I just can't seem to want to log in anymore

HurlinMerlin

I played this game from the first beta...I liked it, the graphics are awesome.

But it leaves something out that I just couldn't figure it out... then it hit me....it's just too dang easy... that's the problem for me..... this MMO is way to easy to level and just about everything associated with it is just too easy... except for finding groups which should be easy but isn't.

I recently found myself going back to the very first MMO (AC) I ever played for the third time. What keeps drawing me back to a MMO that is almost 15 years old, graphics from the late 90's? Because it isn't easy... that's why I keep going back. What could a 15 year old MMO offer that a brand new one doesn't? Let's see:

1. Death Penalty.... in AC, if you die, you suffer two penalties....1. You drop items from your inventory on death...2. You suffer vitae which decreases all your stats until it is removed by gaining xp. This makes you much more wary about jumping into situations knowing that your character might die. There is nothing about dieing in ESO that is a penalty other that the repair cost which is trivial.

2. Character customization.... AC gives you the ability to fully customize any race you choose to play 100% by skill and xp points. Any race can be viable depending on the way you distribute your skill points and xp points....this gives you 2 distinct ways to customize the same character.

3. Item customization.... AC give you the ability to "salvage" loot down to its core components and some of these can be applied to armor, weapons, or jewelry to change the base stats on items, depending on the salvage applied. But it doesn't come with no risk (it isn't easy)..each item can be tinkered a maximum of 10 times... but the ability to tinker an item is based on skill, so there is always a chance that a tinker will fail and the item will be destroyed even with maxed out skills.

4. Housing.... very controversial when first introduced, but very nice to have as a place to call home and store loot and stuff.

5. Armor dying.... been in the game for years.

6. No auction house.....AC has a place called the marketplace where you call run your character to sell stuff.

7. PVP... AC has a server set up specifically for PVP.... all players are PVP and it can be a very harsh cruel world... not so much these days as the population has dropped so much. PVP is also allowed on the other servers but you have to choose to do this... it isn't forced upon you except for a quest or two that requires you to go PVP to complete.

8. No horses or flying mounts....in AC you run everywhere,,, there is a portal system set up to get you anywhere you need to go for the most part, but you also have a run skill that you can bump up to make your character faster...much faster.


ESO is just too easy... it doesn't require very much thought or planning into death or character development...this seems to be the trend in MMO's which is hurting the player base.

I have played the following MMO's:

Asheron's Call
Asheron's Call 2
Dark Age of Camelot
Shadowbane
Rift
Aion
WoW
Eve (still subscribed)
ESO (still subscribed)
LOTR

And a few others that I have forgotten or they just didn't last long.

Surprisingly, I never tried Everquest.

txfeinbergsub17_ESO

Then don't!?

HurlinMerlin

I don't. Next comment please.

All I am saying is that the game is just too easy to play. It doesn't really require any intelligence whatsoever to play.

txfeinbergsub17_ESO

So is this your version of an I quit thread? I am guessing it will be locked soon then. (sorry, you appear to be stuck with me). I must be bored.

HurlinMerlin

Didn't say I was quitting... I just find it hard these days to want to log in. I will stay subbed and hopefully the next few updates will change the game, although a lot of stuff should have been in from the beginning.

Why would they lock the thread? Because someone offers criticism about their game?

txfeinbergsub17_ESO

No, they lock I quit threads. This probably wasn't one (which you just confirmed as being the case), just checking.

This is the longest I have ever subscribed to an MMO. I usually hit endgame and get bored. I am only V1 in this game, so the amount of content was epic. I am taking it slow and enjoying the ride.

vyndral13preub18_ESO

It always makes me giggle when you get to the end of people list and they try to add 1 or 2 more things that really don't make any sense just to make the list longer.

AC was harder! We had to walk everywhere both ways uphill in the snow! You sisses at eso use horse grrrr! Well except our teleporters... But we walked to the teleporters because it was hard! Even ignoring the hard comment and going with the what can a 15 year old mmo give that a new one doesn't... It doesn't make any sense. No mounts is actually less. Not more.

Also when you are playing a game that has been out for 15 years you dont really have to add... Been in the game for years!! It would be like after your no horse comment you put in... Haven't been in the game for years!!!' We get it your games been out longer then lots of gamers have been alive or playing video games.

