I hope ZOS can stop their streamline production and do something different

Lyserus · October 2019

ESO has a core problem with their story telling: it's quite standardized, for new players this may not be a problem, but for seasoned (you don't have to be good, just stayed long enough) players, ESO stories are getting harder and harder to hype on

1.Always world saving. The only exception being orsinium, otherwise even dark brotherhood and thieves guild is about ass saving their guild. And it is always the same path: Coming along to help - discover dark plot - suffer loses - kill 3rd/2nd in command - kill final big boss - you are such a hero. One thing about linear world saving is that there is no wiggle room for players, you can't choose the dark side like SWTOR hence there isn't a dark side victory, you ALWAYS win and ALWAYS the light side. It gets boring knowing you just need to click the dialogue and next and eventually you will beat the new storyline

2.No NPC death. You just know it they will bring back people, the very few important decision you made back in vanilla is thrown away, we don't have a worthy death like the last ayleid king anymore, all death are like "I don't think there was a way he would have survived, but who knows" or "yeah I died but I'm back, for reasons". It's hard to invest in what NPCs are doing, knowing that they will be fine no matter what

3.No player decisions. I can hardly think of any player decisions that can cause the change of more than 10 dialogues, in fact 5 would be hard to achieve already, not to mention actual world changing. Sure we got to select a mane, but guess what happens next. Point 1 also enhanced this problem, since you are always the glory knight in shining armor, there is no side to choose, hence of course all paths lead to rome

4.No actual cross zone events. Once you complete a zone it froze in time, finishing dragonhold and go back to Rimmen and Kamira would still be celebrating her first day as queen. The king of redguard would still be in that vault while his palace fill with people with message for him, the fact that ZOS go to great length (by that I mean 1 nonsense dialogue to explain why Sai Sahan is back) to make the story work by bypassing player decision and completely ignore old zones, shows how lazy they are handleing such things. You just know what happens in this zone happens in this zone only, no decision, no NPC will matter once you are out of here, and when you go back to old zones, the NPCs will lose their memory and stay in their last known location and talk about what happened there

Nemesis7884 · October 2019

Lyserus wrote: »

ESO has a core problem with their story telling: it's quite standardized, for new players this may not be a problem, but for seasoned (you don't have to be good, just stayed long enough) players, ESO stories are getting harder and harder to hype on

1.Always world saving. The only exception being orsinium, otherwise even dark brotherhood and thieves guild is about ass saving their guild. And it is always the same path: Coming along to help - discover dark plot - suffer loses - kill 3rd/2nd in command - kill final big boss - you are such a hero. One thing about linear world saving is that there is no wiggle room for players, you can't choose the dark side like SWTOR hence there isn't a dark side victory, you ALWAYS win and ALWAYS the light side. It gets boring knowing you just need to click the dialogue and next and eventually you will beat the new storyline

2.No NPC death. You just know it they will bring back people, the very few important decision you made back in vanilla is thrown away, we don't have a worthy death like the last ayleid king anymore, all death are like "I don't think there was a way he would have survived, but who knows" or "yeah I died but I'm back, for reasons". It's hard to invest in what NPCs are doing, knowing that they will be fine no matter what

3.No player decisions. I can hardly think of any player decisions that can cause the change of more than 10 dialogues, in fact 5 would be hard to achieve already, not to mention actual world changing. Sure we got to select a mane, but guess what happens next. Point 1 also enhanced this problem, since you are always the glory knight in shining armor, there is no side to choose, hence of course all paths lead to rome

4.No actual cross zone events. Once you complete a zone it froze in time, finishing dragonhold and go back to Rimmen and Kamira would still be celebrating her first day as queen. The king of redguard would still be in that vault while his palace fill with people with message for him, the fact that ZOS go to great length (by that I mean 1 nonsense dialogue to explain why Sai Sahan is back) to make the story work by bypassing player decision and completely ignore old zones, shows how lazy they are handleing such things. You just know what happens in this zone happens in this zone only, no decision, no NPC will matter once you are out of here, and when you go back to old zones, the NPCs will lose their memory and stay in their last known location and talk about what happened there

there is an interview with matt i think from gamescom, could have been e3 as well with the german outlet gamestar where he talks about why they moved away from points 2 and 3 - they did this in the past, where you made decisions that had lasting effects in the world...

