Could Elder Scrolls DLC stand on its own merit?

Rioht · September 2015

With imperial city release in the past, its time now to reflect on how this first major DLC release was handled, and consider what could be improved.

First off, I would just like to state how awesome my time in imperial city has been, and congratulate ZoS on developing such a wonderful and fun addition to the ESO universe.

However, I would like to address some of the issues that arose during the launch of this content.

With the addition of new content, it seems the current model is to force players into that area, not by enticing players with the lucrative gameplay and content, but by limiting their overall experience if they don't indulge.

We can see this with the removal of scaled trials, with the gear level cap on alliance point gear and the removal of scaled gear sets such as martial knowledge of worm cult. Essentially, anything that you would get for completing content outside of the imperial city, just won't give you as much benefit as what you get from within.

I get it, you want to make sure that players buy the new DLC. However this comes at an overall net loss for ESO.

Sure, we have this shiny new content area that we can play in, however the numerous activities we could engage in during our time on ESO are now only a limited few.

No longer is there incentive to do pre-IC dungeons, no longer is there incentive to do trials, or cyrodil. There is simply no reward for doing so.

Which leaves me wondering, with a great DLC such as imperial city, why can't we just let the content speak for itself as the primary incentive for players to buy the DLC? Why not simply make the new DLC an addition to the world, and not a stepping stone until the next DLC.

With orsinium coming up, and the already stated removal of the dreaded VR increase, maybe its time to let your content speak for itself. Let the lucrative new activities, quests and content be the selling point for us players, and not simply make it the only logical choice for players who want to enjoy endgame content.

Let all the activities on ESO offer avenues for players to progress their characters, and focus on providing additional options, rather than necessary steps in gear customization through future DLC.

MrGrimey · September 2015

After buying this DLC... I will never purchase another eso DLC, it was marketed as a dlc for PvPers, but it was nothing more than a 2.5k crown grind spot. I don't think I've ever paid for a worse dlc ever

Rioht · October 2015

MrGrimey wrote: »

After buying this DLC... I will never purchase another eso DLC, it was marketed as a dlc for PvPers, but it was nothing more than a 2.5k crown grind spot. I don't think I've ever paid for a worse dlc ever

While I agree it isn't entirely PvP focus, it is a great addition to the PvP aspect of ESO and gives us a little something to do rather than zerg. If they tied access to IC through cyrodil, I would be even happier.

Teiji · October 2015

MrGrimey wrote: »

After buying this DLC... I will never purchase another eso DLC, it was marketed as a dlc for PvPers, but it was nothing more than a 2.5k crown grind spot. I don't think I've ever paid for a worse dlc ever

I've spent a total of around 10 minutes doing PvP in Imperial City; the other 15 - 25 hours have been spent on grinding over 70,000 TV stones and hundreds of thousands of gold through selling the junk that drops, jewellery and some other junk.

IC is so much more efficient than anywhere else in-game it's absolutely ridiculous how efficient spending your time in IC is when compared to everywhere else; I'm not complaining as this makes me optimistic about Orsinium as IC sewers is a public dungeon, yet mobs give huge XP when compared to public dungeons in other zones, each mob is like 300% better than other public dungeons it's great.

Honestly it's solid value, for 2,500 Crowns I got tons of gold, XP, a polymorph and some v16 gear. I stopped the questline upon going to the Temple district for the quest bug, clearing the event to rescue the priest and having my quest bug and not give credit, ever since that happened I just grind until I see the patch notes which say its fixed; I expect this to be fixed within this quarter alongside the Orsinium patch notes.

LordSemaj · October 2015

MrGrimey wrote: »

After buying this DLC... I will never purchase another eso DLC, it was marketed as a dlc for PvPers, but it was nothing more than a 2.5k crown grind spot. I don't think I've ever paid for a worse dlc ever

Are you sure you're not doing it wrong?

Are you farming bosses or are you farming players farming bosses?

