Suggestions on how to improve immersion [Constructive]

crush83 · May 2014

I won't be responding to trolls this time around. Let's discuss immersion in a constructive manner.

Examples
1) You obtain a quest to slay an ancient evil lurking deep within a cave, guarded by hordes of minions. You enter the cave and meet no resistance on your way to the boss. You swing your sword a single time as the boss dies to an overwhelming force of players. You then walk back out of the cave to turn in the quest.

2) You obtain a quest to squelch fires that are engulfing village houses. After obtaining your bucket of water, you find yourself standing in front of a home, waiting for it to catch fire so that you can play the hero. Meanwhile, houses all around you are catching fire over and over again as they are extinguished by other "only heroes".

Issue
The issue here is that the story-line content in this game seems to be geared in a single-player context. However, this is an MMO. There are going to be multiple players playing at the same time.

Therefore, it hurts immersion when story-line quests are indicating that we are The One when in fact, we are one of very, very many.

For many players, immersion is one of the main elements of entertainment.

There's nothing that blocks immersion from an MMO experience. It simply needs to make sense for the MMO.

Solutions
Here are a couple of obvious solutions to get conversation started. Please expand on how they can be improved:

Revise quest content that refers to the player as the only hero so that it is clear that you are one of many aiding in a concerted effort to accomplish some feat.
If it is imperative that quest content refer to the player as the only hero, then the quest content should be instanced/phased. That means that if Player A runs up to house and puts out fire, then Player B should still see the fire, and still be able to escort the trapped citizens inside to safety.

crush83 · May 2014

See. No one wants to have a constructive conversation. Conversations are only fun when there are insults flying around.

User · May 2014

crush83 wrote: »

Revise quest content that refers to the player as the only hero so that it is clear that you are one of many aiding in a concerted effort to accomplish some feat.

If it is imperative that quest content refer to the player as the only hero, then the quest content should be instanced/phased. That means that if Player A runs up to house and puts out fire, then Player B should still see the fire, and still be able to escort the trapped citizens inside to safety.

It seems like people don't like the instanced quests, in fact ZOS is planning to enable users to see each other when they're instanced.

GrafDresche · May 2014

This phenomenon was my single biggest gripe during the beta, and I kept complaining about it in the feedback forms. But apparently we are part of a minority...? Also, I don't have a better idea than instancing.

For me, this often leads to me not even bothering to read the dialogue. I just wanna get the stuff everybody around me does done. Could be a game breaker for me in the longer run.

Epona222 · May 2014

I actually agree with you, I love the game, but the 'sole hero' model doesn't really work best when there are 20 other 'sole heroes' doing the same thing as you at the same time.

I haven't got through all the MQ yet (I'm a bit of a slowcoach, my highest character is level 20) but so far it seems it might have been averted with some small changes to encompass the fact that there are many banding together to vanquish Molag Bal rather than You, The Vestige, and only you.

I completely get what you are saying.
I still love the game though

Bromburak · May 2014

I actually don't understand the relations in this thread.

The OP is trying to start a constructive discussion and the first answer comes from him self with an advice to him self as follows:

No one wants to have a constructive conversation. Conversations are only fun when there are insults flying around.

This totally makes no sense.

Flametyn · May 2014

i did a post asking players to write their suggestions to possibly improve the game in the future, couse i think some players can have the best ideas but i only got an answer agreeing or disagreeing with my ideas...

That said while i was playing i felt heroic but i also felt like i was not the only one you right, something must be done...

Audigy · May 2014

I never see myself as "the hero" in ESO, but as a part of many. MMO´s don't work as a Single Player type of thing (well ok WoW currently does as there is nobody in the open world

) but you get what I mean.

Why don't you immerse yourself into the story so, that there are many others helping you with the fires? You cant save a whole town from fire alone, that's a bit unrealistic I think ^^

The cave thing is indeed a bit more tricky. I would personally make a cap on the number of players in a cave at one time. Or I would add a timer so that people actually go in together and 4 are max.

The issue with the dungeons only comes up, because they are too easy. Make them as hard as world bosses and it would be a totally different thing, but I guess then people would be upset that its too hard

Brockxz · May 2014

For me immersion breaking is that I kill boss and now I have to read some book/letter next to boss corpse but I don't have time for this because someone else just came in boss room and boss spawns and starts to hit me. Why didn't Zenimax couldn't put me in next phase so that I don't see boss anymore or why they didn't put all quest relevant objects I need to read somewhere where it's safe to read it actually. I hate that I am rushed through quests.
Same thing is group dungeon runs. Why they sometimes make that only one person can speak to quest NPC and progress not everyone. I also want to know what that NPC has to say and how the story progresses.
Those 2 are the biggest immersion and my sole hero breaking things I want they would fix.

