Official Feedback Thread For High Isle Preview Event

FlopsyPrince

BlossomDead wrote: »

Not gonna lie, I would have been more excited to know more about the base game and QoL updates.

The card game was a snooze fest and I would have prefered the resources spent on developing it to have gone into speeding up the re-architecturing bit.

Overall, not impressed.

Or fixing long-standing bugs.

Though that would not have much marketing impact, so I know it wouldn't be a direct swap of course.

alberichtano

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

I'm truly happy that it's pretty... blackwood was ugly

Nah, it wasn't ugly, but it was rather uninteresting. There were supposedly different biomes, but it was hard to tell them apart. In a good way, it felt kind of "close to home", everyday-ish. But ugly? No. Ugly it was not.

Lady_Galadhiel

I am looking forward for the card game and I liked the stream.
However, in the stream with Gina I would have loved to see a tiny bit more from High Isle, maybe mentioning something from the new Trial or some more information about the new companions.

alberichtano

Mixed feelings. I do look forward to see the new locations, and I am thrilled at a story line with no uber mega evil daedric overlords in it, politics and intrigue has always interested me more than "I good you evil"-plots.

I got a bit unsettled by the sunflower craze. It felt too political (and yes, I know what I wrote just above). That is, IRL political. And that is a bad thing. It could become a sour point and age very badly. Now, it may be that the whole sunflower thing is older than the symbolism IRL, in which case I apologise for my assumption, but if I am right... no. Just don't make real life politics of a game. (And no, I didn't mind the collection for Ukraine as it is not in-game.)

The card game... well, it's just not my sort of thing. I have played CCGs just a handful of times, and even when it was a game after my taste, the old Babylon 5 card game, it still wasn't really to my liking. And the 90 second timer just stresses me out. I will probably try it out, and if it doesn't kill me, I will probably play it with NPCs to get whatever I need that they can award me, but other than probably just ignore it. (I do get a bit of bad conscience over dissing it, as I saw that the creators were very proud of what they have built.)

RazzmaTaz

What was shown of High Isle looked beautiful!

Not going to lie, when druids were mentioned, I was hoping a secret new skill or class would be revealed. It seems like there are so many opportunities for new classes and skills that go unused - Blackwood would have been the perfect time to have playable Dremora or a related class, and now we're missing Maormer, or even pirate / ocean themed class (or druids, which were mentioned in the stream). Personally, I love to make alts, and wish ESO had as many class / race / skill options as other MMOs out there.

I've never been "into" similar card games and am not very excited for this one, although I am going to give it a try at least. I agree with others that I wish the UI were more exciting. Other online card games have effects that make it look more interesting and help bring the cards to life. But special effects aren't a sticking point for me, since I don't know how much I'll actually play the card game to begin with.

I was hoping the stream would cover much more than just the cards, like the QoL changes to the quickslot wheels (which is a very welcome addition!). I would have loved to see a preview of the new trial.. Might have to take a peek when PTS launches

The new companions seem promising, and I appreciate the voice actors were covered in the stream. It can be difficult to find credits for voice actors for some NPCs, but the voice cast in ESO is just amazing and definitely deserves recognition. As far as the new companions - additional dialogue that isn't so repetitive would be a welcome change. I have my companions set to lowest frequency speech and they still get annoying. I'm definitely looking forward to less-prude companions and will be looking for Ember as soon as I can!

Overall, I feel this chapter is lackluster in offerings, but ESO is my favorite MMO and I really love what was shown of High Isle. Can't wait to explore the new zone and story, and will hope for new skill lines, weapons, classes, and maybe even races in the future!

SpiritKitten

alberichtano wrote: »

Mixed feelings. I do look forward to see the new locations, and I am thrilled at a story line with no uber mega evil daedric overlords in it, politics and intrigue has always interested me more than "I good you evil"-plots.

I got a bit unsettled by the sunflower craze. It felt too political (and yes, I know what I wrote just above). That is, IRL political. And that is a bad thing. It could become a sour point and age very badly. Now, it may be that the whole sunflower thing is older than the symbolism IRL, in which case I apologise for my assumption, but if I am right... no. Just don't make real life politics of a game. (And no, I didn't mind the collection for Ukraine as it is not in-game.)

