Girlfriend's Reaction to ESO: Game too Easy

spoqster · March 2015

So, after already having written a couple of posts about how the Elder Scrolls part of the game is missing challenges, let me recount this story.

After me playing for months and sinking quite a bit of my free time into ESO, today my girlfriend finally wanted to check out why I love this game so much. So today we started playing together for a few hours (up to level 8). She is no gamer by any means - she is rather worried I spend so much time in a virtual world - has no rpg experience, but did play a lot of playstation when she was a kid. So in short, I expected her to enjoy the beautiful scenery, her horse and the healing spells. I took her to the starter zones, so she'll have an easier time getting used to the combat experience.

Here is what happened:

She found the fighting *way* too easy, constantly telling me to let her fight alone. (And that at a stage where she still wastes half her resources on firing the wrong skills at the wrong time.)
She found the quests unchallenging and unimmersive. She didn't understand why she should do the quests if they didn't unlock anything meaningful, like a new area, world changes or important gear. She had the feeling that she did not make a difference in the world, and that there were too many different quest givers to really allow for a relationship to form between the player and the world.
She told me specifically that she enjoys challenges more than anything in a computer game, and that these challenges are what pique her interest and enthrall her.
After she told me that, I suggested we stop doing quests and instead go into a public dungeon to fight the bosses. It being Sunday evening, obviously a few people were out and about and our visit to the dungeon consisted of "hey, there's supposed to be a boss here, but I guess he's not spawned currently, let's find the next one" and engaging in a boss fight only to be "helped" by other players, accompanied by "oh damn, can't this guy just leave us alone?". In 30 mins we literally passed 90% non-spawned bosses, and only fought two bosses, and both times it was ludicrously easy because 2 other players showed up mid fight.
Thus we quit to watch House of Cards instead. We were both firmly disappointed.

So far I always thought I was so bored with the quest content because I am a "power user" who likes challenges disproportionally more than the normal player. But this experience indicates otherwise.

There is simply too little challenging content in the Elder Scrolls part of the game. Yes, the group dungeons are fantastic, but you don't get to the vet dungeons until you played through the game once.
And then there are the trials. I guess they're fun for Hodor and Mostly Harmless, when they are the first ones to figure out the best strategies, but for a casual gamer with much less time this part is gone. My experience with trials is that I joined a good guild and the runs where basically scripted. Do this, do that, puncture here, pull that guy and then stand there and wait for the dps fest. I felt powerful, but not challenged. It's either too time consuming to do it right and too easy to tag along.
And I can't get into PVP. I enjoyed it a little while Forward Camps were still a thing. Since they were removed, I logged on three times, and each time I logged off once I died because I did not want to ride all the way back to the battle.

Anyway, I wish the ES content would be more challenging - not mind-numbingly difficult or grindy, just challenging and immersive. Give us a gameplay experience where we can log on in the evening, do one or two quests, and give us the feeling that we significantly influenced the game world and that we had to overcome challenges (combat, riddles or otherwise) to do so. And please give us a small scale PVP experience where we can log on for two hours and can log off with a better kill ratio than our buddies 2 hours later - fingers crossed for Imperial City.

Roechacca · March 2015

Ya well my girlfriend says cooking is not challenging, an no matter how many times I bang those pots and pans together , no food comes out ...

Guess it's relative cause she can't quest very well and says it's too hard here to play this game .

Selique · March 2015

roechacca wrote: »

Ya well my girlfriend says cooking is not challenging, an no matter how many times I bang those pots and pans together , no food comes out ...

Guess it's relative cause she can't quest very well and says it's too hard here to play this game .

Lol.

Morvul · March 2015

well, this isn't exactly limited to ESO.
my personal impression is that most games try really, really, incredibly hard to cater to the "players" who want to press the very same button in not-too-rapid succession for 500+ times and then be rewarded by a very big text stating essentially: "congratulations! you are the most awesome gamer ever born and you have just won this game"

GreySix · March 2015

My wife thinks the game is about right, though like me she dislikes forced-solo instances within the main story.

Then again, we're both well over 40, so maybe its a generational "twitch gaming" thing. When we were young, computer gaming consisted of Pong and Space Invaders.

spoqster · March 2015

Morvul wrote: »

well, this isn't exactly limited to ESO.
my personal impression is that most games try really, really, incredibly hard to cater to the "players" who want to press the very same button in not-too-rapid succession for 500+ times and then be rewarded by a very big text stating essentially: "congratulations! you are the most awesome gamer ever born and you have just won this game"

You're right. And I don't necessarily have a problem with that. ESO is such a huge game, I think there should be more room for challenges.

