Kidgangster101 wrote: »ProfessorKittyhawk wrote: »Mages guild books is how you level the mages guild skill line. If you're going to make that account wide and make every character start off with the same amount of books/level, then do the same for fighters guild/daedra and undead killed. In fact, do the same for dark brotherhood and thieves guild because who wants to to grind through contracts and heists and sacraments to level those? And also, why not max out the psijic skill line too so we don't have to hunt down rifts again and again and again? In fact, once you've done everything on one character just make EVERYTHING available on all future characters. Titles. Achievements. Remove pvp alliances because why not? Max those out once we've maxed all the pvp skill lines out for one character. Remove any and all challenge or grind from the game because that's what mmo's are all about. This is a game. We shouldn't have to WORK to become the best there ever was at any given thing on any given class or build.</sarcasm>
Not our fault skyhards/lorebooks/psijic are anti-gamplay braindead mechanics....that dont involve any gameplay.
Once you finally figure that out....maybe youll have somethign wortwhile to say, shyshards should have ALWAYS been account wide and mage guild/psijic tied to questlines just like "world" skill line with main quest.
Achievements too should have ALWAYS been account wide.
Skyshards and lorebooks are only anti-gameplay braindead mechanics to those who choose to develop characters through anti-gameplay braindead mechanics. If they're picked up as you play through a zone in the way it was intended to be played then they fall into place as an integral part of that gameplay.
So PVP, dungeons, trials or whatever are not intended ways to play the game. Only running around in zones doing the same quests for the tenth time is the intended way to play the game and integral part of gameplay. Wow just wow. Any other dumb argument to make? lol
Yep this is not a single player game. It's actual intentions are to get you in a group to play with others because it is a MMMORPG if you want to play alone doing the same quests over and over and over again then maybe you should play any other elder scrolls and stay away from the online version?
starkerealm wrote: »I never said there was only my way to play, or that there is only 1 way to play. I said that focusing your time specifically on collecting skyshards is incredibly boring and you deserve to bored if you're doing that.
Well, that's a mistake. As a game designer you should never seek to bore your player. You may attempt to restrict what a player does by making a process more tedious, but a bored player will look for other ways to entertain themselves. At that point, the best you can hope is that they'll only be looking at websites while waiting for load screens. At worst, they will simply fire up a different game and never return. Actively punishing a player with tedious activities is behavior that should be considered very carefully.
Also worth remembering, the Skyshards grind is supposed to be even more punishing than it is in practice. We're not supposed to have maps on hand that point us to the right locations, or addons that plant the shards on our map. Now, those are acceptable, but we are supposed to wander around aimlessly, interpreting cryptic riddles, looking for the things. Some of the boredom has already been alleviated. It was supposed to be even more punishing in its original iteration.
As with a number of mechanics in the game, it reflects another era of the game's design. One that doesn't fit as well with the game that exists today.Whatever silly excuses you use to justify that behavior are on you. It especially does not mean that the game needs to be streamlined, dumbed down, made more accessible, or otherwise changed to cater to your proclivities.
Wow, you broke out the dictionary for this. It would have been nice if you'd picked some appropriate arguments.
So, let's take these in no particular order:
If the game is not accessible, that's a problem. Full stop. If you're making a game, your primary source of income is from selling that game to players. Making a game obtuse or inaccessible is an option, but it's a risky one. In the case of a game that also serves as a recurring revenue stream, an inaccessible game is a poorly design choice.
ZOS has expressed interest in making the game more accessible over the years. The guild trader system, the group finder... hell, One Tamriel stands as a monument to increased accessibility.
For ESO to thrive, it does need to be as accessible as reasonably possible. At that point, picking a random collectible and screaming, "THIS IS THE HILL I WILL DIE ON!" is a little peculiar.
Dumbing a game down is when the intricacies of the game are stripped out in the name of making the game more accessible. For example, the removal of a player inventory in Bioshock was considered "dumbing it down" from System Shock 2's system.
There is no real example of ESO being dumbed down. You might be able to point to the overhaul of the Provisioning system, or the introduction of One Tamriel as examples of this, but those didn't really dumb down the experience, they simply took pain points and dealt with them.
Which is the other term you chucked out as a pejorative: Streamlining. Streamlining is where you look at issues with a game, things that interfere with the flow of the experience, and you identify and implement ways to improve it. You deal with issues that disrupt the experience.
In point of fact, "streamlining," is improving a game. Now, I know, a lot of developers do say, "we streamlined this," as code for taking out choices or options. That can happen. If ESO chose to do away with skill points, attribute points, and skill lines entirely, then locking you to specific skills on your bar based on your equipped gear, that would streamline builds, but it would also dumb down the experience.
As mentioned above, ESO has undergone some significant streamlining. The huge example is One Tamriel. Before that, if you were in different alliances and wanted to do PvE content together, you needed to either group into the same dungeon, or make sure your characters were roughly the same level, roughly in range for the content you wanted to do, and were both the same Alliance. Now, if my friend picks up the game, I can jump over there, regardless of character, and give them a hand. That's streamlining.
Collecting Skyshards is a pain point. There's no engaging gameplay decision involved in locating or using them. Certainly not after you've found them the first time. It's simply busywork. So, within that perspective, changing that system radically would be a QoL improvement.
Also, I realize you may have missed this, but, a "proclivity" is an innate impulse. You're probably familiar with it from people referring to someone's "sexual proclivities," which is a clever(ish) way to say that someone's sexual drive is unnatural and perverse. All of this is, not exactly, relevant to a discussion on ESO, (or, at least, I dearly hope it's not applicable.)
I think pvp is boring. I have caltrops on one of my characters. I want caltrops on all of my characters, though. The alliance war skill lines need to be account wide so I can have caltrops on every new character without ever having to pvp ever again.
This needs to happen because I dont like pvp and if Zos doesn't do it they will lose money because I said so.
I don't want to level legerdemain anymore either. Maybe we should add that to the list, because I think it's boring...
corpseblade wrote: »It sounds like PvPers are trying to change the PvE experience.
ProfessorKittyhawk wrote: »Mages guild books is how you level the mages guild skill line. If you're going to make that account wide and make every character start off with the same amount of books/level, then do the same for fighters guild/daedra and undead killed. In fact, do the same for dark brotherhood and thieves guild because who wants to to grind through contracts and heists and sacraments to level those? And also, why not max out the psijic skill line too so we don't have to hunt down rifts again and again and again? In fact, once you've done everything on one character just make EVERYTHING available on all future characters. Titles. Achievements. Remove pvp alliances because why not? Max those out once we've maxed all the pvp skill lines out for one character. Remove any and all challenge or grind from the game because that's what mmo's are all about. This is a game. We shouldn't have to WORK to become the best there ever was at any given thing on any given class or build.</sarcasm>
Not our fault skyhards/lorebooks/psijic are anti-gamplay braindead mechanics....that dont involve any gameplay.
Once you finally figure that out....maybe youll have somethign wortwhile to say, shyshards should have ALWAYS been account wide and mage guild/psijic tied to questlines just like "world" skill line with main quest.
Achievements too should have ALWAYS been account wide.
Skyshards and lorebooks are only anti-gameplay braindead mechanics to those who choose to develop characters through anti-gameplay braindead mechanics. If they're picked up as you play through a zone in the way it was intended to be played then they fall into place as an integral part of that gameplay.
Wut? Do explain to us in great detail how going to spot x and pressing "Interact" button is not anti-gameplay and braindead. It is not integral to anything it is as braindead as it gets.
