Improve ESO Suggestions

Dimorphos · March 15

We have already seen ESO taking huge steps towards improvements and new development. For the most part I like this new road of the game, but of course people have mixed feelings about it all. That is not what this post is about. These are my own ideas and suggestions how to further improve and develop the game. You don't have to agree or like them, but please share some thoughts if you see the potential as I do.

1. Tamriel Underworld. We already have blackreach caverns which I noticed gets rarely visited and experienced after zone completion and that is a shame. It is an amazing place visually and there is this thrilling feeling that I at least get in such underground world that I do not experience on the surface areas. I would go further from this and create a whole "new" ancient world under the Tamriel surface with major cities, towns, lakes, rivers, underground seas, fishing, incursions, world bosses and huge ground "windows" that would give a view to the surface with sun and moons and sky and rain falling down.. Make it as active and almost as vast as the surface world. I am sure this could be easily done lore-wise too with little stretch and could cover a whole year as content and zone stories.

2. Let us choose our racial passives. We can argue how much these passives actually effect on your output in pvp/pve, and surely you should always pick up the race you like. But I would still like to be able to pick up those passives that effect on your character output like weapon/spell damage, critical damage, max health/stamina/magicka etc. By all means leave the first tier racial passives as they are or even add to them keeping at least some theme in passives related to the race. This would further increase our possibilities to make our characters just as we want them to be. I wouldn't mind to be able to make some races appear a bit more taller and chunkier as they now are.

3. Account-wide overland skyshards & wayshrines. Delves and public dungeons should not be included. No need to explain this further, as I think it just makes sense. These would be in line with current QOL improvements.

4. Story mode dungeon que/populated with AI bots. Sounds scary at first but this would be only used for the purpose of first time dungeon runs when you really want to finish that dungeon quest, gather all chests and listen through the lore. Populating with AI bots would step in if there are not enough players in que after like 5minutes waiting. Ideal fix to night-time gaming and times when there is not enough player activity present. This could also be used only for normal difficulty dungeons. Many people like to rush through the dungeons because they are there only for the daily reward or they have xp-scroll on or w/e the reason. Now those people who wish to take their time in the dungeon can safely do so. These story mode dungeons would be made so that you can't skip bosses or trash because invisible walls would prevent skipping attempts.

5. Faster respawn for public dungeon & delve bosses. So many times especially during events there are too many people farming those bosses and it can take a lot of time to get your things done in public dungeon or delve just because you have to wait for those bosses to respawn. No need for too long timers, but there should only be timers for loot to prevent excessive farming.

6. Dungeon+ system. My all-time favourite wish and directly copied from World of warcraft. This would give a whole new meaning to older dungeons and looking for group tool. Keystones or similar things that would gain levels as you complete these dungeons. Difficulty rises with the levels. Not only would bosses hit harder and trash be more deadly but also a time limit to complete the dungeon and some added boss abilities/mechanics and environmental challenges. Of course ESO should make their own version of this. This would have its own ranking list to add some healthy competition to the game, but also increased loot and prices that would rise as the keystone levels rise. More gold, more set pieces/gear, transmute crystals, furnishing plans, new trade bars, gold materials.. Maybe some monthly mount/skin rewards for those keeping the top place in ranking list. Not all people like these kind of things and competition but I think it is always optional to participate or not. There would still be the same old dungeon system available for those who don't like more difficulty or competition.

AzuraFan · March 16

Interesting ideas. My thoughts...

1. With the exception of the Deadlands, I'm not fond of areas that take us underground or to a different realm, mainly because they're often monotonous. It would depend on how it was done. If the landscape and sky were all the same colour, I wouldn't like it. Even if they weren't, if (hopefully when) they release a new story zone, I'd prefer it to be above ground.

2. Heck, no. Look at the subclassing disaster. We've seen what happens when players can choose skill lines willy-nilly. Let's not extend that to passives.

3. No thanks. AwA already killed off a lot of replayability. It'll get to the point when you create an alt and they're already at level 50 with everything completed, and a full set of gear and skills that's meta.

4. Maybe. For people who want to experience the story, ZOS is trying out solo dungeons in season 1, so it wouldn't be needed for that scenario. I wouldn't mind completing a normal 4-person dungeon with NPCs filling group, but depending on how the solo dungeons are and what they drop, I might not need it.

5. Agree with this. The timers need another look.

6. Not something I'd be interested in, but for those who run with a regular group or can solo stuff, this could be good. However, it's similar to the IA in terms of increasing difficulty, leaderboards, and rewards, though I know it's different in that each run would be separate. I'm just not sure we need yet another combat-focused feature when there's already a lot of combat-focused features (IA, arenas, Night Market coming up). I'd rather see them get more creative and release areas and systems that aren't all about combat, before they release more stuff that's basically just combat.

Emeratis · March 16

1. I'm not really into a forced cave level. What we have in lore with Blackreach and other things is ok and even neat but this isn't D&D and Tamriel doesn't have the underdark. I would be fine with exploring more of Blackreach and some underground ruins and things when it makes sense but I do not want them to randomly add a persistent underground for the sake of it.
2. I don't like this. I would prefer a racial rebalancing that adds more diversity to passives (tank, heal, dps, support, utility, etc) to every race since lore wise they are diverse people and cultures that can do a lot of things and also have unique flavor. I've asked for some version of this for years. I don't want a pick and choose grab bag of racials.
3. Again, pass. They are adding a new consumable that gives you every wayshrine in a zone and that imo is more than enough for alts you want to skip wayshrine grabbing on, skyshards can be bought in the crown store (I kinda do wish they were eligible for g2c and gifting checked the recipient's achievement status so they'd be more accessible). Some of us like exploring the world. This is fine, don't think it's worth fixing what isn't broke.
4. We're already getting a start to this in Q4. While I wish it'd be at a faster pace, I'm just happy they're starting it. I also prefer their method of making them solo and not adding in npcs to help because frankly their npc combat is abysmal and part of why I don't use companions often.
5. I agree that respawns should be amped up and we do know they somewhat have the ability to have spawns vary based on population of a location (see most insurgents when there are 1-2 people vs 10+), I just wish it'd be used more often.
6. Please no. I remember when vma got perfected weapons and many of us pointed out we farmed it to death and did not want to go back for our gear years later. Some of us have done some of the earlier content hundreds or thousands of times. I would rather them add new group content than amp the damage/health/etc and have me run banished cells for the thousandth time. I do not want to see more forced repetition and eso already has some degree of grind in game that is healthy enough overall. I also do not want ranked leaderboard based cosmetics to ever come to eso. I play eso specifically because it's not wow or like some other mmos that have systems I do not like or enjoy.