TheAmu · May 2014

The incidental dialogue in cities needs to be more varied. I have to turn the volume off for the good of my sanity when I'm crafting, because NPCs keep saying the same thing over and over and over and over...
NPC dialogue needs to make sense. A banker, I forget which, tells me "We haven't had a deposit in months!" when I myself have made several deposits with her in one day, along with the countless others standing around her. Or maybe the story there is she suffers from Anterograde amnesia. Deep.
Perhaps the Prophet could casually mention that a bunch of other people escaped the wailing prison in Coldharbour and they are also on a quest to win back their souls. But don't worry. They aren't as important as you.
Make the interior of city castles unique! TESO seems to be suffering a very bad case of DA2 syndrome. I don't care if all dungeon maps are the same. But city castles are supposed to be awe inspiring and impressive! But in this game they are not.
Children NPCs. I mean...seriously. Their absence is freaking me out.

That's what I've got so far.

Dominulf · May 2014

How about not making me do enemy faction filler quests and quests that involve me killing my own faction NPCS as my 'end game' options?

TheAmu wrote: »

Children NPCs. I mean...seriously. Their absence is freaking me out.

Yeah. The wierd part is that whenever you do a quest that involves helping some parent find their children or something the "child" is always a middle aged adult.

Darzil · May 2014

The strange thing about immersion is that this is a game, and I realise it is a game whilst playing it. The attempt to hide this from me by simplifying the interface to the extent that if I need to know anything I need to open a menu, and that much crafting information is available only at a crafting station means that the interface becomes a problem and unimmersive more than immersive.
Phasing is great solo, but the moment you are grouped you are having to watch out for invisible boundaries where you'll lose touch with the person you are grouped with, because there is no warning. I also died in the Halls of the Dead yesterday. There was a bunch of us standing around the boss's tomb, ungrouped, ready. Opened the tomb, and boom, now I'm in a solo instance, none of them are, and I'm dying fast. This 'invisible' phasing is far less immersive for me than the glaring red/green fields with notes in SWTOR, because that is clear and predictable, whereas in this game the game conditions change without notice.
The problem is that playing a game the game elements fade into the background and you mostly don't notice them. In this game because they are not there, you have to actively bring them into the foreground, which is jarring as a result.

crush83 · May 2014

TheAmu wrote: »

The incidental dialogue in cities needs to be more varied. I have to turn the volume off for the good of my sanity when I'm crafting, because NPCs keep saying the same thing over and over and over and over...

NPC dialogue needs to make sense. A banker, I forget which, tells me "We haven't had a deposit in months!" when I myself have made several deposits with her in one day, along with the countless others standing around her. Or maybe the story there is she suffers from Anterograde amnesia. Deep.

Perhaps the Prophet could casually mention that a bunch of other people escaped the wailing prison in Coldharbour and they are also on a quest to win back their souls. But don't worry. They aren't as important as you.

Make the interior of city castles unique! TESO seems to be suffering a very bad case of DA2 syndrome. I don't care if all dungeon maps are the same. But city castles are supposed to be awe inspiring and impressive! But in this game they are not.

Children NPCs. I mean...seriously. Their absence is freaking me out.

That's what I've got so far.

These are some excellent points! Thanks for the contribution. Yes, I agree about the city NPC dialogues. I'd like to see them add at least 5 options for each NPC.

Maybe that's on their drawing board.

The Wailing Prison thing figures in really well with my original post! It's nuts! Wailing Prison is probably my least favorite part of the game. I wasn't wild about The Prophet either, until I found out who he was.

Blackwidow · May 2014

I just did a quest where I hid behind a rock to listen to some spies. After the spies left, went over to where the spies were.

I saw another player start to hide where I was, so I stood where the spies used to be and started to do jumping jacks.

He gave me a tell and LOLed. He said I was smacking the spies in the face while they were telling each other the plans to take over the city.

dennissomb16_ESO · May 2014

truthfully I kind of disagree with OP. I would like far less phasing, not more. I enjoy running into other players as I work through a quest, quest dungeon, boss etc. One of the thing that truly angers me about the phasing in this game is I can not help a guildie or get help from a guildie far to often, because of phasing. We all look for different things in an MMO ( I often feel sorry for the poor developers), but for me, less phasing please

crush83 · May 2014

dennissomb16_ESO wrote: »

truthfully I kind of disagree with OP. I would like far less phasing, not more. I enjoy running into other players as I work through a quest, quest dungeon, boss etc. One of the thing that truly angers me about the phasing in this game is I can not help a guildie or get help from a guildie far to often, because of phasing. We all look for different things in an MMO ( I often feel sorry for the poor developers), but for me, less phasing please

Why not tweak it so you are phased with your guildies?