And ESOs sales pitch was "play how you WANT", not "play how random Tandor wants to play"
ProfessorKittyhawk wrote: »Mages guild books is how you level the mages guild skill line. If you're going to make that account wide and make every character start off with the same amount of books/level, then do the same for fighters guild/daedra and undead killed. In fact, do the same for dark brotherhood and thieves guild because who wants to to grind through contracts and heists and sacraments to level those? And also, why not max out the psijic skill line too so we don't have to hunt down rifts again and again and again? In fact, once you've done everything on one character just make EVERYTHING available on all future characters. Titles. Achievements. Remove pvp alliances because why not? Max those out once we've maxed all the pvp skill lines out for one character. Remove any and all challenge or grind from the game because that's what mmo's are all about. This is a game. We shouldn't have to WORK to become the best there ever was at any given thing on any given class or build.</sarcasm>
Not our fault skyhards/lorebooks/psijic are anti-gamplay braindead mechanics....that dont involve any gameplay.
Once you finally figure that out....maybe youll have somethign wortwhile to say, shyshards should have ALWAYS been account wide and mage guild/psijic tied to questlines just like "world" skill line with main quest.
Achievements too should have ALWAYS been account wide.
Skyshards and lorebooks are only anti-gameplay braindead mechanics to those who choose to develop characters through anti-gameplay braindead mechanics. If they're picked up as you play through a zone in the way it was intended to be played then they fall into place as an integral part of that gameplay.
Wut? Do explain to us in great detail how going to spot x and pressing "Interact" button is not anti-gameplay and braindead. It is not integral to anything it is as braindead as it gets.
And ESOs sales pitch was "play how you WANT", not "play how random Tandor wants to play"
That's rich in a thread where a handful of players want to change the established structure of the game to how they want to play it!
"Play the way you like" is one of the most misinterpreted terms about the game. If you look on the back of the box you'll see that originally it meant "Adventure alone or together with friends. The choice is yours to make." By One Tamriel this had changed to "Battle, craft, fish, steal or explore. The choice is yours to make in a persistent Elder Scrolls World."
ProfessorKittyhawk wrote: »Mages guild books is how you level the mages guild skill line. If you're going to make that account wide and make every character start off with the same amount of books/level, then do the same for fighters guild/daedra and undead killed. In fact, do the same for dark brotherhood and thieves guild because who wants to to grind through contracts and heists and sacraments to level those? And also, why not max out the psijic skill line too so we don't have to hunt down rifts again and again and again? In fact, once you've done everything on one character just make EVERYTHING available on all future characters. Titles. Achievements. Remove pvp alliances because why not? Max those out once we've maxed all the pvp skill lines out for one character. Remove any and all challenge or grind from the game because that's what mmo's are all about. This is a game. We shouldn't have to WORK to become the best there ever was at any given thing on any given class or build.</sarcasm>
Not our fault skyhards/lorebooks/psijic are anti-gamplay braindead mechanics....that dont involve any gameplay.
Once you finally figure that out....maybe youll have somethign wortwhile to say, shyshards should have ALWAYS been account wide and mage guild/psijic tied to questlines just like "world" skill line with main quest.
Achievements too should have ALWAYS been account wide.
Skyshards and lorebooks are only anti-gameplay braindead mechanics to those who choose to develop characters through anti-gameplay braindead mechanics. If they're picked up as you play through a zone in the way it was intended to be played then they fall into place as an integral part of that gameplay.
Wut? Do explain to us in great detail how going to spot x and pressing "Interact" button is not anti-gameplay and braindead. It is not integral to anything it is as braindead as it gets.
And ESOs sales pitch was "play how you WANT", not "play how random Tandor wants to play"
That's rich in a thread where a handful of players want to change the established structure of the game to how they want to play it!
"Play the way you like" is one of the most misinterpreted terms about the game. If you look on the back of the box you'll see that originally it meant "Adventure alone or together with friends. The choice is yours to make." By One Tamriel this had changed to "Battle, craft, fish, steal or explore. The choice is yours to make in a persistent Elder Scrolls World."
Making a dumb argument and then ignoring everything people say to you in response to that argument just so you can cherry pick one single sentence, take it out of context and make another equally dumb argument. Good one. Keep up the work.
P.S. Nice try on the "handful". I mean everybody knows that this has been a subject brought up constantly through the years because many if not the majority of people dont like the grind which was one of the reason for mages guilds quests to progress the skill line in the first place but yeah. Was a good attempt non the less.
Kidgangster101 wrote: »starkerealm wrote: »I never said there was only my way to play, or that there is only 1 way to play. I said that focusing your time specifically on collecting skyshards is incredibly boring and you deserve to bored if you're doing that.
Well, that's a mistake. As a game designer you should never seek to bore your player. You may attempt to restrict what a player does by making a process more tedious, but a bored player will look for other ways to entertain themselves. At that point, the best you can hope is that they'll only be looking at websites while waiting for load screens. At worst, they will simply fire up a different game and never return. Actively punishing a player with tedious activities is behavior that should be considered very carefully.
Also worth remembering, the Skyshards grind is supposed to be even more punishing than it is in practice. We're not supposed to have maps on hand that point us to the right locations, or addons that plant the shards on our map. Now, those are acceptable, but we are supposed to wander around aimlessly, interpreting cryptic riddles, looking for the things. Some of the boredom has already been alleviated. It was supposed to be even more punishing in its original iteration.
As with a number of mechanics in the game, it reflects another era of the game's design. One that doesn't fit as well with the game that exists today.Whatever silly excuses you use to justify that behavior are on you. It especially does not mean that the game needs to be streamlined, dumbed down, made more accessible, or otherwise changed to cater to your proclivities.
Wow, you broke out the dictionary for this. It would have been nice if you'd picked some appropriate arguments.
So, let's take these in no particular order:
If the game is not accessible, that's a problem. Full stop. If you're making a game, your primary source of income is from selling that game to players. Making a game obtuse or inaccessible is an option, but it's a risky one. In the case of a game that also serves as a recurring revenue stream, an inaccessible game is a poorly design choice.
ZOS has expressed interest in making the game more accessible over the years. The guild trader system, the group finder... hell, One Tamriel stands as a monument to increased accessibility.
For ESO to thrive, it does need to be as accessible as reasonably possible. At that point, picking a random collectible and screaming, "THIS IS THE HILL I WILL DIE ON!" is a little peculiar.
Dumbing a game down is when the intricacies of the game are stripped out in the name of making the game more accessible. For example, the removal of a player inventory in Bioshock was considered "dumbing it down" from System Shock 2's system.
There is no real example of ESO being dumbed down. You might be able to point to the overhaul of the Provisioning system, or the introduction of One Tamriel as examples of this, but those didn't really dumb down the experience, they simply took pain points and dealt with them.
Which is the other term you chucked out as a pejorative: Streamlining. Streamlining is where you look at issues with a game, things that interfere with the flow of the experience, and you identify and implement ways to improve it. You deal with issues that disrupt the experience.
In point of fact, "streamlining," is improving a game. Now, I know, a lot of developers do say, "we streamlined this," as code for taking out choices or options. That can happen. If ESO chose to do away with skill points, attribute points, and skill lines entirely, then locking you to specific skills on your bar based on your equipped gear, that would streamline builds, but it would also dumb down the experience.
As mentioned above, ESO has undergone some significant streamlining. The huge example is One Tamriel. Before that, if you were in different alliances and wanted to do PvE content together, you needed to either group into the same dungeon, or make sure your characters were roughly the same level, roughly in range for the content you wanted to do, and were both the same Alliance. Now, if my friend picks up the game, I can jump over there, regardless of character, and give them a hand. That's streamlining.
Collecting Skyshards is a pain point. There's no engaging gameplay decision involved in locating or using them. Certainly not after you've found them the first time. It's simply busywork. So, within that perspective, changing that system radically would be a QoL improvement.
