News from E3: One Tamriel

[baratron]

Here's the link to the official ESO site: http://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us ... e-from-be3

And here are the key points, copied and pasted for your convenience:

With One Tamriel, we are opening up the entire playable world to everyone, no matter their level. This is a pretty big deal. One Tamriel makes the game much more grouping and social-friendly, as the player base will no longer be divided into thirds and also won't be divided by player level. The reasons we are doing this are simple: we want to make it easier for ESO players to group together, and to promote the sense of freedom to explore that Elder Scrolls games are known for. In other words, we're bringing the same auto-leveling system (called “battle leveling") that has been so successful in our DLCs to the entire game.

Here are the basics:

• Characters will have their level scaled the same way that we currently scale players to the level of DLC zones (Imperial City, Orsinium, Thieves Guild, and Dark Brotherhood).
• You will be able to explore the entire world in any sequence you wish - just walk across the world and you will always find appropriately leveled content.
• You will be able to play and group with anyone in the game at any time (outside of PvP). No longer will you have to create a lower level character to play with a friend who has just joined the game. You will be able to group and adventure together from the moment your friend emerges from the tutorial.
• We are dropping all PvE Alliance restrictions. You will be free to explore of all Tamriel, including other Alliances. It is up to you how you want to role-play your character while doing this. “Silver" and “gold" versions of zones will be replaced by Cadwell quest storylines that you can do in any order you wish.
• Alliance restrictions will still be enforced in all PvP areas, of course. One Tamriel will not affect the PvP systems in Cyrodiil.
• In general, higher level players will be the same “level" as lower level players, but they will have far more tools in their arsenal: better gear, more abilities, and of course more Champion points.
• We will adjust gear rewards to scale appropriately to make sure that there is always a way to get more powerful via crafting, questing, PvP, and dungeon/trial boss loot drops.
• All Trials and Dungeons will continue with standard and Veteran difficulty modes, and you will have to be Veteran level to play veteran dungeon modes.
• The Coldharbour zone will be “roped off" from players who have not yet completed the quests that lead there. However, if you are invited to a group that is already there, or travel to a friend who is there, you can immediately access the zone.

Doesn't this address most of our biggest complaints about ESO? Being forced to choose an Alliance even outside of PvP, having to make alts if you want to group with your friends from other Alliances, being forced to make alts if you want to group with your friends who have only just started playing the game, being forced to explore the world in "their" order rather than going to the zones that you want to play in...

Now you can have one character and explore the whole world. Or you can have multiple characters simply because you want to experience the different classes, rather than because you "need" them to play with your friends. No longer will I have to make Daggerfall Covenant characters simply to get Glenumbra (the least fun zone in the game in my opinion) out of the way!

This is super awesome news and I want more information about it as soon as possible!

[legoless]

Removal of Alliance restrictions is huge. It should have been implemented for neutral zones years ago, but opening the whole of Tamriel will be awesome. I'll miss the empty Veteran zones and the easy mode level 20 enemies, but this is what the game should have been at release for sure.

The only problem is story. I'm not convinced it's a major issue but lots of valid points have been raised on the forums. Hopefully they do something to address it, so that new players don't get completely lost if they end up in the wrong zone.

[Mauin]

I don't think it's "super awesome" at all. I think it's super stupid. My absolute biggest complaints are the removal of alliances restrictions from PvE and the scaling everywhere.

1. On the removal of Alliances outside of PvP:
WTF Zenimax? You've got this game where a part of the story itself (and now the lore for the Second Era) is that there are three Alliances all AT WAR with each other, fighting to put one of their own on the Ruby Throne. Have they forgotten that? Have they forgotten what they wrote? It makes absolutely zero sense to remove alliances from PvE and lump us all together. Suddenly, we'll be working/exploring with people who should, in any other circumstance, be kill on sight. I don't like that idea even remotely, and I play all factions anyway. Each of my characters is loyal to their faction, and I don't even want to see other faction players running through their home zones. If this were a case of three factions at war with each other, each opposing player would be assumed a spy and killed.

