Zenimax Online's Elder Scrolls Online Combat Dissected

Written by: Jason Winter (@winterinformal) | May 25, 2012 1:30 pm

69 Comments

Yo dawg, I heard you liked Guild Wars 2. So I got some Guild Wars 2 in your Elder Scrolls Online.

That’s the impression you might get upon reading PC Gamer‘s reveal of the combat system for ZeniMax Online‘s upcoming MMO.

A character will have six abilities in his or her hotbar. The first two are derived from the currently equipped weapon. The next four are based on one’s class, with the final one being an “ultimate” ability.

Each class will have many abilities to choose from, and abilities will improve over time, which Gameplay Designer Nick Konkle says is “very much like the Elder Scrolls games, and is our own way of interpreting that.”

Konkle goes on to describe the concept of an archer character, equipped with a bow — which defines his first two skills — and three class skills that help keep distance from enemies, and a “Summon Frost Atronach” ultimate ability:

“And a Frost Atronach’s going to fall out of the sky and smash anyone he lands on, and then hang around and start beating on people. Yeah, that totally supports by rangery bow metaphor from earlier. That’s the character I wanted to play.”

Talk about an ice storm.

What do you think about the TES Online combat system as we know it so far? Let us know in the comments below!

Zenimax Online's Elder Scrolls Online Combat Dissected

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47 comments

Sathure

I’m extremely cynical and skeptical about this game. It just sounds too much like a cash cow on TES namesake.

My whole reason for enjoying TES games is the immersion due to the game play. Not the setting. Sure I enjoy playing an Argonian. But you could take the game and make it in the LOTR or a D&D setting and I’d still play it. Taking that away I see little to be excited about. The fact that didn’t even give any persuadable arguments as to why they did away with the core gameplay kind of shows me that they don’t understand foundation of the franchise. Hence the cash cow feeling.

Until I see actual game play I’m calling this one a dud.
- http://twitter.com/Mantose Leo P
  
  I have no idea why this series is so popular.
  
  Ever since the first one, the thing I will remember most about TES games is how buggy they are and how often they crash to desktop.
  
  What do gamers hate most about new MMO games?
  
  Yea…
  - Jado Cast
    
    I love TES, but yea, I agree about the bugs. They rely on mods and patches to improve the game. But, since this isn’t Bethesda maybe the development will have a different approach to making and testing the game.
  - ChristopherMitchell1
    
    The bugs were never really game breaking, more hilarious than troublesome and the game overall was good so they were overlookable bugs that they fix… sometimes.
  - Brosaxon
    
    To be fair that’s more the fault of the developers rather than the games.
    
    Bethesda is know for making sandbox games and for having thousands of bugs on release, regardless of which game they make.
    
    TESO is being made by Zenimax, just going by that we can expect a lot less bugs when the game releases!
    - http://twitter.com/Mantose Leo P
      
      Oh, I just assumed it was the same people since it is TES. I should know better by now than to assume something.
      
      Thanks.
      - Brosaxon
        
        You know what they say: “when you assume you make an @$$ out of U and ME”
- ChristopherMitchell1
  
  ”I’m extremely cynical and skeptical about this game. It just sounds too much like a cash cow on TES namesake.” And you are only just getting the “feeling” that this is a cash cow? lol real? Game will be a dud, there I said it for you
- Jado Cast
  
  and why haven’t we seen gameplay? If this game has been in dev for as long as they say, then I would think they have a lot more to show off by now.
Brosaxon

So I guess we were all wrong and TESO wasn’t a WoW clone, it was the first GW2 clone!
Sharuko

The more I hear about the game the more I like it, the only thing I don’t like is the hero engine. I would give this game a shot solely based on the fact it has 3-faction PvP.
- Arkanthos
  
  Sorry, but rofl on you:P
- http://twitter.com/Luke_Malcolm Luke Malcolm
  
  So Rift copied 3 faction pvp from this and put it out so pple think they copied Rift?
  (A little joke i thought I throw out there)
  
  But I also hope Zenimax makes the Hero Engine work great cause it will make BioWare look stupid and show them how they screwed up.
- Spammerbam
  
  lmao
- http://twitter.com/EdwardvanRaak Edward van Raak
  
  Sharuko’s comments are my comedy moments of the day.
- ChristopherMitchell1
  
  I assume you are trolling because I wouldn’t want people’s opinions of you to fall any further >.>
http://www.facebook.com/jason.jenkins.73 Jason Jenkins

i must be turning into the cranky old man that sits on his porch and yells at the kids in the neighborhood when it comes to video games but i’ve yet to hear a single piece of news about elder scrolls that just really impress’s me. for now i guess i’ll just wait till there is more news and actual game play footage before i say anything really bad about it….but giant frost astronachs falling from the sky killing everything, i only like that when im playing single player and have god mode on dont sound so great for pvp. :-
Jay

But cashing in on a popular name and formula is working so well for SWTOR… Oh wait…
http://www.facebook.com/people/Michael-Johnson/1353890372 Michael Johnson

Oh boy a GW2 clone.
You know what I want to see from an Elder Scrolls MMO?

