The Elder Scrolls Online

[Curious_Tongue]

The pirate/tropical island starting zone looks way too generic. Too empty. It feels like "Johnny's first Unreal level" in terms of visuals.

Oblivion showed them that generic = mass appeal.

One day Zenimax/Bethesda are being felated for producing generic shit, the next they're being criticised.

It must be confusing for them.

 

[Bubbles]

It's not. None of it is. Skyrim at least mostly feels like your spells/weapons make contact with an actual physical enemy while TESO feels only slightly better than the usual floaty, disconnected MMO shit.

You're overrating Skyrim's destruction spells a bit here. If you don't dual cast your spells or pick the appropriate perks, you're not likely to see any physical reaction to pelting a guy with a hail of red-hot firebolts. The verbal cues and taunts are missing in TESO though.

Not implementing dual casting was probably one of the biggest mistakes they made in TESO's design; now, even an idiot can immediately see that the combat is less complex than in Skyrim.

I peeked into the new version of Morrowind a bit; it looks like the region has been taken over by Count Dracula, featuring lots of tall dark stone buildings with omniously glowing red windows. Almost completely devoid of charm. The Argonian mud buildings are sort of cute, but they look more like thin plastic than mud.

It also feels like the Argonian voices have gotten even worse than in Skyrim; the closest analogy would be a twelve year old trying to sound like a chain smoker.

 

[Turjan]

... the closest analogy would be a twelve year old trying to sound like a chain smoker.

This one nearly makes me try to get beta access :D. Nearly...

 

[Direwolf]

Hey guys, can you guess who this bundle o' bloom is?

Click for answer!

It's Mannimarco, the King of Worms!

Yes, the necromancer!

And no, there's not a lick of worm symbolism (wormsign?) on him!

Spoiler

Fuck this shit, placing an elf on generic fantasy armor 101 on his place is worse than I expected those hacks to go.

To be fair. This is an image from a vision quest and that's him before he "betrayed" everyone. I am not defending the game, just wanted to point out.
Also, after getting to level 8 on the weekend. The game has potential, but they need to completely redo the combat system/animations.

 

[Bubbles]

It's weird how much Daggerfall looks like Skyrim's Solitude, only with five times bigger buildings.

The music feels pretty bland too. The least they could do is play some sort of faux-Morrowind theme when you're in Morrowind.

Flash poll in general chat revealed that 80% of the beta tester base consider Oblivion the best TES game so far.

 

[Ranselknulf]

I think the problem with a lot of these rpg game atmospheres is they play music non-stop to the point that people just tune it out for the most part.

It'd be nice if there were games that only selectively used music to build atmosphere instead of just drowning you in background music all the time.

I mean is there really going to be music playing for you all the time when you are walking down the street. Maybe, when you enter a tavern music could start to play. Not that there can't be other area specific music, but having shitty music all the time can be annoying.

Lots of people just turn off in game music all together or just listen to their own custom play lists instead of the shit they put into games.

 

[Bubbles]

Yeah, this is definitely a turn-the-music-off kind of game, at least in its current stage.

I'd wager that 80% of the Dark Elves are voiced by Breton-style VAs who aren't even trying to sound raspy or "exotic". I also noticed Brian Bloom sleep walking through some extremely intensely written lines. I think the demands of voicing every quest have led to some serious degradation in quality.

 

[Gerrard]

I think the problem with a lot of these rpg game atmospheres is they play music non-stop to the point that people just tune it out for the most part.

It'd be nice if there were games that only selectively used music to build atmosphere instead of just drowning you in background music all the time.

I mean is there really going to be music playing for you all the time when you are walking down the street. Maybe, when you enter a tavern music could start to play. Not that there can't be other area specific music, but having shitty music all the time can be annoying.

Lots of people just turn off in game music all together or just listen to their own custom play lists instead of the shit they put into games.

Tera did that. It was annoying as shit and I ended up turning the music off even though it was quite good.

 

[Ranselknulf]

I'm thinking a good ratio of background music playing would be around 15 to 20 percent of your play time.

Anything less seems too sparse and anything more seems to drown me out. I don't mind background noises or other shit, but constant music can be annoying. I never played Tera but how prevalent was background music in that game?

 

[Curious_Tongue]

Does a great soundtrack need to be turned off?

I never turned off the music in Morrowind, as I never felt it stopped adding to the experience.

 

[Ranselknulf]

If music is running non-stop you tune it out after a while. At best, it doesn't help build an atmosphere because it's always there. At worst it becomes annoying and distracting.

 

[Bubbles]

The armor system here is also rather less intuitive than in the single player games - armor has no influence on your movement speed or stamina, but instead gives specific passive bonuses if you invest skills points. Light armor boosts magicka abilities and regen speed (and since all classes do most of their damage with magicka, this is effectively a dps tree), medium armor boosts stealth, run speed and stamina regeneration, and heavy armor boosts defense and healing received.

So basically, you put on medium armor for travelling and change to light/heavy based on being a dps/tank.

