thilog wrote: »

This game, the actual game, is superb.. it really is.

But the design, the layout.. is utter garbage.

5 skill slots
linear leveling
Insane repair charges
tax on trade guild sales
cost of horses
cost of skill point resets
small maps
enforced crafting to supply your own gear, which is in turn based on poor resource fields which are mined to death by gold farmers or farmers in general, who then spam zone with insane charges for items.
450 per dwarven oil.. 150 per honing stone.. *** right off..


It actually comes across, that the game, the missions and the design of them, the cosmetic side was done by a completely separate company to the rest of it.

Five skill slots is a change for most people. I like being able to focus on five skills, and I also freely swap between weapon sets AND change my skills depending on what section of dungeon I'm in. Maybe I need AOE clearing for mobs, or single target boss DPS skills. Having every single option available 24/7 reduces the unique combination players can make, which makes it less interesting to me. You see things differently I guess, that's fine.

Linear leveling - every game is linear, you go from level 1 to level 2, and level 2 to level 3. Very linear indeed, point taken. I think someone should make an MMO where when you level up you can randomly level up to any number from 1-50. Ok trolling aside, can you expand on what you find linear?? You get a skill point and put it where you want. Either crafting, armor abilities, weapon abilities, skill abilities, guild abilities, alliance abilities. Then you put a point into HP/Magic/Stamina. I'm assuming you have some game reference you'd like to make to say X did it better? Please state so.

Repair costs I've found to be annoying if I die several times in a row, ESPECIALLY when the game F's you over and you're forced to /stuck and forget to unequip your gear. I think they need to fix the /stuck damaging your gear, but repair costs are OK. If you're constantly having to repair gear at the same level something is wrong.

I can't speak on guild sales, so no comment

You complain about horses but not backpack/bank upgrades?? Weird. Anyways, maybe you feel left out because a bunch of people paid for the imperial edition and got a horse for $1. I think mounts in most games are considered special. Many games take different approaches, such as providing level 1 mounts that are free, or allowing you to buy tons of different types of mounts for low $$$. At the end of the day though there are always fancy, super expensive mounts. The $17,000 is the cheap transportation, and the $42,000 is ridiculous. If you get the $17,000 horse you get 100 horse upgrades which will roughly equal the cost of a 42k horse. I'm not an expert but that's ridiculous, and the only benefit I see is getting a slightly different style of horse. I'm sort of on page with you, my mega-fancy expensive horse needs to be rare and GOOD for the price. I don't think though that the low-end horse is too expensive. This game does not provide mounts at level one, and when you get one it's permanent + you can upgrade it a lot. It's not like other games where you constantly have to buy a new mount over and over again to get more speed, you can just upgrade your horsey.

I've never respeced yet, I know lots of people say its expensive but I really don't know why so many people are respeccing. Maybe you're reading what other players are doing and want to try something new? Maybe you're bored and don't like your skills? I've been happy playing the game the way I want. Even if I see other people owning in PvP / PvE I ignore them and continue playing my style, all for fun. When I get to 50 I will review how I stand and if I feel I'm doing awful I'll respec. But there is no point in constantly respeccing.

Comparing a massive single player game with absolutely no MMO aspect to it to an MMO game is stupid. ESO does a great job with the map sizes and zones, I've had fun exploring every nook and cranny in Bleakrock/Stonefalls/Deshaan/The next one (forget the name). Sure, it's a shame the game doesn't play out exactly like skyrim or other ES games, but lets be honest. Vastly different technical requirements. Even from a player perspective there are challenges, the MMO genre in general has a different player base and player expectations. They can't just ignore mountains of data and go with whatever worked in previous single player games for the sake of it. That just won't work.

Ignoring your terrible language, unnecessary, I somewhat agree that crafting is the only viable option. I feel completely forced into gear that has set bonuses, whether that's from crafting or from random mob drops in their respective zone. Regular, non-set drops have no purpose other than if you haven't had a chance to craft your level gear or run out of mats. I'm level 31 and I still have level 24 armor across the board. I strongly feel like single items need special non-set bonuses that are unique to individual items so you actually have incentive to use them over set items. The traits give the same regardless, you can enchant any stat you want, so that means crafting your own items is always superior. I'd love someone to provide more info though if they can prove single drops are ever good.

You seem like the "grass is always greener on the other side" type of person. It might just never be good enough.

delphwind_ESO wrote: »

thilog wrote: »

linear leveling

I am not sure how you think this is linear, I have found so many side quests, and multiple ways of leveling. You are not stuck to one specific path, you are free to level however you want!

Linear as in when you've finished the quests in an area there is no reason to go back. You advance through the map level by level.

Granted, most other MMO's also do that but there have been some who did not. One of the things in WoW that appealed to me was that every race had their own starting area. Also, after the point where the race questlines merged you still had three different lines to choose from in either faction.

ESO tries to do that with the fighter/mages guilds questlines but they are still limited by being the same for all three alliances.

Quests are the only viable way to level in ESO. You are not free to do it as you like.

The only problem I have with five skill sets is that if you invest heavily in summoning you have a number of skill slots that are sort of taking up space. I mean, they're not really, because the creatures are hanging out with you, but if you have your clannfear, dremora, and bound armor up you only have two spaces left for more active spells.

And if you want to switch weapons you better make sure the summon spells are both bars, because they'll disappear if they aren't!

