Does the game wants to make me feel like an idiot?

Gleitfrosch

mean the conversation options during main quests since southern elsweyr.

Almost every discussion I am forced to ask for the most obious things, the npc then explains to me. I get more and more the impression that if I would find someone dead, with a knife in his back, I would only have the option to ask "do you think the knife in his back caused his death?" and most likely the answer would be "that is very likely, you need to know that if you stab someone with a knife, he could die". ... aaaah

I know the options need to be limited because of voice acting and to not uneccesary extend the discussions but the quest before elsweyr did a better job, the situation had been explained without making me to feel like an idiot who needs to ask for even the most obvious answers.

propertyOfUndefined

I have the same criticism -- especially in Blackwood. I honestly hate every time I need to talk to Eveli because she comes across sounding like she's talking to (and spoon-feeding) a 4-year-old. I don't remember feeling this way with any of the dialog in the previous chapters. In fact, I very much looked forward to all the NPC interactions in Elsweyr and Markarth.

Danikat

I wonder if it's part of trying to make chapter maps also function as starter maps? They think they need to explain everything because the player might be brand new to the game.

But even then some of the things they have your character asking about aren't TES lore or game mechanics or anything which might need explaining and in some cases the answer has already been made clear earlier in the conversation.

One option of course is to not click on those options, but normally I like to ask all the questions to see what additional story or lore details might come up so it's frustrating to feel like my only choices are to act like an idiot or potentially miss out on interesting info.

Vylaera

Yeah Blackwood was particularly atrocious like propertyOfUndefined said. Felt like the game was holding my hand through the whole questline and talking to me like I have a room temperature IQ. Keeping track of everything that was going on was just too much for me to handle on my own, so I need Eveli to do a recap after every singe thing happens. ESO is rated M for Mature, this ain't Sesame Street.

Not even Skyrim held my hand this much and Skyrim has a notorious reputation among long-time ES fans for treating the player like a child or an idiot.

colossalvoids

It's an issue that probably have zero chances going away, sadly enough.

Celephantsylvius_Bornasfinmo

Yes, darker content...follow the older Elder Scrolls logic.
Fantasy kawai and boring quests no thank you.

Who is the current lore master, by the way? Anyone know?

FluffWit

I stopped listening in Blackwood and just skipped all dialogue after I was forced to tell Eveli I'm in the Dark Brotherhood and heard her cringey response.

It was just lazy bad writing and made me realize this story was never going to redeem itself and become something I could get invested in.

Gleitfrosch

colossalvoids wrote: »

It's an issue that probably have zero chances going away, sadly enough.

tend to disagree, quest before elsweyr were far better, you could follow the plot without being treated like a moron. all these "whats your opinion" or "how do you see it" voicelines started with sai in southern elsweyr ... one more reason for me to hate him

whitecrow

I like asking people Who are you again? just to irritate them.

VaranisArano

I understand a certain amount of recapping between quests. I used to laugh at it until I took several months between Elsweyr quests due to IRL and other in-game events, and the "What was I doing?" Dialogues where actually moderately helpful.

But I do think it's a little much to remind me of what I'm doing on a quest in the middle of the same quest. Like, if you think I'll forget, maybe your quest is too dang long and convoluted.

Sephyr

whitecrow wrote: »

I like asking people Who are you again? just to irritate them.

I do the same so much that I've done it to people IRL.

colossalvoids

Gleitfrosch wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

It's an issue that probably have zero chances going away, sadly enough.

tend to disagree, quest before elsweyr were far better, you could follow the plot without being treated like a moron. all these "whats your opinion" or "how do you see it" voicelines started with sai in southern elsweyr ... one more reason for me to hate him

Yes I believe it started there, for me elsweyr and every next one were just big one decline from what we had for example with Orsinium which was just glorious. Yet I see no road back with eso currently, it's different people running the show now that have different vision on what's it supposed to be.

DinoZavr

Zeni forgot to mention that right after completing/skipping tutorial the hero is struck with Alzheimer.
This is why they ask Sai or Lyris "Who are you?" after spending so much time with them in the main quest.
Also they forget what are vampires actually being one of vampires, and so on, and so forth.
Like attracts like, so adding companions was a nice feature though, so now i feel i am dumb, but, definitely, not alone.

Gleitfrosch

It would be Ok if these question would be an option f.e. for people who took a longer break and do not remember what happened until now.

But being forced to ask these questions at every quest step just to be able to progress is completely wrong. Hope ZEN will improve that with the next addon, they already shown that they can do better.

