How would You rate year 2019 in ESO ?

Juhasow

Like in the thread title. What do You think about general state of the game in this nearly finished year. Talking about all aspects together. Season of the dragon story and all DLCs that were part of it , base game changes , new additions like necro class , balance , performance etc.

jcm2606

3

Game was going quite good during Wrathstone, had a few personal hiccups that I didn't agree with during Elsweyr but was largely a good patch, Zenimax really dropped the ball with Scalebraker, and the ball promptly shattered all flooring tiles with Dragonhold.

craybest

8

8/10
i think the game gets better and beter with each new DLC; new places to explore, new questlines, new skilllines.
plus since I discovered reshade, the game doesn't look like a grey flat blob anymore.

logarifmik

9

I rated this year so high mostly because of well-written Elsweyr story. Sure, there are a lot of annoying problems still exist in the game (bugged for almost 5 years quests, annoying Cyrillic font, bugged riding animations, you name it), but personally I'm more interested in the story. I hope, though, that they'll reconsider this "fractured but whole" approach to the narrative, and the last DLC this year gave a cue, that my hope is not baseless anymore.

VaranisArano

Last Year was probably a 7. I liked Summerset and while the bugs were annoying, I still had some hope, you know?

This year is a 4 or a 5.
Same bugs, just worse, with no fixes in sight. PVP continues to suffer from the lack of performance fixes.
I'm not a huge fan of "the Year of the Dragon" story. Yeah, that one's pure personal preference.
The unrelenting schedule of events combined with performance issues in the content I like to play really sapped my enjoyment of playing ESO.

ESO is still really fun when it works right.
In 2019, I didn't see substantial improvements, just more busywork events.

BlueRaven

3

The year started badly with extremely poor race redesigns and ended with more poor combat decisions with horrendous game breaking bugs.

But the writings good.

Take the “3” and be happy it was not lower.

TiaFrye

6

Wrathstone and Dragonhold were superb, with Chapter and the second dungeon dlc being pretty dull and boring in comparison. -3 points for this. Also -1 point for performance during events at EU server. EU server felt kind of left off this year, during live and testing. I'm so annoyed that we have at best one week at pts and there is problems with copying data, live server gong dark and so on. You, guys, should either start to maintain EU server accordingly and team up with your EU employees to make the best performance (reconsider event's starting times for eu, to spread the population, stop keeping us in the dark just because it's early morning in NA when it's prime time for us) or drastically change prices for your services in EU because you don't deliver to us the same as you do for NA.

L_Nici

3

Maybe I would vote more, if I could actually play the game.

NeroBad

3

Was really hyped for this year, but with the two last big patch I now don't try to invite other people to ESO, because I would feel a little bit ashamed to recommend such a bad performing game. Also the balance for me is really sad, I have no motivation anymore to farm and upgrade sets.

ESO Art and PvE content creator groups are amazing, but their programmers can't handle the game anymore. I'm still login for daily craft and event tickets, but my average droped from 4 hours daily to half an hour daily. I think two more abysmal performing big patch and I'm done. The next chapter will be the first which I won't buy first week.

Also the year long adventure is not interesting for me too similar designs for a whole year, but if such consideration would benefit performance I would support it, but this year's performance also the worst by far since 2016 (that is when I started playing).

So overall some cool but similar content this year (5/10), with really bad performance(2/10), and abysmal rollercoaster balance decisions(1/10).

Gythral

1

the year the server(s) died!

Odovacar

6

Round numbers eh...rookie ratings! 6.1

Rehdaun

2

So many changes

molecule

3

Can't give higher than 3 because of the terrible performance and lack of bug fixes for age old problems.

Countdownical

3

New Content
Really amazing year, the expansion and DLCs has been terrific and brought a lot of fun content.
The game is more fun now than it's ever been.

