How does eso win back players?

FluffyBird

Tenthirty2 wrote: »

"Win back" what players lol?

On multiple accounts
On multiple platforms
In multiple zones
DAILY and varying times of the day
I am seeing more players consistently than last year. It feels busy and a bit more crowded, which I'm not a fan of tbh.

Side thought: I may play too much >.<

Or maybe (just maybe) there are less instances.

For me, nothing so far was good enough to convince me to return. Especially not after all the Gold Road promises which were basically "here are all the old promises but bundled together".

But forums are getting more entertaining by the day.

Adremal

Serpari wrote: »

Make the classes fun to play. I still play FFXIV sparingly because the classes feel good to play, the combat's not floaty how ESO is. The one thing ESO combat does better than FFXIV's is the lack of button bloat, though.

Button bloat? With skills automatically changing to fit the situation? I'd rather have buttons change to whatever combo/stance/minion I have active than have to use the laggy, janky two-bars system to be honest. Sure it used to be a thing but it has since been greatly improved. The only case I still occasionally hear complaints about are ninjutsu combos and that's from players new to the job. Also, I'd rather have buttons I rarely use than have to slot abilities I never use because they provide valuable passive bonuses. The only thing worse than that are the boring as hell one-bar builds.

TaSheen

Well, I still miss (and it's the only thing I miss) having a bajillion keybinds (practically one for every keyboard button, plus using CTRL, ALT, and SHIFT) in WoW. It was marvelous - I'm a 120 wpm touch typist (still, in mid-70s) and combat in WoW was like a virtuoso typist with the fluid responses of a pianist.

However, the rest of that game is no longer my cuppa - and hasn't been since 2013. Not ever messing with it again, but boy do I want my whole keyboard to play on in ESO! Bar swapping sucks - because my ping is so high I don't GET to bar swap....

Serpari

Adremal wrote: »

Serpari wrote: »

Make the classes fun to play. I still play FFXIV sparingly because the classes feel good to play, the combat's not floaty how ESO is. The one thing ESO combat does better than FFXIV's is the lack of button bloat, though.

Button bloat? With skills automatically changing to fit the situation? I'd rather have buttons change to whatever combo/stance/minion I have active than have to use the laggy, janky two-bars system to be honest. Sure it used to be a thing but it has since been greatly improved. The only case I still occasionally hear complaints about are ninjutsu combos and that's from players new to the job. Also, I'd rather have buttons I rarely use than have to slot abilities I never use because they provide valuable passive bonuses. The only thing worse than that are the boring as hell one-bar builds.

Some classes in FFXIV still have way too many buttons. I have a repetitive stress injury (RSI) due to over two decades of IT, thus cannot play keyboard + mouse, only controller. While the two bar system is annoying, the fact I'm limited to only 12 items total (10 skills, 1 ultimate, 1 item slot) AND all classes having this same button setup thus muscle memory kicks in significantly reduces my pain after playing for several hours. FFXIV, meanwhile, have classes that have more buttons than others, so more button presses, throwing muscle memory out the window, thus potentially leading to more pain. FFXIV is making improvements by combining combos/making skills automatically change to the next skill and removing skills, yes, but still.

Regardless, FFXIV classes still feel better to play than ESO's, and that's due to better VFX and that their attacks feel significant. ESO's, meanwhile, is floaty, because Zenimax insists that ESO should play like Skyrim Online.

Don't get me started on FFXIV's accessibility tools in comparison to ESO's. Reduced animations (excellent for those of us with light sensitivity/migraines), inability to be affected by other people's emotes and animations when not in combat, waymarks...

UI/UX and VFX are just better. You don't need to install a thousand add-ons to play FFXIV. All the info you need, like buffs and debuffs, aggro tier lists, etcetera, is right there.

fizzylu

Serpari wrote: »

Make the classes fun to play. I still play FFXIV sparingly because the classes feel good to play, the combat's not floaty how ESO is. The one thing ESO combat does better than FFXIV's is the lack of button bloat, though.

