Anyone else disappointed? (minor spoilers)

GavinMagnus

After defeating Molag Bal we get an option to travel to other alliances' territories. Being from Aldmeri Dominion, I was thrown into Stonefalls, Ebonheart Pact territory. What could be more exciting than travelling to an enemy zone where everyone but you and other AD/DC wears a red Ebonheart Pact badge?

All my expectations went down the drain when I realised that the so-called Stonefalls was not Stonefalls but a cloned instance exclusively for AD players that completed the main quest. A hollow land where veterans grind through the quests, collect skyshards, spend little to no time gathering low level resources and eventually move on to the next zone. Instead of stepping into the whole new world we get our own isolated playground. No new players, no interaction with enemy players, no crowded towns. I had high hopes for that.

Besides reasons stated by Meridia, I do not see why they could not have done it the other way. Perhaps someone could enlighten me on that.

comradestanimirb14_ESO

The new zone has veteran specific mats, rewards, and so on. Realistically you can't put both regular and veteran rank mats in each zone, the landscape would be saturated with nodes.

Now you can criticize the entire concept of the veteran system, but I think they had to make it a different instance.

Singular

Ah, if that's how it works I am disappointed. Blach!

Gatlan

I'm ok with this. Content is harder and there are veteran dungeons to do also. My character is still progressing and I'm experiencing new content even if it was meant for another faction.
It would be nice if faction unique content went on forever but not realistic. It took me 3 weeks to finish playing regularly.

Dolenz

It's been known for quite a while that it was gong to be handled that way.

And it night feel deserted because I still believe it is a minority of dedicated players who have reached Veteran levels. And some of those that have reached it are in Cyrodiil and not bothering with the other factions.

As those of us who are taking it slower level up I assume those zones will be a little more crowded and seem less like a ghost town.

GavinMagnus

Before hitting veteran rank I had been hearing about adventure zones and veteran dungeons as main part of endgame content. This is what I assumed would have been the source of experience and a place to find high level nodes for veteran players. This was my impression as someone who gets information solely from within the game and does not use outer sources.

While I agree that this system works, players get their new content and level up, the fact of being isolated from the other two factions (while roaming their very own land) is what saddens me. I am surprised I am minority in this.

I can only hope that players, once veteran, will end up in the same instance (i.e. AD player and EB player will both be placed in the same DC instance).

ksaggies04ub17_ESO2

Wait - were you given a choice as to which faction to do second? I didn't see a choice - I used the gem of Meridia that Cadwell pointed at, and WHAM-O, I was in Daggerfall.

Not a big deal - just curious.

GavinMagnus

ksaggies04ub17_ESO2 wrote: »

Wait - were you given a choice as to which faction to do second? I didn't see a choice - I used the gem of Meridia that Cadwell pointed at, and WHAM-O, I was in Daggerfall.

Not a big deal - just curious.

Same here. I ended up in Stonefalls.

Quaesivi

Veteran zone progression is dependant on your Alliance, EP goes to DC, DC goes to AD, AD goes to EP. Second half of the Veteran zones are EP going to AD, DC going to EP and AD going to DC, counter-clockwise I believe.

Rayadrel

My only disappointment is that it's literally a clone of the low level zones. No context for your character.
You're just thrust into the past as an EP or DC player. Yes yes, Meridia. Because Daedric Princes are capable of time travel now.

Somewhere, Akatosh is crying.

Xaei

Actually, story-wise, you didn't really join any particular alliance. You just happen to wash up on the shores of an alliance.

From what I've gathered, you just helped say, the Queen, because you thought what she was doing was right and wanted so join up with her cause. You helped the Pact because the DC was burning down towns and villages and leaving a trail of the innocent dead. So it then makes sense for the game to then go 'why don't you see the what the view from another alliance looks like?'

For example, if you went with EP, every single quest basically makes DC looks like a league of blood-thirsty murderers. You get trained to hate them from the very first set of quests. So I think its actually quite nice for the game to then show you that the world isn't all black and white and that there's two sides to every coin.

Kendaric

As I've said in another post, what they should have done in my opinion is this:

> Make the veteran zones not faction specific, but retain the pure PvE.
> Allow a free choice where to travel.
> Have quests that relate to the aftermath of the 1-49 events.
So for example, on Bleakrock you'd reestablish the settlement, possibly deal with remnants of the Covenant troops and/or learn the reasons for the attack.
On Stros M'kai you'd deal with mopping up the Sea Drake pirates, possibly deal with Bhosek, etc.

