The game needs a huge Continuity Patch! Players deserve a good and holistic story in TESO!

Treshcore

Last few days were a little disappointment for me as for a dedicated The Elder Scrolls fan and TESO enjoyer.
After completing the final mission, "God of Schemes", I was forced to start "Cadwell's Silver", where I have to go to my enemies' lands.. and for what reason? To get known that their people are suffering from other alliances, including my Ebonheart Pact, too? As a Dark Elf who helped his kin instead of robbing and killing them, I think that my people suffered well enough and I shouldn't betray them. I believe that I should stay loyal to Ebonheart Pact while I'm playing my Dark Elf character.
However, I decided to play through Glenumbra after completing the main quest. The one that includes Coldharbour story quests. Yeah, the ones where Darien disappears to return in Summerset chapter in a completely new light. I don't owe Summerset, so seeing him in Camlorn was a bit... strange. Since I know what happens in Summerset, I feel very sorry about the players who decided to play through Glenumbra and the whole Daggerfall Covenant story. Anyway, I decided that I should never return to other alliances if I don't want to see stories like that.

Instead I decided to write this. The game needs a PATCH that will fix and smooth some continuity errors and issues through all The Elder Scrolls Online world. People deserve a good-qualitied game which will welcome them on the every corner... At least when they're not trying to break the game intentionally. I've got some ideas of what should be done in that direction.

• The idea with exploring other alliances' lands expressed in "Cadwell's Silver/Gold" is great, but exploring should never mean completing their story quests...
  EDIT: After most of the people expressing negative reaction to the idea of permanently locking other alliances' story quest, I decided to take this point out of the list, replacing it with more expensive but more serious idea of re-working story quests to be more "answering" to the events that happened in your original alliance's story and Coldharbour. In general, I'm talking about getting rid of a Light of Meridia in Harborage after you complete the Main Quest - this is an outdated way to handle the narrative since One Tamriel. It includes giving proper reactions to other alliances' leaders if you meet them (like, "Why do you fight for me if you're from a different alliance"), ability to refuse to complete these quests that harm your alliance (or raising your opponents' powers in Three Banners War) and replacing dead/disappeared characters by other, probably even intentionally less charming characters who will remember how good was the one they replace. For more explanation, please see my next comment here.
  However, my opinion is not the final and only true: so many great opinions are waiting for you in this thread and you can and even should share yours too!
• Make story quests in every alliance linear. Connect them better. Don't make separate stories for each of the region. I've heard about big problems in Aldmeri Dominion storyline where these characters who died in one region can give you quests in a region before the one they died in. This is why all the story quests should be connected and exploring the world in your alliance shouldn't "reward" you with broken continuity.
• Check the connections between quests inside of the regions. While I played it, I found out that Eastmarch region is broken. I am afraid what happens in other regions.
• Make sure that side quests doesn't go ahead of story quests and appear after respective events in story quests. In other words, there shouldn't be side quests that depend on story quests' events that haven't already happened.
• Make straight in-game explanations or changes dependent on DLC and chapters' events. For example, if you completed Summerset and decided to go through Daggerfall Covenant story then, maybe there should be someone else who will... be involved in some quests' events, if you know what I mean? DLC should rely on each others' events as well, but I can't say too much about it.
• Consider where quest characters should be after completing quests involving them. It amazes me to see an injured soldier with another one trying to help him on the road to Ebonheart every time - and this is one of the "easiest" examples.

All in all, this is a huge work - and I don't want to hide it. But ZeniMax Online, it's your work to make this game better! People use Crown Store every day. You create a model of a funny pet once - people buy it multiple times. You won't get poor if you decide to make a really huge remastering of your story quests that have already been in the game on it's release.
I have to say: I was really surprised that I was able to say that I already killed Vox in Shad Astula Academy in Deshaan. This kind of things should happen everywhere - the game should be ready that you can go ahead of it's story and be prepared to it!
I want to thank you for your huge work on The Elder Scrolls Online, for the amazing game you brought to us. Now it's time to re-bring it and take a look back, fixing continuity errors that occurred with the years of TESO's successful support.

