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Update 39 or 40 wishlist
richo262
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Given the 2nd half of the year is dedicated to polishing existing content I thought I'd throw in my two cents regarding content (not bug fixes, which should be prioritized over anything I write here).
Free content integration
ZOS has for some time now made Morrowind and Imperial City free to play. These bundles should be formally removed from the crown store and simply integrated into the game. Furthermore, Prison and Tower should be moved to non-DLC dungeons in all achievements, collections, stories tab and pledge givers.
Update the Planemeld story to include the IC story in the correct order. This would introduce the player into how PVP works (and teach them the value of sneak), but obviously not all players like PVP so have a mechanic that would, if the player died on the quest whilst in PVP mode, that they get ported to a unique one time instance without other players (not the whole IC map, just the specific area without other players to complete and move the story along). IC is a good story and probably doesn't have a whole of players playing it.
I have the collectors edition of both, I think it would be a nice gesture if ZOS upgrade anybody that bought them to collectors, and anybody with collectors with some crates that are IC and Morrow themed then pulled them both from the store. I personally am unphased about crates, but it is a double edge sword of free content, it makes those that did not pay happy, and some that did pay have buyers remorse. I got my moneys worth well before it went free though, I could envision somebody that bought these the day before they went free feeling buyers remorse.
Edit: Some have stated they would never go near PVP at all even if they were thrown into a PVE instance after failing. So, an option for an entirely PVE area with specific limitations ie no monster helm loot, or telvars, access to center point with Molag Bal, dailies or shard collection, but entirely for PVE to complete the quest. Once the quest line is complete the PVE instance cannot be returned to. Any loot drops, if any, are the sets found in Cold Harbor.
Game Start
Have the game start in the cold harbor prison again (I know I know, hear me out) but when the player breaks out, that is when they spawn in the new starting zone and get to choose their adventure, that way it keeps ES tradition of starting in shackles, the player gets a taste of cold harbor, it already has a better tutorial aspect, and it gets to utilise the starting aspect of any zone after the player chooses their starting adventure. It also means the player doesn't have to do a silly quest like, 'come to my secluded home and get stabbed' to start the Planemeld. They have technically already started the Planemeld even if thrown in a chapter zone, they are The Vestige by default, as they should be. The starting zones of any other region undermines the significance of the character you play in comparison to the Cold Harbor story that explains your soul related issues.
Given no new zone has a mundus stones, have the player start with a mundus stone, either at creation or talking to the NPC that shows you how to start a chapter. Can also remove all mundus stones from base game zones (except PVP) after that, have mundus stones relocated to Craglorn that are initially broken until the player completes the quest zone and restores them, given the stories entirely about mundus stones it seems fitting.
Have an option to lock a chapter by default, but can be undone. What I mean by this is if I was a new player and I started a chapter but then I got dragged off to another zone and got a bit lost, I don't want to accidently start a different story, especially when the game for some reason allows me to start an Alliance story half way through. Unticking the story lock can be undone via the journal or by default when the locked story is complete.
Base Game
What I like about the new zones is the main questing is properly structured, the base game suffers from the hubs having a quest with no regard for the players progress, you can accidently skip a quest. This means the quests directly related to the main quest are locked to players unless done in the right order, but it really is how it should have been.
Mundas removal as stated above, but also the crafting sets are in triplicate, a stay over from the time before One Tamriel. If you removed the triplicates, each zone would only have 1 unique crafting set. Move 1 from random DLC crafting set into the base game zones aiming for 2 crafting sets per zone and cull a few sets that are just garbage. I'd rather see 2 meaningful sets than 2 and 1 average per DLC. Quality over quantity, there are enough zones in the game now that allow for plenty of sets, none of which are behind a paywall if you know how to use a guild trader or a guild house.
Housing
Everytime ZOS releases a unique piece of furniture to the game that isn't in my collection tab but rather is in my inventory is destined to become more clutter in my clutter house, a small child in Murkmire dies. Remember that.
Standard housing crafting station should become collectibles, and attunement stations should become 'attunement stones'. When a player uses an attunement stone on an overland crafting set it consumes the stone but your station at home (that is a collectible like the armory station) can now craft that set. All existing attunement station should get nuked from orbit and anybody that has attuned station, the next time they log in, will find they are all gone but if they place their standard crafting station will find it is able to craft all the stations that were previously attuned.
Deconstructing furniture, antiquities too.
Antiquities and Treasure maps
15 codecs for a mythic? Why? You only need to find it once and getting 25 transmutes is 10 fold easier than grinding leads down for every character. I used to be excited when I got a lead or a treasure map, and now, they are merely spam. When I get a lead I have to check if I have found it, now there is so much spam I don't both with it unless I've pre researched it and am actively looking for it. When I get a treasure map it is often auto destroyed because in many zones they are useless.
What I would like to see is antiquities and treasure maps having more a finality, but a repeatable antiquities daily for those that enjoy it, and to be used to level alts, and also give out furniture mats. For instance, treasure maps should always give an item you don't already have therefore it is always of value, when you have collected all items from that region and have scried all leads for that zone, treasure maps simply do not drop anymore for that zone because there is no treasure left (until a new update brings more goodies). This means antiquities should rely more on collections than anything else and these new motifs should be outfit style pages or upgrade the existing drab starting motifs instead of being a new motif entirely. They are after all just better version of what already exists.
I want to get interested or excited by a new lead or treasure map. Now its just spam to ignore because it doesn't really mean anything as its just repeated over and over. I now only do mythics once and search for the get only once scries like the wolf mount.
This wouldn't even have to limit players that enjoy scrying or want to fill a house with the same antiquity multiple times. If the antiquity guild had a daily quest giver or two that gave a large bundle of furniture mats then people can keep scrying in a meaningful way and use it level alts much faster than spamming green and blue tier snot in a random zone on repeat in a mindless grind. Furthermore have a unique crafting station at the guild that allows you to make a replica of anything you have completed the codecs for, after all the game told me everything I've found went there for research. If anything the player shouldn't even get the item from antiquities but instead learns how to make a replica of it, the more codecs they have (the more research has been done) the cheaper and more efficient it is to replicate. Leaving the original piece at the guild where they belong. The player house hall of antiquities is where the original would be kept.
If collecting something meant actually collecting it the completionist in me would want to do it, if the game tells me its a never ending cycle, then I see no point in even starting it, unless its a mythic I'm after or something I know has actual finality.
Mages Guild Lost Lore Books
Psijic is enough of a grind and its fine, it gets you shards and mage books along the way, but when the game relies on too much tedium to justify player progression it starts to wane. It becomes a bit redundant when you can do both tedious quests in tandem.
Some players love the fact that achievements are account wide and some do not, I prefer it. So to keep both camps happy if the mages guild books were an account wide collectible (again, hear me out) that when a character has collected them all, and returned the Eyevea then the mages guild there is restored and it is now a bookshelf you can interact with. For the alts of an account with a fully collected mages guild, when they finish the mages guild Shalidor merely says he will send an apprentice to fetch them (you already did). This bookshelf allows a player to sync their achievements, lore books, motifs, recipes, companion status, etc and any character that interacts with it and 'CONFIRMS' they want to, it will sync whatever they wish, or do not wish to sync. Save for things such as account wide collections and crown purchases that are clearly already sync'ed and not going anywhere.
Mages guild XP - replaced with a better repeatable (not daily) public dungeon quest that instructs the player to complete a public dungeon quest, collect the skyshard, and also kill the group boss that will afford a skill point. This is not a daily, you can pick up another straight away, it is tied to each public dungeon, you do not need to wait 24 hours in the same grinding FG XP doesn't have you wait 24 hours when killing daedra. Cash in your Mages guild quest and grab another one. It will repeat until the player has no public dungeons left to do, mages guild should be at 10 before then but the player can still use it to hunt down group bosses. If the player has already done the public dungeon then the player will inform them it is already done and be afforded the XP.
Given the mages guild is known for having an ear to the ground and being aware of what is going on in Tamriel, I think another source of mage XP should be a quest giver at the mages guild that sends you to go find an NPC that will give a prologue quest. That way ZOS doesn't have to litter every capital with new NPC's and have Stuga chase you down the street everytime they wish to tell a new story. Mages guild should be the go to, like a tavern, for new stories, ever ride by and see a quest at the mages guild? ZOS has something new.
This way, the Mages Guild XP farm actually gets the player Mages XP and Skill points, and is actually a worthwhile thing to do.
Updated - Some other things to add, and I was reminded of another (surveys) by BloodyStigmata.
Surveys
BloodyStigmata reminded me of another system I used to advocate for (I still do) but I was thinking since the companion system there is something that can be leveraged here.
I used to say that there should be a single node that you can interact with and all your surveys get completed, but now, with the companion system I'd like to see them utilised here when not in use.
When talking to a companion and the player has a survey in their inventory a new dialogue appears 'I have a job for you', where a trade window will open and a player can deposit a certain amount of surveys into them. When accepted the companion is no longer available for a determined time, an ideal thing to do at the end of a gaming session. The companion also has a particular hobby they enjoy unique to them, and a favorite zone. For instance, if Mirri's hobby is plants and likes the EP zones, then sending her to an EP zone to complete 5 blacksmith surveys will increase her chance of returning with alchemy mats too. If Bastions hobby is fishing and likes the DC zones, then sending him to the DC zones to complete surveys will increase his chance of returning with fish and a small chance of Roe (higher if more fishing achieves is present on the account) as the companions stop to admire the scenery. Ember however, if you send her to a zone she is not fond of may feel the need to pick some pockets along the way returning with some gold as she has already fenced the items.
