Is every expansion so boring story-wise going forward?

Caupo

I liked the base game a lot. All three main storylines and especially side-quests. They were kind of different, I guess, werewolves, vampires, rivalries of kings, undead monsters, etc. Orsinium and thieves guild/dark brotherhood were interesting too, but beginning with Morrowind (now at the end of Summerset), almost everything is about Deedra and cultists, and Deedra again and cultists again... Kind of boring tbh. So what about Elsweyr DLC and onwards, same deal, Deedra and cultists? Or do I have something interesting to look forward to?

Sarousse42

The stories are boring only because you 2 shot everything and cannot die during the main plot, even on the last supposed to be incredibly powerful last boss. This just ruins everything. It feels like a telltale game.

Kiralyn2000

Sarousse42 wrote: »

It feels like a telltale game.

...which have really good stories.


Whether the story is interesting/well-written/etc, doesn't depend on how strong the enemies are. It depends on the writing.

Vevvev

Caupo wrote: »

So what about Elsweyr DLC and onwards, same deal, Deedra and cultists? Or do I have something interesting to look forward to?

Daedra Dragons and Cultists for Elsweyr, Daedra and Cultists for Blackwood, and then Vampires, werewolves, and Witches for Greymoor.

Necrotech_Master

for me most of the side quests in the new areas are more enjoyable than the main story

the main story is alright, and there is tension, but in the later expansions/dlc it does get kind of annoying when you are basically cleaning up everyones messes that they caused and in some cases outright talking down to you like you are a moron

the blackwood/deadlands story arc basically made me absolutely hate eveli (for both being dumb and causing 90% of the entire problems in the plot, and for treating my own character as dumber than her)

for example in black drake villa eveli wants you to find a book, the one she ends up finding is the one which she takes and gives to one of the ambitions (during blackwood story), which basically sets like 80% of the entire blackwood/deadlands plot into motion

not to mention other parts during the story where she just never seems to know whats going on, but also treats you like you dont know whats going on either

Caupo

Ok, seems like I have Greymoor to look forward to, especially since its also located in the snowy areas I really enjoy, oh well, fingers crossed that at least Bretton isles are not cultists and daedra exclusive.

ShawnLaRock

I used my 2nd baby Alt character to play the original Psijic Order questline about 4 years ago - and it took me 5 or 6 times to beat Josajeh. The hectic ground AOEs were super difficult to navigate & it was frustrating, but the sense of reward after completing it was significant. Haven’t felt that way since in any overland content.

S.

spartaxoxo

Caupo wrote: »

Ok, seems like I have Greymoor to look forward to, especially since its also located in the snowy areas I really enjoy, oh well, fingers crossed that at least Bretton isles are not cultists and daedra exclusive.

Next expansion won't involve a Daedric plot. There will be another secretive evil organization. At least it's a knight order and not a cult.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Yeah, one of the reasons I simply stopped doing quests (I am somewhere in the middle of summerset) was that overland content is a joke in terms of difficulty.

Also, It seems to be the same half a dozen voice actors doing all the dialogue these days (I mean the main quest had John Cleese and freaking Dumbledore).

What you are left with amounts to basically a sub par audiobook coupled with fetch quests that require no skill whatsoever on the part of the player to complete. There is no challenge in the combat, and decision making in said quests is virtually non-existent and completely irrelevant to the story on the occasion you do have to make a choice. I get far more out of a good book. One nice thing about COVID, read a lot of books in the last 2 years.

The best advice seems to be, well hey, how about you dont use gear or CP to make it more difficult? Well, two things. One, this is an RPG at heart, and character development is why a lot of us play the game in the first game. Turning that off is a bad solution. Two, it really doesnt make things more challenging, just more tedious. Even nude, overland is a joke outside a handful of World bosses in the DLC zones.

Northwold

Caupo wrote: »

Ok, seems like I have Greymoor to look forward to, especially since its also located in the snowy areas I really enjoy, oh well, fingers crossed that at least Bretton isles are not cultists and daedra exclusive.

I wouldn't hurry to the Greymoor chapter for the story. It's probably the weakest chapter of the lot.

