Elder Scrolls Online is an MMORPG, and denying that is where most of its issues spring from.

amgame308_ESO · July 2015

dday3six wrote: »

Elloa wrote: »

AaronLannister wrote: »

I can see your point.
but it still doesn't excuse them from omitting text chat on consoles.

This is an entierly different topic than the ones I brought up. But yes I agree with you.

@Attorneyatlawl @Smiteye @dday3six

First of all, it toke me maybe one year to level my character, but this has nothing to do with my capability to do content and play the game. I play ESO since july 2013. I played/tested most of end game content on PTS before it was released. So I actually healed Veteran City of Ashes when my main character was still lvl 40 or something.
For my main character I just toke my time. Because I enjoyed it that way.

When I say its possible to play without addons, I'm obviously not speaking about players finishing the main story and all the quest. I'm speaking about players doing the most difficult content. Maybe not beating Hodor on the leaderboard. Cause for that you need to have the same tools than them. But that's another point.

Let's imagine a moment that they were no addons on PC.
- Every players would be equal, and every players could do the same content with same tools. Would be 100% fair
- Need to know when your debuff/buff in your head to know when it run out? CHeck the spell effect or count in your head. Indeed. As its the same for everyone, the ones that are the most skilled at the mini game of paying attention to the spell effect WIN!

I would have actually prefered the game to be that way. But countrary as some other I'M NOT IMPOSING my views on others. I'm just promoting the non addons gameplay as most "exposed" players are pro-addons or atleast using them, someone need to take this stance and show to the public that its perfectly doable to play without addons and be a good player that actually get the job done in the most difficult content. I need to be there for the players that are NOT LIKE YOU. For some poeple it doesn't work to see 25241 on their screen. For some poeple it mean nothing. The information will not be processed through their brain under the stress of the combat. But they will understand better to see the life bar disminishing, or see the boss surrounded by smoke.

It's false to claim that it is needed to have numbers, percentage, icons to be good. Is it easier? Maybe it is easier: especially when you got a big ULTIMATE READY. Yes that's obviously easier. Its like DeadlyBossMode "RUN AWAAAAYYY LITTLE GIRL" you even do not need to read anything you are just warned that you need to escape something the boss is doing! Brainless addon.
But it still possible, enjoyable to play the game without UI and players need to be told so and encouraged to atleast try.

I read your post @Attorneyatlawl but I'm really dubtiful than the NERF made by Zenimax was due to players unable to play the game because they didn't had numbers on their screen. Zenimax nerfed the content because a lot of players never played a MMO before, or because they were used to be spoon feed by Blizzard (and others)
It's not that hard to understand when to block, when to dodge, and if you are doing enough damage without having an addon telling you so.
In my opinion, Zenimax nerfed content because a large part of the playing community is used to easy and are impatient, unable to provide effort to succeed a game. Also, console. (hypotesis) In the case of ESO its very sad cause the game went from a decent difficulty, with good challenge to something ridiculously easy.

I'm totally agreing with poeple claiming ESO has become too easy. But that's not related to addons imho.

Why I'm defending my stance so fiercly? I understand than a lot of you wants addons. Its okay. Really. Just enjoy yourself the way you want.
BUT please do not enforce your gamestyle to other players. I still would like players, like me, who prefer a clean, pure interface, can continue to be a good player. And we would not be able to be a good player if Zenimax stop to devellop the visual clues of the combat in future content. That's my whole worrie and my whole point.
ESO is the ONLY GAME with minimalist interface. And you may have no idea of how important and pleasant it is for some players to be able to do HARD content without having the feeling of being in a pilot ***.

TDLR:
- I'm not a clueless player. I actually played ESO since Alpha3 and tested all difficult content (beside trials) before it was released. On life I did everything except Sanctum Ophidia and Vet DSA that I didn't tried yet.
- If they were no addons every players would be equal and would compete with fairness with each others. I'd have loved that, but I ACCEPT its not that way, as I accept differences.
- Not every players works well with the same kind of informations. For some players visual clue works better than numbers to fastly annalyse
- Be careful to not impose your view on others. We have the right to exist and enjoy ESO as much as Pro-addons users

@RazzPitazz
I was mostly speaking about COMBAT Addons. The inventory/trading guild/crafting interface definitively need improvement.

Counting buffs and DOT timers in your head is not practical or even possible for most people. The vast majority of people do not actually multi task infact they swap rapidly from one task to another, and over time their ability to perform those tasks with precision decays.

Speaking to visual ques, they are absent in many ways. There is no que to track enemy health. The bar doesn't flash or change color to indicate wounded and low health, and nor does the enemy. There are no marks to help measure health either.

Execute skill icons do not flash or any other observable change to show health either. They could simply not be usable until they would deal max damage, yet that is not the case either. Buffs, DOTs, and Debuffs, could use the greyed over clock style wind to show their duration, or they could flash during the last 4 seconds.

However none of those things happen. There is no visual or numerical output for those parts of the game.

You're a Healer, the main thing you need to see if Health Bars, but there are two important partsof being a solid DPS that are missing. Point out about those 2 issues often, and frankly a few people keep telling me the game gives you everything you need, but frankly no one can give me a realistic way the game has to track those 2 things.

There are enemy health bars do you mean for enemy players? That was in the options last time I checked. There are buffs timers but sure they could have a clock like default on the icons. I want to make sure I understand this correctly, you want a prompt that tells you when to execute?

Anyway, and yet somehow guilds still get all of the end game content done. How do they do it?

Armann · July 2015

OP is right, purposely gimping the UI for whatever bizarre reason, I mean immersion, has created unessecary animosity towards the game where it could've been avoided by giving us options. I believe a good UI is critical for any game, an otherwise great game can quickly become frustrating if the UI is lacking and the default UI hinders me more than it helps me.

Take for instance Molten Armaments which was reported recently to not be working correctly, how were we supposed to know that if we couldn't see actual numbers when using the skill. We could only hope the Q&A team would eventually catch the bug and fix it.

Not being able to see other players dps or whatever is fine by me, I don't care. I want to see what kind of numbers I am generating and I want to make informed decisions based on that.

They tried to please both the MMO and single player ES fans and the UI suffered for it.

amgame308_ESO · July 2015

Ok, valid enough point. For debugging a combat log is useful and for that purpose I'm on booked.

I'll concede players like OP do benefit the game when they take the time to find bugs.

Attorneyatlawl · July 2015

MrGhosty wrote: »

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

GreySix wrote: »

Smiteye wrote: »

GreySix wrote: »

Yeah, because nobody wanted this game for just cooperative TES play.

Except this isn't that game! It can be fun in that way too tho.

In effect, it is that game.

Or are you aware of an alternative that allows cooperative play in a TES game?

