Is it time for me to unsub?

Ashlynne

Let me start by saying I have really enjoyed playing this game (for the most part). Leveling 1-50 was a real treat since I started off with early access. Sure, early access had a lot of downtime, but I was quite forgiving and very pleased to have such a fresh, interesting game with an awesome story line.

Here are some reasons I'm considering unsubbing. I'm sure many of you are very familiar with these.

1. Bots, bots, and more bots - Although I lvl'd to 50 before the bot war of 2014, the bots have now taken over the game. I've gone around the low level zones looking for herbs for potions and was shocked at the number of bots running around in packs not only killing off entire mob populations (thus preventing legit players from quest progression), but blatantly teleporting, flying, and speedhacking underground farming herb, wood, and rune nodes. Their little heads pop up from underground and they take your node by the time to arrive to it to farm it. At first I thought, well, I will just keep trying, but by the time I got to another node, another bot was there exploiting it. No matter how fast I run, a bot is awaiting me at 2 out of 4 low level nodes. To make matters worse, there are bots in Cyrodiil now. People running around with a train of healers while they try to take a keep. All of them turning at exactly the same time, casting the exact same spell, following one person in a sickeningly precise manner. We also saw DPS bots (yes V12, all of them) doing the same thing. Our guildies were in shock. The bots have won the war.

2. Bot Nerf Hammers - Related to #1, ZOS continues to implement the nerf hammer to combat bots and it impacts the legitimate players who just want to play the game. We all know about the shared public boss timer where you can't get any loot if you kill a boss and then quickly run to a DIFFERENT boss in the same dungeon and kill him. Looting any boss causes you to not receive loot from the next for a period of time that I think is silly. I can understand putting a timer on a specific boss so that you can't farm him over and over again. Heck, make it an hour timer on the specific boss. But to share the timer so you can't clear a dungeon and get the loot you deserve for clearing it? Where is the logic? There are other ways to combat botters. On top of all this, ZOS introduced a respawn timer on nodes, in its effort to combat bots, where a node doesn't respawn for 2 minutes, even if all the nodes in the area have been farmed. Before it was an instant respawn, which unfortunately fed the bots endlessly. Yes, that's a problem! However, by nerfing the respawn rates the bots sit patiently (of course, they are bots, they are patient) waiting for a node to respawn and grab it before legitimate players can grab it. I have to compete with patient bots in order to get any herbs for my potions. lol At least before the node respawn timer was introduced, there were still at least enough herbs (thanks to the instant respawn) that I could "get my fill". Not any more. Sigh...

3. Lag, Disconnects and rollbacks... omg. With the recent patch the lag has been unbearable. I put up with it because I'm #7 on the leaderboards for Emperorship on Wabba. I HAVE to play if I want the AP so I have to tolerate it and carry on. The population on Wabba is "low", yet we have intermittent lag spikes every 10-20 seconds, sometimes every minute or so. It's almost unplayable. You must have a lot of mental fortitude to keep pushing forward. I think each faction just hopes the other will give up and throw in the towel. We were at Chalman (the final keep we needed for Emperorship) and the lag was so unbelievable that we didn't even know if we were still fighting at times. When we finally took the keep, we all cheered as we saw the keep capture flash across our screen. We were finally getting an AD Emperor! But then... lag, followed by the entire Wabba server D/C'ing and a big fat rollback. There was a collective mental scream from our guild who pushed so hard for 2 days, pounding at EP and DC so that we could get Emperorship. We did finally get it a day later, but I can tell you, this left us with emotional scars. lol

4. Releasing new content before fixing known bugs - I work in IT development, so yes, before some of you say "well the people creating new content are on a different team than the bug fixers" let me tell you that the executives call the shots and it's all a capitalistic goal. They need new content because they need to be competitive with the new MMO's coming out. However, the new content they release introduces even more bugs and issues, layering them on top of old bugs and issues that will make it harder to fix in the future as more layers are added. The executives should merge the new content and bug teams and just focus on nothing but bug fixes before focusing ANY effort on new content. Many bugs have been common knowledge since the game has been released, yet they are still not fixed. Layering additional content and code on top of code that already has issues is NOT helping. The executives need to direct the dev teams properly.

