I Think Zos should begin to break from the standard release formula

Woodenplank

Youyouz06 wrote: »

(PS: Less is more, quality over quantity - always!)

Speaking of which...

Please, ZOS, for the love of the Divines, the Daedra, and the misc. please stop rehashing random older creatures/enemies into new zones. Trust yourselves that the new things are enough!

Like in Elsweyr; we got crazy new Terror Birds, behemoth Mountain Bristlebacks, all the different types of senche and so on. Really on theme for a new zone.
But somewhere in the design process someone went "Why don't we put some basic old wolves in there as well?"; and remember those "Haj-Mota" we used as monstrous new fauna in Black Marsh? Ehh chuck one or two of those in there as well.

And did anyone farming Harrowstorms ever think to themselves; 'hmn, these vampire lords and amazing(!) new Blood Knight models are a bit repeditive; I sure wish we could see another rehash of the Daedric Titan model!' Call it blood titan or harrow whatever.


Like... imagine you were at an Asian restaurant, eating some kind of delicious, spicy noodle soup you hadn't tried before. But for some reason the chef decided to chuck a slice of pepperoni pizza in there. And it's not that I don't like pizza... But what the hell is it doing in my noodle soup?

alberichtano

Oh my gods, so many insightful and good notes here!

So much to agree with and so many have said things I have pondered and remarked earlier in other threads.

Like - please stop with the Big Bad Evil of the Week. What it does is that it diminishes every other earlier Big Bad Evil. Defeating Molag Bal in the first main quest was epic, but after having defeated three other daedric lords, saving two gods, defeating dragons like others defeat mosquitos and then thwarting yet another daedric lord... it just becomes meh.

The more we thwart and defeat the Big Bad, the less the Big Bads feel, well, big and bad.

Solutions to this could be that the big bads actually win, and that the "win" of the storyline is surviving, not triumphing against whatever evil we meet.

Another solution, one that I would prefer, is to just stop with the Big Bads. Not everything must be epic and grand. Sometimes it can be small, personal, revolving around choices and sacrifices of a more intimate nature. Say - someone is deadly ill. To save them you have to try medicines and potions and whatnot. But nothing works, because it is a curse. You have to make deals with greater powers, perhaps even powers you have angered earlier. What are you willing to offer? What are you willing to do?

Or, perhaps a bit more creative story - the small town of X was crushed by a dragon that sneaked away from the kitty-lands, and held as hostage. You have to find a way to defeat this very normal and not at all uber dragon without letting it fly away and punish what remains of the town. But that is just the beginning - your daily quests are now to help rebuild the town, and help make choices of what to build, what to focus on. Choices can then have varying results on the population, the population growth etc. It could be a bit like a more pre-steered veresion of a townbuilding in Fallout 4. At the end of the storyline, voila, you have a town that you can govern and both invest in and perhaps gain some use from. Focusing on harvests can yield small amounts of dialy food-stuff, etc. Not overwhelming amounts of course, but more like a thing of flavor, a piece of everyday life. I can see many variations on this that could be interesting for all of us builder-fans out there.

JJOtterBear

One big release with smaller supplements would be nice. and that would free up time for the devs to go after bugs and do performance improvements the rest of the time til the next big release. or two moderate releases. one at the start of the year and one at the end.

More self contained stories with much more fleshed out Zones.

I don't mind year long adventures. But I think they need to be a bit more engaging. So far the Blackwood adventure has been very...meh. like there is not a lot about it that makes me not want to just rush through it.

actually my biggest desire would be for the devs to add to the lore by coming up with something totally new. maybe something that the mages of nirn collectively decided should be erased from history. there are numerous excuses you come up with in order to do something that's not in the current lore.

Luke_Flamesword

Now Q2 and Q4 DLCs are dungeons and I think that 4 dungeons a year is just too much (we really have a lot of them now) - my proposition is to make only 2 dungeons a year and instead another 2, you can make something different, which need same effort in making - more solo arenas and another instances for veteran players where you can fight and earn rewards with completely new rules. For example, some arena or dungeon where you have waves of enemies, where first wave is very easy and each next is a bit harder and this have no end. Difficulty increase until you die and then you earn some score - better score, better rewards.

