The Gold Road Chapter – which includes the Scribing system – and Update 42 is now available to test on the PTS! You can read the latest patch notes here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/656454/
Maintenance for the week of April 29:
• PC/Mac: No maintenance – April 29
• PC/Mac: No maintenance – April 29
ESO Ideas
Edrik
✭✭
Hi all, so like most of us I’ve recently watched the Reveal for ESO Necrom and am really excited to explore a previously unvisited (not counting Arena) area of Tamriel. The new Zone looks like it has some really interesting stories and lore to dig into however on the flip side it feels like its making the game bigger without adding any real depth or replayabilty to what’s already there.
I had a few half formed ideas rolling around my head on what could add some of this depth to ESO, I had some spare time so decided to write them down. I’ve been playing MMOs for 20+ years and lurking on these forums for a while so alot has probably been either discussed or done before, and its also a bit of a long post so apologies for that.
PvP Overhaul
PvP as everyone knows hasn’t received any love in a long time for whatever reason, and in its current state I only travel to Cyrodiil and the Imperial City for the PvE aspects and to sooth the completionist in me. PvP in Cyrodiil can have its moments but it feels like I spend most my time in transit. Battlegrounds while fun, again have become stale and need a refresh and extra content.
What I’d like is for Cyrodiil and the Imperial City to become regular PvE zones like any other and for battlegrounds and arenas to be overhauled into something involving the best parts of what we have now. As for Cyrodiil and Imperial City, they would no longer be behind a barrier for those who don’t like PvP, and for those that do, they get an overhaul with extra content which is quicker and more accessible.
This overhaul would include two game types.
Arena
Cities around Tamriel and other planes of existence would have there own arenas reflecting their lore and culture and in the rewards you can earn. These modes are similar to what we have now, are fast paced, fairly concentrated and don’t required much of a time commitment.
- Duelling 1v1 2v2 3v3 Everyone has a certain number of lives.
- Flag Games Relic, Chaos Ball. Same as now.
- Land Grab Domination, Crazy King. Same as now.
- DeathMatch Teams same as now, or Solo where its a free for all. The arena could change with environmental hazards appearing such as traps and creatures.
- Gauntlet Solo or Group. Similar to current arenas. You would face rounds of environmental and combat challenges.
Tournaments
All of the above game modes could be done as one off matches as they are now or in knockout tournaments for bigger rewards.
Wargames
This would involve larger teams of say 20v20 and maps about three or four times current battlegrounds (This could also fill in some of those annoying small gaps on the map effecting my OCD). These modes would have all the best aspects of PvP in Cyrodiil and cut out all the travel time.
- Capture the Keep Two teams try and capture the each others keep. There could be outlying defences and towers to capture as well.
- Hoarder Lumber mills, mines and farms which need to be captured and held to gather resources. Teams can also raid each others camps for resources.
- Relic Hunter The map would have relics hidden in locations around the map, ruins, temples, mines, etc. There could be bosses defending the relics and relics could be stolen from other teams camp.
- Assault Two rounds, one team is defending and other attacking. The attacker has to push through layers of outposts, defences and take the keep. Teams switch in the second round. Whoever gets the furthest wins.
- Siege A combination of the modes above. You can win by capturing the keep, relics could give you buffs, resources you have stockpiled automatically repair your keep until depleted.
- Last Man Standing A battle royale mode, last man standing. You’d be able to find sigils, scrolls, relics and items around the map that give you perks and buffs.
Campaigns
All the wargames modes above could be done as one off matches or in a campaign. A campaign would consist of three rounds.
Round 1 Hoarder - Gives your team more lives and more siege engines in final round.
Round 2 Relic Hunter - Gives your team buffs or other team debuffs in final round.
Round 3 Assault - The Final round, Teams take it in turns to attack each other keep.
Rotation and Leaderboards
The arenas and wargames available could be on a rotation, maybe weekly or monthly? Rotation would go between race or alliance zones and at the end of that rotation you and your guild are rewarded based on your finishing tier in the character and guild leaderboards, with the rewards themed on that location for that rotation.
Or alternatively all could available all of the time and when choosing in activity finder you can choose specific modes or locations as you do with dungeons now and a daily random battleground/arena option for extra rewards. Still not sure myself if I like the idea of rotation, does it keep things fresh or would you just have to wait for your preferred arenas and battlegrounds? Maybe a system similar to what we have with dungeons and pledges might work.
Renown
OK so if you’ve read this far you know this overhaul would mean that PvP Cyrodiil and Imperial city are gone and the Alliance War is over, at least in its current form. So what would replace Alliance Points? Any activity you do now, whether its the overhauled PvP mentioned , Dungeons, Trials, Questing, Fishing competitions, whatever, these would all now give you Renown, basically reputation but I like the sound of renown better.
