TES Online opinions

[Monte Carlo]

The new non-subs TES is 33% off on Steam.

 

Are there any players out there who can comment / advise? Or is dead game dead?

 

I liked Skyrim but am a MMORPG noob.

 

Thanks in advance.

[teknoman2]

save your money. it's identical to any ftp mmo ever made, but it uses the TES name to get subscription money

to be honest save yourself the trouble of getting into any mmo... most of them actually lack the Massivelly Multiplayer part! there may be 1000 or 2000+ people in the server, but each can go about his business alone without ever needing to interact with the others because the game is not designed around player interaction but "balanced solo combat"

[Monte Carlo]

You see, this is why I come here for advice.

 

Thanks teknoman, that's taken on board.

[kensu]

I wouldn't bother. It might, MIGHT have been worth if it there's an offline mode. The environments and overall story are interesting. The trouble is that the game is built with a MMORPG sensibility, so there's lots of pointless grinding to get to explore those areas or experience that story.

The really weird thing is that it's desinged, for the most part, like a single-player RPG, which is what makes the multiplayer  aspect of it so infuriating!

Edited July 24, 2015 by kensu

[Monte Carlo]

I Googled some opinions and got similar feedback.

 

Wolfenstein: the New Order was on sale ludicrously cheap - bought that instead.

[teknoman2]

I wouldn't bother. It might, MIGHT have been worth if it there's an offline mode. The environments and overall story are interesting. The trouble is that the game is built with a MMORPG sensibility, so there's lots of pointless grinding to get to explore those areas or experience that story.

The really weird thing is that it's desinged, for the most part, like a single-player RPG, which is what makes the multiplayer  aspect of it so infuriating!

the bane of most mmos is the single player aproach on the game design. the goal of most developers when they make an mmo is, mistakenly, to balance the game in a way that every single player can do everything by himself no matter his class or leveling-power up choices.

[Hurlshort]

I enjoy mmo's and actually preferred ESO to Skyrim. So that might reinforce your decision.

Edited July 24, 2015 by Hurlshot

[Bokishi]

I just bought ESO during the steam deal last night, just got Old Blood today for $11

Edited July 24, 2015 by Bokishi

[Humanoid]

 

I wouldn't bother. It might, MIGHT have been worth if it there's an offline mode. The environments and overall story are interesting. The trouble is that the game is built with a MMORPG sensibility, so there's lots of pointless grinding to get to explore those areas or experience that story.

The really weird thing is that it's desinged, for the most part, like a single-player RPG, which is what makes the multiplayer  aspect of it so infuriating!

the bane of most mmos is the single player aproach on the game design. the goal of most developers when they make an mmo is, mistakenly, to balance the game in a way that every single player can do everything by himself no matter his class or leveling-power up choices.

 

 

Because the alternative approach assumes some sort of minimum population, at all times of day, at each level, in every zone in the game.

[teknoman2]

 

 

I wouldn't bother. It might, MIGHT have been worth if it there's an offline mode. The environments and overall story are interesting. The trouble is that the game is built with a MMORPG sensibility, so there's lots of pointless grinding to get to explore those areas or experience that story.

The really weird thing is that it's desinged, for the most part, like a single-player RPG, which is what makes the multiplayer  aspect of it so infuriating!

the bane of most mmos is the single player aproach on the game design. the goal of most developers when they make an mmo is, mistakenly, to balance the game in a way that every single player can do everything by himself no matter his class or leveling-power up choices.

 

 

Because the alternative approach assumes some sort of minimum population, at all times of day, at each level, in every zone in the game.

 

im not saying that there should be no solo content. im saying that if the game has 10 classes, no class should be able to do the same things as another in the same way.

to give you an example i ll use Anarchy online

an engineer was able to do max difficulty solo missions in closed spaces by simply staying out of view and sending in his almost invulnerable robot to do the killing, but he sucked at open areas since he could not hide and enemies would target him and ignore the robot. also it was the only class that could max out the electrical and mechanical engineering skills needed for crafting

a doctor could only kill enemies of lower level because he lacked attack power, but he was indispensable in a group that would go for a hard dungeon or very high level enemies, so he was always in a team no matter the time of the day (also, doctor and adventurer were the only classes with healing skills. the rest had to use items)

a nanomage thrived in open ground by using aoe nukes and kiting enemies, but in the closed space of a mission he was an easy kill for most enemies of the same level. also he was the only class with an energy regeneration buff

a bureaucrat was not much help in combat, but had some very useful buffs that increased xp and money earned by the team, while being the only one who could max out the psychology skill that was used for crafting some of the best weapons in the game

a soldier could do a huge amount of damage, had decent defense and could increase the damage output of the rest of the team, however to get his hands on the really good weapons he needed to get the 4 materials for it and then find a bureaucrat to combine the 2, a metaphysisist to combine the other 2 and an engineer to combine the 2 new items into the final weapon (or he could just buy one on the market but they were way too expensive)

each class had something they could and could not do and each had some unique advantages that other classes needed (i.e if nobody played a bureaucrat, nobody in the game could get his hands on the weapons i mentioned above). no class was useless, but no class was capable of soloing the game either (well they could with enough patience)

