New character experience is a complete mess.

tim99

BejaProphet wrote: »

... This starting experience is a complete train wreck! I LOVE this game. And I am embarrassed to get people to try it at this point knowing this is what they are walking into. It was confusing to me, when I can remember every aspect of when each thing was added. I can not imagine what a new player must feel like.

fully agree.
i'm really happy that i played my first char before that mess.
it was even then hard enough to figure out all that unknown stuff.

Iccotak

barney2525 wrote: »

Soooo.... the point of this is a lot of players are upset because .... we are NOT being told what we have to do, and when we have to do it ..... correct? We have freedom of choice and that's ... bad. ... ?

I might agree, IF the volumes of information that exist about ESO and being a beginner did not exist. Anyone who starts in on a brand new game without doing some research on it, just so they have an idea of what they are doing at the start.... should not complain if they get confused.

IMHO

That is BAD Design - you should not need to research in order to understand the Start of a Game. It is the games job to guide player, give them the need to know info, AND to make a good impression. If it does not do that then the devs cannot blame the player for being confused and losing interest.

it is ok to guide the player in their first 10-15 levels - you don't have to railroad the whole thing but don't leave them 100% aimless either.

Nyladreas

Well at least we have a start in a form of this coming:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7094258#Comment_7094258

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/559424/adamantine-tower-is-now-a-game-mechanic-gimmick-and-still-looks-ayleid/p1

ZOS just really needs to focus on IF conditions now, like the Lyris part...

And imho, ZOS should just make major DLC quests (expansion quests) completely inaccessible if the earlier main story hasn't been completed.

Make zones accessible. Make side quests accessible. Disable the main story for purpose of direction. Almost every single game has this, and it's further limited by zone level. Here we all scale with content so it's almost a must to hardcode it.

^ related to this, tie guild skill line quests to different NPCs on the side.

This game's lacking linearity is killing it.

Uryel

The whole story has been a tranwreck since Elsweyr and the whole "let's rush some hasty, unfinished content to fit it into a year time, just to do the same again, quality storytelling be damned". So of course the way the story is told is on the same train, it's the same drivers.

Oh, and should I mention the main quests in zones that you can take before having completed the ones in the previous zones, completely breaking the chain ?

Could be solved simply by, as suggested by some, indicating chain quests. Making previous quest required to take that one, as is already the case in some situations. Or, maybe, just maybe, making everyone start in coldharbour as used to be the case, so at the very, very least, the dialogs don't feel stupid... No need to find a new way to be a prisoner every time some more rushed content comes out, only to add some more confusion.

Blutengel

Agree 100% I really want zos to focus on the aspect of the game. You should be able to travel and quest in any zone but the quest you are offered should have some order to them. Respect your own story zos.

Nyladreas

Seriously though... I've had all My friends from other games leave except one mainly because of how chaotic the game is to new players, especially when they wanna figure everything story related out on their own without googling too much. Everyone i tried to bring over to ESO always said the same thing " I don't know what to do next " or " I'm completely lost and have no direction".

Iccotak

Nyladreas wrote: »

Seriously though... I've had all My friends from other games leave except one mainly because of how chaotic the game is to new players, especially when they wanna figure everything story related out on their own without googling too much. Everyone i tried to bring over to ESO always said the same thing " I don't know what to do next " or " I'm completely lost and have no direction".

This is so VERY annoying when you know that the first Coldharbour intro, as well as the old story pacing, would solve this problem.

---

Why not try this solution for base game zones:
let all players go to any zone, with access to all side quests, but if they want to do the "Mainline Quests" of that Zone which give skill points, then the player has to do the storylines in order.

For example - Ebonheart Pact:
Deshaan has various sidequests, but I don't have access to the zone's Main Story because I haven't done the zone main story in Stonefalls, or possibly even Bal Foyen & Bleakrock.

If I want to progress in the Coldharbour Main Story then I have to make progress in the storyline of ONE of the Alliances in order, this way you can play with your friends.

if I do the storyline of Stonefalls and Auridon then that won't bring me progress - but if I do Bleakrock/Bal Foyen - Stonefalls - Deshaan OR Khenarthi's Roost - Auridon - Grahtwood then that will bring me progress in the Coldharbour story.

Players SHOULD have to play through a alliance before they can get to Coldharbour - let alone Fight Molag Bal

This idea could still use some tweaks BUT this still allows player freedom but also enforces linear storytelling in some respect

---

As a side note: In my opinion, how they rush the Main Story just shows what they think of Main Story & The main story Bosses, which is trivial easy mode "just get it over with attitude". You cannot expect players to get invested, excited, or even care about your story if you don't care yourselves.

BejaProphet

A major reason we are in the current state is that players complained that restrictions on the order in which we can do content is contrary to the spirit of the elder scrolls series. The developers did this at request of the player base.

My point is that they will NOT now turn and restrict choice. They just aren’t going to do that.

Therefore, any solution is going to be about how those choices are presented to the players. I highly encourage you to think of solutions along those lines. They are the only ones with any chance of being implemented.

Yuffie91

Totally agree! I also think it's very admirable you only just now started up an alt. I'm all over the place with all my characters lol!

ghastley

I just understood why you don't get a lot of the choices at the very start. Your new character has already been loaded into a starter cell to do the char-gen process, and so they can only exit through the new tutorial or a "port" to somewhere else, which has to be set up as a port target. None of the char-gen cells has a way in, so you're already cut off from those before you begin the game.

This was not an issue until the first time an alternative start location was introduced, and that's where the mistake was made. We all could have started in Coldharbour, and the option given, along with the "skip tutorial" one, of going directly to the new chapter content from there, and doing its new tutorial, or not. That would apply only to a second character on the same account, and all players new to the game would get the standard intro.

I'm undecided about the sequencing of quests after that. Too much dependency on completing "prior" quests is confining to the player who doesn't care about story, and just wants to play what;s around him. But having new content added to zones you've "done" gives you a reason to go back, and meet players doing things there for the first time. You're always going to run into quests you skipped, and do them out of order, no matter how hard the developers try.

Curtdogg47

I could not imagine being a new player or starting to quest all over again. The quests and zones flowed very nicely in the beginning of the game! Now it’s a scattered mess of randomness! I don’t how you fix that as you can go anywhere you want and do anything in any order.

Alurria

Iccotak wrote: »

barney2525 wrote: »

Soooo.... the point of this is a lot of players are upset because .... we are NOT being told what we have to do, and when we have to do it ..... correct? We have freedom of choice and that's ... bad. ... ?

I might agree, IF the volumes of information that exist about ESO and being a beginner did not exist. Anyone who starts in on a brand new game without doing some research on it, just so they have an idea of what they are doing at the start.... should not complain if they get confused.

IMHO

That is BAD Design - you should not need to research in order to understand the Start of a Game. It is the games job to guide player, give them the need to know info, AND to make a good impression. If it does not do that then the devs cannot blame the player for being confused and losing interest.

it is ok to guide the player in their first 10-15 levels - you don't have to railroad the whole thing but don't leave them 100% aimless either.

Omg gosh we actually agree on something! Break through! Yes I agree with this, the whole back story as a guide. It really is okay to hand hold someone through their first 15 levels. Level 15 is when we get 2nd bar available. 15 levels in this game go quickly so it won't interfere with time.