To me the low difficulty is what I understand the least. If they increased it the game would already be more challenging without the need for new mechanics. Now with increased difficulty the game may be too hard for many players. But if these players are the ones that enjoy steamrolling so much, they can go back and steamroll grind lower level mobs until they are over-leveled for the content they can't beat.

I think it's a good balance for an MMO if the content at your level is so hard that you need to be very good to do it alone or you need to either group up or grind/train to be strong enough to beat it. That way we'd be happy to see other players while questing. And they should add a PVP campaign that scales everyone to lvl 50 and gives everyone 50 skill points. That way nobody HAS to grind through the ES part of the game to reach max level, but can simply play PVP from day one.

eliisra · March 2015

I had my boyfriend/partner trying out ESO during early access. We we're going to level characters together, because we never really get to play the same MMO's. Eventually hit level 30 both of us and got the main quest for Halls of torment and to kill Lyris Doppleganger. He wiped on that encounter 6 times in a row, playing a DK.

I tried to explain what skills he should use, grab some AoE, self-heal, block and dodge and so on. He wiped again, than again, was so angry and frustrated, than logged of the game. Later that night he return to playing WoW with his buddies. Our "gaming couple" experience was officially over.

Had beta- and early access been as easy as today's game-play and bosses, he might still be playing the game. Than he could have herpderp'ed Lyris to death with a big sword and progressed with the story, that's both immerse and captivating. Anyway, difficulty is sort of subjective. If to hard you loose players, to easy and others get bored.

GreySix · March 2015

Oh, and if the game is too easy, try the following:

- Wear only Level 1 armor, or none at all
- Avoid food and potions
- Use only Level 1 weapons

Gameplay should subsequently become more difficult.

mandrakethebard_ESO · March 2015

I normally try to ignore this kind of whinging, but I couldn't pass this up. I will point out 3 statements from your post...

spoqster wrote: »

She.....has no rpg experience, but did play a lot of playstation.

spoqster wrote: »

She didn't understand why she should do the quests if they didn't unlock anything meaningful, like a new area, world changes or important gear.

spoqster wrote: »

She told me specifically that she enjoys challenges more than anything in a computer game, and that these challenges are what pique her interest and enthrall her.

I do not know you. I do not know your girlfriend. All I can speak to is the impression you leave by stating these things. It sounds to me (from these things) that she is not the sort of person who will enjoy an immersive world and roleplaying experience such as Bethesda is known for providing, and instead as if she is the sort of person who enjoys the more sterile linear experience provided by standard console first-person shooters.

Again, this is only the impression that comes across from this information. I do not know you two, but your argument does not seem valid.

Valn · March 2015

Amazing story OP.

If only it were true. Nobody has time for a girlfriend when you play ESO.

seanvwolf · March 2015

mandrakethebard_ESO wrote: »

Again, this is only the impression that comes across from this information. I do not know you two, but your argument does not seem valid.

I got this impression too. Also everything OP stated having tried was by design an ungrouped experience. Even public dungeons you do not have to be grouped to do.

It sounds like he should have let her attack the monsters by herself and let her learn the combat mechanics on her own. This is part of the challenge of leveling up your character, finding out your personal playstyle and what skills will work with said playstyle.

My wife also doesn't play much but she was in the Beta and enjoyed her time on it, for what she played. She's a Skyrim player mostly and didn't ever play any MMO's. She enjoyed the quests in the starter zones.

ESO won't be for everyone. It doesn't promise to be.

GreySix · March 2015

mandrakethebard_ESO wrote: »

I normally try to ignore this kind of whinging, but I couldn't pass this up. I will point out 3 statements from your post...

spoqster wrote: »

She.....has no rpg experience, but did play a lot of playstation.

spoqster wrote: »

She didn't understand why she should do the quests if they didn't unlock anything meaningful, like a new area, world changes or important gear.

spoqster wrote: »

She told me specifically that she enjoys challenges more than anything in a computer game, and that these challenges are what pique her interest and enthrall her.

