Play However You Want...Unless It's As The Vestige

Jaraal

EramTheLiar wrote: »

Yes, if you don't choose the one they expect you to choose to do the thing, and then the one you chose shows up later to do some other thing, I imagine there are questions that are not answered to anyone's satisfaction.

There's also the concept of sacrifices made in honor being worth more than sacrifices made in guilt. And sometimes being forced to live with the consequences of your actions is a worse punishment than being granted the easy way out.

On a more selfish note, one reason to choose someone other than who they expect you to choose is that you receive unique named items from a crafted set that are impossible to get by any other means (unless someone decides to sell them.)

Holycannoli

Braffin wrote: »

Holycannoli wrote: »

Every character should always start in the Wailing Prison, as it was in the beginning. From there there should be options on where to go, with that portal system.

Is there any reason for this besides personal preference?

Story continuity. Everyone starts off the same.

Braffin

Holycannoli wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

Holycannoli wrote: »

Every character should always start in the Wailing Prison, as it was in the beginning. From there there should be options on where to go, with that portal system.

Is there any reason for this besides personal preference?

Story continuity. Everyone starts off the same.

But everyone is already starting off the same: On the Isle of Balfiera as some Being quite unusual, as Norianwe states, while apparently shocked, as you absorb the shard:

"What? Did you just absorb the energy of that shard? Incredible. Not quite what I intended, but we can work with this. Let's head back to the gate."

After that it's for the player to decide how this is played out.

Elsonso

Braffin wrote: »

Holycannoli wrote: »

Every character should always start in the Wailing Prison, as it was in the beginning. From there there should be options on where to go, with that portal system.

Is there any reason for this besides personal preference?

Always? Sort of... Either actually or in spirit, it helps clean up the big picture story by giving everyone the same starting point, one that is in tune with all of the quest lines, not just the DLC quest lines. At the end, or when skipped, just drop them in the Gate Room, and let the player pick where they want to go next.

Braffin

Elsonso wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

Holycannoli wrote: »

Every character should always start in the Wailing Prison, as it was in the beginning. From there there should be options on where to go, with that portal system.

Is there any reason for this besides personal preference?

Always? Sort of... Either actually or in spirit, it helps clean up the big picture story by giving everyone the same starting point, one that is in tune with all of the quest lines, not just the DLC quest lines. At the end, or when skipped, just drop them in the Gate Room, and let the player pick where they want to go next.

Well, I know both versions and prefer the actual one to be honest. I see in fact no real discrepancies between the present starting point and the base game (which I still enjoy too btw).

A proper roadmap ingame would be necessary, here I agree. But force-locking content isn't necessary in my opinion.

EramTheLiar

The only issue I have with Balfiera is that I'm never sure I'm actually spelling it right. Well, OK, I have two issues. The second issue is that you're not really a prisoner there - sure you wake up in a locked room but she just put you there because she didn't know if you were going to freak out or anything.

It's just a minor thing, but starting out the game as a prisoner is Elder Scrolls' thing. I'd like it a lot better if Norianwe said something to the effect of "look, I don't know what you did to get put in here but I'm in a bit of a bind so I'll make you a deal..."

Braffin

EramTheLiar wrote: »

The only issue I have with Balfiera is that I'm never sure I'm actually spelling it right. Well, OK, I have two issues. The second issue is that you're not really a prisoner there - sure you wake up in a locked room but she just put you there because she didn't know if you were going to freak out or anything.

It's just a minor thing, but starting out the game as a prisoner is Elder Scrolls' thing. I'd like it a lot better if Norianwe said something to the effect of "look, I don't know what you did to get put in here but I'm in a bit of a bind so I'll make you a deal..."

Well, in a way nirn itself is the prison

But metaphysics aside, that's indeed an issue I understand very well and share to an extent. Also a fan of tes-lore for decades meanwhile.

Elsonso

Braffin wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

Holycannoli wrote: »

Every character should always start in the Wailing Prison, as it was in the beginning. From there there should be options on where to go, with that portal system.

Is there any reason for this besides personal preference?

