Destai wrote: »

James-Wayne wrote: »

The Paladin in Diablo 4 is so much more fun to play than Templar right now

I love its Jab animation, maybe ESO can use it as inspiration.

I love those godly light ray tendrils that whip out and crucify enemies, so satisfying!

Warhawke_80 wrote: »

Fun is a factor...and it's sorely lacking in ESO...I want to go on an adventure instead you just grind dalies and grind through phoned in quests

I just don't have the heart to play much these days.

This I think is the essence of what is currently wrong with ESO, the FOMO stuff. When you log in nowadays you do the daily endeavours, the daily pursuits, the daily quests, the daily event, the daily dungeon.... then you notice your playtime is done while still not having done the part(s) of ESO that makes the game fun for you, and so you log off. Realizing you didn't have fun, but were 'forced' into the daily chore list.

ESO should be about free-roaming, adventure, discovery, rewards, the fun! Being able to play the parts of the game which we enjoy most, instead of having to go around and do what the daily lists orders from us.

PS: Personally I am at CP 3600, and doing anything in-game now feels like a waste of my time as I do not get exp anymore. Even though I still play a lot!

I used to be an endgame raider. Constant combat changes that destroyed my progress, extreme RNG grind, and long standing bugs made raiding exhausting. Also, the raiding pop declined, so I quit raiding and became a PvPer. Constant combat changes that deleted my progress, extreme RNG grind, long standing bugs, and lag made PvPing exhausting. Also, the PvP pop declined, so I quit PvPing and became a trader and a casual. ESO was actually fun again for a bit as a casual and I figured this could be my casual game, but constant unwanted changes, extreme RNG grind, long standing bugs, and lag made that exhausting, so I quit that and became a former ESO player.

I logged in a few months ago after months of not playing, and my character was at a survey harvest point. I noped back out and haven't been back since bc that was just a reminder of the sheer amount of tedium involved in playing ESO. I don't know what would make me come back to play again, but I still check the forums from time to time to see if things are getting better, but it doesn't look like it.

I haven't been by in a while. For me there's just... too much. It feels more like a second job than a fun game. I'm not getting paid to play, and if I'm not having fun, then what's the point? A lot of content and systems felt like they were trying to compel me to play without being compelling -- which is to say ESO started to feel like I HAD to play it in order to stay "caught up" but the reasons for doing so were hollow.

I tend to pop in once a year for cake. That's about it. That's the only FOMO I allow myself from this game now.

I'd rather do creative pursuits, like writing or streaming, or just hang out with friends, or play games that don't have as much time and energy investment.

So, yeah. FOMO burnout, basically, and I'd rather do other things with my time.

I appreciate the sexy orcs though. Thanks for that.

I have been playing ESO almost exclusively since the launch. I play very regularly and have a lot invested in the game. I GM a guild.

There are three things making me reconsider whether I continue this year - and I certainly play less right now.

1. ZoS themselves. Stupid decisions, inability to listen, inability to communicate well for any length of time. We get pockets of comms, then nothing - and they always ignore the warnings of the player base.

2. PVP was fundamentally brilliant and it’s now fundamentally broken. While I like Vengeance, it seems more people dislike it. If no one is playing, it doesn’t matter what I like.

3. 2025’s disastrous content - the shift to Season Pass wasn’t well thought out, it really ripped off players with substandard content, and the main event was so awful it’s almost funny. Then they compensate everyone, regardless of whether you coughed up the cash for the Season Pass or not.

I’m the last of my friend group to still be on here because of the above - so I won’t be immediately buying this year’s content - and I have bought pre-launch every year.

Eiagra wrote: »

The "2025 disastrous content" made me curious enough to look at old posts regarding it, and honestly, seeing that FOMO was EMBRACED for that event -- a "once-in-a-lifetime" event that, if you're not present for, you miss out -- it kind of reinforces the need to stay away.

It's bad enough that there's a content-and-systems deluge that creates pressure to turn ESO into a second job to stay caught up, but holding events that require you to be present or you miss them forever?

