The Elder Scrolls Online Player Emperors to Get Permanent Skills

StewShearerOld

Geekdad News Writer
Jan 5, 2013
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The Elder Scrolls Online Player Emperors to Get Permanent Skills



Earning the title of Emperor through PvP in The Elder Scrolls Online will earn players a unique skill line.

While The Elder Scrolls Online will, in many regards, provide an experience similar to that of its single player predecessors, it will also add a robust player-versus-player element that its developers at Zenimax Online hope will help distinguish it from the rest of the franchise. Key to its new multiplayer facet will be Alliance conflicts that will see players band together to fight for the embattled throne of Cyrodiil.

Coming out on top of the game's PvP battles will grant a few select players the title of "Emperor." Intended to be a rare honor reserved for only a single player at the end of each Alliance war, it's recently been revealed that it will come with some tangible perks including "a full skill line that [players] keep throughout the rest of their lives in The Elder Scrolls Online."

The path to the Emperor-hood won't be an easy one, however. Players hoping to reach the tip-top rank will need to be an active member in Alliance conflict, exempting players hoping to enjoy the game solo. Once an Alliance takes control of all the keeps around the Imperial City, the player in that group with the most points will be named Emperor. If a player should lose the title, the effectiveness of the unique skills will be diminished, though they'll still remain a unique and powerful fighter on the battlefield. Sadly, little else was revealed about the perks of being Emperor. That said, we reached out to Bethesda to see if we could find out more. Of course, if any new details arise you'll be the first to know.

Source: OXM





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TorchofThanatos

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Dec 6, 2010
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Really? I guess if the skill line isn't broken this could be fine but I still don't like it. Wait, I wont be playing this game aways so what do I care. I hope this game doesn't suck because many of my friends want to play it but I am not holding my breath.
 

AntiChri5

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Nov 9, 2011
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*sigh*

Another notable Emperor of the time period was "xXJizzinmypantsXx" who reigned for nearly two weeks before being overthrown by "Tehdrizzit", who ruled for only one before the brutal coup of "iKillNoobz"

Yeah this is really adding to the universe.
 

Demagogue

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Mar 26, 2009
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I can't see anything good coming out of something like this... are they serious trying to tank the game before it even comes out?
 

Elfgore

Your friendly local nihilist
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Dec 6, 2010
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This is a great idea! Make the already great players even greater! That's totally fair for everyone else. /sarcasm

This game is just looking worse and worse with every feature they add.
 

Chairman Miaow

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Nov 18, 2009
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Shutting off a single skill is bad enough but shutting 99.99% of your player base out of an entire skill TREE? That's idiotic.
 

omega 616

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May 1, 2009
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It is extremely short sighted!

I get the appeal of wanting to give rewards to only the very best players but it's locking away content from paying players.

I have never been interested in this game but the more I hear of it the more I think it's going to fail.
 

Uratoh

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Jun 10, 2011
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I've found giving advantages outside of 'can teleport to a besieged capitol' or somesuch (IE, utility that lets them continue their job of being a good PVP leader' etc tends to just be flat out overpowered even if it's not all that strong in theory...just because it's flat out 'something normal players cannot access'.
 

Falterfire

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Jul 9, 2012
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So aside from the whole "Spending time developing and balancing context that less than .1% of your player base will get to use" thing...

Won't this result in intentional backstabbing? There's no room for sharing here, it's pretty much an all or nothing thing. Depending on how points are earned this may end up encouraging some insanely negative styles of play. Certainly it will encourage grinding unless they are insanely careful with it.

I mean, normally MMOs get a bad reputation for having obsessed players, but here is a real tangible and presumably powerful benefit attached to out-obsessing every single other player in the game. I can't imagine this every going poorly or resulting in bad press for the game courtesy of those who seek it.
 

NQJ

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Apr 5, 2013
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I remember back when WoW pvp titles were an exclusive thing that you had to grind. Guilds who wanted those titles went out and tried to hold people back so their chosen person to get it. The only reward from getting the title, other than the tile, was access to armour and weapons and there were a lot of stabbin' going on.

I remember one time when a guy nearly had the title and someone else on the same side swooped in and played so many games that the first guy didn't get anyway and had to wait untill next week. The shitstorm was insane.