Phinix1

If your primary concern is that the game is too easy, you probably should rethink your stated examples. Items 2,3,4,5, and 7 have absolutely nothing to do with the game's difficulty, and instead relate to cosmetic and RP aspects you would like to see, many of which (housing, armor customization) I completely agree with and hope they do add in the future.

As for the items that DO relate to difficulty:

1) Death Penalty: I hope they NEVER add this, as I do not feel that such a feature belongs in an MMO where deaths can be as much a fault of other players in a PUG being terrible than anything you have control over.

6) PVP server option: I have maintained since ZOS first started toying with the notion of PVP in their meta justice system that they should add the ability to toggle yourself permanently PVP, which would put you in a SEPARATE PHASE with only other players that also chose to toggle PVP. This would be the megaserver equivalent of a PVP server. It would be easy to implement and I fail to comprehend how the devs could have left something like this out from the start.

Other than that, difficulty it is about average for an MMO. Definitely more tactical and challenging than WoW, though the veteran nerf did make it much more forgiving for the fire standers.

Personally I am OK with where the difficulty is at the moment. I just wish they would add more mechanics to bosses they nerfed the hell out of like Doshia, who you can now 1-shot before she even does her thing.

I loved the Doom Crag battle in Rivenspire (Daggerfall Covenant zone 3), which I did as part of Cadwell's Silver. Having to "dance" around the ground effects while ranged attacking was a refreshing change from the standard "block it, bash it, roll dodge, mash it" tactics of most other quest related mini-bosses.

Logan9a

Wow. I hated AC, but only had experience pre release.

reggielee

I dont get why people want to suffer for a game to be enjoyable, but each to his own eh. ESO sounds like it isnt your cup of tea tho you gave it a good run. Its ok to not like a game, plenty of them out there. If eso instituted a few of your things you like in a game, I'd be out the door

HurlinMerlin

Logan9a wrote: »

Wow. I hated AC, but only had experience pre release.

Vastly different game, tons of updates and 15 years of monthly updates....it just looks like it was made in the late 90's... that's pretty much the only downside. But it's still fun to play and makes you think before you move....

That's a big difference... you actually need to think and plan when playing AC... all actions have consequences, esp when modifying armor/weapons and jewelry.

Nothing like seeing that message....failed....the item is destroyed.... esp when you have worked a while to gather the stuff you need.

I once failed on a 10th tinker with a 97% success chance.... I guess that 3% got me... didn't quit...didn't cry...just kept trying with a new item until I succeeded.

Elad13

The first conflict is think before you jump...in eso the vet areas at some points were highly difficult...death was almost certain....The thinking process came to....I should have rolled a sorc light armor vampire.... for a game to last 15 years...I bet you can log in today and find something much better then what you have...better armor...better weapons....eso does not offer this...you want a better weaopn??? Ok just craft it yourself next level....When the best items in the entire game can be made by anyone what's the point? I still log in to get my materials...maybe search for a few soul shards. ...that's about it. Come tomorrow I'll log in to color my armor and maybe do a dungeon to see if a new set piece will drop...and that's about it...I can't see eso being of any interest until consoles hit...then I'll play with my few friends who get the game for a month or so....but who even knows if the consoles will hit before March next year.

Ojustaboo

I personally would like some sort of death penalty (not in PvP) but realise its an unpopular suggestion.

I like it because it makes you think before running in and it makes me want to level/improve my character before I give such content another go.

ESO goes a little to far in the other direction. You can go into something, say a dungeon for a quest and it's quicker to die, reserect and run through while imune than it is to stand and fight. And as the cost of doing this is negligible, there's no real incentive not to. I did this a lot for skyshard hunting at lower levels

I had to get some seeds from a dungeon in Cyrodiil for one of the daily quests. Now I'm high enough I can take on the boss guarding them fine. But last week I would fight my way through to the boss room, run at the boss, die, respawn and while imune get behind the boss and behind the seeds. Then I would pick up the seeds and leg it.

Kreetar

I don't think I've come across someone who can just genuinely appreciate the game for what it is and who isn't bitching and moaning about little imperfections, or having high expectations for the big imperfections. :'(

kieso

Da ***? AC has hard? When did this happen? I played on Darktide and that game was never hard..I think I quit that game when DAOC was released. The only "hard" thing about AC was that you had no take backs on building a character so you had to know what you were doing.

meaghs

AlienDiplomat wrote: »

I loved the Doom Crag battle in Rivenspire (Daggerfall Covenant zone 3), which I did as part of Cadwell's Silver. Having to "dance" around the ground effects while ranged attacking was a refreshing change from the standard "block it, bash it, roll dodge, mash it" tactics of most other quest related mini-bosses.

that was a really fun fight... More boss fights done in similar fashion would be awesome. Also it'd be nice if public delves and their bosses were more difficult. Right now it's just a matter of running through them.