We have been using a hireling this entire time (that we have never paid mind you) but the companion system could over rule the hirelings and give some additional benefits based on the personalities and traits of the companion rendering the hirelings redundant email spam. Replaced with a better and more interactive system.
After the timer is complete and the companion returns all mats acquired should be sent to the players craft bag regardless of subscription. Non-ESO members still have to refine it which will end up in their inventory. The reason for the craft bag is simple. When a companion returns the player is notified, with a sound and a message in the top corner, and the craft bag haul is presented in the bottom corner as it fills up.
The player may be mid dungeon or busy or not even logged in and to dump in their inventory would be a major inconvenience. Also given the significance of the haul a player with a full email list may lose some major loot. If it was just a quick dump into the craft bag, it is clean and no messing around with clunky systems. Non-members will still have to refine many of the mats pulling them out of the bag.
Companion specialization
After hitting level 20 and full rapport, an option to specialize the companion and give it a mind of its own. Just because I give Bastion a bow doesn't mean he wants to use it, he may natively be a tank. If I specialize Bastion he now gathers his own loot and will over time upgrade himself (based on a reasonable drop rate) the cost is however that he can no longer be equipped with the weapons I want him to use. The more purple gear he has prior to specialization the faster he will specialize. You can add blue and purple gear to speed up the process. You will lose the gear once he he has replaced it with gear unique to his path. Once he finds his favorite equipment he will not accept you giving him anything else.
Specialization has a more gear orientated quest, it may be to complete Black Rose prison and if you complete it with the quest active he'll be there to loot and get a unique sword and board (Perfected if that is unlocked in your collectibles). Or to give him a mythic item, or to craft him a set (or give him the mats to do so would be easier given standard items don't fit, then take him to a crafting station). Not all of what I am describing for each companion, just something unique to each. I can see that as companions become more abundant that we'd probably be trying to specialise them naturally anyway and use them for specific roles only. Specialization can only be done at max rapport and will remove the rapport system as it is locked in so you no longer get nagged. You could literally sit in front of Mirri and pull the wings off torchbugs and she wouldn't mind, might even join in.
At a certain point the companion, may, if their personality fits, want to join a guild (more on why later).
Removal of assistance in lieu of companions. I'm not saying take away everyones assistants over night, just stop releasing them and instead convert a banker into 'Banker Functionality'. If you have purchased 'Banker Functionality' then your companion will now be able to be your Banker, Merchant, Armorer or Smuggler (if they have questionable or no morals). The game would need provide a base game companion for this. So move the clockwork automaton reconstruction fetch quest to Morrowind, nHOF entrance. The player then has to rebuild the automaton and now unlocks it as a very base line, no hobbies, companion that can provide services, it is pre specialised and will not take weapons, will use its fist or a steam attack and auto upgrade its own gear and will level, at max level it gets 'Crafting assistant perk' where crafting Food now provides 5, Potions 5, Alchemy 20 at max level. As it is specialised and finds its own gear, I suspect calling this companion will be much faster than present companions as it has to look up a great deal less.
With companion specialisation if a player has a specialised companion then the game will know its load out ahead of time, if your Tank quits or drops out then the game will know to automatically spawn your highest level specialised companion that is a tank. It can also be clever by comparing the load out of gear or everybodies Bastion and give the best of all. For instance, Player A has a higher specialised level of Bastion, but Player B has unlocked Bastions unique weapon, then it will merge both higher level and unique weapons. It will be 'our' Bastion.
Thieves Guild and Undaunted
I'm not saying they should, but given periodically older DLC has gone free to play, if they were to do another then, coinciding with a trial finder, it should be the Thieves guild. Upon completing the thieves guild instead of getting a Smuggler assistant the account unlocks Smugger functionality, as far as I'm concerned Ember is everything the smugger should be, yet cannot smuggle. Your new C3PO companion at the base game also has no morals and will smuggle for you too. Essentially completing both of those will give you a companion that smuggles and could also merch and bank and squire for you.
If the thieves guild ever goes free to play, roll Legerdemain and Thieves Guild into one single tree where lock picking will level your Thieves Guild.
This is where I may tickle people the wrong way, remove the Undaunted Guild (I cannot find any lore in other ES games for this) and have the fighters guild deal with pledges, any character that has purchased an Undaunted free ride will get a FG ride for free. All Undaunted skills get reworked to a more Theives orientated skill and the Thieves guild gets its own skilled tree now.
Examples
Inner fire - Becomes 'Distract' where you distract an enemy away from others to gain their attention.
Webs - Becomes a 'Sticky bomb' to immobilise hostiles
Necrotic Orb should probably be renamed, reworked and replace Mend Wounds in the Psijic line, it might be putting a common heal skill behind a pay wall but the Psijic really is average these days. The healing logic is the time orb is reversing the damage done to your ally, the damage morph logic is the orb is decaying (speeding up time) on your enemy. Both time related.
Blood altar should probably be a vampire thing if I'm being honest. That is the other thing about Undaunted, it's thematically all over the place, are they vampires? Spider worshippers? Necromancers? Their skills to their lore is just weird when you think about it.
The fighters guild now plays a prominent role in many dungeons.
The Soul Magic Tree if Thieves goes free
The soul magic tree is very niche and with the introduction of new chapters unrelated to this it likely many players will take their time in unlocking or not understanding it.
It contains an Ultimate, 1 skill (which had a moment of being good but not really anymore compared to mages guild degen) and a series of passives that is clearly for newer players, that they may never even benefit from given they are off doing another chapter. Those passives are if you are almost dead you'll soul explode giving you a last shot of survival or skip gem cost, which for many, by the time they get to that they'll have more gems than they know what to do with.
Scrap the existing Soul magic tree and merge and rework the Soul ultimate to the Thieves guild, replace Soul with Shadow magic themes.
Add the soul gem related perks to the Enchanting tree, not as new perks but as additional bonuses when leveling the primary enchant tree, at max enchant tree you have a chance of filling an empty gem.
Unless ZOS intends to buff the soul skill in the soul tree, it is remade redundant with the Enchant Passives and Degeneracy in Mages Guild.
That way if ZOS wishes players to go off and do other chapters at start, the main quest is no longer hiding particular trees that ultimately is beginner focused, if the useful stuff is moved to enchant/thieves ZOS can ultimately clean out the skill tree.
FYI my desire to condense existing content is for efficiency and cleaning it up, but also to pave a path for future trees.
Dungeon love
City of Ash, Fungal Grotto, Crypt of Hearts, Banished Cells, Darkshade etc all have 2 versions of the same dungeon, with a differing story. Rework these dungeons to just have 1 of each trying to encompass the complete story. This system was introduced long ago with 1 being normal and 2 being veteran. It is repetitive.
If they were merged into 1 singular dungeon then some monster masks would get removed and there would be a skill point issue. It would require some creativity a buffs to the remaining monster sets. Having Spell Scar converted into a dungeon would allow for a Monster set to be rebranded and allow the player to recollect at least 1 skill point.
City of Ash 2 should be converted into a beginners trial and drop a Perfected version of the COA gear. Perhaps not even have a Veteran version but make normal what is considered a 'casual but hard' introduction into trials. The Perfected gear should not be amazing tier but exist to show newer players trial setups and how there are Perfected versions of equipment in the game. To encourage older players to do this content in random and not auto quit, if they have completed their collectibles in COA2, then either a Nirn trait or several random overworld weapons they have not yet collected will drop instead.
Rework base game dungeons to the standard of DLC dungeons. In DLC dungeons there is a story giver on rails, you interact at the beginning and end and nothing in the middle. This is great as it prevents bugs and essential and unnecessary interactions that can cause the game to bug out. For instance, on Tempest if a player forgets to poke the crystal the quest giver will stand there until the heat death of the universe before she will move onto to the next one with you. If Tempest was a DLC dungeon, the NPC would be the one to destroy the crystal. The adds on the beach would all agro and charge at you or least not break the game if they were not cleared, you wouldn't need to talk to the NPC after clearing the beach, the NPC would be on rails and progress while talking to you as you play it. Having a boss on Darkshade 1 right beside the quest giver, that usually only becomes apparent after the final boss is dead and half the party has left is just insane.
ZOS should take the time to explore why it is that many players simply quit Ruins of Maz and Wolfhunter Keep if their random roll lands on it. Personally I think its a time commitment and they ultimately lose their enjoyability compared to others. Advocating for less content might sound weird but this is a situation of less is more, and there is a formula that works and those two dungeons fail that. I think certain dungeons need to be reworked to be a little shorter. This could be simply removing the waves of adds section in Maz and just getting to the next boss. For instance if the ideal formula is Adds, Boss, Adds, Boss, Adds, Final boss. Maz has Adds, Boss, Adds, Boss, Adds, Adds, Adds, Boss, Silly and slow button clicker, Final Boss.