SickleCider

I wish I could recall where we were the other day. I think it was Summerset. We were all just kind of speeding through side quests on autopilot for the master explorer achievement or whatever. Anyway, we came up on this person who was lying on the ground with an arrow in their chest and the dialogue option was seriously like "Hey, you have an arrow in you!" LIKE THEY AIN'T KNOW? It was kind of funny but yikes.

ADarklore

I honestly wish they would give us dialogue OPTIONS... and ZOS... when we ask a question or give a reply, please take that option away so we don't keep being offered the same reply/question over and over again. It's weird, because there are times during a NPC conversation that they DO take away dialogue options after asking them... other times... you can keep asking the same question repeatedly.

ArchMikem

Quote myself from an earlier Topic about this,

ArchMikem wrote: »

fiender66 wrote: »

What I cannot condone is the toddler level of the puzzles (rotate the cube, sigh...) and the shallowness of the main quest, with Eveli utterly wasted as a character

I'm a pretty casual person, but when I got to that first set of Rune block puzzles and I actually tried to memorize the symbols, only to realize the game figures it out for me with every block... and then not only a minute later the Quest actually required me to have Eveli remind me what we were doing that very moment before progressing.

Blackwood has been doing a good job of insulting my intelligence.

There were parts, plural, meaning more than once, where the Chapter with both it's mechanics and the story dialogue made me feel like an idiot with a short attention span, and it was highly frustrating. I actually came very close to regretting buying this Chapter, though I kept reminding myself the positives. New land to explore, achievements to earn etc.

SickleCider

Coming back to lament about how good the Stibbons quest is in comparison to Blackwood's story quests. On top of being a very silly and charming quest, it didn't insult you. Sure, Lady Laurant explains some mechanics and tells you what your goal is, but she doesn't hold your hand. The puzzles weren't difficult but just stimulating enough. It reminded me of playing Zelda. It was all very cute.

MrDenimChicken

Gleitfrosch wrote: »

mean the conversation options during main quests since southern elsweyr.

Almost every discussion I am forced to ask for the most obious things, the npc then explains to me. I get more and more the impression that if I would find someone dead, with a knife in his back, I would only have the option to ask "do you think the knife in his back caused his death?" and most likely the answer would be "that is very likely, you need to know that if you stab someone with a knife, he could die". ... aaaah

I know the options need to be limited because of voice acting and to not uneccesary extend the discussions but the quest before elsweyr did a better job, the situation had been explained without making me to feel like an idiot who needs to ask for even the most obvious answers.

It's not just since Elsewyr. Most of this game's quests are pretty "duh". It's almost like Zenimas writes the quests for people who aren't really paying attention and then after pressing A 3 times they briefly get interested again.

This game's quests are better than most MMO's, but defintely not Skyrim level.

ixthUA

I completed all quests in the game without reading them and don't regret it. I still got an idea what they were about: daedric princes, bandits, cultists, vampires, werevolves, dragons, all of them want to conquer the world, and there is a single hero who defeats them all.
Tried reading the very first quests, but they container many words and little information, so i stopped.

Narvuntien

"Think about how dumb the average person is and then realise that half of them are dumber than that " - George Carlin

Just roll your eyes and move past it, it's not for you.

In the base game there is a lot of Lore explaining which doesn't make sense. For example, my Bosmer Character not knowing who the Green Lady is or Dumner and The tribunal.

TX12001rwb17_ESO

Grand Overlord Vestige: What is the Three Banners War?

The main problem is ESO is that content very split-up, there is no consistency with the story, almost as if every quest line is made as if your just starting out and do not know anyone involved, take for example the fact you can become the Emperor and yet this has no bearing outside PvP whatsoever when last I checked becoming the Emperor is a big deal and shouldn't being Emperor during the Blackwood quests be kind of a really BIG deal? another example during Blackwood, there is a point in the questline where your only response to the NPC is "Where not Nobles" meanwhile I worked very hard to get my Count title thank you very much which I am pretty sure makes me a Noble.

Another example is noticeable in Greymoor, Not once does Rada Al Saran recognize you as a Vampire and you are treated like some weakling even though you can be a Blood Scion of Lamae Bal and have previously defeated Molag Bal in combat, the very being the Ashen Lord and his Grey Host are trying to get away from.

Another example is a major plot point only shared in a few of the base game quests is completely ignored in newer content and that is the Vestige cannot really be killed so they are not really a mortal, the only quests I can recall off the top of my head that bring this into the plot is a quest in the DC area involving the Far Shores and the quest in the Village of the Lost where the NPC asks you to kill yourself to save them which you need to do before you complete the quest.

spartaxoxo

I like the reminders sometimes, and just skip them when I don't. As long as they remain optional (which sounds like not the case with Blackwood but haven't done it yet), I don't see an issue. I have definitely found them useful as sometimes I'll get distracted for like a week and then come back like "...what was I doing? Oh right."

