Everything that bugs me about Elder Scrolls Online

DarkWombat

I post this completely knowing whats to follow. "Go back to WoW", "why still play", "can I have your stuff", etc, etc.

I decided to compile a list of everything that bugs me about Elder Scrolls Online. This is my list. These things bug me. They may not bug you. That's fine. But lets keep this civil. I would love to hear some logical responses and I do understand that I am lobbing the softball up nice and high for you guys, setting up home runs and easy grasps at the low-hanging fruit. But I just need to vent. I am going back to Skyrim for now.

Here is my rant...

Business Practices
I just do not like the business practices by Zenimax. They constantly have "limited time only" items to try to get people to purchase these mounts and other items. I know lots of businesses have used this tactic but for an online game it is quite odd and feels like uncharted territory and just...off. The loot crate system is basically gambling and we all know about the recent backlash in the gaming industry regarding this. I also do not like or support any game that encourages "whales". Zenimax does cater to the whales, especially with some of these huge mansions. I should have known this back when the game first came out, with the $10 paywall for the Imperial faction. Whats worse is that every now and them when you login, you get bugged by advertising from the cash shop. Why is there no way to turn this off?

Quests and XP
This has always been a massive issue for me and in the Morrowind expansion/DLC, Zenimax double downed on it. When you first arrive on Morrowind there is someone by the road who needs help. This quest chain is called "Divine Conundrum", and it is an absolute gem of an example with what is wrong with quests in this game. It is a walking, talking and breathing example of why people grind mobs and grind dolmens instead of questing. There are literally 16 steps in this quest chain, entering tombs, killing mobs while getting to the bottom of that tomb, traveling, rescuing workers, getting stones, performing rituals, all ending in one quest turn in with Vivec for a lousy and whopping 6% of your current experience for 30 minutes of work. You can get that experience by rounding up about 5 or 6 mobs a couple times in about 2 minutes.

Quests take forever to get experience. They just do. Someone wants you to go into a cave and retrieve something. You go, kill mobs, get to that person but now, he wants you to help him first before he gives you what he wants. He wants you to help him with some ritual which involves more killing. When you finish it and tell him you are done, he gives you the item but gives you no experience at all. Only when you return back to the original quest giver to do you get experience. Even if the experience from the original quest giver was halved, and the other half given from the guy in the cave that would be fine. Why? Because going this long without getting experience just does not feel right in an MMO. Players need a drip, drip, drip of experience otherwise they just feel like grinding is better. Some quests actually give little or no experience at all. Why do them then? There is no reputation reward.

Now, long quest chains with this delay of experience to the very end can be fine if they are well written and interesting. But have you noticed? just about every single quest in this game ends with you having to kill an elite mob? It is downright scary how many quests end with a mini boss fight. Some quests are interesting, but most of them are mundane. And speaking of quest givers, NPCs talk the way no one ever would when meeting someone. Just once I want an NPC to ONLY SAY "Greetings", and that's it. Not in this game. In this game when you click on a quest giver they instantly give you half of their life story right off the bat. Imagine if you met someone in real life like that? You would think they rambling idiots.

DPS is either Magicka and Stamina based, ironically killing hybrids (the one thing Elder Scrolls i known for!!)
I have looked around and correct me if I am wrong, but Elder Scrolls Online is the only MMO I can think of where the amount of damage you do is based directly on Mana (Magicka) and Stamina. If there are others I would love to hear about them. I just do not get this. The issue is, your bow skill of 40 means nothing. It has no value regarding damage, just skills that you can unlock. In Elder Scrolls games, your skill level determines how much damage you do along with your weapon and other factors. In ESO, magicka and stamina have way too much bearing on how much damage you do. It needs to be toned down a bit. Class based abilities are 90% based on either Magicka or Stamina. Yes there are some morphs, but it is not enough. Hybrids obviously just do not work very well and that is a total shame.

The argument against hybrids in MMOs has always been that they simply do not work. People will Google a build and everyone will run with it. This simply is not true. I have played many sandbox type MMOs that have all types of hybrid builds. Sure, some "maxers" will copy/paste, but hybrids encourage creativity, and if done right, you will see many amazing builds you will be surprised by.

Crafting time gating
I have never seen such a blatant attempt at time gating other than this. Look, all MMOs have time gating. WoW has time gating for raids. But at least they can blame their decision on some of the elite players who say that they blow through the content too quickly. But ESO has research times that can add up to 8 months to a year to research all traits? What? What's worse is a lot of players have no issues with this. Want to know why? The players who have no issues are the ones who have already done the grind, and if research times were lowered they would cry foul, because they spent a year doing it themselves and it will feel wasted.

