Can we learn from New World?

Radiate77 · October 30

After the disaster of the Writhing Wall, I decided to pick up New World and got to play it for two weeks. Those were some of the most fun weeks I’ve had since One Tamriel brought us all together.

A few highlights of my experience over there, that I would love to see introduced in some capacity in ESO would be…

A complete overhaul to how music is played in ESO, instead of an emote, can we make use of the Bard’s College in Solitude? In New World you collect different instruments with unique perks, and find songs that you can play on a whim, and when you do play them, it’s like playing Guitar Hero. I found that to be incredibly fun.

A complete overhaul to how factions are handled in ESO’s overland, instead of being meaningless outside of Cyrodiil or Imperial City, why not introduce a flagging PvP system and new forts in every zone that factions can war over? This did not impact my PvE experience whatsoever as I quested my way to level 70, yet gave so much depth to the experience at endgame.

A complete overhaul to how Battlegrounds work, right now it’s 4v4 or 8v8 with no definitive modes to queue into, in New World you have 3v3 matchmade Elimination with Role-Based queues (can’t have more than 1 support / can have 3 damage dealers) 20v20 Capture the Flag and 50v50 Outpost Rush… we could use the assets already available in Cyrodiil to create this experience.

ESO is a great game, and there were so many lessons that New World could have learned from the many successes ZOS have accomplished much earlier into it’s life cycle, but now that it’s reaching End-of-Service my hope is that we could take the best parts of that dying game and bring them home.

Tyralbin · October 30

I like the idea of different instruments and songs to collect.

Imagine having a class similar to Alan Dean Fosters Spellsingers

duagloth · October 30

We dont need too learn anything we did our part.

Radiate77 · October 30

Tyralbin wrote: »

I like the idea of different instruments and songs to collect.

Imagine having a class similar to Alan Dean Fosters Spellsingers

For a good two days of those two weeks I had created a band and we would travel town to town and play songs together, and people would walk up to us and start dancing, asking to join our band or tipping us. It was unreal.

An updated music system like this would work so well within ESO and would help foster community by adding more healthy player interactions.

zaria · October 30

Radiate77 wrote: »

Tyralbin wrote: »

I like the idea of different instruments and songs to collect.

Imagine having a class similar to Alan Dean Fosters Spellsingers

For a good two days of those two weeks I had created a band and we would travel town to town and play songs together, and people would walk up to us and start dancing, asking to join our band or tipping us. It was unreal.

An updated music system like this would work so well within ESO and would help foster community by adding more healthy player interactions.

Agree, you would need to synchronize the music instruments, who should be pretty easy for the original ones.

Unfadingsilence · October 30

Radiate77 wrote: »

After the disaster of the Writhing Wall, I decided to pick up New World and got to play it for two weeks. Those were some of the most fun weeks I’ve had since One Tamriel brought us all together.

A few highlights of my experience over there, that I would love to see introduced in some capacity in ESO would be…

A complete overhaul to how music is played in ESO, instead of an emote, can we make use of the Bard’s College in Solitude? In New World you collect different instruments with unique perks, and find songs that you can play on a whim, and when you do play them, it’s like playing Guitar Hero. I found that to be incredibly fun.

A complete overhaul to how factions are handled in ESO’s overland, instead of being meaningless outside of Cyrodiil or Imperial City, why not introduce a flagging PvP system and new forts in every zone that factions can war over? This did not impact my PvE experience whatsoever as I quested my way to level 70, yet gave so much depth to the experience at endgame.

A complete overhaul to how Battlegrounds work, right now it’s 4v4 or 8v8 with no definitive modes to queue into, in New World you have 3v3 matchmade Elimination with Role-Based queues (can’t have more than 1 support / can have 3 damage dealers) 20v20 Capture the Flag and 50v50 Outpost Rush… we could use the assets already available in Cyrodiil to create this experience.

ESO is a great game, and there were so many lessons that New World could have learned from the many successes ZOS have accomplished much earlier into it’s life cycle, but now that it’s reaching End-of-Service my hope is that we could take the best parts of that dying game and bring them home.

Im sure we can learn not to shut down like new world is doing after being live only for 4 years

DenverRalphy · October 30

IMO, the biggest takeaway the devs could get from NW would be the mapping and use of controllers. Using L1/LB as a combo-modifier instead of a single use command, to open up more and intuitive button combos would be a godsend for ESO controller/console play.

Radiate77 · October 30

DenverRalphy wrote: »

IMO, the biggest takeaway the devs could get from NW would be the mapping and use of controllers. Using L1/LB as a combo-modifier instead of a single use command, to open up more and intuitive button combos would be a godsend for ESO controller/console play.

