The Elder Scrolls Online: The Road Ahead #3

A new “The Road Ahead” blog update has gone live on the official The Elder Scrolls Online website, and this time it covers the future of class abilities, the transition of the European megaserver, possible additions to the PvP campaign system, longer-term update plans and a few more subjects. If you’re subscribed to the title you’ll likely want to read it in full, but here’s a couple of the more relevant (in my humble opinion, of course) snippets for your reading convenience:

We take extra time with class and ability balance issues and bugs, and we have to be very careful not to do too much too quickly or balance can swing wildly. All your feedback is taken seriously, and we’ll continue to work on character build and balance issues on an ongoing basis.

Here are some of the class changes that we’re working on as part of regular maintenance patches:

• The Dragonknight is still a bit stronger than intended, and we’ll be making some small changes over time to the class. Our intent no matter what you read on the internet is not to nerf DKs into Oblivion (so to speak), but to continue tweaking them until they are in line with the survivability of the other classes.
• We also know that Nightblades are reporting they are underpowered. I know all about this, as my main character is a Nightblade, and I’ve been running into some of these same issues myself. Again, just like the DK, we’re not going to make wholesale changes quickly; instead, we’re going to make small, incremental adjustments until NB class abilities fall in line with other class abilities.
• Also, I sincerely apologize for not having the Biting Jabs change documented in a patch note when Update 1 went live. This was an oversight, not a nefarious omission by design. We have clearly documented many other ability nerfs in the past we just missed this one in the massive Update 1 patch.
• Ultimate spamming is a problem in PvP. We’ll address it on an ongoing basis.

…

We have lots more planned for ESO beyond the above Update 3 is scheduled to arrive sometime in July. It will focus on player customization systems like armor dyeing, guild insignias and tabards, and it will also be the start of the rework of our delves (smaller dungeons) to make them much larger and give them more worth exploring.

We’re also starting to re-work many quests in the game so we can greatly reduce the chances of you being separated from your party in different “layers” as you explore Tamriel. This is an ongoing effort, but you’ll see the problem alleviated over the course of the summer. We’ll also introduce more Veteran Dungeons, another area of Craglorn with an all-new Trial, and much, much more. Stay tuned for details.

We’ve been looking closely at the Veteran system, and we want it to be more exciting to get to level 50. In order to take on the Veteran system, we have to use an approach that addresses several key components:

Itemization we’ll add gear that’s harder to acquire but more worthwhile. We’re looking at gear that will make others envious when you’re wearing or wielding it both in appearance and in stat boosts. To do this, we’ll adjust soft caps so that they don’t kick in quite as quickly. We have to be very careful about how much we adjust numbers, because the greater the variance, the more people can hurt their intended builds.
• Veteran Ranks – we’re looking at giving you more “points” to spend when you hit a Veteran Rank. This is at a very, very early stage, but essentially, we want to keep the great customization you have for your character from 1-50 and allow you to continue augmenting it in meaningful ways. Our goal is to let you have many more fun character development decisions post level 50.
• More content – We’re going to continue providing more content on a regular basis. Veteran Dungeons, areas like Craglorn, Trials, and etc. Further, we’re going to allow dungeons to level to the group leader. This means you’ll be able to go back and play any dungeon to get rewards appropriate for your group leader’s level.