5. Class Imbalances - I'm one of the fortunate few that really dedicates myself to being a Templar healer, and thus have not experienced much class imbalance. However, I am fully aware of the extreme imbalance that exists not only in PvP but in PvE. When you get an optimal Craglorn group that can smash it in 11 minutes with 1 Templar Healer and nothing but Sorc's and DK's, you have a problem. I feel for my fellow guildies who play classes that have not only been bugged, but are imbalanced. No need for me to rehash the imbalances as I'm sure most of you are fully aware of them.

6. Lack of End Game Goals - Unless the goal is to keep forcing new levels upon us every 6 weeks, I don't see any end game goals. I'm perfectly content playing PvP in end game because this is by far the best PvP content I've ever been in (sans the lag). Most games provide a dangling carrot to keep us going end-game, but this game is really lacking. Craglorn doesn't offer gear that is better than what's crafted. I love raiding and PvE, so I'll play it just to experience it. But there's little reason for me to continue going back. The loot isn't that good, and most of it is recycled from V1 gear with slightly upgraded stats. By slightly, I mean barely. The difference in gear between V1 and V12 is minimal to the point that I scratch my head. I am soft capped on everything, so there is no reason for me to continue the pursuit of "better" gear. The soft caps are too low and doesn't allow us to strive for anything better than what we have. The diminishing returns when going past the soft cap make it practically useless to keep pushing for more. With V14 being pushed out in a month or so, what will motivate me to level?

7. Grind Quests to Level or Suffer - Before the big XP mob and boss nerf in the 1-50 content, I often cautioned people against grinding their way to 50 by killing mobs instead of questing. Personally, I loved the quest line, the story, etc. It was very fun and interesting and quite a unique experience over any MMO I've ever played. Also, you had the benefits of getting Skill points at the end of certain quests, so I kept telling people, grind quests, not mobs. After I hit V1, I became bored with the questing. Although I clearly had a soul (yea I killed Molag), I was continuously referred to as the soullless one. Wait, what? Instead of creating engaging content for people who killed Molag, I was shocked to find they just recycled other faction's 1-50 content and phased us into it. The quests were more of the same. Save this village idiot from these monsters, go retrieve a necklace that some genius left elsewhere, go use this item on these mobs and bring back their essence. It was literally more of the same. There wasn't anything new or engaging. To top if off, I'm Argonian, and even in the land of my people the other Argonians were referring to me as a smooth skin?! Wait what? No one at ZOS thought to include a racial variable that allows the quest text to change based on your race (or gender or anything else for that matter). If ZOS wants to talk about immersion, try being an Argonian and listening to the quest lines! LOL After I hit V10 by religiously completing mundane and repetitive quests, I was glad to be at the top. Once V12 was introduced you were really forced to play in a group, or not level. My guildies were all so sick of questing though. I mean honest, I don't want to quest any more. I just want to play. So when we ended up in Kardala and accidentally found out we could spawn the bosses over and over by collecting spirit stones, you bet we spent 8 hours there and got o V12 in a hurry. We were quite glad to have stumbled across that. Of course, instead of addressing REAL issues in the game, ZOS immediately patched it out so the poor folks who didn't take advantage of it right away were left with... guess what... questing boring quests again. (My condolences). How about fixing the real bugs first. Who cares if people are lvl'ing faster by grinding dungeon bosses. If you worry that low level people are lvl'ing in there, put a minimum level requirements on the dungeon. Easy enough, problem solved. Now that I know V14 is coming out, I dread it. I don't want to do it. Save me. Please, no more boring quests.

