Is every expansion so boring story-wise going forward?

wenchmore420b14_ESO

I must say, that I am in the same camp that year long "chapters" are getting a little old.
One of the things that have kept me playing TES games is the storytelling, lore, and the little details that the writers add.
But what I am tired of seeing in new chapters, and it has been getting worse over the last few years is making our character sound like a moron who can't remember what they did 3 minutes before.
The dialog options like "Why are we here" or "who are you again" or "what are we doing".
Please give us better writing in these areas.
Here are a few links about this.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7286876#Comment_7286876
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/589288/is-your-eso-character-just-dumb/p1

Just my 2 drakes about the direction of future chapters.
Huzzah!

Kiralyn2000

dinokstrunz 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.

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

Honestly, I've never had this problem. I've been playing various flavors of RPG for decades, in many of them you could power-level to the point that stuff went squish.

Had no bearing on the quality or compelling-ness of the story. (or lack thereof)

But, then, I'm not really a "challenge" player. I don't need to pound my head against the Cliffs Of Difficulty until I can scream from the top that I've conquered them. /shrug

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.

I've played games with trash stories and good gameplay (the gameplay dragging me through the story).

I've also played games whose gameplay I couldn't stand, because the story was interesting.

Like I said, I don't really get the whole "it's too easy, so the story's ruined" thing.




I'm so used to games where the gameplay and the story don't really match. Like JRPGs where you beat up the boss pretty easily, and then it goes to the cutscene where your party is on the ropes, and must flee because "he's too strong for us!" Eh, whatever. As long as I'm past the boss and I can continue the story, it's fine.

(boss fights bug me. A lot of the time, they're just annoying roadblocks in between you and more story/more content. Boss fights are "whew, thank glad that's over and I can get back to the game" rather than the highlight. Needless to say, I've no interest in *Souls-likes or Monster Hunter. )

Mik195

I'm always happy when I get to kill the annoying people so the past few expansions were fine for me, but its ok if you didn't enjoy them. No game will likely ever work for you forever so it's ok if you need to take a break until the stories that are catnip for you happen again. I think Markarth would have been a great single player game and I'd like a quarterly "Stories of Fargrave" installment.

DagenHawk

Caupo wrote: »

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?

The Great thing about North America and the EU is if you don't like the story you really don't have to play. I mean there are a lot of folks excited about the story why should Zenimax adjust it just because of you?

Amottica

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.

The storyline is either interesting to someone or it is not. Combat is very much secondary to this and is fairly irrelevant to how good the plot is and how captivating the dialogue plays out.

VaranisArano

spartaxoxo wrote: »

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.

Yeah...and this year they aren't even hiding that the Ascendant Lord is a "good ends, evil methods" type of guy in their marketing, even though the plot is sure to revolve around us having to reveal this obvious fact to his supporters.

Thing is, King Kurog's turn for the worse worked for me because we were given sensible reasons to work for him. Defending innocents from invaders is a good thing, right? Helping the Orcs civilize and unify themselves is a good thing, right? Okay, maybe executing the rebel chiefs was a red flag, but let's be honest, my EP Vestige has done worse like putting down a slave rebellion for the Pact...

Every subsequent betrayal has been telegraphed so much that the Vestige just starts to look un-genre savvy and dumb.

Morrowind Spoiler

Do you think the guy close to Vivec who thinks I shouldn't be helping investigate could be the problem? Nah...

Greymoor Spoiler

Do you think the king who's poopooing the obvious vampire threat could be in league with them? Nah...

Blaclwood/Deadlands Spoiler

Do you think the guy who's already shown himself ridiculously trusting of daedra and exposed to the Mysterium Xarxes might be having second thoughts about fighting Dagon? Nah...

Caupo

DagenHawk wrote: »

The Great thing about North America and the EU is if you don't like the story you really don't have to play. I mean there are a lot of folks excited about the story why should Zenimax adjust it just because of you?

Well, first of all, I didnt say that Zenimax should adjust to my wants, I just asked if there will be anything other than daedra/cultists onwards. Secondly, story is not the only thing that game has to offer, so your argument about dont like story - dont play is lame. Thirdly, it seems that many people agree with my assessment about the repetitiveness of the story, so maybe it still is worth for Zenimax to read the feedback from more players.

fiender66

Give us more Sheogorath (and you may guess my decision about Valaste), and maybe more Naryu.

Razum Dar has been great, but his char has become out of fashion I fear, and we have had a lot of him.

RemanCyrodiil_I

VaranisArano wrote: »

Every subsequent betrayal has been telegraphed so much that the Vestige just starts to look un-genre savvy and dumb.

