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

ajkb78

@ZOS_Kevin I saw your interest in this thread and I've been thinking it over for a while before replying, so I hope you're still taking feedback.

I agree with the sentiment that the pattern of "year of the X" stories has made the story value of the content feel bland and samey. When everything has to be tied to a theme you lose space for more interesting plot ideas. Take the wrathstone dungeons: the plot device of two entire dungeons was finding a bit of rock, because it nominally linked to releasing dragons. Compare that with the previous dungeon DLC Wolfhunter, we have a tenuous werewolf theme linking the two dungeons but they're very different, one exploring interesting lore relating to Hircine and the other relating to the Silver Dawn. Each had interesting self contained stories in their own right, they didn't feel like a prop to the chapter. I'm not saying that the Wrathstone dungeons weren't good: the combat and mechanics were perfectly engaging, it's just that the story and lore contribution they made was minimal.

The pattern of story content has become samey too: adventure in the chapter, not wrapped off, finish the adventure in a subsidiary zone later in the year. Oddly, since Summerset the bigger and badder the Big Bad, the less threatening the scenarios have felt. Yes, Clavicus Vile and Mephala and Nocturnal were up to no good but you weren't just swatting the Daedric princes aside, you had help from gods of your own - Azura and the Tribunal - as well as the psijic order etc. It felt like being an important part of a more realistic and dangerous conflict, whereas since then the stories have had you defeat powerful enemies just because that's what the narrative demands. Still the high point of chapter releases, Orsinium, didn't really have a Big Bad at all, just political intrigue, but it felt all the more engrossing for it.

I noticed a few demands for annual updates - I wouldn't support that, partly because I know I would blitz everything for a week and then have a looooong wait for the next update. (Anyway I expect it wouldn't fit in with your need to sell dlcs, ESO+ and chapters.) But I would support a move away from the rigid sequence of dungeon, chapter, dungeon, story zone if it makes for more varied and interesting content that allows us to explore ever more of Nirn and beyond.

Do big story arcs if you must, but don't be afraid to have dlcs in the middle that are nothing at all to do with the story arc, and then come back to it later, and don't feel constrained to have them covering exactly 1 year. Feel free to do something like a small zone + group dungeon if it helps the story, or a dungeon and an arena, or a new Craglorn type zone or whatever. (Regarding the last one, DLC dungeons come with a minimum level advisory ie you can't queue for them below a certain CP so why can't an overland zone be designed to be more challenging?

Much of the best storytelling is in side quests: try not to make the main quests so formulaic and bland, there's scope for humour and tragedy in the main stories too.

At least since Murkmire it feels like there have been major combat changes every patch. We've cycled through standardising set bonuses, aoe costs and effectiveness, dots, crit chance, CP, hybridisation of stats and so on. It would be nice if we could very soon get to a point where that is all mostly done and we could move to a major combat update, *if needed*, no more than once a year with just very minor tweaks at other times, is to correct errors introduced in the more major change.

It would also be nice to see further enhancements to housing to expand what the immense creativity of your playerbase can do, further work on bringing the console experience up to par with PC (ability timers was a good start, next please give us quick change of gear, skills and CP similar to Dressing Room) and as always more performance improvements - I would love to see multithreaded rendering and adaptive downscaling available on PS4. And I guess PvP could do with some love content-wise, maybe open world XvX duels or additional daedric weapons in Cyrodiil.

Thanks for listening, and sorry this turned into something of an essay.

ZOS_Kevin

Hey @ajkb78, no worries at all. We appreciate you taking the time to send feedback, no matter the length. We will continue to review and collect feedback that could be helpful to our teams here at ZOS using this thread. Thanks again for your feedback!

themaddaedra

ajkb78 wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin I saw your interest in this thread and I've been thinking it over for a while before replying, so I hope you're still taking feedback.

I agree with the sentiment that the pattern of "year of the X" stories has made the story value of the content feel bland and samey. When everything has to be tied to a theme you lose space for more interesting plot ideas. Take the wrathstone dungeons: the plot device of two entire dungeons was finding a bit of rock, because it nominally linked to releasing dragons. Compare that with the previous dungeon DLC Wolfhunter, we have a tenuous werewolf theme linking the two dungeons but they're very different, one exploring interesting lore relating to Hircine and the other relating to the Silver Dawn. Each had interesting self contained stories in their own right, they didn't feel like a prop to the chapter. I'm not saying that the Wrathstone dungeons weren't good: the combat and mechanics were perfectly engaging, it's just that the story and lore contribution they made was minimal.