8. "Ninja nerfs and patches" - Despite the silly name of this bullet items, it's a serious issue, because it reduces my trust in ZOS to be open and transparent about what they are doing to the game. When patch notes are released, they don't tell you everything they patch or nerf. They tell you what they want you to know, but they slip in nerfs without announcing it in the patch notes. We only find out by being vigilant and by communicating on the forums that suddenly "XYZ" is impossible to farm because it's been nerfed" or "XYZ had the drop rate reduced" or "XYZ now has a respawn timer" or "XYZ now has an internal cooldown", etc. No point in me rehashing all the ninja-nerfs they introduce as those who regularly read forums and play feverishly know what I'm talking about. I'm sure some of the ninja-nerfs were to combat botters, so maybe they had a reason for not telling us, but either way we find out, so you may as well be transparent on patch day. I want to know everything they are patching out and into the game. I want transparency and I don't think it's asking for too much.

9. Endless Exploits - I won't point out all the exploits that have existed in this game and continue to exist to this day. Most of you who play obsessively (like me and the guild I'm in) notice them and are aware of them, but are helpless to do anything about it. There are some exploits that give advantages in PvP that can be somewhat overcome, like Caltrops making siege and people immune to other siege, including hot oil. Those of us who have played against teams who take advantage of this know to throw a Negate down as you pour your hot oil and that counters their caltrops. But Negate is an ultimate, so it's not exactly spammable like Caltrops is. But, if your team is coordinated, you can overcome it and hopefully wipe the team assaulting your keep. Note that oil can also be exploited by pouring it in the bottom of a tower. It will travel up the walls and kill everyone on the top of the tower. Make sure you lay those caltrops down if you are on top. The buggable Mage Mercs are a real huge issue though, as there is NO WAY to overcome this bug/exploit. There are players on the red team in the new Celarus who are completely exploiting the mercs by bolting into a group and summoning them while in combat. This makes the mercs invulnerable to attack. You can't kill them. They stand there and do damage and prevent you from effectively assaulting a keep. This allows exploiters to protect their keeps and prevent anyone from getting Emperorship without any skill required while running a skeleton crew of Sorcs and DK's. All the while, the Sorcs popping in and out of your team dropping them just bolt escape away and avoid combat at all costs. Their team is there simply to annoy you while they drop the mercs. ZOS is aware of this, but they haven't fixed it. It's easy enough to fix from a programming perspective. Make it so you can't summon mercs when you are being attacked. It's like picking flowers or farming a node. If I were to try to harvest a rune node and get attacked, I can't harvest the node. Yet, you can summon invincible mercs while in combat. This is sadly destroying Caltrops, which is why it's a dead campaign, even though it's new. I won't even go into detail regarding the dupe exploit (among many others) that existed in Beta that weren't addressed until the damage was done.

I will go ahead and stop here. The list is pretty comprehensive, though I'm sure there are a few things I will think of later. I generalized a lot, so it covers a lot of ground. There are multiple MMO's coming out. Some only look remotely appealing, but I can't help but wonder, should I continue paying a subscription fee? I was one of the people that kept saying "be patient everyone, this is a new game, all new games have bugs, give them time". But when they continue to make decisions that defy logic I have to truly wonder... will it get better? Or will the lack of logic continue with each new patch and release? Unless they change the staff, chances are the decisions will continue as they have and will not change their direction. I've been very dedicated, but now it's been 3 months with bugs that have been present since Beta, and new bugs being introduced with each patch, some to the point of making the game barely playable (lag, disconnects, etc.). I love the style of this game, the look and feel, the graphics, but is it enough to keep me subbed and playing? I don't know. I have some thinking to do.

- Ashmaya

taylorwilenskiub17_ESO

Ninja nerfs is what pissed me off the most.

SinisterJoint

taylorwilenskiub17_ESO wrote: »

Ninja nerfs is what pissed me off the most.

they happen in EVERY mmo.

OrangeTheCat

Can I have your stuff? o/

Ashlynne

SinisterJoint wrote: »

taylorwilenskiub17_ESO wrote: »

Ninja nerfs is what pissed me off the most.

they happen in EVERY mmo.

That may be true, but the appear to be more prevalent in this game. Just because everyone else does it, doesn't mean ZOS should

VlVEC

Send me all your gold, I've got dirty Aldmeri's to slaughter.