@ the OP... I feel you about logging in. I really enjoy ESO but the frequency of my logins has slowed down quite a bit. - M.

HurlinMerlin

kieso wrote: »

Da ***? AC has hard? When did this happen? I played on Darktide and that game was never hard..I think I quit that game when DAOC was released. The only "hard" thing about AC was that you had no take backs on building a character so you had to know what you were doing.

AC was only easy if you 1. Unattended combat macroed which the devs failed to address that basically allowed people to max out levels while afk. 2. Joined an xp chain for the uber xp pass up before they finally nerfed it to where it was no longer possible to do.

If you start a new character today, it will take you a long long time to hit 275 with out macroing.

That is the only good thing about a game that is 15 years old... most of the plugins no longer work and the few that do actually have a legitimate purpose.


This was never a thread about bashing ESO... I just think the game went too far in the "let's make it easy for everybody". Just the added feature of a death penalty would go a long way into making this a better game. As it stands now... as stated above, it is far easier just to die and run past stuff multiple times until you get what you need.

If you took a death penalty of 5% reduction in skills stackable to 50% reduction after 10 deaths.... people would think twice about just running in someplace without regards to their character dieing. If you started dropping items from your character that meant you would have to go back to your corpse to recover them, that would definitely make people think instead of running willy-nilly.

And for those who played AC, there is nothing quite like dieing and appearing at the life stone (wayshrine) in your underwear because you forgot to carry "death items" so you didn't drop your good stuff. Happened to me more than once... a few times I actually had to get other people to help me recover items from a corpse.

Death should have consequences. Even in a MMO.

"The only "hard" thing about AC was that you had no take backs"

This was changed with the introduction of Asheron's Island... you can respec any character for 1 time free... then it costs ingame money afterwards.

I know there was an MMO coming out that featured perma-death... you die and the character is gone. That's a little too harsh for my tastes.

Daethz

Neither do I, 2 reasons.
Craglorn & v10-12: 100% group content, I don't like making groups, I dont see anyone doing the quests im on, because im a stamina build I dont feel like I could contribute to a group because of how much anyone with a staff would overshadow my pity attempts to deal damage.

Stamina Builds: only ones I enjoy playing, are completely terrible and completely and utterly destroyed by magicka/staff builds.

Soloeus

HurlinMerlin wrote: »

I played this game from the first beta...I liked it, the graphics are awesome.

But it leaves something out that I just couldn't figure it out... then it hit me....it's just too dang easy... that's the problem for me..... this MMO is way to easy to level and just about everything associated with it is just too easy... except for finding groups which should be easy but isn't.

I recently found myself going back to the very first MMO (AC) I ever played for the third time. What keeps drawing me back to a MMO that is almost 15 years old, graphics from the late 90's? Because it isn't easy... that's why I keep going back. What could a 15 year old MMO offer that a brand new one doesn't? Let's see:

1. Death Penalty.... in AC, if you die, you suffer two penalties....1. You drop items from your inventory on death...2. You suffer vitae which decreases all your stats until it is removed by gaining xp. This makes you much more wary about jumping into situations knowing that your character might die. There is nothing about dieing in ESO that is a penalty other that the repair cost which is trivial.

2. Character customization.... AC gives you the ability to fully customize any race you choose to play 100% by skill and xp points. Any race can be viable depending on the way you distribute your skill points and xp points....this gives you 2 distinct ways to customize the same character.

3. Item customization.... AC give you the ability to "salvage" loot down to its core components and some of these can be applied to armor, weapons, or jewelry to change the base stats on items, depending on the salvage applied. But it doesn't come with no risk (it isn't easy)..each item can be tinkered a maximum of 10 times... but the ability to tinker an item is based on skill, so there is always a chance that a tinker will fail and the item will be destroyed even with maxed out skills.

4. Housing.... very controversial when first introduced, but very nice to have as a place to call home and store loot and stuff.