If I wanted to worry about events that I could miss by not being present, I've got real life for that.

I think I'm okay if I miss this boat. If embracing FOMO is the new direction they're taking, then I will choose to embrace the mental bandwidth I've freed up by not caring about it anymore.

Great post!

For me the obvious turning point was U35. ZOS' refusal to revert the jabs animation and essentially ignore all customer feedback then and since created a rift so wide I'm not sure it can be overcome at this point. They ask for our feedback, then promptly ignore it. It's insulting and has become exhausting.

And as a PvP main I'll never run out of reasons why vengeance is a fail in every conceivable way. The most recent version of vengeance did not increase performance compared to GH. So why is ZOS still investing in the failed game mode? The only reason I can think of would be labeled a conspiracy theory even though it's almost certainly not.

The switch to seasons with gated content got me to unsubscribe.

Been there done that with another game and I ended up quitting it completely.

Now I log in every once in a while to quest or explore or do a public dungeon.
Don't miss ESO+ because I'm not gathering or crafting and have a stash of thousands if I need to

The low population, The dishonesty of devs, the lackluster events, the horrible story line, the near abandonment of pvp, the lack of developers to players relationships, the horrible repeating stories, the sheer number of bugs, the lazy writing, I can go on forever on this.

Overamera wrote: »

From a PvP perspective. Hybridization and subclassing made pure classes and old playstyles which we loved unplayable or just extremly bad and cant compete against the new playstyles.

Zero new PvP content. I don't count a few new bg maps as new content. I love hearing that we are getting a new PvP zone and really hope it becomes successful.

Something worth grinding for in PvP. Just as PvE has all these trifecta cool mounts like godslayer and more. I wish PvP had something similar A mount and a polymorph as reward. Perhaps a new rank system after 5 stars or something that will keep me in cyrodiil just for countless hours grinding for a cool reward that is hard to get.

A new PVP zone would probably cause me to give this a try again. But if any sets or other additions that come along with the release get hugely nerfed/changed a few months after the new zone release like most other releases the last few years I'd be out permanently. I think many of us are just tired of having to constantly move to new builds due to major set or gameplay changes. REALLY take some time to go through the entire release before releasing and make it as good as Summerset or Wrothgar releases with interesting quests and backstories.

Add a good lore story to the PvP and you might just drag in some PVErs. Maybe combine the two and offer an option that prior to entering the zone you have a toggle of some sort where you are set as a non-combatant so PVEers can enjoy the zone also so long as that could not be abused such as a spy etc.

Veinblood1965 wrote: »

Overamera wrote: »

From a PvP perspective. Hybridization and subclassing made pure classes and old playstyles which we loved unplayable or just extremly bad and cant compete against the new playstyles.

Zero new PvP content. I don't count a few new bg maps as new content. I love hearing that we are getting a new PvP zone and really hope it becomes successful.

Something worth grinding for in PvP. Just as PvE has all these trifecta cool mounts like godslayer and more. I wish PvP had something similar A mount and a polymorph as reward. Perhaps a new rank system after 5 stars or something that will keep me in cyrodiil just for countless hours grinding for a cool reward that is hard to get.

A new PVP zone would probably cause me to give this a try again. But if any sets or other additions that come along with the release get hugely nerfed/changed a few months after the new zone release like most other releases the last few years I'd be out permanently. I think many of us are just tired of having to constantly move to new builds due to major set or gameplay changes. REALLY take some time to go through the entire release before releasing and make it as good as Summerset or Wrothgar releases with interesting quests and backstories.

Add a good lore story to the PvP and you might just drag in some PVErs. Maybe combine the two and offer an option that prior to entering the zone you have a toggle of some sort where you are set as a non-combatant so PVEers can enjoy the zone also so long as that could not be abused such as a spy etc.

A new PvP zone will have all the same performance issues though. And it will almost certainly be a fraction of the size of Cyrodiil.