Random Issues

• Morrowind? is it an expansion? It is a DLC? Don't call it an expansion! Call it something that was added so that people who subscribe still cant play and need to purchase it, even though it is basically the same size as DLC zones and actually has less quests!
• It is 2017, and an MMO that has a massive economy inside it not only does not have a central auction house, but it has mini guild stores but there is no search feature. Not having a search feature and requiring an addon for it might be one of the most odd things Ive ever seen.
• Why is there no wardrobe system? Oh yeah, right, to get us to spend money on outfits from the cash shop.
• Raise your hand if you own some DLCs but still pay the monthly fee just for the crafting bag? Zenimax actually has a monthly fee that most players use only for the crafting bag. This has always felt wrong to me.
• Worst launcher in the history of MMOs, period. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard people have had to re-download the game because of this crappy launcher.
• Purchase something from a Guild Store? Well, your not gonna get it in the mail until you logoff and log back in.
• Why were zone world bosses buffed? It was fine before when if you were good, you could solo them. Now they are almost impossible to solo and leveling players need to gather a group. The old way was better, you could gather a group or, if you feel like a challenge, kill them yourself. Now you have to get a group before attacking them.
• You have Mundus stones that give out things like spell penetration, but there is no way to see your current penetration unless, you guessed it, download an addon. Why not provide a toggle for "advanced stats"?
• A Quest tracker with an odd tendency for randomly tracking another quest instead of your current quest chain.

Where are the pluses?

I have spent over 1,000 hours playing this game. There is a lot to like as well. The lore, great music, the housing system is pretty good. Graphics are nice, and I am in Tamriel, somewhere Ive always wanted to view in its almost complete form. Nighttime and the blue moon reflections on the water are some of the prettiest things Ive ever seen in a game.

But I think it is time to step away. Would love to hear some thoughts.

Rouven

Thought you want thoughts you get.

DarkWombat wrote: »

(...)
Business Practices
I just do not like the business practices by Zenimax. They constantly have "limited time only" items to try to get people to purchase these mounts and other items. I know lots of businesses have used this tactic but for an online game it is quite odd and feels like uncharted territory and just...off. The loot crate system is basically gambling and we all know about the recent backlash in the gaming industry regarding this. I also do not like or support any game that encourages "whales". Zenimax does cater to the whales, especially with some of these huge mansions. I should have known this back when the game first came out, with the $10 paywall for the Imperial faction. Whats worse is that every now and them when you login, you get bugged by advertising from the cash shop. Why is there no way to turn this off?

Well - I hear you on the one side, on the other side I played games with blinking icons and pop ups ... the occasional one time store advertising for new products at the start does not phase me.

Not a fan per se of the crates or the constant limited time items.

Quests and XP
(...)

I'm fine with how the quests are, they are for story and flavour and guide you across the lands - think it's ok in regards to rewards.

DPS is either Magicka and Stamina based, ironically killing hybrids (the one thing Elder Scrolls i known for!!)
(...)

I find this irksome as well. There is a sweet spot while leveling where it seems to work but at the end I guess you have to sacrifice something. Not for all content of course.

Crafting time gating
(...)

Yeah, I feel that train is gone though. Too small of an issue to waste my feelings on.

Random Issues

• Morrowind? is it an expansion? It is a DLC? Don't call it an expansion! Call it something that was added so that people who subscribe still cant play and need to purchase it, even though it is basically the same size as DLC zones and actually has less quests!
  
  Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Its a chapter! lol
  
• It is 2017, and an MMO that has a massive economy inside it not only does not have a central auction house, but it has mini guild stores but there is no search feature. Not having a search feature and requiring an addon for it might be one of the most odd things Ive ever seen.
  
  Haha, prepare to be blasted for this sacrilege!
  
• Why is there no wardrobe system? Oh yeah, right, to get us to spend money on outfits from the cash shop.
  
  Giev me wardrobe! Giev me music system while you're at it.
  
• Raise your hand if you own some DLCs but still pay the monthly fee just for the crafting bag? Zenimax actually has a monthly fee that most players use only for the crafting bag. This has always felt wrong to me.
  
  So genius.
  
• Worst launcher in the history of MMOs, period. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard people have had to re-download the game because of this crappy launcher.
  
  Never had any issues here.
  
• Purchase something from a Guild Store? Well, your not gonna get it in the mail until you logoff and log back in.
  
  Don't! Wait for the auctio... oops.
  
• Why were zone world bosses buffed? It was fine before when if you were good, you could solo them. Now they are almost impossible to solo and leveling players need to gather a group. The old way was better, you could gather a group or, if you feel like a challenge, kill them yourself. Now you have to get a group before attacking them.
  
  Magsorc?
  
• You have Mundus stones that give out things like spell penetration, but there is no way to see your current penetration unless, you guessed it, download an addon. Why not provide a toggle for "advanced stats"?
• A Quest tracker with an odd tendency for randomly tracking another quest instead of your current quest chain.

Running out of thoughts here, hope you enjoyed!

(...)

Did you like how I switched my insert-thoughts format half way through? Couldn't make up my mind.

Anyways, for the most parts a fair list I'd say.

