3 Banners War Future Content Tease?

Elsonso · January 2019

tinythinker wrote: »

Ummm, my take doesn't resolve the war, so...?????

Tharn may *want* to do so, but that can just be a plot device to start assisting him with his machinations. It doesn't actually have to work. The regular timeline and the war can continue while the former Vestige is off in other versions of Tamriel.

In any case, ZOS are the ones hinting at something involving a Dragon Break with the broken dragon tablet and a prior announcement about piecing things together. My own comment was on how that could lead to new avenues for creative content without messing up the base game.

My mistake, I read that as extending the idea.

Seraphayel · January 2019

Oberstein wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

Oberstein wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

xaraan wrote: »

AlboMalefica wrote: »

My friend said that could be a spell crafting tablet? But I need to do more research

People just won't let that go, every update "Spellcrafting is coming."

But I have to admit that I thought the same thing when I saw it. Some were saying dragonbreak because it's a broken tablet with a dragon on it, but I just thought spellcraft tablet.

If you revisit the old 2014 Spellcrafting video https://youtu.be/3LkeMacg-b0 the similarities are very obvious. Starting at 54:00 or at 57:40 you can see that the symbols on the tablet from the Twitter pic and the QuakeCon video are very similar.

Not similar at all.

They are. It's just a different type of rune but if you can't see the similarity you blatantly ignore it.

In my other thread somebody already pointed out that the Twitter pic tablet looks identical to a thing that is already in the in game data files but not yet available. And it's pretty much a Spellcrafting related item.

Just look @ZunaRoath post (thanks for pointing that out!):

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/451528/speculation-chapter-iii-what-do-we-know-suspect-expect/p3

ZunaRoath wrote: »

Just a thing I just found. Nothing too official since it comes from the Essential Housing Tools addon. But in the addon, in the FX you can place at your home, there's one called "Sigil, Tablet", the symbol it places is exactly the same from the broken tablet on the Tweet. The symbols from this addon are grabbed directly from the game itself, so it is safe to say this one symbol was already in the game, I can't also find the textures of this symbol in the addon folder. This makes me think that this indeed will bring Spellcrafting.

I don't think this symbols related to spellcrafting. Stop saying spellcrafting when you saw every symbol.

So the "Sigil, Tablet" icon which clearly refers back to their initial idea of Spellcrafting from 2014 and looks identical to the Twitter picture symbol is not related to Spellcrafting? What else then? Just some kind of vanity item for your house that somehow is named "Sigil" or "Tablet" and has all of this mysterious magical language attached to it?

tinythinker · January 2019

lordrichter wrote: »

tinythinker wrote: »

Ummm, my take doesn't resolve the war, so...?????

Tharn may *want* to do so, but that can just be a plot device to start assisting him with his machinations. It doesn't actually have to work. The regular timeline and the war can continue while the former Vestige is off in other versions of Tamriel.

In any case, ZOS are the ones hinting at something involving a Dragon Break with the broken dragon tablet and a prior announcement about piecing things together. My own comment was on how that could lead to new avenues for creative content without messing up the base game.

My mistake, I read that as extending the idea.

No worries. I'm just trying to find the best spin on the different possibilities:

- spellcrafting
- soul burst as dragonbreak (so make it that the new scenarios leave base game alone)
- a piece of Anduin's wall (let's go to the rest of Skyrim!)
- end of Three Banners War (haven't done the positive spin on that yet plus seems waaaay too hard to pull off)
- expansion of Three Banners War because of Tharn's meddling (a 3-team PvP trial in Cloud Ruler Temple)
- something new with Imperial City (not sure what that would be...?)
- other???

Ertosi · January 2019

menschikov2 wrote: »

I think all the People from the balancing Team would quit when they had to balance the huge number of Skills which would be possible with spellcrafting. Must be a Horror to try this when they have already more then enough to do with the normal skills which are already in the game

Naw, realistically it wouldn't be that bad at all. It would most likely only entail 5 schools/skill lines each only having some passive abilities.

There would be no slottable abilities in the Skill lines because that would be counter productive to the concept of Spellcrafting being used to create your new slottable abilities.

Why only five Schools/skill lines likely? TES has eight schools of magic. We already have Enchanting. Thaumaturgy only existed in the first two games. Skyrim dropped the ambiguous Mysticism, dividing it up between the other schools. That just leaves Illusion, Alteration, Destruction, Conjuration, and Restoration.

Five new skill lines might seem like a lot, but with them only getting passives, that's not to bad at all.

Plotting the most natural course of things, the more likely issue none have mentioned yet would be the large amount of free Skill Points that would be needed to explore the new skill lines. If Spellcrafting does happen, I foresee myriad angry posts about the lack of enough Skill Points despite the nearly 500 points currently available and the fact that no one needs every skill.

wenchmore420b14_ESO · January 2019

Alowishus wrote: »

MaxJrFTW wrote: »

The 3 banner war will not end because Talos hasn't even been born yet...