You can argue that Cadwell's Silver/Gold should be no different, but since we go to areas with only our own faction present, it can easily be assumed that it's some kind of alternate timeline scenario. Meridia throws us through time, and we journey through the other two alliances as if nothing in our own home alliance ever happened (and it didn't in that time, if it's an alternate timeline). But if we have players from all factions running around all zones at the same time/in the same instance, that explanation suddenly makes zero sense. Are we all a bunch of traitors to our factions, then? Yes. Yes we are.

Also, you could point out that characters of all factions work together during pledges/trials. I don't know about anybody else, but for my characters, that never happens to them. They're just a tool during pledges/trials. Their stories stop when they enter, and resume when they leave. What happens in dungeons/trials, stays in dungeons/trials. It's like Vegas in Tamriel... Just without all the casinos.


2. Making everything scaled:
Okay, seriously. Just stop there. Are we trying to make this Skyrim Online, like so many people seemed to think it was going to be? Yes, yes... Let's make everything the same level. Genius idea. Might as well just get rid of levels entirely. The only thing they'll be giving us if this crap actually makes it to live is more skill/attribute points. Skill/attribute points, and deciding what gear we can wear. Excuse me, but that sounds ridiculous. Making everything scaled just takes the sense of progression out of the game. If I'm playing, I should feel like I'm getting stronger. I should be able to go back to a lower leveled zone and demolish everything. I should be able to enter a higher level zone with a lower leveled character and get slaughtered because I shouldn't be there yet. But with scaling? Hah. That isn't going to happen. I've already seen it in the scaled DLC zones. I can take in a lowbie (level 10-ish, with few skill points and fewer passives, and weak white quality gear) and STILL destroy everything.

I'm sorry, but if we're scaled all the time, what's to keep me playing? All my characters will feel the same. Different skills and setups, but they'll feel the same.
The people that want this to be Skyrim Online need to realize that this is an MMO first and an Elder Scrolls game second. It should feel like an MMO, not a single player Elder Scrolls game, and it sounds like Zenimax wants to make this a single player Elder Scrolls game with hundreds/thousands of people you don't know playing as well.


3. Some other concerns:
Oh, no. I'm not done yet. One of the other big issues that strikes me is game performance. FPS and server latency. If we're all lumped into the same zones (all three factions), what is that going to mean for game performance? Let me use Rawl'kha as an example here... It's a popular spot for players of all three factions. Go to Rawl'kha, and you will always find people. Lots of people. Mash all the people from AD, DC, and EP into the same instance of Rawl'kha, and what will happen? Well, look at what happened when they tried to film their trailers a while ago. A lot of people got disconnected or crashed, and could not log back on until after the filming was complete. And that was just people from each faction trying to go to the same area. They demonstrated that day that their servers couldn't handle the load.

If they want to shove us all into the same zones, they had better damn well make some improvements on their side of things. I've never had the best internet, and I'm afraid that putting everybody into the same zones will mean that I'll be getting disconnected or lagging like hell more often than I already do. It's bad enough as it is, I don't need it getting worse. I can only tolerate so much.



TL;DR: Overall, I don't like the idea of One Tamriel at all. It invalidates a pretty significant chunk of the game's own story/lore (involving Alliances and the war, which now will apparently only exist in Cyrodiil through some sort of magic). The idea of scaling everything removes the sense of progression from the game and makes it feel like a single player game where I could go anywhere and not feel a sense of danger.

This feels like a giant slap across the face to me, and I'm sorry, but it's making me consider cancelling my sub and moving back to the single player games.

[legoless]

Have they forgotten what they wrote? It makes absolutely zero sense to remove alliances from PvE and lump us all together.