Additionally, I want to thank @Enodoc for making multiple threads noting these continuity errors. It's a huge work that shows one players' dedication to The Elder Scrolls Online and wish to make it better by noting it's weak moments.

[edited to remove demands] - answer to the editor: I demand politely as a player who payed for this game and want to see a qualified product that answers to The Elder Scrolls series' standards of narration. Even though I changed a title to a compromise variant, I think that making the title like "I want" wasn't fair because it's not about "I want" - it's about what must be in the game.

Enodoc

Treshcore wrote: »

Additionally, I want to thank @Enodoc for making multiple threads noting these continuity errors. It's a huge work that shows one players' dedication to The Elder Scrolls Online and wish to make it better by noting it's weak moments.

My pleasure!

Incidentally, as a strong proponent of the Completionist ideology, I very much disagree on locking out other Alliance's storylines from any character. That was apparently the case in the early beta tests, and the uproar that created from the community was the reason we had Cadwell's Silver/Gold at launch, and why One Tamriel came along a couple of years later.

The whole point of Cadwell's Almanac is to show you that the Alliances are irrelevant - there are much greater threats at work than who sits on the Ruby Throne - and that is the one instance where they successfully maintained continuity by explaining why characters you'd already met don't recognise you. Unfortunately One Tamriel came along after that and broke that explanation somewhat. There are better ways they can present your involvement in those storylines as a character from another alliance - the "alternate timeline" explanation that they use loosely in Cadwell's initial introduction should be played up more for anyone who arrives into those quests independently.

I completely agree with everything else of course - the base game quests in particular need much better connections and interconnections.

FaylenSol

Treshcore wrote: »

The idea with exploring other alliances' lands expressed in "Cadwell's Silver/Gold" is great, but exploring should never mean completing their story quests. Make it possible to complete story quests of your and only your alliance you chose while creating your character. If you visit foreign territories, most (if not all) of the story quests should be locked for you, making an illusion that these stories have already been resolved somehow without your help. This will prevent you from helping your enemies as well as prevent you from meeting characters that you've already met in Coldharbour and who decided to ignore the fact that you have already met.

No thank you. I don't want to have to make multiple characters to experience the story. I have one character for completing quests, achievements, and 100% each zone. The rest have other very specific purposes that are usually PvE or PvP based. Their purpose isn't questing.

If anything your request should be an option in settings called "Questing Purist" or something. An option one can turn on or off at will and is character based.

Treshcore

@Enodoc, thank you for your opinion and activity in this topic!

I have to tell that I agree with you. Dealing with Molag Bal is more important that this war. I felt a big pleasure to deal with Bloodthorn and Angof the Gravesiner who decided to almost destroy Glenumbra. I'd better be a patriot of Tamriel than a patriot of Ebonheart Pact, so I'd like to get rid of any forms of Worm Cult all across the world.
However, my post-Coldharbour experience of Glenumbra was awful. There are spoilers ahead so I'd better hide them.

• First... Well, I'd say "Least but not the actually first" is already mentioned Angof... Who could be met in Coldharbour and even become your ally for a quest or two. Seeing him in Glenumbra like nothing happened is strange.
• Second is more important - Darien the Storybreaker. I'd like to call him like that because he disappears in the end of Coldharbour story and dies in the end of Summerset story. It's just weird to see him alive and in a good shape after all these events!

Also, I think that this explanation with Light of Meridia to access other alliances' stories is outdated too because you can go to Emeric or Ayrenn without using them.

