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[Column] Elder Scrolls Online: A Little Rant on Motif-Gate
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Before I go any further with this rant, I need to explain something first, otherwise I’ll get Twitter/Steam/in-game messages asking why I’m still playing ESO if I dislike it so much. That is not the case at all. ESO is a great game, with a fantastic company behind it. But it just so happens that said company has blundered and has the community in a stir. With all the commotion that the recent motif changes have created perhaps it will help Zenimax find better solutions to future endeavors. But for now, let's examine what has the player base a little upset.
Read more of Ryan Getchell's Elder Scrolls Online: ESO Has Gone & Done Something Bad...
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Comments
I'm sorry but this seems like a silly thing to get upset about.
First, I don't think anyone should get upset over cosmetic items being sold for real money. The game seems to have very little to sell since it went B2P and they have to make money somehow, I think this is a great choice.
Second, you do not farm for "endless hours". If you want a motif (not including the dwemer ones which look silly anyway) just go to the zone that it spawns in and start farming and in an hour or two you will get the book.
Third, gold is very easy to come by since the justice system. If you don't want to farm it or spend real money just buy it off someone. I honestly have to much gold right now and nothing to do with it. They need more gold sinks in this game.
As a side note I think they reduced the urns in those areas to try to get people to farm the other ruins, it will help prevent people getting bored farming the same 1 place for hours and hours. and reduce crowding.
I'm glad you are still liking the game though, I am too. Zenimax really hit the target here.
From my perspective, a citizen of Cyrodiil who leveled his crafting only to reduce the amount of materials needed to upgrade gear, who has no motifs, the addition of motifs to the cash shop doesn't bother me.
I've never farmed containers. I have never been in a dwemer ruin. I've never sold a motif. That being said I can't disagree with you assessment about how the addition of motifs to the cash shop kinda dilutes gameplay with respect to the new rare ones motifs.
It's not really about that.
I think it's about taking away income from crafters or people selling the motifs.
It's not really a "costume" but another style of armor that one can craft. Obviously the cooler armors are more rare or at least seem to be more rare.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
As a gamer I hate cash shops that ruin gameplay. As a finance worker I can appreciate a good cash shop that makes a company money to run their game and doesn't break gameplay. Unfortunately for ESO their cash shop doesn't ruin gameplay and probably doesn't make them much money.
Your complaint boils down to being annoyed that they are selling an item you can get through normal gameplay in the cash shop. And frankly an item that isn't that big of a deal to have or a big deal to get. Would you rather they sold items that aren't available for free by gameplay and only available through the cash shop? Because that tends to go poorly.
They need to sell items in the game exactly like the motif books. Something that isn't gameplay breaking, isn't a big deal, and can be acquired ingame through normal gameplay. Their current problem is that there isn't much in the store that is worth while enough to convince more than a few people to buy it. The only item in the store currently that more than a few people would be interested in I would say is the horse. Just because as a new player they would want the ease of getting it, using it, and saving what is a lot of gold for a new player. Possibly you could add the imperial upgrade to the list, but I'm sure many people are ok with just finding another race to play that gives them similar enough bonuses.
For my gaming/business head I wouldn't mind seeing big bags, rare gear outfits for leveling(say at 10, 25, and 40), and perhaps a 1% exp boost ring. I've seen these in Age of Conan and I think they are decent. Big bags aren't bad as you can always sell stuff when full or get bag upgrades with gold so not really anything gamebreaking, rare gear sets for leveling are for PVE only and so it doesn't really affect anyone else just that it makes leveling even easier than it already is and by the time they hit lvl 50 they won't be that great anymore compared to endgame, and a 1% exp boost ring again is only good for leveling, doesn't affect anyone else, and once you hit endgame is completely useless.
I completely agree with the OP. My impression when ESO was in pre-launch was that crafting was to be THE source for the best gear..That lasted for a few weeks when players found better gear in Cyrodiil than crafter's could make.
The availability of racial motifs...finding them/now buying them IS A BIG DEAL imo.
