ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Just wanted to follow up here on the general topic. We are working on ways to better onboard new players and players who have been gone for a while. There are a few things in the works, while smaller in scale, will elevate some of that pressure. However, we do acknowledge this is a problem space we are looking to solve over time.

We've also tried in the past with overhauling the new player experience, but that had its own issues with onboarding. The Player Experience Improvements team is looking at other ways to improve onboard, along with other general QoL features.

If you have ideas or examples of good onboarding, please let us know in the thread. That way, we can pass those on to the Player Experience Improvements team. Thanks!

It might be helpful for players if an option existed to have longer descriptions of what things did/what they were useful for if you wanted them.

For example, Critical Resistance description says it decreases the damage you take when you are the victim of a Critical Strike.

The thing is, a player may not be aware that NPC enemies do not crit or that player enemies crit a ton and thus may not put the proper amount of focus on it.

You also have things that say they increase your damage done by X%.

Players may interpret that as meaning it increases your damage by X% when in reality it increases your modifier for damage done by x amount.

You can also hit situations where the Advanced Stats page doesn't cover things such as Heavy Attack damage or where the phrasing can be a bit confusing.

It might be better for Critical Damage to list as 50+ Your bonus rather than having it list as just your bonus and telling you it caps at 125 and has a base of 50.

If the staff has a willing victim that doesn't play ESO they might want to have them look at the various stats and have them try to explain what they do and pick what they think is best and see where they get it wrong/have troubles. Many of us have played for years and what we have trouble with/think newer players have trouble with might not be what newer players actually have trouble with.

Long long ago when I was first getting into running dungeons with people I had build a healer where most of my abilities were heals and I had tried to max out my Magicka because I thought it was what was best for healing since I saw the healing sets on UESP scaled off of Magicka. Needless to say, that character was actually pretty useless for the groups I was in because next to none of them actually needed healing and Magicka is actually a bit less effective for healing than Weapon/Spell Damage.

This is what happens Dev's focus and work go to Night Market like hardcore group content. Even suggestions for a new player is all about parsing, combat, roles and numbers. ESO soon will lose its uniqe identity which was the best role playing game ever and instead turning into instances group content dps race.

The easist way to lose a new player is put them into group content. Focus of the game should shift from group content which really discriminate, humiliate and put lots of stress on new players. If devs still obssesed about 'encourage' players for the group content, give new players friendly, cooperative, creative group content which increases social interaction.

I really believe what ESO is missing out from the other big MMOs is the way ESO encourage social interaction. Try to make people cooperate together to achieve something not through competing each others. I believe Guild Wars series is really good place to begin with how people come together for world events without grouping or fighting for resources.

Do not give new players an idea that they sould from start focus on gear, numbers, parsing or roles.

Tandor wrote: »

Thalmar wrote: »

Do not give new players an idea that they sould from start focus on gear, numbers, parsing or roles.

Absolutely, plus don't give new players the message that it's all about the endgame and the way to get there is to sit at a dolmen and a week later you'll be fully advanced. Encourage new players to enjoy the journey rather than rushing to the endgame.

Two things about gaming these days depress or sadden me. One is the notion that "new" players struggle because they don't have many CPs and don't know where to put them - "new" players shouldn't be anywhere near gaining CPs, they should be exploring and learning the game through steadily paced character progression. The other is the notion that the way for "new" players to learn about the game is on YouTube rather than through playing the game and finding things out for themselves.

Hi! You need to understand that not all players want to spend a long time exploring the world. Some want to reach the endgame faster and take part in competitions and challenges. This type of people must be considered too. As for gear, players should be taught about it as activities unlock. For example, when Dungeons unlock, the player is shown an instruction that here, as you complete the quest, you get 1 skill point, and you can farm PvE or PvP sets.
When the ability to enter PvP unlocks, an information window should appear as well. Preferably an interface where you can look at builds and so on.
In general, I would recommend removing PvP below level 50 entirely! Battlegrounds, Cyrodiil, basically any opportunity except for duels. And upon reaching level 50, you would have to complete some kind of tutorial quest, let's say from the Fighters Guild, which upon completion would give you a certificate allowing you to participate in PvP events. By the way, we already have such a system when we do the daily crafting quest—we are also given certificates upon completion, and then we can do dailies.
And until level 50, let the player immerse themselves in the world of ESO and explore it, gradually mastering some mechanics. And so that they don't initially develop a mindset of going into PvP wearing PvE gear, just because the game allows it right now. Exclude it completely. Strictly from level 50 and with mandatory tutorial.