Ashlynne

LOL oh you silly people. If I WERE to leave and give away my "stuff" it would be to my friends in guild.

kaosodin

Wall of text.

Why is there a trend of dear eso letters. Lol , unsub and bail........ by threatning do you think there going to call you on the phone and offer you a 10 dollar discount to stay?

andersan

My biggest issue out of everything is not even an ounce of an apology from Zenimax. Not one. They haven't come out and publicly told their paying customers they have been doing a terrible job and will get better.

Oh and someone please name an MMO (along with as many examples like those from the OP) with all of these issues as prevalent as they are in this game at launch and still exist 2 months later.

I didn't renew this time. I'm not giving away my 200k gold or mats simply because I'm hopeful I can come back later when it's not in alpha mode AND is managed a whole lot better than it is now.

hk11

Ninja nerfs are bad. The thing that bothers me most is that doesn't really seem to be any real reason to play other than questing. I'm gonna finish up my current guy and re-evaluate.

coryevans_3b14_ESO

If you'd rather spend the time to write that ridiculous wall of words then play the game, then yes. It's time to go.

Ashlynne

coryevans_3b14_ESO wrote: »

If you'd rather spend the time to write that ridiculous wall of words then play the game, then yes. It's time to go.

You can be a jerk if you want, but truth be known, I spend a ton of time in game and had yet to ever complain. I personally care about the massive amount of time I've invested in this game. I finally decided to write, and I have that right. If you don't like it, you don't have to read it. Troll on troll...

Maleficus

useless thread... no one cares about you and your attempt at attention getting.. We all know you are gonna keep playing...

Ashlynne

kaosodin wrote: »

Wall of text.

Why is there a trend of dear eso letters. Lol , unsub and bail........ by threatning do you think there going to call you on the phone and offer you a 10 dollar discount to stay?

I don't need a discount, I don't want my money back. I personally care about the massive amount of time I've invested in this game and would like them to effect some changes for the better. I finally decided to write, and I have that right. If you don't like it, you don't have to read it. Troll on troll...

temjiu

I think part of the reason that people come to the forums is that there is no other way to appropriately relay their frustration, or even COMMUNICATE to the dev team why they are unhappy or quit.

When you go to the unsub window, you get a little button to click to unsub. now, I don't want to sound pro-wow (haven't seriously played since late early wrath), but one thing they did right (and voiced it) was that they had people who were cancelling their subs fill out a quick post detailing why they quit.

In a dev post, they explained that they got about 3/4 of their feedback that gave them the info they needed to change the game for the positive from those last little tidbits people left as they...well...left.

but here, you get a little buttons saying "are you shure?" click that, and it says something along the lines of "OK, were sorry you didn't enjoy the game, have a nice day!"

I could see very well why people who loved the game, but are leaving out of sheer frustration, want to be able to communicate this to the dev's. can't do it there...doubt a "bug" ticket with that kind of title would even make it to the right people (it's not the right format for that), so where do they go?

Oh right, here....the forums.

OP, you pretty much summarized it for most people who are unhappy. I loved 1-50. it was the game i saw in the betas, it was the game i saw advertised, it was the game I thought I would enjoy when i imagined Elder Scrolls got together with a cute MMO and had babies.

Then i got to VR levels and thought "holy smokes Toto, were not in Kansas any more." I have never had such a surprisingly polarized reaction to any MMO I've played in the last decade and a half. it simply was a different world.

And then I realized that this was their plan moving forward. that you would have to do the game their way to actually progress. And I realized that it wasn't the same girl I fell in love with so many weeks ago...sigh.

I kid. but seriously, when you add in the polarity shift, the bugs, the severe imbalance in the game (im leveling a DK naked waiting for my sub to expire...and she's cruising through areas that my templar suffered through even with good gear). it all adds up.

I've stuck through with some games in serious times. Anyone remember the release of SWtOR? it was about as rocky as this one. but I saw the game from a global perspective, decided it was worth waiting, and when they came out with their first patch (1.2) it was a huge positive success, and I felt that the company was moving in the right direction.