Another idea - 4-man arena but this time players don't fight as team, but they try survive solo - player who lives longest wins. They can't hurt each other and are closed in 4 identical spaces, so they have same danger.

Maybe this are not best ideas, but this is just fast thinking - just be creative and gives something different from time to time

FreeMaN_A

I dont care year long stories or not but ZOS should move away from that strict update schedule.
Look at the release dates:
Morrowind: 6 June
Summerset: 5 June
Elsweyr: 4 June
Greymoor: 26 May
Blackwood: 1 June
same with the smaller expansions.
I am not surprised Blackwood was full of game breaking bugs (which were reported at PTS!). As a developer myself (not in gamedev, but it doesn`t matter) i can say that it`s impossible to work with such strict release dates and maintain acceptable quality. As we saw in last update - many critical problems (even with their main feature - companions!) but they released Blackwood anyway.
So what i would like to see - primarily quality preference over speed, flexible update schedule, attention to what they release instead of when.

ADarklore

FreeMaN_A wrote: »

I dont care year long stories or not but ZOS should move away from that strict update schedule.
Look at the release dates:
Morrowind: 6 June
Summerset: 5 June
Elsweyr: 4 June
Greymoor: 26 May
Blackwood: 1 June
same with the smaller expansions.
I am not surprised Blackwood was full of game breaking bugs (which were reported at PTS!). As a developer myself (not in gamedev, but it doesn`t matter) i can say that it`s impossible to work with such strict release dates and maintain acceptable quality. As we saw in last update - many critical problems (even with their main feature - companions!) but they released Blackwood anyway.
So what i would like to see - primarily quality preference over speed, flexible update schedule, attention to what they release instead of when.

That was one of the biggest pluses for Blizzard years ago, when they would delay release because the quality wasn't there by the time the release date was reached. However, once they were bought by Activision, that all went away because Activision held them to strict release dates. I don't believe ZOS has any option in this regard, due to their deadlines being set by corporate marketing.

MrGhosty

I'm probably in the minority that I've really enjoyed the last few chapters. I do think Morrowind and Summerset were a bit stronger narratively but the later chatpers all told fun stories and let us catch up with beloved characters.

When thinking on what I would like to see I happened across an idea that I really love the more I think about it. The idea is to make a story that isn't tied to a zone at all but one that takes place across the whole of tamriel, Akin to the zone quests that took you through the vanilla zones. Part of this is because I would love an excuse to go back and interact with characters we've not gotten to talk to since we completed their zone quests years ago. This could also be tied to a zone refresh to take advantage of those technical improvements that get talked about in regards to new chapters.

This could take the form of previously war torn/devastated areas finally being rebuilt and bringing the official zone timeline up to date. More quests that lets us check back in with past characters and help them once again with a narrative thread that pulls us through the zones. This rework could either pick one faction area at a time (e.g. We do the Aldmeri Dominion zone refresh one year, then DC the next, etc) or could bounce us around various zones between all three faction areas. The new feature could be tied to traversal and let us use boats for the first time in Elder Scrolls franchise, maybe even some actual mechanics/fights to be had on the high seas as well as being able to travel around Tamriel via boat/ship where applicable.

The standard things that get added in chapter/dlc releases could still be done but would be much more varied as they could be spread all over Tamriel rather than tied thematically to just one zone.

Something else that I would like to see is an "endgame" zone, perhaps another plane of oblivion or something that would give veteran players somewhere to go and be challenged. I don't typically like excluding players, but I've come across many players who would like a specific place to go and challenge themselves that isn't just running a dungeon, trial, or arena. I feel that if implemented correctly could serve as aspirational content for newer players and maybe work as a transition bit of content between overland difficulty and endgame content (more enemies with mechanics rather than just being turned into damage sponges)

I would also like to see more independent skill lines added in that jive a bit more with the Elder Scrolls franchise,. Enemies have skills that look visually more interesting than skills that are available to the players while some skills they have don't even have an equivalent in player arsenals. (ice walls, cool vampire skills. summoned weapons, etc) Many of these could be bundled into existing skill lines like Mages guild/fighters guild/undaunted.