Dimorphos · March 16

I have noticed that I do not belong among the majority when it comes to things we like/dislike in games like ESO. To be honest I think and believe that majority of ESO gamers are pretty casual as per playstyle and amount of commitment to character output or clearing challenges. Most ESO gamers are afraid even a simple veteran dungeon, at least this is what I have seen in most guilds that I have been in.

I take things "more seriously" and create my own builds and actively put effort to become better than the rest. This alone sets me apart from the majority. But I do like visual candy too and real fantasy and creating player houses and economy.

What is beyond my comprehension is this wide-spread dislike against sub-class system. I think it is among best things ESO ever came up with. I love it! But I guess this goes with the believe that most ESO players are casual gamers. I have noticed that most of the time when people complain about PVP being unfair, some sets or skills being too OP etc. are often people who come ill-equipped to PVP situation. They just are not prepared. People who take their time to learn theorycrafting and learn tactics and learn to take advantage always feels overpowered against those who are not as committed to the cause, and then those people easily complain about things.

Many people did not like mythic+ dungeons in Wow either and kept on complaining about "toxic behaviour" among other things but we always kept on telling them " you do not have to participate, it is fully optional, but if you do, you should come prepared and take your time to learn l2p". Of course that too was then taken as "toxic behaviour" by those who belonged to more casual level. It is impossible to please everyone.

But I stand behind my suggestions firmly. I would like to see at least some of them to be implemented into ESO. One can always hope.

LunaFlora · March 16

1. Tamriel Underworld.
i believe any future Skyrim zone should also be accompanied by another Blackreach zone.
But i do not expect many other underground areas will happen, unless they create an Ayleid city big enough to be a whole zone.

2. Let us choose our racial passives.
No.

3. Account-wide overland skyshards & wayshrines.
Some people enjoy exploring the game world for Skyshards and Wayshrines, even if they did it with multiple characters already.

5. Story mode dungeon que/populated with AI bots.
Would be awesome to use multiple Companions in a dungeon.

5. Faster respawn for public dungeon & delve bosses.
Yes.

6. Dungeon+ system.
sounds like Challenge Difficulties will give you something similar in Delves and Public Dungeons.

AScarlato · March 16

I dislike choosing racial passives.

I know fantasy games have started moving away from racial difference in preference for backgrounds instead, but in my fantasy settings I prefer there being certain talents and inclinations that some races lean towards over others.

Emeratis · March 16

Several of your suggestions are either already in game in some form or will be soon, the others are more personal preference. Also please stop assuming what most players in eso are. This is probably one of the most diverse playerbases of any game I've played and I myself don't fit neatly into the boxes people like to assume players in eso are in.

Dimorphos wrote: »

What is beyond my comprehension is this wide-spread dislike against sub-class system. I think it is among best things ESO ever came up with. I love it! But I guess this goes with the believe that most ESO players are casual gamers. I have noticed that most of the time when people complain about PVP being unfair, some sets or skills being too OP etc. are often people who come ill-equipped to PVP situation. They just are not prepared. People who take their time to learn theorycrafting and learn tactics and learn to take advantage always feels overpowered against those who are not as committed to the cause, and then those people easily complain about things.

As for this part-I really like subclassing and am very happy we have a system like it in game, but I can explain some of the dislike from someone who also is very frustrated with how it was done.

Subclassing was introduced into a system that was not created for it and did not do the proper pre-preparation to avoid disaster. At the time it hit, arcanist was leagues ahead of every other class in pve and several classes were not doing so hot. Subclassing exacerbated the strain of skill lines not being equal. There are now about 6-8 skill lines that overperform for specific roles and the rest are horribly outclassed. While I would love to see more build diversity, freedom, and creativity, we already have ramping difficulty with almost every new group content added to the game and that means the minimum requirements to clear things and get achievements go up. In pvp, a competitive environment does not give you the luxury of choosing a suboptimal skill or skill line you like for flavor when your competition is getting the best of the best. So naturally, people gravitate to the most optimal builds and fun and flavor is only had at levels where it can be afforded.

For example, I play at a hm/tri level for trials, I'm not interested in scorepushing or min maxing for the sake of it, and while I miss having my ranger fantasy of using a bow and playing monoclass nightblade (or at least 2-1 based on rp flavor/skillset of my character), if I want my clears and achievements, I have to play something that works a little bit better with the group because even being a seasoned dps I'm probably bumping against the minimum requirements and making it harder for my team. Build diversity gets smaller the higher you go up. Subclassing did exacerbate that. Some people are overly angry and bitter about it and I don't think that's fair but I also understand why they're frustrated. I just hope the class reworks and balance changes help so subclassing and monoclassing can be more equal and see more play in content at all levels like it should have been.

That's why while I agree with you on racial passive diversity, I would rather it be a rework/rebalance of racials like we got in Wrathstone and not just an open ended grab bag.

LunaFlora · March 16

i love Subclassing.
being able to use Bear, Scamp, and Fatecarver in one character is awesome.
most of my builds are subclassed.

