Will this be the new norm for ESO?

Xinihp

So this is the first ESO expansion since the sale to Microsoft and personally I have been very eager to see what they do with the game. Seeing the new zone on PTS just over 1-month from release however, I find myself deeply concerned for the future. After exhaustively touring the small islands added in the expansion, I am sad to report what appears obvious to me to be a fairly massive drop in overall quality of world design, in terms of complexity, attention to detail, texture quality and blending, "living world" feel, and just about every other metric.

I almost feel it is too close to release to do anything about it at this point, but I felt compelled to share my experience.

What I would really like to know is 1) Does anyone else not see (from my posted screenshot comparisons) this huge drop in quality? and 2) Is this the new norm we can expect from Microsoft moving forward? In the past ESO has been able to keep its Q2 release schedule AND quality level, even during covid. Further, this map definitely seems significantly smaller than Summerset and other expansion zones.

So I am left with the simple question, what happened?

Old ESO Coastline:


New ESO Coastline:


Old ESO zone structures:


New ESO sone structures:


Old ESO Architecture:


New ESO Architecture:


Old ESO Landscapes:



New ESO Landscapes:

Xinihp

I mean tell me I'm just crazy, tell me I'm seeing things, or maybe Summerset just set the bar for quality too high?

But I honestly can't un-see the difference.

Further, past expansions gave us cool new enemies with unique movesets to fight (Indriks, Gryffins, etc.). So far all the enemies I have found were copies of old enemies with maybe a new skin. There were a few insect looking things but they were just low HP "trash" enemies that didn't really do anything and died too fast to notice.

NettleCarrier

That's disappointing, I was really expecting more out of this area.

Aardappelboom

The architecture screenshot looks really bad, is it really that bad?

Frogmother

As long as people buy DLCs and keep spending money on the game, there is no reason to raise the quality again.

If you could generate the same income with less effort, then you too would do it. I surely would.

Luede

There's no need to deliver high quality when enough people are spending money on the bad...

Xinihp

Frogmother wrote: »

As long as people buy DLCs and keep spending money on the game, there is no reason to raise the quality again.

If you could generate the same income with less effort, then you too would do it. I surely would.

Speak for yourself friend. Personally, I take pride in my work. I derive personal satisfaction and self respect from doing something to the best of my ability, not because I have to, and even if I could technically amass more stacks of paper in the short term doing otherwise, but because of the challenge, the things I learned along the way, the people you meet and relationships you build, and the appreciation of others who recognize quality.

If I were really only in it for the money, I would probably be asking myself what I was doing with the money I already had when I set down that path. Why would I choose to pursue a specific career if I truly had no interest in it beyond just base money?

Specifically video games, and specifically MMO's. If money were truly all one cared about then I think this is the wrong business. There are much better ways to just generate stacks of money for the sake of it.

Believe it or not, some people actually believe there is more to life than stacking paper. I find all the money in the world can't buy you out of an unfulfilling life.

Just my personal experience. YMMV.

But if this truly is the direction Microsoft has chosen to take ESO, it is truly a shame. I would have liked to finish out the map before hitting maintenance mode. But I know this much, if this is the level of quality we can expect from the new owners, it will certainly be the last expansion I purchase.

Some people may not care if you swap the patty with a gym sock and charge them the same price for a burger, but most will.

ESO and the Elder Scrolls has a certain reputation. If that is tarnished, the value will tank.

There is always something to take the last thing's place. I would have expected more vision from a company like Microsoft though.

Coatmagic

Yup. It's pretty um, different. Wishing I'd not purchased before the *big* (LOL) reveal, but it's always timed around my birthday and I never thought things would have gone this direction. It's gonna be so sad to see if they destroy this game (further).

kind_hero

WOW

Thanks for creating these comparisons and sharing them. I was excited about the Breton theme, but now I am sorry that I have pre-ordered. Might be the last time I do this. The last screenshots remind me of landscapes from The Barrens in WoW, but even those had more detail back in the day.

I want to believe the development is behind schedule. I have played on the test server before several expansions, and the level of detail was never this low.

Iselin

Good job sharing your very objective screen shot comparisons. Some people would cherry pick according to their agenda but not you sir/mam. Well done!

/s

mocap

Despite i think that you took nearly worst possible angles for screenshots, including worst possible weather, poor sunlights&shadows, worst possible time of day. So yeah, kinda biased ya know

Still, i agree that Summerset details are pretty much out of reach for most of next chapters. I just drove around Summerset looking for awful angles and I couldn't find much, except to point my head at the wall and take a picture xd
Summerset with maximum possible detalization I could find:

Im not a graphicborn dovakin, but it's just sad anyway. I mean take a tour at random guild members homes. Some of their houses have detalization that ZOS can't even imagine. And ZOS doesn't need to pay 900k gold for furniture blueprints )

SeaGtGruff

They look fine to me. Of course, I play the game on low graphics settings, and I think the game looks fine that way, so maybe my standards are different than yours.

merpins

Xinihp wrote: »

I mean tell me I'm just crazy, tell me I'm seeing things, or maybe Summerset just set the bar for quality too high?

You're crazy. You're seeing things. Summerset set the bar too high.

Lady_Galadhiel

Ive been few times on PTS so far, imo High Isle looks better and is overall more complex than Blackwood.
However, nothing can compare to the Summerset beauty I agree.
I more compare High Isle with Gold Coast and Cyrodiil, for me it is more a mix of these 2 zones rather then Summerset.