Also, I realize you may have missed this, but, a "proclivity" is an innate impulse. You're probably familiar with it from people referring to someone's "sexual proclivities," which is a clever(ish) way to say that someone's sexual drive is unnatural and perverse. All of this is, not exactly, relevant to a discussion on ESO, (or, at least, I dearly hope it's not applicable.)
I think pvp is boring. I have caltrops on one of my characters. I want caltrops on all of my characters, though. The alliance war skill lines need to be account wide so I can have caltrops on every new character without ever having to pvp ever again.
This needs to happen because I dont like pvp and if Zos doesn't do it they will lose money because I said so.
I don't want to level legerdemain anymore either. Maybe we should add that to the list, because I think it's boring...
Lololol be glad they nerfed the skill lines in pvp for you because it only takes 2-3 hours to get now compared to what it use to bemaybe they should bring it back up to make people have to pvp more!
There is a huge difference between the 2-3 hours it takes in battlegrounds than the 25+ hours it takes to grind skyshards/mages guild/ psijic. Just saying they already nerfed pvp skill line into the ground because pve players cried non stop about the grind.
starkerealm wrote: »I never said there was only my way to play, or that there is only 1 way to play. I said that focusing your time specifically on collecting skyshards is incredibly boring and you deserve to bored if you're doing that.
Well, that's a mistake. As a game designer you should never seek to bore your player. You may attempt to restrict what a player does by making a process more tedious, but a bored player will look for other ways to entertain themselves. At that point, the best you can hope is that they'll only be looking at websites while waiting for load screens. At worst, they will simply fire up a different game and never return. Actively punishing a player with tedious activities is behavior that should be considered very carefully.
Also worth remembering, the Skyshards grind is supposed to be even more punishing than it is in practice. We're not supposed to have maps on hand that point us to the right locations, or addons that plant the shards on our map. Now, those are acceptable, but we are supposed to wander around aimlessly, interpreting cryptic riddles, looking for the things. Some of the boredom has already been alleviated. It was supposed to be even more punishing in its original iteration.
As with a number of mechanics in the game, it reflects another era of the game's design. One that doesn't fit as well with the game that exists today.Whatever silly excuses you use to justify that behavior are on you. It especially does not mean that the game needs to be streamlined, dumbed down, made more accessible, or otherwise changed to cater to your proclivities.
Wow, you broke out the dictionary for this. It would have been nice if you'd picked some appropriate arguments.
So, let's take these in no particular order:
If the game is not accessible, that's a problem. Full stop. If you're making a game, your primary source of income is from selling that game to players. Making a game obtuse or inaccessible is an option, but it's a risky one. In the case of a game that also serves as a recurring revenue stream, an inaccessible game is a poorly design choice.
ZOS has expressed interest in making the game more accessible over the years. The guild trader system, the group finder... hell, One Tamriel stands as a monument to increased accessibility.
For ESO to thrive, it does need to be as accessible as reasonably possible. At that point, picking a random collectible and screaming, "THIS IS THE HILL I WILL DIE ON!" is a little peculiar.
Dumbing a game down is when the intricacies of the game are stripped out in the name of making the game more accessible. For example, the removal of a player inventory in Bioshock was considered "dumbing it down" from System Shock 2's system.
There is no real example of ESO being dumbed down. You might be able to point to the overhaul of the Provisioning system, or the introduction of One Tamriel as examples of this, but those didn't really dumb down the experience, they simply took pain points and dealt with them.
Which is the other term you chucked out as a pejorative: Streamlining. Streamlining is where you look at issues with a game, things that interfere with the flow of the experience, and you identify and implement ways to improve it. You deal with issues that disrupt the experience.
In point of fact, "streamlining," is improving a game. Now, I know, a lot of developers do say, "we streamlined this," as code for taking out choices or options. That can happen. If ESO chose to do away with skill points, attribute points, and skill lines entirely, then locking you to specific skills on your bar based on your equipped gear, that would streamline builds, but it would also dumb down the experience.
As mentioned above, ESO has undergone some significant streamlining. The huge example is One Tamriel. Before that, if you were in different alliances and wanted to do PvE content together, you needed to either group into the same dungeon, or make sure your characters were roughly the same level, roughly in range for the content you wanted to do, and were both the same Alliance. Now, if my friend picks up the game, I can jump over there, regardless of character, and give them a hand. That's streamlining.
Collecting Skyshards is a pain point. There's no engaging gameplay decision involved in locating or using them. Certainly not after you've found them the first time. It's simply busywork. So, within that perspective, changing that system radically would be a QoL improvement.
Also, I realize you may have missed this, but, a "proclivity" is an innate impulse. You're probably familiar with it from people referring to someone's "sexual proclivities," which is a clever(ish) way to say that someone's sexual drive is unnatural and perverse. All of this is, not exactly, relevant to a discussion on ESO, (or, at least, I dearly hope it's not applicable.)
I think pvp is boring. I have caltrops on one of my characters. I want caltrops on all of my characters, though. The alliance war skill lines need to be account wide so I can have caltrops on every new character without ever having to pvp ever again.
This needs to happen because I dont like pvp and if Zos doesn't do it they will lose money because I said so.
I don't want to level legerdemain anymore either. Maybe we should add that to the list, because I think it's boring...
The PVP abilities are a way to make all players try PVP. Its a way to promote their PVP content. You are actually doing something engaging to get those abilities. You try PVP for 2-3 hours, get the abilities you want while also making AP which can be converted to gold. Its easier to get the PVP abilities, there are more incentives to get them such as gold and AP events every year and the abilities are not as mandatory as other entire skill lines so your point about losing money because its a turn off for players goes out the window. This is not even remotely close to mages guild grind.
The fact that you are even comparing trying out PVP for 2 hours to get a couple of abilities that are not even mandatory for everything while also making gold to aimlessly running around reading books actively trying to avoid any engaging game mechanic for 6-7 hours shows how completely out of touch with reality you are. And thats for mages guild alone. Then you can add other stuff to the mix and end up with a 20+ hour braindead grind that promotes nothing but actually avoiding playing the game. Thats how dumb it is.
But if giving you vigor on all ur characters meant the end of torture of the stupid grind then by all means you can have it.
starkerealm wrote: »I never said there was only my way to play, or that there is only 1 way to play. I said that focusing your time specifically on collecting skyshards is incredibly boring and you deserve to bored if you're doing that.
Well, that's a mistake. As a game designer you should never seek to bore your player. You may attempt to restrict what a player does by making a process more tedious, but a bored player will look for other ways to entertain themselves. At that point, the best you can hope is that they'll only be looking at websites while waiting for load screens. At worst, they will simply fire up a different game and never return. Actively punishing a player with tedious activities is behavior that should be considered very carefully.
Also worth remembering, the Skyshards grind is supposed to be even more punishing than it is in practice. We're not supposed to have maps on hand that point us to the right locations, or addons that plant the shards on our map. Now, those are acceptable, but we are supposed to wander around aimlessly, interpreting cryptic riddles, looking for the things. Some of the boredom has already been alleviated. It was supposed to be even more punishing in its original iteration.
As with a number of mechanics in the game, it reflects another era of the game's design. One that doesn't fit as well with the game that exists today.Whatever silly excuses you use to justify that behavior are on you. It especially does not mean that the game needs to be streamlined, dumbed down, made more accessible, or otherwise changed to cater to your proclivities.
Wow, you broke out the dictionary for this. It would have been nice if you'd picked some appropriate arguments.
So, let's take these in no particular order:
If the game is not accessible, that's a problem. Full stop. If you're making a game, your primary source of income is from selling that game to players. Making a game obtuse or inaccessible is an option, but it's a risky one. In the case of a game that also serves as a recurring revenue stream, an inaccessible game is a poorly design choice.
ZOS has expressed interest in making the game more accessible over the years. The guild trader system, the group finder... hell, One Tamriel stands as a monument to increased accessibility.