I do not know you. I do not know your girlfriend. All I can speak to is the impression you leave by stating these things. It sounds to me (from these things) that she is not the sort of person who will enjoy an immersive world and roleplaying experience such as Bethesda is known for providing, and instead as if she is the sort of person who enjoys the more sterile linear experience provided by standard console first-person shooters.

Again, this is only the impression that comes across from this information. I do not know you two, but your argument does not seem valid.

Your comment reminds me of a time I gave a copy of Fallout New Vegas for the PS3 to one of my NCOs. Accustomed mainly to first-person shooters and linear storylines like Call of Duty, he saw the robot in the starting town, shot at it, and then died.

Looking at his son with a WTF look on his face, his son then replied, "Dad, I don't think you're supposed to shoot at everything. You need to explore."

The NCO gave up on that particular game shortly thereafter.

Danikat · March 2015

mandrakethebard_ESO wrote: »

I normally try to ignore this kind of whinging, but I couldn't pass this up. I will point out 3 statements from your post...

spoqster wrote: »

She.....has no rpg experience, but did play a lot of playstation.

spoqster wrote: »

She didn't understand why she should do the quests if they didn't unlock anything meaningful, like a new area, world changes or important gear.

spoqster wrote: »

She told me specifically that she enjoys challenges more than anything in a computer game, and that these challenges are what pique her interest and enthrall her.

I do not know you. I do not know your girlfriend. All I can speak to is the impression you leave by stating these things. It sounds to me (from these things) that she is not the sort of person who will enjoy an immersive world and roleplaying experience such as Bethesda is known for providing, and instead as if she is the sort of person who enjoys the more sterile linear experience provided by standard console first-person shooters.

Again, this is only the impression that comes across from this information. I do not know you two, but your argument does not seem valid.

I was thinking the same thing. If she's not interested in quests that don't reward important gear or unlock new areas she would be very disappointed in almost every quest in at least the last 3 TES games. (I've never played Arena and barely remember Daggerfall so I can't comment on them.)

FPS or platformers sound more likely to appeal to her, maybe RTS games if she's into tactical challenges.

firstdecan · March 2015

The only real challenging content in this game is PvP, and even that has some issues. I hope 1.6 will improve it, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

I had an interesting "duel" with someone I bumped into in a Cyrodiil delve today, the fight went on for about 5 minutes (literally), and I think I won because he ran out of pots (hehe). It was probably the most fun I've had in this game in about 2 or 3 weeks. Aside from that the content gets boring and repetitive pretty quickly. There's only so much variety in the mobs \ dungeons, and once you learn them going through them is pretty mechanical.

Playing against other people is the only thing that will really keep you on your toes, most (but not all) people are smarter than the mob AIs and will provide a better challenge.

Rosveen · March 2015

mandrakethebard_ESO wrote: »

I normally try to ignore this kind of whinging, but I couldn't pass this up. I will point out 3 statements from your post...

spoqster wrote: »

She.....has no rpg experience, but did play a lot of playstation.

spoqster wrote: »

She didn't understand why she should do the quests if they didn't unlock anything meaningful, like a new area, world changes or important gear.

spoqster wrote: »

She told me specifically that she enjoys challenges more than anything in a computer game, and that these challenges are what pique her interest and enthrall her.

I do not know you. I do not know your girlfriend. All I can speak to is the impression you leave by stating these things. It sounds to me (from these things) that she is not the sort of person who will enjoy an immersive world and roleplaying experience such as Bethesda is known for providing, and instead as if she is the sort of person who enjoys the more sterile linear experience provided by standard console first-person shooters.

Again, this is only the impression that comes across from this information. I do not know you two, but your argument does not seem valid.

Agreed. But at the same time, she wanted to form a meaningful relationship with the world and NPCs. In terms of RPGs, I think she'd enjoy Bioware's approach more than Bethesda's. To me TES (not necessarily ESO) have always been about writing your own story, wandering around and setting your own goals. A more focused story with fleshed out characters might appeal to her more.

But still, the game under level 50 really is a faceroll, so the OP has some merit. Perhaps he should introduce his girlfriend to group content?

Ysne58 · March 2015

My husband doesn't play rpgs. I have seen him play solitaire. I'm the only on in my family playing this.

