2023 New Feature Speculation

Syldras

NotaDaedraWorshipper wrote: »

People were asking for activties we could do with other players and npcs that did not involve combat. Such as playing cards in inns, dice or some other type of game. Along with a lot of other smaller fun things, like racing and betting on them, jousting etc. ToT does not fit that well into that though. The matches aren't small and fast things, and no one can see you playing. It wasn't desired to be the main feature either, just small added bonuses to bring life and roleplay possibilities to zones.

I remember those ideas and agree that that's something completely different. Anyway I suspect that ToT was only added because there are/were several other popular card games at that time. So more something like "Out marketing guys said it's the thing right now", but of course "Many of our players have wished for it so long" sounds much better in an announcement. That's exactly the reason I won't seriously speculate about next year's feature now. It can be anything, really, and no matter what it is, it will aways be announced as a popular players' wish as well as they will always emphasize how amazing the new story will be. That's normal marketing.

Jaraal wrote: »

Can’t wait to see another nag NPC telling me to check out the latest “brand new” feature in every major town!

Funny thing with ToT, they can't even seem to agree lore-wise whether the game is brandnew or a well-established and traditional game. There is text in-game claiming both.

Elsonso

Syldras wrote: »

Funny thing with ToT, they can't even seem to agree lore-wise whether the game is brandnew or a well-established and traditional game. There is text in-game claiming both.

I noticed this. Writing fail.

Paulytnz

CAPES! Let the HYPE begin!

Capes behind RNG from Treasure Maps behind RNG from Antiquities behind RNG for all the different colours/styles.

kaiquefaraway

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening developers. I'm in love with that. I've been playing since the beta and whenever possible I go into PvP to kill players and yes, I agree that it's really difficult to find trials. pve veterans just suck and picky about unbelievable things as they suck at PvP and teamwork. the focus is only on rotation. I think they are points where most players stop and simply go have fun in pvp with friends. From a point of view I hope it's a focus on veteran PvP. a good starting point would be new maps for PvP mode. that would be amazing.
I believe that elder scrolls online still has a lot of future because it has improved a lot over the years and is getting more and more perfect!

freespirit

Higher housing limits + dedicated Guild Hall.

Won't happen but would make me happy. Think of all the the nice "add x or y buff" furnishings they could sell for a Guild Hall!! 🤣

VvwvenomwvV

My guess is a new class, and or skill line. I also think master crafting tables would be a possibility. As far as the next area, I think Hammerfell makes sense.

What I would like to see the most is a two player arena.

We have solo, four, and twelve player content, but no two player content. I don't think this is coming, but I can hope...as I have been for nearly eight years....

Jaraal

Syldras wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

Can’t wait to see another nag NPC telling me to check out the latest “brand new” feature in every major town!

Funny thing with ToT, they can't even seem to agree lore-wise whether the game is brandnew or a well-established and traditional game. There is text in-game claiming both.

Not to mention that the NPC has been shouting about a "brand new" card game for nine months! Do you think they will rehire the voice actor to redo the line whenever they decide that it's not actually brand new any more? Considering that the Argonian and Bosmer NPC lines have not been corrected four years after the change to their lore.... it doesn't seem likely. So expect to hear a daily reminder of incongruity in every major city for years, possibly decades to come.

Jaraal

Veeka wrote: »

Underwater Swimming

Wow. Would be so nice

That was one of the cool things about EverQuest back in the day. They had entire zones that were underwater and you had to swim in, and required you to acquire and use some sort of mechanical or magical breathing apparatus or spell to survive. There was also a swimming skill that you had to train and level up to be able to move efficiently underwater.

It was 20th century technology, but apparently not a fit for today's ESO.

Bithabus

Class change tokens

Tandor

SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

What is the obsession people have with spellcrafting? Cannot fathom how it would work in an mmo - would not everyone end up using the same few spells, like they do with armour sets now.

And if no content dlc in Q4, they had better up the rewards for ESO+.

Spellcrafting was a wonderful concept in single-player games, before the internet came along and everyone could google the best build and copy it. It's a redundant concept these days, in my view, but a lot of players still want it. The test will be how popular it is six months after it's introduction, if it ever happens.