“Oh, recruit, are you heading to the battlegrounds? You need to update your gear before you go there!”

You say "explore the world." Here is an example: my friend has been playing for a month and a half, he is already 500 CP, and he can't really enjoy PvP, which makes sense. He constantly asks me what is better for him to put together, which build. He says he has watched so many guides, put a couple of them together, and said that they either turned out to be outdated, or they don't suit his playstyle, and are overall just terrible. The bottom line is that he asks me, “And what to do next?” He has done trials, he has done veteran dungeons. He isn't interested in clearing all the dungeons; he wants PvP or something interesting. The Night Market has also already become boring. So his verdict is that there is little content in the game. A month and a half was enough for him to get his fill of it. He sees no point in playing through the story because it basically isn't rewarded. We used to do it for skill points, but now you can just collect skyshards and clear dungeons. Not all people coming to an MMO read the lore and get into it; some are simply not interested. But I am not speaking for everyone. It’s just my and his personal opinion that completing the story campaign is not rewarded enough to make you want to play through it and, accordingly, immerse yourself in the lore if you are interested.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Just wanted to follow up here on the general topic. We are working on ways to better onboard new players and players who have been gone for a while. There are a few things in the works, while smaller in scale, will elevate some of that pressure. However, we do acknowledge this is a problem space we are looking to solve over time.

We've also tried in the past with overhauling the new player experience, but that had its own issues with onboarding. The Player Experience Improvements team is looking at other ways to improve onboard, along with other general QoL features.

If you have ideas or examples of good onboarding, please let us know in the thread. That way, we can pass those on to the Player Experience Improvements team. Thanks!

The game interface, specifically the inventory, is very inconvenient and looks outdated as well! I use add-ons that change the appearance to look like WoW, and add-ons that add more detailed filter categories.
You are asking what needs to be done to improve the gameplay, retain players, and attract new ones. Well, at least start with the simplest thing: it would be great if the developers used the Minion program, looked at the most popular add-ons, and integrated them into the base game. There really are so many cool add-ons that simplify the gameplay for us. Even I have a couple of friends who initially played ESO, but when they found out that you need to install 20+ add-ons, or even more, and also properly figure out their settings to adapt everything for yourself, they just stopped playing because it was too complicated for them. And I understand them perfectly, because I spent a lot of time on this myself.
How do the developers imagine doing daily crafting writs on 18 characters without an add-on that saves you 200x more time? Logging in and spending the whole day on these dailies—then when do you actually enjoy the game?
And that is just one type of add-on. I'm saying all this not because they need to listen to us and indulge our whims, no, but because the game's interface is truly outdated, and it would be good to make certain changes to it that ease the gaming experience.
Some people here are genuinely suggesting good things, and I like that. But then there are thoughts like paying someone $50 a month for 1-on-1 coaching—excuse me, what? If I were a newbie and that was presented to me, it would be a 100% hard pass on the game
But I love the game, I am an ESO+ subscriber, and I would like to get all the necessary information directly from the game, with only a few things coming from the outside.

Thank you very much for your attention and efforts!

Even the best build is useless if you don't know how to play. I keep running into players—even those with over 1,000 CP in dungeons—who have no idea about the base game mechanics. Blocking, interrupting, not using taunt skills if you're not a tank, not standing in red zones, etc., etc.
We need a dungeon tutorial. Ideally, it should be optional for the Dungeon Finder if you want to run normal dungeons, but mandatory if you want to run veteran dungeons using the Dungeon Finder tool. As mentioned earlier, this could be a practice scenario with npcs where you can learn the basics of each role.
This tutorial could cover not only important aspects of builds and group play but also fundamental concepts like buffs and debuffs and the various options available for them. How does a new player know which equipment traits are relevant to their role? They learn this from other players or from guides online. It should be the game’s job to provide this information.
This feature would save a lot of players a lot of frustration.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Just wanted to follow up here on the general topic. We are working on ways to better onboard new players and players who have been gone for a while. There are a few things in the works, while smaller in scale, will elevate some of that pressure. However, we do acknowledge this is a problem space we are looking to solve over time.