Morrowind Spoiler

Do you think the guy close to Vivec who thinks I shouldn't be helping investigate could be the problem? Nah...

Greymoor Spoiler

Do you think the king who's poopooing the obvious vampire threat could be in league with them? Nah...

Blaclwood/Deadlands Spoiler

Do you think the guy who's already shown himself ridiculously trusting of daedra and exposed to the Mysterium Xarxes might be having second thoughts about fighting Dagon? Nah...

Even the chapter announcement made it pretty obvious that Baron Vacaro is either in league with or is in fact the Ascendant Lord, seeking to organise then sabotage peace talks to re-enflame the Alliance War for his own profit. If that ends up being the case then this will be the last chapter that I bother with.

Vevvev

VaranisArano wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

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.

Yeah...and this year they aren't even hiding that the Ascendant Lord is a "good ends, evil methods" type of guy in their marketing, even though the plot is sure to revolve around us having to reveal this obvious fact to his supporters.

Thing is, King Kurog's turn for the worse worked for me because we were given sensible reasons to work for him. Defending innocents from invaders is a good thing, right? Helping the Orcs civilize and unify themselves is a good thing, right? Okay, maybe executing the rebel chiefs was a red flag, but let's be honest, my EP Vestige has done worse like putting down a slave rebellion for the Pact...

Every subsequent betrayal has been telegraphed so much that the Vestige just starts to look un-genre savvy and dumb.

Morrowind Spoiler

Do you think the guy close to Vivec who thinks I shouldn't be helping investigate could be the problem? Nah...

Greymoor Spoiler

Do you think the king who's poopooing the obvious vampire threat could be in league with them? Nah...

Blaclwood/Deadlands Spoiler

Do you think the guy who's already shown himself ridiculously trusting of daedra and exposed to the Mysterium Xarxes might be having second thoughts about fighting Dagon? Nah...

Murkmire Spoiler

Do you think the Argonian lady who can't talk to the hist could be the mastermind behind the whole thing? Nah...

Moloch1514

It is easy to tell the zone stories done prior to One Tamriel (Craglorn, Wrothgar, Murkmire were 3 planned expansions worked on by original team before pay model and crown store/marketing team took over).

Necrotech_Master

fiender66 wrote: »

Give us more Sheogorath (and you may guess my decision about Valaste), and maybe more Naryu.

Razum Dar has been great, but his char has become out of fashion I fear, and we have had a lot of him.

raz is one of those characters i enjoy seeing lol, the dialog they have for him is always entertaining

i think raz is my 2nd favorite main character behind cadwell

Grandchamp1989

For me personly I think the build up of the year long stories are too long.
An entire chapter dedicated for a build up is a bit long for my personal taste. I begin to lose interest.
I like when more happen. If I had to choose I would prefer a shorter but intense story in maybe 4 parts than the same story being dragged out in 8 parts with a lot of filler dialogue and running back and forth.

I also enjoy when the fights are somewhat challenging..

I also noticed in older chapters like morrowind even delves were extremely well made, with a lot of detail. Now I feel like it's mostly empty space with a mini boss at the end of them.

I stick with it because I enjoy the elder scrolls story and universe a lot.

I really enjoy learning new things about the culture, customs, conflict and religion of the races in Tamriel.

Ilsabet

VaranisArano wrote: »

Blaclwood/Deadlands Spoiler

Do you think the guy who's already shown himself ridiculously trusting of daedra and exposed to the Mysterium Xarxes might be having second thoughts about fighting Dagon? Nah...

Further Blackwood/Deadlands spoilers

You know I'm not sure that even registered to me as a betrayal, considering we get no fewer than two others before we even get to that point.

Dude who clearly doesn't want us on the job lies about our buddy Elam attacking him, which of course means we should hand over sensitive information that in no way will be used against us.

Dremora invites us to her crib in the Deadlands, which definitely is not a setup for a diabolical Dagonic trap.

And yes, then we're supposed to be shocked - SHOCKED I SAY - that this person we totally trusted turned out to be evil.

Actual conversation that actually happened:

Eveli: I can't believe Vandacia fooled us.
Me: I mean, we are all extremely dumb.

Ilsabet, being tired of this nonsense, has even started making snarky comments about "oh look another shocking betrayal."

Hurbster

I wonder how many shocking betrayals we are going to get in a chapter full of political shenanigans?

I reckon at least three.

RemanCyrodiil_I

Grandchamp1989 wrote: »

I stick with it because I enjoy the elder scrolls story and universe a lot.

I really enjoy learning new things about the culture, customs, conflict and religion of the races in Tamriel.

