A tough decision.

Navuri

I just decided not to renew my sub next week and will start playing again at the end of this year. No, this is not a rage-quit-topic. Just to be clear upfront.

I've played ESO during the FIRSTLOOK 2013 conference last year, participated in all the beta-weekends and have been playing since the early access in March of 2014. However, the game isn't going where me and my friends were hoping it to go. I'm only speaking for myself and a couple of friends I've played with since the release of ESO. I thought I would make this topic to see if there are more people that are feeling the same kind of dissappointment from ESO as we (me and my friends) are experiencing.

ESO looks wonderfull, and Tamriel is a beautiful and glorious place to adventure through. We think the looks of ESO are stunning, and we love the overall look and feel of the world. However, there are certain MMORPG aspects that are either missing or broken in ESO which makes the current state of the game simply not good enough to pay a sub for each and every month. Whether or not other players agree or disagree with the following list isn't really relevant for my point though. I was just wondering if others were also dissappointend overall with the current state of the game. For me and my friends the following aspects of ESO were simply too much to be worth it all. That being said; we're going to wait and see what comes out in the next couple of months and probably resub once the game is in a much better state then it is today:

The list is in no order of importance:

* Eidetic memory doesn't save your books. Kinda defeats the purpose.
* Fishing doesn't do anything in the world of ESO. There are bugged achievements though and you can't use fish for provisioning. What's the use?
* Crafting system is a fantastic feature in ESO. It's a shame though that once you play enough and spend enough points everyone can be a master in every profession imaginable, which kills the economy for crafters.
* Endgame issues. Once I've beaten Molag Bal, it's grinding my way through VR levels and to what? Is there a big raid at the end of the game? Who do I have to beat? Where's the point in it?
* Grouping system. It's a system, but it's not smart at all. Who thought of this system at ESO? An intern?
* At first glance the wayshrines seem a good idea. But once you've found the lot of them it's blink-blink to anywhere in the world. So much for the rich and detailed world ESO right? Why create such a beautiful world and not let players travel through it like really ARE in Tamriel? We could use our own mounts, a horse and a carriage or even flying mounts for all I care, but wayshrines just kill the whole 'I live in this world' feeling. It's just too easy.
* Haven't hit VR12 yet. But I read in a lot of topics that crafted gear is better then the loot table drops from the highest level mobs. Again, what? Huh?
* Auction House. A million topics already. And again it's coming up. Trying to fix the absence of an Auction House (or AH per server layer) with global merchants on which you can bid sonds like a good idea, expect I don't think it is. If there's not even an active search for a guild store, am I supposed to manually search for every single item I'm looking for? It's called Elder Scrolls, but you didn't mean 'scrolls' literally right Zenimax? Why is there an active search when selling an item and not when you're trying to buy an item?
* Progressive raids. You need em. You don't have them. I'm losing interest. Raids don't have to be done by everybody. Raids aren't lore-breaking and raids can be a hell of a lot fun when doing them in a friendly guild form. At endgame, I want to beat that big dragon/monster/skeleton/horror-beast who will drop my epic superbow.
* Dark fissures. I'm not a hardcore gamer, but I haven't had a single problem with a dark fissure. Ever. Too simple. Let Dragons drop from the sky or something like that. Or those Titans. They can do some tough damage. The idea is nice, but the dragons in Skyrim made me work for the kill and the dark fissures just roll over and play dead.
* The updates Zenimax gives are 'meh' and mostly they serve the VR12 players. At Gamescom, they showed tons of content that will be implemented over the next ?? (I have no idea). Where is the communicaton about these things? Can we get any insight in the progression of this game or the so called 'road ahead' which is cryptic and doesn't say anything at all? I've even watch a few live interviews on Twitch a while back with Nick Konkle of Zenimax in which he added nothing to the things that were being said earlier. It's like Zenimax thinks it has made a superb game and everyone will keep paying for it no matter what.

The Elder Scrolls Online was released about 4,5 months ago and we have half (if it is half, I'm not sure) of Tamriel to explore. There's no telling when Wrothgar or Murkmire will be implemented in the game. There's nothing about Skyrim to be seen in the road ahead. We're being forced to join 3/4 trading guilds because of the lack of an auction house, which kills the whole PVE progession guild idea because everyone 'needs' a trading guild or two. Quests are broken, systems aren't working, achievements aren't being correctly remembered by the game and then Zenimax adds armor dyes to the game. Armor dyes are a nice and fun addition to the game I think. But me and my friends don't think that Zenimax is on the same page anymore with the way we would like to play the game at this moment. The current state of the game and the lack of the additions in the list I've mentioned before is causing us to wait three or four months before we're coming back to Tamriel.