All dungeons should have their story told on rails with no direct interaction with an NPC throughout it just leads to bugs, progress loss, and half the group running off. It is a matter of show, don't tell, or if you want to tell, tell while we are moving. This method has a story mode people have advocated for built in if they know how to use it right. Enter a dungeon before you que for it, talk to the NPC first, go through all the dialogue. Then leave and reque, play the dungeon with a group with subtitles on and at the end you have plenty of time to talk to the NPC at the end now.
The other thing that can be utilised by having the new standard in DLC dungeons of NPC quest giver on rails is have that NPC should be interactable prior to boss fights and if the group has unlocked Merch, Bank or Armorer that NPC can do those functions for you, so the companion system can replace the assistant system, and it doesn't matter than you cannot call a companion (outside of replacing a role of a disconnected player) as the NPC in every trial/dungeon can serve that function, might be a bit odd that a complete stranger will be sending your gear off to a bank, but so is wishing a banker in out of thin air. It also removes banker clutter from dungeons and trials.
Off tank normal trials and companions
I do not advocate for this in Veteran content, but a simple math check on this makes me wonder how a random trial finder would work when a trial may require two tanks. Will all trials seek out two tanks? Will the game tell you who the main tank is and the off tank is? How will a complete random PUG group manage who goes through the gate and who takes the high road in Hel Ra?
Solution, have X Tank companion that has joined the Fighters guild be off tank in NORMAL trials, this becomes a test of healer as the companion will do the less demanding tasks but will require healing. The companion can also give a little speech and notify and separate the group on their roles, and also provide a brief tutorial on what is ahead. If the companion has said 'follow me' to the player and runs up the side entrance on Hel Ra then an invisi wall will block you from going under and a quest marker will be on the companion. If the companion says 'storm the gate!' then the quest marker will appear at the gate and you will have an invisi wall blocking you from going up with the Companion. The companion will randomly select a healer and 5 DPS, to follow him with the remaining going below. The companion will adequately, with enough heals do his job upstairs but suffer an injury and no proceed with you to the final boss. On Vet, you get no help from the companion.
This does not apply in Veteran trials and there should be no 'random Veteran'.
This way all random normals can easily run the formula of 1 tank 2 heals 9 dps, and if it lands on a trial where an off tank is summoned the actual guild does its job and sends assistance.
Side note, if the Thieves guild played a more prominent role in skills, I could see a rush to grab the chests in a dungeon / trial so have it so that if you unlock the chest you get 100% of TG XP, but if you see a group member do it, you get 50%. Bit like Daedra hunting in a group affords XP to all for FG.
Edited by richo262 on May 11, 2023 2:44AM Free content integration
ZOS has for some time now made Morrowind and Imperial City free to play. These bundles should be formally removed from the crown store and simply integrated into the game. Furthermore, Prison and Tower should be moved to non-DLC dungeons in all achievements, collections, stories tab and pledge givers.
Update the Planemeld story to include the IC story in the correct order. This would introduce the player into how PVP works (and teach them the value of sneak), but obviously not all players like PVP so have a mechanic that would, if the player died on the quest whilst in PVP mode, that they get ported to a unique one time instance without other players (not the whole IC map, just the specific area without other players to complete and move the story along). IC is a good story and probably doesn't have a whole of players playing it.
I have the collectors edition of both, I think it would be a nice gesture if ZOS upgrade anybody that bought them to collectors, and anybody with collectors with some crates that are IC and Morrow themed then pulled them both from the store. I personally am unphased about crates, but it is a double edge sword of free content, it makes those that did not pay happy, and some that did pay have buyers remorse. I got my moneys worth well before it went free though, I could envision somebody that bought these the day before they went free feeling buyers remorse.
Edit: Some have stated they would never go near PVP at all even if they were thrown into a PVE instance after failing. So, an option for an entirely PVE area with specific limitations ie no monster helm loot, or telvars, access to center point with Molag Bal, dailies or shard collection, but entirely for PVE to complete the quest. Once the quest line is complete the PVE instance cannot be returned to. Any loot drops, if any, are the sets found in Cold Harbor.
Game Start
Have the game start in the cold harbor prison again (I know I know, hear me out) but when the player breaks out, that is when they spawn in the new starting zone and get to choose their adventure, that way it keeps ES tradition of starting in shackles, the player gets a taste of cold harbor, it already has a better tutorial aspect, and it gets to utilise the starting aspect of any zone after the player chooses their starting adventure. It also means the player doesn't have to do a silly quest like, 'come to my secluded home and get stabbed' to start the Planemeld. They have technically already started the Planemeld even if thrown in a chapter zone, they are The Vestige by default, as they should be. The starting zones of any other region undermines the significance of the character you play in comparison to the Cold Harbor story that explains your soul related issues.
Given no new zone has a mundus stones, have the player start with a mundus stone, either at creation or talking to the NPC that shows you how to start a chapter. Can also remove all mundus stones from base game zones (except PVP) after that, have mundus stones relocated to Craglorn that are initially broken until the player completes the quest zone and restores them, given the stories entirely about mundus stones it seems fitting.
Have an option to lock a chapter by default, but can be undone. What I mean by this is if I was a new player and I started a chapter but then I got dragged off to another zone and got a bit lost, I don't want to accidently start a different story, especially when the game for some reason allows me to start an Alliance story half way through. Unticking the story lock can be undone via the journal or by default when the locked story is complete.
Base Game
What I like about the new zones is the main questing is properly structured, the base game suffers from the hubs having a quest with no regard for the players progress, you can accidently skip a quest. This means the quests directly related to the main quest are locked to players unless done in the right order, but it really is how it should have been.
Mundas removal as stated above, but also the crafting sets are in triplicate, a stay over from the time before One Tamriel. If you removed the triplicates, each zone would only have 1 unique crafting set. Move 1 from random DLC crafting set into the base game zones aiming for 2 crafting sets per zone and cull a few sets that are just garbage. I'd rather see 2 meaningful sets than 2 and 1 average per DLC. Quality over quantity, there are enough zones in the game now that allow for plenty of sets, none of which are behind a paywall if you know how to use a guild trader or a guild house.
Housing
Everytime ZOS releases a unique piece of furniture to the game that isn't in my collection tab but rather is in my inventory is destined to become more clutter in my clutter house, a small child in Murkmire dies. Remember that.
Standard housing crafting station should become collectibles, and attunement stations should become 'attunement stones'. When a player uses an attunement stone on an overland crafting set it consumes the stone but your station at home (that is a collectible like the armory station) can now craft that set. All existing attunement station should get nuked from orbit and anybody that has attuned station, the next time they log in, will find they are all gone but if they place their standard crafting station will find it is able to craft all the stations that were previously attuned.
Deconstructing furniture, antiquities too.
Antiquities and Treasure maps
15 codecs for a mythic? Why? You only need to find it once and getting 25 transmutes is 10 fold easier than grinding leads down for every character. I used to be excited when I got a lead or a treasure map, and now, they are merely spam. When I get a lead I have to check if I have found it, now there is so much spam I don't both with it unless I've pre researched it and am actively looking for it. When I get a treasure map it is often auto destroyed because in many zones they are useless.
What I would like to see is antiquities and treasure maps having more a finality, but a repeatable antiquities daily for those that enjoy it, and to be used to level alts, and also give out furniture mats. For instance, treasure maps should always give an item you don't already have therefore it is always of value, when you have collected all items from that region and have scried all leads for that zone, treasure maps simply do not drop anymore for that zone because there is no treasure left (until a new update brings more goodies). This means antiquities should rely more on collections than anything else and these new motifs should be outfit style pages or upgrade the existing drab starting motifs instead of being a new motif entirely. They are after all just better version of what already exists.
I want to get interested or excited by a new lead or treasure map. Now its just spam to ignore because it doesn't really mean anything as its just repeated over and over. I now only do mythics once and search for the get only once scries like the wolf mount.
This wouldn't even have to limit players that enjoy scrying or want to fill a house with the same antiquity multiple times. If the antiquity guild had a daily quest giver or two that gave a large bundle of furniture mats then people can keep scrying in a meaningful way and use it level alts much faster than spamming green and blue tier snot in a random zone on repeat in a mindless grind. Furthermore have a unique crafting station at the guild that allows you to make a replica of anything you have completed the codecs for, after all the game told me everything I've found went there for research. If anything the player shouldn't even get the item from antiquities but instead learns how to make a replica of it, the more codecs they have (the more research has been done) the cheaper and more efficient it is to replicate. Leaving the original piece at the guild where they belong. The player house hall of antiquities is where the original would be kept.
If collecting something meant actually collecting it the completionist in me would want to do it, if the game tells me its a never ending cycle, then I see no point in even starting it, unless its a mythic I'm after or something I know has actual finality.
Mages Guild Lost Lore Books
Psijic is enough of a grind and its fine, it gets you shards and mage books along the way, but when the game relies on too much tedium to justify player progression it starts to wane. It becomes a bit redundant when you can do both tedious quests in tandem.
Some players love the fact that achievements are account wide and some do not, I prefer it. So to keep both camps happy if the mages guild books were an account wide collectible (again, hear me out) that when a character has collected them all, and returned the Eyevea then the mages guild there is restored and it is now a bookshelf you can interact with. For the alts of an account with a fully collected mages guild, when they finish the mages guild Shalidor merely says he will send an apprentice to fetch them (you already did). This bookshelf allows a player to sync their achievements, lore books, motifs, recipes, companion status, etc and any character that interacts with it and 'CONFIRMS' they want to, it will sync whatever they wish, or do not wish to sync. Save for things such as account wide collections and crown purchases that are clearly already sync'ed and not going anywhere.
