Given the issues this year, will you pre-order in 2026?

twisttop138 · November 3

I will only order after launch when I can see what I’m buying

It's interesting and sad to see so many unhappy people here. Fed up with Zos, the bad content as of late and the lack of communication. Now, I read from a keen forum member that ZOS will never mea culpa this years content, due to the inevitable bad press. I agree that this would be bad. What I think they need to do is blow us away with the end of year letter. No more "the good stuff is right around the corner, just trust us a little bit longer. Don't worry, you're gonna love it we promise. Oh it's so good." We need concrete showings.

I get people may be bored with the chapter model but it had stuff for almost everyone. A big zone to explore. Antiquity stuff, 6 delves. 2 public dungeons. A trial. New systems and hours of side quests. For 40 dollars, you cannot beat it. I don't think 3 months long seasons, where we visit old zones is going to quite cut it. How will there be good chunks of story? Exploration? Important for me, a new trial. If the chapters are going away where do new trials fit into the model?

We need to be blown away. As I said before, I always pre ordered. Even on breaks from the game. Since Orsinium. So while they cannot come out And say they see we're disappointed with this year for obvious reasons, they can endeavor to make 2026 a year to remind us of why we love and play ESO. To earn our money again. Time will tell.

silentxthreat · November 3

I will only order after launch when I can see what I’m buying

I never pre order anything anymore. its always the same thing pre order to get this fomo thing then the pre order it self is garbage

agelonestar · November 3

I will only order after launch when I can see what I’m buying

redlink1979 wrote: »

At this point, after seeing what phase 2 is all about I'm very reluctant.

This is the best comment in the thread! I was disappointed by Phase 1. Phase 2 of this Boring Wall event was almost unbelievable.

Why even call it two different phases.......? It's literally the f

same!!!

Dojohoda · November 3

I quit pre-ordering a few years ago.

soelslaev · November 3

bmnoble wrote: »

...the 2nd and 3rd phases better be something truly impressive, to make up for phase 1.

Oof! I'm sorry.

But also, regarding the thread title question: LOL, no!

Furyous · November 3

I will only order after launch when I can see what I’m buying

You're definitely not alone.

I've always been willing to spend money on ESO, as long as I felt like I was getting value.
I have money earmarked for entertainment, and I want to support good content.
But this year? I'm not having fun.
The "once in a lifetime" event is just housekeeping with a dramatic backdrop.
Phase Two is Phase One with a new label.
The gameplay loop is chores. The rewards are recycled.
And the communication? Somehow worse than before.

The shift to prepaid content changed everything.
Before, they had to earn the sale.
Now the sale comes first, and the content just has to exist.
That's not a model I want to support.

I'm not pre-ordering next year either.
Not out of spite, out of principle.
If I feel like I wasted money once, I won't do it again.

I want value for my money.
If it's not there, I'm not spending.

Caligamy_ESO · November 3

Don’t Know

This year was the first time I didn't pre-order, and I still haven't picked up whatever this years content was called. *shrug*

duagloth · November 3

I’m not ordering anything else - I’m done - what a mess!

this wasnt a preorder, it was a buy in for a beta test.

scrappy1342 · November 4

I’m not ordering anything else - I’m done - what a mess!

duagloth wrote: »

this wasnt a preorder, it was a buy in for a beta test.

tom sawyer would be proud ^.^

Mathius_Mordred · November 4

I will probably pre-order but yet to decide

I wonder if they had more things planned, but with the savage cuts to their workforce were unable to fully release everything they wanted? I think we deserve a candid response to the overwhelmingly negative feedback for the 2025 content pass.

The Chapter model was far more successful and offered a lot more, but I just don't know if they have the team size to revert to that model. In fact, they are probably a year ahead of what we are seeing now, so the 2026 Content Pass is likely ready to roll out, and it will be too late to revert even if they wanted to.

If they really did release everything they wanted to, then I think they very greatly misjudged the way most people would respond to it. This game used to be generous with its reward system, but in all aspects of the game, we see less and less being offered as rewards, right down to the very lacklustre daily login rewards for the last 4 months. The rewards for the Siege events are just awful, the worst I've ever seen. The rewards for the Witches' festival are just recycled junk from last year. If I ever see another Dermora motif, it will be a billion years too soon! Half of the daily login stuff I vendor or mark as junk, and almost everything from the other boxes is deconstructed or vendored. The fetch quests may have been interesting in 1998, but they don't cut it today. It's shoddy and boring, shows a lack of effort and planning, and a real disconnect with the people (customers) who play their game. The progress meter is a joke as they continually adjust it to suit when they want it to finish. I could go on, but what's the point?

I do feel really bad for them having been savaged by MS so brutally, but much of this stuff was planned and built before the layoffs, although as I said, it must have had some impact, if only in last-minute QA checks.