I think you've forgotten what they wrote. The reason your character can explore other alliances is because of Meridia's time magic. This change just gives more flexibility to players, it doesn't change the story. Enemy players being present in zones doesn't do any harm; cross-alliance guilds and dungeon delving are already rampant. Any enemy player you see on your home turf is effectively on their time-travelling quest (story-wise at least), so from that perspective you're helping out Meridia and your alliance when you fight with them.

Oh, no. I'm not done yet. One of the other big issues that strikes me is game performance. FPS and server latency. If we're all lumped into the same zones (all three factions), what is that going to mean for game performance?

That's not how the megaservers work. Instanced zones are already divided into separate shards when they get too full, which you may have experienced if you try to meet up with a friend on foot rather than porting to them from group. Shoving everyone into the same instance will definitely mean fewer empty zones, but it will not cause any extra performance hits.

[SarthesArai]

1. On the removal of Alliances outside of PvP:
WTF Zenimax? You've got this game where a part of the story itself (and now the lore for the Second Era) is that there are three Alliances all AT WAR with each other, fighting to put one of their own on the Ruby Throne. Have they forgotten that? Have they forgotten what they wrote? It makes absolutely zero sense to remove alliances from PvE and lump us all together. Suddenly, we'll be working/exploring with people who should, in any other circumstance, be kill on sight. I don't like that idea even remotely, and I play all factions anyway. Each of my characters is loyal to their faction, and I don't even want to see other faction players running through their home zones. If this were a case of three factions at war with each other, each opposing player would be assumed a spy and killed.

You DO work for the goals of the "enemy alliances" during cadwell's silver or gold, no matter how alternate the timeline is. There is nothing stopping a completely alliance loyal character from only doing his alliance's zones, is there? And why would you disregard the help of a person of a different race, born to a different alliance's territory, if it furthers YOUR goals?

3. Some other concerns:
Oh, no. I'm not done yet. One of the other big issues that strikes me is game performance. FPS and server latency. If we're all lumped into the same zones (all three factions), what is that going to mean for game performance? Let me use Rawl'kha as an example here... It's a popular spot for players of all three factions. Go to Rawl'kha, and you will always find people. Lots of people. Mash all the people from AD, DC, and EP into the same instance of Rawl'kha, and what will happen? Well, look at what happened when they tried to film their trailers a while ago. A lot of people got disconnected or crashed, and could not log back on until after the filming was complete. And that was just people from each faction trying to go to the same area. They demonstrated that day that their servers couldn't handle the load.

If they want to shove us all into the same zones, they had better damn well make some improvements on their side of things. I've never had the best internet, and I'm afraid that putting everybody into the same zones will mean that I'll be getting disconnected or lagging like hell more often than I already do. It's bad enough as it is, I don't need it getting worse. I can only tolerate so much.

Well, the "shards" are still about, from what I read: Even if all players are in the same Rawl'kha, there will still be multiple instances, called "shards", of it. As there are no more alliance restrictions, players can be distributed more evenly among these shards, which in the best case will even lead to a reduction of lag and load time, and in the worst case, it will be as bad as before.


I love to be able to decide which zones I do and which I skip with my alts, and it will be much easyer to clear all dolmen if there are more people in the zone. But I think I will miss to be able to walk into low-level public dungeons with the knowledge that I can singelhandedly defeat everything it throws at me

[legoless]

But I think I will miss to be able to walk into low-level public dungeons with the knowledge that I can singelhandedly defeat everything it throws at me

I agree with this point actually. I purposefully outleveled most of the Veteran public dungeons before I tackled them, and the Dark Brotherhood level changes to Silver/Gold made them so much harder. I got smoked in CP150 Razak's Wheel, whereas I could actually solo most of the VR5 version. With all of them set to max level, they'll definitely be aimed at small groups again. I think the difficulty will be comparable to the Wrothgar public dungeons, and Rkindaleft is pretty tricky...