New weapon types would also be awesome.

Individual item styles feel like a necessity at this point as well. It is really fun to put together a unique outfit from the hundreds of cool styles and I would like to see this expanded over time. Full motifs can take a ton of time I would imagine, so rather than consistently adding in full sets it would be nice to see more "flare" type pieces added in like Gauntlets, shoulders, helmets. Some style items could just be for certain weapons, more general purpose item styles, more items tied to completion of content at various skill levels (more quest related items). One of my long standing nag is when we complete quests we get specially named items that look identical to the model of weapon for that gear set yet are meant to be special. This is already something kind of being done, but I would like to see it expanded somewhat. For some people going after Godslayer and the associated rewards is a way to show their prowess, for others they would find item skins tied to certain quests/zones/characters more meaningful so I say why not have both. The general idea is to have something fun to go for no matter your skill level.

In addition to less uniform style items, another big ask would be auras. Now I don't mean stuff that will add a ton of visual clutter but simple effects we could add to our characters like stink clouds (to pair with our zombie/monster/diseased skins) elemental auras, different eye color glows, ghostly effects (like Kollopi essence or the effect we get when we rez) to further let us customize our character. These things would add a ton for roleplayers but would also be fun for just about anyone to customize their characters. When this is added, it would also be nice to have additional toggles given to the players including hiding specific armor slots and the ability to disable seeing other players effects/auras/mounts etc.

Sorry for the wall of text, I want to conclude with the fact that I am really loving a lot of things being added to the game and overall I am loving it. These are all suggestions very much in the vein of "this thing is cool, but what if they did this...".

omegatay_ESO

Standard? Some mmo's are lucky to have content after 2+ years. Wow is every two years, with content here and there. Ffxiv is every two years.

I think the way zos is doing it is quite satisfactory considering, alts, events, pvp and other things you will, or should be doing.

Now.. If your a no lifer, retired, etc and have endless hours to play? Maybe you should get out more? Most of the rest of us have other stuff to do, including zos employees.

WeerW3ir

omegatay_ESO wrote: »

Standard? Some mmo's are lucky to have content after 2+ years. Wow is every two years, with content here and there. Ffxiv is every two years.

I think the way zos is doing it is quite satisfactory considering, alts, events, pvp and other things you will, or should be doing.

Now.. If your a no lifer, retired, etc and have endless hours to play? Maybe you should get out more? Most of the rest of us have other stuff to do, including zos employees.

They should make seasons. Would make more sense

Dropstitch

With regard to expansions/ DLC:

Quality>Quantity (including financially since sales will decline with declining quality).

Give people time to work and create something fresh.

aaisoaho

I've started to recently enjoy veteran DLC dungeons. I do pledges via group finder, because I play on off-hours and zone chat/guild chat just do not bear fruit. The release cycle offers me a lot of content to do, some nice stories twice a year plus handful of dungeons. Now there's still content I have not seen or experienced yet: trials and group arenas.

I'd like to see normal trials and group arenas on group finder, so I could experience them. I think veteran trials should be excluded since well, they are veteran and require a lot of coordination, more than what you can get just by text chat.

I focus only on the pledges tho, because they are the only ones that have short-ish queue. This brings up an issue: it takes a long while to experience every DLC dungeon - 20 days or so. If you miss a day, you might need to wait another 20 days. If you do not play in the weekends, it can take months.

A one possible solution for this would be an additional pledge giver, to split the DLC pledge queue in half and thus shortening the cycle. A dungeon DLC a day, pretty please?

Dark_Lord_Kuro

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, thanks for the passion in this thread about release structure. We're taking note of your comments here for future conversations.

For more constructive feedback, let us know what you would potentially like to see in a future release structure and why. These suggestions could help in future discussions to better the overall experience for all players. Thanks for your future feedback!

How about spliting the dungeon trought the year? As i feal they dont really suplement the year story all thet well, especially the q3 dlc, you could remouve them and the story would be the same, while i also think the yealy story feel sqeezed some time and would benefit from more overworld element

Maybe this could work?

