Some mild concerns about TESO

Post » Tue Jun 11, 2013 4:47 am

I have some things that I'm slightly concerned about a few aspects of what I've read about TESO thus far. Of course, it’s all personal. What’s the ultimate game experience for one person may be a major letdown for another. There’s people that honestly think GW2 is the best game ever - well it may be beyond my understanding but it happens.

Here’s my little personal list about the things about TESO that I’m concerned about:

1. RP options. Animations like sitting on chairs, lots of town clothes and such. In my ideal MMO, it’s forbidden to wear armour and weapons in the big cities (except for the guards) so people have to wear town clothes. Not only gives this a far more realistic idea but it also opens up a whole “town clothes“ merchanidise for crafters and collectors. And yes, very basic things in a RPG like sitting on chairs .. why do so many games lack such a basic thing?
And why the “5 guilds” thing? I would think being part of one guild that has a “home village” (a bit like a guild hall) and being member of a bigger alliance and for instance battle teams would feel far more natural and immersive.

2. All emphasis on fighting. In my opinion, a “living, breathing” fantasy world encompasses more than just fighting monsters and each other. One thing I loved about EVE was that people could be fulltime transporters, miners, manufacturers. In my ideal MMO crafting specialization would be just as extended as fighting to acquire gear, levels and fighting skills. It would be so lovely if people could be dedicated farmers (any idea how succesful Farmville is?), tavern keepers, traders, masons, tailors, blacksmiths and so on and so forth. That you have that one master blacksmith that can make special weapon skins or repair damaged epic weapons. Cooks that can make the best food for whatever you want to do.
But also “spare time” activities like minigames like chess or cards and things like fishing, horse races would greatly broaden the enjoyable part of a game.

3. PvP. Just world PvP and no duels, practice grounds. Not being able to practice does make the step towards PvPing a lot bigger for a lot of people. And it’s just fun to try out a new build and practice with a few friends.
Next to that, I think putting most endgame dungeons in an open PvP area isn’t a good idea as it may drive a lot of potential carebear players from the game. It never happened that a mandatory PvP game ever became very (financially) succesfull. By doing this, Bethesda seriously takes the risk that TESO will become a niche game. Which means less income, so less development, support, debugging and other extra’s.

4. Character customization and armour. Not an issue yet but I still haven’t seen a lot about character customization and armours. TES was never very good at making the characters’s looks very appealing. Immersion and being able to look like you want is of a very underestimated importance in mmorpg’s. For example GW2 is a game with very good looking characters that you get attached to and it’s one of the reasons I (and a lot of other people) still like to play it every once in a while.

What that’s concerned it seems American developers just can’t seem to do where Korean games excel, almost like they systematically and stubbornly ignore the fact.
Also, I hope the female armours won’t be too overly sixualized. It gets a bit tedious after all those years, all the Conan/Anime style gear in a medieval/fantasy setting. Sure, a lot of women don't mind or like it but it proves it's still considered a "for men by men" game type. Funny enough WoW doesn’t do so bad what that’s concerned.

5. Dungeons. What I always disliked in mmorpgs was that dungeons are always the same static, predictable experience. What you always have is that some people do them first, make youtube walkthroughs and step-by-step wiki guides - and in the end every dungeon basically ends up as a speedrun where a certain combination of classes and skills work best.
I always wondered why dungeons can’t be made more dynamic and with more random variables. So the first time on the first encounter “dungeon spot” (out of say, 7) you get orges and an ogre caster miniboss, the next time just two warrior ogre mini-bosses and the third time a big group of goblins.
It’s not a gamebreaker if it’s not the case (and I read that mob’s behaviour would be slightly changing according to previous encounters, so that's slightly hopeful) but it would greatly extend the longevity of dungeons and would give more room for improvisation and teamwork - instead of a static "always the same" experience. Really, I'm a bit fed up with the same "read the wiki" kind of dungeons where you can only bring one of a few "most efficient" classes/builds. It feels so extremely unnatural.

Instead of an average "fighting only and the rest as an afterthought" game with the "same old" static PvE and a lot of endless world PvP it would lead to a much broader game that would appeal to a much broader audience and add a lot of longevity.

Mmorpg's become more and more like fantasy action games without a lot of depth nowadays, and we already have far too many of those.

I hope TESO will be different.

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J.P loves
 
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Post » Mon Jun 10, 2013 3:12 pm

Where is everyone getting the no dueling thing from? I could have sworn I saw an interview where it was said there would be dueling. I've seen alot of interviews though, so I could easily be confused.

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Nicole Kraus
 
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Post » Mon Jun 10, 2013 11:18 pm

This kind of dungeons brings other problems with them.

First if there are 7 different scenarios, that means 1 will be the easiest and some will reset it until they get the easy one.

Second will there be different loot for every scenario, if yes try to find a group for the oger way. (i think you know where im going)

Third, how will the lore work with such dungeons.

But i understand that concern, its pretty strange to kill the same bosses 100 times.