Ask Bethesda to implement a co-op mode in TES VI . Not everything you can imagine exists yet in life.

Sadly I don't think Bethesda will ever implement co op as I'm relatively sure people have been asking for that for ages. They chose instead to use that extra resource to tweak and pull every ounce of performance out of their game to make it the best player experience.

That said, I would love to be able to get rid of all my add ons and have all of that information still available to me via the UI. I don't understand how having a toggle option for the minimalists is such an issue.

I also think it doesn't really work to pull the "this isn't skyrim online" card as ZOS leans quite heavily on the success of Skyrim in particular in the way they market the game. It does tend to give the impression to those who did simply want skyrim with friends that was exactly what they were getting. That plays a large part (imo) in their move to consoles as well, since Elder Scrolls exploded in popularity with the release of Skyrim.

All that said, I think a lot could be gained from learning from past successful MMOs and implement more of what those games did in order to make this game better. What is similarly baffling is that they appear to have only cherry picked a few of what many die hard ES fans would consider essential as well, so they borrowed from both but seemingly grabbed the wrong bits. How you can release an ES games without the core guilds is somewhat baffling, as is the lack of housing and some of the other aspects.

That's a pretty darn fair viewpoint. Housing especially is a big one along with the guilds at least in some form to be expanded later, that I'd agree should have been in at the start. I've made a thread suggesting a setup for a housing system, and really do hope we see some kind of housing by the time 2016 is out. By then ESO should hopefully be in a good groove of content releases and systems enhancements and some of the "left for later" list can be plowed into.

Hiero_Glyph · July 2015

amgame308_ESO wrote: »

adriant1978 wrote: »

Steelshiv wrote: »

Is there a tl;dr version of this?

Some people want a less minimalist UI with more textual cues and numerical info, others think this would be a terrible thing. Me I just think some options would be nice so that I can see the info I need when I need it.

Others believe all the information you need is already available and don't want to go back to staring at a bank of 30 buttons on UI then having to go through a post meta analysis. I do enough spreadsheets at work. I love the game for the game, not the meta. You already have plenty of graphical queues that tell you what players and mobs are casting and you get a post death summary showing what killed you. Some want hard numbers, that isn't going to help you if you don't know how to manage your stamina while blocking and dodge rolling.

How much stamina does a dodge roll cost? Show me anywhere on the console version that displays that information. The problem is that ESO is based on tons of numerical information but fails to display almost all of it. Just having the option to see a numerical stamina bar would educate players about managing resources.

DenMoria · July 2015

IMO - we ZOS relies far too much on the "this is not Skyrim Online" theme.

Of course it is. It's Elder Scrolls. It looks like Elder Scrolls. The mechanics ar the same as any other Elder Scrolls game.

It is an Elder Scrolls game that they have decided shall be an MMO as opposed to a co-op experience.

That's fine. It is what it is.

ZOS is not stupid. They knew they would have plenty of ES junkies giving ESO a try when they released it on console. Even if many of those ES junkies then set it aside, they are not taking a loss. They get the price of the game itself (be it digital download or disc), any subscription fees up until they are cancelled, and any purchases made.

Frankly, it was a smart move on their part. There are plenty of ES junkies that will love ESO, just as there are plenty that will be dissappointed.

Me, I'll continue to play but not participate in the Group/MMO or PvP areas. I don't need to complete everything, don't care about trophies and certainly have no interest in Leader Boards. I, frankly don't even care about VL or CP. I'll just play until I get frustrated and then set it aside and come back later.

I came in to this understanding what it was. I am sorry that some folks didn't, but, live and learn.

I do have to admit, that occasionally taking my nightblade to Cyrodil just to kill someone arbitrary and steal their stuff is a nice diversion though. People are suckers in Cyrodil.

Attorneyatlawl · July 2015

amgame308_ESO wrote: »

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

Paradox wrote: »

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

Woman wrote: »

I certainly believe the UI is a major issue on console since they can't get addons- but I don't understand why this is such a major problem on PC. We have some amazing addon developers that are constantly improving their addons and listen to the community as they do so.

Both Social Indicators & Master Merchant accomplish the community features you mentioned for PC. FTC and other combat addons take care of the combat UI problems you mentioned.

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

A moderate distance away as #4 would be the champion system, which is having little honest discussion as virtually everyone who posts about it doesn't know how any of it works or how it affects things in-game because of points #1 and #2... and misguidedly demand severe nerfs rather than relatively easy tweaks such as a moderate scale-down , implementing the catch-up mechanism sooner, or adding another 36 passives but leaving the cap at 3600 champion points to make it into a true customization aspect as well.

Considering that most of the larger discussions about CP have been from the top competitive players in this game, who are seeing the effects first hand- perhaps you shouldn't dismiss us so quickly. Most of us understand a simple concept like diminishing returns and while in theory that might have been seen to deal with the balance issues- anyone who leads competitive guilds in both PvP and PvE would tell you that doesn't solve the problem. While I'm still pro-CP in concept, I don't think it's right to brush off the discussion that competitive players have put forth, simply because you disagree with them. I would also wager that since CP is the most discussed issue on the forums, streams & in social media- it's probably a larger issue than you're giving it credit for.

As a theorycrafter for, and raider in the top competitive PVE guild in the game and a long time PVP'er, I can't help but imagine you might not have noticed who you quoted when going to bash someone as inexperienced? Things exist outside of youtube and facebook. I don't wear a blindfold every time I raid, and the general consensus amongst the leaderboard topping raiders I have also spoken with is the problem is mostly overblown due to lack of math and that is worsened by the opaque UI and addon API, with perhaps minor changes being needed to the scaling after xp sources are balanced out.

And addons simply do not do the trick as I've expressed at length many times before, including in the OP of this thread as they not only leave the playing field uneven for basic game info without it being readily known by everyone, but also are forbidden from accessing a lot of it in the first place.

You talk about an even playing field, but still wholeheartedly support the champion system, which ruins any balance that players had against eachother. You can spout your math and theory all you'd like, but go play PvP against someone who has CP and clear your own. Tell me how your math protects you.

And can you please stop being so condescending towards anyone that disagrees with you EVER? Please? It's really not helping any conversations.

Let me get this straight: sneering towards posts showing facts and only mentioning they have borne them out with experience by dismissing them parroting social media groupthink and claiming that top players think it's bad (inaccurately), is fine, yet replying to defend by stating you are in that top tier and most in fact do NOT, is condescending? I do plenty of proving of my math ingame.

You literally want a software development path to revolve around your definition of an "industry standard" MMO. If it takes you to do math to measure your success in a video game you are doing wrong. Why do you even bother when you have other options available in "industry standard" MMOs.

What about ESO actually appeals to someone like you? Why do you login? I bet you have a YouTube channel or twitch stream.

