Two New Features that will Save ESO and Make it a 30+ Year Game

kojou

At least in my opinion..

Just to give a little context, I have been playing ESO since Beta. I have a crazy amount of hours and dollars invested in this game, so I have a very strong interest in seeing it continue to grow and improve. Unfortunately, in recent years the developers have been making questionable decisions. I do think that they have been making the decisions in good faith, and want the game to continue to improve as much as I do, but that doesn't make the decisions any less wrong for the direction of the game.

I have watched hours of YouTube videos from ESO content creators, read forum posts, talked to my friends on Discord and we all have one thing in common with the developers. We have unchecked opinions. Our opinions may be right or wrong. The majority of players may agree or disagree, and we really have no way of knowing. So the first new feature that I think the developers should introduce into the game is an in game voting system. I got this idea from Runescape (Runescape Poles) where the players get to give direct feed back on the following:

• High-level concepts for new content (Chapters, Seasons, Etc)
• Impactful new rewards (Armor Sets)
• Changes to existing content that would have a significant impact on players (Class Balance)

There are rules including the number of hours of game time and level in order to be allowed to vote (I agree with this), but I would also add that in order to vote in ESO that you must be an ESO+ subscriber. This way you keep the feedback limited to players that are actually writing the developer's paychecks and give an extra perk to encourage subscription. The Yes/No polls also require a super-majority (70%) to pass, and I also think this is a good idea. If something passes at 51% then that means that 49% of the players didn't want it, which is too high of a population.

The polling would let the developers know if the direction they want the game to go is inline with what the players want before investing hours of development time on a new feature that lands with a lukewarm reception, or worse the players outright hate, and leave the game over. I could write pages about all the balance changes I think should be made and other content ideas, but without a polling feature in place who knows if they would be things that other players would even want, so that's why I think the #1 feature for ESO for 2026 should be an in game polling system. That way ideas can be floated to the players to get feedback on, and the results should be shared with the players as well to let them know their voices are being heard and they are influencing the direction of the game.

The second new feature/content that I think should be implemented is a "Legendary" mode for all 4 person and solo content. Currently we have Normal and Veteran, but with players soloing veteran hard mode dungeons I think it is time to take it up a notch. Legendary mode would have the balance of Arc 14 of the Infinite Archive (where the current Dual Player top score for PCNA is). It should also double the dropped rewards and give a 100% drop rate on some rare style pages with the final boss and come with some cool sounding titles related to the dungeon. The cherry on top will be a Legendary leader-board for each dungeon where the top 40 players (scored like current trials) will be able to have bragging rights that they not only concurred the dungeon on Legendary mode, but they were in the top 10 groups. This will also breath new life into Maelstrom Arena and Vateshran Hollows where it is basically such a cake wake for veteran players that the score pushing strategies are just about doing it as fast as possible and no longer about completing with no deaths. I would also like to see a 2 player mode for both of those, but I would settle for just the Legendary mode.

This feature will also help the content creator space as currently I feel like the amount of people posting content and watching content for ESO is dwindling. The best way to get people to play is to get people to watch and want to try new things. Content creators could work on strategy and build guides, stream themselves getting turned into paste when they inevitable mess up on a boss (nothing gets people interested like a little drama) and in general give people a reason to want to go back to some of the older dungeons that we only occasionally do when it is the pledge or we need to help a new player level the undaunted skill line.

I firmly believe that both of these features will do a lot more to get players interested than reorganizing skills on classes, and re-balancing everything for the 400th time, so please, lets skip the whole re-balance everything over the next 6 years plan and start with this instead.

Regards.

Kojou

Thormar

For those short on time, the two features are:

1. An in game voting system.
2. A "Legendary" mode for all 4 person and solo content.

You're welcome.

Danikat

They already do send out surveys to groups of players they want feedback from, or put them here on the forum.

Also standard reminder: the game is not divided into subscribers and free players. There is no free version of ESO and many people who choose not to subscribe do buy all the chapters (or the season passes now I guess), DLC and crowns. If the money from those purchases isn't going to pay the developers salaries as you assume that's an internal financial problem for ZOS to solve, not a reason to exclude players for paying for the game via the "wrong" format.

I'm not convinced subscribers are better informed either, considering how often we get topics about people afraid to stop subscribing because they don't understand what's included and so what would change, or who kept paying because they assumed free things like login rewards and golden pursuits are ESO+ exclusive. I know they're likely a minority of subscribers but I don't think allowing people who will blindly pay ZOS each month and assume it goes on stuff they want are the right people to make informed decisions on the future of the game.

kojou

Danikat wrote: »

They already do send out surveys to groups of players they want feedback from, or put them here on the forum.

