Author Topic: Elder Scrolls Online Beta  (Read 11213 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Paul M (OP)

  • Vice Admiral
  • **********
  • P
  • Posts: 1432
  • Thanked: 50 times
Elder Scrolls Online Beta
« on: March 03, 2014, 09:59:37 AM »
Well there was no work on Aurora this weekend from me as I was involved in the ESO Beta test.

Just a view on it for you all.  First a few statments so you can judge the comments.
-I am a role player, not a munchkin or raider or whatever.  I don't max my min-maxing.  My view of technical things in games tends to be based on ease of use, and can I stand to stare at this for 300 hours.  "This" being my character, my characters gear, spell effects etc.  I am online to be incharacter not to discuss fruit as sex toys in some open channel, so my first act is to find out how to stop the noise from showing up.
-I am not a huge fan of the Elder Scrolls games.  I played Morrowind for 30 or so hours until it bored me to tears.  I have Skyrim on my Xbox and I am at lvl 26 and find it enjoyable but frustrating playing as a mage where an arrow that should do 10 pts of damage can 1 shot me or 2 shot me if my mage armour is up.  Add to that the frustration of having to swap spells etc plus their short durations and so on.  I don't find the system for character advancement worse than Morrowind, I'd  have to say it is better as it seems to avoid a lot of stupidity and exploitation that was in Morrowind.
-I died twice.  The first time was to slaugher fish while swimming and trying to make it around a point of rock.  The second time was in a boss fight at the very end of the quest chain.  I didn't know if I should just attack him or wait or what so the fight sort of started before I realized what was going on and I was surprised by how many hit points he had.  Up till then most fights had been very short.  When I got back after raising I found two other players fighting him and both were at half hits (and one was bruiser orc) so I don't feel so bad.
-I got to daggerfall but didn't have time to explore much.  I got to lvl 7 I think.  I walked over both Mrho'sha (or whatever the name is) and Betnihk (or Betony as a proper breton would call it) and explored them extensively though I didn't find the soul shards in Betnihk as I recall...but I wasn't really looking for them.

So first the Ok-ish things.
-the setting seems to be well set in the Lore.  The races of the Daggerfal Covenent (I was playing a Breton Mage) have clearly got friction but are working together rather than hang seperately.
-the quests are voice acted and I wasn't asked to go kill 10 rats or whatever.  In general compared to the Elder Scrolls games the quests are actually a cut above the single player games.
-the combat system is pretty typical of a MMO, and I found it better than the ES single player system by a large margin.  You have 5 abilities that you can draw from your skill trees that you activate with 1-5 and then the option of a fast attack, a power attack, a block or a counter depending on which mouse key you use.  Overall it seemed to work better than the system in Skyrim.  Also there was dodges as seem to be standard so double tapping would move you out of the red zone of impending doom.  The only thing I found oddly hard was turning around.  I was a lot more stationary than I am in TSW but on the other hand almost nothing made it to mellee range so moving wasn't necessary.  Bethseda could use this system in their next single player game and I'd be happy.
-the skill system is a mix of ES and normal MMO.  Your class gives you 3 skill lines and then each skill has a linee.  The lines are divided into active and passive.  So my mage had "Dark Magic", "Deadric Summoning", and "Stormlord" as lines from the class.  "Breton" came from my race.  Then there were weapons "single weapon and shield", "duel wield", "Two handed", "Bow", "Destruction staff" and "Restoration staff."  The three armour "Light", "medium", "Heavy."  Then Crafting skills.  In a class skill line is an ultimate ability plus the regular ones.  Other skills just have different abilities.  So "Dark Magic" has an ultimate ability "dispel magic" and then an attack ability and then a rooting ability and then 2 more abilities.  As well there was 4 passive abilites.  The abilities are unlocked as your increase your overall dark magic level.  All told it was flexible and allowed for good character customization.
-leveling up gave you a point to spend on magica, health or stamina...as in Skyrim.  I found it ok.  I got to lvl 7 I think so I was just putting 1 into each to give ma a basis to build on later.
-leveling up gave you a point to spend on your skills.  You could morph a active ability that was at lvl 4 which gave it an new twist.  My lightening strike I morphed to give me back magica when someone died.  Or you could buy new abilites either active or passive that were unlocked.  You could for example use a destruction staff without having any destruction abilites that just slowed down your progress.  My dark magic was so high because of my 5 active abilities 2 were dark magic, 1 was storm lord, 1 was soul magic, and 1 was restoration staff magic.  What was annoying was the restoration staff spell I could only use when I had a restoration staff equipped.  This gave you a lot of leveling choices and flexibility.
-the armour was way better than in Skyrim.  The light armour gave you some protection (as opposed to 0), plus bonuses in the passive abilities that reduced spell costs, increased magic regen, increased magic resistance etc.  Medium armour improved melee and stealth.  Can't recall what heavy armour passives did.  But this was much better than running around in clothes and mage armour in Skyrim.