[Mauin]

You know, I probably would have been fine with the proposed change (except for the scaling. That should stay in DLC zones and only DLC zones) if it had been just the neutral zones (Coldharbour + Craglorn + DLCs) where we could have all factions together. In Coldharbour, everybody is trying to defeat Molag Bal (so they can go back to comfortably killing each other without worrying about the Daedric Prince and his armies), so why shouldn't we be all together? And with the DLC zones, Hew's Bane and the Gold Coast are kinda doing their own thing, so I doubt they'll care about people from all alliances running around. Even Wrothgar. They've got ambassadors in every Alliance, so of course everybody will have a presence there.

I'm kinda meh on Craglorn, but it's not like anybody uses the place for anything but Nirncrux farming anyway. Might as well give it a full revamp while we're at it. Get rid of the forced group requirements, as a start.

However, I am still absolutely opposed to the idea of removing faction restrictions from the base Alliance zones. EP should remain only EP, DC should remain only DC, and AD should remain only AD. It makes the most sense like that, and changing things this late in the game is stupid/annoying.

Also... I just thought of this, but removing faction restrictions makes the Adventurers/Explorers pack pointless. Like... You could have an Argonian in EP travel to DC zones right away to play with an Orc in DC. As it is now, you'd either need to use the Adventurers/Explorers pack to make either the Argonian in DC or the Orc in EP to play together. Glad I got that from pre-ordering the game when the Tamriel Unlimited physical copy was released along with the console copies...

[legoless]

changing things this late in the game is stupid/annoying.

That's kind of a flawed view of things. MMOs are always changing, there's no such thing as "late".

[fgoron2000]

Hmmmmm....I haven't gotten a grasp yet on "leveling" in the DLC, and now we have One Tamriel...I applaud ZOS's efforts to make an appealing product for their customers, and to satisfy as many as possible with a common offering, but I need to understand it better before I know if it's thumbs up or down for me.

So, it's as good a time as any for me to get leveling straight in my head. Currently, as I understand it, once you get to level 10 (lower for some DLC's), you're entitled to go to Cyrodiil, or any of the DLC's, and then on arrival, you're instantly/automatically levelled up to that content, for instance in Cyrodiil Content/Battle are 140/150 cp. Soooooo, that brings a new question. What's the distinction between Content and Battle levels. would it be that the content in the world, such as item drops, nodes, monster levels, etc would be Content Level, and your character is at Battle level for your interaction with the environment and other PC's at that time?

Then what happens when you leave that area and return to, say Stros M'Kai or Glenumbra, or Grahtwood? Do you stay levelled this way, or do your return to your pre-Cyrodiil (or DLC) level? I get the impression that it's the former, which I'm not a fan of at all, and have specifically avoided going to Cyrodiil before I'm naturally levelled, for that reason. And if so, then I don't like the levelling aspect of One Tamriel. Granted I haven't experienced this yet, but with the knowledge & understanding I can still make an informed choice, have an informed opinion.

[Mauin]

Hmmmmm....I haven't gotten a grasp yet on "leveling" in the DLC, and now we have One Tamriel...I applaud ZOS's efforts to make an appealing product for their customers, and to satisfy as many as possible with a common offering, but I need to understand it better before I know if it's thumbs up or down for me.

So, it's as good a time as any for me to get leveling straight in my head. Currently, as I understand it, once you get to level 10 (lower for some DLC's), you're entitled to go to Cyrodiil, or any of the DLC's, and then on arrival, you're instantly/automatically levelled up to that content, for instance in Cyrodiil Content/Battle are 140/150 cp. Soooooo, that brings a new question. What's the distinction between Content and Battle levels. would it be that the content in the world, such as item drops, nodes, monster levels, etc would be Content Level, and your character is at Battle level for your interaction with the environment and other PC's at that time?

