Embrace it and point out all the things they could change, so they either have the option to do as you said, or they can go back and remove lines of dialogue from certain interactions.

The amount of times my character is told that they're not whole or some part of them is missing has been staggering. I was doing some dark brotherhood DLC streaming yesterday, on a vestige character, where they detect parts of me are missing (in the lighthouse and when i receive the litany)- but I doubt they changed the dialogue for non-vestige characters- but I still have to confirm it

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/615312/non-vestige-playthrough

and don't forget they also let companions come back into flashbacks and areas only you are supposed to have access to. "choose only one companion! I can only let one person through" sorts of dialogue make no sense (like in the thieves' guild when you have to go to the party and can only choose 1 person due to the invitation, but Mirri can tag along no problem.)

I'll resume this project soon, I've been playing around with the new patch and other characters

To address one of your initial points... yes the game is confusing, and it actively repels new players. There needs to be more of a hook, rather than making it more interesting. Being immersive only works on certain people- why not just empower the new player and give them something like the Volendrung and make them feel like they're at the peak of their power when they start, and they have to work to get it all back? To me, that would be an awesome tale, but sadly everyone is tabula rasa'd and molded by the world and their character selection choices.

Dr_Con wrote: »

Embrace it and point out all the things they could change, so they either have the option to do as you said, or they can go back and remove lines of dialogue from certain interactions.

The amount of times my character is told that they're not whole or some part of them is missing has been staggering. I was doing some dark brotherhood DLC streaming yesterday, on a vestige character, where they detect parts of me are missing (in the lighthouse and when i receive the litany)- but I doubt they changed the dialogue for non-vestige characters- but I still have to confirm it

Thanks for you're input! I just remembered that in Blackwood, Elam Drals remembers you for one sentence only and than pretends he doesn't know you at all afterwards. It's just.. dude, thats cold XD

MaKTaiL wrote: »

Ever since Morrowind when they started making different starter tutorials I've been very against that idea. The original starter section of the main campaign was great and really set the vibe for the entire rest of the game. I really hope they revert back to what it was.

They won't, it is a marketing decision, not a game design one. If it was a game design decision they would have never changed it, the original tutorial from 2014 was great, still is and sets you up to understand what is going on, and dropped you in a true newbie zone, not the middle of some advanced zone full of encounters that easily one-shot a newb.

Welp, I started in beta, was here for launch. The main quest start failed to engage me at all.

I came back in Greymoor - with the cart ride, the attack, and Fennorian. To say I was more engaged from the get go is an understatement.

I did that entire questline, then on to the Reach, then started exploring out of these areas. Yes, the soulless, vestige stuff gets thrown around a lot, but I've never found it too off putting.

I haven't finished the main quest on any character, and have since jumped into dungeons, trials, etc. I've done the full storylines of Blackwood and High Isle (so far).

I will eventually get to that main quest, but I'm mostly enjoying exploring and thwacking things.

The current system is probably better for accommodating different types of players, a lot of people don't care about the story at all (or quests in general) and others may want to create their own story by choosing their own order of events (and are presumably willing to deal with the discrepancies that will come up as a result).

Having said that I agree that it could be a lot better at accommodating those who actually want to play through the story as intended.

Top of my list would be changing the starter zone portals to send you to your Alliance's first major city, not to the islands. At the moment the likely order of events for a new player who wants to do things in the right order is:

1. Tutorial
2. Look up which island is the start for their Alliance and go there
3. Do the islands quests, being told at least once they don't have a soul
4. Complete it and go on to the main city
5. Meet the Hooded Figure and get sent to Coldharbour
6. Complete that area and leave
7. Find themselves back on the starter island with absolutely nothing to do (because they already completed all the quests) except try to figure out where they're supposed to go next

I was going to say the only way it works is if you choose the 'wrong' island first, so you're sent to a different one when you leave Coldharbour, but that doesn't work because even though you can meet the Hooded Figure in any city they'll always send you to your Alliance's first city to start the quest, so new players would be sent to a place on the opposite side of the map. (And if that was me I'd assume that meant the quest was intended for later and put it off until I got to that area.)

I recently started a new character and as mentioned above, if you engage with every quest that pops up you end up right back at the starting island with everything already cleared.

It was at this point where things started to get messy. I used a wayshrine to get back to the zone where the hooded figure had taken me. Following the main quest has always been easy due to it's bright orange appearance, but everywhere I turned I was inundated with prologue/starting quests for new zones.