The Bad:
-one quest was hard to do "Abomination of X" this was because you had to convince people they had to do it one at a time.  The "abomination of hate" blocked me for hours till someone said "everyone log off" and I did and was the first one back.  The quest works if you do it one at a time but more than one staff in blocks it for whatever reason.  I was glad to get out of there though.  Herding cats is easier than dealing with typical MMO riff and raff.
-the single player main quest.  It is really pretty much a single player quest but every player is on it.  So unlike in TSW were the game is built around the existance of many Gaia warriors this game seems to ignore the fact that there is the second M in MMO.  It is a philosophical issue but I find it is something that they could have done better.
-virtually no one spoke in game (in Say and in Character).  I saw no role playing and the names ran the full gaument from absurd to lore following.  Since there is only one Mega Server, this means role playing will be always subject to interference from xxx_Überdood_xxx and friends.  There also seems to be minimal support for role playing...no chat bubbles etc.  There are some emotes but I'm not sure how many as I could not find out how to display them.
-no public quests showed up (the abominations would have been much better done as a public quest rather than what they did do)...but maybe I was too low level.  There didn't seem much interest in anyone in grouping up though I saw a few duos and possibly a trio.  Overall little incentive to encourage socialization.  Roleplaying locations were also pretty scarce and nothing like tables and such for tavern get togethers did I see.
-I had a few issues with lag and getting stuck in an crafting animation or while in a store.  The only solution was to log out and then back on.
-immersion was destroye every few seconds as someone would come by with weapons out running full tilt and bounding like a jack rabbit...ah well.

The Good:
-Character creation was detailed and I spent about an hour or so making my character.  You can tweek most things and I saw a wide variety of characters in game.  As most people tended to have the same armour you would think that all would look alike but that seemed to be less critical.  Most mages looked like mages in the robes but if you could look at them they had very different bodies and faces.  Overall a job well done.
-the world is gorgeous.  I walked all over it, swam out to islands and generally had my "explorer" itch scrated seriously.  Walking to me is the way to go if you are a crafter as it is hard to spot the resources for alchemy and the others are easy to miss.
-crafting.  They have a good system.  The question will be how it works into the economy.  As it stands each type of armour is divided by race so you can eventually learn to make different racial types of armour.  As well you can learn abilites for each group of armour types...so for light armour chests you can learn to add a bonus to them that give more armour rating.  In total there were about 10 things your could learn.  Plus each level in the ability gives you the ability to craft some types.  So level one lets you make iron weapons, level 2 steel and so on.  But each weapon or armour requires an investment of 21 gold for the special racial material so you can't sell something for less than that without loosing money.  And you can't willy nilly build stuff...unless you have an additional source of money.  However by the end my mage had crafted the armour, weapons, food, and potions I was using.  I had decifered a good chunk of the early runes and made about a dozen glyphs.  My weapons boasted 20 pts of armour negation on my dagger, +3 points of poison damage on my sword and +3 shock on my lightening staff.  I had also made a fine light armour chest.  I was very happy with the system, but it is clear that to get good requires a lot of effort on the players part plus at least some points invested (keen eye is almost a requirement for alchemy as spotting the plants is hard).
-the UI.  No floating names, no hot bars and the world makes it very immersive to be walking about.  The hot bar fading when you are out of combat was a brillant idea.

They certainly did a lot of stuff "right" and few things "wrong" but I've no idea how this will work in reality.  To me it would depend on finding good people to play with, which is true in my view of any MMO.  They aren't bringing anything that new to the table that I can see.  The world is gorgeous but the game seems unclear if this is supposed to be a MMO or just a single player game where you see other people around you doing the same thing you are.  The main story quest really would better suit a single player game, it thematically is jarring with a MMO.  I went in without many postive expectations and was pleasently surprised by the game.  If nothing else using the system in the next ES game would make a lot of sense to me.
 