DarkWombat

Thanks, excellent responses!
I was afraid I was gonna get blasted. Well, the night is young.

SanderBuraas

I agree with everything you wrote. Nicely written. Every time I do quests, I'm annoyed at how NPCs trust anyone and tell everyone their life, or quest, story – as a greeting. Especially after having played The Witcher 2 and 3.

And why is the guild store mail issue not fixed yet?

Tandor

DarkWombat wrote: »

The argument against hybrids in MMOs has always been that they simply do not work. People will Google a build and everyone will run with it. This simply is not true. I have played many sandbox type MMOs that have all types of hybrid builds. Sure, some "maxers" will copy/paste, but hybrids encourage creativity, and if done right, you will see many amazing builds you will be surprised by.

Agreed, and that is precisely the case in ESO. It's not ZOS's fault if the min/maxers run away with the claim that hybrid builds aren't viable. It's like the argument that bow builds are useless, yet I see bowyers running around all the time, presumably oblivious to the fact that bows don't work. Indeed, I have several bow-centric characters myself!

I don't personally like the trading system, although I don't think it needs to be replaced with an auction house, it just needs to be opened up to all players to sell and with a decent search function for buyers. Adding a NPC to the main trading locations who anyone can list a few items with at a high level of commission which is shared between the guilds trading in those locations will improve the system no end.

As for your other points, I've been playing since PC launch (mainly as a subscriber on two accounts) and I'm fine with the game in those respects. I've also played Skyrim since launch (and all the TES games from Arena on) and for me this is by far the better game. These things are subjective, however.

EDIT: All you need to do to get your Guild Store mail is to portal to a different zone, you don't need to log out and back in again.

idk

1. Who really cares about the cosmetic items that are limited time only. I'd one really wants them then they buy crowns on sale and are prepared. Very small gripe if there ever was one.

2. Complaining about quests in ESO compared to other games? Could you be any more long winded explaining this? I could have finished the quest faster than reading this one gripe.

BTW, some players like story lines and get into the RPG part of the genre. Some do not end it the ok that you fit into this grapp up.

3. What's this about killing hybrids. Check out the last few updates. Besides hybrids never being killed, they were never top dog anyhow, The changed to CP this year helped them and more sets were added that seem beneficial to hybrids. They'll never be super great but they're better and players have fun with them.

I get it some thing play as you want means any build one chooses should be meta but that is not reasonable.

I could not even begin to read the crafting complaint. You can purchase research speed ups in the crow store.

Have one thing to say to OP. Get over these petty complaints you have. It ain't gonna change. It's been like this( most of it) for more than 42 months and with the exception of crown store complaints what you've said draws very little interest.

I do hope you are able to find something in the game to enjoy, that's worth playing it or hope you find a game that you can enjoy.

Hixtory

DarkWombat wrote: »

I post this completely knowing whats to follow. "Go back to WoW", "why still play", "can I have your stuff", etc, etc.

I decided to compile a list of everything that bugs me about Elder Scrolls Online. This is my list. These things bug me. They may not bug you. That's fine. But lets keep this civil. I would love to hear some logical responses and I do understand that I am lobbing the softball up nice and high for you guys, setting up home runs and easy grasps at the low-hanging fruit. But I just need to vent. I am going back to Skyrim for now.

Here is my rant...

Business Practices
I just do not like the business practices by Zenimax. They constantly have "limited time only" items to try to get people to purchase these mounts and other items. I know lots of businesses have used this tactic but for an online game it is quite odd and feels like uncharted territory and just...off. The loot crate system is basically gambling and we all know about the recent backlash in the gaming industry regarding this. I also do not like or support any game that encourages "whales". Zenimax does cater to the whales, especially with some of these huge mansions. I should have known this back when the game first came out, with the $10 paywall for the Imperial faction. Whats worse is that every now and them when you login, you get bugged by advertising from the cash shop. Why is there no way to turn this off?

Hix: Agreed

Quests and XP
This has always been a massive issue for me and in the Morrowind expansion/DLC, Zenimax double downed on it. When you first arrive on Morrowind there is someone by the road who needs help. This quest chain is called "Divine Conundrum", and it is an absolute gem of an example with what is wrong with quests in this game. It is a walking, talking and breathing example of why people grind mobs and grind dolmens instead of questing. There are literally 16 steps in this quest chain, entering tombs, killing mobs while getting to the bottom of that tomb, traveling, rescuing workers, getting stones, performing rituals, all ending in one quest turn in with Vivec for a lousy and whopping 6% of your current experience for 30 minutes of work. You can get that experience by rounding up about 5 or 6 mobs a couple times in about 2 minutes.

