The Elder Scrolls XV: This is my Thu'um Stick

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Your goal is unrealistic.

That's something I hear a lot when I talk about games, and it's why I'm hesitant to get back into this series. Of late I've been feeling uncertain I want to play ANYTHING because I'd have to "commit" to one single game until it's done, and then move on to the next one, and I have a backlog of, like, 30 of them in my Steam Library, and while I'm playing any of them I'm constantly thinking "I could be checking the play-by-posts I'm in right now," or "I could be watching YouTube videos about anarchism right now," or "I could be finishing that Pathfinder novel I'm reading right now," or something else like that. Someone here once told me that I sound like I play games as a compulsion rather than for actual fun, and I'm starting to wonder if they were right. Or rather that I'm getting so anxious to have THE PERFECT STORY that I'm not even starting to play.

Regardless, if you want my opinion for the most feasible way to get there:

- Race: High Elf (second choice: Breton; third choice: anything with a racial Alchemy bonus)
- Class Specialization: Magic
- Class Attributes: Intelligence, Luck
- Major Skills: Any five randomly selected from the set of all skills EXCEPT Alchemy; optionally also exclude Restoration, Destruction, and Mercantile
- Minor Skills: Any five randomly selected from the set of all skills EXCEPT Alchemy; optionally also exclude Restoration, Destruction, and Mercantile

How does it work? A Magic-specialized INT/LCK High Elf should be able to make sufficiently valuable potions reliably enough to break even at a vendor with cheap restocking ingredients , so find one of those (Dralval Andrano at the Balmora Temple is a good one) and sit yourself in front of them making potions until Alchemy becomes a money-printer. Make yourself a fortune off homemade potions. Spend that fortune on training. Repeat until you have 100 in every skill.

As to why you might want to exclude Restoration, Destruction and Mercantile from your class skills, they're skills that you can use to accelerate the process - Mercantile makes the wealth-accumulation go a bit faster and reduces training cost, Restoration makes finding an appropriate trainer significantly easier as any trainer can become an appropriate trainer for the skill you want to train if you have an appropriate high-magnitude Fortify [Skill] on Touch spell and can cut training costs if you use a (short-duration high-magnitude) Fortify Mercantile on Self spell right before purchasing training, and Destruction can cut training costs if you use a (short-duration high-magnitude) Drain Skill on Self spell right before purchasing training (also slightly helps with finding an appropriate trainer, though not nearly as much as Restoration does with Fortify [Skill] on Touch).

This DOES sound kind of cool, though I'm not sure...Altmer mostly make me think of soft-serve ice cream with those hairdos...And you're right that all that grinding doesn't really make sense from the perspective of a story.

If you want to get 100 in every skill and every stat without resorting to something like the above ... well, I suppose it's possible, but I strongly suspect that you'll grow weary of the character long before you come close to achieving your goal, because if you're playing the game 'normally' you can probably do pretty much everything that there is to do within the game by level 30 or so, even including Tribunal and Bloodmoon. Assuming Luck is a Favored Attribute and you get perfect 551 levels, the earliest that you'll hit 100 in every stat except Luck is level 38 with the Lady as your Birthsign, level 41 with the Steed or the Lover as your Birthsign, or level 43 otherwise; if you also want to have 100 Luck you'll be waiting until level 51 at the earliest. If you want to get 100 in every skill, you will have to hit level 68.5 to 77.5 depending on how many of your racial and specialization bonuses apply to Major and Minor skills (more applying to Major/Minor skills => lower level required to hit 100 in every skill since it reduces the number of natural levels available before hitting skillcap in all class skills).

I just worry. The only Elder Scrolls game I've ever played without a god mode cheat was Skyrim, and Skyrim is easy. Morrowind and Oblivion are hard, the former because it relies so much on numbers, meaning the skills and stats NEED to be high in order to be any good, and the latter because the level-scaling basically guarantees that if an NPC isn't Essential, a random monster or surprise attack (like the Mythic Dawn agents) will do them in. And besides that, I have a tendency to change outfits and gear on a whim rather than selecting one thing and sticking with it throughout the entirety of the game, so I like to have all the skills equal so I'm okay no matter WHAT I choose to wear or wield. I don't want to lock myself into one path/playstyle because I just flail with a sword at anything I encounter, maxing out those skills and hitting a level cap because I can't train my major skills any higher, and then find myself unable to advance in the Mage's Guild because my Destruction isn't good enough. How do you do well in these games if you're NOT perfect?

