The Elder Scrolls Online Opens Ascending Tide PTS With New Dungeons, New Gear, Housing Items, and Mo

System

The Elder Scrolls Online Opens Ascending Tide PTS With New Dungeons, New Gear, Housing Items, and More | MMORPG.com

The Ascending Tide DLC is now on the Elder Scrolls Online PTS. The update beings two new dungeons, new gear, new zones, a major change to achievements, and more.

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Mackaveli44

I wish they'd revamp their gear system. Acquiring gear doesn't feel rewarding at all since it's all the same item lvl. Feel like no character progressing is involved with their current gear system. Oh also, how about those 1980 animations?! Wish they'd do something about the combat animations as well.

KnightFalz

Mackaveli44 said:

I wish they'd revamp their gear system. Acquiring gear doesn't feel rewarding at all since it's all the same item lvl. Feel like no character progressing is involved with their current gear system. Oh also, how about those 1980 animations?! Wish they'd do something about the combat animations as well.

New gear in ESO isn't meant to replace that previous but to increase the pool of sets available. Acquiring gear is rewarding when seeking out gear more suited to your build or you need different gear for another build you want to try.

This provides two advantages. Firstly, new expansions don't require you to gear up, but offer new gear opportunities you may desire to pursue. Secondly, if you take a break and return you aren't increasingly out-geared the longer you are away.

As for the animations I don't find them that bad and they have more pressing issues to deal with regardless.

Rungar

Eso has like the best equipment system of any mmo. Nothing even comes close to it. Literally endless options for builds and massive flexibility. 

some things they really fuck up but that isn't one of them. 

2TonGamer

The gearing in ESO is definitely superior to games with end level caps that constantly move old gear out. Gear sets in ESO are very customizable for builds whether that be some crazy DPS Mage for PvP or even to build up speed for a crafting build, it's the best I have played and no worried when new content comes out with my gear being immediately outdated.

Mackaveli44

@Knight, @Rungar, and @2Ton. I see your points but completely disagree. There's zero carrot at the end of the stick with their current gear system. You don't feel anymore powerful than you did the prior sets the only difference is how your abilities and stuff interact with the sets. If there's zero sense of progression than whats the point of playing an MMO where the whole point is to have your character feel more and more powerful. With the same item lvl, comes zero sense of progression, zero sense of progression comes zero sense of accomplishment. I love ESO and god knows I've put endless amount of hours into it but the gear system is a massive downside in my opinion.
My other buddies who play it all feel the same way about the gear.
And, once the horizontal character progression(CP) ends when you max out, theres no feel of your character progressing.

I wish they'd revamp their horrendous animations, I wish they'd improve their gear system and I wish their expansion added something other than the same ole crap they add expansion after expansion. You can literally finish each chapter in less than a week. The story, side delves, open world dungeon, the 1 raid, overworld content, boom done. And I couldn't care less about achieves. They do nothing for me.

KnightFalz

Mackaveli44 said:

@Knight, @Rungar, and @2Ton. I see your points but completely disagree. There's zero carrot at the end of the stick with their current gear system. You don't feel anymore powerful than you did the prior sets the only difference is how your abilities and stuff interact with the sets. If there's zero sense of progression than whats the point of playing an MMO where the whole point is to have your character feel more and more powerful. With the same item lvl, comes zero sense of progression, zero sense of progression comes zero sense of accomplishment. I love ESO and god knows I've put endless amount of hours into it but the gear system is a massive downside in my opinion.
My other buddies who play it all feel the same way about the gear.
And, once the horizontal character progression(CP) ends when you max out, theres no feel of your character progressing.

I wish they'd revamp their horrendous animations, I wish they'd improve their gear system and I wish their expansion added something other than the same ole crap they add expansion after expansion. You can literally finish each chapter in less than a week. The story, side delves, open world dungeon, the 1 raid, overworld content, boom done. And I couldn't care less about achieves. They do nothing for me.

It is those different interactions that tend to grant increased power when they work better than previous gear did with your build, or when you can change you build to be more powerful overall when using the new gear. That is progression as you are now stronger than you were before.

If you instead you want the ever escalating gear found in other games, and the issues that come along with, you'll have to play something else. If you feel each expansion is crap and indistinguishable from other recent ones it seems you really don't love ESO all that much and you'd be happier moving on anyway.