The dream of what Cyrodiil was to be......crafting denigrated...consoles emphasized ....as new game feature development stops dead in its tracks. All are reasons I'm not playing this game after chasing the vision of what I thought this game would be for almost a year.
As an ESO player, I'm actually ok with it. It's just a crafting style, and now available for those who want to pay (or support the game). There are many ways to obtain gold in the game, some people may prefer to use ingame gold to obtain these or real money.
Heck, I'm hoping they'll put bank slots in the store. I'll gladly throw real money at the screen for this.
iam fine with them selling stuff like this in the cash shop, as they should! - has it occured to you guys that maybe they have newer rare items sets in store to come in DLC?
so now they are selling the old ones?
this works well with RIFT/TSW - a perfect example how a cash shop in an mmo should run.
if you find a dev that is working for free... then play his game. doubt it will be interesting tho.
OR, be the first yourself, make a game and offer it completely for free!
maybe some day you understand it, till then, happy flaming.
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
Bad for a genre that was already bad to begin with?
Top 2 items when I Google "Buy motifs online ESO" are ESO gold sellers. Nuff said. I'd much rather support the dev than some Chinese gold farmer who might get me banned from the game. OH! And please don't use the excuse that "Because it's a bannable offence, people won't buy gold." because that's just outright BS and if you have never met someone who bought gold through a gold seller or sold something illegally, then you haven't played in the genre a whole lot.
This is something that's still rampant within the genre. Why? Cause it matters!!!! If you removed trading entirely it'd solve the problem and, probably, kill your game too.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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I too prefer a sub model but given the reality I am not too upset about the current crown store changes.
Offering the motif's was a way to improve the appeal of the crown store while keeping with content that is for the most part cosmetic. In fact the advanced motif sets are the first things Ive even considered buying. I know these are harder to come by, in fact I have only managed to acquire one so far in my normal adventures and of course there are those who will now lose out on a revenue source, but so it goes.
All things being equal I would have preferred to earn mine and may still do so but I won't begrudge ZOS any cosmetic upgrades to the store.
On the flip side I am not happy with the container changes in the Dwemer dungeons. In 6 months during the normal course of the guild quest lines Ive managed to collect all of 1 frame so far and now it looks like it will be much harder. I am not opposed to working for rarer items but these areas were already heavily camped making it difficult to acquire them during normal progression. In my mind this change seems pretty pointless and not very well thought out.
Del Cabon
A US Army ('Just Cause') Vet and MMORPG Native formerly of Trinsic, Norath and Dereth. Currently playing LOTRO.
Again, I don't think that is the issue.
The issue is bypassing the crafters and people who farm these things in order to make money in game.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
In other news, while MMORPG is crying about bs cash shops items to generate money to further develop content for them to play; Massively OP is giving away Skyforge beta keys!
Thanks for wasting my time MMORPG with your 14 year old's point of view! Hope you get the same sense of day care out of my post that I got out of yours. Enjoy your article hits!
Care to elaborate on these issues that you claim still remain from beta? I played beta and the state of the game is a far cry from what beta was.
The only part of all of this that I consider questionable is the price. $50 for a motif? Are they and the people willing to pay that out of their frikking minds?
I do craft. But I do so simply to be self-sufficient and the look of what I craft is a very distant last place behind the real purpose of crafted gear: quality (blue, purple, gold) set bonuses that have a real impact on game play and attributes such as Divine (+% Mundus stone effect.)
Other than using unlocked rare dyes (of which I tend to use only 2 lol: black and gold) to make sure my armor has the same colors, I could care less about Barbaric, Imperial, etc.
That people care about it so much is frankly bewildering to me.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Better gear in Cyrodil??? Whaat are you smoking, dude? There may be some useful sets in Cyrodil but I don't know anyone that's walking around in pure Cyrodil gear. Between weapons, jewlery, and armor... people are running between 2 - 3 sets per build.
For the record.. the BEST gear IS STILL crafted gear. You can get plenty of drops.. maybe even purple ones.. but you need crafting to max that gear out.
I don't know what you are yapppin about. Do you even play this game or did you just repeat some crap you read on the interwebs somewhere?