 

[Bubbles]

On quest design, I'd put the Dominion pretty clearly above the others, since they go for a secret agent/conspiracy theme and pull it off reasonably well by MMO standards. Nothing to get excited about, but at least the dialogue is not an automatic skip.
The Pact get a bunch of "gather x of y" and "kill y of z" quests (which are otherwise nearly completely absent from the game, good job on that) and just have nameless/brainless antagonists, which isn't very interesting. The Covenant quest line tries to go for a Mass Effect vibe with a crew of pirates, but chafes against MMO mechanics and the fact that most of the areas are nowhere near the ocean. It also tries to be creepy, but the minimal blood and squeaky clean visuals don't really back that up.

The Mage/Fighter quests are simply copy/pasted between factions, including the same grunt level NPCs showing up on opposite ends of the continent. I'm pretty sure that's how it will be in the final version too, since these are heavily story driven quests that lead up into whatever endgame the devs have planned here (if any).

Main quest already feels boring and sluggish, but there's basically nothing of it in the game yet. I suspect it involves saving members of the original five companions (think GW2 rip-off), form a team and attack one of the two bad guys, streched out over 100 hours of leveling. Basically Oblivion level quality, only with 50 other guys standing around Martin at all times.

 

[Direwolf]

On quest design, I'd put the Dominion pretty clearly above the others, since they go for a secret agent/conspiracy theme and pull it off reasonably well by MMO standards. Nothing to get excited about, but at least the dialogue is not an automatic skip.
The Pact get a bunch of "gather x of y" and "kill y of z" quests (which are otherwise nearly completely absent from the game, good job on that) and just have nameless/brainless antagonists, which isn't very interesting. The Covenant quest line tries to go for a Mass Effect vibe with a crew of pirates, but chafes against MMO mechanics and the fact that most of the areas are nowhere near the ocean. It also tries to be creepy, but the minimal blood and squeaky clean visuals don't really back that up.

The Mage/Fighter quests are simply copy/pasted between factions, including the same grunt level NPCs showing up on opposite ends of the continent. I'm pretty sure that's how it will be in the final version too, since these are heavily story driven quests that lead up into whatever endgame the devs have planned here (if any).

Main quest already feels boring and sluggish, but there's basically nothing of it in the game yet. I suspect it involves saving members of the original five companions (think GW2 rip-off), form a team and attack one of the two bad guys, streched out over 100 hours of leveling. Basically Oblivion level quality, only with 50 other guys standing around Martin at all times.

What class do you reckon is the least shit one so far? I'll give Dominion a go.
I tried Covenant Templar and it is pretty meh.

 

[Bubbles]

Mages are still OP at early levels, since they can 2-shot everything with their big nuke ability. Bow templar can do the same thing though.

The beta ends in 20 minutes anyway.

 

[Angthoron]

The armor system here is also rather less intuitive than in the single player games - armor has no influence on your movement speed or stamina, but instead gives specific passive bonuses if you invest skills points. Light armor boosts magicka abilities and regen speed (and since all classes do most of their damage with magicka, this is effectively a dps tree), medium armor boosts stealth, run speed and stamina regeneration, and heavy armor boosts defense and healing received.

So basically, you put on medium armor for travelling and change to light/heavy based on being a dps/tank.

I can already sense the butthurt of those that wished to, like, DPS in plate.

Btw, is it a "holy trinity" type of a game, or are they knocking off GW2 on this one?

 

[Bubbles]

Btw, is it a "holy trinity" type of a game, or are they knocking off GW2 on this one?

There are clear healer/tank/dps roles, but there are a couple of factors to consider:

- no combat log (for IMMERSHON!)
- no floating damage/heal numbers (see above)
- all health bars shrink to the middle, Skyrim style (see above)
- center-of-screen targeting of friendlies, FPS style (see above)
- there is no buff bar (see above) and no official plan to put one in. Buff/debuffs are determined through visual cues in third person and by going into the character sheet. Will probably be left to UI mods, which indicates what kind of pub (though there is no group finder and no place in the UI for one right now) dungeon experience they're aiming for.
- no minimap, none planned (see above), so spatial awareness in huge fights can be tricky
- both tanking and healing are primarily defined through weapons that everyone can pick up and use (sword and shield/restoration staff)
- PvP currently gives unlimited skill points, so everybody can max out everything
- However, Templar have a class tree that's devoted to healing, and healing a group without that tree is considered a nightmare
- In general, class trees are more important than any skills you can pick up elsewhere, at least in the early game. This is in part because class trees use magicka (stamina gets depleted while running, dodging, blocking...), in part because weapon skill lines are both narrowly focused (2hand is limited AoE with spash damage, dual wield is channelled single target and debuffs, destruction staff is debuffs, bow is shit) and still kind of weak (I'm guessing to make balancing easier)
- However, the guild skill tree that increases based on amount of dungeons done is very healing intensive, so everybody will be able to chip in if they're willing to slot those skills. Those healing skills are of the combo variety: player places a "blood fountain" to do some healing, everybody else can "drink" from it for more. This is done QTE-style, so as long as you can hit a button, you'll always execute the combo.
- in-combat mana/stamina regen is very limited in the early game; you'll be using auto attacks most of the time in long boss fights. There is no healing auto attack.
- aggro management is all-or-nothing; I haven't seen any percentual aggro reduction/increase skills yet (and certainly no passives, since passives can never be turned off). It's "force enemy to attack you for x seconds."

