Elder Scrolls Online release date 4-4-14

[AyashiKaibutsu]

They were not at release. They were released a few months after launch. Already TESO is releasing new dungeons and content as well. And no, I am not talking about the copied dungeons. I'm talking about unique dungeon layouts. There are far more unique dungeons, both private and public, than there has been in MMO to date at launch. The fact that there are another 60+ public "dungeons" that are similar layout doesn't detract from the ton of unique dungeons there are in the game.

Um, I was there at release. You might not have run them at release, but they were there.

 

[Tequila]

You can easily grind instead of questing. And it can be even faster.

Huh? Are we playing the same game? At VR3 it takes about 1.4mil xp to get VR4. I get 50xp per kill of a vet mob. So how is grinding easier and faster than questing?

 

[DigDog]

Grinding is fucking stupid. I hate standing in one spot killing a retarded amount of the same thing over and over. That's not fun, that's fucking working. It's something a simpleton bot can do.

MMORPGS aren't for you then. try shooters.

 

[Tequila]

That is the one I most emphatically disagree with. No and FUCK NO.

Grinding is fucking stupid. I hate standing in one spot killing a retarded amount of the same thing over and over. That's not fun, that's fucking working. It's something a simpleton bot can do.

I prefer quests that have far more interaction, story line, and variance in their approach to the quest building blocks. This is why ESO is damn good. There is no mindless kill 50 orcs repeatable quests. Those are the most boring effing quests in a game and I will NEVER play a game that has a profusion of those quests. Those are bad lazy game design mechanics.

But like ShintaiDK, I disagree with everything imaheadcase listed he wants in this game. You want those things then go play any one of the plethora of Asian PVP centric grinding games out there which all do exactly that and have fun. I can even recommend a few of the "better" ones for you as well to try if you can't find them. Hell, you might be more intersted in Archeage since it is mainly a PVP grinding game.

Grinding is not stupid. It's a nice break from all the damn questing.

Stop talking down to people like you are some MMO god with all the answers. Some of us have played since EQ in 1999 and personally I have played EQ since release till 2002, DAoC, WoW, AoC, EQ2, SWTOR, RIFT so I kind of think I know what I like in a game. Having the ability to earn decent xp grinding when you are sick of questing is not asking much.

Grinding was your only option in EQ1 and that is still my favorite MMO to date despite the horrible graphics. Unless you were a necro, shaman or wizzy you pretty much had to group. Doing dungeon crawls and finding a spot deep inside guk, solA/B, seb was absolutely fun as hell. It was also a very social game because of your dependency on others.

Believe me, I love this game. Just did VR Fungal Grotto tonight and it was a blast figuring out the fights. Is it really too much to ask to let me grind when my buddies aren't online and I'm sick of questing?

 

[HumblePie]

No grinding is stupid. It's retarded game design. There are plenty of RPGs, both single player and MMO, that never force a player to grind anything to progress. Games usually developed along those lines do much better as the majority of players outside Asian countries do not like grind enforced games.

If you want to grind in an RPG, there isn't an RPG that doesn't allow it. But requiring grinding as the only progression at any point in the game play is just bad, lazy, and stupid game design. To tell others that is not talking down to them at all. If you get offended that the principle of enforced grinding is bad, lazy game design then that isn't my problem.

Just because some people have been punished enough in some games, like EQ1, to actually become accustomed to bad game design mechanics doesn't make them any better. Some people like to actually eat poop and drink piss. Doesn't make either option good for you.

So asking for ESO to have only grind enforced game progression is terrible. Again, as all MMOs that provide level progression through mindless killing as one option is available, a player can go grind if they wish to their hearts content. One can do this in ESO. But to ask for there to be less quests so that grinding is the only option for progression at times is masochistic at best.

 

[Tequila]

No grinding is stupid. It's retarded game design.

So asking for ESO to have only grind enforced game progression is terrible. Again, as all MMOs that provide level progression through mindless killing as one option is available, a player can go grind if they wish to their hearts content. One can do this in ESO. But to ask for there to be less quests so that grinding is the only option for progression at times is masochistic at best.

You have a serious reading comprehension problem. No where did I ask for grinding to be the only option to progress or ask for less quests. Only thing I ask for is grinding to be a viable alternative option to questing for some variety. That's it.

 

[HumblePie]

Um, I was there at release. You might not have run them at release, but they were there.

That list I put up is straight off the web from the wiki I was looking at earlier for dungeons available to be played on November 23rd, 2004 which was the release date of WoW. It had only 16 unique dungeons players could go through as listed.

ESO has far more unique dungeons at launch that WoW or any other MMO has had at launch to date. They are already adding more to ESO. Whining that ESO doesn't have enough dungeons in comparison to WoW now, which has 13+ years of development into it is stupid.

 

[HumblePie]

You have a serious reading comprehension problem. No where did I ask for grinding to be the only option to progress or ask for less quests. Only thing I ask for is grinding to be a viable alternative option to questing for some variety. That's it.

