Suggestion: Add Swimming and Mountain-Climbing

edward_frigidhands

Hello.

As the subject implies, it would be a great addition to have the ability to climb over previously unassailable mountains/hills or climb down from massive heights with mountaineer gear.

For years people have suggested adding flight to the game in order to allow a more complete way to explore this world that we play in everyday, I am not one of those people. I think the addition of flight would be horrible but something else that can allow us to explore every nook and cranny of this world would be a welcome addition. Mountaineering as a skill line would be a brilliant addition to the game with the ability to modify positively how we experience ESO.

I want to say we can extend the benefits mentioned above to swimming content by adding the ability to cast spells and attack in water (with some penalties of course) and a way to swim across bodies of water without having to deal with slaughterfish (or perhaps having a way to deal with them). Additionally temporary underwater breathing using spells or special tools would also be useful.

I am unsure if there is lore areas that support the aforementioned but I am sure we can think of something and place both skill lines properly with their respective content releases.

Fingolfinn01

Most likely will not happen. If you noticed boarders to different lands are usually rocky, so you hve only one path to take to visit the boarder territory. I can't see climbing their.

Swimming especially underwater swimming most likely needs to be baked into the game.

Slaughter are there most likely to stop you from running into an invisible wall.

Carcamongus

There are so many mountains one can't climb in this game and that makes Todd Howard weep.

Geldauran

Thats too hard to do and will take resources away from making DLCs and combat changes

francesinhalover

Will never happen. and i don't see a reason why it should.

Heartrage

I don’t see the point. Swimming underwater is only good if there are reasons to go underwater that you can’t get on land: mobs, treasure chests, zones, quests, shortcut, etc… the amount of content that would have to be added would be ridiculous. As for climbing, the same thing apply but it also has a much bigger exploitation potential problem.

edward_frigidhands

Geldauran wrote: »

Thats too hard to do and will take resources away from making DLCs and combat changes

Well these can be introduced as part of DLC.

Unless you were being sarcastic.

edward_frigidhands

francesinhalover wrote: »

Will never happen. and i don't see a reason why it should.

Well I am disappointed to hear your feel that way.

Would you like to elaborate why you think it's a bad idea?

edward_frigidhands

Heartrage wrote: »

I don’t see the point. Swimming underwater is only good if there are reasons to go underwater that you can’t get on land: mobs, treasure chests, zones, quests, shortcut, etc… the amount of content that would have to be added would be ridiculous. As for climbing, the same thing apply but it also has a much bigger exploitation potential problem.

Well every idea starts out modest and then expands as it is built upon.

Would you care to elaborate what exploited you are referring to?

AlterBlika

Wall climbing would be really great, and shouldn't take too much resources. Although I doubt it ever gets released...

Soarora

I think being able to scale cliffs you already can jump of would be amazing because in some cases the only other option is to wayshrine back or run a very long path all the way to the top. Updated swimming would be very nice too, though I think being able to use rapids while in the water and having a different swimming animation would be enough for me (bonus points if Argonians get a unique animation, extra bonus points if personalities also affect it).

kargen27

Not being able to climb accomplishes a couple of things. It keeps us from wandering into a vast void and it herds us towards content. Being able to climb out of a valley we might miss side quests and other fun stuff as we go through a wasteland of emptiness. Going back and adding mobs, resources and everything else that makes the land worth traveling would be a daunting task.

BloodyStigmata

You'll need a whole new engine and, by extension, a whole new MMO bud.

Rowjoh

I'm all for unusual and interesting ideas and suggestions, and it's good to dream, but a mountaineering and swimming sim in ESO ? ....why ?

That's a very strange imagining, as there isn't any underwater terrain or points of interest so swimming would be utterly pointless.

And similarly there aren't any bespoke mountainous areas built into the game other than those that exist as the games sandbox borders and area barriers.

To cater to either in any meaningful way, would be a monumental design and technical challenge that would take several years to implement especially with an aged game engine, and for that reason alone (and there are many others!) something like this could never be given any credence whatsoever.

so it's back to the reality of another burst of upcoming 'balancing', buffs, and nerfs I'm afraid.

Heartrage

edward_frigidhands wrote: »

Heartrage wrote: »

I don’t see the point. Swimming underwater is only good if there are reasons to go underwater that you can’t get on land: mobs, treasure chests, zones, quests, shortcut, etc… the amount of content that would have to be added would be ridiculous. As for climbing, the same thing apply but it also has a much bigger exploitation potential problem.

Well every idea starts out modest and then expands as it is built upon.

Would you care to elaborate what exploited you are referring to?

Climbing out of players, bosses and mobs reach, climbing out of battle grounds starting areas, skipping dungeons, arenas and trial bosses, getting in out of bound places.

rauyran

edward_frigidhands wrote: »

francesinhalover wrote: »

Will never happen. and i don't see a reason why it should.

Well I am disappointed to hear your feel that way.

Would you like to elaborate why you think it's a bad idea?

All the content in the game has been designed on the basis that players can't climb (or jump or fly) over a certain height. This is used in

• delves to provide one-way exits that you have to jump down from
• edges of maps so you don't go out of bounds
• dungeons so you don't climb up to the final boss and skip the others
• cyrodiil so you can't climb into keeps or go around gates

And many more...