Mages guild XP - replaced with a better repeatable (not daily) public dungeon quest that instructs the player to complete a public dungeon quest, collect the skyshard, and also kill the group boss that will afford a skill point. This is not a daily, you can pick up another straight away, it is tied to each public dungeon, you do not need to wait 24 hours in the same grinding FG XP doesn't have you wait 24 hours when killing daedra. Cash in your Mages guild quest and grab another one. It will repeat until the player has no public dungeons left to do, mages guild should be at 10 before then but the player can still use it to hunt down group bosses. If the player has already done the public dungeon then the player will inform them it is already done and be afforded the XP.
Given the mages guild is known for having an ear to the ground and being aware of what is going on in Tamriel, I think another source of mage XP should be a quest giver at the mages guild that sends you to go find an NPC that will give a prologue quest. That way ZOS doesn't have to litter every capital with new NPC's and have Stuga chase you down the street everytime they wish to tell a new story. Mages guild should be the go to, like a tavern, for new stories, ever ride by and see a quest at the mages guild? ZOS has something new.
This way, the Mages Guild XP farm actually gets the player Mages XP and Skill points, and is actually a worthwhile thing to do.
Updated - Some other things to add, and I was reminded of another (surveys) by BloodyStigmata.
Surveys
BloodyStigmata reminded me of another system I used to advocate for (I still do) but I was thinking since the companion system there is something that can be leveraged here.
I used to say that there should be a single node that you can interact with and all your surveys get completed, but now, with the companion system I'd like to see them utilised here when not in use.
When talking to a companion and the player has a survey in their inventory a new dialogue appears 'I have a job for you', where a trade window will open and a player can deposit a certain amount of surveys into them. When accepted the companion is no longer available for a determined time, an ideal thing to do at the end of a gaming session. The companion also has a particular hobby they enjoy unique to them, and a favorite zone. For instance, if Mirri's hobby is plants and likes the EP zones, then sending her to an EP zone to complete 5 blacksmith surveys will increase her chance of returning with alchemy mats too. If Bastions hobby is fishing and likes the DC zones, then sending him to the DC zones to complete surveys will increase his chance of returning with fish and a small chance of Roe (higher if more fishing achieves is present on the account) as the companions stop to admire the scenery. Ember however, if you send her to a zone she is not fond of may feel the need to pick some pockets along the way returning with some gold as she has already fenced the items.
We have been using a hireling this entire time (that we have never paid mind you) but the companion system could over rule the hirelings and give some additional benefits based on the personalities and traits of the companion rendering the hirelings redundant email spam. Replaced with a better and more interactive system.
After the timer is complete and the companion returns all mats acquired should be sent to the players craft bag regardless of subscription. Non-ESO members still have to refine it which will end up in their inventory. The reason for the craft bag is simple. When a companion returns the player is notified, with a sound and a message in the top corner, and the craft bag haul is presented in the bottom corner as it fills up.
The player may be mid dungeon or busy or not even logged in and to dump in their inventory would be a major inconvenience. Also given the significance of the haul a player with a full email list may lose some major loot. If it was just a quick dump into the craft bag, it is clean and no messing around with clunky systems. Non-members will still have to refine many of the mats pulling them out of the bag.
Companion specialization
After hitting level 20 and full rapport, an option to specialize the companion and give it a mind of its own. Just because I give Bastion a bow doesn't mean he wants to use it, he may natively be a tank. If I specialize Bastion he now gathers his own loot and will over time upgrade himself (based on a reasonable drop rate) the cost is however that he can no longer be equipped with the weapons I want him to use. The more purple gear he has prior to specialization the faster he will specialize. You can add blue and purple gear to speed up the process. You will lose the gear once he he has replaced it with gear unique to his path. Once he finds his favorite equipment he will not accept you giving him anything else.
Specialization has a more gear orientated quest, it may be to complete Black Rose prison and if you complete it with the quest active he'll be there to loot and get a unique sword and board (Perfected if that is unlocked in your collectibles). Or to give him a mythic item, or to craft him a set (or give him the mats to do so would be easier given standard items don't fit, then take him to a crafting station). Not all of what I am describing for each companion, just something unique to each. I can see that as companions become more abundant that we'd probably be trying to specialise them naturally anyway and use them for specific roles only. Specialization can only be done at max rapport and will remove the rapport system as it is locked in so you no longer get nagged. You could literally sit in front of Mirri and pull the wings off torchbugs and she wouldn't mind, might even join in.
At a certain point the companion, may, if their personality fits, want to join a guild (more on why later).
Removal of assistance in lieu of companions. I'm not saying take away everyones assistants over night, just stop releasing them and instead convert a banker into 'Banker Functionality'. If you have purchased 'Banker Functionality' then your companion will now be able to be your Banker, Merchant, Armorer or Smuggler (if they have questionable or no morals). The game would need provide a base game companion for this. So move the clockwork automaton reconstruction fetch quest to Morrowind, nHOF entrance. The player then has to rebuild the automaton and now unlocks it as a very base line, no hobbies, companion that can provide services, it is pre specialised and will not take weapons, will use its fist or a steam attack and auto upgrade its own gear and will level, at max level it gets 'Crafting assistant perk' where crafting Food now provides 5, Potions 5, Alchemy 20 at max level. As it is specialised and finds its own gear, I suspect calling this companion will be much faster than present companions as it has to look up a great deal less.
With companion specialisation if a player has a specialised companion then the game will know its load out ahead of time, if your Tank quits or drops out then the game will know to automatically spawn your highest level specialised companion that is a tank. It can also be clever by comparing the load out of gear or everybodies Bastion and give the best of all. For instance, Player A has a higher specialised level of Bastion, but Player B has unlocked Bastions unique weapon, then it will merge both higher level and unique weapons. It will be 'our' Bastion.
Thieves Guild and Undaunted
I'm not saying they should, but given periodically older DLC has gone free to play, if they were to do another then, coinciding with a trial finder, it should be the Thieves guild. Upon completing the thieves guild instead of getting a Smuggler assistant the account unlocks Smugger functionality, as far as I'm concerned Ember is everything the smugger should be, yet cannot smuggle. Your new C3PO companion at the base game also has no morals and will smuggle for you too. Essentially completing both of those will give you a companion that smuggles and could also merch and bank and squire for you.
If the thieves guild ever goes free to play, roll Legerdemain and Thieves Guild into one single tree where lock picking will level your Thieves Guild.
This is where I may tickle people the wrong way, remove the Undaunted Guild (I cannot find any lore in other ES games for this) and have the fighters guild deal with pledges, any character that has purchased an Undaunted free ride will get a FG ride for free. All Undaunted skills get reworked to a more Theives orientated skill and the Thieves guild gets its own skilled tree now.
Examples
Inner fire - Becomes 'Distract' where you distract an enemy away from others to gain their attention.
Webs - Becomes a 'Sticky bomb' to immobilise hostiles
Necrotic Orb should probably be renamed, reworked and replace Mend Wounds in the Psijic line, it might be putting a common heal skill behind a pay wall but the Psijic really is average these days. The healing logic is the time orb is reversing the damage done to your ally, the damage morph logic is the orb is decaying (speeding up time) on your enemy. Both time related.
Blood altar should probably be a vampire thing if I'm being honest. That is the other thing about Undaunted, it's thematically all over the place, are they vampires? Spider worshippers? Necromancers? Their skills to their lore is just weird when you think about it.
The fighters guild now plays a prominent role in many dungeons.
The Soul Magic Tree if Thieves goes free
The soul magic tree is very niche and with the introduction of new chapters unrelated to this it likely many players will take their time in unlocking or not understanding it.
It contains an Ultimate, 1 skill (which had a moment of being good but not really anymore compared to mages guild degen) and a series of passives that is clearly for newer players, that they may never even benefit from given they are off doing another chapter. Those passives are if you are almost dead you'll soul explode giving you a last shot of survival or skip gem cost, which for many, by the time they get to that they'll have more gems than they know what to do with.
Scrap the existing Soul magic tree and merge and rework the Soul ultimate to the Thieves guild, replace Soul with Shadow magic themes.
Add the soul gem related perks to the Enchanting tree, not as new perks but as additional bonuses when leveling the primary enchant tree, at max enchant tree you have a chance of filling an empty gem.
Unless ZOS intends to buff the soul skill in the soul tree, it is remade redundant with the Enchant Passives and Degeneracy in Mages Guild.
That way if ZOS wishes players to go off and do other chapters at start, the main quest is no longer hiding particular trees that ultimately is beginner focused, if the useful stuff is moved to enchant/thieves ZOS can ultimately clean out the skill tree.
FYI my desire to condense existing content is for efficiency and cleaning it up, but also to pave a path for future trees.
Dungeon love
City of Ash, Fungal Grotto, Crypt of Hearts, Banished Cells, Darkshade etc all have 2 versions of the same dungeon, with a differing story. Rework these dungeons to just have 1 of each trying to encompass the complete story. This system was introduced long ago with 1 being normal and 2 being veteran. It is repetitive.
If they were merged into 1 singular dungeon then some monster masks would get removed and there would be a skill point issue. It would require some creativity a buffs to the remaining monster sets. Having Spell Scar converted into a dungeon would allow for a Monster set to be rebranded and allow the player to recollect at least 1 skill point.
