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New Quick Select Wheel, Mundus Stones in Armory, and More as The Elder Scrolls Online Previews Updat
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The Elder Scrolls Online has a preview for Update 34 to the base game, which will arrive on June 6th along with High Isle for PC and Mac. ZeniMax has shared just a few of the changes we can expect.
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The ESO armory, with or without upcoming improvements. is one of those base game systems that induces me to imagine that there are 2 distinct and opposite teams at ZOS that compete to have new features implemented as either 100% QOL with zero cash shop trappings or as obnoxiously cash shop dependent as possible. The armory was implemented by team greed.
Contrast it to a still fairly recent and huge base game QOL update that was the gear set collections. That is the system that allows you to collect armor and weapon pieces for any overland, dungeon, trial, PvP, arena or even Mythic item in the game simply by obtaining it once and binding the item to your account. When you do that, that item is known to you and you will be able to duplicate in the future using the Transmute station and its materials, transmute crystals, to make as many duplicates of that item to gear up alts in your account as you wish. Not only was that convenient as hell for gearing alts but it had a huge impact on inventory, bank and storage chest stash management by letting you get rid of a lot of gear that we used to keep around because it might or might not be useful later on or the source of that gear is content you don't do all that often, That the whole thing has zero tie in to anything cash shop related was just a jaw-droppingly, greed-free implementation for a company not exactly known for that. Yay team "old school" (I'll call them that) grats on the win.
And then there's the Armory implementation.
The Armory is an official ZOS version of something that has been available (more or less) as a PC add-on for 6+ years. It's simply the ability to click on a key or button and have the gear, skills, champion points and now also mundus stone swapped to an alternate that can convert your character from say, magicka DPS to a full-fledged tank immediately.
It's a good addition in that a) it's not an add-on so anyone including those on Stadia and consoles can use it and b) it provides some functionality that the add-on versions of this don't, namely the ability to swap Champion point allocation and soon also mundus stone,
It's also debatably a bit of overkill since for most content a swap of just gear and skills will be good enough to change roles (or game mode as in PvE v, PvP). Adding champion points and mundus stone to it is admittedly better and a more thorough role change but hardly necessary if for example, you're doing it to swap from being a normal dungeon DPSer to a normal dungeon tank.
In most cases the pre-existing add-ons used by PC/Mac players are still used over the Armory because (here comes the greed) the addons are not crippled by the two un-features added to the Armory in order to make them cash shop integrated.
Those two items? The add-on versions can save and use and unlimited number of load-outs. You don't do alts but participate in all kinds of ESO activities? The add-on let's you have a PvE solo, Pve Group healer. PvE group tank, PvP BG, PvP Cyrodiil,etc. load outs or any more that you think you might want to swap out to as you play. The add-ons also let you make those role/mode swaps anywhere as long as you're out of combat. Convenient.
The official ESO armory though decided to cripple the base free armory in two ways and offer you cash shop relief for the crippling. 1. It can't be used anywhere. The armory was implemented as a free piece of furniture you can place in any and all of your houses and you have to interact with the armory furniture to make the swap making it a bit of a pain to use when you're out and about... Enter the cash shop Armory Assistant, an NPC you can buy for ~ 6,000 crowns that can be summoned anywhere and restores that "anywhere" functionality that the add-on versions of this already have...
And 2., you can have 2 profiles to swap between when using the armory for free but if you want more you need to buy those from the cash shop PER CHARACTER. Yup, they decided to also go the per character route for this.
So clearly team greed won that imaginary internal competition and got the go ahead to do the Armory their way.
A big fuck you to the armory. the current version or the upcoming "New and Improved! Now with Mundus Stones!!!" version. It's the same old gear and item swap addons I've been using for years for me.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED