The Elder Scrolls Online

Dmitry, the guy said that his two heals were both HOT. But I don't know if he meant 3 seconds or 30, or if there was any way to tell if they were active on anyone, thus the question.

And Flank, good to hear.

Someone mentioned it: Do the miracle mods let you see what your teammates are doing, or just your own damage/healing? Because boy is it "fun" in TOR to wonder why you are wiping to enrage on a boss because ?????? so everyone just gives up and quits, or kicks the guy with the weakest gear because they have no idea who is actually contributing what.

Muligan_sl said:

How often are they patching and making improvement? Just curious how much is solved week to week?

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Their patch notes look pretty long and elaborate every time I see a new stress test. But from November's stress to last weekend, a bunch of important low level quests have remained broken. Same with abilities. So either: they're working entirely in areas we can't see (content above level 17/ui mods/endgame/infrastructure), there are some deep-rooted engine problems regarding quest/ability scripts that they're struggling to solve, or there's a magical internal build where all the problems are already solved and we're stress testing an old broken build.

The only really noticeable changes I've seen in that time are placeholder TTS being replaced with actual voice acting and the client is now called "live" instead of "beta." I've done 3 tests now, expecting improvement and have been disappointed.

Rescorla_sl said:

That is the general point I was making. From the point onward where WoW dumbed down the game and made AOE tanking easy mode, IMO very few MMOs have required groups to play at a high level. The point I was trying to make is that I think ESO is closer to how dungeon crawling in EQ1/vanilla WoW worked versus easy mode AOE tanking you see in many MMOs.

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Whenever a casual game tries to implement "hard" dungeons, there is huge blowback and it ends up being nerfed pretty quickly. Early Cataclysm heroics and FFXIV ARR's Amdapor Keep both got nerfed to the ground even though they weren't technically difficult- they just required you to pay a modicum of attention. ESO will be on consoles, so you have to expect an order of magnitude less competency than even WoW. While ESO introduces you to all the interrupt/dodge/block mechanics, I don't feel it did a good jobreinforcingthose mechanics. For the first 10 levels you can pretty much ignore all of that and just hold your left mouse button down the vast majority of the time. Chances are if you run into a difficult boss, there will be 2-3 people there and you can again ignore the mechanics. I think they should use that enclosed starting area to really drill those mechanics home. That first skeleton that it tells you to interrupt? Make it two-shot you if you don't, and give it enough hp that you can't kill it before it gets two attacks off. The entire game doesn't have to be Dark Souls-ish punitive, but the average player is going to ignore all those mechanics off that bat. Don't let them ingrain bad habits and have to relearn their muscle memory later. And if the first mob in the game kicks their ass, it might just be a memorable experience that draws them into the world.

And I'm sorry, but all group content in EQ was able to be fully automated with simple MQ scripts- it most certainly didn't require everyone to "perform at their highest." It also wasn't exactly "crawling" so much as invising to a spot and sitting on your butt until the group fell apart (except for maybe LDON- which seemed to be pretty loathed which is why they never did a system like that again).

Droigan_sl said:

Well sort of. I am certainly defending the bottom line of his crusade. I have no knowledge of the developers or engine behind this game, but based on things I have seen so far, it appears he has been right for a long time about his statements regarding their plans for F2P and the likes. Odds are, he is then also right about the why, because he is nothing if not detailed in the specifics of his anger.

I am utterly annoyed with companies doing this shit, hiding products that don't match their marketing behind NDAs and review embargoes. It is not good for us gamers. I dismissed Ut as full of shit in Vanguard too when he ranted and raved on knowing developers and having sekrit infos, mainly because he gives off a very arrogant vibe when he goes into rage mode. Turned out he wasn't full of shit though. Thing is I rarely see him turn full rage mode without telling of his uber connections and secret infos, and also never seen him go full rage mode and be outright wrong.

He usually goes. Project A will fail in this way due to X developer. This will not go well due to Y problem caused by X developer. They have problem with Z feature due to Y problem. And so on.

Hence, I rarely comment on him as I usually don't have anything to contribute to his rants as I have no knowledge of behind the scenes stuff. But I do read it, and don't mind in depth talk of developers instead of the same talk of what is great/missing since EQ. Many people were right about Vanguard failing, that was the period where I noticed Ut first because I hated his posts that were negative towards what I hoped would be the next EQ. However, vast majority talked about gameplay features that were in or missing that would cause the game to fail. He didn't, instead he talked about developers which would lead to buggy engines and bosses who weren't responsible and shouldn't be trusted with the money. We were left with a game that had some of the best classes ever designed in a mmo, good gameplay, good grouping interaction, so features were more than good enough to be successful, but stuck behind a stuttering monster of an engine with a boss who ended up not being very responsible with the money distribution.

Very easy to be right regarding mmos, just comment on all games, and say "this will fail", and odds are it will in some way, they are hard to make. However, having previously been so detailed and hitting the mark on where the problems were leads me to listen now when he talks of his insider connections rather than just dismiss it as the rants of an egomaniac neckbeard.

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I assume you understand how free marker capitalism works? Game companies are going to do whatever they can to maximize profits as well as grow their customer base. All the whining and complaining about going to F2P at some point down the road of a MMOs life is outright silly. AFAIK pretty much every game that has gone F2P ends up increasing their revenue flow which means they have a chance to be profitable and stay in business. A monkey could predict that any future MMO will go FTP at some point and the monkey will almost certainly be correct. Anyone making such a prediction now isn't showing profound wisdom. They are just repeating what everyone should know about the MMO business.

BTW a common trait of those on crusades is that they display a fanatical obsession (sometimes bordering on irrationality) with whatever it is they are crusading against which blinds them from realities that contradict whatever they perceive to be "The Truth".