Offline Erik L

  • Administrator
  • Admiral of the Fleet
  • *****
  • Posts: 5654
  • Thanked: 366 times
  • Forum Admin
  • Discord Username: icehawke
  • 2020 Supporter 2020 Supporter : Donate for 2020
    2022 Supporter 2022 Supporter : Donate for 2022
    Gold Supporter Gold Supporter : Support the forums with a Gold subscription
    2021 Supporter 2021 Supporter : Donate for 2021
Re: Elder Scrolls Online Beta
« Reply #1 on: March 03, 2014, 10:11:23 AM »
I got to about the same point you did. Breton Nightshade. I found it very railroady. First island you have 3 quests, which each have a subquest or two. Then on to the next island. Three quests with a subquest or two. Very much wash, rinse, repeat.

My gripe is (besides the very linear aspect of things) there is no clue as to what your class skills are. When you start out, you are supposed to grab a weapon. So I grab a bow. None of the nightshade class skills are bow related. They are all melee type.

As Paul said, the world is pretty. But L33tD00D123 really puts a cramp in the immersion.

Offline Paul M (OP)

  • Vice Admiral
  • **********
  • P
  • Posts: 1432
  • Thanked: 50 times
Re: Elder Scrolls Online Beta
« Reply #2 on: March 03, 2014, 11:33:31 AM »
There were 3 main quests, I have to say that the first island was probably better done then then second...but there were side quests hidden about.  I had hmmm...3-4 I think plus another 3 that I found and didn't do.  The side quests in Betnihk were also there but not as plentiful...I think I hit about 4.

One thing that sort of miffed me is that they gave you disguises only at least for me the cultist one barely worked.  The zombies would automatically attack you (and the point was to be able to avoid them) in Grimfield.  It worked better elsewhere.  But I thought it was a great idea to allow you to do these things stealthy...without killing everything in your path. 

I don't know how that mega server idea will work out in the end.  Some of the names were well...typical MMO fare but that jars seriously with the Elder Scrolls Wa.  I have difficulty really understanding people who call their character things like "Ave some of that"...
 

Offline Erik L

  • Administrator
  • Admiral of the Fleet
  • *****
  • Posts: 5654
  • Thanked: 366 times
  • Forum Admin
  • Discord Username: icehawke
  • 2020 Supporter 2020 Supporter : Donate for 2020
    2022 Supporter 2022 Supporter : Donate for 2022
    Gold Supporter Gold Supporter : Support the forums with a Gold subscription
    2021 Supporter 2021 Supporter : Donate for 2021
Re: Elder Scrolls Online Beta
« Reply #3 on: March 03, 2014, 12:46:58 PM »
It's the same in almost any MMO. If they don't enforce naming conventions, then you'll get Meatwad123. I personally think these are the ones who ceased developing around 14 mentally.

It's my understanding that everything we experienced this weekend is null & void. New players now will start in the faction/alliance home city with the option to go to the starter area.

Offline Theodidactus

  • Registered
  • Commodore
  • **********
  • Posts: 628
Re: Elder Scrolls Online Beta
« Reply #4 on: March 03, 2014, 01:01:42 PM »

-the single player main quest.  It is really pretty much a single player quest but every player is on it.  So unlike in TSW were the game is built around the existance of many Gaia warriors this game seems to ignore the fact that there is the second M in MMO.  It is a philosophical issue but I find it is something that they could have done better.
-virtually no one spoke in game (in Say and in Character).  I saw no role playing and the names ran the full gaument from absurd to lore following.  Since there is only one Mega Server, this means role playing will be always subject to interference from xxx_Überdood_xxx and friends.  There also seems to be minimal support for role playing...no chat bubbles etc.  There are some emotes but I'm not sure how many as I could not find out how to display them.



....aaaaaaaannnd this is precisely why I'm not touching this game with a ten foot pole. I was raised on "morrowind" and massively let down by "Oblivion". "Skyrim" has definitely improved but I think I'm going keep my hands off of this just to preserve my happy childhood innocence...sorta like how I pretend they never made sequels to the first Matrix movie.