Always? Sort of... Either actually or in spirit, it helps clean up the big picture story by giving everyone the same starting point, one that is in tune with all of the quest lines, not just the DLC quest lines. At the end, or when skipped, just drop them in the Gate Room, and let the player pick where they want to go next.

Well, I know both versions and prefer the actual one to be honest. I see in fact no real discrepancies between the present starting point and the base game (which I still enjoy too btw).

It starts everyone with the whole "no soul" thing, and while the player is free to do what they want after that, it syncs with stories in the game that assume the character does not have a soul. The puzzle pieces fit together better, and the only thing that would have to happen is starting the game with an updated Waiting Prison tutorial before going to the Balfiera gate room. The rest of the Balfiera tutorial and island outside of the gate room could be scrapped.

Then, in the gate room, rather than having the three alliance portals across the room, have those portals plus a "base game main quest" portal next to the Chapter portal so the player could choose to start with the DLC, or easily start with the base game main quest.

NotaDaedraWorshipper

Michae wrote: »

As for messy timeline it's clear that all of ESO is happening during the Dragon Break,

No it doesn't. The devs have said it does't and we even stop ones from happening in quests.

Braffin

Elsonso wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

Holycannoli wrote: »

Every character should always start in the Wailing Prison, as it was in the beginning. From there there should be options on where to go, with that portal system.

Is there any reason for this besides personal preference?

Always? Sort of... Either actually or in spirit, it helps clean up the big picture story by giving everyone the same starting point, one that is in tune with all of the quest lines, not just the DLC quest lines. At the end, or when skipped, just drop them in the Gate Room, and let the player pick where they want to go next.

Well, I know both versions and prefer the actual one to be honest. I see in fact no real discrepancies between the present starting point and the base game (which I still enjoy too btw).

It starts everyone with the whole "no soul" thing, and while the player is free to do what they want after that, it syncs with stories in the game that assume the character does not have a soul. The puzzle pieces fit together better, and the only thing that would have to happen is starting the game with an updated Waiting Prison tutorial before going to the Balfiera gate room. The rest of the Balfiera tutorial and island outside of the gate room could be scrapped.

Then, in the gate room, rather than having the three alliance portals across the room, have those portals plus a "base game main quest" portal next to the Chapter portal so the player could choose to start with the DLC, or easily start with the base game main quest.

That would be completely true if we could be sure the Vestige were a mere mortal before sacrificed by Mannimarco.

Thing is, while possible to put it that way, I don't believe it and also base game sources, namely a book about chaotic creatia, the ability to recreate a body at the far shores (I tried on purpose, and septima tharn was wrong) and the fact that nothing changes by regaining our "soul", just to name a fee examples.

In my opinion the only fitting explanation is the Vestige was created for the sole purpose of saving mundus and after that fading away.

The actual system still allows both versions (and some more with a bit of tinkering around), that's why I prefer it.

Tessitura

Dr_Con wrote: »

Tessitura wrote: »

Honestly, I like that they never acknowledge the original main story anymore. It was bad, like really bad. Written by people who did not know the lore and did not care about good story telling or character work. Mannimarco was basically Skeletor, other then Abnur the companions were as milk toast as it got, with no personality, and the ending made Mass Effect 3's ending look like the Godfather's. ALSO, the quests were boring.

They could remove the entire thing from the game and I wouldn't care less.

Is there anything about this game that you like?

[snip] You just quoted something that I like. They don't force their dumb vanilla main story down our throats.

[edited for baiting]

Kesstryl

EramTheLiar wrote: »

Kesstryl wrote: »

EramTheLiar wrote: »

I think about this a lot and I think there are two problems that need to be fixed in order for there to be more continuity, and honestly I don't know how complicated each are.

The first isbthe game needs some way to track not just level progression but story progression. And to a very precise level of detail: character is Vestige AND did covenant arc BUT has not done cadwells silver or gold AND is doing Summerset arc BUT has not done clockwork city is should have different conversations with sotha sil than someone who has done the Pact arc AND morrowind AND clockwork city BUT never started the Vestige arc (it's possible to do this) and keeping track of all the possible branches and how far along them you are requires a personal database for each character that does not appear to exist. I keep thinking the easiest way to do this is to give the character undroppable "mementos" (that don't take up inventory space) that the game can scan to see what your character has done.