But oprional racial passives feel unnecessary.
i am completely against it though.

i can think of 2 examples where i would not mind being able to choose Racial Passives.
- Wood Elf character using Khajiit passives, because they are an Ohmes Khajiit.
- Wood Elf or High Elf using Argonian passives, because they are a Sea Elf.
the increased swimming specifically.

wolfie1.0. · March 16

My comments.

1) I am not opposed, but I would prefer it not become an overused trope and not everywhere.
2) I would only go as far as supporting separating the racial passives from the races themselves and they each remained grouped together as is. Meaning if I wanted to have Breton passives as an imperial I could swap my full imperial suite of passives for the full Breton suite of passives. Right now racial passives are about as balanced as things get in eso. If you make it so you can make your own grouping of passives it would break the system again. Better to just sever the passives from the racial identity, but keep them grouped than to do that. Or just nuke them altogether.

3) no, as someone posted zos is giving us the option to unlock wayshrines. The only thing I will say to skyshards is that skill points need to have a cost to collect. If you want to bypass the in game mechanics to pay that cost then pay the money and buy them in the crown store.

4) zos is already working on it give it time.

5) the timers were implemented due to farming abuses. Reducing the cooldown wont increase the drop timer and will cause more issues. Lets see how overland difficulty plays out before we asl for changes.

6) interesting idea. Worth some thought.

Dimorphos · March 17

@wolfie1.0. @LunaFlora @Emeratis @AScarlato @AzuraFan

Some of the viewpoints you people made I can somewhat understand, but I still feel very strongly about these changes and stand behind them 100%:

1. Tamriel Underworld. - Maybe it should be just more blackreach areas or similar and not world-wide, but I would still like to see major cities and similar activity taken to underground world too as it is in the surface. Adding those huge "sky-windows" and keeping the underground areas changing in landscapes would be a thing too. This remains my wish because I noticed how those current underground areas are remaining mostly deserted and forgotten.

2. Let us choose our racial passives. - I don't get it why you all so much against this. It would truly free us to choose our race we like to play not minding about the passives at all because you can take your picks. Also, now when you would wish to make a breton character for example, you are pretty much locked into magicka focused builds. And in PVP at least now and for some time now crit damage has been playing major role and since people run with crit resistance the best way to max out your crit damage potential is to pick up khajiit. I am not a fan of cats or dogs and I hate it that I "have to play a khajiit". Now, some people like to come and argue about that racial passives are max 5% of your total output in any given time and they remain mostly trivial, so this pretty much proves my point then: wouldn't it be all the same for let us choose the passives outside racial setups. I think only those passives that do not effect on your character power output should remain as they are. Some of you pointed out that people would then just play the passives-meta, but how can that be the case when different passives works the best for different scenarios. I did not mean that you can pick all the "best passives" but of course there would be limits like, if you take crit damage you can't have weapon/spell damage. I guess some of you understood this wrongly.

3. Account-wide overland skyshards & wayshrines - Yes you can buy skyshards using crowns but I am strongly against all that extra monetization, we already pay enough for this game at least us who decide to sub for eso+. I think it is only healthy that you can every now and then delete some old character and create a new one but it wouldn't take that much time to max out that new character. This becomes more and more a nuisance at least for me when you have levelled up xx-amount of characters already. Some of you pointed out that collecting wayshrines and overland skyshards is your way to explore and experience the world over and over again. I think that is just the lack of better content in the game that would actively take us around the world. Collecting same wayshrines and skyshards for the millionth of time at least for me become frustrating and something I do not wish to waste my time. Collecting mage books, leveling skill lines (thank the gods they finally made some improvements regarding this) is already enough repeating and grinding.

6. Dungeon+ system. - I totally get it that this is not for everyone, but it doesn't mean it shouldn't be part of ESO some day. And no, it is not the same as Infinite Archive. I guess there is no need to explain this any further, we all should know what it is and for who it is aimed at. Some people like me enjoy the healthy competition and ways to show off your power and commitment and a reason to keep building up your skills, characters and come up with all kinds of builds. Again, such a system is highly optional so why should anyone who don't whish to participate be against it. If it is not for you, it is all fine and you don't miss anything. We can drop the skins and mount rewards and keep the rewards in gold, trade bars, gear, crafting materials etc. that everyone can get in other ways too.

Dimorphos · March 17

Then again it seems like this post did not get much attention and 99% likely will never reach dev. teams curiosity. So we can all just agree to disagree.

Bguk · March 17

Dimorphos wrote: »

@wolfie1.0. @LunaFlora @Emeratis @AScarlato @AzuraFan

3. Account-wide overland skyshards & wayshrines - Yes you can buy skyshards using crowns but I am strongly against all that extra monetization, we already pay enough for this game at least us who decide to sub for eso+. I think it is only healthy that you can every now and then delete some old character and create a new one but it wouldn't take that much time to max out that new character. This becomes more and more a nuisance at least for me when you have levelled up xx-amount of characters already. Some of you pointed out that collecting wayshrines and overland skyshards is your way to explore and experience the world over and over again. I think that is just the lack of better content in the game that would actively take us around the world. Collecting same wayshrines and skyshards for the millionth of time at least for me become frustrating and something I do not wish to waste my time. Collecting mage books, leveling skill lines (thank the gods they finally made some improvements regarding this) is already enough repeating and grinding.

You're against the monetization, ZOS is not. I see no path towards making skyshards account wide as this would remove a revenue stream. Only way they replace the current system is to replace it with another monetized system.

Dimorphos · March 17

@Bguk

But they already stripped some of the previous monetization systems with these latest and coming changes. ESO+ sub is also getting more filling with the same price. It is not "too much" to wish for them to let us have overland skyshards and wayshrines as account-wide and as I said it would not effect on public dungeons/delves which you still would need to explore with every character. Purchasing skyshards through crown store gives you those skyshards too so there is still "the need" for that crown store availability.