Dazin93 · March 2015

mandrakethebard_ESO wrote: »

I

I do not know you. I do not know your girlfriend. All I can speak to is the impression you leave by stating these things. It sounds to me (from these things) that she is not the sort of person who will enjoy an immersive world and roleplaying experience such as Bethesda is known for providing, and instead as if she is the sort of person who enjoys the more sterile linear experience provided by standard console first-person shooters.

Again, this is only the impression that comes across from this information. I do not know you two, but your argument does not seem valid.

I'm curious what exactly it is you find immersive in ESO? Is it the 1-50 experience that you can complete in 14hrs, the VR levels that make no sense from a lore/role playing perspective, or perhaps the AFK master crafting system? Playing with others can be immersive, but that is just a byproduct of any communal game; the game itself doesn't create that.

GreySix · March 2015

Dazin93 wrote: »

I'm curious what exactly it is you find immersive in ESO? Is it the 1-50 experience that you can complete in 14hrs...

If you have no life outside of ESO, sure.

My wife and I have been playing since early release. We average about three to five hours a week, but that's probably pretty standard for casual players who otherwise work for a living and have other interests too.

Never understood folks who race through content to ... what? Get the super-duper purple/gold gear from the goddess of coolness? The story is the ride. Slow down and enjoy it.

Rosveen · March 2015

I completed the 1-50 experience in 3 months... And I'm not even a roleplayer or an altoholic. If I was, I'd have 16 characters of varying <50 levels, like that one guy I know.

GreySix · March 2015

I play about five alternate characters, but we've still taken our time exploring, listening to quest-givers, and generally letting our characters enjoy themselves. And both mains are sitting at 45.

Really just don't see the point of racing through an MMO. It's not like there's any real end-game.

Dazin93 · March 2015

GreySix wrote: »

Dazin93 wrote: »

I'm curious what exactly it is you find immersive in ESO? Is it the 1-50 experience that you can complete in 14hrs...

If you have no life outside of ESO, sure.

My wife and I have been playing since early release. We average about three to five hours a week, but that's probably pretty standard for casual players who otherwise work for a living and have other interests too.

Never understood folks who race through content to ... what? Get the super-duper purple/gold gear from the goddess of coolness? The story is the ride. Slow down and enjoy it.

I'm not going tell people how they should play or debate grinding vs questing or role playing. However, it is a fact that you can easily level to 50 in that time and there are plenty of guides out there explaining how.

I am legitimately curious what the previous poster finds immersive in ESO as I don't particularly find it immersive at all. I have enjoyed moments grouped with others but as I said that is a byproduct of playing any communal game. What immersion does ESO offer that other games such as GW2, SWTOR, WoW, and others don't?

onlinegamer1 · March 2015

spoqster wrote: »

So, after already having written a couple of posts about how the Elder Scrolls part of the game is missing challenges, let me recount this story.

After me playing for months and sinking quite a bit of my free time into ESO, today my girlfriend

Stopped reading there.

Was believable until you claimed to have a girlfriend.

starkerealm · March 2015

spoqster wrote: »

She found the quests unchallenging and unimmersive. She didn't understand why she should do the quests if they didn't unlock anything meaningful, like a new area, world changes or important gear. She had the feeling that she did not make a difference in the world, and that there were too many different quest givers to really allow for a relationship to form between the player and the world.

Quests do unlock an altered world states most of the time. So, there is that. Which is fairly unusual for an MMO.

mandrakethebard_ESO · March 2015

Dazin93 wrote: »

I'm curious what exactly it is you find immersive in ESO? Is it the 1-50 experience that you can complete in 14hrs, the VR levels that make no sense from a lore/role playing perspective, or perhaps the AFK master crafting system? Playing with others can be immersive, but that is just a byproduct of any communal game; the game itself doesn't create that.

No problem. Here's what I find immersive.
(1) A large world that can be explored in detail.
(2) A wide variety of NPCs spread out over the world and linked by relationships, storylines, and also shared and related experiences.
(3) A world that is responsive to my actions. When I do quest content, my actions have consequences and change the nature of areas, enemies, and the reactions of NPCs.
(4) A PvP campaign that is intricate, engaging, and is in fact the only PvP I have ever really enjoyed (despite some rather obnoxious zerging, you know who you are).
(5) Tons of things to do that have nothing to do with fighting.
(6) Most importantly, an endless variety of people and places that have absolutely nothing to do with quests or advancement.