The pattern of story content has become samey too: adventure in the chapter, not wrapped off, finish the adventure in a subsidiary zone later in the year. Oddly, since Summerset the bigger and badder the Big Bad, the less threatening the scenarios have felt. Yes, Clavicus Vile and Mephala and Nocturnal were up to no good but you weren't just swatting the Daedric princes aside, you had help from gods of your own - Azura and the Tribunal - as well as the psijic order etc. It felt like being an important part of a more realistic and dangerous conflict, whereas since then the stories have had you defeat powerful enemies just because that's what the narrative demands. Still the high point of chapter releases, Orsinium, didn't really have a Big Bad at all, just political intrigue, but it felt all the more engrossing for it.

I noticed a few demands for annual updates - I wouldn't support that, partly because I know I would blitz everything for a week and then have a looooong wait for the next update. (Anyway I expect it wouldn't fit in with your need to sell dlcs, ESO+ and chapters.) But I would support a move away from the rigid sequence of dungeon, chapter, dungeon, story zone if it makes for more varied and interesting content that allows us to explore ever more of Nirn and beyond.

Do big story arcs if you must, but don't be afraid to have dlcs in the middle that are nothing at all to do with the story arc, and then come back to it later, and don't feel constrained to have them covering exactly 1 year. Feel free to do something like a small zone + group dungeon if it helps the story, or a dungeon and an arena, or a new Craglorn type zone or whatever. (Regarding the last one, DLC dungeons come with a minimum level advisory ie you can't queue for them below a certain CP so why can't an overland zone be designed to be more challenging?

Much of the best storytelling is in side quests: try not to make the main quests so formulaic and bland, there's scope for humour and tragedy in the main stories too.

At least since Murkmire it feels like there have been major combat changes every patch. We've cycled through standardising set bonuses, aoe costs and effectiveness, dots, crit chance, CP, hybridisation of stats and so on. It would be nice if we could very soon get to a point where that is all mostly done and we could move to a major combat update, *if needed*, no more than once a year with just very minor tweaks at other times, is to correct errors introduced in the more major change.

It would also be nice to see further enhancements to housing to expand what the immense creativity of your playerbase can do, further work on bringing the console experience up to par with PC (ability timers was a good start, next please give us quick change of gear, skills and CP similar to Dressing Room) and as always more performance improvements - I would love to see multithreaded rendering and adaptive downscaling available on PS4. And I guess PvP could do with some love content-wise, maybe open world XvX duels or additional daedric weapons in Cyrodiil.

Thanks for listening, and sorry this turned into something of an essay.

^ Not a word that i don't agree with.

Kadraeus

Elsweyr and Dragonhold are still my personal favorites after playing up to Greymoor, though the Morrowind-Clockwork City-Summerset collection was great.

I just finished Greymoor and have only run through Blackwood to get companions, but I do feel a little underwhelmed by both of them. For some reason, I don't feel compelled to explore Western Skyrim. It may be because I've played around 1000 hours of Skyrim in the past 2 years. Idk. The overland, while pretty, just doesn't feel that interesting to me. Perhaps it's the color palette I don't like. Western Skyrim and Blackwood feel very drab, even with Reshade, and while the assets are clearly well-made, it still just feels dull overall. This may not be the popular opinion, but I found Blackreach to be much more interesting than Western Skyrim itself. I don't even really care that it's so big. It's just very pretty and very mysterious to the point that I actually like that it's huge. It feels like a giant underground civilization that's waiting to be explored, and that's really the only place in the zone I actually felt compelled to explore.

