Burned Out?

jrgray93

This is a long post. If you are challenged with ADHD or poor reading comprehension, this thread is not for you!

There are a lot of things making me not want to play ESO. They've bothered me since launch, but lately, I've become so tired of the problems that I have felt more inclined to just not play. In fact, I haven't been on in a week. I am enjoying a Bioshock 1-Infinite playthrough. Prior to this, I've always found some reason to play, but the novelty has worn off and it feels like a chore.

First and foremost in my list of problems is the combat system. It is fundamentally flawed in countless ways. Everyone knows lots of people feel underpowered with stamina builds, and making one effective is more difficult than doing the same with magicka. The decision to have a resource pool that splits itself between maneuverability and offense while another pool is dedicated to just casting was flat-out stupid. You can buff stamina builds all you want, but that won't fix the foundation on which they are built.

On that note, there is the fact that weapons and spells are even split to different pools to begin with. The design philosophy of this game was to be able to have a unique character that fits your style because the game was supposed to allow immense versatility. If different resource pools are in place, the most effective way to build your character for maximum potential is to generally focus on one or the other, rather than going for a mix. This limits versatility and shoehorns you into fewer play styles.

As a Templar, I feel most of my abilities are useless without a magicka focused build. Focusing on magicka then limits the potential of my weapon abilities, leaving me with very few viable offensive abilities. Which brings me to classes. I didn't mind them at first, but the more I play, the more I see that classes do not belong within the design philosophy of this game. It adds just one more element to balance in a game where balance is already a joke.

The lack of ability cooldowns, coupled with the encouragement to focus almost entirely on one resource pool, results in an extremely exploitable system wherein "FotM" builds are running rampant. This is why you have very few challenging opponents in PVP; the unkillable Blazing Shield spamming templar, the unkillable turtle AOE DK, the instant 3k damage NB, the streak / BoL spamming sorc, etc. There are plenty more builds but they are far less common and usually far less effective.

In other MMOs, I feel my success can come down to skill at least as often as luck. In ESO, I feel more like I'm playing rock-paper-scissors when I encounter enemies. Building to counter is a necessary and interesting part of most games like this, but in ESO, it too often feels like it is all that matters. Just another symptom of the exploitable combat system. It is also worth noting that balance changes come very slowly around here, even on the more obvious issues. I understand the desire to not make sweeping gameplay changes, but some things just too obviously need improved upon to let it go this long.

It's also hard to tell exactly what stats you want on your character. The character sheet gives you the bare minimum amount of info, lacking key details on what certain stats do to benefit you. For instance, I have no way of knowing how much crit resist I have and how it translates into a percentage, short of googling it. There is no reason things should be hidden from the player. An option for advanced tooltips would be fantastic, and wouldn't detract from the minimalist UI.

But I guess that doesn't matter anymore, because I've lost interest in the end-game content. PVP is a mess for more reasons than I can count. There's the combat system, the poor CPU multi-core utilization, the servers crashing, the zerg trains, the bugs, and the fact that the entire campaign system seems intent on making everyone want to play on the same server, compounding all of the aforementioned issues. Not to mention, I seem to spend more time finding battles than I do actually battling. Servers other than the primary one were just used for buffs and flipping flags to farm the emperor title, something that caters to people who embrace everything that is wrong with ESO PVP. Nine out of ten emperors I encounter are severely lacking in humility and courtesy as well, a side effect of being a 20-hour-a-day game elitist.

Then there is PVE. Another home of elitists and awful, unfriendly experiences. The primary design of end-game PVE on ESO, trials, once again highlights all of the flaws in the game by implementing a leaderboard and few meaningful rewards for participating. Most serious groups require you to post an achievement or be a certain build / spec just to join. Templars are genenerally unwelcome for anything other than a single healer. Veteran dungeons are more up my alley but that alone can't keep me playing.

