Why so many wayshrines in Tamriel ?

GBllt

Hi

Just in bankoraï city, there are 2 wayshrines next to each other! It's so ridiculous. We even meet players making their travel without TP. So why so many wayshrines? 3-4 per region its ok but there are about ten or even fifteen per zone… it kill the exploration side of the game

Syldras

As someone who often walks or rides bigger distances in this game, I'm not sure why I would criticize wayshrines being available. I'm not forced to use them if I don't want to, after all.

SpacemanSpiff1

i disagree. some zones don't have enough

Four_Fingers

Because mount speed is so bad for so long unless you buy speed upgrades.

jecks33

don't use them, you're not forced. They also look good, in theme with every region, better immersion

Danikat

Syldras wrote: »

As someone who often walks or rides bigger distances in this game, I'm not sure why I would criticize wayshrines being available. I'm not forced to use them if I don't want to, after all.

I was going to say exactly the same thing.

If you want to explore, or simply ride along the road to your destination, there's nothing stopping you from doing that. I'll often only take a wayshrine part of the way to my destination and then ride the rest of the way or even go on foot because it's an area I've not been through in a while and I want to revisit it, or one I know I like and want to take some time to enjoy.

But at other times I'm in a hurry and need to get to my destination quickly for whatever reason, and then I appreciate having the option to go to a wayshrine close by instead of one 1/2 way across the map.

Also the two in Evermore (the city in Bangkorai) look close together but the way the city is laid out the only direct route between them is outside the walls, so if you're going there to use any of the services one will be noticeably quicker than the other (which one depends on where you're going of course).

SeaGtGruff

I think the two in Evermore might be related to the quests for that city, for accessibility reasons. What I mean is, the design of the city itself, both inside the walls (buildings and streets) and outside the walls (terrain and so on), coupled with the fighting that's going on outside the city, create accessibility issues. The two wayshrines give players easier access to different sides of the city, both inside and outside.

Also, one is conveniently close to the guild traders, and the other is more convenient for accessing the merchants and guilds, including the Outlaws Refuge, the crafting areas, the bank, and the inn.

DMuehlhausen

jecks33 wrote: »

don't use them, you're not forced. They also look good, in theme with every region, better immersion

The theme of them is why they don't fit the regions.

There are books in the game talking about the wayshrines. How the current races don't understand the technology, yet they built them to a proper theme? they should all look Ayleid if you wanted them to be proper theme.

GBllt

GBllt wrote: »

Hi

Just in bankoraï city, there are 2 wayshrines next to each other! It's so ridiculous. We even meet players making their travel without TP. So why so many wayshrines? 3-4 per region its ok but there are about ten or even fifteen per zone… it kill the exploration side of the game

I wanted to say « We don't meet many players who travel naturally, without TP »

Thanks to all for clarifying me 🙂

Danikat

DMuehlhausen wrote: »

jecks33 wrote: »

don't use them, you're not forced. They also look good, in theme with every region, better immersion

The theme of them is why they don't fit the regions.

There are books in the game talking about the wayshrines. How the current races don't understand the technology, yet they built them to a proper theme? they should all look Ayleid if you wanted them to be proper theme.

There is no technology to them. In lore they're literally just small roadside shrines, usually dedicated to the Divines, built by local people which is why the style of them changes depending on where in the world you are. Apparently some are built on sites where miracles and significant events are said to have occurred, and others are just placed periodically along the roads.

In lore being able to teleport between them is unique to the Vestige, an artefact of being soul shriven and then having their soul reattuned to Nirn through the skyshards. (Which technically means it should be impossible to fast travel until you've started the main quest, but I think it's obvious why ZOS didn't enforce that.)

Syldras

DMuehlhausen wrote: »

The theme of them is why they don't fit the regions.
There are books in the game talking about the wayshrines. How the current races don't understand the technology, yet they built them to a proper theme? they should all look Ayleid if you wanted them to be proper theme.

For normal mortals in Tamriel, these wayshrines are exactly what the word wayshrine normally means (also in the real world): A small shrine, a place to worship and honouring spirits or gods. And at least on planet Earth, it's extremely common in most cultures to built a place of worship over an older one. Many churches, for example, are built at a place where there was a pagan place of worship formerly. Or sometimes if the religion in a region changes, old temples are slightly altered optically and then used for the new religion. It's very much possible that this happened with the ESO wayshrines too.