Again, the interface isn't the game. The UI and usability issues including camera and targeting without question significantly dampen the fun of the gameplay that appeals to me to login for along with other design quibbles. There aren't other games around like it currently except GW2 which differs in too many ways to be fun to me, and DAOC which is very old and I even played it for 7+ years. And nope... I don't have a stream nor have I ever. I've posted a grand total of probably five youtube videos ever across the last decade. This game is, in my opinion, very good... but it falls shy of the "great" mark in large part from the everyday battle with the UI from basics like sorting bags and crafting, to deeper issues that make socializing and random interaction a pain such as no options for nameplates along with inaccessibility of buff and timing info.

MikeB · July 2015

Skyrim at least had damage/healing numbers!!!

Zorrashi · July 2015

Hiero_Glyph wrote: »

amgame308_ESO wrote: »

adriant1978 wrote: »

Steelshiv wrote: »

Is there a tl;dr version of this?

Some people want a less minimalist UI with more textual cues and numerical info, others think this would be a terrible thing. Me I just think some options would be nice so that I can see the info I need when I need it.

Others believe all the information you need is already available and don't want to go back to staring at a bank of 30 buttons on UI then having to go through a post meta analysis. I do enough spreadsheets at work. I love the game for the game, not the meta. You already have plenty of graphical queues that tell you what players and mobs are casting and you get a post death summary showing what killed you. Some want hard numbers, that isn't going to help you if you don't know how to manage your stamina while blocking and dodge rolling.

How much stamina does a dodge roll cost? Show me anywhere on the console version that displays that information. The problem is that ESO is based on tons of numerical information but fails to display almost all of it. Just having the option to see a numerical stamina bar would educate players about managing resources.

I don't understand. You don't need an exact number on the stamina bar to get an estimate of how much it costs. It is easy enough to get that estimate by performing a few test rolls to give you the impression on how much it costs on its own. With or without numbers, it is relatively easy to see how much anything costs at its base level (as in, not including effects from other spells, potion and other abilities). Numbers are not needed--even when they are implemented as floating numbers rising above an enemy's head (or on the resource bar in this case), they are mainly used as an estimate as well. The only time they become increasing utilized beyond that regard are when calculators are implemented, or the values are put into a calculator located elsewhere.
The "numerical information" is only necessary because you believe it is. Several players have been completing content without add-ons.

That being said, I do support things like floating damage numbers, numbers on the resource bars and the like so long as three criteria are met: that they are toggleable, the values cannot be linked to others and DPS cannot be calculated (easily). A search bar for the guild stores would be nice too....and better inventory filters.....

Milktray · July 2015

Armann wrote: »

OP is right, purposely gimping the UI for whatever bizarre reason, I mean immersion, has created unessecary animosity towards the game where it could've been avoided by giving us options. I believe a good UI is critical for any game, an otherwise great game can quickly become frustrating if the UI is lacking and the default UI hinders me more than it helps me.

Take for instance Molten Armaments which was reported recently to not be working correctly, how were we supposed to know that if we couldn't see actual numbers when using the skill. We could only hope the Q&A team would eventually catch the bug and fix it.

Not being able to see other players dps or whatever is fine by me, I don't care. I want to see what kind of numbers I am generating and I want to make informed decisions based on that.

They tried to please both the MMO and single player ES fans and the UI suffered for it.

Another way to avoid it would be, read about game, see what it's features are, don't agree with them .. don't buy it

TADA ... no issues :-)

amgame308_ESO · July 2015

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

amgame308_ESO wrote: »

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

Paradox wrote: »

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

Woman wrote: »

I certainly believe the UI is a major issue on console since they can't get addons- but I don't understand why this is such a major problem on PC. We have some amazing addon developers that are constantly improving their addons and listen to the community as they do so.

Both Social Indicators & Master Merchant accomplish the community features you mentioned for PC. FTC and other combat addons take care of the combat UI problems you mentioned.

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

A moderate distance away as #4 would be the champion system, which is having little honest discussion as virtually everyone who posts about it doesn't know how any of it works or how it affects things in-game because of points #1 and #2... and misguidedly demand severe nerfs rather than relatively easy tweaks such as a moderate scale-down , implementing the catch-up mechanism sooner, or adding another 36 passives but leaving the cap at 3600 champion points to make it into a true customization aspect as well.

Considering that most of the larger discussions about CP have been from the top competitive players in this game, who are seeing the effects first hand- perhaps you shouldn't dismiss us so quickly. Most of us understand a simple concept like diminishing returns and while in theory that might have been seen to deal with the balance issues- anyone who leads competitive guilds in both PvP and PvE would tell you that doesn't solve the problem. While I'm still pro-CP in concept, I don't think it's right to brush off the discussion that competitive players have put forth, simply because you disagree with them. I would also wager that since CP is the most discussed issue on the forums, streams & in social media- it's probably a larger issue than you're giving it credit for.

As a theorycrafter for, and raider in the top competitive PVE guild in the game and a long time PVP'er, I can't help but imagine you might not have noticed who you quoted when going to bash someone as inexperienced? Things exist outside of youtube and facebook. I don't wear a blindfold every time I raid, and the general consensus amongst the leaderboard topping raiders I have also spoken with is the problem is mostly overblown due to lack of math and that is worsened by the opaque UI and addon API, with perhaps minor changes being needed to the scaling after xp sources are balanced out.

And addons simply do not do the trick as I've expressed at length many times before, including in the OP of this thread as they not only leave the playing field uneven for basic game info without it being readily known by everyone, but also are forbidden from accessing a lot of it in the first place.

You talk about an even playing field, but still wholeheartedly support the champion system, which ruins any balance that players had against eachother. You can spout your math and theory all you'd like, but go play PvP against someone who has CP and clear your own. Tell me how your math protects you.

And can you please stop being so condescending towards anyone that disagrees with you EVER? Please? It's really not helping any conversations.

Let me get this straight: sneering towards posts showing facts and only mentioning they have borne them out with experience by dismissing them parroting social media groupthink and claiming that top players think it's bad (inaccurately), is fine, yet replying to defend by stating you are in that top tier and most in fact do NOT, is condescending? I do plenty of proving of my math ingame.

You literally want a software development path to revolve around your definition of an "industry standard" MMO. If it takes you to do math to measure your success in a video game you are doing wrong. Why do you even bother when you have other options available in "industry standard" MMOs.

What about ESO actually appeals to someone like you? Why do you login? I bet you have a YouTube channel or twitch stream.

