the temp ones don't count. I like how WoW handled their "necromancer' which is death knight. The ability basically works like this

Control a below lvl (insert lvl) undead for up to 5 minutes.

Obviously I think Zenimax has a different philosophy on long abilities so lower it to 1-2 minutes. If we can't have something like that let us have a permanent melee skeleton or let us keep the ranged skelly and have it work like Wardens.

But zenimax wants ALL classes to be unique. Making another pet class won't work.

I ranted before that a lot of classes share abilities, Dragon Knight and warden have armor. Neco has vampire ult as it's tank. Ect. Allowing necro's to control undead or have a permanent pet will keep it in theme with a necromancer.



Guild wars 2 has a neat feature where if your harvesting materials it keeps the animation going and lets you collect materials for a bit. It's a small thing but it feels like your actually gathering resources rather than click E on a rock then collecting it like it's some sort of chest you open.

GW2 also has better World events IMO. Some are pretty boring like defending a NPC while they walk, but some are REALLY *** COOl. For example there is a area that's similar to valenwood but has tree people. (think dryads with legs and leaf's for hair) They have a zombie problem where the zombies come in waves and it's a world event where you have to protect them. This can EASILY fit for a future expansion as ZOS is no stranger to World events.

GW2 and WoW also have unqiue looking mounts but I think it's more of a ZOS problem since they make alot of money from the crownstore and crowncrates.

WoW has mage create portals to major cities. While we have wayshrines it doesn't feel like im creating a portal as it feels like a annoyance when I'm a sorcerer and part of the mages guild. You could go to eyevea and they basially have 5 portals. NPC's constantly create portals and teleport the player. There is literally no reason sorcerer shouldn't have a passive or extra ability to create portals to capital cities.

How it would work: The ability would either work like a normal ability which u can slot, but ZOS could add a extra space for it, they have done this with potions and collectibles so it's not "impossible due to technical limitations". Or they could make it a tool like the cool like how it works with the cake that gives exp or the tool that you get in Greymoor. This would make sorcerer a very unique class and allow dungeon and raid parties to save gold. Around 500 for dungeon groups and 1,200 on Trail groups. It would also let RPers feel like they actually are a mage.
It also would make sense lore wise since Sorcerers summon daedra. So creating a portal should be easy. This shows that sorcerers are more well versed in conjuration than other classes which would make sense to allow only sorcerer to create portals.


GW2 has a great mechanic which basically let's you create a backstory for your character. Though I guess we will kind of have that with the blackwood where we can pick our starting zone according to chapters. though I still feel like GW2 has alot more choices for your character.

WoW having the story boss linked with a trial or dungeon.
While I get that ZOS wants to maintain the philosophy or keeping the quests of the Elder Scrolls Online single-player. I believe it's time to AT LEAST party move away from that. I think that 'final bosses" should have a dungeon or trial where you beat them. Like how in Craglorn there are trials for The Warrior, The mage and the Serpent. At the very least add a trial or dungeon where we beat someone related to the final boss. I believe we kinda had that for Elswheyr but I havn't done it and I doubt the dragons you fight there have any relation to the main boss.

For PvP their could be new arenas for each zone. 2 PvP arena's per year. 1 for Morrowind, 1 for Summerset, 1 for Elswheyr, 1 for southern Elswheyr, 1 for Greymor, 1 for markarth, 1 for Blackwood, 1 for the zone after it. The arena's wouldn't be huge so while it would take time at least PvP players get new content. If the dev team does not want to spend so much time on creating so many different arena's they could at least start with blackwood. I don't PvP but it sucks seeing so many PvP players wanting content and having only Cyrodil and 1 Arena.

A lot of people will say these ideas are horrible. But after playing so many different games and playing ESO for 1,000 hours. I don't suggest these ideas because I want to change how ESO works completely, I think these ideas would allow the player to be more immersed in the world, make classes feel unique for the player, and would improve the game.

