In the latest Ask Us Anything, ZeniMax Online’s own version of a Reddit AMA, the company focuses on answering questions for one core facet of The Elder Scrolls Online; combat. The Elder Scrolls universe is rife with it, but exactly how it’ll work, how fast the gameplay will be and how important it will be to general progression hasn’t been discussed in detail. Until now.
What’s even cooler is that ZMO continues to credit the community with these questions. Matt Feisthammel asked after the soft locking system, including its impact on melee and how it may interact with dodge. Soft locking prevents one character from taking a blow for another, however dodges and evasion moves will enable them to avoid the damage.
Perhaps most applicable to the upcoming fantasy MMORPG is the presence of the ‘holy trinity’ of tank, DPS and healer, and how it will impact gameplay. The community team let an internal email – which you can see undedited after the cut – do the talking. Short answer, the core holy trinity will not be needed.
Yesterday in the lunchtime dungeon test, our group of four (all at level 12) included:
· 1 Templar with light armor and healing staff, abilities focusing on healing
· 1 Templar with light armor and dual wield, Templar abilities focusing on healing
· 1 Dragonknight with light armor and destruction staff
· 1 Sorcerer with heavy armor and dual wield
This was with no real consultation with each other while making characters, other than ensuring there was at least one healer. For the sake of the dungeon we really could have used a true tank (the closest we had was the sorcerer wearing heavy armor and using unstable familiar to get the monster’s attention, with no real “keep myself alive” abilities), but as a group we were (eventually) able to take down the Fungal Grotto bosses. More to the point, with four players making independent choices in abilities and gear, three of the four made builds that defied the standard templates – and yet felt perfectly viable in actual play. The players were each able to build a character to their own taste with class abilities as a supplement, rather than the rigid defining aspect to the character, and have effective characters.
I love Oblivion and Skyrim, but I’m not thrilled with the idea that ESO is going to be the usual three-sided forever war. Since I do like the Elder Scrolls series though, I’m willing to keep an open mind on this one.
BTW, you mentioned the ‘holy trinity’ of tank, dps, healer. To my way of thinking this concept has gotten rather old and stale. Wish some imaginative developer would think outside the box to come up with something different.