I need to see exactly what they are going to offer for next year before ordering.

Tornaad · November 4

I will definitely pre-order regardless

Since about 2 years after Oblivion was first released, about the only video games I have been playing are Elder Scrolls games. So, while I would like to answer I want to check first, I reality says I will be preordering when it comes out.

LadyLethalla · November 4

I will only order after launch when I can see what I’m buying

Add "probably" to my answer, because I might decide I've had enough.

Also, the Wagon Wheel joke works in Australia too. My husband used to work for the company that made them, before business was closed down and the recipe got sold off to Arnott's.

Zodiarkslayer · November 4

I will only order after launch when I can see what I’m buying

I'll probably do it like this season, where I waited until a reasonable discount can offset all the issues that come with it.

Paying full prize on any ESO related update/upgrade is unreasonable (I have other words in my mind right now, but alas ... ).
Marketing and management in general need to rethink their strategy with this game. They have such a loyal fan base and treat us like <peep>.

ESO is a mess. And there are no excuses.

iGuavaTH · November 4

Don’t Know

I have no idea if I am going to pre-order or not. I don't really care about pre-order bonuses and such, I am here for the game play, not the cosmetics.

It's hard to tell, we have no idea what the new content model will look like. I don't think this years release is anything to base next years content on. This was obviously made as a chapter, then they changed their mind and we ended up with this mess.

I would not be surprised if the first release next year is what they initially planned for fall 2025 and then only the Eights know.

I don't think we will get a big new zone every year in the future, maybe every other year, and I am kind of ok with that, as long as we get good stories and other repeatable content like dungeons, trials and arenas once in awhile.

I still have faith in ZOS, but not so much in MS, and unfortunately they are the ones who makes the decisions. All they care about are profit margins which will make the life of ZOS much harder. They will have to cut costs and I believe that this is the actual reason they had to abandon the chapter model.

Lixiviant · November 4

I’m not ordering anything else - I’m done - what a mess!

I honestly never thought I'd say this (10 years, ESO Plus, always doing my "great game" in the forums) but I think I'm done. I broke down and ordered Solstice and wish I had spent the money on one of the PS Store games that go on sale.

First time ordering a season pass that makes me think I may never see the rest of the stuff that was promised. Have already decided to prepare to not renew ESP Plus for the first time in January.

Between the lackluster Writhing Wall event, Study in Discipline quest disaster (still have 4 tickets on this one) and other disappointments, I'm done.

LPapirius · November 4

I will only order after launch when I can see what I’m buying

Anyone who's anticipating 5 or more years of continued ESO really needs to check up on the current events between ZOS and Microsoft. Every aspect of ESO has been in decline in terms of quantity for a few years now. Then there were massive layoffs, including the games creator and lead dev. Now there is a very unhappy player population due to over hyping the wall event. Virtually everything since and including Infinite Archive is recycled content. Vengeance will be the end of PvP if mandated.

All signs point to ESO moving into maintenance mode. How long the game can coast with basically no investments on the part of ZOS is only known by ZOS, but it's not looking good for the future of ESO in any capacity.

NordSwordnBoard · November 4

I’m not ordering anything else - I’m done - what a mess!

It's as if back in 2016 I started dating a professional artist who changed over time into a hedge fund analyst. As the focus became more oriented towards money we began to grow apart. It took me a while to notice and I still cherish the years we had all that fun. I'm open to returning, but is it even possible to find the artist again underneath all those spreadsheets?

Recent · November 4

Don’t Know

If they do another community event like ww again where i need to work to get my next bit of the content I paid for, then no I'm not buying the pass. I won't say no to buying another game pass until I have a clue as to what's coming.

The writhing wall seemed exciting at first...I really liked the concept. Seeing the first lens activate after phase one was also exciting BUT the moment faded real fast cos the inbetween dragging out of dailies after tedious dailies got boring real fast .

I lost my original eso forums account due to deleting my email that was attached to it by accident but ive been around for a very long time. Eso is my game but sadly a lot has changed in the last year and the vibes tell their own story. I'm still feeling the loss of so many zos employees that had shaped our game over the last decade, our loss is huge.

Im still paying my subscription. We shall see.

soelslaev · November 5

NordSwordnBoard wrote: »

It's as if back in 2016 I started dating a professional artist who changed over time into a hedge fund analyst. As the focus became more oriented towards money we began to grow apart. It took me a while to notice and I still cherish the years we had all that fun. I'm open to returning, but is it even possible to find the artist again underneath all those spreadsheets?

Heartbreaking.

Anumaril · November 5

Don’t Know

Entirely depends on the content or what other updates are added to the game. I'm still waiting on the Overland difficulty update to really get back into my bread and butter of questing.