Also standard reminder: the game is not divided into subscribers and free players. There is no free version of ESO and many people who choose not to subscribe do buy all the chapters (or the season passes now I guess), DLC and crowns. If the money from those purchases isn't going to pay the developers salaries as you assume that's an internal financial problem for ZOS to solve, not a reason to exclude players for paying for the game via the "wrong" format.

I'm not convinced subscribers are better informed either, considering how often we get topics about people afraid to stop subscribing because they don't understand what's included and so what would change, or who kept paying because they assumed free things like login rewards and golden pursuits are ESO+ exclusive. I know they're likely a minority of subscribers but I don't think allowing people who will blindly pay ZOS each month and assume it goes on stuff they want are the right people to make informed decisions on the future of the game.

Its not about subscribers being the best informed, it is about subscribers putting their money into the game as a steady stream of revenue for the game. Someone who is subscribing for a year is paying $139.99 minimum for the game, which is a lot more than the chapter/season/DLC costs per year. In order to do well financially the game needs subscribers, so my opinion is that subscribers should have an influence on the direction of content and balance. Wrong or right, they are going to vote for what makes them happy and why shouldn't the majority of subscribers be happy with the game?

Also, surveys are not the same thing as what I am talking about. I am talking about an in game polling feature that explains the direction the developers want to go with a feature and allows players to vote in game for that feature. As an example, the developers could put in a poll that says something like:
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
We are looking at revamping class identity, and would like to pick a class to start with. Which class do you feel is in the most need of an identity update:

A. Arcanist
B. Dragon Knight
C. Nightblade
D. Sorcerer
E. Templar
F. Warden
G. Necromancer
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The eligible players would get a poll on the splash screen when they log in that they could answer and the developers would get feedback on which class players are most dissatisfied with before they start spending time on it. I don't think Dragon Knight would be the class the majority would pick... I could be wrong, but this poll would answer that definitively.

They could also post polls regarding new set bonuses, rewards, animation updates, etc. to see if the community likes the direction they want to go before they start spending time on them.

Syldras

They already do surveys (usually sent out by email), they ask questions in the forum and in social media sometimes, they have a PTS, and lots of internal stats no one else has access to. Why would the survey type you suggest, for a limited part of a customerbase (the ones who pay a certain minimum amount, which does not neccessarily correlate with knowledge about the game or the ability to make smart decisions), make a better alternative?

LootAllTheStuff

I don't think in-game polling would make much of a difference regardless of who's allowed to participate. There are plenty of issues around any kind of polling anyway.

I'm more interested in the idea of a Legendary mode, although I do wonder if that's part and parcel of the overland difficulty changes being worked on in the background. Like everything else, though, whether it succeeds with players really depends on how it's implemented.

IsharaMeradin

If you want an in-game poll about specific content, it should be offered to any player that completes such content. It should not be locked behind paying for one feature over another. However, it should only be completable once per account. And a limited number of times per IP address to reduce the amount of account spamming to inflate specific choices, while allowing for multiple individuals that use the same IP address to be able to participate.

End of the day, the developers will make whatever choices they want to make regardless of player opinions.

DinoZavr

No offense, OP, these two features won't "save" the game
This is why:
1. Feedback. There is this Forum with hundreds posts a day. Even if Developers have no time to read this - contemporary AI is quite capable to understand posters attitude ("emotional AI" is what relatively successfully works for many years (example is Youtube AI censors), so it is quite possible to "catch" the overall text messages mood: happy, neutral, disgrunted). Another AI can summarize and present Developers the essentials they (AIs) got analyzing Forum trends
2. Third difficulty step: many years "hard overland" is being discussed. In my humble opinion it is enough to implement a scheme where player voluntarily takes uncancellable for one game day debuff reducing DPS and increasing damage taken. if player feels like normal FG1 is doable with one debuff, they take another one, reducing theirs abilities even further, so we get "finetunable" difficulty system with even more steps than 2 or 3

What in my humble take might help:
1. Ability of Execute: enough qualified personnel with good tools, employees can use in the efficient way
2. Capacity. By this i mean servers performance - lags and disconnects kill high-end content and PVP where each 0.1 second counts.
3. Vision OR/AND Communication, preferably both.