Faltasë · March 17

1. Blackreach IS the only underground besides the dwemer ruins, point blank full stop. Like that is a cave underground, exactly like you're trying to describe. It is literally also a one to one with how I'd imagine the DnD underdark to look like... As for making it aesthetically different, you are basically just describing a pocket dimension of oblivion which I can see them doing more of in the future, since I think that would be more your style and would actually fit within the world.

2. If you're saying pick from a pool of racial passives that can be shared between other races... no, I don't like when games take away pros and cons of the RPG aspect of character building. If you're talking about adding more than the ones presented and they're all unique to the races like class masteries, and we have to choose a certain number of them instead of just beintg given them, then yes, that is a great idea. It's just a matter of if this is really necessary when the race passives mean so little in the long run unless you're metagaming.

3. I think account wide skyshards would be legitimately the greatest thing for player time, but also the WORST thing for exploration and in-game character development. I do however wish you could buy skyshards for alternative characters without using crowns, as the microtransactional nature of that seems really slimey. Wayshrines on the other hand, I honestly kind of agree and disagree at the same time. I'd have to say Im neutral on the wayshrine one.

4. I don't really want this because we have companions. They also have single player solo story mode dungeons on the way, so I don't see the point of this addition at all.

5. I think this should be left alone. 5 minutes for respawn time is fine.

6. So... like another mode after Veteran mode... like... a hard mode, persnaps? lol

AScarlato · March 17

Dimorphos wrote: »

2. Let us choose our racial passives. - I don't get it why you all so much against this.

Answer is simple for me. I value lore, world-building, and there remaining just a modicum of choices that matter (even if just a little bit, as let's be real, these aren't that important). They already hybridized everything so the game already feels so...generic.

I don't make decisions based on min-maxing. You seem to care about that far more than I do, but we are different audiences for an Elder Scrolls game.

Dimorphos · March 17

@Faltasë

1. I would actually settle for just adding major cities to existing and to the coming underground areas and just making these places star more relevant and active after the zone story. I just want some underground activity/life just as it appears in the surface area. Now when you visit blackreach you rarely see other people there. I had this Idea/wish when I last visited blackreach and realized "wow, I hardly remembered this place exists" and that made me wish for more activity to the place.

2. I mean that we would be able to pick the racial passives that effect on your character power output, but with restrictions so you still need to choose if you want max resources, or crit damage, or weapon/spell damage or just resource regeneration.. The other racial passives would remain as they are or they would even get enhanced to fit the race style. I can't see why this would be so bad thing. I refuse to see any harm in this.

3. As I said, I think that if collecting overland skyshards and wayshrines is the only way people re-explore Tamriel as a whole, then it is just a lack of good content in the game that would actively take us all around Tamriel and that is something dev. team should take a look at. Maybe I would still settle to be able to use in-game gold to buy those skyshards (delves/public dungeons not included) but wayshrines I would definitely want to become account-wide.

5. Many bosses take a lot more than 5minutes to respawn. I have spent many times "a whole hour" in one public dungeon or delve just because they were crowded because of some event. Just keep the loot restrictive timers and it is good for the game and everyone.

6. No it is not just a new hard-mode. You have to experience Wow mythic+ on higher keystone levels to know what I mean. It becomes a real struggle and a contest of wits and group effort to be ahead of other players in terms of difficulty level. It becomes a way of e-sports and would lure in more competition driven players into ESO and give this game more attention and streaming activity which could be a good thing. This is of course again something that will devide us and we certainly see things differently in this regard for that I am sure. (not meaning you or only you).

Dimorphos · March 17

@AScarlato

Yes, as I said I have earlier noticed that I most likely do not belong to the ESO "majority" since I come to this game as a veteran World of Warcraft gamer and in there I usually participated in the end-game competitive gameplay be it PVP or PVE. Mostly I did competitive raiding and mythic+ dungeons. So I think that alone sets me apart from the possible "majority" even though I do enjoy ESO player housing, economy and all sorts of fantasy settings.

The reason I do not return to Wow is because the game is graphically old and there is nothing they can do to fix that without making a whole new Wow2.0 (which will never happen), and because I've "seen it all" and because ESO has so many things done "better" or maybe more modern way that I like.

But yes, We seem to disagree a lot about this racial passives "issue" I brought up. I honestly can't understand the reluctance against it, but we are different people with different values and ideas about all sorts of things. That is all ok.

Arunei · March 17

I must have missed where they said they're going to make Wayshrines unlockable, I'm assuming with like Gold in the map? I hope it's not more CS only monetization, it should be that you can buy Skyshards with Crowns but also Gold, as this game could use more Gold sinks. There are next to no meaningful ones, most things that take Gold out of the game are pretty small (porting when not at a Wayshrine, Mounts Training, etc). Which it's good things like that are cheap since they're kind of integral to the game.

But trying to get Skyshards on new characters is such a pain (especially on new accounts where none of your characters have unlocked any before TO buy them from the CS), and I think the caveat of being Overworld only is a good one. You'd still need to do Dungeons and Delves and Cyro if you want the ones from there. I don't think they should be account-wide but instead just able to be bought with Gold. And hopefully unlocking Wayshrines, again, will be with Gold.

Emeratis · March 17

Dimorphos wrote: »

Some of the viewpoints you people made I can somewhat understand, but I still feel very strongly about these changes and stand behind them 100%:

1. Tamriel Underworld. - Maybe it should be just more blackreach areas or similar and not world-wide, but I would still like to see major cities and similar activity taken to underground world too as it is in the surface. Adding those huge "sky-windows" and keeping the underground areas changing in landscapes would be a thing too. This remains my wish because I noticed how those current underground areas are remaining mostly deserted and forgotten.