Then the patch came out for this game. and honestly, it was pretty much "more of the same" add in a ton of new bugs, crash the game for half the player base...and they're still picking up the pieces. craiglorne was more of the "play it our way if you want to progress..."

Im in 3 different PvE guilds (large ones btw). you know whats sad? sad is VR1-5 players grouping up in large scale groups with vr7-12 players to "raid" mobs in craiglorne so they can bypass the VR content and get their accomplishments and quest done up there.

happens every night in 3 guilds I'm in. they'd rather skip the VR content and grind in Craiglorne. that should tell you something...It's pretty obvious that for most players, end game content isn't replaying the other fractions stuff, just on steroids. its really a letdown to have just finished beating one of the most powerful daedra in creation, then go to the area that your cute little dark elf is having fun in at lvl 5, and get your elvish arse handed to you by a mudcrab and his buddy. the backside of my bow is still sore from that...

In spite of that I still loved the game from 1-50 so much that I'm hoping that they will balance things and make the rest of the game something that I can look forward too. my sub is gone, but it can come back. we'll see...wildstar is coming out, and in spite of the fact that I enjoy this game (from 1-50) so much....we'll see. I cancelled because i only have so much at this point to spend on games. and while i still log into SWtOR every day or so do run some stuff i enjoy...I keep logging into this game...looking at my toons, and logging back out. It's a weird feeling.

zaria

SinisterJoint wrote: »

taylorwilenskiub17_ESO wrote: »

Ninja nerfs is what pissed me off the most.

they happen in EVERY mmo.

Are they really nerfs or bugs/ unintended consequences.
You have to be really stupid to believe nobody figures out.

Ashlynne

Maleficus wrote: »

useless thread... no one cares about you and your attempt at attention getting.. We all know you are gonna keep playing...

If it's so useless, why are you reading it? I don't need attention, I just wanted to say my peace. I did so with appropriate punctuation, thoughtfully without flaming or swearing.

I'm not sure I'm going to keep playing. I'm still undecided. I have a right to write up my "dear ZOS" letter and you have a right to troll me about it. Troll on troll...

rattbagrwb17_ESO

Ridiculous post full of overly dramatic tears, and woe.
Nobody cares enough to read through all that garbage, it's not even worth your sub fee to pay an employee to read that long!
ZoS know what the problems are, and are fixing them in order of impact as best they can. That's what companies in the business of selling subscriptions do.
Next time save the open letter of drama and just cancel your sub.

Celurian

Ashlynne wrote: »

Maleficus wrote: »

useless thread... no one cares about you and your attempt at attention getting.. We all know you are gonna keep playing...

If it's so useless, why are you reading it? I don't need attention, I just wanted to say my peace. I did so with appropriate punctuation, thoughtfully without flaming or swearing.

I'm not sure I'm going to keep playing. I'm still undecided. I have a right to write up my "dear ZOS" letter and you have a right to troll me about it. Troll on troll...

+ 1

Ashlynne

rattbagrwb17_ESO wrote: »

Ridiculous post full of overly dramatic tears, and woe.
Nobody cares enough to read through all that garbage, it's not even worth your sub fee to pay an employee to read that long!
ZoS know what the problems are, and are fixing them in order of impact as best they can. That's what companies in the business of selling subscriptions do.
Next time save the open letter of drama and just cancel your sub.

LOL where were the tears? Where was the drama? Did you even read the post? It was carefully thought out, without flames, without drama, without swearing. So I don't see where you get that from. LOL Troll on troll... you don't have to read it.

sovreign

Maleficus wrote: »

useless thread... no one cares about you and your attempt at attention getting.. We all know you are gonna keep playing...

Actually, I thought it was logically constructed.
I care about how the game is being directed, an so do many others.
Are you forgetting this is a public, general discussion forum? Why are you policing it?

Korah_Eaglecry

kaosodin wrote: »

Wall of text.

Why is there a trend of dear eso letters. Lol , unsub and bail........ by threatning do you think there going to call you on the phone and offer you a 10 dollar discount to stay?

