A True MMO build: What Zenimax needs to change in ESO.

This post has nothing to do with bot spammers and gold sellers, which is an equally frustrating problem, but one that's already being death with. I've looked and found no place in the forums for discussion of the general direction ESO has taking, so i'm posting this here.

Most of you may be familiar with the term "Themepark" MMO's. A term describing a stale, never-changing game, one where players follow a string of quests, phased only to them, isolating them while fooling them with the illusion of "change", and qued-pvp instances with zero consequences, rendering the "rewards" pointless. Why is this such a common trait among mmo's?

It's my belief that game developers have forgotten the true concept of an MMO, in their own quest to become the new "WOW", the new great money-making, soul-draining machine that EVERYONE wants to play. The only reason I invested in ESO was because I thought I saw evidence to the contrary. I saw they were
trying to break this vicious decent of "Themepark" MMO's. But the corruption lingers, and admittedly, it's scary for developers to innovate, to divert from what clearly works and makes money. But it's important to know why things work, and if they work for the right reasons.

So, with the money-making mindset, how would You go about creating an MMO? Well, if making money was your goal, you would know that you will need to create something that appeals to all different types of gamers. But how can that even be possible? Everyone knows Pve'rs and Pvp'ers don't mix, right? One group inevitably drives the other away. The first solution that comes to mind, with the goal mentioned previously, is segregation.

Segregation is the new great solution of money-making MMO's, the element that turns it into a "Themepark". But for the sake of argument, I'm going to change that term to something I feel is more accurate: Zoo.
Games that rely on segregation to protect and retain players are "Zoos". The Pve'rs stay in the Pve Zones, or "Cages", if you will. And the Pvp'rs stay in their own cages.

Cyrodil is such a cage, and I'm about to explain how it is in fact NOT world pvp, as falsely described by so many people. As you know, you need to pick a Cyrodil campaign before entering. Once you enter, you have to leave and re-enter the zone through the wayshrines, and for all intents and purposes, the zone is completely cut off from the rest of the world. There is no connection between the megaserver and various Cyrodil zones. Nothing you accomplish in Cyrodil has a direct influence on the megaserver, and vice-versa, (Aside from individual
character leveling and gear), and its purposely designed that way. It may as well be a never-ending WoW Battleground. These facts alone are enough to prove it's a cage, albeit a very large one. I'll come back to Pvp later, but for now Pve is a more pressing matter.

Nearly every quest in the game is phased, meaning as you progress through it, you get put into a different version of the world. Most of you know and have been frustrated by the fact that you cannot go back and assist your friends who are on previous quests. But if this is an MMO, shouldn't it support grouping?
Sure, there's sorry excuses for dungeons and small group areas, but nothing that really creates a need for communication or real interaction, not for more than explaining "Get out of the red stuff", or other extremely basic game functions. Phasing is just a way to fool Pve'rs in believeing what they do matters. You saved the town, you found the lost kitten, you slayed the dragon, and the game changes accordingly to acknowledge that. But it's not a real acomplishment, it's something every single other player goes through, usually just on their own. Everyone is
surrounded by their own individual cages of NPC interaction, "Hey, he's the one who saved the king!" or "You're the chosen one to defeat Molag Bal!" or "Your exploits are well-known". These are statements designed to keep PvE'rs invested in the "MMO", when in fact it would have made as much of an impact to the world if they had never even played in the first place. They may as well have been playing Skyrim or any other single-player game, Yet they choose to spend 15 dollars a month to sit in their own little cage.

That's the worst aspect of Pve in MMO's, one that's strongly represented in ESO, but there are good ones too. Some more successful than others. For example, Dark Anchors is a concept that attempts to break the individual PvE bubble, and
bring consequence to the world, but ultimately fails. The concept itself is good: Dark Anchors spontaneously appear throughout the world and it's up to the players to deal with them. Supposedly if you choose to ignore them, the land
will be merged with Coldharbor, bringing daedric horros and devastating the land. Does this ever actually happen? No.