The card game... well, it's just not my sort of thing. I have played CCGs just a handful of times, and even when it was a game after my taste, the old Babylon 5 card game, it still wasn't really to my liking. And the 90 second timer just stresses me out. I will probably try it out, and if it doesn't kill me, I will probably play it with NPCs to get whatever I need that they can award me, but other than probably just ignore it. (I do get a bit of bad conscience over dissing it, as I saw that the creators were very proud of what they have built.)

There are sunflowers in Gold Coast. lots of them, this is something that has nothing to do with the real world, it's already established in geography ingame.

Ariont

While I enjoyed watching the stream, I was really disappointed when I went to collect my crate and torchbug. So poor planning strikes again in that the purple torchbug has been a reward sometime in the previous years stream. if you already have it in your collection from then you get NOTHING for the reward this time. Even worse I got an email today saying that I had collected my pet. I got NOTHING but disappointment. I don't know how hard it would have been to offer one with a different color so that people could at least have a collection of different ones collected over various streams of this sort.

adyreonb14_ESO

The playthrough of Tales of Tribute was great. I'm really looking forward to playing that.

NoxiousBlight

I was initially excited about the card game when it was first announced. Although I am VERY disappointed that it was the headliner of the chapter. Don't get me wrong, I want it in the game, but to have it be the main draw is pretty meh.

With that said, after watching the stream, I am actually less excited about it. I was hoping for something more akin to Magic. Maybe the presentation was just a bit poor and I will like it in practice, but the rule sets just didn't have a lot of appeal to me.

And something that is a bit frustrating - why does the CARD GAME get seasons and rankings, but Battlegrounds do not? I know there are "rankings" in BGs, but that is more along the lines of "who has played the most and just gathered a lot of points." The card game is not the type of PvP people have been begging for - in fact it is the opposite. The card game is mostly a strategy game and not really a "battle" game.

And whatever happened to those mini PvP events we were promised in January to keep things fresh while we wait for actual PvP content?

I dunno. Last year was such a letdown for me. Then I saw the card game for the first time it just deflated any spark of excitement I had for ESO this year. If this card game was coming out ALONG WITH a new combat skill line then I think my opinion would be very different about High Isle.

The positives: the card game interface looked pretty sleek at least. The new zone looked appealing as well. Holding onto my hopium that the story will be much better than Blackwood.

StevieKingslayer

Once again, I had to watch a video of it since y'all like to try pull me out of bed, aint gonna happen, and thankfully I didn't get outta bed for that snooze fest.

1: The Card Game. I actually -liked- the idea of the card game, infact, I -asked- for one in Rich's stream. It might be fun when it eventually get's live, but your presentation of it was so over complicated and boring all in the name of "not spoiling", that I dont think anyone left stream with any idea of what was going on. It took them so long to even -get- into the game, that by the time they were 5 minutes in I turned it off. I will just wait till I can try it out myself. Too much talking, not enough showing.

2: Companions. I like Ember, as fan service as she is. But I did see that slip of fan service with the other companion as well, which is fine. But I hope to dear sweet Azura you actually listened, and the lines really are more variable. I purposefully didnt get another companion after my first one simply because it was just to frustrating to deal with the constant repetitiveness.

3: The Zone. Looks nice enough, and while I appreciate the attempt at adding in the druids etc, I feel as though you're not going to give us any proper insight or viewing into them apart from setting them up like the bad guys here. The zone itself, you quoted is being comparable to the last few ones. Well I really hope it's bigger. The zones keep getting smaller and smaller each year. You show us some interesting new creatures, as well as scenery, but if the lore isnt there to make sense, Im gonna be really let down by you again. One word of caution. People don't like IRL things bleeding into games, While I heavily admire (since I have family fighting in the ukraine) the sunflowers, I even respect it, People won't like that and will see it as more pandering and fan service, please find a way to make that make sense, lore wise there has never been anything to my knowledge of bretons being big into sunflowers, and even in game there is no sunflower items (Cooking/Provisioning.) Maybe something to add there to make it make more sense lore wise.

4: The presentation itself. I found it very hollow. You didnt talk about anything major like the mundas stone's finally coming to the Armory system. Again, no mention of PVP apart from the leaderboard card game (which by the way, now destroys your argument against ranked PVP promoting toxicity. You are happy to do it for a card game, GIVE the BG's people a leaderboard NOW. Unfair.) You glossed heavily over any new houses/dungeons or anything in favour of idk, ego stroking yourselves over this? All I saw was a bunch of people, refusing to look at the camera and talk -to us- in favour of promoting some atmosphere to try and make us feel secure with you as developers, it came off as shallow and just fake. Im sorry but it did. It did not feel like you were talking to us at all, rather just talking to each other and we were the creepy people in the closet watching. Please go back to the old type of presentation where you would look and talk to the camera occasionally. Even Gina and Jess's cutaways were just plain odd, looking off into the distance for no reason.

