Seasons are what push me away.

RomanRex

this seems like the last straw to motivate long-time players to move on.

-quality of content is down.
-quantity of content is down.
-game connection has not improved despite already sacrificing for more “QoL” improvements we never see

LittlePinkDot

We need to seriously address Cyrodiil performance. Our (ambitious) goal is to return it to the concurrency levels we supported in 2014. So, we will be experimenting with a Cyrodiil campaign where all classes will have PvP-specific (and more performant) skills that replace the standard player skills with the expectation that we can support more players per campaign"

I'm concerned about the "all classes will have PvP specific skills"

Are they just deleting our class skills in Cyrodiil?
Or just changing how they work in PvP?

Thysbe

Taril wrote: »

I'd imagine that monetization remains the same too. Whereby instead of buying the year's content with a DLC, you instead buy a Season Pass and get all the season content for that year (Of course, the lack of set in stone content releases can mean that such a thing is not guaranteed to be as valuable as a DLC, depending on the overall cadence of releases).
.

selling a season pass without stating the content which has to be expected is against the new and updated steam rules and for a reason since there was quite some malpractice in the gaming industry with cancelled updates and early access that never made it to live

I dont think you can expect yearly seasons - they will most likely be more incremental - like quaterly

Ingel_Riday

I don't mind the concept of seasons, but I hope they're not exorbitantly priced to nickle and dime us to death. This game is already exceedingly covetous. "We added a new house. That'll be $149.99 to get the fully furnished version. You know, the price of two full games!" "Look, we added a weapon pack. That'll be $24.99. You know, the price of a new indie game... for some weapons skins."

I'd be morified if we get four seasons per year, and each is only two to three hours of content, and each cost as much as a full expansion used to cost. "Isn't this better? Instead of one 30 hour long zone every year for $49.99, you get four 3-hour long quest chains per year that cost $49.99 each for the deluxe version unlocks. WHOO VALUE!!!"

:-/

So yeah, eh. There are a lot of zones with a lot of room to grow. Blackwood could be fleshed out. Vvardenfell could got some love, especially by Sheogorad (which is an already built landmass). Summerset could get the city of Dusk made into an actual city with its own quest chain. You get the idea. I'm not opposed to showing old zones love AT ALL, and this plan doesn't make me wince in horror from that aspect. I just worry about this game descending into endless FOMO misery, premium battle passes, and excessively priced bite-sized content drops that make Destiny 2 look generous.

Ever the pessimist. I'll wait and see. Hope for the best.

Edit addition: also, I like the sound of the PVP changes. Trying to balance classes for both modes has been a terrible nightmare for all involved for a decade. Ending that problem by just making PVP a very separate beast with each class having its own toolset is probably the best solution that I've heard in years upon years. Off-topic, though... so I'll stop rambling about it.

BahometZ

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

We need to seriously address Cyrodiil performance. Our (ambitious) goal is to return it to the concurrency levels we supported in 2014. So, we will be experimenting with a Cyrodiil campaign where all classes will have PvP-specific (and more performant) skills that replace the standard player skills with the expectation that we can support more players per campaign"

I'm concerned about the "all classes will have PvP specific skills"

Are they just deleting our class skills in Cyrodiil?
Or just changing how they work in PvP?

I suggested this as an idea many years ago, like old school splinter cell pvp where spies and agents had fixed skill sets. Simple but engaging, and skill based, not imbalanced. Plus better performance. I think it's too late in the games life cycle to do it now without seeming like a defeat in the face of inability to balance or improve performance, but thats where we are.

But yes, probably deleting most if not all your class skills.

Mik195

What's the point of ESO Plus if there are no chapters or DLC to get access to? Just the craft bag?

LittlePinkDot

BahometZ wrote: »

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

We need to seriously address Cyrodiil performance. Our (ambitious) goal is to return it to the concurrency levels we supported in 2014. So, we will be experimenting with a Cyrodiil campaign where all classes will have PvP-specific (and more performant) skills that replace the standard player skills with the expectation that we can support more players per campaign"

I'm concerned about the "all classes will have PvP specific skills"

Are they just deleting our class skills in Cyrodiil?
Or just changing how they work in PvP?

I suggested this as an idea many years ago, like old school splinter cell pvp where spies and agents had fixed skill sets. Simple but engaging, and skill based, not imbalanced. Plus better performance. I think it's too late in the games life cycle to do it now without seeming like a defeat in the face of inability to balance or improve performance, but thats where we are.

But yes, probably deleting most if not all your class skills.

