whats a tiny nitpick about eso lore that gets under your skin?

kumenit_taeynav

im talking more about the little details about eso-specific lore or even how eso presents lore from the previous tes games. like you know theyre little and shouldnt matter *that* much but they still bother you.

for me its a single mention of drakes on Vvardenfell towards the end of a quest. drakes back in tes3 drakes were how the native dunmer referred to imperial gold coins that everyone had to use in proper business due to being colonized into the empire. like yeah sure they couldve just called it gold and have been done with it but they were called drakes due to the Red Dragon, the symbol of the 3rd empire and its might, was minted on them. i also kinda associated it with a refusal from the native dunmer to normalize using imperial coins as not everyone particularly enjoyed being colonized under threat of war. its just a neat little thing about tes3 world building that i thought was neat
then in comes esos morrowind dlc and they just drop in the term drakes for a little extra nostalgia points at the end of a quest! its not the 3rd era, talos hasnt conquered tamriel with his red dragon (the same red dragon as *the* Red Dragon mind you) and wont even be born for like another 3 centuries, and eso coins dont even have anything draconic minted on them (a chest and a crown)! i know its just one single mention at the end of a single quest in an older dlc and the devs have better things to do than fix it but i just find it irritating that tes3 world building got mangled for the sake of nostalgia here

vent your hearts out! i wanna know if im the only one who gets irritated by tiny stuff like this

Soarora

It's definitely not just you! I don't keep track of my complaints but I know common ones are the geography on the maps and how Lusty Argonian Maid is in ESO when it should not be, and I was irritated to see vale deer in Blackreach... why are they there? They're VALE deer... as far as I know The Vale isn't connected to Blackreach. If I end up with any more I'll be sure to come back here!

kumenit_taeynav

Soarora wrote: »

I know common ones are the geography on the maps

theres an addon for that called Accurate World Map made by Thal-J and Vylaera so at least the fans are picking up the slack in regards to cartography. some map pin addons (such as Lorebooks) seem wonky with it but others like Harvestmap seem completely fine.
Solstheim is comedically close to Skyrim in the official world map tho, it looks like itd barely even be a creek between the two when you compare the scale to the rest of the map.

https://www.esoui.com/downloads/info3377-AccurateWorldMap.htm

Soarora

kumenit_taeynav wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

I know common ones are the geography on the maps

theres an addon for that called Accurate World Map made by Thal-J and Vylaera so at least the fans are picking up the slack in regards to cartography. some map pin addons (such as Lorebooks) seem wonky with it but others like Harvestmap seem completely fine.
Solstheim is comedically close to Skyrim in the official world map tho, it looks like itd barely even be a creek between the two when you compare the scale to the rest of the map.

https://www.esoui.com/downloads/info3377-AccurateWorldMap.htm

Yeah!! I use it, it's amazing.

Not sure if it could be considered a nitpick more of a lore complaint but I did remember that I'm frustrated about Blackwood. I know Dagon likes to invade Nirn but I felt like adding another invasion was uncalled for. Makes the Oblivion Invasion feel less impactful. Like... oh no... Dagon invaded for like the 3rd time whatever will we do...

kumenit_taeynav

and of course it just had to be in Blackwood, a region in Cyrodiil. maybe he just really hates the Imperials specifically?

LamiaCritter

The fact that even the most mundane *** is starting to have metaphysical or supernatural implications.
Like, no.. I don't want water to literally just be liquid memory.

Same for

the stuff being revealed/implied in the Necrom MSQ. I don't want my MERE MEMORIES TO BE ACTUAL GATEWAYS TO THE PAST.

Please, devs/Zos/Bethesda.
Let mundane stuff remain mundane, I beg you.

KlauthWarthog

Metallic materials stronger than ebony are a very specific pet peeve of mine.
But, not sure if that fits into what you have in mind for the thread.

kumenit_taeynav

that fits in with my thread, tyvm for your input

NotaDaedraWorshipper

How tiny and badly portrayed the Niben River is. It bothers me so much.

They barely made any improvements with Leyawiin and the area around it either, less so related to the River. Things will be downscaled in game, but the biggest river on Tamriel, which is also the most trafficked with lots of ships going up and down daily, is portrayed the same size as much smaller rivers, and with bridges that it's impossible for ships to pass by. The book they added in Leyawiin that says they load thing from bigger ones onto smaller ones there doesn't make any sense and even goes against lore and what we see in ESO.

Then to make it even worse, with High Isle they added drawbridges.

I have so many "nitpicks" regarding Cyrodiil and Imperials in ESO beyond the Niben River. ESO could have bettered everything TES4 messed up with Cyrodiil. A nice retcon for once. But they just continued it.