Idk, It feel hollow. It felt over hyped and over staged. It all felt fake, superficial. And that is my opinion.
I'll wait to try the card game when it's actually out, because y'all put to sleep trying to overexplain something that was already looking overcomplicated compared to what most players had in mind.

DragonRacer

To be honest, couldn't possibly care less about the card game. Will still probably try it out, but it's not a draw for me.

I AM, however, excited to finally have a nice, sunny, shiny map again instead of dark and doom like the last two years. I LOVE Summerset, so I'm happy to return to a similar feel in those ways.

I'm also very excited about both companions. My Bastion does very well as a healer for my tank main (I really am not a Mirri fan), but listening to him can be... exhausting sometimes. Having more companion options is good.

Sylvermynx wrote: »

I don't have the data to watch live streams, but that's fine, I'm looking forward to the chapter anyway.

[@ZOS_Kevin, could you check to see if there's some way to set up a toggle for the huge bank of stickied threads - it would be a nice QOL touch if once one has read those stickied threads that are of interest to one, one could toggle the area closed and have more normal threads displayed.]

Haha, you're not the only one that's been in poor Kevin's ear about the sticky note forest lately.

siddique

Not excited at all. Sounds boring and tedious.

redlink1979

Positive: Looking forward for the location and the lore, essentially.
Negative: Legends 2.0 . Card games aren't not my cup of tea, they never were and never will be. I didn't even watch the whole stream, for the 1st time due to the lack of interess.

Demo_22

Brave brave zos team. To release a card game as your main feature in this date and age. Ballzy move.

ScottPickrell

I missed the event today because of work but I was looking forward to it. Can I get the torchbug drop from catching any of the recaps? I saw one comment in here say that you should, but just wanted to verify if it was announced during the original stream or somewhere else. Thanks in advance!

Xandreia_

Not going to lie, I fell asleep during the card game, think ill be saving money by not buying the chapter this year. From the stream alone nothing stood out for me

KaGaOri

Excited about new pretty looking zone. Have high hopes for the story, the "apocalypse of the year" storylines were getting bit repetitive. Can't wait to meet the new - less judgy + more inteligent - companions.

And then there's the card game. Don't want to get this coment erased, so will say only one thing: Why? Just ... WHY?

FeedbackOnly

alberichtano wrote: »

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

I'm truly happy that it's pretty... blackwood was ugly

Nah, it wasn't ugly, but it was rather uninteresting. There were supposedly different biomes, but it was hard to tell them apart. In a good way, it felt kind of "close to home", everyday-ish. But ugly? No. Ugly it was not.

Each to their own. In my opinion it was just super ugly. A mess of imperial and Argonian that should of never exist. These are my feelings on the matter

francesinhalover

Ill just say that from what i see the majority preffers mirri over bastian and having the companion female breton being apparently a bastian 2.0 hurted my heart.
All i want is to use blade of woe freely... Why cant i enjoy the content i unlocked
Please make it so the female breton doesnt mind blade of woe against enemies (red color npcs).

That being said... Buff rapid strikes.

Being honest this whole expansion looks amazing for me. Thank you for doing such a good job. Can't wait to play it.

Amottica

I do not play card games like this, to begin with. I also look at it as though Zenimax would have released this card game on its own for revenue purposes if it was a decent card game so I expect it is not well put together.

thesarahandcompany

Unfortunately, this is another expansion without any new PvP content. Not even a mention of a new BG map, a ranked deathmatch system; nothing.

LonePirate

I lost count of how many times "Druids" were mentioned in the stream and yet there is not a new class or race or weapon or guild skill line in the chapter. If they are such a central and important element of the new chapter, why are they relegated to only the story? Talk about a massive missed opportunity. But why give players what they want when you can offer new features which no one wanted?

Speaking of unwanted features, my favorite part of the stream by far was Rich's incredulous and emphatic "Why?" when he was describing player response/feedback to the card game. That indicated to me that the player response has been overwhelmingly negative in their eyes and that player reaction was completely surprising to them. I mostly PVP in this game so I am accustomed to ZOS having almost no idea what's happening in their game outside of dungeons. I never would have guessed the marketing and research teams didn't survey or speak to players about this feature before adding it to the chapter content. ZOS truly was not prepared for the player backlash which makes it even more hilarious to me.