Blackwood, so far, seems similar. It reminds me of Cyrodiil a little. It feels like there are fewer interesting landmarks and more open space. I don't necessarily think that's an issue since other games do this and I like it in those games. Kingdom Come: Deliverance is an example of a game where the world is much more spaced out, leading to vast areas of wilderness. I actually like that. It's just that, even in that game, those vast open spaces still feel unique. I had a similar issue with Murkmire. Because they're both in/near swamps, everything feels dark a bit too devoid of color. The location you go to during the prologue quest for Murkmire, in my opinion, looked way better than the actual Murkmire zone.

Back to Greymoor, as I've said, I just recently finished the main story. I've yet to do Markarth since I'm going back and doing base game quests that seem relevant to it, but the ending of Greymoor just seemed underwhelming itself. I should note that I had the twist spoiled, but I still think the biggest issue with Greymoor's story for me was that it focused too much on the Harrowstorms and not enough on the Gray Host and Blackreach. Greymoor Keep is amazing, but you only really go there at the very end of the story. That's such a missed opportunity. It should have had a much larger role in the story than it did. I mean, you can literally see it on the map and go there the moment you step into Blackreach, yet Lyris, Fenn, etc. don't know it's there until the climax.

I also think the final boss should've been revealed earlier so we had time to understand their motivations more. The whole "I want power" thing doesn't cut it. That and the Icereach Coven should've been expanded on too so we'd get a better idea as to why they did what they did. I mean, they're Reachmen, so I assumed the reason was just that they had an issue with Nords living in "their" land or something. Still, I wish we actually got to see the why in the main quest. All I got from them was that they were just [snip]. Again, they spent way too much time having us figure out how to stop the Harrowstorms, and not enough time on the villains responsible for them.

[edited for profanity bypass]

ajkb78

Oh, one thing I forgot: sometimes the storytelling feels constrained by the zones, especially with Blackwood. Why on earth would a Durcorach Reachman emperor have chosen to put all his secret stuff in one place, least of all Blackwood? It's on the far side of Tamriel from his familiar Reach. It could have made for a more believable scenario if maybe even just one of the main Blackwood quests had sent you to a completely different part of Tamriel: maybe there's a doomvault hidden in an undiscovered cave in Bangkorai or Grernshade, or theres a cultist with a clue who retired to the Rift. Nothing major, I get that the main focus needs to be on the chapter zone, but doing little things like that in the right places could improve the believability and immersiveness of the storyline - and there is precedent: one of the recipe quests in Clockwork City sends you to steal things from base game zones. And you did at least make a nod to that kind of thing with the dragons flying over Elden Root, although sadly they never did anything interactable outside Elsweyr.

marius_buys

Grandchamp1989 wrote: »

Had a discussion with the misses yesterday that the predictable content release.. to us atleat.. are starting to become a bit stale.

The easy zone quest
1 dolmen clone
The 2 public dungeons
6 delves
Formula are getting a tad bit too predictable for new zones.

Same with group dungeons, i believe we are currently at 44 group dungeons with 20 of them being dlc dungeons. With the next two dlc dungeons they Will pretty much be neck and neck with basegame.

I think it would be great to break from the standard formula and let the writers and devs loose on coming up with creative and fun content they would play.
Make it wacky, interesting and different.

Eso has become very streamlined as of late from the 4 cp slots to the same few pve sets being truely viable to content releases.

This is just an observation from us, and how we see it. Nothing more.

That being said I think it would be cool if they allowed the writers and devz to let their hair down and have some legitimate fun with the releases to break from the formulas a little.

NO

Slimebrow

It would have been nice imo if they expanded some of the base game professions maybe and made them more fun.

Maybe they could have fishing contest in game in different coastal towns or something that would give players cool or rare rewards. You know like a way for people to make friends in game and more group base content to just have fun with even if isn't all that widely used by players.

They could also have farming lots were players can buy a small lot or plant pots and place them in their home to grow ingredients for alchemy or cooking. Would be nice small thing that may help players keep more invested besides doing constant questing/ and doing dungeons.

Maybe more world bosses would randomly spawn like giant dragons in certain places that have unique animations and rare rewards.

Besides Vampire and Werewolf I feel like others skillines could also be added that can only be joined if the player isn't a werewolf or a vampire, like Witches or Warlocks or a hunter skill line like the Vigilants of Stendarr that hunt down creatures and have hunting missions in their guild halls as well as unlock unique abilities too.

