What Happened to ESO?

Rampeal

When I first started playing this game it was great. Being able to be a werewolf was one of the biggest draws for me. Dungeons were fun and veteran dungeons were too. You could take any set in the game and play the way you want. "PLAY THE WAY YOU WANT".Players were helpful and the toxicity in the game was low.
Everything was good, then came the DLC that focused on the Meta game.

Don't get me wrong Meta has always been in the game, but ESO never catered to them. They were the 10% of the game player base. Now with every DLC you design it around the Meta, the 10%. Not the 90% of the game. Ask any player and majority will tell you that they prefer to run non DLC dungeons rather than DLC because it is less punishing and more rewarding. Any game/MMO knows this. The Normal is for the Majority while the Vet is for the elite. Most will say "L2P or GiT Gud" but this is just a Toxic response. Which brings me to my next issue.

Toxic Player base. This game as many others has its share of Toxic players, but my god is it worse now. Can't tell you how many times I have run normal Trials and Dungeons just for people to want to kick players for learning the game and not being up to their standards in gear and rotation. It is not that we were not fi finishing the trial or Dungeon it was the fact we were not steam rolling it so the Toxic player can get their instant gratification. PvP is no better. How many times are you in Riften or Wayrest and hit that instant lag of people dueling and insulting each other. Making fun of others gear because they don't run the cookie cutter meta. Or talk about how they are trash and their skill set up is trash for not running the Meta skills. The "Git Gud and L2P" spam and teabags as all over the place. You ZoS have only encouraged it. In one of your interviews you told players to "Git Gud L2P" when they brought up concerns about it. Shame on you.

And I point out that the main issue is with the Meta. You Zos have allowed the Meta to run wild and leave it unchecked for years. "Play as you want" died a long time ago. Now it is run a handful of sets and skills the Meta deem is appropriate or get kicked and berated for playing the way you want to play. ZoS You cater to Meta more than any other Developer I have ever seen. You fuel the fire with unforgiving DLC and refusal to fix Overpowered and broken skill and gear.

It is sad. I have wanted to quit ESO. I have wanted to move on, but I have devoted so much time and money into a game I loved and I don't want to be done with it. I want to fix it and bring it back. But you are making it hard for me to do that.

Thank you all for reading this long post. I know I am probably going to get a bunch of "Git Gud, L2P, you Scrub" post, but this is just one players opinion and you should take it as that.

xMovingTarget

ZoS does not cater to the meta. Otherwise they would fix the new meta class that has been broken since PTS testing. They only seem to fix what the broad mass encounters on bugs.

Androconium

No toxicity here.

ask anyone.

Siohwenoeht

I get where you're coming from. Fortunately you can still put a very good off-meta build together and pull decent dps/heals/tank. The issue is to find a group of other like minded individuals to run the content with.

Even the dlc dungeons don't "require" 50k dps or whatever the new number is. There are dps checks, to be sure, but if you have a properly constructed group you can complete any of them.

I can almost guarantee that the devs didn't create the content with the intention of burning down the boss without needing to pay attention to mechanics.

That said, as far as the new trial/dungeon gear always pushing dps higher, I think it's part of the vertical progression design. It always makes me chuckle when folks blame CP for power creep when really sets are to blame.

yodased

You are just hanging around the wrong people. Play as you likee is still strong as ever. You just cant expect to compete with someone who put 2,000 hours into perfecting the muscle memory of a rotation while grinding for the best gear and upgrade mats if you are a magic based character using a white bow.

As far as people blowing thrpugh dungeons that is 100% their fault. They introduced rewards for dungeon running and then made no way to separate those who want the rewards for running them and those who want ro run the dungeon. That's the disconnect by the way. One group sees the dungeon as a required means to an end and one sees it as sometging fun to do. Of course those people are going to clash.

Especially since the people wabting to have fun are probably looking to take their time and the reward based folks are looking to get it done as soon as possible.

Break those two groups up and your toxicity problem is gone.

The thing is though DLC stuff can be run with off meta gear i do it every day. Player skill and situational awareness is way more important than raw stats for a clear.

If you want skin runs or do hard mode or veteran dlc you may have to rethink some things but isnt that the point of havong a scale of difficulty?

Basically if you wabt to hang with the big boys and you beat them.....join them.

Waffennacht

I definitely didn't have a meta set when I soloed Frostvault

It is "play as you want" to a large degree, it's just not everything is viable. I understand that players want the-heavy-armor-archer-stealth-necromancer-shouting-death-god of Skyrim, but come on that's just silly!