The Nibenese seems to be gone along with dunmer's House Indoril and Redoran (which is another can of worms). In their place there is some generic medieval breton-ish stuff.

Valenwood's portrayal... The jungle/forest that is supposed to be one at its most primal, with giant trees which crowns blocks out most of the sun. What we got is a lot of open fields of grass with some spread out trees on it that got some of the smallest crowns ever seen for such big trees. We only see something closer to that in Selene's Web, Lair of Maarselok, and City of Ash.

kumenit_taeynav

NotaDaedraWorshipper wrote: »

I have so many "nitpicks" regarding Cyrodiil and Imperials in ESO beyond the Niben River. ESO could have bettered everything TES4 messed up with Cyrodiil. A nice retcon for once. But they just continued it.

The Nibenese seems to be gone along with dunmer's House Indoril and Redoran (which is another can of worms). In their place there is some generic medieval breton-ish stuff

it was ruined before tes4 was even released, it was ruined when todd howard watched lotr! fantastic movies, dont get me wrong, but entirely too influential on fantasy overall. ive been slowly putting together a Tamriel-wide homebrew ttrpg campaign and i vow to re-Romanize Cyrodiil lol

emilyhyoyeon

the fact that in ESO argonians are basically not reflected in the following:

''intelligence, agility, and speed, any art involving the arcane, or involving thieving and sleight of hand, reduced Fatigue loss while swimming, +5 alchemy, +15 athletics, +5 illusion, +5 medium armor, +5 mysticism, +5 spear, +5 (light) armor, +5 alchemy, +10 athletics, +5 blade, +5 hand to hand, +5 illusion, +5 mysticism, +10 (lockpicking), +5 alteration, +5 (medium) armor, +5 pickpocketing, +5 restoration, +5 sneak, +10 lockpicking''

prof-dracko

LamiaCritter wrote: »

The fact that even the most mundane *** is starting to have metaphysical or supernatural implications.
Like, no.. I don't want water to literally just be liquid memory.

Same for

the stuff being revealed/implied in the Necrom MSQ. I don't want my MERE MEMORIES TO BE ACTUAL GATEWAYS TO THE PAST.

Please, devs/Zos/Bethesda.
Let mundane stuff remain mundane, I beg you.

tbf none of that is new exactly, it's just been non-canon Kirbride stuff until ESO decided to use it. And...uh...nothing on Tamriel is mundane. Ever. I mean the gods literally killed themselves to make it and magicka pours in from the sun. It would be weirder if anything were mundane.

kumenit_taeynav

plus shadows have been magically weird since about 2004 when Shadowkey was released. you can use shadows to change the past and future.

i do think that if stuff like that is gonna get mentioned they should at least do something interesting with the concept instead of only giving it lip service tho. like the water being memories things only gets mentioned in one quest out in Bangkorai but its not exactly part of what you do in the quest outside of explaining motivations of npcs

Ratzkifal

I have a lot of big glaring issues that get under my skin that it's surprisingly difficult to think of nitpicks.

I suppose the feeding reversal in ESO is a nitpick. There was a logic to it being the other way around before.
You drink blood to regain some of the humanity that you lost, which weakens you. Go without drinking blood and your curse grows stronger, making you stronger, but also making you lose your humanity.
Now you can be a morally good vampire who refuses to drink blood and absolutely nothing will happen to you. You are basically just a mortal, except that you do gain immortality for basically free. Before, vampirism would put you in a moral dillemma where you would have to do very bad things to stay sane or go completely crazy over trying to stick to your morals.
The will-they-won't-they kind of drama of drinking blood that is so often exploited in teenage vampire fantasy had been completely flipped on its head, which is refreshing and what I like about how the Elder Scrolls portrayed it. Now the only thing distinguishing ESO's vampires from Twilight's vampires is that they don't sparkle in the sunlight, but seeing how most players are using skins to hide their vampirism they even got that front covered.

kaushad

Ratzkifal wrote: »

I have a lot of big glaring issues that get under my skin that it's surprisingly difficult to think of nitpicks.

I suppose the feeding reversal in ESO is a nitpick.

For me, the nitpick is with TESV and old ESO for making the Cyrodiilic vampires' power universal. The annoying thing about the Greymoor update was that Lamae Bal actually said that it was the norm, as opposed to an unspoken convenience for the players.

WhiteCoatSyndrome

Most of Summerset. I’ve ranted about the architecture before but it still looks like Disneyland instead of glass and insect wings. I’d have been happier if they’d just used Ayleid architecture everywhere if they couldn’t make something lore-accurate, as it is it just looks like hi-res Breton. And the Psijics are by and large idiots in ESO; they have lived in that tower of theirs for centuries and they don’t even have theories on where it came from when their whole schtick is supposed to be learning about magic! Shameful.