Now a little bit of explanations, if i may:
1. ESO is second best (after Skyrim) Bethesda's money source, so it is baffling for me why to fire so many people, the reason might be placing a bet on AI to replace humans, but in 2025 this yet does not work:
a) insufficient coders - lesser less qualified programmers using coding AI, the results human can not even comprehend - and we get Writhing Fortress with DOZENS of game-breaking bugs: you enter empty instance, minibosses stuck, gates not accessible, big bosses become immune below 35% HP, bosses stuck, final objective inaccessible, permadeath in water..
b) insufficient support: AI moderation, when players got social ban for typos in words "angler" or "flag" and e-mail lying the final decision is taken by a human. I wonder if this human is drunk? can they speak English? player asked for refund for errorously bough CS costume and support asked player to "delete" it. How? That is because support employee does not know the English word "unequip". Having support "on paper" counting some outsourced center in (for example!) Phillipnines with employees who has no understanding of the game and English helps to minimize taxes, but the quality of support for paying customers worsened. Or should i remember AI permabanning new players straight in the tutorial area?
c) insufficient housekeeping: there are significant five years old bugs, but as i may guess - not a single employee responsible for bug fixing. Most of bugs discovered at PTS go live. The reason might be coders are not qualified enough to understand and fix the code. Quality does not matter anymore.
All in all Zeni is not yet a "skeleton crew" but i see a serious lack of completeness.

2. Performance. We already had "a year of performance" in 2020. Please, remind me if it had succeeded?
Modern private cloud technologies allow to add/remove extra computing nodes when required and balance the existing resources. I doubt this concept initially defined the game architecture design, so only "extensive" method remains - throw in more hardware, when performance drops below pre-defined standards. I have not doubts Zenu can measure utilization and response time of backend components, i doubt game-makers want to invest into better responding servers, thinking players who left with one choice - to continue playing or to leave - decide to stay. I'd say the issue is kinda broken trust: with progression players become more demanding to servers performance, and game hints "you would better mine ores and escort a piggie in Stonefalls, rather than attempting trials"

3. Vision. and this is the most complex one. Recent changes are bad for the game. Subclassing and homogenization might be adored by some, or i d say, many players, but in a long term they are harmful for the overall game health and burn many bridges. Subsclassing might be great for a single-player game, so you can customize your characters as you want, as noone is watching, but in MMO - if you decided to play "pure" class (drastically losing its identity with each unification step) - your dps is 1.4x less than plar-arc-nb, and you are most likely kicked from progression guild. In long term decisions taken (most of them are irreversible - Zeni refuses to make any changes into already "finished" content (not to add more bugs, even to remove a diaper from timbercrow wanderer costume) are restricting, which does not fit well with a fantasy MMO freedom.
Of course, often parents go authoritarian towards theirs kids (like: you must study accordion, later you will thank us!) but Zeni is not players' parent and many thing they do are driven by better money income, not by players freedom and happiness.
Partially the lack of vision could be resolved with good communication with community, though except a great job of Kevin, the overall communication still deserves way way better.

TL/DR; recently i see lack of a) professionalism b) performance c) players satisfaction
all of these, of course, can be resolved, the question is if ESO want to flourish or just to survive next several years

Syldras

My main impression this year is that ZOS seems to be understaffed. I don't know, obviously, but many things that were released this year just feel like they're actually unfinished, but had to be released anyway because of schedules:
- There were no new companions.
- No new ToT deck.
- Dolmens got moved from the summer main release to the event in autumn.
- The event was extremely bugged, East Solstice as well upon release.
- There's no French translation and several others have partially missing lines that show up in their English original, and I also have the impression that the German translation on East Solstice dialogues feels a little strange at times, which was never a problem in earlier chapters.
- The scope of new content is also decreasing, the map size might be big, but it feels rather empty.
- Almost all buildings are locked.
- Most town npcs have no dialogue at all, not even a greeting.
- There's less lorebooks.
- The number of quests is reduced, and even the scope of singular quests. There's 15 side quests in East Solstice, I think, and 4 or 5 of them are done in a minute. There's literally a quest where someone misses her pet, you need to go to the pet (which isn't even far away), feed it, it runs to its owner, quest finished. It's done in seconds! This would have worked well as a starting point for a quest chain, but it's really just this, there's no follow-up. So to me it feels either unfinished or like it's just there to increase the quest number somehow, because "10 side quests" would sound even worse than "15 side quests".
And that's just the things I can think of immediately.

This seems to be the problem, to me, that needs to be solved. Without enough people to reasonably work on content, even with the best intentions and well-thought-out plans, the result will be underwhelming.

kojou

Syldras wrote: »

They already do surveys (usually sent out by email), they ask questions in the forum and in social media sometimes, they have a PTS, and lots of internal stats no one else has access to. Why would the survey type you suggest, for a limited part of a customerbase (the ones who pay a certain minimum amount, which does not neccessarily correlate with knowledge about the game or the ability to make smart decisions), make a better alternative?

It is my opinion that surveys sent out by email, PTS, and internal stats are not working.

Emails can be answered by anyone including a grumpy Pvper that doesn't even log into the game anymore. An in game poll will be responded to by a person in the game playing. Also, as someone that is notorious for ignoring email, I likely would miss said emails and not respond to them, whereas I would see an in game poll and respond to it. I am probably not alone in this.