Have you tried Hew's Bane? The stealing mechanic is really annoying, but the writing is very good once it gets going. And it's not about daedra and cultists. Nor is it about zombies. Improbable for ESO, I know...

EDIT. Oh, you did. Elsweyr is OK and the side quests in Northern Elsweyr are probably the last time there was genuinely good writing. Greymoor and Blackwood not so much, although some people liked the Reach zone (if you can cope with the worst Scottish accents you ever heard in any medium).

dinokstrunz

Sarousse42 wrote: »

The stories are boring only because you 2 shot everything and cannot die during the main plot, even on the last supposed to be incredibly powerful last boss. This just ruins everything. It feels like a telltale game.

Exactly this, it's hard to take the content seriously when the supposed threat hits like a wet noodle.

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

Sarousse42 wrote: »

It feels like a telltale game.

...which have really good stories.


Whether the story is interesting/well-written/etc, doesn't depend on how strong the enemies are. It depends on the writing.

Lets be real the last 3 chapters have offered nothing but generic plots that feel like leftovers from each of the previous stories. Yes good writing is often the base and fundamentals but the gameplay still needs to be good.

spartaxoxo

There's a thread about gameplay that you guys should check out if that's what you want to discuss. This thread should probably stick to the plots

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/590162/overland-content-feedback-thread/p1

spartaxoxo

Northwold wrote: »

I wouldn't hurry to the Greymoor chapter for the story. It's probably the weakest cha
pter of the lot.

Definitely don't agree. Greymoor at least gave us Fennorian, a great character and instant classic. Blackwood however ruins a good character and has a blander plot and feels like the game dumbed itself down a lot in the writing. And has a pre-established lore violation.

Greymoor's villain may be dull but it's practically Shakespeare compared to Blackwood imo

FluffWit

Sarousse42 wrote: »

The stories are boring only because you 2 shot everything and cannot die during the main plot, even on the last supposed to be incredibly powerful last boss. This just ruins everything. It feels like a telltale game.

No it's bad writing.

Fallout New Vegas like half the quests I could do without any combat- either it wasnt required at all or I could talk my way out it.

Blaming the combat for the terrible writing is just letting the writers of the hook.

Northwold

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

I wouldn't hurry to the Greymoor chapter for the story. It's probably the weakest cha
pter of the lot.

Definitely don't agree. Greymoor at least gave us Fennorian, a great character and instant classic. Blackwood however ruins a good character and has a blander plot and feels like the game dumbed itself down a lot in the writing. And has a pre-established lore violation.

Greymoor's villain may be dull but it's practically Shakespeare compared to Blackwood imo

Oh I don't disagree that Blackwood is not a great improvement! There's a much broader thread on the Greymoor story that goes more broadly into all the recent storytelling, that while largely critical is nonetheless thoughtful.

I liked Fennorian, but I did not feel he had been given enough time in the oven, and he was never going to be enough to compensate for the story as a whole or the poor character work of essentially everyone else in the chapter.

Obviously, everything I say is personal opinion. And also, as I've mentioned elsewhere, I came back to ESO from Cyberpunk, which has among the greatest character writing I have ever seen in a game, so I was never going to be particularly forgiving of something like Greymoor.

deejayvee

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

decision making in said quests is virtually non-existent and completely irrelevant to the story on the occasion you do have to make a choice

This surprised and disappointed me the most when I started playing. Sure, some of the stories are interesting but I am just used to making decisions that actually matter in rpg's.

Northwold

FluffWit wrote: »

Sarousse42 wrote: »

The stories are boring only because you 2 shot everything and cannot die during the main plot, even on the last supposed to be incredibly powerful last boss. This just ruins everything. It feels like a telltale game.

No it's bad writing.

Fallout New Vegas like half the quests I could do without any combat- either it wasnt required at all or I could talk my way out it.

Blaming the combat for the terrible writing is just letting the writers of the hook.

As an ESO example, one of the greatest stories in the game, I think, is the one about the Khajiit raised as an orc from Wrothgar (which, insanely, is presented as just any old boring rescue quest until you get there). I think I might have had to kill a few ice wraiths or something along the way but that was a total annoyance and I did not care about the ice wraiths. I wanted to know what happened to the Khajiit because it was good writing.