/endrant

Goregrinder

The main reason I still play ESO is because the focus is less on clicking abilities and spells (or having 7 bars full of them), and more on mechanical movement like dodging, blocking, bashing, etc. It's an action based combat system, so movement is as important as casting something. In WoW, you aren't really actively dodging anything, it's all passive. GW2 has dodge mechanics, but they also have tab targeting, so you aren't really aiming at a target like you would in ESO.

Tandor

I like the fact that ESO is not those other games. Those ideas aren't horrible per se, but they're not right for ESO in my view and the fact that they would make it more like other games isn't a great reason to have them.

Sylvermynx

I'm plenty immersed in ESO - far more than I ever was in WoW or RIFT really. I don't want this game to turn into the other ones - I left those games for good and sufficient reasons (they headed in directions I wasn't going to find fun; the only thing I miss from both of them is the housing in RIFT).

Sorry, can't agree with any of your wish-fors. And I kind of think ESO devs aren't much into that sort of mega borrowing either.

[BTW - ALL my characters have backstories; I don't need GW2 for that....]

Mojmir

WoW is probably the worst game ive ever seen, and im talking when it was new.

Gythral

Zos have - they havent repeated alot of the mistakes

FluffWit

WoW pet classes are something that I see as great. right now sorc and Warden make us keep our abilities slotted which is annoying. Let us switch it out but then nerf it so it's not OP. Try lowering pet damage by %15 first on PTS. Even if it's weak at least we can consistently use it. Then give the %15 damage back on activation of the ability. This would let us keep the pet but make it so if you want the full damage you slot the ability.


Umm so every bloody sorc has two pets out at all times and every Warden has a bear out?

It would be so annoying for everyone. Even if you finally got them to fix it so I only have to see these peoples pets when I'm in combat with them it would still be incredibly annoying.

RedMuse

Re forcing group content to complete a story or defeat a final boss. Absolutely hell no. WoW does it, so does SWTOR at a point. The latter stopped because it's a universally idiotic and hated decision to gepate the final part of a SOLO player story behind forced group content.


As for imitating WoW's combat system. That game has the most boring, braindead combat sytem based on mindlessly clicking abilities rather than actually trying to emulate fighting. The zombie like faceroll of keys 1-7 over and over and over until the mob or boss is dead is one of the many things about that game I do not miss and importing it to ESO would kill the fun of battle in this game.


In other topics I honestly do not understand people's desire for games to be mindless copy pastes of each other, rather than each tyring to be unique and bring spmething different to the table. Like if you love WoW or GW2 so much go play them. I personally enjoy ESO alot more than the other games and their way of doing things, which is why I am here and not there. If ESO became a clone of them I'd likely just stop playing.

Ringing_Nirnroot

ESO is unique as it is, it should stay that way

Lumsdenml

Mojmir wrote: »

WoW is probably the worst game ive ever seen, and im talking when it was new.

In that case, it has held up over time...

Arbit

The only thing I’d like eso to have that it doesn’t have compared to Wild Star (a dead game) was that all skills were telegraphed save a couple. So you have to aim everything and it has an area of effect. Some boss fights were also really interesting in that game as well. I think wild stars combat was amazing, but I think what killed it tho was it’s catering to only hardcore players. So my thought is eso could learn from wild stars combat system a bit.

Sylvermynx

Arbit wrote: »

The only thing I’d like eso to have that it doesn’t have compared to Wild Star (a dead game) was that all skills were telegraphed save a couple. So you have to aim everything and it has an area of effect. Some boss fights were also really interesting in that game as well. I think wild stars combat was amazing, but I think what killed it tho was it’s catering to only hardcore players. So my thought is eso could learn from wild stars combat system a bit.

The one thing I really do not like about ESO is the combat system. I'm an old lady - I don't have "twitchy" reflexes any more....

Ackwalan

Do we really need to have a 10 slot active bar? Those other games that have all abilities on the bar, end up with most of them doing the same thing, just on cool downs.

Sergykid

GW2 has awesome events, not not just random on map, but actual yearly events. Not just loot hoarding, these are not events, they're just an extra item to your usual activity. Jumping puzzles are awesome.
And GW2 has an incredible group finder. For any activity, you write the description. All these i would like to see in ESO.

from WOW i could only like a more default adaptability with the abilities. Right now everyone swaps abilities between fights anyway, and you do it for pvp or role anyway. Why not make dual specialization in ESO? i could remove half of my characters with just this simple feature. And PVP in WOW is on another level.