[Vinyadan]

I just worry. The only Elder Scrolls game I've ever played without a god mode cheat was Skyrim, and Skyrim is easy. Morrowind and Oblivion are hard, the former because it relies so much on numbers, meaning the skills and stats NEED to be high in order to be any good, and the latter because the level-scaling basically guarantees that if an NPC isn't Essential, a random monster or surprise attack (like the Mythic Dawn agents) will do them in.

Spoiler: Oblivion

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The Emperor is supposed to die at the start, you can't do anything about it.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Spoiler: Oblivion

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The Emperor is supposed to die at the start, you can't do anything about it.

Spoiler

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I'm talking about the ones undercover in the cities and stuff who seem normal but once you're about halfway through the Main Quest cast bound armor and weapon spells and attack you or any nearby civilians shouting "FOR LORD DAGON!" and stuff. Almost EVERY time I've encountered one of those they killed a bystander NPC and I had to reload the game or use the resurrect cheat code to fix it.

[The_Jackal]

One of my gold standards is Dragon Age: Origins, which TBF has persuasion skills you can put points in, but I don't think they're ever actually NECESSARY.

It is rewarding to have your actual choices matter, not whether you chose to put points in X or Y during charop.

I agree, but this isn't exactly a compelling reason to implement, and more importantly, take a speechcraft skill. If they're not necessary, are they even useful?

I don't agree. I let my players talk their way out of any situation it works by the rules.

The catch is that Diplomacy by RAW takes a minute to perform, which means it can stop a combat from starting, but may not cease it once it begins.

Any situation? The archvillain of your story arc decides to pack up their toys and go back to the dimension where it rains anvils without an umbrella, because you rolled a 20 on your persuade roll?

Most superhero games take that into account; you're meant to always have scenarios where your power works, at least on mooks. Unfortunately a lot of GMs forget to plan encounters that way, and treat a game like Mutants and Masterminds as though they're D&D. In a superhero game the good guys are supposed to win. So you plan encounters where the mind controller, or super speedster, etc., etc. can "win" while not letting them dominate the whole encounter.

Sure, and mind controlling mooks is great, but at some point, the GM needs to present you with a challenge you can't completely short-circuit with the Jedi Mind Trick. Obi-wan mesmerizes stormtroopers? Fine. Obi-wan mesmerizes Darth Vader? Not so good. Which is why playing Professor X is not fun in a game, unless you're really comfortable with being completely ineffectual in the game's climactic encounters.

Games with deep dialogue trees are like choose-your-own-adventure books? Did a CYAG run off with your girlfriend or something?

I thought I was pretty clear: It's not gameplay, it's story. If you like it, good on you, I don't play games to be narrated to, and being able to select from a range of narration options isn't improving it enough to impress me.

The thing with those books is that they are about as thick as a normal book, but there are three or more ways through them, so any path through them is very short compared to a novel, because there's only one path through a novel, and the books are the same size. So, I looked at one in a bookshop once, and didn't buy it, because it struck me as really bad value for money.

They're fine for what they are, a sort of pre-computer Zork, and for my part, I would welcome the industry backing off the "voice and animate every utterance, no matter how inane or inconsequential" bandwagon, because I would like it if writers were freed from the production cost limitations that come with that paradigm. But then, once we get right down to it, I'm also okay with deep-frying the writers and focusing even more on gameplay.

[Rynjin]

Any situation? The archvillain of your story arc decides to pack up their toys and go back to the dimension where it rains anvils without an umbrella, because you rolled a 20 on your persuade roll?

20s don't matter for skills. Also you can't request a favor from someone who is Hostile or Unfriendly to you.