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Sophie Morrell
 
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Post » Tue Jun 11, 2013 2:17 am

What i meant that there would be 7 boss "spots" with variable content; boss #1 could be easiest but the second the hardest and so on - when you enter that dungeon, the game makes a random combination of 7 (mini-)boss groups you'll have to encounter out of a pool of, say, 30 possible ogre/goblin groups. The idea is to add a big chunk of unpredictability to dungeons so people have to improvise a lot more all the time. The developers can even add one or two new "boss groups" into the rotation every now and then.

One of the major advantages of this would be that there is no "best team" for a particular dungeon because it's different all the time. One set of 7 groups may be better countered with casters; the next may suit archers better and a third would be easier with melee classes. So basically everyone can come along.

Lore: of course a dungeon could be occupied by ogres and goblins, who chased away the Dwarves that once lived there and the loot could be old dwarven gear and artifacts in any case. That you would fight an ogre caster or warrior or a group of goblins fits the lore anyway.

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Danger Mouse
 
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Post » Mon Jun 10, 2013 9:17 pm

Time will tell.

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Brian LeHury
 
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Post » Tue Jun 11, 2013 12:13 am

I don't imagine we'll be a finished product where there is no dueling feature, but as far as I can remember I have heard nothing about it so far.

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Killer McCracken
 
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Post » Tue Jun 11, 2013 12:40 am

From what we know is that so far in the beta builds is that sitting commands like how they have been in previous TES games aren't in the game, I can't imagine they wouldn't be. Having the command like a /sit is a welcome addition in my opinion to what we haven't had yet in the single player games.

As for not being able to wear armour in towns and cities, especially cities, I think that would get annoying after a while. Say for example it was a manual process and you had to put on your town clothes each time you enter a city it would get annoying. If you had a feature where you pre-determine your town clothes as a set, then yes it would certainly take out the hassle caused by the system. But in my opinion I'd much rather prefer some incentive to wear normal clothes in a city. Maybe you have better bartering skills - shopkeepers don't think "Oh this is some adventure if his pockets weighed down with heavy trinkets, he just really wants to be rid of them and doesn't care too much about the value". Or say if you're a provisioner you could get a better quality food because you've not wearing dry dirt infested armour.

As far as I'm concerned that with TESO guilds like the Mages' or Fighters' Guilds should be guilds in the same sense as player made guilds. If I can be a member of both the fighters' and the mages' guilds then I should be able to be a member of more than one player made guild as well. Not to mention that it opens up the possibility for a wider social circle. I can be a member of this hard core progression guild and also be part of a RP guild.

As I said in a post further up. I can't imagine there won't be a dueling feature in TESO.

Well this is down to preference really. People who are looking for an open world RPG like TES but with super models on every street corner, working the milling, mining and bartending just won't find it in TES because it the general theme of the game. It's designed to be down in earth in that regard. Skyrim especially depicts a world where the lives they live are hard, it can be a struggle to survive; it's quite medieval is it's theme. I applaud BGS (and ZOS, I think) in sticking to what they what their games to look like and not buckle under the weight of the popular culture.

I'm not a fan of sixualised clothes, some mods out there for Skyrim and other games just make me cringe at times (and no, not in the way some of you think ;)) because it's just doesn't work to have a piece of "armour" that covers one quarter of your body and still protect you in the same way as a fully cladded version won't. If a sword hits skin, then it should bloody hurt as a result. Keep the sixy clothes in the bedroom, not the battlefield.

This essentially comes down to how much time can the team spend on working with dungeons. TES is known for having over a hundred dungeons in each game and I do expect that to carry over into TESO for each province. But it's a massive time investment. I'd much rather have say 100 dungeons in Hammerfell is statically positioned NPC denizens in these dark places in the game than having a slightly different experience each time I enter than a reduced number of dungeons for a more dynamic approach to NPC placements.

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Ownie Zuliana
 
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Post » Mon Jun 10, 2013 5:03 pm

Yes but I always found it very un-immersive to be in a tavern with all those chairs, couches and tables standing around - only to find out your character is only able to sit on the ground or on table - because the developers thought it wasn't worth while making a sitting animation/pose so you could actually sit on a chair. I mean: how very basic is this for a rpg?

Definitely!
But it's already confirmed that we will get a seperate "town clothes tab" so you can switch to town clothes with one button (or command) so it could work more or less automatically when entering a town.
And yes, the RP reasons would give it a very good extra incentive! :smile:

Still .. not confirmed!
These days you can never take anything seemingly obvious for granted unless it's definitely 100% confirmed.

Sure, I even would encourage the option to be fat or any other non-perfect attributes for realism's sake. But still, being able to look how you want also includes nice faces and bodies, also in medieval times there were pretty people. It doesn't add to the variety and specific tastes if everyone has the same generic ugly look.

Well I'd think town clothes would be able to fill that niche perfectly! ;-)
I'd say make fighting outfits realistic (I'm even a supporter of climate specific gear) and let everyone look as he/she wants when in town or outposts.
I'm not against revealing stuff per se but to make it mandatory in supposedly "combat gear" goes a bit far what my personal taste is concerned.
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