Seriously I just want to see more base game fluff and base game improvements in terms of content, I think it will bring more and add more to the world.

Tornaad

@ZOS_Kevin
Suggestions (from a near exclusive PVE player)

1. Adjusted Release schedule
Q1. Dungeons
Q2. Chapter
Q3. PVP focused DLC
Q4. Story

2. Let the war spill out into the PVE world in short events.
This can be through an invasion where players will join invading armies attacking PVE locations, while other players can join the defending forces. Then afterwards, there can be PVE quests to clean up and repair the effects of the war.

3. Release hybrid PVE/PVP zones (I actually enjoyed the thrill of trying to sneak through Cyrodiil to do the quests and collect the Sky Shards.

4. Allow players to set their homes as PVP or PVE zones.

5. Do a 2 or 3 year story that is not wrapped up in one year.

6. Make a bigger style home where you might get traveling merchants and such who will visit the home. Perhaps even make it a full city/village that you get to build. I would be open to having a DLC surrounding the idea.

7. Add a story mode to all dungeons and trials, that will let players enjoy the story of the dungeon.

8. Allow the merchants you purchase in the crown store to repair your gear when stationed in your house.

9. Release expansions focused on expanding the story for every current guild.

Lumsdenml

How about that new PVP zone?

Tornaad

10. Increased housing item limits.
11. a house dedicated for all of our trophies and achievements essentially a player museum

TwinStripeUK

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.

I personally find Summerset to be hugely overrated and I can't for the life of me figure out why people rate it so highly (apart from Cloudrest for the gear, but that could have been situated anywhere in the AD).

Elsweyr is as frustrating as hell to navigate and the recent event showed just how broken the Dragon WB mechanic has gotten.

I really liked the design of Greymoor, but maybe it just tickled that area of my brain reserved for nostalgia. I was on the fence about the Antiquities system but as it's actually breathed life back into all those treasure maps I used to throw away, then only my inventory can really complain.

Blackwood has been a pretty 'meh' expansion though, although launching when it did, it's not really surprising that it feels somewhat lightweight

Dark_Lord_Kuro

B11zzard1991 wrote: »

Maybe shift towards 3 releases per year every 4 month. 2 updates with dungeons and meta changes to keep things fresh.

And one big location/story chapter. The problem with addon/small zone deal is that neither main addon or zone is as good as Summerset for example. Story wise as well.

Like Elsweyr is really cool and all, but imagine if the whole story was packed in one chapter with main drama in the end of it. Because rigth now we have two pretty mediocre parts, mainly because you need to keep ending for small dlc, but at the same time you can't do small dlc as good as chapter for obvious reasons so what end up happening - you keep using the same "princess in another castle" twist every time.

The same thing is about delves/public dungeons. I would rather see 1 grand public dungeon with some really cool new stuff and maybe 2 amazing delves over 6 usual.

Anyway you can sum my post as i want quality over quantity.

That would be terrible
Only one zone per year

Slimebrow

TwinStripeUK wrote: »

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.

I personally find Summerset to be hugely overrated and I can't for the life of me figure out why people rate it so highly (apart from Cloudrest for the gear, but that could have been situated anywhere in the AD).

Elsweyr is as frustrating as hell to navigate and the recent event showed just how broken the Dragon WB mechanic has gotten.

I really liked the design of Greymoor, but maybe it just tickled that area of my brain reserved for nostalgia. I was on the fence about the Antiquities system but as it's actually breathed life back into all those treasure maps I used to throw away, then only my inventory can really complain.

Blackwood has been a pretty 'meh' expansion though, although launching when it did, it's not really surprising that it feels somewhat lightweight

Yeah. Honestly I would rather them work on old zones and look at adding more content and fine tune or even expand some of the old zones than constantly creating new ones which to be honest after while they all start to feel the same in terms of formula.

shadyjane62

Bought Greybore and regretted it. Bought Blackwood and regretted it. Subbed for another year and then they made changes I would have NOT signed up for. And PVP still sucks.

Sentinel

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!

Honestly? Take some creative risks with storytelling and zone gameplay. I think what players really want a break from is the "formulaic" approach. A zone does not need to be either a massive 6 delve, 2 public dungeon 12 part storyline or a 3 delve half-zone of similar variety.