Quests take forever to get experience. They just do. Someone wants you to go into a cave and retrieve something. You go, kill mobs, get to that person but now, he wants you to help him first before he gives you what he wants. He wants you to help him with some ritual which involves more killing. When you finish it and tell him you are done, he gives you the item but gives you no experience at all. Only when you return back to the original quest giver to do you get experience. Even if the experience from the original quest giver was halved, and the other half given from the guy in the cave that would be fine. Why? Because going this long without getting experience just does not feel right in an MMO. Players need a drip, drip, drip of experience otherwise they just feel like grinding is better. Some quests actually give little or no experience at all. Why do them then? There is no reputation reward.

Now, long quest chains with this delay of experience to the very end can be fine if they are well written and interesting. But have you noticed? just about every single quest in this game ends with you having to kill an elite mob? It is downright scary how many quests end with a mini boss fight. Some quests are interesting, but most of them are mundane. And speaking of quest givers, NPCs talk the way no one ever would when meeting someone. Just once I want an NPC to ONLY SAY "Greetings", and that's it. Not in this game. In this game when you click on a quest giver they instantly give you half of their life story right off the bat. Imagine if you met someone in real life like that? You would think they rambling idiots.

Hix: No, quests are for enjoying the games, Grind is for alts, when you want to try different things. So you want to get experienced based on how much time took you to do it? So you dish out all the effort put into the quest by the makers.

You either quest to enjoy the game, or grind to get another lvl 50 toon. And I hate grinding, but I do it annyway.

DPS is either Magicka and Stamina based, ironically killing hybrids (the one thing Elder Scrolls i known for!!)
I have looked around and correct me if I am wrong, but Elder Scrolls Online is the only MMO I can think of where the amount of damage you do is based directly on Mana (Magicka) and Stamina. If there are others I would love to hear about them. I just do not get this. The issue is, your bow skill of 40 means nothing. It has no value regarding damage, just skills that you can unlock. In Elder Scrolls games, your skill level determines how much damage you do along with your weapon and other factors. In ESO, magicka and stamina have way too much bearing on how much damage you do. It needs to be toned down a bit. Class based abilities are 90% based on either Magicka or Stamina. Yes there are some morphs, but it is not enough. Hybrids obviously just do not work very well and that is a total shame.

The argument against hybrids in MMOs has always been that they simply do not work. People will Google a build and everyone will run with it. This simply is not true. I have played many sandbox type MMOs that have all types of hybrid builds. Sure, some "maxers" will copy/paste, but hybrids encourage creativity, and if done right, you will see many amazing builds you will be surprised by.

Hix: They work in many instances, just dont expect to get to end game trials. People who get max resources are sacrificing other things, (you need stamina to block or dodge roll, or magicka for some bufss) so don't expect everyone to agree that you can have it all and do the same damage. That's only for tanks.


Crafting time gating
I have never seen such a blatant attempt at time gating other than this. Look, all MMOs have time gating. WoW has time gating for raids. But at least they can blame their decision on some of the elite players who say that they blow through the content too quickly. But ESO has research times that can add up to 8 months to a year to research all traits? What? What's worse is a lot of players have no issues with this. Want to know why? The players who have no issues are the ones who have already done the grind, and if research times were lowered they would cry foul, because they spent a year doing it themselves and it will feel wasted.

Hix: I'm one of those, I knew when I started to play I wanted to craft. I invested all the time, the resources, joined a wonderful guild that helped me a lot. It's a journey and I'll be really mad if new players who don't care enough can do it in what?, 1 month?

If you don tlike it, hire a crafter, period.

Random Issues

• Morrowind? is it an expansion? It is a DLC? Don't call it an expansion! Call it something that was added so that people who subscribe still cant play and need to purchase it, even though it is basically the same size as DLC zones and actually has less quests!
  
  Hix: Agreed, but it had a new class and BG so I guess is OK.
  
• It is 2017, and an MMO that has a massive economy inside it not only does not have a central auction house, but it has mini guild stores but there is no search feature. Not having a search feature and requiring an addon for it might be one of the most odd things Ive ever seen.
  
  Hix: Guild stores are fun, they made it immersive. If you dont like it use TTC.
  
• Why is there no wardrobe system? Oh yeah, right, to get us to spend money on outfits from the cash shop.
  
  Hix: Agreed
  
• Raise your hand if you own some DLCs but still pay the monthly fee just for the crafting bag? Zenimax actually has a monthly fee that most players use only for the crafting bag. This has always felt wrong to me.
  
  Hix: I get the crowns, so is basically free, and I have bought the dlc for the periods I don't want the craftbag. Yet, craftbag is like crack, one taste is all you need.
  
• Worst launcher in the history of MMOs, period. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard people have had to re-download the game because of this crappy launcher.
  
  Hix: No idea here
  
• Purchase something from a Guild Store? Well, your not gonna get it in the mail until you logoff and log back in.
  
  Hix: Agreed
  
• Why were zone world bosses buffed? It was fine before when if you were good, you could solo them. Now they are almost impossible to solo and leveling players need to gather a group. The old way was better, you could gather a group or, if you feel like a challenge, kill them yourself. Now you have to get a group before attacking them.
  