Again, the interface isn't the game. The UI and usability issues including camera and targeting without question significantly dampen the fun of the gameplay that appeals to me to login for along with other design quibbles. There aren't other games around like it currently except GW2 which differs in too many ways to be fun to me, and DAOC which is very old and I even played it for 7+ years. And nope... I don't have a stream nor have I ever. I've posted a grand total of probably five youtube videos ever across the last decade. This game is, in my opinion, very good... but it falls shy of the "great" mark in large part from the everyday battle with the UI from basics like sorting bags and crafting, to deeper issues that make socializing and random interaction a pain such as no options for nameplates along with inaccessibility of buff and timing info.

I'm onboard, without these features you and those like you wouldn't find the bugs. I really like the feel of the game though, for me I don't want ESO to stray too far from the interface it has. I really enjoy the combat and have conditioned myself to use what's available in the UI. I don't think it falls short, I just think it is not what people are used too.

Milktray · July 2015

This > I don't think it falls short, I just think it is not what people are used too.

The UI is rather bare sure but thats one of the draws to it for some of us, the numbers .. learn to gauge by yours and their health etc etc

dday3six · July 2015

amgame308_ESO wrote: »

dday3six wrote: »

Elloa wrote: »

AaronLannister wrote: »

I can see your point.
but it still doesn't excuse them from omitting text chat on consoles.

This is an entierly different topic than the ones I brought up. But yes I agree with you.

@Attorneyatlawl @Smiteye @dday3six

First of all, it toke me maybe one year to level my character, but this has nothing to do with my capability to do content and play the game. I play ESO since july 2013. I played/tested most of end game content on PTS before it was released. So I actually healed Veteran City of Ashes when my main character was still lvl 40 or something.
For my main character I just toke my time. Because I enjoyed it that way.

When I say its possible to play without addons, I'm obviously not speaking about players finishing the main story and all the quest. I'm speaking about players doing the most difficult content. Maybe not beating Hodor on the leaderboard. Cause for that you need to have the same tools than them. But that's another point.

Let's imagine a moment that they were no addons on PC.
- Every players would be equal, and every players could do the same content with same tools. Would be 100% fair
- Need to know when your debuff/buff in your head to know when it run out? CHeck the spell effect or count in your head. Indeed. As its the same for everyone, the ones that are the most skilled at the mini game of paying attention to the spell effect WIN!

I would have actually prefered the game to be that way. But countrary as some other I'M NOT IMPOSING my views on others. I'm just promoting the non addons gameplay as most "exposed" players are pro-addons or atleast using them, someone need to take this stance and show to the public that its perfectly doable to play without addons and be a good player that actually get the job done in the most difficult content. I need to be there for the players that are NOT LIKE YOU. For some poeple it doesn't work to see 25241 on their screen. For some poeple it mean nothing. The information will not be processed through their brain under the stress of the combat. But they will understand better to see the life bar disminishing, or see the boss surrounded by smoke.

It's false to claim that it is needed to have numbers, percentage, icons to be good. Is it easier? Maybe it is easier: especially when you got a big ULTIMATE READY. Yes that's obviously easier. Its like DeadlyBossMode "RUN AWAAAAYYY LITTLE GIRL" you even do not need to read anything you are just warned that you need to escape something the boss is doing! Brainless addon.
But it still possible, enjoyable to play the game without UI and players need to be told so and encouraged to atleast try.

I read your post @Attorneyatlawl but I'm really dubtiful than the NERF made by Zenimax was due to players unable to play the game because they didn't had numbers on their screen. Zenimax nerfed the content because a lot of players never played a MMO before, or because they were used to be spoon feed by Blizzard (and others)
It's not that hard to understand when to block, when to dodge, and if you are doing enough damage without having an addon telling you so.
In my opinion, Zenimax nerfed content because a large part of the playing community is used to easy and are impatient, unable to provide effort to succeed a game. Also, console. (hypotesis) In the case of ESO its very sad cause the game went from a decent difficulty, with good challenge to something ridiculously easy.

I'm totally agreing with poeple claiming ESO has become too easy. But that's not related to addons imho.

Why I'm defending my stance so fiercly? I understand than a lot of you wants addons. Its okay. Really. Just enjoy yourself the way you want.
BUT please do not enforce your gamestyle to other players. I still would like players, like me, who prefer a clean, pure interface, can continue to be a good player. And we would not be able to be a good player if Zenimax stop to devellop the visual clues of the combat in future content. That's my whole worrie and my whole point.
ESO is the ONLY GAME with minimalist interface. And you may have no idea of how important and pleasant it is for some players to be able to do HARD content without having the feeling of being in a pilot ***.

TDLR:
- I'm not a clueless player. I actually played ESO since Alpha3 and tested all difficult content (beside trials) before it was released. On life I did everything except Sanctum Ophidia and Vet DSA that I didn't tried yet.
- If they were no addons every players would be equal and would compete with fairness with each others. I'd have loved that, but I ACCEPT its not that way, as I accept differences.
- Not every players works well with the same kind of informations. For some players visual clue works better than numbers to fastly annalyse
- Be careful to not impose your view on others. We have the right to exist and enjoy ESO as much as Pro-addons users

@RazzPitazz
I was mostly speaking about COMBAT Addons. The inventory/trading guild/crafting interface definitively need improvement.

Counting buffs and DOT timers in your head is not practical or even possible for most people. The vast majority of people do not actually multi task infact they swap rapidly from one task to another, and over time their ability to perform those tasks with precision decays.

Speaking to visual ques, they are absent in many ways. There is no que to track enemy health. The bar doesn't flash or change color to indicate wounded and low health, and nor does the enemy. There are no marks to help measure health either.

Execute skill icons do not flash or any other observable change to show health either. They could simply not be usable until they would deal max damage, yet that is not the case either. Buffs, DOTs, and Debuffs, could use the greyed over clock style wind to show their duration, or they could flash during the last 4 seconds.

However none of those things happen. There is no visual or numerical output for those parts of the game.

You're a Healer, the main thing you need to see if Health Bars, but there are two important partsof being a solid DPS that are missing. Point out about those 2 issues often, and frankly a few people keep telling me the game gives you everything you need, but frankly no one can give me a realistic way the game has to track those 2 things.

There are enemy health bars do you mean for enemy players? That was in the options last time I checked. There are buffs timers but sure they could have a clock like default on the icons. I want to make sure I understand this correctly, you want a prompt that tells you when to execute?

Anyway, and yet somehow guilds still get all of the end game content done. How do they do it?

Health percentages to be specific. The game does not by default express those in any fashion. Yet low health starts at 24%, wounded at 49%, and Executes are trash damage for the most part if used before their threshold. So, yes I think the game should in some way communicate those thresholds to players. The examples I gave are ways the game could do it as visual ques, but personally I'd prefer health percentages to be displayed and it be up to the player to notice, but then those percentages would need to be listed in the tooltips as well.