The only consequence for ignoring an anchor is simply not experiencing closing one. Every single anchor could be ignored in game and not a damn thing would change. Thankfully none of them are phased, and it is possible to bring friends
along to close them, but aside from that, they fall completely flat. Obviously you can't end the game if people end up ignoring them, but leaving events like these completely consequence-less is a mistake.

Obviously the counter-argument to Individual Cage-style of Pve is the fact that people will either miss out on content, or be unprepared for the challenges. Both are valid arguments, but only for single-player games. If you buy a single-player
game, you'd expect to be able to see all the content as a single person, that everything would be unlockable, and you could restart the game at any time if you dont like how you progressed. Expecting this kind of guarenteed content
from an MMO is folly. You wouldn't expect something like that from entering a class in the middle of the semester,would you? True MMO's are meant to be dynamic and with their own line of events supported by the players. You pay
a subscription fee to be a part of something ever-changing, somthing you would want to be involved in every month,not for static content that you can finish in two weeks on your own, then wait a few more months for new static content.

MMO Pve needs to be something where players can actively engage in quests that TRULY affect the world, and everyone else. Something where you can say you contributed to maintaining the peace of a zone, or you helped defeat Molag bal's forces, something you could put a date and time on. Instead of having people say in chat "Hey I saved the king." and people responding "No *** everyone did it's just a stupid phased quest", you could have people saying "Hey, remember
when that Dark Anchor appeared at (Date and time) and threatened (important City)?" "I remember that too, luckily we were able to group together and stop it, man it was crazy."

So as the game is now, they're using the most segregated form of Pve, one where everyone is in individual cages. Obviously you can't go to this extreme for caging Pvp, as the name implies, it requires player interaction. Thus, everyone who does
want to Pvp is forced into the sveeral differnt Cyrodils, which ridiculously acts more like a daedric realm than a part of Nirn.

I honestly can't think of how the game could be any MORE segregated than it already is, and this trend needs to be reversed FAST,
if theres any hope for ESO to continue.

Now we're back to the reason why I call this type of MMO a "Zoo". It's because true MMO's need to be more like a Safari. It is in fact possible for both PvPers and PvErs to co-exist. The parallel is in reality. You don't worry about people
running around the streets "ganking lowbies" who are just trying to get through life, do you? Well, you might based on where you live. But if you don't, it's because of social structures people create to protect each other, which, suprise suprise, can work inside MMO's. It's what the true purpose of Factions and Guilds should be, to be a part of an alliance with people willing to help you against
both PvE and PvP problems.

The way the game is now, the only purpose Factions provide is to motivate Pvpers inside their Cyrodil cage. It has absolutely no value to Pve'rs, just a way to separate zones, and is even more pointless when opposite faction members can enter as "guests" and complete quests as if they were a part of that faction. At that point, there may as well not even be factions. What's the point? There is no
ACTUAL threat that creates a need for factions in the first place.

In a true "Safari" type of MMO, players would be free to act as they will, for better and most likely for worse, which would in turn create a REAL need for factions. So many people whine as if the game would be unplayable with REAL open world PvP. What they like to forget is the fact that Factions are not made for enabling Pvp, they're for protecting players against it.

There are so many resources for Players to avoid gankers, and there could be more implemented. Everyone can stealth, everyone can rez without much fuss, potentially right where they were killed, and EVERYONE has literally THOUSANDS of other players on their faction willing to help them. No one is truly helpless. And even then, game measurses could be implemented to support the Faction mentality, level-appropriate guards, patrols, a crime-tracking system, etc.

My point is there is a LOT the developers can do to create a True MMO, one with a real ecosystem, a place for both PvEers and PvPers to coexist
as they would naturally. A Balance CAN be achieved, but it will take serious innovating. The Devs will have to be willing to risk losing a lot of money, but its that same fear of loss that creates the "Zoo" style of MMO. The walls between the cages need to be broken, otherwise they risk stagnation and death.

I eagerly await the release of the Thieves' Guild and Dark Brotherhood, hopefully their mechanics will support the kind of open world Safari type of MMO many people had hoped ESO would be. It's not too late to fix this game, and it's clear the Devs WANT to improve it. Don't let it fall flat like so many other games have.