At this point I haven't decided if the loss of space on my bar is worth it. I'm inclined to think I'm already paying for the "persistent" nature with the 10% reduction in magicka per spell, but obviously the game designers disagree.

LunaRae wrote: »

You seem like the "grass is always greener on the other side" type of person. It might just never be good enough.

I know your post was somewhat longer.

Righto, I'm abit calmer now. So I humbly apologise to everyone for reading my rant.

But I don't think you understand what I ment by linear, the leveling is linear in the sense that, 10 lvl 5 mobs can seriously damage you at lv 30, but after killing them, you get no loot, no xp and have to pay for the repairs. Tad unfair..

Remember morrowind? everytime you leveled up.. all the mobs did as well, a level 1 rat at lv 30, what just a lv 30 rat.. only you had better gear..

I'm not getting into the rest of your post, it was good reading and I don't disagree with everything. I've just been having a bad day.. only got 1.5 levels in and died about 500x.. mostly due to trying to help other people.

EramTheLiar wrote: »

The only problem I have with five skill sets is that if you invest heavily in summoning you have a number of skill slots that are sort of taking up space. I mean, they're not really, because the creatures are hanging out with you, but if you have your clannfear, dremora, and bound armor up you only have two spaces left for more active spells.

And if you want to switch weapons you better make sure the summon spells are both bars, because they'll disappear if they aren't!

At this point I haven't decided if the loss of space on my bar is worth it. I'm inclined to think I'm already paying for the "persistent" nature with the 10% reduction in magicka per spell, but obviously the game designers disagree.

This is exactly my point, I honestly expected, that from say lvl 1-15 we got 5 slots, plus weapon swap (5 alt buttons) then later on we'd get maybe 2-3 more buttons and later on maybe a couple more.

I am a templar with dual blades. I have 5 active attacks that I can use. But I can't use them because I need to put in some healing as well, we are a little weak on dps and armour buffs, so er.. what's the point in giving me 5 attacks? At most I'll only ever use 2-3.

Sorcs have same problems, db and dk the same. It isn't about choice, it's about lack of choice, zo has taken away the choice.

thilog wrote: »

zo has taken away the choice.

A reoccurring theme in ESO.

thilog wrote: »

EramTheLiar wrote: »

The only problem I have with five skill sets is that if you invest heavily in summoning you have a number of skill slots that are sort of taking up space. I mean, they're not really, because the creatures are hanging out with you, but if you have your clannfear, dremora, and bound armor up you only have two spaces left for more active spells.

And if you want to switch weapons you better make sure the summon spells are both bars, because they'll disappear if they aren't!

At this point I haven't decided if the loss of space on my bar is worth it. I'm inclined to think I'm already paying for the "persistent" nature with the 10% reduction in magicka per spell, but obviously the game designers disagree.

This is exactly my point, I honestly expected, that from say lvl 1-15 we got 5 slots, plus weapon swap (5 alt buttons) then later on we'd get maybe 2-3 more buttons and later on maybe a couple more.

I am a templar with dual blades. I have 5 active attacks that I can use. But I can't use them because I need to put in some healing as well, we are a little weak on dps and armour buffs, so er.. what's the point in giving me 5 attacks? At most I'll only ever use 2-3.

Sorcs have same problems, db and dk the same. It isn't about choice, it's about lack of choice, zo has taken away the choice.

No they made it a choice. If you could just take the entire tree, there is no choice in what to bring in that tree. This also means that skill builds can be more varied, because you actually have to choose what you want rather than just take things because you have room to.

delphwind_ESO wrote: »

thilog wrote: »

tax on trade guild sales

Again, another way to drain money out of the economy. Go read about how such things work then you will better understand why this is needed.

You miss the point.. by adding in an automatic 25% sales tax.. they've essentially made trading guilds pointless.

People don't trade. They don't post items cod. It costs to much. They'll meet you were you are and do a hand over direct trade, they'll use zone to sell and buy. The entire reason for the existence of trade guilds is utterly moot and useless.

If they'd allowed trade guilds to set their own tax.. you'd have competition in the market.. now there's none. Everyone is happy to undercut everyone else.

I sell all greens for 100-150g blues for 200g.. purples.. i deconstruct..
I have lvl 3 in blacksmith, clothing and woodworking on my main char. Due now infact to add 3 pts to raise that to level 4.

I also have stacks of resources.. it's probably high time I cleared out my bank or all my iron and steel.. i don't need it anymore.

thilog wrote: »

sociald100ub17_ESO wrote: »

thilog wrote: »

.. one day.. someone, will actually make an mmo, like everyquest.. that, like everquest will last for 10 years and people will pay to play it for 10 years.. but this isn't it.

Wow kinda was.. just kinda got abit samey..

The EQ thing wont be duplicated and I seriously doubt either will WoW. there are too many games out there now. too many fickle spoiled people who have lots of choices.
Even when WoW released the competition for MMO's was so much narrower.
So many people out there just surf betas and free trials and then move on to something else.

They could do it, but they don't based on faulty market analysis. "everyone wants to solo now and have a story instead of persistent worlds" seems to be the theme. They've been making MMOs like that for the last decade. Hopefully when ESO goes to *** and finishes flopping developers will realize they need yo take a good long hard look at who they design these games for. Niche markets are untapped, the last thing close to EQ was FF11 @ release, and even that was watered down quite a bit; I did enjoy it's group mechanics however.