City of Ash 2 should be converted into a beginners trial and drop a Perfected version of the COA gear. Perhaps not even have a Veteran version but make normal what is considered a 'casual but hard' introduction into trials. The Perfected gear should not be amazing tier but exist to show newer players trial setups and how there are Perfected versions of equipment in the game. To encourage older players to do this content in random and not auto quit, if they have completed their collectibles in COA2, then either a Nirn trait or several random overworld weapons they have not yet collected will drop instead.
Rework base game dungeons to the standard of DLC dungeons. In DLC dungeons there is a story giver on rails, you interact at the beginning and end and nothing in the middle. This is great as it prevents bugs and essential and unnecessary interactions that can cause the game to bug out. For instance, on Tempest if a player forgets to poke the crystal the quest giver will stand there until the heat death of the universe before she will move onto to the next one with you. If Tempest was a DLC dungeon, the NPC would be the one to destroy the crystal. The adds on the beach would all agro and charge at you or least not break the game if they were not cleared, you wouldn't need to talk to the NPC after clearing the beach, the NPC would be on rails and progress while talking to you as you play it. Having a boss on Darkshade 1 right beside the quest giver, that usually only becomes apparent after the final boss is dead and half the party has left is just insane.
ZOS should take the time to explore why it is that many players simply quit Ruins of Maz and Wolfhunter Keep if their random roll lands on it. Personally I think its a time commitment and they ultimately lose their enjoyability compared to others. Advocating for less content might sound weird but this is a situation of less is more, and there is a formula that works and those two dungeons fail that. I think certain dungeons need to be reworked to be a little shorter. This could be simply removing the waves of adds section in Maz and just getting to the next boss. For instance if the ideal formula is Adds, Boss, Adds, Boss, Adds, Final boss. Maz has Adds, Boss, Adds, Boss, Adds, Adds, Adds, Boss, Silly and slow button clicker, Final Boss.
All dungeons should have their story told on rails with no direct interaction with an NPC throughout it just leads to bugs, progress loss, and half the group running off. It is a matter of show, don't tell, or if you want to tell, tell while we are moving. This method has a story mode people have advocated for built in if they know how to use it right. Enter a dungeon before you que for it, talk to the NPC first, go through all the dialogue. Then leave and reque, play the dungeon with a group with subtitles on and at the end you have plenty of time to talk to the NPC at the end now.
The other thing that can be utilised by having the new standard in DLC dungeons of NPC quest giver on rails is have that NPC should be interactable prior to boss fights and if the group has unlocked Merch, Bank or Armorer that NPC can do those functions for you, so the companion system can replace the assistant system, and it doesn't matter than you cannot call a companion (outside of replacing a role of a disconnected player) as the NPC in every trial/dungeon can serve that function, might be a bit odd that a complete stranger will be sending your gear off to a bank, but so is wishing a banker in out of thin air. It also removes banker clutter from dungeons and trials.
Off tank normal trials and companions
I do not advocate for this in Veteran content, but a simple math check on this makes me wonder how a random trial finder would work when a trial may require two tanks. Will all trials seek out two tanks? Will the game tell you who the main tank is and the off tank is? How will a complete random PUG group manage who goes through the gate and who takes the high road in Hel Ra?
Solution, have X Tank companion that has joined the Fighters guild be off tank in NORMAL trials, this becomes a test of healer as the companion will do the less demanding tasks but will require healing. The companion can also give a little speech and notify and separate the group on their roles, and also provide a brief tutorial on what is ahead. If the companion has said 'follow me' to the player and runs up the side entrance on Hel Ra then an invisi wall will block you from going under and a quest marker will be on the companion. If the companion says 'storm the gate!' then the quest marker will appear at the gate and you will have an invisi wall blocking you from going up with the Companion. The companion will randomly select a healer and 5 DPS, to follow him with the remaining going below. The companion will adequately, with enough heals do his job upstairs but suffer an injury and no proceed with you to the final boss. On Vet, you get no help from the companion.
This does not apply in Veteran trials and there should be no 'random Veteran'.
This way all random normals can easily run the formula of 1 tank 2 heals 9 dps, and if it lands on a trial where an off tank is summoned the actual guild does its job and sends assistance.
Side note, if the Thieves guild played a more prominent role in skills, I could see a rush to grab the chests in a dungeon / trial so have it so that if you unlock the chest you get 100% of TG XP, but if you see a group member do it, you get 50%. Bit like Daedra hunting in a group affords XP to all for FG.
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Gray_howling_parrot✭✭✭✭✭
✭All great ideas!
I’d love a few features to be added - not complex by any means, but selfishly would make me, and I think many other players, happy!
1. An update to random dungeon daily XP/transmute rates! Incentivize random veterans and veteran content by increasing the rewards! I think the XP for random veterans should be 1.5x higher than it currently is and XP for random normals decreased by 25%. I also think transmutes for random veterans should be 20.
2. Add a random normal DLC and random veteran DLC queue! I’ve run the base game dungeons so many times it’s unbelievable - the only enjoyable one to me at this point is vaults of madness
3. Add another pledge giver or 2 for DLC content
4. Id like an in game merchant converter than takes gold, other resources like tel var, transmutes, etc and allows you to trade for crowns
5. More gold sinks in the game outside of housing
6. Crown store skip for excavation/scrying
ESO YouTube Content Creator & Templar Tank/Healer Main0 -
BloodyStigmata✭✭✭✭✭
✭Just let me harvest all surveys in a stack at once when I go to collect them, please and thank you.Owner and proprietor of the Northern Elsweyr Guar Reserve and The Hunting Grounds Guar Reserve, Tamriel's home to all things guar.See the embedded brochures for all information regarding our reserves, as well as our collection status!4 -
LunaFlora✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭stuga is only for the orsinium story. and she doesn't chase me anymore as far as i know. in update 38 she won't even be outside anymore but instead will be in taverns.
the codex is just lore really. for furniture getting all the codex entries means you can buy the antiquity at achievement furniture merchants. mythics aren't furniture so there's no downside to more codex entries. if you get more leads you don't have to spend transmute crystals.miaow! i'm Luna ( she/her ).
🌸*throws cherry blossom on you*🌸
"Eagles advance, traveler! And may the Green watch and keep you."
🦬🦌🐰
PlayStation and PC EU.
LunaLolaBlossom on psn.
LunaFloraBlossom on pc.0 -
richo262✭✭✭✭✭
✭BloodyStigmata wrote: »Just let me harvest all surveys in a stack at once when I go to collect them, please and thank you.
Agreed, I was actually thinking about that and have updated the list.0 -
vsrs_au✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭If I was a new player doing the main (planemeld) quest, and Imperial City was part of it, and I got ganked while questing (regardless of what occurs after that), it would probably turn me off ESO for good. So I don't agree with that particular suggestion.PC(Steam) / EU / play from Melbourne, Australia / avg ping 3905 -
vsrs_au✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭
Not exactly, the actual update (from the PTS 9.0.0 patch notes) is:stuga is only for the orsinium story. and she doesn't chase me anymore as far as i know. in update 38 she won't even be outside anymore but instead will be in taverns.Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for this change?!
Stuga is now stationary near certain taverns in Daggerfall, Davon's Watch, and Vulkhel Guard. She will still try to flag you down, of course, but will no longer endlessly chase you and only shouts her greeting when you enter into a certain proximity.PC(Steam) / EU / play from Melbourne, Australia / avg ping 3900 -
richo262✭✭✭✭✭
✭If I was a new player doing the main (planemeld) quest, and Imperial City was part of it, and I got ganked while questing (regardless of what occurs after that), it would probably turn me off ESO for good. So I don't agree with that particular suggestion.
Yeh I can see that being an outcome, but what if as soon as you respawn, you don't respawn at the Alliance sewer spawn point, you spawn in a specially made PVE recreated for that particular quest environment where you can then continue that portion of the quest in peace? Essentially the protagonist pulled you out of danger, and you wake up in a PVE zone after getting ganked.
The entire sewer quest line is a safer area in reasonable proximity to spawn, it is the above ground area that has dangers.
Not exactly, the actual update (from the PTS 9.0.0 patch notes) is:stuga is only for the orsinium story. and she doesn't chase me anymore as far as i know. in update 38 she won't even be outside anymore but instead will be in taverns.Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for this change?!
Stuga is now stationary near certain taverns in Daggerfall, Davon's Watch, and Vulkhel Guard. She will still try to flag you down, of course, but will no longer endlessly chase you and only shouts her greeting when you enter into a certain proximity.
They have finally contained the beast.Edited by richo262 on May 9, 2023 10:53PM0 -
xclassgaming✭✭✭✭✭
✭Given the 2nd half of the year is dedicated to polishing existing content I thought I'd throw in my two cents regarding content (not bug fixes, which should be prioritized over anything I write here).
Free content integration
ZOS has for some time now made Morrowind and Imperial City free to play. These bundles should be formally removed from the crown store and simply integrated into the game. Furthermore, Prison and Tower should be moved to non-DLC dungeons in all achievements, collections, stories tab and pledge givers.