Kreugen_sl said:

Dmitry, the guy said that his two heals were both HOT. But I don't know if he meant 3 seconds or 30, or if there was any way to tell if they were active on anyone, thus the question.

And Flank, good to hear.

Someone mentioned it:Do the miracle mods let you see what your teammates are doing, or just your own damage/healing?Because boy is it "fun" in TOR to wonder why you are wiping to enrage on a boss because ?????? so everyone just gives up and quits, or kicks the guy with the weakest gear because they have no idea who is actually contributing what.

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The one I have only shows your own damage/healing. No idea what data the addon API unlocks in that regard.

Rescorla_sl said:

The one I have only shows your own damage/healing. No idea what data the addon API unlocks in that regard.

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Having no way to hold anyone accountable in TOR helped make my comeback last less than a month. It's all fine until the wipes start. I'd rather be able to deal with the problem (first through instruction, then through removal) than "oh well we lose, /disband and there goes our lockout for the week"

Recalcitrant_sl said:

FFXIV ARR's Amdapor Keep

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Woah... Am Keep got "nerfed" because it was too easy to game it. They actually made it harder because you could no longer skip all the trash. Harder in the "oh bleh gotta clear trash" sense. Am Keep was only ever hard because people didn't have the right gear in the beginning.

The devs could easily implement it, the only question is if they would want to.

They have to send information to all clients regarding who does damage to what, right? So if they let you log your own then they could easily let you log what other people are doing. At that point making wow-style damage meters is easy. The last piece of the puzzle is whether they let you sync your data with other people to keep results accurate in a spread out group (early version of wow damage meters were terrible at this).

There are legions of casual pussbags that rage on every beta forum for every MMO ever made to prevent damage meters. Probably because they fucking suck and will always suck.

But the way this game appears, they won't need to worry. This game is clearly aimed right at them. Picking apples from the cacti in Durotar was more dangerous than this.

Kreugen_sl said:

Dmitry, the guy said that his two heals were both HOT. But I don't know if he meant 3 seconds or 30, or if there was any way to tell if they were active on anyone, thus the question.

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Ah IC... they are all short Hots. In that dungeon I was out of mana often but mana regens fast and off other abilities. Also, I had no deaggro so I had to budget my dodges too. You are dodging...counting off the hots in you head (I used a three count) and building back up for your ultimate which for me was a giant aoe channel heal that could bring everyone back to full but I had to stand still for. You are also looking to drop aoe circle heals in the middle of all the members and slide foward waves of healing to hit the most people. Kind of a nifty take on healing actually and not easy. The synergies were also popping up on the screen so I wanted to hit those as well. Both times we ran the dungeon...none of us understood what the other people could do and we learned each time as we went. The group in that video is much better than I had and the healer way better than me.

Rescorla_sl said:

That is the general point I was making. From the point onward where WoW dumbed down the game and made AOE tanking easy mode, IMO very few MMOs have required groups to play at a high level. The point I was trying to make is that I think ESO is closer to how dungeon crawling in EQ1/vanilla WoW worked versus easy mode AOE tanking you see in many MMOs.

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I think it's a simple question of what is more fun, Plowing through big packs of mobs or breaking that pack apart 1 by 1. The latter is in my opinion just immensely boring.

Kreugen_sl said:

There are legions of casual pussbags that rage on every beta forum for every MMO ever made to prevent damage meters. Probably because they fucking suck and will always suck.

But the way this game appears, they won't need to worry. This game is clearly aimed right at them. Picking apples from the cacti in Durotar was more dangerous than this.

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I think Devs fight damage meters because it gives players hard numbers to show class design imbalance.

Utnayan_sl said:

Since EQ1 didn't have a "Dungeon Crawl" experience, just what are you saying is going to return to ESO? Camping? Because that's what dungeons were. The last sentence of your gibberish (Which sounds like a developer who never fucking played EQ but read an article about it after 6 expansions) sounds like an answer to a fan on an IGN interview.?

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Seriously. EQ was a dungeon squat experience. It's what made the whole thing so social. A bunch of likeminded nerds find out that there are others like them and they have 2 minutes of downtime to chat every 5 minutes. (Being charitable). This game resembles GW2 in terms of the time you have to chat. It's like Neverwinter in how actionary it is... not sure I ever said a word to anyone in Neverwinter dungeons.

NotSure_sl said:

First 3 noob Dungeons.

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So pretty much confirmed that first person is nonviable in group dungeon play then?

Rescorla_sl said:

I assume you understand how free marker capitalism works? Game companies are going to do whatever they can to maximize profits as well as grow their customer base. All the whining and complaining about going to F2P at some point down the road of a MMOs life is outright silly.

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Don't have a problem with it going F2P. However, do have a problem if they know they are doing it soon and purposefully blocks information to get as much money as they can. Capitalistic, sure. Shitty, indeed. Anyone should be annoyed by that behavior of a company as a consumer. Also think it is valid to bring in discussions on developers who don't care about what they are making as long as it gives them money. "Oh here is a great franchise, let us get some brand name money!".

And yes, fanatic obsession isn't good, but sometimes "The truth" actually is the truth. World would be nicer if Ut was a crazy man talking crap, but knowing the real world, it isn't exactly a large leap to believe his rants and conspiracies of paid employees influencing messageboards. As you said and seemingly agree with; anything is ok in free market capitalism to maximize profits.

Tuco_sl said:

Ten people in a group in shadowbane was great.

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Heathen! DAoC's 8 was the perfect group size. So say we all!

Utnayan_sl said:

Dungeon crawling doesn't exist.

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Such absolute declarations are a challenge to the nerd in me... I am going to say DDO. DDO has some really great dungeon crawling.