Gerardopg · October 2015

The DLC kill the game imperial city is awesome and I really liked the gameplay inside, but a lot of people leave the game, I was in a guild with 70 members, we are only 6 left, there is no more end game content they kill all the other end game content, so we have two group dungeon and one public dungeon; they're making us farm and farm, I really make a lot of gold and xp inside imperial city, but I'm not having fun anymore because just grind and grind I really don't like where the game is going, I like to play to have fun; I really dislike have to run for weeks just to gather mats for one armor,

Sausage · October 2015

Rioht wrote: »

No longer is there incentive to do pre-IC dungeons, no longer is there incentive to do trials, or cyrodil. There is simply no reward for doing so.

One more time guys, this game is going through massive changes like VR-removal, later everything is gonna be ok. VRs were emergency endgame fix, this game didnt had anything at launch, they just were added hastily. ESO is actually perfect example when you dont have anykind of endgame structure at launch and how much its going to cost for developers.

nimander99 · October 2015

The solution that I think is best has been suggested by myself briefly and by @Gidorick in depth which is basically leveling us down to zone levels so that no content ever 'expires'. (at least I'm pretty sure that was the gist of Gid's suggestion but I could be wrong and I don't want to misrepresent)

Enodoc · October 2015

Rioht wrote: »

We can see this with the removal of scaled trials[...]

They didn't remove scaled trials. Trials never scaled. I agree with the essence of your post though; the biggest mistake was increasing VRs with the DLC and putting all the VR16 content (apart from scaled dungeons) in there.

sadownik · October 2015

Enodoc wrote: »

Rioht wrote: »

We can see this with the removal of scaled trials[...]

They didn't remove scaled trials. Trials never scaled. I agree with the essence of your post though; the biggest mistake was increasing VRs with the DLC and putting all the VR16 content (apart from scaled dungeons) in there.

The content which is rather small to be honest.

PBpsy · October 2015

Can we even say that the game stands on its own merit anymore? The DLC and the associated patch of course are utter steaming piles of 1000tones of guar dung. Yep that is my quantitative assessment of the IC DLC.

Rioht · October 2015

nimander99 wrote: »

The solution that I think is best has been suggested by myself briefly and by @Gidorick in depth which is basically leveling us down to zone levels so that no content ever 'expires'. (at least I'm pretty sure that was the gist of Gid's suggestion but I could be wrong and I don't want to misrepresent)

I would love to see something like this and have suggested a system similar to destiny where your damage/armor is limited based on the level of mob you are facing.

Imagine being able.to.go.to spend time (not wasted time) in your own alliances zones? Crazy concept

sadownik · October 2015

Rioht wrote: »

nimander99 wrote: »

The solution that I think is best has been suggested by myself briefly and by @Gidorick in depth which is basically leveling us down to zone levels so that no content ever 'expires'. (at least I'm pretty sure that was the gist of Gid's suggestion but I could be wrong and I don't want to misrepresent)

I would love to see something like this and have suggested a system similar to destiny where your damage/armor is limited based on the level of mob you are facing.

Imagine being able.to.go.to spend time (not wasted time) in your own alliances zones? Crazy concept

The same is already in GW2 and it works well enough, that on my last character, to prove the point i leveled it to max lvl not leaving my race starting zone. Granted it was tedious and long, but doable.

Hiero_Glyph · October 2015

sadownik wrote: »

Rioht wrote: »

nimander99 wrote: »

The solution that I think is best has been suggested by myself briefly and by @Gidorick in depth which is basically leveling us down to zone levels so that no content ever 'expires'. (at least I'm pretty sure that was the gist of Gid's suggestion but I could be wrong and I don't want to misrepresent)

I would love to see something like this and have suggested a system similar to destiny where your damage/armor is limited based on the level of mob you are facing.

Imagine being able.to.go.to spend time (not wasted time) in your own alliances zones? Crazy concept

The same is already in GW2 and it works well enough, that on my last character, to prove the point i leveled it to max lvl not leaving my race starting zone. Granted it was tedious and long, but doable.

