Where I see the best chance of growth for the game

Rouz

To me looking at what little metrics we can see with this game from an outside perspective, it seems like the area with the most opportunity for growth is open world. Specifically leaning more into the tapping into the nostalgia of the previous TES games (Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim) and some core designs of those. Some of the best performing DLC, from what I've seen, has focused on open world pve aspects. And as we move closer and closer to the TES 6 release date, more and more eyes will be on the TES franchise as a whole. Which presents a great opportunity for growth. A lot of people wanting to get their "TES" fix. I think anyone that would've been interested in this game from a hardcore PvP or instanced PvE perspective would've have already looked into it/tried it and made their decision. I don't think ESO is going to really tap hard into that audience unless we see a large combat rework and roll the dice on that. But I highly doubt that will happen. And creating content for solo players (like the IA) that is instanced didn't have a huge impact on averages either (though it was at least a positive impact). Seems like tapping into that singleplayer aspect of the TES franchise is where most growth can happen. The trick is just making them stay (for example, gold road brought a large increase that didn't stay. And it seemed like its because people were let down by spellcrafting. Often criticizing how little it felt like the singleplayer games/didn't feel fun).

ESO's strongest aspect has always been the lore, in my opinion. It has a multitude of well recieved popular singleplayer games that it can draw from. Its a situation that very little mmorpgs are in. This world, this lore; it really comes into play in the open world. That's really were you truly see it flourish. With the environments, the voice acting, the questing, etc.

So the challenge, to me, is how do you add things to the game that can appeal to these type of players while also keeping it a multiplayer game. Below are some ideas.