Update the Planemeld story to include the IC story in the correct order. This would introduce the player into how PVP works (and teach them the value of sneak), but obviously not all players like PVP so have a mechanic that would, if the player died on the quest whilst in PVP mode, that they get ported to a unique one time instance without other players (not the whole IC map, just the specific area without other players to complete and move the story along). IC is a good story and probably doesn't have a whole of players playing it.
I have the collectors edition of both, I think it would be a nice gesture if ZOS upgrade anybody that bought them to collectors, and anybody with collectors with some crates that are IC and Morrow themed then pulled them both from the store. I personally am unphased about crates, but it is a double edge sword of free content, it makes those that did not pay happy, and some that did pay have buyers remorse. I got my moneys worth well before it went free though, I could envision somebody that bought these the day before they went free feeling buyers remorse.
Game Start
Have the game start in the cold harbor prison again (I know I know, hear me out) but when the player breaks out, that is when they spawn in the new starting zone and get to choose their adventure, that way it keeps ES tradition of starting in shackles, the player gets a taste of cold harbor, it already has a better tutorial aspect, and it gets to utilise the starting aspect of any zone after the player chooses their starting adventure. It also means the player doesn't have to do a silly quest like, 'come to my secluded home and get stabbed' to start the Planemeld. They have technically already started the Planemeld even if thrown in a chapter zone, they are The Vestige by default, as they should be. The starting zones of any other region undermines the significance of the character you play in comparison to the Cold Harbor story that explains your soul related issues.
Given no new zone has a mundus stones, have the player start with a mundus stone, either at creation or talking to the NPC that shows you how to start a chapter. Can also remove all mundus stones from base game zones (except PVP) after that, have mundus stones relocated to Craglorn that are initially broken until the player completes the quest zone and restores them, given the stories entirely about mundus stones it seems fitting.
Have an option to lock a chapter by default, but can be undone. What I mean by this is if I was a new player and I started a chapter but then I got dragged off to another zone and got a bit lost, I don't want to accidently start a different story, especially when the game for some reason allows me to start an Alliance story half way through. Unticking the story lock can be undone via the journal or by default when the locked story is complete.
Base Game
What I like about the new zones is the main questing is properly structured, the base game suffers from the hubs having a quest with no regard for the players progress, you can accidently skip a quest. This means the quests directly related to the main quest are locked to players unless done in the right order, but it really is how it should have been.
Mundas removal as stated above, but also the crafting sets are in triplicate, a stay over from the time before One Tamriel. If you removed the triplicates, each zone would only have 1 unique crafting set. Move 1 from random DLC crafting set into the base game zones aiming for 2 crafting sets per zone and cull a few sets that are just garbage. I'd rather see 2 meaningful sets than 2 and 1 average per DLC. Quality over quantity, there are enough zones in the game now that allow for plenty of sets, none of which are behind a paywall if you know how to use a guild trader or a guild house.
Housing
Everytime ZOS releases a unique piece of furniture to the game that isn't in my collection tab but rather is in my inventory is destined to become more clutter in my clutter house, a small child in Murkmire dies. Remember that.
Standard housing crafting station should become collectibles, and attunement stations should become 'attunement stones'. When a player uses an attunement stone on an overland crafting set it consumes the stone but your station at home (that is a collectible like the armory station) can now craft that set. All existing attunement station should get nuked from orbit and anybody that has attuned station, the next time they log in, will find they are all gone but if they place their standard crafting station will find it is able to craft all the stations that were previously attuned.
Deconstructing furniture, antiquities too.
Antiquities and Treasure maps
15 codecs for a mythic? Why? You only need to find it once and getting 25 transmutes is 10 fold easier than grinding leads down for every character. I used to be excited when I got a lead or a treasure map, and now, they are merely spam. When I get a lead I have to check if I have found it, now there is so much spam I don't both with it unless I've pre researched it and am actively looking for it. When I get a treasure map it is often auto destroyed because in many zones they are useless.
What I would like to see is antiquities and treasure maps having more a finality, but a repeatable antiquities daily for those that enjoy it, and to be used to level alts, and also give out furniture mats. For instance, treasure maps should always give an item you don't already have therefore it is always of value, when you have collected all items from that region and have scried all leads for that zone, treasure maps simply do not drop anymore for that zone because there is no treasure left (until a new update brings more goodies). This means antiquities should rely more on collections than anything else and these new motifs should be outfit style pages or upgrade the existing drab starting motifs instead of being a new motif entirely. They are after all just better version of what already exists.
I want to get interested or excited by a new lead or treasure map. Now its just spam to ignore because it doesn't really mean anything as its just repeated over and over. I now only do mythics once and search for the get only once scries like the wolf mount.
This wouldn't even have to limit players that enjoy scrying or want to fill a house with the same antiquity multiple times. If the antiquity guild had a daily quest giver or two that gave a large bundle of furniture mats then people can keep scrying in a meaningful way and use it level alts much faster than spamming green and blue tier snot in a random zone on repeat in a mindless grind. Furthermore have a unique crafting station at the guild that allows you to make a replica of anything you have completed the codecs for, after all the game told me everything I've found went there for research. If anything the player shouldn't even get the item from antiquities but instead learns how to make a replica of it, the more codecs they have (the more research has been done) the cheaper and more efficient it is to replicate. Leaving the original piece at the guild where they belong. The player house hall of antiquities is where the original would be kept.
If collecting something meant actually collecting it the completionist in me would want to do it, if the game tells me its a never ending cycle, then I see no point in even starting it, unless its a mythic I'm after or something I know has actual finality.
Mages Guild Lost Lore Books
Psijic is enough of a grind and its fine, it gets you shards and mage books along the way, but when the game relies on too much tedium to justify player progression it starts to wane. It becomes a bit redundant when you can do both tedious quests in tandem.
Some players love the fact that achievements are account wide and some do not, I prefer it. So to keep both camps happy if the mages guild books were an account wide collectible (again, hear me out) that when a character has collected them all, and returned the Eyevea then the mages guild there is restored and it is now a bookshelf you can interact with. For the alts of an account with a fully collected mages guild, when they finish the mages guild Shalidor merely says he will send an apprentice to fetch them (you already did). This bookshelf allows a player to sync their achievements, lore books, motifs, recipes, companion status, etc and any character that interacts with it and 'CONFIRMS' they want to, it will sync whatever they wish, or do not wish to sync. Save for things such as account wide collections and crown purchases that are clearly already sync'ed and not going anywhere.
Mages guild XP - replaced with a better repeatable (not daily) public dungeon quest that instructs the player to complete a public dungeon quest, collect the skyshard, and also kill the group boss that will afford a skill point. This is not a daily, you can pick up another straight away, it is tied to each public dungeon, you do not need to wait 24 hours in the same grinding FG XP doesn't have you wait 24 hours when killing daedra. Cash in your Mages guild quest and grab another one. It will repeat until the player has no public dungeons left to do, mages guild should be at 10 before then but the player can still use it to hunt down group bosses. If the player has already done the public dungeon then the player will inform them it is already done and be afforded the XP.
Given the mages guild is known for having an ear to the ground and being aware of what is going on in Tamriel, I think another source of mage XP should be a quest giver at the mages guild that sends you to go find an NPC that will give a prologue quest. That way ZOS doesn't have to litter every capital with new NPC's and have Stuga chase you down the street everytime they wish to tell a new story. Mages guild should be the go to, like a tavern, for new stories, ever ride by and see a quest at the mages guild? ZOS has something new.
This way, the Mages Guild XP farm actually gets the player Mages XP and Skill points, and is actually a worthwhile thing to do.
Updated - Some other things to add, and I was reminded of another (surveys) by BloodyStigmata.
Surveys
BloodyStigmata reminded me of another system I used to advocate for (I still do) but I was thinking since the companion system there is something that can be leveraged here.
I used to say that there should be a single node that you can interact with and all your surveys get completed, but now, with the companion system I'd like to see them utilised here when not in use.
When talking to a companion and the player has a survey in their inventory a new dialogue appears 'I have a job for you', where a trade window will open and a player can deposit a certain amount of surveys into them. When accepted the companion is no longer available for a determined time, an ideal thing to do at the end of a gaming session. The companion also has a particular hobby they enjoy unique to them, and a favorite zone. For instance, if Mirri's hobby is plants and likes the EP zones, then sending her to an EP zone to complete 5 blacksmith surveys will increase her chance of returning with alchemy mats too. If Bastions hobby is fishing and likes the DC zones, then sending him to the DC zones to complete surveys will increase his chance of returning with fish and a small chance of Roe (higher if more fishing achieves is present on the account) as the companions stop to admire the scenery. Ember however, if you send her to a zone she is not fond of may feel the need to pick some pockets along the way returning with some gold as she has already fenced the items.
We have been using a hireling this entire time (that we have never paid mind you) but the companion system could over rule the hirelings and give some additional benefits based on the personalities and traits of the companion rendering the hirelings redundant email spam. Replaced with a better and more interactive system.
After the timer is complete and the companion returns all mats acquired should be sent to the players craft bag regardless of subscription. Non-ESO members still have to refine it which will end up in their inventory. The reason for the craft bag is simple. When a companion returns the player is notified, with a sound and a message in the top corner, and the craft bag haul is presented in the bottom corner as it fills up.
The player may be mid dungeon or busy or not even logged in and to dump in their inventory would be a major inconvenience. Also given the significance of the haul a player with a full email list may lose some major loot. If it was just a quick dump into the craft bag, it is clean and no messing around with clunky systems. Non-members will still have to refine many of the mats pulling them out of the bag.