FluffyBird

In this thread the zone looks quite pretty: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/603297/pts-update-34-hope-to-change-the-color-of-sunflowers

But even if you picked the worst spots they should never be that bad... Ok, comparing to Summerset isn't fair, but I don't remember such "bald spots" neither in Western Skyrim nor in Blackwood.

Though ESO never was a product of a particularly high quality, I'll just wait for June and the see for myself whether High Isle will manage to flop harder than Greymoor.

Grizzbeorn

Nice cherry-picked display.

SeaGtGruff

Each zone has its own identity, even zones that are in the same provinces. High Isles isn't supposed to look like Summerset, because they're at different latitudes, have vastly different sizes, and are... different. Shoot, even Auridon and Summerset are different in their terrains and environments, and Auridon is part of the Summerset Isles.

redlink1979

Xinihp wrote: »

(...) I am left with the simple question, what happened? (...)

Before even discussing the lack of detail/quality or not, you keep comparing different zones that differ in:
- architecture/structures
- landscapes
- coast line

robwolf666

I'd have to go in and actually play in the area to have an objective opinion, sadly I can't do that on Xbox - as far as I know. I'll have to wait.

emilyhyoyeon

I haven't fully explored High Isle on PTS but I have walked around the main city quite a bit and, from that, at the very least your architecture comparison seems really biased--that's a horrible example of the new architecture. The city is beautifully done and much better than Leyawiin, and I'm saying that as someone whose top three favorite TES cities is Leyawiin.

Ilumia

I hate the barren empty 'unfinished' bald spots like these ones. This makes me so sad and kinda angry at the low standard.
I have been considering moving on to greener pastures, but I got excited about the lush and verdant high isle they were presenting, and looked forward to it. It seems it isn't really like that though, so I guess it's time to move on.

SeaGtGruff

After having just visited High Isle for the first time, I have to say that it looks great to me. I've only run around a small portion of the map so far, but my takeaway is vastly different than the OP's.

tohopka_eso

Maybe it's just me but it looks like trying to compare the east coast with the west coast.
Everything I've seen so far of high isle is unique and impressive to me. Trying to compare altmer to Breton landscape and architecture is a bad example IMO.

Jaimeh

I agree with OP, because since the pandemic and the understandable lower quality of Greymoor, I was expecting Blackwood to be a lot better, but I was really disappointed with the map: empty spaces, with no detail, bland landscapes, just felt like an extended murkmire zone. Seeing these screencaps just reinforces my idea, that quality has now a lower benchmark, with no sign of improving (or prices getting lower to match it).

Edit to add: Part of it could be that the biomes are not very interesting themselves, not every place can be as unique as Elsweyr or Summerset but even so, world builders should be able to find ways to make them visually impressive--Fargrave is just a dessert but with the architecture, and the sky, they manage to make it look otherwordly, unique and interesting. It's just that for a whole chapter zone, a field of sunflowers is not gonna cut it.

pklemming

Maybe lower poly count for performance, rather than addressing the hardware issues.

WhiteCoatSyndrome

Re: size I have to disagree with OP; Summerset is tiny, and has big chunks of mountain that are impassable or nearly so. Anyone else remember this?



While High Isle also has a lot in the way of mountains, so far all the ones I’ve come across have had paths running through them so you can explore them. (I do acknowledge I haven’t been over the entire map yet.)

Grizzbeorn

Jaimeh wrote: »

the understandable lower quality of Greymoor..

That's purely a subjective opinion. (edited for extreme typo)

I think Western Skyrim and the Reach (including Blackreach) are beautiful zones.

Lugaldu

Yesterday I farmed resources, first on Hew's Bane, then on Summerset and later traveled to Blackwood to gather there - it was (after a long time since I was there) kind of a real shock, this partially wide empty and desolate landscape that seems unfinished. I really hope that things don't get any worse with High Isle....

ADarklore

OP keeps talking about 'Microsoft' and the 'direction Microsoft is taking the game' but MICROSOFT is not controlling this game, ZOS is!! Microsoft may OWN ZOS, but it is not directly involved in how the game is run or the decisions made for content. If anything, they are responsible for the budget given to ZOS, but that's about the extent Microsoft would be involved in any aspect of this game.

Kesstryl

I have to disagree because Summerset was supposed to be breathtakingly beautiful and out of the ordinary by nature of being the home of the High Elves who are masters of mixing beauty with practicality. I would never expect that of Bretons or any other race in Tamriel. I've explored High Isle a little already and don't see it as bad in any way. If anything, I'm glad there are less rocks that I get stuck on as I move, that always irritates me, so this is already better for moving around in. I think there are specific angles in spots you could use to make screenshots look barren but there are spots full of detail also.

Grizzbeorn

ADarklore wrote: »

OP keeps talking about 'Microsoft' and the 'direction Microsoft is taking the game' but MICROSOFT is not controlling this game, ZOS is!! Microsoft may OWN ZOS, but it is not directly involved in how the game is run or the decisions made for content. If anything, they are responsible for the budget given to ZOS, but that's about the extent Microsoft would be involved in any aspect of this game.

And none of that is happening until the deal actually closes sometime in 2023.
Microsoft is irrelevant until then.