Sure, and mind controlling mooks is great, but at some point, the GM needs to present you with a challenge you can't completely short-circuit with the Jedi Mind Trick. Obi-wan mesmerizes stormtroopers? Fine. Obi-wan mesmerizes Darth Vader? Not so good. Which is why playing Professor X is not fun in a game, unless you're really comfortable with being completely ineffectual in the game's climactic encounters.

Zapping mooks is always useful. Or not so much mooks but not-the-main-guy.

[Yora]

Can anyone recommend pure graphic mods for OpenMW? I am looking exclusively at graphical upgrades that leave mechanics and content completely untouched. Anything good to polish up the looks a bit while maintaining the original visual style?

[Caelestion]

I've long used Westly's Master Head Pack for my one-stop head shop. The PSsorticon mod is the mod for cool and useful potion/scroll inventory icons - get that one and never look back.

Connary does some amazing textures (a very extensive range too), both Vurt and Arukinn did some journal/scroll replacers and as soon as I found Pekka's Redoran Wood Replacer, I stopped looking for Redoran retextures. (There's a similar near-perfect mod for Telvanni textures, but sadly I don't remember who by.)

Darknut is well-known for his extensive range of upscaled textures in a variety of sizes, but as newer, more faithful textures have come on the scene, I've very much gone off the boil for his work.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

How many people here who've played multiple Elder Scrolls games have headcanoned that their character in one game is related to their character in another game?

You know, like, "My Dragonborn is the great-grandchild of my Nerevarine" or something?

[Resileaf]

How many people here who've played multiple Elder Scrolls games have headcanoned that their character in one game is related to their character in another game?

You know, like, "My Dragonborn is the great-grandchild of my Nerevarine" or something?

I have, but not entirely the same way.

I headcanon that my recurring wood elf character is the companion of the hero of the game (companion to the Nerevarine, companion to the champion of Cyrodiil), and my Skyrim character is the daughter of this wood elf, and ends up being the companion of the Dragonborn.

I go that way because I like having the hero character being of the 'proper' race, so to speak (dunmer, imperial and nord).

[factotum]

See, I tend not to think along those lines because to my mind it just adds a massive element of unlikely coincidence to the plot--for one family to be so consistently Chosen to be the saviour of wherever?

[Caelestion]

I don't tend to play humans, so that doesn't apply to me. My canonical Dragonborn was an Altmer, who was the brother of a vanilla NPC in Morrowind and thus he was acquainted with my human Nerevarine (my only PC character even to actually complete the MQ), but I think that a generic canonical Nerevarine should be a Dunmer, just for the sake of aesthetics.

Likewise, I played the same Bosmer character in both Oblivion and Skyrim, but even as a thief and assassin, I don't see him as the leader of either of those guilds in either game, just as a powerful non-Hero character, though my canonical Grey Fox was related to my PC Nerevarine, even though (as I said), I don't actually have a canonical Nerevarine.

[LibraryOgre]

How many people here who've played multiple Elder Scrolls games have headcanoned that their character in one game is related to their character in another game?

You know, like, "My Dragonborn is the great-grandchild of my Nerevarine" or something?

qv My idea of playing an Altmer Healer in all five games, and just having her be all of the various heroes.

[Cygnia]

At least for Skyrim, my headcanon is Lydia is the real hero.

[Morty]

See, I tend not to think along those lines because to my mind it just adds a massive element of unlikely coincidence to the plot--for one family to be so consistently Chosen to be the saviour of wherever?

That's kind of where I'm sitting. Why should every prophesied hero/random schmuck in the right place in every major event be part of the same family?

[Calemyr]

How many people here who've played multiple Elder Scrolls games have headcanoned that their character in one game is related to their character in another game?

You know, like, "My Dragonborn is the great-grandchild of my Nerevarine" or something?

Somewhat indirectly, in terms of Vilja: a mod NPC who's explicitly stated to be the great-great-granddaughter of the Oblivion mod NPC who was a romance option for the Champion. Which means, to my mind, my Dragonborn (when I use Vilja) is hanging out with the great-great-granddaughter of the Champion.