Firstly with enough CP most groups can roflstomp all the available content. Second many players use addons in those guilds. I have yet to find a guild completely dedicated to playing without them. I'm not saying the content cannot be done. I'm saying the game gives us tools, but withholds the info needed to best and seamlessly utilizes them.

I don't think the game needs scrolling damage numbers per say, but I do think it needs Buff/Debuff, DOT, and HOT icons with timers. When looking at an enemy you should see their health percentage, and you should be able to see the percentages for your own stamina and magicka. Also both bars should always be visible to track the CDs on them. Those are the main HUD changes I personally want. I feel the game lacks the presented info to properly manages the tools players are given. The HUD design mimics Oblivion and Skyrim, yet combat is not nearly as simple. Players have more tricks in their bag, and I want them to be able to use those tricks to the fullest by default.

Sykis · July 2015

SturgeHammer wrote: »

People can play how they want. What other people do has Zero Impact on the way I play. As long as the game is fun, I'll keep playing. Suggesting that any subset of the player base is directly responsible for a lack of attention from the devs is ludicrous. It's ZOS's job to to maintain a game that is fun for everyone, not just for the minority here on the forums, or the majority of players who are silent. If ZOS is not doing this to the community's satisfaction, it's their fault. We should all continue discussing and debating the changes we want to see to improve our experience because that enables ZOS to see all sides of the issues. The OP's grievances are all valid and I agree with most of the issues highlighted, but I don't blame the opposition who are only seeking to improve their experience too. I will debate that opposition to make my point, but I won't blame them if ZOS makes the a choice I don't agree with.

Well said. Inspite of the things I don't agree with as far as the UI or addons are conserened, I like the platform of player freedom this game has to offer. It has much of the same style options you would find in traditional MMOs while leaving great amount of content to those who prefere solo and co op and PVP play, married up with the cleaned UI I have ever seen in an MMO. All of this and by in large the game is still new by comparison to the MMO market. Changes that some will consider improvement and some consider nerfs.

Psychobunni · July 2015

Milktray wrote: »

This > I don't think it falls short, I just think it is not what people are used too.

The UI is rather bare sure but thats one of the draws to it for some of us, the numbers .. learn to gauge by yours and their health etc etc

And if the numbers are there optionally, turned off by default, what exactly prevents you from continuing to play basic mode?

Because continuing to appeal to less people rather than more is a good thing right? Future *quality* development (MMOs depend on that

) can surely be made in a *timely* manner off reskinned mount sales, amirite?

It's not about how any one person likes to play (or) which is better. It's about providing options so that players can play "how they want" and have fun instead of being frustrated all the time and deciding this MMO sucks and walking away.

HobnailedBoots · July 2015

This poor dead horse....

Armitas · July 2015

The native UI is breaking my immersion of playing an MMORPG.

Machiavelli · July 2015

By MMORPG he means Many men online role playing girls. And by girls I mean guy in real life.

Elsonso · July 2015

MikeB wrote: »

Skyrim at least had damage/healing numbers!!!

During combat? Since when?

GreySix · July 2015

DenMoria wrote: »

I loathe MMOs, have always loathed MMOs, and will continue to loathe MMOs. The bring out the absolute worst in players as well as the absolute best. It's the worst that bothers me.

While TESO can, indeed be played in most cases as Solo, it is not designed to be a Solo game.

As a casual player without the time to properly dedicate to a game like TESO, I have set it aside.

I will await ES6.

In the meantime I still have Oblivion, Skyrim, DA, DD and any other of a myriad of solo and co-op selections at my disposal.

I will leave TESO to the MMOers and the dedicated.

Yeah, playing SWTOR (the only other MMO I'd invested $$$ and time into) should have been sufficient evidence that the downside of MMOs would have made its way to ESO, but I thought ... yeah SWTOR departed too far from the great KOTOR games, but this is TES! They won't make the same mistakes.

Sigh ... well, no ... but they made similar mistakes by adopting the dynamic WoW made popular with their leveled areas, vice the dynamic "go anywhere, do anything" play style so many enjoyed in earlier TES games, and of course the "on-rails" piece that all MMOs (except for perhaps EvE Online) seem to share.

It stands to reason: The developers of ESO saw which MMOs were making money, which set the standard ... so they of course adopted the cookie-cutter portions of those MMOs. To dare to be too different might invite disaster, especially when the cookie-cutter MMO template was so tried and true.

So ... they made a weird hybrid game that was designed to partially appeal to long-term TES players, and long-term MMO players. While they certainly made fans, they also wound up irritating members from both camps.

MisterBigglesworth · July 2015

Attorneyatlawl wrote: »

Again, the interface isn't the game. The UI and usability issues including camera and targeting without question significantly dampen the fun of the gameplay that appeals to me to login for along with other design quibbles. There aren't other games around like it currently except GW2 which differs in too many ways to be fun to me, and DAOC which is very old and I even played it for 7+ years.

Wondering... have you looked at Skyforge at all? It's like ESO w/ some sci-fi elements and (most importantly) a feature-complete and informative UI.

AuldWolf · July 2015

I'd say it's closer to a co-op RPG. The largest party size is four. And the biggest problems don't come from it not being an MMO at all, but rather from trying to be one with forced grouping dungeons. Wildstar focused on forced grouping, and that game is roadkill now. So much so that it might sink NCsoft with it.

It would be not just disingenuous but patently ridiculous to say that there's any money in MMOs any more. This is why MMOs have been moving more and more towards experiences which are similar to co-op. Why? It's what people want. For each Gamebryo game since Morrowind, there has been a massively popular attempt to create a co-op mod. It's just that the framework doesn't exist in Gamebryo to really support it, so it's just a string of failed efforts.

Offer co-op to the majority of Elder Scrolls and Fallout players and they'd jump at the chance. The popularity of the co-op mod tells us this. And that's where The Elder Scrolls Online has its strengths. It obviously wasn't built with an MMO being its priori as we can see from the heavily instanced nature of the experience. What I'm getting at is that if the game were developed as an MMO in its earliest days, you wouldn't have instances like Haven being different for different players. So one person's Haven in a party might be occupied, whereas another's might be freed.

Nor would you have the continuous stories running throughout. You'd have skinner box nonsense, loot explosions, and busy-work. All three of those elements are light on the ground in The Elder Scrolls Online. Instead, it focuses more on zones andt he sub-regions within zones telling their own stories from start to finish. You even have well-written recurring NPCs like Razum-dar. All of this is contrary to the MMO experience. PvE MMO players want to rush to the end to grind through raids, not stick around to smell the roses.

But why, why did they do this?