Q1 smaller size dlc(think hewsbane size) to fill the hole in the map + 1 dungeon

The dungeon would kickstart the yearly story with the help of the q2 prologue and the zone could be a stand alone story fore those who likes it

Q2
Chapter+1dungeon

Q3
Same as q1 but this time it could be a semi stand alone zone, it would get its own story but since it woulnt be too far from the yearly zones there could be side quest involving the yealy story

Q4
Current q4 content+one dungeon


I dont know how much this is feasable with the more heavy work load it would need

colossalvoids

Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, thanks for the passion in this thread about release structure. We're taking note of your comments here for future conversations.

For more constructive feedback, let us know what you would potentially like to see in a future release structure and why. These suggestions could help in future discussions to better the overall experience for all players. Thanks for your future feedback!

How about spliting the dungeon trought the year? As i feal they dont really suplement the year story all thet well, especially the q3 dlc, you could remouve them and the story would be the same, while i also think the yealy story feel sqeezed some time and would benefit from more overworld element

Maybe this could work?

Q1 smaller size dlc(think hewsbane size) to fill the hole in the map + 1 dungeon

The dungeon would kickstart the yearly story with the help of the q2 prologue and the zone could be a stand alone story fore those who likes it

Q2
Chapter+1dungeon

Q3
Same as q1 but this time it could be a semi stand alone zone, it would get its own story but since it woulnt be too far from the yearly zones there could be side quest involving the yealy story

Q4
Current q4 content+one dungeon


I dont know how much this is feasable with the more heavy work load it would need

I fear that this would require way more resources than they're putting out now. 2 of current q4 would make both even more decreased quality, I'd personally take one, even smaller zone but with better story and features which will also make them enough time to develope it properly. I'd even take way smaller landmass chapters if they were actually unique, not X dolmen, X delve and 2 public dungeons + a trial etc. but a zone that will contain only what's actually fitting the lore and concept best, the gap fillers aren't making it and time can be spent on polishing and enriching, alternatively on more thought out features. This can backfire (no trial for raiders, not enough "dolmens" etc.) but it might at least make it fresh.

As for dungeons I'm not sure, I believe dungeon quality is staying pretty high (imo) only because it's separate content releases and I'd say that they should be at least partially separated from year long adventure (if it stays). Small self contained stories were a blast lorewise, without any forced connections to the story. Now it's just "go find a tablet" instead of you being put into some unique situation.

But that's just me as I enjoy those content drops myself actually questing there alone first time before going with the group for a challenge. It's just a discussion anyway and devs might get a perspective from us, not trying to change anyone's mind or argue.

Contraptions

Agree, I think zones and dungeons should come together, dungeons alone aren't very worth it. It's also a way for one DLC to meet the needs of multiple types of players.

I also wish they would spend some time revisiting and reworking base game content. Like when they expanded the tier 1, tier 4 and 5 zone delves way back before Tamrial Unlimited, reworked old base game bosses to be more like the DLC world bosses with more mechanics etc. A revisit could also include altering base game art, assets, texts etc. to include lore or worldbuilding seen in newer content. Like add Direnni stuff to High Rock etc.

My last wish would be a dynamic zone invasion system. The new trailer for the base game seen when starting shows daedra invading from the dolmens and fights actually taking place nearer to towns/quest areas. Please actually implement some sort of dynamic zone invasion event like such that actually requires players to work together to fight them off. Implement some nice rewards, make it happen a few times each day. See RIFT for a similar system.

aeowulf

I think we need a second dlc daily quest giver too, the rotation is almost twice as long as the base game.

cyberjanet

This is an interesting thread, so I shall I pretend ZOS has hired me for my unique creative and writing talents to bring new life to the game.

My suggestion for the next campaign would be Tamriel Conquered: breathing fresh life into all the existing zones of the Tamriel base game. (This could be extended later into DLC areas to generate more interest in ESO Plus.)
We already have aspects of the game where people who took different quest options, or have not yet done the quest, cannot see each other in the quest area; quests that lead you into instanced areas. We have dungeons with veteran and hard mode.
Tamriel Conquered would open up new quests and new quest options to people who have completed the game up to a certain point: perhaps having reached a particular CP, perhaps having defeated Molag Bal, perhaps an any or all situation, we will brainstorm this at the board meeting. (:D)

Each area in Tamriel will eventually receive a new NPC questgiver that can only be accessed by players who have the particular achievement(s) needed. The (repeatable) quest will take you into a new instance of that area to begin with, and new instances of any areas the quest leads you. The new instance will no longer have dolmens, as Molag Bal has been conquered and the planesmeld has failed. They will be replaced by something like the dynamic zone invasions from other planes possibly the Deadlands introduced in Blackwood.

