Companions - When is it enough?

Sepultura_13 · July 16

SilverBride wrote: »

Sepultura_13 wrote: »

No need for romantic scenarios or "hey let's jump in the sack" sort of creepy RP stuff, which is what a lot of the "Lusty Argonian Maid" types seem to be angling for. More like "vanilla" Skyrim, where you could get coin, food, or something because your "store" sold things and you get your "cut" of the profits. Definitely nice to have someone to come home to, but I don't need someone's "modded" version.

I'd like some loving vocalizations on occasion. "Nice to see you back home safely." Stuff like that.

I concur.

Sepultura_13 · July 16

Erickson9610 wrote: »

I don't think ESO needs more sources of passive income. It makes sense for a singleplayer game, but in a game with a multiplayer economy, I believe that getting even 100 Gold every day from your Companions on every one of your characters is a little too much.

I could see ESO's Companion romance feature being strictly new dialogue, and maybe a single quest for any Companion to get married (as it was in TES V: Skyrim). We can already move the Companions into our houses as Houseguests, and we already get different dialogue depending on our rapport with them — so a "relationship status" could simply be another rapport level, or an extension of the existing rapport levels.

Understandable. I was just using Skyrim as a reference point; not necessarily in terms of income, but getting resources wouldn't be a bad thing. I just don't see why the "romance" angle needs to be some "hardcore" stuff as others have suggested. I'm not going to go into detail since I'm not interested in being banned from the forums, even though some wish that I would be!

Your suggestion regarding "relationship status" makes sense.

SilverBride · July 16

Erickson9610 wrote: »

We can already move the Companions into our houses as Houseguests, and we already get different dialogue depending on our rapport with them — so a "relationship status" could simply be another rapport level, or an extension of the existing rapport levels.

I love the idea of an extension of the existing rapport levels. That seems like a perfect solution to make romance work.

ArchangelIsraphel · July 16

If we get a romance system, I'd like to see an expansion to companion friendships as well for those who want to further the companions story, but see the companion as a platonic friend to their character. From an RP perspective, my characters are friends with their companions- they aren't interested in any of them romantically.

Nharimlur_Finor · July 16

The quests aren't that onerous.

The Bastion one is easy; he's ugly and annoying. As Nancy said: Just don't do Bastion.

Still waiting for a 'Quistly' follower.

Bradyfjord · July 16

BretonMage wrote: »

I love the companion content in ESO, and always look forward to more. More companion stories, personalities and quests would be great.

I don't quite understand why people would call for a stop to content they don't like; instead, why not just avoid it? Maybe an option to refuse companion quests?

But sure, I'd support an option to unlock companion quests if other players want it.

Sometimes the way things look makes it seem like one bit of developed content comes at the cost of other content.

I'm just trying to explain one reason why someone would ask for an end to content they don't enjoy.

M1SHAAN · July 17

LaintalAy wrote: »

The quests aren't that onerous.

The Bastion one is easy; he's ugly and annoying. As Nancy said: Just don't do Bastion.

I respectfully disagree.

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

If we get a romance system, I'd like to see an expansion to companion friendships as well for those who want to further the companions story, but see the companion as a platonic friend to their character. From an RP perspective, my characters are friends with their companions- they aren't interested in any of them romantically.

I 100% agree. However, I'm afraid that ZOS might see the companion system like dungeons, where the way to expand the system is to just add new ones. That would mean no romance or increased friendship for us unless they're features exclusive to new companions. Bastian and Mirri already have one fewer story segment than all the other companions, and don't have letter furnishings, so they're clearly happy to introduce new things with new companions without updating the old ones.

On the other hand I was very pleasantly surprised by how substantial the update to the Archive for U43 is, so maybe I should be more optimistic.

spartaxoxo · July 17

Sepultura_13 wrote: »

I don't understand the desire for "romance" with companions...I just don't. Then again, I don't have a strange fixation or fetish for pixels, plastic, and other fake things.

Many of the people who want that in the game don't either. Romance as a form of fiction has been a normal part of storytelling for centuries. One of the first fiction novels ever written had romance (The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu). I find it strange that some can't fathom why others might enjoy standard human story telling in a story game, just because it's interactive. Do you actually feel like you're in real, physical danger when you fight a world boss? I don't get it.

