Best Of
Re: Fashion Megathread
Behold, a Warden:
This look has the ice, plant, and animal themes of a Warden all in one!
This look has the ice, plant, and animal themes of a Warden all in one!
Re: Vengeance on console ends today?
Thank goodness. Vengeance is the worst thing to happen to this game, E.V.E.R.!
Re: Fashion Megathread
My newest costumes. I love them both.
Absolute Cinema
Bastian rolling his eyes as she checks her nails for the 100th time
Absolute Cinema
Bastian rolling his eyes as she checks her nails for the 100th time
Hybridization
Might disagree… but I think hybridization is almost on par with subclassing contributing to bad balance and removing variety.
It’s ironic.
It’s ironic.
SneaK
25
Re: How to Kill a community
I’m just tired at this point.
Vengeance 3 really didn’t have many changes from Vengeance 2 (meatbags that don’t leave a ground DoT and a few skill lines that don’t see much use in PvP), but now there’s no Pursuit/AP bonus pushing people in. It’s understandable that the population wasn’t capped this week.
But Vengeance 4 is going to be revealing.
We know from PTS that Vengeance 4 will feature ‘loadouts’ and ‘perks,’ each with a new UI and set of icons. They would not have made a whole series of assets if this was still “only a test.” It’s patently obvious Vengeance, in some form, will be a permanent fixture in the near future.
Now from the U48 non-reveal stream, we know that they’ll do the Vengeance 4 test in December and they did suggest it would also have Grey Host open as well that round, so I assume the eventual plan is to have Grey Host and Vengeance as the final version (I totally expect Icereach to go, and very likely Ravenwatch will get the axe as well. Blackreach is a maybe). They even said U49 would bring a Vengeance 5 test to play with balance of abilities and healing output as well.
(Now if only they said that there would be balance in the rest of the game, but I guess it’s more important to make Vengeance a thing instead of trying to do any balance after Subclassing. That’s actually one of the biggest frustrations with U48 on PTS is the fact that basically no combat changes were done outside of Vengeance… and U47 also was incredibly light on balance as well)
Honestly, from everything that’s happened this year: Subclassing, Vengeance, the streams and the Reddit AMA… I really get the feeling that ZOS’s main ideology right now is “ESO is only for solo players who don’t want to group with or against other people!” It feels like they’ve spent this whole year trying as hard as possible to shove vet players (particularly endgame PvE and PvP) out to make room for new players who have a very “ew other people” outlook.
And all I can say is… good luck with that.
Vengeance 3 really didn’t have many changes from Vengeance 2 (meatbags that don’t leave a ground DoT and a few skill lines that don’t see much use in PvP), but now there’s no Pursuit/AP bonus pushing people in. It’s understandable that the population wasn’t capped this week.
But Vengeance 4 is going to be revealing.
We know from PTS that Vengeance 4 will feature ‘loadouts’ and ‘perks,’ each with a new UI and set of icons. They would not have made a whole series of assets if this was still “only a test.” It’s patently obvious Vengeance, in some form, will be a permanent fixture in the near future.
Now from the U48 non-reveal stream, we know that they’ll do the Vengeance 4 test in December and they did suggest it would also have Grey Host open as well that round, so I assume the eventual plan is to have Grey Host and Vengeance as the final version (I totally expect Icereach to go, and very likely Ravenwatch will get the axe as well. Blackreach is a maybe). They even said U49 would bring a Vengeance 5 test to play with balance of abilities and healing output as well.
(Now if only they said that there would be balance in the rest of the game, but I guess it’s more important to make Vengeance a thing instead of trying to do any balance after Subclassing. That’s actually one of the biggest frustrations with U48 on PTS is the fact that basically no combat changes were done outside of Vengeance… and U47 also was incredibly light on balance as well)
Honestly, from everything that’s happened this year: Subclassing, Vengeance, the streams and the Reddit AMA… I really get the feeling that ZOS’s main ideology right now is “ESO is only for solo players who don’t want to group with or against other people!” It feels like they’ve spent this whole year trying as hard as possible to shove vet players (particularly endgame PvE and PvP) out to make room for new players who have a very “ew other people” outlook.
And all I can say is… good luck with that.
tomofhyrule
13
Re: The Official Vengeance Test Campaign Feedback Thread (Test 2)
In addition to the promted feedback which I gave earlier in the thread I wanted to add some additional feedback for Vengeance:
In the end, Vengeance represents more than just a new direction—it’s a clear signal that the heart of competitive PvP in Elder Scrolls Online is being deprioritized. What once made ESO’s PvP scene compelling—its strategic depth, its distinct identity, the sense of mastery earned through dedication—is slowly being stripped away in favor of short-term accessibility. It’s not just a design shift; it’s a philosophical one.
