The Elder Scrolls Online

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Cinge

Cinge

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
7,274
2,296
Yeah the grouping for social pts/rewards is becoming a norm(Wildstar does it for all kinds of things you can buy with the social pts). Also , from my experience grouping to do solo content increases the speed at which you progress, not slows you down, especially if you want to play as a tank/healer.

Hopefully another weekend sometime so I can try the pvp, I couldn't play all that much this last weekend and every time I did, I had huge load times, crashing, queues etc.

Tempted to play this for the faction vs faction stuff and the few stories that are pretty good, but going solo for this style of pvp is a nightmare.
 
Quaid

Quaid

Trump's Staff
11,782
8,267
The only time grouping to do solo tuned content has benefited me is if I was in a group of Guildies on voice comm.

If I'm in a pickup i always end up waiting around for retards, and I could do things much more quickly on my own.
 
R

Rescorla_sl

shitlord
2,233
0
It sounds like some of you guys don't really know what you want.

Is it safe to assume that no one here wants to go back to the EQ1 design where the group sits on their butt on one camp spot for an extended period of time while the puller goes out and fetches mobs?

If that assumption is correct, I honestly can't figure out why people criticize the solo quest design. It replaces the EQ1 model and gives you something to do in between group dungeons and raids without being forced to group.

If you think solo questing in MMOs is boring, how is that any different than sitting in the same camp spot in EQ1 for several hours straight?
 
V

VOldis

4
0
Rescorla_sl said:
It sounds like some of you guys don't really know what you want.

Is it safe to assume that no one here wants to go back to the EQ1 design where the group sits on their butt on one camp spot for an extended period of time while the puller goes out and fetches mobs?

If that assumption is correct, I honestly can't figure out why people criticize the solo quest design. It replaces the EQ1 model and gives you something to do in between group dungeons and raids without being forced to group.

If you think solo questing in MMOs is boring, how is that any different than sitting in the same camp spot in EQ1 for several hours straight?
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I just want raiding and dungeons from level 1. No questing.
 
D

Dahkoht_sl

shitlord
1,658
0
Rescorla_sl said:
It sounds like some of you guys don't really know what you want.

Is it safe to assume that no one here wants to go back to the EQ1 design where the group sits on their butt on one camp spot for an extended period of time while the puller goes out and fetches mobs?

If that assumption is correct, I honestly can't figure out why people criticize the solo quest design. It replaces the EQ1 model and gives you something to do in between group dungeons and raids without being forced to group.

If you think solo questing in MMOs is boring, how is that any different than sitting in the same camp spot in EQ1 for several hours straight?
Click to expand...
I'm likely an outlier , but I want to be able to solo grind mobs with it coming at least close to if I was doing whatever quest in both xps efficiency and drops.

Let me choose to go to some off the path area to hunt mobs in whatever zone I want and let me still level about the same speed and get a chance at drops the same as someone choosing to do whatever linear bread crumb quest path there is.

Then if I and others do the same in a group we can either choose to grind mobs quickly or go for harder ones , but either way , solo or partnered up , I have a choice of going to whatever area I'd like to explore and hunt , intead of where the quest makes me go.
 
K

Kedwyn

Silver Squire
3,915
80
Rescorla_sl said:
It sounds like some of you guys don't really know what you want.

Is it safe to assume that no one here wants to go back to the EQ1 design where the group sits on their butt on one camp spot for an extended period of time while the puller goes out and fetches mobs?

If that assumption is correct, I honestly can't figure out why people criticize the solo quest design. It replaces the EQ1 model and gives you something to do in between group dungeons and raids without being forced to group.

If you think solo questing in MMOs is boring, how is that any different than sitting in the same camp spot in EQ1 for several hours straight?
Click to expand...
There are much better designs than linear solo questing until you puke. GW2 was a good step in their zone events style leveling but like most things in this industry was completely half assed. There were far too few events that fired off regularly and everyone just ground one event until the next one was in range and you moved. 90% of their game world was useless for realistic leveling especially after the first rush was over or you had a heart hard on. Big reason for that was stuff wouldn't reliably fire off if there was no one around. Easily fixed they just didn't do it.

If they had made it so each zone had a large over arcing story that fired off in a series of events that were ALWAYS in some state of either being pushed back or advancing the game would of been pure genius. Now it didn't help things their classless PVE was crap and the story was awful but in the leveling ideas they were almost there.




Now if I were king and TESO was my baby and I had 5 years to do it over again I wouldn't go with the mostly linear quest design. I would go pure skill base (which is mostly in game as is), no levels and design the world just like Skyrim or Oblivion. Go where you want, do what you want and dink around with whatever. Spawn the 10k people in 200 different spots or so and let people spread out and find their own way with the "story" working just like it does in Skyrim / Oblivion. Mostly optional and is just one of a million other stories in game.