An Elder Scrolls clone
- Sathure
  
  This EXACTLY.
  
  If I want to play GW2 I’ll play GW2. If I want to play WoW then I’ll play WoW. But when I want to play Elder Scrolls I want to PLAY Elder Scrolls.
- http://twitter.com/Mantose Leo P
  
  When I first heard about TES online mmo game, first thing I thought was … the game will have so many bugs mmo players would never play it. Second thing I thought was , it might be interesting, because they will probably have action combat just like the single player games.
  
  It seems after hearing this they are going to use the old standby mmo combat system….
- MMO_Doubter
  
  LOL. Well put. The sad thing about MMORPGs is that the IP is just gimmick to sell boxes and a few months of subs to fans. The main design will be for the general (and generic) MMO players.
- scottsummer
  
  Well Said, TESO sounds looks like DAOC online wanna be than a Elder Scrolls MMO.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Kyle-Eggers/100000868131517 Kyle Eggers

I’m not sure but from what I’ve heard and read so far it sounds like the Elder Scrolls Online is going to have set classes, and that for me in a dealer break. One the greatest and best things about the Elder Scroll games is that there is no set class. I the the games because my characters class is determined by how I play the game. If I want to be a sneaky rogue type that stabs people in the back a or shots them from a distance with a bow then I have to do that and get better at it. I don’t just pick a rogue, hunter, ranger, or whatever and have certain preset skills ready and waiting for me. If the Elder Scrolls Online has preset classes, and how you level is based on killing stuff and not leveling up you skills it will fail.
- http://twitter.com/Jayeluu Jason Winter
  
  “One the greatest and best things about the Elder Scroll games is that there is no set class.”
  
  And by “Elder Scroll games” you mean “Skyrim.”
  
  Morrowind and Oblivion had classes. They were flexible, mind you, and you could create your own, but they had classes.
  - Chuy Del Castillo
    
    Totally incorrect. Morrowind and Oblivion packed some “Classes” but they weren’t classes in the sense that they blocked you from learning skills from a magician tree, that is, you could roll your initial character with a Fighter “class” and you could end up with a mage…
Sklys

It would seem that Elder Scrolls Online is taking a little from here and a little from there The real deal breaker for me is “pay to play”. If you want to
“pay to play” why not go to WoW, Rift etc ?
- http://profile.yahoo.com/ITHF7XKYGVXFAPCDMDJTKHLBBU Lian Wan
  
  That is obvious, none of those are Elder Scrolls games and Skyrim lacks multiplayer(unless someone has modded that in …).
Noxdus

The first GW2 clone. So it begins. Better than a WoW clone though.
- MMO_Doubter
  
  Have they announced that it won’t use the holy trinity? If they do use the trinity, then it certainly is not a GW2 clone.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=506728308 Julian F’n Mugnieco

it’s obvious that they’re doing this due to the hype surrounding GW2. We’ve known about GW2 for a loooooooooong time and it’s combat archetype for more than a year, closer to 2. That being said, TESO really couldn’t have had much if any dev work done with the release of Skyrim last year, thus obvious cloning is obvious.

Question remains though. If they wanted to clone a comabt system, they /really/ should have cloned TERAs. Atleats then we still have an action style combat system similar to TES.

Then again, anything to make a buck amirite?
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1260795388 Kelley Gray
  
  ”That being said, TESO really couldn’t have had much if any dev work done with the release of Skyrim last year”
  
  Two different Development companies. Nothing in common between the two aside from the franchise.
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=506728308 Julian F’n Mugnieco
    
    my bad
- http://twitter.com/chumppi chumppi, Riku M.
  
  Really? How can you even think this? TESO has been in development as long as GW2 has been and you think now suddendly they went “oh yeah, lets change our system to be like gw2″? Really?
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=506728308 Julian F’n Mugnieco
    
    “How can you even think this? ”
    
    it’s a piece of cake to bake a pretty cake
- Brosaxon
  
  ” Question remains though. If they wanted to clone a comabt system, they
  /really/ should have cloned TERAs. Atleats then we still have an action
  style combat system similar to TES.”
  
