It is ridiculously immersion breaking like the day-glo gummy mounts, the other apex reward mounts with over-the-top spawn animations and Las Vegas showgirl adventurers. Being the “meta” just makes arcanist beams that much more ubiquitous and encourages more and more of the dim to latch onto it. I hate this Mundus timeline.

I know it pays the bills, but some moderation would be welcome. This stuff should be limited to player housing where only the owner needs to look at it. In fact, my personal feeling is that anything other than a horse or a camel mount, a dog or a cat pet should send the locals fleeing in terror and grouping to drive the “monsters” from their towns. But alas NPC’s don’t get to vote, or merit consideration from ZOS or the vast majority of the player base, “walking proudly in our winter coats, wearing smells from laboratories.”

There must be a whole team of artists who have been given instructions to focus solely on garish, Disneyesque/comic book creations that will sell crowns, and they are so far removed from the high fantasy/Tamriel milieu, they carry out there orders without a second thought.

I’d buy ESO the single player experience in a second to escape these abominations just to ride my chestnut mare to a fire at an inn and not have to walk through Times Square to do it.

I would pay $$ to watch that stream, for real.

The design team is supposedly worried about balance but continues to allow the most toxic gameplay that I've ever experienced in ESO to just persist.

Funny how straws can be grasped over sets that are junk, but there are still setups that can burn down my 38,000 armor build in seconds. And when it isn't that, it's non-stop templar healing ult or non-stop power overload.

Just think about that. Design just isn't capable of seeing the problems. They are here, they have been here, and nothing is doen. Therefore, they aren't issues to design. They are just off in their own little world. Yes, probably one of spreadsheets.

And also templar beam and jabs are not and never have been so powerful that they are required use for every. single. trial. team. member. at high level.

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

So, a base game MMO comes out and the next year it is followed by nothing. The following year and the year after are the same. Player numbers peak but over the next four years start to go into long term decline as rumour takes over about the game being in maintenance mode.
But behind the scenes the devs worked their lower posteriors off, rewrote parts of the code and numerous zones to allow characters to glide. They then released a new expansion where the maps were fully 3D and required to explore the full verticality. It completely changed the game exploration dynamic as high above you entirely different adventures were occuring amongst the tree tops while you fought on the forest floor.
After that they released an expansion every year or two with some really massive innovations. They brought in mounts that could jump, swim or fly.
They also introduce new class specialisations that changed the way you could play your class.
And the players came back, brought friends with them and the game was better than ever.

It's a nice story, but not what happened.

The good news is the real version is close to what happened with ESO so if there are lessons to be learned for this game they probably wouldn't take a lot of changes to implement.

It's true GW2 released in 2012 and didn't get a paid expansion until 2015, but that doesn't mean there was nothing in between. Until January 2015 there were free updates at least once a month adding new story, sometimes new dungeons, festivals (real festivals with their own instances, lore and mini games, not just bonus drops from dailies) and other stuff, as well as new mechanics. You can see the full list here: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Release

At the time they planned to fund the game entirely through base game sales (the free version didn't exist until the first expansion) and cash shop cosmetics, so not making an expansion was a deliberate choice.

There was a gap from January 2015 until October when the first expansion came out, because they had to stop work on free updates to work on the expansion, which caused a huge backlash from fans at the time because it felt like we were effectively required to pay full price (the expansion cost the same as the base game) for what we could otherwise have gotten free, just because external media didn't cover free updates the same way they would a paid one. It was similar to the reaction when Morrowind was announced for ESO and subscribers found out they were required to pay seperately for what should have been included in their subscription price. (Like ESOs expansions people got used to it eventually, or quit the game, but it took a long time.)

Also they didn't make any changes to base game maps, which were already fully 3D. That was one of the big changes between GW1 and GW2, not GW2 and it's first expansion. GW1 famously doesn't have a Z axis, which firstly means no jumping, but also means there's some weirdness where for example if there's poison on the ground under a bridge and you're 2 stories up above it you'll still take damage from it. Putting a Z axis and full 3D movement into GW2 was one of the big changes they played up, but it was there from the start, not added with the first expansion. That's why so many base game maps have jumping puzzles in them, which often go over/under the normally explorable areas. Heart of Thorns did make more use of it, but it's definitely not the first time maps with different things happening on different levels had been seen.

(Also GW2 wasn't on Steam until it's 10th anniversay, in 2022, and the studio have never released player numbers so no one had data on activity during this time.)

IMO if ESO can learn anything from GW2 it's that their expansions have always had a few features and combat mechanics which can be used anywhere so there's an incentive for people to buy them even if they don't want the new maps and story. ESO used to do that, but it seems to have dropped off in recent years. Also they're about 1/2 the price of ESO expansions (£21.99 compared to £42.99 for the 2025 content pass).

Faulgor wrote: »

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

They also introduce new class specialisations that changed the way you could play your class.

ESO already did that, and apparently people hate it.

I have no clue what players are looking for anymore. But a consistent top complaint for 10 years that drove players away from ESO has been that "the combat sucks". Anything that aims to substantially turn things around would probably have to address that, but I just can't imagine them making fundamental changes to the game on this scale.

This consistent complaint is the same thing that is most consistent praise out there also, just another polarising thing that is "making or breaking" the game.

But talking about "specialisation" that's pretty much the opposite to what was done for many of us. We're not further specialised in anything, not deepening our class fantasy or connection with a character but making all the characters the same character at best, or alienating completely at worst. Surely some might see it as opening the system a bit, even read that people comparing it to something closer to main line TES spell system but personally I see it the exact opposite way. It might not be as bad in a long run and becoming just another polarising feature in the future is balanced properly, but currently it's not the case as far as I see feedback going.

The meta shouldn’t be the easiest way to play and it also shouldn’t be way ahead of more difficult to play alternatives. That seems pretty obvious to me.

But what do I know.

I just get tired of watching game companies ruin some of my favorite games and franchises. That’s been a real problem over the past decade. Hope ESO isn’t the next to fall.

SilverBride wrote: »

I was in a group yesterday and called out that there was a chest. I unlocked it but was pulled into an encounter in progress before I could loot it. A minute later I saw another chest that I called out but once again I was pulled away before I could loot it.

After the run I was able to run back and loot both chests before being removed from the dungeon. I was irritated that they didn't wait the few seconds it takes to unlock a chest but I took satisfaction in the fact that I was the only one that benefitted from these chests.

I got pulled while looting a chest yesterday too, I almost had it unlocked when it happened. I stopped trying to open them after that. I got lucky, one player went offline after the last boss but stayed in group so I was able to take my time looting chests. I had the new addon so I could check all chest and heavy sack locations.

I still say the last player should be able to do things like chests and lorebooks without getting booted.