Howdy, all.

I recently started a discussion on the mmorpg.com forums about my concerns with ESO. I'm curious how people around here feel about these areas of the game. I'll summarize the topic here and link to the discussion there.

The only thing holding me back from playing ESO is that it hasn't launched yet. That's really the only thing.

1:QUESTS I found the quests to be way better then the standard mmo fare by far.Granted not near as in depth as TES games but good.The quest rewards i found made sense if you think about it.On most turn ins i found my weapon,armor,and maybe a spell would get skill ups.Now imagine how long you would have to stand there while a mudcrab beats you to get your armor to raise especially if your a caster who doesn't get hit much.I think they were going for a balance so everyone would get skill ups without the need for "grind time" on any particular skill.I was able to raise up individual skills using the grind method and it didn't take too long if you focus only that skill line.I actually did my questing while exploring(which you really need to do if your underlvled for some quests) to find those side quests to get back on track.

2:SKILLS I was happy with the skill lines( there is a ton though) even though overall it was a little daunting from the sheer amount of choices.You can specialize and save up points but you will have to focus your skill usage to get its lvl high enough to open up the ones you want(see 1:). While your waiting for certain skills to open i would recommend taking a hard look at the passives for your armor and weapons you will need points in them.As far as overcharging stats i read somewhere that you still get a bonus from doing that just not in all categories that the stat covers.Like say an overcharged magika gives you magic damage bonus but doesn't increase your mana pool as much.I do agree about having more morphs would be great but i think they would have to raise the skill points available in game to do that.

3:CRAFTING There was an interview with the devs concerning crafting and they said if you plan on maxing 2 crafting skills you would have enough points to do that but there are not enough skill points available to master them all.I guess you could try to use an alt just for crafting and devoting all skill points to that but you would be seriously gimped and unable even to get to skyshards without a group carrying you. As far as limitations, your bags are gonna fill up really fast if you craft.There really isnt enough room for doing 2 crafting skills.The cost for upgrading bank and bag size is crazy costly.I do agree that there needs to be way more variation.I tried fishing and everything i caught was useless for crafting.I would love to see more recipes across the board.Poisons should be more prevalent as well.

4:PHASING I had a crappy experience in the public dungeons.I ran through almost the entire dungeon without killing anything because they were already dead.Now this will probably change after the game has been out a while but at launch it will be a giant hole filled with corpses from all the people before you.As far as phasing in your town example with you buddy seeing something different. I cant really think of a way they could do that without removing player choice as it applies to quest completion.If they went that route i think it would ruin alot of the immersion their current system has. I like the idea of a town cheering me on when i return because i chose to save them instead of no response or change at all.

Im sure the game will change alot more before launch and who knows what it will be like a year from now.

+1

This is spot on accurate, except that you do have enough skill points to completely master every crafting profession on one character if you really want to. It takes a massive number of skill points that could have gone into your combat abilities, but it can be done.

Available space for crafting is indeed brutally limited, and upgrading your inventory is out of this world expensive.

1. Quests. I honestly don't see any difference between ESO quests and TES quests or any other RPG for that matter. Scratch that, in TES, when they want you to kill 15 bandits, they just populate a cave with 15 bandits that don't respawn. In ESO, they have to respawn because the guy who plays after you would be really bored if they didn't.
2. Skills. I had fun. Most of the skills were okay but a bit lackluster before you could morph them, then they became pretty awesome. Don't get too comfortable and stick with the ones that unlock first, either. Keep getting new ones as the skill trees open.
3. Crafting. Unless I'm mistaken, you can't max out all of the crafting types simultaneously. Or maybe you can at the expense of combat abilities? I'm not sure, but it didn't seem like you could earn enough skill points to put all into every type of crafting and have enough left over for a viable combat build.
4. Phasing and instancing. There is public content and instanced content. Maybe don't play on launch day and wait a couple weeks if that bothers you. Or skip the public dungeons, I don't think they're mandatory to advance.

One thing I like about the game is that it has everything that everyone could want, but not every feature is trying to be all of those things at once. It doesn't have one kind of dungeon that tries to attract solo players, small group players, large group players, etc., rather, it has each of those things in their pure form and if you like one kind and not another, you can do what you like and not feel compelled to do the other. I'm not (usually) a PvP player so I like that if I don't want to PvP, I just stay out of Cyrodiil. However, I popped in there out of curiosity and I think ESO PvP may convert me to the PK side.

And most of all, don't try to play this game like you play any other game whether it's TES1-5 or another MMO. Just play THIS game. Knock down bad guys and take their stuff. It's fun. You don't have to do the things you don't like because there's plenty of other stuff that you will.