A lot of people seem to liked Wrothgar for its unique storyline and locales and emphasis on the people living in and within the zone. It was like following a political drama. Much of the chapters that follow have an overarching story that the entire zone has to adhere to. In short, Wrothgar builds a story out of a zone, while the following chapters build a zone for a story.

In terms of gameplay, consider different approaches to dungeoneering and exploring than the current formula. Even if its not world-changing, people love a little variety!

Xorious

CombatRecon11B 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!

A no man's land, open world, veteran trial difficulty area would be nice.

I believe something like this might be in the works. In yesterdays stream when they did the speed runs, on Finnigans whiteboard in the background, you could see where it said "New Trial---All Base PoP Zone?", along with other notes under it.

@ZOS_Kevin I personally would like to see things not so static..maybe something along the lines of bosses that roam around, so you could end up fighting boss 1 at location A during one run and boss 1 might be in location D on another run. Hell maybe they can roam up behind you while your clearing mobs. Some more dynamic encounters that you can not plan a step by step approach to because the bosses, depending on where they are and when you encounter them, will vary along with what they can do in the different areas you encounter them in.

Tornaad

12. Build the Story DLC released in Q4 to be something like Craglorn where it is specifically targeting higher level characters. You don't have to do the mixed group/Solo content, but definitely build it to be completed for higher level characters. Assume that the people you have drawn in with the chapter have gotten to a higher level and give them content to match their new level and skill.

Iccotak

DreadDaedroth wrote: »

I'd like to see more dlc dungeons not linked with year long theme.

Yes. I want Dungeons to come with the Zone. Also you don’t need the dungeons AT ALL to follow the Main Story - so then being

I think that what the player base really wants is for an expansion that is actually an expansion.

They want “Shivering Isles” level of Expansion.

Not only large in scope but also in risk taking.

The problem with the year long theme is that it’s too safe & recycled.

I get that there is a concern of monetizing but this current model is robbing the Story content of quality writing and leaves DLC feeling unfinished. As well as cut apart.

My Suggestion
Release it all together as one massive expansion.

Interchange it year by year

Year 1: one large expansion which includes
A large Zone (Chapter and Q4 dlc size combined) - just imagine if we got the entire Elsweyr zone in 2019

An epic campaign
a new gameplay feature; Skill line, class, etc.
2 group dungeons
1 Trial

Later in the year release 2 dungeons so then we have a small content drop.

Year 2: two smaller Zone DLCs in Q2 & Q4
Smaller self contained storylines.
No new bought gameplay features. Just new stories, activities And a couple of dungeons/arenas.

And switch between those every year.

(Also Hard Story Mode for Story content)

Iccotak

Edited my suggestion

xgoku1

Yep. During Quakecon 2021 Rich Lambert was pointing out ESO's update cadence as a positive point, is it though?

2/4 of the yearly "DLCs" are dungeons. Delivering story content via dungeons is straight up weird. A lot of people just skip dialogue, because no-one wants to be "that guy" holding back the group listening to 30 seconds of dialogue audio.

Unlike Wrathstone (local man finds McGuffin), Greymoor DLCs had a lot of character building, For example, I still don't get (Seinfeld voice) what's the deal with Fennorian and why everyone simps for that character, because I skipped the Q1 DLC. When I started the Greymoor chapter story, he was just there, and due to the compartmentalised story received almost 0 character building in the main chapter. The story isn't self-contained within the chapter anymore, and the Greymoor chapter DLC has arguably one of the worst main plots in this game, I would say (in part) because it relies on prior info.

Having a good story in the DLC dungeons isn't a bad thing per se. I would probably do a Story Mode for dungeons, with somewhat easy difficulty (let's say Craglorn group delves) but no set loot drops. OR have a B-plot with 80% separation from the main chapter storyline. In fact, DLC dungeons having a "related" story to the main thread, IMO is a missed opportunity to do weird side-plots with a bare connection to the meta plot.