I agree, the button layouts felt really strong, having more keybind options in ESO would make the game feel a lot better, instead of having to go through several menus for something, being able to just map it to a button, would be a huge QoL feature only possible with more binding options.

DenverRalphy · October 30

Radiate77 wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

IMO, the biggest takeaway the devs could get from NW would be the mapping and use of controllers. Using L1/LB as a combo-modifier instead of a single use command, to open up more and intuitive button combos would be a godsend for ESO controller/console play.

I agree, the button layouts felt really strong, having more keybind options in ESO would make the game feel a lot better, instead of having to go through several menus for something, being able to just map it to a button, would be a huge QoL feature only possible with more binding options.

Heck, on PS just moving the Rez button to literally any other button would be a dream come true. LOL!

Tannus15 · October 30

I suggest we don't get bought out by a huge corporation that will fire thousands of people to replace them with AI and just not care about anything.

Oh wait, too late...

Freelancer_ESO · October 30

I would point out that it looks like New World failed at this point.

As such, I would recommend not being too eager to copy them until it is 100% clear why it failed as otherwise you may end up copying elements that helped lead to it's failure.

For example, recently ZOS changed the leaderboard setup for Competitive Battlegrounds to list up to 500 accounts. If you watch it after it resets which it seems to do now after each time the server is adjusted you'll notice it takes around a full day on PC NA to get 500 accounts to do at least one Competitive Battleground match.

As such, I would have a degree of skepticism regarding ESO's ability to field sufficient players for PvP battles in every zone or 50 vs 50 arenas.

Radiate77 · October 30

Freelancer_ESO wrote: »

I would point out that it looks like New World failed at this point.

As such, I would recommend not being too eager to copy them until it is 100% clear why it failed as otherwise you may end up copying elements that helped lead to it's failure.

For example, recently ZOS changed the leaderboard setup for Competitive Battlegrounds to list up to 500 accounts. If you watch it after it resets which it seems to do now after each time the server is adjusted you'll notice it takes around a full day on PC NA to get 500 accounts to do at least one Competitive Battleground match.

As such, I would have a degree of skepticism regarding ESO's ability to field sufficient players for PvP battles in every zone or 50 vs 50 arenas.

New World failed because it was half of a game, ESO has been supporting PvE since launch, but gave the illusion that PvP had support with balance updates every quarter, which is why they’ve survived much longer. When those balance updates iced a few years ago, that illusion was shattered. To compensate, Battlegrounds were shuffled… simply shifting Battlegrounds around to 2 teams did nothing to address why 3 teams were failing.

And that’s where New World comes in… they left no illusion, PvE was not their focus. As soon as they began to implement PvE into their game in the form of new Raids and then Catacombs, the game saw a monumental tone shift and a huge, more steady population.

After 2-3 years of loss though, Amazon cut the cord on a high note so the IP has more value, in turn, increasing their own valuation.

All that said, I firmly believe the three parts of New World I referenced would make an incredible addition to the experience of ESO, and I’m eager to hear what other parts of the game people would love salvaged.

Last'One · October 30

ESO will end the same way.
There are no roles anymore. There are no real classes anymore. There’s no challenge at all in normal or story content, and there’s no lore left. This game is a complete mess!

Players gatekeep others in Group Finder. On Discord, you need 170k DPS just to do HM content.
New players have no time to learn anything, because we — the old players — don’t give them time.
Casual players are kicked because they don’t have enough DPS, because they don’t have the right sets, because they don’t know the mechanics.

Maintenance happens every few days, and just this weekend the servers were down for almost 16 hours.
This game is completely, 100% [snip]! It’s a damn mess. It seems like ZOS has completely given up on it, and the only thing keeping it online is money.

I’ve said this a hundred times, and I’ll say it again:
This game will close because of logs and DPS sharing. There’s only one thing keeping this server alive, money. There’s no more love, no more fun, no more Elder Scrolls here.

It’s over. And yes, ESO will end just like New World.

[edited for profanity bypass]

biovitalb16_ESO · October 30

I think all the ESO devs need to watch this interview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0n0aB_PBSkA

kargen27 · October 30

I played New World for about a year. The music thing was fun for a while then got kind of annoying. Personal opinion I know but I ended up muting the music.
New World was designed to be PvP centric with the zones created to optimize that aspect of the game. ESO zones were not created with PvP in mind. Beyond a couple of weeks on curiosity I doubt PvP would amount to more than a few gankers hiding by wayshrines hoping some unlucky player forgot to turn their flag off.
I liked PvP in New World but when I finally decided to leave the game there wasn't the population left to make it compelling. Spent a lot of time trying to get a fight coordinated.
What ESO needs for PvP is better performance in Cyrodiil. They fix that and they will have a very vibrant PvP population. I would like to see some more done with the alliance zones but looking towards what New World did I believe would be a mistake. The world designs are vastly different and what works for one might not work for the other.