😭 This sounds like its going to kill the game for me.
I was leveling up my mages skill line for ice. Comet for a frost Arcanist with Tentacular dread and now all my motivation just got sucked out of me.

fizzylu

Zenimax dropped the ball when it came to chapters/expansions a while ago and from the sound of it, "seasons" here aren't going to be like battlepass seasons in other games -- just smaller updates spread throughout the year instead of one "big" by Zenimax standards one.

Honestly, to me it seems like it'd probably be better for the devs of this game this way. Even reading the letter, it seems they are finally picking up on the feedback and things that people have been wanting.... but it's kind of hard to say what it will really be like for players since, again, chapters were already fairly small.... so I can't imagine what a "bite-sized" content update will look like in this game. And like with everything ESO related, I fear how ridiculously they will monetize this new approach and how much of it will be FOMO.

But sadly, again with all things ESO related, we won't know what this new model will actually be like until it's basically ready and delivered -- and too late for player feedback to be taken into consideration in it's design/development.

Alinhbo_Tyaka

Syldras wrote: »

Can someone explain what "seasonal model" means? Does it mean that there will be certain content that's only available for 3 months and after that it disappears forever? This would be sad for people who enjoy new stories and lore but can't play for a while due to personal reasons like health, family or job issues.

My suspicion is ESO will implement a season system similar to FO76. In FO76 Seasons are themed events that run about 90 days. During that time via daily and weekly challenges (similar to Endeavors) the player gains points that unlock rewards (similar to Golden Pursuits) and earns the seasonal currency used to purchase the unlocked rewards of their choice. The only thing seasonal about this is the progression and unique rewards theme. The seasons do not provide any new story content themselves though their theme might tie into some new content released during the season. New content is limited to things like new weapons, equipment skins, housing items, icons. etc. Some of the best items can only be obtained with a subscription to Fallout 1st. Also there is not enough seasonal currency earned to purchase all of the unlocked rewards if you play from the normal season levels of 0 - 100. You have to continue to play a lot after reaching 100 to obtain enough currency to buy all rewards. At the end of the season the rewards are no longer available and the player is reset for the start of the next season. FO76 seasons don't really grab me and my opinion is they only exist in the hope that FOMO will drive more players to Fallout 1st. The fact the monetization developer was the one who pitched this in a game update interview further confirms my belief.

Necrotech_Master

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

We need to seriously address Cyrodiil performance. Our (ambitious) goal is to return it to the concurrency levels we supported in 2014. So, we will be experimenting with a Cyrodiil campaign where all classes will have PvP-specific (and more performant) skills that replace the standard player skills with the expectation that we can support more players per campaign"

I'm concerned about the "all classes will have PvP specific skills"

Are they just deleting our class skills in Cyrodiil?
Or just changing how they work in PvP?

to be honest we dont actually know how it will shakedown

it could be anything really from making pvp versions of all the class skills, or having skills which might be unaffected by buffs/debuffs (less calculations serverside since stuff like dots dynamically update their dmg/crit rolls whenever your stats change)

so will have to see what happens, and it looks like it will be an experimental cyro camp thats separate from the others, so it likely wont apply everywhere in game unless whatever they do in the experimental cyro actually solves the problem

J18696

Syldras wrote: »

Can someone explain what "seasonal model" means? Does it mean that there will be certain content that's only available for 3 months and after that it disappears forever? This would be sad for people who enjoy new stories and lore but can't play for a while due to personal reasons like health, family or job issues.

The way it was explained no it's more like instead of getting the entire dlc at once we will get the content spread out over the season timeframe and it won't be taken away after as forum moderation has pointed out in other threads

wolfie1.0.

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

alternatelder wrote: »

I stopped playing every game (very seldomly) that pushed their content to a seasonal model. Please reconsider and do not stop the chapter release schedule. You push fomo hard as it is, and seaonal models will only burn people out even faster. Such a terrible idea for ESO, although I saw this coming a while ago.

What fomo-inducing features were in the announcement today? I think people are assuming the worst based on other games that use the word "season" to refer to more of a battlepass.

They just used the word "season" to announce a shift from yearly themes/chapters. We're going from "Year of the Legacy of the Bretons" to "Season of the Druids". For that part, I'm excited, because it sounds like we can get new content on a related theme without it being part of a whole year of content, or a bunch of unrelated new stuff.

Basically, for some of use in the gaming world, seasonal has negative implications and scars. Season passes left incomplete with no refunds. Content that disappears after a few weeks only to have to pay for it again when it returns...

Look up valves recent season pass and dlc changes for more examples.

BananaBender

People getting upset over this before we know ANY of the actual details is just absurd to me... Right now it's just pointless speculation and fearmongering based on absolutely nothing.