Amottica

I am new here, two days shy of two months since I bought this game. So yea I am not super experienced. I have not done any raids and only one vet dungeon and not a ton of PvP while I try to earn these combat points.

However, I think a lot of us want to bring some aspects of games we loved into games we currently play because we are used to them. Fortunately, I have played with keybinds even with so many games permitting clicking on the screen. I think this has allowed me to get used to having to select the skills I will use vs dealing with a screen full of mostly fairly useless skills available to me. Granted, I have not played GW2 but it would not make sense if one's greatsword skills are available to them when they are on their bow bar (that is what I imagined when I read the GW example in the OP.

I think what I like in my short window of experience, and maybe why most of us are here in ESO like about the game, is the difference between the developer's vision than what we experienced in our previous games like WoW, etc.

I will say that I agree in part with the events. I think I am seeing the third event right now and I have been surprised that they are little more than doing some quests. Maybe when I have been playing ESO for a coupe years that will have a bigger impact on my enjoyment of the game.

bmnoble

Fairly big reason for me choosing ESO instead of those is to with the ideas you listed.

Especially linking the story conclusions/boss fights with the trials/dungeons, I prefer to do the story in games on my own at my own pace not have to group up with others to do it at a rushed pace. Especially when new story content comes along and you less likely to find a group willing to do older content thus leaving the story incomplete for you.


The limited skill bars force you to think about what you use, rather than having everything that you would not be able to make use of in ESO anyway with the resource limits other games you have a cooldown based rotation so that idea can work.


The extra PVP area's would not be bad if the game had a larger PVP population, spreading people out too much causes the existing PVP areas to take much longer to find an opponent to fight.

Would not be opposed to adding one new arena(not talking about a place on the map like the arena in Wayrest but one that puts players in a separate instance like battlegrounds, either CP or noCP, preferably with no battle spirit at all) for duels.


Pets are a choice, only change I would like is only needing to slot the skill on one bar, with the pets not getting unsummoned on bar switch.


As for the Necromancer, I would be lying if I said I did not find the concept you propose to be interesting but can understand the reason they implemented the necromancer the way they did. Its to do with your pet change suggestion, your giving the player free extra damage/meat shield for blocking line of sight, which would be a nuisance in PVP and could make necromancers have an extra advantage over the other classes which could make them even more favored in PVE content, where every bit of extra damage is sought out for builds.

Kiralyn2000

I've played a number of MMOs including WoW, ESO, Star Trek Online, Neverwinter, SWtOR, TERA, Secret World, City of Heroes...

Aertew wrote: »

WoW let's you use all your abilities, and while alot of people disagree I think it would be nice to see PC player at least have bar switching work like GW2, where you switch weapons but keep 10 abilities. With ESO 2 ultimate would stay.

A number of other MMOs have also had limited action bars. It's a valid game style. As is the "piles and piles of action bars" one. But they both have their pros & cons.

Guild wars 2 has a neat feature where if your harvesting materials it keeps the animation going and lets you collect materials for a bit. It's a small thing but it feels like your actually gathering resources rather than click E on a rock then collecting it like it's some sort of chest you open.

Just about every other MMO I've played has done the "one and done" style of harvesting. Including WoW.

WoW having the story boss linked with a trial or dungeon.

God, that was a horrible part of WoW. I never got to see the end of any major storyline in the years I played that game. Because they locked the finales inside dungeons & raids. Feh!

Mojmir wrote: »

WoW is probably the worst game ive ever seen, and im talking when it was new.

You've lead a very fortunate life!

There are huge numbers of actually terrible games out there, and for you to have avoided them all demonstrates either great luck or great skill.

WiseSky

I agree ESO should be more like BDO,

Instead of having 1 banker.

You have to buy 50 of them all bought form the cash shop at 10$ and they can only carry 1 item at a time from the bank to you.

