Elder Scrolls Online Beta

[Garacesh]

fixed. had to alter the theme however.

 

ARGH

MY EYES

[arwen]

Tamriel Mining Corporation - Index < basic site is up. Will add more. On payday will transfer to a proper domain

 

Ooo nice! I'll go sign up

[featured_spectre]

lol....at home I have a custom theme which I will put up, for now, this is way better than default!

[featured_spectre]

righty, for now, it should be a better theme, less painful on the eyes!

[featured_spectre]

@Little-Miss you in?

[Garacesh]

So do we have a Teamspeak or Mumble or anything? I'm about to boot the game up downloading more stuff and wondered if anyone was on.

 

Also, I don't mind pitching in towards hosting/TS/etc, but I currently can't.

An Error Has Occurred!

You can not view Treasury.

Y'dun goof'd boy.

Edited March 15, 2014 by Garacesh

[featured_spectre]

Edugeek has a mumble, but dont know the details. I am not sure what I am happy and annoyed about...happy I dont have to do coldharbour again, or annoyed that I lost my level 50 character!!

[Garacesh]

Urgh, looks like I'm going to have to re-download the entire game -_-

[featured_spectre]

There was a 4GB patch, so if you downloaded a 21GB file, then another one, dont worry, its normal.

[Garacesh]

There was a 4GB patch, so if you downloaded a 21GB file, then another one, dont worry, its normal.

 

Yeah, I loaded the launcher and it downloaded some extras, which I expected, but then said "Access Invalid" and I had insufficient permissions to write to E:\Zenimax etc. Which is stupid. So I ran the repair and it's all "LOLlet'sdownload21gigsagain"

[featured_spectre]

nah, it varifies the files, I had that. It runs through, varifies, whatever it doesnt like it will redownload and fix.

[Garacesh]

Well I'm rolling a Ebonheart Pact, High Elf Templar focussing on Dual Wielding and Heals.

Name's Secoria if you wanna find me.

[featured_spectre]

Add me to your friends list nephilim2k. If that doesn't work look for nephilim hydroxy. Lol

[Garacesh]

How do I horse?

[featured_spectre]

That mission. That was fun. Lol.

[Garacesh]

After playing some more of it (and the recording working this time, by the looks of it! Woo! Review video should be up.. at some point) I have decided I'm not going to be buying it.

[featured_spectre]

That's a pity...

[Garacesh]

It is a pity, because the game does really feel like an Elder Scrolls game. It captures the essence of what the previous games were. But the way the skill trees are just ruins it.

 

I started another character, a Wood Elf Mage, since I wasn't really fond of my Templar. Straight away I was at a disadvantage just because of my race (Racial skills for Wood Elves focus on archery and stealth, neither of which benefit me as a Mage) which means the playing field is slightly imbalanced from the get-go depending on which races you pick. Then there's the fact that I still have the options to use a two-handed weapon, or two swords, completely stupid equipment to use as a squishy Mage. (By the way, I spawned with a greatsword and no staff, so that sucked.) - I understand ES:O wants to promote versatility and unique character modelling like you can do in their single-player games, but it just doesn't work online. "Oh, you can build y our character whatever way you like!" Yeah, maybe I can, but if I do choose to have a magic-using close-combat character, don't make my skills not help me in any way. Maybe a way to magically augment my huge two-handed sword, instead of a cleave? That'd be good.

 

You know what game got character versatility right? Path of Exile. ES:O would have been much better, I feel, with something like that, rather than its current skill tree setup. What's going to happen, is a bunch of race-class cookie-cutter setups running around everywhere being identical, and I was really hoping that wouldn't be the case.

 

Add to it the fact that stealth no-less-than sucks, and will not be useful in PvP (which ends up being a large part of all MMO's) because real players have real brains and aren't programmed as to be as intelligent as a door handle, so they'll see you, hear you, or simply just respond a lot better than an NPC or mob would (which throws an entire class tree out of whack). That's why other games Assassin-type classes can actually go invisible. The stealth mechanic is based on its single player iteration and just isn't fit for purpose.

 

I want to like it. I want to want to play it because it feels so much like its predecessors. But I just can't.

[featured_spectre]

I have one issue with the game, and that is this. Once you've chosen your class (Dragon knight, assassin or what have you), you are limited in your progression. However, for guilding, the plan is this (at least for me). Have an imperial, and max up his smithing abilities. Use him for the guild, in that he can make any armour, and convert any armour into imperial also, so makes for a good crafter. I will have another one who can do potions and elixirs.

 

As for stealth, it is of no use in PvP, goes for WoW as much as it goes for GW2, and same for ESO. Stealth is pretty much a PvE thing, and it does work if you apply it correctly. The mission where you wear the disguise, you wear it and walk slowly around town and collect the bits you need, and you have to be careful of the sentries, as they can tell the difference between friend and foe. It does work, just give it a chance.

 

Also, you can go invisible as an assassin, I had the perk that allowed me to do so. And as for your "once you pick you're limited", this was posted just this morning by a dev on the closed beta forums.

 

"ESO provides player with many skills and a player may want to redistribute points after some time. You’ll be able to reset your skills, receiving room to try new things or undo choices you aren’t happy with. Though it is possible, it will cost you money and the price will be rather high. Thus it’s not a cheap option that can be used every hour. Expect to pay between 1000G and 50'000G depending on your level"

[featured_spectre]

@Garacesh the above may actually be of interest for you.

 

Also, if you want to focus on being a mage, look at the races before hand and go for one that suits it better. It would be pointless being a Nord Mage when they're brawlers, same as being an Breton brawler when they're more mage types.