For ESO to thrive, it does need to be as accessible as reasonably possible. At that point, picking a random collectible and screaming, "THIS IS THE HILL I WILL DIE ON!" is a little peculiar.
Dumbing a game down is when the intricacies of the game are stripped out in the name of making the game more accessible. For example, the removal of a player inventory in Bioshock was considered "dumbing it down" from System Shock 2's system.
There is no real example of ESO being dumbed down. You might be able to point to the overhaul of the Provisioning system, or the introduction of One Tamriel as examples of this, but those didn't really dumb down the experience, they simply took pain points and dealt with them.
Which is the other term you chucked out as a pejorative: Streamlining. Streamlining is where you look at issues with a game, things that interfere with the flow of the experience, and you identify and implement ways to improve it. You deal with issues that disrupt the experience.
In point of fact, "streamlining," is improving a game. Now, I know, a lot of developers do say, "we streamlined this," as code for taking out choices or options. That can happen. If ESO chose to do away with skill points, attribute points, and skill lines entirely, then locking you to specific skills on your bar based on your equipped gear, that would streamline builds, but it would also dumb down the experience.
As mentioned above, ESO has undergone some significant streamlining. The huge example is One Tamriel. Before that, if you were in different alliances and wanted to do PvE content together, you needed to either group into the same dungeon, or make sure your characters were roughly the same level, roughly in range for the content you wanted to do, and were both the same Alliance. Now, if my friend picks up the game, I can jump over there, regardless of character, and give them a hand. That's streamlining.
Collecting Skyshards is a pain point. There's no engaging gameplay decision involved in locating or using them. Certainly not after you've found them the first time. It's simply busywork. So, within that perspective, changing that system radically would be a QoL improvement.
Also, I realize you may have missed this, but, a "proclivity" is an innate impulse. You're probably familiar with it from people referring to someone's "sexual proclivities," which is a clever(ish) way to say that someone's sexual drive is unnatural and perverse. All of this is, not exactly, relevant to a discussion on ESO, (or, at least, I dearly hope it's not applicable.)
I think pvp is boring. I have caltrops on one of my characters. I want caltrops on all of my characters, though. The alliance war skill lines need to be account wide so I can have caltrops on every new character without ever having to pvp ever again.
This needs to happen because I dont like pvp and if Zos doesn't do it they will lose money because I said so.
I don't want to level legerdemain anymore either. Maybe we should add that to the list, because I think it's boring...
The PVP abilities are a way to make all players try PVP. Its a way to promote their PVP content. You are actually doing something engaging to get those abilities. You try PVP for 2-3 hours, get the abilities you want while also making AP which can be converted to gold. Its easier to get the PVP abilities, there are more incentives to get them such as gold and AP events every year and the abilities are not as mandatory as other entire skill lines so your point about losing money because its a turn off for players goes out the window. This is not even remotely close to mages guild grind.
The fact that you are even comparing trying out PVP for 2 hours to get a couple of abilities that are not even mandatory for everything while also making gold to aimlessly running around reading books actively trying to avoid any engaging game mechanic for 6-7 hours shows how completely out of touch with reality you are. And thats for mages guild alone. Then you can add other stuff to the mix and end up with a 20+ hour braindead grind that promotes nothing but actually avoiding playing the game. Thats how dumb it is.
But if giving you vigor on all ur characters meant the end of torture of the stupid grind then by all means you can have it.
What??? It's more like 1000 hours!!!
That's right: 1000 HOURS just to get 2 skills from pvp! I hate pvp! I want those skills and I'm entitled to have those skills NOW because I did it on another character!
Kidgangster101 wrote: »You do understand not everyone does trials right? Some people's end game is cyrodil and battlegrounds only. You do know a pvp player that only does pvp hates being in pve content as much as a person that only like pve hates doing pvp right? Again there is so many ways to play this game and collecting skyshards definitely isn't playing the game because for some people it is a deterrent and makes them rather do something else.
ProfessorKittyhawk wrote: »Mages guild books is how you level the mages guild skill line. If you're going to make that account wide and make every character start off with the same amount of books/level, then do the same for fighters guild/daedra and undead killed. In fact, do the same for dark brotherhood and thieves guild because who wants to to grind through contracts and heists and sacraments to level those? And also, why not max out the psijic skill line too so we don't have to hunt down rifts again and again and again? In fact, once you've done everything on one character just make EVERYTHING available on all future characters. Titles. Achievements. Remove pvp alliances because why not? Max those out once we've maxed all the pvp skill lines out for one character. Remove any and all challenge or grind from the game because that's what mmo's are all about. This is a game. We shouldn't have to WORK to become the best there ever was at any given thing on any given class or build.</sarcasm>
Not our fault skyhards/lorebooks/psijic are anti-gamplay braindead mechanics....that dont involve any gameplay.
Once you finally figure that out....maybe youll have somethign wortwhile to say, shyshards should have ALWAYS been account wide and mage guild/psijic tied to questlines just like "world" skill line with main quest.
Achievements too should have ALWAYS been account wide.
Skyshards and lorebooks are only anti-gameplay braindead mechanics to those who choose to develop characters through anti-gameplay braindead mechanics. If they're picked up as you play through a zone in the way it was intended to be played then they fall into place as an integral part of that gameplay.
Wut? Do explain to us in great detail how going to spot x and pressing "Interact" button is not anti-gameplay and braindead. It is not integral to anything it is as braindead as it gets.
And ESOs sales pitch was "play how you WANT", not "play how random Tandor wants to play"
That's rich in a thread where a handful of players want to change the established structure of the game to how they want to play it!
"Play the way you like" is one of the most misinterpreted terms about the game. If you look on the back of the box you'll see that originally it meant "Adventure alone or together with friends. The choice is yours to make." By One Tamriel this had changed to "Battle, craft, fish, steal or explore. The choice is yours to make in a persistent Elder Scrolls World."
Making a dumb argument and then ignoring everything people say to you in response to that argument just so you can cherry pick one single sentence, take it out of context and make another equally dumb argument. Good one. Keep up the work.
P.S. Nice try on the "handful". I mean everybody knows that this has been a subject brought up constantly through the years because many if not the majority of people dont like the grind which was one of the reason for mages guilds quests to progress the skill line in the first place but yeah. Was a good attempt non the less.
Considering the number of players who routinely ask for this as a proportion of the number playing the game, it's definitely only a handful, as it is in simple numerical terms in this thread alone. A few players regurgitating the same tired arguments for a dozen pages doesn't indicate widespread support or add anything new to those arguments.
starkerealm wrote: »I never said there was only my way to play, or that there is only 1 way to play. I said that focusing your time specifically on collecting skyshards is incredibly boring and you deserve to bored if you're doing that.
Well, that's a mistake. As a game designer you should never seek to bore your player. You may attempt to restrict what a player does by making a process more tedious, but a bored player will look for other ways to entertain themselves. At that point, the best you can hope is that they'll only be looking at websites while waiting for load screens. At worst, they will simply fire up a different game and never return. Actively punishing a player with tedious activities is behavior that should be considered very carefully.
Also worth remembering, the Skyshards grind is supposed to be even more punishing than it is in practice. We're not supposed to have maps on hand that point us to the right locations, or addons that plant the shards on our map. Now, those are acceptable, but we are supposed to wander around aimlessly, interpreting cryptic riddles, looking for the things. Some of the boredom has already been alleviated. It was supposed to be even more punishing in its original iteration.
As with a number of mechanics in the game, it reflects another era of the game's design. One that doesn't fit as well with the game that exists today.Whatever silly excuses you use to justify that behavior are on you. It especially does not mean that the game needs to be streamlined, dumbed down, made more accessible, or otherwise changed to cater to your proclivities.