So at the end of the day, all I'm left with is questing. ESO really has a beautifully crafted world and lots of rich story to enjoy. It's just a shame that the game itself is so fundamentally designed to turn away people who are interested in typical MMO activities. I'll keep questing when I get the urge, but I hope the future holds something better for this game.

raglau

TL:DR

jrgray93

Pibbles wrote: »

TL:DR

Not even the first sentence, eh?

Figured somebody would post this as the first reply. Good job on being that guy.

ers101284b14_ESO

Pibbles wrote: »

TL:DR

TL:DR
"Can I have your stuff?"

raglau

jrgray93 wrote: »

Pibbles wrote: »

TL:DR

Not even the first sentence, eh?

What first sentence?

jrgray93

Did I mention how terrible the community is?

astro74

Go play Alien with Ockulus Rift and when you are tired of washing your underwear you will enjoy ESO again

jrgray93

astro74 wrote: »

Go play Alien with Ockulus Rift and when you are tired of washing your underwear you will enjoy ESO again

I actually want that game! Just not with a Rift xD

I just pre-ordered Civilization: Beyond Earth. I'll keep playing Bioshock and that to balance out my ESO for a bit. I think I have like 400-500 hours on ESO at this point...

raglau

astro74 wrote: »

Go play Alien with Ockulus Rift and when you are tired of washing your underwear you will enjoy ESO again

;-)

A:I is too alarming on Oculus, last time I played it I didn't hook the Rift up! Made some excuse to myself about 'can't be bothered to plug it in', but I know the truth deep down...

I am back on ESO, well on and off. Now, I'd agree with some of what the OP says but I really don't feel that PvE is the home of elitists etc. I play on the EU server and I have never met a player with a bad attitude. One of the saving graces for this game, in my experience anyway, is that the player-base is generally very good. I am in a guild but I don't dread PUGs like I do in most games.

jrgray93

Pibbles wrote: »

astro74 wrote: »

Go play Alien with Ockulus Rift and when you are tired of washing your underwear you will enjoy ESO again

;-)

A:I is too alarming on Oculus, last time I played it I didn't hook the Rift up! Made some excuse to myself about 'can't be bothered to plug it in', but I know the truth deep down...

I am back on ESO, well on and off. Now, I'd agree with some of what the OP says but I really don't feel that PvE is the home of elitists etc. I play on the EU server and I have never met a player with a bad attitude. One of the saving graces for this game, in my experience anyway, is that the player-base is generally very good. I am in a guild but I don't dread PUGs like I do in most games.

Ah, I'm on NA, and I see nothing but horror when it comes to trials. Maybe I've had bad luck. Either way, I have come to avoid it like the plague.

raglau

jrgray93 wrote: »

Ah, I'm on NA, and I see nothing but horror when it comes to trials. Maybe I've had bad luck. Either way, I have come to avoid it like the plague.

I think the thing with this game is that it's really not going to improve the core mechanics beyond what we now have. There are things fundamentally wrong with the game that the devs are made aware of on a daily basis, and they really do not seem to wish to deal with these things.

They are more interested in pumping out new content - a lot of which is questionable in its value - which just builds on these flawed foundations. I guess they have to keep on with content otherwise people would ask what their sub goes on. A sub can't go on fixing bugs because that logically is something the supplier is duty bound to fix in their own time, so they have to keep releasing content to justify a sub.

I have a bit of a love\hate relationship with ESO right now. There are some things I do really enjoy and are unique to this game, but there are also many things that I just think, "for god's sake ZOS, did you only learn about the game industry yesterday?" Therefore, I do not play anywhere near the amount I used to.

raglau

jrgray93 wrote: »

astro74 wrote: »

Go play Alien with Ockulus Rift and when you are tired of washing your underwear you will enjoy ESO again

I actually want that game! Just not with a Rift xD

I just pre-ordered Civilization: Beyond Earth.

Alien:Isolation is awesome, it's genuinely frightening to play. Beyond Earth is in the post, should be here tomorrow...here come the late nights of plotting my enemies downfall...

jrgray93

You pretty much summed up my general view on ESO there.

