Anhedonie wrote: »

Not really. Nowadays it just feels more like some random MMO with all the glowy mounts and stuff.

ESO.

CSO. Crown Store Online.

I played Morrowwind back in the day. The contents of the boxed set (but sadly not the box itself) are on one of my shelves in my collection. It was.. difficult. No hand-holding. I started off on a dock, wandered around, and got insulted by guards. Then I heard a whale-like sound, looked up, and was like, "Whoooaahhhhh". After that, I headed off into the countryside and sandboxed my way through the game.

The music, the ash blowing across the landscape, being killed mercilessly by..everything, really. Great fun.

If TES was a perfectly ripe, fragrant, flavorful just-picked garden tomato, ESO is a hothouse tomato that looked like the real thing, but was genetically grown to be sturdy for shipping, had never seen the real sun, ever, and lost its flavor and soul along its sad journey.

The grinding does affect the spirit of ESO. For dungeons and stories? Solo + grind. Cyrodii quests? Learn PVP and grind (and die lots). Want to get better loot and learn more about historical artifacts and snippets of lore? Scry and grind.

Of course you have a choice not to do them, but quite a few contents which have stories or lore related are gated and the only means is through grinding. It does affect the gameplay and experience.

Short answer for now:

Yes, I feel The Elder Scrolls spirit while playing ESO. It's even changed the way I play the other TES games.

If I ignore every multi-player and grind aspect of ESO, then I can feel it. This means solo questing and exploring only and maybe dressing in a rustic outfit and riding an ordinary mount without speed buffs of any kind. Bonus points are added if something kills me.

For me, ESO has never felt like an Elder Scrolls Game. Except for the race selection, some lore, zones/location names.... the gameplay and even the atmosphere has never given me actual TES. I really think this comes down to some really basic stuff:
One of my favorite things to do in TES games is exploring and walking around haha yet ESO seems very lacking in that regard. Discovering locations on the map never feels exciting and the loot we do get is pretty much worthless most of the time. Even WoW has more exciting treasures you can find throughout their zones (no, normal ESO style chests don't count). Mounts are also so fast that I just.... zoom through the whole zone haha and mount physics (physics in general are a problem actually) really take away from this as well. Like riding a mount in ESO then jumping over to GW2 and riding one, well, there's a HUGE difference. Even in TESV riding a horse felt more immersive.
Combat also plays a big part. I see a lot of people give the excuse of "well, it's an MMO" for ESO combat.... and nah, I can't see it that way and never will. They could have totally kept to TES style combat a bit more accurately and still been a legitimate MMO. It's funny and I mention this often, but New World feels more TES than ESO does in this sense and I just absolutely love it. Sometimes when I miss shooting a bow in TES games, I hop on New World and do it there. I mean, seriously.... I can't even be a proper spellsword in ESO. That's lowkey unforgivable for something with TES in the title.
I'm sure I could think of more, but the last thing I'll mention is.... Nords. This is really just my opinion and I know it doesn't fully make sense, even I can't explain it well to myself.... but for some reason Nords just feel off to me in ESO. They were usually my favorite race, but now in ESO I really only play as Imperial and Khajiit so.... sad life haha
So yeah, as odd as it may sound.... The Elder Scrolls Online would never be a game that would satisfy the urge to play a TES game for me. Not even close.

Yes. Lore is rich, and in a great era (as a Dunmer lover, Skyrim makes me extremely sad to see decimated Dark Elves), lots of places to explore, interesting hundreds of characters (and they are no all voice by the same 7 people ).

I never play anything in 1st person (hate it), so ESO being built around 3rd is not an issue for me.

ESO is as close to my beloved Morrowind as another game could be, so I'm happy.

I played and loved all the non- mobile ES games back in the day, and for me ESO not only delivers in the older-ES-Games nostalgia department (‚Vhoa, look at Stros M‘kai! Do you remember the time when Cyrus…‘, or ‚Yay, I just met the Dremora I met back in Morrowind, and he…‘), I already feel nostalgic when meeting ESO OCs in other than their original areas.
And I absolutely adore Brad Derrick‘s original soundtracks. And the character design is a nice blend of all the char designs of the past.

Even though there is much less nekkid skin than in, say, Daggerfall .

SPR_of_HA_community wrote: »

I feel bad balanced MMO with strange changes each patch, constant nerfs and not pressing skills.

I do not play other games of this series and do not plan to do so.

They why the comment? This has nothing to do with any of what you just listed. Maybe it's time for you to go look for another mmo. Tbh most of the people that stick around only do so because it's and elder scrolls game. If it was some random MMO I woulda left months ago.

Rowjoh wrote: »

It's like trying to compare the best selling book with the film. Technically you can't, no matter the similarities and differences, because they're completely different mediums.

