Public Dungeons are larger and more detailed than the zone's Player Hub and it's upsetting.

ArchMikem · June 2021

Immediately noticed it my first five minutes into the Dungeon.

Zenithar's Abbey, a religious trading post, is more of a City than Leyawiin, the zone's ACTUAL supposed City, is. This is the third time this has been done. Alinor and Sunhold. Rimmen and Orcrest. Now these two. All I wanted to do when I walked in was explore the "city", and try to ignore how the place felt like a Resident Evil game. I wish I could've seen the place alive with people and traders filling the markets. You guys could've even done something special and placed special luxury merchants that sold high priced items exclusive to he Abbey that can't be bought anywhere else.

Starlight_Whisper · June 2021

I like the idea of chapter exclusive merchant

MercilessnVexed · June 2021

OP you're kidding, right? You're criticizing a dungeon because you wanted it to be a town instead? You can't just be happy with a new dungeon? Jeez! What does it take for ZoS and game developers to please you people! Just go run the dungeon & find some creative positivity in your life!

Hapexamendios · June 2021

I really like the layout in those dungeons. It's good to have some variety to them.

katanagirl1 · June 2021

I wish it wasn’t so ruined.

It’s just like Orcrest in Northern Elsweyr.

I think they do that so we have no containers to farm stuff.

ArchMikem · June 2021

Beastygrowls wrote: »

OP you're kidding, right? You're criticizing a dungeon because you wanted it to be a town instead? You can't just be happy with a new dungeon? Jeez! What does it take for ZoS and game developers to please you people! Just go run the dungeon & find some creative positivity in your life!

Considering a Public Delve is a one and done experience for the most part, while Player Hubs are a continuously visited area, yes, I'm going to criticize.

Frankly I don't even understand your last sentence, other than it's mildly insulting.

Red_Feather · June 2021

Now I will notice this for every city and dungeon in the game.

TelvanniWizard · June 2021

ArchMikem wrote: »

Beastygrowls wrote: »

OP you're kidding, right? You're criticizing a dungeon because you wanted it to be a town instead? You can't just be happy with a new dungeon? Jeez! What does it take for ZoS and game developers to please you people! Just go run the dungeon & find some creative positivity in your life!

Considering a Public Delve is a one and done experience for the most part, while Player Hubs are a continuously visited area, yes, I'm going to criticize.

Frankly I don't even understand your last sentence, other than it's mildly insulting.

Can't understand them white knights... They motivations are a mistery to me lol

BlueRaven · June 2021

Beastygrowls wrote: »

OP you're kidding, right? You're criticizing a dungeon because you wanted it to be a town instead? You can't just be happy with a new dungeon? Jeez! What does it take for ZoS and game developers to please you people! Just go run the dungeon & find some creative positivity in your life!

I think the criticism is that the actual cities in the game should reflect the size and scope that the public dungeon "cities" seems to represent.

It's not that the OP wanted the public dungeon to become a town. I think that the OP wanted the design and scope of the in game "hub" cities could look like Public Dungeons mentioned. For example, Sunhold is huge! It would have been nice if Alinor was of a similar size. It does not make sense that the largest city of the zone(s) keeps going into ruin. (Sunhold in particular always bothered me. It got invaded and I thought "So, no Summerset/AD Army is going to retake this? They are just conceding the biggest city on the island? Well ok then.")

Sunhold and the Abbey have interesting changes in elevation, side streets, different parts of the city that "feel" different." I get exactly what the OP is saying in that the game designers made the architecture and city plan of the Public dungeons much more interesting than the public hub cities themselves.

If I can add one more design note for the game designers. Please stop having the hub cities require a "door" to get in. Just let us ride in like most of the base game cities and like the Elsweyr cites as well.

Hotdog_23 · June 2021

Agree with the main point of this thread about cities in ESO. Just wanted to add that Gideon was disappointingly small.

As far as the doors into cities requiring a load screen, I believe this is a design decision started after the almost game breaking game play that console had to deal with when they first released Southern Elsweyr and Senchal city.

Stay safe everyone

Red_Feather · June 2021

Wait, Gideo is supposed to be a city?!

Is it because of being in the past. There has to be a reason. Gideon felt like stables and a jail.

Faulgor · June 2021

ArchMikem wrote: »

Beastygrowls wrote: »

OP you're kidding, right? You're criticizing a dungeon because you wanted it to be a town instead? You can't just be happy with a new dungeon? Jeez! What does it take for ZoS and game developers to please you people! Just go run the dungeon & find some creative positivity in your life!