Your characters would have tiers of renown all the way from Unknown up to Legend. These tiers would give you certain perks, cheaper vendors and repairs, access to more cosmetics, furniture or gear, more guild trader slots and could also have a limited decay, not going below a certain point meaning you have to keep up the good work but not have to grind all levels again after a long absence.
Not only could you characters have renown but your guilds as well, anything a member does gives a percentage to their guilds renown, any activities completed as a guild would give extra renown to the guild. This again would your guilds certain perks some similar to character ones, other could be more guild related, higher member limit or access to more guild contracts (I’ll explain in the next section), bigger guild house, more options for heraldry and so on.
Guilds Contracts and Initiatives
That leads nicely into guilds, which again I think has been very under utilised with many players just using them for trading, which is fair enough if you like to play ESO primarily as a solo game. A couple of features I’d like added would add ways for everyone to contribute to their guild and things to do no matter your play style, solo, group, PvP, PvE
The Fighters Guild, The Mages, The Undaunted, they all have repeatable quests so why can’t are player made guilds have them. Every week our guild leader and/or deputies could choose from a random number of contracts or initiatives on offer for its members to take part in. Some of them would be similar to current dailies quests but on a bigger scale.
- Complete a number of world events or world bosses
- Find a number of items in delves
- Complete a number of or specific Dungeons or Trials
- Complete or win a number of Arenas or Battlegrounds
- Gather a number of materials or items
Rewards would be guild renown along with either gold into the guild bank, furniture for guild house, guild houses services.
Player contracts
As mentioned in recent posts by developers, they are aware that us the players want a better balance of one-and-done vs repeatable content. While a overhaul of PvP and whatever developers have in mind (Endless dungeon with a buddy?) would go some of the way to solving this, how about let us make our own quests or contracts to put on a board with an interface like a guild trader so you can refine what sort of contracts you’d like to look for.
- Exploration - Take me here, help me discover all locations in a zone.
- Quest - Help me complete a quest.
- Dungeon - Help me complete a dungeon.
- World Boss - Help me kill a world boss or all world bosses in zone.
- Materials - Fulfil quota for materials.
- Items - Fulfil request for item.
Contract rewards would have a preset level depending on the value of difficulty or if its urgent can be increase by player. Alternately players could bid on contracts with a time limit being chosen by the person making the contract and the lowest bid at the end wins, maybe even have a buyout option for players to take it off the board. Player contracts may also have the additional benefit of cutting out alot of the spamming in local chat for help.
Companion Jobs
I’ve always liked having the option of having companions in RPGs and MMOs so was really excited for them to be added to ESO. Companions have a good foundation but could still be expanded upon, for example what are they all doing while they’re not off adventuring or larking around with us, maybe we could give them tasks to do? It would also give us further reason to unlock and level them all up and not stick with just one and neglect the rest. The ones not currently with us could be send time on:
- Research - Speeding up research of traits
- Mount Training - Self explanatory
- Find Leads - Finding leads for antiquities
- Gathering - Gathering materials like a hireling but materials of our choice.
- Rumours - Finding treasure maps, survey report or rare fish locations spawning a fishing hole with a better chance of something rare.
Depending on their personal likes and dislikes they would be faster at certain tasks than others, there rapport would speed things up or have a chance of better results.
Fishing Competitions
OK so I like to chill and fish sometimes and anything that adds more depth to it is good in my books. Everyday there could be various fishing competitions in say 2 or 3 different locations round tamriel with rewards for most fish caught, first to catch a rare fish, etc. Rewards would be renown, gold, rare fish items such as Perfect Roe, fishing cosmetics or furniture for location. This would hopefully have the advantage of more people fishing in the area and more chance of the group fishing bonus helping players with the fishing achievements.
Other These ones have been pretty well covered before
- Dungeon and Trial Story Mode or scaling depending on group size.
At the minute you’re in one of two groups, first group wanting to rush through for pledges and achievements or two wanting to take it slow and enjoy the story. I’ve been on both sides of this and it can be frustrating for everyone, ending up with no one getting what they want from the experience.
- Overland Veteran content
Overland content has always been on the easy side, legendary enemies and dangerous creatures being killed in the blink of an eye which can be very boring and immersion breaking. Giving people the option would satisfy everyone, either giving them a better challenge from the start or a reason to go back and complete older content again. Rewards should be the same except perhaps for extra renown and achievements for completing things in veteran mode.
- More Hairstyles, beards and adornments
Surely not too hard to implement and it would satisfy so many people, give us the freedom to express ourselves and our characters.