I was thinking of this too. How long until he is born?

244 years after time of ESO is Tiber is born. 2E 827.

Akrasjel · January 2019

Creative Director’s Letter: That’s a Wrap on 2018!

As such, next year’s story and adventure will be something truly special for all Elder Scrolls Online players. We are so excited to be able to share it with you soon, and we can’t wait to see how you all put all the pieces together starting early next year.

SilverIce58 · January 2019

Akrasjel wrote: »

Creative Director’s Letter: That’s a Wrap on 2018!

As such, next year’s story and adventure will be something truly special for all Elder Scrolls Online players. We are so excited to be able to share it with you soon, and we can’t wait to see how you all put all the pieces together starting early next year.

Sounds like how spellcrafting was originally envisioned. Putting pieces of tablets together to make new spells. It would be something truly special, but it also seems like a pipe dream, so who knows lol

OtarTheMad · January 2019

My take is that it has something to do with Spellcrafting that Abnur is saying that he and other Imperials cracked the secrets of. How do you end a war? Claim the throne once and for all which means we might get a fourth alliance in the war with Imperials and some other races.

zaria · January 2019

JadonSky wrote: »

Loves_guars wrote: »

I would like the war to finish, maybe this is a way of letting Cyrodiil be a PVE zone, but at the same time I'd feel bad for all the players that enjoy open world PVP (I even do sometimes) Maybe there's a way of having both? Or without "factions"?

Yeah I love open world PVP in eso. Yes it has its performance issues that need to be resolved. Maybe what they could do is still have the PVP version and then have a PVE version you can travel to through the main maps. I guess this is where the Dragonbreak everyone is discussing could come in place. The PVP zone would be the dragonbreak (stuck in its own timeloop) then the PVE zone opens up for the new story line.

I would be cool with that

PvE in Cyrodil is something you do either for the achievement, the AP or just the danger feeling.
Or because you can only get into junk zergs full of lemmings on skooma
No trying to hit the same city 5 times in 30 minutes and wipe every time does not work well. Last time group was flanked trying to set up an siege

if you compare it to any other zone the PvE is very lackluster, yes the rewards are better because of the increased danger.
Remove the danger and you have to remove the extra reward.

On the other hand it should be possible to switch alliance on an character, make this an crown store item.
Legit reason is that you get into an awesome guild for PvE but they also do lots of PvP events but is in the wrong alliance and has more alts than you can manage.

Seraphayel · January 2019

Ertosi wrote: »

Plotting the most natural course of things, the more likely issue none have mentioned yet would be the large amount of free Skill Points that would be needed to explore the new skill lines. If Spellcrafting does happen, I foresee myriad angry posts about the lack of enough Skill Points despite the nearly 500 points currently available and the fact that no one needs every skill.

You wouldn't really need skill points when the spells are like they imagined them back in 2014. You'd collect all the stuff, create the tablet and just consume it to get that skill. There won't be any morphs because it wouldn't make sense (a morph would be just another crafted skill) so therefore you need not one skill point to level it. Maybe if there is a passive skill line under the professions tab related to it but if not there wouldn't be a need for skill points.

Brazen_Blade · January 2019

Count me in on the idea of them launching a new PVE Cyrodiil while maintaining the old PVP open world version as well. It seems like something that would be within the reach of the ZOS team, as they could reuse many of the map assets in Cyrodiil as a foundation and build upon that. Restore the Imperial City to its former glory, rebuild the towns, add meaningful story quests to the zone, open up the sealed Ayleid ruins as delves/dungeons, etc. Another great thing to do would be make the Great Forest area a proper forest - I feel like a lot of the landscape in Cyrodiil is very lackluster but I understand how it makes sense to remove these features for performance.

I can't see them completely removing the Alliance War from the game, and relegating Battlegrounds to the only way to PVP. It's less popular and more along the lines of the generic instanced PVP you can find in many other games. ESO is one of the few places where you can get RvR style PVP, and many players, including myself, still enjoy it despite the issues it has manifested over the years.

Personally, as a gamer that was introduced to TES as an Oblivion player over a decade ago, I always felt let down by the version of Cyrodiil in ESO as merely a functional map for PVP. I would love to see them revamp my favorite locations like Chorrol or Bruma as proper, bustling towns instead of fetch quest/faction respawn points as they exist now.

If this is indeed the plan.....please make a proper Lovecraftian version of Hackdirt, complete with quests (and maybe a dungeon)! It was my all-time favorite Easter egg questline in Oblivion, and I was so bummed when I stumbled upon it and found it was just a couple buildings with bandits lurking about. You can't even go into the Chapel of the Brethren...

jaws343 · January 2019

As far as dragonbreaks are concerned, we are most likely already in one. It's the only way to explain in universe the multiple vestiges running around and the limited historical information around this time.

