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Year Long Stories are killing your characters \\ Jan19, Empty promise
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spartaxoxo✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭*sigh* I didn't win anything.
With due respect, for almost four years we had nothing aside from occasional throw-bones in recurring characters. You will still have your separate stories once a year, but this time instead of nothing long time players will have something too. YLS system took something from us, but I can't see Arcs taking something from you. Anything extra you can ignore and still have what you came for.
Long time players did get something out of year long stories. And they are dropping an entire dlc to accommodate this.
I'm happy that they are going to focus on making the storytelling more coherent, but it's disingenuous to frame this as a non-loss for people who preferred the yls system. They get an unsatisfying story now and less content.Edited by spartaxoxo on December 12, 2022 7:12PM3 -
AScarlato✭✭✭✭✭I think for me the height of the story was Base/Morrowind/Clockwork/Summerset.
I wouldn't mind stories having broader-reaching implications in the future again. I really love the feeling of the world moving ahead.
I can understand the love of self-contained stories too, and some of those were really outstanding. But I also enjoyed the intermingling of the earlier stories.6 -
TiaFrye✭✭✭✭✭
✭*sigh* I didn't win anything.
With due respect, for almost four years we had nothing aside from occasional throw-bones in recurring characters. You will still have your separate stories once a year, but this time instead of nothing long time players will have something too. YLS system took something from us, but I can't see Arcs taking something from you. Anything extra you can ignore and still have what you came for.
I like self-contained stuff, not stretched out over years. This is why I almost never buy books which are issued in trilogies or octets etc until they're all available. Which is why I was thrilled with a game that did a full story a year.
I'll play the game, but it's doubtful I'll play the "arcs". Nor will I buy multi-year stories - I'll wait until they're free. If they're never free, well, fine - since it's not likely I'll play them anyway.
*shrug* I'm nearly always a minority of one. Nothing new.
Dude... You will have your book. One parter. Full release.The 2023 ESO Chapter will be a complete story: you will be able to play all the way through it without a storyline that is broken out and reserved for later in the year.
A hint for something in future isn't chopping story in parts, mind you that's what happened in YLS, you had to wait for second book for half a year.
And yet you liked that. Huh.10 -
TiaFrye✭✭✭✭✭
✭spartaxoxo wrote: »*sigh* I didn't win anything.
With due respect, for almost four years we had nothing aside from occasional throw-bones in recurring characters. You will still have your separate stories once a year, but this time instead of nothing long time players will have something too. YLS system took something from us, but I can't see Arcs taking something from you. Anything extra you can ignore and still have what you came for.
Long time players did get something out of year long stories. And they are dropping an entire dlc to accommodate this.
I'm happy that they are going to focus on making the storytelling more coherent, but it's disingenuous to frame this as a non-loss for people who preferred the yls system. They get an unsatisfying story now and less content.
If they think that making chapters bigger and making story one shot as it was before minus DLCs (which probably didn't sell well and that's the main reason they're going away) we just have to wait and see. And then provide constructive feedback.
The fact that they choose to call it Arcs speaks volumes to me. We were denied timeline, recognition, consequences. If Arcs will bring back at least something from that list it all was worth it imo.6 -
TaSheen✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Because I'm thinking that they'll be going back to "multi arc" stories like the Daedric War, which I definitely did not enjoy. I considered the full year story fine because it concluded in the year.
Each to her own though. Some will be happy; I won't.______________________________________________________
"But even in books, the heroes make mistakes, and there isn't always a happy ending." Mercedes Lackey, Into the West
PC NA, PC EU (non steam)- four accounts, many alts....1 -
TiaFrye✭✭✭✭✭
✭Because I'm thinking that they'll be going back to "multi arc" stories like the Daedric War, which I definitely did not enjoy. I considered the full year story fine because it concluded in the year.
Each to her own though. Some will be happy; I won't.
The only part of Daedric War Arc that can't be played separately without causing confusion was Summerset. And it was only confusing for new players. You're in ongoing, playing game right now, any content released after today will be in right order no matter what.
A statement that sloppy chopped in two parts YLS is more whole than one shot non-finale part of the old or new arcs is confusing to me. Maybe I just view things differently.7 -
AScarlato✭✭✭✭✭Because I'm thinking that they'll be going back to "multi arc" stories like the Daedric War, which I definitely did not enjoy. I considered the full year story fine because it concluded in the year.