 

[Angthoron]

Wow. Thanks. Begs the question though, who is this game supposed to be for? Seems like it's neither for TES fans nor MMO fans. Immersionfags will jump out as soon as they've seen everything, so free month + 1 month of sub. What the hell?

I mean, sure, I get it, "immersion" is nice and everything, but in group fights, you don't need immersion, you need clear understanding of where you are and what you can do and how you can help your group. You're not going to look around and watch if Player X or Player Y have blood pouring from their ears, or a floaty star next to their forehead is flickering, which means that their Str buff is about to run out. Doesn't have to be a nameplate simulator a-la (modded, especially) WoW, but hey.

Kinda good to hear about limited resources, though, I admit I'm a fan of that. Sadly, doesn't sound like the system makes for interesting situations though (seeing aggro being 1/0), although, are the boss fights any good? Or is it standard fare so far? Tank & spank, stay out of danger zones?

 

[Bubbles]

I haven't been in a dungeon myself (surprisingly hard to find dedicated Templar staff healers with 12+ hours of game time under their belt in a 2 day beta), just read the discussion on the beta forums. Generally people complained about shallow combat and targeting issues with healing, nothing concrete about special boss mechanics. Currently the most complex enemy mechanic I've seen is red fields/power attacks, which are interrupted by walking up to the enemy and pressing both mouse buttons at once. No channelling bars on enemies, so you gotta learn the animation.

Oh, and you can tell if an enemy has a defensive buff because their health bar gets a gold border. Debuffs make the bar look brittle, DoTs give pulsing white arrows pushing the bar inward, ever inward towards the center (I think pulse frequency reflects strangth of DoT too)

 

[Angthoron]

Hopefully they do a dungeon test stage later on, then, since devs usually seem to figure that the way they designed things is the way the players will actually do them. This setup with interrupts already sounds like a nice 5-player dogpile on a boss, each spamming interrupt in turn might be quite a killer tactic. I suspect it uses Stamina, but whatevs, just autoattack to death while the boss does the damage of a wet noodle.

What's death like in this? Everyone has an out-of-combat resurrect spell, and otherwise it's corpserun, or how does it work? Assuming you managed to die.

 

[Bubbles]

Death causes gear degradation as usual, but no corpse running. You can either resurrect at dungeon entrance/nearest shrine (in the normal game, everything respawns quickly, since almost everything is open to other players; there are also public dungeons that scale with amount of players inside and have the same spawn mechanics, or the closed group dungeon - wish I knew how it worked there) or you can res/get ressed on the spot.

That's what soul gems are for. Buy a soul gem (increasing price based on your level), cast soul trap on a creature (requires you to put the spell in one of your six slots and divert xp towards the soul gem tree, of course), kill it, profit. One res consumes one gem at low levels, possibly more later on. The soul gem skill increases by doing the main quest and includes boons like "fill two gems with one soul", "one free res every two hours" or "five percent chance to soul trap enemy killed with auto attack". You also need them to refuel enchantments, which is presumably the upkeep mechanic for the max level guys who can grind stuff without dying.

By the way, I'm guessing max level will be 50, based on the frequency of guild quests (every 7+1 levels) and the fact that the high level beta test was at level 43. There are also Mage and Fighters guild buildings and entire friendly settlements inside Molag Bal's domain, so that's probably where the end game grinding will be (exploration achievements indicate that it'll be the same area for all three factions, but I guess that was predictable; the guilds are "above the petty squabbles of the factions", so everybody will play nice).

 

[Angthoron]

Well, that sounds kinda more interesting than most other stuff so far, but meh. That on top of an interesting core combat etc could be great, if it's put on top of something hollow, then it's just make-up on a zombie.

 

[Bubbles]

The fact that every other aspect of the game is already so polished makes me think that they're either spending the extra time on an improved combat system, or that they've given up and are trying polish everything else to a sheen to mask over the fundamental gameplay problem at the game's core. One of those two.

 

[Angthoron]

The fact that every other aspect of the game is already so polished makes me think that they're either spending the extra time on an improved combat system, or that they've given up and are trying polish everything else to a sheen to mask over the fundamental gameplay problem at the game's core. One of those two.

2 months before intended launch? The latter. They might tweak combat system a bit at this point, but it's not something that's changed by any serious amount at such late stages anymore.

 

[Bubbles]

Tons of people on Youtube breaking the NDA.

Here's the first Fighters Guild boss fight on a hybrid (and an idiot, since he's repeatedly casting the "low health finisher" spell on a boss at full health), shows the feel of combat better than I could: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1hEdzrrJxo