  Hix: you can still solo them, this is a L2p issue. Besides the rewards are *** for the time invested
  
• You have Mundus stones that give out things like spell penetration, but there is no way to see your current penetration unless, you guessed it, download an addon. Why not provide a toggle for "advanced stats"?
  
  Hix: Agree.
  
• A Quest tracker with an odd tendency for randomly tracking another quest instead of your current quest chain.

Hix: No idea here either.

Where are the pluses?

I have spent over 1,000 hours playing this game. There is a lot to like as well. The lore, great music, the housing system is pretty good. Graphics are nice, and I am in Tamriel, somewhere Ive always wanted to view in its almost complete form. Nighttime and the blue moon reflections on the water are some of the prettiest things Ive ever seen in a game.

But I think it is time to step away. Would love to hear some thoughts.




Good luck if you decide to leave. I just played Skyrim before this regarding ES games, but I like a lot this game with all its flaws.

Raideen

idk wrote: »

1. Who really cares about the cosmetic items that are limited time only. I'd one really wants them then they buy crowns on sale and are prepared. Very small gripe if there ever was one.

2. Complaining about quests in ESO compared to other games? Could you be any more long winded explaining this? I could have finished the quest faster than reading this one gripe.

BTW, some players like story lines and get into the RPG part of the genre. Some do not end it the ok that you fit into this grapp up.

3. What's this about killing hybrids. Check out the last few updates. Besides hybrids never being killed, they were never top dog anyhow, The changed to CP this year helped them and more sets were added that seem beneficial to hybrids. They'll never be super great but they're better and players have fun with them.

I get it some thing play as you want means any build one chooses should be meta but that is not reasonable.

I could not even begin to read the crafting complaint. You can purchase research speed ups in the crow store.

Have one thing to say to OP. Get over these petty complaints you have. It ain't gonna change. It's been like this( most of it) for more than 42 months and with the exception of crown store complaints what you've said draws very little interest.

I do hope you are able to find something in the game to enjoy, that's worth playing it or hope you find a game that you can enjoy.

As a paying customer the OP has a right to voice his complaint. Why do you have to harass everyone that says anything even remotely negative towards ZoS? Are you paid to do so?!?!

Riddari

Agreed. Except the launcher complaint...I'm on ps4 we don't have a launcher

Dawnblade

Business Practices...sub + limited time only and only in the store + gamble boxes is a crappy business practice, but it's pretty much the same or worse for every game right now, outside a few that can still support a game with a sub only model.

Personally, I just don't spend much other than a sub a couple times a year and let the whales and gambling addicts subsidize the game.

Quest...I don't mind the stage quests (though they have a tendency to bug more than non-stage based quests), though quest XP is pretty poor in this game compared to killing zombies - if I were in charge, I'd balance it better so players could chose either method and be able to gain XP at a reasonably similar rate.

Crafting research...Well this one is a terrible design but again it is what it is. IMO it is totally idiotic to take months to unlock the ability to craft certain sets, and yet not have it tied to effort in any way (unless you consider clicking a terribly clunky interface every so many days or weeks to be effort).

Morrowind---I'm glad I picked up a code for it this past week for far far less than the original 'expansion' price. While it is a nice addition to the game, it in no way was what I'd call an expansion nor worth the original price.

Guild stores...Fail, and another probably never going to change (both for technical and BS reasons). And to the poster using 'fun' and 'immersive' to describe guild stores - lol - they are anything but, unless you like spending your time watching loading screens going from zone to zone.

Wardrobe...Would be nice, I imagine they will add one, the question will be how it gets implemented and if or how they try to monetize it in the store.

Crafting bag...I like the idea that when I sub, I get a bonus.

Mail system...It is what it is, zoning usually shows the mails.

World bosses...I don't recall a buff as well as I've solo'd them - so not sure what this is about.

Stats...Agree the game should provide more details, though as I play on the PC it isn't an issue for me (and many of the games I've played over the years have pretty much provided a bare bones / crappy UI with limited information that requires add-ons if you want to see everything).

Quest tracker seems to auto select a quest (maybe next one in journal) when one part of a 'chain' completes and you haven't selected the next quest in the chain (like when you turn in with NPC 1 and then after some RP, NPC 2 offers the next quest - it seems to work fine when the same NPC continues the chain).

Annoying, but not sure how big an issue it is in the grand scheme of things.

Elsonso

DarkWombat wrote: »

Business PracticesI just do not like the business practices by Zenimax. They constantly have "limited time only" items to try to get people to purchase these mounts and other items. I know lots of businesses have used this tactic but for an online game it is quite odd and feels like uncharted territory and just...off. The loot crate system is basically gambling and we all know about the recent backlash in the gaming industry regarding this. I also do not like or support any game that encourages "whales". Zenimax does cater to the whales, especially with some of these huge mansions. I should have known this back when the game first came out, with the $10 paywall for the Imperial faction. Whats worse is that every now and them when you login, you get bugged by advertising from the cash shop.

