ESO Reddit AMA Summary

 

First of all, thanks to Dulfy.net for this great summary.  The original article can be found here and you should go there and support the site because its awesome.  They did a great job with the summary.  Without further adieu:

 

A summary and transcript of the ESO Reddit AMA hosted by the Matt Firor, Paul Sage, and Nick Jonkle on March 20, 2014.

 

Participants

• Paul Sage  ESO Creative Director
• Matt Firor ESO Game Director
• Nick Konkle ESO Lead Gameplay Designer
• Brain Wheeler ESO Lead PvP Designer

Summary of Important info

Launch

• 5 days early access starts on 7:00 AM EDT, Sunday March 30th
• Characters will be wiped for early access/launch, you will be using the same login info/client as beta so don’t uninstall the game.
• EU megaserver will be hosted on US initially and then moved to its permanent home in EU

Cashshop/Subscription

• Cashshop will just have a name change server and some vanity pets in the future. No plans for anything else after that.
• Playing any race in any alliance is a pre-order perk and we have no plans to offer this bonus in any other way.
• Discount for buying multi-month subscriptions

Starter Islands

• Decision to make starter island optional was due to feedback about the game being too much on rails. The quest NPCs that leads to them will be much easier to find on live.
• The next update puts  a questgiver right outside the front door the house/boat you appear in after leaving coldharbour. This questgiver will explicitly show you how to get to the island, should you want to go there
• We also are tweaking the tutorial to offer more explicit weapon types to choose from. Our goal is that through weapon drops, lootable chests, and this choice you should be able to find any weapon you want by the time you exit Coldharbour.

Post Launch Plans/Future Content

• Development post launch will be on Craglorn, our first adventure zone. More info on that very soon.
• No plans for speech bubbles
• Expansion in the future, no concrete plans
• Good sized content expansions at a regular cadence
• Looking at adding in more options in the future for player customization.
• No cloaks in the near future
• More likely to see new skill lines in the near future than expanding existing skill lines but both (new and expanding) are attractive options
• No plans to increase terrain draw distance anytime soon due to tech restrictions
• More info on console release after PC/mac launch

Abilities & Traits

• We are leveling out cost reduction enchants in veteran rank
• Partial charged stealth attacks dealing more damage than fully charged ones is a bug that will be fixed soon.
• Dunmer fire talent passive is having some bugs cleaned up, and going to +2%/4%/6% fire damage. The Altmer elemental talent is going to +2%/3%/4% damage with all elements.
• We are actively looking at balancing the racial abilities,
• Armor and spell penetration are not working properly on traits at the moment. The desired effect is that when I have 10% armor penetration, I ignore 10% of the target’s armor value. Fix should be with either launch or shortly after.
• Racial passives will work with the enchantments on jewelry. There is a cool down on procs, or a rate of proc if you prefer. Individual proc rate (cooldown.)
• Looking into Templar and their magicka regeneration after changes to Restoring Spirit
• We are currently building several new skills for release in future patches, and while I can’t confirm the specifics, many new healing and support spells will be included.
• No plans for unarmed skill line
• Over 300 skill points are available to obtain
• More skills to be added to vampires/werewolves, but won’t come immediately after launch
• Khajiit passive Carnage doesn’t work with Bow/Ranged attacks is bug that should be fixed for launch

A Couple Reservations About Elder Scrolls Online

Having played ESO quite a bit more since my impressions post awhile back, I have had time to really delve into the game a bit more and come up with more that I like and a couple things that I am having reservations about.  The reservations are not enough to make me cancel my pre-order but they are things that worry me.  One of them is much more worrisome than the other because of the lack of information concerning it.  The other one is a done deal and is something I will have to live with in the long run.

The PvE Endgame

ESO has a robust PvP endgame.  The AvA is well-done thus far.  Its fun, runs well and they avoided a lot of pitfalls that Guild Wars 2 ran into with their WvW.  The PvE endgame, however, is much more ambiguous and ill-defined.  There is very little information out there about what it will consist of and how it will work.

Its no secret that I prefer PvP but I was once a pretty hard-core raider.  I did the entire 40-man raid gamut in WoW.  Molten Core, Black Wing Lair, AQ40, Naxxramas.  I did them all in Vanilla WoW.  I don’t do that anymore and have no plans to do it in the future but an engaging PvE endgame is still important to me.  The problem is, we have no idea what that will consist of in ESO.  No idea at all.

Collisions Ahead?

A post over on the Elder Scrolls Online Reddit caught my attention today.  Mrbluebird claims that the latest closed beta build has collision detection turned on.  Obviously this is a single claim by someone on Reddit but, if true, it changes the game immensely.  Mrbluebird says that he has verified it in PvE only and is unsure if it extends to PvP.

What does this mean for ESO?  Well, it should help alleviate the disconnected feeling that exists in melee combat.  Players have complained that melee feels “floaty” and not quite right.  I would agree to a point.  Collision detection will certainly add weight to a melee swing.

It would mean even more to the PvP side of things.  Tanks would now be able to “physically” block opposing players from getting to the back lines and harassing healers and ranged DPS.  Choke points will be even more important as a couple of tanks standing in a tight choke point will be able to stop a large group of players from advancing.

There are a few downsides to collision detection.  If not done correctly it can allow players to grief other players.  This can be alleviated by only allowing collision detection between opposing players and allowing allied players to still walk through each other.

The biggest downside is the added burden the detection places on the game client.  This can negatively impact server lag and performance.  If the trade off to have collision detection is a client unable to handle the large battles in AvA, then I am not sure that its worth it.  If they can pull it off while making the performance hit negligible, then I am all for it.

This is something that Warhammer Online had and it added immensely to the game.  Entire strategies were built upon fact of collision detection.  I enjoyed the added strategies that collision detection brought to the table and I hope to enjoy them in ESO.