Rungar

the progression in eso is finding synergy in your set choices. Its a beautiful system and very subtle. They leave it up to you to find the build synergy which works great for some players, but not so much for players whose tastes haven't matured yet and are still stuck on treadmill thinking. 

Youll come along eventually though, im sure of it. 

Hariken

Rungar said:

Eso has like the best equipment system of any mmo. Nothing even comes close to it. Literally endless options for builds and massive flexibility. 

some things they really fuck up but that isn't one of them. 

I don't get why people don't get this. The game is not about chasing gear like other mmo's. And with the coming combat changes the game is going to be more unique and really a fun game to play with all the build options. Man I can't wait for this update.

Lokryn

Maybe I'm in the minority but the same release formula every year is getting old.

Mackaveli44

KnightFalz said:

Mackaveli44 said:

@Knight, @Rungar, and @2Ton. I see your points but completely disagree. There's zero carrot at the end of the stick with their current gear system. You don't feel anymore powerful than you did the prior sets the only difference is how your abilities and stuff interact with the sets. If there's zero sense of progression than whats the point of playing an MMO where the whole point is to have your character feel more and more powerful. With the same item lvl, comes zero sense of progression, zero sense of progression comes zero sense of accomplishment. I love ESO and god knows I've put endless amount of hours into it but the gear system is a massive downside in my opinion.
My other buddies who play it all feel the same way about the gear.


And, once the horizontal character progression(CP) ends when you max out, theres no feel of your character progressing.



I wish they'd revamp their horrendous animations, I wish they'd improve their gear system and I wish their expansion added something other than the same ole crap they add expansion after expansion. You can literally finish each chapter in less than a week. The story, side delves, open world dungeon, the 1 raid, overworld content, boom done. And I couldn't care less about achieves. They do nothing for me.

It is those different interactions that tend to grant increased power when they work better than previous gear did with your build, or when you can change you build to be more powerful overall when using the new gear. That is progression as you are now stronger than you were before.

If you instead you want the ever escalating gear found in other games, and the issues that come along with, you'll have to play something else. If you feel each expansion is crap and indistinguishable from other recent ones it seems you really don't love ESO all that much and you'd be happier moving on anyway.

Can you honestly say each chapter is not like the previous one before it? In terms of content. It's literally rinse and repeat with each chapter. Same Content, same stuff in each zone and the world event stuff is the same stuff with just a difference face. Elswyr was dragons, skyrim was the big red tornados events... each quarterly drop is the same. First content drop being 2 Dungeons... it's literally the same year after year.

Just because I do not like the rinse and repeat type content of each chapter doesn't mean I don't love the game. I just feel they're not evolving enough. With all the resources, the huge staff, they could be doing more. Much much more but aren't.

Rungar

alot of people feel they are not doing enough with the chapters and are very generic. They are not good value for the money even on a 50% off steam sale. Your not alone there. 

i mean a card game as a main feature? how much more out of touch can you get?

ashiru_1978

Rungar said:

the progression in eso is finding synergy in your set choices. Its a beautiful system and very subtle. They leave it up to you to find the build synergy which works great for some players, but not so much for players whose tastes haven't matured yet and are still stuck on treadmill thinking. 

Youll come along eventually though, im sure of it. 

What progress? You can literally make a new character in ESO and remain in your starter gear from beginning to end and you will still be able to play.

Progress occurs when your gear is not strong enough for you to defeat regular mobs for your quest. This is not the case in ESO. That stopped being a thing when ZOS removed levels and made the game scale with you.

Rungar

ashiru_1978 said:

Rungar said:

the progression in eso is finding synergy in your set choices. Its a beautiful system and very subtle. They leave it up to you to find the build synergy which works great for some players, but not so much for players whose tastes haven't matured yet and are still stuck on treadmill thinking. 

Youll come along eventually though, im sure of it. 

What progress? You can literally make a new character in ESO and remain in your starter gear from beginning to end and you will still be able to play.

Progress occurs when your gear is not strong enough for you to defeat regular mobs for your quest. This is not the case in ESO. That stopped being a thing when ZOS removed levels and made the game scale with you.

as many have said you either like the old school carrot on a stick moving goalposts model or you like a more horizontal approach where its really all about developing a good build.

eso was literally doa until they made that change.  

The_Korrigan

Hopefully they will finally fix the Night's Silence 5 pieces set bonus... which isn't working since November.