The only MMORPG I got really into was this free, graphicsless affair called "Urban Dead" where you played a survivor or a zombie, it was semi-popular almost a decade ago. There was functionally very little difference between the characters (After all, besides some gear and a little training, a firefighter and a cop are about equal when the outbreak starts) This made sense as an MMORPG. Fantasy games as MMOs never made much sense to me. When you say "fantasy" or "sword and sorcery" I see a very small number of insanely talented people crushing the world 'neath their sandal-ed feet: you know, "the nine", "conan the barbarian" and so on....it just plain doesn't make sense to be running around this world where everyone's just as good as you, and no matter how hard you try and how hard you fight, you can never break to the head of the pack, because *~ShadOWbane_Nightwish~*, Slayer of Nooblets is always one step ahead of you, and has infinitely more free time. To me, that ain't fantasy. most of the problems people have with MMORPG's arise from various ways designers try (and fail) to address that atmospheric problem.


 Morrowind let me be the biggest, baddest, unstoppable-st thing around. That's fantasy. Bethesda actually fought AGAINST the MMOification of fantasy for awhile (they gave several interviews to that effect around the time of oblivion). Now they're edging into *~ShadOWbane_Nightwish~* territory.
 
My Theodidactus, now I see that you are excessively simple of mind and more gullible than most. The Crystal Sphere you seek cannot be found in nature, look about you...wander the whole cosmos, and you will find nothing but the clear sweet breezes of the great ethereal ocean enclosed not by any bound
 

Offline Paul M (OP)

  • Vice Admiral
  • **********
  • P
  • Posts: 1432
  • Thanked: 50 times
Re: Elder Scrolls Online Beta
« Reply #5 on: March 03, 2014, 01:26:11 PM »
Hmmm...well given I came out of the starter areas with: a bank full with crafting materials, 48 of 60 in my pack full with stuff...was level 7, had dark magic 12, Storm lord 10, (never bothered with daedric summoning), single weapon and shield 4 or 5, dual wielding 5, restoration staff 7, destruction staff 5, Light Armour 11, Medium armour 5, Breton 7, and all crafting skills between 3 and 5...uhm...not doing that is going to leave you going into the main game with a major disadvantage.

Yeah I know about what happens with no naming conventions I'm just surprised they didn't try harder.  I mean in LotRO at least they check the names to make sure they make some sense...or maybe this is just because I play on an RP server.  I'm with you on the 14 year old thing.  To me the biggest reason though is that they are annoymous behind their user name.  The result of that is to strip any vistage of civilizied behaviour away from them and for many they let their inner schoolyard bully free.  It gets exceptionally bad when PvP gets involved.  But I've played in AoC, WAR, LotRO, Eve, TSW and CoV so I've seen all sorts of behaviour that if I was a social scientist as opposed to a physical one I'd have loads of paper writing materials.

Theodidactus, well in The Secret World that is ok...you are an imortal Gaia warrior and even the big bad you are confronting comments on it..."I'd kill you now but the damn Bee's will just bring you back."  or "Well now silent one..."  which I found was pretty impressive.  Also, my imortal Gaia warrior still needs sake and light to get to sleep most nights.  The thought of being "alone in the dark" is freakout time.  The stories are that creepy at times.  I nearly jumped out of my chair once or twice.

I have enjoyed a fair few fantasy settings.  LotRO does a great job of making you a part of the journey of the ring but at the same time making you feel special.  You are on the sidelines doing things to help them...distracting Angmar or whatever.  It works, and it makes it fun to tease the two elves I travel with about mooning over goldie-locks.  It is priceless.   My demonologist in AoC was interesting to play as well...people would find the character sprawled out infront of a snake checking out what Set was thinking at that moment.  I was in a guild that was all about a "kinder gentler set" only my character was there solely to help friends escape when the temple came to crush them...kinder gentler set?  Are you daft????  "Blood for Power!"  "I'd like to invite you to the temple to participate in a quaint local religious ceremony some time."  (read:  rip out your beating heart or sacrifice you to a snake...my character had a clear idea who Set was and what rocked his boat.
 

Offline Erik L

  • Administrator
  • Admiral of the Fleet
  • *****
  • Posts: 5654
  • Thanked: 366 times
  • Forum Admin
  • Discord Username: icehawke
  • 2020 Supporter 2020 Supporter : Donate for 2020
    2022 Supporter 2022 Supporter : Donate for 2022
    Gold Supporter Gold Supporter : Support the forums with a Gold subscription
    2021 Supporter 2021 Supporter : Donate for 2021
Re: Elder Scrolls Online Beta
« Reply #6 on: March 03, 2014, 01:39:49 PM »
I had a buttload of crafty stuff too, and Not sure where my skills were. I know if I focused in the Nightshade skills, I was almost forced into melee, rather than archery. I was level 6 I believe when I stopped. Did a little crafting, but couldn't advance cooking at all since I had zero recipes.