Contraptions wrote: »

My last wish would be a dynamic zone invasion system. The new trailer for the base game seen when starting shows daedra invading from the dolmens and fights actually taking place nearer to towns/quest areas.

The area itself will be significantly harder than pre-Molag days, ie a veteran version. The delves will have hardmode for the bosses, and may even have new delve stories, depending how much time you give me to write this. The existing quests you have in the area will still be there, but you will have to do them at a harder level.
Tamriel Conquered will start in each of the starter areas and gradually roll out to all the other areas.

The stories behind the existing dungeons and trials will become clearer, giving us reasons to go in and do them. Tamriel Conquered will introduce a story mode, with extra tasks including killing every single monster and finding every chest and heavy sack. Talking to NPCs to get the full story will also be part of the completion. There are rewards at the end, including special trophy and furnishing leads, but only when you have found everything and spoken to everyone, and understand the story behind the dungeon completely. Story mode will be two-player, so that you can go with a friend or take a companion.

Tamriel Conquered will also include prequel quests for all of the dungeons, so that you have a good reason to go and invade Castle Thorn and kill its mistress, for example.

Naturally there will be new overland achievements, and special Story Dungeon Achievements. And lots of new antiquarian leads.

Lugaldu

I would like the zones to be less formulaic, which would make them more varied and interesting. What I mean by that is the regular distribution of cities, settlements, word bosses, delves and special places over the entire map. Everything appears like an eternally repeating patchwork pattern. It would be more interesting if, for example, there was a zone on the map that is densely populated, where several cities, villages, hamlets are close to each other, forming a network of settlements. And in the contrary we would find a hostile zone, where there are absolutely no settlements, but numerous ruins, caves, the world events, world bosses - so to speak, an adventure zone - but on the same map. For me, such a map/zone design would feel much more natural and exciting.

Dropstitch

Lugaldu wrote: »

I would like the zones to be less formulaic, which would make them more varied and interesting. What I mean by that is the regular distribution of cities, settlements, word bosses, delves and special places over the entire map. Everything appears like an eternally repeating patchwork pattern. It would be more interesting if, for example, there was a zone on the map that is densely populated, where several cities, villages, hamlets are close to each other, forming a network of settlements. And in the contrary we would find a hostile zone, where there are absolutely no settlements, but numerous ruins, caves, the world events, world bosses - so to speak, an adventure zone - but on the same map. For me, such a map/zone design would feel much more natural and exciting.

I absolutely agree. I would love to enter one zone and explore the wilderness far from any settlement, and then enter another zone that is a motte and bailey and a market square surrounded by farmland and hamlets.

SimonThesis

I think the traditional formula is getting super old and stale, its boring at this point! I wanna see more new pvp content. Maybe instead of (zone, dungeons, small zone, dungeons) It looks more like (Zone, dungeons, Pvp content+bugfixes, new system or bugfixes).

We get there always has to be a new zone and dungeons but the state of pvp in this game deserves a quarter of developement attention. Maybe a new cyrodiil/imp city system or map combined with sweeping bug and qol fixes in cyrodiil/imp city.

Pvpers in this game feel like there is no new content and none of the pvp bugs are getting fixed. Why should they stick with the game?

Thank you for the engagement in this forum it is greatly appreciated.
@ZOS_Kevin

NoxiousBlight

I agree with many here that the releases are getting a bit stale. For the past 10 days or so I have logged in just enough to finish my endeavors. I'll probably play the new dungeons a few times, maybe try some HMs, then I am stuck again until Q4.

This is aggravated by the fact that Blackwood was so lackluster. Elsweyr kept me busy for a while and I really enjoyed it. Greymoor I found the Harrowstorms at least enjoyable so I ran them daily for months. Blackwood I still have 15 Oblivion portals to go for the achievement and I'm not touching them again until the event for Blackwood. Otherwise I am done with the zone and hated it. Just did it for the sake of doing it.