We've also tried in the past with overhauling the new player experience, but that had its own issues with onboarding. The Player Experience Improvements team is looking at other ways to improve onboard, along with other general QoL features.

If you have ideas or examples of good onboarding, please let us know in the thread. That way, we can pass those on to the Player Experience Improvements team. Thanks!

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/690303/suggestions-1-creating-new-characters-and-getting-started-in-the-game#latest

One thing that really needs to be changed is the Skill Advisor. I decided to take a look at it for a Magicka Nightblade (Deathweaver), and the build was nonsensical. The recommended skills are all over the place, it doesn't recommend various passives or morphs, even when they should be a no-brainer, and it has 2 skills that I think are meant to be spammables



These were the skills that were recommended. Strife, Annulment, Death Stroke, Cripple, Wall of Elements, and Path of Darkness are all unmorphed, because it never recommends a morph, and it skips Master Assassin, Hemorrhage, all Shadow passives except Refreshing Shadows, Catalyst, Elemental Force, Destruction Expert, and all Mages Guild passives, even though Magicka Controller would be really important to have

I'm not sure even the best ESO player could make a good build out of these skills, a new player has no chance

Bring back the cutscene where the player is led to sacrifice before sending the player to the tutorial. It adds context when you talk to Lyris and the Prophet later on. So ideally, you'd see the main cinematic, then your character being killed, and then the tutorial.

After completing the Coldharbour tutorial and being transported to a starter island, some of the dialogue from the first NPCs you interact with don't make sense contextually. This is most notable when talking with Cpt. Rana on Bleakrock. Some of her dialogue refers to a quest that I think? directed you to her from another area that wasn't the tutorial. On Khenarthi, I think the player used to start on the shoreline. The shoreline NPCs dialogue feels out-of-context now that the player starts in the broken tower.

A slight change on when the Prophet appears to the player once they reach the first alliance zone. The Prophet appears to the player, they go do the quest, and as they travel back to town, he appears again. You can then get into a situation where a new player completes the whole main story before anything else. Having context from alliance zones and guild storylines helps tie the main story together.

The Level-up Advisor needs an update. This is the first direction new players are given on how to put together a workable build. A lot of skills, stats, status effects, etc. have changed since these were updated. And it seems like some of the build options just have you take all possible skills, with no real build intended. It's also sometimes not clear what skill line the recommended skill or passive comes from, so you end up looking through multiple class skill lines, possibly multiple weapons skill lines, guild lines, etc.

Maybe adding more prompts during early gameplay that direct the player to the in-game help. A lot of people don't know this is even available. So when you're first taught about blocking, interrupting, etc., maybe add a little pop-up that refers to the help article as well. Also, adding more pictures and less text - I know, the horror, someone might have to read something! - would make finding the information new players are looking for faster.

Early game quest rewards and un-morphed skills heavily steer players toward magicka builds, making a stamina-based build and stamina-based weapons feel like the wrong or less-optimal option.

CatalinaWineMixer2 wrote: »

I am glad to hear Zos say they are working on this because it is definitely an issue. It takes so much time for GMs and their Officers to explain and teach this to people that I often wonder if its even worth it anymore. So many people leave once they realize they cant play how they want to. And they can't, their characters are inferior. I had 15 people who thought Necro was cool before we had to dash every dream they had about the game because of Subclass and that was just last week. You cant jump into the game and be just a Templar, theyre inferior. Or a Nightblade. It needs to go.

These passives coming up aren't going to address the main issue that is causing these problems. The distance between meta is so far from everything else because they refuse to address Subclass. And also the use of mythics. Its out of control.