Wow, you broke out the dictionary for this. It would have been nice if you'd picked some appropriate arguments.
So, let's take these in no particular order:
If the game is not accessible, that's a problem. Full stop. If you're making a game, your primary source of income is from selling that game to players. Making a game obtuse or inaccessible is an option, but it's a risky one. In the case of a game that also serves as a recurring revenue stream, an inaccessible game is a poorly design choice.
ZOS has expressed interest in making the game more accessible over the years. The guild trader system, the group finder... hell, One Tamriel stands as a monument to increased accessibility.
For ESO to thrive, it does need to be as accessible as reasonably possible. At that point, picking a random collectible and screaming, "THIS IS THE HILL I WILL DIE ON!" is a little peculiar.
Dumbing a game down is when the intricacies of the game are stripped out in the name of making the game more accessible. For example, the removal of a player inventory in Bioshock was considered "dumbing it down" from System Shock 2's system.
There is no real example of ESO being dumbed down. You might be able to point to the overhaul of the Provisioning system, or the introduction of One Tamriel as examples of this, but those didn't really dumb down the experience, they simply took pain points and dealt with them.
Which is the other term you chucked out as a pejorative: Streamlining. Streamlining is where you look at issues with a game, things that interfere with the flow of the experience, and you identify and implement ways to improve it. You deal with issues that disrupt the experience.
In point of fact, "streamlining," is improving a game. Now, I know, a lot of developers do say, "we streamlined this," as code for taking out choices or options. That can happen. If ESO chose to do away with skill points, attribute points, and skill lines entirely, then locking you to specific skills on your bar based on your equipped gear, that would streamline builds, but it would also dumb down the experience.
As mentioned above, ESO has undergone some significant streamlining. The huge example is One Tamriel. Before that, if you were in different alliances and wanted to do PvE content together, you needed to either group into the same dungeon, or make sure your characters were roughly the same level, roughly in range for the content you wanted to do, and were both the same Alliance. Now, if my friend picks up the game, I can jump over there, regardless of character, and give them a hand. That's streamlining.
Collecting Skyshards is a pain point. There's no engaging gameplay decision involved in locating or using them. Certainly not after you've found them the first time. It's simply busywork. So, within that perspective, changing that system radically would be a QoL improvement.
Also, I realize you may have missed this, but, a "proclivity" is an innate impulse. You're probably familiar with it from people referring to someone's "sexual proclivities," which is a clever(ish) way to say that someone's sexual drive is unnatural and perverse. All of this is, not exactly, relevant to a discussion on ESO, (or, at least, I dearly hope it's not applicable.)
I think pvp is boring. I have caltrops on one of my characters. I want caltrops on all of my characters, though. The alliance war skill lines need to be account wide so I can have caltrops on every new character without ever having to pvp ever again.
This needs to happen because I dont like pvp and if Zos doesn't do it they will lose money because I said so.
I don't want to level legerdemain anymore either. Maybe we should add that to the list, because I think it's boring...
The PVP abilities are a way to make all players try PVP. Its a way to promote their PVP content. You are actually doing something engaging to get those abilities. You try PVP for 2-3 hours, get the abilities you want while also making AP which can be converted to gold. Its easier to get the PVP abilities, there are more incentives to get them such as gold and AP events every year and the abilities are not as mandatory as other entire skill lines so your point about losing money because its a turn off for players goes out the window. This is not even remotely close to mages guild grind.
The fact that you are even comparing trying out PVP for 2 hours to get a couple of abilities that are not even mandatory for everything while also making gold to aimlessly running around reading books actively trying to avoid any engaging game mechanic for 6-7 hours shows how completely out of touch with reality you are. And thats for mages guild alone. Then you can add other stuff to the mix and end up with a 20+ hour braindead grind that promotes nothing but actually avoiding playing the game. Thats how dumb it is.
But if giving you vigor on all ur characters meant the end of torture of the stupid grind then by all means you can have it.
What??? It's more like 1000 hours!!!
That's right: 1000 HOURS just to get 2 skills from pvp! I hate pvp! I want those skills and I'm entitled to have those skills NOW because I did it on another character!
starkerealm wrote: »barney2525 wrote: »starkerealm wrote: »CassandraGemini wrote: »Well, you can just go and craft the endgame consumables on your designated crafter, then put them in the bank and pull them out with whatever other of your characters needs them. Same with crafted gear sets. So unless you're after the master writs there's no reason whatsoever to spend skill points in the crafting skill lines of alts.
Not arguing with you on the rest of your post, though. Just thought I'd point that out.
It's absolutely true, and until about eight months ago, that's how I rolled. @Inklings finally got me to actually max out crafting on a couple alts and realize just how convenient it is to be able to simply craft the pots I need (or the ones that other team members need) on the spot, in a trial's anti-chamber.
Which gets down to this really just being a QoL thing. It doesn't make characters stronger, it just makes life easier for the player, if you can craft your consumables on the character you're currently logged in on, without having to log out, find your crafter, log in on them, do your buisness, log back out, and back in on your character.
Throne on the other hand? Oh no, that gets crafted by my provisioner and put in the bank, because holy snot is that recipe expensive. (Though, again, it would be more convenient to be able to do it on any character.)
It's the log out/log in that just kills the flow really.
But just investing in a Banker solves that whole issue. Your crafter makes a quantity of whatever you use and stores it in the Bank. ANY character you are currently running now has access to it.
Having all those skill points so that All your characters can have All those crafting skills DOES make each character stronger. They all now have the benefit of your example without losing ANY combat skills whatsoever. Otherwise, they have to choose what points to spend where and when.
In point of fact, I have the banker, and it does not solve any of this. It cuts a stage out, where you need to go to the bank after crafting, and before you can pick it up. However, it requires you constantly monitor your consumable stockpiles, and know in advance, not only that you'll be using a character, but also knowing what you'll be using them for.
Now, you could just craft everything you ever use, store it in the bank, and call it a day, except that also runs into problems because then you're clogging up your bank with a bunch of potions for your alts (food is less of an issue here, but it is still an issue.)
It also precludes the entire point about being able to make this stuff for others. So, we're back to this being a basic quality of life issue.
And, before you go and say, "well, just plan ahead," the problem with this is in trials groups. If someone else forgot what they needed, then everyone needs to sit around, twiddling their thumbs, waiting for them to get their **** in gear. Now, I've got no qualms about throwing alchemy mats at another player to get the trial moving, but it does require that I can actually make what they need.
Similarly, Tythis cannot help you when a guildie is asking if anyone can make them training gear or stuff for research. At that point it having multiple crafters is strictly about not having to log between characters to do your crafting.
It's not about making the character more powerful, but it is about making crafting more fluid.
Like I said, I have no particular issue with ranking up crafting on each character, but given how these systems get used, the per character system doesn't really reflect how they function, at least not in a live context.
KiraTsukasa wrote: »Oh. We're trying for this again? For people that "don't like the grind", you sure do bring up this topic over and over and over and over and over and... well, you get the point. And all this time that you've spent arguing for something that hasn't happened since the game launched and won't likely ever happen, you could have been collecting the skyshards and have been done by now. And honestly, it doesn't take all that long, especially if you've got them all multiple times as you claim, so you know where they all are.
CassandraGemini wrote: »starkerealm wrote: »I never said there was only my way to play, or that there is only 1 way to play. I said that focusing your time specifically on collecting skyshards is incredibly boring and you deserve to bored if you're doing that.
Well, that's a mistake. As a game designer you should never seek to bore your player. You may attempt to restrict what a player does by making a process more tedious, but a bored player will look for other ways to entertain themselves. At that point, the best you can hope is that they'll only be looking at websites while waiting for load screens. At worst, they will simply fire up a different game and never return. Actively punishing a player with tedious activities is behavior that should be considered very carefully.
