First impressions (long text!)

Kallion

Greetings all,

After 4 days in TESO and many hours of running around in Tamriel, I thought of depositing my 2 cents, hoping that they might give people and the developers a look from a different perspective!

The purpose for my writing is to share the experience I've been having so far in the game. But before I do so, I'd like to state that I am not a WoW person. I played it casually from time to time but no end game material. My past runs more into the fields of Guild Wars 2, Star Wars The Old Republic, Star Trek Online and The Secret World to mention a few. I've also been a player of Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim.

Starting, I'd like to state that TESO is a very beautiful, very immersive game and I very much enjoy the stories, quests and environmental feeling that it gives you. As much as I would like to enjoy all classes and alternative builds though, I have found the process to be discouraging. The first levels are slow and can get repetitive if one decides to explore another class in the same alliance. So, either I like it or not, I find myself trying only 3 character classes. One for each alliance.

As a new player to the game, I am not familiar with most of its aspects, crafting, etc. The general costs of vendors and services in-game appear quite steep. As a startup, I am bound to make mistakes, as many other new players will do in their journey of knowledge and experimentation. But once I laid eyes on the respec costs, I kind of froze in place. It feels like "do it right from the start, or suffer greatly". That kind of clipped my wings. I started realizing the level of in-game punishment I suppose.

The quest system I enjoy. It's really refreshing to be able to explore and pick quests from where they actually belong. Also, it's great to exit a dungeon and see the quest giver waiting for you instead of having to go back to another hub and deliver like it's a mundane job. The phasing, no matter how some people may complain, I enjoy it. It gives the feeling that my efforts have meaning and they do change the world.

I have noticed a steepness in difficulty though. One wrong choice in a skillpoint or a direction to the very versatile character build options and the punishment can be harsh. I have found myself deleting far too many characters (lvls 8-10 mostly) than having to even consider respec costs.Mind you, at the moment of this writing, I have only reached up to level 15.

Solo questing is a double edged knife. Several normal mobs excersise some crazy luck, delivering normal blows (not ones that need interrupts) that take up to 60% of a player's health off. I've seen far too many people die in front of me (health around 50% and then instadeath from a normal mob) before I am able to do anything about it. And when I see that happening I am asking myself... are they people I can spend my rarely found soulstones to resurrect? Or is it a bot? Also, I seem to want to encounter crowds questing in the areas I'm going. Or at least 2-3 more people. If I solo with any other character than my sorceror, I am getting very nervous. That should never be the case in the starting levels, but there it is. My very first MMO ever that I had an armor piece reach zero. I understand about the durability, but losing actual defense stats so fast makes a tank's life very difficult. And as a natural tank player in most MMOs, I am not friendly to the idea of building a dedicated defender here.

I believe that the key of every game's success is to start easy on new players and increase the difficulty as time and levels progress. The feeling I currently have in TESO is "Good morn...die die die die"! My bulkwark heavy armored sorceror is the only survivable class I have experienced so far as a solo player. And at the moment, on my 4rth day of play, I have the feeling that will be my only character that will remain in the end. Light armor? Ehm... it's best used as couch covers or something! LoL

Normal weapon attacks, in most cases take a very long time to deliver very weak blows. I do miss the bow targetting of Skyrim where I could actually aim for the throat or the head of a mob and do big damage. So I find myself relying mostly on Magika, that -of course- runs out after using 3 abilities. At later levels it gets slightly better if one invests heavily on it, but still.

The rewards system, in my humble opinion needs a massive overhaul. The first big starting area allows a member to reach at the absolute precise level requirement to go to the next zone. So there is very little room for maneuvers. Working on a quest for the amount of time required should at least offer options that allow for a class to keep on heading for a specific build. "Hey, you're a nightblade! Here's a shield, a 2-handed mace and some cloth slippers to help you"! Something seems a bit off in that statement, but that's the general idea!

As I mentioned above, TESO is a wonderful game, but it suffers in replayability and is very harsh in its punishments. That is not a good way to welcome new players that want to experiment and try new things. And as a non-crafter (at the moment), I have to heavily rely on drops and try to exchange them with my other characters in order to try and make something work. Plus, I have to sell approximately 20-40 pieces of armor drops to a vendor to be able to buy one piece of gear with no bonus on it. Or I'll have to stick with the "soul shriven" decorative cloth!

