*** Official Elder Scrolls MMO Thread ***

[Tombstone]

You Human hating scum Tombstone!

Well I have an Imperial in there !

 

[DanTheMan]

I hope they've fixed the CPU spikes. I couldn't play much last beta weekend as it constantly froze every 30 secs.

 

[LateX'Dog]

I hope they've fixed the CPU spikes. I couldn't play much last beta weekend as it constantly froze every 30 secs.

Yeah that was pretty rough, experienced that a lot my self.

Remember everyone, this is the 0.18 patch, the combat feel patch (Collision on NPCs, animations and other combat related changes) and change to starter areas. So now would be a great time to check out the game if you didn't like it.

 

[Newbie007]

I'm not sure I see the point of say, me posting in the WS thread about how awful the game is or how much better ESO will be if I'm not interested in it in the slightest

I personally wouldn't mind if you had/were playing the game, all I was trying to do was have discussion about the game and bring a few points onboard of someone that isnt going to be buying/playing at launch to counter the shilling of a few other posters that have history of doing this in the pre-launch phase of an MMO and then disappearing once its launched. Instead I'm a troll or a 'Wildstar child fanboy thing - if I'm either of those things surely what I say can be countered easily? And no, countering the 'cash shop' debate with but its been said off record isn't that. Where's the official confirmation? Wheres the official cash shop page.

I would love for this to succeed, I was as excited as anyone when ESO was announced, I love MMO's and I love the ES world. Hell I remember buying Oblivion being unable to play it and having to upgrade my whole PC.

Maybe I have been to vehement in my nay saying, its not the worst MMO ever made (Vanguard has that hands down ). I've even posted how the PvP could be its way in, unfortunately the lead devs are ignoring the best aspect of the game 'because they know best'.

As stated I'm just trying to bring some balance to the outright fallacies that have been churned in the thread, I could go on about how they've basically announced they're removing addons for things like seeing your health/ mana amounts numerically or custom target plates, as they have no idea how to fix the botting issues they had with the API so have gone the other direction and killed addons. Or how apparently their statements internally to a guild leader were that they aren't targeting an MMO or ES audience but rather intend to make their own game vision., touch baffling no?

How about in the latest patch (0.181) anything but the dull linear questing through the main zone questlines has completely nerfed XP gain. Grinding mobs with friends has been nerfed into the ground , PVP earnings of XP are horrendously slower than grinding and they made exploration XP give virtually nothing too.

Or how about how Crafting has been nerfed significantly from being some of the most powerful gear in the game to some of the weakest top-level items you can equip. They have taken out any value to it except for making potions, when previously it was a strong game system.

How about Veteran Rank XP being nerfed to ****? How about 3 weeks until release no one knows anything about end game apart from 2 'raids'?

If this was a good product I wouldn't mind, but for those chucking 40, 50, 60 GBP at the game go and buy some decent indie titles, support PC gaming where your money could be spent well.

 

[Sleepery]

Oh man, you're going to be Latex enemy number one for that, far too honest

Watch him call you a liar and a troll without actually refuting any of your arguments

There's not going to be a font big enough for the outrage

 

[LateX'Dog]

Oh man, you're going to be Latex enemy number one for that, far too honest

Watch him call you a liar and a troll without actually refuting any of your arguments

There's not going to be a font big enough for the outrage

Newbie is on my ignore list, as he's just a troll and full of ****. Been there for a year or so now i think.

So his opinion means a little as the crap coming out of my cats arse.

 

[Newbie007]

I'm on ignore apparently, why would he care though he wont be playnig it come July

 

[scritchyrat]

No, they are all fair and valid points. I will rebut it by saying that grinding mobs has always been a pish way to earn XP, even in the beta tests so that is a bit of a non issue (and it ties into something I'll get back to later). PvP gains, well, I'm not a primarily PvP player so it doesn't really affect me but I'm sure it'll nark some. Add ons I really couldn't give a monkeys about. Crafting hasn't been 'nerfed' you naughty little fibber. They'll still make numerically equal gear to top dropped stuff, but top dropped stuff is much more likely to have much better bonus' attached; crafters are still needed for the best gear though as Legendary doesn't drop and has to be crafted using tempers which, ta-da, you have to be a highest level crafter to do. While they're not making said item 'literally', they are needed to 'craft' it.