To illustrate this point, consider the story of the public dungeon Nchuthnkarst in, funnily enough, Greymoor DLC; it casually drops a time-travelling character using Dwemer tech, creating more lore implications than the entirety of the actual Greymoor chapter itself

DLC dungeons are designed to be cleared by a guild/discord co-ordinated group, and it sucks to do them with PUGs usually. In fact, owning the DLCs has absolutely ruined the RND experience for me that I only do them on sub-50 characters now. So much so that I would rather not have eso+ just to get comfy base-game dungeons only.

One could argue that it's designed for endgame PVE players who want to push for trifecta runs etc. which is fine, but I feel that is probably a small minority? Is it really worth 50% of the DLCs for the year? I would probably be OK with 2 DLC dungeons per year instead of 4.

Then there's the issue of content padding. We're at the stage where have epic meme sets like "le Sweetrol set xDDDD", just stop. We are already at near 500 sets in this game, most of which are useless. It's almost like an obligation to add 4 sets per dungeon, obviously you're gonna run out of ideas. Even the sets which are good, lead to powercreep.

Instead of fixing the bloat of DLC dungeons, ZOS is trying to make them non-optional by requiring DLC dungeon ownership & completion for meta mythic items, like RoM for Kilt. So the solution is to require ESO+ for something that should be basegame/included in the Chapter you paid for ???

deleted220717-003304

Thanks for taking note of this threat and continuing to check! I'll be focusing mainly on the story part cause that's closest to my heart:

Like many in this thread, I would really like an end to the year-long story format. It makes the story stale and unfinished, and generally the only really interesting parts of the "big main" part that comes out in summer are the little notes teasing at the actual resolution that comes in winter. But by the release time of that, I've long since stopped caring and/or written on my character's story on my own. Tension doesn't keep up for half a year.
And then for the end-of-year DLC, what could have been a solid end to the story if it was part of the summer chapter release and integrated in an organic way is mostly cluttered, and there's the unpleasant feeling that one had to wait all this time for this, and by then something new would have been more interesting.

In general, I'd like separate stories again, with separate settings. I want to be done with the big chapter story in one setting and enjoy the narrative arc in one, and then after half a year of one zone with its features, I want to get excited about something fresh again, see Murkmire after Summerset.

For the writing and whole experience, too, the best parts IMO were Orsinium, Clockwork City and Summerset. I also really enjoyed Murkmire; that was the last one that I thought was great. What they all had in common was that they were self-contained, took place somewhere interesting, and one could see the effort put into the writing and the storylines.
But while it isn't often talked about, I also really enjoy good parts of the main quest/alliance quest lines. Those were fun, and I joined and kept with this game based on that years back, because I enjoyed it as a good fun RPG first. Something got lost with the latest releases.

I'd love more politics and for things to get a little more grey again; I know it's possible, this game had Orsinium. I'd like that back.

I did appreciate Blackwood not featuring another princess to take to her throne but a Summerset it was not, and I wish it was.
And it feels like especially the big chapter release stories are very... scrubbed clean. Elam was a welcome breath of fresh air in Blackwood, and I'd personally have enjoyed a team with Elam and Lyranth all the way through - but with all that comes with the territory of working with an assassin and a Dremora.
E.g. Divayth was a fantastic travelling companion, and in the Dark Brotherhood DLC you spent the entire time with a group of entertaining sociopaths that you could still root for. Kurog, of course, was also a league of his own as a "zone ally" with his arc. This kind of thing was something I enjoyed ESO for.
Markarth was allowed to be much more interesting than Greymoor, perhaps because it was the smaller one. But it was a reminder of what was possible.

I'd love to make choices again that do something. Of course it's no single-player RPG in which you can completely take apart the plot by certain choices and go on in different ways, but we've had choices in the past, and I enjoyed those when they happened. Example Clockwork City: The simple question of whether you execute Gascone Dusant, and then you have two diverging ways of how to get the information you need based on that, with one option being interviewing his corpse. Loved it. Didn't change major things about the world-state, but it was a blast to play through and feel you're in good hands with the writing, where choices are offered, consequences are considered, and they're original and someone took the time to think it through for the setting and come up with something novel.

Also, we used to have more reactivity to who our characters were, especially race-wise (we could become an Orc chief in Orsinium as a quest resolution if we were an Orc, how cool was that?), and by now things barely matter, including if one has a seasoned Daedric-Prince-defeater/assassin/etc and should really know better about some things.