You didn't, but Imaheadcase did. That was the person I was initially responding to. I did say that forced grinding is a lazy, bad, stupid game mechanic in an RPG. You took offense to that. Not my problem.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Huh? Are we playing the same game? At VR3 it takes about 1.4mil xp to get VR4. I get 50xp per kill of a vet mob. So how is grinding easier and faster than questing?

Yes we are, and there are better ways to grind. In a proper grind group you can get 1-2mio XP per hour.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

That list I put up is straight off the web from the wiki I was looking at earlier for dungeons available to be played on November 23rd, 2004 which was the release date of WoW. It had only 16 unique dungeons players could go through as listed.

ESO has far more unique dungeons at launch that WoW or any other MMO has had at launch to date. They are already adding more to ESO. Whining that ESO doesn't have enough dungeons in comparison to WoW now, which has 13+ years of development into it is stupid.

The list you looked at was wrong.

http://www.wowwiki.com/Patch_1.1.0

Patch notes for the release patch specifically state the addition of Molten Core and Onyxia's Lair.

 

[asteldian]

Well, argument about how many unique dungeons there were or weren't aside, I do agree that the copy and paste delves are a bit...meh. I have no issue with it on the whole, and I do see it more as a way of adding extra 'dungeon crawl' areas as a bonus rather than lazy design - there are lots of unique dungeons and the fact that there are lots of copy and paste areas doesn't really detract from that, the only problem is sometimes it gives you the impression that it is all the same.

Regarding grind quests, I am reluctant to have them added to the game as it encourages devs to start getting lazy. I like the questing in this game and like the fact the quests take you to VR 10. There is no harm in being able to grind to the top if that is your playstyle, and VR lvls need an improvement in that area (but 1.1 is doubling xp so maybe that will help) as 1-50 seems fine. Just like I do not want to be forced to grind to VR 10, I don't think it is right to be forced to quest, some people aren't huge fans of quests, heck even those that are can be burnt out by VR ranks. While I know there is the arguement of 'why play ESO if you don't like questing' well, even questing aside the game is very good, the combat is fun and the mechanics interesting, for those that like questing it makes it an excellent game, for those that don't, it is still a good game.

 

[HumblePie]

Yes we are, and there are better ways to grind. In a proper grind group you can get 1-2mio XP per hour.

Hell for last night for the hell of it I did some grinding for an hour because I too distracted to do anything else with wife agro.

There is a spot where 9 "packs" of wolves all spawn near each other. Each pack consists of about 6 wolves or so. Also, average mob experience for vet experience is 42, not 50.

So killing 6 wolves in a quick easy AoE explosion nets me 6x42 = 252 exps per group. Takes me about 2 seconds to run to the next spawn, throw down another AoE and get 252 more exps. I was rotating the 9 spawns so that by the time I hit the 9th spawn the 1st spawn was coming back up.

So 252 exps every 2 seconds = 7560 exps a minute. Or 453,600 exps an hour. I'm not sure how anyone is going faster than that as mob packs don't spawn bigger than 6 a pack. Average exps are 42 per that I've seen with Lt.s about 121 exps. Still, the grinding I did for an hour was far fast exps than what I would have done questing even if it was effing melt my eyes boring. If I hadn't been distracted doing other things I wouldn't have been doing it at all.

 

[HumblePie]

The list you looked at was wrong.

http://www.wowwiki.com/Patch_1.1.0

Patch notes for the release patch specifically state the addition of Molten Core and Onyxia's Lair.

If those 2 were in and the list I read was wrong, then that is still only 18 unique dungeons. How does that invalidate my statement that ESO has far more unique large and small dungeons at it's launch than any other MMO in history including WoW?

 

[ewdotson]

If those 2 were in and the list I read was wrong, then that is still only 18 unique dungeons. How does that invalidate my statement that ESO has far more unique large and small dungeons at it's launch than any other MMO in history including WoW?

It doesn't, but the original statement of yours that Ayashi was responding to was that "WoW had less than a dozen at release".

 

[HumblePie]

It doesn't, but the original statement of yours that Ayashi was responding to was that "WoW had less than a dozen at release".

To which I corrected with the list as the statement of WoW having a dozen was a rough estimate off the top of my head when I wrote the statement, but then reasserted that what it did have at release was less than ESO has at release to which he still continued on with the argument over.

One thing I am trying to remember though is I specifically remember the attunement quest for MC being bugged initially and no one could get into it even at release. The historical patch notes don't say anything about fixing it, but I could have sworn there was no way to actually get into the dungeon at first, then someone found a bugged way in for a bit before a patch came around and fixed it.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

To which I corrected with the list as the statement of WoW having a dozen was a rough estimate off the top of my head when I wrote the statement, but then reasserted that what it did have at release was less than ESO has at release to which he still continued on with the argument over.

One thing I am trying to remember though is I specifically remember the attunement quest for MC being bugged initially and no one could get into it even at release. The historical patch notes don't say anything about fixing it, but I could have sworn there was no way to actually get into the dungeon at first, then someone found a bugged way in for a bit before a patch came around and fixed it.