Binnyway, I'll pick up A:I sooner or later. I have a 250+ game backlog to keep me busy. Naturally, I'm replaying a series I already finished.

Oh! On a related note, I did a full pass of Skyrim mods and went conservative on it this time to make sure I don't exceed the RAM limitation every 30 minutes and crash. So I'll finally finish that game eventually.

Bloodfang

OP you are playing by far the weakest class in ESO anyway..I regret the day I didn't choose DK for my tanky playstyle..And don't even start how I can make another character anytime, sadly I put 500+ hours in my Templar and I don't intend to get all the achievements on another char again..

While Templars can be good tanks, they require much more skill, and are still far behind to DKs..I seriously don't recommend anyone trying to solo as a Templar full heavy armor S & B Tank, the dps is so horrible..yet it's possible, but requires perfect coordination, timing and patience..

Last night I soloed those 3 world bosses at the Reconnaissance Camp in Greenshade..The whole combat took me exactly 10min (42k damage done - 70 dps, 12k damage received)..Yeah it felt epic doing it, but we for sure cannot just burn the enemy down in seconds..

Redlag

I'm with you. I just can't explain on how many levels the burnout goes. Banging my head against the wall to find a way to make this game enjoyable for my play style. Feeling like Im missing something in my setup that I don't get about the game.

RSram

Despair9 wrote: »

OP you are playing by far the weakest class in ESO anyway..I regret the day I didn't choose DK for my tanky playstyle..And don't even start how I can make another character anytime, sadly I put 500+ hours in my Templar and I don't intend to get all the achievements on another char again..

While Templars can be good tanks, they require much more skill, and are still far behind to DKs..I seriously don't recommend anyone trying to solo as a Templar full heavy armor S & B Tank, the dps is so horrible..yet it's possible, but requires perfect coordination, timing and patience..

Last night I soloed those 3 world bosses at the Reconnaissance Camp in Greenshade..The whole combat took me exactly 10min (42k damage done - 70 dps, 12k damage received)..Yeah it felt epic doing it, but we for sure cannot just burn the enemy down in seconds..

I agree. A Templar was my first build since the early release, and I wasted at least 300 hours. There are MMO experts who could do better then I did with this class, but fighting some of the solo bosses were incredibly difficult, if not impossible for me (this was before ESO nerf'd a lot of the VR content).

I switched to a High Elf Sorcerer and the game was really easier, and more fun to play. I still can't take on all of the world bosses and dolmens by myself, but I have a much better success. My next character will be a Dragon Knight.

As for the OP post, I'm also getting burned out, because between 5 characters (two that I deleted because they were bad builds), I have over 1000 hours in the game. I'm still having a lot of fun trying achieve all the points I need to be a master craftsman in six crafting specialties, but its starting to get repetitive.

I may take a break for a month or two, and return after the champion system is implemented; give me something new to do.

zhevon

I'm with you OP; I am burned out as well. [NB here] I have been fighting far too long with broken mechanics and skills where you play guess whats not working the same any more every other week.

As it is I will probably cancel soon since they are unlikely to ever allow us to change character class. I don't mind alts but I don't want to have to spend time retraining my crafting on a new character (among other things). ZoS has worn out my enthusiasm.

Gyudan

I agree with OP regarding the flaws of combat system.

I wonder if ZOS ever considered resetting this split into 4 classes. This could become even more relevant when we get more information on spellcrafting. Everyone being able to access all abilities would solve balance problems. Of course it would mean a truckload of new issues with the ways abilities interact with one another, but who knows ... maybe some day.
@ZOS_GinaBruno Hello

ESO is an awesome game but the more I play it, the more I see the issues rather than the amazing content
(well over 1k hours here too)

ontheleftcoast

I hate to admit it but yes, burn out is exactly what I'm feeling nowadays.

