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Here’s an update on the state of the game. A lot has happened and been revealed since this thread was started, including some fairly significant changes. If I’m going back too far or being too elementary I apologize; I just don’t want to leave anything out for those that haven’t been following things much. Also, everything below is “to the best of my knowledge”; new information has been coming out more and more rapidly so anything I missed or which is outdated and someone knows about, please correct it.
First, and most important, there will be an XBOX 1 and a PS4 version. To my understanding they will be separate from the PC game, although I’m not sure they will be separate from each other. This was announced along with a pushback of release to approximately Q3 2014. The console versions don’t concern me one way or another, but the pushback, IMO, was good as the game is progressing through closed beta and I’m comfortable that they’re going to use the time wisely.
Next, an overview of some things I have learned regarding where this game will fit. Matt Frior has explicitly stated “we are not trying to compete with WoW at what WoW does best.”
What this means, in context, is that ESO is going to try to innovate and be different to a degree, but it is not going to completely break the mold of previous MMOs.
This appears to be driven by two things. One: This is a high-budget game; the most frequent investment figure I have seen is $300 million. Therefore, they have a needle to thread. They can’t duplicate WoW, either in systems or in the nature of the challenges; that hasn’t really worked out well for anyone else because it means just trying to be WoW all over again and then people might as well just play WoW. They need to do things in a new and different way. On the other hand, they can’t just go charging into the wild unknown either, as that’s too much risk that they might be totally wrong with a $300 million investment.
Therefore, this game will be sort of a prototype; keeping a lot of what we already know, and duplicating DAoC more than anything else (in the PVP aspect) but providing a lot of new stuff laid on top of that. By new, I don’t mean necessarily “no game ever did it before”, but rather stuff that hasn’t been seen much up till now and will be new to a major title.
The other needle to be threaded is that of the MMO vs. Elder Scrolls. This has been an ongoing topic of controversy in the community, driven heavily by fanatics on both sides, many of whom don’t seem to get that large numbers of people have played both types of games and like aspects of both. On the “Elder Scrolls” side, there is a certain contingent that don’t get that a lot of things from TES can’t be put in an MMO unless you’re making a hardcore pvp niche game. Pickpocketing other players is a major one; there is quite the crowd that is really into pickpocketing.
The other side is the hardcore progression MMO crowd that keeps insisting this is an MMO and that any deviation from the last 15 years of MMO staple gameplay in order to stay true to the Elder Scrolls is bad, and the only aspects that are important to keep are cosmetic/lore things.
Neither position is tenable, and the controversy is quite overblown because a great deal of what either side wants doesn’t impact the other at all. I tend to lean towards the “stay true to the setting” side, but most of what the MMO crowd is really concerned about is their endgame raiding which.. isn’t something that appears in single player games in the first place.
There was a major blowup earlier this year when it was reported that there “wouldn’t be raids”, there would be “adventure zones”, and they “might be instanced”. The hardcore community instantly took this to mean “no endgame content, just world bosses” and about pooped itself. Fortunately it was right before PAX East, and it has become clear at this point that A) there will be raids, ZOS, just calls them “adventure zones” and B) that they won’t be the same as WoW raids, although how they differ is not clear yet.
This did have a positive effect on the community on the long run, however. Prior to this, community websites were dominated by a hardcore raider moderation staff. A lot of them left in a huff when they either thought they were getting no endgame, or realized that the raid content wouldn’t be what they are used to, and the websites seem to be a lot more evenly moderated now, with RPers, casuals, PVPers, and hardcores all represented.
In fact, in general the quality of community discussion has improved steadily, mainly because more information is coming out and now people are talking about the game as it is, rather than trying to design the game themselves on the internet and ***** that everyone else is ruining it.
All that said, on to the specifics. First, the whole “You can’t go to enemy faction territory” thing is gone. At level 50, you can do one faction, then the other, and explore them fully. They are calling this 50+ and 50++ content, and it ties into the fact that there will be a lot of skill lines left to unlock at 50. What this will be like is unclear exactly; for example I don’t know if you will see enemy players, although even if you do there won’t be pvp outside Cyrodill.
Second, the original 6 classes have been changed to just 4. The Warden, and the unnamed 6th class have been scrapped. Originally, it seemed they were going for an offensive and a defensive option for the Fighter, Mage, and Thief of traditional TES lore, but now with 4 it seems like they have a Fighter (Dragonknight) Cleric (Templar) Thief (Nightblade) and Sorcerer (Mage)thing going on.
The classes mainly serve to give you 3 class skill lines. All of the class skill lines have been released, as have those for the 6 weapon styles. The weapons styles are dual wield, weapon and shield, 2-handed, archery, destruction staff, and restoration staff. The restoration staff is a way to be a healer (it, and the destruction staff, have an entire skill line of things they do; they don’t just shoot single spells out like in Skyrim). The Templar also heals, and the Sorcerer has at least one method of healing, so there’s more than one way to skin that cat.
What you’ll basically do, in addition to having your basic and power attacks and block and bash on the mouse, is have 6 hotkeys of abilities. You can have 2 swappable loadouts of these, which can also have different weapons associated with them. This is what’s htswappable in combat. You have to be out of combat to swap what’s in each loadout. The idea is to “deck-build”, so you can have a bow and melee loadout, or a stealth and straight-up loadout, or PVE and PVP, or DPS and Healing or.. you get the picture.
Each skill line will have active and passive skills. Weapon skill trees will use Stamina (except the 2 staffs; they use Magic) and Class skill lines will use Magic.
You’ll be easily able to hybridize in the traditional TES sense of making battlemages, or spellswords, or whatever. What’s unclear is how effective hybrids between the traditional MMO healer-tank-DPS trinity will be. Evidence from ZOS’s one major discussion of it indicates that they will be viable, although not to quite the degree some people want (or fear).
Combat is going to include a lot of multiple enemies, and the tank is simply not going to be able to sweep them all up and hold agro on them – in fact, there is only one known taunt in the game right now.
Therefore, it appears that there will be a degree of hybridization, as DPS and healers will have to deal with adds attacking them. Those adds will be balanced against DPS and healers, not tank defense, so they will be do-able, but what that does seem to mean is that going total glass-cannon DPS, or being a healer that can’t do anything but heal will be risky, since “balanced” means “a reasonable threat”.
Essentially, tanks are going to have to pay some attention to damage dealing rather than being the low-damage punching bag that the mob inexplicably focuses on, since there will be little taunt. Tanks also won’t necessarily be in heavy armor because blocking and dodging are manually done. Much of defense is player skill, not probability. Healers and DPS will need to pay some attention to defense in order to survive adds that the tank can’t clean up.
What this says to me is that while true hybrids won’t really be in the game, or at least will be really hard to pull off, there will be hybrids in the sense that there will be lots of room to make your tank, DPS, or healer in your own way, and putting some emphasis on the other roles will be useful.
This is what I was talking about with the game pushing forward with innovation, but not going hog wild with it. It’s very much a trinity-based game, but it is not “enforcing” a trinity on the player strictly. There is lots of room to make your tank, DPS or healer your own way.
Also, if you want to PVP whatever build you use will need to work there too, and since players are notoriously hard to “tank”, hybridization will be present there. They are also paying attention to making sure healers get rewarded in PVP, not just damage dealers.
Most of the other information is in the details of skill lines, classes, races and such which is filtering out to the community at a fairly steady pace. Things are looking good.
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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."
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