MasterSpatula

As long as there's no turncoat, traitorous villain who practically does a mustache twirl when you first meet them then and then all the NPCs later end up saying, "I can't believe he/she fooled us all!" I'll be at least happier than I've been lately. Seriously, ZOS, be satisfied that you did it well with Kurog and maybe don't try that trope again for a while.

Northwold

MasterSpatula wrote: »

As long as there's no turncoat, traitorous villain who practically does a mustache twirl when you first meet them then and then all the NPCs later end up saying, "I can't believe he/she fooled us all!" I'll be at least happier than I've been lately. Seriously, ZOS, be satisfied that you did it well with Kurog and maybe don't try that trope again for a while.

Wait the engine can do dynamic moustaches now? This is a step up!

tsaescishoeshiner

Morrowind — Clockwork City — Summerset are a connected story about a daedric plot, so there's more daedra than usual.

Northern & Southern Elsweyr had no major daedra elements, but was a very satisfying year because of the setting and lore—the plot itself I found not that interesting, but everything else was. The sidequests are cool.

Greymoor was a bit eh for me, but takes you to some cool zones. Markarth finished up the Greymoor story with an amazing setting and a lot of interesting connections—to everything from the Soulburst to Craglorn to Cyrodiil to Rivenspire. The sidequests were creative and way better than the basegame Reachman quests. No daedra—at least not directly.

Orsinium and Murkmire are often held up as two of the best quest stories. Neither of them involve "saving the world", like the Dark Brotherhood or Thieves Guild which honestly could be part of why.

My favorite zones are the ones that focus on great settings and iconic or entertaining characters. But they seem to want to tell big epic stories—which CAN be interesting like in Markarth, but can distract from giving us characters or complex situations to care about.

Caupo

deejayvee wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

decision making in said quests is virtually non-existent and completely irrelevant to the story on the occasion you do have to make a choice

This surprised and disappointed me the most when I started playing. Sure, some of the stories are interesting but I am just used to making decisions that actually matter in rpg's.

Yes, choice/consequence mechanics leave a lot to be desired. I did like the quest in Glenumbra

where you chose the "good" ending for a werewolf quest, which turns out to be "bad" (dude kills his family)

, but other than this quest, mostly no impact on story at all, which is sad.

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

Morrowind — Clockwork City — Summerset are a connected story about a daedric plot, so there's more daedra than usual.

I know that these all are tied together and as a main story it's fine, I guess. But the sad part is that side quests are around the same thing - daedra and cultists, which was not the case in main game.

Vaoh

FluffWit wrote: »

Sarousse42 wrote: »

The stories are boring only because you 2 shot everything and cannot die during the main plot, even on the last supposed to be incredibly powerful last boss. This just ruins everything. It feels like a telltale game.

No it's bad writing.

Fallout New Vegas like half the quests I could do without any combat- either it wasnt required at all or I could talk my way out it.

Blaming the combat for the terrible writing is just letting the writers of the hook.

I agree but at the same time there are many times where there has to be combat.

Like if you’re taking on some super powerful enemy in the story.... it completely ruins the meaning/fun of the fight when they die while saying their lines or when they die so fast they can’t even begin their lines lol.

I’ve had to purposely stop attacking before just to see new mechanics. Not to mention I take no damage anyway

Snamyap

deejayvee wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

decision making in said quests is virtually non-existent and completely irrelevant to the story on the occasion you do have to make a choice

This surprised and disappointed me the most when I started playing. Sure, some of the stories are interesting but I am just used to making decisions that actually matter in rpg's.

That's the big downside of a mmo-rpg. Every player has to more or less end up at the same spot. This limits the amount op important decisions a player can make. They already had to redo some vanilla quests so certain npcs could come back later.

Razum Dar is dead, he died when a ruin collapsed in Reaper's March!

mocap

ESO have 2200+ quests atm. Kinda difficult to make something interesting. Most of them "kill cultists/daedra, cleanse that curse or do some magik mambo-jambo and move on".