ZOS seems increasingly focused on casual engagement, shaping the game to be more immediately approachable at the cost of long-term depth. That may draw in new or returning players in the short run, but it risks alienating the dedicated core—the players who have kept the PvP scene alive through years of patches, imbalances, and evolving metas. These are the players who studied builds, learned positioning, and engaged in community-driven rivalries that gave ESO PvP its soul.
To watch that identity dissolve in favor of simplified systems and fleeting appeal is disheartening. It feels like the spirit of competition—the very thing that made PvP meaningful—is being sacrificed. For those of us who’ve poured countless hours into perfecting our skills, building communities, and fighting not just for victory but for the pride of mastery, this shift isn’t just disappointing. It’s a loss. And it cuts deep.
I sincerely hope that if any aspect of this "test" makes it to live service it will live on as its own unique campaign ruleset.
- Catering to Casuals
Let’s be real—this event is clearly built for casual players. And yeah, they’re loving it. For a lot of them, this is the first time PvP feels fun because they’re not instantly getting killed by coordinated groups or skilled players. But for the hardcore PvP crowd, it feels like a slap in the face. I've seen a lot of people comment that dont have time to farm the best builds etc, and frankly its nonsense, there are plenty of viable builds that are craftable. The problem is people dont want to ask for help, or research the builds themselves, but rather want to simply be handed something ready to go. This devalues a core pillar of every Elder Scrolls game ever which is customizing and creating builds for your character to make them as powerful as it can be. More on this in the Theorycrafting is Dead below. - Zergs, Everywhere
Teamwork and coordination used to matter. Now? Not so much. Small, skilled groups that used to take down zergs with smart plays are completely overrun. Instead of strategy, it’s just massive groups spamming light attacks and winning by numbers. If you’re a skilled player or part of a tight group, you basically have no impact anymore. - Theorycrafting is Dead
All the time spent farming gear, crafting meta builds, and theorycrafting? Yeah, that’s out the window. Vengeance flattens everything, so there's zero reward for optimizing your build. Everyone’s just running around in the same watered-down setups, and the grind to be the best feels meaningless. - Where’s the Skill?
The gap between good and new players has almost disappeared. It doesn’t matter how much time you've spent mastering your build or learning the ins and outs of PvP—it barely makes a difference now. Outplaying someone used to feel satisfying. Now? Not so much. There’s just no real reason to improve when everyone's forced into the same mold. - Slow and Clunky
On top of everything else, the combat just feels slow and clunky with the Vengeance-specific skills. The abilities they force into the event are awkward, unresponsive, and don’t flow well with how PvP normally plays. It’s like trying to fight while wearing ankle weights—everything feels delayed, and combos that usually feel crisp and satisfying now feel sluggish and forced. Instead of enhancing gameplay, these skills break the rhythm entirely, making combat feel more like a chore than something skillful or fun.
In the end, Vengeance represents more than just a new direction—it’s a clear signal that the heart of competitive PvP in Elder Scrolls Online is being deprioritized. What once made ESO’s PvP scene compelling—its strategic depth, its distinct identity, the sense of mastery earned through dedication—is slowly being stripped away in favor of short-term accessibility. It’s not just a design shift; it’s a philosophical one.
ZOS seems increasingly focused on casual engagement, shaping the game to be more immediately approachable at the cost of long-term depth. That may draw in new or returning players in the short run, but it risks alienating the dedicated core—the players who have kept the PvP scene alive through years of patches, imbalances, and evolving metas. These are the players who studied builds, learned positioning, and engaged in community-driven rivalries that gave ESO PvP its soul.
To watch that identity dissolve in favor of simplified systems and fleeting appeal is disheartening. It feels like the spirit of competition—the very thing that made PvP meaningful—is being sacrificed. For those of us who’ve poured countless hours into perfecting our skills, building communities, and fighting not just for victory but for the pride of mastery, this shift isn’t just disappointing. It’s a loss. And it cuts deep.
I sincerely hope that if any aspect of this "test" makes it to live service it will live on as its own unique campaign ruleset.
Re: [REQUEST] Permanent Vengeance Test Campaign
Vengeance is fine for a learning environment. Actually it is probably ideal for a learning environment in today's game. Early on ESO was far more vertical progression wise. Vertical progression had tiers to separate playerbases which is why we had u50 and then nocp and then you finally got to vetcp campaigns. However now that ESO is such a wide horizontal progression game there is no way to split up the playerbase. New players are cp160 within the first day if they want.
The only way to create those learning environments with horizontal progression is to cut back on systems. However at a certain point people wonder what systems are enabled? what about this or that? Which can be worse in some cases because it clouds the experience making the new player learn tons of more stuff just to play something that should be easier. This was the issue with the NOPROC nocp campaign. Even 10year vet players like me had to spend hours and hours testing random sets to see what worked. How can you expect new players to participate, who dont keep up with pts and patch notes or even read wiki pages and build editors.