Ragnork

There is a ridge almost the full length of Malbal Tor.
I suspect that it is designed to "guide" you during questing.
Circumventing this might not be ideal.
(although there is a climb out the back of Rawl'kha that does exactly that).

francesinhalover

edward_frigidhands wrote: »

francesinhalover wrote: »

Will never happen. and i don't see a reason why it should.

Well I am disappointed to hear your feel that way.

Would you like to elaborate why you think it's a bad idea?

Because eso engine is limited, they can't add new classes, they can't add cape mechanics, they can't add moving boats, Even in game animations are limited.

It's just limited.

It's like you picking a horse and giving it nitro, it just doesn't work.

And it's pointless to waste time with stuff like this anyways, when there's new skill lines that people want added

Klingenlied

Flying would make the world feel way smaller. More swimming or even diving? Interesting, that could work especially with slaughterfish around to keep you out where you don't belong.

When it comes to climbing, the only thing I could deem realistic would be some kind of "survival" map as a new Arena. You got some random spawn points and your goal is to climb up the mountain. Instead of only fighting bosses, you needa make sure to not freeze, to not get killed by enviromental hazards (avalanches, snow storms etc.) and actually would have to make a pretty long way with capped movement speed (to balance out stamina vs magica and not create an easy mode where you could just sprint through). Of course, a few fitting thematic fights would be nice, ambush and survival themed ones at that.

Ah well, there is a lot of stuff one could design that could cater to those kind of wishes and as well cater to the general player without leaving the territory of what is possible. The only question: would it be beneficial to do this stuff? Or will they instead create the next mount and glowy weapon set for the crown story?

Holycannoli

francesinhalover wrote: »

Will never happen. and i don't see a reason why it should.

There are some places in the map (not map borders) that would be nice to climb, either for exploration, sightseeing or just to avoid the annoying mountain/cliff placed in your path that you have to run all the way around.

That's also why it won't ever happen. The impassable cliffs, mountains etc. we would want to climb are placed there for a reason.

Conan Exiles has a fun climbing mechanism but the world is made for it, mostly.

Carcamongus

The only way I can see climbing and swimming added to the game is in the form of specific activities limited to specific zones. For example, grappling up a mountain and swimming through whirlpools (already done in Summerset). Adding underwater areas that function like any other place, as done with the Seaveil Spire home, wouldn't require massive changes to the game.

rpa

New World has exellent climbing/parkouring system where one feels like intracting with terrain. There are unclimbable cliffs and walls of course but can't reach unclimbable, not "hit invisble wall" unclimbable. Too bad swimming/diving is even worse than in ESO. No swimming animation in all, just walk until in deep enough to drown like in a Steam Unity asset flip ripoff game. Jump in deep water and one drops straight to bottom like a rock and quickly drowns.

jtm1018

I hope & pray to let us do this in eso.
Then I realised it will never.

Turtle_Bot

Improved swimming could be an interesting feature, but would take a lot of development to get it right and a lot of work, particularly in upgrading the games engine to account for all the new movement animations that need to be added, allowable directions of travel that would then include vertically, allowing for skills to be cast or not, etc etc, the list goes on. The other main issue with this, is that it could open up some very serious bugs/exploits that could allow for players to "swim" outside of water and essentially fly anywhere they want.

As for climbing/mountaineering, the zones are divided up based on limited areas with set walls (see mountain ranges) to keep players inside the designated areas. If players were able to climb these mountains, there would be a bunch of highly exploitable areas within the game that would lead to a lot of problems and issues that would need to be fixed. especially if the devs miss an invisible wall somewhere, for example in cyrodiil which could allow for someone to carry a scroll outside of the map and either into the void or possibly even into a non pvp zone which could have a lot of unintended consequences within the programming such as players being instanced for pvp, but now in pve zones who are then able to attack other players without retelliation, etc etc.

The short of it is, there are far too many possible exploits involved in the implementation of these functions that it's too much work to add them to the game and fix everything associated with them than would be the payoff for adding them into the game.

Drammanoth

Alas, not gonna happen in... years. And, provided soemone continues to stick to the drafting board and make us check what they had trumped up , never.

But these two features I'm all for. But you know... (anti-)QoL and (less) accesibility is the top priority.

Truupe

I'd be happy if they fixed jumping to include a simple hurdle over objects below thigh height. Also, change the swimming animation for argonians to a tail sweep like how actual RL reptiles swim.

Celephantsylvius_Bornasfinmo

I don't think the game's engine can handle it, OP.
We would have seen it by now otherwise.

As for rock climbing; I think they could do something with the grapple mechanic they introduced in some DLC dungeons.

That could be interesting.

edward_frigidhands

Youyouz06 wrote: »

I don't think the game's engine can handle it, OP.
We would have seen it by now otherwise.

Honestly I thought the same thing when I was posting this.

Arbit

Seems like a small novelty, that doesn't add much play value. I don't see it being added. GW2 tried the underwater thing, it made some interesting exploration, but underwater combat goes generally unused as people don't like it. I don't see mountain climbing adding much playability, especially since if you escape the map, and see the outside of the map is a checker board. Flying mounts would add more function, but I don't see that happening either because of the overhaul that would be necessary. They would need to overhaul every map in the game most likely. GW2 managed it, as they added an entire expansion to exclusively allow mounts. If ESO followed GW2's example (if it's even possible, because I don't know if the code or anything is capable), I think they could include a DLC with flying mounts and a region depending on them. That'd be super cool. Sorry for going a bit off topic xD

jtm1018

Make it happen now.
Right now.
Just now!