I'm the type of person who'll play content in a logical order so I'll avoid the quest chains that technically should occur at a later time in my character's story. The problem is that new players will not be able to differentiate regular zone quests from those that take the player off the original path.

Similar to how the main quest has a different color to its quest marker, maybe quests that are truly associated with the zone you're in should have a different color than the ones that lead your character to new zones.

MaKTaiL wrote: »

Ever since Morrowind when they started making different starter tutorials I've been very against that idea. The original starter section of the main campaign was great and really set the vibe for the entire rest of the game. I really hope they revert back to what it was.

I like the main quest, but I also like (most) of the tutorials that came before. Exception being Summerset and Blackwood. You should get to pick, before you start, what tutorial/story you want or to skip if you’ve done one before. Not go through a tutorial and then pick a story. All tutorials would still exist in the game and could be tweaked for existing vs new characters. First time you go to Morrowind you get cutscene of ship, etc and can skip cutscene and go directly there or play the intro (what used to be the tutorial). And all zones should have quests to take you there and ways to get there without relying on immersion breaking “grab the story from the crown store”. You can still do that, if you want, but it shouldn’t be SO hard to organically follow the quest and get to new areas.

I.... kind of think that most people starting a new game do research on it online? I mean, I did - I read a lot on this forum, I checked the addons available, I figured out how to start the game MQ before I ever bought the game and subbed. And I'm OLD. Today's younger folks live online - what makes you think they do no research?

TaSheen wrote: »

I.... kind of think that most people starting a new game do research on it online? I mean, I did - I read a lot on this forum, I checked the addons available, I figured out how to start the game MQ before I ever bought the game and subbed. And I'm OLD. Today's younger folks live online - what makes you think they do no research?

Eh, other than checking some reviews to make sure I actually want a game, why would I "research" it? I might run into spoilers. And until I actually play a game in it's base state, I can't tell if/what mods or changes I'll want to add to it.

With most games it's a couple trailers, a couple reviews, maybe a bit of word-of-mouth or articles on Kotaku/Polygon/whatever. /shrug


(that said, I don't try new MMOs often, but rather single-player games. I still never really 'researched' any of the MMOs I've started. Oh, that looks interesting, oh it's reasonably cheap, go for it. With ESO, I'd ignored it for a few years then watched over the shoulder as an IRL friend wandered around a bit on his PS4. That got my curiosity, and then I grabbed a physical copy from Amazon for $10-20 in 2016. Research? Why?)


edit: maybe it's my own views coloring things, but I'd be surprised if the average player did in-depth checking on a game. Seems like the kind of thing only the really dedicated would go in for. (after all, think of all the games that online coverage has article after article about how terrible they/their devs/their publishers are, and how no-one should be supporting them and their terrible monetization/corporate practices/etc... and yet those articles are followed up by other ones about how the game is making record-breaking amounts, with millions of players. Think of all the lousy mobile games that are making 100's of mil a month. Do you really think that 'most' game players research before starting a new game?)

edit2: you know, whether someone researches ahead of time probably varies by group. First time MMO players vs vetarans; quest/story/explore people vs dedicated endgame/PvP players; min-maxer/"meta" players vs not.
Of course, this suggests that the people who'd need the research the most (first time questers) are probably the least likely to do it. Which is why it'd be good if the game had a checkbox for "railroad me through the story in order, please!"

TaSheen wrote: »

I.... kind of think that most people starting a new game do research on it online? I mean, I did - I read a lot on this forum, I checked the addons available, I figured out how to start the game MQ before I ever bought the game and subbed. And I'm OLD. Today's younger folks live online - what makes you think they do no research?

Well i can't speak for others but i personaly don't, since i want to avoid spoilers. The only times that i do search online is when there is a decision to make and i can't quite decide what is ''right'' (since you can't reload). Also, the vast majority of the information available is mostly in english so... it's not that easy for everyone. But i get what you mean, yeah

Cyndërielle wrote: »

Except no, you can't really do that.

I've been playing since 2015 and enjoy making new characters. I didn't mind the vvardenfell tutorial too much, in fact i did like it. But now the game is, as we know it, extremely confusing to new players and maybe even to returning players. The main quest should be a priority but it's clear thats not the case. I can't even imagine how frustrated i would be (as a new player) to start in any other zone (like Greymoor) and to start the main quest MUCH later on, only to realize that i was suppose to know a good number of the characters BEFORE doing Greymoor.