Let's wait until we actually know how their new system is going to look until whipping out the pitchforks. To me it seems that they want to release content when it's finished, not when the deadline is up. Quality over quantity. And based on the past few years, their quality hasn't been able to keep up with the quantity the community expects.

If this results in content that is less buggy and more polished, I'm all for it, but it's waaaaay too early to judge anything just yet.

Syldras

J18696 wrote: »

The way it was explained no it's more like instead of getting the entire dlc at once we will get the content spread out over the season timeframe and it won't be taken away after as forum moderation has pointed out in other threads

If I get it right, the seasons will all have a different main topic? Like there will be 3 months "Nord season" and 3 months "Khajiit season" (just as an example), with some new content of different kinds related to the theme being released during that time? Like the Khajiit season might include a trial in Elsweyr and a Khajiit companion, and the Nord season might have story content in Eastmarch and a Nordic bard class - as examples?

So if one season contains a story part, that would probably not be a very extensive one? As someone who cares a lot about questing and lore, that makes me wonder how well this will work with storytelling. Many more in-depth and meaningful stories need some time to be built up. I know many players didn't like Ithelia's story very much because they felt like just rushing through - and that was a whole normal-sized chapter.

Taril

Syldras wrote: »

If I get it right, the seasons will all have a different main topic?

Not necessarily. It's just that seasons within a year don't all HAVE to be focused around a specific topic.

Nothing stops them from doing multiple seasons around a particular topic.

Syldras wrote: »

So if one season contains a story part, that would probably not be a very extensive one? As someone who cares a lot about questing and lore, that makes me wonder how well this will work with storytelling.

We'll have to see. We don't really have any details about the scope of what seasons might contain (Only that they mentioned "Splitting a large zone across multiple updates")

There's nothing stopping them from adding in a fully fleshed out storyline in a single season, given the idea is to add in fully complete features as and when they are finished (With exception of their "Experimental" things that are supposed to be attempts to see if something should become a "Fully fledged feature" which seems more for potential NEW features rather than implementations of existing features like stories)

Since the idea isn't so much "Only work on small additions we can churn out and toss into the game every few months" bur rather "Work on the same sort of stuff we always have... But just release them when they're done, whenever that may be"

moderatelyfatman

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

We need to seriously address Cyrodiil performance. Our (ambitious) goal is to return it to the concurrency levels we supported in 2014. So, we will be experimenting with a Cyrodiil campaign where all classes will have PvP-specific (and more performant) skills that replace the standard player skills with the expectation that we can support more players per campaign"

I'm concerned about the "all classes will have PvP specific skills"

Are they just deleting our class skills in Cyrodiil?
Or just changing how they work in PvP?

Most other MMOs such as Guild Wars 2 and Black Desert Online have separate tool tips for skills and items depending on whether they're in a PvE or a PvP instance. If this is done correctly, you won't notice anything new if you're a PvEr.

BahometZ

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

BahometZ wrote: »

LittlePinkDot wrote: »

We need to seriously address Cyrodiil performance. Our (ambitious) goal is to return it to the concurrency levels we supported in 2014. So, we will be experimenting with a Cyrodiil campaign where all classes will have PvP-specific (and more performant) skills that replace the standard player skills with the expectation that we can support more players per campaign"

I'm concerned about the "all classes will have PvP specific skills"

Are they just deleting our class skills in Cyrodiil?
Or just changing how they work in PvP?

I suggested this as an idea many years ago, like old school splinter cell pvp where spies and agents had fixed skill sets. Simple but engaging, and skill based, not imbalanced. Plus better performance. I think it's too late in the games life cycle to do it now without seeming like a defeat in the face of inability to balance or improve performance, but thats where we are.

But yes, probably deleting most if not all your class skills.

😭 This sounds like its going to kill the game for me.
I was leveling up my mages skill line for ice. Comet for a frost Arcanist with Tentacular dread and now all my motivation just got sucked out of me.

Yeah it's just a shame that they're only now considering this after years of players developing the pvp environment, theory crafting, warcraft, group play, solo builds, the endless farming, the whole shebang. We've all become ingrained with the rhythm of cyrodil and maybe that will mean little in the new iteration.
We'll have to wait and see i guess.

Ruthless

one thing I can say is that the outside community on r mmorpg is very optimistic they got everything they hated about eso

Better animation for combat, better overland and revamped old zones all those are winners

and that subreddit is extremely negative on everything, if it won them over there might be a glimmer of light

RomanRex

Alinhbo_Tyaka wrote: »

Syldras wrote: »

Can someone explain what "seasonal model" means? Does it mean that there will be certain content that's only available for 3 months and after that it disappears forever? This would be sad for people who enjoy new stories and lore but can't play for a while due to personal reasons like health, family or job issues.