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

If we get a romance system, I'd like to see an expansion to companion friendships as well for those who want to further the companions story, but see the companion as a platonic friend to their character. From an RP perspective, my characters are friends with their companions- they aren't interested in any of them romantically.

Same. Honestly I hope that they continue to add new companions for a long time. But, if they skipped one set to implement a romance/friendship system, I'd be cool with that.

SilverBride · July 17

The only reason I am not looking forward to more Companions is because of the long tedious grinds to unlock them. Yes I know I don't "need" to unlock all of them, and i know I don't "need" to unlock them on every character, but unlocking Companions doesn't "need" to be a long tedious grind either.

They should either shorten these quest chains to be comparable with how they were with our first Companions, or if they want a longer story for them, give us the option to skip the unlocking quests on alts, just like they did with the Tales of Tribute tutorial.

Erickson9610 · July 17

I believe ZOS should keep the intro quest as long as it needs to be for making a quality introduction quest. The pacing felt rushed with Mirri and Bastian's quests (not to mention they only have 2 other quests each, rather than 3) and we're supposed to believe that these characters genuinely feel permanently indebted to us after about 5 minutes of quest time? At least with the later Companions (like Ember and Isobel), there's a proper narrative buildup as their motivations and characters are showcased and given time to sink in over the course of their introduction quests.

ArchangelIsraphel · July 17

SilverBride wrote: »

The only reason I am not looking forward to more Companions is because of the long tedious grinds to unlock them. Yes I know I don't "need" to unlock all of them, and i know I don't "need" to unlock them on every character, but unlocking Companions doesn't "need" to be a long tedious grind either.

They should either shorten these quest chains to be comparable with how they were with our first Companions, or if they want a longer story for them, give us the option to skip the unlocking quests on alts, just like they did with the Tales of Tribute tutorial.

I disagree with this. I don't think narrative should be sacrificed in favor of convenience. That ultimately ends with us getting low quality content and poorly written stories. I'm glad that the quality of companion quest lines and the amount of quests we received was increased with the newer companions. It made the characters feel fleshed out and more whole as people by the time they join our characters on their journey. Mirri and Bastian, although interesting characters, pale in comparison to the newer companions.

I do not want to see ZOS go back to rushed quest lines simply because some players feel the need to sacrifice narrative in favor of quick unlocks. Quest chains should not be shortened even if we do not receive a means of unlocking them faster. Companions are not a requirement to successfully play the game, and the quality of the content should be priority, not incentivizing those who rush through the content.

Companions cost money to access, whether that be through the purchase of an expansion, or through a sub. That contents quality should be top priority, not players who rush companion unlocks on 20 alts. Why should the quality of this content be diminished in favor of this type of player behavior?

While I agree that they should implement an unlock skip as with ToT, it is unreasonable to ask that the quality of companions be effectively lowered and cheapened simply so you can unlock them quicker. A focus on having an optional unlock skip is far more reasonable, and doesn't interfere with the experience of other players.

TheMajority · July 17

optionals skip is a good idea

messing with companion quality is a bad idea

i want more companions not a game made for people who don't actually want to play a game with instant gratification all the time

just give an optional skip for those people and give us more companions

companion rp is cool, taking away content because people rush stuff is not cool

don't request to take away things people enjoy just because you want a different play

you get more support just for the skip optional function, but don't ask for stuff people like to be taken just because you want a skip. thats not fair or nice.

DinoZavr · July 17

The Companions' unlock quests are notoriously long. worst ones are Isobel's and Azandar's.
There should be an option to skip (just like you can skip new character tutorial, "welcome to Cyrodiil", and ToT tutorial), as there is zero fun to repeat one and the same procedure many times. It does not vary with your characters' class, or race.
Not everyone are about RP. Not everyone plays only one (main) character. And Companions are surprisingly useful in the Infinite Archive. So if i would like to test them Companions in the Archive with, for example, stamDK, or stamden - why should i pay that unreasonable tax of paying with my time to re-do the same quests for the N-th time?
please, let me repeat: i do not RP and i do play multiple well-developed characters.