There's a reasonable expectation of players pulling 20k dps.

And just on a personal note; I cannot fathom continuing to enjoy the non dlc dungeons this long. To me, they are the most dull experience in ESO now. The quests are fantastic, the rper in me has casts amount of lore and world to explore. The pve side can solo most content. I get to spend hours PvPing.

I suppose the "community" is as much as you decide to make it

Darkenarlol

l2p and gitgud

Aznarb

Most of my guild and myself don't run full meta build/gear and still do the job, even more than some "meta guys".
We never get kick or blame for anything too.

There is 2 type of guys that are toxic :

- The "meta-boy", understand : "the guys who think he know all but don't" :
These guys are NOT good player most of the time and they are the one who give a bad picture of true meta player. Example :
Insulted me when I was playing my DK healer in a vet DLC DG, only cuz I was a DK heal, DG was not even started, I go ahead, we finish the DG easy, the guys apologies to me : end of the story (and he never know it was a heavy armor healer in test, was funny).

Some guys just are to much in the "meta" and forget all other option who work too, even if it's a bit less. These guy are to intolerant and need to chill.
Most of the time good player are happy to help when you ask them to gather some knowledge, and I've never encounter one who forced me to play "meta-build" only.

- The guy who have seen to many idiot this day :
After doing lot of dungeon by the random finder, I can tell you their is a lot of people who are very very bad and most important who don't want to learn.
Doesn't matter how much you take time to explain the strat or give them advice on how to improve, they will just do the same mistake again and again and not even read what you said.

THESE guys are the most toxic in the game and can make the chillest guy a frustrated and angry one.

_______________________________________________________

So, if you're often blamed, maybe their is something wrong with you and it's time to look at yourself and improve.

That said, I agree on the power creep part.
Some set are way to strong and out-shine every other which is a shame.
And with all this dps power-creep that provide, the scale of new vet DLC DG become stupidly high.
As much as I love them, their is 2 problem :
- lower accessibility
- lower build diversity

My personal point of view :
It doesn't matter how you play, BUT it have to work.
- You can't play a tank who gonna be OS by the 1st hard hitting mob (yeah, experience here..) he encounter and then blame other player.
- You can't play a healer who do nothing other than heal : you've to give resource and buff/debuff or DPS (for example on my Sorc heal I run DPS gear and no group buff but I can pull 30k DPS, so it's ok for all 4 man content).
- You can't play a DPS who do almost no dmg or run out of resources in few second, their is plenty of mechanic where you NEED to have decent constant dmg.
Any build, meta or not should be able to reach 30k self buff. 30k is enough to clear all the content and easy to reach.

That said, have a nice day OP.

Edit : trying to fix some typo and bad english :x

BrooksP

Usually with MMOs things get toxic once they add in daily dungeon rewards and group finder. Reason being is people or more interesting in simply zerging everything as fast as possible to get it out of the way then actually care. With group finder it creates a disconnect between the party, as generally you simply zone in, do dungeon, leave, with queue added on people look to that, wasted 30min in queue, so people want run to be done asap so they can re-queue. I don't think it is so much that things are centered around the meta, it's that people are so focused on the end result or instant gratification, that anything that slows that down causes disdain/toxicity. .

Nemesis7884

lets be real and dont have illusions - "play as you want" while at the same time having a game that tries to balance pve and pvp all within the same skill framework is simply not gonna fly - let's not have illusions about this.

And this is also only partially zos fault and also the simple reality that players always try to outsmart the system and try to find op combinations and abuse overseights...

daemonios

The problem isn't ZOS chasing the meta, it's that the meta is so far away from the average player. IMO content has to be kept interesting. It would be just as wrong to design everything around the lowest common denominator as it would around the top percentile. But when the average player doesn't tank or heal, and does maybe 5-10k dps, while meta is 60k+, that's a problem.

It's not that you need 60k+ dps for any vet dungeon. You really don't. You can make do with much lower numbers, like 15-20k, IF you're good at following the mechanics and can sustain a drawn-out fight. But many players still can't do 15k dps to save their lives, nor are they interested in learning mechanics.

TL;DR: content isn't designed around the meta, the problem is that ESO doesn't force the average player to develop a minimum of skills in order to deal with harder content.

Qbiken

Play the way you want goes both ways tho. Find a group of people that caters to your way of playing the game and ignore those who don't. Will make your experience better hopefully.

Turelus

During a recent round table I was at there was an interesting moment where Rich or Rob (forget which) made a comment about "play the way you want".