Veteran XP (which ties in with my remark about XP earlier) doesn't strongly worry me yet for two reasons. One, I'm in absolutely no rush to get to Vet status and I'm sure some form of compromise will be in effect by then between devs and players (because I don't fancy the idea of grinding the last three vet ranks on tiddly numbers from mobs and I'm sure no one else does either and the devs must know this) and two, because unlike some developers that sit in their ivory towers and do nothing but treat their playerbase with contempt *cough*Bioware*cough* ZoS so far haven't really put a foot wrong and have more than earned me having some faith in their decisions.

End game stuff reveal is coming very soon but judging by the map of Craglorn (the adventure zone) and the sheer amount of stuff in there, I'm really not worried about what they have planned (this also ties in with having faith in them).

I know the real reason you're doing this Newbie but props for actually doing it via constructive criticism this time

 

[No1newts]

Nice debate newb/scritch. Pretty eye opening and interesting.

 

[LateX'Dog]

I know the real reason you're doing this Newbie but props for actually doing it via constructive criticism this time

Just ignore him, he's just trolling all the time. Based upon some the quotes I've read from other peoples posts, he's massively misinformed. Like badly.

Based of what your saying:

You can level just as effective in PvP as you can in PvE as they have uncoupled the skills to levels, so you will not longer out level your skills.

Crafting hasn't got nerfed and its pretty simple to understand:

You can craft good gear at special sites.
Dropped gear is better then the above but made even better by crafters, as they can apply enhancements to the gear.
Crafters are the only people able to make the best gear in the game.

Veteran XP has been nerfed so you don't max out after doing a handful of zones, this way it spreads you out over the other zones. Personally there is nothing wrong with that.

There is 1 adventure zones with single player, group play, raid and dynamic world content.

You also have unique dungeons in the PvP only zone if you control it.

So post 50++ content you have more then enough to keep you going.

Craglorn description by one of the high end testers from TF:

Picture a new zone like Auridon (or Stonefalls). Now cut that zone down to about 2/3rds that size. Next make everything approximately veteran rank 5-10 (sorta like level 52). Now take those mobs, and make 4x as many in each group. That would be the overworld of the zone.

Now within that zone there is usually an instance dungeon for 4 players (Spindleclutch or whatever). Now take that dungeon, and make the same changes as above (excluding the size I would imagine). The zone is now stuffed full of mobs that are veteran rank 10+ and various bosses that are tuned for 12 players. This is were things get foggy for us – all we know past here is that we can imagine they are close in scale and difficulty as “raids” in past MMO’s (WoW).

We don’t know how many there will be. It is suspected only 1 (as that would follow the idea of the other zones). I do expect however that the “caves” that are normally tuned for 1-2 players in most zones will still exist and be tuned for 4 players – so those could be fun side attraction as well.

I don’t think WoW has an example of an adventure zone really. They seem to go back to more of an EQ/DAoC old school raid zone type of deal – with the added innovation of instancing of the actual raid bosses. The zone will be sort of like an extremely huge 4 man dungeon (that is not instanced) , and the “Trials” will be like Black Temple or possibly something like Mount Hyjal (Hyjal seems like a better bet to me with the ESO system I have seen thus far).

And they are planning multiple zones like this.


And this is about the PvP Zone with PvE content:

Cyrodiil was not Bethesda’s best open world. Its unrelenting greenness wasn’t nearly so powerful as Fallout 3’s sudden flashes of it, nor as compellingly weird as Morrowind’s massive mushrooms. And where Skyrim offers breathtaking views, 2006’s Oblivion couldn’t help but scupper its own with a dodgy draw distance.

But seven years or so makes the heart fonder and the head forgetful - and we’re quite looking forward to joining The Elder Scrolls Online’s PvP fight across a recognisable warzone. And if Zenimax Online are to be believed, we will recognise it.

