Valenwood Overhaul & Expansion

Iccotak

Valenwood
In my opinion Valenwood is one of the regions with the most need of a review. (EDIT: Along with other places such as most DC zones) The overall problem with the Valenwood zones is that none of them are particularly distinct from one another (save for maybe Reaper's March) and can feel generic. Most of Valenwood feels like a large open space with trees & flora that are few and far between. Which doesn't feel right for a place like Greenshade which is supposed to be "A Jungle at it's most Primeval". The simple thing to do would be to edit the vegetation and make the zones feel more alive.

However if ZOS wanted to make a Valenwood Chapter zone... well I have some ideas...
Do you want to know why Selene's Web is one of my favorite dungeons? It is one of my favorites because it actually feels like I am in Valenwood - sure it has an atmosphere of Selene's influence but it still feels like I am in an actual Valenwood forest.
Imagine if Grahtwood or Greenshade took after its design as a multi layered zone - with an atmosphere of a Forest that is Vast & Ancient.
At first the forest maybe doesn't seem large but as you venture you find that you can literally drop down to the very bottom roots of the forest as well as spiraling branches that takes players to the upper regions of the trees

With Networks of tunnels in the open world, vertical landscape exploration design where players could go literally deeper into the forest - all with no loading screens - that could make the zone a fun place to explore with the new "Antiquities" system of Greymoor
If ZOS needs financial insensitive to do this they could remodel the already existing zone as a free update and make the 2-3 levels below ground as DLC, similar to Blackreach.

Click to see Art. The Concept art for Valenwood was the most ambitious and the least utilized. Imagine these pictures as the levels that players descend in the forest. From the bright leaves and blooming flowers to the dark gnarled roots covered in muck with all manner of creature hiding down there.

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Valenwood zones

Selene's Web

Faulgor

I'd really love for all races and provinces to get another chance. So far, they have tried to do that in new chapters and DLCs, but at this point that is not really an option for Altmer, Bretons, Bosmer, and Orcs.

Eventually they might have to consider another approach, including possibly overhauling the base game zones.
Maybe they could just officially move to a new year, end the planemeld, and add zones like Greenshade 2E585 edition. Could be a bit jarring, but tbh I don't care, I just want better content.

RedMuse

As all of Valenwood is a base game zone they're not going to change anything as it is literally, well, base game.

Iccotak

RedMuse wrote: »

As all of Valenwood is a base game zone they're not going to change anything as it is literally, well, base game.

The idea is more so that they expand on it through Chapters/DLC by having a forest network below the "Surface"

Darkstorne

Yes, Valenwood is unfortunate when you know the lore, and Greenshade in particular was laughably bad given its description as the most ancient part of the forest. I think the reasons why are:

1) Engine issue - it can't do forests and woodland. Try and find a proper dense forest in this game. They don't exist. You just get sparsely scattered mature trees like weirdly managed parkland, with very few young trees, and no change to ground flora. I'm sure the devs know what forests look like in real life, and that they know what Valenwood's lore says it should look like, because Selene's Web is stunning. So it must be an engine issue for open world environments.

2) Verticality in level design - if you fall off your path to the one below, or worse to your death... that's probably going to get really annoying after a few times.

3) Valenwood zones were designed to be everything AD players saw from around level 20 onwards. Oppressive forest and maze like level design wasn't really an option for all of it, hence Greenshade in its current form.

Potential solution:



I do think there's a really solid candidate to create a Selene's Web style (visually) DLC zone, via a Falinesti Q4 DLC or Q2 Chapter. Set it in a pocket realm of Oblivion, lots of verticality in level design, with a tree so huge an entire forest is growing on and around its boughs and roots. Add spells for levitation unique to that zone (because it's a pocket realm of Oblivion with its own rules) to make that verticality really fun and unique, and maybe allow us to take some similar magic back to Tamriel with us in the form of Slow Fall (since flight isn't an option there for obvious reasons): While falling, press and hold the jump key/button to glide. Doesn't break level design, and makes exploration a lot of fun.

Iccotak

@Darkstorne that is a GREAT idea - I had no idea about Falinesti and I agree that it would be the perfect solution to this dilemma.

Just imagining it as a dense, multi-leveled, & vertically designed ancient forest

Araneae6537

Iccotak wrote: »

RedMuse wrote: »

As all of Valenwood is a base game zone they're not going to change anything as it is literally, well, base game.

The idea is more so that they expand on it through Chapters/DLC by having a forest network below the "Surface"

I’d love to see that — I love the Elden Hollow dungeons with their dense growth and bioluminescence flora! Falinesti or another site for Valenwood expansion with more vertical design would be awesome too!

Sylvermynx

@Darkstorne - AWESOME idea! That would be beyond cool....

Fata1moose

All of vanilla needs to be updated but starting with Valenwood and High Rock make the most sense given they will never see chapter or zone DLC again.

• Update textures and meshes
• Add in more "detail density" to make zones more visually interesting.
• New furnishing styles for Wood Elves and Bretons
• Redo the cookie cutter delves and make each one unique like post release delves have been.
• It would also make sense to revamp vanilla zones when Chapters take place in the province. For example, they should have redone Riften and Eastmarch last year brining them closer to their TES V counterpart. It's strange having an accurate version of Skyrim in W.Skyrim and the Reach while Eatmarch and the Rift look so off from the mainline game. Cyrodiil this year would have also been a perfect opportunity to revamp the Heartlands, diversify the forts, update textures and add newer assests in line with Oblivion.

Of course the problem with all of this is where does ZOS find the time to update existing zones? They said they were growing their team, would be nice if they had a legacy team dedicated to updating old content.

Chaos2088

Do think it has been mentioned of a base game update on Twitter many moons ago.

If they are going to do it, it’s a big undertaking and the amount of hours to do this while doing current year (and next years) content would be very high. Doesn’t mean it won’t happen tho. Everyone can see the difference in quality from the DLC’s (which are beautiful) to base game. No doubt Including zos.

So how would you go about it? Update one zone per update? No, you would have tons of people complaining their fav zone was left out or alliance favouritism. So you would have to do it in one big go. Like one Tamriel. They are updating base game races assets with each chapter, cutting downtime time/killing two birds with one stone. Once all the list is ticked off/races complete, they might go back and redo some zones. (If not done some already waiting for the update).

On topic with Valenwood, yes this would need the biggest look at. It should be more dense with trees and more vertical with landscape. A cave system like black reach would make sense and also a upper kingdom in the trees. No wood elves living is tree cities (high up) is a massive miss. Also Elden root needs to have more around it/in it, if it’s wood elves capital, like where do people live?

A Falinesti DLC is gunna happen as quests and locations in base game do point at possible future content. Plus would give zos chance up date wood elves before remake to fit in with what I mentioned above. But I do think a rework of Valenwood needs to happen. Also introduction of the Igma and Centuars and other races that are meant to live in Valenwood as well.

Just my two cents

Iccotak

I think they could design a Forest map like Monster Hunter World. Kind of like a dungeons space but much bigger, that's kind of what they did with Blackreach, with added vertical design. This would allow them to better pull off the illusion of a deep & ancient forest - for someplace like Valenwood, or the lost Falinesti.
So really take Selene's Web and make a whole Zone like that



Video Tour of MHW Ancient Forest:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6LIxeWJku0