  How could they possibly clone TERAs combat on the Hero Engine?
  
  Plus a couple of years ago when TESO
  started production almost nobody knew or cared about TERA in the west
  so how could they clone something they didn’t even knew existed?
  
  And I think anyone can tell you TES combat and TERAs combat are nothing alike. Off the top of my head I can only think of 1 skill that roots you in place in all of TES games.
  
  Truth is no matter who they cloned it’s still not a real TES game.The game may turn out to be good but it still fails as an adaptation.
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=506728308 Julian F’n Mugnieco
    
    what i was getting at was a combat system whose style resembles an fps more than the traditional vanilla MMOs. TERA is closer to the FPS world of TES than spamming 1 through 5.
    
    Furthermore, TERA was out in Korea before here, yes, so perhaps much of the public may not of known of it, but it would shock me to find out that a development team building a next-gen MMO wouldn’t do the research required and learn of TERA and other “eastern” mmos.
    - Brosaxon
      
      If that’s your point I guess you’re right, but still why make the combat FPS like instead of full on FPS as the games are?
      
      As far as the developers researching TERA before making this game. I think if they spent time and money on researching the asian market of MMOs, they probably would have had time and money to research the actual TES
      games and realized the game they are making is NOTHING like them so I
      really doubt the developers even knew TERA existed until a few months
      ago if they’re even aware of it at all.
ChristopherMitchell1

<..> …….. -.- wut.

Not that I know any more details on it but from the vague descriptions it just sounds like a ghetto version of GW2s system…
http://twitter.com/chumppi chumppi, Riku M.

GW2 = Dota !?!? Even though the video was made with humour it and the title is still stupid O_o
Jado Cast

I want my Triple AAA sandbox in TES Universe. Nuff Said!
jayremy

No action-(>insert supplemental word here<) combat… no thanks!
http://www.facebook.com/Mitsukakex Nick Tucker

“well, you like GW2.Then why wont you like this? Even if the combat is not like Skyrim ect.”

ill tell you why, because its not GW2…
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000103012311 Zhenhe Zhu

Hotkey skills? Defined class skills? Wait… I thought this was TES?

While I appreciate Jason’s point that we shouldn’t base our opinions solely on the game mechanics not being in line with the recent TES games, to me this whole affair smacks of franchise milking syndrome.

In a boardroom deep within a well fortified business park:

“MMO! Those things make money, we need to make one!”
“Excellent idea sir!”
“It has to be in a fantasy setting, just like WOW. We got anything with a fantasy setting we can milk?”
“There’s The Elder Scrolls sir, but translating the game mechanics that the fans like will be challenging…”
“F#^% it! We’ll do it live! By the time those mouth breathing gamers find out this game has as much to do with Skyrim/Oblivion/Morrowind as silverware has to do with spooning, we’ll be living like kings in the Caymans.”
Sharuko

Are we seriously saying that an MMO that has abilities and skills based on weapons and skills based on class/jobs is somehow a GW2 clone? Do you know which MMO did this first? It was FFXIV. So is GW2 and TESO a FFXIV clone?
- Brosaxon
  
  And EQ set the trend of how MMOs are designed today but we don’t call MMOs “EQ clones” we call them “WoW clones”.
  
  We call them clones of the game that did it best or is more popular, not of the one that did it first.
  
  And if you think FFXIV did it best you’d have to be a pretty damn hardcore GW2 hater, so I wouldn’t put it past you to say that.
  - Sharuko
    
    I never said FFXIV did it best. We don’t know who will do it best. For all we know TESO will do it best. My point was FFXIV did this first.
    - Brosaxon
      
      And my point is that we call clones of the game that did it best or is more popular NOT of the one that did it first.
      