That's utterly untrue, of course you can compare them. People are doing that every day, and have been doing so for years. Yes, there are obvious differences between different forms of media- they should be part of the discussion, not cognitive blocks to thinking critically about some subject matter.

I'd like to see more exploration-oriented gameplay. I think there is scope for skills that might be useful for more than just combat. Light spells, open lock spells, spells that change disposition. Calm Animals, Banish Daedra, Turn Undead. Just interesting ways to deal with low-level "trash" that doesn't have any real meaning anyway. It would reinforce that the core mechanics and ways to engage the game don't have to be just about combat.

Related to this, I'd love to see more done with Heist/Sacrament-style gameplay. Those are really actually quite fun, and I wish they were core, and not just relegated to peripheral activities.

I'd love for the world to support exploration as an activity more. It really is a gorgeous world- its where ZOS really shines, imv, and I want more reasons to be in it than just grinding mobs. Right now, I think that gathering mats and surveys is the closest reason this game has (for me) for being in the world, but I think there could be more. Treasure chest hunting could be a great example, its a classic fantasy rpg activity, and the idea of great loot is exciting, but the rewards are often really disappointing vs. effort. Striking Locales and random Vignettes are fantastic additions, but I think that while some of the former are great (for instance, Valenwood Gate in N. Elsweyr), others just really fall flat, and add nothing. The ones that really tell me something about the world, or place the "zone" back into the context of the greater world are really the best. I've enjoyed some of the vignettes- the Vvardenfell duelling house mages was awesome, and the Argonian with a twist encountered in Summerset and Murkmire might be the best one ever- more recently many of them feel like they're just there to be slapstick goofy which really sets a tone I just don't enjoy, especially at the expense of something that could tell me about the world or its history.

I love the move towards more dynamic world events, be it dynamic portals or wandering world bosses. They add to the sense of exploration and are really appreciated. I hope they continue doing more stuff like this in the future.

More zone interconnections would **really** add to the sense of exploration, for me. Having multiple ways between zones would add a lot to exploration potential. Is there any reason there can't be more connections? As it stands, some zones have absolutely no connections at all. Dragonstar should absolutely be connected with The Reach. Blackwood has no apparent reason it shouldn't be connected to Murkmire. That Alik'r Desert is completely isolated from Bangkorai's Forgotten Wastes makes no sense. These, in my view, are crucial. If I was going to go further, I'd say that Craglorn could be connected to Mournoth, and Wrothgar to Rivenspire. It must be recognised, though, that its something they obviously consider- they put a gate in between Blackwood and both Shadowfen and Northern Elsweyr. Someone even went back in later and took the effort to put in a path on the Elsweyr side. These little things have and do add immensely to my enjoyment- those three latter zones now form part of my farming route, and I've spent a lot of hours engaged in that. The move between Elsweyr and Blackwood is particularly cool, and if they put a landward gate in at Murkmire, I'd have more reason to visit there, too.

What I would find more immersive, if it were possible, is if there were more suggestions in the landscape about where a place might be- sort of environmental transitions/structures etc that let you know where the zone sits in the world. Things as simple as road signs pointing to cities we can visit (and even those we can't yet) are such a simple, low-key thing that would just add so much verisimilitude. Blackwood's environment does this really well with its transition into Black Marsh. As mentioned earlier, stuff like the Valenwood Gate adds to this, too. Where there is scope, I'd absolutely love to see more: places like the gate from Bangkorai to The Reach, for instance. Its a pass between provinces peopled by very different populations, with distinct history and politics. Its probably seen bloody wars and need for control. In order to be immersive, to have the world tell a story, it demands thought. What would such a fascinating place look like? What can I learn about the world by exploring it? I'm still hoping and wishing that one day they will put a real gate somewhere on the Markarth side, because the cart feels like just another wayshrine.

In the same vein, ship connections need work. Some of the connections are just silly, and others simply don't exist that should. With all the islands and port cities we have, we should have an immersive system that makes sense.

I'd love to see more distinct inter-province character. In the SPTs, the world really did tell a story. One of the languages with which it did tell these stories was the architecture. By reading the world, you can see Hlaalu is here, but Redoran over there. Cold, merethic-stone Windhelm feels different from warm, wooden Whiterun. Anvil prides itself on the Redguard influences to its architecture, and Bruma buildings are of the north. I don't know what the different drivers were between decisions to have ESO's Vvardenfell have such a bounty of different architectural styles, and every one since be stuck with only one, but its an impact on the immersiveness and story-telling of the world.

