Insanely tough one with subclassing but personally it sucked way more from the game for me at the time and set the trajectory for what's we're having now.
I would go with Subclassing, Hybridization, and probably the new BG format. I actually think Account-wide Achievements is on balance a good thing for the game, but especially the subclassing and hybridization were not good changes for the game IMO.
Almost picked all of the above, but really AwA was THE thing that killed the game for me. I haven't enjoyed it since. I could probably live with Hybridization and Subclassing if at least I had joy in playing different characters again.
PC/NA
Mountain God | Leave No Bone Unbroken | Apex Predator | Pure Lunacy | Depths Defier | No Rest for the Wicked | In Defiance of Death
Defanged the Devourer | Nature's Wrath | Relentless Raider | True Genius | Bane of Thorns | Subterranean Smasher | Ardent Bibliophile
Group finder and replace it with a random trial finder
The group finder should be replaced with a random trial finder
ESO trials are not true raids as known from others MMORPGs but upscaled dungeons (12 players vs four) and ZOS has only managed to keep up the illusion of veteran "trials" being "extra hard" or "extra prestigious" by restricting the broad community's access to them (on veteran difficulty).
Players must now rely not on ZOS but a player-stranger's subjective judgment via personal networks and awkward "job applications" to raiding gulds to get access to groups and get serious with veteran trials.
The random dungeon finder that many new players dislike was never going to be a pedagogical tool or "tutorial mode" but seeing other players get things done inspired many to finally learn how to improve their builds and enjoy smoother PVE runs in general and this valuable learning remains omitted by ZOS in the case of the "trials" which also harms the raiding community at a time when it has already seen its numbers dwindle going by their own statements over the last 1-2 years.
With the group finder ZOS has condoned the elitism most had hoped it would make disappear (goodbye "link achiev 100k DPS min" for example) but instead it has had no effect or sometimes the opposite effect.
So the group finder is the feature I'd like to roll back
none of these things affected me personally, but each of them led to more and more ppl leaving and/or spending a lot less time playing. i've always played the game solo, but i did enjoy collecting things, harvesting and crafting and selling duplicates of those things on the traders. as more and more ppl left, the trading got worse and worse until it was not worth it anymore. i think i have 2 guilds left (down from 5) that have kept traders and now i only list things to help with inventory rather than to try to make a decent amount of gold. and a lot of things aren't worth the listing fees so they just get vendored.
I don’t need any of these rolled back, I just need to see the team think them through before dropping them on us.
I liked my characters having individual histories, but I’ve learned to live with AWA and I still try to get achievements credited to the right character at least. I like my characters built as pure classes the way I designed them, but I can see how others may want to experiment.
What I don’t like is being told by the devs that my way is wrong.
Every one of these things had a PTS feedback thread that presented both factions’ major issues with them, and offerred a compromise solution that would mostly satisfy both. For AWA, we could have still tracked individual achievements but then tally globally; there was an addon that mostly did that anyway. For Hybridization and Subclassing, it give more freedom for builds, all it needed was to balanced so people aren’t forced into it if they choose not to. And the BGs could have been reworked to prevent some of the strategies, like camping spawn or CTR being a stalemate most of the time (and now some achievements are literally unobtainable since they require 3 teams).
But by the time ZOS finally presents their “big things!” it’s releasing on PTS the following Monday. There’s no time to rebuild the thing from scratch to account for these alternate viewpoints, so they just say “whatever, you’ll get used to it!” That breeds discontent. We feel like our playstyle is not even considered, and they don’t care.
ZOS, I get that you want to surprise us, but please for the love of Kyne: Stop. Let us know earlier in the process. Collect feedback on things that won’t release for like a year, so that you can build the thing with players in mind instead of dictating to them what they should and should not like.
It’s not that we hate the things ESO is doing. It’s that we hate that it’s forced upon us with the attitude of “if you don’t like it, you’re playing wrong.” And there’s only so long players will allow themselves to be treated that way before they leave.
As much as I dislike the change to Account Wide Achievements, I believe that homogenization of the skills has resulted in more damage to the game than all of the above.
Y'all can take AwA from my cold dead body
Hybridization is only like 1/2 way even done but is generally fine
But subclassing had been...... An experience to say the least
AWA was such a craven gaslighting of the players. The shark jumping moment when players realized that what they wanted would only be used by ZOS to give us they wanted us to have and the manipulatively sold to them as “you asked for this.”