BretonMage · July 17

Sepultura_13 wrote: »

I agree. No need for romantic scenarios or "hey let's jump in the sack" sort of creepy RP stuff, which is what a lot of the "Lusty Argonian Maid" types seem to be angling for. More like "vanilla" Skyrim, where you could get coin, food, or something because your "store" sold things and you get your "cut" of the profits. Definitely nice to have someone to come home to, but I don't need someone's "modded" version.

I actually found treating your Skyrim spouse as no more than a source of money and food to be extremely creepy myself. Also, you can get coin and food from guild traders in ESO, so I would like some proper relationship content from romanced companions. It doesn't need to be M rated or whatever, just some words of appreciation, affection and companionship.

DinoZavr · July 17

there is another Bethesda's game (though it is not a MMO) where Companions are done reasonably well (and also have them romance option) and this is Fallout 4, not TES 5. i enjoyed playing FO4 with different Companions (not only Nick), as for ESO - not that much. in my take there are too few dialogue lines and reactions to truly reveal the Companions' characters.

Elsonso · July 17

DinoZavr wrote: »

there is another Bethesda's game (though it is not a MMO) where Companions are done reasonably well (and also have them romance option) and this is Fallout 4, not TES 5. i enjoyed playing FO4 with different Companions (not only Nick), as for ESO - not that much. in my take there are too few dialogue lines and reactions to truly reveal the Companions' characters.

Honestly, if Bethesda were the only studio doing companions, I would agree about Fallout 4. I have yet to see a game published by Bethesda that had companions that were not shallow cardboard cutouts with as much depth as a kiddie wading pool.

I have never failed to install custom companions in both Fallout and Skyrim when playing on PC.

What I want to see out of ESO for companions is not more companions, but extensions to existing companions. When ZOS does multiples of anything, they tend to pull out the cookie cutter and start stamping. I really don't need clones of the existing companions, just with different appearance and dialog. I want something new to do with my current companions.

Disclaimer: I do not generally use the Romancing the Companion stuff, but if it is available, I will try it once to see what the studio did, and then I move on and forget about it.

Fata1moose · July 17

We are due for our first repeat class I wonder what they’ll do. Will be interesting to see if there’s skill overlap or another “morph” of a class skill.

On the subject of romance. It could be a new portion of the rapport you opt into via dialogue that way it’s not automatic where they fall in love with you for completing a mage’s guild quest.

I’d also like them to add dialogue that improves rapport or decreases it depending on what you say.

Would be cool if you could adopt kids and they placed kids around the cities. Adds immersion not only to the system but the game overall.

Elsonso · July 17

Fata1moose wrote: »

We are due for our first repeat class I wonder what they’ll do. Will be interesting to see if there’s skill overlap or another “morph” of a class skill.

Makes me wonder if they examined the existing Companions to see what was popular, then made another one, or one that was not popular, and decided to try again.

colossalvoids · July 17

More interested in knowing what zos thinks about it, where is the enough line. For me it's already the case as I'm not using them anyway but people want at least "one of each" and broader sentiment is "until there's something for ME". It's quite a lot of work for all the extra quests and VA which is probably cutting into questing budget already.

SilverBride · July 17

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

The only reason I am not looking forward to more Companions is because of the long tedious grinds to unlock them. Yes I know I don't "need" to unlock all of them, and i know I don't "need" to unlock them on every character, but unlocking Companions doesn't "need" to be a long tedious grind either.

They should either shorten these quest chains to be comparable with how they were with our first Companions, or if they want a longer story for them, give us the option to skip the unlocking quests on alts, just like they did with the Tales of Tribute tutorial.

I disagree with this. I don't think narrative should be sacrificed in favor of convenience. That ultimately ends with us getting low quality content and poorly written stories.

What is the point of a well written story if we have to do it so many times that we just try to get through it as quickly as possible? I'm not enjoying the story the 2nd or 3rd or 7th time around... I'm just wanting to get it over with. This was especially true with Azandar and Sharp's stories, which is a real shame because they are by far my favorite Companions so far.

