It’s a new dawn in the world of Tamriel, with developer ZeniMax mapping out plans for the immediate future of The Elder Scrolls Online in 2016 and beyond.
In a comprehensive blog post, Game Director Matt Firor highlighted five key areas to address for the MMORPG: Social aspects, player levelling, future DLC, fan events and, lastly, general status updates.
As Firor points out, the first aspect is inherently tied with making TESO more “open” for newcomers — a strategy that was beginning to take shape with the level scaling system found across the Imperial City and Orsinium DLCs. Here, the developer pinpoints features that are currently in the works.
- Looking for Group version 2.0, which will go live with the Thieves Guild update. This will fix some longstanding problems with our LFG system and allow players to create groups faster and more efficiently.
- All future DLC will continue to use player level scaling to ensure that players of all levels can play in the same zone together, as we do with Imperial City and Orsinium.
- Enable text chat on consoles later this year to help players – if they wish – to communicate zone-wide with other players, have easier access to emotes, and be able to chat with others using text instead of voice. This will be optional, and we will continue to fully support voice chat on console as the primary means of communication.
- Work on a Looking for Guild system, as well as updates and fixes to make it easier manage player guilds.
Switching gears to focus on the game’s player levelling system, Firor noted that the following features are primed to go live in tandem with the release of the Dark Brotherhood expansion in Q2 2016.
- There will be little or no changes to our current 1-50 player leveling system. You will receive one Skill Point per level as you do now, and one point to put into your Attributes (Stamina, Magicka, or Health.)
- From 50+, you will receive Champion Points as you gain Experience, which you can use to further augment your character via the Champion System. The character information window will be updated to show your level, plus your Champion Rating, which is the total number of Champion Points you have accrued.
- You will be able to gain more Skill Points the same way you do now, by completing quests, raising your Alliance War rank, and collecting Skyshards.
- We will continue to slowly raise the Champion Point cap over time as we add more content. The cap is currently set at 501 Champion Points.
Later in the post, it was teased that Bethesda and ZeniMax Online have early plans in place for DLC after the Dark Brotherhood. For a more in-depth peek at what’s headed to The Elder Scrolls Online over the next 12 months, be sure to consult the studio’s breakdown.
[Source: ZeniMax]