Second, you'd have to pay all those voice actors to speak a bunch of new lines for old content and those Iines would NOT sound the same because it's been years. But recording all those lines requires first figuring out what specific situations they need to cover.

Instead, I just assume Molag Bal caused a dragon break when the attempted the plane meld and parts of my character's life are occurring out of order. He just rolls with it.

It shouldn't need a separate database, it can query each character's quest progress (an already existing database) in exactly those things you mentioned. It would only need additional voice lines and a programming logic tree that hits each of those points you mentioned to get to the final voice line appropriate for that character and where they currently are. It's not impossible with the current technology, they only need to pay for additional voice lines and really small scripts for the major NPCs.

Well, I think it would probably be easier to create a second database than it would to try to mod the current one, because you'd have less chance of breaking the current one by leaving it alone. Adding more writes and tracking more things (a LOT more writes and a LOT more things) just feels safer on something new, that way if it really breaks you can just wipe it and start over without wrecking, you know, the entire rest of the game.

But "it would only need" is I think a dangerous underestimation of the complexity of what's being tracked. There are a LOT of variables, and it's not just variables for one player in a single player game, it's every player currently logged in to the game having conversations with NPCs. If a game wasn't built from the ground up with that level of detail in mind (which I think ESO probably wasn't, because when it first came out it was a LOT more linear and it just needed to keep track of things like "who was the sacrifice" and "did you let mannimarco go free" rather than "did you complete orsinium before you became the vestige, making the final conversation at the very very end of the entire arc a little out of context" or "is this delve the first time you meet Kireth and Raynor, or should they remember you from coldharbor, or should they NOT remember you because you're doing Caldwell's Gold and Magic is Making Them Forget?"

I suspect tracking and untangling all of that would be ridiculously complicated, at this point. I would love to see it done. I'm not sure how much of the game they'd have to change to do it. I suspect if they devoted the time to doing it the PvPers would complain though

I don't pretend to think I understand how the coding for ESO works, but I do have some coding background, and there would not need to be anything added in terms of database, not even to the current one we have now for our quest progress. The only thing the database would be needed for is to figure out yes or no for if a quest is completed on that character. Then the program itself would go through a series of checks to see if character did this quest or that quest with the NPC he or she is talking to, and if those quests were done or not done, and finally the program spits out which dialogue option to give to that character. No new database needed (which won't happen anyway because of AwA) and nothing new is added to the current database. It's just a query to check if quests were done, and the script holds the yes and no checks until the right dialogue is executed, then purges those checks from memory as they are not needed anymore. It doesn't need to check every single quest ever done either, only if quest line endings, zone story endings, or chapter endings that those NPCs participated in have the ending checked as completed. Just a small handful of yes or no checks.

Rkindaleft

This design choice lingers from the decision they made in regards to One Tamriel, and it's still very frustrating for a lot of players.

I feel like they mess things up so badly lore wise that in the last couple chapters it's getting harder to keep my attention in the questline. The dialogue options specifically are extremely immersion breaking when you are basically forced to ask "who are you again?" or "What are we doing again?" when the player already knows exactly who they are or what they're doing. I understand that they want the content to make sense for new players, but it wouldn't hurt to add like 1 more dialogue option so there's at least SOME form of continuity and doesn't make the Vestige have the brain capacity of a chestnut.

The Necrom prologue is a great example of this where we are forced to ask HM who he is even though probably like 95% of players who did that quest had encountered him at least ONCE in Craglorn, Reaper's March, Bangkorai or in Greenshade. My character has met him a number of times in the past. Why am I forced to act like I've never seen the daedric prince before?

Vulkunne

CoolBlast3 wrote: »

Just a small rant of mine. Whilst I appreciate ZOS' effort to make sure players can play in whatever order, even without playing the original main quest at all, I am a bit sick of well- that main quest being ignored throughout the game.