Offline boggo2300

  • Registered
  • Rear Admiral
  • **********
  • Posts: 895
  • Thanked: 16 times
Re: Elder Scrolls Online Beta
« Reply #7 on: March 03, 2014, 02:50:10 PM »
The crush for the main quest will ease off about a week after the game is live,  I assume you werent in the previous open Beta? I'd gotten a couple of characters to 9 that weekend, and spent this one getting 2 more (Nightshade & Dragonknight last time, Sorceror and Templar this weekend)  gotta say I was hating the Sorceror until I dumped the staff and went dual sword! and didnt really have run into any competition for quest bosses,  though there are still a lot of bugs but then again its an Elder Scrolls game, and that pretty much means it has to be up to the elbows in bugs!

btw I suspect your issues with Skyrim are that it's on a console,  TESO plays ALMOST identically to Skyrim on the PC (except for making the sprint button the walk button,  thats seriously annoying!)

Matt
The boggosity of the universe tends towards maximum.
 

Offline Paul M (OP)

  • Vice Admiral
  • **********
  • P
  • Posts: 1432
  • Thanked: 50 times
Re: Elder Scrolls Online Beta
« Reply #8 on: March 03, 2014, 04:09:57 PM »
I had a buttload of crafty stuff too, and Not sure where my skills were. I know if I focused in the Nightshade skills, I was almost forced into melee, rather than archery. I was level 6 I believe when I stopped. Did a little crafting, but couldn't advance cooking at all since I had zero recipes.

The first recipe I found was upstairs in the inn on Stros M'htol...it was capon tinnin  that was +45 to health for 35 min.  Then when I was down getting the orcs warhorn I found a recipe for Stornarm Beer in a backpack and that was +2 health regen for 35 min.  Then in Capt Keleen's cabin i found a third reciepe for grilled Bag-something or another that was +35 stamina for 35 min.  Those were the best things I found all the two days and I was über happy to find them.  These are things that would be possible to sell to other players and earn money, though realistically I could sell armour/weapons for 30-40 a piece and still do well since the price in stores was 300+.  But I found damn little money over all.

Did you ever spot a soul gem merchant on Betnihk?  I never saw one nor a pack merchant.  I looked at the prices and just shuddered for gear.  Crafting it was much better even if it wasn't green quality.


Matt:
My sorcerer used dagger and sword mainly.  I used the staffs from time to time but I was never very happy with them, and less so that I could not cast a heal spell without the restoration staff equipped.  I also went single dagger too.  What I like about this system is that ordinarly in Skyrim I'm a bit of an "arcane trickster" so a mage that uses stealth and a dagger.  Well this means I'm constantly farting around swapping out my spell equiped in my left hand and that is annoying as all sin.  Here I had my melee weapons for when something caught me by surprise.  Also unlike in Skyrim where I can be killed in two hits or less I seemed to have more staying power as I had armour as opposed to skyrim where it is more likely than not my mage armour isn't up and even when it is I have like 15% damage resistance which is pretty much zip.  I thought the daedric summons was pointless...why do I need this stupid thing?  It looks ugly and people are too lazy to desummon it when it town. 

No this is the first beta I was in.  I find the controller works better than the PC controls but actually what I liked mechanically was that my abilites were on the keys, my weapons were on the mouse and regardless of the fact that I had a dagger and sword I could still block.  Otherwise in skyrim as a mage you have basically this huge favorite list with all of your known spells which defeats the favorites list concept.  I'm a firm believer they make the ES games for people playing a melee character who swaps between sword&shield, two hander and bow with a bit of spell use on the side (out of combat mainly).  Playing a mage in skyrim is vastly more annoying the playing a mage online.  I only died 1 time due to combat in TESO...I've lost track of how many times I've died playing skyrim but it is legion.  I routinely get hit with damage that leaves me with <20% health on a single hit...then I have to open the favorites list, find my heal, equip it on the left hand and then pray I have enough time to get it to work.  I've died during the heal animation, I've died because I could not see the "charged" animation, I've died while raising my hand etc etc etc it is nearly impossible to survive when 1 hit removes 150 hit points or more and you have 190 total.  That was not happening online at all.  I even got attacked when I was afk getting tea and I was easily able to kill the wolf gnawing on me when I got back.