This is definitely the trademark behavior that I am becoming used to with all of Bethesda Softworks published games. I am not a fan. I accepted the Crown Store, as it was originally rolled out. Limited Time offers don't bug me either way, but the whole Crown Store and Crown Crate system just sucks up too much resource, in my opinion. Of course, Say NO to Crown Crates.

DarkWombat wrote: »

Quests and XP
Quests take forever to get experience. They just do. Someone wants you to go into a cave and retrieve something. You go, kill mobs, get to that person but now, he wants you to help him first before he gives you what he wants. He wants you to help him with some ritual which involves more killing. When you finish it and tell him you are done, he gives you the item but gives you no experience at all. Only when you return back to the original quest giver to do you get experience. Even if the experience from the original quest giver was halved, and the other half given from the guy in the cave that would be fine. Why? Because going this long without getting experience just does not feel right in an MMO. Players need a drip, drip, drip of experience otherwise they just feel like grinding is better. Some quests actually give little or no experience at all. Why do them then? There is no reputation reward.

I disagree with you here. I actually like the quests, the longer dialog, and what story there is, and feel that the XP that they give is sufficient. I wish they gave more gold. I wish the overland mobs gave more of both. The real issue I have is that I prefer doing quests to other means of getting XP, so once I run out of interesting quests, my advancement in Champion Points comes to a halt.

DarkWombat wrote: »

DPS is either Magicka and Stamina based, ironically killing hybrids (the one thing Elder Scrolls i known for!!)

From this perspective, the entire game is basically Magic Users Online. Stamina is a secondary concept, mainly for things like running, dodging, and swinging archaic weapons. They even treat Stamina like another Magicka resource in places. There isn't much that is special about Stamina other than dodge and sprint. My feeling is that they really lost their way a long time back when it came to resources. Morphs are a perfect example of how they lost their way. It is in morphs that Stamina becomes a separate "Magicka" resource.

It is basically just a mundane system that has evolved over time and doesn't mean much more than the numbers on the spreadsheet that they use to track what it can do. They balance and tweak things based on what the numbers tell them, and then adjust the game to match. There is no overriding design or lore associated with a lot of the combat in the game. It is just a system, designed long ago by someone who isn't with the Studio. This will never change. It will just continue to drift around, sometimes with one class being OP, sometimes with another. It is far too late to fix this part of the game.

It is definitely not Elder Scrolls.

DarkWombat wrote: »

Crafting time gating
I have never seen such a blatant attempt at time gating other than this. Look, all MMOs have time gating. WoW has time gating for raids. But at least they can blame their decision on some of the elite players who say that they blow through the content too quickly. But ESO has research times that can add up to 8 months to a year to research all traits? What? What's worse is a lot of players have no issues with this. Want to know why? The players who have no issues are the ones who have already done the grind, and if research times were lowered they would cry foul, because they spent a year doing it themselves and it will feel wasted.

I have no crafters that have learned everything, and I am largely OK with the design of the crafting system. Could they stand to reduce the research times? Yes, but not even by half. Back when crafting was The Thing, it made more sense to have a time sink, though. Since you could craft the best equipment, it was reasonable that there was time involved. The longer the time, the more powerful the crafter. This was countered by the fact that you could craft and sell equipment.

Now that crafting is sort of a hobby thing in the game and most builds are using drops, with crafted sets standing in until the drop comes, it isn't as important to learn crafting. The time expenditure is not matched by the usefulness anymore.

My answer is that no one needs to do crafting anymore. No one ever really needed to, but today it is a lot less important. I level crafting as a side exercise and pay little attention to it until it is time to slot another trait. That is the way crafting is in this game.

DarkWombat wrote: »

Morrowind? is it an expansion? It is a DLC? Don't call it an expansion! Call it something that was added so that people who subscribe still cant play and need to purchase it, even though it is basically the same size as DLC zones and actually has less quests!

I am fine with Morrowind and Chapters. They need to tune how much they cost vs how much is in there, but I have no problem with paying cash for it instead of Crowns. Chapters do need to be something significant. They need to be significant without nerfing the DLC into the ground to make Chapters look better. So far, that really hasn't happened, but I expect that we will get new Systems only once per year, and eventually, we are going to get some DLC that is not much larger than the Rosy Inn. Mark my words.

DarkWombat wrote: »

It is 2017, and an MMO that has a massive economy inside it not only does not have a central auction house, but it has mini guild stores but there is no search feature. Not having a search feature and requiring an addon for it might be one of the most odd things Ive ever seen.

Needs to have search and sorting features. This "developing an MMO on a budget" that they do results in the craziest half-completed things. An MMO is never done, is what they said. The Studio never finishes anything, is what we get.

DarkWombat wrote: »

Purchase something from a Guild Store? Well, your not gonna get it in the mail until you logoff and log back in.

