NOTE: This review is outdated since it was made before playing the Dragonhold DLC as well as before the creation of other discussions
Just to Preface; despite my criticisms I greatly enjoyed this Chapter, am looking forward to the next dlcs this year, and am glad to see that ZOS has solidified a content release formula.
I understand that the developers use the expansion as a way to draw in players BUT making every Chapter a starter zone hurts the game, in both story and gameplay.
To begin with it doesn't make any narrative sense for new players to start in each new chapter.
The story of Elsweyr heavily features characters that you previously met in the base game as well as the add-on content that followed. If a new player starts in Elsweyr then they have no context or connection to these characters whatsoever.
Follow the example of previous Elder Scroll games by having players start in the base game and give them the option to travel anywhere (including to add-on content zones) after the intro quest (which is skip-able after the first play though)
And honestly the Original Intro was better than the ones that followed, all the others are just kind of mediocre.
Link of the original opening cutscene
Now on to the latest ChapterStory & Characters
What I liked
Learning about Khajiit lore was awesome, ZOS does a good job of taking a race I don’t care about and making me see them in a new light. Learning about the Khajiit breeds, their respective religion and practices, learning about the Politics, etc.
I liked that ZOS went out of their way to justify playable necromancers. That they are not inherently evil and that depends on person wielding its power.
Great to see returning characters since I last saw a couple of them 5 years ago. I like that there the game does take some moments to acknowledge the passage of time.
The main story itself emphasized the characters and what they're going through.
There is alot I like and would take a long time to list out.
My Issues
Now that ZOS is actually keeping a solid narrative throughout the whole year (Which is Awesome) perhaps we could have more moments of tension and maybe every once in a while...Lose?
This Chapter should have doubled down on the theme of Consequences.
We see this not only in the main story but also in plenty of the side quests
-Molag Bal warned the Player about making powerful enemies and now we've unleashed Dragons into the World
-Abnur Tharn has pressure not only from his age catching up to him but also his actions and that of his family
-Cadwell faces the person he was when he was alive
-A Khajiit companion character feels guilt about his past which he must confront
-Razum-dar returns home and faces his family
-An Argonian works to help the Khajiit deal with the leftovers of a dangerous disease that people blame the Argonians for releasing
-A village deals with consequences of the actions of their ancestors
-etc, etc.
All of this is great but the main story suffers when it falters in the end and gives the player a happy ending. We've done this formula before where the villain is almost about to achieve victory but we, the ultimate underdog, stop them in the end.
This is why i think designing Elsweyr as a starting zone hurts because new players are going to have the expectation that they win since they’re the hero facing against impossible odds.
It would have had more impact if the consequences of unleashing the Rage of Dragons actually bit us in the end of this chapter. If Abnur Tharn's key flaw; arrogance (as seen with his dismissal of Mulaamnirs threat) was his downfall. If Cadwell had died in vain. If certain characters refusal to deal with the past cost them victory.
The artificial eclipse of the moons was mentioned but the consequences could have been emphasized on what such an event means to khajiiti culture.
We as the players who fought the Daedric Princes in two Arcs (Coldharbour and the Daedric War) could have used a Villain that, despite our best efforts, was always a step ahead of us and won.
Imagine this
You are too late when you defeat Mulaamnir
Kaalgrontiid having absorbed immense power doubles in size and claims godhood
You then hear Abnur Tharn say the same thing he did when the five companions were tricked my Mannimarco: "This is Bad, This is Very Bad"
At the last moment Khamira is able to banish Kaalgrontiid with her moon powers but at the cost of her own life. She lost her life as consequence of the actions of a Tharn, just like the rest of her family. The tale of Khunzar-ri repeats itself with the Khajiit hero dying while trying to stop the Dragons.
This is not a moment of celebration, this is mourning, you’ve lost friends and the Dragon Won.
Rather than the quest ending with a crowning event, it ends with a funeral.
This could considerably raise the stakes and investment for the players perspective. As the story continued throughout the year the player and the rest of the cast would have to rise up from their failure.
(although keep in mind that either way Kaalgrontiid is more powerful at the end of the chapter’s story and will return as an even greater threat this Year, it just doesn't feel like it when the player has a happy ending)
At the end when Khamira was telling me that I am a hero I just couldn't get immersed in that moment because my victories were practically handed to me on a silver platter, there was no moment where I felt there was a risk. Both in story and in combat.