2. Let us choose our racial passives. - I don't get it why you all so much against this. It would truly free us to choose our race we like to play not minding about the passives at all because you can take your picks. Also, now when you would wish to make a breton character for example, you are pretty much locked into magicka focused builds. And in PVP at least now and for some time now crit damage has been playing major role and since people run with crit resistance the best way to max out your crit damage potential is to pick up khajiit. I am not a fan of cats or dogs and I hate it that I "have to play a khajiit". Now, some people like to come and argue about that racial passives are max 5% of your total output in any given time and they remain mostly trivial, so this pretty much proves my point then: wouldn't it be all the same for let us choose the passives outside racial setups. I think only those passives that do not effect on your character power output should remain as they are. Some of you pointed out that people would then just play the passives-meta, but how can that be the case when different passives works the best for different scenarios. I did not mean that you can pick all the "best passives" but of course there would be limits like, if you take crit damage you can't have weapon/spell damage. I guess some of you understood this wrongly.

3. Account-wide overland skyshards & wayshrines - Yes you can buy skyshards using crowns but I am strongly against all that extra monetization, we already pay enough for this game at least us who decide to sub for eso+. I think it is only healthy that you can every now and then delete some old character and create a new one but it wouldn't take that much time to max out that new character. This becomes more and more a nuisance at least for me when you have levelled up xx-amount of characters already. Some of you pointed out that collecting wayshrines and overland skyshards is your way to explore and experience the world over and over again. I think that is just the lack of better content in the game that would actively take us around the world. Collecting same wayshrines and skyshards for the millionth of time at least for me become frustrating and something I do not wish to waste my time. Collecting mage books, leveling skill lines (thank the gods they finally made some improvements regarding this) is already enough repeating and grinding.

6. Dungeon+ system. - I totally get it that this is not for everyone, but it doesn't mean it shouldn't be part of ESO some day. And no, it is not the same as Infinite Archive. I guess there is no need to explain this any further, we all should know what it is and for who it is aimed at. Some people like me enjoy the healthy competition and ways to show off your power and commitment and a reason to keep building up your skills, characters and come up with all kinds of builds. Again, such a system is highly optional so why should anyone who don't whish to participate be against it. If it is not for you, it is all fine and you don't miss anything. We can drop the skins and mount rewards and keep the rewards in gold, trade bars, gear, crafting materials etc. that everyone can get in other ways too.

1. You are more or less saying you want ZOS to make up something new lore wise that has not existed for the sake of it. While they have done this before and it has worked out (Fargrave is one of my favorite additions to TES lore that ESO has made), I bristle at adding big lore changing things for the sake of it to the game. Blackreach is fine enough, not every fantasy universe needs to have a huge underdark area. TES is a more eccentric fantasy series than many give it credit for and I'd rather them explore the hundreds of unexplored lore concepts that already exist over pulling something out of their butt and adding it for the sake of one person insisting we need it in game.

2. I've played a bosmer since beta. I've been kicked out of trial and dungeon groups before in an era where people very much were snobby about a character's racial bonuses. I've had a lot of frustrating and painful back and forth over the years over whether I could get my achievements on my characters as they were versus what the meta expected of me. Socially, we're in a place where nobody cares about a player or character's racial much anymore outside of some really hyper min maxed snobs. Socially, the gatekeeping of yesteryear I experienced is largely gone and I am thankful we have come out the other side to see that.

The thing is, your suggestion, similar to subclassing's problematic implementation, revives that old gatekeeping. Players will be expected to choose the best passives and utility passives they like such as bosmer move speed or other things that they might enjoy would be encouraged to be axed for "the best numbercrunching choices." Several times in this thread I proposed to you a healthier alternative that I've advocated for for years, literally give each race passives that lore wise connect with their variety but also fit them. Example from my main race bosmer-stamina passives are easy/already there even if they have a utility lean, y'ffre could be referenced in regards to healer passive, magicka support could come from bosmer's connection to the earthbones and e'tada, and you could either buff up what's already there for tank passives for bosmer (move speed and resists can be useful but as they are they are kinda laughable compared to other races) or focus on bosmer's resilience and adaptability as a race/culturally.

Again, I really want them to do something like this but my suggestion reinforces the lore and continues to have choices matter while also diversifying the role-race synergy for offmeta picks.

3. I honestly am neutral on this. On one hand, game's gotta make money. On the other, ZOS has a history of putting a price tag on everything and it's exhausting. Recent changes are working on this and making it better. As I mentioned originally, some of us enjoy the exploration and relaxing in open world that skyshards and systems like it bring. I think pay to skip is a fair alternative. My only thing I wish is that gold to crowns made it so you could do that for skyshards because as it currently is crown gifting takes the gifter's account for the checks and not the receiver. Given ZOS is already letting go of a few things monetization wise and will probably do more QOL with that I think leaving this system as is for those who want to or not do things are fine, especially if they adjust the gifting pain point.

6. Again, some people might like this but a lot of us play eso specifically because it's very different from most other mainstream mmos. Also repetitive content fatigue is real. I love Black Gem Foundry as a dungeon, one of my favorites of the newer ones. I did it so much in the span of six months that even though I love the dungeon I was sick of it and wanted to take at least several weeks off of not even looking at it. Endless content works for IA and other things, but most content even if you love it gets stale after a while. I would rather the devs spend their time making new content to explore or adding to IA or the upcoming Night Market than to tweak older content that many of us have run thousands of times and do not want to grind out again.

Again, I don't dislike all of your ideas. The racial rebalancing is something I do want to see, just not in the form you insist on. I wouldn't be opposed to more Blackreach or exploring some underground Ayleid cities that exist in lore. I wouldn't be opposed to exploring the underground of a daedric realm (Mephala's Spiral Skein could very much work here). Even on the repeatable challenge content, they have added systems in game that do support that while also keeping the content fresh and new to those of us who have done it a lot.

