Will We Ever Get Underwater Content?

Akisohida · October 2023

I don't know if it's an engine limitation, or just a style limitation, but underwater areas would be nice..

Giving Argonians water breathing back, to explore ANY water area under it without a breath meter.
IE: Any other race could dive in a lake and have a breath meter. Argonians would not.
Underwater dungeons could have handwaved plot BS to say everyone gets an enchantment to not drown.

Basically; Underwater content would add loads to the game; gatherable materials in lakes and rivers. New dungeons that can work in 3 dimensions. New mechanics by adding spears and tridents as underwater melee weapons (Since swinging a sword or club would be useless under water) that players switch too when underwater.
Maybe add underwater staffs (Force Staves, since water compresses badly, and thus any physical force is worse under water?)

Necrotech_Master · October 2023

if we ever get anything underwater, it will likely be similar to that one section of the graven deep that is actually underwater where you walk around in a bubble in the water

i dont think they have the physics or mechanics to do anything truly underwater like other games

currently the only underwater example we have is in the graven deep, but all skills function normally as if you were on land

LunaFlora · October 2023

we have the Graven Deep group dungeon, a part of that is underwater. probably not what you are wishing for but underwater content nonetheless.

underwater swimming however is an engine limitation if i recall correctly, like flying mounts

ikzaa · October 2023

I don't think the game is designed for that.

Reptiles have to use a fishing rod, crocodiles don't know how to swim...

Enemy-of-Coldharbour · October 2023

My eyes must be going bad. I thought it said "Will We Ever Get Underwear Content?" But, seriously, it would be nice to get some underwear options.

Necrotech_Master · October 2023

Enemy-of-Coldharbour wrote: »

My eyes must be going bad. I thought it said "Will We Ever Get Underwear Content?" But, seriously, it would be nice to get some underwear options.

truth, i actually read the thread title as that initially too lol

Freelancer_ESO · October 2023

I doubt we'd get much.

My impression is in many MMO titles the reception for underwater content is mixed and as such games can be a bit wary about investing in it.

I could be mistaken but, my impression is that ESO's engine doesn't necessarily adapt well and doesn't necessarily do what the developers want.

Dagoth_Rac · October 2023

I can't find any explicit article or post, but I swear ZOS have stated that the game does not support underwater physics and that adding it would be a major undertaking with limited return. Like underwater Apocrypha would have cost 3x to make but would never have brought in 3x the revenue.

merpins · October 2023

Short answer: probably not. The game engine isn't built for it.

tinythinker · October 2023

I asked about that here several years ago with suggestions for underwater exploration. Others have as well. They addressed it on an ESO Live and basically the answer was no.

TaSheen · October 2023

I enjoyed the underwater content in WoW and RIFT.

I was one of the few.... It's not all it's cracked up to be. On slow sat internet, things were.... difficult. Movement didn't work well. Combat was a PITA.

That said, I did love those zones. I guess I'm a glutton for punishment?

tinythinker · October 2023

TaSheen wrote: »

I enjoyed the underwater content in WoW and RIFT.

I was one of the few.... It's not all it's cracked up to be. On slow sat internet, things were.... difficult. Movement didn't work well. Combat was a PITA.

That said, I did love those zones. I guess I'm a glutton for punishment?

I've really enjoyed the areas and situations where you can go underwater in FFXIV. It's isn't available everywhere and I think the limitation help it to be well-thought out and fun where it is offered.

darvaria · October 2023

TaSheen wrote: »

I enjoyed the underwater content in WoW and RIFT.

I was one of the few.... It's not all it's cracked up to be. On slow sat internet, things were.... difficult. Movement didn't work well. Combat was a PITA.

That said, I did love those zones. I guess I'm a glutton for punishment?

Most players hated the underwater. This game already has way more performance issues than WoW or Rift. Don't think it could hangle the underwater scenarios. DON't do it. I had not performance issues with the underwater in those games, it's just rather pointless and time consuming.

wrrn519_ESO · October 2023

If you want to know if underwater works in an MMO go in WoW and go to the old areas where they tried the same thing many many moons ago. It's a failure. The mechanics underwater are very, very, annoying. Besides that, targeting in combat is very annoying because of depth and fighting and attacking things above and below and trying to attack them as well. It's a mess, even WoW with all their money back then, realized that was a disaster which they never revisited.

stewhead2ub17_ESO · October 2023

This has been brought up before. The answer is no. No underwater content and no flying. There's nothing below the surface worth seeing anyhow.