In short they way they were saying it was not that the phrase means everything should be viable in all conditions, but rather everything is possible if you want to try it, you just might not be as good as more viable options.

So you can play that Heavy Armour S&B DPS if you want (the game won't stop you) but you might not be as good at vMA as a Light Armour Magicka DPS.

Aznarb

daemonios wrote: »

TL;DR: content isn't designed around the meta, the problem is that ESO doesn't force the average player to develop a minimum of skills in order to deal with harder content.

^this.
And all normal dungeon/arena are a big part of the problem.
They're way to forgiving and easy and when you think you're good and go to vet, the step in insanely huge compared to normal content.
You can't give people easy-no effort content and expect then to be ready for the hardest.
I mean, their so easy than you can't (don't need) to know strat on 90% of normal DG, that a big design error imho.

Also like I was saying in another post, nothing in game told you how glyph really work, how weaving is a thing and how important it is (I don't include rotation cuz it's just logic).
In some langage like French, their is lot of little error from translation who can totaly change the understanding of effect from a set or skill.

If you read Troll king in FR, it's really a strong set for exemple, cuz it said
"if a 50% or less player is healed, it earn +X life recovery for X time"
instead of :
"After healing a target if the target is still lower than 50%, it earn +X life recovery for x time"

So you come from an insane powerful healing set to a meh one just by a typo error.
And I can told you their is plenty of this.

Ixilith

Zos isn’t chasing a meta. It’s that every decision makes a meta, reguardless of what a company does something will be meta.

The more diversity, the more hard the meta hits it really, that’s just factual. “Play what you want” has always been a “casual” thing. And saying only 10% of the playerbase care about it is purely wrong.

Every new player I see join a chat or post it’s “what is the strongest class” “which of these 2 do higher dps” over 50% of the game care about meta. Majority of players have a Stam and magicka character of every class to make swapping easier. A lot of people play dps to be the top L33T how do u think they try to do that if they’re not meta chasing lol.

I do not meet a lot of people who don’t say “I’ve copied “players” build”, or asking a streamer “what is your build”

There’s a reason there’s so many ESO player made dedicated sites to posting meta builds on, there’s a reason every big streamer has commands to list what they wear on each class. And there’s a reason logs exist.

Because as a majority most DPS players wanna play the best and have little care for how they achieve it.

“Fotm reroller”
“Class carried”

These terms exist because of the way most of today’s players think, there’s a reason classes like sorc are vastly populated while classes like warden are not. And it isn’t because “sorcs more fun”

On the other note, all I read is the base games dungeons are brain dead AF and the population find them too easy to be enjoyable.

Most say the game begins at DLC dungeons lol

Not saying your opinions wrong, just saying I don’t think it’s a majority opinon.

gepe87

When a game became popular thats what happen: some toxicity appears. Its kinda normal.
I wish we had the same population as the beginning...

Undefwun

I think you are using the word wrong.

Most Effective Tactic Available

So 'the meta' can't deem anything or be catered to.

For damage dealing for example, mathematically there is a most efficient and effective way to do something. Always will be.

If you are new or inexperienced, say something, so people can be prepared for that. Only time it's irritating if you have an expectation of performance and it's not being met. I still do if I haven't done a vet dungeon for a while or at all. Some of the later dungeons I have barely done because I didn't need anything from there, because while I do both PvE and PvP, my focus is more on PvP and theory crafting builds for it.

If I am pugging vet content, as long as you can get the job done, i couldn't care less what you run.
edit: My first vMoL clear we had a Nightblade tank and stamina DK (i think?, but definitely stam based...) healer. People knew what they were expected to do, we learned the mechanics over a couple runs and it got done. Our objective was a clear, not HM and not a score push. For that we might have had to go with more traditional group composition, but we made an informed choice.

Humancentipede2

99% of people who do complain about "toxicity" are people who are simply not playing the game effectively. If you are a burden, do oyu rly expect your teammates to explain you the game? If you queue as dps and you only have 10k, you are simply not doing your job. You can play how you want but when you join a Group you have to fullfill some minimum requirements. Barely anyone will kick you out of a group for not knowing the mechanics of a dungeon, most people will explain it to you. But if dps is required or good tank skills and oyu dont have that, then you will be kicked.

Nbody rly cares what Sets you are wearing but if you choose trying to compete against people who play the game effectively, then be prepared that these people will laugh at you and your "i play how i want i play for fun" mentality.

MartiniDaniels

OP is right that he noticed that new content is build around meta.
It's ok that meta changes, but it should change naturally, in recent patches it changes artificially, with changes/content targeted directly to empower or shift this meta.

