The Elder Scrolls Online

NoireJin the Witchking · June 2021

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whitecrow · June 2021

The portals are a bore, exactly the same every time (except that one general that varies). The Deadlands are an eyesore. And what's up with that final battle? Why is he only vulnerable for one two seconds and then shielded while you eliminate mindless waves of easily killed foes walking to the centre. What is that supposed to be?

I agree that companions need work but I believe they will refine them further.

Starlight_Whisper · June 2021

Companions would of been better if it wasn't a rip off already existing classes

Also tried of dolmen rip offs. Like come up with something creative like dragons again

FluffyBird · June 2021

Cubes, you mean "I put down the book and you turn the cubes" cubes? You literally have bright glowing clues for those.

Not that you need them, though. It's true that ESO puzzles are hopelessly dumb. Like, you don't need any semblance of functioning brain to "solve" them. Generally, this game seems to accommodate [snip]

[edited for bashing and inappropriate content]

NoireJin the Witchking · June 2021

FluffyBird wrote: »

Cubes, you mean "I put down the book and you turn the cubes" cubes? You literally have bright glowing clues for those.

Not that you need them, though. It's true that ESO puzzles are hopelessly dumb. Like, you don't need any semblance of functioning brain to "solve" them. Generally, this game seems to accommodate [snip]

I didn't mean clues in that regard, I meant looking around for the patterns/symbols pertaining to the puzzles consequently allowing you to use that information to solve the puzzle. I was aware that they lit up once you hit the correct one. technically they're clues but there we're so awful and easy I genuinely didn't register people would use those as clues. But yeah i agree with the rest of what you said.

Firstmep · June 2021

The story is so bad.
Why do have to have this farce investigation into the murders?
The whole chapter is based on Mehrunes Dagon trying to invade nirn.
If you bought it, you already know. It's just useless fluff, to fill out and lengthen our play time.
And for the love of everything, if I have to hear another exposition about the baddies plot, I'm literally going to puke.
This game is not played by 5 year olds, please stop treating us like dummies.
The bit about the ambitions was interesting, sadly the charachters lacked any depth whatsoever.
And just in general the whole story is way too obvious.

whitecrow · June 2021

Firstmep wrote: »

The story is so bad.
Why do have to have this farce investigation into the murders?
The whole chapter is based on Mehrunes Dagon trying to invade nirn.
If you bought it, you already know. It's just useless fluff, to fill out and lengthen our play time.
And for the love of everything, if I have to hear another exposition about the baddies plot, I'm literally going to puke.
This game is not played by 5 year olds, please stop treating us like dummies.
The bit about the ambitions was interesting, sadly the charachters lacked any depth whatsoever.
And just in general the whole story is way too obvious.

It's because they have to give everything away before the game is even out. There are no surprises in entertainment media any more.

Dropstitch · June 2021

6Kyojin6 wrote: »

*snip*

Leyawiin looks pretty but offers nothing for those wanting to explore.

Does it though? There is no verticality or variety to the design. I was honestly reminded of some old Runescape city.

Anyway, I did not mean to pick out one line out of an entire post, but it caught my attention.

I agree with most of what you said. Companions are a gimmick I have already grown tired of (maybe my interest will be rejuvenated if more interesting options are provided in the future). The zone feels recycled and uninspired. I quite enjoyed the story though.

Brrrofski · June 2021

Portals are the worst version of a dolmen type thing they've introduced.

Dragons are the best version of this type thing. You can see them from miles away, and while I'm sure someone has soloed them, you usually need a handful of people to get it done. It feels like something which brought people together (not so much now, but for a good year they did).

Harrowstroms, while easier and can be soloed, they're still massive and people easily know how to get involved.

Even geysers and dolmens, while really easy, are visible to everyone and people get involved. I know some base game areas are dead, but for a long time dolmens had that effect.

The portals though... It doesn't feel like anything. It feels like you go into a delve and at the end you see some people maybe. Really underwhelming. And once everyone gets the furniture recipes, they'll be totally dead.

Companions are.... boring and for a lot of people, useless. No good in proper content and can't be used in PvP (which I'm 100% glad of by the way). So really, beyond people that like roleplaying or doing casual stuff solo, what use are they?

I've been using it simply to get drops to sell. Once that market dies, I won't bother with them. They add zero to gameplay for a lot of people.

I know many will enjoy them, but past chapters had something for everyone. New class twice, new skill line and jewellery crafting and antiquities (which gives powerful items for combat and some housing stuff too).