PTS is after they have already made a decision on most of what they are going to do and they generally make very few changes by the time the code makes it there. In order to work, the poll would be something the developers would use during the idea and design phase to confirm if they should spend time on a feature.

The developers have been notorious for misinterpreting internal stats. I remember a time when they were talking about being ready to nerf the lady mundus because too many players were using it only to realize that a lot of players used it because it was the first one they found.

As I mentioned before it doesn't matter whether the player has knowledge about the game. All that matters is if they think something would be fun or not. If 70% of the players think something would be fun then that is the right direction for the team to spend time on development.

kojou

LootAllTheStuff wrote: »

I don't think in-game polling would make much of a difference regardless of who's allowed to participate. There are plenty of issues around any kind of polling anyway.

I'm more interested in the idea of a Legendary mode, although I do wonder if that's part and parcel of the overland difficulty changes being worked on in the background. Like everything else, though, whether it succeeds with players really depends on how it's implemented.

In the words of The Dude, "That is like, your opinion, man." I think a poll would make a difference as players could stop them from doing things that would be a detriment to the game before they spend time on them, and encourage them to do things that add fun, if they used it correctly.

Honestly I don't care about overland difficulty that much, although I did enjoy Craglorn the way it was initially implemented. Obviously it would really depend on how everything is implemented, and they would have to make it very rewarding to do so (i.e. offer legendary gear and loot that you can only get by completing the dungeon at that level).

kojou

IsharaMeradin wrote: »

If you want an in-game poll about specific content, it should be offered to any player that completes such content. It should not be locked behind paying for one feature over another. However, it should only be completable once per account. And a limited number of times per IP address to reduce the amount of account spamming to inflate specific choices, while allowing for multiple individuals that use the same IP address to be able to participate.

End of the day, the developers will make whatever choices they want to make regardless of player opinions.

The opinion of someone that bought the game for $5.99 on a steam sale and the person that is spending $140 annually do not have the same weight of opinion. I will die on this hill.

The only way that the feature works is if the developers do change their direction based on player feedback, and show it to the players that it does.

PathosDante

Definitely language support. The game has a lot of great story, and actually, when you look at it as a whole, it can get quite complex.

For example, I'm Turkish. The biggest reason I can't convince my friends to play it is that they don't understand this already complex game.

StihlReign

kojou wrote: »

Also, surveys are not the same thing as what I am talking about. I am talking about an in game polling feature that explains the direction the developers want to go with a feature and allows players to vote in game for that feature. As an example, the developers could put in a poll that says something like:
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
We are looking at revamping class identity, and would like to pick a class to start with. Which class do you feel is in the most need of an identity update:

A. Arcanist
B. Dragon Knight
C. Nightblade
D. Sorcerer
E. Templar
F. Warden
G. Necromancer
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The eligible players would get a poll on the splash screen when they log in that they could answer and the developers would get feedback on which class players are most dissatisfied with before they start spending time on it. I don't think Dragon Knight would be the class the majority would pick... I could be wrong, but this poll would answer that definitively.

They could also post polls regarding new set bonuses, rewards, animation updates, etc. to see if the community likes the direction they want to go before they start spending time on them.

This is an awesome idea that has been routinely ignored over the years. Personally, I don't think the devs want to hear from each player. The in-game Announcement system and a direct survey link could've been leveraged years ago.

It's almost too easy. Here 2000 seals of endeavors, answer x surveys this year to get your choice of apex mount...blah blah blah

DinoZavr

PathosDante wrote: »

Definitely language support. The game has a lot of great story, and actually, when you look at it as a whole, it can get quite complex.

@PathosDante have you tried TurkishScrollsOnline (Türkçe) addon?
https://esoui.com/downloads/info3689-TurkishScrollsOnline.html

as far as i understand non-speaking Turkish addon author used computer translation of dialogues extracted from the game files up to GoldRoad (the same way as Italians did that). Still this is better than nothing.
Long before Zenimax added Russian support there was the RuESO addon (though it still is) - though amount of native speakers contribution to the said addon was really massive, so it is/was quite worthy addon. Turkish community can also elaborate with a similar addon, as i doubt Zeni intends to add more languages unless this promises huge income. Translation is an investment.

Syldras

kojou wrote: »

The opinion of someone that bought the game for $5.99 on a steam sale and the person that is spending $140 annually do not have the same weight of opinion. I will die on this hill.

If we go by the amount of money spent alone, I guess the players who would define ESO's future should be the housing people then? Most houses cost what, 80 dollars and more? And many players who do housing buy several of them a year.

I rather see people with expertise on a topic (dungeons, PvP, questing, housing, whatever) counceling the devs about that specific topic, if that's necessary.

PathosDante

DinoZavr wrote: »

PathosDante wrote: »

Definitely language support. The game has a lot of great story, and actually, when you look at it as a whole, it can get quite complex.

