I've scoured the internet and postings to find anyone that may have played ESO at launch, been disappointed, but have come back to see how great it is (or how bad it is, either way). I hadn't found a whole lot of those posts, and while I considered starting my subscription again I was left with no real hope and a bit of mystery knowing that my $15 this month could potentially be a waste of money. I'm a huge Elder Scrolls fan in general though, so I wrestled and wrestled with the thought as I played my highly modded Skyrim (again). Eventually I brought myself to do a New Years resolution and take the plunge again just to see what's happened. This post is mainly for the folks that still aren't sure if it's worth coming back, maybe you're like me and trying to figure out if it's worth it or not and you're not finding a definitive post from the right person. Of course, I might not be the right person either, but I'll do my best!
First off, these observations and suggestions are without any of the new patch changes in mind. I've read a lot of negative things on the champion and veteran mash-ups, and I've read a few positive things about it. As always in these games, it's important to always take a step back, give the game a while, and see what happens. I remember playing WoW on day one and being disappointed, and I remember the devs nerfing my poor Warlock on a constant basis as well. Regardless, I'm sure that ZOS has gotten the full picture about what Veteran levels mean to people by now, so we'll see. Regardless...
Oh, and one more thing - Keep in mind that these are the observations of someone that is a HUGE Elder Scrolls fan, ever since Arena. I've played them all, and I've enjoyed them in their own way. Morrowind is still my favorite, because nothing can stack up to the shear amount of lore and freedom that it provides. But, a heavily modded and heavily immersive Skyrim is fun to play as well.
So... My $15 was spent, I already had the client setup, so I was in Tamriel. I deleted my existing character and started anew so I could really enjoy anything better that was there. Character creation proved to be much the same, no big thrills there. In fact, the whole beginning of the game was basically the same as I remembered. The one biggest thing of note was that nothing crashed and everything worked the first time just fine. I finished all the prep quests and was ready to journey out.
Landing in Daggerfall, I remembered that ESO had built in the option that you can choose not to play the tutorial islands/areas if you so chose. I chose to, because I remember those well and it would give me a good frame of reference. From here, I'll just give some basic observations that I've had when doing my "tutorial islands" and beyond and also some suggestions at the end.
One thing I noticed after some considerable play time was the shear balance of the game. When I first began playing at beta and launch then shortly after, the balance seemed completely off. Some quests seemed harder than they should be, others may have been too easy, gear was tough to find as loot, crafting materials were easy to come by but rendered such little materials. As far as I can tell, these problems have been stomped out. Questing is fun, that's the best I can describe. They've balanced it and used some dynamic level tricks in order to facilitate a better feeling of Elder Scrolls. Some quests still seem to use the usual "quest is this level, it's green", but I've run into a lot of quests that dynamically change with player level. For instance, your mage/fighters guild quests seem to follow a dynamic change, which is far better than just throwing it at you at level 7/8/9 and saying that "Here, these are level 11". In the end, this style just makes things more fluid and allows you to quest a lot more at your current level, I was fairly impressed.
Gear finding is much better than it was. Just loot in general really... I've found much more armor since I've been out and about along with weapons, some just sitting around for the taking. I've also had a surprising lack of recipe drops, which is a happy change. I remember playing before, I'd get 2-8 of each early recipe from containers, and that made the creating of foods and beverages seem cheap. Now, with the lack of recipes, it really makes me excited when I do find one and I'm sure it helps a bit on the AH for selling them.
Speaking of gear finding, crafting has been improved. I was in shock after I mined 3-4 ore nodes and disassembled several pieces of equipment that I was left with 50-60 iron ingots. This was at level 2/3/4, and I was able to craft an entire set of armor myself. Back at beta and launch, unless you farmed like crazy you wouldn't be able to do that with regular play. It seems all crafting has been changed this way and it's awesome. Another thing I noticed was that the enchanting stones are now VERY glowy, and you can see them from a good distance. The last thing to mention about crafting is that there are crafting writs to be had now, of which the character is able to do some recipes and be gifted with a map that leads to even more ore deposits. All in all, crafting seems to be very well done and more up to spec of what I'm looking for in this game. Basically you can craft if you explore, not just if you farm.
The general feel of the game is FAR more polished than I remember. It still has some ways to go, but they really have done a lot over the past several months to make it a fairly solid Elder Scrolls experience. I have suffered no crashing or broken quests in my first 10-15 hours of the game, which is amazing compared to what I was seeing at launch. There are some more suggestions that I'll share, just in case devs really do peruse the forums and use our ideas (I know that didn't always seem like the case, but you never know).
First, I've seen other folks mention more crafting, and I think that would be welcome right along with player housing of some sort. A Hearthfire type of addition would be fun, collecting our materials to craft something other than armor or weapons. Also, along to go with tailoring we should have some sort of "dress sets", something to craft to set each player apart a bit. Lord of the Rings Online has a pretty nifty cosmetic system, maybe we could utilize something like that to change ourselves up every now and then. The dye addition is great, but this would make it even more important. Allow the cosmetic system the ability to add faux backpacks and other accessories and we'd be in business, looking like TRUE adventurers. Another craft could be some sort of farming to go with the player housing, nothing intense at all but just a method to grow a few plants to use in our cooking recipes. It's worth noting that I don't think ESO should go the way of ArcheAge in crafting, just have a few extras in there to mix things up a bit, that's all.
Another thing I would like to see added: CLOAKS. This is a small yet big thing to me, as I add cloaks to every Elder Scrolls game. One thing they never seem to add are enough, maybe one or two at best - luckily we have things for Skyrim like Cloaks of Skyrim and Winter is Coming to facilitate our cloak needs. I think cloaks add a lot to the world and to the characters, things like burlap cloaks, furry cloaks, etc. Yes it may sound stupid, but it's important. This could also be entangled somehow with a cosmetic system I would think.
I know that the justice system is coming and it will add some great RP abilities to the game, so they've got that thought right for sure. I assume with that we'll be hauled off to jail by NPCs or killed off by PvP bounty hunters of sorts, very interesting.
Well, that is basically all I have. Like I said, I couldn't find any posts really going into detail on how the game is now vs launch, so hopefully this will help a person or two understand why it's important to spend that $15. ESO has made enough changes that I will definitely continue to subscribe and finally enjoy the game I bought almost a year ago. There is still a ways to go, but they have made enough changes that I really feel like logging on and exploring just as I have in previous The Elder Scrolls titles.