Arunei wrote: »

I must have missed where they said they're going to make Wayshrines unlockable, I'm assuming with like Gold in the map? I hope it's not more CS only monetization, it should be that you can buy Skyshards with Crowns but also Gold, as this game could use more Gold sinks. There are next to no meaningful ones, most things that take Gold out of the game are pretty small (porting when not at a Wayshrine, Mounts Training, etc). Which it's good things like that are cheap since they're kind of integral to the game.

@Arunei sorry for ping but would rather add this onto my post instead of double post, it's a consumable scroll that I assume will come from events or Night Market that functions similar to the guild experience consumables. You go to a zone and use it and it gives you all wayshrines plus the exp you would have netted by going to them manually. At least that's how it worked on the pts.

wolfie1.0. · March 17

Dimorphos wrote: »

Some of the viewpoints you people made I can somewhat understand, but I still feel very strongly about these changes and stand behind them 100%:

1. Tamriel Underworld. - Maybe it should be just more blackreach areas or similar and not world-wide, but I would still like to see major cities and similar activity taken to underground world too as it is in the surface. Adding those huge "sky-windows" and keeping the underground areas changing in landscapes would be a thing too. This remains my wish because I noticed how those current underground areas are remaining mostly deserted and forgotten.

2. Let us choose our racial passives. - I don't get it why you all so much against this. It would truly free us to choose our race we like to play not minding about the passives at all because you can take your picks. Also, now when you would wish to make a breton character for example, you are pretty much locked into magicka focused builds. And in PVP at least now and for some time now crit damage has been playing major role and since people run with crit resistance the best way to max out your crit damage potential is to pick up khajiit. I am not a fan of cats or dogs and I hate it that I "have to play a khajiit". Now, some people like to come and argue about that racial passives are max 5% of your total output in any given time and they remain mostly trivial, so this pretty much proves my point then: wouldn't it be all the same for let us choose the passives outside racial setups. I think only those passives that do not effect on your character power output should remain as they are. Some of you pointed out that people would then just play the passives-meta, but how can that be the case when different passives works the best for different scenarios. I did not mean that you can pick all the "best passives" but of course there would be limits like, if you take crit damage you can't have weapon/spell damage. I guess some of you understood this wrongly.

3. Account-wide overland skyshards & wayshrines - Yes you can buy skyshards using crowns but I am strongly against all that extra monetization, we already pay enough for this game at least us who decide to sub for eso+. I think it is only healthy that you can every now and then delete some old character and create a new one but it wouldn't take that much time to max out that new character. This becomes more and more a nuisance at least for me when you have levelled up xx-amount of characters already. Some of you pointed out that collecting wayshrines and overland skyshards is your way to explore and experience the world over and over again. I think that is just the lack of better content in the game that would actively take us around the world. Collecting same wayshrines and skyshards for the millionth of time at least for me become frustrating and something I do not wish to waste my time. Collecting mage books, leveling skill lines (thank the gods they finally made some improvements regarding this) is already enough repeating and grinding.

6. Dungeon+ system. - I totally get it that this is not for everyone, but it doesn't mean it shouldn't be part of ESO some day. And no, it is not the same as Infinite Archive. I guess there is no need to explain this any further, we all should know what it is and for who it is aimed at. Some people like me enjoy the healthy competition and ways to show off your power and commitment and a reason to keep building up your skills, characters and come up with all kinds of builds. Again, such a system is highly optional so why should anyone who don't whish to participate be against it. If it is not for you, it is all fine and you don't miss anything. We can drop the skins and mount rewards and keep the rewards in gold, trade bars, gear, crafting materials etc. that everyone can get in other ways too.

I am only going to comment on the areas that I really contend.

Racial passives. Like I said in my post i am all for decoupling the passives from actual race. What i am not for is choosing individual skills. If you want the Breton skills on a Nord or a nords skills on a khajiit then I am fine with that so long as you take all of them. My issue and concern is the meta game. I know that racials arnt a lot of your states, but in a lot of cases it often is enough of them. And quite honestly there are some broken combinations that you could make. So rather than deal with that issue when we still haven't dealt with the last meta game fiasco,.anything more than what I have suggested.

Skyshards and wayshrines: quite simply the issue is with it being account wide. Some of us like to explore and unlock things naturally. Wayshrines dont take a lot of time to unlock. And with the housing systems and guilds... well its even faster. But some of us like to do things more organically with our characters.

As for skyshards, ya theres the crown store. And you get crowns with ESO+ that you can use to buy those skyshards. If you want to bypass you need to pay. I think that is acceptable.

Regarding the rest, If if it happens it happens. My only other request Regarding this topic are these.

1) please dont loop me in with others when replying. My opinions are different enough that I shouldn't be grouped in with also please don't @ my name in replies. I read the forums enough that if I want to respond I will.

The reason I dont like my name @ is because when someone quotes that comment you make, if it has your @ name in it, you get a notification and it can get annoying fast.

Emeratis · March 17

Sorry somewhat off topic but it does? My settings might be different because I don't get pinged unless someone @'s me or it's a thread I follow. Still getting used to the forums and their settings though so my bad if I accidentally double ping someone or something like that but also same on I sometimes don't reply to everything.

Also yea, we may disagree with op but that doesn't mean we all agree or are saying the same things either or have the same reasons we don't like the ideas.

wolfie1.0. · March 17

Emeratis wrote: »

Sorry somewhat off topic but it does? My settings might be different because I don't get pinged unless someone @'s me or it's a thread I follow. Still getting used to the forums and their settings though so my bad if I accidentally double ping someone or something like that but also same on I sometimes don't reply to everything.

Also yea, we may disagree with op but that doesn't mean we all agree or are saying the same things either or have the same reasons we don't like the ideas.

