I attempted this once on my DK, who was spec’d for crafting at the time. I took a year+ break from ESO, recently came back, and haven’t done combat on this character yet. No blue or red CP slotted. No skills selected. No armor or weapons equipped. I didn’t even have a potion on my quickslot. When the description said “equip you with a build” I assumed that meant armor and weapons. I managed to get to a big boss (unsure if that guy was the final! The one that kills the bad mage) but, at basically 0 everything, I died and left.

Some things that need working on:
- I didn’t notice until I got into battle that my skill bar had stuff on it! As I said, it’s been a while since I’ve done combat on this character. A prompt to look at my skill bar and move things around would have been nice. Maybe with some additional explanations of skills? I recognized some at a glance but not all. Also, I usually put my spammable on 2, and it took me too long to realize it was on 3. I never have a shield on 1 — that’s 4 or 5. So my muscle memory from playing my other characters utterly failed me. I just kept casting Hardened Armor and Igneous Weapons, doing 0 damage. And punching with my light attacks, because again, no weapons equipped.
- Provide gear! Even a full rubedite set would be preferable to doing this naked with fists.
- The first guy, where you are being re-taught how to interrupt and block is very inconsistent in what skills he uses. I was stuck on the interrupt for a while, because he would jump away and start casting. He would finish before I could get to him. Or he just wouldn’t cast and hit me several times with a heavy. If the point is to demonstrate a skill, the enemy needs to be in a state where I can demonstrate it.
- It was unclear if the shield around the first enemy would go away if I did all the things the game said to. I’m pretty sure I never got an interrupt in and I did kill him.
- I tried casting my ultimate while in combat with the first enemy (or whichever one doesn’t re-teach you ultimates). It didn’t go off until this enemy died. So basically immediately after combat ended. Very strange. If certain skills aren’t allowed, they shouldn’t go off at a delay.
- The instruction text went away too quickly. If I was looking elsewhere on my screen, say because an enemy just jumped away, I’d miss it. I don’t think it was displayed again, but if it was, I still missed it. Again it was unclear if forward progress was gated on doing what the text said.
- I have >1300 CP and over 1k hours in ESO. Blocking, interrupting, dodge rolling, and using my ultimate are not problems, even after time away. The muscle memory for those develops fast. It’s all the skills that I forget, especially which ones are damage, which are heals, which are shields and which are buffs. There were no tutorial parts on those.

Overall, I’d say this experience was underwhelming. I don’t remember how to play my DK any better for having gone through it. Plus, I died. I know it’s part of learning in ESO, but it doesn’t feel great in a tutorial area, especially when the point is to “get you back up to speed.” If this remain unchanged, and I took another long break from ESO, I wouldn’t do Hero’s Return after this experience.

How far did you make it through the Hero’s Return feature?

I completed it.

Did you find the tasks easy to engage with?

Aside from the bugs as a geared veteran player it was easy to deal with.

Did you notice any issues with particular tasks?

If I wasn't geared, doing the IA stuff might have been a problem. I'm also not sure you'd want to toss someone that's totally out of it into group content.

If you had lapsed for several months, would this help you get back into the swing of things?

Probably not. I've quit ESO on multiple occasions in the past and came back to playing without massive issues. Generally speaking, I find when I've gone away and come back what I'm behind on is that my gearing/build may no longer work, that my inventory is an absolute mess, and I've got a boatload of things I should be doing. The pursuit kind of feels like added homework.

How do you feel about the rewards? Are they helpful to keeping you on your ESO journey?

If the person is brand new, the rewards are nice. If the player isn't brand new, you've potentially eaten up a fair portion of their remaining bag space and the only things they may want are the Crown Items. The Ashen Grip items for example are level 50 so on a CP160+ character they aren't exactly good.

Any parts of this experience that made you want to quit playing?

I'm not really a fan of popups.

I really hated the popup Black Desert Online had after you hit 50 telling you all the things you could do over and over but, at least that popup had an option to be set to appear once per day. The welcome back thing pops up a ton and gets to be rather annoying.