So I foresee this as being yet another conceptually good idea that gets insanely ruined the moment it gets into the hands of players.
 

Xeorm

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Apr 13, 2010
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Reminds me a lot of wow's original pvp system. Which worked out so very poorly. I don't see good things coming out of this.
 

llubtoille

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Apr 12, 2010
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reminds me a little of the old Grand Marshal / High Warlord system except with elite skills rather than gear,
in WoW, the smart pvpers aiming for GM/HW would work together and organize who would gain rank 14 that week,
not necessarily a bad system, but basically if you weren't part of their clique it would be nearly impossible to achieve the rank alone.
 

rofltehcat

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Jul 24, 2009
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Sounds like a bad idea if you ask me. All that development time used to set a "long term goal" for PvPers and in the end it will probably only end in being basically unattainable by everyone except a select few (who will then go on to sell their characters because they achieved everything) or those "buying" it from the top two guilds of a server (who will just broker a deal).
 

Sectan

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Aug 7, 2011
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Seems a bit stupid on their part. I could understand the title maybe adding you into some of the local and temporary lore like having your name etched up somewhere unimportant, but making a good pvper even better seems like it'd kill a lot of competition...
 

Arawn

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Demagogue said:
I can't see anything good coming out of something like this... are they serious trying to tank the game before it even comes out?
Elfgore said:
This is a great idea! Make the already great players even greater! That's totally fair for everyone else. /sarcasm

This game is just looking worse and worse with every feature they add.
omega 616 said:
It is extremely short sighted!

I get the appeal of wanting to give rewards to only the very best players but it's locking away content from paying players.

I have never been interested in this game but the more I hear of it the more I think it's going to fail.
Sorry for the multiple quotes, but I really want to address all these comments at once rather than scroll up and look every few seconds. First off I'd like to question why so negative about skills we know nothing about? So far all this is saying is that they will indeed get something, but what this tree will entail is unknown. In may online games you'll see awards for the MVP or the guy with the most head shots, how is this any different. Just that there's a tangible reward for it rather than just simple medal makes it seem a bad idea.

Second, it's not "locking away content" PvP is open to all last I heard. They aren't just giving it away to anyone.
StewShearer said:
The path to the Emperor-hood won't be an easy one, however. Players hoping to reach the tip-top rank will need to be an active member in Alliance conflict, exempting players hoping to enjoy the game solo. Once an Alliance takes control of all the keeps around the Imperial City, the player in that group with the most points will be named Emperor. If a player should lose the title, the effectiveness of the unique skills will be diminished, though they'll still remain a unique and powerful fighter on the battlefield. Sadly, little else was revealed about the perks of being Emperor. That said, we reached out to Bethesda to see if we could find out more. Of course, if any new details arise you'll be the first to know.
The player that earns such Emperor isn't going to dedicate themselves to the task not just leisurely playing. It's a prize to be earned not a lottery drawing where anyone can just buy a ticket. Are you going to begrudge the person that completes the tediously long journey to earn the "Demon sword" because your character's level is too low to finish the quest? Is it unfair? No. It's accessible to anyone. Think about those that compete for the title and fail. Compared to someone not even running in the race I wonder how they would feel. I ran track long(LONG) ago and got 5th. You don't get anything for 5th place, a pat on the shoulder at best, all that work and no real pay off.

In the end I think many are under the assumption that Emperor will make the winner godlike. But what I see is that the amount of skill, time, and effort to obtain it should player is by no means weak to begin with. Do you really think coming in first place of anything is a fluke. Sometimes luck comes into play, but in my book skill often trumps luck. If they're good they're good, don't blame the global warming or the sun in your eyes. That being said the skills granted can only fall short of enhancing said player beyond their normal skills. Why would they give the winner abilities to further cement their position? That would be completely game breaking. It wouldn't be fun in the slightest if the same person kept winning. Said perks will either grant some other benefit to someone that's dedicated themselves to PvP. Maybe it will give them a NPC furnished housing or a personal store that earns them funds. Discounts in purchases and random caches of loot. Special mounts or skills that enhance damage under special conditions. Whatever it is; they earned it. I don't think calling foul so quickly really does much good.
 