Alowishus · January 2019

wenchmore420b14_ESO wrote: »

Alowishus wrote: »

MaxJrFTW wrote: »

The 3 banner war will not end because Talos hasn't even been born yet...

I was thinking of this too. How long until he is born?

244 years after time of ESO is Tiber is born. 2E 827.

So not too far off, then
Thanks!

jaws343 wrote: »

As far as dragonbreaks are concerned, we are most likely already in one. It's the only way to explain in universe the multiple vestiges running around and the limited historical information around this time.

This. Just like Daggerfall.

lagrue · January 2019

Jolipinator wrote: »

Retweeted by the official ESO Twitter: https://twitter.com/TESOnline

Hopefully less about new content in the Alliance War, and more about actually ending the war and (by effect) Cyrodiil. I see Cyrodiil like a failed project... you can add whatever you want to it, it's fundamentally rotten from the core up, so no addition will help.

I know it won't happen but I think it would be cool if they finally killed off Cyro - and instead of one mega-PVP zone, they instead gave all zones in the game a PVP instance with all the same Alliance War mechanics, smaller maps, smaller population, less lag (I would hope). Instead of keeps, just have smaller scale "camps" to operate from. Downscale and square off the PVP into multiple segments. Give incentive to alliances to capture as many provinces as they can.

One way to do this would be to make the wartime affect the economy... for example have it so in PVE version of the maps, the owning Alliance is given tax immunity, and the other 2 alliances have to pay taxes of 10% on all purchases (in a gold sink faction, nobody actually gets the gold but the system) - then we can see the Alliance war in full scale, the provinces changing hands constantly, the economy "changing" as a result.. it will feel more living in wartime where stability is in fluctuation..

Hell even for small flavour you could have the guards change uniforms based on who owns the province at the time. High Elves running Ebonheart? Now that would be a sight...

Let's face it, PVP on the volcanic slopes of Stonefalls would be intense, or the Oases in Alikr, Jungles of Grahtwood ;p All are primed for combat.

Rain_Greyraven · January 2019

I'm pretty certain Cyrodil along with faction warfare is going away.

They will keep and expand upon the arena system for what little PVP the game will have, and Cyrodil will get a much needed PVE revamp.

Loralai_907 · January 2019

I am just going to focus on Cyro (or something like it) still being in the game. Because the alternative messed me up yesterday. I love ESO, and for years all I did was basic PvE. I've only been in Cyro for like a year and a half. I still completely love it. And if it were to go away I'm not sure I could transition past that and still be able to play the game at all. At least not for a long time. Yesterday was bad for me, I don't have that many bad days anymore, and for the first hour I was riding the line of a panic attack, and the next 12 hours was a roller coaster of hyper anxiety and feeling sick. If you don't have a brain that works like mine you might not get it, but it was like spikes of feeling like something was really really wrong but not being able to identify what the threat was.

I'm more than happy to have it be a dragon break, or for there to be a PvE version of Cyro, or whatever. I just am no where near ready to let go of an environment where large scale battles can happen.

Seraphayel · January 2019

I mean honestly, people really thinking they remove world PvP in Cyrodiil? That's like cutting the entire PvE content.

lagrue · January 2019

Seraphayel wrote: »

I mean honestly, people really thinking they remove world PvP in Cyrodiil? That's like cutting the entire PvE content.

Cyrodiil has been in a bad place since launch - it would actually be the best thing to do. And just because they (might) remove it, doesn't mean they don't have a fallback plan for PVP.

Sometimes when you build a tower on lofty foundations you have to tear down the tower and rework the foundation for a new tower to stand on. Otherwise you get the Leaning Tower of Pisa - bound to eventually fall without constant support.

It's all speculation right now anyway, but I think many players even on the PVP side of the fence would love to see Alliance War ended and replaced with something better, and preferably less laggy.

gepe87 · January 2019

I just think that ZOS wont go that way. Chapter will be on a different location. Its too early to give hints about that.

LittlePinkDot · January 2019

They can make another version of Cyrodil, like an alternate reality. But they cannot remove the pvp cyrodil because people paid real money for that.

Thats like buying something from a store and then later somebody from the store comes to your home to take it back.

Im sure this is why Blizzard got rid of the Diablo 3 auction house. They couldnt retroactively change the stats of any items that were bought with real money. They could only change the stats of the new drops of items, not the old versions paid for with money.
Instead they had to use power creep to make old versions useless.

