Silver_Strider wrote: »

So far, apart from Orsinium, I think the other 3 DLCs have been hit and miss for people.

IC - Tied into PvP, meaning the PvEers QQ that they are getting ganked and PvPer complain that the mobs there limit the fun of PvP. No real memorable characters and the quest line is meh.

TG - Too NB heavy. Sneak here, steal that, more sneaking. That grind.

DB - No new dungeons/trial added. The Purge, ESO edition, where everyone commits all the murder they could ever want. That grind, again.

The heavy focus on nightblades in the IC, TG, and DB patches was annoying, simply because it highlights the fact that ESO did what no Elder Scrolls game has done in the last 20 years as far as I can recollect, and that is to lock skills and abilities out by class. On the one hand I enjoy actually running this content on the non-NB first for the challenge of it. There's a lot to be learned by the subtlety of NOT using magical cloak powers. On the other hand when you have to grind out your 50th heist or sacrament mission you really couldn't care less and just want to get the achievements over with. Cloak facilitates that in a major way that potions can not possibly do (particularly with the crappy cooldown of potions). I want to see them give us Cloak in the Legerdemain skill line, or a future Illusion skill line. They probably won't, but it would be nice.

In terms of storyline itself what I think IC/Orsinium were fine. Thieves Guild and DB had their flaws. For me DB had pros and cons in the story. I felt like my shadowscale character was above the Gold Coast wing of the Bros, frankly Caerellius and the Speaker are lucky we can't kill them (due to Developer Fiat, and the Brotherhood tenets). I think the way certain characters died was well done, in the sense that I was sad to see them go, so they were meaningful. The one problem I have with the Brotherhood is understanding 'why'. They all seem like a bunch of giddy murderers, who are near-serial killers aligned by some twisted religion. In talking with another player on the forums I can see the link to the Thuggees of real life. The Thieves Guild on the other hand seem almost akin to the Russian mafia, or some flavor of it.

What really got me both about these two shadow organizations is that we could not play their OPPOSITE. The Iron Wheel of Taneth and the Order of the Hour both seemed like really interesting factions we could have played a part of. The replayability of being able to choose one or the other would have been absolutely beautiful - and in Elder Scrolls tradition they could have written the story such that the ultimate ending would have been the same. I'm really sad they did not go this route, and I hope they rethink or consider such choices in the future.

In summation, I have to say that I had a lot of fun with the TG/DB and the stealthy gameplay it brought to the table. I think there were storyline elements that could improve however, and certainly gameplay elements that could improve (cloak for all), as well as new actual tools that should be added. I would really like to see them add ACTIVE skills useful to the Thief and Assassin professions like noisemaker arrows, smoke bombs, glass dust (for throwing in an enemy' eyes), etc. Thief: Deadly Shadows (the whole Thief series actually) would be great inspiration for this. My assessment though is that there is room to improve, and as an MMO I expect them to over time.

AtmaDarkwolf wrote: »

orsim felt like a 'real' dlc. The new two feel like someone spent a weekend slapping together a bunch of random sh!t they had already done years ago, into a sorta-story, but FAR, FAR too short to count as a real DLC< so they made the user (IE you) have to 'grind' out levels just to 'reach' new levels for story.

Orsim felt like my.. moneys worth. Honestly, it felt like I was buying something TRULY worth it.

Neither thieves or DB felt like they were worth the price. Far from it actually, I (for the first time since I first started playing eso almost 2 years ago) feel 'cheated' - Even more so now that they have this NEW 'lackluster' DLC coming that will prob just be as 'cheap'

Maybe ESO is dead or coming close to its end? I sorta feel like the game has entered its 'end of life care phase' and its sitting in the old folks home. It does not feel like a vibrant, living, evolving game anymore.

What the hell are you on ...

ESO is not even near the end, you should really look at other MMO's before saying that, Bethesda do x10 times better job than all the MMO's in the market and I tell that from experience.

Also to all those who hate those "2 dungeons", heck, vWGT and vICP are GLORIOUS! I can farm them 24/7 and not get bored, a true challenge.

I remember raids and dungeons in WoW that got released and people got bored and fall asleep on their keyboard after 2 3 runs and that was after waiting 8 months for them, people shouldn't really complain.

However, from my experience, only bad DLC so far is DB, I haven't played Imperial City beyond the 2 dungeons yet though ... but as I said, those 2 are just the best I've ever played.

Eliran wrote: »

TG I can agree, but DB?

Specially those wannabe leaders, I can purge them from existence lore wise, and they act to me like I am infant.

.

Like in the other Elder scrolls games,I would love the choice to destroy the dark brotherhood and purge them from existence.