 

compare that to gw2

i make a warrior. i learn blacksmithing and armorsmithing. i go around killing the same monsters and doing the same quests with the same ease as everyone else, just using a different skillset. i make my own weapons and armor. i make an alt that learns to make jewels to make rings and such. i get to lv80 and have the best possible equipment without the slightest need to interact with other players durring the whole time i played the game

 

which do you think has a higher "multiplayer factor" (and for me that is what determines the value of an mmorpg)?

Edited July 25, 2015 by teknoman2

[Humanoid]

It's an idealistic design that falls flat in practice. Not even the highest population MMO can sustain that kind of cooperation, because it doesn't match the reality of how people actually play games. For the vast majority of players, their pattern of play revolves around drop-in-drop-out multiplayer that they can fit around their own schedules, not something that requires levels of coordination approaching the lines of organised sports.

 

Further, that sort of class/role-centric design effectively multiplies the amount of content the designers would have to create - exclusive content is a terribly inefficient way to spend development resources. The game is then also at the mercy of unpredictable factors like relative class populations: even games that have effectively simplified their role distribution to the ubiquitious tank-healer-dps trinity have struggled at lining up the relative popularity of each role with the numbers the design expects.

[teknoman2]

and in the end it makes the mmo generic... the same as the other 9999 mmos out there

Edited July 25, 2015 by teknoman2

[SadExchange]

I have to say with my life right now, being a family with two kids, I look at MMOs as just a different kind of game. A little more "generic" class design that allows more solo gameplay entices me and when I want to group up, I can easily enough.

 

I've played a bit of ESO and have been enjoying it for what it is. I enjoy the skyrim mechanics mixed in with a little bit of MMO mechanics and think it works well enough.

 

I would say the same thing about Guild Wars 2. That game can also be quite a bit of fun solo or in a group when u want. Both have had good helpful communities as far as I have played and the fact that neither have subscriptions also is quite enticing dealing with the amount of time I can actually put into them.

 

I understand that the formulas of MMOs has changed dramatically over the past 10 years, but so have I and so has my time, so instead of camping a boss for hours, I can easily just enjoy the time I am online. I won't argue that MMOs have not gotten more generic because surely all aspects of them have. I guess it's just what you're expecting when you go into them.

[Katphood]

I am having a blast with this game on the PS4. I like the character progression, skills, crafting, researching and so on. The quests are also pretty well written but they are mostly single-player focused. The graphics are the real downside. This is not a very pretty game to look at. Also, if you're looking for something like WoW you better scratch this one. This is more like The Secret World and other mmo's that try to make the questing feel more involving and personal.

[Darkpriest]

SP (PvE) is a standard MMO boring grind up, and it gets really bad when you get into high veteran ranks... the redemption are some end game pledges and Craglorn, but notthing to blow your mind away.

 

PvP is an unbalanced PoS... the best PvP you will find is in the non-vet campaign.

Edited July 25, 2015 by Darkpriest

[Bokishi]

Well first impressions for me so far are that the game graphics look awesome (textures and lighting are great), and combat / mechanics are similar enough to Elder Scrolls. I can see this holding me over until Elder Scrolls 6 maybe

[teknoman2]

some people are ok with this design choice, but personally i find it boring. if all i do is go around solo and i can optionally group up for a quest here and there, i may as well play a single player game that has had no resources wasted on online features development.

when i play something that has the word MULTIPLAYER in it's description, i expect that at least 50% of it's features require interaction with other players (not optional -mandatory)... but that's just me.

[SadExchange]

some people are ok with this design choice, but personally i find it boring. if all i do is go around solo and i can optionally group up for a quest here and there, i may as well play a single player game that has had no resources wasted on online features development.

when i play something that has the word MULTIPLAYER in it's description, i expect that at least 50% of it's features require interaction with other players (not optional -mandatory)... but that's just me.

Speaking this way, which game has pleaded you in the recent past? In the MMO department.

[Hurlshort]

I would think you would really need a good pvp server to fit his criteria.

[teknoman2]

none that i tried... they all had the flaw that the only difference between classes was the type of attacks they used in combat. some kept me on longer than others, but most became boring very soon. in those that i played more than a week i joined a guild but it really made no difference... i was still going around solo most of the time as did almost all my guildmates and once a week or so we did some group activity

EVE was good but when we started the hardcore stuff like going to null sec, it started feeling like i had a second job

on paper, Mortal online had what i was looking for, but when i tried the open beta it was so poorly made from a mechanics perspective that made it unplayable.