How far did you make it through the Hero’s Return feature?
I completed the intro quest and all the pursuits.

Did you find the tasks easy to engage with?
No, after the first NPC encounter I walked around for a minute before finding the ramp. It took me 2 days to figure out that the rest of the Hero's return feature was based upon golden pursuits. After this it was pretty easy.

Did you notice any issues with particular tasks?
I had some weird fights where the enemies were damage sponges then suddenly insta-died without me knowing why.
I was unable to do the buff food pursuit with my Oaken Soul ring on. Took it off and it worked. Submitted a bug for the same.
Several times trying to claim the ashen grip item boxes failed with the message "You do not meet the qualifications". Tried Light, Med, Heavy till one worked.
There weren't enough recommended houses in PTS to complete that task so I solo FG1 instead

If you had lapsed for several months, would this help you get back into the swing of things?
The combat intro quest was very confusing because of the enemy behavior. The tasks are all things people should know how to do, but it still didn't feel very guided.

Are there key systems that you think should be included in this feature?
Explain curated drops and armory system at a minimum returning players in my guild have no idea.

How do you feel about the rewards? Are they helpful to keeping you on your ESO journey?
Rewards were fine

Any parts of this experience that made you want to quit playing?
No they're all fine.

What this game needs and has needed for years is a story arc progression tracker basically this built into the UI: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/525351/a-clear-step-by-step-guide-to-playing-eso-in-chronological-order

I have people joining my guild who are returning for the first time since Elsweyr having absolutely no idea how to pick up where they left off. Many people treat ESO like a live service RPG instead of an MMO if you want a QoL improvement for them this would be it.

Any parts of this experience that made you want to quit playing?
Seriously loved it all, especially the riding skill books. How long did you say I'd have to quit for?

I really don't like that the tutorial forcibly changes and then locks your skill bar.

Even if you have to use those skills it would be very helpful to be able to move them around. I always set up my abilities in RPGs so the controls are similar - for example I always have my healing skill on the same button. But because my skills are locked in this tutorial I'm faced with either wasting time changing keybinds so it matches how I normally play or trying to learn a new control scheme which I'll never use again once I get out the tutorial.

I don't see the harm in being able to rearrange the skills on the bar. People who don't remember that's an option won't even try, but also it's a very intuitive system - if you've moved skills and didn't mean to you can move them back.

I wish you wold consider returning old event items to the game too. Many are still absent like the "Dragon rise event" items.

Having forever unobtainable items in the game make returning players and normal players that missed 1 event in 11 years feel like their collection has been broken and they can't catch up.

Hero Returns has old players already plotting a way to obtain the rewards with some planning to be absent from the game on purpose to trigger the special pursuit https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/1jz83af/heros_return_rewards/

How far did you make it through the Hero’s Return feature?
I completed the adventure.

Did you find the tasks easy to engage with?
Yes.

Did you notice any issues with particular tasks?
No, but I noticed that the tutorials do not adapt to your keybinds. The prompt was still telling me to dodge roll by double tapping WASD despite that option being turned off. This wasn't really a problem since I know where my dodge roll is bound, but it might be for some players after a long break.

If you had lapsed for several months, would this help you get back into the swing of things?
Probably not, but it wouldn't hurt at least.

Are there key systems that you think should be included in this feature?
Abilities. Apart from prompting me to use my ultimate, the whole tutorial did not tell me to use my abilities a single time. There was more emphasis on how to interact with the off balance system, than actually using your abilities. I think either giving the player prechosen skills like in the vampire intro quest, or at the very least telling them to cast abilities would be welcome.

How do you feel about the rewards? Are they helpful to keeping you on your ESO journey?
I think they were good.

Any parts of this experience that made you want to quit playing?
No.


Overall I think it's a welcome feature, but I think the combat tutorial should be more focused on actually reminding the player how to do combat and not on spamming light and heavy attacks, even if the target is off balanced.