Also worth remembering, the Skyshards grind is supposed to be even more punishing than it is in practice. We're not supposed to have maps on hand that point us to the right locations, or addons that plant the shards on our map. Now, those are acceptable, but we are supposed to wander around aimlessly, interpreting cryptic riddles, looking for the things. Some of the boredom has already been alleviated. It was supposed to be even more punishing in its original iteration.
As with a number of mechanics in the game, it reflects another era of the game's design. One that doesn't fit as well with the game that exists today.Whatever silly excuses you use to justify that behavior are on you. It especially does not mean that the game needs to be streamlined, dumbed down, made more accessible, or otherwise changed to cater to your proclivities.
Wow, you broke out the dictionary for this. It would have been nice if you'd picked some appropriate arguments.
So, let's take these in no particular order:
If the game is not accessible, that's a problem. Full stop. If you're making a game, your primary source of income is from selling that game to players. Making a game obtuse or inaccessible is an option, but it's a risky one. In the case of a game that also serves as a recurring revenue stream, an inaccessible game is a poorly design choice.
ZOS has expressed interest in making the game more accessible over the years. The guild trader system, the group finder... hell, One Tamriel stands as a monument to increased accessibility.
For ESO to thrive, it does need to be as accessible as reasonably possible. At that point, picking a random collectible and screaming, "THIS IS THE HILL I WILL DIE ON!" is a little peculiar.
Dumbing a game down is when the intricacies of the game are stripped out in the name of making the game more accessible. For example, the removal of a player inventory in Bioshock was considered "dumbing it down" from System Shock 2's system.
There is no real example of ESO being dumbed down. You might be able to point to the overhaul of the Provisioning system, or the introduction of One Tamriel as examples of this, but those didn't really dumb down the experience, they simply took pain points and dealt with them.
Which is the other term you chucked out as a pejorative: Streamlining. Streamlining is where you look at issues with a game, things that interfere with the flow of the experience, and you identify and implement ways to improve it. You deal with issues that disrupt the experience.
In point of fact, "streamlining," is improving a game. Now, I know, a lot of developers do say, "we streamlined this," as code for taking out choices or options. That can happen. If ESO chose to do away with skill points, attribute points, and skill lines entirely, then locking you to specific skills on your bar based on your equipped gear, that would streamline builds, but it would also dumb down the experience.
As mentioned above, ESO has undergone some significant streamlining. The huge example is One Tamriel. Before that, if you were in different alliances and wanted to do PvE content together, you needed to either group into the same dungeon, or make sure your characters were roughly the same level, roughly in range for the content you wanted to do, and were both the same Alliance. Now, if my friend picks up the game, I can jump over there, regardless of character, and give them a hand. That's streamlining.
Collecting Skyshards is a pain point. There's no engaging gameplay decision involved in locating or using them. Certainly not after you've found them the first time. It's simply busywork. So, within that perspective, changing that system radically would be a QoL improvement.
Also, I realize you may have missed this, but, a "proclivity" is an innate impulse. You're probably familiar with it from people referring to someone's "sexual proclivities," which is a clever(ish) way to say that someone's sexual drive is unnatural and perverse. All of this is, not exactly, relevant to a discussion on ESO, (or, at least, I dearly hope it's not applicable.)
I think pvp is boring. I have caltrops on one of my characters. I want caltrops on all of my characters, though. The alliance war skill lines need to be account wide so I can have caltrops on every new character without ever having to pvp ever again.
This needs to happen because I dont like pvp and if Zos doesn't do it they will lose money because I said so.
I don't want to level legerdemain anymore either. Maybe we should add that to the list, because I think it's boring...
The PVP abilities are a way to make all players try PVP. Its a way to promote their PVP content. You are actually doing something engaging to get those abilities. You try PVP for 2-3 hours, get the abilities you want while also making AP which can be converted to gold. Its easier to get the PVP abilities, there are more incentives to get them such as gold and AP events every year and the abilities are not as mandatory as other entire skill lines so your point about losing money because its a turn off for players goes out the window. This is not even remotely close to mages guild grind.
The fact that you are even comparing trying out PVP for 2 hours to get a couple of abilities that are not even mandatory for everything while also making gold to aimlessly running around reading books actively trying to avoid any engaging game mechanic for 6-7 hours shows how completely out of touch with reality you are. And thats for mages guild alone. Then you can add other stuff to the mix and end up with a 20+ hour braindead grind that promotes nothing but actually avoiding playing the game. Thats how dumb it is.
But if giving you vigor on all ur characters meant the end of torture of the stupid grind then by all means you can have it.
What??? It's more like 1000 hours!!!
That's right: 1000 HOURS just to get 2 skills from pvp! I hate pvp! I want those skills and I'm entitled to have those skills NOW because I did it on another character!
Wow... you know, actually I didn't want to respond to you anymore because it hurts my head and my blood pressure, but this is getting to be beyond ridiculous. All you're doing by now is either telling people that it's their own fault if they're bored/frustrated by a game mechanic and that therefore they somehow deserve to be bored/frustrated by it, just because they don't want to run the same zones for the 10th time and by doing that "naturally" come across the skyshards and lorebooks (which is the single dumbest excuse for bad game design I have ever heard by the way), or to come up with comparisons that are completely and utterly irrelevant. Like... legerdemain? Seriously? Because legerdemain is such an integral part of all kinds of builds out there?
Honestly, if you're so bored that you have nothing better to do than spamming this thread with the same two non-arguments over and over, why don't you just go and do something else instead? Like creating a new character and collecting some skyshards and lorebooks just for the fun of it, since you seem to like that so much.
Kidgangster101 wrote: »starkerealm wrote: »I never said there was only my way to play, or that there is only 1 way to play. I said that focusing your time specifically on collecting skyshards is incredibly boring and you deserve to bored if you're doing that.
Well, that's a mistake. As a game designer you should never seek to bore your player. You may attempt to restrict what a player does by making a process more tedious, but a bored player will look for other ways to entertain themselves. At that point, the best you can hope is that they'll only be looking at websites while waiting for load screens. At worst, they will simply fire up a different game and never return. Actively punishing a player with tedious activities is behavior that should be considered very carefully.
Also worth remembering, the Skyshards grind is supposed to be even more punishing than it is in practice. We're not supposed to have maps on hand that point us to the right locations, or addons that plant the shards on our map. Now, those are acceptable, but we are supposed to wander around aimlessly, interpreting cryptic riddles, looking for the things. Some of the boredom has already been alleviated. It was supposed to be even more punishing in its original iteration.
As with a number of mechanics in the game, it reflects another era of the game's design. One that doesn't fit as well with the game that exists today.Whatever silly excuses you use to justify that behavior are on you. It especially does not mean that the game needs to be streamlined, dumbed down, made more accessible, or otherwise changed to cater to your proclivities.
Wow, you broke out the dictionary for this. It would have been nice if you'd picked some appropriate arguments.
So, let's take these in no particular order:
If the game is not accessible, that's a problem. Full stop. If you're making a game, your primary source of income is from selling that game to players. Making a game obtuse or inaccessible is an option, but it's a risky one. In the case of a game that also serves as a recurring revenue stream, an inaccessible game is a poorly design choice.
ZOS has expressed interest in making the game more accessible over the years. The guild trader system, the group finder... hell, One Tamriel stands as a monument to increased accessibility.
For ESO to thrive, it does need to be as accessible as reasonably possible. At that point, picking a random collectible and screaming, "THIS IS THE HILL I WILL DIE ON!" is a little peculiar.
Dumbing a game down is when the intricacies of the game are stripped out in the name of making the game more accessible. For example, the removal of a player inventory in Bioshock was considered "dumbing it down" from System Shock 2's system.