SilverBride · July 17

colossalvoids wrote: »

More interested in knowing what zos thinks about it, where is the enough line.

I'd like to know this, also.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin

Can you shed some light on what the future holds for Companions?

Araneae6537 · July 17

SilverBride wrote: »

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

The only reason I am not looking forward to more Companions is because of the long tedious grinds to unlock them. Yes I know I don't "need" to unlock all of them, and i know I don't "need" to unlock them on every character, but unlocking Companions doesn't "need" to be a long tedious grind either.

They should either shorten these quest chains to be comparable with how they were with our first Companions, or if they want a longer story for them, give us the option to skip the unlocking quests on alts, just like they did with the Tales of Tribute tutorial.

I disagree with this. I don't think narrative should be sacrificed in favor of convenience. That ultimately ends with us getting low quality content and poorly written stories.

What is the point of a well written story if we have to do it so many times that we just try to get through it as quickly as possible? I'm not enjoying the story the 2nd or 3rd or 7th time around... I'm just wanting to get it over with. This was especially true with Azandar and Sharp's stories, which is a real shame because they are by far my favorite Companions so far.

That could be said of any of the quests, in zone, etc. I love to have well-written stories that I enjoy playing through on multiple characters. I found Sharp and Azandar’s stories to be the most enjoyable companion quests so far and some of the stories I enjoyed most in Necrom.

ArchangelIsraphel · July 17

SilverBride wrote: »

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

The only reason I am not looking forward to more Companions is because of the long tedious grinds to unlock them. Yes I know I don't "need" to unlock all of them, and i know I don't "need" to unlock them on every character, but unlocking Companions doesn't "need" to be a long tedious grind either.

They should either shorten these quest chains to be comparable with how they were with our first Companions, or if they want a longer story for them, give us the option to skip the unlocking quests on alts, just like they did with the Tales of Tribute tutorial.

I disagree with this. I don't think narrative should be sacrificed in favor of convenience. That ultimately ends with us getting low quality content and poorly written stories.

What is the point of a well written story if we have to do it so many times that we just try to get through it as quickly as possible? I'm not enjoying the story the 2nd or 3rd or 7th time around... I'm just wanting to get it over with. This was especially true with Azandar and Sharp's stories, which is a real shame because they are by far my favorite Companions so far.

I'm in favor of the optional unlock. I'm not in favor of cutting content. The point is that we shouldn't be diminishing the quality of content for people who want to rush it 7 times. We SHOULD get an optional skip. That's the only acceptable scenario here. Lowering content quality for those who enjoy it is not. Advocating for decreased content quality is a mistake that will come back to bite all of us.

I'm fully behind you for the optional unlocks and always have been, but pushing for the lowering of content quality for others is not something I'll support under any circumstances.

SilverBride · July 17

Araneae6537 wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

What is the point of a well written story if we have to do it so many times that we just try to get through it as quickly as possible? I'm not enjoying the story the 2nd or 3rd or 7th time around... I'm just wanting to get it over with. This was especially true with Azandar and Sharp's stories, which is a real shame because they are by far my favorite Companions so far.

That could be said of any of the quests, in zone, etc. I love to have well-written stories that I enjoy playing through on multiple characters. I found Sharp and Azandar’s stories to be the most enjoyable companion quests so far and some of the stories I enjoyed most in Necrom.

I do every quest in every zone on all my characters and I've yet to become bored with them. But that feels different to me. The other quests in the zones aren't giving a very helpful Companion, and I don't feel that I need to get those done first like I do with the Companions, so I can start using them right away. The Companion unlocking quests just feel like a chore and I really dread going through that again.

Bo0137 · July 17

No. Companions should keep getting released over and over. No end to that please.

In fact, I envision a use for an abundance of companions. My idea is a bulletin board, with tasks/missions to assign your companions around Tamriel.

The bulleting board is a furnishing, to be placed in your houses like the armory station.

The missions would be very diverse. Escorting a caravan, delivering a letter, dealing with a rat plague in a small town, hunting a beast that's been causing problems... And they would reset daily/weekly.