I would never compare a game like FFXIV to ESO so simply just because the combat systems are so different, but it is right to say that ESO doesn't do classes well.... class design with a combat system like ESO's is just hard to do, which is why I'm on the side of believing that the game should have never had classes to begin with. If anything, the proper way to "win back players" on this specific subject would be for Zenimax to actually listen to the players that have been requesting new weapons and other combat oriented skill lines instead of new classes.... but for some reason Zenimax seems adamant on ignoring such feedback and sticking to their ways, releasing classes that many people don't even want to play and tying any other new "abilities" to proc sets.

Daruq

For me, the paywall is too steep.

I spent about 150€ on the game, then I checked how many expansions, I mean DLC, not counting dungeon DLC, I would need to "own" the full game.
19.

That means, because I have 600 premium currency right now, I would need to subscribe for 20 months, not counting the new "expansion", gold road 2 or whatever.

20*13€ = 200+60=260€

TCO: 410€
For a 10 year old game.

And then I'd like a few character slots and armory slots and comfort options.

Yeah it's too much.

Playing without the crafting material bag is a pain in the ass and will lead to me quitting sooner than later.
I will not be bullied into subscribing by all the small cuts.

I'm not competitive because the set pieces that are recommended by the big boi builds are from paid for dungeons.

So the game is telling me: Either spend 260 more € over the course of 20 months and keep sucking while those months pass, and then spend more to buy the dungeon DLC.
So I will have to be terrible for 3-4 years before I can be competitive?

I don't think so.

I'm already bored with the game.
We'll see how long I'll last.

Key points:
- too many DLC, too expensive
- crafting bag should be always included

Daruq

Kendaric wrote: »

Jimbru wrote: »

More generally, the devs need to stop thinking of ESO in terms of it being "Skyrim Online" and bring it up to date relative to its competition.

That would lead to even more players leaving. Many players play ESO despite it being an MMORPG and are mainly interested in the TES lore, not in MMO features.

There is no single feature that would bring back lots of players. Though on top of my list would be:

> Better and more consistent writing, especially for dialog options our characters get to choose. But better NPC writing in general would be good as well.

> Better, more varied major plots. Orsinium/Wrothgar is regarded highly for this reason (among others of course). Not everything needs to revolve around Daedric Princes, dragons or another world-ending threat.

> Less flashy, glowy things. The sheer amount of visual noise from pets, mounts, skins/polymorphs and certain skills is driving people away.

> Less focus on clown crates and the clown store in favor of actual content.

I absolutely don't care about some made up story.
I know some people do. Especially the younger audience.

The main story was good, all the zone DLC feel like they're something I need to be done with in order to get skill points and collect gear.
And they're ALL, without exception, go to base, pick up quest, listen to some meaningless story, go far away and do whatever, return to base to pick up the next quest that sends you off far away. Repeat a few times and zone DLC is zone.

LesserCircle

It doesn't, it feels like everyone has been playing for YEARS and everyone else is a new player, there's no in between and many new players end up leaving because they don't understand weaving or whatever. It's also hard to play with a new player, if you bring friends into the game they will ask you "how did you get that mount?" Crown store, "How do I get that outfit?" Crown store, "how do I get that emote?" Crown store.

kargen27

ZoS shouldn't chase players that left the game and instead concentrate on keeping the remaining players happy and bringing new players into the game.

Adremal

Serpari wrote: »

Some classes in FFXIV still have way too many buttons. I have a repetitive stress injury (RSI) due to over two decades of IT, thus cannot play keyboard + mouse, only controller. While the two bar system is annoying, the fact I'm limited to only 12 items total (10 skills, 1 ultimate, 1 item slot) AND all classes having this same button setup thus muscle memory kicks in significantly reduces my pain after playing for several hours. FFXIV, meanwhile, have classes that have more buttons than others, so more button presses, throwing muscle memory out the window, thus potentially leading to more pain. FFXIV is making improvements by combining combos/making skills automatically change to the next skill and removing skills, yes, but still.

Regardless, FFXIV classes still feel better to play than ESO's, and that's due to better VFX and that their attacks feel significant. ESO's, meanwhile, is floaty, because Zenimax insists that ESO should play like Skyrim Online.

Don't get me started on FFXIV's accessibility tools in comparison to ESO's. Reduced animations (excellent for those of us with light sensitivity/migraines), inability to be affected by other people's emotes and animations when not in combat, waymarks...

UI/UX and VFX are just better. You don't need to install a thousand add-ons to play FFXIV. All the info you need, like buffs and debuffs, aggro tier lists, etcetera, is right there.