When you @ someone in a post, and someone quotes your post without trimming out the @ then you get a notification again. This can add up.

Emeratis · March 17

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

Emeratis wrote: »

Sorry somewhat off topic but it does? My settings might be different because I don't get pinged unless someone @'s me or it's a thread I follow. Still getting used to the forums and their settings though so my bad if I accidentally double ping someone or something like that but also same on I sometimes don't reply to everything.

Also yea, we may disagree with op but that doesn't mean we all agree or are saying the same things either or have the same reasons we don't like the ideas.

When you @ someone in a post, and someone quotes your post without trimming out the @ then you get a notification again. This can add up.

Noted. Fixed my reply a little late but thank you I'll be mindful of that going forward.

Dimorphos · March 17

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

Dimorphos wrote: »

Some of the viewpoints you people made I can somewhat understand, but I still feel very strongly about these changes and stand behind them 100%:

1. Tamriel Underworld. - Maybe it should be just more blackreach areas or similar and not world-wide, but I would still like to see major cities and similar activity taken to underground world too as it is in the surface. Adding those huge "sky-windows" and keeping the underground areas changing in landscapes would be a thing too. This remains my wish because I noticed how those current underground areas are remaining mostly deserted and forgotten.

2. Let us choose our racial passives. - I don't get it why you all so much against this. It would truly free us to choose our race we like to play not minding about the passives at all because you can take your picks. Also, now when you would wish to make a breton character for example, you are pretty much locked into magicka focused builds. And in PVP at least now and for some time now crit damage has been playing major role and since people run with crit resistance the best way to max out your crit damage potential is to pick up khajiit. I am not a fan of cats or dogs and I hate it that I "have to play a khajiit". Now, some people like to come and argue about that racial passives are max 5% of your total output in any given time and they remain mostly trivial, so this pretty much proves my point then: wouldn't it be all the same for let us choose the passives outside racial setups. I think only those passives that do not effect on your character power output should remain as they are. Some of you pointed out that people would then just play the passives-meta, but how can that be the case when different passives works the best for different scenarios. I did not mean that you can pick all the "best passives" but of course there would be limits like, if you take crit damage you can't have weapon/spell damage. I guess some of you understood this wrongly.

3. Account-wide overland skyshards & wayshrines - Yes you can buy skyshards using crowns but I am strongly against all that extra monetization, we already pay enough for this game at least us who decide to sub for eso+. I think it is only healthy that you can every now and then delete some old character and create a new one but it wouldn't take that much time to max out that new character. This becomes more and more a nuisance at least for me when you have levelled up xx-amount of characters already. Some of you pointed out that collecting wayshrines and overland skyshards is your way to explore and experience the world over and over again. I think that is just the lack of better content in the game that would actively take us around the world. Collecting same wayshrines and skyshards for the millionth of time at least for me become frustrating and something I do not wish to waste my time. Collecting mage books, leveling skill lines (thank the gods they finally made some improvements regarding this) is already enough repeating and grinding.

6. Dungeon+ system. - I totally get it that this is not for everyone, but it doesn't mean it shouldn't be part of ESO some day. And no, it is not the same as Infinite Archive. I guess there is no need to explain this any further, we all should know what it is and for who it is aimed at. Some people like me enjoy the healthy competition and ways to show off your power and commitment and a reason to keep building up your skills, characters and come up with all kinds of builds. Again, such a system is highly optional so why should anyone who don't whish to participate be against it. If it is not for you, it is all fine and you don't miss anything. We can drop the skins and mount rewards and keep the rewards in gold, trade bars, gear, crafting materials etc. that everyone can get in other ways too.

I am only going to comment on the areas that I really contend.

Racial passives. Like I said in my post i am all for decoupling the passives from actual race. What i am not for is choosing individual skills. If you want the Breton skills on a Nord or a nords skills on a khajiit then I am fine with that so long as you take all of them. My issue and concern is the meta game. I know that racials arnt a lot of your states, but in a lot of cases it often is enough of them. And quite honestly there are some broken combinations that you could make. So rather than deal with that issue when we still haven't dealt with the last meta game fiasco,.anything more than what I have suggested.

Skyshards and wayshrines: quite simply the issue is with it being account wide. Some of us like to explore and unlock things naturally. Wayshrines dont take a lot of time to unlock. And with the housing systems and guilds... well its even faster. But some of us like to do things more organically with our characters.

As for skyshards, ya theres the crown store. And you get crowns with ESO+ that you can use to buy those skyshards. If you want to bypass you need to pay. I think that is acceptable.

Regarding the rest, If if it happens it happens. My only other request Regarding this topic are these.

1) please dont loop me in with others when replying. My opinions are different enough that I shouldn't be grouped in with also please don't @ my name in replies. I read the forums enough that if I want to respond I will.

The reason I dont like my name @ is because when someone quotes that comment you make, if it has your @ name in it, you get a notification and it can get annoying fast.

I get it that using @ annoys you. But using quote to reply to really long posts like this one gets easily very messy. I know I can cut and edit the length of post I am replying to using quote, but why should I go through all that trouble. I can also reply without quote or using @ but usually those replies will get ignored because the person who it was meant to gets no notification. Why should I be interested or to know what annoys other people? Using @ is something we can do here in these forums and that is the only thing I am interested in. What we can and can't do. Same goes for some "issues" within the game that people sometimes complain about as others are taking advantage in some situations finding clever ways to use game mechanics. It can be done, and as long as the devs. do not mark it as a flaw in the system, I do not care if it is annoying to some. I play this game for my own benefit, my own enjoyment and I only follow the rules and systems that game devs. have set in place. I will keep using @ no matter what is your personal wish. I do this without any meaning to inflict anything upon you, I do it because I think it keeps topics and conversations more clean. Again, we disagree, but who can say what is the right way.