Each to her own though. Some will be happy; I won't.
See I'm playing Daedric War now. (Sadly I did it out of order, I did Summerset first, and just finished Morrowind last week, and am part-way through Clockwork).
I feel Morrowind alone worked as a story, and ends well enough on it's own. It has hints other things are going on and may happen but if they never did, you still had a satisfying story. The Daedric War being an arc though means that given I did this out of order, I can see where things were foreshadowed and appreciate such foreshadowing being there.
Had I done this arc in order, some events of Summerset involving characters I met in Morrowwind would have been far more gut-wrenching. The character in question had an arc and they changed over time, and you fully understand why they became who they became.
I feel the characters in the year-long are just on another adventure and aren't really growing from who we've always known them to be.9 -
spartaxoxo✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭. I feel the characters in the year-long are just on another adventure and aren't really growing from who we've always known them to be.
This is a reason I'm cautiously optimistic it will be good. The characters in the Daedric war arc grew much more than anyone in the yls, and I feel like it made for a better story.
But, at the same time, I'm a bit miffed because Summerset DID come with Murkmire. It was a fantastic standalone zone. And that they are ending these entirely puts a lot of pressure on the arc to be really good.
I don't think I would have liked the Summerset year nearly as much if it wasn't for Murkmire.1 -
AScarlato✭✭✭✭✭spartaxoxo wrote: ». I feel the characters in the year-long are just on another adventure and aren't really growing from who we've always known them to be.
This is a reason I'm cautiously optimistic it will be good. The characters in the Daedric war arc grew much more than anyone in the yls, and I feel like it made for a better story.
But, at the same time, I'm a bit miffed because Summerset DID come with Murkmire. It was a fantastic standalone zone. And that they are ending these entirely puts a lot of pressure on the arc to be really good.
I don't think I would have liked the Summerset year nearly as much if it wasn't for Murkmire.
I can definitely understand this. I enjoy both to be honest. I love a great arc, and it's one of the reasons why I love Final Fantasy XIV for example (which I mostly play for the story and then come back to ESO). I just love seeing world events reflected, and characters that grow over time. For me personally it is also ideal if their relationships with my character grow in some way too. ESO's cast is so large though I understand why it's a challenge for them given how many characters different audience members like.
But some self-contained stories can be great too. For example I really loved Thieve's Guild and I'm not aware of any of those characters returning. (That said, I wish we had a season 2 of the guilds...some of the characters were really great and would love to see them again). Which I guess would then remove them being stand-alone....
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spartaxoxo✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭spartaxoxo wrote: ». I feel the characters in the year-long are just on another adventure and aren't really growing from who we've always known them to be.
This is a reason I'm cautiously optimistic it will be good. The characters in the Daedric war arc grew much more than anyone in the yls, and I feel like it made for a better story.
But, at the same time, I'm a bit miffed because Summerset DID come with Murkmire. It was a fantastic standalone zone. And that they are ending these entirely puts a lot of pressure on the arc to be really good.
I don't think I would have liked the Summerset year nearly as much if it wasn't for Murkmire.
I can definitely understand this. I enjoy both to be honest. I love a great arc, and it's one of the reasons why I love Final Fantasy XIV for example (which I mostly play for the story and then come back to ESO). I just love seeing world events reflected, and characters that grow over time. For me personally it is also ideal if their relationships with my character grow in some way too. ESO's cast is so large though I understand why it's a challenge for them given how many characters different audience members like.
But some self-contained stories can be great too. For example I really loved Thieve's Guild and I'm not aware of any of those characters returning. (That said, I wish we had a season 2 of the guilds...some of the characters were really great and would love to see them again). Which I guess would then remove them being stand-alone....
Yeah that's where I'm at. I will probably really enjoy the arc content, but also feel and resent the lack of Q4 dlc content, especially since that content has often been my favorite part of the year. I enjoyed Markarth, Fargrave, Clockwork City, Southern Elsweyr, etc more than their respective chapters.
BTW I haven't actually played the quests yet in Galen, but (extremely minor spoiler ahead, debatable if it even qualifies as one) I did notice a quest marker over a member of the thieves guild. So, one of them has indeed made a return this year with the Q4 DLC.Edited by spartaxoxo on December 12, 2022 8:59PM1 -
AScarlato✭✭✭✭✭spartaxoxo wrote: »spartaxoxo wrote: ». I feel the characters in the year-long are just on another adventure and aren't really growing from who we've always known them to be.