I must have killed over 40 enemies without a single Dual Wield or Assassination increase. 5 minutes of questing > nearly an hour of wandering and hunting mobs, from my experience.

So just as I feared, the exploring still seems to revolve around quests.

I already had nearly all the Dual Wield skills I wanted, and any that I still wanted were 20+ levels away. Meanwhile, I was only able to find like 3 stealth related passives, 2 of which were unavailable to me.

The point is, people will likely spread their stats around in order to get the most benefit for each point. That will inevitably make everyone's stats more similar.

That would defeat the purpose, for me.

Agreed on the variation. Also, if what you say is true then I feel alright about having no hard cap on crafting professions.

The phasing is definitely a subjective thing. I don't mind finding dead bodies all around a dungeon, because it lets me know I'm not alone in the world. But I can see where you're coming from, too.

I hope so, I'd be very interested in the changes.

The main difference between ESO quests and TES quests is that they seem to be far more necessary to character progression in ESO. I can't recall the same lopsided ratio from any TES game.

The problem is, I run out of new skills from the skill trees I'm interested in pretty quickly. Therefore, I'm forced to branch into other skill lines just to spend my points on something. This clearly favors generalist characters over specialists. Personally, I really enjoy building a specialist.

Good, you shouldn't be able to. I'm glad to hear that.

I think you misunderstood. I like public dungeons. It's instancing that I generally don't like.

I do appreciate that, but I feel pretty rail-roaded into doing quests, as well as building characters that are Jack-Of-Several-Trades but master of none. Or master of several due to only 5+ skills per tree, as the case may be.

You most definitely can master all of the crafts now since they overhauled the system. There is waaaay more than enough points.

Summary of what I said on mmorpg (where I go by KaosProphet): I'm more a fan of the polymath archetype than the specialist ones, so the "Master of Several Trades" doesn't offend me the way it does others. Particularly if it takes a significant amount of time to reach that stage, which given the requirements of *truly* mastering a craft (as opposed to 'just' capping it's level) I feel will be the case in ESO.

Quest rail-roading... I didn't experience it myself, but that's a single datapoint and doesn't account for much.

I read this article that is almost a year old, but even still, it summarizes how I feel about ESO pretty well.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/03/19/the-elder-scrolls-online-what-i-loved-and-what-i-didnt-as-a-long-time-elder-scrolls-fan/

For me, ESO feels more like a generic MMO with a TES skin. I'm really thinking at this point that I will not buy it. I'm not saying I don't like it at all, I'm just saying that it doesn't feel like an Elder Scrolls game to me. Also, I've played every Elder Scrolls game since Daggerfall came out in 1996, so I've been a fan of the series for a long time. I even played Battlespire; which I did not care for.

Anyway, I'd say for me, my personal biggest complaint is that I feel like I'm led through the game, via quest after quest. One of the things I like best about TES is getting to go out and explore the world and meet new and interesting people. I tried to explore the world of ESO, and quickly found myself in an area where enemies were too high of level for me; so my exploring was short lived. Back to doing quests I suppose. It just doesn't *feel* like an Elder Scrolls game to me. As an MMO, it's fine.

Also, one other thing I want to mention. I started off playing a spell caster, and I did not care for the spell casting playstyle. It didn't feel like it flowed, or was smooth. It felt like press this button for this spell, or press that button for that spell, and that's it. I then played an assassin, and I found it much more fun. I did only make it to something like level 9 with both characters, so I don't know that I gave it a fair chance. The skill sets of the assassin seemed to have much more synergy with one another. Some would damage enemies and give you life back, while others would increase the amount of life you get just for being in the hotkey bar. One skill turns you invisible, while another skill in another tree does more damage if you are undetected. The assassin skills seemed to just work so much better than the mage in my opinion; but again, I only made it to around level 9 with each.

***Edit: I wanted to add one more thing I forgot about. This last beta invite, I have an extra key for a friend. My friends love games, including MMO's and TES series. None of my friends wanted the key because they've heard such bad things about ESO. One of my other friends has been playing the beta for a while and he plays almost anything, and even he said, in his words, "it's pretty lame". I don't think it's that bad, but clearly there are some issues; I think.

I don't.

This is the biggest issues with gamers now days, a lot of them are just sheep. A lot of reviewers write bad reviews without much knowledge of a game just for their own publicity which turns people off from games before their even released. I have played many games mostly mmorpg and almost always scifi mmorpg, was never a big fan of fantasy mmorpg but figured i would give ESO a try. After playing one beta weekend i was hooked, hadn't been this excited about a mmorpg release in a very long time. People have different expectations of the game and when something isn't up to to their expectations they toss the whole game aside.