I enjoyed the quest line in DB
It was exciting and I couldnt w8 for the story to continue

And as for the sacraments i think they are spot on in difficulty! If you think they are too easy, try do them with a character without cloak or cloak potions

The marked for death quests however i think could be done much better!

I enjoyed both TG and DB but DB did feel a bit more like a grind - I think because with TG all the dailies and everything all counted towards skill line progression so only at the very end did I have to do anything that felt like a grind. In DB so much of it didn't progress your skill line so I spent ages just running contracts to get it high enough. Would've felt a lot better if the dailies and side quests added to it too as in TG.

I'm imagining a DLC based around Dunmer in the Hood.

Only thing I didn't like in TG and DB is the new DLC template....

By that I mean, 1 story quest each time you go up a level in the skill line....then you are stuck grinding repeatables 3 or 4 times to get to the next story quest. It's grindy and predicatable.

As this happens in both TG and DB, it does get tiresome. Kills the immersion too, as there is no hiding the fact you are just grinding repeatables to get to the next story quest...the mechanics are too obvious and spoil the rythmn of a good story

Also, I think the Litany of Blood kills should advance the skill line

My 2 cents on the DLCs:

Imperial City: I hate PvP, so I only purchased this one recently just to access the dungeons. I tried to do the questline in the city and was stopped almost immediately by a large group of PvPers that were either farming Tel'Var stones or just ganking, making quest progress completely impossible. I dislike mixed PvP/PvE content in general because people like me hate being forced into PvP, and dedicated PvPers get their preferred experience bogged down with PvE elements and people that don't want to be there.

Orsinium: A sizable zone with varied solo and group content and a strong overarching plot. The characters in the story were a bit weak. I think they could have spent a bit more time developing the other side characters. The villainous reveal was a bit of a twist (although super hypocritical of the villain given his supposed goals).

Thieves' Guild: The storytelling in TG pivoted towards character development, and it worked very well. I had much stronger attachments to the characters in TG than to any from Orsinium. The group content was a bit more lean. I think it would have benefited from a group delve and maybe a group heist daily or weekly quest where 2 or more people have to work together to pull off an elaborate job. The storyline is hamstrung by being tied to the TG skill line. I felt this hampered the momentum of the story too much.

Dark Brotherhood: They stuck with the character driven storytelling, but they kicked it up a notch with side quests involving prominent NPCs from Alliance questing. I think this was a great way to tie the content to the rest of the world, and I'm always happy to see Naryu and Raz again (now if we could just get Raz to be as flirty as Naryu). Sadly, they kept the skill line gated story quests. I maintain that this link isn't needed to boost the longevity of the content. Once again, I also think adding a group delve would have been nice. I'm getting tired of grinding in the Orsinium delves.

Thieves and DB were by far the worst DLCs, a boring grind, just to get a costume and a memento, this sucks, without any end game content, quest were tedious to say the least, DB feels like Thieves Guild pt 2, with nothing to do except the boring quests and heists, im never buying these DLCs thank god i was subbed to try them out and figured out i can live without then, once the quests are done to get the costumes theres no point in going back to these annoying DLCs.

terrordactyl1971 wrote: »

Only thing I didn't like in TG and DB is the new DLC template....

By that I mean, 1 story quest each time you go up a level in the skill line....then you are stuck grinding repeatables 3 or 4 times to get to the next story quest. It's grindy and predicatable.

As this happens in both TG and DB, it does get tiresome. Kills the immersion too, as there is no hiding the fact you are just grinding repeatables to get to the next story quest...the mechanics are too obvious and spoil the rythmn of a good story

Also, I think the Litany of Blood kills should advance the skill line

I agree that some of these achievements should have pushed the skill line.

I've been extremely disappointed with it. There are no active skills in the skill line, just passive skills. There's not even a passive for assassinating 2 people at the same time. The store so far hasn't been that entertaining like in the previous games.

I have to agree.
I liked DB for the blade and the gimmicks but overall the characters were not developed enough. I really liked the companions in both orsinium and tg. I thought tg did possibly the best job with flrshing out the chars with side quests.

A lack of that mamy side quests, it seemed, hurt db.


Also, having the delves not advance the skill line really forces the murder grinders a bit much.

Finally, the added craft sets and the three msin drop sets were just meh. With tg and orsinium there were strong use cases for various sets. Not so much for the six readily available ones in db.

I'm the oddball. I liked DB. It's actually the first DLC I have finished, but I've only been back since TG launched, so I still have a bunch of stuff to do.

But I found myself leaning toward DB and just finished it on Sunday. I'll probably still continue to do contracts as well as go through the story with my alts.