Tha snow job selling Tales of Tribute was the second grossest moment in ESO history. “All the staff love it, are playing it in their free time and organizing tournaments.” It goes live and is so half-baked, malfunctioning and unbalanced that there is no way anyone “loved it”, could probably even finish a game and five years later how many tournaments have you played in?
At least it works now and is minorly enjoyable if you’re idea of a high-fantasy rpg is sitting in a pub.
Edited by Punches_Below_Belt on 15 September 2025 15:24
I'd rather see new things added to, rather than taken away from, ESO.
Subclassing is great. I can min/max the passives I get to use while in Werewolf form, creating even more builds I couldn't make before.
Hybridization is convenient. It opens up new options for Werewolf builds, as wasted stat lines like "spell penetration" now count toward the penetration of the martial damaging abilities.
Account Wide Achievements are a plus for me because I want to earn everything I can on my main character. I don't want to start the game over again several times.
The new BGs are fun in their own way — things like the new Chaos Ball transformations make them exciting to play. And since we know we'll get to return to 3-team BGs eventually, I don't mind keeping 2-team BGs in the game. Hopefully we can get both 2-team and 3-team BGs available at the same time.
As for other things people have mentioned — Tales of Tribute, Companions, Scribing, Antiquities, etc — I like that all of those features exist. ToT is fun once you learn how to play it. Mythics and Scribing skills are fun to build around. Companions are interesting both as original characters and as something you can theorycraft combat builds for.
Again, I'd rather see new features added to the game. Of course I'd like to see new ToT decks, Companions, Mythics, Grimoires, etc — but also I want to see what else ZOS has in store for this game.
PC/NA — Lone Werewolf, the EP Templar Khajiit Werewolf
It's not that I dislike subclassing as a feature, but as feature it feels ... artificial and forced into the game for a lack of a better term. Hybridization needs to be removed from the game though, it's doesn't fit with the game as it was intended at all.
AwA are something I've always despised and always will.
Basically though, I'd remake a lot of features in ESO and make them feel more like the singleplayer RPG games and less like a generic high fantasy MMORPG.
PAWS (Positively Against Wrip-off Stuff) - Say No to Crown Crates!. Outfit slots not being accountwide is ridiculous given their price. PC EU/PC NA roleplayer and solo PvE quester
I'm mostly ok with hybridization, but the glory days of ESO were when we had none of the listed things in game. I'd be OK with account wide titles, but the way they implemented account wide achievements was a fail. It removed the need for alt toons almost entirely.
It feels so out of place in this game. Biggest waste of dev time IHMO.
It wasn't an option in the poll, but I'd add companions and housing as part of the downfall of ESO as well. ToT is still an astonishing thing to have put dev time into at all IMO. That was when I really started questioning what was going on with ZOS and the dev team.
Oh, too, the 14 day guild listing time in guild traders is totally unreasonable as well.
Subclassing has, predictably, made an over-arching meta while turning power creep into a firehose. But this has its roots in hybridization. Once that domino fell, this was the expected outcome. Next stop, massive nerfs to all of the "overperforming" skill lines.
Totally just out of pure curiosity, I would have been interested in seeing the votes on the "PvP, entirely" option if it'd be included in the poll.
Not saying I would have voted for that, but still... Really curious.
Ah, but probably nobody would have voted it in a public poll 'cause, you know, they don't like PvP.
Anyway, nothing I would revert here. I would just add 3 teams BGs as mini events.
A: "We, as humans, should respect and take care of each other like in a Co-op, not a PvP 🌸"
B: "Many words. Words bad. Won't read. ⚔️"
All but hybridization really, but I was a casual pre-hybridization. AWA I just wanted account wide titles, not account wide achievements. Dungeon and trial achievements should’ve stayed per character at least.
PC/NA Dungeoneer (Tank/DPS/Heal), Trialist (DPS/Tank/Heal), and amateur Battlegrounder (DPS) with a passion for The Elder Scrolls lore
CP 2000+
Warden Healer - Arcanist Healer - Warden Brittleden - Stamarc - Sorc Tank - Necro Tank - Templar Tank - Arcanist Tank
🌸*throws cherry blossom on you*🌸 "Eagles advance, traveler! And may the Green watch and keep you."
🦬🦌🐰 PlayStation and PC EU.
LunaLolaBlossom on psn.
LunaFloraBlossom on pc.
It's a no-brainer for me, AwA is the one thing on the list that hurt my playstyle badly, while the other things are of either no interest or no concern to me.