I would also make the worlds living, just like the single player game with a fairly quick day night cycle so people can have both without having to wait to much.

Since PVE leveling is a fairly casual affair let people do it just like that. Casually. Throw some group only areas that have some really good drops for groups to level skills in. Maybe put some PVE raid mobs in there for end game and call it a day. Heck why not copy EQ and kill some gods?

PVP would be entirely separate with no levels and just the realm ranks and gear which only came from PVP. No balance issues that way.

Hire some WoW animators, get combat looking tight and nice. Roll around like scrooge Mc Duck in the money vault when people jizz all over the game.
 
I

intelnavi_sl

shitlord
162
1
I would much rather grind mobs in an innovative combat system for hours, than read some fucking quest. That just may be because I'm a masochist, but it's true at least
 
Anomander Rake

Anomander Rake

Golden Knight of the Realm
704
14
Kreugen_sl said:
They were thinking what EQ/EQ2 devs were always thinking at the time: Fuck You.

No, really, that was the design philosophy/profit model. Just like someone said earlier in the thread about shit like 20 minute downtime. That crap had a purpose.
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This argument doesn't seem based in the realities of game design from its time period (and to an extent, today). The reason why there was so much downtime wasn't because "fuck you!", it was because of the time ittook to create content. Mega Man games were fucking hard, not because "fuck you", but because games couldn't fit entire worlds of content within the NES cartridges due to the limitations of tech at the time. The only way to make a game last was to make it challenging, and sometimes cheap. WoW / EQ2 removes progression cock blocks, not because they were tired of fucking us, butbecause there are now years and years of content to be played. Hopefully, these models are going to go the way of the dodo as game companies learn the technology to create content that won't be consumed by 60% of players within the first free months sub. Maybe EQN will do this, maybe they won't. Time will tell.
 
D

Draegan_sl

2 Minutes Hate
10,034
3
Quaid_sl said:
You're way off base. I haven't played an MMO in years where the level up/questing content was tuned for more than one player. If content is tuned for solo completion, attempting it in a group actually slows you down rather than rewarding you.
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I posted above. While most games design quests as solo content, there are some instances where duo'ing is more efficient. Sometimes it's more efficient to grind and skip quests a a group. You could find this to be true in almost every single MMOG. Whether you grind dungeons over and over for xp. Whether you quest in a duo. Whether you grind Fates/Rifts/Events in FFXIV, Rift and GW2. There are some situations where grouping is better, you just have to be an efficient group with a single mindset of grind xp. Shit you can do it in Wildstar Beta right now.
 
R

Rescorla_sl

shitlord
2,233
0
Kedwyn_sl said:
There are much better designs than linear solo questing until you puke. GW2 was a good step in their zone events style leveling but like most things in this industry was completely half assed. There were far too few events that fired off regularly and everyone just ground one event until the next one was in range and you moved. 90% of their game world was useless for realistic leveling especially after the first rush was over or you had a heart hard on. Big reason for that was stuff wouldn't reliably fire off if there was no one around. Easily fixed they just didn't do it.

If they had made it so each zone had a large over arcing story that fired off in a series of events that were ALWAYS in some state of either being pushed back or advancing the game would of been pure genius. Now it didn't help things their classless PVE was crap and the story was awful but in the leveling ideas they were almost there.




Now if I were king and TESO was my baby and I had 5 years to do it over again I wouldn't go with the mostly linear quest design. I would go pure skill base (which is mostly in game as is), no levels and design the world just like Skyrim or Oblivion. Go where you want, do what you want and dink around with whatever. Spawn the 10k people in 200 different spots or so and let people spread out and find their own way with the "story" working just like it does in Skyrim / Oblivion. Mostly optional and is just one of a million other stories in game.

I would also make the worlds living, just like the single player game with a fairly quick day night cycle so people can have both without having to wait to much.

Since PVE leveling is a fairly casual affair let people do it just like that. Casually. Throw some group only areas that have some really good drops for groups to level skills in. Maybe put some PVE raid mobs in there for end game and call it a day. Heck why not copy EQ and kill some gods?

PVP would be entirely separate with no levels and just the realm ranks and gear which only came from PVP. No balance issues that way.

Hire some WoW animators, get combat looking tight and nice. Roll around like scrooge Mc Duck in the money vault when people jizz all over the game.
Click to expand...
If there are much better game designs than linear solo questing, can't you come up with more than the one GW2 example that only worked when there were enough people in zone?