So yeh, after the initial two weeks here, what's the point or need to go back?

ajkb78 · June 2021

In your list of things people buy the chapter for you omitted the new trial. That's a major draw for a significant part of the player base and it's mostly very good, my only concern is the incoming damage from certain specific mechanics is so extreme, as well as being unpurgeable and undodgeable, that it forces at least the tanks on vet, and likely the whole team on hard mode, to be vampires just to have mist form available. Lots of incoming damage is fine up to a point, but when there's only one viable way to deal with it that forces you into one specific character choice, for one piece of content only, then that's poor design.

I disagree with your view of side quests, usually I enjoy them much more than the main storyline, and this chapter was no exception. The Stibbons one could be my favourite quest in the whole game. I just wish there were more: in just one smallish base game zone you usually have to complete around 45 quests for the Adventurer achievement, but in the chapter dlc zones there are nowhere near that many quests in total, maybe just over half that - in a zone that's far bigger than the base game zones. Seriously! Give us more quests next year, please. Not just big ones either, sometimes it's nice when you just find an elf that lost his apprentice who's held captive by like 2 goblins just the other side of an outcrop.

The public dungeons are nicely designed, especially Zenithar's Abbey, and the zone design has grown on me a bit since PTS, it's quite a good transition between Cyrodiil and Black Marsh.

I totally agree about the portals though, it's boring that they're all the same, at the least there should have been multiple map designs with portals leading to a randomly selected one. And the fact that once you're in you find a bunch of people sat around waiting for the boss to respawn is a bit lame. It would be better if once the boss dies everyone who was in combat with him was automatically removed from the instance and their reward chest appeared back in Blackwood next to the portal spawn point.

Main story quests are usually the driest, most ponderous quests, I don't know why they end up that way. It's like they're making such a huge effort to tell the story that it ends up really laboured and overwritten. I'd prefer main story questlines to have less exposition (certainly much less repetition of the exposition) and be much more varied, even if that meant more but shorter quests (or maybe longer but not repetitive quests). Sometimes the conversations in the Blackwood questline make you feel like either the NPCs or you (or both) have severe Alzheimer's and you're struggling to remember what the hell's going on, who the hell you're fighting and why.

But I disagree that you have to play them as sunshine and light. Even the most evil character can probably get on board with not wanting the world to be destroyed by Molag Bal, or by the Serpent, or by Nocturnal, or by dragons, or by the Grey Host, or by Mehrunes Dagon - even if only because they want to destroy or subjugate it themselves.

SickleCider · June 2021

The architecture is cute, the White Stallion Inn is cute, otherwise the chapter is pretty boring. Cute, but boring, my final assessment.

Faulgor · June 2021

Firstmep wrote: »

The story is so bad.
Why do have to have this farce investigation into the murders?
The whole chapter is based on Mehrunes Dagon trying to invade nirn.
If you bought it, you already know. It's just useless fluff, to fill out and lengthen our play time.
And for the love of everything, if I have to hear another exposition about the baddies plot, I'm literally going to puke.
This game is not played by 5 year olds, please stop treating us like dummies.
The bit about the ambitions was interesting, sadly the charachters lacked any depth whatsoever.
And just in general the whole story is way too obvious.

At least it was better than last year's, imo. Finding the first two ambitions was legitimately surprising to me, but it kind of dropped off from there. To a substantial degree, I blame the year-long-story. You can't have a proper resolution in the chapter story because you have to sell that as Q4 DLC, so the chapter just ... fizzles out.
Besides the new characters lacking some depth, they also deflated recurring ones like Eveli.

The problem is, with everything else being so lackluster, the story becomes the main selling point of the chapters. But the quality just isn't there (anymore) to justify the price.

Michaelkeir · June 2021

@6Kyojin6, I agree with most of what you said. But I’ll give you my take on a few of your points.

Companions- You stated, “Companions has been shipped broken, and still are broken in many regards.” How are they broken exactly? Only broken thing I’ve seen were the quest markers over other players companions heads. Is there other bugs or glitches with them?

I personally don’t care for them honestly. But I do see a small use for them. Mostly to help my tank deal more damage doing quest and to keep world bosses in one spot so I don’t have to focus on healing myself on my DPS and can just focus on burning them down. I can solo most all world boss’s alone, but they do help make it go a few seconds faster. If I could use a helmet or polymorph them I’d really love using them more. Mostly for my necromancer so he could have an actual skeleton minion with him at all times.