This has gotten long, haha, so I'll stop here.

xgoku1

This bloat is affecting the other content for the year too.

The main chapter story of Greymoor is especially atrocious, with the contrived "twist" at the end you can see from 500 miles away. It seems ZOS wanted to stay far away from any comparisons to TES5, so much so that comfiness of Skyrim has been replaced with jarring, gothic horror ambience. Why not set it somewhere else then? Why do Skyrim if you're so afraid of trolls on the internet complaining about "hurr durr todd released skyrim again"?

This year's "feature", Companions was so lackluster. There is no reason for it to be tied to Blackwood at all, should have been a base-game FREE QoL update, because the bar is low for a free update. Compared to 2019's Necromancer, 2020's Antiquities - this isn't even close.

Lambert also mentioned Oblivion Portals as some big deal, really? One can remember ZOS advertising Oblivion portals like its some new-fangled thing, but it's literally a public dungeon. That's all it is, stop the disinfo. Even that wasn't released properly as Blackwood didn't have Oblivion Portals dailies on launch.

For me, the expectation now is that the story of the Chapter DLC would suck, and it'll pick up during Q4 DLC, as was the case in Southern Elsweyr and Markarth. I don't see why this couldn't be done in 1 update, and build the story a bit more rather than rush the climax.

Finedaible

16BitForestCat wrote: »

I have more writing-related suggestions that have been brought up many times before, but this is the place to drag those horse corpses out again:

Let there be permanent consequences in our stories.

Let us meet new characters. Let us fall in love with them--not necessarily romantically, mind you. And then, let them go where the story calls for it. Let the dead stay dead (most of the time). Let the ones who say, "After all this, I'm going far away, and we'll never meet again" actually follow through on it (most of the time). It's often seen as a mark of amateur writing when the writer can't let things go where the story doesn't require it. And it's getting a bit cringe-inducing in ESO, how often dead people suddenly show up alive again for new content just because they were a popular character before. Or people who left "for good" swiftly coming back. (I could swear this last has happened a few times, but I can't think of any quests now, so I might be off-base?)

This is a fantasy game with constantly changing stakes, so it's not unreasonable that the dead could be raised or someone might change their mind about retiring to a remote undisclosed location, but it happens far too often. The emotional impact has long since been lost. This is at its worst in more recent content. Like

the Five Companions barring Varen suddenly all being alive again with no explanation in game beyond, "IDK what happened lol, I was dead and now I'm not hahahaha!"

or

Cadwell "dying" dramatically and returning to unlife literally seconds later.

(If this was intended to be a joke because many players would already know you can't keep him down, it fell extremely flat for me due to the "no permanent death" already being abused at this point. And normally I'm all for that brand of humor.) And

Markarth was the worst with this. The "everyone lives again!" could've actually been a very effective ending, showing us that there can be hope even in a bleak place like The Reach. But, again, this was already so overdone before in ESO that, instead, I just rolled my eyes when Arana was dying and said, "Eh, she'll be back. They all will." And sure enough!

Even poor

Verandis,

who I quite like, felt cheapened by his return.

I love seeing returning characters! But only when it would make sense for the character to be there, usually because they're alive and able to travel. Bringing back the dead or the gone-forever should be used sparingly; otherwise, it just doesn't have any impact on the audience anymore.

And while I'm here, how about letting more characters exist in shades of grey? We've got too many mustache-twirling villains who are awful for the sake of being awful, and too many bland heroes who can do no wrong, or only the most minor, forgivable amounts of wrong. By the way, making Lyris even grumpier than usual in Western Skyrim and Markarth, however justifiable for her being under a lot of stress in enemy territory, wasn't an effective way to expand her character. It just made her seem childish. Writing believable characters that players will still love is so hard, I know. But it can absolutely be done!

I get giddy whenever I realize the character I originally wanted to throttle has grown as a person and also grown on me to the point I'm sad to see their story end (but back to my first point, don't drag out stories unnecessarily by bringing back people who should be let go! Being sad at the end of a good story BECAUSE it's good is a positive thing!) Like...I did the Greenshade zone story back in 2014, and I still think about

Aranias

and our journey to this day. I went from

hating her to getting teary-eyed at our goodbye.