I think that there should be a compromise decision that will allow all the stories to be completed by one character. Some sort of a new explanation to everything. There are many ways to do it:

1. Add new dialogues to include more logic: make other alliances' leaders ask you why you are helping them, for example. But there is a problem: voicelines. It is unknown if previous voice actors are willing to reprise their roles for a few phrases - and I hope that all of them are alive and feeling well! Especially with all this pandemic outside - which can be a problem in accessing professional recording studios Bethesda uses to record voices.
2. Making a combination of One Tamriel and temporary quest locks. For example, other alliances' story quests should be locked until you complete your original alliance's story. If this variant is good, I still want to refer to my fourth note where I told about side quests not getting ahead of story quests.
3. Making a combination of both of these ideas. Like, you were dedicated to your alliance before, but after seeing that Molag Bal and his cultists are bigger problem you decided to travel the world - and here are other story quests become unlocked! WITHOUT these stupid Lights of Meridia which are completely outdated now.

Also I'd like to note two important things.
First, you should be able to refuse to complete story quests which cause is to raise other alliances' powers in Three Banners War. You should be able to say that you're here for Molag Bal's cultists, not against your people. It will be strange if a Daggerfall Covenant warrior will decide to protect Stonefalls. Of course you should be able to refuse.

Second, I'm really worried about Darien and characters like him who die or disappear during all the quests including DLCs and chapters. I suppose, there should be different NPCs on their places who are going to remember and honor them, obviously indicating that "I'm replacing someone".

Sylvermynx

Yeah, I'm never going to be a faction-specific player or anything like that. I really dislike that sort of pigeonholing, and the war can take a hike too.

I have a LOT of characters; they're all themselves, and not created for faction purposes, but enjoyment of the entirety of the game, all zones, nearly all races, nearly all classes. Not interested in that sort of "purism".

Treshcore

FaylenSol wrote: »

If anything your request should be an option in settings called "Questing Purist" or something. An option one can turn on or off at will and is character based.

I've just wrote a comment about that and you brought a great idea here as well! It's great decision to let anyone decide which narrative style they prefer in TESO.

Treshcore

@Sylvermynx I see your vision. Even though I started this topic, we should collect our visions here.
As I can see, many people here don't share the vision of other factions' story quests being locked. I agree: the idea to lock them expressed by me in the OP is a "fast" decision. And here we are: trying to find the best solution under the watch of ZOS who read this and share these topics with their development teams. Yes, ZeniMax Online?
Anyway, there are storytelling problems that should really be fixed. And this is what this thread is about.

Enodoc

Treshcore wrote: »

Also, I think that this explanation with Light of Meridia to access other alliances' stories is outdated too because you can go to Emeric or Ayrenn without using them.

Yeah that's what I meant when I said One Tamriel broke that explanation. Something that I think would work is upon your first arrival to a base-game zone of another alliance, a Meridia-aligned NPC comes up to you and rattles off some explanation of "you're not supposed to be here, but we'll hide your true identity so stay and see it through the eyes of the enemy" sort of thing.

Sylvermynx

I'd be fine with it as long as it's completely optional. I didn't play ESO until after 1 Tam happened, so my whole system is set up to take advantage of the open playground that is all of Tamriel. I truly enjoyed Cadwell's Silver and Gold - once. I'm not much into too many repetitions of quest lines (unlike a friend of mine who does every quest in a given order on every new character he makes).

Now that I've spent 3 years playing, I don't honestly need anything to "reset" the continuity. I just do questlines as a character seems headed for something (and sometimes that happens for no real reason other than that I haven't done something in a while).

I also don't pay enough attention to the quest NPCs to care about seeing Darien while doing Camlorn, or any of the other ones with that sort of "issue". But yes, there are those like you and Enodoc who would like to see the story lines "sorted" properly. If ZOS could do that without a lot of time (not to mention cost) and without messing things up even further....

[Edited: typos]

Treshcore

Enodoc wrote: »

Yeah that's what I meant when I said One Tamriel broke that explanation. Something that I think would work is upon your first arrival to a base-game zone of another alliance, a Meridia-aligned NPC comes up to you and rattles off some explanation of "you're not supposed to be here, but we'll hide your true identity so stay and see it through the eyes of the enemy" sort of thing.