FFXIV also has a similar concept for grouping. Given how Battle Levels are already in ESO, I wonder why it won't scale the player down or the mobs up? To think that this could solve the trophy problem would be an added bonus.

sadownik · October 2015

Hiero_Glyph wrote: »

sadownik wrote: »

Rioht wrote: »

nimander99 wrote: »

The solution that I think is best has been suggested by myself briefly and by @Gidorick in depth which is basically leveling us down to zone levels so that no content ever 'expires'. (at least I'm pretty sure that was the gist of Gid's suggestion but I could be wrong and I don't want to misrepresent)

I would love to see something like this and have suggested a system similar to destiny where your damage/armor is limited based on the level of mob you are facing.

Imagine being able.to.go.to spend time (not wasted time) in your own alliances zones? Crazy concept

The same is already in GW2 and it works well enough, that on my last character, to prove the point i leveled it to max lvl not leaving my race starting zone. Granted it was tedious and long, but doable.

FFXIV also has a similar concept for grouping. Given how Battle Levels are already in ESO, I wonder why it won't scale the player down or the mobs up? To think that this could solve the trophy problem would be an added bonus.

I wonder the same think. Allowing players to participate in activities in lower lvl zones without the feeling of flying through it and the feeling of missing out xp and loot would be great. I mean the huge portions of map are absolutely useless for max lvl players and i cant help thinking how much work goes to waste this way.

Preyfar · October 2015

I think the DLC could stand on its own, yes. It has some serious flaws (among them, it ruined the concept of gear diversity and completely negated the concept of loot) but I think ZOS can fix them in a patch or two. They NEED to fix that. Because if gear diversity and loot aren't fixed everyone is going to be running similar builds at the end game, and it will just make everything dull and boring.

rfennell_ESO · October 2015

Rioht wrote: »

With imperial city release in the past, its time now to reflect on how this first major DLC release was handled, and consider what could be improved.

The content is pretty decent. The 6 IC districts are all well done and pretty detailed, only issue I have is they are a little small considering and the "back in the fight" aspect of them is silly. Only real changes I would have made is make them a little bigger and make their respawn points less accessible to the zone. By that I mean, I would have made the access/respawn points a general area that was more consolidated but with different routes out of them and also mostly away from the main part of the zone. Ie the respawn would not be on an inaccessible third floor in the middle of everything, instead be part of a network of tunnels at the white gold tower central location and wouldn't allow for jump down and right back into the fight nonsense, nor would they be "farmable".

The sewers are a relatively large open dungeon and I like the feel of them and the play.

The two fully done Veteran Dungeons are a nice feature, even though I haven't done them.

I would have liked an open play area that the bridges to the imperial city led to with the option of seeing the city itself from the outside and it's walls, all with some new cyrondil mechanic to tie it all together. Perhaps something more like a series of three keeps or defensive outposts that would have been the gating mechanic and tied to your home imperial keeps control (plus the IC keep/outpost).

I think it's well done past any issues I mentioned. I don't feel cheated at all, if I was doing the non monthly route of playing I think it would definitely be worth the crown cost.

FlicksZ · October 2015

I think IC is beautiful but alas the gameplay there is just not for me atm and that's ok. Been there max 10 times for a change of scenery/pace since launch but I doubt I'll go back anymore.

I really hope ZOS does not make changes that require me to go to IC in order to progress characters as I will most likely not. Also I hope the next dlc fixes the crafting system to resemble something of what it used to be (at least the accessibility of nodes).

Some of the changes made since the dlc have been very questionable to say the least imo. Am really anticipating the next dlc as I think it can be great but dreading the thought of more restrictions placed on basic gameplay concepts.

* Semi related but not exclusive to the dlc...... fix LFG tool pleeeeeeeeeease.

Rioht · October 2015

Preyfar wrote: »

I think the DLC could stand on its own, yes. It has some serious flaws (among them, it ruined the concept of gear diversity and completely negated the concept of loot) but I think ZOS can fix them in a patch or two. They NEED to fix that. Because if gear diversity and loot aren't fixed everyone is going to be running similar builds at the end game, and it will just make everything dull and boring.