To finish off I’d like to say how much I love this game and the Elder Scrolls games in general. I’ve played it originally on PC, switched to PS4 and now finally on Xbox Series X. There’s been some great times and moments in those 9 years and I hope ESO is still going strong for another 9. Thanks for reading.
I had a few half formed ideas rolling around my head on what could add some of this depth to ESO, I had some spare time so decided to write them down. I’ve been playing MMOs for 20+ years and lurking on these forums for a while so alot has probably been either discussed or done before, and its also a bit of a long post so apologies for that.
PvP Overhaul
PvP as everyone knows hasn’t received any love in a long time for whatever reason, and in its current state I only travel to Cyrodiil and the Imperial City for the PvE aspects and to sooth the completionist in me. PvP in Cyrodiil can have its moments but it feels like I spend most my time in transit. Battlegrounds while fun, again have become stale and need a refresh and extra content.
What I’d like is for Cyrodiil and the Imperial City to become regular PvE zones like any other and for battlegrounds and arenas to be overhauled into something involving the best parts of what we have now. As for Cyrodiil and Imperial City, they would no longer be behind a barrier for those who don’t like PvP, and for those that do, they get an overhaul with extra content which is quicker and more accessible.
This overhaul would include two game types.
Arena
Cities around Tamriel and other planes of existence would have there own arenas reflecting their lore and culture and in the rewards you can earn. These modes are similar to what we have now, are fast paced, fairly concentrated and don’t required much of a time commitment.
- Duelling 1v1 2v2 3v3 Everyone has a certain number of lives.
- Flag Games Relic, Chaos Ball. Same as now.
- Land Grab Domination, Crazy King. Same as now.
- DeathMatch Teams same as now, or Solo where its a free for all. The arena could change with environmental hazards appearing such as traps and creatures.
- Gauntlet Solo or Group. Similar to current arenas. You would face rounds of environmental and combat challenges.
Tournaments
All of the above game modes could be done as one off matches as they are now or in knockout tournaments for bigger rewards.
Wargames
This would involve larger teams of say 20v20 and maps about three or four times current battlegrounds (This could also fill in some of those annoying small gaps on the map effecting my OCD). These modes would have all the best aspects of PvP in Cyrodiil and cut out all the travel time.
- Capture the Keep Two teams try and capture the each others keep. There could be outlying defences and towers to capture as well.
- Hoarder Lumber mills, mines and farms which need to be captured and held to gather resources. Teams can also raid each others camps for resources.
- Relic Hunter The map would have relics hidden in locations around the map, ruins, temples, mines, etc. There could be bosses defending the relics and relics could be stolen from other teams camp.
- Assault Two rounds, one team is defending and other attacking. The attacker has to push through layers of outposts, defences and take the keep. Teams switch in the second round. Whoever gets the furthest wins.
- Siege A combination of the modes above. You can win by capturing the keep, relics could give you buffs, resources you have stockpiled automatically repair your keep until depleted.
- Last Man Standing A battle royale mode, last man standing. You’d be able to find sigils, scrolls, relics and items around the map that give you perks and buffs.
Campaigns
All the wargames modes above could be done as one off matches or in a campaign. A campaign would consist of three rounds.
Round 1 Hoarder - Gives your team more lives and more siege engines in final round.
Round 2 Relic Hunter - Gives your team buffs or other team debuffs in final round.
Round 3 Assault - The Final round, Teams take it in turns to attack each other keep.
Rotation and Leaderboards
The arenas and wargames available could be on a rotation, maybe weekly or monthly? Rotation would go between race or alliance zones and at the end of that rotation you and your guild are rewarded based on your finishing tier in the character and guild leaderboards, with the rewards themed on that location for that rotation.
Or alternatively all could available all of the time and when choosing in activity finder you can choose specific modes or locations as you do with dungeons now and a daily random battleground/arena option for extra rewards. Still not sure myself if I like the idea of rotation, does it keep things fresh or would you just have to wait for your preferred arenas and battlegrounds? Maybe a system similar to what we have with dungeons and pledges might work.
Renown
OK so if you’ve read this far you know this overhaul would mean that PvP Cyrodiil and Imperial city are gone and the Alliance War is over, at least in its current form. So what would replace Alliance Points? Any activity you do now, whether its the overhauled PvP mentioned , Dungeons, Trials, Questing, Fishing competitions, whatever, these would all now give you Renown, basically reputation but I like the sound of renown better.
Your characters would have tiers of renown all the way from Unknown up to Legend. These tiers would give you certain perks, cheaper vendors and repairs, access to more cosmetics, furniture or gear, more guild trader slots and could also have a limited decay, not going below a certain point meaning you have to keep up the good work but not have to grind all levels again after a long absence.
