ESO’s enemy design

Rapt0rtech

I don’t know how or why but the enemy design is so poor now. EVERY DLC, EVERY AREA has similar or the exact same enemies that were in previous DLCs. Everywhere you go you see the same enemies that, from even a lore perspective, shouldn’t be there.

Even trials bosses! The end boss for Dreadsail Reef was an Air Atronach with an anchor through it’s head! Is that really the best we can get now?!

All the time I’m seeing the same enemies and animals in different areas and it’s annoying. The same humanoid enemies attacking over and over again.

Would it kill the design team to come up with more than two unique enemy designs for the big DLC releases?! [snip]

[edited for bashing]

SeaGtGruff

For some reason, I almost feel like you must be playing a different game than I am. I don't have time to list all of the different new and unique types of enemies that were introduced in various chapters and DLCs-- I've got to head to Cyrodiil and Imperial City for Mayhem-- but let's just say that I think you've apparently overlooked a lot of things that give each DLC uniqueness and a character all its own.

And as for the enemies which seem to be pervasive all across Tamriel, I'm okay with the fact that there are mudcrabs, wolves, bears, harpies, spriggans, trolls, ogres, goblins, etc., just about everywhere I go.

fall0athboy

Okay, so what enemies, from a lore perspective, shouldn't be where?

I like that it uses enemies from previous DLCs because it'd be kind of weird for each DLC to release a new enemy type that is only locked to that area and never shows up anywhere else.

By your logic, guars wouldn't show up in Telvanni Peninsula.

Uvi_AUT

You see the enemies? How? They melt in like half a second. Most of the time they dont even do 1 attack. They might as well be little boxes with XP written on them.

UntilValhalla13

The new trial is literally reused location assets. They've been cutting corners for a while.

kyatos_binarini

i was so disappointed when after Greymoor release I realised that falmers are retextured goblins (they even have same sounds). Luckily ZOS made Necrom monsters and locations much better.

Kendaric

kyatos_binarini wrote: »

i was so disappointed when after Greymoor release I realised that falmers are retextured goblins (they even have same sounds). Luckily ZOS made Necrom monsters and locations much better.

Yes, the falmer were extremely disappointing. Especially as it was really obvious that were nothing more then reskinned goblins.
There were a lot of things wrong with Greymoor, the falmer just being one of many annoyances.

Snamyap

From what I understand there are technical (memory?) limitations to adding more diverse models?

Janni

Snamyap wrote: »

From what I understand there are technical (memory?) limitations to adding more diverse models?

Those limits apply mostly to simultaneous assets, in other words, stuff that will appear at the same time. If you're creating new areas it would be entirely possible to swap some assets in and other out so that you have enough ram to work with. It's literally how games have worked since the beginning. If I had to take a guess I'd say it was more like a limit on budget and manpower...

KlauthWarthog

Having paid attention to the questline on Craglorn, I get irked whenever I see an Air Atronach anywhere else.

danno8

Yah this is a function of several things I guess.

Time is one for sure, creativity is another. A bigger consideration is also the current size of the game. On my computer the Zenimax folder is nearly 100GB which puts it at roughly double the size it was at launch. If they used entirely new assets for every bit of content they have released in the past 10 years the game would probably be hundreds of GB's by now.

Imagine trying to have both the game and PTS on the same computer while each one occupies half a TB.

I would love the option to have more varied assets and a HD texture pack though.

colossalvoids

I have the same but very different issue. It's not about art design or reused assets, it's about every enemy being virtually the same enemy despite their "skin". I was probably spoiled by other games having actually mechanically different enemies that used to have different ways to tackle those encounters. Here it's just la-skill, at times it's la-skill-la-execute. Refined gameplay indeed 😂

Elsonso

KlauthWarthog wrote: »

Having paid attention to the questline on Craglorn, I get irked whenever I see an Air Atronach anywhere else.

Those things tend to go which ever the way the wind is blowing.

I have lots of opinions on this topic, and no single answer...

Yes, ZOS reuses assets. It is efficient, cuts down on space needed to store them on disk and in various RAM locations, is faster to develop new things using them, and devs can focus attention on other things.

Things tend to move around Tamriel. If we can, then other things can. Sometimes it does not make sense for them to be somewhere, like elk outside the city of Necrom, but outside of that, things are going to spread out. This works well with asset reuse.

I guess I am not super concerned about things appearing in multiple places in Tamriel, even air atronachs.

What has bugged me is the homogenous nature of the daedric minions. I was raised to believe that certain daedra were associated with specific Princes and planes. In ESO, they sort of toss in different daedra where ever they feel like it.

Seraphayel

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

For some reason, I almost feel like you must be playing a different game than I am. I don't have time to list all of the different new and unique types of enemies that were introduced in various chapters and DLCs-- I've got to head to Cyrodiil and Imperial City for Mayhem-- but let's just say that I think you've apparently overlooked a lot of things that give each DLC uniqueness and a character all its own.

And as for the enemies which seem to be pervasive all across Tamriel, I'm okay with the fact that there are mudcrabs, wolves, bears, harpies, spriggans, trolls, ogres, goblins, etc., just about everywhere I go.

This game definitely lacks enemy variety. And the amount of new enemies introduced per Chapter has been decreasing.

What was added with Necrom? The Seekers. Anything else? I guess these other mind spiders or whatever they are called (unless they were part of Blackwood or High Isle, which I haven’t played yet). Besides that everything’s just reused enemy types. Or do you think Watchers that come in three different sizes now are new models? Enemy variety is severely lacking.

Farin_nith

KlauthWarthog wrote: »

What has bugged me is the homogenous nature of the daedric minions. I was raised to believe that certain daedra were associated with specific Princes and planes. In ESO, they sort of toss in different daedra where ever they feel like it.

Lore I found in the games I played (Skyrim amd ESO) states Daedric loyalty is fickle so you can find any kind in any Plane and under any Prince's command.