Wildstar. It's obvious. WoW will always own the minds and souls of millions of skinner box addicts, they can't get away. Each new game simply won't have all the factors that WoW has that keeps them addicted. And they're always going to be comparing it to WoW, you can't stop them. How could you? Think about it. That's what happened with Wildstar. WoW fans gave Wildstar a try, then jumped right back to WoW for Warlords of Draenor. That's ESO's fate if it tries to chase those people. Instead, it wants co-op RPG players, the kind of people who stick around to smell the roses.

There are so many other elements, too, which would back this up. Such as crafting being every bit as valid as drops; Choice and consequence in various areas; And the complete lack of raids in the game.

ESO isn't an MMO. It's a co-op RPG that's bafflingly calling itself an MMO.

The success it has comes from being a co-op RPG. If you were to actually play the game rather than moaning about it not being WoW (before going back to WoW), then you'd see that most people play it either solo or in groups of 2-3. Mostly I see duo groups, more than any other. Most likely older life partners. Not even the PvP makes it an MMO as the original Guild Wars had amazing PvP and that was described as an 'online co-op RPG,' not an MMO.

I genuinely feel that any incorrect notions of it being an MMO come from ZeniMax's advertising department mismarketing it and attracting the wrong demographics. They clearly made the game for co-op players and PvP gamers, obviously, with only the throwaway forced grouping (with a max of four) as a bone thrown toward MMO gamers. And the thing is is that the forced grouping has hurt them, because it denies content to the vast, vast majority of its players -- The kind of people who play the game because they know what it actually is. Thankfully there are so few forced group dungeons, but it's still a thorn in the paw.

ZeniMax either needs to change it all around to be an MMO as you say, requiring excessive amounts of resources to rebuild things (like the instancing, skinner box, et cetera) to support MMO players who're only going to ignore it in favour of WoW anyway; Or they need to changed forced grouping dungeon to instead scale to the number of people entering (easily done, they have the technology for that all ready as they've shown), and thus appease their primary demographic. The thing is is that if they do opt for MMO players, ESO is just going to be Wildstar 2.0. The same mess all over again.

There's no money in MMOs any more. MMOs are dead.

Online co-op games, however, are very much alive and well and have a lot of money involved in them. Their developers seem to understand this even if ZeniMax's corporate and advertising folks don't. Which is unfortunate. Removing the forced element and then advertising ESO as a co-op game is the way forward. It would allow ESO a long, healthy life. Or... it could end up on life support and die a slow death like every other MMO from the past eight years or so.

So, no. It's deluded to say that the problems come from it not being an MMO. That's ridiculous. That's like saying that Wildstar's problems come from it not being an MMO. The only problems ESO has is that the few MMO elements it actually has hurt it rather than help it. It should be a pure co-op RPG with the existing (nicely done) PvP elements. Like Guild Wars, which is still doing better than Guild Wars 2.

As such... it's not single-player (well duh-hoy), no. It's co-op. And whereas there are hundreds of thousands of MMOs, there are very few actually good co-op RPGs that aren't mindless ARPG loot fests. You could probably count them on one hand, and ESO counts amongst them.

Hmmmm... Go with the huge amounts of money to be tapped from an underserved demographic with very little competition, or be just another MMO among hundreds of thousands of others trying to vie for the pennies of however many WoW players they can attract away from WoW. What would you do? Especially when the console gamers hate WoW and the notion of MMOs, too, and even they prefer co-op games like Borderlands.

It's a no-brainer. If you've a brain to see it.

Edit: Also, I have to say... Using bolded red text in an obnoxious attempt to hump a viewpoint directly into someone's face shows desperation, immaturity, and thuggishness rather than having the presence of a person with a cogent point. It doesn't add any validity to misinformed opinions which are ultimately grasping at straws, it just shows that you know you don't have a valid, sensible point so you're attempting to use social dominance in lieu of. That makes for cheap politics, not intelligent debate.

Machiavelli · July 2015

AuldWolf wrote: »

I'd say it's closer to a co-op RPG. The largest party size is four. And the biggest problems don't come from it not being an MMO at all, but rather from trying to be one with forced grouping dungeons. Wildstar focused on forced grouping, and that game is roadkill now. So much so that it might sink NCsoft with it.

It would be not just disingenuous but patently ridiculous to say that there's any money in MMOs any more. This is why MMOs have been moving more and more towards experiences which are similar to co-op. Why? It's what people want. For each Gamebryo game since Morrowind, there has been a massively popular attempt to create a co-op mod. It's just that the framework doesn't exist in Gamebryo to really support it, so it's just a string of failed efforts.

Offer co-op to the majority of Elder Scrolls and Fallout players and they'd jump at the chance. The popularity of the co-op mod tells us this. And that's where The Elder Scrolls Online has its strengths. It obviously wasn't built with an MMO being its priori as we can see from the heavily instanced nature of the experience. What I'm getting at is that if the game were developed as an MMO in its earliest days, you wouldn't have instances like Haven being different for different players. So one person's Haven in a party might be occupied, whereas another's might be freed.

Nor would you have the continuous stories running throughout. You'd have skinner box nonsense, loot explosions, and busy-work. All three of those elements are light on the ground in The Elder Scrolls Online. Instead, it focuses more on zones andt he sub-regions within zones telling their own stories from start to finish. You even have well-written recurring NPCs like Razum-dar. All of this is contrary to the MMO experience. PvE MMO players want to rush to the end to grind through raids, not stick around to smell the roses.

But why, why did they do this?

Wildstar. It's obvious. WoW will always own the minds and souls of millions of skinner box addicts, they can't get away. Each new game simply won't have all the factors that WoW has that keeps them addicted. And they're always going to be comparing it to WoW, you can't stop them. How could you? Think about it. That's what happened with Wildstar. WoW fans gave Wildstar a try, then jumped right back to WoW for Warlords of Draenor. That's ESO's fate if it tries to chase those people. Instead, it wants co-op RPG players, the kind of people who stick around to smell the roses.

There are so many other elements, too, which would back this up. Such as crafting being every bit as valid as drops; Choice and consequence in various areas; And the complete lack of raids in the game.

ESO isn't an MMO. It's a co-op RPG that's bafflingly calling itself an MMO.

The success it has comes from being a co-op RPG. If you were to actually play the game rather than moaning about it not being WoW (before going back to WoW), then you'd see that most people play it either solo or in groups of 2-3. Mostly I see duo groups, more than any other. Most likely older life partners. Not even the PvP makes it an MMO as the original Guild Wars had amazing PvP and that was described as an 'online co-op RPG,' not an MMO.

I genuinely feel that any incorrect notions of it being an MMO come from ZeniMax's advertising department mismarketing it and attracting the wrong demographics. They clearly made the game for co-op players and PvP gamers, obviously, with only the throwaway forced grouping (with a max of four) as a bone thrown toward MMO gamers. And the thing is is that the forced grouping has hurt them, because it denies content to the vast, vast majority of its players -- The kind of people who play the game because they know what it actually is. Thankfully there are so few forced group dungeons, but it's still a thorn in the paw.