*edit note*
Every player has certain aspects he or she would like to see in The Elder Scrolls Online. Every player experiences the game at their own pace. I'm sure not a lot of players would want to see all the things I've mentioned in this topic. That's okay. I'm sure those players have a lot of things they are worried about and for which I don't care about myself. That being said; It's a tough decision, and I really want ESO to work a be a fantastic game. So I'm hoping for lots and lots of improvements over the next few months so the game can reach it's full potential. Me and my friends are just dissappointed in the current state of the game. Most of the players here on these forums will agree with me that ESO has a lot of potential. Whether or not other players are also dissappointed, I'm not sure, but that's what I'm trying to figure out with this topic.

Phantax

Shame that the games loses another player !

Xeres14

There's a lot of points the OP makes which are valid. Only thing I'd say is the game is still young and hopefully ZO will address a lot of the end game content soon.

Cyberdown

my favorite was the wayshrine complaint. If blinking around the world ruins immersion for you have you tried NOT USING THE WAYSHRINES TO GET AROUND?

jrgray93

I too am starting to lose interest and hope that things will improve. In fact, I just posted my own thread about it. I don't have plans to leave yet, but I can very well see that happening if things don't improve. Even if I do, I'll still keep an eye on things to see if something catches my interest.

Vuron

Xeres14 wrote: »

There's a lot of points the OP makes which are valid. Only thing I'd say is the game is still young and hopefully ZO will address a lot of the end game content soon.

Exactly. This may have been another "I quit" post, but almost every thing on his list has been mentioned and discussed at great length and still hasn't been addressed.

It makes absolutely no sense for people to keep leaving in droves and always using the same reasons, but nothing is being done to correct these issues.

purple-magicb16_ESO

I was hoping that crafting professions would really come out into the fore-front in terms of driving economy. They're not really. OP is right. I thought that crafting would be so in depth that one would have to dedicate almost all of their toon's points towards crafting, but it seems that anyone can become a crafter in all professions and without impacting their adventuring. So what's the downside? Why wouldn't everyone want to craft? I thought that crafting would be so specialized that many wouldn't get into it as it would severly impact their adventuring and so those that were dedicated crafters could actually make money at their profession. Like being a blacksmith selling weapons and armor to other players. As it is no one wants to buy w&a. The only things people really want to buy is crafting mats, and raw crafting mats at that. They want to become crafters but don't want to have farm the mats or they want to fast track it and not have to put in the time. People will buy items, but they only want the cheapest item with the trait that they want, so they can deconstruct and learn it saving them tons of time searching for it themselves. I just don't think ESO foresaw this as the result of implementing a crafting system.

Morvoldo

Xeres14 wrote: »

There's a lot of points the OP makes which are valid. Only thing I'd say is the game is still young and hopefully ZO will address a lot of the end game content soon.

downside to this is... is the way SWTOR went and we all know what happened/s to that game, it could of been awesome but here we are again there was no Endgame, lots wrong with it and EAware didn't listen to the player base.
now its just as most and ex players call it Star Wars..The Cash Shop Menace, because now its a Buy to Win.

I DO NOT want this game to go the same way, but its heading down a Dark Path .
Zenimax needs to sort somthing out Now

Especially since World of Draenor is being release November 13th

ToxicVR

Wayshrines are optional....

Valerien

I agree.

Please Devs take note you have an amazingly beautiful game with great systems and customisation and wonderful VO. Its is perhaps the most amazing canvas anyone could hope to paint on yet the story is so bland as to be painfully dull. I'm working through the VR ranks and I have no clue how any of this ties together is it a dream is it time travel is it a giant cosmic joke I don't know. So what I thought would be an amazing experience turned into a dull grind.

Seriously the VR grind wouldn't be so bad it seems to be some meaningless experience of travelling the land helping my enemies where nothing else I have done has any meaning.

Perhaps the greatest sandbox style MMO was Fallout 2, 1 was good and 3 and Vagas aren't bad. Here my choice in skills effects options absolutely amazing (I thought ESO was going the same way but only two matter), in Fallout my choices play a role later on, ESO I thought was going this way but instead went and did a Dallas classic and made it so 2/3 of the pve experience is some strange dream in which nothing you do else where can be brought up. And perhaps worse choices like Vampire, Werewolf, being whatever race or class you are forcefully negated by people being determined your a human mortal who most the time doesn't have a soul even if you worked hard to get it back.