The plan appears to be make current Cyrodiil vengeance mandated, then tell themselves they're still supporting PvP by giving a tiny map with the same rule sets as GH, then walk away forever. That's the appeal of vengeance from the ZOS perspective. What we think about it seems to not be a factor.

I stopped playing "current content" after Blackwood because of the lack of difficulty in questing, it would break my immersion to just be invincible and kill everything so fast, no matter what my enemy is. I still follow every announcement in ESO but I have not touched any of the content post-2021, I'm only waiting for overland difficulty to somehow be increased (I think my patience is running out). I have no idea of the current state of quest writing, combat, class identity, end game pve, etc. so I will not comment on that like most people.

Besides an optional difficulty setting for overland, I would like to suggest some maybe not so difficult ideas to implement for singleplayer content immersion, which should not break the game :

• Make the game's lighting darker by default, exploring delves or any dark places could become more immersive this way, also allowing devs to use light as a tool to create better looking environment with some light mechanics.
  Then add a new World skill line with toggle on/off passives skills to light up your way like "Mage light" (orb of light floating around you, customize with Scribing), "Lantern" (in your hand out of combat, on belt during combat, customize with Antiquity), and some AOE, wider range light that you put on the ground for maybe boss battles. If people don't want the game to be dark for any reason (gameplay or just too spooked), they can increase brightness in the settings like in the singleplayer games.
  You can currently just lower brightness but there are no easy way to get light, toggling a memento every 30 seconds or using a crown store personnality is not ideal.
  
• More visible weather / ambient effects for every zone (possible to remove in settings for performance or gameplay reasons) : Thicker fog, heavy rain, sand storms... I think Skyrim's strong weather works well for immersion.
  
• Allowing us to remove some effects on screen in the settings, like proc effects around your screen in First Person (maybe an opacity slider?) which are sometimes blinding and other players flashy mounts' summon effects.
  
• Instanced delves : make all delves singleplayer/shared with your group. I don't see the reason why we currently share delves with other players, there is no insentive to group with randoms or to interact (no difficulty, no complicated puzzle, can't get lost in a delve...). Seeing people running in an easy singleplayer-oriented dungeon is very distracting, feels bad to enter a place with everything already dead.
  
• Story-mode dungeon, or a rework of group dungeons difficulty to give them an intended way of being soloable for most players w/companion. I know many dungeons are already possible to solo but it doesn't feel like it was made for it (which is normal, it's a group dungeon). This is mainly to make dungeon storylines accessible and enjoyable to go through, maybe remove sets from the loot table and give something else purely cosmetic instead, to avoid breaking the PVE sticker book farming.
  

Individually, none of those ideas would be enough to get me back to play actively (besides overland difficulty), but together it would give me this sense of exploration and immersion I'm hoping from an Elder Scrolls game.

That sounds awesome. I wish we could have that.

Since the devs seem to take feedback and ideas, I thought of a few more ways to make the game feel more Elder Scrolls-like. As you noted yourselves with the change of release format, you need to make the game feel fresh while keeping the Elder Scrolls spirit !

• Zone wide quests : add quests in cities with no quest markers, spanning over the whole zone, where you progress over time during the overall zone exploration. This would be to break the linear quest format of one location = one quest, and add some background story lines.
  Example : Sinderion's quest in Oblivion of finding Nirnroot, its objective is broad and tells the player to pick rare plants usually growing around water, making you walk around and explore without being guided by the compass.
• Revamp potions, drinks, food, to have them be actually useful and advised to use in a more difficult setting (harder overland). Sadly crown items are saturating this whole side of the game.
  
• Push professions through zone quests objectives : craft an item with blacksmithing (for example, a key) with rare bound materials found in the zone, to open a door and progress in the quest, brew a special potion with alchemy to give an NPC so he reacts a certain way (wrong potion = bad ending), enchant an item to resist some damage and survive an encounter, etc. Push the players to get into crafting beside crafting writs and following the meta.
  