There is no real example of ESO being dumbed down. You might be able to point to the overhaul of the Provisioning system, or the introduction of One Tamriel as examples of this, but those didn't really dumb down the experience, they simply took pain points and dealt with them.
Which is the other term you chucked out as a pejorative: Streamlining. Streamlining is where you look at issues with a game, things that interfere with the flow of the experience, and you identify and implement ways to improve it. You deal with issues that disrupt the experience.
In point of fact, "streamlining," is improving a game. Now, I know, a lot of developers do say, "we streamlined this," as code for taking out choices or options. That can happen. If ESO chose to do away with skill points, attribute points, and skill lines entirely, then locking you to specific skills on your bar based on your equipped gear, that would streamline builds, but it would also dumb down the experience.
As mentioned above, ESO has undergone some significant streamlining. The huge example is One Tamriel. Before that, if you were in different alliances and wanted to do PvE content together, you needed to either group into the same dungeon, or make sure your characters were roughly the same level, roughly in range for the content you wanted to do, and were both the same Alliance. Now, if my friend picks up the game, I can jump over there, regardless of character, and give them a hand. That's streamlining.
Collecting Skyshards is a pain point. There's no engaging gameplay decision involved in locating or using them. Certainly not after you've found them the first time. It's simply busywork. So, within that perspective, changing that system radically would be a QoL improvement.
Also, I realize you may have missed this, but, a "proclivity" is an innate impulse. You're probably familiar with it from people referring to someone's "sexual proclivities," which is a clever(ish) way to say that someone's sexual drive is unnatural and perverse. All of this is, not exactly, relevant to a discussion on ESO, (or, at least, I dearly hope it's not applicable.)
I think pvp is boring. I have caltrops on one of my characters. I want caltrops on all of my characters, though. The alliance war skill lines need to be account wide so I can have caltrops on every new character without ever having to pvp ever again.
This needs to happen because I dont like pvp and if Zos doesn't do it they will lose money because I said so.
I don't want to level legerdemain anymore either. Maybe we should add that to the list, because I think it's boring...
Lololol be glad they nerfed the skill lines in pvp for you because it only takes 2-3 hours to get now compared to what it use to bemaybe they should bring it back up to make people have to pvp more!
There is a huge difference between the 2-3 hours it takes in battlegrounds than the 25+ hours it takes to grind skyshards/mages guild/ psijic. Just saying they already nerfed pvp skill line into the ground because pve players cried non stop about the grind.
I shouldn't have to pvp at all. It should just be account wide because I don't want to do the content associated with that reward. It's stupid and Zos isn't pandering to me enough. That pretty much means the game is going to die.
I also don't want to run the same dungeons I've already run a billion times on my other characters. It's so boring! I've memorized the dungeons already!
Undaunted needs to be account wide because I should not have to level it on every character I make.
Sheezabeast wrote: »
starkerealm wrote: »I never said there was only my way to play, or that there is only 1 way to play. I said that focusing your time specifically on collecting skyshards is incredibly boring and you deserve to bored if you're doing that.
Well, that's a mistake. As a game designer you should never seek to bore your player. You may attempt to restrict what a player does by making a process more tedious, but a bored player will look for other ways to entertain themselves. At that point, the best you can hope is that they'll only be looking at websites while waiting for load screens. At worst, they will simply fire up a different game and never return. Actively punishing a player with tedious activities is behavior that should be considered very carefully.
Also worth remembering, the Skyshards grind is supposed to be even more punishing than it is in practice. We're not supposed to have maps on hand that point us to the right locations, or addons that plant the shards on our map. Now, those are acceptable, but we are supposed to wander around aimlessly, interpreting cryptic riddles, looking for the things. Some of the boredom has already been alleviated. It was supposed to be even more punishing in its original iteration.
As with a number of mechanics in the game, it reflects another era of the game's design. One that doesn't fit as well with the game that exists today.Whatever silly excuses you use to justify that behavior are on you. It especially does not mean that the game needs to be streamlined, dumbed down, made more accessible, or otherwise changed to cater to your proclivities.
Wow, you broke out the dictionary for this. It would have been nice if you'd picked some appropriate arguments.
So, let's take these in no particular order:
If the game is not accessible, that's a problem. Full stop. If you're making a game, your primary source of income is from selling that game to players. Making a game obtuse or inaccessible is an option, but it's a risky one. In the case of a game that also serves as a recurring revenue stream, an inaccessible game is a poorly design choice.
ZOS has expressed interest in making the game more accessible over the years. The guild trader system, the group finder... hell, One Tamriel stands as a monument to increased accessibility.
For ESO to thrive, it does need to be as accessible as reasonably possible. At that point, picking a random collectible and screaming, "THIS IS THE HILL I WILL DIE ON!" is a little peculiar.
Dumbing a game down is when the intricacies of the game are stripped out in the name of making the game more accessible. For example, the removal of a player inventory in Bioshock was considered "dumbing it down" from System Shock 2's system.
There is no real example of ESO being dumbed down. You might be able to point to the overhaul of the Provisioning system, or the introduction of One Tamriel as examples of this, but those didn't really dumb down the experience, they simply took pain points and dealt with them.
Which is the other term you chucked out as a pejorative: Streamlining. Streamlining is where you look at issues with a game, things that interfere with the flow of the experience, and you identify and implement ways to improve it. You deal with issues that disrupt the experience.
In point of fact, "streamlining," is improving a game. Now, I know, a lot of developers do say, "we streamlined this," as code for taking out choices or options. That can happen. If ESO chose to do away with skill points, attribute points, and skill lines entirely, then locking you to specific skills on your bar based on your equipped gear, that would streamline builds, but it would also dumb down the experience.
As mentioned above, ESO has undergone some significant streamlining. The huge example is One Tamriel. Before that, if you were in different alliances and wanted to do PvE content together, you needed to either group into the same dungeon, or make sure your characters were roughly the same level, roughly in range for the content you wanted to do, and were both the same Alliance. Now, if my friend picks up the game, I can jump over there, regardless of character, and give them a hand. That's streamlining.
Collecting Skyshards is a pain point. There's no engaging gameplay decision involved in locating or using them. Certainly not after you've found them the first time. It's simply busywork. So, within that perspective, changing that system radically would be a QoL improvement.
Also, I realize you may have missed this, but, a "proclivity" is an innate impulse. You're probably familiar with it from people referring to someone's "sexual proclivities," which is a clever(ish) way to say that someone's sexual drive is unnatural and perverse. All of this is, not exactly, relevant to a discussion on ESO, (or, at least, I dearly hope it's not applicable.)
I think pvp is boring. I have caltrops on one of my characters. I want caltrops on all of my characters, though. The alliance war skill lines need to be account wide so I can have caltrops on every new character without ever having to pvp ever again.
This needs to happen because I dont like pvp and if Zos doesn't do it they will lose money because I said so.
I don't want to level legerdemain anymore either. Maybe we should add that to the list, because I think it's boring...
The PVP abilities are a way to make all players try PVP. Its a way to promote their PVP content. You are actually doing something engaging to get those abilities. You try PVP for 2-3 hours, get the abilities you want while also making AP which can be converted to gold. Its easier to get the PVP abilities, there are more incentives to get them such as gold and AP events every year and the abilities are not as mandatory as other entire skill lines so your point about losing money because its a turn off for players goes out the window. This is not even remotely close to mages guild grind.
The fact that you are even comparing trying out PVP for 2 hours to get a couple of abilities that are not even mandatory for everything while also making gold to aimlessly running around reading books actively trying to avoid any engaging game mechanic for 6-7 hours shows how completely out of touch with reality you are. And thats for mages guild alone. Then you can add other stuff to the mix and end up with a 20+ hour braindead grind that promotes nothing but actually avoiding playing the game. Thats how dumb it is.