ESO is amazing but the experience is so bland as to become dull and then logging in becomes a chore and its a debate between skipping all the dialogue as meaningless or trying to enjoy it and getting bored to tears that yet another important person needs the help of a complete stranger who is walking the land as luck would have it to help people for a couple of gold some poor gear and their ever dying thanks (only they forget you seconds later and its like you never did the quest).

Revanslave

I plan to quit also, but only after I beat Molag Bal, which should be before this months sub is up. It has nothing to do with the game, but I am relatively new to MMOs. After it's over, from my understanding, there isn't much more storyline or any storyline. I want to play more games and see what they have to offer. I love ESO and will probably be back once there are expansions and whatnot, but yeah. aha

KhajitFurTrader

Valerien wrote: »

Perhaps the greatest sandbox style MMO was Fallout 2, 1 was good and 3 and Vagas aren't bad.

Fallout was an MMO? You're either from the future, or you got something wrong. I take back everything. Fallout indeed was an MMO. One that never was.

Elsonso

Vuron wrote: »

It makes absolutely no sense for people to keep leaving in droves and always using the same reasons, but nothing is being done to correct these issues.

I said in another thread somewhere else that the people who are in the game provide the input and help chart the course for the game.

This includes fixes and changes in game play.

People who are not subscribers ultimately have very little say in how the game changes.

If someone cannot see their way to sticking around, by all means, they should move on to other pastures. If they don't really care and are just throwing parting shots, then it should not be hard to move on.

On the other hand, if the purpose for quitting is to get ZOS to make a change because they want to see the change made, then I think the logic is misguided.

Now, if someone is figuring that they will eventually make the desired changes, and don't want to pay in the interim, then that is different. I can't argue with anyone who sits out the game while waiting for something specific.

For example, people who want PVP balance might want to sit out until ZOS is finished. The risk is that the balance might not be what they want it to be.

There are a lot of things about the game that I do not like, some will eventually change (I hope) while others are unlikely to change. I am sticking around because I have a louder voice as a subscriber than as not.

ZOS_TristanK

Thank you for sharing your feedback, @Navuri, and for expressing your interest in discussing these matters. In order to let you continue the discussion of this feedback, we are leaving this thread open. We would like to remind everyone to stick to discussing the feedback mentioned so that this thread stays on track. In the interest of keeping this discussion focused, we've removed several disruptive comments. Thank you for your understanding.

lathbury

Yeah letting everyone master all crafts was a mistake. Way shrines are a bit Immersion/lore breaking. But still my big bug bear is the glaring build imbalances between your pure caster build and any other in pve. I will continue to play but I feel more transparency on zos behalf would help like for example ww are getting some fixes soon weapon abilities soon. When is soon some of these things have been borked since beta. It would be nice for zos to outline their proposed fixes etc and the time we can expect them.

KhajitFurTrader

Kudos to @lordrichter for so eloquently expressing the heart of the matter. ^_^

Potenza

I'll be keeping my sub at ESO. For me there's more that I like about the game than what I don't like. There are improvements that have to be made and I feel they will get to them.

nicholaspingasb16_ESO

lordrichter wrote: »

Vuron wrote: »

It makes absolutely no sense for people to keep leaving in droves and always using the same reasons, but nothing is being done to correct these issues.

People who are not subscribers ultimately have very little say in how the game changes.

Non-subscribers still have forum access, so...

ThisOnePosts

ToxicVR wrote: »

Wayshrines are optional....

This. You don't HAVE to use Wayshrines. I prefer the current setup over a Global AH. Towns feel very much alive instead of just the bank now thanks to these merchants everywhere. I like this system. Sure I'd like a Trade channel, dedicated to trading but I am very much okay with a Global AH for the same reasons ZOS mentioned over and over again.

The game is not for everyone and yes I would love Dragon type events, large Raids, etc... however I highly doubt they wrote that off as not happening. Most updates will tend to end-game players since those who are earlier in the game already have PLENTY OF CONTENT ahead of them. Dyes, new styles, Spell crafting, Justice System, etc.. however do/will cater to all.

The most fun I have right now, is leveling new characters and trying different things (along with Cyrodiil, Dungeons, and Trials).

