I’ve just started playing this again because people were talking about it here. As others have said, while it is an MMO at the end of the day, they have done a pretty good job in terms of retaining some of the atmosphere of the TES games, mainly in the art design and quest writing (quite dark, and lots of black humour).
The other thing I like (and remember liking at the time when I tried it) is that its virtual worldey feel is pretty good. This and GW2 have the best (nearly the only) virtual world feel around atm (of recent-ish MMOs), but I could never get into the GW2 lore, whereas the lore here is like a comfy old pair of slippers, and the game is great for just wandering around and being immersed in another place.
However, that said, I’m just picking up a lvl 30 character where she left off, and judging from forum perusal, I’m a bit apprehensive about the numbers and balance side of the game for endgame players. The combat is intrinsically fun in the sense of fun to play, graphics and fx-wise (more fun than the TES games), but the advancement and build system is a bit odd and, as far as fairly free-form systems go, is hard to get an intuitive feel for (e.g. unlike the free-form, or free-formish, systems of TSW or Champions Online, say).
(A personal pique of mine is the respec system - where xp is “stuck” in stuff you’ve formerly levelled but might not need any more. TSW is the same, but for some reason it’s not as offensive to me there.)
I’ve been curious about the game for a while, and looking for new mmo grounds to explore with my wife. I found one of the UK retailers selling the boxed version for £11 delivered (around $16) and thought it was worth a punt at the price. So I’ve got 2 copies arriving today. With some luck, activating before the 17th will also give us some of the subscriber benefits for the first F2P month? We’ll see.
In any case, any tips for a good duo combination of skills? She tends to enjoy the ranger type characters or the evil ones. I tend to heal or tank a lot. Can you still fall into the usual rules in ESO?
Wendelius
Teiman
3085
I envy you, Wendelious. I don’t have any usefull advice, but I think you both are going to have a lot of fun.
KevinC
3086
ESO is pretty great in the way that the character customization is so open and flexible, make sure not to get caught up in the class name. What I mean is, a Sorcerer doesn’t mean it’s a squishy cloth wearer that sits in the back launching nukes. My sorc back at release was a plate-wearing, dual wielding melee character.
There is no Ranger archetype, so she’s free to pick any of the four classes. Just make sure to grab a bow, which is where the “Ranger” feel will come from. If she likes Pets, I’d recommend a Sorcerer archer since they have a few summons. If you would like to be a healer, you can play any class as long as you grab a Restoration staff. That being said, your description of “heal or tank” sounds like a Templar might be right up your alley. My Templar is an Argonian just because I’ve loved those scaly bastards ever since Morrowind, but they do get a nice racial bonus to Restoration staff EXP gain as well as some self-healing buffs, IIRC.
Yeah, the classes have access to 3 exclusive skill lines apiece. But those are 3 amongst many. Other skill lines are all the weapons, the armors, vampire, werewolf, fighters and mages guilds, etc. And you choose your quickbar abilities from all of them. You could choose zero from your class. That probably wouldn’t be optimal, but it’s possible.
Oghier
3088
Pets and bows don’t work together long-term. Pets are magicka-based, bows are stamina, and the latest patch heavily encourages picking one of those two. For an archer, Nightblade or Dragonknight are the best choices, and sorc is the worst. The off-hand weapon would likely be a 2-Hander or Dual Wield.
If you like to tank or heal, Templar is the best choice (better at healing) with DK in second (better at tanking). Those are the two ‘power’ classes at cap. For every role imaginable, one of those two is the best (and generally by a large margin).
By the way, if you liked the sneaking around and stealing stuff aspect from previous TES games, the new Justice System does a very good job of it. I was really surprised by its depth. It’s great :)
Thanks a lot for the info everyone!
My wife and I will parse it and decide which way to go. We’re looking forward to exploring a new world… As soon as the 2 machines are done downloading 20GB worth of patches. :)
Wendelius
That’s another thing that’s different about ESO mechanics. Magicka and stamina are exclusive stats; every skill scales from either one or the other and all its ancillary stats (weapon damage and weapon crit or spell damage and crit). Don’t split your points. Pick one and stick to it.