Anyone who is directly affiliated with you should be able to aid in your progress. No other player should be able to hinder your progress.

There is a big difference there. Right now, other players actively hinder your progress, and that's a big no-no. Not only for immersion, but gameplay in general.

EdonilTebaun · May 2014

Well, this is just my two cents as far as the "Sole Hero" scheme goes:

There is one hero that is part of the prophecy of the Elder Scrolls, the problem is that this was interpreted by a flawed human. As with most anything of power that humanity touches in Tamriel, its going to get screwed up. So basically the Prophet knew nothing more than this legendary hero who would upset all of Molag Bal's plans would be a soul shriven slave in Coldharbor.

That doesn't sound so tough, does it? And then it all started going haywire, the Prophet makes Mannimarco mad because he's out there decrying the despot's actions and gets sent to Coldharbor. That's a win ... until he realizes that Mannimarco and Molag Bal have a literal army of soul shriven slaves.

So what the Prophet is basically left with is an indistinct prophecy with thousands upon thousands of potential candidates. Thus with a lot of help from Lyris and Cadwell, the Prophet helps stage the most massive jailbreak in the history of Tamriel and Oblivion to get all those who still have their wits about them out. And there we have the prison riot where the prisoners knock down the fences and spill back out into society.

But this still doesn't solve the Prophet's one problem. Who in the name of all that's Aedric and Daedric is this soul shriven that the Elder Scrolls mentioned? Well, the solution to that isn't nearly as difficult as it may seem.

These escapees are rightfully angry about being stuck where they were. They didn't do anything to deserve that treatment. Let's just give them a few hints, a direction on the compass, and tell them "They guys that set you up are over there" and turn them loose. Theoretically, the "One" who's supposed to solve this entire mess will eventually solve it, it's written in the Scrolls.

So it's not that we're the "sole" person, it's not that we're necessarily "The One" (Jet Li reference). It's that nobody really has a clue who that "One" is and they just released a bunch of sociopathic murderers in hopes of solving a worse problem.

GossiTheDog · May 2014

Sometimes they help me @crush83. Of course, sometimes not so much..

User · May 2014

crush83 wrote: »

dennissomb16_ESO wrote: »

truthfully I kind of disagree with OP. I would like far less phasing, not more. I enjoy running into other players as I work through a quest, quest dungeon, boss etc. One of the thing that truly angers me about the phasing in this game is I can not help a guildie or get help from a guildie far to often, because of phasing. We all look for different things in an MMO ( I often feel sorry for the poor developers), but for me, less phasing please

Why not tweak it so you are phased with your guildies?

Anyone who is directly affiliated with you should be able to aid in your progress. No other player should be able to hinder your progress.

There is a big difference there. Right now, other players actively hinder your progress, and that's a big no-no. Not only for immersion, but gameplay in general.

I think being instanced with your group members would be better.

crush83 · May 2014

GossiTheDog wrote: »

Sometimes they help me @crush83. Of course, sometimes not so much..

Do they ever hinder you?

dennissomb16_ESO · May 2014

crush83 wrote: »

dennissomb16_ESO wrote: »

truthfully I kind of disagree with OP. I would like far less phasing, not more. I enjoy running into other players as I work through a quest, quest dungeon, boss etc. One of the thing that truly angers me about the phasing in this game is I can not help a guildie or get help from a guildie far to often, because of phasing. We all look for different things in an MMO ( I often feel sorry for the poor developers), but for me, less phasing please

Why not tweak it so you are phased with your guildies?

Anyone who is directly affiliated with you should be able to aid in your progress. No other player should be able to hinder your progress.

There is a big difference there. Right now, other players actively hinder your progress, and that's a big no-no. Not only for immersion, but gameplay in general.

See I disagree with you here. I don't see the other players hindering my progress. Matter of fact compared to most other MMO's, it is the opposite. Example, in most MMOs you work your way to a quest boss and just as you get there someone else engages it, you don't get credit and you have to wait (in some games a stupid long time) for a respawn. This game I get credit. There are very few places where other players can actively interfere in this game especially compared to most MMOs

If they could change it so affiliations like guild members would always be phased together that would be a positive step. Right now the only thing that can hinder me is when I need help and can not get it due to phasing. Either way a tough call for the developer

rotiferuk · May 2014

Want immersion? Play an off-line game. It's never going to happen in an mmo.

crush83 · May 2014

dennissomb16_ESO wrote: »

crush83 wrote: »

dennissomb16_ESO wrote: »

truthfully I kind of disagree with OP. I would like far less phasing, not more. I enjoy running into other players as I work through a quest, quest dungeon, boss etc. One of the thing that truly angers me about the phasing in this game is I can not help a guildie or get help from a guildie far to often, because of phasing. We all look for different things in an MMO ( I often feel sorry for the poor developers), but for me, less phasing please

Why not tweak it so you are phased with your guildies?