ZeniMax either needs to change it all around to be an MMO as you say, requiring excessive amounts of resources to rebuild things (like the instancing, skinner box, et cetera) to support MMO players who're only going to ignore it in favour of WoW anyway; Or they need to changed forced grouping dungeon to instead scale to the number of people entering (easily done, they have the technology for that all ready as they've shown), and thus appease their primary demographic. The thing is is that if they do opt for MMO players, ESO is just going to be Wildstar 2.0. The same mess all over again.

There's no money in MMOs any more. MMOs are dead.

Online co-op games, however, are very much alive and well and have a lot of money involved in them. Their developers seem to understand this even if ZeniMax's corporate and advertising folks don't. Which is unfortunate. Removing the forced element and then advertising ESO as a co-op game is the way forward. It would allow ESO a long, healthy life. Or... it could end up on life support and die a slow death like every other MMO from the past eight years or so.

So, no. It's deluded to say that the problems come from it not being an MMO. That's ridiculous. That's like saying that Wildstar's problems come from it not being an MMO. The only problems ESO has is that the few MMO elements it actually has hurt it rather than help it. It should be a pure co-op RPG with the existing (nicely done) PvP elements. Like Guild Wars, which is still doing better than Guild Wars 2.

As such... it's not single-player (well duh-hoy), no. It's co-op. And whereas there are hundreds of thousands of MMOs, there are very few actually good co-op RPGs that aren't mindless ARPG loot fests. You could probably count them on one hand, and ESO counts amongst them.

Hmmmm... Go with the huge amounts of money to be tapped from an underserved demographic with very little competition, or be just another MMO among hundreds of thousands of others trying to vie for the pennies of however many WoW players they can attract away from WoW. What would you do? Especially when the console gamers hate WoW and the notion of MMOs, too, and even they prefer co-op games like Borderlands.

It's a no-brainer. If you've a brain to see it.

It's a business and they have to cater to the larger demographic. You can experience what you're talking about in the plethora of indie games. Those type of developers do cater to the smaller demographic you're talking about, and yet they still remain at the indie level. They don't do well enough to make it to triple A titles.

dday3six · July 2015

AuldWolf wrote: »

I'd say it's closer to a co-op RPG. The largest party size is four. And the biggest problems don't come from it not being an MMO at all, but rather from trying to be one with forced grouping dungeons. Wildstar focused on forced grouping, and that game is roadkill now. So much so that it might sink NCsoft with it.

It would be not just disingenuous but patently ridiculous to say that there's any money in MMOs any more. This is why MMOs have been moving more and more towards experiences which are similar to co-op. Why? It's what people want. For each Gamebryo game since Morrowind, there has been a massively popular attempt to create a co-op mod. It's just that the framework doesn't exist in Gamebryo to really support it, so it's just a string of failed efforts.

Offer co-op to the majority of Elder Scrolls and Fallout players and they'd jump at the chance. The popularity of the co-op mod tells us this. And that's where The Elder Scrolls Online has its strengths. It obviously wasn't built with an MMO being its priori as we can see from the heavily instanced nature of the experience. What I'm getting at is that if the game were developed as an MMO in its earliest days, you wouldn't have instances like Haven being different for different players. So one person's Haven in a party might be occupied, whereas another's might be freed.

Nor would you have the continuous stories running throughout. You'd have skinner box nonsense, loot explosions, and busy-work. All three of those elements are light on the ground in The Elder Scrolls Online. Instead, it focuses more on zones andt he sub-regions within zones telling their own stories from start to finish. You even have well-written recurring NPCs like Razum-dar. All of this is contrary to the MMO experience. PvE MMO players want to rush to the end to grind through raids, not stick around to smell the roses.

But why, why did they do this?

Wildstar. It's obvious. WoW will always own the minds and souls of millions of skinner box addicts, they can't get away. Each new game simply won't have all the factors that WoW has that keeps them addicted. And they're always going to be comparing it to WoW, you can't stop them. How could you? Think about it. That's what happened with Wildstar. WoW fans gave Wildstar a try, then jumped right back to WoW for Warlords of Draenor. That's ESO's fate if it tries to chase those people. Instead, it wants co-op RPG players, the kind of people who stick around to smell the roses.

There are so many other elements, too, which would back this up. Such as crafting being every bit as valid as drops; Choice and consequence in various areas; And the complete lack of raids in the game.

ESO isn't an MMO. It's a co-op RPG that's bafflingly calling itself an MMO.

The success it has comes from being a co-op RPG. If you were to actually play the game rather than moaning about it not being WoW (before going back to WoW), then you'd see that most people play it either solo or in groups of 2-3. Mostly I see duo groups, more than any other. Most likely older life partners. Not even the PvP makes it an MMO as the original Guild Wars had amazing PvP and that was described as an 'online co-op RPG,' not an MMO.

I genuinely feel that any incorrect notions of it being an MMO come from ZeniMax's advertising department mismarketing it and attracting the wrong demographics. They clearly made the game for co-op players and PvP gamers, obviously, with only the throwaway forced grouping (with a max of four) as a bone thrown toward MMO gamers. And the thing is is that the forced grouping has hurt them, because it denies content to the vast, vast majority of its players -- The kind of people who play the game because they know what it actually is. Thankfully there are so few forced group dungeons, but it's still a thorn in the paw.

ZeniMax either needs to change it all around to be an MMO as you say, requiring excessive amounts of resources to rebuild things (like the instancing, skinner box, et cetera) to support MMO players who're only going to ignore it in favour of WoW anyway; Or they need to changed forced grouping dungeon to instead scale to the number of people entering (easily done, they have the technology for that all ready as they've shown), and thus appease their primary demographic. The thing is is that if they do opt for MMO players, ESO is just going to be Wildstar 2.0. The same mess all over again.

There's no money in MMOs any more. MMOs are dead.

Online co-op games, however, are very much alive and well and have a lot of money involved in them. Their developers seem to understand this even if ZeniMax's corporate and advertising folks don't. Which is unfortunate. Removing the forced element and then advertising ESO as a co-op game is the way forward. It would allow ESO a long, healthy life. Or... it could end up on life support and die a slow death like every other MMO from the past eight years or so.

So, no. It's deluded to say that the problems come from it not being an MMO. That's ridiculous. That's like saying that Wildstar's problems come from it not being an MMO. The only problems ESO has is that the few MMO elements it actually has hurt it rather than help it. It should be a pure co-op RPG with the existing (nicely done) PvP elements. Like Guild Wars, which is still doing better than Guild Wars 2.

