Areas that could be improved

R.Lima

Firstly, I want to say that while I am a fan of ESO and the developer's vision, I believe it has its faults and that they need to be discussed by the fans themselves as there should always be an effort to strive to improve the game. Secondly, I am making this thread to point out areas which I believe need improvement. Feel free to share your thoughts on my OP or state other areas you think need to be ameliorated.

Animations: Simply put, some of the character animations do not feel natural and smooth. Running felt awkward and just did not complement the game's realistic look. Certain first-person animations feel rushed like drawing an arrow with a bow. Another issue I had was with the speaking animations of NPC's as their mouths do not move naturally while they speak. Combat also needs to feel more impactful. Currently, the weight behind attacks isn't as pronounced. ESO needs to improve on the impact that is felt when a weapon enters contact with its target.

Combat: The area I believe needs most improvements on is archery. Archery feels very awkward due to not only the animations, but mostly because of the soft-target system. With this system, there is no 100% manual aiming and you need to be very close to a target in order for your arrows to hit. You can't snipe from far away, you can't compensate for a target's movement or position, like shooting ahead or shooting higher or lower, you can't shoot a target if they are standing behind certain objects like fences. All of this felt especially clumsy in first-person mode, because your shots do not go exactly at where you aim. Indie games like Mount & Blade and Darkfall both feature massive player battles and a manual aiming system, so it is something I believe could be possible in ESO. I always play the archer in fantasy games, but the way things currently are I will be going melee. Another thing that felt awkward was the lack of collision detection. In a game with real-time action combat, it felt super weird and I would sometimes past right through my target when playing in first-person mode.

Phasing: Like some of the members of the press stated in their videos, certain areas feel too crowded as there are far too many players in small areas doing the same quests as the player. This definitely is one of the few things in the game that works against the feeling of immersion, and I believe certain small caves and areas that can be easily tackled solo should be phased.

SoulTrapOnSelf

I agree with the Bow weapon. Sometimes I couldn't tell if the mob was getting hit so I spent a lot of time looking at the health's bar to figure out how to properly use the bow.

I don't think you will be able to snipe until you get the snipe ability from the bow abilities. I was hoping for a zoom-in perk a la Skyrim but I don't think it's there in TESO.

Pyatra

Animations:  Over the last 2 betas they have been improving some animations, they just weren't done with all of them.

 

Archery:  This was one they hadn't got to yet.  I would not suggest a manual aiming due to limitations of usefulness when there is more than one character around.

 

Phasing:  Tested the phasing cap in the last 3 betas (yes, I was in all 3).  They seem to be still experimenting with this in some situations.  One of those betas barely even had phase population caps.

CazNeerg

I actually quite like the archery. In terms of actual function, it seems to work very well.  Manual aiming would be tricky to do right in a genre where lag is always a possibility.

Lord.Bachus

I can live with annimations and combat so far.... 

 

But the phasing really needs to improve... Being the first person in hundreds of years to enter a tomb just to find dozens of people allready inside kills immersion for me...

 

actually they need to make these zones more dynamic....   Or give people a choice...

a) solo

b) with your current group

c) dynamic group... People are added to a dynamic group as they enter the instance... Up to a max..

d) open world.... Everyone else is added to the same instance...

 

anyway.. Allow people to set a general parameter a,b,c, d or e. Where e is..

e) choose every time when you enter an instance....

 

but they really need to do something that gives people with different preferences different numbers of players...

 

 

 

Satarious

Suggested Improvements for RvR (or AvA if you like):

1) Death Penalty:  I'm not sure how easy or hard it is to obtain these soul stones to resurrect players, but they need to make it relatively hard and/or expensive to obtain.  Death needs to have a little weight behind it in these large zerg battles so that there's at least a sense of thinning the enemy out and an overall sense of progress in battle when your side is the superior force.

2) Rethink the Keep lattices:  I doubt anything will be done about this at this late stage, but the ease at which defenders can fast travel to Keeps they own has me a little worried.  It's nice to make Keeps harder to take, but what about those situations where a larger zerg dominates the map and can fast travel to any keep that's not being attacked?  It almost waters down the benefits of a large map making it much harder for a single large zerg to be everywhere in a moment's notice.   Never really liked the idea of convenient, instant travel especially when it involves large scale warfare.

3) Scouts:  Make map activity a player mechanic.  In other words, tie hot spots that show up on the map for everybody in your alliance to a scouting player in the vicinity of a large force on the move.  Never understood why none of the MMOs out there have tried this.

CazNeerg

Originally posted by Lord.Bachus

I can live with annimations and combat so far.... 

 But the phasing really needs to improve... Being the first person in hundreds of years to enter a tomb just to find dozens of people allready inside kills immersion for me...

Another spot where the phasing could use a little work is out in the open world, where when you aren't actually within the border of the portion of the map that is phased, in some places you can hear audio and catch glimpses of the visuals from the starting status of the area, rather than the "current" status based on your actions.  So they need to adjust something about the way that works, a little strange to get a few feet away from an area you pacified, then suddenly hear the battle going on behind you again and even catch glimpses of the fighting through the fence, only to walk back across the invisible border and have the peaceful version again.

CazNeerg

Originally posted by Satarious

2) Rethink the Keep lattices:  I doubt anything will be done about this at this late stage, but the ease at which defenders can fast travel to Keeps they own has me a little worried.  It's nice to make Keeps harder to take, but what about those situations where a larger zerg dominates the map and can fast travel to any keep that's not being attacked?  It almost waters down the benefits of a large map making it much harder for a single large zerg to be everywhere in a moment's notice.   Never really liked the idea of convenient, instant travel especially when it involves large scale warfare.

I don't think it's really that much of a problem. Given the population caps, the enemy can't be everywhere at once no matter how much territory they control.  And it's offensive utility is almost non-existent.  Objectives you haven't captured are far enough away from ones you do control that you aren't ever likely to see "lightning" attacks.

Doogiehowser

One thing i would like to be added to game is an option to skip starter island. It really brings down the whole experince and gives wrong impression about the game.