Edit: After experiencing life and games and everything for 4 decades now and seen what kind of a mess it is and you can never-ever please everyone, I am done trying to please anyone. I can act kind and nice and I rarely mean to be with Ill-will towards anyone unless they are like that against me first, but foremost I keep my own ways, my own mind, my own personal space and freedom to think/say/do things as long as they remain within the existing rules and regulations. If using @ here in this forum would be against rules, I am sure forum moderators would take that ability away.

AzuraFan · March 17

Dimorphos wrote: »

Some of the viewpoints you people made I can somewhat understand, but I still feel very strongly about these changes and stand behind them 100%:

That's fine, but you have to understand that when you post suggestions on a forum like this, not everyone will agree with them. Players are different and enjoy different types of activities. It's inevitable that some players won't like an idea or be meh about it.

Again, such a system is highly optional so why should anyone who don't whish to participate be against it. If it is not for you, it is all fine and you don't miss anything.

It matters because dev time is a limited resource. ZOS can't do everything. If they're spending time on feature A, they might not have time for feature B. For example, I think there's enough combat-focused features in the game already. Because I'm not a big fan of combat-focused features, I'd much rather they spend dev resources on something other than your #6 suggestion, which is a combat-focused feature. That doesn't mean your idea is bad or that I'm wrong. We're just advocating for what we each enjoy.

LunaFlora · March 17

why did you tag me without addressing my comparing Dungeon+ to Challenge Difficulties?

if you are not aware of the upcoming overland difficulty options that is okay, but i never mentioned infinite Archive

Destai · March 18

Dimorphos wrote: »

Tamriel Underworld. We already have blackreach caverns which I noticed gets rarely visited and experienced after zone completion and that is a shame. It is an amazing place visually and there is this thrilling feeling that I at least get in such underground world that I do not experience on the surface areas. I would go further from this and create a whole "new" ancient world under the Tamriel surface with major cities, towns, lakes, rivers, underground seas, fishing, incursions, world bosses and huge ground "windows" that would give a view to the surface with sun and moons and sky and rain falling down.. Make it as active and almost as vast as the surface world. I am sure this could be easily done lore-wise too with little stretch and could cover a whole year as content and zone stories.

This is an attractive idea, but I'm just thinking about what it would actually look like. We have a few legacy races - most notably Dwemer and Ayleids. In theory, we could explore more ruins I guess. Like rogue dwemer automatons that we need to quell, Ayleid magical experiments gone awry - there's room there. I don't think the "windows" ideas really translates well to a world asset, but cool idea nonetheless.

Dimorphos wrote: »

Let us choose our racial passives. We can argue how much these passives actually effect on your output in pvp/pve, and surely you should always pick up the race you like. But I would still like to be able to pick up those passives that effect on your character output like weapon/spell damage, critical damage, max health/stamina/magicka etc. By all means leave the first tier racial passives as they are or even add to them keeping at least some theme in passives related to the race. This would further increase our possibilities to make our characters just as we want them to be. I wouldn't mind to be able to make some races appear a bit more taller and chunkier as they now are.

Hard pass on this. This would open a can of worms akin to Subclassing and lessen the meaning of picking of your races. Race is something that not only has vast RP implications, but people buy race changes based on the passives. I can see the value in a personal passive, but I think there's enough passives between classes, races, and Mundus stones.

Dimorphos wrote: »

Account-wide overland skyshards & wayshrines. Delves and public dungeons should not be included. No need to explain this further, as I think it just makes sense. These would be in line with current QOL improvements.

I could live with account-wide wayshrines. That would actually be great for getting my characters through skyshards. If skyshards were account bound, I would have nothing to do on alts. So, gonna pass on that suggestion.

Dimorphos wrote: »

Story mode dungeon que/populated with AI bots. Sounds scary at first but this would be only used for the purpose of first time dungeon runs when you really want to finish that dungeon quest, gather all chests and listen through the lore. Populating with AI bots would step in if there are not enough players in que after like 5minutes waiting. Ideal fix to night-time gaming and times when there is not enough player activity present. This could also be used only for normal difficulty dungeons. Many people like to rush through the dungeons because they are there only for the daily reward or they have xp-scroll on or w/e the reason. Now those people who wish to take their time in the dungeon can safely do so. These story mode dungeons would be made so that you can't skip bosses or trash because invisible walls would prevent skipping attempts.

This is a good idea but I doubt it would actually work. Getting them to do dungeon-unique mechanics feels like it would be a tall order. While I would like it, I'd prefer they spend resources getting solo modes rolled out for all dungeons.

Dimorphos wrote: »

Faster respawn for public dungeon & delve bosses. So many times especially during events there are too many people farming those bosses and it can take a lot of time to get your things done in public dungeon or delve just because you have to wait for those bosses to respawn. No need for too long timers, but there should only be timers for loot to prevent excessive farming.

I support this. I don't event think we need loot timers - what's the worst case here? Someone's farming an overland set that's barely used just to finish their stickerbook? Sounds pretty good to me.

Dimorphos wrote: »

Dungeon+ system. My all-time favourite wish and directly copied from World of warcraft. This would give a whole new meaning to older dungeons and looking for group tool. Keystones or similar things that would gain levels as you complete these dungeons. Difficulty rises with the levels. Not only would bosses hit harder and trash be more deadly but also a time limit to complete the dungeon and some added boss abilities/mechanics and environmental challenges. Of course ESO should make their own version of this. This would have its own ranking list to add some healthy competition to the game, but also increased loot and prices that would rise as the keystone levels rise. More gold, more set pieces/gear, transmute crystals, furnishing plans, new trade bars, gold materials.. Maybe some monthly mount/skin rewards for those keeping the top place in ranking list. Not all people like these kind of things and competition but I think it is always optional to participate or not. There would still be the same old dungeon system available for those who don't like more difficulty or competition.

This sounds like a good idea, I support this.