ProfessorKittyhawk · January 2019

In addition to needing to change some of the vanilla content they would also need to gate any dlc/chapter woth Tharn returning behind finishing the vanilla main story. It makes more sense to do it for this than the other chapters and DLC that supposedly take place post-main story but have so little indication of it that it becomes pointless. But this, having a character from the main story returning, feels like it would need to be gated behind completing the original main quest.

ezio45 · January 2019

they cant end the 3 banners war, do you know how many players that will *** off

karekiz · January 2019

Inc NPC trying to stop the war using the thing. The NPC truly wants to stop the war but can't control the thing. The thing is let loose and might destroy the WORLD. We stop the thing.

Questline - roughly 8-12 quests - length - 4-12 hours depending on playstyle.

Toss in a delve + public dungeon + trial.

- Insert new Game play mechanic here

You just got yourself a chapter.

Sylvermynx · January 2019

karekiz wrote: »

Inc NPC trying to stop the war using the thing. The NPC truly wants to stop the war but can't control the thing. The thing is let loose and might destroy the WORLD. We stop the thing.

Questline - roughly 8-12 quests - length - 4-12 hours depending on playstyle.

Toss in a delve + public dungeon + trial.

- Insert new Game play mechanic here

You just got yourself a chapter.

Um. "The thing"? What thing? What ARE you on about? And only 4+ hours of play time?

*rolls eyes*

IronWooshu · January 2019

What happens in the 3 Banner War is already history in the Elder Scrolls canon. We know what happens with each faction and who actually wins so I highly doubt Abnur Tharn is going to end it unless we travel ahead 200 years into the future and fight for Tiber Septim.

lagrue · January 2019

Sylvermynx wrote: »

karekiz wrote: »

Inc NPC trying to stop the war using the thing. The NPC truly wants to stop the war but can't control the thing. The thing is let loose and might destroy the WORLD. We stop the thing.

Questline - roughly 8-12 quests - length - 4-12 hours depending on playstyle.

Toss in a delve + public dungeon + trial.

- Insert new Game play mechanic here

You just got yourself a chapter.

Um. "The thing"? What thing? What ARE you on about? And only 4+ hours of play time?

*rolls eyes*

The thing is clearly a reference to whatever the knowledge is that can end the war. It's not made clear yet what that is, so the "thing" is a suitable stand in for whatever that mysterious catalyst for ending the war might be.

And when is the last time a DLC or Chapter's story wasn't only 4-12 hours of play time? That's the standard length of the quests added in these DLCs.... he wasn't saying the DLC as a whole, just the main quest. Summerset was also only about 4-5 hours I put into the story, that's just the standard time of their quests. Morrowind actually took me longer, anywhere from 8-10 hours, but only because I mixed side quests into my main quest.... but his assertion of 4-12 hours of story is by no means hyperbole or out of line in terms of what players know we'll get.

Raudgrani · January 2019

FLuFFyxMuFFiN wrote: »

If this ends up being a Dragon break I hope this could also mean updates to the alliance zones to make them seem like they aren't stuck in the past.

Exactly what I've been thinking too. All these bad eevul Covenant, Pact, Dominion groups all over Tamriel, in delves and what not - even several story lines, it would be such a huge change that they would have to re-make most of the game. Just think of all achievements etc. New players could not get these, or what?

JJBoomer · January 2019

just some holes in theories:

ESO was officially confirmed by Bethesda (above ZOS/Zeni) to be canon. part of the main, or prime timeline. So ESO itself is definitely not taking place during a dragonbreak.

these dragonbreak theories have one big hole. the fact that ZOS’s engine/servers in no way can handle multiple instances of the entire game. it can’t even handle one instance of cyro. so multiple versions of the game existing is probably beyond the tech capabilities they have.

as for spellcrafting? spell crafting assets were found in the game files before and after summerset was released. the parts are there, just need to be activated. so spellcrafting so far, seems possible.

lagrue · January 2019

JJBoomer wrote: »

these dragonbreak theories have one big hole. the fact that ZOS’s engine/servers in no way can handle multiple instances of the entire game. it can’t even handle one instance of cyro. so multiple versions of the game existing is probably beyond the tech capabilities they have.

This is just cyrodiil, despite the megaserver the PVE zones are in fact instances. They only shard into other instances when so many people are online though. Usually seen during events.

Anytime you ever get a loading screen in just wandering around, this is generally the game switching you instances because a shard is no longer needed, and all the population can fit into one.

Sylvermynx · January 2019

lagrue wrote: »

JJBoomer wrote: »

these dragonbreak theories have one big hole. the fact that ZOS’s engine/servers in no way can handle multiple instances of the entire game. it can’t even handle one instance of cyro. so multiple versions of the game existing is probably beyond the tech capabilities they have.

This is just cyrodiil, despite the megaserver the PVE zones are in fact instances. They only shard into other instances when so many people are online though. Usually seen during events.

Anytime you ever get a loading screen in just wandering around, this is the game switching you instances.

Or because I have 2000 ms ping....