Well One Tamriel launched yesterday. Lots of new sets to chase but I think this is mostly an update to put the game in a good spot based on the feedback that they got at launch back in April of 2014. Kudos to them for basically redesigning the social and character leveling architecture of the game. I hope it draws in a lot of new players or players who couldn’t get past the first sub month when it launched.
http://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/2016/10/05/update-12-brings-players-together-in-one-tamriel-for-pcmac
I can’t wait to try it my own self.
robc04
3726
Does this update make the game any better or worse for playing solo?
I’m not sure that it changes the solo difficulty much because all the zones now auto level you to the zone level.It’s hard for me to say since I am not leveling a character but from what I can tell with the last year of DLC content that did this, it should not be a problem. If you could solo roam Wrothgar (and I think most players could) you will probably not have any problems.
What it does do is let you go to any zone AND with any friends (even in other alliances). if you so desire.
Craglorn was a 4 man group zone (2 actually) and it has been reworked to be almost completely solo content…I think there are two quests that require a partner because of the mechanics i.e. you step on that stone and I step on this one kind of thing,
My only concern would be that if you are a new player you could get overwhelmed by all the choices. But you can always follow the main quest and then take side trips as it strikes your fancy.
robc04
3728
I’ve only leveled up 1 character a year or so ago to level 10 (or so), but ESO is the only MMO I have that I feel may be worth playing. I’m usually not a huge fan of enemies always scaling to my level, because then what is the point of leveling up? Is the scaling done in a way where there are still enemies that you could roll over and others that are tough? What I hate is when something like a rat levels with you and is just as hard at level 20 as it is at level 1. I need it to feel like it makes sense and that some of the reward of leveling is that you actually feel stronger compared to the baddies.
I love all the choices, and that’s pre-One Tamriel.
Imryll
3730
My big concern about scaling stems from taking a level 5 to the Gold Coast last summer. Scaling did allow her to kill a minotaur, but with only the skills you have at that level it was an exercise in slog (and rolling out of the way). It may not be that bad in starter zones, if the abilities of the creatures you’re attacking are as limited as your own, but I’m definitely skeptical about One Tamriel being an improvement. Since I also prefer to progress zone to zone following the story, I think the concept will benefit people who are not me, for whom random questing outside their faction’s zones appeals. That said, I doubt I’m done with ESO.
I’m guessing that they probably still have the quests structured in a way that leads you through the original progression, you can just deviate if you feel like it now.
In a way it makes more sense, since now all skeevers are equally strong (or weak, rather) across Tamriel, instead of having lvl 1 skeevers in starter zones and lvl 40 skeevers in later zones. Having level requirements to monsters never worked well in ESO anyway; before this update, if you were to bring a well geared lvl 20 character to a lvl 40 zone, the game would impose difficulty by adding a high “miss” chance to your attacks. So venturing beyond your level didn’t add excitement or challenge, you just run up against an artificial barrier.
In levels 1-50, you’ll still experience huge jumps in power from the skills that you unlock (if pre-patch Craglorn is any indication, I wouldn’t go in there until you’ve unlocked a good AoE skill.) Post-lvl 50, it’s all about gear and CP. What used to be endgame zones will still have stronger foes since they have more mechanics (Charges, CC, etc.) It’s a good change, IMO.
robc04
3733
If you meet a skeever when your character is at level 1, and then another skeever when your character is at level 10, is the skeever now automatically stronger? That’s the type of thing that bothers me.
Roamed around a bit with my Templar yesterday (CP 250). Some mobs are definitely easier than others, even if leveled to CP 160. Like skeevers and stuff. Others are a bit stiffer than they were at CP 40 (duh), which was what they were on Caldwell’s Silver which is what I was doing.
So, yeah, in answer to robc04’s question, whenever you meet a skeever it’s the same level, as if I understand it correctly everything is autoloeveled to either your level or CP 160, so that no matter what level you are you will always face something at your level until you exceed CP 160, after which yes you do “outlevel” the content to some extent, though not nearly as dramatically as 1-50 levels. You do miss out on the ability to go back into your starting zone as a level 45 and kick ass.
But before One Tamriel you couldn’t move to another zone until you unlocked it via the story quests, so you were pretty much always on level or overleveling everything. The latter is what they were I think really aiming to kill, because so many people complained that the basic non-end game stuff was trivial.