These missions have a success rate; and it is based off the level of your companion, their gear, their skills unlocked and how loyal to you they are (based on their rapport).

You can assign more than one companion to a single mission to increase the success rate. But these assigned companions will be unavailable during the task (which should be a few minutes or a few hours).

These missions should have "difficulty tiers", which would affect the succes rate and the time it takes to be completed.

There could be "affixes" tied to these tasks which would make it harder/easier for a specific companion to run. For example: escorting a caravan with the "urgency" affix benefits from the quickened trait on gear and from being completed by a knight; it gets harder if you assign a companion with bad reputation with the justice, or a companion with no buff skills.

Completing these missions would reward you with gold, materials, companion gear, companion exp (including exp with a specific guild, should the quest be assigned by said guild), companion rapport and, ultimately, a new material used to upgrade companion gear.

Necrotech_Master · July 17

SilverBride wrote: »

The only reason I am not looking forward to more Companions is because of the long tedious grinds to unlock them. Yes I know I don't "need" to unlock all of them, and i know I don't "need" to unlock them on every character, but unlocking Companions doesn't "need" to be a long tedious grind either.

They should either shorten these quest chains to be comparable with how they were with our first Companions, or if they want a longer story for them, give us the option to skip the unlocking quests on alts, just like they did with the Tales of Tribute tutorial.

this is how i mostly see it, except im not dreading new companions because i like the bonuses

but it is disappointing that i wont bother unlocking them because they are too arduous to get on 11 characters

i would absolutely support the ability to "fast track" or skip it like the tribute intro

JemadarofCaerSalis · July 17

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

The only reason I am not looking forward to more Companions is because of the long tedious grinds to unlock them. Yes I know I don't "need" to unlock all of them, and i know I don't "need" to unlock them on every character, but unlocking Companions doesn't "need" to be a long tedious grind either.

They should either shorten these quest chains to be comparable with how they were with our first Companions, or if they want a longer story for them, give us the option to skip the unlocking quests on alts, just like they did with the Tales of Tribute tutorial.

I disagree with this. I don't think narrative should be sacrificed in favor of convenience. That ultimately ends with us getting low quality content and poorly written stories.

What is the point of a well written story if we have to do it so many times that we just try to get through it as quickly as possible? I'm not enjoying the story the 2nd or 3rd or 7th time around... I'm just wanting to get it over with. This was especially true with Azandar and Sharp's stories, which is a real shame because they are by far my favorite Companions so far.

I'm in favor of the optional unlock. I'm not in favor of cutting content. The point is that we shouldn't be diminishing the quality of content for people who want to rush it 7 times. We SHOULD get an optional skip. That's the only acceptable scenario here. Lowering content quality for those who enjoy it is not. Advocating for decreased content quality is a mistake that will come back to bite all of us.

I'm fully behind you for the optional unlocks and always have been, but pushing for the lowering of content quality for others is not something I'll support under any circumstances.

Agree with this completely.

I am the type of person that doesn't tend to want to redo things soon after. There are games I have played multiple times, but I usually have to wait a long time between the replays, because I remember the story. It doesn't matter how good the story is.

What that means ,for me at least, is that I would far prefer to have enjoyable, quality writing, with optional 'skips' for people who want to do it multiple times, rather than have the story quality be tanked so that people can rush doing it on alts.

This way I get to enjoy a quality story the first (and likely only) time I play through it, while others can skip that content on their second+ playthroughs.

RomanRex · July 17

“When is it enough?”

Now.

Vonnegut2506 · July 17

RomanRex wrote: »

“When is it enough?”

Now.

Never.

Erickson9610 · July 17

I really do think we should continue to get new Item Sets, Antiquities, Companions, Grimoires, Skill Styles, ToT decks, Zones, Dungeons, and so on every year.

People often say we have "too many" skills, item sets, Companions, etcetera — that ZOS should prioritize making older content better. I think ZOS has the resources to make older content better when it needs to become better, but we should still receive a steady supply of new content to experience. In the context of Companions, that means that while ZOS may make improvements to the system as a whole (such as ability balancing or new dialogue/quests) they should still aim to create new characters for the system, along with their Keepsake perk and their storyline.