And last, but not least, some quests are very troublesome for some classes. The tactic of "gain a level or two and then return", unfortunately has limited application. The areas of lvl 3-15 are very precise in their progression. This means there is very little room for an extra level or two to the side. And, as I mentioned above, a respec can leave many people broke halfway through.

That's my two cents as a seasoned gamer, but new to TESO. The game needs to offer better rewards and less punishment. At this very moment, it feels there is very little of the former and an abundance of the latter.

As for myself, I will keep on trying. No idea where my efforts will lead me, but I will keep on trying!

kasain

As a Sor, don't ever get any gear. gear is useless. You can beat the game without any gear. Just see it as decorative. I do say you should save the money you would in repairs and put it in crafting. At some point making a weapon or armor could be nice. But not until they fix the decay or allow crafters to repair their own gear.

As for magic, your doing well and probably will only get 3-4 spells off. I have myself put my points in MP and stamina. Two handed weapons not only help increase magic and melee dmg, but let us do great dmg and give us tools to help us I boss fights.

Stampede, uppercut, crave will be your friends.

I do understand the game feels lonely. The storylines are great, but even when you beat a great boss or complete a quest, you wont ever have your friend, wife or whomever there to go OMFG, WE DID IT!, mostly due to solo mission locks or phasing. This in a way takes away a big part of online and perhaps the biggest drawback in the game.

If I was to have a friend start tomorrow. could do nothing with him as I a V1. HI couldn't help him with most missions, most quest, and depending on his faction I may never even see him. So how could I recommended a friend to come join me, play the game and hang out?

I even bought the game for a friend but can't ever see him. Tragedy.

Kallion

Basically, once the "honeymoon" period ends, the real test of character begins. I tried a nightblade that kept on going well at start (bow oriented, decently geared, careful skill planning). As many quests I did, I always end up being underleveled as I progress. And I leave nothing behind. I explore every possible inch and all map icons turn white.

Still though, somehow the quest requirements increase much faster than the experience they grant, which in some cases can be measured to an actual milimeter on my 24" monitor! Boy did I feel the XP bar to be awfully long at that point! And it was a pretty complex quest. On simple deliveries, the bar simply didn't move. LOL

I believe there is only one explanation for this: the game wants the player to grind, but it just doesn't say it. At least in SWTOR they were blunt about it. Stage 1 - Kill a Galaxy of Mobs, Stage 2 - Genocide 5 universes... etc! Exaggerating of course, but I believe the message is clear!

Back to topic though.

I sneaked with my nightblade in an "Inheritance" camp (mobs level 12, I was level 11 close to 12, but 8 quests refused to allow me to get there) and got spotted by 2 pyromancers behind a wall (no way to see them). To my surprise, I was literally 2-shot! I'd understand if they were elite or boss mobs, but they were just normal. Armor was not in decay yet and I had the Lover buff that -suposedly- gave me protection against spells. I can only imagine what would happen if that buff wasn't there! Before someone asks, the Pyros don't wait for an interrupt to their abilities, they just instacast their ultimate powers and by the time I evade (keep in mind that I am on the "EU" server, which translates to really delayed responses), I take at least half the damage they intend to do (gives the impression that those spells are designed kill on single use). Ask people how they feel about Scamp mobs... and buff that! Also don't forget to include 2sec delay per ability ("EU" server) to actually work and you have an... explosive combination!

Later as I was looking through the abilities, I found there is one skill that allows the capture of a soul in an empty gem. That allows for a field resurrection or a weapon recharge. Point being is that with only 5 skills in our bar, dedicating one slot to get that gem filled is a bit limiting. In some cases, weak classes risk death just trying to fill that thing! Not to mention reconfiguring the bars on a frequent basis if one enters an area of un-equal mobs (one hits like a puppy and the one next slams like a raid boss).

