Psijic time breaches are boring! Here are some suggestions for improvements.
Footfalls
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Levelling the Psijic guild quest line as it is on PTS is in my opinion the absolute worst kind of MMO quest - go to these 9 places and press X. Now do this 5 more times.
That's it, that's all you do, and I have to say that is an incredibly brain-numbingly dull and boring grind to do on even one character! I have been praising ZOS all this time for coming up with good Elder-Scrolls RPG style quest designs that makes people interested in listening to dialogue and reading books while playing the game, but Psijic levelling harkens back to the release state of ESO.
In comparison, levelling the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood guild quest lines was actually interesting for a thief or assassin to do, you had to steal things, or kill people. This is actually involving gameplay compared to the Psijic Guild!
My suggestion is to add time-shifted monsters to the time rifts. Reduce the amount of breaches to like, 3-5 per quest to keep the grind time the same, but have the player fight waves of random time-displaced enemies at each breach. We could have things like Oblivion guards leaving the breach saying "HALT! YOU HAVE VIOLATED THE LAW!" or just whatever monster models you have at hand (there's plenty of models you can use ingame, sand gargoyles, Haj Mota, vampires, anything you can think of really). Lore-wise these monsters could have become insane and can't be reasoned with, give them a line or two of dialogue as well for flavour purposes to indicate this.
Maybe physically time-travelling monsters aren't lore friendly, so have them be ghostly echoes instead, and give them a ghost effect. Run this by the Loremaster if not sure.
What do you guys think?
That's it, that's all you do, and I have to say that is an incredibly brain-numbingly dull and boring grind to do on even one character! I have been praising ZOS all this time for coming up with good Elder-Scrolls RPG style quest designs that makes people interested in listening to dialogue and reading books while playing the game, but Psijic levelling harkens back to the release state of ESO.
In comparison, levelling the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood guild quest lines was actually interesting for a thief or assassin to do, you had to steal things, or kill people. This is actually involving gameplay compared to the Psijic Guild!
My suggestion is to add time-shifted monsters to the time rifts. Reduce the amount of breaches to like, 3-5 per quest to keep the grind time the same, but have the player fight waves of random time-displaced enemies at each breach. We could have things like Oblivion guards leaving the breach saying "HALT! YOU HAVE VIOLATED THE LAW!" or just whatever monster models you have at hand (there's plenty of models you can use ingame, sand gargoyles, Haj Mota, vampires, anything you can think of really). Lore-wise these monsters could have become insane and can't be reasoned with, give them a line or two of dialogue as well for flavour purposes to indicate this.
Maybe physically time-travelling monsters aren't lore friendly, so have them be ghostly echoes instead, and give them a ghost effect. Run this by the Loremaster if not sure.
What do you guys think?
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Ahzek✭✭✭✭✭
✭This is actually a very nice idea to spice up the ridiculously boring affair of geoguesser the psyjic quests are at the moment.
Having a variety of time/space displaced enemies (including ofc from previous TES games) could actually give these breaches a certain nostalgic value, as well as the opportunity for some comedic fights in ESO.
The issue would be of course, that after a time (especially with multiple charackters), people will have seen all enemy types, and will get bored of those too. However, fights are still much more exciting than just having to press one simple button.Jo'Khaljor0 -
schattenkind✭✭✭The feedback on this quests is overall the same as yours, as you can read in many other posts.
Since youre providing an actual idea how to change that, I wanna reply to this tho:
I agree totaly on the current state.
I like your idea and was thinking myself a lot about how to make this more interesting. I couldnt come up with a solution on my own but reading other ideas it gives my ideads some food.
In addition to reducing the amount of time breaches to close per map, I was thinking about using f.e. a guard who stands by the time breach and gives you riddles, which you have either to solve or - if you failed - had to fight some amout of monsters or do another (easy) sub-quest, like "go there and bring me 5 rare mushrooms". These riddles tho should not be about lore (at least not deep-lore), since not everyone is that much into lore, just overall, common riddles that you could solve with some research. Maybe there would be a time you have to complete the riddle in. And those riddles should be random, to not give a run-through solution. The time needed to level the skill line shall not be shortend easily by knowing where which riddle is brought up.
On the next breach there could be a guard who is bored of waiting 420 of years and wants to play a game, like some easy card game (I lack imagination to bring any up, some kind of black jack or sth). If you win, you may close the breach, if you lose, guard starts buffing up and attacks you.
Then on the next there could be a guard, who likes competition and wants to compete against you, f.e. he lets a hand full of monsters spawn, then starts a countdown and who kills them faster, or who kills more in a given time, wins. If you win, you may close the breach, if you lose, all monsters killed come back to life and you have to fight them and the guard in order to proceed.
I dont know if this stuff is in some sort compatible to the world and lore, since I m not that much into that, but after all it would be something different and, depending on how the ideas are implemented, much more interesting or even challenging.PC - EU
Primary: PvP: magSorc, magNB, PvE: DK Tank, Templar Heal
Secondary: PvP: magDK, Templar, PvE: Warden something0 -
Mystrius_Archaion✭✭✭✭✭
✭I like interesting, but it is rarely done right so that it stays interesting.
I'm ok with boring so long as it doesn't feel too slow and tedious, which is subjective.
I haven't really felt that way doing these yet though, which is good enough. I would be upset if it wasn't an entire rank gained for every quest for this guild though because then it would turn into a grind.0 -
I agree. I'm surprised this post isn't more widely read. Perhaps there are several other threads addressing the same topic? These time breach quests are simply a chore....0
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EngineeringElf✭✭✭Looking at the bright side of this quest line, I welcome the exploration aspect of it. One of these time breaches was all the way to the east of the map in The Rift, a staircase leading up the side of a mountain that was eventually blocked off. It brought back the many times I've traveled up to the Throat of the World in Skyrim. A place I've never stumbled upon before in ESO.Edited by EngineeringElf on June 25, 2018 1:57PM0 -
Crafts_Many_Boxes✭✭✭✭✭Having just done this quest line over the weekend, I guess there are pros and cons.
Pros:
-It's relatively quick to get to max rank, compared to other guilds / factions
-It takes you to places your characters may not have necessarily been
Cons:
-It feels extremely grindy
-If you have done a skyshard run on a new toon or anything of that sort recently (I have), it's really boring
-A lot of the map locations are VERY off. I eventually broke down and just looked up a guide. The game forced me to.
Overall, I'm not exactly dreading doing it on another toon, but I'm certainly not looking forward to it either.2