Tandor

NotaDaedraWorshipper wrote: »

kwinter wrote: »

If you have underwater swimming might as well add flying and flying mount however I think all 3 are unlikely

ESO's engine can't do underwater swimming nor flying.


I'm so salty these days to think that the great new feature is to finally be able to hide shoulderpads and other armour pieces along with hip and crotch flaps.

I would be so annoyed if the reason we had to abandon so many characters because they lost their character-specific achievements and progression records was so as to enable underwater swimming or flying!

alternatelder

It'll be a board game.

SpiritKitten

vsrs_au wrote: »

I'm kind of hoping the new feature will be the ability to kill annoying NPCs, e.g. walk up to Sorinne Gaerard, and while she's in mid-"hear ye!", strike her into Oblivion, to never bother you again! I'd happily let the guards kill me for that one, ha ha.

just get the Shut Yer Trap addon (if on PC)

cyclonus11

kwinter wrote: »

If you have underwater swimming might as well add flying and flying mount however I think all 3 are unlikely

I would think that underwater swimming would be more likely since so much completed content is locked behind simple cliffs that are just barely too high to jump up onto, whereas underwater is all free real estate.



I would also like to add navigable boats/ships and maybe some open ocean content, including pirate/alliance PVP!

NotaDaedraWorshipper

Syldras wrote: »

NotaDaedraWorshipper wrote: »

People were asking for activties we could do with other players and npcs that did not involve combat. Such as playing cards in inns, dice or some other type of game. Along with a lot of other smaller fun things, like racing and betting on them, jousting etc. ToT does not fit that well into that though. The matches aren't small and fast things, and no one can see you playing. It wasn't desired to be the main feature either, just small added bonuses to bring life and roleplay possibilities to zones.

I remember those ideas and agree that that's something completely different. Anyway I suspect that ToT was only added because there are/were several other popular card games at that time. So more something like "Out marketing guys said it's the thing right now", but of course "Many of our players have wished for it so long" sounds much better in an announcement. That's exactly the reason I won't seriously speculate about next year's feature now. It can be anything, really, and no matter what it is, it will aways be announced as a popular players' wish as well as they will always emphasize how amazing the new story will be. That's normal marketing.

Aye, cashing in on what is popular is not something new when it comes to ESO nor Elder Scrolls since TES4. What is wanted can be anything really. One of the many things players has requested on the forum, something someone on twitter made big, or just some generic popular thing. There's not much point in speculating and just want and see whatever this thing is going to be. Which will be promoted like those ads on TV Shop/As seen on TV.

Syldras wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

Can’t wait to see another nag NPC telling me to check out the latest “brand new” feature in every major town!

Funny thing with ToT, they can't even seem to agree lore-wise whether the game is brandnew or a well-established and traditional game. There is text in-game claiming both.

Another contradicting lore bit, why am I not suprised.

It's funny how ToT is played all over Tamriel, like it is the only big one as well, when the Contraband items are filled with plenty of "games" which are stated to be common too.

Elsonso

NotaDaedraWorshipper wrote: »

It's funny how ToT is played all over Tamriel, like it is the only big one as well, when the Contraband items are filled with plenty of "games" which are stated to be common too.

Maybe if we stopped stealing them, they could play them?

vsrs_au

Veeka wrote: »

Underwater Swimming

Wow. Would be so nice

... and Argonians should have a racial passive making them better underwater swimmers. I remember the first time I tried to fight an Argonian underwater in ES4: big mistake! LOL. I had to level up a bit and return to that one later on.

NotaDaedraWorshipper

Elsonso wrote: »

NotaDaedraWorshipper wrote: »

It's funny how ToT is played all over Tamriel, like it is the only big one as well, when the Contraband items are filled with plenty of "games" which are stated to be common too.

Maybe if we stopped stealing them, they could play them?

Hey I got some of mine perfectly legal through reward boxes!

Syldras

NotaDaedraWorshipper wrote: »

Another contradicting lore bit, why am I not suprised.