Companion specialization
After hitting level 20 and full rapport, an option to specialize the companion and give it a mind of its own. Just because I give Bastion a bow doesn't mean he wants to use it, he may natively be a tank. If I specialize Bastion he now gathers his own loot and will over time upgrade himself (based on a reasonable drop rate) the cost is however that he can no longer be equipped with the weapons I want him to use. The more purple gear he has prior to specialization the faster he will specialize. You can add blue and purple gear to speed up the process. You will lose the gear once he he has replaced it with gear unique to his path. Once he finds his favorite equipment he will not accept you giving him anything else.
Specialization has a more gear orientated quest, it may be to complete Black Rose prison and if you complete it with the quest active he'll be there to loot and get a unique sword and board (Perfected if that is unlocked in your collectibles). Or to give him a mythic item, or to craft him a set (or give him the mats to do so would be easier given standard items don't fit, then take him to a crafting station). Not all of what I am describing for each companion, just something unique to each. I can see that as companions become more abundant that we'd probably be trying to specialise them naturally anyway and use them for specific roles only. Specialization can only be done at max rapport and will remove the rapport system as it is locked in so you no longer get nagged. You could literally sit in front of Mirri and pull the wings off torchbugs and she wouldn't mind, might even join in.
At a certain point the companion, may, if their personality fits, want to join a guild (more on why later).
Removal of assistance in lieu of companions. I'm not saying take away everyones assistants over night, just stop releasing them and instead convert a banker into 'Banker Functionality'. If you have purchased 'Banker Functionality' then your companion will now be able to be your Banker, Merchant, Armorer or Smuggler (if they have questionable or no morals). The game would need provide a base game companion for this. So move the clockwork automaton reconstruction fetch quest to Morrowind, nHOF entrance. The player then has to rebuild the automaton and now unlocks it as a very base line, no hobbies, companion that can provide services, it is pre specialised and will not take weapons, will use its fist or a steam attack and auto upgrade its own gear and will level, at max level it gets 'Crafting assistant perk' where crafting Food now provides 5, Potions 5, Alchemy 20 at max level. As it is specialised and finds its own gear, I suspect calling this companion will be much faster than present companions as it has to look up a great deal less.
With companion specialisation if a player has a specialised companion then the game will know its load out ahead of time, if your Tank quits or drops out then the game will know to automatically spawn your highest level specialised companion that is a tank. It can also be clever by comparing the load out of gear or everybodies Bastion and give the best of all. For instance, Player A has a higher specialised level of Bastion, but Player B has unlocked Bastions unique weapon, then it will merge both higher level and unique weapons. It will be 'our' Bastion.
Thieves Guild and Undaunted
I'm not saying they should, but given periodically older DLC has gone free to play, if they were to do another then, coinciding with a trial finder, it should be the Thieves guild. Upon completing the thieves guild instead of getting a Smuggler assistant the account unlocks Smugger functionality, as far as I'm concerned Ember is everything the smugger should be, yet cannot smuggle. Your new C3PO companion at the base game also has no morals and will smuggle for you too. Essentially completing both of those will give you a companion that smuggles and could also merch and bank and squire for you.
If the thieves guild ever goes free to play, roll Legerdemain and Thieves Guild into one single tree where lock picking will level your Thieves Guild.
This is where I may tickle people the wrong way, remove the Undaunted Guild (I cannot find any lore in other ES games for this) and have the fighters guild deal with pledges, any character that has purchased an Undaunted free ride will get a FG ride for free. All Undaunted skills get reworked to a more Theives orientated skill and the Thieves guild gets its own skilled tree now.
Examples
Inner fire - Becomes 'Distract' where you distract an enemy away from others to gain their attention.
Webs - Becomes a 'Sticky bomb' to immobilise hostiles
Necrotic Orb should probably be renamed, reworked and replace Mend Wounds in the Psijic line, it might be putting a common heal skill behind a pay wall but the Psijic really is average these days. The healing logic is the time orb is reversing the damage done to your ally, the damage morph logic is the orb is decaying (speeding up time) on your enemy. Both time related.
Blood altar should probably be a vampire thing if I'm being honest. That is the other thing about Undaunted, it's thematically all over the place, are they vampires? Spider worshippers? Necromancers? Their skills to their lore is just weird when you think about it.
The fighters guild now plays a prominent role in many dungeons.
The Soul Magic Tree if Thieves goes free
The soul magic tree is very niche and with the introduction of new chapters unrelated to this it likely many players will take their time in unlocking or not understanding it.
It contains an Ultimate, 1 skill (which had a moment of being good but not really anymore compared to mages guild degen) and a series of passives that is clearly for newer players, that they may never even benefit from given they are off doing another chapter. Those passives are if you are almost dead you'll soul explode giving you a last shot of survival or skip gem cost, which for many, by the time they get to that they'll have more gems than they know what to do with.
Scrap the existing Soul magic tree and merge and rework the Soul ultimate to the Thieves guild, replace Soul with Shadow magic themes.
Add the soul gem related perks to the Enchanting tree, not as new perks but as additional bonuses when leveling the primary enchant tree, at max enchant tree you have a chance of filling an empty gem.
Unless ZOS intends to buff the soul skill in the soul tree, it is remade redundant with the Enchant Passives and Degeneracy in Mages Guild.
That way if ZOS wishes players to go off and do other chapters at start, the main quest is no longer hiding particular trees that ultimately is beginner focused, if the useful stuff is moved to enchant/thieves ZOS can ultimately clean out the skill tree.
FYI my desire to condense existing content is for efficiency and cleaning it up, but also to pave a path for future trees.
Dungeon love
City of Ash, Fungal Grotto, Crypt of Hearts, Banished Cells, Darkshade etc all have 2 versions of the same dungeon, with a differing story. Rework these dungeons to just have 1 of each trying to encompass the complete story. This system was introduced long ago with 1 being normal and 2 being veteran. It is repetitive.
If they were merged into 1 singular dungeon then some monster masks would get removed and there would be a skill point issue. It would require some creativity a buffs to the remaining monster sets. Having Spell Scar converted into a dungeon would allow for a Monster set to be rebranded and allow the player to recollect at least 1 skill point.
City of Ash 2 should be converted into a beginners trial and drop a Perfected version of the COA gear. Perhaps not even have a Veteran version but make normal what is considered a 'casual but hard' introduction into trials. The Perfected gear should not be amazing tier but exist to show newer players trial setups and how there are Perfected versions of equipment in the game. To encourage older players to do this content in random and not auto quit, if they have completed their collectibles in COA2, then either a Nirn trait or several random overworld weapons they have not yet collected will drop instead.
Rework base game dungeons to the standard of DLC dungeons. In DLC dungeons there is a story giver on rails, you interact at the beginning and end and nothing in the middle. This is great as it prevents bugs and essential and unnecessary interactions that can cause the game to bug out. For instance, on Tempest if a player forgets to poke the crystal the quest giver will stand there until the heat death of the universe before she will move onto to the next one with you. If Tempest was a DLC dungeon, the NPC would be the one to destroy the crystal. The adds on the beach would all agro and charge at you or least not break the game if they were not cleared, you wouldn't need to talk to the NPC after clearing the beach, the NPC would be on rails and progress while talking to you as you play it. Having a boss on Darkshade 1 right beside the quest giver, that usually only becomes apparent after the final boss is dead and half the party has left is just insane.
ZOS should take the time to explore why it is that many players simply quit Ruins of Maz and Wolfhunter Keep if their random roll lands on it. Personally I think its a time commitment and they ultimately lose their enjoyability compared to others. Advocating for less content might sound weird but this is a situation of less is more, and there is a formula that works and those two dungeons fail that. I think certain dungeons need to be reworked to be a little shorter. This could be simply removing the waves of adds section in Maz and just getting to the next boss. For instance if the ideal formula is Adds, Boss, Adds, Boss, Adds, Final boss. Maz has Adds, Boss, Adds, Boss, Adds, Adds, Adds, Boss, Silly and slow button clicker, Final Boss.
All dungeons should have their story told on rails with no direct interaction with an NPC throughout it just leads to bugs, progress loss, and half the group running off. It is a matter of show, don't tell, or if you want to tell, tell while we are moving. This method has a story mode people have advocated for built in if they know how to use it right. Enter a dungeon before you que for it, talk to the NPC first, go through all the dialogue. Then leave and reque, play the dungeon with a group with subtitles on and at the end you have plenty of time to talk to the NPC at the end now.
The other thing that can be utilised by having the new standard in DLC dungeons of NPC quest giver on rails is have that NPC should be interactable prior to boss fights and if the group has unlocked Merch, Bank or Armorer that NPC can do those functions for you, so the companion system can replace the assistant system, and it doesn't matter than you cannot call a companion (outside of replacing a role of a disconnected player) as the NPC in every trial/dungeon can serve that function, might be a bit odd that a complete stranger will be sending your gear off to a bank, but so is wishing a banker in out of thin air. It also removes banker clutter from dungeons and trials.
Off tank normal trials and companions
I do not advocate for this in Veteran content, but a simple math check on this makes me wonder how a random trial finder would work when a trial may require two tanks. Will all trials seek out two tanks? Will the game tell you who the main tank is and the off tank is? How will a complete random PUG group manage who goes through the gate and who takes the high road in Hel Ra?