What I like to envision more, however, is a tag-team of the three: The Neravarine (who is ageless and could easily still be active), the Champion (who is now Sheogorath), and the Dragonborn ganging up to fix a world broken by Alduin's dereliction of duty (by trying to become a god instead of the agent of existential reincarnation). I mean, just try to imagine that. Heck, you even end up with representatives of the Aedra (the Dragonborn, empowered by Akatosh himself), Daedra (the Champion, now a literal Daedric Prince), and Mortals (the Neravarine, who is ether an heir to the role of a mortal-made-god or his reincarnation), all teaming up to save existence. It's just a shame the mods don't exist to support a story like that.

EDIT: I'd like to add a question for myself, if I may, for the narrative-minded among us. Does anyone use NPC mods to enhance their story? What ones add the most to it, in your experience? Any particularly grand combinations?

[Yora]

I just finished the Skyrim quest with Sam Guivinne. I totally should have catched that at some point. I only started suspecting something when I found the portal in a dungeon full of empty wine bottles.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

How many people here who've played multiple Elder Scrolls games have headcanoned that their character in one game is related to their character in another game?

You know, like, "My Dragonborn is the great-grandchild of my Nerevarine" or something?

The closest I've come was to make my Imperial Nightblade alt in ESO an ancestor of an Imperial character I played in a PbP game. Normally, I go in the opposite direction - playing different races each game and each playthrough for variety.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

So...I went and picked Morrowind back up...and got Arena and Daggerfall for free since it was on GOG.

I'm looking at the patches and other files here and wondering how to find the directory I need to download the patch and other stuff too, since I can find directories for the stuff I've gotten through Steam and Origin, but not GOG.

I'm also trying to decide if I should just name the character "Talin" like in the short fiction in the guide, or make up my own name, considering Talin is also the Imperial Guard sent into Oblivion with the Emperor...and apparently a cut slide says he's the character's dad...part of me feels like it'd be cool to connect the character more deeply to the already-vaguely-established lore, but at the same time I'm aware it's just a contradictory oversight. I want to truly roleplay as well as do well at the game.

[Vinyadan]

How many people here who've played multiple Elder Scrolls games have headcanoned that their character in one game is related to their character in another game?

You know, like, "My Dragonborn is the great-grandchild of my Nerevarine" or something?

In theory, they are all the same person. The exception is in Oblivion, where it is said that the Nerevarine left for Akavir.

In practice, there is a competing backstory for Skyrim where my character was a public figure in Somerset politics who was favourable to staying in the Empire, and the Thalmor asked for him to be executed by the Empire as a secret condition for the White-Gold Concordat. This way, they would eliminate a political opponent, slander the Empire, and avoid the internal unrest that would have followed, had they done it themselves. This explains why the Thalmor mysteriously attack you for the crime of looking at them for too long.

[DigoDragon]

I just finished the Skyrim quest with Sam Guivinne. I totally should have catched that at some point. I only started suspecting something when I found the portal in a dungeon full of empty wine bottles.

I remember going back to that dungeon several levels later for some radiant quest to kill a dude, and he had spawned in front of that portal. Right next to a bunch of necromancers. It was a slaughter and all I could hear was screaming and death as I was running down there. When I arrived, he was just... Chilling. Surrounded by bodies. Easiest quest resolution ever.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Two other questions:

1. Does anyone here play ESO?
2. Is it worth playing if you're an Elder Scrolls fan?

MMOs and the time-commitments associated with them scare me.

[Keltest]

Two other questions:

1. Does anyone here play ESO?
2. Is it worth playing if you're an Elder Scrolls fan?

MMOs and the time-commitments associated with them scare me.

I do, and if you want to play it like a single player game, that's perfectly within your power. All of the important content can be done solo, up to and including getting a set of viable dungeoning gear if you decide you want to go that path.