IMO replacing the u50 and nocp campaign is a nobrainer, they are beyond dead. Then have two cp 30 day campaigns. Testing wise for proper data you NEED the ballgroup and vet CP guild group players though. THEY are the lag. How they play, the choices they make, the skills they prefer, the effects they choose. There will be very clear performance demand differences from ball group players vs lvl10 new players spamming light attack only.
The other major design hole we are seeing is right now vengeance now has its own system for stat changes. This was probably put in place to quickly allow players during testing to have build choice to some degree, while allowing zos to introduce and plug and play systems on demand. IMO they should have made the simple perk and loadout system MIMIC item sets and bonuses, mundus, enchants. As a training tool give new players a basic menu so they could learn about pairing item sets and quickly swap choices they would normally do ingame. Then start baking in each of the mundus, enchant, gear, item set bonus systems as they get vengeance reworks. Slowly greying them out in the vengeance test menu.
The only way to create those learning environments with horizontal progression is to cut back on systems. However at a certain point people wonder what systems are enabled? what about this or that? Which can be worse in some cases because it clouds the experience making the new player learn tons of more stuff just to play something that should be easier. This was the issue with the NOPROC nocp campaign. Even 10year vet players like me had to spend hours and hours testing random sets to see what worked. How can you expect new players to participate, who dont keep up with pts and patch notes or even read wiki pages and build editors.
IMO replacing the u50 and nocp campaign is a nobrainer, they are beyond dead. Then have two cp 30 day campaigns. Testing wise for proper data you NEED the ballgroup and vet CP guild group players though. THEY are the lag. How they play, the choices they make, the skills they prefer, the effects they choose. There will be very clear performance demand differences from ball group players vs lvl10 new players spamming light attack only.
The other major design hole we are seeing is right now vengeance now has its own system for stat changes. This was probably put in place to quickly allow players during testing to have build choice to some degree, while allowing zos to introduce and plug and play systems on demand. IMO they should have made the simple perk and loadout system MIMIC item sets and bonuses, mundus, enchants. As a training tool give new players a basic menu so they could learn about pairing item sets and quickly swap choices they would normally do ingame. Then start baking in each of the mundus, enchant, gear, item set bonus systems as they get vengeance reworks. Slowly greying them out in the vengeance test menu.
Re: [REQUEST] Permanent Vengeance Test Campaign
MincMincMinc wrote: »If they really test them alongside each other, thats finally the first representative Vengeance test. If there is only one campaign of course everyone would be in that one campaign, with the choice given we will see how popular Vengeance actually is among those who regulary play PvP.
Well the vengeance 4 test 2nd week overlapping with live will show what is preferred GH or vengeance. Since it is the 2nd week hopefully enough event people will leave and give better data on which is preferred. Will GH survive if all the pugs decide to stay in vengeance? Who knows, at that point GH probably just becomes a 12v12v12 bg match of ball groups with 1vX players sitting around bored with nothing to do.....which is basically what live is most nights.
Regardless of preference or not vengeance development would still be needed for performance data, zos needs it as a tool to turn on and off systems. Ideally vengeance is only used to develop new systems one at a time and then implemented into live pvp. For instance they already reworked the unmorphed skill code, once you finish making morphs you could replace the bloated poorly coded live skills.
You think vengeance is taking place to pinpoint performance issues so they can apply what they've learned to fix live cyrodiil? Why haven't we seen any performance improvements on live then?
Vengeance is a test within itself. It's testing what they have to do to roll out vengeance on a permanent basis.
They have only done two baseline tests......the only thing you could extract was that the addition of resto and support lines with aoe group stacking tools had SOME impact on the server ASSUMING that zos was not fiddling in the background. Even with this good data if zos wasnt fiddling, it doesnt disprove that all the other systems are not also contributing to performance issues. Thus you would continue testing.
What other sort of performance impacts can you conclude from the current 2 tests that you think should have been implemented onto live?
Re: ESO roadmap october - worm cult part 2
If this event flops - which I'm now concerned it will - I can't imagine next year is going to be good for the game.
Honestly, this is not even an “if” anymore.
We’ve seen it on PTS - it’s a story quest (that they accidentally activated early), a series of dailies, a set of dolmen-like world events, a new world boss in phase 2, and then a new public dungeon-like thing to start phase 3. It’s a bit more than a standard zone event, but that’s exactly how it’s going to feel. But the fact it looks like they intend it to be an over-a-month-long thing completely suggests people will get bored of it quickly. People already say that the standard 13-day events we have feel too long at the end.
If it were sold as a standard event, it’d go well. But it’s been hyped all year as this huge thing. The expectations players have are now impossibly high, and they’re mostly fed up. Heck, it was difficult for PTS testers to even test phase 3 in the first place since there were so few people on PTS this round because many of the normal testers are just over everything.
There is no way this event could possibly live up to the hype. And the biggest issue is that that’ll be the capstone feature of the year and will be what colors our entire feeling of how 2025 was for ESO. The vibes the players have going into New Life are going to have a major impact on how much they intend to financially support ESO in 2026
tomofhyrule
11