This happens in every chapter, every dlc, every story- but in Necrom particularly it annoyed me.
NECROM MAIN QUEST SPOILER FREE

At one point in the main quest, a daedric NPC tells you something along the lines of "Be careful mortal, Daedra may reform when we die, but you will not." When...that's just incorrect? That's our entire gimmick- being an immortal warrior. (And no, getting your soul back does not canonically take that power away, we are still made of Azure Plasm)

What annoyed me the most was this one sidequest, the Numinous Grimmoire.
SIDEQUEST SPOILER
The sidequest is about a mortal trying to become immortal through a rite which "unmoors a living soul" and which fuels this immortality by "consuming something, the souls of others in this case".
Sounds familiar to the Vestige right? Hell, "Numinous" was the alpha ESO term for the Vestige. Of course however, we don't have a single way of interacting with this, not even a throwaway line of "hey, that's sort of like me!"

This happens in *every* gods damn chapter. In Blackwood's prologue there was a ward which blocked out daedra. We can argue that our mortal soul protects us from it...but our body is daedric (azure plasm) and that isn't brought up either!

I'm not asking ZOS to remove this freedom of any playthrough timeline, but please, just like you guys make efforts for everyone elses' play order with misc dialogues that only appear depending on what we've done, can we also have some optional dialogues that at the very minimum allow us to bring up our immortality or partial daedric-ness?

EX:
NPC: "Be careful mortal, Daedra may reform when we die, but you will not."
Player: "About that..."
NPC: "Ah, still, be wary, death is painful regardless"

Something this simple and throwaway-y would help keep immersion for us that actually care about the original main quest and The Vestige as a character. It just saddens me you guys go through all this effort for people that play in non-release order and completely throw those that do play in release order under the bus so to speak..

I remember back in the good ol days, when leaving Coldharbour would sometimes drop me off on the warm beaches of Auridon ahhh.

There was something charming about that entire sequence, going from being stripped of everything including your soul, helping to liberate yourself and holding onto hope during your escape for a chance to leave that nightmare for virtually anywhere else on Nirn. But waking on Auridon was the 1st prize for that purpose if you ask me.

No that feeling is gone now. It all feels forced and jumbled together. Older I get the more I realize that sometimes your memories are worth more than what remains of what you once knew to be really cool.

richo262

I've always said, they need to rework the intro.

1) You always start in a Cold Harbor prison with the getting stabbed by Mannimarco intro.
2) When you escape, THAT is when the Prophets portal fails (or Azura redirects) and sends you to the NEW 'choose your adventure' start. (Minus the tutorial and skyshard as that is already done in Cold Harbor).
3) You start every chapter as an escapee of Cold Harbor, as a soulless vestige.
4) The Prophet finds you and makes contact after either a) You complete the Chapter you start in or b) You step foot in a basegame zone.

The Cold Harbor intro is the best one yet, has the greatest theme, has the highest sense of urgency and purpose.

What they replaced it with is a drab, meaningless situation that doesn't part any purpose on the character.

'Oh look, you are in a prison, oh look this is how you block, oh look a skyshard, choose your adventure, bye bye'.

That way all chapters can reference the characters 'soulless' nature because all characters start in Cold Harbor, even if after they escape they never return to that story arc.

One thing I noticed that always raises an eyebrow is the start of the game now. 'Just appear' in the new tutorial prison. 'Just appear' in that location on the Tel Pen with no reason. Starting in Cold Harbor at least tells a story that I was minding my own business, abducted, murdered, have a degree of amnesia and confusion, and sets the story as to why I am doing what I am doing and why my character seems to have an advantage over the average NPC (except for the guards). Every ES game the protagonist has a title be it Dragonborn, Nev, Champion, and in ESO's case Vestige. It is what gave the explanation that he or she is above the average and has the capacity to fight beyond expectations.

Elsonso

richo262 wrote: »

What they replaced it with is a drab, meaningless situation that doesn't part any purpose on the character.

So, what you are saying is they replaced the character being soulless with the game design being soulless.