Keep in mind that equipment level and I think quality have an effect on your abilities, too, in that you get a readout in stars on your character sheet that indicates how much bonus you are getting from your gear. I have zero idea how this works exactly, but in CP 160 purples it’s the full four stars, and killing stuff is only modestly more difficult than it was before, at least for my hybrid Imperial Templar.
I’m mostly interested in being able to finally group with my wife who has characters in every alliance that I don/t have, at least at the right levels. I am also looking forward to some of the loot changes that seem to promise some interesting rewards for stuff like chests in the wild, and boss drops in general, as well as the de-grouped Craglorn quests. But the exploration bit, meh. I’ve done every zone so damn many times already.
I don’t believe so (I’m basing off how ESO scaled for dungeons pre-patch, I haven’t had a chance to try out One Tamriel yet.) Everything is v160 right now, so all critters are static. However, as you level up your stats will fluctuate; at lvl 1 you get a decent chunk of bonus health and weapon/spell damage to make you competitive with v160 creatures. At lvl 10, if you’re still using lvl 1 weapons, you’ll lose a sizable chunk of the bonus, so you do need to keep upgrading gear. Once you’re at lvl 50, you won’t get any bonus anymore, but with proper gear you’ll be stronger than your earlier, scaled self.
Again, this is based on how dungeons used to be scaled pre-One Tamriel, so I could be completely off.
EDIT: Deleted this post earlier because I wasn’t sure, however I just hopped on with a lowbie and it looks like I was right.
robc04
3736
Thanks for the explanation. I guess I’ll try it out and see how it goes.
stusser
3737
It’s better solo, because you can play it like an Elder Scrolls game-- you can explore anywhere now, at any level.
ESO really has come a long way. It is an excellent MMO that feels very different than the diku EQ/WoW clones.
This x 100000000 for me. I hate content that levels with you.
KevinC
3739
Yeah I’m not a fan, because it takes away from those moments where you stumble into a cave and realize that this is something I can’t handle, I’ve got to get the hell out of here! Then, when you’re more powerful, you come back and explore it.
I appreciate what they’re trying to do and it certainly does eliminate some of the problems that Levels bring (not being able to group with your friends that are a different level, outleveling a bunch of content and never seeing it again), but I feel like those are the symptoms of the problem that’s not being addressed. IMO, it’s the levels themselves and how they typically scale that is the root of the issue.
I miss the more granular approach that games like Ultima Online took. You got more powerful as your skills increased but it wasn’t like that L13 Ogre was trivialized because you were L17 now (but that L22 ogre would whoop you good!).
It’s a really tough design choice because if you don’t do some type of auto level, then you are back to entire groups of zones being off limits to anything but duck and dodge sight seeing.
If you are looking for that stumble into the cave of doom experience, you can go try and solo world bosses in the zones now. I used to be able to so while I was grinding for my gear yesterday I foolishly charged into one that I had done before thinking no problem here. Apparently they have really beefed up the world bosses in all the old zones because I got melted. I could probably re-gear and try it again but it would take about 5 minutes and a lot of kiting and healing…best just to call in zone for help or find a friend.
Yeah, I hated Oblivion style scaling too (I’m somewhat okay with skyrim/fallout style of limited scaling.) However, in this case as I mentioned earlier, all monsters are actually static; it’s just that from 1-50 your character levels in an unorthodox way with fluctuating attributes. So you don’t actually get much more powerful, attribute-wise from 1-50 (and get weaker in fact, if you don’t upgrading gear) however you will unlock new skills and passives which make for a bigger difference.
In ESO you never had the moment of stumbling on something too big for you, unless you gamed the system and had someone port you into another zone ahead of the story curve. Pretty much everything in the zone you were “supposed” to be in was doable from the time you entered the zone, especially if you spent any time at all on gear.
I can’t really think of many games recently that don’t have some gating mechanism to prevent newbies from running into instagibbing mobs. It’s been a long time since EQ.
Modern design is really better and I wouldn’t want to go back BUT I do remember falling into the bottom of Blackburrow and getting killed and then trying to get back to my body for my corpse run. It was terrifying at the time.
Also trying to safely make my way to a merchant in the middle of a nasty zone to buy a Combine sword that I had saved up for.