@PathosDante have you tried TurkishScrollsOnline (Türkçe) addon?
https://esoui.com/downloads/info3689-TurkishScrollsOnline.html

as far as i understand non-speaking Turkish addon author used computer translation of dialogues extracted from the game files up to GoldRoad (the same way as Italians did that). Still this is better than nothing.
Long before Zenimax added Russian support there was the RuESO addon (though it still is) - though amount of native speakers contribution to the said addon was really massive, so it is/was quite worthy addon. Turkish community can also elaborate with a similar addon, as i doubt Zeni intends to add more languages unless this promises huge income. Translation is an investment.

Yes, we use that add-on, but unfortunately it’s not the same as if the streamer had added it to the game themselves.

Absolutely, expanding language support increases the game’s audience and is a real investment.

IsharaMeradin

kojou wrote: »

IsharaMeradin wrote: »

If you want an in-game poll about specific content, it should be offered to any player that completes such content. It should not be locked behind paying for one feature over another. However, it should only be completable once per account. And a limited number of times per IP address to reduce the amount of account spamming to inflate specific choices, while allowing for multiple individuals that use the same IP address to be able to participate.

End of the day, the developers will make whatever choices they want to make regardless of player opinions.

The opinion of someone that bought the game for $5.99 on a steam sale and the person that is spending $140 annually do not have the same weight of opinion. I will die on this hill.

The only way that the feature works is if the developers do change their direction based on player feedback, and show it to the players that it does.

So, you're saying that my opinion is worth less than others because I bought the game on sale, bought the chapters on sale, bought the dlc zones when on discount and only picked up the six-month ESO+ package a few times since I started playing way back in 2016. As well as, picking up my second account when offered for free from Epic, purchased the package that included all chapters through West Weald when on sale for that second account and started gifting dlc story zones from main account to second account as they are on discount.

Just because someone might be a little bit more conscious with how they spend their money does not make their thoughts and opinions about the game and the content that they interact with any less valid than any other player. To think that it does is a form of discrimination.

I might not be as passionate as others on certain content, but it does not mean that my opinion is worth any less for any content that I do care about. Which is why I stated that a player must complete the content associated with any poll in order to participate.

Cooperharley

I 100% agree with both. Having an in game polling system where a larger percentage of players can interact with it would be hugely beneficial. It’d need to be more specific and I feel like hours invested in the game should trump ESO+ subscription

Legendary mode for ESO would also be fantastic

Posting on the forums is also likely to attract the same 5 ish people that poo poo everything btw :-)

Your suggestion has done wonders for OSRS and could only benefit the game in my opinion.

LootAllTheStuff

kojou wrote: »

LootAllTheStuff wrote: »

I don't think in-game polling would make much of a difference regardless of who's allowed to participate. There are plenty of issues around any kind of polling anyway.

I'm more interested in the idea of a Legendary mode, although I do wonder if that's part and parcel of the overland difficulty changes being worked on in the background. Like everything else, though, whether it succeeds with players really depends on how it's implemented.

In the words of The Dude, "That is like, your opinion, man." I think a poll would make a difference as players could stop them from doing things that would be a detriment to the game before they spend time on them, and encourage them to do things that add fun, if they used it correctly.

Honestly I don't care about overland difficulty that much, although I did enjoy Craglorn the way it was initially implemented. Obviously it would really depend on how everything is implemented, and they would have to make it very rewarding to do so (i.e. offer legendary gear and loot that you can only get by completing the dungeon at that level).

Well, it *is* my opinion. But it's also backed up by having been subjected to far too many poorly constructed polls that I could see at a glance weren't going to give any meaningful feedback, or were clearly in search of data to support a conclusion that had already been reached. And then there's the copious statistical issues with accurate polling, about which entire text books have been written. So yes, polls can be good, but they can also be bad, misleading, or flat out wrong (see for example election polling in multiple countries recently...)

On the basis of the many MANY comments in the epic thread on overland difficulty, however, that some form of optional difficulty slider would actually be very popular. In effect, although it's not official, the poll has already been done. I'm not sure it would be easy to implement while ZOS are also planning a prolonged class rebalancing/reworking, but in terms of player return/retention, I think it would have quite broad appeal.

kojou

Syldras wrote: »

kojou wrote: »

The opinion of someone that bought the game for $5.99 on a steam sale and the person that is spending $140 annually do not have the same weight of opinion. I will die on this hill.

If we go by the amount of money spent alone, I guess the players who would define ESO's future should be the housing people then? Most houses cost what, 80 dollars and more? And many players who do housing buy several of them a year.

I rather see people with expertise on a topic (dungeons, PvP, questing, housing, whatever) counceling the devs about that specific topic, if that's necessary.