What annoys me is people who seem convinced that the only content that matters is content that is directly related to their progress. I feel precisely the opposite, that it is the richness of the world outside of levels and advancement that makes this game so much fun.

As to your "complete in 14 hours" (avoid being insulting, 'drake, do it) idea, that is precisely the sort of gameplay that I find boring, meaningless, and annoying. If I were a person who chose to play as you do, I have no doubt that I could complete the "game" just as quickly. Instead, the reality is that it took me months to level my first primary character to VR levels. Not because I was slow, not because I was weak, but because I was actually playing the game..... plus I have a life, so I don't have 10 hours a day to waste on just a game.

Cheers.

Dazin93 · March 2015

mandrakethebard_ESO wrote: »

Dazin93 wrote: »

I'm curious what exactly it is you find immersive in ESO? Is it the 1-50 experience that you can complete in 14hrs, the VR levels that make no sense from a lore/role playing perspective, or perhaps the AFK master crafting system? Playing with others can be immersive, but that is just a byproduct of any communal game; the game itself doesn't create that.

No problem. Here's what I find immersive.
(1) A large world that can be explored in detail.
(2) A wide variety of NPCs spread out over the world and linked by relationships, storylines, and also shared and related experiences.
(3) A world that is responsive to my actions. When I do quest content, my actions have consequences and change the nature of areas, enemies, and the reactions of NPCs.
(4) A PvP campaign that is intricate, engaging, and is in fact the only PvP I have ever really enjoyed (despite some rather obnoxious zerging, you know who you are).
(5) Tons of things to do that have nothing to do with fighting.
(6) Most importantly, an endless variety of people and places that have absolutely nothing to do with quests or advancement.

What annoys me is people who seem convinced that the only content that matters is content that is directly related to their progress. I feel precisely the opposite, that it is the richness of the world outside of levels and advancement that makes this game so much fun.

As to your "complete in 14 hours" (avoid being insulting, 'drake, do it) idea, that is precisely the sort of gameplay that I find boring, meaningless, and annoying. If I were a person who chose to play as you do, I have no doubt that I could complete the "game" just as quickly. Instead, the reality is that it took me months to level my first primary character to VR levels. Not because I was slow, not because I was weak, but because I was actually playing the game..... plus I have a life, so I don't have 10 hours a day to waste on just a game.

Cheers.

I surely never went 1-50 in 14 hrs and never said I did, just that it can be done so I think your misunderstanding me. I'm glad you find ESO immersive, but all those things you listed could apply to any generic MMO which leads me to believe you either love all MMOs or haven't truly played that many.

spoqster · March 2015

Some background info: I am a casual gamer. It took me 6 months to get my main to vr14, playing only that one character. With a demanding job and a relationship I usually only get to play a few hours a week, but sometimes I take a day of to play because it is a great way for me to relax.

And now for clarification, because I did not elaborate much in the original post.

mandrakethebard_ESO wrote: »

I do not know you. I do not know your girlfriend. All I can speak to is the impression you leave by stating these things. It sounds to me (from these things) that she is not the sort of person who will enjoy an immersive world and roleplaying experience such as Bethesda is known for providing, and instead as if she is the sort of person who enjoys the more sterile linear experience provided by standard console first-person shooters.

It could be that she would enjoy that, but that is not what she said. She explicitly said that she was missing challenges and that she couldn't remember all the names - her words. And while I don't necessarily agree with the latter part, I do agree with the first and I do think the two complaints may be interlinked. If you get a quest by somebody, go into a delve, steamroll through it and don't even notice that you killed a miniboss along the way - that's not very memorable. I just replayed almost the whole main story on level 40 a week ago. I couldn't remember the bosses I faced, because I just steamrolled through it while watching TV. Then I had to pause the TV to listen to the dialogs, which bored me. The boss fights should be so hard they force me to turn off the TV to help me concentrate and they should take so long, that the dialog afterwards will feel like a reward while you catch your breath.

seanvwolf wrote: »

It sounds like he should have let her attack the monsters by herself and let her learn the combat mechanics on her own. This is part of the challenge of leveling up your character, finding out your personal playstyle and what skills will work with said playstyle.