Eventually, they will come back and finish the mail system. An MMO is never done!

DarkWombat wrote: »

Why were zone world bosses buffed? It was fine before when if you were good, you could solo them. Now they are almost impossible to solo and leveling players need to gather a group.

I disagree. The more people that can solo a World Boss, the more that Boss needs to be buffed. Only the very elite players should be able to solo a World Boss.

DarkWombat wrote: »

You have Mundus stones that give out things like spell penetration, but there is no way to see your current penetration unless, you guessed it, download an addon. Why not provide a toggle for "advanced stats"?

Eventually, they will come back and finish the user interface. An MMO is never done!

DarkWombat wrote: »

I have spent over 1,000 hours playing this game. There is a lot to like as well. The lore, great music, the housing system is pretty good. Graphics are nice, and I am in Tamriel, somewhere Ive always wanted to view in its almost complete form. Nighttime and the blue moon reflections on the water are some of the prettiest things Ive ever seen in a game.

I agree that all those things are very nice in this game and make the game much more enjoyable to play.

Jpk0012

Agree with you and I haven't been playing long. I only subscribe for the bag, and the suckered me in with Morrowind.

I have, as of now, cancelled. Its not that I can't afford to blow 15$ a month on a crafting bag. But its the principle. Put some effort into the expansions and DLCs. Advance the game... and yeah.. the quest. Jeezus, they are massive time waste.

How long ago was MA? No replacement? Not that it matters. I am convinced new content isn't to test your character, but to see how absurd they can get with the mechanics that make the game tedious.

disintegr8

I'll try to keep it simple:
I dislike Morrowind being an 'Expansion', I own half of the DLC's but can't drop the sub because of the craft bag, I hate those quests that send you here, there and everywhere for the sake of it, I hate not having a word search in the trading system (Console), the trait research system is a grind (but I have 1 x 9 trait and 7 x 8 trait crafters), the horse training is a grind (but I have completed it on 10 characters), I dislike the Crown store and am against Crown crates.

Having said that, I choose to play the game and I still enjoy it after more than 2 years. Nobody forces me to play and put up with the annoyances, I just enjoy it enough to forget about them most of the time.

My biggest issue with the game tends to be other players. I know they are a minority; those that enter voice/text chat just to harass, goad, troll and generally give others a hard time. And then the spam salespeople who fill up text chat with items they want to buy or sell because they cannot be bothered joining guilds (probably get kicked out of most anyway).

But my enjoyment of the game, and the friendly people you can actually find, still bring me back, day, after day, after day.

P.S. A good build can still handle a lot of world bosses solo - I can do quite a few but not all.

Silver_Strider

My biggest issue with the game is balance. It's a joke, plain and simple.

Waffennacht

RNG.

Everything, even their performance irl seems to be based on it

Nightfall12

Well Ill say what bothers me about this game is….I can't play it at work…they seem to frown upon that...

RobDaCool

DarkWombat wrote: »

[*] It is 2017, and an MMO that has a massive economy inside it not only does not have a central auction house, but it has mini guild stores but there is no search feature. Not having a search feature and requiring an addon for it might be one of the most odd things Ive ever seen

At least you PC players get an addon for it. Console players get nothing. I have to search all over creation just trying to find something I need/want and I usually end up giving up after an hour or so of looking.

I know some people love the idea. No clue why. Maybe they're able to play more than 2 or so hours a day.

Bryanonymous

The quests are boring as ***. They give off the impression that quantity was more important than quality. I love a great story. These quests are not great. Most of them are generic, repetitive, and the dialogue has the same format to force the precise amount of talking. It’s a grind and it’s very annoying when attempting to actually listen to the details of each quest. The writing in this game was lazy and full of gimmicks just like the rest. Character customization and lore is the only thing that keeps it going, and that’s exactly where they attempt to make their profits because they know that’s why people are here.

Jarryzzt

Before I dive into a broader response...

...limited time Crown Store items? This is what you are complaining about? Because, and I quote, "for an online game it is quite odd and feels like uncharted territory"?!!

With all due respect, what planet have you been playing MMOs on for the past not-quite-a-decade or so? Just about every and any major MMO I can think of that went F2P introduced "limited time" sales of...stuff in their in-game store pretty much from the start. It's one of the essentials of the F2P model, i.e. how they get you, the player, to pay up (by creating the sense of urgency, and, as well, by appealing to so-called "collectors"). I can even think of one or two cases - from five years ago - when players vocally and vociferously complained after a company took a limited-offer item and, some months after the fact, put it up for sale to everyone (the ones who'd bought it during the "limited-time" window felt not a little cheated).

This is the world. This is how it works. One accepts this, or one joins the Flat Earth Society. Honestly.

Vapirko

Definitely the level grind thing. I’d be so much happier taking a new toon through a story line to level them than grinding if the time put in yielded similar results. But to that end, with the explorers pack and one Tamriel, I think that any faction should be able to play through any storyline. One reason I don’t do storylines is that I have to do the same DC line over and over (I’m a hardcore DC pvper).