Solution, have X Tank companion that has joined the Fighters guild be off tank in NORMAL trials, this becomes a test of healer as the companion will do the less demanding tasks but will require healing. The companion can also give a little speech and notify and separate the group on their roles, and also provide a brief tutorial on what is ahead. If the companion has said 'follow me' to the player and runs up the side entrance on Hel Ra then an invisi wall will block you from going under and a quest marker will be on the companion. If the companion says 'storm the gate!' then the quest marker will appear at the gate and you will have an invisi wall blocking you from going up with the Companion. The companion will randomly select a healer and 5 DPS, to follow him with the remaining going below. The companion will adequately, with enough heals do his job upstairs but suffer an injury and no proceed with you to the final boss. On Vet, you get no help from the companion.
This does not apply in Veteran trials and there should be no 'random Veteran'.
This way all random normals can easily run the formula of 1 tank 2 heals 9 dps, and if it lands on a trial where an off tank is summoned the actual guild does its job and sends assistance.
Side note, if the Thieves guild played a more prominent role in skills, I could see a rush to grab the chests in a dungeon / trial so have it so that if you unlock the chest you get 100% of TG XP, but if you see a group member do it, you get 50%. Bit like Daedra hunting in a group affords XP to all for FG.
They should just cut pvp completely and make cyrodiil and IC pve.Give us clannfear mounts!2 -
LunaFlora✭✭✭✭✭
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Not exactly, the actual update (from the PTS 9.0.0 patch notes) is:stuga is only for the orsinium story. and she doesn't chase me anymore as far as i know. in update 38 she won't even be outside anymore but instead will be in taverns.Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for this change?!
Stuga is now stationary near certain taverns in Daggerfall, Davon's Watch, and Vulkhel Guard. She will still try to flag you down, of course, but will no longer endlessly chase you and only shouts her greeting when you enter into a certain proximity.
ohh i misremembered it
thanks for correcting memiaow! i'm Luna ( she/her ).
🌸*throws cherry blossom on you*🌸
"Eagles advance, traveler! And may the Green watch and keep you."
🦬🦌🐰
PlayStation and PC EU.
LunaLolaBlossom on psn.
LunaFloraBlossom on pc.1 -
Tandor✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I have no issue with players being offered a clearly identified and optional PvP tutorial as an extension of the Cyrodiil notification they receive at level 10, but PvP needs to remain a purely optional part of the game and has no place in the main tutorial section. The OP's suggested way of allowing a totally new player to be killed by another player and then moved to a non-PvP instance means that PvP is initially forced on new players and that will put a lot of players off the game before they've even got through the tutorial. It simply isn't an answer, and the OP's concern that IC is seen by very few players reflects the fact that mixing PvP with the PvE content was a bad mistake and one that ZOS have said (in response to suggestions about the Justice System) that they won't make again.5 -
TaSheen✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭If I was a new player doing the main (planemeld) quest, and Imperial City was part of it, and I got ganked while questing (regardless of what occurs after that), it would probably turn me off ESO for good. So I don't agree with that particular suggestion.
Yep. I agree.______________________________________________________
"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....0 -
TaSheen✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I have no issue with players being offered a clearly identified and optional PvP tutorial as an extension of the Cyrodiil notification they receive at level 10, but PvP needs to remain a purely optional part of the game and has no place in the main tutorial section. The OP's suggested way of allowing a totally new player to be killed by another player and then moved to a non-PvP instance means that PvP is initially forced on new players and that will put a lot of players off the game before they've even got through the tutorial. It simply isn't an answer, and the OP's concern that IC is seen by very few players reflects the fact that mixing PvP with the PvE content was a bad mistake and one that ZOS have said (in response to suggestions about the Justice System) that they won't make again.
And also agree with this.Edited by TaSheen on May 10, 2023 1:24PM______________________________________________________
"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....0 -
rpa✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭I do not think they will try forcing PvP on players again. It's already been tried.
Cryodiil tutorial is not optional because Continuous Attack passive. But doing tutorial for the passive does not require any actual PvP. When someone at ZOS decided it would be a good idea to take Continuous Attack away from players not interested of PvP activities, number of players rather than cheesing it instead gave up using mounts. I was one, ZOS may know how many others... But they eventually gave it back.
Edited by rpa on May 10, 2023 2:00PM0 -
SoraJP✭✭✭Rework Prologue Quests! The quest system as it is now, is way too overwhelming for new player. I have tried to get some friends to play the game, but they get so confused in the major cities with all the quests. Even when starting a new character, I can't find the quests to start the guild lines with all of the prologue quest markers in the city. These quests are too confusing to new players as they take them out of the zone that they are trying to play and they don't know what they are even doing with the quests.
Prologue quests should only be acceptable through the zone guide or crown store (like the housing and event quests). This will reduce the clutter in the cities.PC/NA Khajiit Warden Main0 -
richo262✭✭✭✭✭
✭Updated to give an option for a limited PVE experience in IC. It would be unreasonable for a player to be able to farm IC in PvE mode and get tel var or monster sets.0 -
Daggerfell0929✭✭✭2v2, 3v3 Arenas with seasonal rewards for being in the top 10% of the bracket for a players class. Rewards could be a weapon skin or mount
3 month seasons0 -
Daggerfell0929✭✭✭Updated to give an option for a limited PVE experience in IC. It would be unreasonable for a player to be able to farm IC in PvE mode and get tel var or monster sets.
ITs an MMO. I dont think a little IC pvp is that bad. For the record I enjoy both pvp and pve
in every MMO it is funny to me that PVPers have to farm a *** ton of PVE content for gear to pvp and deal with it, but some pvers rage out when they have to do the smallest amount of pvp.3 -
richo262✭✭✭✭✭
✭I have no issue with players being offered a clearly identified and optional PvP tutorial as an extension of the Cyrodiil notification they receive at level 10, but PvP needs to remain a purely optional part of the game and has no place in the main tutorial section. The OP's suggested way of allowing a totally new player to be killed by another player and then moved to a non-PvP instance means that PvP is initially forced on new players and that will put a lot of players off the game before they've even got through the tutorial. It simply isn't an answer, and the OP's concern that IC is seen by very few players reflects the fact that mixing PvP with the PvE content was a bad mistake and one that ZOS have said (in response to suggestions about the Justice System) that they won't make again.
Before the tutorial? The IC story would be right before the invasion of Cold Harbor. I doubt 1 player death in a PvP instance would do that, even if it immediately scoops you out and dumps you in a PVE instance to finish that part. Nevertheless, I've edited it for an entirely PVE instance to cater for somebody that is perfectly fine dying to an ad, but 1 death to another player (with no consequence) is life shattering.0 -
Destai✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭I've got quite a few.
1. Questing overhaul. I'd like to see a less intrusive questing experience. I've laid out some solutions here. In general, I'd want a more focused experience without stalking NPCs and content just being dumped on me.
3. Skill responsiveness. I'd like to see skills fire the first time I press them.
4. Heavy attacking responsiveness. I'd like to see my heavy attacks fire, rather than my character holding back for some reason.
5. Skyshard hints in High Isle and Galen. I'm worried Necrom is going to have the same problem. I have 12, soon to be 13 characters, and it'd be nice to know which skyshards remain in those zones without resorting to outside tools. Also would be nice to see ZOS engagement on the matter.
6. Improve NPC behavior as outlined here.0 -
Daggerfell0929✭✭✭I've got quite a few.
1. Questing overhaul. I'd like to see a less intrusive questing experience. I've laid out some solutions here. In general, I'd want a more focused experience without stalking NPCs and content just being dumped on me.
3. Skill responsiveness. I'd like to see skills fire the first time I press them.
4. Heavy attacking responsiveness. I'd like to see my heavy attacks fire, rather than my character holding back for some reason.
5. Skyshard hints in High Isle and Galen. I'm worried Necrom is going to have the same problem. I have 12, soon to be 13 characters, and it'd be nice to know which skyshards remain in those zones without resorting to outside tools. Also would be nice to see ZOS engagement on the matter.
6. Improve NPC behavior as outlined here.
A lot of people dont know this about the game, but skills fire when you take your finder off of the key. Test it out! If you hold down puncturing sweeps it wont fire until your finder goes off. I would love an option for skills to fire when you press them,0 -
Vetixio✭✭✭✭New PvP content.
Vampirism buffs.
Buffs for neglected races such as Redguard, Bosmer, Imperial, Breton, Nord.
Less microtransactions.Edited by Vetixio on May 17, 2023 3:28PMPìerre - Breton Vampire Templar, Grand Overlord. Erádàn - Bosmer Templar, Warlord. Vyríc - Imperial Vampire Necromancer, Centurion. Sybìl - Breton Sorcerer, Centurion. Erìch - Nord Vampire Nightblade, Corporal. Njàll - Nord Templar, Lieutenant. Elánnà - Bosmer Warden, Veteran. Laquì - Redguard Vampire Nightblade, Corporal. Noveni Dres - Dunmer Sorcerer, Lieutenant. Marìnus - Imperial Warden, Veteran. Arvyn Indoril - Dunmer Templar, Sergeant. Rósalyn - Breton Sorcerer, Corporal. Emelîn - Bosmer Dragonknight, Corporal. Astaroth Indoril - Dunmer Sorcerer.0