I'd love to build more relationships with NPCs and organisations. I love the guild system, but I wish I felt like I belonged to them. They feel like something that happened back in 2014 and have just been forgotten about. I wish my choice of joining, or choosing not to join, mattered. Even if this was just in the form of new types of delve dailies for each new zone. If there were no room for that, I'd argue to have the NPC quest givers from each new zone replaced with guild job brokers.

As for mechanics, they tend to take me out of the world. Stamina feels like green magicka. My class feels almost locked in to an "energy type" identity thing which feels very MMOey and really not very Elder Scrollsey at all. My sorc wants to use ice magic because they are from the north, but my only options are to either roll up the weird ice-bug-druid thing the Warden is, or settle for the significant hit to damage that an ice staff on a sorc represents. Meanwhile, a good deal of my skill toolkit just don't fit. The same would be found if I had wanted to be a fire mage. Technically, you can just "play how you want", but the hit to damage, and the build against core skills makes it feel like the system is telling you you're doing it wrong.

I'd love to see the introduction of some classes that really speak to classic Elder Scrolls power fantasies. A classic Mage could have a diverse problem-solving-based toolkit, but could easily conceptually be stretched to any of the traditional roles with a little thought. More martial, non-magical options like, say the barbarian would be really cool too. Sometimes I don't want to play something dependant on arcane skills, as it stands, I feel shoe-horned.

Gear is for meta. It has no soul to it. Its just a hat-drawn, seasonal theme name tacked onto a bunch of stuff. What's Syrabane's Axe? Did he use an axe? And if so, what's this "Warlock's Axe"? Wasn't Syrabane the eponymous Warlock? What's Titanborn's robe? Was she wearing one? Did she give it to me? What's Sul-xan's ring? Was one of them just randomly wearing one? In the SPTs, gear choice was all very personal, with quests centred around gaining epic gear that had story and meaning. In ESO you just grind for Blarblather's Perfected Blahblah and put a costume over it. Its not creative. Meta leaves no room for narrative or creativity. And gear is designed for meta.

These are my biggest bugbears. There are obviously a bunch of other's that the immersion-junkies like me care about but resign ourselves to, given the format, and where we are in the game's lifecycle. Some things you just accept, ignore and get on with it, and some you keep hoping that they will find room for change for. I think there's room for optimism. The developers demonstrably listen, and it seems to me that where there's room for it, they make changes.

I would argue with the OP on the ESO Spirit starting in Morrowind.... I have played since Arena first came out (yes, Elder Scrolls 1) - and the spirit started in 2, Daggerfall.
A LOT of the lore we use now, was there, in the little books you found, etc.

A lot of it was built upon, over time, but the Memory Stone of Leki --- it was a book in Daggerfall, as were a LOT of other things ..... so much lore in that game.
A LOT of the lore began there, and was added to, since.

Auldwulfe

Sometimes, but only when I pull myself away from the newer stuff that's come out over the last couple of years. Since Greymoor the game has felt less like an Elder Scrolls game, and I have to find RP communities or go out of my way to some long lost place to get that feeling again.

Doesn't help the combat system has been watered down to, and with overland providing less and less of a challenge with each passing year there's no excitement or danger when exploring anymore. World Bosses stick to their little nooks and crannies, there's only one geyser/storm/anchor up at a time, and there's no reason to really explore places as you just have to show up and get the experience/achievement for the 'discovery' and then run off never to see it again.

I miss the old writing, combat, and feel the game once had. Heck, I'm seeing even the terrain devs messing up and get floating rocks and plants in places when I do go exploring that just tears me out of the world. At least the little floating rocks and stuff in Western Skyrim where it's clearly a funny little set piece was clever, but not the floating rock I can see through since it's sticking out of the earth!

Oh, and dungeons and trials are about as immersive as seeing a jet airliner fly overhead when you're playing a fantasy sword dueling game. Sure the challenge is there, but it feels very gamey and not apart of the world.

game needs name police.

Muizer wrote: »

For me, Imperial City was probably the closest ESO came to a TES experience. That's because the presence of deadly human players adds the suspense that TES games had which otherwise is completely missing in ESO. In ESO PVE every encounter is super orchestrated. There's never any risk of accidentally stumbling upon some foes that can (and probably will) actually kill you.

Yess, the majority of enemies in game are super not threatening in overland and even story quest bosses are usually a joke. I even normally play TES games on the highest difficulty setting so it extra feels not dangerous. I actually enjoy having to try hard against some random bandit leader at the end of a cave haha this is also another thing that New World does better (I mentioned New World feeling more like TES than ESO earlier). That game does a great job of having threatening enemies throughout the map that you can randomly find in normal areas that a quest might take you to (not just designated areas like world bosses). AND they usually have worthwhile loot, not just some trash to vendor or decon.