By the way, I think it would be nice to change the subclass system by reducing the skill line replacements from 2 to 1. This means you would only be able to replace 1 skill line from another class. This really wouldn't break the system so badly. And people wouldn't be using Assassination and Animals on every single character; instead, they could only choose one or the other. What do you think?

Gabriel_H wrote: »

But the game has that already. That's what the normal base game dungeons teach while you are levelling. As you level and your skill/familiarity grows you move on to harder content. i.e. you play an MMO.

There is no tutorial whatsoever. In the starter dungeons as you level up, you can just run with 4 DDs and not care about a thing. You die, you get up, you die, you get up. You can even ignore the mechanics there and still stay alive. But when moving on to harder content, people no longer understand what is going wrong.

WeJustSlept wrote: »

CatalinaWineMixer2 wrote: »

I am glad to hear Zos say they are working on this because it is definitely an issue. It takes so much time for GMs and their Officers to explain and teach this to people that I often wonder if its even worth it anymore. So many people leave once they realize they cant play how they want to. And they can't, their characters are inferior. I had 15 people who thought Necro was cool before we had to dash every dream they had about the game because of Subclass and that was just last week. You cant jump into the game and be just a Templar, theyre inferior. Or a Nightblade. It needs to go.

These passives coming up aren't going to address the main issue that is causing these problems. The distance between meta is so far from everything else because they refuse to address Subclass. And also the use of mythics. Its out of control.

By the way, I think it would be nice to change the subclass system by reducing the skill line replacements from 2 to 1. This means you would only be able to replace 1 skill line from another class. This really wouldn't break the system so badly. And people wouldn't be using Assassination and Animals on every single character; instead, they could only choose one or the other. What do you think?

Yes absolutely. And the sooner the better. It would still be best to remove it. Abd start introducing more Classes instead.

I've been saying for nearly a decade (and I'll say it again) that the tutorials for this game need serious reworking and that the model for them already exists in the game: In Cyrodiil, the tutorial for the hammer Volundrung is the sort of tutorial that needs to be implemented for more skills and builds.

1. You go to a place outside the game
2. You learn and get to try each skill
3. you can repeat as often as you like
4. If it's been a while and you need a refresher, you can always go back and try again.

I find myself going back into Cheesemonger's Hollow often to refresh what the different hammer skills do, and it would be nice to have something similar for each class. Story-wise maybe it could be a part of the guilds or something? Or maybe you get sent to train with a master ________ (whatever your class is) to boost your skills?

No disrespect to any of the content creators who offer their advice online - but I would think that a game company would want to keep more of their teaching of the base game to newer players in-house and leave the content creators as supplemental rather than rely on third-party unaffiliated folks to teach their player-base (but what do I know?)

AScarlato wrote: »

How would they not understand? It doesn't take a guide to share they will probably want a tank and a healer and not ignore mechanics for harder content.

Are people mindlessly doing the same thing over and over without a single thought as to what is happening? Typically if a party wipes they start discussing what is going wrong and figuring out a strategy.

I guess if they really wanted to, they could copy FFXIV's role tutorial that awards a low-tier but complete set of gear, and teaches the basics like Tanks should taunt and people should move out of circles. I never found it needed but there is that.

Hi! Trust me, a huge number of people have no idea what to do!
Just read this thread and see how many people are writing about the fact that some players don't understand how to play their role. Even those with 1000 CP.
Now imagine how many of those people have left the game because they couldn't figure it out? And this isn't a community or guild problem. This is a ZOS problem, because there is simply no tutorial whatsoever.

For someone who plays these types of games, and this one in particular, this might be obvious. Honestly, I believe all MMOs should have an interface that allows players to share builds, rather than making them browse third-party websites. There should also be a feature that lets you inspect what gear and skills any player is currently using. Instead, many of us rely on an add-on, and even that isn't perfect. In fact, many people, including myself, used to learn and understand how things worked in other MMOs by following the example of experienced players and checking what they were using and wearing. Here, that option simply doesn't exist.
Let’s be honest. If you want a chill, casual game, then ZOS needs to rework everything and continue releasing content exclusively for solo players. No group trials, no group dungeons. Then tanks and so on won't even be needed. I’m sure people would completely stop playing PvP as well.