And while this sounds great and is amazing in single player games, i agree that it just causes to many problems in multiplayer games where you want to play with a lot of different people at a lot of different times - to make that work they need to be in the same world state...

It would be really weird or not work at all if you would play with someone else and in his world state your quest giver is already dead or a city youre in is already destroyed...

Instead of trying to figure this out and get really weird results no one is happy about, i think their time is better spent just focusing on good characters and stories we can enjoy... i agree to your nr 1 tough - i think smaller less world saving stories, more character focused stories can be really interesting for a change...

Araneae6537 · October 2019

I agree with @Nemesis7884 I am still fairly new to ESO but I did like the more character-centered Orsinium. I enjoyed the Northern Elsweyr story and characters (haven’t played Southern yet as I wanted to catch up on main quest) but it did seem like so many different baddies were thrown at you without any clear connection.

(At least as a new player not knowing any ESO backstory, it seemed kind of random for this tyrant queen and necromancers and dragons to all be working together) I have to say, coming here after playing GW2 and watching GoT, I was just bracing myself for a character to die, and was saddened by Caldwell’s apparent death as I’d already grown fond of the old chap, and it was a pleasant surprise when they made it.

Of course if you know there’s no risk of that, it does take away that element of suspense.

I am glad that we at least have options in how some of the smaller quests are resolved, even if the outcome is the same for the world at large, character arcs and interactions are important to me. Of course I would love to see more and that was definitely the best part of SWTOR, but then that involved having essentially eight separate stories and much restricted to player-specific instances. I am impressed in ESO at how much does change as I complete quests and that is worth having less choice in some things IMHO.

mague · October 2019

Lyserus wrote: »

ESO has a core problem with their story telling: it's quite standardized, for new players this may not be a problem, but for seasoned (you don't have to be good, just stayed long enough) players, ESO stories are getting harder and harder to hype on

What are you hoping for ?

There once have been instanced silver and gold zones per faction. There have been real public dungeons and private delves. There was a Craglorn. There was a good combat system with limited sustain. There have been sane numbers.

I cant remember what it was about and i am not bored enough to google it, but the word is that the audience rejected the game. Most probably because the mmo community is addicted to fast food gameplay... To save the investment the came up with One Tamriel. But the community wants not only just fast food but also the same elitist crap as in game xyz and in the end total control over the game and its development. Devs dump the game into the mud, as in Murkmire. To the "dads and moms" of the game it is a dead child. And now those who did not recover their soul are Manimarco's legacy... playing on necro'ed characters and Ideas.

At least thats how comic authors and game masters told stories in the old days...

kargen27 · October 2019

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

Lyserus wrote: »

ESO has a core problem with their story telling: it's quite standardized, for new players this may not be a problem, but for seasoned (you don't have to be good, just stayed long enough) players, ESO stories are getting harder and harder to hype on

1.Always world saving. The only exception being orsinium, otherwise even dark brotherhood and thieves guild is about ass saving their guild. And it is always the same path: Coming along to help - discover dark plot - suffer loses - kill 3rd/2nd in command - kill final big boss - you are such a hero. One thing about linear world saving is that there is no wiggle room for players, you can't choose the dark side like SWTOR hence there isn't a dark side victory, you ALWAYS win and ALWAYS the light side. It gets boring knowing you just need to click the dialogue and next and eventually you will beat the new storyline

2.No NPC death. You just know it they will bring back people, the very few important decision you made back in vanilla is thrown away, we don't have a worthy death like the last ayleid king anymore, all death are like "I don't think there was a way he would have survived, but who knows" or "yeah I died but I'm back, for reasons". It's hard to invest in what NPCs are doing, knowing that they will be fine no matter what

3.No player decisions. I can hardly think of any player decisions that can cause the change of more than 10 dialogues, in fact 5 would be hard to achieve already, not to mention actual world changing. Sure we got to select a mane, but guess what happens next. Point 1 also enhanced this problem, since you are always the glory knight in shining armor, there is no side to choose, hence of course all paths lead to rome

