I voted for Elsweyr. It's the chapter that came out when I started playing the game and I still enjoy replaying both the zone story and the side quests. Exploration was great fun in both northern and southern elsweyr and hunting dragons was a lot more fun than the recent incursion designs.

But my absolute favorite story zos ever told is Orsinium.

The map is great in terms of exploration. There are dozens of hidden little nooks and crannies, the shift from flat tundra to rocky mountains made the zone feel more real. Here's a hidden campsite, there's a treasure behind the waterfall. Oh, you climbed up to the harpy nests? Guess what, here's a thieves trove. Enjoy! Climbing a steed hill was rewarded with a beautiful view if not even more. Climbing anywhere in recent releases since blackwood is rewarded with an invisible wall shoved into my face and a wagon load of disappointment.

The zone's design and it's side quests focused entirely on the people of Wrothgar (Minus Rigurt, who isn't my type of character. Personally, I don't enjoy him.), highlights their diversity, gives somebody who has never touched an elderscrolls game ever before a perfect introduction to the orsimer of the wrothgarian mountains and the most significant happenings in their history and how the current story and it's politics affects their life here and now. And most importantly they were interesting and fun stories to follow along. Even the museums quest wasn't just a tedious checklist to run through but actual fun because it sent you back out into a zone that was fun to explore and forced you to face enemies that were fun to fight. The world bosses weren't hitting me with wet wipes or artifically stretching the fight with an invulnerability phase. The bosses got to finish their dialogue because they didn't wimper and die under 2 separately casted elemental barriers.

The dialogue was well written. It didn't feel like I was reading through the script of a saturday morning children's cartoon but an actual good dialogue adressed at a mature audience that made me want to hear more. Not endure more. There were sad stories, uplifting stories, the type of story that allowed itself to tell of the cruelty and bitterness that comes with war. Talking to NPCs in Orsinium or really anywhere in Wrothgar had the chance to reward you with information on delves, points of interest and even unmarked locations of interest. They held little side bits of story you could visually pick up on when exploring. Zos still loves to weave information about little decorative bits into their dialogue here and there. Like the Maormer ghost in Solstices thieves hideout and her captain out by the harbour. But the majority of dialogue feels lacking nowadays.

In Orsinium, the sidekick Eveli Sharp-Arrow was an actually memorable character that was used to depict the effects of war and loss of innocence when faced with the harsh reality. Which, in my humble opinion, was a great choice. It was a refreshing contrast to the usual "I'm an adventurer now, it's that easy"-trope that is so utterly overused in media. What we see of Eveli in later releases shows none of that. She became 'another Rigurt' for me.

That young bosmeri archer with the large starry eyes and innocent pigtails didn't change a bit after Orsinium. She remained starry-eyed and she kept the pigtails and I truly believe Zos missed with that. Adding her brother didn't help, it just made me feel sorry for him having to endure Blackwood-Eveli as a sister.

Ah yes, Orsinium. The one and only DLC that holds a secret, special fish that you only hear about from an npc in the wilds. That can only be reeled in if you listened to her advice on how to do it and especially 'when'. That was fun. The only rewarding instance of fishing I remember. The long wait for the special guest in Apocrypha was just boring and had me install an addon that allowed me to play Tetris while I waited for a fish to bite.

Orsinium, just like Elsweyr, also introduced new wildlife. Not repainted mobs, but actual new models to fit the new exotic zone. Echatere? Love them. Would settle down as an Echatere herder if I could. Love the scarred version too, what a poor sight to behold. The Chub Loons? The little, penguin-like birds that share their territory with the local hoarkers? Love them too. I believe the harpies also got a brand new model, not just a paint job but do feel free to correct me on that one because I'm not entirely sure right now. However. these two new mobs alone added character to the zone. Added to it's visually identity. Just like the several new models we saw in Elsweyr. It helped making the new place to set foot in feel truly foreign and enticed to see more.

I'm rather disappointed with what happened to this concept of visual identity with past releases. Oh yeah, seen that critter before. On the other side of the continent in a completely different terrain and weather. Nothing weird about it. The endlessly reappearing models of wild animals and plants all over tamriel over the past years reduces the fun to explore for me. It feels like we see 1 new model per DLC now when it comes to the open world. A whole new isle, a newly filled out empty space on a continents map. Here's 25 models you've seen before and one new one. We may have changed the color of the fur in some cases tho, isn't that exciting?

No. It's fun when it's used to depict the border between two different biomes. It's fun when it's used to portray an invasive species taking over. It feels entirely out of place when there's no such reason for them to be there and you end every 'Why the hell are you here?' with a 'Guess that's cheaper'.

Orsinium was great. It was fun, it still holds up for me as the best story Zos ever told and it wasn't as forgettable to me as Gold Road or Blackwood or half of Necrom.

Edit: I'd like to add Murkmire as an honorable mention. Unique in it's story, focusing heavily on the people of blackmarsh and a fascinating focus on the relationship between the Hist and their creations. The zone is fun to explore, even tho mostly flat, the area is nicely broken into different areas with the placed settlements. Making the shift between swamp and dense jungle more believable. We get to see what influence the Hist holds in it's own domain. The scars left by multiple invasions. If you don't know much about argonians but would like to learn, go visit murkmire. Not Solstice, murkmire.

It's hard to choose between Morrowind and Summerset, but the Morrowind year has Clockwork City, so it wins.

Darrett wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

Maybe we have a different definition of casual player but I'm thinking most casual players aren't obsessed with their DPS numbers. Any content they were doing before they can still do after the changes. We don't know maybe some will even like the drop because encounters become more interesting. It isn't always just about burning everything in an instant.

To me, casual players include players that do some veteran dungeons and enjoy that content. They’re maybe not obsessing about parse numbers, but they like the challenge of harder content. I consider myself casual because my limit of capability is about 36k DPS with subclassing, which is up from 28k without.

So even to casuals, swings in capability are important, arguably moreso since it can make or break their ability to even complete content rather than just impact their ability to get a high score.

I agree. Casual is a dangerous term these days because people can interpret it in many ways!
I know a fair number of veteran players who are 'casual' because they've moved on from ESO as their main game but drop in once a week to help out the newbies in guild events.
However, these casual veterans are also annoyed and demotivated by the wild swings and many aren't going to bother farming new sets or skill lines given that they play only one night per week.