DarcyMardin

ESO art director “Please don’t send me somewhere dark again. I want somewhere that’s pretty.”

I SO relate to that! And it does look as if we’re getting somewhere beautiful, so I’m happy about that. I also like the Bretons, so that’s cool. And the new companions sound good — supposedly they’ve listened to our comments about the first two and made some changes, so I look forward to that.

But I agree with many of the comments here about a lack of enthusiasm about the card game. This was not alleviated by watching the show. The game looks complicated and I didn’t find the gameplay they showed us particularly illuminating. Maybe the citizens of Tamriel have leisure time to spend on strategy games, but ESO itself is my game, and it gives me plenty to do already. I’d rather have a new class or a maybe a new skill line than a card game.

SammyKhajit

Firstly, thank you Bethesda for the Ukraine fundraising. People complain about things being political. Newsflash: High Isle storyline is all about Breton politics.

Looking forward to Ember and Isolde.

vsrs_au

Did I mishear Matt Firor at the start of the video ? Did he actually say they've been working on ESO for 14 years ? I even turned on the subtitles to make sure. I thought it was 8 years old ?

Tharonil

I'm not into card games, but I'm also not truly against it. It's nice that a lot of people are looking forward to it.

I'm playing ESO because I love heroic tales. Helping the weak and destroy the bad guys.

But I don't see anything bad if they add more side content for even more different players.

---

I'm really excited to see Ember and Isobel. The "old" companions and their stories were great.
their voices were also very pleasant to hear in german :-)
If that's the same with the new ones, i'm happy.

---

The land is a mix of sommerset coast, medieval architecture and sunflowers. <-awesome!

Also there is a spooky ghost place and a lava cave if I understood this correctly. <- also great!

---

Sommerset is my big love, but this chapter could be equal or slightly better.

If here is no nasty surprise until release I see nothing bad so far.

10/10

DMuehlhausen

There isn't a clear "what else would be better" but nothing in this Chapter excites me.

I know how the development works, these changes and new features etc like the card game. Weren't just thought of after Blackwood. That has probably been in testing for balance since I'd say at least 2020. That being said though it's nothing anybody was really ever asking for.

There are so many other issues with the game that just need to be improved and balanced as best as possible. I know people would be angry, but I'd almost prefer not to see a new chapter next year and just take basically 2 years to try and fix and mostly balance things.

I dunno, obviously I'm going to play it, already bought the physical Collector stuff from the store, but this really just has a feeling of a pretty meh addition to the game.

DMuehlhausen

bruta wrote: »

stream viewership dropped fast, almost by half since they started cards presentation. I don't think this expansion will do so well in pre-orders

That I'll disagree with. They already hit their expected pre-orders the second it went live to do so back in Jan. or Feb. They do that first to get people before streams like this that turn people away because nothing was really interesting. Now what would be interesting would be to see the number of cancelled pre-orders if that's possible.

DMuehlhausen

vsrs_au wrote: »

Did I mishear Matt Firor at the start of the video ? Did he actually say they've been working on ESO for 14 years ? I even turned on the subtitles to make sure. I thought it was 8 years old ?

I mean do you think they just lets make a game and then in 6 months it out? Six year roughly development is pretty short really on a game like this. Cyberpunk was in development for over 10 years I believe. Diablo 4, even if you go from when they started over will have been in development for about 9 years by the time in launches. TES 6 was announced what 4 years ago and it's still probably 6 or 7 years away. Starfield was a new IP that took more than 6 make as well.

So yeah 14 years isn't really that long when you compare to other things.

vsrs_au

DMuehlhausen wrote: »

vsrs_au wrote: »

Did I mishear Matt Firor at the start of the video ? Did he actually say they've been working on ESO for 14 years ? I even turned on the subtitles to make sure. I thought it was 8 years old ?

I mean do you think they just lets make a game and then in 6 months it out? Six year roughly development is pretty short really on a game like this. Cyberpunk was in development for over 10 years I believe. Diablo 4, even if you go from when they started over will have been in development for about 9 years by the time in launches. TES 6 was announced what 4 years ago and it's still probably 6 or 7 years away. Starfield was a new IP that took more than 6 make as well.

So yeah 14 years isn't really that long when you compare to other things.

Fair enough, I can relate to that, I know how long large-scale software projects take before they're released.