Joker99

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

OP is right that he noticed that new content is build around meta.
It's ok that meta changes, but it should change naturally, in recent patches it changes artificially, with changes/content targeted directly to empower or shift this meta.

The meta changes according to the changes, they’re not made purely to change the current meta, there’s a reason behind every change and right now the zos combat team is pretty consistent in their way of thinking so most of these changes make sense.

Rampeal

I agree with some of what you all said, but with the whole "Play as you want". Every set should be viable not just a handful.

And as far as damage goes majority of it started with the light attack buff. Before this it was nowhere near what it is now. Light attacks should not be 50% of your dps. Weapons are there as a tool to gain resource back while providing slight additional damage. Not as a huge boost to damage as it is now.

Animation canceling is another thing altogether that everyone is "Expected" to use. I personally do not because even though ZoS said it is a "Accidental Feature" I see it as more of a Exploit that they refuse to fix.

You lower light attacks and fix the Animation canceling you will see a drop in dps by a huge amount and this right here would force people to follow the mechanics instead or reaching 50 to 70k and steam rolling content.

Just my opinion.

Mannix1958

Waffennacht wrote: »

I definitely didn't have a meta set when I soloed Frostvault

It is "play as you want" to a large degree, it's just not everything is viable. I understand that players want the-heavy-armor-archer-stealth-necromancer-shouting-death-god of Skyrim, but come on that's just silly!

There's a reasonable expectation of players pulling 20k dps.

And just on a personal note; I cannot fathom continuing to enjoy the non dlc dungeons this long. To me, they are the most dull experience in ESO now. The quests are fantastic, the rper in me has casts amount of lore and world to explore. The pve side can solo most content. I get to spend hours PvPing.

I suppose the "community" is as much as you decide to make it

But there in lies the problem...people imho should not be able to solo group content. I think its great you did...but it should not be a thing.

Mygalomorpea

Need to agree that there is a shift to more toxic player base, but I do not think that design is to blame for it.

After cloudrest came out people were pugging it constantly and people didn't think twice about giving gear they have no interest in to others. Much the same is now happening in Sunspire.

But now recently I noticed that people are actively SELLING gear drops they don't want. And not even for a modest price of 1-2k finders fee but 100k+ for non-perfect gear pieces with bad traits. Whether it is MoL, CR, HrC, HoF or whatever... People are now standing in the way of others who RNG has not favored to get for personal gain. This is also more often those of mid range CP than those at high CPs.

This strongly indicates that the problem is not with the historic player base but instead a mentality from the newer influx of players. I hope that the older mentality is the one that pushes through in the end and this new "immediate satisfaction" trend dies out. There is lots of posts recently only indicating that for a game to survive player investment must be high and instant gratification must be low. (take a look at the theories relating to "loot boxes" and WoW classic)

As an older player all I can do is help some of the new ones also grow into a similar mind set and have them push through and in the end do the same. I hope other long term people out there are doing the same.

Siohwenoeht

Mannix1958 wrote: »

Waffennacht wrote: »

I definitely didn't have a meta set when I soloed Frostvault

It is "play as you want" to a large degree, it's just not everything is viable. I understand that players want the-heavy-armor-archer-stealth-necromancer-shouting-death-god of Skyrim, but come on that's just silly!

There's a reasonable expectation of players pulling 20k dps.

And just on a personal note; I cannot fathom continuing to enjoy the non dlc dungeons this long. To me, they are the most dull experience in ESO now. The quests are fantastic, the rper in me has casts amount of lore and world to explore. The pve side can solo most content. I get to spend hours PvPing.

I suppose the "community" is as much as you decide to make it

But there in lies the problem...people imho should not be able to solo group content. I think its great you did...but it should not be a thing.

I have to disagree, people have been soloing group content in MMOs since MMOs became a thing. Now, soloing the vet modes is considerably harder if not impossible due to mechanics, but normal mode and "1st" iterations should absolutely be soloable.

I for one consider it part of my "endgame".

Evito

ZOS have done such a terrible with the meta it's obvious they couldn't care less about it... if they did the best possible trial setup would *not* involve stacking 7-8 stam necros...

dtsharples

I find that people are happiest when they decide to do 1 of 2 things:

1) Stay in their lane - i.e. Do the content that you are capable of, and at a level that you are happy with.
or
2) Have a goal, and work towards said goal by improving themselves.


Option 1 means that you are never a burden to your group. You should all be pulling your weight equally and making it an enjoyable experience for all.
In this situation, it is you that will be doing adequately, with anyone lacking being the one that is the 'burden'.
You then have the choice of how to treat that person - do you want to help them or kick them?
This option runs all the way from entry level to the top 10%, and works in exactly the same way in each scenario.