Elsonso

Thousands of years of stagnation.

ealdwin

Ooh boy... there's quite a few things, but it's been a fair year at least since I've dwelled on any.

The biggest one that comes to mind is base game High Rock ruins being Ayleid instead of Direnni (aka ancient Aldmer). And yes, I know they did it largely for asset reuse purposes. BUT, they also managed to differentiated between styles that used similar assets, with Ayleid using eerie blue lighting and ancient Aldmer using gold. They could have easily used the gold lighting in High Rock. OR, they could have invented a new color, say purple, to differentiate the Direnni from both. AND THEY DIDN'T! Why ZOS, why?

There's others... Craglorn introduced astrological Nedes, a cool original concept, that isn't explored further (maybe it is, haven't played in...checks notes...about a year, dang). The Magic schools both exist and don't exist in lore (a meet the character from the Dagon year mentioned proficiency in Destruction, something my characters still can't master without a stick).

Also a big one, the bridges to the Imperial City. I guess at some point the city rotates to correct itself?

I could also get going about the homogenous biomes and demographics of base game zones, but that's less a nitpick and just a general complaint about game design and some lost opportunities (oh boy, do I have thoughts there).

But yet, my major nitpick are the Ayleid Ruins in High Rock, because... agh... they're just wrong... and it didn't have to be that way... agh!

kumenit_taeynav

heres another one of my nitpicks. i dont like that Solitude is a 1:1 precise copy of how it appears in tes5

theres about a thousand years between both games. theres also been at least one major conflict in Solitude, the Siege of Solitude at the end of the War of the Red Diamond in the 3rd era. none of that seems to mean anything tho bc just about everything is where it appeared in tes5. theres still a market around the well, the forge is still at the top of the ramp, the inn is still directly next to the main gate, the bards college hasnt changed in the slightest, etc etc etc. Solitude takes more damage from a single battle in the tes5 civil war than it has in centuries with a whole siege in the mix.

colossalvoids

I guess it's progressiveness and/or caricaturisation of second era citizens compared to third and fourth era, it's always breaks the wall for me personally and seems way off. Not even talking about language used but a lot of portrayals are pretty low effort caricatures of certain narratives, no matter if I like 'em or not, it just seems not fitting in this concrete setting.

RebornV3x

One that hasn't been mentioned is portal magic...
portal magic is so inconsistent sometimes absolute no name NPCs can use portals no problem and then you have others that are completely exhausted after making a portal even experienced mages I know there a deus ex machina type thing for writers but its all over the place.

Also with portal magic so seemingly widespread why even use ships.

nerevoryn

LamiaCritter wrote: »

The fact that even the most mundane *** is starting to have metaphysical or supernatural implications.
Like, no.. I don't want water to literally just be liquid memory.

Same for

the stuff being revealed/implied in the Necrom MSQ. I don't want my MERE MEMORIES TO BE ACTUAL GATEWAYS TO THE PAST.

Please, devs/Zos/Bethesda.
Let mundane stuff remain mundane, I beg you.

It's actually pretty cool to have that canonized. The whole water=memories has been a robust theory based on MK's stuff since long before ESO was even thought of.
Another neat thing about that is that Sotha Sil is tied to the seas, and he has a daughter- while there's nothing canonically known about said daughter, MK mentioned her being the Memory that appears in c0da, it rounds things up nicely.
Sil's said to come back for Necrom but I'm doubtful they'll touch on that though.

colossalvoids

I'd agree, quite pleased with how we're getting some of MK's stuff hinted at times since IC. Tes might seem pretty mundane to people who played Skyrim only, but for me it always had a really mystical nature to it.

kumenit_taeynav

to go along with water being memories; sunlight is magicka, the sun and stars are holes to heaven punched by gods leaving the mortal plane, the continents are concepts like past/future and change/stasis. anyone who claims the moons are the rotting corpse of a dead god is a darn fool if you ask me lmao

Hurbster

Blacklight.

isadoraisacat

kumenit_taeynav wrote: »

NotaDaedraWorshipper wrote: »

I have so many "nitpicks" regarding Cyrodiil and Imperials in ESO beyond the Niben River. ESO could have bettered everything TES4 messed up with Cyrodiil. A nice retcon for once. But they just continued it.