5. Armor dying.... been in the game for years.

6. No auction house.....AC has a place called the marketplace where you call run your character to sell stuff.

7. PVP... AC has a server set up specifically for PVP.... all players are PVP and it can be a very harsh cruel world... not so much these days as the population has dropped so much. PVP is also allowed on the other servers but you have to choose to do this... it isn't forced upon you except for a quest or two that requires you to go PVP to complete.

8. No horses or flying mounts....in AC you run everywhere,,, there is a portal system set up to get you anywhere you need to go for the most part, but you also have a run skill that you can bump up to make your character faster...much faster.


ESO is just too easy... it doesn't require very much thought or planning into death or character development...this seems to be the trend in MMO's which is hurting the player base.

I have played the following MMO's:

Asheron's Call
Asheron's Call 2
Dark Age of Camelot
Shadowbane
Rift
Aion
WoW
Eve (still subscribed)
ESO (still subscribed)
LOTR

And a few others that I have forgotten or they just didn't last long.

Surprisingly, I never tried Everquest.

1. Death Penalty doesn't belong. If you like that, go play a game where you lose all your stuff and exp.

2. It sounds to me like you just don't like ESO. You want a game that isn't ESO, where there is open world pvp, looting, killing people back to level 1. You have plenty of games already like this. Enjoy them. Don't try to turn ESO into them.

Soloeus

Daethz wrote: »

Neither do I, 2 reasons.
Craglorn & v10-12: 100% group content, I don't like making groups, I dont see anyone doing the quests im on, because im a stamina build I dont feel like I could contribute to a group because of how much anyone with a staff would overshadow my pity attempts to deal damage.

Stamina Builds: only ones I enjoy playing, are completely terrible and completely and utterly destroyed by magicka/staff builds.

1. So you don't use Class Skills then? Or anything, just 5 Stamina Abilities, and you expect what, to be a "good" as a properly geared character who isn't going to be restricted to just Stamina Abilities?

2. If you are going to use a Stamina Build, then I wouldn't group with you either to be honest. I only want to group with people who use a wide array of abilities, and evolve to the situation. I use Stamina Abilities as a Magic User when I need to even though its painful. I also use Class Abilities on my Stamina Character that cost Magicka.

indytims_ESO

Yes - ESO PVE 1-50 is incredibly easy. I agree completely. But that seems to be the way of games nowadays. The 'good 'ole days' of the past where it took a group to kill almost every mob and a fight took 5-10 minutes every single time are gone. Gone is a sense of a mortality, and an actual fear of character death.

This is the 'instant gratification' world we live in now. Somewhere along the way, players (the people who pay to play the game) realized: 'Hey, programmers can make life easier for us - so they SHOULD!', and it became a rallying cry.

MMO's aren't real life, where you can't simply 'walk away'. MMO's are meant to be fun, and programmers know this, and they know that most gamers are inherently -lazy-. If this was -not- true - then every game would still be nasty-hard as EQ1 was, and all the wonderful conveniences in MMO's that didn't exist 10 years ago still would not exist today.

I've enjoyed both styles of games. I felt a much greater sense of accomplishment with the 'old school' games. Finding an FBSS (finally) or completing a TOV raid in EQ1 granted a sense of accomplishment I have not even come -close- to feeling in ESO. That doesn't mean ESO is 'bad' - it's just 'different', and I play ESO for different reasons.

But if you are seeking a 'challenge' (at least in a PVE setting), today's crop of games just don't seem to do well in that department. You might have to go old-school (like you mentioned you have with AC), or you can dig up some single-player games to get your challenge on.

Rodario

Can you log in one last time to send me your stuff, please?

Ojustaboo

Rodario wrote: »

Can you log in one last time to send me your stuff, please?

The op writes a well thought out list of things he/she feels is wrong with this game, stresses they are not quitting, and you respond like that.

I actually find responses like yours far worse than actual "I quit" threads.

Erock25

More people play AC with me wah wah

gamer2571_ESO

AC is a awesome game i agree with that ESO is awesome as well i am loving it ,but i do agree with AC is one of my favorite games of all time

Eirikur

I wish there was a higher overall difficulty, harsh death penalties, full faction VS faction PVP regardless of zones, and a more mature setting overall (with more blood and less censorship), but all in all there's so many things to like about ESO that I'm staying for now. I hope a worthy successor to Shadowbane will appear soon though.

Aenra

good points there, most (pvp excluded) i agree with..but you forget one thing @HurlinMerlin‌

we are no longer the target audience
(ie we are no longer their -main- source of income).

