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• PC/Mac: NA and EU megaservers for patch maintenance – December 2, 4:00AM EST (9:00 UTC) - 9:00AM EST (14:00 UTC)
• Xbox: NA and EU megaservers for patch maintenance – December 4, 6:00AM EST (11:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EST (17:00 UTC)
• PlayStation®: NA and EU megaservers for patch maintenance – December 4, 6:00AM EST (11:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EST (17:00 UTC)
Why 1.5 fills me with disappointment not excitement
amasuriel
✭✭✭✭
So as a longtime player (since beta) I recognize the problem ZOS is trying to fix; there isn't much to do if you don't PvP at max VR right now. I find myself logging in, kicking around for an hour then logging out again. This is bad for retention numbers as it leads to a cycle where people play for 2 weeks after an update, then cancel for a while.
So I get that.
But I find the mechanisms they are using to do that are worse than the issue for me, and I think this will be true for a lot of players.
1) The Undaunted Dailies.
The new Undaunted passives are powerful and universally useful. If you want to do high end content (pvp or pve) you will need to have these, but that means group grinding. Just because I have a group to do Dragonstar with on Saturday, doesn't mean I want to have to find 3 other people every time I want to make any progress in the game
2) The crafting Dailies
The only solo play progression added in the update, and they have the choice of leaving it like it is where it actually loses you net resources to do the quests in most cases, or it will inflate the economy out of control because people with 5 crafting alts and lots of time on their hands will have an endless cash hose
3) The Dwemer materials
All public areas will be farmed to oblivion, therefore again, if you actually want to compete in this economic arena you need to grind group dungeons
So most of the "content" being added to extend end game playability is pure grind. Not even fun grind, but like run Spindleclutch on autopilot for the 846348976 time grind, or run through the same dwemer delves 947276092314 times. Worse I can't just log on and grind for 45 mins as I feel inspired, because I need to do all these things as a group.
So to recap, the gameplay additions are:
- We have 2 new incredible long grinds that have to be done it a group
- 1 solo crafting related grind that won't actually give you anything no matter how long you spend on it
This is not inspiring. I won't try to suggest alternatives here since I'm sure you have a lot of great ideas already, I just hope by the time its released some of these things shake out differently then they are now.
Now I don't want to be 100% negative, so I will end by saying I think breaking up the Dwemer motif into pages so you get 1 item at a time is really cool, and the 2 handed and werewolf improvements look great, so good job on those.
So I get that.
But I find the mechanisms they are using to do that are worse than the issue for me, and I think this will be true for a lot of players.
1) The Undaunted Dailies.
The new Undaunted passives are powerful and universally useful. If you want to do high end content (pvp or pve) you will need to have these, but that means group grinding. Just because I have a group to do Dragonstar with on Saturday, doesn't mean I want to have to find 3 other people every time I want to make any progress in the game
2) The crafting Dailies
The only solo play progression added in the update, and they have the choice of leaving it like it is where it actually loses you net resources to do the quests in most cases, or it will inflate the economy out of control because people with 5 crafting alts and lots of time on their hands will have an endless cash hose
3) The Dwemer materials
All public areas will be farmed to oblivion, therefore again, if you actually want to compete in this economic arena you need to grind group dungeons
So most of the "content" being added to extend end game playability is pure grind. Not even fun grind, but like run Spindleclutch on autopilot for the 846348976 time grind, or run through the same dwemer delves 947276092314 times. Worse I can't just log on and grind for 45 mins as I feel inspired, because I need to do all these things as a group.
So to recap, the gameplay additions are:
- We have 2 new incredible long grinds that have to be done it a group
- 1 solo crafting related grind that won't actually give you anything no matter how long you spend on it
This is not inspiring. I won't try to suggest alternatives here since I'm sure you have a lot of great ideas already, I just hope by the time its released some of these things shake out differently then they are now.
Now I don't want to be 100% negative, so I will end by saying I think breaking up the Dwemer motif into pages so you get 1 item at a time is really cool, and the 2 handed and werewolf improvements look great, so good job on those.
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