Apart from that, it feels bad trying to play my main of necromancer without getting to *feel* like a necromancer because of the horrible class fantasy they decided to go with for necro in ESO. So until we're able to use Scribing to create custom minions (or get Skill Styles to reskin sorc minions as undead humanoids), it's all a bit lacklustre.

Asdara · November 5

I’m not ordering anything else - I’m done - what a mess!

tomofhyrule wrote: »

This year was nothing short of appalling.

I’m one of the players who has no idea where this “we want change!” idea came from. I actually liked the Chapter model since we had some idea what was coming (dungeons, then huge zone and new feature, then QoL or more dungeons, then little DLC or other tentpole). But now, all we have is change for the sake of change and more questions than answers, coupled with an impossibly overhyped event that overstayed its welcome and doesn’t even measure up to the ones we used to have.

I was already holding my nose when I preordered this Pass, but I did it because I like this game and I like to support it. And the recall animation that I gave to my 7th string character and the trial I rarely get a chance to run were not worth it. The only part of this pass that was fun were the dungeons, and I got them through ESO+ anyway (and I don’t even need them unlocked permanently because I already got every achievement in them)

There is one thing that they could announce that would get me to preorder the next Pass sight unseen: a new Class. Announce that there’s a new Class coming next year, and that’ll instantly be worth the $50 (or even more if it’s an Artificer). If they don’t have that up their sleeve, then I can wait. I have other games in my backlog.
(*ok, fine, there is a second hyperspecific thing that could also get me: if one of the premium early adopter goodies was a brown werebear skin for the werewolves.)

I have never been more disappointed in ESO. I have personally been affected by so many bugs - including ones that deleted all of my gear for a month or locked me out of any questing whatsoever for an entire patch cycle - but I always stood by this game. This year has left me completely disgusted. The quality of the writing is so far removed from the Orsinium era, the combat balance is in shambles, nobody acknowledges PTS feedback and reported issues all go live regardless, and now we can’t even look forward to anything. It almost feels like the devs have stopped caring about the players, and that feeling is pervasive.

And I don’t take “it’s a transition year!” as an adequate response. First, I grew up with the military, so the euphemism “transition” has always meant one thing to me: transitioning from open to closed. As soon as I heard that, that just screamed “maintenance mode.” But even if we want to take that word at face value, then there should be an end goal. Why do we still not have a single clue about what they’re transitioning to? All we have are “we can’t wait to reveal things!” Ok, then do it already! From this year, we can see that it was essentially a Chapter, but more expensive, with less content, and on a delayed release incorporating a FOMO event that dropped a major spoiler or two for those who didn’t buy the Pass and turned into a buggy mess that pitted the players against each other over and over.
So less content and more FOMO for more money? Can’t say that that’s the direction I like this game going in at all. I guess I can also consider this a transition year for my wallet.

And I can’t not complain about how insufficient the responses to the PTS were all year. So many reported issues from PTS week 1 end up going live that it’s almost like the devs don’t read a single piece of feedback. If I see a major enough bug, I have to send the forum link to one of my StreamTeam friends who can then post it in their secret Creator Discord server for a chance that it may get noticed. And that’s not even considering how some major issues like the U33 Account-wide achieves or the U35 Jabs change or the U41 Class style locking or U46 Subclassing get massive threads full of feedback that is summarily ignored… and then the playerbase reacts exactly like the testers warned they would.
I had to laugh once while I was playing Baldur’s Gate 3 and I hit a minor visual bug that annoyed me enough that I reported in on their form. And less than a day later, they sent me an email thanking me, telling me they knew about that issue, and saying it’d be fixed in their next patch. I was shocked - why on earth would they bother contacting me about a minor thing and giving me a timetable? ESO has never sone that. Granted, I thought BG3ms response was over-the-top, but it definitely showed how woefully inadequate ESO’s responses to actual PTS feedback is.

So yeah, I think I’ll be waiting, unless ZOS decides to surprise me with the thing I want most in this game. But otherwise, I can absolutely wait to buy the content until it’s revealed. Or it’s on sale. Or a streamer does a giveaway.

this sums up this perfectly, deserves its own post imo

Lixiviant · November 5

I’m not ordering anything else - I’m done - what a mess!

DON'T KNOW (I AM CHANGING MY VOTE FROM NEVER)

My problem with the "Study in Discipline" has been resolved with the help from The Elder Scrolls Online team. I have earned the achievement. Their speedy response to my ticket blew me away and that impressed me.

I'm on the fence for now and we will see how the Writhing Wall plays out and if there is any information regarding new content for the season pass.

Thank you!!!

silentxthreat · November 5

I will only order after launch when I can see what I’m buying

in the current direction the game is going server problems and lack support for pvp players no I wont