Radiate77 · October 30

kargen27 wrote: »

…I liked PvP in New World but when I finally decided to leave the game there wasn't the population left to make it compelling. Spent a lot of time trying to get a fight coordinated.

My experience for the launch of Nighthaven was that every queue, including 50v50 OPR, would take less than 3 minutes, and Outposts were constantly under attack, flipping between Factions.

That could be because of the culture, where PvP was the main draw of the game, but ESO at one point also had a huge PvP culture. 35,000 action combat MMO players would be enough to revive that, but the experience would need to be similar.

Necrotech_Master · 12:04AM

first option adding some kind of bards college or something, i dont think i would care either way

second option is basically not going to happen, cyrodiil as it is feels super dead lately (grey host is the only populated campaign, outside of very limited hours blackreach is cresting more than 2 bars), not to mention i absolutely do not want pvp in the pve zones, the dueling thats there now is fine, not to mention the servers would probably implode if they put cyro mechanics in every zone, and it would be immense amounts of work to add keeps to every zone

if they did that i would see 99% of the time they would remain untouched likely as it would spread the pvp population out way too much, and many pve players dont want to deal with that

for the 3rd point about BGs, i think the 8v8 option is fine as is, i think the 4v4 option could be done better, but role based queue would kill the BG community even further, as then groups would end up waiting on supports or tanks, or dps or something that would cause it to bottleneck

and why waste time on a 50v50 queue when you can literally just go to cyro for that action, 50 is already (depending on estimates) about 1/3 to 1/2 of an entire faction population cap (most current estimates on pop caps range from 120-160 per faction)

Destai · 12:26AM

It depends on who the "we" is in this situation. If it's ZOS, sure, it's a question they should be asking themselves.

Seeing the last two years play out, I can't help but feel like ESO's on the same track. And with how light content has been, I'm not confident they can release enough content, with high enough quality, to change course from that future.

But it's also more than content, it's communication too. I'm not confident it'll ever improve to the point where a lot of us want and expect.

PTS feedback still isn't changing patches like it should. When asked why, we don't get a response. I don't think I ever see the hard questions get answered.
Streamers have largely left the game. Even stream teamers are playing something else.
Actual candid feedback with developers is rare. When AUA's do happen, it creates more concern and questions than resolution and clarity. Again, this goes back to the point about them not really answering the hard questions.
Surveys felt like they were missing the mark on understanding the issues.

The game and the studio seem like they're flailing. So I'm not sure they can right the ship here. I get it, it's been tough with the layoffs, but a lot of these concern pre-date that event by years. I hope they regain their footing.

Right now, I'm just not confident in the direction or long-term health of the game. My confidence would be restored if one or all the following miraculously happen:

A year-end letter with an honest, heartfelt reflection that candidly talks about the problems seen over the year. I expect more "everything's ok, we're trying new things" even though I don't see many players believing that.
We get an actual combat roadmap breaking down what's being worked on by Brian et. al. during the work week. I expect more changes like those in U48.
The next year's content has some mind-boggling amazing reveal. I expect more content like Solstice, a sneak peak at the crown store's latest offerings, and more promises.

I'll continue enjoy my time in the game, even though it may get cut short one way or another.

twisttop138 · 12:36AM

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

IMO, the biggest takeaway the devs could get from NW would be the mapping and use of controllers. Using L1/LB as a combo-modifier instead of a single use command, to open up more and intuitive button combos would be a godsend for ESO controller/console play.

I agree, the button layouts felt really strong, having more keybind options in ESO would make the game feel a lot better, instead of having to go through several menus for something, being able to just map it to a button, would be a huge QoL feature only possible with more binding options.

Heck, on PS just moving the Rez button to literally any other button would be a dream come true. LOL!

This isn't talked about enough. I tip my cap to you.

On topic. I'm sad about New World. I had just downloaded it the day that happened. Like many, the wall event drive me to want to try something different, just to give it a try. I feel for NW players. Having your game shut down is the worst thing that can happen to an mmo player. Oh the SWG days...