TGEK wrote: »

keondre.branchcub18_ESO wrote: »

[snip]

Forums being dead is the biggest shock to me. I would love to see how many subs they have, and how many they are going to lose when the 1 month is up.

The game won't die, but it will definitely go F2P within 12-18 months.

I recently got an award for "5 Agrees" only 6000 people in the world had that yesterday... that should say something.

If they had a inventory slot store, I would have already spent 100 extra bucks there.... but, I hope it stays sub.

[edited to remove quote]

ultimate abilities should not be limited to 6 mobs or any other number at all.

There are just so many things wrong with this game, I hardly know where to start.

I'm an avid PvPer. Every mmo I've ever played, I've almost strictly pvp'd and been successful in achieveing high ranks and titles. This game's pvp is utter garbage. Not because it's imbalanced, but because the Cyrodil map is too freaking big. I spend most of my time running around on my horse. I played 3 hours last night and 2 of them were spent running around on my horse trying to find my team or find people to fight (yes, I know about the ports, but that rarely takes you to the direct fight). There has to be a solution for this. Make the map smaller; make the port shrines not to the keeps, but to mid points between keeps so you don't have to control them to port there. Do something besides making me run around, the landscape isn't that interesting.

Another problem, everything is a zerg fest. You never get to actually fight anyone in a fair battle. You find one person, and somehow there's a team of 50+ attacking you before you get the kill. Zerging is not pvp, it's just crap.

I also feel horrible for people playing melee builds (I'm a healer/ranged). They never get to fight in the zerg fights. They get smooshed instantly because they have to run in to hit something, but all the sorcerers and ranged people just sit in the back and aoe. What the heck. If I wanted to have giant aoe fights, I'd go pve.

Another problem, the inability to target heals. Why do I have to heal people around me that aren't in my party? If I'm not grouped up with them, I don't want to play with them, therefore I don't care if they live or die. Too many times have my heals used my last bit of magika to heal some joe schmoe and let me die because he was a smidge lower than me. Why am I dying to heal a lvl 10? I don't care. There should be an option that lets me choose who to heal. Make it so it only heals people in my party. Allow me to hold a button and heal myself, like ctrl+ heal heals me. ANYTHING to stop me from having to heal every person around me.

These are huge glaring problems. I can't believe people are finding this fun. I play pvp to kill other players, not group up with them.

ruze84b14_ESO wrote: »

Just some choice quotes from your post. In my personal opinion, you and me have different goals and desires. Which is why I like this game so much. I love grouping. Teamwork. PvP.

Who knows. But I do think I'd like to keep it mostly the way it is.

Grouping and teamwork aren't generally what I'd consider when I think about player versus player environments. That's carebear logic. Plus, I shouldn't have to group up with people, in order to succeed, if I don't want. I'd go back to playing WoW if I wanted to have social connections with strangers over the internet.

Anyways, my post was about issues in the game, not about playing with people necessarily. You chose specific tidbits about me not liking other players to turn what I said into an anti-social hate-fest, which is not the case.

Again, my issues were wanting to have priority to heal the players in my party and myself, not everyone around me. Not wanting to run around on my horse for 25 minutes looking for a fight. Not wanting to watch my melee partner get squashed in 2 seconds because he tries to fight in a group against a group. Not wanting to have every fight a giant zerg fest to objective points. I want to battle, not collect scrolls. Again, If I wanted to pve (aoe kill mobs while completing objectives), I'd go pve. But I don't. I want to kill players. Therefore, killing players should be about killing players, not collecting scrolls and controlling keeps, and running around for 25 minutes trying to figure out where everyone is because the map is so big.

"That's the worst aspect of Pve in MMO's, one that's strongly represented in ESO, but there are good ones too. Some more successful than others. For example, Dark Anchors is a concept that attempts to break the individual PvE bubble, and
bring consequence to the world, but ultimately fails. The concept itself is good: Dark Anchors spontaneously appear throughout the world and it's up to the players to deal with them. Supposedly if you choose to ignore them, the land
will be merged with Coldharbor, bringing daedric horros and devastating the land. Does this ever actually happen? No."

