Discovered how to enjoy ESO's PvE

R.Lima

Hello everyone. It's been a while since I last posted on these forums and truthfully, I was about to quit MMO's for good. Every game that I played felt extremely on rails, with predictable outcomes, set paths, and far too much hand-holding. When I tried ESO during launch, it did present itself as a game with an interesting and vast world, but more often than not I caught myself following the compass from quest marker to quest marker, without much thought into what I was doing, where I was going, or on the things I was encountering. This led to an extremely lackluster gameplay experience, where my advancement within the game's progression systems was the only thing that mattered. I was progressing for the sake of progressing even further. I decided to put the game down and focus solely on online FPS titles like Counter-Strike and Call of Duty. 

 

Nearing the end of the month, I noticed my subscription was running out, with about a week left of play time, so I decided to make good use of it and give ESO one last shot. However, before I did so, I browsed the forums in an attempt to maximize one of the aspects I find most notable and crucial in RPG's: immersion. I had already disabled many settings in-game, like the skill bar, the glow around enemies and objects, the icons over followers, group members, and dead players, the quest tracker and icons, and the health bars over enemy heads, but I wanted to go even further. This led me to a user's post, which included a few add-ons that only after using them myself did I understand the impact they have on gameplay. They are the following:

 

Wykkyd's Full Immersion: This add-on allows the user to remove the compass, re-size or even hide the reticle, hide the quest tracker, among other things. I believe this add-on also requires the user to install Wykkyd's Framework beforehand to work.

 

PinKiller: This add-on removes all the quest markers within the game world itself and on the map. Certain settings can be tweaked to remove quest markers from the compass as well if you decide to keep the compass visible.

 

True Exploration: This add-on blanks out the entire map, and as you progress and travel to new places, you unveil the map. This also works in dungeons and in Cyrodiil if you want it to.

 

Harven's Quest Journal: This add-on is a fantastic quest log modification, making your quest journal feel like an actual journal where you write down important information regarding a quest, like conversations you had with certain NPC's. It even lets you read about quests you have already completed so that you can remember and retell all the stories you experienced within the game.

 

All these add-ons are extremely easy to install (especially with an add-on manager like Minion) and configure. They are absolutely game-changing and have led to a far richer and deeper experience. Where once I was following quest markers, now I am actually exploring the world, talking to NPC's, and searching areas using clues to discover new and wonderful things. I definitely recommend anyone who is looking for a more rewarding, immersive RPG experience to download these add-ons.

grimal

I'm not using any addons, but I find that approaching it more as an RPG than an MMO has increased my enjoyment immensely for the PVE experience.  I'm enjoying it quite a bit right now.  Really can't wait for the PVP;  but I am in no rush and taking my time.

Edit:  Also want to thank you for this list of addons.  Really awesome list and definitely going to try this out tonight.

goboygo

Wow great post I have made note of all the mods you used, might just try it myself.

Brenics

Great post, and agree the add-ons for this game can make it a really challenging and fun game. I decided last week I am in this game for the long haul and bought 2 60 game cards for it.

pantaro

as someone who has played single player rpgs since i was a kid and only started playing mmo's in the past few years as long as i have that same mind set and just enjoying eso for what it is,I'm loving it alot. Those are all great mods

stealthbr

hmmm, will try

R.Lima

I especially like it when I get quests where I have to find a hidden stash of treasure and the directions are only enough for me to have a general idea on where to start looking. It feels a lot more rewarding and realistic when I find something that is actually hidden with no indicators hovering right above it.

Furthermore, this method of playing makes exploration a must, since you don't know where quests start. The game does give audio queues more often than not when you approach a quest giver, but it's nice when you stumble upon something purely by accident only to embark on an epic quest line.

Distopia

One of the first things I did was turn off all indicators I could, the next thing I might do is install these add-ons. great post OP.

Megilindir

Great post indeed.Would you mind if i ask for links of these add-ons? Thank you.

 

Edit: I personally found them all just asked for the others to access easily.

R.Lima

Originally posted by Megilindir

Great post indeed.Would you mind if i ask for links of these add-ons? Thank you.

 

Edit: I personally found them all just asked for the others to access easily.

Good point, just added it to the OP for easy access.

Ikifales

I love the wykkyds add-ons and I am going to check out the quest journal one....thanks!