Good idea too! These sorts of NPC should replace these guys who are "Hey-hey, it's great that some captain got you out from the sea in Stros M'Kai" and you're like: "What the skeever are you?".
However, I suppose that players should have a better understanding on what happens. They should be forced to know the context of what is happening. Hiding identity is an important part of the story, so players should know about it as well.
Maybe there should be an NPC standing near the place where you first meet any foreign alliance leader who will call you and say that he/she hid your identity from that leader. And of course it should be a necessary quest objective to meet this person before you go to Joruun the Skald-King, High King Emeric or Queen Ayrenn.
Huh, maybe there's even going to be some sort of a guild which focuses on fixing time flows and making your "prophecy fulfilled" no matter what...

bmnoble

They gave up on any continuity the moment they allowed people to play in any zone at any level and with all there starting people in the latest chapter zone each time.

The most I would expect from them is a journal section similar to the Cadwells quests section, that shows the order of zones to visit for each faction and the order to do the DLC in so I don't have to Google the correct order to do stuff in, if I want characters to remember the last time I saw them.

Treshcore

@Sylvermynx, well, I have to say that I'm a little...

bmnoble wrote: »

They gave up on any continuity the moment they allowed people to play in any zone at any level and with all there starting people in the latest chapter zone each time.

The most I would expect from them is a journal section similar to the Cadwells quests section, that shows the order of zones to visit for each faction and the order to do the DLC in so I don't have to Google the correct order to do stuff in, if I want characters to remember the last time I saw them.

If they're going to leave that like that, well... They won't leave it like that.
I will update this topic again. And again. And again. Showing up the problem for newcomers, showing up the problem for people who didn't see it before. I like TESO and I won't give this mess up. All of this mess should be fixed and I will remind about these problems. We ignored this storyline mess for way too long.

Sylvermynx

That's fine.... but please.... don't make such a fetish of it that you wither and die in the game, instead of finding the enjoyment that's still there.

This is a wonderful game. Don't - let the perceived problems take that away from you.

JMadFour

Fixing the Alliance storylines to make them fit better into the One Tamriel world would be a nice QOL change, but I don't see ZOS spending the time and manpower to do this.

They would essentially be re-making 7-year old content instead of creating new stuff to sell. I just don't see it happening.

Athan1

While the OP is raising some good points, you can't go far with this attitude and tone. You can't demand anything, and the game devs don't have to do anything; we can however ask politely and make recommendations.

While it is nice to add new content, ESO has indeed become a mess, where all these quests and story-lines create continuity errors. Sadly, base game quests cannot be fixed, as new lines would have to be voiced, and by the same voice actors, many of whom must have moved on by now.

The best solution available at present is to use any of the existing guides to play storylines in the correct order. Apart from that, not much will change without a massive overhaul to the base game, which is unlikely to happen. So we just need to make sense of this mess of a universe where everything goes wrong during one year.

what_the

Treshcore wrote: »

After completing the final mission, "God of Schemes", I was forced to start "Cadwell's Silver", where I have to go to my enemies' lands..

That chain and "Cadwell's Gold" are optional (well...all quests in the game are optional when you think about it.)..

Lintashi

The only thing, that I want to see, is ability to have peaceful outcome, if you met soldiers from your alliance, in other alliance lands. Like, if I play as altmer from Dominion, I still could go and help people in Shadowfen, but I could go to places occupied by Dominion army, and they would not be outright hostile. And even better, if there was an option to say something like ' I am high ranking Dominion hero, Eye of the Queen, so I order you to leave those eggs alone, and go back on your ship, your mission here is over'. And quest gets completed ths way, instead of slaughtering soldiers from home alliance. Otherwise, I have no problems with current questing order. Cadwell Silver/Gold is just my character travelling new lands, and helping other people. Even if I help leader of another alliance, I just pretend, that it is either to persuade them to stop the war, or to decieve them later, for the glory of my alliance. All other inconsistdncies, explained by ' time magic', 'dragon break' or other such things.

peacenote

I don't have strong feelings about this either way but I do feel the word "demand" is not really going to get you anywhere. Request, advocate, suggest, desire, hoping for.... other ways to say that which might be more well- received.