“Cyrodiil in our timeline will look very familiar to Oblivion,” wrote Zenimax lead PvP designer Brian Wheeler, “however much more spread out.”

In a long and winding Q&A session with Elitist Jerk forumites, Wheeler confirmed that Zenimax’s version of Cyrodiil was “very, very large” - so much so that it’d take roughly 20 to 30 minutes to cross from North to South on foot.

Given the size of the map, potential players wondered how Zenimax had gone about ensuring that points of interest were scattered throughout. Wheeler answered that besides the major keeps and the outside resources that fuel them, there are “specific choke points” between the territories of the three player Alliances in Cyrodiil. There, we’ll always be able to look for small skirmishes.

The towns dotted throughout Cyrodiil, meanwhile, offer repeatable PvE quests for those looking to take a break from people murder. “Or even better,” suggested Wheeler, “want to look for players taking a break [who] don’t expect to be killed”. PvE objectives will be found in Bruma, Cheydinhal, Chorrol, Cropsford or Vlastarus.

Finally, players asked about the memorable Ayleid ruins that helped define Oblivion’s aesthetic. Wheeler confirmed their return, in Cyrodiil and elsewhere, as dungeons to explore with “stories focused around them”.

“Coming from a purely combat standpoint like the buffs from Oblivion, some Ayleid wells will also offer a temporary bonus to stats once you interact with them,” he said. “These are especially useful in Cyrodiil as you can imagine.”

I’m coming round to the idea that PvP is where The Elder Scrolls Online will make its mark - and likely where you’ll find the majority of its players 10 years down the line. What do you reckon? Maybe read yesterday's story on PvP fortifications in The Elder Scrolls Online if you're interested.

 

[Vtec9k]

Newbie are you in the closed/permanent beta?

Because I don't think they have "killed addons" just working to readjust what might be seen as a competitive advantage. Seeing enemy cast bars, mana, etc is way too much but showing your own in a different format probably isn't. Hopefully they get the balance right. can you confirm exactly what API features have changed?

 

[Newbie007]

The whole **** storm over addons is very pertinent I feel, they went with a proper MMO Ui at 1st (combat log, nameplates etc) but then dumbed it down/stripped it back after the outcry from ES 'nerds' and went for a very Elder scrolls esque UI (God knows why, the UI's are the wost thing from the series). They countered this by claiming addon builders everywhere will be able make/code all the usual goodies. However the API has massive loopholes resulting in an insane amount of botting (in a closed beta bear in mind, ooops ). As they cant fix the issue the are jumping the shark and closing it off, good move? No and typical of the way the game has gone down.

Craters are up in arms, its always been a huge portion of an ES game. Its nerfed, you know it and I know it

The way I understand it, after the latest changes is that its nigh on impossible to get rank 10 vet. Completing all the quests in the game wont get you there, you'll need to grind mobs for that last 9million xp (basically questing gets you to r7) - a mob will give 200xp on average..

Given the nature of the MMO playerbase these days (rush to cap), the fact the end game hasnt been fully implemented or tested would have me very very worried.

 

[LateX'Dog]

Some official information on crafting posted today:

http://elderscrollsonline.com/en/news/post/2014/03/10/ask-us-anything-crafting

Crafted gear of the same level and same quality as gear found in the world is almost always better. For instance, if you find a level 22 sword of fine quality, but your friend crafts a level 22 sword of fine quality, the damage done by the crafted sword is going to be slightly better. However, some of the gear you find in the world will have unique enchantments or set bonuses crafters cannot replicate. Still, a crafter might be able to take that dropped item and make it even better while retaining the unique enchantment.

See what i mean, Newbie is just full of crap.

 

[scritchyrat]

Just ignore him, he's just trolling all the time. Based upon some the quotes I've read from other peoples posts, he's massively misinformed. Like badly.

I know he has previous, and I know you two rankle each other, but he does bring up some fair points that have been brought up from PTS. I've always said I won't blindly defend a game if it is doing something.