4.No actual cross zone events. Once you complete a zone it froze in time, finishing dragonhold and go back to Rimmen and Kamira would still be celebrating her first day as queen. The king of redguard would still be in that vault while his palace fill with people with message for him, the fact that ZOS go to great length (by that I mean 1 nonsense dialogue to explain why Sai Sahan is back) to make the story work by bypassing player decision and completely ignore old zones, shows how lazy they are handleing such things. You just know what happens in this zone happens in this zone only, no decision, no NPC will matter once you are out of here, and when you go back to old zones, the NPCs will lose their memory and stay in their last known location and talk about what happened there

there is an interview with matt i think from gamescom, could have been e3 as well with the german outlet gamestar where he talks about why they moved away from points 2 and 3 - they did this in the past, where you made decisions that had lasting effects in the world...

And while this sounds great and is amazing in single player games, i agree that it just causes to many problems in multiplayer games where you want to play with a lot of different people at a lot of different times - to make that work they need to be in the same world state...

It would be really weird or not work at all if you would play with someone else and in his world state your quest giver is already dead or a city youre in is already destroyed...

Instead of trying to figure this out and get really weird results no one is happy about, i think their time is better spent just focusing on good characters and stories we can enjoy... i agree to your nr 1 tough - i think smaller less world saving stories, more character focused stories can be really interesting for a change...

Yeah it was kind of silly when our guild was doing fishing events and part of the group would disappear when you entered certain areas. Made it really hard for hide and seek!

FierceSam · October 2019

Good storytelling is a real skill. I think for a game, ZOS does this pretty well. The different stories for factions and DLC content are distinct, interesting and fit into the lore of ESO.

I think videogame storytelling is extra challenging because you have to send a player on a journey. It has to be important (so you are always saving the world or rebuilding the Dragonguard) because it has to matter to the player. It can’t be too ‘on rails’ because that would be boring, yet every player has to get to the same specific plot points.

It’s way easier to make world changing decisions and see their consequences in a single player game, where you are the only player involved. Much harder, complex and expensive when there are thousands of players at varying stages of progression, very few of whom will travel back to the scenes of their past glories. I may have been back to Orsinium, but I’ve never worried about where the various plotline characters are. So why would anyone put resources into that?

There are some situations where the actions of your character has an effect. The Elsweyr prologue placement of Abnur and Tharria in Auridon for instance. Or the mysterious disappearance of Stuga once I, finally, bothered to listen to her. Expecting to see an entire post-main plotline world, which is different for everyone, is simply unrealistic.

As for storylines being dialogue, click, dialogue, click, action, resolution... welcome to video games. I believe that’s how they work...

Heatnix90 · October 2019

Your biggest mistake is assuming that ZOS wants to pander to an actual MMO audience. They simply want to pander to those Elder Scrolls casuals (who only joined up after Skyrim

) who want to feel like some messiah.

Elsonso · October 2019

Lyserus wrote: »

1.Always world saving. The only exception being orsinium, otherwise even dark brotherhood and thieves guild is about ass saving their guild. And it is always the same path: Coming along to help - discover dark plot - suffer loses - kill 3rd/2nd in command - kill final big boss - you are such a hero. One thing about linear world saving is that there is no wiggle room for players, you can't choose the dark side like SWTOR hence there isn't a dark side victory, you ALWAYS win and ALWAYS the light side. It gets boring knowing you just need to click the dialogue and next and eventually you will beat the new storyline

The lack of a dark path is an Elder Scrolls thing dating back far into the past. It was even brought up as criticism about Fallout 3.

I agree with you about the "saving the world" plot lines. I have to wonder whether other stories would do as well for main quests. Main quests tend to be "action/adventure" stories, and once you save the world, you are pretty much down hill from there if you do anything else.

Lyserus wrote: »

2.No NPC death. You just know it they will bring back people, the very few important decision you made back in vanilla is thrown away, we don't have a worthy death like the last ayleid king anymore, all death are like "I don't think there was a way he would have survived, but who knows" or "yeah I died but I'm back, for reasons". It's hard to invest in what NPCs are doing, knowing that they will be fine no matter what

This is annoying. NPCs that died. or that that could be optionally killed in quests, should be crossed off the list of characters for reuse. Bummer, I know, but hey... they died. Mourn them. Move on.