 

Here is a list of racial traits and their best suiting (roughly speaking)

 

Breton - Mage - Generic (can be tuned to be a mage of all kinds)

Redguard - Brawler - Tank

Orsimer - Brawler - Damage Per Second attacks

Nord - Brawler - 2 hand attack buffer

Dunmer - Range - Damage Per Second attacks

Argonian - Mage - Healing spells/casting

Altmer - Mage - Destruction attacks

Bosmer - Ranged Archer - Disruption attacks

Khajiit - Assassin - Sneak attacks

Imperial - Brawler - 1 Hand Buffer

 

They are the strengths of the races based on what I can find online. Generally it holds true, except for imperial as imperial can be as sneaky as khajiit but it takes longer to do.

 

Now for each race, I recommend as follows:

 

Breton - Sorcerer

Redguard - Dragon Knight

Orsimer - Templar

Nord - Templar

Dunmer - Nightblade

Argonian - Sorcerer

Altmer - Sorcerer

Bosmer - Nightblade

Khajiit - Nightblade

Imperial - Templar

[Garacesh]

Once you've chosen your class (Dragon knight, assassin or what have you), you are limited in your progression.

I don't mind class trees at all. They're pretty staple for MMO's and they're, to be honest, expected. I previously mentioned PoE's skill grid (net? web? 'Tree' would certainly be the wrong word!) and I recall lots of people complaining that it was too confusing because of all the options they were faced with. People didn't like that they'd have to seriously give their characters such in-depth thought at level 1, and sometimes their path just wouldn't work (which is why respec points became available)

 

I know I compare a lot of MMO's to Aion, but that's mainly because I played that one a lot (amongst lots of others, Eve, Rose, WoW, TERA, etc but never for as long) so where as a lot of people use WoW as the baseline, I use Aion - but, for example, you pick one of four classes, then there are two subclasses that you pick later on once you've experienced the game. That was good. It was "Here's your classes with a little bit of customisation.. And now that you're level whatever (I think it was 10) and you've come to grips with the game mechanics, you get to pick your 'subclass'. And then even later on, once you hit PvP, you get even further customisations - the point being it's not all thrust upon you from Day 1. I feel the amount of skill trees you're given in ES:O is 'too much, too early' (a problem PoE faces, too) by giving you 3 class trees, 5 weapon trees, 3 armour trees, etcetera right off-the-bat, and like I said earlier, this is just going to spawn 'cookie cutter' guides and have a lot of characters identical.

 

The weapon skill trees seem to be the same across classes, which also bothers me. Different classes would use weapons in different ways. A two-handed weapon, for example. A big, beefcake of a Dragon Knight would be swinging it around and hitting everything he could with it, so cleave is good. A templar, perhaps, might be trying to use it more defensively, so a cleave isn't as good. Why not focus on bashes/interrupts and blocking rather than attacking? And why even give the option to a Mage to skill up a greatsword when it just isn't viable?

 

Also racial bonuses annoy me (aforementioned Wood Elf Mage) and I predict they'll lead to archers being mostly Wood Elves, destruction-users being mostly Dark Elves (I think it was them, anyway) etc. You get the picture. The reason that annoys me is for a start I hate 'fully human' characters (Nord, Imperial, etc) and what if you wanted to play a class that their race bonuses assisted? But also if you're having to pick a certain class because of the racial bonuses (time will tell how good they actually are), and guilds get bonuses due to faction - or even if you're going to struggle playing with your friends because you're in different factions due to playing different roles.. That just sucks.

[Garacesh]

That list, whilst informative, highlights my issue. I don't want to play as an Argonian or Bretonian. So if I want to play a Sorcerer that means I should play a High Elf, right? I'm okay with High Elves, because I do like the Elvish races, but it's a bit of a grumble to be forced into a race because of my class preference. (Templar actually sounded more like my type of class, but I think I just skilled her wrong)

 

Oh, damnit. I'm a squishy. So I'm possibly going to need someone to help me. One of my friends says he'll start a Templar and be my tank. Cool! Except he doesn't like any of the typically 'Templar' races. And even if he did, because of factions, he'd be limited to which one he could pick in order to play with me anyway. (Admittedly, I don't know how factions work fully. If he was a different faction and tried to make his way to me (presumably your spawn after the tutorial is based on your faction?) then what would happen? Would NPC's hate him (which would mean we weren't able to play together?) or what?

 

I like how they've tried to incorporate all the races, but it just sounds like it's badly implemented (or if it's not, I don't know enough about it, which is possibly my own fault for not looking up things on wikis/forums, but I feel that I shouldn't have to find external or community sources - the game should tell me what I need to know on its own)

[featured_spectre]

No, I didn't say thats what you should be all the time, its just how they're advantaged. You could well be an Elvish Mage, there is nothing stopping you from doing so, you just dont start as well. They all max out roughly the same, its just the beginning bonus where you see the advantage.

[Garacesh]

Sorry - I was using 'have to' loosely. As much as you're not forced to, it seems that that's how it would end up.

 

I'm struggling to see how they'd all max out the same if one race gets a bonus and the other doesn't? Unless there's a finite amount of points that means you can't max out Weapon, Armour, Class and Race at the same time (resulting in the common build, I'd expect, be maxing out 1 Class tree, 1 Weapon tree and 1 Armour tree). But I would have expected you'd have the points to max out one of each tree, at least? (Also bringing with it the option to only do, for example, 3 full trees + two half-trees if so desired)

Edited March 17, 2014 by Garacesh

[featured_spectre]

All skills have a max level, all attainable with or without the perk from their starting race.