As such... it's not single-player (well duh-hoy), no. It's co-op. And whereas there are hundreds of thousands of MMOs, there are very few actually good co-op RPGs that aren't mindless ARPG loot fests. You could probably count them on one hand, and ESO counts amongst them.

Hmmmm... Go with the huge amounts of money to be tapped from an underserved demographic with very little competition, or be just another MMO among hundreds of thousands of others trying to vie for the pennies of however many WoW players they can attract away from WoW. What would you do? Especially when the console gamers hate WoW and the notion of MMOs, too, and even they prefer co-op games like Borderlands.

It's a no-brainer. If you've a brain to see it.

Edit: Also, I have to say... Using bolded red text in an obnoxious attempt to hump a viewpoint directly into someone's face shows desperation, immaturity, and thuggishness rather than having the presence of a person with a cogent point. It doesn't add any validity to misinformed opinions which are ultimately grasping at straws, it just shows that you know you don't have a valid, sensible point so you're attempting to use social dominance in lieu of. That makes for cheap politics, not intelligent debate.

Aetherian Archive and Hel Ra Citadel are 12 man Trials, they are pretty much Raids in everything but name.

Crafting vanilla items is comparable. However end-game there are not craftable subs for dropped and AP purchased items. The BIS loadouts are composed of crafted, dropped, and AP items.

From a developer standpoint building dungeons is easier if you have an idea of what the party comp for a group is going to be. Parties also fill holes, so that not every class, needs to basically do a different color of the same thing. Even in the normal open world content some builds struggle because they cannot Tank, Heal, and DPS all at once which is ultimately what is required. That is why there is forced group content.

MMO means massive multiplayer online. In ESO one can see and interact with every other player in the open world. If I am doing a quest, and players not even in my party completes the objective near enough to my PC, it's completed for me as well. That assuredly means ESO meets the basic essence of an MMO.

MMO's certainly still produce profitable revenue. WOW and FFXIV aren't likely to go away anytime soon. New MMOs flop often, because new businesses flop often. The difference is that if you're interested in gaming you'll likely be exposed to media which details those failures.

Also why do you think console players hate WOW, and the notion of MMOs? Many console players play both DCUO and Final Fantasy 14:ARR. FFXIV takes a lot of inspiration from WOW infact. Final Fantasy 11 was released May of 2002, first on PS2 and later in November on PC. Two years before WOW. Ultima Online released September 1997, EverQuest March 1999. WOW was not the first MMO, and not everyone who played those who came before it stayed on PC. Some swapped to console, some choose to play on both. Lumping, and making board generalizations don't make for good arguments.

The Uninvited · July 2015

MisterBigglesworth wrote: »

Wondering... have you looked at Skyforge at all? It's like ESO w/ some sci-fi elements and (most importantly) a feature-complete and informative UI.

It's more like SCI-FI with some ESO elements, but I must admit that the UI for Skyforge is very nice indeed.

nicholaspingasb16_ESO · July 2015

Just because it's an mmo, doesnt mean it can't bring the genre forward in an appreciable way. Not every mmo has to be an incremental improvement on wow.

Shunravi · July 2015

nicholaspingasb16_ESO wrote: »

Just because it's an mmo, doesnt mean it can't bring the genre forward in an appreciable way. Not every mmo has to be an incremental improvement on wow.

Problem is, many do not see it as a step forward by any stretch of the imagination.

Korozenn · July 2015

So clean, concise, and to the point. I agree very much. Don't forget...even a minimap has been left out of the equation for over a year now, which still doesn't make sense to me given how many people are constantly pulling up a map to see where they are going makes very little sense compared to having a very small, non-intrusive minimap integrated into the game's UI.

To the people who also say a minimap isn't necessary for an MMO like ESOTU, the reason games like Skyrim didn't need a minimap was because Skyrim didn't have a noticeable View Distance. Here, you would quickly become lost as there is no sense of proper direction without the map to help guide you due to technical limitations...thus you end up pressing M constantly to go back and forth. It destroys immersion, to say the least.

I tried going back to playing without a minimap last week. It was too rough for me to handle, honestly.

Instead, I reapplied Fyrakin's Minimap, made it small enough so that it doesn't impede my view of the game in anyway, disabled the Quest Tracker, and used a few other addons as well. Guess what? The game's interface looks and feels much more intuitive this way as well, ZeniMax (damage indicators and buffs is all I have on my display from the FTC Addon).

Great job with this post, @Attorneyatlawl !

Here are pics of my current user interface:

In third-person view (which I use everywhere outside of cities, typically):

- Addons: Minimap by Fyrakin, FTC, and Wykkyd's Enhanced HUD

Inventory view:

- Addons: Inventory Grid View, Equipment Item Borders, and Item Saver

Skills window:

- Addon: SpentSkillPoints

Map:

- Addon: Votan's Improved Locations

^ This one requires some describing. It improves the organization of the Locations tab in Map view. Basically, you can sort it by zone level, and the way it displays all of the content is the order in which your character goes through it for his/her progression.

The top five locations (two here) are your most recently visited. There are separate areas underneath that for the Aldmeri Dominion, Daggerfall Covenant, Ebonheart Pact, All Alliances (Cyrodiil, Craglorn, and Coldharbour), and the World (Oblivion and Tamriel).

Attorneyatlawl · July 2015

Shunravi wrote: »

nicholaspingasb16_ESO wrote: »

Just because it's an mmo, doesnt mean it can't bring the genre forward in an appreciable way. Not every mmo has to be an incremental improvement on wow.

Problem is, many do not see it as a step forward by any stretch of the imagination.

In some ways it is... but in many ways it is a big step back, in areas such as socialization features and the user interface.

@AuldWolf , ESO is far from the first MMORPG to use area phasing or story quests (let alone with voiceovers). Nothing unique as far as those go, and while the story is good, I've played better in the MMORPG genre. That's not what pulled me to ESO, therefore, or keeps me here. Without using phasing, you can't have a town be destroyed without it being such for everyone, literally removing any aspect of even non-gameplay impacting ones like ESO uses (your choices have extremely little to do with how it progresses but for a handful of npc's and whether an area is saved or not, ultimately). The rest of your post was mostly filled with derision. so I will follow the same advice I've mentioned before and stick to the topic, and end this post here

.

Psychobunni · July 2015

nicholaspingasb16_ESO wrote: »

Just because it's an mmo, doesnt mean it can't bring the genre forward in an appreciable way. Not every mmo has to be an incremental improvement on wow.

I hated WoW. Installed and deleted the same day, the cartoon look was just too much (for me).

However, I played LOTRO for a long time and option wise you've gone from current time(LOTRO) to the Stone Age(ESO).

That's just talking UI, and ignoring social aspects, wardrobe options, housing,......

ESO is beautiful, can't top the look of it. Just want the option to have a better feel.