Some friends tell me it gets better and easier (?) as levels progress. If that's true, then it's just wrong! Games are supposed to become more challenging as they progress, not the other way around! From my mob experience so far, there are difficulty spikes that need a lot of ironing across levels 5-15 to produce a smooth curve. One small example I encountered was the Lightning Bugs (or something like that). The first was an easy kill as it tried to ram me with an occasional lightning. The 2nd though (same mob name), threw some skills in the field that drank my health faster than a pirate drinks his ale! Same mob, different behavior. Interesting just to think about it! I believe they got ironed out in the latest patch, or at least it feels they did.

Well, that is -I believe- my "big" input so far. The lack of a EU server adds to the punishment some of us newbies have to go through. I'm used to having an approximate 90ms latency on all EU servers (the Mediterraneans are not close to the big network hubs, unfortunately) and the 280ms in a game that requires fast reaction can make one's life hard, unfortunately. I can only imagine the ping people from Asia or South Africa or Australia are getting. I was seeing other players shift from place to place like cut-cut-cut. As if they were insta-porting. It's that bad at times.

On a final note, I suppose it's best if I allow the developers to iron out / finish the game and give us the EU server they promised (and haven't delivered)... before I get spoiled and start feeling dialup response speeds are normal in our time!

Until then, I'll simply try to enjoy the remaining 25 days! That's how long the developers have to make me invest more of my time in their design.

xramirez535b14_ESO

Kallion wrote: »

As many quests I did, I always end up being underleveled as I progress. And I leave nothing behind. I explore every possible inch and all map icons turn white.

Is this just a nightblade thing? On my DK I'm having to go back to finish lower level quests cuz I accidentally out leveled them while exploring...

Kallion

On Nightblade it's harder to tackle many mobs at the same time, so I limit my grinding unless I want to empty my resources on repairs (or re-crafts). Server high latency isn't happy with fast moves and reactions so it's quite a problem.

But yeah, I finished everything, including bosses and dungeons (group one also) and just hit lvl 16 for the next zone. This means the starter island and the entire Auridon.

jircris11

NB class is a tactical based class. you cant just run in and kill things..you will die. BUT if played right..im lvl 46 and have not since lvl 21....damn fire mages >>

Kallion

Tactical indeed, as long as the server is responsive enough for me to move, avoid, cast abilities on time. Unfortunately, that isn't the case. If you read further up my posts, you'll see that I'm on the "EU" server, which makes things a bit (if not a lot) more difficult.

Server & client rarely appear to agree on timing & synchronization. So far I've had:
- Melee mobs hit me from 25-30 feet away with melee weapons
- AoE hit me when I'm far outside it
- Suddenly lose more than 50% of my health without any reason, only to see a mob suddenly pop on top of me that shouldn't be there (server sync "forgot" to inform my client of what was going on) and then almost teleport away
- Players not walking/running, but porting from place to place in erratic ways in a normal questing area (not bots, normal people)
- Abilities failing to activate such as push backs and dodges failing to work without multi-clicks (I'm a GW2 vet and pretty darn good at dodging) due to packet loss

The only time I have an "acceptable" ~200ms latency is between 12am-6am GMT.

So yeah, it's not exactly fair to compare. I've had more deaths in ESO levels 1-10 than I have in most MMOs from 1-cap. Could it be because the rest have an actual EU server?

BETAOPTICS

This is good one in my opinion. Indeed the game is at it's hardest in the early game and the balance is way off. Armors in my opinion are alright but classes aren't and weapon skills are way under powered compared to class specific skills both in PvP. and PvE. content.

This is yet another unnecessary and unintentional limitation to the game. It is not to say that you can not complete the game using any build but the balance is still off which I do hope, will be looked upon in one way or another.

And certain content and the randomness of drops tend to favor the lucky ones. Today I read about a player who has gotten a total of 80 gold materials in his/hers playtrough by normal means.

Extracting and hirelings that is and he was Veteran Rank 3. I am personally Veteran Rank 1 at the moment. Which is not very far at all from this guy and only today I got my first gold material and I'm not even the worst case scenario example here.

Some get gems left and right and it is extremely hard and punishing to play if you are unlucky if we may say so with our drops. Builds can help with a lot of things and ease the burden but still.

Then there are all the misinformation, the lack of it trough various ways and other technical issues the game still has that are indeed a bane for the game. As fun as it is to play it as long as you invest more time in it. I found that the level 21 and above truly opened the game up and before it, the game was extremely dull. It is not to say it will get to pure epic levels of awesome later on but much better.