I love that I can decide HOW I want to spend MY skill points if I decide to a master of all crafting trades. You need quite a lot of skill points to do that, trust me on that... my main character can craft anything in this game and I even have a slew of purple recipes learned, all motifs, etc... If you say it ruins the economy for crafters, what did you expect? That only an elite few should be able to craft and earn gold while everyone else has to.... what? Farm? Yes I know you didn't imply that but that's the sort of negativity that comes with such a statement.

There will be many people who choose not to pursue all crafting styles because they want their skill points for other things. On my main character, I have every skill point in the game minus some PVP ranks and it feels like not enough skill points! I have just enough to do all of those things and have to make sacrifices from having more diverse weapon skill lines in order to craft everything in the game and still be a viable killing machine

Oh, so you want to be able to trade off your heavy armor / medium armor / light armor??? That's a lot of skill points right there! So people will have to choose, what do they want their character to focus on and if you decide to do something like become a master of all crafting, you will be finding yourself having to carefully select your skill points in other areas --- even with having most/all skill points in the game currently!

raglau

The items quoted below are the ones important to me:

Fishing - I have not fished since an exploratory dabble in my first week. As the OP says, pointless. Maybe make the fish mats for provisioning, attach some sort of meaningful value to the activity.
Crafting - awesome but I have to agree the OP: master of all trades is great for single player TES where you can be self-sufficient, but there is no one for me as a crafter\gatherer to sell anything to! I love crafting in ESO but it should be driving the economy
Grouping - well it's bad, we all know that. I can't LFG for dungeons when I pass their very strict level bands etc. For an MMO all social\group tools and interfaces are very poorly developed. When I do meet people in game they are all helpful and friendly, so it's not as if the players are the problem, ESO need to make the game more social and provide a decent toolset to allow that to happen. As it is, it's just easier to play on my own.
Wayshrines - invaluable when I want to meet my guildies or someone announcing an anchor or boss on zone chat. If you don't like them, don't use them. C
Crafted gear - I think it's actually better that crafted gear is best in game. It makes crafting meaningful, see the caveat above however; I should perhaps be a true master of one craft to be able to craft that BIS gear, and have to buy other BIS from the AH
Auction house - the current system has failed. I don't even put anything in a guild store now. I break it down, sell it to an NPC or put in guild bank. This is because the current system of multiple guild stalls and no cohesive method to search them etc, is simply weak to the point of broken. ZOS, you tried the idea, it has not worked. The auction house model clearly is the best model for an MMO so let's accept it and move on. Nothing up with admitting mistakes are made so long as we move on from them
Raids - I am not a Raider but I understand why people want them. If they want them, let them have them.

I was surprised to see something cosmetic like dyes in an update when so much of the game is broken nearly half a year after release! Dyes will not stop people leaving, core game fixes will!

I think this is a lovely game and I love it a lot but I am not an ostrich. I have a high tolerance level as I played every TES game since Arena, but not all players are like me. I think if ZOS want to grow the game they should be listening to people like the OP here, he makes some very good points indeed.

Navuri wrote: »

* Fishing doesn't do anything in the world of ESO. There are bugged achievements though and you can't use fish for provisioning. What's the use?
* Crafting system is a fantastic feature in . It's a shame though that once you play enough and spend enough points everyone can be a master in every profession imaginable, which kills the economy for crafters.
* Grouping system. It's a system, but it's not smart at all. Who thought of this system at ESO? An intern?
* At first glance the wayshrines seem a good idea. But once you've found the lot of them it's blink-blink to anywhere in the world. So much for the rich and detailed world ESO right? Why create such a beautiful world and not let players travel through it like really ARE in Tamriel? We could use our own mounts, a horse and a carriage or even flying mounts for all I care, but wayshrines just kill the whole 'I live in this world' feeling. It's just too easy.
* Haven't hit VR12 yet. But I read in a lot of topics that crafted gear is better then the loot table drops from the highest level mobs. Again, what? Huh?
* Auction House. A million topics already. And again it's coming up. Trying to fix the absence of an Auction House (or AH per server layer) with global merchants on which you can bid sonds like a good idea, expect I don't think it is. If there's not even an active search for a guild store, am I supposed to manually search for every single item I'm looking for? It's called Elder Scrolls, but you didn't mean 'scrolls' literally right Zenimax? Why is there an active search when selling an item and not when you're trying to buy an item?
* Progressive raids. You need em. You don't have them. I'm losing interest. Raids don't have to be done by everybody. Raids aren't lore-breaking and raids can be a hell of a lot fun when doing them in a friendly guild form. At endgame, I want to beat that big dragon/monster/skeleton/horror-beast who will drop my epic superbow.

gurluasb16_ESO

The thing about Eidetic memory really annoys me. Randomly a big bunch of books just vanish. I had 354 then suddenly, boom, 280.

loudent

I sorta phased out of the game a while ago but my friend is heavily involved and he wanted me back in (mostly so he can send me stuff to send back to him)

However, I still hold my original impression that this game has a lot of basic MMO systems either entirely missing or implemented as a "lite" version. Essentially it feels lie a FTP game. Not a subscription game.