I can't speak to how NW can change this game but I think there's lessons to learn for the dev team. I also think there's an opportunity to grab some players who are looking for a new home to land in, as well as streamers and content creators. ESO should be offering really good bundle deals, sales on crowns and houses and bumping up the advertisement. There's opportunity also to look at parallels between pain points and address them. That game, while on an upswing, was far from perfect and had long standing issues. I hope at the end of the day, that the players will find new homes and look back fondly at their time in game, and that ESO can benefit from some hard lessons learned.

Radiate77 · 12:39AM

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

first option adding some kind of bards college or something, i dont think i would care either way

second option is basically not going to happen, cyrodiil as it is feels super dead lately (grey host is the only populated campaign, outside of very limited hours blackreach is cresting more than 2 bars), not to mention i absolutely do not want pvp in the pve zones, the dueling thats there now is fine, not to mention the servers would probably implode if they put cyro mechanics in every zone, and it would be immense amounts of work to add keeps to every zone

if they did that i would see 99% of the time they would remain untouched likely as it would spread the pvp population out way too much, and many pve players dont want to deal with that

for the 3rd point about BGs, i think the 8v8 option is fine as is, i think the 4v4 option could be done better, but role based queue would kill the BG community even further, as then groups would end up waiting on supports or tanks, or dps or something that would cause it to bottleneck

and why waste time on a 50v50 queue when you can literally just go to cyro for that action, 50 is already (depending on estimates) about 1/3 to 1/2 of an entire faction population cap (most current estimates on pop caps range from 120-160 per faction)

A lot to break down here, but yeah with the current population large scale PvP would not work. It would need to appeal to that huge number of people looking for a new game similar to the one they are actively leaving, and seeing as it’s either ESO or Guild Wars 2 for action combat MMOs right now, I would prefer if it was the game I have a decade of attachment to.

They could really try anything, like starting with 2 outposts per faction and gradually expand upon it, they could even just run it as a time limited event, I’m sure people would find that more entertaining then doing dailies, I sure would. 😁

Also; as for Role-Queue in Battlegrounds, out of everything I mentioned, this would be the easiest to implement, and have the biggest impact. There would be no waiting for a Healer or “Tank” as you could match with 3 Damage Dealers. A Role-Queue is only there to prevent multiple supports getting stuck on the same team and destroying the experience for everyone involved.

IE:

1 DD, 1 DD, 1 Healer
1 DD, 1 DD, 1 “Tank”
1 DD, 1 DD, 1 DD

Now for the 50v50, sure, Cyrodiil can replicate this rarely, but a matchmade option ensures even teams, at least in number. So many people hate losing fights because they are outnumbered, or when they have less bars they just give up. Matchmade options are incredible and really work.

Necrotech_Master · 5:28AM

Radiate77 wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

first option adding some kind of bards college or something, i dont think i would care either way

second option is basically not going to happen, cyrodiil as it is feels super dead lately (grey host is the only populated campaign, outside of very limited hours blackreach is cresting more than 2 bars), not to mention i absolutely do not want pvp in the pve zones, the dueling thats there now is fine, not to mention the servers would probably implode if they put cyro mechanics in every zone, and it would be immense amounts of work to add keeps to every zone

if they did that i would see 99% of the time they would remain untouched likely as it would spread the pvp population out way too much, and many pve players dont want to deal with that

for the 3rd point about BGs, i think the 8v8 option is fine as is, i think the 4v4 option could be done better, but role based queue would kill the BG community even further, as then groups would end up waiting on supports or tanks, or dps or something that would cause it to bottleneck

and why waste time on a 50v50 queue when you can literally just go to cyro for that action, 50 is already (depending on estimates) about 1/3 to 1/2 of an entire faction population cap (most current estimates on pop caps range from 120-160 per faction)

A lot to break down here, but yeah with the current population large scale PvP would not work. It would need to appeal to that huge number of people looking for a new game similar to the one they are actively leaving, and seeing as it’s either ESO or Guild Wars 2 for action combat MMOs right now, I would prefer if it was the game I have a decade of attachment to.

They could really try anything, like starting with 2 outposts per faction and gradually expand upon it, they could even just run it as a time limited event, I’m sure people would find that more entertaining then doing dailies, I sure would. 😁

Also; as for Role-Queue in Battlegrounds, out of everything I mentioned, this would be the easiest to implement, and have the biggest impact. There would be no waiting for a Healer or “Tank” as you could match with 3 Damage Dealers. A Role-Queue is only there to prevent multiple supports getting stuck on the same team and destroying the experience for everyone involved.