She did run around a bit by herself. But that's not fun for her. She plays it to spend time with me, and honestly it's the same for me. If I am going to play a computer game with my girl, I'll want to play it WITH her - and I think many MMO players feel that way. And this shouldn't be a single player game, right? It should be fun to group, shouldn't it? You should feel happy when you see other players, right? It should be more fun to play in a group then alone, should it not? Currently the content is just too easy when you play in a group, because it's too easy when you play alone. And all the challenging parts of the ES part of the game are usually ruined by other players. Solo dungeons, public dungeons, quest bosses and dolmens all feel like this:

firstdecan wrote: »

I had an interesting "duel" with someone I bumped into in a Cyrodiil delve today, the fight went on for about 5 minutes (literally), and I think I won because he ran out of pots (hehe). It was probably the most fun I've had in this game in about 2 or 3 weeks. Aside from that the content gets boring and repetitive pretty quickly. There's only so much variety in the mobs \ dungeons, and once you learn them going through them is pretty mechanical.

Shouldn't it be like that every session, every day? Imagine a counter strike player coming up to you, saying "Hey, I've played a fun map yesterday. It was a really close match. Eventually only me and another player were alive and I eventually won. That's the most fun I had in weeks." When I played Counter Strike I had this experience almost a couple of times every day.

mandrakethebard_ESO wrote: »

What annoys me is people who seem convinced that the only content that matters is content that is directly related to their progress. I feel precisely the opposite, that it is the richness of the world outside of levels and advancement that makes this game so much fun.

I am fully with you. I think reward can take many shapes and forms, and does not always need to be character progression. Experiencing the story should be the first reward. We don't get new car tires for watching Game of Thrones, but we enjoy it anyway, because the story is so good.
In some old RPGs you needed minimum levels to start specific parts of the game, so you had to go out and kill a few more mobs to reach that level. Nobody called it grinding back then, it was simply a bit of practice you got before the next stage.
BUT if you do hand out progression rewards for completing quests make the quest challenging and the reward valuable. Don't just hand out a load of xp for running to persons A, B, C and listing to their dialogue while facerolling a few mobs in between. Put a really hard boss inside the quest that has some smart mechanic that makes him scale to the number of players and instance him to the group (not single player, not public), and then reward that quest with a lot of xp and a great set item.

Also, while I am not a hardcore PVPer, I do understand the more sports oriented players because it's a MMO with great combat mechanics, who don't care about the Elder Scrolls part of the game. Of course they will be frustrated to have to play through all the quest content before reaching endgame. Give them what they want, and let them play at endgame level from day one. They'll end up taking a break from PVP and enjoy the storyline when they are ready for it.

mandrakethebard_ESO · March 2015

Dazin93 wrote: »

I'm glad you find ESO immersive, but all those things you listed could apply to any generic MMO which leads me to believe you either love all MMOs or haven't truly played that many.

I've played several MMOs, and prior to that many MUDs as well. Generally speaking, I find MMOs quite obnoxious and boring... this is primarily due to the player population of course, not the developers so much, but I find that most MMOs cater to particular player tastes that are not my own. Certainly many MMO developers reach for a certain depth of content, but ESO has succeed best of the ones currently on the market, in part because of the existing well-developed world they had to work with. The only other MMO that I personally feel was ESOs equal was City of Heroes (sadly, an MMO that shifted away from a subscription model and was shut down a year later... part of why Tamriel Unlimited worries me).

If you feel I haven't played many such games, you are incorrect. If you feel that I have some great love of MMOs in general, you're very incorrect. Zenimax has had an uphill battle keeping myself and my wife interested in an MMO, but they're managing so far. Kudos to them.

Atirez · March 2015

Dazin93 wrote: »

mandrakethebard_ESO wrote: »

I

I do not know you. I do not know your girlfriend. All I can speak to is the impression you leave by stating these things. It sounds to me (from these things) that she is not the sort of person who will enjoy an immersive world and roleplaying experience such as Bethesda is known for providing, and instead as if she is the sort of person who enjoys the more sterile linear experience provided by standard console first-person shooters.

Again, this is only the impression that comes across from this information. I do not know you two, but your argument does not seem valid.

I'm curious what exactly it is you find immersive in ESO? Is it the 1-50 experience that you can complete in 14hrs, the VR levels that make no sense from a lore/role playing perspective, or perhaps the AFK master crafting system? Playing with others can be immersive, but that is just a byproduct of any communal game; the game itself doesn't create that.