Based of what your saying:

You can level just as effective in PvP as you can in PvE as they have uncoupled the skills to levels, so you will not longer out level your skills.

Seems that isn't the case at all. They've put the lock on so that people can halt their XP gain if they desire, but the gain from killing players has been diminished. I can't really see too much in this because if you're playing the game for PvP, levelling isn't really an issue as you'll be involved in so much fighting that you'll get to max level soon enough anyway. If you're not that involved in PvP, then why are you trying to level in Cyrodill?

Crafting hasn't got nerfed and its pretty simple to understand:

You can craft good gear at special sites.
Dropped gear is better then the above but made even better by crafters, as they can apply enhancements to the gear.
Crafters are the only people able to make the best gear in the game.

Crafted gear on the journey to 50 is better than dropped (greens I'd imagine but I don't know) but the requirements of making set gear (lots of research hours) and underwhelming effects mean they're not worth making (apparently). I'm sure if ZoS look at their data and don't see them being utilised they'll do some upgrading.

Veteran XP has been nerfed so you don't max out after doing a handful of zones, this way it spreads you out over the other zones. Personally there is nothing wrong with that.

Yeah, this is actually the biggest one that I agree with Newbie on. There seem to be lots of rumblings that after doing all three, campaigns for wont of a better word I suppose, you'll end up at around vet 7, maybe 8. That leaves no content other than adventure zones/dungeons/grinding with which to get your remaining levels. If you're not lucky (or desirable) enough to get regular grouping (which cancels out AZ/dungeons) then it is going to be a long, lonely walk toward vet 10. As I said, I have faith that something will be in the works to remedy this.

There is 1 adventure zones with single player, group play, raid and dynamic world content.

You also have unique raid and dungeon combat in the PvP only zone if you control it.

So post 50++ content you have more then enough to keep you going.

Craglorn description by one of the high end testers from TF:



And they are planning multiple zones like this.

I have no doubt that adventure zones are going to be amazing. The tidbits that are emerging sound ace and a really nice change (throwback?) from the standard raiding formula.

Oh, Newbie, you suck for saying Vanguard is the worst MMO of all time! Well, it did suck a bit, but it had so much potential

 

[Newbie007]

Oh, Newbie, you suck for saying Vanguard is the worst MMO of all time! Well, it did suck a bit, but it had so much potential

I still have the Vision™ printed off somewhere

 

[Vtec9k]

The whole **** storm over addons is very pertinent I feel, they went with a proper MMO Ui at 1st (combat log, nameplates etc) but then dumbed it down/stripped it back after the outcry from ES 'nerds' and went for a very Elder scrolls esque UI (God knows why, the UI's are the wost thing from the series). They countered this by claiming addon builders everywhere will be able make/code all the usual goodies. However the API has massive loopholes resulting in an insane amount of botting (in a closed beta bear in mind, ooops ). As they cant fix the issue the are jumping the shark and closing it off, good move? No and typical of the way the game has gone down.

I know the background. Can you confirm what has changed?

 

[scritchyrat]

I still have the Vision™ printed off somewhere

Just don't be saying anything bad about my SWG!

 

[LateX'Dog]

Seems that isn't the case at all. They've put the lock on so that people can halt their XP gain if they desire, but the gain from killing players has been diminished. I can't really see too much in this because if you're playing the game for PvP, levelling isn't really an issue as you'll be involved in so much fighting that you'll get to max level soon enough anyway. If you're not that involved in PvP, then why are you trying to level in Cyrodill?

I don't see the issue with this? I'm sorry, maybe explain it a little more as i'm confused as to why this is an issue.

You get less XP for PvP then PvE, as this is clearly stated by the devs. But as PvP content is made by the players, the more players the more XP.

Crafted gear on the journey to 50 is better than dropped (greens I'd imagine but I don't know) but the requirements of making set gear (lots of research hours) and underwhelming effects mean they're not worth making (apparently). I'm sure if ZoS look at their data and don't see them being utilised they'll do some upgrading.

'Not worth making' is very subjective. As I've just posted a crafting post from the devs, have a read of that. Pretty sure I'll take their word over his.