Agree with others that the original idea if locking us out of other Alliance's stories is not a good idea. Restrictions which give us less options usually don't equal more fun, in my opinion.

Erelah

As pointed out above originally Cadwell's Silver and then Gold did not exist. Now we can start anywhere, do things in any order and future DLC can make the older storylines seem odd... then things can go become wrong quite quickly. A good system promotes good storytelling which means believable characters.

The vestige should not be the master thief, arch mage, assassin, greatest fighter, hero of everything. Consequences of choices should be a very real thing. It would prevent the player from doing everything on one character, but they could see different stories.

Caupo

And dont forget to fix dialogues to address your character appropriate to your race/class. It feels so stupid when my imperial character gets dialogues from NPCs like: "You dont look imperial" or "Imperial ***!" And to think I payed additional money to unlock this race... for what exactly? ehh...

hafgood

Have you any idea how much time and resources this would take? You are not asking for a small fix but effectively want the whole narrative rewritten multiple times so that it makes sense no matter which order you do them in, essentially you are asking for ESO 2.0 as it would need a complete overhaul and then to get the full effect we would have to run through the quests multiple times to see them from all the different perspectives.

Yes I appreciate how it is doesn't suit you and having Darian pop up before he is dead can be quite disconcerting but somewhere we have to accept in our heads that this is a game.

Yes, its a game, it's not a story book. You aren't reading Elder Scrolls the book, you are playing Elder Scrolls the game and as such can jump into it in any chapter rather than chapter 1 for your alliance.

If I want to do Summerset or Greymore or The Reach first that's my choice. If I want to wait and do the Molag Bol storyline after everything else that's my choice. In fact I did Cadwells Silver and Gold before I finished the AD storyline as I preferred the other stories. My choice.

Yes ask for a guide to be produced giving a suggested route through the various zones and chapters to minimise npcs being resurrected before they died but leave it at that. This isn't an 80's style solo role playing game where you plod from.A to B to C to D. This is a MMO where you can start at Z and finish at A or ignore the story completely. And that is how it must remain, I don't want anything telling me what order I have to do stuff in, if I choose to do it.

Enodoc

what_the wrote: »

Treshcore wrote: »

After completing the final mission, "God of Schemes", I was forced to start "Cadwell's Silver", where I have to go to my enemies' lands..

That chain and "Cadwell's Gold" are optional (well...all quests in the game are optional when you think about it.)..

They're not optional in as much as you can never remove them from your journal. You could just not complete them of course, but you then have a permanent incomplete quest in your journal.

Treshcore

Athan1 wrote: »

While the OP is raising some good points, you can't go far with this attitude and tone. You can't demand anything, and the game devs don't have to do anything; we can however ask politely and make recommendations.

While it is nice to add new content, ESO has indeed become a mess, where all these quests and story-lines create continuity errors. Sadly, base game quests cannot be fixed, as new lines would have to be voiced, and by the same voice actors, many of whom must have moved on by now.

The best solution available at present is to use any of the existing guides to play storylines in the correct order. Apart from that, not much will change without a massive overhaul to the base game, which is unlikely to happen. So we just need to make sense of this mess of a universe where everything goes wrong during one year.

I politely demand it. Why not? We're living in a strange times when everyone "ask nicely" and then get rejected "nicely" too. I think that we should demand. Politely demand. Of course there should be no personal offenses or threats, but we should notice that fact that people buy crowns, buy ESO Plus. These are digital products: made once, sold thousands of times. We should notice that as well as appreciate ZOS for a big work on their updates, patches and maintenances.

Also, I don't know which solution is best - and this is why I crated this topic. While making more attention to these issues, we're making some sort of a brainstorming. Of course, it's up to ZOS to make the decisions which will be brought into the game. The only thing I can say for sure is that these changes must be made!