14 hours! Is that for real? I have played more than that on one character this weekend and only went from 20 to 33. Spent around 1 hour alone in the Halls of the Dead (grouped with 1 random). And even now I feel like I have been speed clicking quest text and feel I am missing out.

adriant1978 · March 2015

Rosveen wrote: »

I'm not even a roleplayer or an altoholic. If I was, I'd have 16 characters of varying <50 levels, like that one guy I know.

Hey, I resemble that remark.

spoqster · March 2015

Disclaimer: I do love this game for the world and the combat system, but I do feel the need to comment on this.

mandrakethebard_ESO wrote: »

No problem. Here's what I find immersive.
(1) A large world that can be explored in detail.

The explorable world is not really that large. In reality at any given character level, there is only little to explore, because for the rest you are either under-leveled or over-leveled. I played through everything, and I've always felt more on rails than anything else.

mandrakethebard_ESO wrote: »

(2) A wide variety of NPCs spread out over the world and linked by relationships, storylines, and also shared and related experiences.

Yes, there are a few characters that follow you through Tamriel and that you form a relationship with. Razum'Dar, the noble explorer girl and that Gauthier guy pop to mind. But it's all not very dynamic. Essentially you have to follow through with the story from start to finish for it to make sense.

mandrakethebard_ESO wrote: »

(3) A world that is responsive to my actions. When I do quest content, my actions have consequences and change the nature of areas, enemies, and the reactions of NPCs.

That does happen a little bit, but before the beta I had my hopes up for much, much more. It was 2014 and Elder Scrolls, and I was expecting something truly innovative: An open and fully dynamic world, where story lines in the world evolve in real time and your actions actually help change the world. Not in the sense that you follow a scripted story line and then a city is free afterwards or a few ghosts change from red glow to yellow glow, but a storyline that the players get to write. I would like to come to Wayrest tomorrow and find out the city is occupied by the Pact and that hundreds of players have to fight together for the next weeks to free it.

mandrakethebard_ESO wrote: »

(4) A PvP campaign that is intricate, engaging, and is in fact the only PvP I have ever really enjoyed (despite some rather obnoxious zerging, you know who you are).

How is Cyrodiil intricate and engaging? It feels like you're stuck in an infinite loop of keep switching with A LOT of riding your horse in between. Every keep looks the same and offers the same game mechanics. Between the keeps Cyrodiil is a wasteland. And nothing ever changes. Even the quests are all repeatable. Cyrodiil is just a gigantic instance of Groundhog Day.

mandrakethebard_ESO wrote: »

(5) Tons of things to do that have nothing to do with fighting.

Like what? Crafting and crafting writs? I was really hopeful when they announced the writs, but again this mechanic is so dull it's barely tolerable. Where is the variety? Why don't they ask me to construct complicated set items with traits I still need to discover? In terms of immersion, who will ever need dull iron lvl 1 daggers and why should I waste my time creating them and then bringing them somewhere. They should have made this crafting writs palyer-based. Player A puts up a request for a specific item and then player B can craft that and get paid by player A. That would be an engaging experience and you would be doing something useful at the same time. It is an MMO after all, is it not?

And crafting... Yes it is not all bad and I enjoy part of it. But the actual process of creating a full set of gear (9-11 items) is just agony. You have to travel to at least two different set locations, then you have to travel back because there is no enchanting station at the set locations, then you have to redo an item because the interface resets the level between items. The last time I did that it took me over one hour to craft a set of gear for my character! We could really do with some convenience in that department: A) Put enchanting stations inside the set locations, and

add a crafting wizards that 1. you select the level, 2. you select all the pieces you want crafted and 3. you select the quality of the pieces - nobody tempers at not 100% anyway, that's just a useless game element.

mandrakethebard_ESO wrote: »

(6) Most importantly, an endless variety of people and places that have absolutely nothing to do with quests or advancement.

You mean all the npcs that stand around and don't have dialogue? Or the merchants that are in every town that sell useless overpriced goods?

Sorry for the rant. As I said, I enjoy the game, but I do think it could be a lot better if it were more dynamic, player-driven and challenging.

Sharee · March 2015

Why didn't you just take her to a higher level area if you wanted more challenging fights? Two level 8's would find Stormhaven pretty challenging, i think. Or Bad man's hallows in Glenumbra, its not higher level but plenty of bosses and it's a bit out of the way so not crowded usually.

(assuming DC of course, if you are in a different faction change places accordingly)