I still disagree with the XIV bloat thing because it's less painful to me than ESO is despite it having more buttons. To me, weaving and animation canceling is much more painful than pushing buttons, and keyboard and mouse are better than controller - and I don't know the English terms for it but I have similar conditions due to repetitive micro traumatic events (stress fracture and tendinopathies) due to being a competitive shooter (my dominant hand is the same for the trigger and mouse so my using the mouse is much more uncomfortable than pushing buttons on a keyboard). A lot of people in my guild also play on controller on XIV and they have no issues whatsoever (I would, I grew up gaming on PC). So at the end of the day it's all very subjective, with the bottom line being that weaving and cancelling come easier with a mouse to me, but also hurt more.
I agree on pretty much everything else you said. I don't mind relying on add-ons because I'm used to it and take it for granted, but of course I'd rather have everything built-in. I don't get the Skyrim online thing though, I didn't have to weave and cancel animations in Skyrim. Granted I modded it to hell and back but my first playthrough was on release, so vanilla, no mods, played as a mage and the actions per second were nowhere close to ESO's, I don't remember ever having to take breaks and apply liberal amount of diclofenac gel while playing it at least.

fizzylu wrote: »

If anything, the proper way to "win back players" on this specific subject would be for Zenimax to actually listen to the players that have been requesting new weapons and other combat oriented skill lines instead of new classes.... but for some reason Zenimax seems adamant on ignoring such feedback and sticking to their ways, releasing classes that many people don't even want to play and tying any other new "abilities" to proc sets.

This! So much this!

TaSheen

Daruq wrote: »

Kendaric wrote: »

Jimbru wrote: »

More generally, the devs need to stop thinking of ESO in terms of it being "Skyrim Online" and bring it up to date relative to its competition.

That would lead to even more players leaving. Many players play ESO despite it being an MMORPG and are mainly interested in the TES lore, not in MMO features.

There is no single feature that would bring back lots of players. Though on top of my list would be:

> Better and more consistent writing, especially for dialog options our characters get to choose. But better NPC writing in general would be good as well.

> Better, more varied major plots. Orsinium/Wrothgar is regarded highly for this reason (among others of course). Not everything needs to revolve around Daedric Princes, dragons or another world-ending threat.

> Less flashy, glowy things. The sheer amount of visual noise from pets, mounts, skins/polymorphs and certain skills is driving people away.

> Less focus on clown crates and the clown store in favor of actual content.

I absolutely don't care about some made up story.
I know some people do. Especially the younger audience.

The main story was good, all the zone DLC feel like they're something I need to be done with in order to get skill points and collect gear.
And they're ALL, without exception, go to base, pick up quest, listen to some meaningless story, go far away and do whatever, return to base to pick up the next quest that sends you off far away. Repeat a few times and zone DLC is zone.

The "younger audience"? I'm in my mid 70s - and the story is the POINT. I've played TES since Arena released in 1994. This franchise is my "game home". So yeah, sounds like you're someone who just mindlessly picks up games, plays until you're bored, and goes for another game preferably newer and shinier. That's fins, each to her own. But some of us are definitely invested in this franchise, and we don't find that your experience is ours.

And no, you don't get the craft bag if you don't sub.

spartaxoxo

They're already doing it. This year is going to have spell crafting and a new PvP system. If they keep doing things the community has been wanting like that, some people will come back.

jtm1018

By enabling friendly fire.

Watch where you cast that spell.

fizzylu

@Adremal
ESO has some of the worse APM I've ever seen in a game because of it's combat and I'm with you fully on ESO being worse on the hands/fingers. While yes, games like FFXIV and WoW might have more buttons.... they also have cast times, cooldowns on normal abilities/spells, long lasting buffs that don't have to be reapplied every 30 seconds, etc. And ESO combat could not be farther away from the combat that was in TESV.... even New World has a closer system to it than ESO does.

Adremal

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They're already doing it. This year is going to have spell crafting and a new PvP system. If they keep doing things the community has been wanting like that, some people will come back.