Ard Caddach

is another good example. I actually don't like his character (or his irritatingly slow speaking) at all, but I appreciated that he wasn't actually a villain despite being a jerk I would very much like to punch in the teeth.

I also like when a character I loved turns traitor on me and yanks my heart out in a believable manner, whether or not they change their ways by the end. This is also hard to do, but when it works, it's amazing.

This person gets it. I wholeheartedly agree with their analysis.

I've also been seeing a common desire amongst Elder Scrolls fans, and that is to explore something truly alien we have never seen before in lore (or at least expanding on concepts which weren't fully explored in previous titles). One of the primary reasons TES III: Morrowind was such a memorable hit is that it was such a unique fantasy world with an intriguing story. You can only appeal to nostalgia so much before it becomes boring, and we are now over a decade of milking Skyrim (it's spoiled milk, please stop already). Let the writers go absolutely ham on whatever unexplored places in lore they want to. We aren't interested in revisiting the same overused places, and interacting with the same overused characters which we have long lost any emotional investment in because they simply don't belong anymore.

FR0STDEE

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 guess this was empty promises

Dark_Lord_Kuro

FR0STDEE 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!

I guess this was empty promises

Did you really expect them to stop what they where doing and redo all they had already done for this year release...
They said in todays live that they were working on the presentation since last summer wich mean that this year content was well underway

Also from what i see, he only said they would discuss it, not that they would chage anything

francesinhalover

Wish there were some stealth quests.
Roaming bosses that are like merchants. Races (npc has the same speed you do and theres traps to slow ya down. Detective, riddles...puzzles

shadyjane62

I don't know what exactly is wrong, but the last two chapters and seemingly this one High Isle are shrinking.

Each has had less in terms of game and more emphasis on crown store. Being rebellious, I am going with less and less involvement in game.

I bought Greywhatever and finished it but without enthusiasm. I bought Blackwood and have yet to get to the second quest. I hate companions,I hate Stibbens and I really hate another swamp and theme based on fire. The first day of Blackwood I went into one of the portals and there were people. By the second day nobody was around.

The story? I couldn't tell you there was one.

Nothing I saw today will cause me to spend any money. I will wait till it comes down to a price I think is worth it.

I don't know what to ask for other than to fix pvp. That is the only thing that will keep me here. I am actively looking for a new game but I hope I can stay here having my interest renewed. Sadly, I don't think High Isle will do it.

I don't play cards.

maboleth

FR0STDEE 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!

I guess this was empty promises

It is. I don't trust them at all. These moderators will surely collect data, but it will all fail at the crucial moment when it approaches the Big Bosses from Above.

For months if not years, community begged ZOS to stop releasing year-long content. Or do something unpredictable, challenging and new.

But no. They KNEW what it took to create Orsinium or what those "chapters" needed to be special. But somehow they just watered it down and diluted it all. Monetization, lack of motivation, staff, new games, whatever... I don't care.

I loved Western Skyrim and think Markarth was the work of art, BUT could feel the missed potential of the Blackreach. This year-long content should have stopped there. But no, another one came after and now yet another one will for 2022! Each seems worse than before.

ZOS, like a Swiss watch releases everything at the exact same order. Same amount of everything. Same number of delves, public dungeons etc. Everything is so very predictable and stale. You really feel the stories follow the same set of rules and form, it's not the other way around.

AlexanderDeLarge

I've always wanted them to do systemic reworks of content coinciding with certain themes. Hell, sell us a sequel DLC/chapter that takes place in the same province if that's what it takes. I'd gladly give up a Q4 DLC for Morrowind Chapter II or another storyline that takes place in Orsinium.

Imagine if Blackwood or Morrowind (Morag Tong) expanded on assassination missions and the High Isles reworked thieving, the justice system and heists. The year of the ____ is boring and the formula got old the second time around.

RicAlmighty

FR0STDEE wrote: »

I guess this was empty promises

What a ridiculous and disingenuous comment. This topic was started in August 2021, High Isle was more than likely 70% underway at that point and the plan for '22 already under way. Do you not understand how much lead time video game development takes?