Faulgor

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

Grand Overlord Vestige: What is the Three Banners War?

The main problem is ESO is that content very split-up, there is no consistency with the story, almost as if every quest line is made as if your just starting out and do not know anyone involved, take for example the fact you can become the Emperor and yet this has no bearing outside PvP whatsoever when last I checked becoming the Emperor is a big deal and shouldn't being Emperor during the Blackwood quests be kind of a really BIG deal? another example during Blackwood, there is a point in the questline where your only response to the NPC is "Where not Nobles" meanwhile I worked very hard to get my Count title thank you very much which I am pretty sure makes me a Noble.

Another example is noticeable in Greymoor, Not once does Rada Al Saran recognize you as a Vampire and you are treated like some weakling even though you can be a Blood Scion of Lamae Bal and have previously defeated Molag Bal in combat, the very being the Ashen Lord and his Grey Host are trying to get away from.

Another example is a major plot point only shared in a few of the base game quests is completely ignored in newer content and that is the Vestige cannot really be killed so they are not really a mortal, the only quests I can recall off the top of my head that bring this into the plot is a quest in the DC area involving the Far Shores and the quest in the Village of the Lost where the NPC asks you to kill yourself to save them which you need to do before you complete the quest.

Remember how in Orsinium, if you are an Orc, you can become chief of a clan? Something that, at best, only 10% of players will experience?
And then they couldn't even include reactions to being a vampire in the main story of their main release that year, which was all about vampires.

We are reaching a point where imaginative role play is required to get any kind of immersion out of ESO's story.
What in Oblivion happened to you, ZOS.

Marto

Those conversations are meant to serve as a recap of the previous quests, in case you left the questline half finished and revisited it months later.

Or they are meant to introduce lore concepts that might be difficult to new players.

If you know every plot point in the story, or you have read every wiki page... those dialogue options are not for you. You can just skip them.

Gleitfrosch

Nice to see that I am not the only one who is annoyed by that carebear theme park. Hope that ZEN will recognize that when even Lyris, the giant Teletubby who thinks with her axe can recognize a werewolf, when he stands in front of her, then also the players can do without being forced to ask "why do you have such big ears and teeth?"

Currently I don't play the main quest because of that issue, luckily there are other things to do ingame.

Sahqon

Gleitfrosch wrote: »

It would be Ok if these question would be an option f.e. for people who took a longer break and do not remember what happened until now.

But being forced to ask these questions at every quest step just to be able to progress is completely wrong. Hope ZEN will improve that with the next addon, they already shown that they can do better.

Yeah. I tried not clicking those, and the quest won't update...

So now I'm stuck with: oh here you are again
-Who are you?
-What were we doing?
-Who is that guy?
-What is that guy doing?
-Why is that guy doing it?
-What's your opinion on our friends?
-What's your opinion on our enemies?

Essentially every five minutes, if I don't ragequit doing the main quest. Which I did, a few times already. It's so -expletive- mind numbing, it hurts.

Yeah, for all that I was looking forward to new quests, I physically can't bring myself to complete Blackwood. Absolute worst storytelling in any game I have ragequitted, ever.

vesselwiththepestle

In general dialogues often feel like I am just giving the npc the keyword or cue to start or continue their monologue and explanations. Somehow it never really feels like a dialogue to me. Sometimes it's even like the npc is more talking to themself instead of to me. It's hard to explain and because of that I am missing a lot of immersiveness. In the end, I just click through the dialogue and then I miss the one important sentence...

Jaimeh

I feel like the writing has taking a plunge since summerset/elsweyr. Some of the dialogues, and hand-holding in Greymoor and Blackwood were just cringy in their obviousness and repetition.

VoodooPlatypus

Youyouz06 wrote: »

Who is the current lore master, by the way? Anyone know?

@ZOS_LeamonTuttle

Sahqon

Jaimeh wrote: »

I feel like the writing has taking a plunge since summerset/elsweyr. Some of the dialogues, and hand-holding in Greymoor and Blackwood were just cringy in their obviousness and repetition.

I don't think it's the story -writing- that's wrong (sometimes, yes), but the implementation of it. The dialogues. And 99% of it is the main quest - the side quests now seem actually better. The little surprises like being thrown into the air, or picking that one guy's outfit, or the Adoring Admirer (hello Dive Rock!), those are nice little touches that show that they put serious thought into making the world feel full. Summerset is absolutely beautiful, and Elsweyr (both) is really unique.

Then the main quest happens. And the dialogue absolutely ruins the whole zone.

The fact that it's the end of the world (again) doesn't help anything either... It's like these people never heard of Umbridge.