My suspicion is ESO will implement a season system similar to FO76. In FO76 Seasons are themed events that run about 90 days. During that time via daily and weekly challenges (similar to Endeavors) the player gains points that unlock rewards (similar to Golden Pursuits) and earns the seasonal currency used to purchase the unlocked rewards of their choice. The only thing seasonal about this is the progression and unique rewards theme. The seasons do not provide any new story content themselves though their theme might tie into some new content released during the season. New content is limited to things like new weapons, equipment skins, housing items, icons. etc. Some of the best items can only be obtained with a subscription to Fallout 1st. Also there is not enough seasonal currency earned to purchase all of the unlocked rewards if you play from the normal season levels of 0 - 100. You have to continue to play a lot after reaching 100 to obtain enough currency to buy all rewards. At the end of the season the rewards are no longer available and the player is reset for the start of the next season. FO76 seasons don't really grab me and my opinion is they only exist in the hope that FOMO will drive more players to Fallout 1st. The fact the monetization developer was the one who pitched this in a game update interview further confirms my belief.

HOLY COW. I’ve never played FO76, but the fact that it’s made by the same company has always made me curious.

What you’ve described sounds like a monetization strategy by a flailing game who takes its players for granted.

That’s the feeling I am starting to get with ESO and if they even go close to what you described it would be so sad to me.

Syldras

Ruthless wrote: »

Better animation for combat, better overland and revamped old zones all those are winners

I hope it won't get overly flashy.

PrincessOfThieves

Well, as long as this seasonal content is still accessible after the season ends, I don't see an issue. I am just worried that we'll get even less content in 2025.
On a side note, I also don't understand why some people are considering quitting over the idea of more challenging overland stuff. ZOS never said that they wanted to boost the difficulty to souls-like levels or anything like that. I understand the scepticism, I've been very critical of them myself, but let's be fair, they know that the majority of their players are casuals and they won't make the game unplayable for them.

LatentBuzzard

PrincessOfThieves wrote: »

On a side note, I also don't understand why some people are considering quitting over the idea of more challenging overland stuff.

Because there's no upside for those people, it just makes already tedious mobs even more tedious. If you want more difficult overland mobs and they make the change optional then you go for it.

Personaly if I want challenging content then there's plenty of veteran content that I can go and do. Otherwise there's zero benefit to me to having more difficult mobs to plow through whilst I collect skyshards / lore books / antiquities / psijic / whatever on yet another character. Having more difficult mobs doesn't make things more interesting, exciting, engaging or immersive, it just makes things more of a chore. Again, if you want to do that and they make it optional then you do you.

ZOS_Kevin

Hi all, we have reopened this thread. Sorry about the confusion here.

DaveMoeDee

Taril wrote: »

I_killed_Vivec wrote: »

Because if they are as permanent as we might hope, then how are they different from DLC?

The scope.

Like, the way chapters work, is they spend all year making all the content (Where the entire year's content is themed around a specific chapter) and then drop it all on a fixed schedule (I.e. Middle of the year).

The way the "Seasons" are supposed to work is... They just release content when it's finished. They don't have a fixed deadline to rush anything out for, they don't have to wait to bundle it together with a bunch of other stuff. They just work on things and when something is done it gets added to the game.

I'd imagine that monetization remains the same too. Whereby instead of buying the year's content with a DLC, you instead buy a Season Pass and get all the season content for that year (Of course, the lack of set in stone content releases can mean that such a thing is not guaranteed to be as valuable as a DLC, depending on the overall cadence of releases).

Meaning that the overall change should be mostly that new content will be added more frequently, in smaller chunks, rather than annually in a single large drop.

At least, theoretically. Time will tell how things actually play out.

"Seasons" does not mean they release content when it's finished. Seasons means they are planning certain content drops or grindy quests to happen during the season. This has nothing to do with moving to more of a continuous deployment model.

The way they are doing though means they are committing to delivering less content. By delivering less content, they presumably would have more time to fix stuff. And while they are repurposing devs away from new zones to cleaning up old zones, they also save money on the people use to create all the new content.

I am skeptical that season passes will be a thing instead of just making it part of ESO+.

Taril

DaveMoeDee wrote: »

"Seasons" does not mean they release content when it's finished. Seasons means they are planning certain content drops or grindy quests to happen during the season. This has nothing to do with moving to more of a continuous deployment model.

