Idea: questing in tamriel AND enjoying an unbroken storyline

Elsterchen · April 2017

Hi there,

I find it really hard to play ESO (excluding morrowind as I haven't played that, yet ) with the eyes of a new player and keep the immersion of a continous storyline, hence for me (and I know the quests already) its difficult to maintain a storyline that isn't broken. The immersion of by beeing adressed by NPCs like an old friend without haven even met these NPCs at all, is that of a real bad blackout backfiring. This lead me wondering how new players, especially those that will join once Morrowind hits because of their rememberance of the single player RPG, can get some help without drastic changes to stroyline or OT in general.

Now, we are big adventurers ... and if we don't know what to do, or just do not remember anymore who we helped 2 years ago we do what every sensible men and mer would do: We check our diary! However, writing and implementing a true adventurers diary is not an option here and frankly not needed either as only the main story questlines (an breaking them) leads to loss of atmosphere. So, how about adding a number to these quests? After all, every walkthough in wiki is labelled that way (so getting the numbers is not much work... i don't know about implementing them into the game, tho). Adding to this the "order of quests" doesn't need to be shown anywhere else but in the journal, after all, its just a help to those that enjoy playing a book ... not a "you have to do it like this" for everyone.

Is my idea understandable? (Sry for my english... native speakers tend to tag it "awkward"... even "aggressive", least assured nothing could be further from my intention)
What do you think about the idea itself? - If you do not care the least for questing, pls just add an "aggree" to the first snatchy comment representing your feelings.
What else would you suggest? (please elaborate!)

feyii · April 2017

I absolutely agree here. And though it was possible before, this problem is bigger since One Tamriel, as all regions now have the same difficulty and don't keep lower level players from advancing too far and thus breaking the quest chains.

Since I know all the quest lines, I tend to follow them in the correct order for all new characters I create, but how are new players supposed to know the order when they can just go everywhere everytime and start any quest?

I would appreciate if the alliance main story lines could only be done in the correct order (but all three alliances could be done in parallel), i.e. you have to start them on the small starting islands and can only progress them in the next area, if the previous one is completed. Otherwise you shouldn't be able to get the main story quests of the next (or even further) area.

For non main quest lines and DLC/expansions I do like the idea of having some kind of meeting counter for returning NPCs, so no matter where you meet them first, they will behave as if this is your first meeting. And if you have met them before, they will react towards you like the aquaintance you are.

This would help much with immersion, I think, and make the stories less confusing for new players.

Elsterchen · April 2017

@feyii : Ty for your post. BUT: Main story quests are still tied to each other (regardless of OT) and some of them can not be done when one didn't do the prior quest, best example I got: try to do:

the firsthold main questline BEFORE doing the matiiesen main quests doesn't work... even with OT in place

BUT you have a good point to add to the list, as SOME main quests may be picked up along the way by exploring, hence adding a great deal to the confusion.

Surely, if one doesn't explore at all, sticks to the roads without taking a look to the left and right, one might still be able to go through the main story quests (granted you get extremely lucky and find your passage to sentinel right when its needed). However, this isn't the way any elder scrolls player would go about ESO, and frankly its not what ZOS encourages its players to do either.

So, while I disagree that there should be any forced quest progression (which in some way even exists with OT !) reinstalled, I like to pressure the observation that broken storylines just do not add to players immersion, hence: fun, in playing ESO. I like to stress (again) that there could be a very easy way of making it possible for players to progress with the storyline whenever they choose to do so, without any force tied to it. Simply making it possible to get information on where to start and how to progress will do and by numbering the quests, this can be accomplished easily.

Any other ideas/comments/thoughts?

Turelus · April 2017

Supporting any adjustments to keep continuity in questing.

It's a lot of work for them to do, but I hope one day they'll invest the time into it as 1T really requires it to flow well.

davey1107 · April 2017

Your English is very good. If you didn't mention it being a second language I would not have noticed, but since you said it you're writing style is very much like a French friend on mine.

I think the NPC comments are supposed to add "flavor" to the game to make it seem like word of your heroism is spreading across Tamriel. But I'm 2+ years into the game too, so it can be funny. An NPC will say something like "thank you! You returned the golden crest to the temple of San Ra Da," and I'll be like "what are you talkin' about, woman? Get away from me." Lol.

The quest lines can be very confusing. It was confusing already at game launch, when you had a main, alliance faction, fighters and mage guild storylines all running simultaneously to converge at Coldharbour. But the game kept you in appropriate zones with the leveling system, so it was possible to follow it in order. Now with One Tamriel it's a mess. Players can pick up all three faction lines...and because you can go to any zone, you can end up picking the faction lines up out of order.

Some sort of numbering system would be really helpful. ZOS wants to keep the game as open architecture as possible, so they don't like lists. But at least labeling the faction lines better would be really helpful.