Lyserus wrote: »

4.No actual cross zone events. Once you complete a zone it froze in time, finishing dragonhold and go back to Rimmen and Kamira would still be celebrating her first day as queen. The king of redguard would still be in that vault while his palace fill with people with message for him, the fact that ZOS go to great length (by that I mean 1 nonsense dialogue to explain why Sai Sahan is back) to make the story work by bypassing player decision and completely ignore old zones, shows how lazy they are handleing such things. You just know what happens in this zone happens in this zone only, no decision, no NPC will matter once you are out of here, and when you go back to old zones, the NPCs will lose their memory and stay in their last known location and talk about what happened there

Nothing really happens in Tamriel until someone important at the studio decides to make it part of a production. Things are just left at the point where the studio lost interest in the story. Games are like movies. They are just snapshots within a larger story. When the story ends, there isn't anything else until they make the next saga in the larger story.

The post-story celebration is a thing to make the players think that they did something important. Players want to have saving the world be recognized. MMOs don't end and studios lose interest in the story at that point, so we get the eternal celebration.

Although, to give ZOS some credit, there are some places that do "return to normal" as part of the quest line resolution, so they don't always stay in the eternal celebration mode. Sadly, in other places, this is not the case.

redgreensunset · October 2019

Heatnix90 wrote: »

Your biggest mistake is assuming that ZOS wants to pander to an actual MMO audience. They simply want to pander to those Elder Scrolls casuals (who only joined up after Skyrim ) who want to feel like some messiah.

Or they're trying tp please mutiple groups at once which is by nature an impossible task, made even more difficult by the egotistical nature of moost gamers and their willful ignorance that none is the sole target audience of this game.

ProfessorKittyhawk · October 2019

I agree about character deaths and decisions being pointless now. Since there is no requirement to do old content before new, killing off a returning character in newer content then doing the old content would be... problematic to a person's continuity. So it makes it hard to do a dramatic death for a returning character because you know it won't be permanent.

The way Tharn was talking in Elsweyr I was expecting him to make a heroic sacrifice at the last minute and save the day, perhaps create a problem in Dragonhold where we now don't have his knowledge on what to do next. But, because he's a base game character, obviously that didn't and couldn't happen.

I really enjoyed the engaging storyline of Orsinium and would like to see a return to that form of storytelling rather than this daedric threat or other world threatening event. Stories of that caliber just get tired and worn out the third or fourth time in a row.

A smaller scale threat is far more engaging and personal than these save the world type stories. I was kinda hyped about the Daedric war storyline hinted at the end of Orsinium years back but wound up being kind of disappointed in how that turned out.

Faulgor · October 2019

Which is why Orsinium is still the best zone DLC..
No world-ending threat, just political power struggle with divine elements.
Decisions with notable affects, including character deaths.
And King Kurog gets actually replaced in that one Mages Guild quest IIRC, so there's even a cross-zone consequence.

If we're really going to Skyrim next year, I hope it's just about the different holds and maybe Snow Elf / Falmer mystery. Nothing that threatens THE WHOLE OF TAMRIEL!1

ProfessorKittyhawk · October 2019

Faulgor wrote: »

Which is why Orsinium is still the best zone DLC..
No world-ending threat, just political power struggle with divine elements.
Decisions with notable affects, including character deaths.
And King Kurog gets actually replaced in that one Mages Guild quest IIRC, so there's even a cross-zone consequence.

If we're really going to Skyrim next year, I hope it's just about the different holds and maybe Snow Elf / Falmer mystery. Nothing that threatens THE WHOLE OF TAMRIEL!1

As well as the main story quest where you go to fight Mannimarco. Where it shows the alliance leaders cowering before him.

gepe87 · October 2019

The daedric war storyline was ok. I see as a consequence of Planemeld and to close some storylines (Raz, Darien, Veya/Nayru).

But Dragons invasion to conquer Nirn...

Vestige becoming Mary Sue.

Veinblood1965 · October 2019

As for cross zoning, what happens in one zone stays in one zone, it's only discreet.