This is however a issue of phasing and as far as I know ZoS is aware of this and will be working on it in the future. At least I hope they are because I want this game to be good and successful but it has a long road ahead for that to happen.

Kallion

If the game opens up after level 21, then it gives me a bit of hope.
There are things that definitely need fixing in ESO, but the most "costly" is the distant server we have to deal with. This adds to our repair expenses, frustration and lengthier times to accomplish the same thing that our NA counterparts can do much faster.

In general, the game has a good base, but some of the business decisions were rushed and premature. They probably wanted to act quickly before other similar titles (i.e. Dragon Age III) came out and take a piece of the pie? Perhaps.

The bugs I don't mind. They can be ironed out as long as they don't reach unreal levels (thankfully I have not encountered that many yet, others might have a more dramatic time with them). My usual frustration comes from the delayed and -at times- non existent responsiveness from the server (packet loss). The vibrant imbalances (PvE) and the excessive costs in general make things a bit more tedious with the lag added on top.

Should we get the EU server. things will -at least- be more in the player's control rather than in the network's mood. That will be enough for me to consider ESO for a longer term. Until then, I still have a few days to go, so I'll keep on trying and maintain an eye on developments. Who knows, perhaps they will listen to the outcries and prep a server in the EU before my time runs out.
Wishful thinking!

silent88b14_ESO

If there were no challenge or conflict involved, would the story be interesting?

If you had a quickbar slot for every possible skill would it still be a quickslot?

I'd argue that there must be limitations to player abilities, just as there must be rules to a game. Your decisions should have consequences or they will not be meaningful. Without the possibility of poor decisions choice is meaningless. If you cannot make a mistake then you also cannot make a brilliant choice, and you also have no freedom.

BETAOPTICS

silent88b14_ESO wrote: »

If there were no challenge or conflict involved, would the story be interesting?

If you had a quickbar slot for every possible skill would it still be a quickslot?

I'd argue that there must be limitations to player abilities, just as there must be rules to a game. Your decisions should have consequences or they will not be meaningful. Without the possibility of poor decisions choice is meaningless. If you cannot make a mistake then you also cannot make a brilliant choice, and you also have no freedom.

It highly depends. People like different things after all and you are using the extremist points there. Yes there has to be challenge and conflict to some end but to what point there should be, is a different topic to begin with. Do not try to merge these because they are not the same thing.

I will not say what I thought about the early game other than that I found it dull. Nothing I used points on for example, didn't even matter if you ask me. Once I gained levels though, the impacts started showing and I really started getting the hang of what I have build for and what my theorycrafting was for.

And this is a problem in itself already and to be honest. ZoS goal is to build how you want to build, be who you want to be like in traditional TES games, there is no poor choices in this one, there are situational ones only. Indeed, in the end, the choices you make in build or or in quests do not matter at all.

How you build might change how you play but ideally they don't matter. Because ideally you should be just as effective as the other guy if your skills and kit are met up on an equal standing. This is not the case since balance is off and why wouldn't it be, after all, a true balance is extremely hard to create.

TheMazrem

silent88b14_ESO wrote: »

If there were no challenge or conflict involved, would the story be interesting?

If you had a quickbar slot for every possible skill would it still be a quickslot?

I'd argue that there must be limitations to player abilities, just as there must be rules to a game. Your decisions should have consequences or they will not be meaningful. Without the possibility of poor decisions choice is meaningless. If you cannot make a mistake then you also cannot make a brilliant choice, and you also have no freedom.

While I agree with you in general, I'd like to also point out that most of the time, you have no idea how skills evolve or how useful they really are unless you do a lot of outside research. In a game where you can literally make yourself whatever role you want to be in any of the possible class choices, there should be a little more room for experimentation to find the build that works for you.

Kallion

TheMazrem wrote: »

While I agree with you in general, I'd like to also point out that most of the time, you have no idea how skills evolve or how useful they really are unless you do a lot of outside research. In a game where you can literally make yourself whatever role you want to be in any of the possible class choices, there should be a little more room for experimentation to find the build that works for you.

Which can be a trap on its own as one could try to go for a setup that eventually doesn't work so well further down the road. Quite tricky!