The Nibenese seems to be gone along with dunmer's House Indoril and Redoran (which is another can of worms). In their place there is some generic medieval breton-ish stuff

it was ruined before tes4 was even released, it was ruined when todd howard watched lotr! fantastic movies, dont get me wrong, but entirely too influential on fantasy overall. ive been slowly putting together a Tamriel-wide homebrew ttrpg campaign and i vow to re-Romanize Cyrodiil lol

I agree. I love the elder scrolls arena / Daggerfall / morrowind / Skyrim - eso but I can’t stand oblivion.
It ruined the interesting jungle landscape into a boring typical British landscape. Even the oblivion gates are mini eyes of Sauron. It just feels like they took the lotr Peter Jackson craze and ran with it. Also has super corny / cheesy dialog and bad art style. I can’t believe they want from morrowind to that game.

As an Italian American I’d like to some actual Roman culture.. it barely has any.

prof-dracko

isadoraisacat wrote: »

kumenit_taeynav wrote: »

NotaDaedraWorshipper wrote: »

I have so many "nitpicks" regarding Cyrodiil and Imperials in ESO beyond the Niben River. ESO could have bettered everything TES4 messed up with Cyrodiil. A nice retcon for once. But they just continued it.

The Nibenese seems to be gone along with dunmer's House Indoril and Redoran (which is another can of worms). In their place there is some generic medieval breton-ish stuff

it was ruined before tes4 was even released, it was ruined when todd howard watched lotr! fantastic movies, dont get me wrong, but entirely too influential on fantasy overall. ive been slowly putting together a Tamriel-wide homebrew ttrpg campaign and i vow to re-Romanize Cyrodiil lol

I agree. I love the elder scrolls arena / Daggerfall / morrowind / Skyrim - eso but I can’t stand oblivion.
It ruined the interesting jungle landscape into a boring typical British landscape. Even the oblivion gates are mini eyes of Sauron. It just feels like they took the lotr Peter Jackson craze and ran with it. Also has super corny / cheesy dialog and bad art style. I can’t believe they want from morrowind to that game.

As an Italian American I’d like to some actual Roman culture.. it barely has any.

Thankfully ESO has taken a lot of Roman and Greek architectural inspirations, as well as in the armor. Still not much, really, but the Gold Coast does feel pleasantly Mediterranean.

Hurbster

Another one, my character openly discussing the Dark Brotherhood.

isadoraisacat

prof-dracko wrote: »

isadoraisacat wrote: »

kumenit_taeynav wrote: »

NotaDaedraWorshipper wrote: »

I have so many "nitpicks" regarding Cyrodiil and Imperials in ESO beyond the Niben River. ESO could have bettered everything TES4 messed up with Cyrodiil. A nice retcon for once. But they just continued it.

The Nibenese seems to be gone along with dunmer's House Indoril and Redoran (which is another can of worms). In their place there is some generic medieval breton-ish stuff

it was ruined before tes4 was even released, it was ruined when todd howard watched lotr! fantastic movies, dont get me wrong, but entirely too influential on fantasy overall. ive been slowly putting together a Tamriel-wide homebrew ttrpg campaign and i vow to re-Romanize Cyrodiil lol

I agree. I love the elder scrolls arena / Daggerfall / morrowind / Skyrim - eso but I can’t stand oblivion.
It ruined the interesting jungle landscape into a boring typical British landscape. Even the oblivion gates are mini eyes of Sauron. It just feels like they took the lotr Peter Jackson craze and ran with it. Also has super corny / cheesy dialog and bad art style. I can’t believe they want from morrowind to that game.

As an Italian American I’d like to some actual Roman culture.. it barely has any.

Thankfully ESO has taken a lot of Roman and Greek architectural inspirations, as well as in the armor. Still not much, really, but the Gold Coast does feel pleasantly Mediterranean.

They really didn’t add anything that wasn’t already in the prior games they just improved the graphics of it.
I really don’t get a Mediterranean vibe at all from this game in those areas at all. Cyrodiil feels more like the shire or typical England than it does anything Roman. But that’s Todd Howard’s fault for changing it from jungle strange to lotr boring.

Dr_Con

the justice system

how [snip] is a solitude guard going to know about what i did in hew's bane 30 seconds ago and why should they care


I can understand meridia mindwiping main people about our importance as the vestige and who we are, but guards being telepathically linked from different factions to come after you is a step too far

[edited for profanity bypass]

kumenit_taeynav

Dr_Con wrote: »

the justice system

how [snip] is a solitude guard going to know about what i did in hew's bane 30 seconds ago and why should they care

in my own humble opinion the justtice system should be broken up into alliances and independents.

if you commit a crime in Wrothgar then the guards in Sentinel are gonna be aware of you bc both regions are part of the Covenant. the guards in Murkmire on the other side of the continent prolly wouldnt care that much bc the region has ties to the Pact. the guards in Solitude wouldnt care bc the region is independent in the alliance war. id also keep the independents seperate so your bounty from Leyawiin isnt tied to your bounty in Solitude.

[edited to remove quote]