Option 2 means that you have decided to progress to the next level.
Be it better DPS, better situational awareness, more thoughtful healing.
This would include learning a rotation, learning tactics, improving gear etc etc
You absolutely should not be expecting to jump to the next level without first preparing yourself, and other people should absolutely not be expected to pick up any slack.

You won't be happy being the one that is the burden, so my advice would be to stay in your lane until you have progressed enough to move forwards. Then push yourself to do your best and just maybe you'll have a new 'Lane' that you are content in.
All the way up to whichever level you want, vDLC, Speedrun Trials, HM Trials + Skins etc.

Coatmagic

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

lets be real and dont have illusions - "play as you want" while at the same time having a game that tries to balance pve and pvp all within the same skill framework is simply not gonna fly - let's not have illusions about this.

100% agree.

And this is also only partially zos fault and also the simple reality that players always try to outsmart the system and try to find op combinations and abuse overseights...

Ha! Only partially? Really??
Gonna go ahead and take a wild guess here that there must be a lot of others like you...
including the entire ZoS team. Unbelievable.

Mannix1958

Siohwenoeht wrote: »

Mannix1958 wrote: »

Waffennacht wrote: »

I definitely didn't have a meta set when I soloed Frostvault

It is "play as you want" to a large degree, it's just not everything is viable. I understand that players want the-heavy-armor-archer-stealth-necromancer-shouting-death-god of Skyrim, but come on that's just silly!

There's a reasonable expectation of players pulling 20k dps.

And just on a personal note; I cannot fathom continuing to enjoy the non dlc dungeons this long. To me, they are the most dull experience in ESO now. The quests are fantastic, the rper in me has casts amount of lore and world to explore. The pve side can solo most content. I get to spend hours PvPing.

I suppose the "community" is as much as you decide to make it

But there in lies the problem...people imho should not be able to solo group content. I think its great you did...but it should not be a thing.

I have to disagree, people have been soloing group content in MMOs since MMOs became a thing. Now, soloing the vet modes is considerably harder if not impossible due to mechanics, but normal mode and "1st" iterations should absolutely be soloable.

I for one consider it part of my "endgame".

I've been playing MMOs since they became a thing...and I have disagree. It was not always a thing.

Massacre_Wurm

You should try WoW raiding. Nothing is toxic here.

BrooksP

Siohwenoeht wrote: »

Mannix1958 wrote: »

Waffennacht wrote: »

I definitely didn't have a meta set when I soloed Frostvault

It is "play as you want" to a large degree, it's just not everything is viable. I understand that players want the-heavy-armor-archer-stealth-necromancer-shouting-death-god of Skyrim, but come on that's just silly!

There's a reasonable expectation of players pulling 20k dps.

And just on a personal note; I cannot fathom continuing to enjoy the non dlc dungeons this long. To me, they are the most dull experience in ESO now. The quests are fantastic, the rper in me has casts amount of lore and world to explore. The pve side can solo most content. I get to spend hours PvPing.

I suppose the "community" is as much as you decide to make it

But there in lies the problem...people imho should not be able to solo group content. I think its great you did...but it should not be a thing.

I have to disagree, people have been soloing group content in MMOs since MMOs became a thing. Now, soloing the vet modes is considerably harder if not impossible due to mechanics, but normal mode and "1st" iterations should absolutely be soloable.

I for one consider it part of my "endgame".

Yeah never really seen much soloing group content until recently. The only exceptions would be using glitches/exploits or rarely world bosses, but even then you were only talking about maybe a handful of people and their character was specifically built around soloing that boss. Unless you are talking about soloing lower level group content with a higher level then sure.

AcadianPaladin

I guess it is healthy for the game to have a large playerbase - financial support and all that. Therefore, even though I don't PvP, do trials, DLC dungeons or even group at all very much, I'm glad all that stuff is there for those who enjoy it.

I find the current level of challenge in the game to have a very nice, wide spread that comfortably allows for all levels of desired challenge and player abilities (be it time, desire or disability limitations).

I 'Play as I want' and find it pairs up very well with my desire to be a soloist. My 'end game' is soloing alliance zone WBs and a fair number of non-DLC normal group dungeons. There is plenty of content I cannot solo and therefore is of no interest to me. And personal preferences come into play as well. I don't enjoy coordinating with or relying on others when I play. I also do not enjoy obtuse mechanics that heavily populate DLC dungeons.