Portals- I agree with this. The first time I saw a portal I laughed out loud. I mean seriously. They look so insignificant. I was expecting something like this…

As for your other suggestions, the reason they don’t make portals unique and different is because it is all about the $$$. The less money they put into newer and varied and unique portals/dolmens is because they save money that way. Less money they spend, means they save more $$$ for their pockets.

Story- Oh I agree with you here. The story was decent but could have been better. The villain I saw coming a mile away. I actually figured out who it was within minutes of meeting them. Same with Greymoor and Elsweyr. Both had 1 dimensional villains and with a princess to come and save the day. Unoriginal.

Like you I want choices. I don’t always want to play the good guy. I want evil options. I’m not saying I want to be on the level of the main villain of the chapter, but at least give me the option to pick some not so good choices in my quest responses. I have a necromancer, Dark brotherhood nightblade who murders innocents randomly, and a stage 4 vampire who feeds on as many people in each zone as I can. They most definitely aren’t going to pick the “save the town village” option. They are going to try and manipulate the situation to benefit them. So having an option in quest would go a long way in my honest opinion.

Firstmep · June 2021

Faulgor wrote: »

Firstmep wrote: »

The story is so bad.
Why do have to have this farce investigation into the murders?
The whole chapter is based on Mehrunes Dagon trying to invade nirn.
If you bought it, you already know. It's just useless fluff, to fill out and lengthen our play time.
And for the love of everything, if I have to hear another exposition about the baddies plot, I'm literally going to puke.
This game is not played by 5 year olds, please stop treating us like dummies.
The bit about the ambitions was interesting, sadly the charachters lacked any depth whatsoever.
And just in general the whole story is way too obvious.

At least it was better than last year's, imo. Finding the first two ambitions was legitimately surprising to me, but it kind of dropped off from there. To a substantial degree, I blame the year-long-story. You can't have a proper resolution in the chapter story because you have to sell that as Q4 DLC, so the chapter just ... fizzles out.
Besides the new characters lacking some depth, they also deflated recurring ones like Eveli.

The problem is, with everything else being so lackluster, the story becomes the main selling point of the chapters. But the quality just isn't there (anymore) to justify the price.

My problem is that it's more or less the same story told over and over again.
Just like with most of the chapter content, like put licks dungeons,world bosses, dolmen mechanic etc. Its like they have a formula and are just sticking to it.
It's an easy way to churn out content, but like everything else in Eso for a while now it just seems super low effort.
Just look at companions, 0 interaction with even Blackwood content, fewer lines than any rando side quest npc.
It's just shoddy work all around it's just sad.
And I know they said they wanted to dial back to amount of new systems and scale in general, but the polish we were promised in turn isn't there either.
It is just less effort for the same price.

FluffyBird · June 2021

6Kyojin6 wrote: »

FluffyBird wrote: »

Cubes, you mean "I put down the book and you turn the cubes" cubes? You literally have bright glowing clues for those.

Not that you need them, though. It's true that ESO puzzles are hopelessly dumb. Like, you don't need any semblance of functioning brain to "solve" them. Generally, this game seems to accommodate [snip]

I didn't mean clues in that regard, I meant looking around for the patterns/symbols pertaining to the puzzles consequently allowing you to use that information to solve the puzzle. I was aware that they lit up once you hit the correct one. technically they're clues but there we're so awful and easy I genuinely didn't register people would use those as clues. But yeah i agree with the rest of what you said.

I meant that you have glowing symbols above the book, when Eveli places it. After that you turn the cubes so that symbols on them correspond to the symbols the book shows. Valid clue IMO.

ThorianB · June 2021

Ive just been wrapping up Morrowind on a newer character of mine and i swear each chapter there are less and less quests. Summerset had less quest time than Morrowind it feels like, Elsweyr felt pretty short. Greymoor was even shorter and now Blackwood is following the trend?

Portals do feel like a revamped Dolmen.They did this with the battlegrounds and they do it with mounts and pets and such all the time. Everything feels like a reskin that they try to pull off as something new and innovative and really isnt. It is just a different version of what we had.They keep selling us the same thing over and over.

Companions were really disappointing. They made out like companions were going to be useful and they fall short on even being equal to a bad player who is distracted. They aren't even half as good as a combat pet and i didn't have to pay for those as a "feature".