We need something different to shake it up. Q4 will just be a small story zone again (most likely) and we need something with pizazz.

First, please stop splitting the story between the chapter and Q4 DLC. It felt like it worked with Elsweyr, but Greymoor felt like the story was truncated on purpose just for the sake of filling out a DLC. Blackwood feels like a flop already, and if I have endure Eveli and Lyranth in Q4 again i'm not going to enjoy it unless the story is an absolute banger. But my expectations are very low.

Companions are cool and all, but this system needs to be VASTLY expanded. The current version of companions feels like an alpha 1.0 and we are just waiting for the rest of the system to release. The gearing is still a mess, the rapport system is shallow, and we need new customization options. Like... keep the same Mirri but let me earn or buy a different skin to make her look like a different dark elf character. Sort of how SWTOR does it. Same story, different look.

Speaking of which, let us customize our skills looks. After years I still cannot play a pet sorc because the flappy bird drives me to the brink of insanity. That thing hogs the screen and is generally annoying. I mean... what if I could just pick the color of my blastbones? That would be exciting and just requires some new assets, not an entirely new system. You already did it with the grey warden bear skin, why did you stop? We need way more of that.

We need a new weapon line to shake up the meta and provide more options. Just give us the 1h sword and rune. Then you really only need one new asset - the rune in the offhand - and reuse the 1h models.

We need some creativity. I would like some sort of procedurally generated dungeon. Something akin to a rogue-like game. Give us some powers or skills that are only useable inside the dungeon. I think a solo instance would be best, but i'll take it any way I can get it.

How about a fishing daily quest with unique rewards?

What about new ways to use our houses? Gardens that grow alchemy herbs, for example.

This is less of a possibility because Cyro is so laggy so I doubt it is possible, but I would love some sort of PvE war system. You could have some time travel vision of it and experience the great battles of Tamriel. It could have RTS elements. Maybe you get an NPC squad to command to objectives. There are many ways to do something like this, but the point being that it is a new way to play the game. Not just mindless overland, same dungeon formula, repeat. We've saved the world 14 times, don't you think we could be the general of an army at this point?

Those are the ideas off the top of my head. But the point is: we really need something fresh. I love ESO to death but i'm not going to last another year if next summer's chapter is another boring story zone with an antiquities-like skill.

mickeyx

Just give us one huge map instead of breaking it into two smaller ones as seperate release. And don't even bother with another craglorn type zone or it will be ignored and deserted just like craglorn. Just waste of resources.

Andre_Noir

Lady_Galadhiel wrote: »

WeerW3ir wrote: »

they wont change anyway. this way is paying well them. tho... each year the expansions are losing their charm. like. look::

(personal opinion, BUT KINDA TRUE)

Uhm,I don't think Elsweyr was already a point where it went downhill,as i stated many times I started playing 4 months after Elsweyr release and the zone was still very visited,many people around killng dragons even outside of events and like that it stayed pretty much till Greymoor was announced.
Greymoor on the other hand was a desert 2 months after release and same happens to Blackwood.

Greymoor spread ppl over Tamriel due archeology. On other hand Elsweyr came with a full set of furnishing plans included structures but now they shift almost all structures plans to story DLC

jle30303

Re. the comments about "Oh no, not another Big Bad Of The Year".

My favourite DLC so far, for storyline anyway, has been Orsinium.

No true Big Bad at all, only the vicious internal rivalries of Orcish politics. The "final villains" weren't really BIG, as bads go: they were people, with their own complex motives and reasons that had led them to make the choices they did, which resulted in them being your enemy. They were still strong enemies - quest boss-level - but not, like, dragons or gods or thousand-year-old undeads with all the powers expected from having lived that long. They were *people*.

And I think it made for a far better DLC, and a far better story.

crjs1

Agree with so much that has already been said!

For me I mainly solo PvE with questing my fav part. I definitely feel Summerset and Orsinium were the high point in story content. The last couple of years has just felt a bit formulaic.