A contradiction even within one chapter. Between the release of the Morrowind chapter and the "Naryu saved the Tribunal" dialogue they at least had 5 years to forget about the facts (at this point, I sadly could even imagine that the newest Razum-dar dialogue people are talking about is also nothing more than a lore oversight)... If it continues like this, the next story arc could get very "interesting" and "mysterious" (will they still remember what chapter 1 was about when they write chapter 2 of the continuous story?)... Yeah, I know I'm being a bit snarky after this year's content. It just worries me that a great story opportunity and some interesting recurrent characters could be ruined by this next year.

Elsonso

Syldras wrote: »

NotaDaedraWorshipper wrote: »

Another contradicting lore bit, why am I not suprised.

A contradiction even within one chapter. Between the release of the Morrowind chapter and the "Naryu saved the Tribunal" dialogue they at least had 5 years to forget about the facts (at this point, I sadly could even imagine that the newest Razum-dar dialogue people are talking about is also nothing more than a lore oversight)... If it continues like this, the next story arc could get very "interesting" and "mysterious" (will they still remember what chapter 1 was about when they write chapter 2 of the continuous story?)... Yeah, I know I'm being a bit snarky after this year's content. It just worries me that a great story opportunity and some interesting recurrent characters could be ruined by this next year.

They need to stop reusing characters. This does not fit very well into the environment they created, and the writers don't seem to be able to handle the anachronisms created due to reuse. The easiest way for them to hide this is to avoid it.

Jaraal

Elsonso wrote: »

Syldras wrote: »

NotaDaedraWorshipper wrote: »

Another contradicting lore bit, why am I not suprised.

A contradiction even within one chapter. Between the release of the Morrowind chapter and the "Naryu saved the Tribunal" dialogue they at least had 5 years to forget about the facts (at this point, I sadly could even imagine that the newest Razum-dar dialogue people are talking about is also nothing more than a lore oversight)... If it continues like this, the next story arc could get very "interesting" and "mysterious" (will they still remember what chapter 1 was about when they write chapter 2 of the continuous story?)... Yeah, I know I'm being a bit snarky after this year's content. It just worries me that a great story opportunity and some interesting recurrent characters could be ruined by this next year.

They need to stop reusing characters. This does not fit very well into the environment they created, and the writers don't seem to be able to handle the anachronisms created due to reuse. The easiest way for them to hide this is to avoid it.

Yes, that really backfired on them when they brought sacrificed heroes back to life to sell new content, without even any attempt at retconning it. It’s like, hey, what are you doing here? I thought I chose you to save Tamriel? And they are like, uhhh…. I don’t know *shrug*. And that was around the time that Lawrence Schick, the loremaster left.

It's not a good look, from a story telling standpoint.

cyclonus11

Another thing that's been talked about: updating the mounts available for gold at the stables. Would be nice to get region-specific mounts, particularly for DLCs and Chapters. It's not right having the same 3 mounts that were available since the beginning of the game at every stablemaster. I mean, Vvardenfell stablemasters only have guar and kagouti at their stables - why would they have the same HORSES as Glenumbra, Stonefalls, etc. for sale?

Syldras

Elsonso wrote: »

They need to stop reusing characters. This does not fit very well into the environment they created, and the writers don't seem to be able to handle the anachronisms created due to reuse. The easiest way for them to hide this is to avoid it.

If we argue like this, what should be done about the problem that some quest dialogue this year was written really badly - removing quest dialogue altogether? I don't think that's a solution. They should just put more effort in their writing (again), be it quests or characters. It's hard for me to understand anyway how mistakes like that Naryu dialogue could happen, as they as the creators must have character sheets (or something like that) which include all neccessary information. They could even look every single character up on the UESP wiki, there's a description of literally everyone, including all dialogue, even the smallest random snippets. Of course there's still a problem with anachronisms, but those will always exist if there are story arcs but all regions can still be played in any random order.

Natakiro

Not to sound like a wet blanket, but I really don't want Spellcrafting. It sounds awesome, but it will be nerfed into the ground over time and just sounds like one more meta thing to worry about. It could potentially make classes and such even more obsolete, forcing you to run with only crafted spells or something. The balancing just sounds like a nightmare; a new class or weapon line could add new skills without being nearly as hairy.

