My review of ESO and There is something wrong with pvp...

RobTheAxe

Not a video post... and while I don't like making negative posts, I am going to do it for what I want to believe is the good of the game. I could easily step away in silence. I know there are constant arguments on these forums and people have massively varying opinions but I don't often see what I consider an accurate review of the state of the game. It is hard to put a finger on it, but in summary, Something is wrong.

There is a lot to be said about the state of pvp in the game.

This will be a rather long post..

Let me begin by saying that I like ESO and would rate it quite highly. I greatly enjoy my time playing it.

I returned to ESO recently when I was without a game to play but I did play at release.

I remember there were massive fights and I liked it quite a lot. The skills were fun to use but there were a few glaring imbalances, for example I remember being annoyed by the sorcerers using the teleport skill. I understand that class strengths and weaknesses are very important but it seemed to me that this class skill alone allowed players to zip out of danger without being caught, not due to player skill, but due to a skill on their class. It does worry me a bit to see that this was Only, sort-of fixed several months ago.. it has been a couple years since then.

Ultimately, I moved on from ESO after a couple months for a variety of reasons. I spent most of my time in Cyrodiil on launch and while it was very fun, it was also a bit 'simple' and a bit repetitive. Sure, shooting the siege was fun and unique, but after a month or two it sort of became, been there, done that. Further, in blunt truth, I found the PVE leveling to be dull and unchallenging. No adrenaline. This is harsh, but compared to other games, it was sub par. It was just missing Something. Some of the voice work is great, it is great to see Minsc back and his stuff stands out as being the most humorous, there are other good characters, but everything being voiced doesn't make a game for me. On my first play through I spent a lot of time reading all the books, and I appreciate there being all this work put in, but to me the 'theme park' go here go there style, it was OK you know. We all know what it was. It was great that they managed to show so many unique zones, some were better than others.

So, lets fast forward to when I returned. This time I play with a controller. Right away the combat is superior, to me, than it was with a keyboard. Rather than pressing 1 2 3 and clicking, pointing the mouse, the tactile experience using the control makes the combat always pretty intense. I am not just hitting the right trigger, I am constantly using both sticks and a variety of buttons. This is good - this makes me want to play the game. Suddenly, PVE is way more fun than it was before.

This time I take a different approach on PVE. I decide to just powergame zip through everything and let the 'xp' be my reward, rather than enjoying all the stories. Well, turns out this is actually more enjoyable. and I like the endgame PVE content, it has a good challenge. Memorizing boss instakill patterns isn't my style, but there are so many great dungeons that are genuinely fun to play through, if a bit repetitive. Do I want to run these same dungeons over and over? Personally, no. I'll run each one once and then dip in here and there again but my goal is to PVP. Just like the PVE zones, and some of them stand out as being better than others, I particularly enjoyed the look of the desert zones.

I have a blast in BWB but notice there are always some players who are super powerful. Wow, these players must be great, right! Their coordination and reflexes are surely the reason they can take so much damage... and their movement skills sure are great to jump all over these rocks and trees.. well guys, let's step back a second. This isnt counter strike, it is an MMO. The reason these players and often small groups of them stand out so much is they use the ultimate gear combination combined with powerful skill selection. The truth is skill in this game is going to be about 70% gear and skill selection. There are a number of ways this should be fixed... and I don't need to pick them for you. That isn't my job. I pay to play the games that are already balanced. If a game is glaringly unbalanced or not fun I move to another. Stacking abilities and heals, mending, other overperforming abilties. And it isn't just proc sets because these imbalances exist Heavily in BWB as well.

In Azuras I was in the IC. I had a ton of fun. I found my fights to be heavily based on gear and when we were in roughly equal gear it was fun. The IC event was Extremely fun. There were a few players who stood out, max CP who came to PK, and without my agility jewels at the time I would barely lose to the best of them, but it almost seemed more balanced. Almost. Possibly because I had simply joined the rank of mending vigor stackers by then. Still, I had a blast. IC is great. More of the game should have been like this.

I've been pvping in the CP campaign since 1t even though I am 295 CP just to get a taste. And let me tell you it is messed up. Not just proc sets, but all the imbalances in BWB, are exacerbated 100x. I see arguing about magika being underpowered on these forums and I have to wonder about the people who make those posts, if we are even playing the same game.

It is hard for a game to hook players in an environment when there are lots of competitors emerging constantly and lots of other hobbies and things to do with free time. For me to stay in ESO PVP needs some massive balance tweaks. I can't tell you exactly what the problems are but I know they go further than proc sets which are also a huge problem.

Some players may say, 'yeah devs take forever to do anything and you are right.' Well, that is sad. I want this game to be fun. If that is the case, the devs need to work harder.

Some will say, you're bad lol. Well, good on you, I'm not going to get into a back and forth on this or little points here and there because this is sort of a massive exhale that I want to get out there. I'll be playing other games that are more balanced, and doing my dailies every now and then in hopes that maybe things will get fixed, but my sub won't be running, nor will I be encouraging others to sub.

In my opinion, these issues can be fixed. The framework for a good game is there. I'm sorry that PVE is the way it is, but I do think PVP can be saved. I enjoyed PVE a lot more my second time around for whatever reason. The devs need to put in work - accurately identify the problems, come up with solutions, and implement them. The power creep has lead in part tot he problem but it was there from release. The game can be salavaged, however, I am sure of it. Anyways, the future is with you, bold explorers of tamriel.

Waffennacht

So what's the problem/imbalances you speak of in PvP that have you so upset,? You mention Procs but nothing really specific

RobTheAxe

Maybe it came off the wrong way, but I'm not upset, just a bit burned out and moving on. I'm still playing a bit here and there, but pretty much everything has potential to be messed up and it's just worse in CP campaign. Damage/burst/heal, it's all pretty messed up. They would need to pay me to analyze it any further, I'm off to do other things.. I mean, if players who play the game, think everything is fine other than procs, ok... enjoy I guess

Sometimes it's fine, other times its completely broken, and that still doesn't address the fact that, and while this cannot be easily changed, the nature of it is all too simple ultimately and lacking in diversity of content and game world size (where there is pvp).

Waffennacht

I guess I'm just having trouble following you. The only proc set I use is IG and still have lots o fun. I also sport a higher than 50% K/D ratio.

Being burnt out happens though. After this much time I'm amazed I still have so much fun.

That and Eso pretty much has a monopoly in the MMO world for xbox.

But, I'll say, good luck my friend hopefully you'll find something as fun as you want! ( there are some cool comp games out there, some I would at least try if I could...)

Lokey0024

Jebus chis go outside and throw a football ffs

SHADOW2KK

So you are basically quitting then OP?

Bye then

AzuraKin

you say there is no adrenaline rush while lvling in this game versus other games, please tell me, what other games gives you an adrenaline rush while leveling because i dont know of any that do that. in fact compared to many games eso is all about speedy lvling. i have played games that by the time you finish all the quests in the game, you are only lvl 30 of 60 (later cap raised to 70, no new quests added) and the rest of the lvls you had to grind and i dont mean go kill something your lvl for a couple hours, i mean joining a party of about 5-6 players, 1 being a high aoe dpser, 1 a healer, and all the rest pulling all the mobs to the aoe dps who can kill the mobs 10 lvls higher then your own which if you tried to face at your 10 lvl below lvl you would not even stand half a percent chance of winning. those games are not fun. eso makes lvling characters a lot more fun then most games a lot faster then a lot of games, and adrenaline? and where would you get an adrenaline rush? in most games you either strong enough to beat the boss/mob without worry, or your too weak, adrenaline comes from close call situations.