Sure why not... they are paying customers, they should get to give input on the game too.

kojou

Cooperharley wrote: »

I 100% agree with both. Having an in game polling system where a larger percentage of players can interact with it would be hugely beneficial. It’d need to be more specific and I feel like hours invested in the game should trump ESO+ subscription

Legendary mode for ESO would also be fantastic

Posting on the forums is also likely to attract the same 5 ish people that poo poo everything btw :-)

Your suggestion has done wonders for OSRS and could only benefit the game in my opinion.

I'm not the game director, so obviously my opinion matters very little, but if I was I could be talked into some compromises where a certain number of hours played, or money paid would still get a player a vote. I would just give preference to paying customers, since they are indirectly the boss.

Cooperharley wrote: »

Posting on the forums is also likely to attract the same 5 ish people that poo poo everything btw :-)

Don't I know it...

Occasionally ZOS employees do too, so maybe they will see the post and tell us if it is a good idea they will consider.

kojou

IsharaMeradin wrote: »

kojou wrote: »

IsharaMeradin wrote: »

If you want an in-game poll about specific content, it should be offered to any player that completes such content. It should not be locked behind paying for one feature over another. However, it should only be completable once per account. And a limited number of times per IP address to reduce the amount of account spamming to inflate specific choices, while allowing for multiple individuals that use the same IP address to be able to participate.

End of the day, the developers will make whatever choices they want to make regardless of player opinions.

The opinion of someone that bought the game for $5.99 on a steam sale and the person that is spending $140 annually do not have the same weight of opinion. I will die on this hill.

The only way that the feature works is if the developers do change their direction based on player feedback, and show it to the players that it does.

So, you're saying that my opinion is worth less than others because I bought the game on sale, bought the chapters on sale, bought the dlc zones when on discount and only picked up the six-month ESO+ package a few times since I started playing way back in 2016. As well as, picking up my second account when offered for free from Epic, purchased the package that included all chapters through West Weald when on sale for that second account and started gifting dlc story zones from main account to second account as they are on discount.

Just because someone might be a little bit more conscious with how they spend their money does not make their thoughts and opinions about the game and the content that they interact with any less valid than any other player. To think that it does is a form of discrimination.

I might not be as passionate as others on certain content, but it does not mean that my opinion is worth any less for any content that I do care about. Which is why I stated that a player must complete the content associated with any poll in order to participate.

Short answer, Yes.

Longer answer, the game needs a steady stream of revenue to continue to be live. Data Centers, Developers, and all the administration and such are expensive. Maybe they give subscribers 2 votes instead of 1 vote or something, but I think players that contribute monetarily to the game should get more say in its direction than those that don't.

moderatelyfatman

@kojou
I will respectfully disagree with you that ESO will ever become a 30 year game. Yes, we are looking at WoW and thinking maybe ESO can do the same but there are currently too many fundamental issues with the game.

The main one is performance, bugs and overall stability. I don't think there is anyone left at ZOS who really understands the original code and so you get programmers patching bugs that keep reappearing over and over again rather than fixing the root problem.

You also have the issue of tech legacy with an engine that keeps getting more and more out of date.

ESO also has certain design flaws that have never been removed and built up over time. The guild trader system for one where you need to be in a guild to sell items. A system where all classes can access the same skill, making it impossible to balance the classes independently.

I think a better way to go would be seen from '20 years of Guild Wars'. Guild Wars 1 came out in 2005 and has been recently rereleased as Guild Wars Reforged. The game is still basically in maintenance mode but the devs have provided a lot of NPC companion support so the game can be soloed. GW2 came out in 2012 and is the current iteration of the franchise. There is already talk of GW3 but no confirmation yet.

The advantage of this method is that the devs can rid themselves of the parts of the game that just didn't work and start anew. The inherent risk of new MMOs is mitigated because you are dealing with a franchise with an existing playerbase. The older MMO can still be kept running for players who want nostalgia or lore.

I think this is a much better option all round.

Danikat

WoW is "only" 21 years old. Ultima Online, the first one to be called an MMO is 28 years old, it would only be the "graphical MUDs" from the mid-90s that have hit 30 years and I'm not sure how many of them are still going.

But I think it's difficult to apply what those games did, or even what they're doing now, to ESO because they're very different games (especially the MUDs). Also I suspect the biggest challenge for ESO right now is bringing in enough money that Microsoft don't decide to shut it down to cut costs. I know the game had been very profitable, but that doesn't seem to be enough any more.

Malyore

kojou wrote: »

IsharaMeradin wrote: »

kojou wrote: »

IsharaMeradin wrote: »

If you want an in-game poll about specific content, it should be offered to any player that completes such content. It should not be locked behind paying for one feature over another. However, it should only be completable once per account. And a limited number of times per IP address to reduce the amount of account spamming to inflate specific choices, while allowing for multiple individuals that use the same IP address to be able to participate.