This is exactly what the Rifts MMO does with rifts in the game when they open denizens from the "other dimension" comes through and ravages any NPCs that exist there and or player characters, but this also exists in Defiance when an *Arkfall occures. This type of thing NEVER has huge impacts in ANY MMO. Maybe it'd be nice if it did however? Well for one thing if the area was devoid of players who wanted to take on the situation then the entire area no doubt would be devastated or what would happen if the pcs there wasn't ready for the npc invasion and would die every time they attacked those incursions? There's alot more issues if the NPCs ever did completely win the zone...I realize it's not "realism" but neither is being automatically rezzed at a wayshrine..we have to balance "realism" with online gaming while individually have the ability to separate our fantasy character with our real selves. Real pvp in my opinion would include any death is permanent our gear could all be removed and any money removed from ones dead PC. Players would have to remake another character from scratch, this type of MMO game would quickly fail as well as fall victim to any small dominate group of completely ruling the entire area.

I've been playing rpgs since 1975 and MMOs since UA I've seen alot of game rules fail and or games themselves become so monotonous one just goes elsewhere.

PLEASE BEFORE ADDING CONTENT FIX THE MESS CALLED PHASING SO I CAN QUEST WITH MY FRIENDS.

TwiztidJuggalo wrote: »

This would put a force on the moon drawing it closer and closer in every 8 days ( I think its 8 days from full to full?).

Look up at the night sky .. there are TWO moons.

KerinKor wrote: »

RingobloodtheOld wrote: »

PLEASE BEFORE ADDING CONTENT FIX THE MESS CALLED PHASING SO I CAN QUEST WITH MY FRIENDS.

The 'mess' as you SHOUT IT is a core part of the game's design in that it allows permanent changes to be made to the world as you affect it.

Or do you mean 'layering', which is a core part of the 'mega-server' design.

Whichever you're referring to is here to stay.

I feel he's more intending a fix for grouping mechanics, which don't allow players to partake in quests they've already done, intentionally separates players who are both on the same quest objective, and makes grouping with friends and family such a chore as to make it difficult to play anything but solo.

While this IS a core part of game design, there could be a compromise that allowed for team play and helping out our loved ones.

you also have pve in Cryodiil, thus one can say that pve and pvp content aren't completely segregated from each other

Topher wrote: »

Crowd Source the huge amount of good players you have, to:dispose of these spamming/hacking people with extreme prejudice. Screw their greed and disrespect for a fantastic game.

LOL, open world PVP as a solution to bots .. what could POSSIBLY go wrong?

/rolleyes

Thanks for the update Matt. I'm going now on DAY FIVE of not being able to play because my account is screwed up and it thinks I've not even purchased the game. The last CS person to contact me was a couple of days ago, and they just said they would elevate my issue. I've found now a couple of other people who are having the same exact problem as I am having. Still no solution for them either.

Topher wrote: »

I have to ask: Is there anything we, the true fans/hardcore lovers of all things Tamriel, can do to help make this stop? If you ask any real fan of the game I am certain every single person would be willing to do ANYTHING to get this situation under control.

Answer: no. Other than continuing to pay the developer salaries and be patient, there is nothing players can do. It is all on the coding and developing end, which is their job, not ours. Open world pvp will and not SHOULD NOT EVER be even thought of as a "fix" to anything ever period.

RingobloodtheOld wrote: »

... and play what an MMO truly is, and quest, do dungeon, PvP, Raid, ect with my friends, bc as of right now you cant do it in t his so-called MMO.

To be more clear and specific, you CAN do all of that. Dungeons and public dungeons work great for grouping. PvPing is another common mechanic that groups well. World bosses, too. And with Craglorn and Trials, we have more traditional raid-type scenarios ... also specifically built for grouping.

My complaint is that the standard quests, very specifically the main quests but also including many quest hubs, don't support grouping, by design.

I feel they should. The quest dialogue may still focus on the 'hero', but support for the 'hero and his companions' should be included.

Otherwise, this game is every bit an MMO, and an excellent one in my personal opinion.

Valei wrote: »

Not a single word about the state of Cyrodil. Not. A. Single. One.

So what?