Soarora wrote: »

The knowledge gap is a big issue. I've said it a few times, I don't care to write out my idea yet again at the moment in detail but the short of my idea is that gear should be given some sort of marker if it's currently considered decent and for what role, gear should have their radius on it, and there should be a basic and advanced repeatable combat tutorial/training room for all 3 roles in PvE and one for PvP. These tutorials should teach basic information like standing on yellow aoes, line of sight/outranging, standing in front of the healer, healers and tanks need to bring buffs and debuffs, etc. The basic tutorial right now just teaches you "heavy attack to knock down an enemy!" (when is this ever useful?), blocking heavy attacks, and to interrupt. That's two useful things when there's many, many useful things left out of any tutorial. Most people don't even know Y+left click/Y+right click and weaving because those are only shown in loading screens.

Also heavily agree with all of this right here. If you're going to stay invested in this game, then prepare to do some research and be prepared for occasional changes too hah.

Soarora wrote: »

So, I just did the tutorial again and I think I understand why an alarming amount of people spam light attacks... the tutorial basically teaches you to do that. Maybe the tutorial should give us a simple skill loadout temporarily or the first skill in each skill line should be automatically unlocked (so you can gain levels in your class skills during the tutorial too).

But what are people doing that they don't learn to take skills and use them?

I'm just really shocked what people would need a tutorial for. Are MMO players really at the point there is an "alarming" number of people that only light attack and don't use skills?

I'm lucky that I haven't seen this personally but I don't group as much as some others.

WeJustSlept wrote: »

AScarlato wrote: »

How would they not understand? It doesn't take a guide to share they will probably want a tank and a healer and not ignore mechanics for harder content.

Are people mindlessly doing the same thing over and over without a single thought as to what is happening? Typically if a party wipes they start discussing what is going wrong and figuring out a strategy.

I guess if they really wanted to, they could copy FFXIV's role tutorial that awards a low-tier but complete set of gear, and teaches the basics like Tanks should taunt and people should move out of circles. I never found it needed but there is that.

Hi! Trust me, a huge number of people have no idea what to do!
Just read this thread and see how many people are writing about the fact that some players don't understand how to play their role. Even those with 1000 CP.
Now imagine how many of those people have left the game because they couldn't figure it out? And this isn't a community or guild problem. This is a ZOS problem, because there is simply no tutorial whatsoever.

For someone who plays these types of games, and this one in particular, this might be obvious. Honestly, I believe all MMOs should have an interface that allows players to share builds, rather than making them browse third-party websites. There should also be a feature that lets you inspect what gear and skills any player is currently using. Instead, many of us rely on an add-on, and even that isn't perfect. In fact, many people, including myself, used to learn and understand how things worked in other MMOs by following the example of experienced players and checking what they were using and wearing. Here, that option simply doesn't exist.
Let’s be honest. If you want a chill, casual game, then ZOS needs to rework everything and continue releasing content exclusively for solo players. No group trials, no group dungeons. Then tanks and so on won't even be needed. I’m sure people would completely stop playing PvP as well.

I don't blame ZOS if people are at 1000 CP and haven't cared enough to really learn anything on their own, or if they are casuals who don't care about parsing and are just chilling.

I have to say I have never met people that others have, not once, who didn't know what a set bonus was, or didn't know they put skills on hotbars and use them and therefore only light attack. Honestly, not once. In 6 years.

I have seen a lot of casual players, fake roles, people who were knew and got advice/asked questions which is normal.

The content in "new player" territory is easily accessible, as is all the base game normal dungeons at this point. At some point players in MMOs will hit failure conditions and will have to learn from there, or don't and not complete it. It's a part of gaming. I still think perfecting and becoming skilled enough for actually challenging content should come from practice, playing, and learning. No new-player tutorial can do everything, and the game has funcitnoed for how many years now? People clearly can figure out the basics already.