The_Titan_Tim

Natakiro wrote: »

Not to sound like a wet blanket, but I really don't want Spellcrafting. It sounds awesome, but it will be nerfed into the ground over time and just sounds like one more meta thing to worry about. It could potentially make classes and such even more obsolete, forcing you to run with only crafted spells or something. The balancing just sounds like a nightmare; a new class or weapon line could add new skills without being nearly as hairy.

How would the balancing be a nightmare? Most offensive spells already exist in one fashion or another in the game currently, the developers could literally take a spell already in the game, remove all the passives you get for it, and just re-skin it.

How would allowing a Nightblade access to a slightly weaker Daedric Curse in the form of a delayed Destruction skill, or a Templar access to a weaker Skeletal Archer in the form of a Flame Atronach be detrimental to any class identity?

If you still get more from your class abilities through their associated passives, in example as a Templar, simply slotting an Aedric Spear ability gives me 10% increase to critical damage, and another 10% increase to damage against blocking targets…why would people fill entire bars with crafted spells? Every Templar will ALWAYS have an Aedric Spear ability slotted on their front bar, will always cast Dawn’s Wrath abilities for Minor Sorcery and Ult-Gen, and Restoring Light abilities are ridiculous, Restoration magic couldn’t hold a torch to it.

Spellcrafting was described earlier in this forum as a buffer for classes, and that was spot on, simply adding one like ability to a class from a different one, will not take over the identity of that class and if you want proof, look at all the other skill lines that have universally accessible abilities, weapon skills, Mage’s Guild, Fighter’s Guild, Undaunted, Psijic, Assault, Support, Soul Magic, the proof is right there.

NotaDaedraWorshipper

Elsonso wrote: »

Syldras wrote: »

NotaDaedraWorshipper wrote: »

Another contradicting lore bit, why am I not suprised.

A contradiction even within one chapter. Between the release of the Morrowind chapter and the "Naryu saved the Tribunal" dialogue they at least had 5 years to forget about the facts (at this point, I sadly could even imagine that the newest Razum-dar dialogue people are talking about is also nothing more than a lore oversight)... If it continues like this, the next story arc could get very "interesting" and "mysterious" (will they still remember what chapter 1 was about when they write chapter 2 of the continuous story?)... Yeah, I know I'm being a bit snarky after this year's content. It just worries me that a great story opportunity and some interesting recurrent characters could be ruined by this next year.

They need to stop reusing characters. This does not fit very well into the environment they created, and the writers don't seem to be able to handle the anachronisms created due to reuse. The easiest way for them to hide this is to avoid it.

They can't even make the characters they reuse consistent, which makes it even worse.

It's also making Tamriel feel so tiny, along with this casually travelling across Tamriel without portals being involved. There's a loophole for the Vestige who can use the wayshrines for that, but when a character who was in Black Marsh appears in High Rock, then Valenwood in following dlcs, things look small. Or when some character decides it's a great idea to use a rowboat to traverse several provinces lengths by sea.

@Syldras and don't worry about your snarkiness. I'm in a constant state of snark and saltiness with ESO the latest years. Yet I still hope like a fool.

Billium813

The_Titan_Tim wrote: »

Natakiro wrote: »

Not to sound like a wet blanket, but I really don't want Spellcrafting. It sounds awesome, but it will be nerfed into the ground over time and just sounds like one more meta thing to worry about. It could potentially make classes and such even more obsolete, forcing you to run with only crafted spells or something. The balancing just sounds like a nightmare; a new class or weapon line could add new skills without being nearly as hairy.

How would the balancing be a nightmare? Most offensive spells already exist in one fashion or another in the game currently, the developers could literally take a spell already in the game, remove all the passives you get for it, and just re-skin it.

How would allowing a Nightblade access to a slightly weaker Daedric Curse in the form of a delayed Destruction skill, or a Templar access to a weaker Skeletal Archer in the form of a Flame Atronach be detrimental to any class identity?