On the bugs, I'm afraid that what can be gotten away with on a single player game doesn't cut it online.  A single bug in a quest chain blocks all progress.  Unbalances and so have to caught and fixed.  It is a horse of a different colour to the way the ES are played single player where you rely on mods and most people exploit the system to the max.  With PvP that will not be tolerable at all.  Not if you want to charge a subscription fee and steep one.  This is where I am at my most dubious about the long term prospects of the game.
 

Offline Erik L

  • Administrator
  • Admiral of the Fleet
  • *****
  • Posts: 5654
  • Thanked: 366 times
  • Forum Admin
  • Discord Username: icehawke
  • 2020 Supporter 2020 Supporter : Donate for 2020
    2022 Supporter 2022 Supporter : Donate for 2022
    Gold Supporter Gold Supporter : Support the forums with a Gold subscription
    2021 Supporter 2021 Supporter : Donate for 2021
Re: Elder Scrolls Online Beta
« Reply #9 on: March 03, 2014, 04:16:53 PM »
The first recipe I found was upstairs in the inn on Stros M'htol...it was capon tinnin  that was +45 to health for 35 min.  Then when I was down getting the orcs warhorn I found a recipe for Stornarm Beer in a backpack and that was +2 health regen for 35 min.  Then in Capt Keleen's cabin i found a third reciepe for grilled Bag-something or another that was +35 stamina for 35 min.  Those were the best things I found all the two days and I was über happy to find them.  These are things that would be possible to sell to other players and earn money, though realistically I could sell armour/weapons for 30-40 a piece and still do well since the price in stores was 300+.  But I found damn little money over all.

Did you ever spot a soul gem merchant on Betnihk?  I never saw one nor a pack merchant.  I looked at the prices and just shuddered for gear.  Crafting it was much better even if it wasn't green quality.

I did reroll a khajit mage, barely got him out of Oblivion when I stopped for the night. But with him, I had him loot that area with the prison and the bigger area with the portal. From those two areas I managed probably 20-30 recipes (including duplicates). But I never had a chance to dig into them.

The first one I made, the Breton nightshade had ~1500 coins when I logged out. Not sure if that is gold or what. But yeah, the merchant prices sucked all. No soul gem or pack merchants that I saw. Though it's possible I missed them entirely too. I didn't find the blacksmith area until just before the final battle. Or just after. One of the two.

Offline boggo2300

  • Registered
  • Rear Admiral
  • **********
  • Posts: 895
  • Thanked: 16 times
Re: Elder Scrolls Online Beta
« Reply #10 on: March 03, 2014, 04:39:06 PM »
Paul,

My Skyrim character wears Ebon armour (uses heavy armour skill) and has a very nasty soul stealing sword in his main hand (gotta keep those soul gems topped up!) and uses his left hand for casting,  often fireballs, though I have been known to self heal, I'd definately call him a mage, though he's a mage in heavy armour with a sword, though since he's also the Archmage of the guild I think I can get away with clling him a mage, so I'm not sure why you arent wearing decent armour in Skyrim?!?  Though to be fair playing an Elder Scrolls game without mods is something I'd never consider doing, I have a Skyrim mod that basically lets me hot key spells and weapon/weapon shield/bow combos on a single keypress.

Gotta say bug wise TESO's pretty damn good for an Elder Scrolls game, and less buggy than the Secret World was at this stage,  not far off where LotRo was when it first went live many moons ago!

Erik,
Yesterday I found somewhere selling soul Gems with my High Elf (damn facists!) templar,  hadnt seen it before (can't even remember where it was, near the Two Moons temple I think) so they're definately out there! and a pack merchant, though I really can't remember where they were.  though prices are definately way too high!  The lack of an Auction House is interesting as well

Matt
« Last Edit: March 03, 2014, 04:47:09 PM by boggo2300 »
The boggosity of the universe tends towards maximum.
 

Offline Panopticon

  • Gold Supporter
  • Rear Admiral
  • *****
  • P
  • Posts: 883
  • Thanked: 37 times
  • Gold Supporter Gold Supporter : Support the forums with a Gold subscription
    2021 Supporter 2021 Supporter : Donate for 2021
    2022 Supporter 2022 Supporter : Donate for 2022
    2023 Supporter 2023 Supporter : Donate for 2023
Re: Elder Scrolls Online Beta
« Reply #11 on: March 03, 2014, 09:10:07 PM »
When I played it, it felt like it had just enough features of Skyrim to make me want to go play Skyrim. It wasn't a bad experience, but I am not sure "reminds me of another better game" is the greatest compliment.
 