This is a reason I'm cautiously optimistic it will be good. The characters in the Daedric war arc grew much more than anyone in the yls, and I feel like it made for a better story.
But, at the same time, I'm a bit miffed because Summerset DID come with Murkmire. It was a fantastic standalone zone. And that they are ending these entirely puts a lot of pressure on the arc to be really good.
I don't think I would have liked the Summerset year nearly as much if it wasn't for Murkmire.
I can definitely understand this. I enjoy both to be honest. I love a great arc, and it's one of the reasons why I love Final Fantasy XIV for example (which I mostly play for the story and then come back to ESO). I just love seeing world events reflected, and characters that grow over time. For me personally it is also ideal if their relationships with my character grow in some way too. ESO's cast is so large though I understand why it's a challenge for them given how many characters different audience members like.
But some self-contained stories can be great too. For example I really loved Thieve's Guild and I'm not aware of any of those characters returning. (That said, I wish we had a season 2 of the guilds...some of the characters were really great and would love to see them again). Which I guess would then remove them being stand-alone....
Yeah that's where I'm at. I will probably really enjoy the arc content, but also feel and resent the lack of Q4 dlc content, especially since that content has often been my favorite part of the year. I enjoyed Markarth, Fargrave, Clockwork City, Southern Elsweyr, etc more than their respective chapters.
BTW I haven't actually played the quests yet in Galen, but (extremely minor spoiler ahead, debatable if it even qualifies as one) I did notice a quest marker over a member of the thieves guild. So, one of them has indeed made a return this year with the Q4 DLC.
I agree with the concern about content, but I'm trying to separate my fear that we are getting less content and less storytelling overall from the change. I also really loved the Q4 zones often more than the Q2 zones, but I feel if we are lucky we can get an equal amount of new content with higher quality storytelling. (Fingers crossed!)1 -
Dark_Lord_Kuro✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭I personnaly would not consider it winning
We are loosing 50% of new content per year
Eso+ will now only give acces to 2 new dungeon.
I also disliked most of the self contained story so i hope chapter will continue some story such as morrowid/summerset did and not be borring one off such as murkmire.
The wait between release will be much too long in my opinion3 -
spartaxoxo✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭spartaxoxo wrote: »spartaxoxo wrote: ». I feel the characters in the year-long are just on another adventure and aren't really growing from who we've always known them to be.
This is a reason I'm cautiously optimistic it will be good. The characters in the Daedric war arc grew much more than anyone in the yls, and I feel like it made for a better story.
But, at the same time, I'm a bit miffed because Summerset DID come with Murkmire. It was a fantastic standalone zone. And that they are ending these entirely puts a lot of pressure on the arc to be really good.
I don't think I would have liked the Summerset year nearly as much if it wasn't for Murkmire.
I can definitely understand this. I enjoy both to be honest. I love a great arc, and it's one of the reasons why I love Final Fantasy XIV for example (which I mostly play for the story and then come back to ESO). I just love seeing world events reflected, and characters that grow over time. For me personally it is also ideal if their relationships with my character grow in some way too. ESO's cast is so large though I understand why it's a challenge for them given how many characters different audience members like.
But some self-contained stories can be great too. For example I really loved Thieve's Guild and I'm not aware of any of those characters returning. (That said, I wish we had a season 2 of the guilds...some of the characters were really great and would love to see them again). Which I guess would then remove them being stand-alone....
Yeah that's where I'm at. I will probably really enjoy the arc content, but also feel and resent the lack of Q4 dlc content, especially since that content has often been my favorite part of the year. I enjoyed Markarth, Fargrave, Clockwork City, Southern Elsweyr, etc more than their respective chapters.
BTW I haven't actually played the quests yet in Galen, but (extremely minor spoiler ahead, debatable if it even qualifies as one) I did notice a quest marker over a member of the thieves guild. So, one of them has indeed made a return this year with the Q4 DLC.
I agree with the concern about content, but I'm trying to separate my fear that we are getting less content and less storytelling overall from the change. I also really loved the Q4 zones often more than the Q2 zones, but I feel if we are lucky we can get an equal amount of new content with higher quality storytelling. (Fingers crossed!)
I can't separate it because the only thing we have as a reference is the Daedric War arc. And that needed Clockwork City to do it justice.