It worked fine. The original way you got into MC was through BRD (your whole raid actually went through BRD). Your list leaves out BRS by the way which was also in the game. Upper was 10 man and lower was 5 man although most people ran upper 15 man because it didn't actually restrain you and that let you faceroll it (same with strath/scholo being 10 manned).

 

[Tequila]

Yes we are, and there are better ways to grind. In a proper grind group you can get 1-2mio XP per hour.

Holy sheet. My apologies, guys. I didn't realize just how much xp you get out of doing the first VR dungeons(spindle/bc/fg). I was under the impression that once you ran it for the first time for the quest that you didn't get much xp after that. Was I wrong lol.

Ran Spindleclutch just now to test and I got 254k xp for a 20-25 minute run at VR4 after having already finished it days ago. We ran it again before group-wide wife aggro/dinner time. I'm now 864k through 1.8m in VR4 and I have barely done much of the VR4 zone Now I'm a happy camper lol.

Sorry for the previous posts.

EDIT: Oops 214k not 254k but still I'll take it!

 

[ShintaiDK]

 

[DigDog]

to anyone who feels grinding is bad.
do you know how many frikking goblins, orcs and ogres you need to kill to go up ONE level in D&D ?
just like work, its there to give you a sense of accomplishments. "press to win" buttons dont give you the same satisfaction.

 

[HumblePie]

to anyone who feels grinding is bad.
do you know how many frikking goblins, orcs and ogres you need to kill to go up ONE level in D&D ?
just like work, its there to give you a sense of accomplishments. "press to win" buttons dont give you the same satisfaction.

None?

It's all in how the GM runs the campaign.

 

[CountZero]

to anyone who feels grinding is bad.
do you know how many frikking goblins, orcs and ogres you need to kill to go up ONE level in D&D ?
just like work, its there to give you a sense of accomplishments. "press to win" buttons dont give you the same satisfaction.

Grinding is bad. Inherent in grinding is a huge amount of pointless repetition. I'd rather do 10 interesting tasks than do 1 interesting task 10 times so that it is no longer interesting and is just a means to an end. I know MMO design 101 is to hook players on grinding for prizes as a way to maximize utilization of development costs but it isn't good design.

To use your D&D example if a tabletop RPG ever devolves into a repetitive grind the DM has utterly failed.

 

[HumblePie]

Another example, take some of the better video game RPGs in the past. Let's go back to something like the original Final Fantasy or Dragon Warrior. Both were completely beatable without ever grinding. It would be a challenge as you wouldn't be maxed out in level for various boss fights, but it was feasible. I did it many a time with most of the RPG games. The regular quests and fighting required to get from one point to another was always enough experience needed to fight the next boss.

Sure, you could grind in any RPG video game to be over leveled, over geared, and utterly destroy boss fights to make them trivial. I didn't find doing that usually all that fun though as it lost a lot of the challenge and sense of accomplishment. I would afterwards usually go back and max out my characters if I felt up to it, but not always.

MMO's are a bit different since some content can't be done or reached unless a certain level threshold has been reached. So the player has no choice but to reach that level if they wish to participate in that content. This is where the difference between a piss poor leveling mechanic and a good one makes players want to stick with the game or not. I don't play games that force grinds only as the only means of progression. I have better things to do with my time than whatever missing content that the game may have to offer that I am forced to grind to reach.

Either make it interesting the entire time, or I'll find a game that does.

 

[Fallen Kell]

to anyone who feels grinding is bad.
do you know how many frikking goblins, orcs and ogres you need to kill to go up ONE level in D&D ?
just like work, its there to give you a sense of accomplishments. "press to win" buttons dont give you the same satisfaction.

Actually not as many as you think, because in D&D rules you also gained 1 exp for each piece of gold in value of equipment/loot you found. Also, max level was 20 (for humans, non-humans maxed at 13 or 16 I believe).

 

[NoSoup4You]

ESO has to be the most under-rated game I can recall in recent memory. To be fair, I actually really disliked it through the first 10 levels, but since then it's been enjoyable and I'm actually listening to about 65% of the voice work now because I'm finding myself at least mildly intrigued by the story as it progresses. I just reached level 30, I have no idea how people level so fast in this game, but I'm playing solo and I imagine that groups of players can blow through content at record pace. Anytime I'm in a dungeon and a group of three+ shows up, mobs just melt.

Anyway, I subbed up for the time being and I'm confident I'll make it to level 50. As for the VR ranks, we'll see how things are going once I get there. I'm not sure what the PvE end-game is in ESO, or is that what Craglorn is supposed to be?

 

[StinkyPinky]

With my main PC toasted I've been playing this on my little MB Pro 13 inch with an external monitor. On medium settings at 1600 x 900 it's actually quite playable. Integrated graphics are really starting to shine. Granted the game is quite a bit uglier at medium settings but it gets the job done.