Anyone who is directly affiliated with you should be able to aid in your progress. No other player should be able to hinder your progress.

There is a big difference there. Right now, other players actively hinder your progress, and that's a big no-no. Not only for immersion, but gameplay in general.

See I disagree with you here. I don't see the other players hindering my progress. Matter of fact compared to most other MMO's, it is the opposite. Example, in most MMOs you work your way to a quest boss and just as you get there someone else engages it, you don't get credit and you have to wait (in some games a stupid long time) for a respawn. This game I get credit. There are very few places where other players can actively interfere in this game especially compared to most MMOs

If they could change it so affiliations like guild members would always be phased together that would be a positive step. Right now the only thing that can hinder me is when I need help and can not get it due to phasing. Either way a tough call for the developer

For the boss fights, you're absolutely right. They don't hinder progress.

Take the burning houses, though. You run over to put a fire out on a house, just for another player to put it out a split second before you. You end up spending all kinds of time running around a village that is supposed to be burning to the ground, yet you aren't even able to put out any fires.

Now, I know, as players fan out, and there are fewer questing, it won't be so bad. However, wouldn't it be better if:

You didn't see the fires go out when another player put out the fire (phasing).
You got credit when other players put out the fires.

Problem with 2 is someone could potentially take the quest, stand there, and get credit for doing nothing.

dennissomb16_ESO · May 2014

I know what you are saying about the burning house type quests, but these steps are few and far between. Just personal experience compared to most MMO's this game simply does not have other players impact me negatively. I didn't want to hijack your thread, just wanted to give another perspective about phasing

crush83 · May 2014

dennissomb16_ESO wrote: »

I know what you are saying about the burning house type quests, but these steps are few and far between. Just personal experience compared to most MMO's this game simply does not have other players impact me negatively. I didn't want to hijack your thread, just wanted to give another perspective about phasing

Which faction do you play? Your perspective is much appreciated, and it's not hijacking at all. I feel like it's on topic.

I've encountered a lot of quests like the burning house type quest where progress is hindered by other players completing the same quest. I'm forced to stand around, and wait for quest items to respawn because another "hero" doing the same quest just got the item before me. Sometimes, I have to wait 3-4 times because another player trying to complete the quest beats me on the respawn.

If I'm the only hero, should I be competing with my helpers to put out fires? Should I be standing around waiting for houses to catch fire just so I can extinguish the fire?

Sananab · May 2014

I don't really have anything to add to the Topic. But Kudos to the OP for the Approach.

dennissomb16_ESO · May 2014

I am daggerfall. I am just finishing the VR5 zone of Aldmeri. I honestly have had no times when other players interfered with the type of steps you are describing (not since beta of course when all these types were broken LOL). There are also a number of quests that are or were broken that seemed like players were interfering ( As example the sewers in rivenfall were only 2 of 3 barrels would spawn).

Darzil · May 2014

crush83 wrote: »

Which faction do you play? Your perspective is much appreciated, and it's not hijacking at all. I feel like it's on topic.

I'm on Ebonheart Pact, and definitely found quite a lot where you are doing something like collecting supplies or rescuing villagers, and are having to race the other players to them and wait for respawns. Or where you're having to get drops or kills, and having to wait for respawns as other players are getting to them first.

On the immersion thing, it'd really help the main quest if the NPCs in it had their bugs quashed. Legendary heroes seem less epic when they appear to be just standing around ignoring everything in combat.

crush83 · May 2014

Darzil wrote: »

crush83 wrote: »

Which faction do you play? Your perspective is much appreciated, and it's not hijacking at all. I feel like it's on topic.

I'm on Ebonheart Pact, and definitely found quite a lot where you are doing something like collecting supplies or rescuing villagers, and are having to race the other players to them and wait for respawns. Or where you're having to get drops or kills, and having to wait for respawns as other players are getting to them first.

On the immersion thing, it'd really help the main quest if the NPCs in it had their bugs quashed. Legendary heroes seem less epic when they appear to be just standing around ignoring everything in combat.

I'm also Ebonheart, so maybe this is more of an Ebonheart specific issue.

I played Aldmeri Dominion in beta up to level 20, and encountered a couple issues like this too.