Just play, eventually you will find few nice quests.

also:

Seraphayel

Caupo wrote: »

Ok, seems like I have Greymoor to look forward to, especially since its also located in the snowy areas I really enjoy, oh well, fingers crossed that at least Bretton isles are not cultists and daedra exclusive.

Greymoor is considered to be the worst Chapter yet from a plot point of view, so don't get your hopes up too much.

Northwold

mocap wrote: »

ESO have 2200+ quests atm. Kinda difficult to make something interesting. Most of them "kill cultists/daedra, cleanse that curse or do some magik mambo-jambo and move on".

Just play, eventually you will find few nice quests.

also:

I think the reason that some quests are better than others is that, as a basic rule, good writing is about characters first and what they do/see second.

To some extent, many quests in ESO appear to have been designed around the opposing principle "what would it be cool/epic for players to do/see". Which is understandable for a game.

But it has gone so far the other way that the writing has been plain falling apart of late.

Nothing is going to be cool/epic for a player to do or see if the characters are such ciphers that players cannot invest in them and so feel absolutely nothing about what happens to them. And with an engine that, beyond bare bones tweaks, offers up fundamentally the same gameplay mechanics each and every time, you can't wow people with a different gameplay experience to compensate, so the writing matters.

Caupo

Writing does matter. As I said before, the main game and Wrothgar\Thieves guild\Dark brotherhood all had an interesting storylines and area side quests, ok maybe voice actors were the same for a lot of characters, but thats fine, usually MMOs do not voice EVERY dialogue apart from main quests anyway, and even then not every MMO does even the main quest voice over. But what happened with simple detective quests where the evil person is just some random thief or even vampire baron who doesnt want changes. Almost every quest in DLCs are ending with dadra this and cultists that. Even Morag Thong quest

ended up with Veya Releth being baron for daedra

VaranisArano

Snamyap wrote: »

deejayvee wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

decision making in said quests is virtually non-existent and completely irrelevant to the story on the occasion you do have to make a choice

This surprised and disappointed me the most when I started playing. Sure, some of the stories are interesting but I am just used to making decisions that actually matter in rpg's.

That's the big downside of a mmo-rpg. Every player has to more or less end up at the same spot. This limits the amount op important decisions a player can make. They already had to redo some vanilla quests so certain npcs could come back later.

Razum Dar is dead, he died when a ruin collapsed in Reaper's March!

No, even in the base game Razum-dar came back at the end of Reaper's March saying he got out. He's present for the quest where everyone agrees to meet at Stirk, so he had to survive. He's just pleased that you got rid of the artifact.

LostHorizon1933

I didn't find them boring at all. I did get bored with SWTOR. Even though the quests were interesting, just the act of getting from place to place was a chore, as the enemy mobs required *sigh* a lot of typing, that is, hack hack hack with the abilities to finally get through. Eventually I just gave up, as it was at heart just a Mavis Beacon simulator.

So ironically I'm saying ... there must be balance in the "amount of force."

Celephantsylvius_Bornasfinmo

The quests are rather bland and very grindy.
We've been telling them for a while, but we keep getting the same secret herbs and spices.

Perhaps they don't have the flexibility to make good quests in light of the next ES solo RPG..who knows?

spartaxoxo

Northwold wrote: »

FluffWit wrote: »

Sarousse42 wrote: »

The stories are boring only because you 2 shot everything and cannot die during the main plot, even on the last supposed to be incredibly powerful last boss. This just ruins everything. It feels like a telltale game.

No it's bad writing.

Fallout New Vegas like half the quests I could do without any combat- either it wasnt required at all or I could talk my way out it.

Blaming the combat for the terrible writing is just letting the writers of the hook.

As an ESO example, one of the greatest stories in the game, I think, is the one about the Khajiit raised as an orc from Wrothgar (which, insanely, is presented as just any old boring rescue quest until you get there). I think I might have had to kill a few ice wraiths or something along the way but that was a total annoyance and I did not care about the ice wraiths. I wanted to know what happened to the Khajiit because it was good writing.

ZoS saw all the positive feedback about traitors and was like

"I heard y'all like traitors..."

And put one in like nearly every year long story since.