End of the day, the developers will make whatever choices they want to make regardless of player opinions.

The opinion of someone that bought the game for $5.99 on a steam sale and the person that is spending $140 annually do not have the same weight of opinion. I will die on this hill.

The only way that the feature works is if the developers do change their direction based on player feedback, and show it to the players that it does.

So, you're saying that my opinion is worth less than others because I bought the game on sale, bought the chapters on sale, bought the dlc zones when on discount and only picked up the six-month ESO+ package a few times since I started playing way back in 2016. As well as, picking up my second account when offered for free from Epic, purchased the package that included all chapters through West Weald when on sale for that second account and started gifting dlc story zones from main account to second account as they are on discount.

Just because someone might be a little bit more conscious with how they spend their money does not make their thoughts and opinions about the game and the content that they interact with any less valid than any other player. To think that it does is a form of discrimination.

I might not be as passionate as others on certain content, but it does not mean that my opinion is worth any less for any content that I do care about. Which is why I stated that a player must complete the content associated with any poll in order to participate.

Short answer, Yes.

Longer answer, the game needs a steady stream of revenue to continue to be live. Data Centers, Developers, and all the administration and such are expensive. Maybe they give subscribers 2 votes instead of 1 vote or something, but I think players that contribute monetarily to the game should get more say in its direction than those that don't.

I think OP is just wanting to become a shareholder.

Rungar

1) never trust players to vote to improve the game. Most players will not be informed nor undrstand the root causes of issues and therefore will vote emotionally for things they think they want. It would be an epic disaster.

2) legendary mode wont work if most average players cant even do the vet version of the dungeons. The problem with the dungeons is that they are linear and focus solely on dps and mechanics. An obsolete model. They need a new model for dungeons whereby things other than dps can have impact.

people like to blame things like subclassing and hybridization for all the games problems when the reality is that the content dps/mechanic centric model is simply obsolete. Players want advanture and while zos has the tools and platform to provide it, they lack the vision and skill to implement anything of real substance.

Cooperharley

Rungar wrote: »

1) never trust players to vote to improve the game. Most players will not be informed nor undrstand the root causes of issues and therefore will vote emotionally for things they think they want. It would be an epic disaster.

2) legendary mode wont work if most average players cant even do the vet version of the dungeons. The problem with the dungeons is that they are linear and focus solely on dps and mechanics. An obsolete model. They need a new model for dungeons whereby things other than dps can have impact.

people like to blame things like subclassing and hybridization for all the games problems when the reality is that the content dps/mechanic centric model is simply obsolete. Players want advanture and while zos has the tools and platform to provide it, they lack the vision and skill to implement anything of real substance.

1) Have to disagree as it's worked extremely well with OSRS. Different populations, sure, but still think this is fine. Voting is done across all matters of society for the same reason. Things you find important may not be important to others and vice versa. I agree that it could be taken away from things you and I may want, but if that's what the masses want, then who are you or I to say otherwise?

2) I agree there needs to be more training of the playerbase to better understand the combat system and the like. I really think veteran overland may help more than some think because if it's not just pushover content, people will be forced to think about why they're dying and seek improvement.

kojou

Malyore wrote: »

kojou wrote: »

IsharaMeradin wrote: »

kojou wrote: »

IsharaMeradin wrote: »

If you want an in-game poll about specific content, it should be offered to any player that completes such content. It should not be locked behind paying for one feature over another. However, it should only be completable once per account. And a limited number of times per IP address to reduce the amount of account spamming to inflate specific choices, while allowing for multiple individuals that use the same IP address to be able to participate.

End of the day, the developers will make whatever choices they want to make regardless of player opinions.

The opinion of someone that bought the game for $5.99 on a steam sale and the person that is spending $140 annually do not have the same weight of opinion. I will die on this hill.

The only way that the feature works is if the developers do change their direction based on player feedback, and show it to the players that it does.

So, you're saying that my opinion is worth less than others because I bought the game on sale, bought the chapters on sale, bought the dlc zones when on discount and only picked up the six-month ESO+ package a few times since I started playing way back in 2016. As well as, picking up my second account when offered for free from Epic, purchased the package that included all chapters through West Weald when on sale for that second account and started gifting dlc story zones from main account to second account as they are on discount.

Just because someone might be a little bit more conscious with how they spend their money does not make their thoughts and opinions about the game and the content that they interact with any less valid than any other player. To think that it does is a form of discrimination.

I might not be as passionate as others on certain content, but it does not mean that my opinion is worth any less for any content that I do care about. Which is why I stated that a player must complete the content associated with any poll in order to participate.

Short answer, Yes.