But if giving you vigor on all ur characters meant the end of torture of the stupid grind then by all means you can have it.
What??? It's more like 1000 hours!!!
That's right: 1000 HOURS just to get 2 skills from pvp! I hate pvp! I want those skills and I'm entitled to have those skills NOW because I did it on another character!
Siohwenoeht wrote: »FlopsyPrince wrote: »The argument against this is: "I don't want this or see any need for it so you are not allowed to have it even if you see it as an annoying grind. You are just an idiot because you don't see it my way."
I wonder how many who oppose this do not allocate any CP for a new character since that is an unfair boost for new alts.
There are many valid arguments against this and you could say the same for your perspective. There is a middle ground and that is to make it easier to locate skyshards/lorebooks for alts without removing the need to physically pick them up.
Zos should just stop being lazy and give console players a lorebook and skyshard map in the base game. But zos is out of touch with the game, community, and especially the console community.
And PC players shouldn't even comment negatively on this because they have the add ons, which make it 10000 times easier, so they could never understand. .
Siohwenoeht wrote: »Again, my example was to show how easy it is to actually pick up skyshards and books without grinding for them but you think that is selfish and petty.
ANY grind is only a grind because the player makes it one. Tell you what, eliminate skyshards as a mechanism for skill points. Make them the "points of interest." I'll bet those skill points are put behind some other mechanic that some players won't enjoy either. It's a never ending cycle.
Make a shared way point account wide after picking them up. Then alts can go straight for them.
ProfessorKittyhawk wrote: »Mages guild books is how you level the mages guild skill line. If you're going to make that account wide and make every character start off with the same amount of books/level, then do the same for fighters guild/daedra and undead killed. In fact, do the same for dark brotherhood and thieves guild because who wants to to grind through contracts and heists and sacraments to level those? And also, why not max out the psijic skill line too so we don't have to hunt down rifts again and again and again? In fact, once you've done everything on one character just make EVERYTHING available on all future characters. Titles. Achievements. Remove pvp alliances because why not? Max those out once we've maxed all the pvp skill lines out for one character. Remove any and all challenge or grind from the game because that's what mmo's are all about. This is a game. We shouldn't have to WORK to become the best there ever was at any given thing on any given class or build.</sarcasm>
Siohwenoeht wrote: »Or keep the system as is and add a glowing compass marker when you're near one and/or a waypoint if your "main" collected it already.
starkerealm wrote: »I never said there was only my way to play, or that there is only 1 way to play. I said that focusing your time specifically on collecting skyshards is incredibly boring and you deserve to bored if you're doing that.
Well, that's a mistake. As a game designer you should never seek to bore your player. You may attempt to restrict what a player does by making a process more tedious, but a bored player will look for other ways to entertain themselves. At that point, the best you can hope is that they'll only be looking at websites while waiting for load screens. At worst, they will simply fire up a different game and never return. Actively punishing a player with tedious activities is behavior that should be considered very carefully.
Also worth remembering, the Skyshards grind is supposed to be even more punishing than it is in practice. We're not supposed to have maps on hand that point us to the right locations, or addons that plant the shards on our map. Now, those are acceptable, but we are supposed to wander around aimlessly, interpreting cryptic riddles, looking for the things. Some of the boredom has already been alleviated. It was supposed to be even more punishing in its original iteration.
As with a number of mechanics in the game, it reflects another era of the game's design. One that doesn't fit as well with the game that exists today.Whatever silly excuses you use to justify that behavior are on you. It especially does not mean that the game needs to be streamlined, dumbed down, made more accessible, or otherwise changed to cater to your proclivities.
Wow, you broke out the dictionary for this. It would have been nice if you'd picked some appropriate arguments.
So, let's take these in no particular order:
If the game is not accessible, that's a problem. Full stop. If you're making a game, your primary source of income is from selling that game to players. Making a game obtuse or inaccessible is an option, but it's a risky one. In the case of a game that also serves as a recurring revenue stream, an inaccessible game is a poorly design choice.
ZOS has expressed interest in making the game more accessible over the years. The guild trader system, the group finder... hell, One Tamriel stands as a monument to increased accessibility.
For ESO to thrive, it does need to be as accessible as reasonably possible. At that point, picking a random collectible and screaming, "THIS IS THE HILL I WILL DIE ON!" is a little peculiar.
Dumbing a game down is when the intricacies of the game are stripped out in the name of making the game more accessible. For example, the removal of a player inventory in Bioshock was considered "dumbing it down" from System Shock 2's system.
There is no real example of ESO being dumbed down. You might be able to point to the overhaul of the Provisioning system, or the introduction of One Tamriel as examples of this, but those didn't really dumb down the experience, they simply took pain points and dealt with them.
Which is the other term you chucked out as a pejorative: Streamlining. Streamlining is where you look at issues with a game, things that interfere with the flow of the experience, and you identify and implement ways to improve it. You deal with issues that disrupt the experience.
In point of fact, "streamlining," is improving a game. Now, I know, a lot of developers do say, "we streamlined this," as code for taking out choices or options. That can happen. If ESO chose to do away with skill points, attribute points, and skill lines entirely, then locking you to specific skills on your bar based on your equipped gear, that would streamline builds, but it would also dumb down the experience.
As mentioned above, ESO has undergone some significant streamlining. The huge example is One Tamriel. Before that, if you were in different alliances and wanted to do PvE content together, you needed to either group into the same dungeon, or make sure your characters were roughly the same level, roughly in range for the content you wanted to do, and were both the same Alliance. Now, if my friend picks up the game, I can jump over there, regardless of character, and give them a hand. That's streamlining.
Collecting Skyshards is a pain point. There's no engaging gameplay decision involved in locating or using them. Certainly not after you've found them the first time. It's simply busywork. So, within that perspective, changing that system radically would be a QoL improvement.
Also, I realize you may have missed this, but, a "proclivity" is an innate impulse. You're probably familiar with it from people referring to someone's "sexual proclivities," which is a clever(ish) way to say that someone's sexual drive is unnatural and perverse. All of this is, not exactly, relevant to a discussion on ESO, (or, at least, I dearly hope it's not applicable.)
I think pvp is boring. I have caltrops on one of my characters. I want caltrops on all of my characters, though. The alliance war skill lines need to be account wide so I can have caltrops on every new character without ever having to pvp ever again.
This needs to happen because I dont like pvp and if Zos doesn't do it they will lose money because I said so.
I don't want to level legerdemain anymore either. Maybe we should add that to the list, because I think it's boring...
The PVP abilities are a way to make all players try PVP. Its a way to promote their PVP content. You are actually doing something engaging to get those abilities. You try PVP for 2-3 hours, get the abilities you want while also making AP which can be converted to gold. Its easier to get the PVP abilities, there are more incentives to get them such as gold and AP events every year and the abilities are not as mandatory as other entire skill lines so your point about losing money because its a turn off for players goes out the window. This is not even remotely close to mages guild grind.
The fact that you are even comparing trying out PVP for 2 hours to get a couple of abilities that are not even mandatory for everything while also making gold to aimlessly running around reading books actively trying to avoid any engaging game mechanic for 6-7 hours shows how completely out of touch with reality you are. And thats for mages guild alone. Then you can add other stuff to the mix and end up with a 20+ hour braindead grind that promotes nothing but actually avoiding playing the game. Thats how dumb it is.
But if giving you vigor on all ur characters meant the end of torture of the stupid grind then by all means you can have it.
What??? It's more like 1000 hours!!!
That's right: 1000 HOURS just to get 2 skills from pvp! I hate pvp! I want those skills and I'm entitled to have those skills NOW because I did it on another character!
Its literally 2-3 hours by casually doing BGs.