The only thing I dislike a bit is that ESO wayshrines often don't really look like shrines (read: places of worship). There are no people around who pray there, and there are rarely (with exception of a few wayshrines in Elsweyr) offering or sacrificial items around. But I can understand that this is most probably to avoid players getting stuck between objects or npcs, especially when it's crowded there and you barely see a thing.

Grizzbeorn

GBllt wrote: »

It kill the exploration side of the game

No, it doesn't.

SeaGtGruff

DMuehlhausen wrote: »

jecks33 wrote: »

don't use them, you're not forced. They also look good, in theme with every region, better immersion

The theme of them is why they don't fit the regions.

There are books in the game talking about the wayshrines. How the current races don't understand the technology, yet they built them to a proper theme? they should all look Ayleid if you wanted them to be proper theme.

Maybe they built the current wayshrine structures around pre-existing wayshrine fires (whatever you call the blue flames)? It could explain why the wayshrines look different in different zones.

But honestly, I find the books about wayshrines to be kind of silly, especially if the player's character is somehow supposed to be unique as far as being able to use them to travel freely, given that (1) there's usually a constant stream of other players at wayshrines so how is our character supposed to ve unique, and (2) Cyrodiil has its own set of Transitus Shrines connecting all of the keeps and outposts together in a network but they need to have a crew of mages manning them.

Xarc

GBllt wrote: »

Why so many wayshrines in Tamriel ?

[snip]

But, imo there are tooooo many wayshrines and if it was only me, i would just delete all of them

[edited for minor bashing]

Freelancer_ESO

Because for many people the world isn't immersive enough for them to enjoy the travel.

Xarc

in NewWorld (another mmo) there's very rare wayshrines, 1 per city + maybe 1 other per zone.
And if you want to teleport, you need a kind of magic money you get by killing monsters, so you cant teleport every minute...
And there is no mount.
And each town has his own bank, market, etc.

[snip]

[Edited for bait]

TooWeak2Live

Xarc wrote: »

in NewWorld (another mmo) there's very rare wayshrines, 1 per city + maybe 1 other per zone.

And also the thing people complain about most often. Perhaps not a great reference.

SpacemanSpiff1

Xarc wrote: »

in NewWorld (another mmo) there's very rare wayshrines, 1 per city + maybe 1 other per zone.
And if you want to teleport, you need a kind of magic money you get by killing monsters, so you cant teleport every minute...
And there is no mount.
And each town has his own bank, market, etc.

[snip]

[Edited for bait]

traveling is so cool and awesome in that game

BretonMage

Xarc wrote: »

in NewWorld (another mmo) there's very rare wayshrines, 1 per city + maybe 1 other per zone.
And if you want to teleport, you need a kind of magic money you get by killing monsters, so you cant teleport every minute...
And there is no mount.

Sounds utterly tedious. I'm glad I don't play that game

Gandalf_72

SpacemanSpiff1 wrote: »

i disagree. some zones don't have enough

Grizzbeorn wrote: »

GBllt wrote: »

It kill the exploration side of the game

No, it doesn't.

jecks33 wrote: »

don't use them, you're not forced. They also look good, in theme with every region, better immersion

I agree

SeaGtGruff

Xarc wrote: »

in NewWorld (another mmo) there's very rare wayshrines, 1 per city + maybe 1 other per zone.
And if you want to teleport, you need a kind of magic money you get by killing monsters, so you cant teleport every minute...
And there is no mount.
And each town has his own bank, market, etc.

[snip]

[Edited for bait]

Fast travel has been a staple of TES games ever since Arena. In Arena you don't even need to use a wayshrine, because you can travel to any city of any province from any open area either inside or outside of a city (that is, you cannot fast travel from within a building or a dungeon). I think that's mostly because of the way each city and its surrounding area is (if I understand it correctly) basically a separate sandbox of its own, unconnected to the sandboxes surrounding the other cities, such that you couldn't "slow travel" from one city to the next even if you wanted to.