Exterminas

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Sep 22, 2009
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The illusion that many gamers and devs hold is that a system like this will reward dedication and competition, when in truth it only awards willingness to break a game's rules, obsessive behaviour, creativity when finding exploits and of course class balance.

WoW wasn't even the first game to have these problems, but it is the most known example. Many people may have their vision clouded by nostalgia but the Majority of Grand Marshals back in classic were either:

a) Botters
b) Account Sharing with a few pals so they could keep he character in Pvp 24/7
c) Of a few selected classes, who had the luxury of being viable for PvP in classic. Obviously you could install a bot with every class, but if you were genuinely interested in doing PvP and being good at it, your choice of class and specc was limited.
d) Obsessive Psychos without a Real Life.

While I hate to name d) it is true in some chases that I encountered. I hate this stereotype of the obsessive MMO-Player, but it is simply not possible to be top-tier in a system that rewards those with the most online-time available and maintain a job and social life at the same time. A day has just 24 hours.

I realize that we may not know much yet about TES' system, but the way it reads right now it sounds like a copy of the classic WoW-System and that one was pretty disgusting in it's effects.
 

Falterfire

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Arawn said:
No. It's accessible to anyone.
No. The attempt is accessible to anyone. The prize is accessible to one person on the entire server. That means that you don't just have to try. You don't have to just do well. You have to do better than every single other player on the server.

That's not a prize that a casual player can win. That's not even a price a dedicated player can win. That is a prize that can only be fought for by obsessed players, because obsession will beat dedication every single time. For any of us who have a job or other responsibilities it is a contest which cannot be won. It's not the doom of the game to have a single skill tree locked away like that, but it's an odd decision that makes you wonder whether all the consequences have been thought through.

As for the comparison to MVP Medals - Usually games that have MVP type things award them for being the best in a single 20-30 minute match. It is a contest of skill to come out on top in a 30 minute fight against generally less than a hundred other player. To be at the top after a week long battle online against presumably thousands? That's less skill and more grinding since there is no way skill will overcome the ability to play for twice as long.

Admittedly, we don't know yet what the skill tree looks like, but it seems unlikely that this much-vaunted Emperor Skill Tree would be worthless, especially since Bethesda says that even a former Emperor will be a "unique and powerful fighter" - So if you are a PVPer, you are at a disadvantage in combat if you can't afford to dedicate more time than every other player, you aren't just missing out on cosmetic stuff.
 

Li Mu

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Oct 17, 2011
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Give is a few months and they'll just 'WoW' it. By which I mean they'll dumb it down so much that you'll be able to achieve Emperor level in a day.
I liked WoW back when it offered challenges like this. But people (like most posters here) complained until the whole game became challenge free.

I never had any problem not having the top gear. I saw people with BRD gear and was impressed. But I was never envious of them because I knew they put in the hard work to get the gear.
The last time I played WoW (which was when they introduced the LFR mechanic) I just found myself autojoining a raid, going into the kitchen to make myself and sandwich and then coming back to find that I had automatically gotten some high level purple shit.
This shouldn't happen.
But sadly, people don't want a challenge in MMORPGs anymore. They all want the best gear for little effort.
That is what will break this game too.
 

omega 616

Elite Member
May 1, 2009
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Arawn said:
It clearly is locking away content, "unless you are emperor you won't get access to a whole skill tree" (or words to that effect) and getting that title seems like quite the long shot. It is definitely not just another skill you can upgrade.

In most games (I've played anyway) you get awards like MVP and most head shots etc is things like COD or Battlefield, those matches last 30 mins max. This an MMO, millions of players all trying to get this one title. The casual players have no chance against the basement dwelling MMO players, the kind of guy who is still raiding in WOW every day for teh epic lootz! (forgive my ignorance, never played WOW)
 

Sgt Pepper

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Dec 7, 2009
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NQJ said:
I remember one time when a guy nearly had the title and someone else on the same side swooped in and played so many games that the first guy didn't get anyway and had to wait untill next week. The shitstorm was insane.
Yeah, if it's points-based it can definitely favour the person with more spare time to play. A more skilled player who has other commitments can lose out. If anything, the person with the highest kills-per-death could be the person to get it.

That said...yeah, this is drama waiting to happen.