I do love the zone and building style in general but i do feel like they sold us a bunch of "fluff" without a lot of actual content in this one. Honestly, i think they are being overly ambitious for their team size or something. They put out a lot better material before we got year long stories. Every since we got year long stories i feel like each year is a little less developed and polished than the last.

Flamebait · June 2021

FluffyBird wrote: »

6Kyojin6 wrote: »

FluffyBird wrote: »

Cubes, you mean "I put down the book and you turn the cubes" cubes? You literally have bright glowing clues for those.

Not that you need them, though. It's true that ESO puzzles are hopelessly dumb. Like, you don't need any semblance of functioning brain to "solve" them. Generally, this game seems to accommodate [snip]

I didn't mean clues in that regard, I meant looking around for the patterns/symbols pertaining to the puzzles consequently allowing you to use that information to solve the puzzle. I was aware that they lit up once you hit the correct one. technically they're clues but there we're so awful and easy I genuinely didn't register people would use those as clues. But yeah i agree with the rest of what you said.

I meant that you have glowing symbols above the book, when Eveli places it. After that you turn the cubes so that symbols on them correspond to the symbols the book shows. Valid clue IMO.

It would be a valid clue if there was any way to not do it right. As it is once the cube spins to the right symbol you cannot interact with it anymore so there is zero chance that you can get the wrong answer. That is taking the idea of a lazy puzzle to the highest artform levels.

FluffyBird · June 2021

Flamebait wrote: »

FluffyBird wrote: »

6Kyojin6 wrote: »

FluffyBird wrote: »

Cubes, you mean "I put down the book and you turn the cubes" cubes? You literally have bright glowing clues for those.

Not that you need them, though. It's true that ESO puzzles are hopelessly dumb. Like, you don't need any semblance of functioning brain to "solve" them. Generally, this game seems to accommodate [snip]

I didn't mean clues in that regard, I meant looking around for the patterns/symbols pertaining to the puzzles consequently allowing you to use that information to solve the puzzle. I was aware that they lit up once you hit the correct one. technically they're clues but there we're so awful and easy I genuinely didn't register people would use those as clues. But yeah i agree with the rest of what you said.

I meant that you have glowing symbols above the book, when Eveli places it. After that you turn the cubes so that symbols on them correspond to the symbols the book shows. Valid clue IMO.

It would be a valid clue if there was any way to not do it right. As it is once the cube spins to the right symbol you cannot interact with it anymore so there is zero chance that you can get the wrong answer. That is taking the idea of a lazy puzzle to the highest artform levels.

The person I was responding to complained about not having any clues as to what you re supposed to achieve in the puzzle, I only pointed out that in this case clues are present.

That they are useless is a different topic, which apparently cannot be discussed without bashing, baiting and "inappropriate content", lol.

ESO puzzles are hopeless, true. As I said, it may have been done to accommodate all... uhm... skill levels, to put it politely.

Dropstitch · June 2021

FluffyBird wrote: »

Flamebait wrote: »

FluffyBird wrote: »

6Kyojin6 wrote: »

FluffyBird wrote: »

Cubes, you mean "I put down the book and you turn the cubes" cubes? You literally have bright glowing clues for those.

Not that you need them, though. It's true that ESO puzzles are hopelessly dumb. Like, you don't need any semblance of functioning brain to "solve" them. Generally, this game seems to accommodate [snip]

I didn't mean clues in that regard, I meant looking around for the patterns/symbols pertaining to the puzzles consequently allowing you to use that information to solve the puzzle. I was aware that they lit up once you hit the correct one. technically they're clues but there we're so awful and easy I genuinely didn't register people would use those as clues. But yeah i agree with the rest of what you said.

I meant that you have glowing symbols above the book, when Eveli places it. After that you turn the cubes so that symbols on them correspond to the symbols the book shows. Valid clue IMO.

It would be a valid clue if there was any way to not do it right. As it is once the cube spins to the right symbol you cannot interact with it anymore so there is zero chance that you can get the wrong answer. That is taking the idea of a lazy puzzle to the highest artform levels.

The person I was responding to complained about not having any clues as to what you re supposed to achieve in the puzzle, I only pointed out that in this case clues are present.

That they are useless is a different topic, which apparently cannot be discussed without bashing, baiting and "inappropriate content", lol.

ESO puzzles are hopeless, true. As I said, it may have been done to accommodate all... uhm... skill levels, to put it politely.

To be fair, ESO puzzles have always been - look at symbols on walls, recreate the same sequence on interactables- I assume someone made the decision that such a low bar may as well be removed in its entirety.