      And on both accounts GW2 did it best and is more popular than FFXIV, whether TESO does it better than GW2 is not relevant atm to call it a GW2 clone.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/5F67A4WUUVMLLVP4MNYEAQOVIU Rob
  
  You again……..Look I understand your extreme dislike for GW2 that’s fine. I feel the same about the game you fanboy for but your zealot like obsession with commenting on anything remotely to do with Guild Wars 2 ( Which you bought I might add) is a tired act. Play, don’t Play GW2 the world wont end either way. BTW if your goal is to become “internet famous” your well on your way Lad, keep chugging along you’ll get there
  - Sharuko
    
    I comment on most of these videos not just GW2 ones. BTW this is a TESO video a game that looks very interesting the more I hear about it, not GW2.
    - Sklys
      
      You comment on any videos (games) that will give you a chance to lay
      some hate on GW2. So be it, keep up the good work I have always
      enjoyed the Sunday comics.
- Sathure
  
  The original Guild Wars had weapon skills, profession skills, and elite skills well before FFXIV, so did AOC. You could also only equip 8 skills at a time in GW.
  - Sharuko
    
    FFXI had the same thing and that was before GW.
    - Sathure
      
      No it didn’t. FFXI used a turn based system like FFXII. It didn’t use Action bars or skill bars..
- pandora005
  
  A clone is an almost identical replica. I think we can agree that most games are different from each other in more than just a few aspects so the similarities dont matter as much.
  
  I would really appreciate it if people would stop the useless “X copied from Y” arguments, because they are useless. They serve no purpose except to entice trolls to post. Especially in such an early stage where none of us has ever seen any gameplay footage of this game, is any such comparison very very silly and far fetched …
  - MMO_Doubter
    
    Not only are ‘copied from’ arguments useless, they are misguided, because that is exactly how the industry in general progresses.
    
    Do we want an automobile industry with only one company selling cars with air bags. Only one including rear window defrosters?
    
    If a company invents a better way of handling overpopulation on servers (like GW2′s overflow servers), I WANT other companies copying that good idea. Having that option allows ALL MMOs a chance to improve.
http://www.facebook.com/jonathon.simon.3 Jonathon Simon

yea this game is a fail. just from seeing the graphics, and hearing what they have in mind, ive already checked it off my list. whats the point of playing an Elder Scrolls game if its nothing like tes? this is very sad and disapointing.
- http://twitter.com/Critzkreig Cody Moody
  
  What’s the point of playing GW2 if it’s nothing like GW1. What’s the point of playing WoW if it’s nothing like WC: III? Etc
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=506728308 Julian F’n Mugnieco
    
    there’s a difference between an evolution like GW-GW2 and a complete change like WC-WoW. infact, WC-WoW is probably the same as TES-TESO, minus the fact that an FPS to an TP mmo is more drastict than RTS to RPG
    - MMO_Doubter
      
      Got to disagree with you there. TES is at least an RPG, while the Warcraft series was not.
      
      It is the very fact that TES is an RPG series, that makes the gross changes less acceptable. It is not that they could not make an MMO true to TES, it is that they have chosen not to.
http://www.facebook.com/elias.rowan Elias Rowan

I absolutely love seeing all the whines and “will not play”s about the info that comes out on this game. Gives me hope all the people who jumped on the MMORPG bandwagon thanks to WoW won’t be tagging along anymore. Looking forward to hearing more about it as the days roll by.
RJTravis

push the game back 2 years & give us a real combat system & a updated engine.
- http://twitter.com/SkorneUK Chris
  
  The game engine was developed from scratch…
  - ChristopherMitchell1
    
    That doesn’t make it updated, specially if it’s made from scratch.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Robbert-de-Wilde/1806039882 Robbert de Wilde

I wish they would just show a 30 min gameplay video/walkthrough at E3!
http://www.facebook.com/people/Ronny-Sunrock/100002737688676 Ronny Sunrock

Mortals Online with a budget of 2 million USD managed to give us a combat system close to what you can find in Elder Scrolls 3. So if they can do it way can’t they do that for Elder Scrolls Online?! QQ
integerx

The actual concept of having a limited number of abilities on your hot bar came from Everquest of which I think GW1 continued with it whereas WoW didn’t. I am liking the trend of moving back to that as I think it allows for better combat as whole. The 7 hot bars of skills was a major turn off for me with WoW and those that followed suit.

Hopefully, this trend continues. I like the idea of having even less skills on the hot bar than what Guild Wars 2 provides. It can reach to up to 14 plus dodge and weapon switch, even more if you are an Elementalist. I am glad both Neverwinter and ES:O are both reducing that number. It is something that TERA should have done, but didn’t.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  Another reason, I loved playing my Charr Elementalist. Kept switching between the different elements for all the spell options. Was getting a little bored with the easysauce combat.
Matthew Cox

While we still only have a rough outline of what they wish to do… None of what we know so far seems to stand out in any way over existing titles. It feels and looks like they are lumping together features we have all seen done before. When I listen to this or any of the other previews, I feel no excitement at all. Classes, instances, traditional MMO style combat, skill bars… None of that is Elder Scrolls. If not for the setting of the game you would not even recognize it.

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