The Elder Scrolls Online

MMORPG’s live and die based on two primary factors: the combat and the quantity of content. It says a lot then as to the quality of the Elder Scrolls Online that it is mediocre in both of those departments while still being an enticing and fun game. Without the customs inherent to many MMOs or the fully immersive and living feeling of a single player Elder Scrolls game, The Elder Scrolls Online delicately balances the systems required in a multiplayer game, while putting a focus on writing, voice acting and open world group content. The Elder Scrolls Online is a mediocre MMO, and a mediocre Elder Scrolls game, but when combined, it triumphs as an engaging, fun and social experience.

Elder Scrolls Online’s combat feels a lot like Skyrim, in that the weapon connections don’t really feel as solid as they should and the skills don’t always have the sense of impact that they ought to. Likewise, it doesn’t have the snappiness of action bar MMO combat. However, after playing for around 30 hours, I began to realize the nuance and skill it required. The dodging and movement actually lend themselves to very important positional play, and when not utilized, make the combat harder than you’d ever imagine. Trying to play ESO in a static way like one would in most MMOs will result in death, and mobility and awareness are very important. It’s hard to notice the skill required to play ESO well until one participates in one of the many group dungeons ESO offers. ESO has hundreds of public dungeons called Delves that can be played with a group or solo, as well as tradition instanced dungeons for 4 players. The dungeons and delves are very good, with varied environments, enemies and encounters. The dungeon content (including the low level dungeons) is significantly harder than most MMOs and require coordination akin to a positional shooter such as Counter Strike. The complexity of the PvE content overshadows the poor combat feel, making ESO feel like a focused strategy and positional game over a visceral 3^rd person action game. Much like Guild Wars 1, ESO allows a limited number of skills (5). The skill system is diverse and interesting, allowing any class to use any weapon or armour. Want to play a heavy armour, great sword wielding mage? Well you can. The restricted skill system makes it feel like there are plentiful build possibilities, and in an MMO, feeling like you actually have the potential to create a unique build that is viable without just googling the most optimal way to play is liberating, and extremely fun. The skill system provides the sense of customization and creativity that an MMO should.

The questing in ESO is full voiced. While the writing isn’t as strong as many single player RPGs, the quest writing tends be relatively strong in comparison to most multiplayer games. There are few throw away quests where a villager needs multiples of a mundane item, such as the hides of 10 boars, and the game generally stays away from kill and collect quests. While the gameplay when questing tends not to be very interesting, there is usually enough of a narrative hook to make even the monotonous quest design interesting. As someone who plays a lot of MMOs, this is the first game in years I did not listen to podcasts the entire time while playing, as I actually opted to listen to the voice acting or read the quest text. Unfortunately, the voice acting is weak, with a very small cast and you will notice repeating actors, often even in the same quest chain. The writing is good though, often presenting shades of gray when moral choices are presented, allowing for interesting resolutions to quests, and the characters are a good mix of likeable and hateable. In the base game, the main story quests follow a pretty generic plot, and are predictable and boring, if not fun in a campy way. However, the two Guilds in the base game, the Fighters Guild and the Mages Guild pick up where the main plot fails. With interesting quests and instanced missions, the Guild quests actually allow for unique and interesting gameplay. The nature of ESO as an MMO cause the impacts of the questing on the world to be relegated to voice lines from the villagers, but the instanced Guild missions allow for more feedback from the world and characters as to the actions of the player. The writing in the Guild storylines is also much stronger than both the main quests and the side content. This leads me into another downfall of ESO - The Elder Scrolls universe just isn’t very interesting. Sure, it has a detailed history, and traditionally has character relationships and interactions that are complex and emotional, but it lacks the flash and outlandishness of other MMOs. Warcraft has a cast of ridiculous caricatures that make the world silly, yet fun and charming. Elder Scrolls is high fantasy in the most boring way. The Mages Guild deals with this problem by having frequent interactions with the Daedric Prince of Madness who pranks and jokes with the player, and I think it comes as no surprise that this is easily the best PvE content that the game has to offer. The generic fantasy of the world significantly reduces the amount I could care about the main quest or side content. I know that eventually the baddie will die, somebody important will die, and all of the faction will put aside our differences to take down the monster that is a threat to us all. The side content suffers from boring-universe-itis too, as the world doesn’t really allow for crazy stories to emerge. Sure there is some interesting moral decisions to be made, but still confined within the dull parameters of generic fantasy. All in all, it takes about 100 hours to hit the level cap, and there are not all that many alternate zones per factions, leading to a fun, well developed but relatively short content play through.

Cyrodil, the continent that Oblivion was set in, is currently not controlled by a faction, and as such serves as the 1v1v1 PvP continent of ESO. Despite problems with performance, long travel times, and some issues with the systems of capturing keeps, Cyrodil offers massive, exciting battles while remaining manageable. Despite my limited experience playing PvP in ESO, the massive battles over castles and keeps tend to feel more controlled than similar games such as Guild Wars 2. It felt like the massive swarm of people eventually dissolved into multiple small team fights and 1v1s. As I was engaged in combat in the stairwell, similar fights surrounded me throughout the entire castle, which made it less overwhelming for me to parse what was going on, while maintaining the feeling of a massive battle. The action combat lent itself to making me feel at fault for my deaths, rather than gear/skills/bad luck losing me fights. The siege weapons are fun to use, and have smart and accessible system to acquire, allowing them to feel fair but still powerful. The games strong visuals and soundtrack help to enhance the scale of the battles, making it feel truly heroic. I think that Cyrodil has potential to be the best open world PvP. A means to allow for small group play (with 3-4 friends for example) in a viable way, perhaps by adding small outposts or villages would really escalate the PvP content to greatness.

The social elements of ESO seem outdated, in a way that I almost like. Modern MMOs have removed so much of the challenge from trading and social interaction, that it feels less significant to succeed. Back in old school Runescape, sitting in a bank for 3 hours trying to buy a piece of gear wasn’t fun, but when you finally got it, it sure was exciting. ESO straddles the line between player to player trading and modern auction houses with Guild Stores. There are just under one hundred player Guild controlled stores that only sell items at the singular location of each unique store. This limits resources in a way that auction houses in most MMOs don’t, but also provides an outlet for easy trading in large cities. People also tend to sell things in large cities using chat, something I actually miss, and enjoy in MMOs. This all said, the social features are lacking. The chat bubbles are in beta, and look terrible. Likewise, the group finder is primitive and not fully featured, something that can be VERY frustrating in a game with such good group content. Especially on consoles the social features are very limited, and not acceptable in a multiplayer game.

All in all, Elder Scrolls Online’s interesting questing, diverse skill system, large scale PvP and huge array of dungeon content overshadow the unresponsive combat, terrible social features and generic universe. It feels old school in a deliberate way, and I think that the high quality DLC content that is being put out with frequency will keep Elder Scrolls Online near the top of the MMO pyramid for a long time to come. The game is not without flaws, but I think it is the best buy-to-play MMO that you can pick up today.

P.S. I didn’t have not had a ton of experience with the end game content and champion levels, and also haven’t spent a ton of time with crafting. Perhaps I’ll write a blog about them later.