To literally quote what was said in the letter:

"Freeing up the dev team from needing to adhere to a strict annual cycle means we will be able to have teams launch content when it is ready throughout the year and not work to a date in June"

They literally mention that they are changing how content releases are done. With a shift towards "Release when ready" as opposed to "Release on a strict deadline"

DaveMoeDee wrote: »

I am skeptical that season passes will be a thing instead of just making it part of ESO+.

I highly doubt they would just make it part of ESO+.

Since they haven't had Chapters be just part of ESO+, they've always allowed people to purchase them stand-alone without the need for a subscription.

Hence I see them using Season Passes to have the equivalent of "Just buying a Chapter on its own". With the stuff also being incorporated into ESO+ just like the current system of Chapters (Whether ESO+ will gain access to new content on launch or continue to need to wait a year before it gets rolled into the subscription like has been the case is yet to be seen)

It would make little sense for them to drastically shift their overall monetization strategy. Both in terms of how it would effect their overall profits and also how it would impact players whom are used to having these options for accessing content.

AzuraFan

Taril wrote: »

Hence I see them using Season Passes to have the equivalent of "Just buying a Chapter on its own". With the stuff also being incorporated into ESO+ just like the current system of Chapters (Whether ESO+ will gain access to new content on launch or continue to need to wait a year before it gets rolled into the subscription like has been the case is yet to be seen)

It would make little sense for them to drastically shift their overall monetization strategy. Both in terms of how it would effect their overall profits and also how it would impact players whom are used to having these options for accessing content.

I agree that the seasons will probably be outside ESO+ initially, just like chapters were. But ESO+ will lose another DLC (the Q1 dungeon DLC - either right away, or starting in 2026). So they have to do something if they're going to charge the same subscription price.

It wouldn't surprise me if they take this opportunity to revamp ESO+. If they don't, they'll have to drop the price, IMO. After all, that'll be 2 DLCs ESO+ has lost with no drop in price (except for getting the two companions free as a one-time thing).

Syldras

Could someone who is familiar with seasons passes explain: Does that mean we would pay for several months beforehand without knowing what content will be released in that period of time? Or is there a roadmap beforehand, but without a guarantee that everything will be released as planned? Or is everything ready and set at the beginning of a new season so it wouldn't be any different than buying a dlc?

blktauna

Syldras wrote: »

Could someone who is familiar with seasons passes explain: Does that mean we would pay for several months beforehand without knowing what content will be released in that period of time? Or is there a roadmap beforehand, but without a guarantee that everything will be released as planned? Or is everything ready and set at the beginning of a new season so it wouldn't be any different than buying a dlc?

Nothing concrete has been related as to what the pricing structure will be. I think seasons is a poor choice of wording that may not mean what a lot of people here are used to it meaning.

Necrotech_Master

blktauna wrote: »

Syldras wrote: »

Could someone who is familiar with seasons passes explain: Does that mean we would pay for several months beforehand without knowing what content will be released in that period of time? Or is there a roadmap beforehand, but without a guarantee that everything will be released as planned? Or is everything ready and set at the beginning of a new season so it wouldn't be any different than buying a dlc?

Nothing concrete has been related as to what the pricing structure will be. I think seasons is a poor choice of wording that may not mean what a lot of people here are used to it meaning.

agreed

i think a lot of people are assuming its going to be the "battle pass" type of route

Tannus15

@ZOS_Kevin for crying out loud can SOMEONE outline what the model is going to look like.

This is going to be yet another communications disaster if you just let the whole thing fester for a month before you tell us the things you already know.

I'm not for or against "seasons" right now because I have literally no idea what this means.
It means nothing.
No one has any idea what seasons will look like and they are wildly speculating based off what other games do, which you guys have indicated is not what you're going to do.

So what are they?
How will they work?
How will ESO+ interact with them?

It's utter madness to me that you put out this letter and then decide you don't need to cover even the most basic information until what, mid January? All you're doing is feeding panic and anxiety about the game.

I don't know if you've noticed, but people are SCARED of updates now because you guys have had a track record of making things WORSE.
We don't take it on trust that this will be better, because half the time changes come out of no where and blind side us in ways we don't expect.

We don't know what you're thinking or what you're planning, we don't know what the words you are using actually mean and you're not doing anything to address it. PLEASE provide us with some sort of clarity here.

Right now it's fair to assume the model you're basing it off will be the auridon house which was only available for real money and that ESO+ and crowns won't have any real value anymore.
Or that ESO+ will give you access to everything.
Or that ESO+ will give you access to the content after the season finishes.
Or that you can buy access for crowns and subscribers should be saving their crowns for that.
No one has ANY IDEA