I would love to see more political intrigue focused storylines, and please no more daedric princes - about to destroy the whole of Tamriel - stories for a while.

Also it would be good to revisit the three banners war, which just feels forgotten about. Something that would seriously help would be abandoning the -all happening in one year - approach to the timeline. I get that complicates things in a MMO when people can do story content in different order, but it’s just daft!

New guild storyline would be great.

Revisiting base game zones with new quests, assets and content would be great

Dropstitch

jle30303 wrote: »

Re. the comments about "Oh no, not another Big Bad Of The Year".

My favourite DLC so far, for storyline anyway, has been Orsinium.

No true Big Bad at all, only the vicious internal rivalries of Orcish politics. The "final villains" weren't really BIG, as bads go: they were people, with their own complex motives and reasons that had led them to make the choices they did, which resulted in them being your enemy. They were still strong enemies - quest boss-level - but not, like, dragons or gods or thousand-year-old undeads with all the powers expected from having lived that long. They were *people*.

And I think it made for a far better DLC, and a far better story.

I agree. The small stories are great and the escalation of stories over time tends to stretch them beyond credibility. Sequels or subsequent expansions do not have to always get biggerer and biggererer. A smaller story about political in-fighting can be far more engaging than world extinction threat #3123.

16BitForestCat

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, thanks for the passion in this thread about release structure. We're taking note of your comments here for future conversations.

For more constructive feedback, let us know what you would potentially like to see in a future release structure and why. These suggestions could help in future discussions to better the overall experience for all players. Thanks for your future feedback!

(I'm probably just kicking the same dead horse as everyone else, but I think in this case, the more the merrier, if it gets someone to listen.)

Okay, well, @ZOS_Kevin, I love ESO, including the Chapters! But it's been pretty obvious even from the very first Chapter, Morrowind, that ZOS is in over their heads when it comes to large Chapter-size zones in a post-Wrothgar world. One of the most common complaints from players is that the amount of content doesn't match the size of the zone. Zones are "artificially inflated" to look huge, but then you go there and find out your movement through the zones is:

1: Restricted by mountains or other obstacles that greatly reduce the actual interactable map size (Morrowind, Summerset); or
2: You can walk pretty much anywhere in the zone, but it's full of dead, empty space (Greymoor, Blackwood).

Another issue is that Chapter zones seem to be very light on story content. I'd be critiquing this even if I weren't a published author, but it definitely stands out to me more as a writer. There don't seem to be enough quests, and many of the ones that exist are only charitably called "quests" (looking at you, mining samples in Greymoor Caverns, which got reused for the Hircine's shrine "quests" in Markarth). Also, I agree with everyone else saying that the zone stories in chapters are too identical. EVERY large-zone storyline doesn't need to be about Daedric Princes or cultists or destroying the world. You can have fantastic quest-lines that don't involve the fate of the universe. Many players' favorite ESO quests are about problems on a more local scale. Heck, in the non-ESO world, my gaming group just finished a long campaign where the fate of the universe WAS at stake, but the quests that everyone cared about most, and spent the most time on, were the personal quests of the party members and how they affected the party and our extended social circles as a whole. Someone put it as, "We saved all of reality? Great! But look at how everything we went through finally got [ex-best friends] A and B to reconcile after hating each other for thirty years. Now THAT'S big!"

I'm also not a huge fan of the year-long storylines, for the reasons others mentioned. They could work, but not when the storyline is so thin you don't have enough plot for one new release, let alone four.

(Northern Elsweyr did a slightly better job of avoiding those pitfalls, but--back to traversing the map--because the terrain is so annoying to travel and many seem to consider it dull and same-y to look at, it has its own issues in the player complaint record.)

ZOS's DLC's are where the content and zones really seem to shine and work well together. The amount of content seems to fit much more with the size of the zones. My suggestion would be to step back from Chapters and focus on DLC's, or else stop pushing out annual Chapters that obviously aren't ready for primetime and instead release them every other year or something, when there's been more time to polish them. Although...I'm guessing that won't happen, due to marketing and dev resource standpoints. Even if it probably needs to.