We'll see. I'm hopeful still, don't get me wrong. I really liked both Morrowind and Summerset. But, I'm way more worried about the lack of Q4 DLC than the lack of the Q3 dungeons lol, especially since they implied they want to have less non-repeatable content going forward.Edited by spartaxoxo on December 12, 2022 9:07PM1 -
Tommy_The_Gun✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I don't want to be a pessimists / realists, but I have a strong feeling that less story content does not mean that the quality of new content will improve. There. I said it.9 -
AScarlato✭✭✭✭✭Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »I don't want to be a pessimists / realists, but I have a strong feeling that less story content does not mean that the quality of new content will improve. There. I said it.
I'm afraid this might be our reality as well, but I'm trying to remain hopeful
Let's hope they wow us with this new focus. 1 -
colossalvoids✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I'm glad we won't have "TBC" anymore but having no exact way to foresee how releases would be structured and written going forward not making me ecstatic.
Anyways I'm pretty sure we can't go even worse story wise at this point, at least I can't see it going even further downhill. Overarching branch clearly means more character development at the very least and it would be welcomed back addition.
Maybe one day we'll even continue the timeline instead of staying in the same year and let the old stories play out fully, but that's far too optimistic.1 -
Grizzbeorn✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭spartaxoxo wrote: »(extremely minor spoiler ahead, debatable if it even qualifies as one) I did notice a quest marker over a member of the thieves guild. So, one of them has indeed made a return this year with the Q4 DLC.
Yup, very minor spoiler, at most.
ZOS revealed that in the pre-release Twitch stream for Galen.1 -
TiaFrye✭✭✭✭✭
✭Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »I don't want to be a pessimists / realists, but I have a strong feeling that less story content does not mean that the quality of new content will improve. There. I said it.
Next year might be rocky, because it's a first year after changing system, but 2024 should be more showing in terms of intention. Before that two groups of devs were working on two story updates but now it will be one story update and almost a year to work on it! I know someone who became not really active in August because they were working hard on Firesong release. So you can imagine that while materials and quests can be done in advance compiling this, making corrections and such has a much smaller window to fill. I hope that new system will help the devs as much as it will benefit us in terms of story and its consequences going forward.1 -
AinSoph✭✭✭✭✭Let's not celebrate too early now. You know how this company is with written promises...3 -
TiaFrye✭✭✭✭✭
✭Let's not celebrate too early now. You know how this company is with written promises...
They have quite a bunch of reasons to ditch the current system aside from our demands to ditch it and come back to Arcs, starting from almost filled map and ending with poor DLC sells. We don't have illusions regarding the change and one story update a year but the fact they are taking Daedric War Arc's success as their reference is a very good sign in this. We just have to see what story they've decided to tell us next year and what's the hook it harbours for the year after that.Edited by TiaFrye on December 13, 2022 6:33PM5 -
Ragnarok0130✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Dragonlord573 wrote: »Being able to join the villain for once would be great. Legit my entire time playing through High Isle I was wondering "why is the ascendant order evil? They're organized and act competently. They wanna overthrow the current factions and create a new order in Tamriel to reign in the chaos? Hell sign me up... Oh I can't."
I feel this, it would have been cool to join the Iron wheel or Order of the hour in the TG and DB expansions instead of joining the "bad factions".1 -
TiaFrye✭✭✭✭✭
✭Just popping here one year later to call the devs out.
According to content creators this year's chapter will have same epilogue quest unlocked by completing two zone MQ's, just like with year long stories before.
Just as before we were promised Arcs, we get two packs of dungeons and two zones, now both called chapters but considering they've become smaller than before... It's same thing now called differently because year-long stories had a negative behind the name, rooted deeply atp. Well done.
Disappointment is least I can express by this situation.3 -
Araneae6537✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I’m glad we’ve changed the year-long format. Greymoor felt kind of filler, only getting to the real antagonist and story in The Reach, for example. And I’ve been enjoying having different types of content with the introduction of the Infinite Archive.
I do really enjoy dungeons, but maybe it makes sense to release two per year with how many are in the game now… I have mixed feelings, depends on what’s in Q3 and Q4 each year too and I’m looking forward to what is to come this year. 2 -
ZOS_IcymodGreetings,
We have closed this topic as it was originally created in November 2022. In many cases, it's better to create a new thread on a topic that you want to discuss as opposed to bumping one that is rather old.
Thank you for your understanding.0
This discussion has been closed.