The Skyrim/Oblivion model you suggested only works in a single player game where the mob difficulty autoscales to whatever your level is. You could complete the main storyline of those games as a Level 1 and many players did. A lot of people praise those games for being open world sandbox but don't take into account the autoscaling required to make it work. I don't see how that would work in a MMO except for cases like in GW2 where your level got decreased when you went to lower level zones.
 
Quaid

Quaid

Trump's Staff
11,782
8,267
Draegan_sl said:
I posted above. While most games design quests as solo content, there are some instances where duo'ing is more efficient. Sometimes it's more efficient to grind and skip quests a a group. You could find this to be true in almost every single MMOG. Whether you grind dungeons over and over for xp. Whether you quest in a duo. Whether you grind Fates/Rifts/Events in FFXIV, Rift and GW2. There are some situations where grouping is better, you just have to be an efficient group with a single mindset of grind xp. Shit you can do it in Wildstar Beta right now.
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Agreed, but I was more referring to pickup situations. Should have specified.
 
mkopec

mkopec

<Gold Donor>
26,226
39,930
What they are accomplishing with the procedurally generated stuff is the future. Even if you have to give it a humans touch with a pass over, its still miles ahead of making every single thing by hand.

Like this...

Outerra



From space to a single blades of grass using fractal algorithms.
 
R

Rescorla_sl

shitlord
2,233
0
Draegan_sl said:
I posted above. While most games design quests as solo content, there are some instances where duo'ing is more efficient. Sometimes it's more efficient to grind and skip quests a a group. You could find this to be true in almost every single MMOG. Whether you grind dungeons over and over for xp. Whether you quest in a duo. Whether you grind Fates/Rifts/Events in FFXIV, Rift and GW2. There are some situations where grouping is better, you just have to be an efficient group with a single mindset of grind xp. Shit you can do it in Wildstar Beta right now.
Click to expand...
I'm not concerned with finding the most efficient method of getting to the level cap as quickly as I can. I just want the journey to level cap to be entertaining and challenging.
 
R

Rescorla_sl

shitlord
2,233
0
Draegan_sl said:
What would you consider challenging content during the leveling process?
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Anything where there is a decent chance of me dying if I screw up. Doing quests that are a couple levels higher than my current level. Aggroing 3+ mobs at a time versus taking the easy route of only attacking 1-2 at a time.
 
Daidraco

Daidraco

Avatar of War Slayer
10,039
10,355
I've always thought the whole point behind leveling was to teach a new player how to play the game and get them caught up into lore. As it stands right now, I feel like it's just a boring barrier to entry. A way to keep the players from going through all of the content in a short period of time. Solo or not, it just doesn't need to be in an MMO that doesn't make the process legendary and informative. Does the average kid journey around the neighborhood looking to clean out random rat infestations? Walk up to a random old dude and sees if he needs 40 boar slain? Quests need to get back to being a story that leads up to a great reward. Not a reward that's so small you out grow it in a couple hours of play time. I'm talking shawl quest in magnitude. Leveling up needs to be only a handful of levels. Teaching you about your character and how to play it. Also teaching you basic raid mechanics like assisting, cc, stay out of the shit on the ground etc. Finally, have an over arcing story quest that grabs you by the balls while you're doing that other shit that tells you who the bad guys are. What factions you can join and why you should choose them.
So what's the rest of the game? Finding skills to use. Skills that define the class that you want to be. Changing the world you're in. Either with phasing, Voxels or both! Defining what faction you are fighting for and defining why you're fighting with them. Following some linear progression with defined classes is just getting old.

Also, I don't ever depend on the game to make people social. I talk to people in my groups. I stay in guilds with people that talk during raids. Being social is your own choice. Not the games.
 
Jaybee

Jaybee

Silver Knight of the Realm
276
33
Trying real hard to like this game but it just isn't happening. I managed to get a Nightblade to level 5 last push and a Templar to level 6 this push. That's as much as I can take - I can't even make it to Cyrodil to see level 10+. It's a beautiful game - the environment, textures, effects, lore, and dialogue are all outstanding. But, like others have said, the combat is just brutal. The lack of nameplates seems like a terrible idea, I don't know if they are trying to boost immersion or what, but it's off-putting to me.
 
R

Recalcitrant_sl

shitlord
190
0
Jaybee_sl said:
The lack of nameplates seems like a terrible idea, I don't know if they are trying to boost immersion or what, but it's off-putting to me.
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It's weird- it's hard to even justify it for immersion because there are exceptions like the quest markers and the highlight-glow. In Cyrodiil you see floating health bars above players but no nameplates. All your enemies have their faction's icon floating above their heads. Members of your group all have a big white flighting insignia (inverted chevron by itself or with a sword or plus sign).
 
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