Stevie6

I play both GW2 and recently subbed again for ESO for the mystics. Well, I can only say I shouldn’t have subbed. The lag is worse and kb/m not registering when pressed. Same o same o. I’ve read on the forums that Microsoft is buying zen/eso. Is that true? I hope so. I hope they make some needed changes:

Put the game on several servers / world servers to reduce lag and un-nerf Horrowind. Make damage and shields op once again.

Aertew

RedMuse wrote: »

Re forcing group content to complete a story or defeat a final boss. Absolutely hell no. WoW does it, so does SWTOR at a point. The latter stopped because it's a universally idiotic and hated decision to gepate the final part of a SOLO player story behind forced group content.


As for imitating WoW's combat system. That game has the most boring, braindead combat sytem based on mindlessly clicking abilities rather than actually trying to emulate fighting. The zombie like faceroll of keys 1-7 over and over and over until the mob or boss is dead is one of the many things about that game I do not miss and importing it to ESO would kill the fun of battle in this game.


In other topics I honestly do not understand people's desire for games to be mindless copy pastes of each other, rather than each tyring to be unique and bring spmething different to the table. Like if you love WoW or GW2 so much go play them. I personally enjoy ESO alot more than the other games and their way of doing things, which is why I am here and not there. If ESO became a clone of them I'd likely just stop playing.

I don't like the combat of WoW or the ability clicking (Using macro or keybinds is actually what you usually do) All I was saying is WoW had some cool class abilities. Nothing more or less.

Aertew

bmnoble wrote: »

Fairly big reason for me choosing ESO instead of those is to with the ideas you listed.

Especially linking the story conclusions/boss fights with the trials/dungeons, I prefer to do the story in games on my own at my own pace not have to group up with others to do it at a rushed pace. Especially when new story content comes along and you less likely to find a group willing to do older content thus leaving the story incomplete for you.


The limited skill bars force you to think about what you use, rather than having everything that you would not be able to make use of in ESO anyway with the resource limits other games you have a cooldown based rotation so that idea can work.


The extra PVP area's would not be bad if the game had a larger PVP population, spreading people out too much causes the existing PVP areas to take much longer to find an opponent to fight.

Would not be opposed to adding one new arena(not talking about a place on the map like the arena in Wayrest but one that puts players in a separate instance like battlegrounds, either CP or noCP, preferably with no battle spirit at all) for duels.


Pets are a choice, only change I would like is only needing to slot the skill on one bar, with the pets not getting unsummoned on bar switch.


As for the Necromancer, I would be lying if I said I did not find the concept you propose to be interesting but can understand the reason they implemented the necromancer the way they did. Its to do with your pet change suggestion, your giving the player free extra damage/meat shield for blocking line of sight, which would be a nuisance in PVP and could make necromancers have an extra advantage over the other classes which could make them even more favored in PVE content, where every bit of extra damage is sought out for builds.

That's why I suggested the Bear pet for warden get's %15 damage removed. I just feel like Warden is a bit stale and I wanted more emphasis on the bear part of it since that is one of the most unique things about it. Either than the looks of it's abilties like the bugs and plants.

Aertew

Stevie6 wrote: »

I play both GW2 and recently subbed again for ESO for the mystics. Well, I can only say I shouldn’t have subbed. The lag is worse and kb/m not registering when pressed. Same o same o. I’ve read on the forums that Microsoft is buying zen/eso. Is that true? I hope so. I hope they make some needed changes:

Put the game on several servers / world servers to reduce lag and un-nerf Horrowind. Make damage and shields op once again.

They actually have bought Bethseda/ZOS. So that includes ESO.

Sylvermynx

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

Aertew wrote: »

WoW having the story boss linked with a trial or dungeon.

God, that was a horrible part of WoW. I never got to see the end of any major storyline in the years I played that game. Because they locked the finales inside dungeons & raids. Feh!

I actually got to see a lot of "endgame" - because I had a "friends and family" guild which was willing to put up with my MAJOR ping. But that's the only reason - they carried me because it WAS friends and family, and they were happy to do so as their connections were all much better than total crap satellite.