Then what happens when you leave that area and return to, say Stros M'Kai or Glenumbra, or Grahtwood? Do you stay levelled this way, or do your return to your pre-Cyrodiil (or DLC) level? I get the impression that it's the former, which I'm not a fan of at all, and have specifically avoided going to Cyrodiil before I'm naturally levelled, for that reason. And if so, then I don't like the levelling aspect of One Tamriel. Granted I haven't experienced this yet, but with the knowledge & understanding I can still make an informed choice, have an informed opinion.

Level 10 for Cyrodiil, yes, but you can access DLC zones fresh out of Coldharbour. The way battle leveling works is that your character's stats/gear are scaled up to the level of the content (CP 150 for CP 160 zones and Cyrodiil) so that you can do the content and remain reasonably competitive compared to a player that's max level and fully geared. However, the item drops are always appropriate to your character's level (wouldn't make much sense to get a level 50 CP 160 item on a character that can't use it), and crafting nodes are scaled 50% to your level, and 50% to your crafting skill (depending on the level of passives you've chosen, and only in scaled zones... Excluding enchanting runes and poison solvents, which behave like that everywhere).

With the way it is now, our stats drop back to normal levels once we leave a scaled zone. With One Tamriel, I'm assuming all characters that aren't max level will be scaled to max level across all zones (DLC, Cyrodiil, or base game zones) and the zones themselves will be CP 160 (or whatever they decide the max level should be). If that's the case, then no, we won't drop back to our normal level upon leaving a DLC zone or Cyrodiil, since every single zone will be scaled up like that. I'm also assuming that ALL crafting nodes will behave like enchanting runes and poison solvents currently do, though I'm not sure if the CP 150-160 tier will be available in normal zones as well (runes and poison solvents are).

[AngryNord]

Am I the only one who fears this is the prerequisite for implementing open-world PvP? :/ That's about the only logic I can see behind the change... They just completely killed off the whole Alliance War concept...

[legoless]

Am I the only one who fears this is the prerequisite for implementing open-world PvP? :/ That's about the only logic I can see behind the change... They just completely killed off the whole Alliance War concept...

Open-world PvP is one of the few things confirmed to be never happening. It was too hard to balance supposedly.

[AngryNord]

Am I the only one who fears this is the prerequisite for implementing open-world PvP? :/ That's about the only logic I can see behind the change... They just completely killed off the whole Alliance War concept...

Open-world PvP is one of the few things confirmed to be never happening.

Confirmed by the same people who a couple of years ago said that they would rather shut down the servers, than abandon the monthly subscription model?

[legoless]

Confirmed by the same people who a couple of years ago said that they would rather shut down the servers, than abandon the monthly subscription model?

Well, if the game is put under new management again then obviously everything is up in the air. But the current development team have officially shelved Justice Part Deux and are developing battlegrounds instead. Firor also said One Tamriel is the last of the major system changes they plan to do. The payment model change was intervention from higher-ups; I don't expect corporates to step in on a random gameplay issue.

[AngryNord]

Confirmed by the same people who a couple of years ago said that they would rather shut down the servers, than abandon the monthly subscription model?

Well, if the game is put under new management again.

"again"? When was Matt Firor replaced?

[legoless]

Well, if the game is put under new management again.

"again"? When was Matt Firor replaced?

He wasn't, Paul Sage was. Like last year?

[AngryNord]

Well, if the game is put under new management again.

"again"? When was Matt Firor replaced?

He wasn't, Paul Sage was. Like last year?

What does a couple of people quitting have to do with the game supposedly very recently having been put under new management?

[legoless]

What does a couple of people quitting have to do with the game supposedly very recently having been put under new management?

Oh come now. Having the creative director leave the project was huge, and it's led the game in an entirely new direction. All I'm saying is that the Tamriel Unlimited transition was messy, so unless something as crazy as that happens again you can't use some old statement about subscriptions to argue for the possible release of a thoroughly cancelled feature.

[Norva]

I really don't like bringing level scaling everywhere. I liked being able to level up and go back to an old area and just mowing through everything. Some of the public dungeons I beat solo because I leveled up before trying it, it will kind of suck if I can't do that.