If you still get more from your class abilities through their associated passives, in example as a Templar, simply slotting an Aedric Spear ability gives me 10% increase to critical damage, and another 10% increase to damage against blocking targets…why would people fill entire bars with crafted spells? Every Templar will ALWAYS have an Aedric Spear ability slotted on their front bar, will always cast Dawn’s Wrath abilities for Minor Sorcery and Ult-Gen, and Restoring Light abilities are ridiculous, Restoration magic couldn’t hold a torch to it.

Spellcrafting was described earlier in this forum as a buffer for classes, and that was spot on, simply adding one like ability to a class from a different one, will not take over the identity of that class and if you want proof, look at all the other skill lines that have universally accessible abilities, weapon skills, Mage’s Guild, Fighter’s Guild, Undaunted, Psijic, Assault, Support, Soul Magic, the proof is right there.

It comes down to how SpellCrafting would be implemented. If there are 1000 possible combinations of spells craftable... it will be a balancing nightmare and will overshadow all the other Skills that are restrictive and ridged. If there aren't enough possible combinations of spells, then how would it be different than 1 or 2 new skill lines with 5-6 Skills, 2 morphs each, and 4-5 passives?
SpellCrafting would have to be large enough to warrant being its own unique thing, but not too large. Players SAY they want 1000 possible craftable spells, but you do realize that only 5% would be viable, right? Bloating out the game like that would be a terrible idea and it would be a design nightmare.

Now, if we DIDN'T have Skills (and morphs), I could see SpellCrafting being a great combat system on its own!

Personally, I like the idea that "Skills" were restricted to Physical abilities, like Weapons or Physical actions, requiring MOSTLY Stamina (+ minor Magicka requirements sometimes) Class abilities that require both resources
Then, "Spells" could be created under this new SpellCrafting system! They would require MOSTLY Magicka (+ minor Stamina requirements sometimes) and also be placed on the appropriately named "Ability Bar", alongside "Skills". The Guild Skill lines and Staff Skill lines would then be eliminated entirely in favor of SpellCrafting.

I think this would give SpellCrafting a CLEAR identity and use (This is how you use magic in ESO)! It may also end up handicapping Weapon/Stamina builds... but it also might open the door for more Weapon Skills to be added.

However... this change would completely up-end and rewrite ESOs entire combat system. And unfortunately, I think that's where I'm at with SpellCrafting. To implement it "correctly", would require a complete overhaul and rewrite of ESOs combat system. That was perhaps workable prospect back in 2014 when it was pitched... but in 2022, it's just too late in the game. Anything less risks completely devaluing existing Systems and/or breaking combat.

Syldras

NotaDaedraWorshipper wrote: »

It's also making Tamriel feel so tiny, along with this casually travelling across Tamriel without portals being involved. There's a loophole for the Vestige who can use the wayshrines for that, but when a character who was in Black Marsh appears in High Rock, then Valenwood in following dlcs, things look small.

I mean, as it is obviously fanservice, it doesn't make much sense reasoning with logic here - (some) people want their favorite characters to return, so they will, if it makes sense or not. I, personally, would prefer if they would look more on the individual context. If a npc is, for example, a scholar who does Dwemer research, it might make sense stumbling across them again in another Dwemer ruin (or a nearby tavern) somewhere else after a few years. Same goes for encountering people met on travels again in their home town. That would seem okay to me. But having characters who have no profession that includes a lot of travelling show up in 5 regions all across Tamriel... Well, if ZOS wouldn't let them return, there'd also be people who complain, I guess.

That said, if they do bring characters back, I consider it vital to keep their character consistent (a reasonable, believable character development/progress would be okay, of course) and to avoid lore mistakes.

Rontabs77

A Trial Finder feature would be awesome.

Malmer

spellcrafting would be intresting.when i understand it right u can improve skills and create complete news?

what would people say about a system like world of warcrafts mythic plus? would be very cool either and cool feature even for older content

one of them i hope is the system end of the year

in summer i hope for a cool trial or arena
cool mythic items
maybe new class or race ^^