I enjoyed some of it. But it really wouldn't have bothered me had I never had to "suit up" to raid 3 nights a week....

Aertew

Ackwalan wrote: »

Do we really need to have a 10 slot active bar? Those other games that have all abilities on the bar, end up with most of them doing the same thing, just on cool downs.

I meant removing bar swapping and just including the abilities together. The main reason for bar swapping was for console. On PC there is no need for it and is just a hinderance to combat.

Aertew

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

I've played a number of MMOs including WoW, ESO, Star Trek Online, Neverwinter, SWtOR, TERA, Secret World, City of Heroes...

Aertew wrote: »

WoW let's you use all your abilities, and while alot of people disagree I think it would be nice to see PC player at least have bar switching work like GW2, where you switch weapons but keep 10 abilities. With ESO 2 ultimate would stay.

A number of other MMOs have also had limited action bars. It's a valid game style. As is the "piles and piles of action bars" one. But they both have their pros & cons.

Guild wars 2 has a neat feature where if your harvesting materials it keeps the animation going and lets you collect materials for a bit. It's a small thing but it feels like your actually gathering resources rather than click E on a rock then collecting it like it's some sort of chest you open.

Just about every other MMO I've played has done the "one and done" style of harvesting. Including WoW.

WoW having the story boss linked with a trial or dungeon.

God, that was a horrible part of WoW. I never got to see the end of any major storyline in the years I played that game. Because they locked the finales inside dungeons & raids. Feh!

Mojmir wrote: »

WoW is probably the worst game ive ever seen, and im talking when it was new.

You've lead a very fortunate life!

There are huge numbers of actually terrible games out there, and for you to have avoided them all demonstrates either great luck or great skill.

I guess suprisingly I have only seen GW2 and ESO have the limited action bars. I still think GW2 did it better even though I barely played it.

Aertew

Guild wars 2 has a neat feature where if your harvesting materials it keeps the animation going and lets you collect materials for a bit. It's a small thing but it feels like your actually gathering resources rather than click E on a rock then collecting it like it's some sort of chest you open.

Just about every other MMO I've played has done the "one and done" style of harvesting. Including WoW.

Yeah it's not really a problem imo. But the way GW2 does it just feels more satisfying. I guess it's just me.

WoW having the story boss linked with a trial or dungeon.

God, that was a horrible part of WoW. I never got to see the end of any major storyline in the years I played that game. Because they locked the finales inside dungeons & raids. Feh!

That's why I also suggested at least have a boss related to the main boss in a dungeon or trial. Elswheyr had the trial where you fight a dragon and that is really cool imo.

Iccotak

Story Bosses could be made into instanced content with normal & veteran settings.

They could adjust difficulty depending on how many players are in the fight.

So if you’re playing with friends it could be a big challenge- instead of mind numbingly boring.

Moonsprite

I would love to be able to name my bear. I do like being able to tell my pet to stay or move to a certain spot in WoW. I like the combat system in ESO and I don’t think WoW type of pet combat system would work very well. It would be a lot to manage with LA weaving, dodging, interrupting, etc.

The only thing I would suggest ESO might want to implement that other MMOs seem to do better...is adding more cosmetics (like hairstyles/outfits), pets, mounts, and items players can obtain in the game and not the crown store.

Alurria

ESO is ESO not WoW or GW2 I got an idea why don't we make every game the same that way we don't have to copy any one (rolls eyes) there is a reason I don't play WoW anymore and a reason I don't play GW2 and there is a big reason wildstar failed miserably it was called forced grouping. Even in WoW pets had complaints we were not allowed to use them in dungeons it was ridiculous. A pet is apart of a pet classes damage it's like a dot. I hope ESO never goes down any of those roads

Bouldercleave

[snip]

ESO is still going strong after what 7 years now? I think they are doing just fine [snip]

[Edited to remove Rude Comments]

relentless_turnip

I love eso much more than these other games and I played wow for at least 2 years. The only thing ESO should take away from other games is the emphasis on quality. By that i simply mean the bugs and latency ESO is frequently plagued with. Aside from that I really enjoy it the way it is and that's after I think nearly 3 years in ESO.