Like in Blackwood - famous only for its conflicts between the Imperials, Khajiits and Argonians - where the only quest that displayed any sort of political hostility between them ended with a game of football?



I regret to say that nothing since Dragonhold has felt genuinely 'Elder Scrolls' for me. I hope that High Isle will renew my interest but the current trend of chapter story-telling doesn't invite optimism.

spartaxoxo

Ilsabet wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Blaclwood/Deadlands Spoiler

Do you think the guy who's already shown himself ridiculously trusting of daedra and exposed to the Mysterium Xarxes might be having second thoughts about fighting Dagon? Nah...

Further Blackwood/Deadlands spoilers

You know I'm not sure that even registered to me as a betrayal, considering we get no fewer than two others before we even get to that point.

Dude who clearly doesn't want us on the job lies about our buddy Elam attacking him, which of course means we should hand over sensitive information that in no way will be used against us.

Dremora invites us to her crib in the Deadlands, which definitely is not a setup for a diabolical Dagonic trap.

And yes, then we're supposed to be shocked - SHOCKED I SAY - that this person we totally trusted turned out to be evil.

Actual conversation that actually happened:

Eveli: I can't believe Vandacia fooled us.
Me: I mean, we are all extremely dumb.

Ilsabet, being tired of this nonsense, has even started making snarky comments about "oh look another shocking betrayal."

I honestly was a little bit surprised by Sombren being the betrayer because it had already happened twice, and it makes the betrayal by his Dremora friend make literally no sense. If they were both gonna work for Dagon anyway, they probably could have just talked it out.

Some of the betrayal felt really tacked on in Blackwood

Northwold

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Ilsabet wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Blaclwood/Deadlands Spoiler

Do you think the guy who's already shown himself ridiculously trusting of daedra and exposed to the Mysterium Xarxes might be having second thoughts about fighting Dagon? Nah...

Further Blackwood/Deadlands spoilers

You know I'm not sure that even registered to me as a betrayal, considering we get no fewer than two others before we even get to that point.

Dude who clearly doesn't want us on the job lies about our buddy Elam attacking him, which of course means we should hand over sensitive information that in no way will be used against us.

Dremora invites us to her crib in the Deadlands, which definitely is not a setup for a diabolical Dagonic trap.

And yes, then we're supposed to be shocked - SHOCKED I SAY - that this person we totally trusted turned out to be evil.

Actual conversation that actually happened:

Eveli: I can't believe Vandacia fooled us.
Me: I mean, we are all extremely dumb.

Ilsabet, being tired of this nonsense, has even started making snarky comments about "oh look another shocking betrayal."

I honestly was a little bit surprised by Sombren being the betrayer because it had already happened twice, and it makes the betrayal by his Dremora friend make literally no sense. If they were both gonna work for Dagon anyway, they probably could have just talked it out.

Some of the betrayal felt really tacked on in Blackwood

Wait WHAT?? I just read through how that happens on the web and I can't say I have any regrets about giving up on Deadlands!

VaranisArano

LOL, after all the betrayals in Blackwood, my Mirri Elendis is going to understand why my Varanis Arano is so paranoid.

I'm going to have to try a different character for High Isle, because Varanis has seen enough bad politicians by this point that she's not going to give the time of day to the Ascended Lord either.

Ilsabet

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I honestly was a little bit surprised by Sombren being the betrayer because it had already happened twice, and it makes the betrayal by his Dremora friend make literally no sense. If they were both gonna work for Dagon anyway, they probably could have just talked it out.

I think the deal with that is that he didn't decide that Dagon was the better choice until after he'd been corrupted by spending time with the Mysterium Xarxes, except that all happened off-screen while we were busy in Fargrave so when he pops up again acting all sketchy it's like okay I guess this is a thing now.

deejayvee

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.

Yeah, I get that the end of "main" quests need to end up in the same spot. But giving you a choice of how to get there would be nice.

And some minor side quests could have real choices that affect the result, because they can show or hide an npc depending on the player's toon.

dem0n1k

ESO story quests be like " This will decide the fate of ALL NIRN, Only you can conquer that which threatens to destroy us all ... now, can you go across the road & talk to that guy over there & then come back here & tell me what he said? Thanks, that'd be super."

Sylvermynx

It's apparently endemic to MMOs. In a SPMR game, every person who plays that game can be expected to work through how to get where she needs to go, and how to accomplish the objective.

An MMO has - um - challenges. Players do not arrive with concrete knowledge of the game - so "handholding" is necessary. And even those who DO arrive with concrete knowledge can be expected to "go off the rails". The MMO thing is "everybody should have an equivalent experience of the game world". Well, that seldom is true in any major way, nor in many minor ways.