[The Patterner]

I remember going back to that dungeon several levels later for some radiant quest to kill a dude, and he had spawned in front of that portal. Right next to a bunch of necromancers. It was a slaughter and all I could hear was screaming and death as I was running down there. When I arrived, he was just... Chilling. Surrounded by bodies. Easiest quest resolution ever.

Kind of like when a master vampire spawns in a Silver hand stronghold. You have barely entered the cave/fort when all of a sudden you get a quest completed message.

[Calemyr]

Two other questions:

1. Does anyone here play ESO?
2. Is it worth playing if you're an Elder Scrolls fan?

MMOs and the time-commitments associated with them scare me.

I have. It's a fairly decent game, but it ultimately wasn't worth the subscription and I hate the nickle&dime grind that it picked up once it became "free to play". That is a painfully ironic term, really, as so much of the new content is now at extra cost that I don't know if it wasn't cheaper as a subscription.

I have to note I'm out of date on the game, so some of this may no longer be the case with the latest expansion. I rather doubt these things will change much, however.

The game itself has a very interesting approach to it, however. You pick a race and a class up front. It's class-based, but class has far less effect than you'd expect, as all it really does is give you a set of skills you can learn over the course of the game, and your class-given skills represent maybe a quarter of the skills you can earn. Each weapon type has a set of skills associated with it, each armor type, each race, crafting proficiencies, and each "guild" also adds more skills you can spend skill points to purchase and/or upgrade. End result is an extremely open approach to building your character.

Crafting is kinda cool. You can build armor and weapons in all kinds of styles, upgrade them to higher tiers of rarity, enchant them by combining runestones. The recipes are the same regardless of style, you just use a final ingredient that decides the style, assuming you know the style attached to it. (You learn these via books that are rare enough to be valuable.) You can also select a special attribute (like an enchantment but passive) by adding a gem to the recipe, but you have to learn these attributes by dismantling an example (like disenchanting things in Skyrim). Additionally, if you use certain crafting stations in specific places, your creations become part of a set: make three pieces in the same place and equip them all for bonus features, for example. It's a pretty robust system that I (as a crafts-focused player) really could sink my teeth into.

Gameplay is pretty solid, but stiff. It reminded me more of Morrowind than Skyrim, but it wasn't unpleasant. Enemies tend to forecast their larger attacks, and if you block a heavy strike you daze them for a moment and leave them open to counter attack. Physical skills eat stamina while magical ones eat magicka, and you can add a bonus to any of the three pools (plus health) at every level. All three stats do still increase with each level, you just pick which one gets an additional boost. You also get to equip a single "ultimate" skill that builds up as you play (deal or receive damage, etc) that gives you a trump card you can hold until you need it.

The plot (of the main game, at least) is fairly simple: long before any of the other games, you (and the other player characters) are part of a mass sacrifice to Mehrunes Dagon, but you broke free of his dungeons. This leaves you with a sort of resurrective immortality (i.e. Classic MMO PC Immortality), while a mysterious old man tries to walk you through figuring out what happened and what to do about it. Meanwhile, the last Emperor died with no heir, so the races broke into three factions and are vying for the big seat in Cyrodil while also trying to sort out all kinds of classic Elder Scrolls crises, like the mage's guild and their leader's feud with Sheogorath, for example.

All the regions in the game are beautiful (if pale enough to keep the computer requirements manageable) and the ones we've seen before are in keeping with what we already knew. The cities of High Rock are captivating, Vardenfel is very much a polished version of Morrowind, and Skyrim is... well... not as big as the standalone game but carries very much the same feeling. Interestingly, the Thalmor Dominion (the Altmer/Bosmer/Khajit faction) is probably my favorite from my time playing, as their queen is actually a down to earth and likable lady as opposed to their... less flattering representation in Skyrim.