Not only could you characters have renown but your guilds as well, anything a member does gives a percentage to their guilds renown, any activities completed as a guild would give extra renown to the guild. This again would your guilds certain perks some similar to character ones, other could be more guild related, higher member limit or access to more guild contracts (I’ll explain in the next section), bigger guild house, more options for heraldry and so on.
Guilds Contracts and Initiatives
That leads nicely into guilds, which again I think has been very under utilised with many players just using them for trading, which is fair enough if you like to play ESO primarily as a solo game. A couple of features I’d like added would add ways for everyone to contribute to their guild and things to do no matter your play style, solo, group, PvP, PvE
The Fighters Guild, The Mages, The Undaunted, they all have repeatable quests so why can’t are player made guilds have them. Every week our guild leader and/or deputies could choose from a random number of contracts or initiatives on offer for its members to take part in. Some of them would be similar to current dailies quests but on a bigger scale.
- Complete a number of world events or world bosses
- Find a number of items in delves
- Complete a number of or specific Dungeons or Trials
- Complete or win a number of Arenas or Battlegrounds
- Gather a number of materials or items
Rewards would be guild renown along with either gold into the guild bank, furniture for guild house, guild houses services.
Player contracts
As mentioned in recent posts by developers, they are aware that us the players want a better balance of one-and-done vs repeatable content. While a overhaul of PvP and whatever developers have in mind (Endless dungeon with a buddy?) would go some of the way to solving this, how about let us make our own quests or contracts to put on a board with an interface like a guild trader so you can refine what sort of contracts you’d like to look for.
- Exploration - Take me here, help me discover all locations in a zone.
- Quest - Help me complete a quest.
- Dungeon - Help me complete a dungeon.
- World Boss - Help me kill a world boss or all world bosses in zone.
- Materials - Fulfil quota for materials.
- Items - Fulfil request for item.
Contract rewards would have a preset level depending on the value of difficulty or if its urgent can be increase by player. Alternately players could bid on contracts with a time limit being chosen by the person making the contract and the lowest bid at the end wins, maybe even have a buyout option for players to take it off the board. Player contracts may also have the additional benefit of cutting out alot of the spamming in local chat for help.
Companion Jobs
I’ve always liked having the option of having companions in RPGs and MMOs so was really excited for them to be added to ESO. Companions have a good foundation but could still be expanded upon, for example what are they all doing while they’re not off adventuring or larking around with us, maybe we could give them tasks to do? It would also give us further reason to unlock and level them all up and not stick with just one and neglect the rest. The ones not currently with us could be send time on:
- Research - Speeding up research of traits
- Mount Training - Self explanatory
- Find Leads - Finding leads for antiquities
- Gathering - Gathering materials like a hireling but materials of our choice.
- Rumours - Finding treasure maps, survey report or rare fish locations spawning a fishing hole with a better chance of something rare.
Depending on their personal likes and dislikes they would be faster at certain tasks than others, there rapport would speed things up or have a chance of better results.
Fishing Competitions
OK so I like to chill and fish sometimes and anything that adds more depth to it is good in my books. Everyday there could be various fishing competitions in say 2 or 3 different locations round tamriel with rewards for most fish caught, first to catch a rare fish, etc. Rewards would be renown, gold, rare fish items such as Perfect Roe, fishing cosmetics or furniture for location. This would hopefully have the advantage of more people fishing in the area and more chance of the group fishing bonus helping players with the fishing achievements.
Other These ones have been pretty well covered before
- Dungeon and Trial Story Mode or scaling depending on group size.
At the minute you’re in one of two groups, first group wanting to rush through for pledges and achievements or two wanting to take it slow and enjoy the story. I’ve been on both sides of this and it can be frustrating for everyone, ending up with no one getting what they want from the experience.
- Overland Veteran content
Overland content has always been on the easy side, legendary enemies and dangerous creatures being killed in the blink of an eye which can be very boring and immersion breaking. Giving people the option would satisfy everyone, either giving them a better challenge from the start or a reason to go back and complete older content again. Rewards should be the same except perhaps for extra renown and achievements for completing things in veteran mode.
- More Hairstyles, beards and adornments
Surely not too hard to implement and it would satisfy so many people, give us the freedom to express ourselves and our characters.
To finish off I’d like to say how much I love this game and the Elder Scrolls games in general. I’ve played it originally on PC, switched to PS4 and now finally on Xbox Series X. There’s been some great times and moments in those 9 years and I hope ESO is still going strong for another 9. Thanks for reading.
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