1673

I really like this game, actually

1674

The game feels very floaty and laggy. This is what’s killing the game for me atm. From animations to visual effects to sound to general responsiveness. Combat feels very disjointed, there are certainly some lag and sync issues that kill combat completely. Like when your character gets stuck on something during the Charge animation but the damage still goes through.

All these “active combat” MMOs just look silly after seeing how combat is done in Dark Souls. Dark Souls ruined a lot of games for me.

I am going to see if they are going to improve this in subsequent beta events and, if not, I will probably pass.

1675

Other mmos solve this by having different equip name sets,… “social”,“combat”, “crafting”. So you can equip whatever you want in these sets, so you can change set quickly and painless.

A creative solution would be like having these stats mean something else in combat. Maybe a bonus in metalworks means your gear break less, or you get a tiny damage bonus? I imagine this hard to balance.

Is weird because it would make a lot of sense to get bonus to build siege weapons if you are good at crafting stuff with wood.

1676

Did you like it off the bat or did it grow on you? If it grew on you, at what point did you realize that you were liking the game? For me, I disliked it intensely at first but by L8 or so I started to see some potential and I found myself having a good time.

1677

Yea, I agree, combat isn’t “snappy” enough and there’s some serious feedback issues, especially with the ranged weapons. Ever try using a bow? Aside from the abilities, the regular bow attack feels very bad due to the lack of feedback. Combat feedback is something the devs have apparently been working on, hence the collision detection with NPCs and a few other things. That’s one of the main reasons I was hoping the latest PTS patch would make it in time for this beta, but oh well.

1678

I tried this very briefly yesterday. Loving both MMOs and the Elder Scrolls franchise, I had high hopes. But I found a number of things disappointing, most particularly just the simple act of shooting my bow. I assume it was due to lag, but sometimes my clicks were ignored altogether, and sometimes they were just unacceptably sluggish before they got going.

This, after playing the PS4 beta of FF14 where everything felt much snappier, clear, and left me impressed. And I had low expectations for that one.

1679

I am enjoying this somewhat, but really think they should not have another beta before release unless it is the most current build. I understand for this large stress beta tests that the build could be an older one, but so close to release it now makes a bad presentation and hard to explain to all users that this is an older beta.

1680

How many times has an MMO beta been presented as “an older build” but when the game launched that build turned out to be essentially unchanged?

1681

Yup, I used a staff (because, well, mage character right) and it really didn’t come across well.

1682

I know what you mean but this is a little different, since the patch notes for what’s in testing are available. I don’t think anyone is talking about a magical secret build which holds the contents of all of ESO’s hopes and dreams or anything like that. Newbie Islands have been removed, we know that. We also know collision detection for NPCs has been turned on.

Devs have said they are actively working on combat feedback beyond that but we don’t know what that entails or if they’ll pull it off, hence wanting to be able to test it ourselves.

1683

I didn’t like it off the bat. I was pretty bored with it, honestly, which is the biggest issue they’ll have at launch. There needs to be some more hand-holding as well as skill explanations, etc. Once you hit around 7-8 the game starts to take off, I agree.

1684

I started a nightblade archer, and I found the bow to be the least fun weapon in the game. From a power perspective, it’s fine. Archers are great at killing stuff (at least at the low levels we’ve been allowed to test). But the animation and sound were stiff and unsatisfying. Skyrim did it much better. I didn’t have any lag/ missed click issues though. Everything was perfectly snappy from a performance standpoint. It just didn’t feel like a bow.

I switched back to melee, though, as the animations were just more fun. They still have a lot of work to do, though. I hope collision detection makes a noticeable difference in the ‘weight’ of combat.

Why do so few MMO’s get animations right? Is it that difficult an art? Is it incredibly expensive?

1685

I did a Dunmer Sorc, and mostly used some dagger I got as a quest reward, along with a shield. It worked fine, though it wasn’t very mage-y, I guess. The animations/facing stuff was a bit wonky. Sometimes I had to face my target, other times it seemed I could just swing away and be somewhere near the mob, no matter which way I was facing (third person view). OTOH, running and jumping worked pretty well.

I think one issue they’ll have is that it’s not terribly intuitive to figure out class and skills stuff, even if you’re an old hand at ES single player games. I didn’t realize for a while that you could put points into all of those traits listed in the skills page. It’s not obvious necessarily that they’re all advanceable tracks.

Will there be more betas, like next weekend, or something? I’m still definitely on the fence.

1686

I wish it felt snappy for me. It felt like it was sending every click up to the server, and the client was waiting for confirmation before it would start drawing the bow. (Which was probably the case.) Like many things, when there’s no perceivable lag, it’s fine. But I assume there was lag, and that’s what was causing the whole thing to seem so unresponsive at times.

I find myself questioning the mix of a gameplay engine that’s so reliant on real-time action and precision with the downsides of apparent total server reliance. Traditional MMOs have mechanics that mask this stuff pretty well, like auto-attack cycles, lock-on targeting, and activation timers for most abilities. While most MMOs try to mask effects of lag with their mechanics, this game chose mechanics that appear to be heavily impacted by lag.

Admittedly, I didn’t play that much. But those were my first impressions of what would theoretically be dozens of hours of play (at least), and I was certainly not left with the desire to subject myself to more of that.

1687

You know that they floated a trial balloon to see what testers thought. I’ll be very surprised if there’s no way to skip the initial islands, but feedback on the change has been mixed. In any case, the islands haven’t been removed. Transportation to them is currently available from hard-to-find npcs in the initial cities.

As for CD, I haven’t noticed much difference fighting npcs since the patch to be honest. I play a sorcerer though, so I avoid physical contact when I can. ;-)

1688

You make a good point, but I think the genre is moving en masse toward twitchier, real-time mechanics. They’re assuming everyone always plays with good broadband and a reasonable ping, and that their servers can handle it. The old days of turning on auto-attack and queuing up cooldowns to hit a tab-locked target appear to be ending. Most MMO’s look like ARPG’s with a 3-D Engine. Or maybe it’s just the ones I have played recently (TSW, GW2, TESO, Marvel Heroes, Wildstar).

Have you tried Wildstar? If you solo, every other keypress is a dodge roll. Combat is basically 60 actions per minute, every minute.

1689

I have a question.

What race, class or faction I have to get to play in Skyrim? is that land in the game?
Again:
What race, class or faction I have to get to play in Morrowind?

I like these lands, and actively hate the others.

1690

If you pre-order, you can play any race you like anywhere you want, Teiman.

If you don’t pre-order, you want to start as part of the Ebonheart Pact. That allows you to play a Nord, Dunmer or Argonian. The first area for EP players (after the 30-minute tutoral) is part of Skyrim, a snowy island under attack. The second area is part of Morrowind, complete with Betty Netch and giant mushroom thingies.

I tried the Ebonheart starter experience this weekend, and I found it to be the best and the most Skyrim-like (the game, not the area). It opens up far more quickly than the other areas, and the quests all worked.

Note that, at level 50, everyone gets to play a level 50 version of everywhere. So, even if you start as a Breton in Daggerfall, you will eventually get to quest in Skyrim, Summerset Isles and the like. Or so I hear – I’m not in the closed beta, so I don’t know if this is actually in and working.

1691

From the IGN Wiki:
[ul]
[li]The Ebonheart Pact consists of Nords, Dunmer, and Argonians from the Northern and Eastern regions.
[/li][li]The Aldmeri Dominion consists of Altmer, Bosmer, and Khajiit from the South and South West regions.
[/li][li]The Daggerfall Covenant consists of Bretons, Redguards, and Orcs from the North West regions.
[/li][/ul]

1692

Every god damn time.