Gear has always been a huge con of ESO.

It has never had a lot of diversity, and even though there WERE tons of options per IC, they were never really that different from each other. Sure some had a cool 5 piece set, but all of the 2,3 &4 sets were always the same.boring stats.

IC just took the boring gear to a while.new level. especially with he mandatory jewelry and armor only sets.

PainfulFAFA · October 2015

This DLC could definitely stand on its own
Heres why:

A) Not even relevant to the alliance war (no objectives)
B)Its made everything else in the game obsolete
C)It is a big grind. Thats all it is.

nimander99 · October 2015

Rioht wrote: »

nimander99 wrote: »

The solution that I think is best has been suggested by myself briefly and by @Gidorick in depth which is basically leveling us down to zone levels so that no content ever 'expires'. (at least I'm pretty sure that was the gist of Gid's suggestion but I could be wrong and I don't want to misrepresent)

I would love to see something like this and have suggested a system similar to destiny where your damage/armor is limited based on the level of mob you are facing.

Imagine being able.to.go.to spend time (not wasted time) in your own alliances zones? Crazy concept

Yep, there's nothing that bothers me more than 'wasted' content...

sagitter · October 2015

Stop talking about grinding because it s nothing new for an mmo since 20 years ago to nowdays, as i stated in another thread about grinding complaining by others mmo players.In about a month of playing this Dlc i got 60 % of all the new stuff.The real questione is , is this pvp DLC centered the objective of being a DLC for pvp players? My personal answer is yes but 50%.

Rioht · October 2015

sagitter wrote: »

Stop talking about grinding because it s nothing new for an mmo since 20 years ago to nowdays, as i stated in another thread about grinding complaining by others mmo players.In about a month of playing this Dlc i got 60 % of all the new stuff.The real questione is , is this pvp DLC centered the objective of being a DLC for pvp players? My personal answer is yes but 50%.

Which in and of its own isn't a terrible thing.

The terrible thing is limiting endgame content to DLC and forcing 90% of the game to become.irrelevant.

Scyantific · October 2015

Given that they refused to keep old content relevant, I'm gonna say not even ZOS has confidence in its own product.

kevlarto_ESO · October 2015

Had they not stripped away, some of the features they said was originally going to be in the IC, I think it could have stood up pretty well, but this watered down version no so much, I am starting to think the reduced dev staff, has its hands full just doing what it needs to do, we have not heard from Matt in a while now either.

Not keeping your end game relevant another bad move, who does trials these days, and what is the point now.

Lord Xanhorn · October 2015

People who complain about gear grinds baffle me. What are alternative fun goals to progressing y our character outside of gear? Say they didnt up the v16 max rank nor added any new gear and all your 1.6 gear was still relevant. What would you be doing now? I don't get it.

Rioht · October 2015

Lord Xanhorn wrote: »

People who complain about gear grinds baffle me. What are alternative fun goals to progressing y our character outside of gear? Say they didnt up the v16 max rank nor added any new gear and all your 1.6 gear was still relevant. What would you be doing now? I don't get it.

I'm not against grinding and I think endgame gear should be something that you HAVE to work towards, and work hard. I love the fact that vr16 crafting takes a lot of material for example, and I hope that is a continued system for ZoS.

Rather, I feel the issue is about the way new gear is introduced, not the gear itself.

Should we be happy that we have no way of progressing our characters if we don't spend 99% of our time on IC?

Should we be happy that a game with absolutely massive amounts of quests, activities and areas restricts us to a very small piece of content (in comparison) if we want to earn usable gear?

Why not open up all dungeons to drop the new sets?

Why limit trials to vr14?

Why limit crydodil sets to vr14?

This isn't about grinding, this is about restricting content and FORCING players the buy the dlc at an overall loss to the game rather than ENCOURAGING players to buy the dlc based on the content itself as additional content.