Considering a Public Delve is a one and done experience for the most part, while Player Hubs are a continuously visited area, yes, I'm going to criticize.

Frankly I don't even understand your last sentence, other than it's mildly insulting.

That's another side to the issue: There are lots of cool public dungeons and delves in the game, but no reason to hang out there. It's really disappointing.

Wolfchild07 · June 2021

It'd have been nice to be able to take back the city like you do Velyn Harbour. Not that I've played the content, but I get the gist. Cities feel like country towns and public dungeons are so full of enemies that you can't always avoid them.

Iccotak · June 2021

It just sucked that the those Public Dungeons, and even some delves, looked better than the overall zone.

I wish the whole Blackwood zone looked like a combination of the Public Dungeons.

Blackwood Public Dungeons: Silent Halls & Zenithar's Abbey

Dropstitch · June 2021

I agree, the public dungeons are great, so kudos for that- but sadly most people will only visit them once or twice.

The main town in the new zone is bland. I said this in another thread, but there is no verticality or variety to it, it is just a bunch of homogenous buildings on a regular grid on a flat plain; the way towns looked in early noughties mmos.

At least create terraces and cul-de-sacs, alleys, small parks, some changes in level, something to break up the monotony of the town. I mean compare this town to any of the following: Wayrest, Alinor ... in fact I'll stop here or I'll wind up just listing almost every town in the game.

Ippokrates · June 2021

Well, it has been said that the Mournhold is one of the biggest cities of Tamriel, so... I wouldn't expect much from Tamriel cities

But seriosly, It is kinda weird that the most medieval-alike city in game is imho Orcrest. The buildings stucked together, those narrow streets, small open areas between and canals... I would love to see how it could function as an actual city.

Hallothiel · June 2021

Totally agree - it is an amazing space, much more interesting in layout compared to the ‘cities’ of Leyawin or Gideon.

zelaminator · June 2021

If they made entire zones as detailed as the Abbey, it would probably increase the load dramatically

AcadianPaladin · June 2021

Gee, I find it very hard to notice what is in a public dungeon. Mobs spawn and respawn on my head so fast I quickly learned never to stop, loot, look around or do anything else in a public dungeon but run and gun and run. At least soloing a group dungeon, I can stop and smell the barrels/sacks and admire the dungeon between fights Or even briefly go afk to get a cup of coffee.

Mik195 · June 2021

While having cities would be nice, this game is already huge and 30+ GB updates on Xbox are normal. I'd rather not have even huger files just to make cities feel bigger. Now, if there was a purpose for all that extra stuff...

SidraWillowsky · June 2021

BlueRaven wrote: »

If I can add one more design note for the game designers. Please stop having the hub cities require a "door" to get in. Just let us ride in like most of the base game cities and like the Elsweyr cites as well.

Seriously, what is WITH that??? Solitude, Markarth, Leyawiin-- it's beyond obnoxious to have to do that, and it's even more annoying because the default starter wayshrine is the one outside of the city. I don't know WHY it seems so excruciatingly painful to have to run a character from the Solitude docks wayshrine to the city one, but it's awful.

whitecrow · June 2021

SidraWillowsky wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

If I can add one more design note for the game designers. Please stop having the hub cities require a "door" to get in. Just let us ride in like most of the base game cities and like the Elsweyr cites as well.

Seriously, what is WITH that??? Solitude, Markarth, Leyawiin-- it's beyond obnoxious to have to do that, and it's even more annoying because the default starter wayshrine is the one outside of the city. I don't know WHY it seems so excruciatingly painful to have to run a character from the Solitude docks wayshrine to the city one, but it's awful.

Also annoying when I try to see where to go for a quest and the marker is on... the door to the city.

Fennwitty · June 2021

I kind of felt the opposite way about the public dungeon Zenithar's Abbey.

Visually very interesting zone. I appreciate it aesthetically vs. another underground cave.

But it still felt obvious to me I was walking through a reskinned "dungeon". The walls are replaced by housefronts, but it's still a dungeon.

None of the buildings are "real" except maybe one or two if you count those.

There's no real sidestreets or alleyways. There are simply different tunnels that reach the various bosses and quest objectives.

Also bugged me a lot how so much of the rotten decayed food was ... perfectly still good after decades

But that's an issue for every dungeon.

