The Elder Scrolls Online Preview - PvP Beta

It was way back in May 2012 that The Elder Scrolls Online was announced. Ever since, each sneak peak, preview, and trailer has been analyzed to determine how well Tamriel’s single-player sandbox world would translate into the style of an MMO. While the Player v Player mode was explained with the game’s initial announcement, pitting three powerful alliances against each other who would fight for control of the Imperial Throne, until recently no one had actually spent any hands-on time with the PvP. Last weekend Zenimax Online Studios and Bethesda Softworks finally held a media beta, allowing us to get some hands on time with the war consuming Cyrodiil.

The PvP world does not become available until your character reaches level 10, but I got a weekend to prep, leveling my Brenton Templar to level 20, making sure that I would not be taking a weak character into the fray. I spent nearly 30 hours fighting my way through Daggerfall, Glenumbra, and Stormhaven before determining my character would be ready to enlist in the Daggerfall Covenant and journey to Cyrodiil. That might sound epic, but the PvP is accessed by simply pulling up a few menus and teleporting into your camp.

You thought Cyrodiil was going through a bad time during the Oblivion Crisis? The country that was explored in the fourth numerical entry in the Elder Scrolls series has never been worse off than you will find it in The Elder Scrolls Online. Cities are little more than rubble, military encampments are the only safe places, and the Imperial City has been overrun by the forces of Molag Bal. Even with the enemies and daedra, Cyrodiil offers much of the peaceful exploration that is sorely missing from the PvE environments. Traveling across the map is a long haul, one that you will make often as you scout locations, attempt to take forts, and discover much of this open world, but at least it offers breathtaking atmosphere and variety.

The PvP in The Elder Scrolls Online is constructed around taking the Imperial Throne for either the Daggerfall Covenant, the Aldmeri Dominion, or the Ebonheart Pact. Each faction starts with a chunk of Cyrodiil, then players will attack different fortresses and keeps, hoping to capture more territory. There are four different ways to contribute to your cause. The easiest way to participate in the PvP is to carry out scouting missions. There missions will ask you to travel across the map and scout out enemy territory. While rather simple, it is also incredibly boring. Players must spend a large amount of time walking, likely avoiding combat, only to reach said location, hit the action button, then walk back to their camp. If you die during these missions you must respawn at a camp your faction controls, meaning you will have to start the long journey all over again. These missions can turn into painful amounts of walking and very little action. After completing my first scouting mission, I was ready to be sent somewhere new, hopefully closer. Instead, the exact same mission was made available to me. It is unfortunate that this is how The Elder Scrolls Online introduces players to its PvP world, because it is painfully dull.

If you are hoping to skip these scouting missions and jump into some real combat, you might find it more difficult than you imagined. All players are told that they will be scaled up to level 50, so they can immediately make a contribution to the war effort, but it did not seem to make much difference as I ran into plenty of enemies - human or otherwise - that killed me in a matter of seconds. Bounty missions, capturing camps, and capturing forts are the other three types of missions in the PvP, but without a significant party - which was difficult to find - or a very high level these missions are incredibly difficult. Meaning you will have spend more time wandering around on scouting missions before being able to contribute in any meaningful way.

There are some PvE missions that await you in Cyrodiil. I spent some time in Bruma helping a village that had been overrun by daedra, but completing these quests yields no progression as the same quests simply repopulate again and again. It threatens to give you something to do in Cyrodiil if you feel over your head with the PvP, but quickly becomes as dull as the scouting missions.

It is hard to determine how much warfare you will find in Cyrodiil, and how easy it will be to jump into the fight. Open only to the media, the world was sparse and sorely lacking in groups to join. Occasionally I could find a battle to partake in, but often I was quickly killed and removed from the action. This is not the fault of Zenimax Online or Bethesda, it is simply the reality of such a small beta. While it makes it difficult to determine how frequent and large scale battles can become, it does paint a vivid impression of the what the world will look like without support from a strong player base. While the PvE of Elder Scrolls Online is pretty easy to enjoy on your own, the PvP hinges on player interaction, and lots of it. Siege equipment, constructing forward camps, all seem like fun things to do when in the middle of a large battle, but I never found myself in combat that was big enough to use any of the cool features the game offered.

The biggest problem with the PvP in The Elder Scrolls Online is that it forces players to consistently head back to their home base. If your equipment is damaged, if you are looking to offload some goods, there is nowhere to do so in enemy territory. This makes players constantly travel back and forth across the entire map, which seems obtuse and poorly thought out. Dying and returning all the way back to your base is incredibly annoying and makes it difficult to hop back into the action.

When I logged into the PvP, I found that the Daggerfall Covenant had already yielded significant ground in the war with the Aldmeri Dominion. The southerners had already spread across Cyrodiil and my faction was limited to three forts, one of which was constantly under siege. It limited spawn points and waypoints severely, constantly directing me back to the same starting location. It is unclear how often forts will change hands and how easy it will be to take back territory, but joining a faction that is already backed into a corner was incredibly frustrating, especially since it was a situation nearly impossible to rectify.

The conditions for the PvP beta were far from ideal. With few players, a low-ish level, and a bad situation for my faction, it is hard to get a good feel for the kind of fun Zenimax Online is hoping players will have. While I was not able to experience Cyrodiil in the way the developers had in mind, there were numerous things that immediately stuck out to me that could be problematic no matter how many people have populated servers. Constantly having to traverse Cyrodiil to die by happenstance and start all the way back at your base is annoying and the quests that populate the world are dull. The concept of three alliances battling for the Imperial Throne is still interesting and I want to see more of it, but my first impression was sadly lackluster.