On the other hand, Daggerfall does let you slow travel from one city to the next if you want, but the distances are such that if you actually want to do that then there's a mod or add-on that basically speeds up time while you're slow-traveling across the countryside so it doesn't take forever. But you can also fast travel to cities and dungeons if you want, as in Arena.

Morrowind removed all of that "fast travel from just about anywhere to anywhere" business and made it so you can only fast travel by certain means (such as by silt strider, or boat, or guild guide) and only from specific locations to specific locations (such as from one city's silt strider station to a few other cities' silt strider stations). To get from one place to another you might need to make several in-between stops or even switch between different modes of fast travel.

I could go on, but I didn't like to use fast travel in Oblivion and Skyrim, so I'm not as familiar with the specifics. However, the gist of it is that fast travel has a long tradition in TES games, and is/was partly a matter of convenience and partly necessity. Aside from Arena where it's unavoidable, and Daggerfall where it isn't unavoidable but is definitely preferred over slow travel, it's up to each TES player to decide how much they want to use fast travel or slow travel. If you don't want to use it, don't. But please don't insult players who want to use it. Personally, I like to run around on foot most of the time, but I don't go around insulting players who like to ride their mounts everywhere.

Billium813

GBllt wrote: »

Just in bankoraï city, there are 2 wayshrines next to each other! It's so ridiculous. We even meet players making their travel without TP. So why so many wayshrines? 3-4 per region its ok but there are about ten or even fifteen per zone… it kill the exploration side of the game

Syldras wrote: »

As someone who often walks or rides bigger distances in this game, I'm not sure why I would criticize wayshrines being available. I'm not forced to use them if I don't want to, after all.

Completely agree with you both! I think there are too many Wayshrines and also, the argument "just don't use them then" is totally valid. It comes down to what players want though and how well they can control themselves or ignore mechanics.

This discussion is like the argument about 100% glitchless speedruns. The game HAS a glitch in it, so players that use those glitches say "why shouldn't I?!". Players that don't want to use the glitch say "it ruins the spirit of the game". Both are totally valid opinions I think! The speedrun community "settled this" by creating different speedrun categories. Maybe ZOS could add RP servers that greatly reduce the number of Wayshrines?

Otherwise, there isn't much ZOS can do, I think. Both opinions need to coexist on the same map, with 1 server available. Hopefully they can keep this in mind for future zone development (though have you SEEN Galen?!)

Zama666

We need UberScrolls!
The transportation wagon!

El_Borracho

Too many wayshrines? Said nobody who travels to Northern Elsweyr

I_killed_Vivec

You have to visit them in the first place, so there's no loss in exploration (unless you cheat and get a friend to take you everywhere).

Even with the wayshrines I often wish I had scrolls of Mark and Recall.

TaSheen

I will use wayshrines to get to a location and then run around on foot to areas I'm wanting to explore. I don't even ride much - because all my characters are always harvesting while I'm playing them, and the mount/dismount/remount cycle is just painful.

Exploring every corner of a game world is one of my favorite things to do. After this many years in the game, you'd think I'd have been everywhere already, but you'd be wrong!

Northwold

I don't know if the OP is new to the game but, honestly, given the layout and size of some of the zones and the amount of back and forth involved in playing the game, I definitely don't think there are too many shrines and many zones could do with rather more wayshrines than they have at present.

The game would be nightmarish to play if every fetch quest, every daily involved you traipsing half the length of a full zone multiple times in succession while fending off every irritant from wasps to minotaurs.

Dr_Con

performance in alliance war should dictate how many wayshrines people have access to.

TaSheen

Dr_Con wrote: »

performance in alliance war should dictate how many wayshrines people have access to.

Do you mean that you feel every player should be required to pvp?

robwolf666

I don't mind the wayshrines, but I don't use them very often.

However, when a "go fetch" quest has you going from edge to edge on the map in a zone, fast travel makes it less annoying.

FlopsyPrince

GBllt wrote: »

Hi

Just in bankoraï city, there are 2 wayshrines next to each other! It's so ridiculous. We even meet players making their travel without TP. So why so many wayshrines? 3-4 per region its ok but there are about ten or even fifteen per zone… it kill the exploration side of the game

That would be the rare exception. Other places there are very hard to reach from Wayshrines, even in Bankgorai.