The various armortypes align to either magicka (light) or stamina (medium). Heavy is for tanking only.
This actually makes magicka suck for leveling, unless you have a pet tanking for you, because light armor is much, much worse at mitigating damage than medium. I see that as a pretty fundamental design flaw.
I got this a long time ago and it just didn’t o it for me.
So when it goes BTP I can install it and see if it’s a better fit than before.
Thanks for the info. ESO sure does sound intriguing.
As for the above, this being a MMO and my wife and I playing at least together or with friends, I guess I could take on the role of the tanking pet if she wants to focus on magicka. I’m already housebroken after all. :)
To me, having a class that works better in a group in a MMO is not a fundamental design flaw. But I’m also someone who would rather not hunt alone in such a game.
Wendelius
Razgon
3093
I tried this out last night briefly and started a new character. The first harbour town in Daggerfall, had someone, or more than one, kill off every single NPC in the city…sigh. Only the guard walked around, and a select few NPCS. Thats pretty annoying, however great the justice system is.
Reemul
3094
Raz I shall be starting this again when it goes f2p if ay wanna do any coop stuff etc, I shall install it tonight again in readiness.
Razgon
3095
Sure - let me know when you play, and we’ll see if we can’t hook up. You do know there are no guns or tanks in this, right? ;-)
I’m really enjoying ESO. The quality of the quests seem comparable to Skyrim (which granted, isn’t the pinnacle of RPG storytelling, but it’s decent.) Much better than Guild Wars 2 and its “do a/b/c/d X times” heart quests or horrible Personal Story. I like that sometimes you get to make decisions in ESO that actually impacts the immediate surroundings and NPC comments towards you.
Just looking at the imdb page for ESO, that’s a lot of recognizable names. The voice acting is well done, but I wish publishers would spend the money elsewhere. The Secret World’s VOs are just as good and I don’t recognize any of their voice actors.
TSW VOs are just as good indeed, but somehow they managed to ‘capture’ you more than I felt that the ESO VOs did, so much that I ended up skipping most of the stuff in TESO just to “Get moving” whereas in TSW I listened to/read everything. Maybe it was just because it was ‘different’ compared to the fantasy-dragons-whatnot you’ve had for so many years.
17th is when it goes P2W? Might have to reinstall and see what has changed, if only to update some old addons I was working on.
stusser
3098
They added a ton of NPCs to be pickpocketed and killed. Only those NPCs (and guards) can be pickpocketed or killed. So you’re not actually missing anything at all.
As others have said, the justice system is surprisingly fun. I think it’s mostly due to the inability to save-reload when things go pear shaped (I lack willpower in single player games.)
stusser
3100
Exactly, it’s not actually worth a whole hell of a lot in terms of standard MMO min-maxing, but it does a great deal to make ESO feel like an Elder Scrolls game. Now that the systems are in-place, hopefully the Thieves Guild and Dark Bros aren’t far behind.
I actually resubbed for a month last week, figuring I wasn’t paying for World of Tanks premium any more so I’d give it a try and reap whatever I can from subbing when it goes B2P. I still am pathetically low level (highest is 21) but I think they’ve improved the game a lot since the first month after launch. I still suffer from being caught between what I want to do and what the theory crafting says I should do, more so than in most games for some reason, but if I just play the combat and the general look and feel is quite entertaining.
I even created a character just to explore stealing. He’s a Kajit called Sells-Used-Guar.
Hmm, I’m remembering how impressed I was with the Hero Engine in this game when I played it when it first came out (as opposed to the abomination of SWTOR). It really does look and play quite awesomely.
The look of it is sort of how Vanguard was supposed to look, and sometimes did look, with its version of Unreal 2/3. I just love that “realism” thing of this art design with this engine, can’t get enough of it. So much better than the semi-cartoon-like stylization of many recent MMOs.