Vaqual · October 2023

I think anything that goes beyond simply diving to reach an alternate path/shortcut/secret passage would be a waste of resources, but some basic diving functionality could be nice. The big drawback would be that they would have to think about what they will do with all the non-divable water bodies, as I am the the world mesh is not fleshed out for that. And they would have to do a ton of decoration work with underwater foliage and textures. And then also the optics of viewing players underwater might be problemetic for the engine, judging by how mirrors and windows in the game are made.

Drammanoth · October 2023

To the OP - no

Elsonso · October 2023

tinythinker wrote: »

I asked about that here several years ago with suggestions for underwater exploration. Others have as well. They addressed it on an ESO Live and basically the answer was no.

1 hour 20 minutes into the video

Toanis · October 2023

Aside from needing actual content and not just diving for diving's sake, there is also suspension of disbelief: As it is now, not being able to dive is just a fact of the game, same as impenetrable 2-foot obstacles you need to walk around.

Games like GW2 or DDO are designed with underwater exploration being an essential game mechanic, so you have gear slots for underwater combat in GW2 and in open world PVP there are keeps the defenders can leave or enter underwater. In DDO you have puzzles like flooding a room so you can swim up a shaft on the ceiling.

If you add that now to ESO, it will stand out and soon players will ask why they can't do so elsewhere. The answer is because the designers only created the parts of the world we can see. It might look very unfinished from other angles, and to add the ability to swim and climb walls to old zones, they basically need to be redesigned. (Even if its just adding barbwire to walls we aren't supposed to climb for story reasons)

ProudMary · October 2023

I don't feel any need for underwater content. Probably best to focus on making overland and PvP more stable and bug free.

SandandStars · October 2023

PvP is underwater.

If you havent played it, dive in and check out the physics…

TX12001rwb17_ESO · October 2023

And how exactly will you justify the need or lack therefor to breathe underwater? Argonians can breathe underwater and Vampires could just hold their breathe indefinitely, everyone else would just drown.

Akisohida · October 2023

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

And how exactly will you justify the need or lack therefor to breathe underwater? Argonians can breathe underwater and Vampires could just hold their breathe indefinitely, everyone else would just drown.

Hence why I said underwater dungeons can handwave it with water breathing spells that last the dungeon run.
Out in the normal world, in lakes and stuff, non-Argonians would deal with a breath meter.

But it seems the game engine can't handle it, according to folks. So it's a moot point.

huskandhunger · October 2023

I read the title as underwear content 😀👌 and I wish I could change mine on my characters

Sailor_Palutena · October 2023

Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim allowed you to sink in water. It is so lame not being able to do it in ESO.

NordSwordnBoard · October 2023

Enemy-of-Coldharbour wrote: »

My eyes must be going bad. I thought it said "Will We Ever Get Underwear Content?" But, seriously, it would be nice to get some underwear options.

After the Timbercrow costume, do you really want what they have to offer?

ProudMary wrote: »

I don't feel any need for underwater content. Probably best to focus on making overland and PvP more stable and bug free.

The underwear content being bug-free goes without saying I hope.

SandandStars wrote: »

PvP is underwater.

If you havent played it, dive in and check out the physics…

Diving into PvP underwear could leave you with embarrassing status effects. Many just go away on their own, like "Stuck in Combat", only to return at the worst time.

rpa · October 2023

Underwater appears not supported in the engine version ESO uses and likely would require a lot of fundamental work for feature which very likely would be underused. Of other mmos which I have tried and which had underwater it was only only a zone and/or few diving quests.
I'd pay use eso+ crowns or seals of endeavour for underwear options. TES has tradition of ugly underwear and ESO does not even support modding to get it fixed.

SpacemanSpiff1 · October 2023

wilykcat · October 2023

I remembered guild wars 2 had amazing underwater content such as animations, exploration, dungeons, quests, villages, combat, abilities, and so forth.

After going through this thread it seems like ESO don't want underwater stuff in the game. That's fine. It's still alright to discuss it though on the forums and its still a good suggestion.

Veinblood1965 · October 2023

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

if we ever get anything underwater, it will likely be similar to that one section of the graven deep that is actually underwater where you walk around in a bubble in the water

i dont think they have the physics or mechanics to do anything truly underwater like other games

currently the only underwater example we have is in the graven deep, but all skills function normally as if you were on land

What floors me is that WoW had an underwater zone and flying mounts many years before ESO even came out. How is that possible that a dev team creates a game and totally whiffs those two options? Not saying I don't enjoy the game but from a purely technical perceptive how can a design team create a game years later and miss options that other games have had many years prior?

TaSheen · October 2023

Because they didn't want them in their game? Or the engine they "modified heavily" (and which was already apparently choking on spaghetti code) was going to require stuff they didn't know how to code?

Or both.