Even after playing two previous MMOs (WoW from 2006 to 2013, RIFT from 2013 to 2016) I was taken aback by how little I knew about how to play ESO - because my experience with TES from Arena's release in 1994 had NO congruence with an MMO, even one set in the same universe.

It took me YEARS to figure out this game. That's on me in some ways - but it's also on the huge disconnect between TES single player games, and ESO as an MMORPG.

I love ESO.... but I'm willing to admit that I'm actually a SPMR gamer at bottom. There's a lot to that statement that I'm not finding germane to post about here, so please don't ask.

Kiralyn2000

dem0n1k wrote: »

ESO story quests be like " This will decide the fate of ALL NIRN, Only you can conquer that which threatens to destroy us all ... now, can you go across the road & talk to that guy over there & then come back here & tell me what he said? Thanks, that'd be super."

It's even sillier in Star Trek Online. You're a ship's captain/admiral/whatever, you've got a crew of hundreds at your command, heck you even beam down with an actual away team of four other NPC officers that you've customized & equipped...

...and 99% of the time, you're the one who has to scan the body, turn the screw, fix the broken plot device, etc. While your minions stand there and watch you do it.

SammyKhajit

This one blames the year long dragging out of contents. As a cat, Sammy has short memories and who can remember what happened yesterday let alone several months ago??

Iron_Warrior

My biggest problem with eso quests is too much talking. 1- go pick these stuff 2- talk 3- go make this potion 4- talk 5- heal the wounded soldiers 6- talk!!
7- go kill that guy 8-TALK!!!

WHY MY CHARACTER IS SO STUPID. why he can't do anything on his own? For every step someone else has to tell him what to do.

Is there a god of stupidity in the world of elder scrolls? Because i think my character is an avid worshipper of him

Jusey1

I feel like you wouldn't care about the story no matter what since you are basing your thoughts on the generalization of the enemies rather than on the overall conflict, characters, and writing of the story. Plus, what about side quests? Are you just skipping them?

Every zone has good and bad story elements to some degree. In some zones, the side quests are boring but main story is alright or the main story is meh but the side stories are great. Characters can still be good and well written despite the main story being meh, cringy, or bad... That sort.

Also, Greymoor absolutely has the worst story and side quests flat-out, fair warning on that. Greymoor feels like a chore to do.

krachall

Writing has definitely been on a downward spiral in the last few years. A pessimist would say that ESO is just a cash cow now so they stopped caring about the quality of new content. But the amount of development we see every update says otherwise. We wouldn't have companions, armory, antiquities, or even that stupid upcoming card game if ZOS wasn't spending money on development.

So why has the quality of the stories declined so much? How does the same company that wrote the Sweetroll Killer quest then launch that complete yawner of a year like Greymoor?

Side quests are 99% formulaic (Talk to A, Talk to B, perform X on Y, Talk to B, Talk to A) and main quests are just pages and pages of boring dialog.

Seems like a few freelance wanna-be fantasy writers could come up with way better stuff for $50/hr.

Caupo

Actually, I take back some of what I said about Summerset being boring, it was just bad luck that I stumbled on wrong side quests when I began them. Last 6 side quests I did recently were very interesting plot-wise and harbored no daedra or cultists I hope I didnt jinx anything, still have ~5 left to do there.

Northwold

krachall wrote: »

Writing has definitely been on a downward spiral in the last few years. A pessimist would say that ESO is just a cash cow now so they stopped caring about the quality of new content. But the amount of development we see every update says otherwise. We wouldn't have companions, armory, antiquities, or even that stupid upcoming card game if ZOS wasn't spending money on development.

So why has the quality of the stories declined so much? How does the same company that wrote the Sweetroll Killer quest then launch that complete yawner of a year like Greymoor?

Side quests are 99% formulaic (Talk to A, Talk to B, perform X on Y, Talk to B, Talk to A) and main quests are just pages and pages of boring dialog.

Seems like a few freelance wanna-be fantasy writers could come up with way better stuff for $50/hr.

I think one part of it is that the year of X format plain doesn't work. It forces you to tell flabby, overblown stories that can't be resolved properly in the main chapter and then end up rushing to resolution in the second bit. The bigger the threat, the more absurd the threat, the more difficult it becomes to have characters relate believably to it and do believable things and thus the writing falls apart.

The preexisting lore of Elder Scrolls is also, i assume, quite difficult to navigate unless you have a wholly new territory you've never heard of before. There's too much baggage. And let's be honest when they sketched things out way back for Elder Scrolls Arena they wrote it on the back of a napkin leading to problems later on. I mean, the original Khajiit were basically a race of strippers "descended from" cat people and belonged in Vegas.