• Lock some areas in a zone/delve behind an ability/key you get as a reward from story quest or a skill in a base-game skill line, like the guilds, profession or new World skill line (not like the grappling bow in South Elsweyr, which is locked behind a very specific storyline in a DLC and prevents the system to be expanded in other zones). This could encourage players to note locked doors/paths during their first run then come back later, giving replayability in exploration and a sense of zone progression. Even better if the locked areas are unmarked and secret ! Metroidvania style.
  
• NPC vendors with unique items to buy with gold (housing items in trading stores, zone related clothes in the clothier, shield with crest of the city at the blacksmith, antiquity leads, unique recipes at the inn...) in relation to who the vendor is and where they are located (dependant on zone/race/wealth/etc.). A few items being expensive could act as gold sinks to tackle inflation and gives a new purpose to gold. I think achievement vendors are too formulaic.
  
• New Summon skill line for all classes : using the companion system of npc following the player, but more basic (no reputation/gear/questlines), allowing to summon lore friendly creatures, using mostly already existing models. Summoned creatures could be weaker than companions but with specific tasks (2 or 3 fixed skills per creature), add some cooldown. Maybe using soul gems to summon ? It could give a use to this item everyone is pilling in their banks. They don't need to all be useful for combat, they can be weird like mythic items.
  
  The new skill line could be just one ultimate skill to fit easily in current builds + passives, changing which creature to summon would be through a new tab with all creatures the player unlocked and would be toggled on/off like mounts. Mix it with scribing for customization.

Random examples of summons :

1. Fire atronach summon, short up time (10s?) but high damage.
2. Ice atronach summon, takes aggro for some time but not much damage.
3. Ghost summon, immune to physical damage but very weak to magic.
4. Dremora summon, regular attacks, just trash talks the players while fighting for them because it doesn't want to be summoned.
5. Spectral chicken summon, takes aggro and kites the enemy for a few seconds but dies after one hit.
6. Spirit of a dead quest NPC summon, "as a reward for avenging me, I will allow you to summon my spirit to help you in battle" type of summon.
   etc.
   
   Limitless system, easy to expand, nice for character building and good new rewards to collect through quests, antiquity, achievements, npc traders, etc. (it could add a new sticker book with a spell book aspect ?)

I think that's the extent of my imagination, feel free to use it, devs !

madman65 wrote: »

They as in ESO/ZOS need to make another chapter like Elswyer. I loved how long it was and the story really got my attention.

That would attract my attention, but if I had to guess, the Vegas odds do not favor this happening.

I've been away for a few months now, and have found myself enjoying other games... but checking back on ESO every so often. I left for New World, and was loving the game, until they brought the axe down and put it into maintenance mode with plans to end the game... I just couldn't continue to invest time into a game that was ending... so I moved on to Starfield. Starfield has been fun, better than the naysayers have claimed, but ultimately I don't really enjoy 'space' games- I prefer sword/sorcery type of games- like ESO, Skyrim, New World, etc.

Why I left ESO wasn't about subclassing, at all. In fact, I actually really enjoyed subclassing and was glad they added it. For years I was so frustrated with having to hop between classes whenever they'd nerf something or I'd get bored. With subclassing, whenever I get bored, I can just make changes to my builds. They nerf something, I make changes to my build. No more need to change or create new characters.

However, I left because of the changes to Chapters. I always looked forward to the next Chapter, and even though- as numerous people have mentioned- the writing has absolutely sucked in recent years... it was still the next big shiny. With the system now, there honestly is nothing to get excited about- no single thing to look forward to. The whole writhing wall, from what I've read, was an abysmal failure. Sadly, I don't foresee this improving considering their staff has been cut severely and much of their development/writing talent has been lost along the way. Thus, it makes it very difficult to say, "This is what would bring me back..." because I don't think they have the talent for my request. What is my request? To go back to giving us FULL Chapters that add meaningful storylines instead of 'fluff' content that is lacking in both writing and visual quality.