So, to me saying that where you start the game doesn't matter is quite deceitful. Unless they are planning to add dialogue lines so that characters in early zones recognize you (which i highly doubt they would ever do) i thought the game was suppose to be story driven? Or did that change too??

As an exemple, in FF14 the main story has a big icon thats hard to miss since it's really different from the others. They should also warn new players (before going throught any portals) which one is part of the base game and which one comes later in the time line. Don't even get me started on playing the dlcs in order... thats just a mess. There should be something in the game (part of the turorial and or zone guide) that makes it obvious. Like a list or a picture or something.

So, i had to get my frustrations out. But what about you? How do you feel about it? What would you do to fix it if you could?

YEAH I WANNA START IN CYRODIIL IVE HAD ENOUGH OF MAKING A NEW ALT AND STARTING IN A NEW LOCATION WHERE ITS A CHAPTER/DLC LOCATION MAKE SURE NEW PLAYERS CAN CYRODIIL I CBA LVLLING TO 10 AND GO THERE.

ButternutJam wrote: »

Cyndërielle wrote: »

Except no, you can't really do that.

I've been playing since 2015 and enjoy making new characters. I didn't mind the vvardenfell tutorial too much, in fact i did like it. But now the game is, as we know it, extremely confusing to new players and maybe even to returning players. The main quest should be a priority but it's clear thats not the case. I can't even imagine how frustrated i would be (as a new player) to start in any other zone (like Greymoor) and to start the main quest MUCH later on, only to realize that i was suppose to know a good number of the characters BEFORE doing Greymoor.

So, to me saying that where you start the game doesn't matter is quite deceitful. Unless they are planning to add dialogue lines so that characters in early zones recognize you (which i highly doubt they would ever do) i thought the game was suppose to be story driven? Or did that change too??

As an exemple, in FF14 the main story has a big icon thats hard to miss since it's really different from the others. They should also warn new players (before going throught any portals) which one is part of the base game and which one comes later in the time line. Don't even get me started on playing the dlcs in order... thats just a mess. There should be something in the game (part of the turorial and or zone guide) that makes it obvious. Like a list or a picture or something.

So, i had to get my frustrations out. But what about you? How do you feel about it? What would you do to fix it if you could?

YEAH I WANNA START IN CYRODIIL IVE HAD ENOUGH OF MAKING A NEW ALT AND STARTING IN A NEW LOCATION WHERE ITS A CHAPTER/DLC LOCATION MAKE SURE NEW PLAYERS CAN CYRODIIL I CBA LVLLING TO 10 AND GO THERE.

You can pick your starting zone if you go through the starting tutorial.

I don't know why you fail to get the "pick were to start" option if you skip the tutorial. Skipping the tutorial should put you in the room with all the portals, not the latest starting zone spot.

FluffWit wrote: »

I'd say new players could just Google it but I just tried that and the results were useless.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/413807/what-order-should-i-do-esos-story-arcs-a-guide/p4

This is the best I've found.

TaSheen wrote: »

I.... kind of think that most people starting a new game do research on it online? I mean, I did - I read a lot on this forum, I checked the addons available, I figured out how to start the game MQ before I ever bought the game and subbed. And I'm OLD. Today's younger folks live online - what makes you think they do no research?

I think it varies a lot between people. (This kind of reminds me of a topic on another forum where someone was genuinely surprised to learn no one else had written down the name of every single game they had ever played and whether they finished it or not.)

I used to sell video games for a living and I can tell you a lot of people will buy games they know very little or nothing about, even if they're buying it for themselves and not getting it as a gift.

I do a bit of research into a game before getting it, but only to find out what type of game it is and if it sounds like something I want to play. Which varies by genre - for an 'interactive story' game I'm checking whether you actually get to play or if they decided it was easier to add a few clicks to their cartoon and dump it on Steam than get distribution for it as a movie, for an MMO I'll check the payment model, how grindy it is, does it have open-world PvP or an endless gear treadmill or other things I don't want to deal with etc.

I don't think it would ever occur to me to research how to start playing a game and which choices I need to make to be able to find and start the main story because I'd expect the game to tell me that, unless of course there isn't one or finding it is part of the point. But game like that are very different, they're not written with an intended order in mind and generally won't lead you around in circles, dumping you back into an area you've already completed with nothing new to do unless they're badly made.