IE:
1 DD, 1 DD, 1 Healer

1 DD, 1 DD, 1 “Tank”

1 DD, 1 DD, 1 DD

Now for the 50v50, sure, Cyrodiil can replicate this rarely, but a matchmade option ensures even teams, at least in number. So many people hate losing fights because they are outnumbered, or when they have less bars they just give up. Matchmade options are incredible and really work.

i still dont see at all how any pvp outposts outside of cyro would work, there would be nobody wanting to participate in that content, aside from the massive amount of work to add the outposts into the game for a small fraction of the player base, it just wont work with the current game

for a BG queue, the game is typically based around 4 person groups, and roles are set by the player, it would be too easy to game that system, even if you set it so that a full team of 4 dps could queue together, literally anyone at any time with any build could mark as a dps because roles are strictly an arbitrary player setting and not based on gear or slotting, so having a role based queue would be meaningless as well

its most likely that everyone would just mark as dps regardless of their spec and queue, even if they were a 60k hp block tank, or a 45k hp warden healer

yeah cyro battles can sometimes be unbalanced, but thats what happens in an open battlefield, the problem with trying to do a 50v50 queue is that they would 1) need new maps to support that many people, and 2) actually need that many people willing to queue up

right now, if your doing BGs, if your queueing multiple games for say 2 hours, i can almost bet that 50% or more of those players would be people you have played with/against. ive done BGs for 3 hours before, and ive had several back to back 8v8 matches were 10 of the 16 players were the same players, just shuffled around to different teams

so good luck trying to fill a 100 person queue in any reasonable timeframe, the only way i would see that happening is if they decided to nuke cyrodiil entirely and just do a smaller version of it (which i have seen some people suggest)

realistically the pvp population in this game is too small to do much besides small team BGs or more large scale with cyro

Radiate77 · 5:52AM

@Necrotech_Master in New World there are specific requirements you must meet to queue for either Tank or Healer, you need a certain gem in your weapon for taunts, or you need 300 focus (healing stat) and a life staff.

Making these things translate into ESO is possible and would effectively eliminate fake role-queues in all content, including dungeons.

It’s just the desire to do so which is the barrier, and I don’t think “player nature” is part of that as the goal would be to bring in new players, ones who already want that kind of experience with their game. If this content became available I guarantee a lot of vets, like myself, would jump on board with it, and if you don’t believe me, look at current battlegrounds. Simply adding actual rewards has pulled in a whole new (unhappy*) generation of PvP interested players. Nothing has changed except you’re now not getting 3rd partied.

Also; you’re right… players have been suggesting the removal of Cyrodiil, and for the longest time I wasn’t one. After experiencing large scale PvP elsewhere I can definitively say that Cyrodiil is a failed experiment.

Have to say it, all of this Vengeance testing is pointless. People will not sacrifice their identity as a character to play a Temu version of PvP. I am of the mind that ZOS needs to cut the cancer out and build something new, even if it doesn’t work out, they need to keep trying new ideas with respect to the values players hold until something does work.

*Unhappy because it’s much more lopsided now.

colossalvoids · 5:59AM

biovitalb16_ESO wrote: »

I think all the ESO devs need to watch this interview.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0n0aB_PBSkA

They need to study it alongside how GGG takes responsibility for their words and actions, communicate with the community and goes into actual details people do want to hear constantly, let alone answering your stupid discord messages somehow and being insanely successful with a damn free to play game.

Sadly that's not really easy to replicate as it requires hardcore gamers who love and know the game through and through in charge, which makes the game a crown jewel in its genre. Two of them now.

ZOS_Icy · 4:27PM

Greetings,

We have recently removed some unnecessary back and forth from this thread. This is a reminder to keep the discussion civil and constructive. Please keep our Community Rules in mind moving forward.

The Elder Scrolls Online Team

Mesite · 6:42PM

Tyralbin wrote: »

I like the idea of different instruments and songs to collect.

Imagine having a class similar to Alan Dean Fosters Spellsingers

I liked the books. I would have liked those books better if I had known the songs they were quoting at the time. I might have to dig the books out.

This is probably like the Chanters in Pillars of Eternity.

Great idea.

Which story is it in Elder Scrolls where you have to memorise the quotes from bits of parchment you find then quote them? Was that in Skyrim?

Mesite · 6:45PM

One thing we can learn is to forget any old petty disagreement we may have had with guild friends and log in everyday to keep things lively.

Radiate77 · 7:12PM

There are so many incredible solutions to be found, another one that I found to be incredibly effective at balancing PvP.

New World doesn’t have a healing problem.

We already have benefits and drawbacks to armor, yet they are nowhere near severe enough.

Gabriel_H · 7:21PM

The lesson to take away from NW is that if you don't have consistent player numbers, and they only spike on content drops, you won't have much support from upper management.

While the points you make are reasonable, the content in NW was not holding the players interest.