However, it was the look forward video that ultimately brought me back. While it doesn't address all my issues it looks like they're actively adding important and fun pieces to the game. Ultimately, if that's what they're going to use my $15 for then it's money well spent

Elirienne

I left this month for one reason and one reason only. The bloody launcher breaks after every patch. Tried sorting it out with CS for a month. IT breaks my heart not to play this game, but I simply just cannot start it anymore IT worked well for 3 months from EA, then it broke in July.

Zenimax, fix your launcher so that it patches seamlessly. Sort it out so that firewall, windows update, direct x update etc etc does not crash it. Then I'll be back when I can actually launch the game again.

Shame. Shame

nicholaspingasb16_ESO

I cancelled my subscription, I've been playing since beta and I waited for update 3, hoping it would contain fixes for so many of the games balancing issues, UI problems, grouping issues, cyrodiil lag, economy problems etc. It fixed almost none of those things. I think I'll wait until the Justice system and Imperial City are rolled out and then make a post on the forums asking about the current state of the game before I come back. If, by the time those two major content patches are out, this game is a complete and mostly bug-free product, I will happily resume my sub.

Navuri

ZOS_TristanK wrote: »

Thank you for sharing your feedback, @Navuri, and for expressing your interest in discussing these matters. In order to let you continue the discussion of this feedback, we are leaving this thread open. We would like to remind everyone to stick to discussing the feedback mentioned so that this thread stays on track. In the interest of keeping this discussion focused, we've removed several disruptive comments. Thank you for your understanding.

Thank you for your reply @ZOS_TristanK‌. I was wondering whether or not I should post this topic in the first place. But, seeing as there are people from ZOS, like you, reading and responding to these topics I am glad that I did post this topic. I disagree partially with @lordrichter when it comes to the matter who has the loudest voice. I've supported ESO from the moment the announcement came out that there was going to be an Elder Scrolls MMO. I've sat through the beta's, traveled half of my country to play the game first hand at FIRSTLOOK2013, took part in the early access and have been playing ever since. However, the fact that I'm not renewing my sub right away is because of the list I mentioned in the opening post. Considering this topic, and the fact that ZOS employees are reading this does mean I have a voice in the community. I will keep on playing until my sub runs out in about 10 days and I'll keep track of anything ESO related because I think it has the potential to become the best MMORPG of all time. But one has got to make priorities in life, and I think there's a big chance that ESO will turn out to be much more enjoyable for me when I return in a month or 3/4. Until that time, I think it's time for others to submit the bug forms and feedback from the ingame world of Tamriel. The topic wasn't really about the things me and my friends are worried about, but about the notion that other players (with their own lists) might be a bit dissappointed as well.

Navuri

*edit* Thanks @squicker for your reply as well.

Orchish

Allowing us to master all crafts if we wish to do so is one of the best things about this MMO In my opinion.

nicholaspingasb16_ESO

Orchish wrote: »

Allowing us to master all crafts if we wish to do so is one of the best things about this MMO In my opinion.

That's not the issue, the problem is that you can craft better gear than anything you can find in the world.

Elsonso

nicholaspingasb16_ESO wrote: »

Non-subscribers still have forum access, so...

They can listen but they cannot speak.

nicholaspingasb16_ESO

lordrichter wrote: »

nicholaspingasb16_ESO wrote: »

Non-subscribers still have forum access, so...

They can listen but they cannot speak.

They can, actually.

maxilaub17_ESO

I couple of things I agree with are:

* Auction House

* The updates Zenimax gives are 'meh'

I disagree about wayshrines, like someone else said you don’t have to use them if you prefer traveling by horse or foot to see the countryside.

What I would like to see:

1. Fix the PvP bugs, performance, and fix server-client synchrozation to be more consistent and faster!!!!!!!!!!!!

2. More PvP varity, Cyrodiil was fun but after 4 months is old and boring doing the same things over and over.

3.Better end game gear, particularly PvP Gear.
Stop introducing more bugs with a patch than bugs the patch fixes

Elad13

In short op.....yes....