The_Korrigan

ashiru_1978 said:

Rungar said:

the progression in eso is finding synergy in your set choices. Its a beautiful system and very subtle. They leave it up to you to find the build synergy which works great for some players, but not so much for players whose tastes haven't matured yet and are still stuck on treadmill thinking. 

Youll come along eventually though, im sure of it. 

What progress? You can literally make a new character in ESO and remain in your starter gear from beginning to end and you will still be able to play.

Progress occurs when your gear is not strong enough for you to defeat regular mobs for your quest. This is not the case in ESO. That stopped being a thing when ZOS removed levels and made the game scale with you.

Yeah sure, just try to do public dungeons, or hell, even some delves, in your starter gear. Enjoy having your ass handed to you by a bunch of trash mobs.

Iselin

ashiru_1978 said:

Rungar said:

the progression in eso is finding synergy in your set choices. Its a beautiful system and very subtle. They leave it up to you to find the build synergy which works great for some players, but not so much for players whose tastes haven't matured yet and are still stuck on treadmill thinking. 

Youll come along eventually though, im sure of it. 

What progress? You can literally make a new character in ESO and remain in your starter gear from beginning to end and you will still be able to play.

Progress occurs when your gear is not strong enough for you to defeat regular mobs for your quest. This is not the case in ESO. That stopped being a thing when ZOS removed levels and made the game scale with you.

I'd like to see you do Vet Maelstrom arena in level 1 whites lol.

ESO has PvE solo and group challenges for those that want it. You don't get to bitch about it being too easy if all you do is grind skeevers and wolves like a bot.

klash2def

ashiru_1978 said:

What progress? You can literally make a new character in ESO and remain in your starter gear from beginning to end and you will still be able to play.

Progress occurs when your gear is not strong enough for you to defeat regular mobs for your quest. This is not the case in ESO. That stopped being a thing when ZOS removed levels and made the game scale with you.

Tell me you're a milk drinker without telling me you're a milk drinker. 

You cant do any end-game content in ESO with starter gear but it's cute you believe so. 

Rungar

my assessment of eso is this: 

great equipment and skills system. 
great achievement system
great questing system
great variety of content
great pvp system (when it works, combat problems not withstanding)
great crafting systems
great action combat system ( dodge, block etc. )
great levelling/skill use system ( levels are basically legacy, redundant. Skills matter the most)

meh alternate advancement system 
meh degrading expensive chapter system
meh class design
meh combat design (mostly animation cancelling system, spammy rotations, minimal crowd control, buffs too short etc.)
meh guilds
meh trading

worn out dungeon design. Same thing every time with a few different different dance steps. 
overland generally too easy 

2TonGamer

Can you honestly say each chapter is not like the previous one before it? In terms of content. It's literally rinse and repeat with each chapter. Same Content, same stuff in each zone and the world event stuff is the same stuff with just a difference face. Elswyr was dragons, skyrim was the big red tornados events... each quarterly drop is the same. First content drop being 2 Dungeons... it's literally the same year after year.



Just because I do not like the rinse and repeat type content of each chapter doesn't mean I don't love the game. I just feel they're not evolving enough. With all the resources, the huge staff, they could be doing more. Much much more but aren't.


I disagree with you about the gear as I think the way they handle it is way better than almost every MMO I have played. I do feel stronger when I get a new gear set that allows me to do something different. I do not have to feel "more powerful" with each year that goes by, but getting to choose what gear I seek out for what class/build I want is fun.

I do agree with you on the stagnant formula ZoS is using. You're absolutely right, they need to shake things up instead of the same exact thing every year. OTOH they have been great about their 4 updates per year schedule, much better than most who promised to have consistent updates and fell back on it, even during Covid. However, the fact that they maintained their 4 per year during Covid also shows how formulated they became because they should've took some kind of hit from having to switch things up, but they did not. The content was a little lackluster and bland though so that I suppose was some kind of hit, but still they need to innovate more and they need to spice things up a bit.

I was seriously looking forward to some sort of ship dungeon with this new Breton yearly, but it does not look like that will happen. It would've been a nice additional mechanic for a dungeon with many options. No new class either so yeah this update, although I'm sure will be pretty, will probably be so much of the same that it will be clear ZoS is just playing it safe yet again which does annoy me. Still though I am looking forward to the new gear options, especially after reading the PTS notes so I am still onboard hoping the wind changes at some point.