Scribing is not Spellcrafting, ZOS explicitly stated that as much. You won't have nearly as many options as with Oblivion-style Spellcrafting, and while that's understandable given the difficulties of balancing such a system in a MMO, it'd be best for people to manage their expectations to avoid disappointment. Styling on the other hand is something I look more forward to, assuming pets will at long last be included, I can't possibly express how much of a pain maining a Sorc has been with the ugly deformed scamp and the obstructs-your-view and drives-you-mad with the constant flapping noise.

fizzylu wrote: »

@Adremal
ESO has some of the worse APM I've ever seen in a game because of it's combat and I'm with you fully on ESO being worse on the hands/fingers. While yes, games like FFXIV and WoW might have more buttons.... they also have cast times, cooldowns on normal abilities/spells, long lasting buffs that don't have to be reapplied every 30 seconds, etc. And ESO combat could not be farther away from the combat that was in TESV.... even New World has a closer system to it than ESO does.

Yep. Also less need to cancel stuff. In ESO, we have animation cancelling, swap-bar cancelling, bock cancelling, cancel cancelling...

ProudMary

GooGa592 wrote: »

90% of my friends list quit because of lack of PvP support. Specifically bad performance and way too low population caps. January's reduction was the last straw for the few that still try to play that I know, and have decided they will never give ZOS money again and are just waiting for a game with similar PvP to come along so they can switch what game they invest time and money into.

ZOS could easily get these players back if they invested in server support for Cyrodiil and raised the population caps back up to at least 200/faction. This 60/faction is just way, way, way, way, way, way too low.

I agree completely.

What ZOS needs to do more than anything is restore and improve performance and the population in Cyrodiil.

Braffin

Adremal wrote: »

Yep. Also less need to cancel stuff. In ESO, we have animation cancelling, swap-bar cancelling, bock cancelling, cancel cancelling...

A lot of us players are here for exactly the interesting and refreshening combat system eso provides.

If they ever downgrade eso's combat to outdated tab-targetting mechanics, they can as well shut down the game for good.

If you really dislike a 10 years old and original core functionality of a game that much, maybe it just isn't for you.

ShatteredRose6

People wanting ff14 still combat, heres my opinion with almost 3k hours in FF14 and 10.5k in eso.
FF14 classes can do only 1 role and options they are dependent on square enix, usually only 7-10 skills for boss fights in trials, dungeons and ultimate, 3-7skills for aoe, if u don't press them in combo routine or required rotation, you loose a lot of dps, now compared to eso which has 10 skill slots and 2 ultimate slots which zos has given us lots of choices, for meta u can slot anywhere from 15-20skills, for rp and different builds for fun, you can choose from 50+ skills. So zos has given us a much much better experience.
For combat, let's talk about lag, FF14 is Unplayable with 120+ ping and requires a VPN for Savage/extreme, eso is much much playable up to 400ping without a VPN for doing godslayer/PB.yes their are some ouchie moments but not 80%+ times compared to FF14. Again ff14 had oceanic and asian servers while eso doesnot. Zos without this servers has given us a playable experience without relying on VPNs.
Let's talk about build diversity and class roles, we know SE chooses what rotation and skills you use, while ZOS gives an entire system into players hands and with upcoming spellcrafting type system, zos has given us much much tools.
FF14 pvp has 5 skills which changes to different combos and how u press them and still suffer from extreme lag, and that's if u can manage to find a group in off times, ESO again gives a lot of sets and different skills for each class on how they wanna play meta/non meta.
So no I do not want FF14 type combat in eso. I love FF14 and ESO equally but ZOS combat comes out on top. And that's even without considering the sets SE timegates behind their sub for meta/RP.

English is my 3-5th language so please excuse my grammer.

Adremal

Braffin wrote: »

Adremal wrote: »

Yep. Also less need to cancel stuff. In ESO, we have animation cancelling, swap-bar cancelling, bock cancelling, cancel cancelling...

A lot of us players are here for exactly the interesting and refreshening combat system eso provides.

If they ever downgrade eso's combat to outdated tab-targetting mechanics, they can as well shut down the game for good.

If you really dislike a 10 years old and original core functionality of a game that much, maybe it just isn't for you.

Kindly refrain from putting words in my mouth, if you would. I said it's painful and janky and it could be improved - and not because I dislike the game, but because I'd want to be more enjoyable/less painful. I decide which games are for me and which ones aren't, and the fact that I'm also playing ESO should tell you something.

markulrich1966

I just can talk for myself.