Basically I've seen everything and done everything I can in ESO and don't feel compelled to join the "L33T" crowd required to play in Craglorn.

Grouping in general is poorly handled in ESO -- I can't tell you the number of hours I've sat and stared at my screen trying to get folks together to run dungeons/delves in veteran levels. Because the grouping tool is all but useless spamming the zone with my 13th "LF2M to run Wayrest Sewers! Need tank/DPS" message gets real old real fast.

And *EVERY* quest in Craglorn is now a effectively a group quest. Unless you've spent the hours, days really, grinding thru to VR14 even walking around Craglorn's outdoor locations is now a group activity. It used to be there were two VR11 monsters hanging in lots of places. Those fights were entertaining but not "life and death struggles" for lesser veteran toons. Now it's three VR13 wasps or whatever those wolf-bear-pig things are called. Yeah, my VR6 DK can take them down if he burns his ultimate. But there are no solo monsters wandering the hills of Craglorn to replenish it. So I can wander around looking for resource nodes until I screw up and aggro a mob and then it's back to a Silver veteran zone to replenish the ultimate before I can proceed.

Which gets back to the "L33T" problem -- just try to get a casual group in Craglorn to run the various quest lines. I've tried many, many times to run these quests but with anything less than a VR12 toon I get ignored. One time, one single freaking time, did I get a group to run the initial Star Gazer's quest. I've gotten to run thru 4 or 5 of the dungeons. But the rest of Craglorn is out of my reach. Sure, there are lots of people in Craglorn but the problem is 95% of them are there to grind veteran levels. And there's some fun in that and some reward. It's really the only way to get a reliable source of purple crafting materials (from deconstructing the drops) that I've found. Of course in all honesty I can just buy them with less effort from playing the quests and selling the white/green trash to the vendors. But unless you bring your "L33T" badge of honors or are in a guild dedicated to running Craglorn playing thru with casual players is just not happening. There's nothing "casual" about Craglorn. That's not a bad thing, mind you, it's just not very appealing to many players and thus we won't experience it.

Illumous

I am 100% in agreement with the OP. I got real burnt out about a month ago and moved back to Borderlands 2 (and now TPS). PvP issues have not fixed still, so much about the core of the game is still very unpolished, and we just get a lot of promises that things are coming (like Champion System for instance) yet never seem to get any closer. I love ESO, don't get me wrong, but the whole experience has just kinda gone stale. There hasn't really been any meaningful updates, just a bunch of stuff that should have been in the game at release (looking at you especially update 1.3). 1.5 is a good step, but it still doesn't give me anything to really get excited about, just a bunch of changes/fixes that we've been waiting since late March and early April.

I am getting tired of seeing my guilds dissolve because of disinterest and the lack of meaningful content updates, and I am tired of getting told things are coming or that issues are still being discussed for solutions still (AoE caps being a big one here). For me I don't feed off of hype or promises, I like seeing results, and what has been given so far hasn't fixed the core issues the game suffers from.

PvP has devolved so much, becoming a home for AP farming, zerg trains, suicide fast travel, and buff servers. There is no meaningful competition, just a bunch of the same and lots of exploits and poor teamwork. PvE has become a wasteland where everyone just grinds instead of actually playing the content the developers have put so much time into making (Craglorn has some amazing scenarios like Shadas Tear, but grouping is so impossible that it is hard to experience it). And don't get me started on the Trial groups that expect you to conform to one build.

I love the world Zeni has made and I can see the potential so brightly, but the flaws the game has had from the beginning are just growing and becoming more apparent. 1.5 is needed to lay a foundation for the next stages of change, but it isn't a reason for me to come back yet. My guess is that I wont be seeing the things I want until 1.7 or 1.8 (if I am lucky), and even then it will only be starting to bring in the things the game desperately needs to keep its community together and maybe even bring in some newcomers.