Ultimately, while I did play the game quite a bit and enjoyed my time, I have to admit it grew old and dull.
These were the things that killed my interest (current players let me know if they fixed any of this):

* The Inventory system sucked. You could carry X number of items, regardless of weight. Your bank had a little more space than you, but not much. You could increase the capacity of either, but it costed coin, which is another problem altogether. The inventory wasn't all that cruel for an adventurer, but a craftsman? There were like ten grades of every type of material (wood, leather, ore, etc), different gems for bonus features, different racial materials for equipment styles, runestones for enchanting, augment materials, and gear you still had to dismantle (because you could only be dismantling a couple at a time, and the process was resolved as a timer that could take hours or even days to resolve). And Aedra save you if you wanted to be an alchemist or a provisioner (cook). Dozens upon dozens of ingredients are involved in both of these professions and their outputs ate up almost as much of your inventory as the ingredients. So the game was simultaneously heaven for a crafting maniac such as myself and an absolute hell. I commented heavily on this to them during the beta and I never saw any attempt to resolve it. Of everything I might complain about with this game, this was the one that absolutely killed it for me, driving the tedium and inventory starvation to unplayable levels.

* Money. The economy of this game was complete trash. Purchasing items was expensive, selling items was dirt cheap, quest rewards were pathetic, and finding a monster that dropped as much as ten coins was a red-letter day. Most enemies (including boss-grade ones) dropped 1-3 coins (if any) in an economy where basic purchases could get up to a thousand.

* NPCs in combat. The game likes to make you feel like you're not alone. You can build quite a cadre of allies to help in plot events. Only it was a facade. They did zero damage, meaning that the closest they came to helping is keeping some of the horde distracted and they rather sucked at even that. Window dressing, yet the encounters seemed balanced on the assumption that they were actually contributing. It got to the point I groaned when I was given multiple allies, as it meant the fights were going to that much more imbalanced and frustrating.

* MMO Elder Scrolls. Just like with Fallout 76, Bethesda just doesn't seem to understand what the fans are asking for when they demand multiplayer in their games. Or, at least, as I've understood it. The MMO structure kills these games, be it from leveled instances of the same gear rendering treasured equipment obsolete after a few hours, artificially bloated and drawn out gameplay loops, and the freedom of how to play - though ESO really gives you more freedom there than I've seen since Ultima Online, personally speaking. The loss of mods, the inability to expand or alter your experience in any but the officially mandated (and now microtransaction-focused) methods.

Still rank it as my second favorite MMO after FFXIV, but I'd rather play a round of Skyrim over it most days.

[Keltest]

As far as the crafting inventory goes, if you are a subscriber, you have access to the "crafting bag" which is an infinite storage system exclusively for crafting materials.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

@Calemyr I'm not sure when you stopped playing so I apologize if any of this isn't news.

Ultimately, while I did play the game quite a bit and enjoyed my time, I have to admit it grew old and dull.
These were the things that killed my interest (current players let me know if they fixed any of this):

* The Inventory system sucked. You could carry X number of items, regardless of weight. Your bank had a little more space than you, but not much. You could increase the capacity of either, but it costed coin, which is another problem altogether. The inventory wasn't all that cruel for an adventurer, but a craftsman? There were like ten grades of every type of material (wood, leather, ore, etc), different gems for bonus features, different racial materials for equipment styles, runestones for enchanting, augment materials, and gear you still had to dismantle (because you could only be dismantling a couple at a time, and the process was resolved as a timer that could take hours or even days to resolve). And Aedra save you if you wanted to be an alchemist or a provisioner (cook). Dozens upon dozens of ingredients are involved in both of these professions and their outputs ate up almost as much of your inventory as the ingredients. So the game was simultaneously heaven for a crafting maniac such as myself and an absolute hell. I commented heavily on this to them during the beta and I never saw any attempt to resolve it. Of everything I might complain about with this game, this was the one that absolutely killed it for me, driving the tedium and inventory starvation to unplayable levels.