Lugaldu

The problem that the contents of the year-long chapters seem to have to become ever larger doomsday scenarios fits the general tendencies of this world - "further, higher, faster, more extreme". A tendency that you can also see in films (in the past, some crazy stunts were performed by real humans in e.g. James Bond movies, today it's just completely absurd computer animations) and on many other levels of the society. I think that it is difficult to get out of this spiral, because it could then be, for example, that new ESO players with a new chapter that revolves around a personal intrigue, could find the whole thing too "boring". A solution might be that there are two DLCs per year that are no longer connected to each other with one having a more action-packed plot and the other a more psychologically interesting story.

Marto

I'd like to see different types of content for Q1 and Q3, not just 4-player dungeons.

There's quite a few possibilities that come to mind...

• 1 Trial
• 1 Arena
• 3 "Mini dungeons"
• 1 small PVP-PVE zone. Yes, I know Imperial City isn't the most popular thing, but they could still experiment, and make the idea work.
• 1 Smaller explorable zone. There's plenty of areas in the map that are seemingly too small to be considered for a Q4 DLC Zone.

Some zones that could fit that description are

• Tenmar Forest (Middle Elsweyr): Including the khajiit holy city of Torval.
• Soulrest (That little triangle of land between Murkmire and Blackwood): One of the largest Argonian cities.
• Druadach Mountains (The strip of land between Western Skyrim and Wrothgar): It contains the Forgotten Vale from the TES V: Dawnguard expansion. We don't know if it's an area mostly influenced by Orsimer, Bretons, or Nords during the time of ESO.
• Sheogorad: (The skull-shaped island north of Vvardenfell) There's not a lot there, other than some dangerous ruins.

Small, dense zones like these could be focused around a lot of verticality and exploration (like Abah's Landing). They could be very heavy on story, without including that many delves, world bosses or regions.

NoxiousBlight

Marto wrote: »

I'd like to see different types of content for Q1 and Q3, not just 4-player dungeons.

There's quite a few possibilities that come to mind...

• 1 Trial
• 1 Arena
• 3 "Mini dungeons"
• 1 small PVP-PVE zone. Yes, I know Imperial City isn't the most popular thing, but they could still experiment, and make the idea work.
• 1 Smaller explorable zone. There's plenty of areas in the map that are seemingly too small to be considered for a Q4 DLC Zone.

Some zones that could fit that description are

• Tenmar Forest (Middle Elsweyr): Including the khajiit holy city of Torval.
• Soulrest (That little triangle of land between Murkmire and Blackwood): One of the largest Argonian cities.
• Druadach Mountains (The strip of land between Western Skyrim and Wrothgar): It contains the Forgotten Vale from the TES V: Dawnguard expansion. We don't know if it's an area mostly influenced by Orsimer, Bretons, or Nords during the time of ESO.
• Sheogorad: (The skull-shaped island north of Vvardenfell) There's not a lot there, other than some dangerous ruins.

Small, dense zones like these could be focused around a lot of verticality and exploration (like Abah's Landing). They could be very heavy on story, without including that many delves, world bosses or regions.

Now these are some great easy ideas. When you put it like this, I am a bit tired of the standard 2 dungeons release. A small mini zone to fill in the map would hit the spot.

I am also tired of the mega long DLC dungeons with secret bosses. They spend so much time designing this stuff that most of the player base eagerly wants to skip when it comes up on rotation or in a random. 75% of people instant drop dungeons like Lair of Maarselok or Unhallowed Grave because they are just TOO LONG. The story was great, sure, but that is fun once. If you want me to repeat a dungeon joyfully and for fun then it needs to be shorter. So in this regard 3 mini dungeons would be a slam dunk to me over 2 overly complex, long, convoluted DLC dungeons.

I always want more PvP stuff. I'll take anything at this point. Don't even care what it is.

gariondavey

More 1-off zones/stories like craglorn and wrothgar.
More continuity like morrowind + cwc + summerset. Self contained stories that also piece together.
Less year of the ______.
I'd even be ok with fewer releases each year. The expansion can be a significantly bigger zone. Zos could focus on quality of life improvements and bug fixes and a more fine tuned approach at balancing than past sledgehammer style changes.

Thanks for listening, @ZOS_Kevin