I come onto the forums everyday still, even though I am not currently playing the game. We as players complain a lot about this game, but it isn't because we hate it (at least most of us), it's because we so desperately want to see it flourish and improve. I love reading what the community has to say, and I try to keep up to date with what the community thinks about the game currently, what they want to see and how they feel about what is coming. I will keep watching, but I most certainly wont be playing until I see some real change that makes me eager to jump online and play my Templar again.

jelliedsoup

Best post I've seen on these forums. Maybe this is just typical of MMOs?

kijima

I re-rolled the other day, thoroughly enjoyed running around Auridon with a few others last night, all of us around the early-mid teens in level.

It was like the excitement of beta all over again for me, I was playing with newbies too, not my regular guildies. Had a blast and couldn't recomend it enough, I've reconnected with the game again and while the 'thought' of getting to VR14 again on another character without grinding is a HUGE task (I'll succumb, I will grind as I only want to do ALL of the content on one character) I'm not put off by this.

Try it, you might be suprized how much fun you CAN have, if you let yourself just roll with it. Plus, running an alt through quests the second time is that much faster as I'm not reading notes and listening to things, just click straight through and kill stuff.

Fun times!

Voodoo

DEVS! You need to read this one! /\

Excellent post OP, really well thought out and explained with examples to paint the picture of exactly the point you are trying to make.

I still have alot of faith in ZOS. They gave us 1st person after a huge out pouring of concern that game wasnt going to have it. I believe they listen and will change and are changing things.

Unfortunately like you said specially when it comes to resources and class balances (and Nick Konkle even mentioned) that it is happening to slowly. (speed it up Nick!)

Looking forward to the champion system and hopefully a lot of balancing happening with that.

Fortunately for me I am taking it slow and still on the journey to endgame (V1 atm).

Chin up ppl! Good things INC.

kewl

Illumous wrote: »

I am 100% in agreement with the OP. I got real burnt out about a month ago and moved back to Borderlands 2 (and now TPS). PvP issues have not fixed still, so much about the core of the game is still very unpolished, and we just get a lot of promises that things are coming (like Champion System for instance) yet never seem to get any closer. I love ESO, don't get me wrong, but the whole experience has just kinda gone stale. There hasn't really been any meaningful updates, just a bunch of stuff that should have been in the game at release (looking at you especially update 1.3). 1.5 is a good step, but it still doesn't give me anything to really get excited about, just a bunch of changes/fixes that we've been waiting since late March and early April.

I am getting tired of seeing my guilds dissolve because of disinterest and the lack of meaningful content updates, and I am tired of getting told things are coming or that issues are still being discussed for solutions still (AoE caps being a big one here). For me I don't feed off of hype or promises, I like seeing results, and what has been given so far hasn't fixed the core issues the game suffers from.

PvP has devolved so much, becoming a home for AP farming, zerg trains, suicide fast travel, and buff servers. There is no meaningful competition, just a bunch of the same and lots of exploits and poor teamwork. PvE has become a wasteland where everyone just grinds instead of actually playing the content the developers have put so much time into making (Craglorn has some amazing scenarios like Shadas Tear, but grouping is so impossible that it is hard to experience it). And don't get me started on the Trial groups that expect you to conform to one build.

I love the world Zeni has made and I can see the potential so brightly, but the flaws the game has had from the beginning are just growing and becoming more apparent. 1.5 is needed to lay a foundation for the next stages of change, but it isn't a reason for me to come back yet. My guess is that I wont be seeing the things I want until 1.7 or 1.8 (if I am lucky), and even then it will only be starting to bring in the things the game desperately needs to keep its community together and maybe even bring in some newcomers.

I come onto the forums everyday still, even though I am not currently playing the game. We as players complain a lot about this game, but it isn't because we hate it (at least most of us), it's because we so desperately want to see it flourish and improve. I love reading what the community has to say, and I try to keep up to date with what the community thinks about the game currently, what they want to see and how they feel about what is coming. I will keep watching, but I most certainly wont be playing until I see some real change that makes me eager to jump online and play my Templar again.