Danikat · June 2021

I suspect it's done to prevent performance issues. A big, detailed city full of NPCs and players is a lot for the servers to handle and no one's going to be happy if important hubs in chapter maps are prone to frequent crashes. So if we know from lore that a particular city is supposed to be huge and crowded and ZOS knows players will be disappointed with what they're able to provide they write in a reason to clear all the people out and turn it into a dungeon. (I think there was some of this in the base game too, like Camlorn being taken over by werewolves.)

Although I wonder if they could do something like Alinor's crafting area but on a larger scale. It took me a while to realise it's tucked away behind a series of walls and only accessible via a rectangular path for performance reasons: so the computer only has to load the crafting area or the rest of the city.

I wonder if they could create a large city with lots of winding streets, back alleys, different levels, tall buildings close together and so on which looks like something done for thematic purposes, to look like a realistic medieval city, but is actually structured in such a way that at any time only the parts immediately around you need to be loaded and little 'hub' areas (market squares, commercial streets etc.) are divided up with relatively empty streets, decorated with houses with inaccessible doors etc. so they don't look empty, but there's still not much for the game to load.

NupidStoob · June 2021

If cities were that big we'd had so many whine threads about how annoying it is to go anywhere there. Especially since you can only place so many useful things in them. Wayrest is already super annoying now imagine anything bigger. . You'd be bored by it after having been there for a few weeks regardless of how big it is and most of the players would just congregate in the useful areas while the rest would be dead.

Fennwitty · June 2021

NupidStoob wrote: »

If cities were that big we'd had so many whine threads about how annoying it is to go anywhere there. Especially since you can only place so many useful things in them. Wayrest is already super annoying now imagine anything bigger. . You'd be bored by it after having been there for a few weeks regardless of how big it is and most of the players would just congregate in the useful areas while the rest would be dead.

Agree. Wayrest is probably the most realistic town in the Elder Scrolls Online.

And it's a pain in the butt to find things and go places let alone do daily crafting writs.

If not for the NPC guilds and being in the base game, I expect Wayrest would only be populated as much as a random DLC city is now.

Veinblood1965 · June 2021

Beastygrowls wrote: »

OP you're kidding, right? You're criticizing a dungeon because you wanted it to be a town instead? You can't just be happy with a new dungeon? Jeez! What does it take for ZoS and game developers to please you people! Just go run the dungeon & find some creative positivity in your life!

lol i thought that same thing. But then again you can't please all the dark elfs all the time. But the OP obviously has not seen Harry Potter and the tent.

alberichtano · June 2021

whitecrow wrote: »

SidraWillowsky wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

If I can add one more design note for the game designers. Please stop having the hub cities require a "door" to get in. Just let us ride in like most of the base game cities and like the Elsweyr cites as well.

Seriously, what is WITH that??? Solitude, Markarth, Leyawiin-- it's beyond obnoxious to have to do that, and it's even more annoying because the default starter wayshrine is the one outside of the city. I don't know WHY it seems so excruciatingly painful to have to run a character from the Solitude docks wayshrine to the city one, but it's awful.

Also annoying when I try to see where to go for a quest and the marker is on... the door to the city.

Oh gods I hate that... I have to port out to random wayshrine to see where I need to go. *facepalm*

AlnilamE · June 2021

I think it's a double-edged sword. A big expansive and detailed city would look nice, but it would either be very impractical for everyday stuff, or people would just concentrate around the bank/crafting stations/traders and not really look at the rest of it.

I've not been to Leyawin yet, but if it's not as convenient as Vivec City, I'm really only going to go there for quests and such and then leave again.

Fennwitty wrote: »

NupidStoob wrote: »

If cities were that big we'd had so many whine threads about how annoying it is to go anywhere there. Especially since you can only place so many useful things in them. Wayrest is already super annoying now imagine anything bigger. . You'd be bored by it after having been there for a few weeks regardless of how big it is and most of the players would just congregate in the useful areas while the rest would be dead.

Agree. Wayrest is probably the most realistic town in the Elder Scrolls Online.

And it's a pain in the butt to find things and go places let alone do daily crafting writs.

If not for the NPC guilds and being in the base game, I expect Wayrest would only be populated as much as a random DLC city is now.

I maintain that whoever designed the DC towns hates crafters.

Dagoth_Rac · June 2021

Abah's Landing was a very large city, both horizontally and vertically. There was a lot to explore and find. But there were tons and tons of complaints when it came out about it being hard to navigate and things being too far apart.

Hallothiel · June 2021

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

Abah's Landing was a very large city, both horizontally and vertically. There was a lot to explore and find. But there were tons and tons of complaints when it came out about it being hard to navigate and things being too far apart.

Sad but true. And it’s not even *that* big….<sigh>