Yeah, this is actually the biggest one that I agree with Newbie on. There seem to be lots of rumblings that after doing all three, campaigns for wont of a better word I suppose, you'll end up at around vet 7, maybe 8. That leaves no content other than adventure zones/dungeons/grinding with which to get your remaining levels. If you're not lucky (or desirable) enough to get regular grouping (which cancels out AZ/dungeons) then it is going to be a long, lonely walk toward vet 10. As I said, I have faith that something will be in the works to remedy this.

Right, i'm still failing to see the 'massive' issue in this? SWTOR legacy system wasn't finished with your first character? I'm pretty sure the extension to the veteran system is to slow the steam rolling idiots who rush to 50 and complain.

Whats wrong with dragging something out? Why should you be max veteran rank after doing all the zones?

 

[Sleepery]

I burst into tears every time Tabula Rasa is mentioned, just so you know.

 

[LateX'Dog]

And if anyone wants to debate addons and so on, Here is the link for the entire API for ESO:

http://wiki.esoui.com/Main_Page

Also, this is posted by one of the addon dev's:

A big concern right now with addons is the amount of information the ESO API allows for them to see. The default UI has a very minimalist design to it which doesn't show on-screen a large amount of the data available at any given time.

For instance, here is a function from the API which an addon could use to see a lot of information about a unit casting a spell in the vicinity...

GetUnitCastingInfo(string unitTag)
Returns: string actionName, number timeStarted, number timeEnding, bool isChannel, integer barType, bool canBlock, bool canInterrupt, bool isChargeUp, bool hideBar

Some of the most important information this function returns includes:

The name of the spell/action
When the cast began
When the cast will finish
Whether the spell/action is channeled or a chargeup type spell
If the spell/action can be interrupted
If the spell/action can be blocked


The addon could then take some action(s) based on this information it has received...

However! It is incredibly important to realize....
By and large, the ESO API does not allow an addon to issue combat or movement commands for the player. So by itself, the addon is only capable of notifying the player of this information. In theory this prevents "cheating" or "botting".

Access to this kind of information does, however, make botting a fairly trivial task using an outside application. For example, you could make an addon which uses the above function to detect whenever a certain interruptable spell is being cast nearby and do something non-combat related in the UI, say place a 1 pixel pink square at a specific location on the screen. A program external to the game could be setup to look at that one pixel and enter some keypresses automatically whenever that pixel turns pink. Voila, you have an auto-interrupter. This is cheating and could very easily get you banned.

The two most obvious ways to prevent this are to...

implement tools to detect/police these external applications which use the legitimate API information to cross the line

or

cut off the information at the source by removing addon access to the API functions which give the exploitable information to those external applications in the first place


The former would preserve access to those API functions for legitimate uses, but is much more difficult and invasive to pull off (the game would need detection algorithms and/or a sniffer application that can look at what is running on your computer outside of the game).

The latter would solve the problem for good, but deny a great deal of functionality to addons which would use the information legitimately.

Zenimax has stated that they will be taking a pretty firm stance on exploits of the API. They are very much against the idea of players feeling forced to get a certain addon in order to stay competitive in the game.



To address some of your specific concerns....

Automatic PvP Blocking

Addressed above

Aggresive Guild-Autoinviting

Definitely possible with the API unless there is some sort of internal cap on invites/time

IP-sniffing

To my knowledge, nothing in the API has access to anything regarding your system information, so no worries there

Peformance Stealing

Addons run locally on the client's computer reactive to "events" (player opened a vendor screen, player looted something, etc.) in the game. As far as I know, there are very few (if any) API functions that create events that are not local to the client and would need to be sent to the server. Even if there are and an addon was made to maliciously spam the server with events, it would probably take a lot of people all using the addon at the same time in one place to notice any effect on latency due to the enormous bandwidth the servers have.

Yes an addon could cause performance issues for the person running the addon
No, it is very unlikely that an addon could create performance issues for other players

Oh and FTC still works fine FYI, as i've just found out.