• Difficulty - People sometimes feel like the game is too easy while questing and its hurting their engagement. But difficulty is a tricky thing, because generally people don't like health sponges. For example, when I see people complain about this in the open world; they are rarely from players who are able to solo a world boss. So to them, those kind of encounters are not what they are looking for. I think a good starting point for this is damage taken. While questing/playing; there's so much that just doesn't feel like it poses a threat to you. I think we should start out with this via some kind of status effect system. You go to a shrine or something in game. Maybe a menu toggle that's easily noticeable by a player. Such a system makes it very easy to scale. It only applies to the player so you don't have to touch monsters. And you can adjust it easily just like any other status effect. When the player receives this shrine buff or menu toggle; it does something simple. It makes it more punishing for the player to get damaged. You can do this two fold. First, increase the damage the player receives. Perhaps just a resist debuff for physical/magic. You want the player to actually "feel" the impact of getting hit. Just like they do in a single player game. The other aspect of this is self healing. There's a lot more self sustain in this game than a singleplayer TES game. So perhaps a nerf to how much healing received the player has. The next part is why would a player want to do this? You need to make them feel rewarded for doing this. So you increase exp given by monsters, you increase rare drop chances, you increase rare materials or material count from nodes. This system is completely optional so if players want to go back to easy mode, they can. The current state of the game would stay the same. It would be the "without the buff" playstyle. This system also doesn't require the playerbase to split up among shards, reducing population impact. This would also help serve to funnel players into harder content. I think anyone watching the new players play the game and then try to transition into "harder" content at endgame rarely goes well. There's a huge learning curve. Allowing players to have a source of difficulty WITHOUT reliant on groups would help smooth out the road into endgame content. Potentially increasing endgame populations. Lord of the rings online already has a difficulty system that they implemented and, based on what I've seen, its fairly well received. Again its an optional system so those who want to enable it can. It would impact basically all overland content ONLY. Including things like public dungeons and location interiors. But wont be usable in things like group dungeons, trials, pvp, etc.
• Velothi / Oakensoul - I think these are two great mythic items and I really think we should look into offering these to players early in the game. Not tied to a DLC. It feels like enough people feel "off" by the combat. Perhaps even rework these to offer different effects, but make what these offer "toggeable" or something like that. Giving players the option to customize their combat experience to either have no weapon swapping or to make it so that weaving has less of an impact with velothi's impact. This are huge things. And to that player who may be thinking "Man this game is almost what I'm looking for, its just weapon swapping/weaving that I'm not feeling", you're offering a solution to that...and its locked behind a payment and significant grind. Its just a very weird strategy. I'm not saying to make these things meta or to become top DPSers. However, it definitely seems like from a new player experience perspective; there's a significant demand to have these capabilities early on. And just make it so its a different way to play the game. Just like it is once you actually unlock them. I'm absolutely floored nothing has been done for this because these two items are HUGE gameplay changes. And ZOS, you're not leveraging them AT ALL to attract new players. Absolutely wild to me personally.
• Cyrodiil - You have this huge map filled with nostalgia lures for players. And you locked it all behind PvP. Again, it seems like a waste of resources. The PvP doesn't seem that popular to begin with and I imagine if someone wants to "PvE" in there only, they're not gonna be to happy about having to deal with gankers. Introducing a PvE only mode for this map would not only offer some new content with little that you need to do as a developer, but Cyrodiil is gigantic and ripe with expansion. That means if you decide to do a map update for Cyrodiil. Add in some new locations and content. Not only would this give PvP players an update, but its also an update for PvE players. Giving you huge returns on investment from a player usage perspective. Like oh, here's a new open world cyrodiil location. In the PvP version, its got some quest and stuff related to PvP. A special new siege engine you can build. Or a new artifact. In PvE its just a series of new quests.Like the velothi/oakensoul mythic, this seems like a super low hanging fruit that nobody is touching. And if pvpers are worried that introducing a pve mode would kill cyrodiil pvp...I feel like that's an indication of an issue that is far worse and shows that your Pvp mode is reliant/surviving based on players who don't want to pvp. Not a good sign.
• Spell Feel - Now if I go and create an empower build (like based around oakensoul), I can usually make a build that feels like singleplayer combat for melee. And certain range playstyles. But when it comes to magic, yeah you don't really feel it. When you use an ability in the singleplayer games, you can sorta charge it. You can use single or dual hand. You really feel the impact of slinging that spell. In ESO, magic feels more...spammy? It doesn't feel the same. It feels very mmo like instead of TES like. Only except being L/H attacks with staves. Games like WoW have been experimenting with charging abilities in the past 4 years about. And in general, players do seem to like the concept. Why not introduce such systems with TES? How can we replicate that feeling of casting abilities outside of staves? You already have the light and heavy attack system. It seems like converting/using such designs around a spell charging system like you see in the singleplayer games would be a good win for the game. You use the ability and charge it. Determines its effectiveness and mana usage based off charge. I think such a design could also offer a great way for introducing something truely new to the game. A big problem with long lasting mmorpgs is their formula gets stale. Its a big reason why their population declines despite releasing content. Its because that formula just gets boring. You need to do something new. Something to revitalize things. Get those people who turned away to turn back away. Make them ask "Hmm I wonder how that would feel? I wonder how playing that trial with that change would feel now? I've got to log in and try things out!". And I think new kind of abilities that are based around charging systems like their singleplayer games could really help with this.

Since 2020, the games steam trends show its been on the decline. At the current rate, we will probably see population stats similar to the 2017/2018 era of the game by the end of 2025. And the 2015/2016 era by the end of 2026. Something needs to change. And while its only steam, as I said earlier, trends on steam are often reflective of the trends across all platforms. If steam is trending downward, good chance that other platforms/launchers are too. Maybe not by the same amount, but downward none the less. Only ZoS knows the true numbers, but I think the above suggestions are vital helping secure a stable population for awhile. Especially with the TES 6 hype wave building. Unless something is done, it looks like we may be on a slowly sinking ship with a hull filled with crowncrates. Don't mean to be a doomer. I know people don't like it. I am still enjoying the game personally and will probably still buy future expansions/releases. But I also pay attention to stats.