KnightFalz

Mackaveli44 said:

KnightFalz said:

Mackaveli44 said:

@Knight, @Rungar, and @2Ton. I see your points but completely disagree. There's zero carrot at the end of the stick with their current gear system. You don't feel anymore powerful than you did the prior sets the only difference is how your abilities and stuff interact with the sets. If there's zero sense of progression than whats the point of playing an MMO where the whole point is to have your character feel more and more powerful. With the same item lvl, comes zero sense of progression, zero sense of progression comes zero sense of accomplishment. I love ESO and god knows I've put endless amount of hours into it but the gear system is a massive downside in my opinion.
My other buddies who play it all feel the same way about the gear.


And, once the horizontal character progression(CP) ends when you max out, theres no feel of your character progressing.



I wish they'd revamp their horrendous animations, I wish they'd improve their gear system and I wish their expansion added something other than the same ole crap they add expansion after expansion. You can literally finish each chapter in less than a week. The story, side delves, open world dungeon, the 1 raid, overworld content, boom done. And I couldn't care less about achieves. They do nothing for me.

It is those different interactions that tend to grant increased power when they work better than previous gear did with your build, or when you can change you build to be more powerful overall when using the new gear. That is progression as you are now stronger than you were before.

If you instead you want the ever escalating gear found in other games, and the issues that come along with, you'll have to play something else. If you feel each expansion is crap and indistinguishable from other recent ones it seems you really don't love ESO all that much and you'd be happier moving on anyway.

Can you honestly say each chapter is not like the previous one before it? In terms of content. It's literally rinse and repeat with each chapter. Same Content, same stuff in each zone and the world event stuff is the same stuff with just a difference face. Elswyr was dragons, skyrim was the big red tornados events... each quarterly drop is the same. First content drop being 2 Dungeons... it's literally the same year after year.

Just because I do not like the rinse and repeat type content of each chapter doesn't mean I don't love the game. I just feel they're not evolving enough. With all the resources, the huge staff, they could be doing more. Much much more but aren't.

I can, but I don't strictly focus on the zone events and dungeons that come along with everything else each chapter adds. Each not only expands the world but the game itself, by adding new classes, systems, and other changes such as the upcoming greater diversity in class builds. The game is constantly made more in multiple ways.

What do you love about the game? All I've seen so far is complaint.

KnightFalz

Rungar said:

alot of people feel they are not doing enough with the chapters and are very generic. They are not good value for the money even on a 50% off steam sale. Your not alone there. 

i mean a card game as a main feature? how much more out of touch can you get?

It's not the first MMORPG to add a social side game to the more standard fare typically associated with such. Whether it will interest me I can't yet say as I know little in the way of specifics, but it will certainly interest some. I'm fine with that as not everything in a game meant to have massive appeal is going to be devoted to pleasing me.

Mendel

ashiru_1978 said:

Rungar said:

the progression in eso is finding synergy in your set choices. Its a beautiful system and very subtle. They leave it up to you to find the build synergy which works great for some players, but not so much for players whose tastes haven't matured yet and are still stuck on treadmill thinking. 

Youll come along eventually though, im sure of it. 

What progress? You can literally make a new character in ESO and remain in your starter gear from beginning to end and you will still be able to play.

Progress occurs when your gear is not strong enough for you to defeat regular mobs for your quest. This is not the case in ESO. That stopped being a thing when ZOS removed levels and made the game scale with you.

I think a lot of people are looking at the gear system as the problem here.  I tend to believe that the level-scaling is the real issue.  There's no sense of achievement, as my character is always the same.  At least, a gear-progression system without a level-scaling systems (as in other games) provides a distinct sense of improvement.

Rungar

eso is also one of the few games where you dont have to fight over loot. Everybody gets their own loot, which is a great feature. 

if you boil it down i wonder how much time is spent collecting and experimenting with builds compared to the traditional get your new expansion set and wait for the next expansion. 

i'm wagering the eso model you will spend a lot more time overall, especially if you pvp, since that system really shines there. It would shine in pve as well if the pve was designed properly ( aka my radial dungeons).

Alomar

Ah, ESO...the game so many proclaim as good when it's riddled with bugs, performance issues, and focused on nothing other than a cash shop/microstransactions. Another year another shoddy and underwhelming "expansion".

Rungar

pvp and raiding aside they game doesnt have alot of bugs really. 

besides they are features....