- this is what signifies a 200(?) million budget for a game with combat and rudimentary crafting
- this is why console friendly first, practical second
- this is why it has to be TES lore-friendly (ie we want the TES single player games fans' money too)
[with all that "lore-friendly" entails in terms of actual gameplay and mechanics. I love the lore myself don't get me wrong, huuuuge Morrowind junkie]
- this is why, to generalise, basically more and more is spent so that less and less may be finally produced

Now that said, i do have to say that

1) the things TESO does have, it has them in quality, it has them standing out. For me. I enjoy being online. Just..being logged in

2) the speed at which they are improving upon it? If this keeps up, you may well be laughing looking back at your own list a year from now ^^

3) i'm staying. This is honestly the only game installed on my hard drive(s) right now. Enough people staying, well, you know how it goes

omio1970

I think it all comes to the ability of human intelligence adapt to complex patterns by time. things become trivial if you play too many MMO and it is hard to consolidate with newcomer base. ESO has awesome features but very easy gameplay. not a good crafting system for sure, a lot of skill points so no real way of making important decisions, very few skills to use, etc.

DieAlteHexe

Kreetar wrote: »

I don't think I've come across someone who can just genuinely appreciate the game for what it is and who isn't bitching and moaning about little imperfections, or having high expectations for the big imperfections. :'(

Hi there.

theyancey

If you made this game as the elitists would demand with higher difficulties, major death penalties, and open world PvP there would be massive unsubs and ESO would be F2P within a year. Most of the players are not of that ilk. My son and I would unsub immediately. So would many others that I know.

Do you really think that Zenimax invested $200MM to throw it away to appease the few? Do you think that Providence bought a 25% stake in Zenimax to throw its investor's money away? Would ProSiebenSat.1? Of course not. Neither would individuals from Cal Ripken to Les Moonvies. This is a business and the principals have a fiduciary responsibility to make it a profitable one. Chris Weaver knew that when he assigned his stock in Bethesda to Zeni so that it could obtain funding.

Dylan sang that, "You gotta serve somebody." Matt serves Altman. Altman serves the other stakeholders. All are required by ethics and by law to strive to be profitable. This is why the game must be made approachable to the widest player base possible. Is there anyway to do so without alienating all? I think that there is.

The answer is a difficulty slider. It only needs to offer three choices. Normal would appeal to the majority of ESO players. Dragon would give those wanting to be required to think and plan and work hard at the game. Sweetroll would allow newbies, very causal players, and the aged or infirm to contribute their subs to the good of Zenimax. This is very easy to implement. The settings simply employ buffs/debuffs to the character to achieve the desired difficulty. There is no need to rewrite the mobs themselves. Wider appeal = a better game=more content=more subs=a higher return on investment for the principals. All would win.

Food4Thought

txfeinbergsub17_ESO wrote: »

No, they lock I quit threads. This probably wasn't one (which you just confirmed as being the case), just checking.

This is the longest I have ever subscribed to an MMO. I usually hit endgame and get bored. I am only V1 in this game, so the amount of content was epic. I am taking it slow and enjoying the ride.

I'm doing the same as you ... taking it slow. But even now just shy of VET level I'm finding it hard to login.

Do I have more things to do? Yes.
Do I have crafting lines to still finish? Yes
Do I still need to make a name for myself in PVP? Yes

But I still struggle to find a reason to login. Like this past weekend, me and wife's plans got rained out. I was home all weekend yet I doubt I even spent two hours in game all last week (including the weekend).

And I use to be the guy who played an MMO more a week than I spent actually working or sleeping.

But times have changed I suppose. Every MMO I have played for the past 6 plus years has had a major culling within a couple of months or release and by month three after release I have to sit there and ponder whether to continue a subscription myself.

Hell ... when I was playing SWTOR I could tell you which side was going to win a PVP match just by looking at the player's names. It literally got to the point where I was on a first name basis with everyone who was a regular PVP match player on my server. There was that few of us on the emperial side. Facing the opposing faction (and not your own) in a match was actually a rarity.

But everybody has their own reasons for leaving an MMO. And as to why I am contemplating my own end for this game when I havent' even fully reached end game content ...

I don't know. It just doesn't seem to be doing it for me any more. MMOs tend to be like bad sex. Even though you might enjoy it while doing it, you know after you finish it was as satisfying as it could have been.