Main reasons I left:
- U35 nerf
- uninteresting content, too "dark", depressing (Fargrave, Blackreach, Apocrypha).

I guess I will come back for a while to play gold road, but only on 1 of my 4 logins. In the past, I tended to keep all 4 logins at a similar level, replaying stories.

What keeps me off:
- I meanwhile socialized in another game, it is my new "emotional home"
- I still feel bad playing ESO (only shortly, for endeavours and events). When I'm in a public dungeon, and my heavy staff attack kills only ONE in a mob unlike the whole mob 2 years ago, this is no longer "my game".

ESO now: nice for a quick visit now and then, not more.

uniqpy

The chapters just add more content to PVE. They never look at the main issues for losing players. Boring overworld content, no new pvp content, no good rewards for playing and over monetisation . The only exception is this month’s daily rewards being good, if every month was like this one then they would keep more players

Amottica

Fingolfinn01 wrote: »

How does ESO win back players? I am not sure how to answer this myself. I know WOW can shed a significant number of players and they can also win back a significant number. Because each expansion resets the game. How does ESO win back its players? Will the Gold Road expansion be enough? Or will they need to do more?

WoW players that return for an expansion leave shortly afterward. They just return for that expansion and then go back to whatever game they are focused on at the time.

Heck, even I have returned for expansions in WoW and even SWTOR before that game when completely dead. Less so for FF.

It is just temporary so it is not a good example.

RetPing

I dont think they are too interested in getting back those players that left.
ESO has become a casual theme park mmo and probably they are just happy if those type of players will continue to buy clown crates and subs.
Getting back player that left would require more resources that are probably already moved to the new mmo they are developing and would be financially not advisable.

CenturionExplorer

I have always seen ESO as a very casual MMO experience, the combat system has always felt very off and and at times really unresponsive compared to your more traditional MMO combat experiences. It's also a reason i never lasted too long in the game, personally i think a complete revamp of combat is the key. And an increase in difficulty in content.

I started playing XIV and then later migrated to WoW, i still think it's the top tier combat system when it comes to responsiveness and quickness. XIV still have floaty animations and at times too many VFX effects on ultra settings.
But then again, i enjoy ESO for what it is. an Elder Scrolls experience i can play with people, and the time they'll need to do it will come at a heavy cost of other content.

moo_2021

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They're already doing it. This year is going to have spell crafting and a new PvP system. If they keep doing things the community has been wanting like that, some people will come back.

Can you give some link to the new PvP system?

spartaxoxo

moo_2021 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They're already doing it. This year is going to have spell crafting and a new PvP system. If they keep doing things the community has been wanting like that, some people will come back.

Can you give some link to the new PvP system?

https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/roadmap

RetPing

spartaxoxo wrote: »

moo_2021 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They're already doing it. This year is going to have spell crafting and a new PvP system. If they keep doing things the community has been wanting like that, some people will come back.

Can you give some link to the new PvP system?

https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/roadmap

English is not my main language, am I wrong if the use of the word "feature" suggests to me it will be just a little thing?

fizzylu

@RetPing
With Zenimax, it's really hard to say and they also don't do long player/public testing periods since they don't care about our opinions on the features they add so we probably won't have any information about it until a month or two before it's release.

spartaxoxo

RetPing wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

moo_2021 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They're already doing it. This year is going to have spell crafting and a new PvP system. If they keep doing things the community has been wanting like that, some people will come back.

Can you give some link to the new PvP system?

https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/roadmap

English is not my main language, am I wrong if the use of the word "feature" suggests to me it will be just a little thing?

It's possible it's a small system. But typically the feature of a quarter tends to be fairly significant. They also said previously that the reason they axed the small zone dlc is because they wanted to be able to introduce some more substantial systems in Q4 for the foreseeable future while Q3 will be dedicated to QOL things. So, the PvP feature being in Q4 likely indicates a larger system. But it is also possible they are trying to set expectations lower by using the word feature.

Time will tell.

AScarlato

They just need more content rather than offering a lot less than prior years. The updated roadmap offering less and less isn’t inspiring.

I’m also one of those who has event fatigue so the constant events and daily chores does nothing to interest me of late. I blame all of the morphables being uninteresting to me as a godsend, as I haven’t wanted one in years now.