Unless, as Keltest mentioned, you subscribe - this is getting worse with each new DLC. They keep adding Motifs (note for the non-ESO players, Motifs are styles you can craft gear in, so for example if I know the Nord Motif I can make my gear look Nordic) and by extension style stones for those Motifs. Some of which come in pieces which have to be refined. They also added new Alchemy ingredients in the last two Chapters, and they added Jewelry crafting (only for people who bought the Summerset Chapter) but decided they wanted it to be 'special' so the stones you craft Jewelry with come as dust, which has to be refined into stones before you can use them, and of course the dust and stones each require their own inventory slot since they're technically different items. This goes for the trait stones (there are nine of those for Jewelry, all of which are new and Jewelry-specific) AND the Jewelry upgrade materials (also new). And of course the actual base materials you craft the Jewelry with (Pewter, Copper, Silver, Electrum, and Platinum) in refined and unrefined versions. Add to that the Crafting Dailies drop the lower level materials, which is fine if you craft for lower-level characters but not so fine if you don't and want to save inventory space.

And BECAUSE of the Crafting Bag, ZOS has no incentive to make this better I'm afraid.

* Money. The economy of this game was complete trash. Purchasing items was expensive, selling items was dirt cheap, quest rewards were pathetic, and finding a monster that dropped as much as ten coins was a red-letter day. Most enemies (including boss-grade ones) dropped 1-3 coins (if any) in an economy where basic purchases could get up to a thousand.

Did you stop playing before they introduced stealing? Stealing made getting gold much easier. A good guild trader helps with money too, but most of the decent ones have expensive requirements ('donate X amount of gold per week or make Y sales' is common).

I don't really have any comment on the NPCs 'helping' except they have some of the newer dungeons where the NPCs will shout advice regarding boss mechanics now. Which isn't really the same thing, so I'll skip to:

* MMO Elder Scrolls. Just like with Fallout 76, Bethesda just doesn't seem to understand what the fans are asking for when they demand multiplayer in their games. Or, at least, as I've understood it. The MMO structure kills these games, be it from leveled instances of the same gear rendering treasured equipment obsolete after a few hours, artificially bloated and drawn out gameplay loops, and the freedom of how to play - though ESO really gives you more freedom there than I've seen since Ultima Online, personally speaking. The loss of mods, the inability to expand or alter your experience in any but the officially mandated (and now microtransaction-focused) methods.

This hasn't improved either. I'll give an example from Murkmire: they have five or six quests that send you to fight a world boss. In theory, these are different quests. In practice, there are only two world bosses in Murkmire, meaning you get sent to the same bosses over and over again. There have been cases where they've added Motif pages to daily quests, but only after the DLC has been out for a while to drive people back to it. They have events regularly but they don't add new quests or major activities to the events, just new loot - which adds to the inventory problem.

They've also continued to add new currencies, but the currencies have caps. EX: The events now drop 'tickets' which you can only carry a MAX of 12 at a time. And then they added things you can ONLY buy with the tickets, but they're usually 5-10 tickets per item, so you can't buy much with the tickets...and the items are limited time...and of course ZOS sells the tickets in the Crown Store so you don't 'miss' anything.

Honestly what they've been doing with ESO has made me reluctant to buy the next single player Elder Scrolls.

[Caelestion]

ZOS aren't BGS, of course, but Todd Howard and the increasing consolisation of TES games already makes me wary of the next TES game, especially after what they did to Fallout 76.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm thinking I'll hold off and play regular Elder Scrolls games in the meantime. Right now I'm playing Redguard, as the first in the in-universe timeline outside of ESO. And yeah, I'm kinda concerned about what the next Elder Scrolls game will turn out to be given Bethesda's recent screw-ups.

[Triaxx]

At this rate it'll probably be a one button game. Just hold one button and in 15-20 minutes you'll be finished with the 'storyline'. That'll be $60 please.

[veti]

ZOS aren't BGS, of course, but Todd Howard and the increasing consolisation of TES games already makes me wary of the next TES game, especially after what they did to Fallout 76.

Not sure that "consolisation" is really increasing. Was Skyrim really any worse than Oblivion in that respect? (Although it does worry me that they've figured out a way to make mods work on consoles. That could be the death of free mods.)

And Fallout 76 actually gives me hope. The game was such a turkey, and so universally scorned, that it's hard to imagine they won't learn from it.

The one to worry about is Fallout 4, because that was a success despite being a steaming pile of manure. So that's the one they'll look to for positive ideas, nine gods help us.