That way they'd still have kept the basic zones with a few alterations/new phases, still allowing to gather the skyshards, etc. (provided you don't have them already).
It would have been much more friendly towards those of us who enjoy having an alt in every faction, while not forcing people to have alts just to see every zone.

alterfenixeb17_ESO

Kendaric wrote: »

As I've said in another post, what they should have done in my opinion is this:

> Make the veteran zones not faction specific, but retain the pure PvE.
> Allow a free choice where to travel.
> Have quests that relate to the aftermath of the 1-49 events.
So for example, on Bleakrock you'd reestablish the settlement, possibly deal with remnants of the Covenant troops and/or learn the reasons for the attack.
On Stros M'kai you'd deal with mopping up the Sea Drake pirates, possibly deal with Bhosek, etc.

That way they'd still have kept the basic zones with a few alterations/new phases, still allowing to gather the skyshards, etc. (provided you don't have them already).
It would have been much more friendly towards those of us who enjoy having an alt in every faction, while not forcing people to have alts just to see every zone.

This really in addition to overall main story (and also design choices) disappointment:

- all main story quests start from harborage. Prophet every single time has portal right to the middle of the action.
- mages guild & fighter's guild. Do quests in zone meet some people that btw accidently happen to be straight away guildmasters (yeah, CEO greeting every single new employee in the company and giving them tasks directly...)
- In general fun on rails - do hub, leave, never come back again (unless it is harborage). Got to 50? Then do same over again, just for a different faction
- In Coldharbour I've met Angof that was punished for his failure in Glenumbra. Then I hit 50 and guess what. I go to Glenumbra where I am supposed to cause Angof's failure. I don't really recall Cadwell talking anything about time travel.
- Predictible story. I mean seriously, hands up who didn't know who the Prophet is or who did believe in Color's bad intentions?

Don't take me wrong. Game is still fun, it just could be more...

Brimsurfer

Yes I am terribly disappointed, but I sick of stating why over and over again.

Laura

I love it. It really extended the experience for me anyway.

Xaei

The only problem with making quests follow on with the events of 1-49 is that they'll have to record a lot of things twice and redesign a lot of quests, and that's going to be very expensive.

Jonnymorrow

Yes I'm disappointed this game has potential but the people in charge are making all the wrong decisions.

And lets face it, Its simply another Themepark mmorpg that basically enforces solo play. The only group content is unchallenging dungeons that are only worth doing once.

PvP is average, really needed open world PvP with PvP/PvE servers. AvA is basically zerg vs zerg.

So yeah I'm disappointed.

Xaei

Open world PvE is always a bit of a hit or miss. You need a huge player population for it to work.

If you don't have one or don't have a huge open world PvP crowd, what happens is that the PvP servers are just empty servers with a couple of people running around.

Xaei

But I do agree that veteran content and alliances are badly implemented.

1. Why can't we do group dungeons with other players? It doesn't make sense from any perspective.

Lore wise, I get to decide my character's allegiances. I didn't formally join an alliance, I just washed up on their shores. ZOS, stop making our characters' personas for us.

Practically, all this means is that you divide the the availability of healers by 3. In a game with a trinity you try to get many healers out there as possible, not the other way round.

2. Veteran ranks should not have content locked behind it or gear progression. This makes them a huge grind and reduces end-game variety.

3. There's too much sacrificed in instancing veteran zones. Endgame becomes a single player game in a MMO, which is just destined for failure because MMOs cannot compete with single player games on a single player experience.

Instead what could be done was downscale all your equipment for each zone. There's level soft caps so stats shouldn't trivialise content.

Kendaric

Xaei wrote: »

The only problem with making quests follow on with the events of 1-49 is that they'll have to record a lot of things twice and redesign a lot of quests, and that's going to be very expensive.

Yes, it would have required a lot of work. But it would have been worth the added effort and cost, simply because it would have added replayability to the 1-49 content which is currently lacking.
Leveling an alt has very little purpose at the moment if you actually want to do the veteran content, unless you grind the veteran ranks via dungeons/PvP rather than doing the other alliances.

tinax37

Glad I saw this, just convinces me even more to cancel my sub! I'm stuck on 'end' main storyline trying to open library doors to Molag Bal because of yet another bug. I wrongly chose the wrong pvp campaign and am stuck in a deserted Cyrodil with little to do that don't involve extensive & long journeys to objectives. So I'm twiddling my thumbs wondering what else there might be to do until they sort out this buggy game. I can find little to recommend this game to others apart from some nice graphics, the rest needs serious changing and tweaking and even then it will still leave a lot to be desired in my opinion.