Age of conan had potential, but it was so heavilly instanced that if you could find another player, chaces were you had anough luck to win the lottery

anyway a game does not need exclusive content for classes, it just needs the classes to be designed in a way that they are actually different and not just have different combat skills used to kill the same enemies.

Edited July 26, 2015 by teknoman2

[GhostofAnakin]

I just read (yes, I haven't been keeping up with this game much before now) that they're no longer charging a monthly subscription fee to play.  That alone piques my interest.

[majestic]

 

EVE was good but when we started the hardcore stuff like going to null sec, it started feeling like i had a second job

 

That's why modern MMOs have the "solo to max level" approach with the real multiplayer stuff happening afterwards, with various ways to help them to get into progression smoothly, unless the game is completely focused on player versus player gameplay. Games like Everquest have just shown that it's not easy to catch up with the general population character level once the game has been running for a sufficiently long period of time - it turns from fun into a job after a while.

 

It also creates an environment that is incredibly punishing for new players and games that ran long enough to notice the population disparity tried their best to fix them - EQ introduced mercenaries, EQ2 came with a mentoring system and eventually remade leveling into solo-able content.

 

WoW's unparalleled success came from being casual from the get-go instead of a second job. I loved Everquest, but back then I was a student and I had all the time in the world to play. It didn't bother me that there weren't any auction houses and you had to stand around at the market waiting for other players to come buy from you (no, really, if you wanted to sell your crafted things you had to actually "play" booth).

 

But Everquest is still running to go ahead and check it out. The base game is free I think. Maybe you can even find someone to play with you, because there is literally nothing you can do without a group (or mercenaries I guess, I quit before they appeared).

[Osvir]

I played Closed Beta, long time ago and I've heard that Tamriel Unlimited have improved on a lot of things.

I've been tempted to get it and start playing but... it would've functioned better with smaller servers, like DayZ, Project Zomboid, The Forest and many more survival games. Not that TESO should've been a "survival game", but systemically, how survival games handle Online Multiplayer is really good (in my opinion).

There's less people online, and you get more of an immersive experience. Although, survival games differ in the ways that they have no story, but you rather build the story yourself. Perhaps TESO would've managed better thematically and introductory in such a way? Start wherever, as a farmer, as a soldier, as a street thug, an artist, trader etc. etc. and just "pop in" there, and other players being able to do the same thing wherever in the world. Random generated spawn is brilliant in Online games, because it makes you feel more unique in the world.

It is unfortunate, I like Skyrim, Oblivion, Morrowind, Daggerfall and Arena a lot, but TESO doesn't deliver for me. Like I said, I am tempted to buy it because I found what I played of it interesting (if it had been single player, but other players were too much of a distraction, as usual, and immersion breaking story in context of other players), I want an "Offline Mode" for it first... or... preferably, I'd love to see Bethesda create (Single Player) Elder Scrolls VI: Tamriel, with the choice to just, pick a character anywhere on the world map, and start playing that character's journey to wherever you choose to.

Edited July 26, 2015 by Osvir

[HoonDing]

Most hours I spent on a MMO was 50 hours on Age of Conan.

[teknoman2]

 

 

EVE was good but when we started the hardcore stuff like going to null sec, it started feeling like i had a second job

 

That's why modern MMOs have the "solo to max level" approach with the real multiplayer stuff happening afterwards, with various ways to help them to get into progression smoothly, unless the game is completely focused on player versus player gameplay. Games like Everquest have just shown that it's not easy to catch up with the general population character level once the game has been running for a sufficiently long period of time - it turns from fun into a job after a while.

 

It also creates an environment that is incredibly punishing for new players and games that ran long enough to notice the population disparity tried their best to fix them - EQ introduced mercenaries, EQ2 came with a mentoring system and eventually remade leveling into solo-able content.

 

WoW's unparalleled success came from being casual from the get-go instead of a second job. I loved Everquest, but back then I was a student and I had all the time in the world to play. It didn't bother me that there weren't any auction houses and you had to stand around at the market waiting for other players to come buy from you (no, really, if you wanted to sell your crafted things you had to actually "play" booth).

 

But Everquest is still running to go ahead and check it out. The base game is free I think. Maybe you can even find someone to play with you, because there is literally nothing you can do without a group (or mercenaries I guess, I quit before they appeared).

 

in EVE you can solo to any point you want, null sec adventures are much like end game content.

im not against being able to go solo, i just wish mmos would be made in way that encourages player interaction (and even make it necessary at times) instead of it being completelly optional... and if possible with a completelly open world instead of smaller instanced maps