Slick_007

DarkWombat wrote: »

[*] Purchase something from a Guild Store? Well, your not gonna get it in the mail until you logoff and log back in.

this is quite simply not true. The amount of times iv logged out to receive my mail: 0. zoned: maybe twice. in a couple years.
regularly i open mail before i even get the ding and it appears

TelvanniWizard

Totally agree with OP.

DarkWombat

this is quite simply not true. The amount of times iv logged out to receive my mail: 0. zoned: maybe twice. in a couple years.
regularly i open mail before i even get the ding and it appears

"This is simply not true." Go ahead, make a guild store purchase. Want to retrieve the item right away? Not gonna happen. You have to wait several minutes, or zone, or relog. Either way, having to go to another zone or relog to get mail is really lame.

If you are gonna sit here and tell me you get your mail instantly then you are flat out lying.

Better yet lets ask you a question. Please answer the following question with a yes or no response:

When you make a guild store purchase, do you get your items instantly upon opening your mail? Yes or no?

DieAlteHexe

DarkWombat wrote: »

this is quite simply not true. The amount of times iv logged out to receive my mail: 0. zoned: maybe twice. in a couple years.
regularly i open mail before i even get the ding and it appears

"This is simply not true." Go ahead, make a guild store purchase. Want to retrieve the item right away? Not gonna happen. You have to wait several minutes, or zone, or relog. Either way, having to go to another zone or relog to get mail is really lame.

If you are gonna sit here and tell me you get your mail instantly then you are flat out lying.

Better yet lets ask you a question. Please answer the following question with a yes or no response:

When you make a guild store purchase, do you get your items instantly upon opening your mail? Yes or no?

Yes. Or almost instantly. I just bought 3 things from 2 different guild traders and they arrived by the time I could hit "ä" (key to open mail interface). Now, what I have noticed is that the notification can take some time but I've never hit "ä" and not had my stuff be there.

terrordactyl1971

XP is meaningless if the game isnt fun. Some quests are fun because they have an interesting storyline. Grinding is always boring, I dont care if it gives 10 times the xp I would quit within a day without story content

xenowarrior92eb17_ESO

wait...why do we have this post again?

Azurya

don´t worry, be happy

since I dropped being mad about all that could function but doesn´t, I am having the time of my life here!

have fun!

Elsonso

DieAlteHexe wrote: »

DarkWombat wrote: »

this is quite simply not true. The amount of times iv logged out to receive my mail: 0. zoned: maybe twice. in a couple years.
regularly i open mail before i even get the ding and it appears

"This is simply not true." Go ahead, make a guild store purchase. Want to retrieve the item right away? Not gonna happen. You have to wait several minutes, or zone, or relog. Either way, having to go to another zone or relog to get mail is really lame.

If you are gonna sit here and tell me you get your mail instantly then you are flat out lying.

Better yet lets ask you a question. Please answer the following question with a yes or no response:

When you make a guild store purchase, do you get your items instantly upon opening your mail? Yes or no?

Yes. Or almost instantly. I just bought 3 things from 2 different guild traders and they arrived by the time I could hit "ä" (key to open mail interface). Now, what I have noticed is that the notification can take some time but I've never hit "ä" and not had my stuff be there.

This is definitely the exception, not the rule. It is a well known limitation in the game that it is necessary to relog or zone to pick up mail that is not in the mail list.

DieAlteHexe

lordrichter wrote: »

DieAlteHexe wrote: »

DarkWombat wrote: »

this is quite simply not true. The amount of times iv logged out to receive my mail: 0. zoned: maybe twice. in a couple years.
regularly i open mail before i even get the ding and it appears

"This is simply not true." Go ahead, make a guild store purchase. Want to retrieve the item right away? Not gonna happen. You have to wait several minutes, or zone, or relog. Either way, having to go to another zone or relog to get mail is really lame.

If you are gonna sit here and tell me you get your mail instantly then you are flat out lying.

Better yet lets ask you a question. Please answer the following question with a yes or no response:

When you make a guild store purchase, do you get your items instantly upon opening your mail? Yes or no?

Yes. Or almost instantly. I just bought 3 things from 2 different guild traders and they arrived by the time I could hit "ä" (key to open mail interface). Now, what I have noticed is that the notification can take some time but I've never hit "ä" and not had my stuff be there.

This is definitely the exception, not the rule. It is a well known limitation in the game that it is necessary to relog or zone to pick up mail that is not in the mail list.

I must be either very, very lucky or the one who's hogging all the resources because it's not an exception for me. Go figger.

Milvan

So...

Are you giving away your stuff or not? I do could use more gold tempers and more gold.

Drachenfier

About the only things I agree with are the auction house and the wardrobe. The rest doesn't bother me, and really isn't much different from any other MMO.