The only real moment I felt anything was when Cadwell faded away...only for him to come back ok.
Characters
The characters were all well written and had so many wonderfully entertaining moments that I couldn’t keep a smile off my face.
That said, an issue is that you’ve spent all this time building your legend as the trailer in the link says and only for characters to treat you like a nobody?
The link; Your Legend Trailer:
Characters in the story should treat you differently depending on what you have done. If you have completed alot then you're known of but if you haven't then you're a nobody.
Example #1: if the player did the prologue quest for Elsweyr then certain Characters should not only be really upset with Tharn but You as well.
Example #2: Characters should acknowledge you as the hero of your alliance if you completed that storyline.
Character interaction offered very little choices in player dialogue. This isn’t a single player RPG so we can’t have that kind of freedom but I do think that players should at least have more dialogue choices considering that this is part of the Elder Scrolls franchise.
Zone
The zone is beautiful and ZOS has really changed for the better in their art direction since the launch back in 2014. The vertical level design really provides depth to exploration and makes the zone feel larger as well as have more risk in travel. The Zone is certainly rich in lore and character.
I would have liked to seen more damage caused by the Dragons, emphasizing the consequences of freeing them. like burned farms, destroyed temples, scorch marks across the landscape, a region covered in Ice & snow from a Frost Dragon, etc. but the zone is a joy to explore nonetheless.
The Quest design was top notch, you never feel like you are wasting your time with meaningless quests as each one serves a narrative rather than just an xp gain.
Combat
This is not just an issue in Elsweyr but also previous chapters.
Too many moments in the story and in the overland content is too easy, with the World Bosses and Dolmens being the only noteworthy challenge or moment in gameplay that actually presents risk to the player.
Overland content is so depressingly easy for new players, you could watch new characters in the zone just curbstomp everything with ease. Overland doesn't need to be as hard as Craglorn, or a dungeon, or a Trial. But I am certain that new players could handle zones that were closer to the difficulty of a public dungeon.
ZOS seems to only do their best and most interesting PvE combat for group content, meanwhile the only challenging solo content is the maelstrom arena from the Orsinium DLC which came out 4 years ago. We know that ZOS is capable of designing more challenging solo content- so why don't they?
Just because the zone is designed to be solo-able doesn't mean that the solo content has to be boringly easy. With how powerful players can be at the start, they could certainly take on 4-5 enemies at a time that had a smarter Ai as well as more variation in their combat mechanics.
I don’t agree with Forcing players to group but I would suggest difficulty to encourage players to work together to complete content while still being solo-able by single players.
Bosses
The new Dolmen’s Dragons are great. It’s awesome to see a large shadow go by, to look up to see a Dragon flying, and to ride off after it.
Dragons are truly challenging open world content as they have a ton of health and make sure the players are busy with environmental damage and spawned minions.
I hope that later this year we face Dragons that have more shouts as well as interesting & challenging mechanics in place.
NOTE: On a side note wit would be cool to see the Dragons from Skyrim in ESO, not only for nostalgia but also for more visual variation among the Dragons we face. Perhaps we’ll see different types in the Q4 DLC.
The Bosses of the main story was another matter.
They were mediocre because it caters to beginning players
Mechanically they were bland and consequently made those points in the story anti-climatic
The first dragon boss fight, in the battle for Riverhold, was shooting it down with one shot from a ballistae and everyone saying they believe in you while you fight it one on one.
This fight would have been better if the Dragon destroyed buildings of the town and everyone rose up to fight it after Khamira’s speech.
It would have made more sense if after you shot the dragon down, you distracted him as the townspeople position the ballistae to kill him.
Cadwell the Betrayer was the greatest warrior of his time? Didn't seem like it.
Final Boss
The entire fight between the Euraxians was strictly 1 v 2 combat which made things significantly less epic, seeing as how you were supposedly facing an army.
The journey to get to Mulaamnir was riddled with 1 v 2 combat encounters while he shot at you from a distance.
When you finally reach Mulaamnir he spends most of his time snapping at you while being stationary, and sometimes flying around so then you could use a special attack, but he never really shows off his full power as a Dragon.
Mechanically it is a very bland boss fight. Which is a shame because I was looking forward to fighting him after our conversation.
I think this is another consequence of designing this content for beginning players. Again, it doesn’t have to be as hard as a dungeon but more effort could have been made to make these fights more mechanically interesting as opposed to something that could be beaten by a complete novice.