Kesstryl

I don't want to be pigeon holed into a linear progression again. I didn't care for it before One Tamriel. One Tamriel is the best thing that every happened to this game. I like my characters forging their own path of their own choosing.

Hallothiel

The vestige should not be the master thief, arch mage, assassin, greatest fighter, hero of everything. Consequences of choices should be a very real thing. It would prevent the player from doing everything on one character, but they could see different stories.

Why not? Why can’t the vestige be all these things and more?! ALL my 18 characters go through ALL the storylines (at least that is what I intend 😉 time willing)

And you can’t really do consequences of choices in an online game.

But to the op - appreciate that this is your thing, but can’t say I agree with or understand you - after 7 years, you’ve just got to roll with it. (And I’ve played since before One Tamriel). It is just a game. Just relax & enjoy it and don’t get het up about relatively unimportant things.

There are guides about doing the quests in the ‘right’ order to satisfy your demand, but you seem to want to impose your ideas on everyone playing the game. Which is not good.

But not sure why you can suspend your belief about somethings and not others. But there you go.

Treshcore

Kesstryl wrote: »

I don't want to be pigeon holed into a linear progression again. I didn't care for it before One Tamriel. One Tamriel is the best thing that every happened to this game. I like my characters forging their own path of their own choosing.

This is why we're trying to find a better solution which will exclude this variant! I've even changed it's point in the OP because people started to complain that they don't want Story Quests being locked from completion if you're not in the respective alliance.
This topic is about raising attention to continuity problem and finding solutions to it, not complaining about non-existing problem!

Alurria

Perhaps a new person can be given a scroll or book to look at how to progress in the order of quests to experience the progression. However that may contradict this all taking place in a year's time. Or maybe here is a list of quests and suggested order of completion something like that? Then a choice of where to start after you complete the intro tutorial.

Treshcore

Hallothiel wrote: »

But to the op - appreciate that this is your thing, but can’t say I agree with or understand you - after 7 years, you’ve just got to roll with it. (And I’ve played since before One Tamriel). It is just a game. Just relax & enjoy it and don’t get het up about relatively unimportant things.

If you think that this is "just a game", well... I don't want to be rude, I really don't. I agree with the fact that it's more important for most of the people to find a job or build relationships, living a real life, etc.
However, we're not talking about "just a game". The Elder Scrolls Online is an interactive online world, a great part of a bigger franchise. This is a piece of art, and I want this piece of art to be if not perfect, than at least not "stumbling" on some stupid mistakes and contradictions. I like TESO very much, I love TES series at all and even if I suggest making this continuity patch too stubbornly, I do it just because of love. I'd better be Heimskr in this case than being silent about it.
As I said before, I don't want to be rude, but if you (I mean YOU, the reader, not Hallothiel only) don't share this idea that the continuity should be fixed or at least these contradictions should be clearly explained, please get deeper in this question before you write that "you don't need it". If you don't need it, why would you write here, right?

Sylvermynx

I think.... you need to produce your own game.

UnseenCat

I completely get the apparent conflicts experienced when the main quest is completed in one alliance and then you go off to the others without a clear indication that you're not really in the same slice of "time" in the gameworld.

What might help is a bit more exposition in the conversation with Cadwell about the ways in which the Planemeld has massively f----d up space and time in Tamriel (without it actually being a Dragon Break...) as well as how wayshrines and portals work (or don't work) as a result.

Ask anyone who's a writer, or who's DM-ed an RPG campaign. Sometimes a bit of exposition and deus ex machina are necessary tools to close loops and plot holes. Don't over-use them, but apply where necessary. The world of Tamriel is basically set up to allow Daedric meddling and mages' influence on the fabric of the world. Just write in and around those elements cleverly, and just about anything can be made into some sort of "sense".

Túrin_Vidsmidr

Also don't you dare pull the "oooh this all just happening in a dragon break! there is no linear order of events..."