I dont think you know what a 'wall of text' actually is. Either way. I didnt read beyond that so even if you made some legitimate point. Its ignored.

Ashlynne

sovreign wrote: »

Maleficus wrote: »

useless thread... no one cares about you and your attempt at attention getting.. We all know you are gonna keep playing...

Actually, I thought it was logically constructed.
I care about how the game is being directed, an so do many others.
Are you forgetting this is a public, general discussion forum? Why are you policing it?

I agree. There are some of us (non-trolls) that truly care about the game and would love to see it become all that it's capable of becoming. There is so much that I love about this game, I'd hate to see it go downhill.

fyrefenix

i dub this game the elder mages

fyrefenix

mean while when two veteran 4 beetles are too much for a nerfed templar to handle

Zabus

Number 7 on the leader boards for emperor? I didn't even see your name on the list of top 100 pffft

Ashlynne

xsfkxnub19_ESO wrote: »

Number 7 on the leader boards for emperor? I didn't even see your name on the list of top 100 pffft

Wabbajack Aldmeri, #7, Ashmaya. For the overall Wabbajack, I'm #31. Faction matters most though, not overall. You are probably on another campaign, which is why you wouldn't see me. So.... Pffft, as you so eloquently put it.

rattbagrwb17_ESO

Ashlynne wrote: »

rattbagrwb17_ESO wrote: »

Ridiculous post full of overly dramatic tears, and woe.
Nobody cares enough to read through all that garbage, it's not even worth your sub fee to pay an employee to read that long!
ZoS know what the problems are, and are fixing them in order of impact as best they can. That's what companies in the business of selling subscriptions do.
Next time save the open letter of drama and just cancel your sub.

LOL where were the tears? Where was the drama? Did you even read the post? It was carefully thought out, without flames, without drama, without swearing. So I don't see where you get that from. LOL Troll on troll... you don't have to read it.

I didn't read every word, but I did skim through it.
It seemed to me you must be having a slow day in your IT department, nobody would care to prattle on that much in their own time, surely.

1. Bots: I have seen a few, never really been impacted by them tho.
2. Bots nerfing: I have not been impacted by these changes at all.
3. Lag: even on my terrible 1500k connection, living the opposite side of the world from the servers, the games been fine for me. You should perhaps upgrade your 9600 baud modem to a 56k
4. Content: I was really surprised at this, you say you work in "IT development" (not sure if you mean IT or dev there) and then go on to prove you know nothing about large projects and team management. (I have managed enterprise scale Information Services operations for 17 years now). This 'layering bugs' idea is rubbish, the entire paragraph is fiction.
5. Class: Yep, agree with this (I play a NB) "Newsflash, 1 month old MMO has class balancing issues" hahaha
6. End Game: You say best PvP ever, and we have new content and goals released every few weeks, yet cannot see and game goals. That makes no sense, it's just a whinge.
7. Quests: You are playing an MMO. It's about quests. This is the reason I said quit.
8. Unannounced changes: Yes, the balance team make small changes almost every day without spamming us about it, most of which go unnoticed. Not the first to do this, guaranteed not the last, who cares? Roll with it and have fun, if you cant handle change, buzz off.

In summary, the diatribe was mostly full of hot air, and just felt like a whinge.

magickats242cub18_ESO

Is it time for you to unsub? Who knows? It's like me asking if it's time for me to stop watching tv, or stop buying microwave meals. It's totally your own personal choice, and you should do what YOU think it's right, not what other people tell you what to do.

Ashlynne

magickats242cub18_ESO wrote: »

Is it time for you to unsub? Who knows? It's like me asking if it's time for me to stop watching tv, or stop buying microwave meals. It's totally your own personal choice, and you should do what YOU think it's right, not what other people tell you what to do.

That was me just thinking out loud. lol I'm curious about other peoples thoughts, but in the end it will be my decision.

Gilandred

All MMOs go through these types of growing pains after launch. I always give new games at least 6 months before things start to even out. If you enjoy the core game and see the potential, then I say just stick it out and continue to play unless and until the bad outweighs the good.