@ZOS_GinaBruno‌ & @ZOS_JessicaFolsom‌

Some harsh but constructive comments in this thread. Please pass on to those who can address. Thanks.

Ragefist

I know few peep asked already, but can I have some of your stuff too? Like if you could split it among us?

Thank you in advance

Swampster

My gaze was turned by a younger sexier model last week... as I was starting to get the "7 month Itch" as far as ESO was concerned. So I went to Mordor for a week where I generally kicked ass.. and took some nice screenshots to boot!

Problem is, as I've now burned through that game the only reason I've had the inclination to log into ESO was to try out the new DSR feature Nvidia have kindly supplied us still burdened with the previous generation of their cards... 4K squished into HD..

Aside from that I think I've run out of steam pushing onto VR10, only knowing that once I get there I'm going to be stuck pleading for groups to do the lower Craglorn content..

Fact is that sadly I simply can't be bothered at present.. I'll have a see if I can rekindle some love at the weekend, but I'm starting to think the releationship needs some tlc...

raglau

jelliedsoup wrote: »

Best post I've seen on these forums. Maybe this is just typical of MMOs?

I think this is very likely true. Once you start to master the game and become accustomed to its flaws - and they all have these flaws to varying degrees - it's less of a 'fantastic' experience. It's just a game. More content does help to keep this at bay, but I think it's inevitable the initial rush, where everything is new and not understood, can never be repeated.

I suppose this is why a lot of games go F2P: If you are playing a game less because of the above and are paying a sub, you at some point have to make a decision on whether to remain subbed to a game you play less and less. If it is is F2P then that decision point never comes, even if you don't login for a year you don't suffer a penalty of an ongoing cost.

I support ESO having a sub for many reasons BTW, but I can see how it could work against the game when people suffer from burnout, like the OP and others in the thread.

astro74

I agree alot with OP too.

One design desicion I cannot for my life understand is that if they want you to play however you like (builds) how the hell can you be so stupid to implement time trials. TIME trials is a mechanic that encourage 1337 behavior and FOTM builds. Why would a group take a build that is not optimal for burning through content as fast as possible?

I did a couple of runs in AA and Arena (and some craig dungeons). Takes a long time to find a group and when random partymember dies you see comments like this:
- Bah waste of time (leave group)
- L2P noobs (leave group)
- [insert groupmember name here] You suck. (Leave group)

and so on...

I even joined groups that said they just want to practice trials for fun and no previous trials exp needed but as soon as someone screws up someone is still leaving and racking down on some group member.

(Now you might think Im the one always screwing up but Im not. I played lots of mmos and can take instructions. There were some boss that throws a yellow circle on the ground where i was supposed to stand in and I couldnt find the circle so ofcourse I too screw up from time to time but most often there are someone else missing to do this or do that so the end result is one player leaving cursing at someone else. We try to find some new member but after a few minutes the player got yelled at says hes in no mood to continue and leaves for the night and then the group breaks up. )

This made me avoid group content like the plague, only group stuff i do is to join the zerg in pvp keeping in the back throwing Regens and curses

Too bad trials and many quests in craig seems like fun but my RL friends went with wildstar so im stuck with pugs. Guildruns most often require you to show achievements and since I was a slow leveler (due to RL) I missed that train when every one was doing trial and error.

TehMagnus

First "QQ RAGE I'm gonna quit" post I actually agree with

Aenra

@jrgray93 great post! Said similar things 4,5 months ago. I can tell you they understand/already are aware of everything you have mentioned. It simply comes down to two things:

- a "gameplay concept" on their part, between the lines reading your own
- your, and mine, being part of a minority rather than a majority. Most people, for reasons i care not consider, are perfectly happy with most of what you have stated. They simply crave
a) moar PvP focus (fixes+balance)
b) moar of the same in PvE, dailies and other grinds included

Here's to your proving me wrong. Someday

Darthryan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnCIW7JwnVI