Longer answer, the game needs a steady stream of revenue to continue to be live. Data Centers, Developers, and all the administration and such are expensive. Maybe they give subscribers 2 votes instead of 1 vote or something, but I think players that contribute monetarily to the game should get more say in its direction than those that don't.

I think OP is just wanting to become a shareholder.

No, but I think ZOS should treat us more like shareholders and less like annoying people that they have to deal with.

kojou

Rungar wrote: »

1) never trust players to vote to improve the game. Most players will not be informed nor undrstand the root causes of issues and therefore will vote emotionally for things they think they want. It would be an epic disaster.

2) legendary mode wont work if most average players cant even do the vet version of the dungeons. The problem with the dungeons is that they are linear and focus solely on dps and mechanics. An obsolete model. They need a new model for dungeons whereby things other than dps can have impact.

people like to blame things like subclassing and hybridization for all the games problems when the reality is that the content dps/mechanic centric model is simply obsolete. Players want advanture and while zos has the tools and platform to provide it, they lack the vision and skill to implement anything of real substance.

@Cooperharley already answered to this comment pretty well, but I wanted to add one more point.

The Legendary mode is not so much content for the masses, but content to aspire to. I think it solves a few problems.

• There are a lot of players that have done everything or almost everything and want something different to try.
• There are content creators that need something that is fun to watch (There is much more drama when there is fear of death, rather than just pushing a score from 600k to 610k in VMA)
• There are already a lot of dungeons, so if ZOS can add the new mode to all dungeons then they get a lot of content with a relatively low amount of effort.

The most important thing though, is to add unique skins, dungeon themed mounts, style pages, gear, titles, and leaderboards so that players who complete the dungeon on Legendary mode can show off their cool stuff.

Maybe even add Legendary gear sets with Legendary bonuses similar to what they did in trials with perfected bonuses.

Malyore

kojou wrote: »

IsharaMeradin wrote: »

kojou wrote: »

IsharaMeradin wrote: »

If you want an in-game poll about specific content, it should be offered to any player that completes such content. It should not be locked behind paying for one feature over another. However, it should only be completable once per account. And a limited number of times per IP address to reduce the amount of account spamming to inflate specific choices, while allowing for multiple individuals that use the same IP address to be able to participate.

End of the day, the developers will make whatever choices they want to make regardless of player opinions.

The opinion of someone that bought the game for $5.99 on a steam sale and the person that is spending $140 annually do not have the same weight of opinion. I will die on this hill.

The only way that the feature works is if the developers do change their direction based on player feedback, and show it to the players that it does.

So, you're saying that my opinion is worth less than others because I bought the game on sale, bought the chapters on sale, bought the dlc zones when on discount and only picked up the six-month ESO+ package a few times since I started playing way back in 2016. As well as, picking up my second account when offered for free from Epic, purchased the package that included all chapters through West Weald when on sale for that second account and started gifting dlc story zones from main account to second account as they are on discount.

Just because someone might be a little bit more conscious with how they spend their money does not make their thoughts and opinions about the game and the content that they interact with any less valid than any other player. To think that it does is a form of discrimination.

I might not be as passionate as others on certain content, but it does not mean that my opinion is worth any less for any content that I do care about. Which is why I stated that a player must complete the content associated with any poll in order to participate.

Short answer, Yes.

Longer answer, the game needs a steady stream of revenue to continue to be live. Data Centers, Developers, and all the administration and such are expensive. Maybe they give subscribers 2 votes instead of 1 vote or something, but I think players that contribute monetarily to the game should get more say in its direction than those that don't.

I disagree. First of all, I would imagine Microsoft has more than enough money to support ESO more if they really wanted to, but instead they do mass layoffs to save on expenses. They strip the game staff down, so less of your money is actually going back into the game and likely into other aspects of the companies.
But what I think is most important to reiterate is that you would be aiming to flush out people who may love the game but can't afford to spend extra money in it. And where is the line drawn when doing so? If people who subscribe get 2 votes, then what about people who spend even more in the crown store, then wouldn't they be worth even more and get 3 or 4 votes? What if they spent hundreds one month for a new crown crate, but then only maintained their subscription the next month without extra expenses? At what point does that method of "player" value (aka wallet value) become untenable?
If I choose to spend a $100+ dollars on something like feeding my child or paying bills, rather than buying a notable ESO home, that does not mean that my vote for what would be better for the game is automatically moot or unsound for the games health. Just because someone is able to afford putting extra monetary support into the game doesn't mean they know what's best for the game, nor that catering to their wishes is going to bring more/stable money into the game's support in the long run, when it's ran against a varied audience. Especially if the big spenders are split in what they want and a vote lands like 49:51, then a huge portion of those big spenders still aren't getting what they wanted. What good does them having extra votes do for the game or the players if the game won't support the direction that 49% of the big spenders wanted?

Overall it just sounds like a messy situation that could easily be damaging.