Offline TheDeadlyShoe

  • Vice Admiral
  • **********
  • Posts: 1264
  • Thanked: 58 times
  • Dance Commander
Re: Elder Scrolls Online Beta
« Reply #12 on: March 04, 2014, 12:36:35 AM »
I played the weekend beta up to level 10, got some PVP in just before the servers went down. I felt ESO had major improvements over skyrim. Stamina and magicka management felt like they mattered more and felt much more consequential.

For an MMO, individual spells/powers mattered quite a bit which is nice.  The combat flows pretty well.  I feel it could use a lot less open world dungeons and more instancing though.  Having random people wandering around dungeons damages the narrative the game tries to establish that you are special.

Impressed with the PVP system for as long as I played it.  Sieges were cool.  I felt maybe it was too easy to emplace and build siege gear though.  It was nice that noone could be an unkillable tank, at least not from what I saw.

 

Offline Paul M (OP)

  • Vice Admiral
  • **********
  • P
  • Posts: 1432
  • Thanked: 50 times
Re: Elder Scrolls Online Beta
« Reply #13 on: March 04, 2014, 02:41:12 AM »
Paul,

My Skyrim character wears Ebon armour (uses heavy armour skill) and has a very nasty soul stealing sword in his main hand (gotta keep those soul gems topped up!) and uses his left hand for casting,  often fireballs, though I have been known to self heal, I'd definately call him a mage, though he's a mage in heavy armour with a sword, though since he's also the Archmage of the guild I think I can get away with clling him a mage, so I'm not sure why you arent wearing decent armour in Skyrim?!?  Though to be fair playing an Elder Scrolls game without mods is something I'd never consider doing, I have a Skyrim mod that basically lets me hot key spells and weapon/weapon shield/bow combos on a single keypress.

Gotta say bug wise TESO's pretty damn good for an Elder Scrolls game, and less buggy than the Secret World was at this stage,  not far off where LotRo was when it first went live many moons ago!

Erik,
Yesterday I found somewhere selling soul Gems with my High Elf (damn facists!) templar,  hadnt seen it before (can't even remember where it was, near the Two Moons temple I think) so they're definately out there! and a pack merchant, though I really can't remember where they were.  though prices are definately way too high!  The lack of an Auction House is interesting as well

Matt

Well I'm in mage robes trying to keep my stone skin up and using a dagger and trying to back stab.  The game does not reward playing a mage, you use 1 spell fireball; I am swapping between summoning an anorarch, lightening, healing (me or lydia), utility spells and the game sucks at that.  And Mage robes are necessary if you want to be able to regen magica fast enough to cast more than a few spells.  But likely the big difference is I play on an Xbox and hence have no mods you play with mods so in principle you aren't playing Skyrim you are playing something else.  Excluding the nude mods on the nexus it is clear that you can get sufficient mods to completely change game play.   Take your mods out and play the game and then we can compare otherwise we are talking apples to roast beef. 

On stoss M'hol there was a high elf who sold bags at 400 gold each (I bought one) and a sage that sold soul gems (I have 3 fully charged petty ones and 1 used one to recharge Jakon's machette once).  I found no one in Betony that sold either bags or gems.  Increased bank space was 1000 gold (for 10 slots I'd guess).  I made about 1000 I'd think but spent a lot of it on the bag and crafting materials, if memory serves I have about 400 gold on hand.

I'd sum it up as if this was a beta for the next single player game I'd be recommending it but for an MMO...it is fun and nice but unlike the beta for The Secret World it hasn't grabbed me by the throat and said "subscribe."
 

Offline chrislocke2000

  • Captain
  • **********
  • c
  • Posts: 544
  • Thanked: 39 times
Re: Elder Scrolls Online Beta
« Reply #14 on: March 04, 2014, 06:54:42 AM »
Interesting feedback. Will undoubtably end up buying the darn thing to see what its like and end up dumping it like all the other MMOs I've played recently. Just don't have the time for the grind anymore.

Loved morrowind and hated oblivion until I downloaded obscurros complete oblivion overhaul mod, made the game a lot more challanging and interesting for me. Skyrim pretty but too easy.