Patches
Mixed feelings. Some patches has been great, but i bet i'm not the only one being frustrated on the constant meta changes. It's like Zenimax don't even know what they want out of the classes, and keep changing stuff over and over. It's really frustrating as you hardly get a chance to master your class until meta changes hit you and the class or build is nerfed to the ground, either PvE or PvP wise. I can mostly adapt, so this topic isn't my major concern.

Performance
Bloody, damn awful year! This is the major reason for the low score i gave. I understand if sometimes stuff aren't going as you wish it would and i'm patient regarding that. I give them time to fix their issues. But when they fix their issues, I expect it to work. This year has been disappointment after disappointment. There is no excuse that Zenimax can come with, to justify this current year's performance problems. I don't even have to list the problems the server is having because everyone who plays the game, knows about them..

Saltisol

3

Second half of 2019 has been a disaster.

UppGRAYxDD

1

Can’t give a zero...

Agalloch

3

Eso is my favorite MMO and world.

Second half of 2019 broke the game , the servers , the combat ..

Also too many nerfs happened .

I play since beta ..but this is the first time I see ESO declining so bad .

There is still hope , anyway....

Ragnork

2

2 and they should be happy with the 2
Too many racial changes.
Too many changes in combat.
Too many server issues.

On the positive - stories and writing remains a high point; dragged the score up with that.

redspecter23

5

The decision to buff dots, then turn around and double nerf them afterward speaks volumes about the "direction" the team has right now. I gave it a 5 as I'm still playing, but I don't feel like they are going in the right direction currently. Honestly, I don't know what the direction is right now. I could see this game being absolutely amazing 6 months from now or a complete dumpster fire. The lack of direction has me thinking it could go either way and my score represents that.

SirLeeMinion

8

I've been frustrated at the state of PvP, and the combat team seems to have driven a huge number of upper-tier but not hard-core players away. The group finder is a laughing stock, and I've stopped putting money into the game until they show some sign of turning things around.

That said, I've been looking around for a solid MMORPG to replace ESO for at least four months, and I'm coming up dry. I think ESO was better a year ago than it is now. But it is still better than the competition, so it gets a grudgingly-given eight from me.

Kel

3

Only rated so high because the stories are well written and the world is still as gorgeous as ever. Questing and exploring is 9/10.

However.....

Do I really need to mention the dumpster fire that is this games performance and constant fatigue from class/ability changes? What could I possibly say that hasn't already been said?

3/10...and that's being generous.

Tommy_The_Gun

1

So far, it was probably the worst year in ESO (and I am here since 2014 btw.) :

1. Wrathstone - racial rebalance, 2 races became meta, 2 races became useless & without purpose & use case, others were "lucky". Racial rebalance did not delivered what it promised and was just a meta-shift. Disappointment.

2. Elsweyr - new chapter that introduced new class, necromancer (that was barely playable & bugged as ***). The only new stuff we got was Dragon fights, that basically are glorified dolmens. Compared to previous chapter, we got no new skill lines. Balance wise, Elsweyr got s**t ton of nerfs, NB redundancy removal nerfs, WW nerfs... not enough room to even count.
(Also I am not a Cat fanatic, so I think I am not biased when it comes to zone setting).

3. Scalebreaker - crazy, clueless changes to DOT, Dot meta, WW removal (it almost feel like it was removed lol).

4. Dragonhold - Almost the same content as Elsweyr, copy-paste stuff (at least it almost felt like it). Further clueless crazy changes. 50% buff, 70% nerf, 60% buff, 80% nerf etc. It felt like the devs are playing different game.
Edit: Forgot to mention - class identity, DK throwing rocks at people, sorcs getting copy-paste grim focus, NB losing its core class identity etc.

5. Current: Event cancellations, EU server crashing every day, just when it is near late hours, when more people login... People typing quitting threads, sub cancellations... looks grim.

Saltisol

3

To OP, glad that you came up with this idea, shows in a very easy way how we feel about the game at this moment.

Nyladreas

3

Definitely a 3, can't go any higher.

Crap performance, crap communication, lack of actual genuine concerns for the disturbed community, lack of any sort fair treatment...

Forums and Critcism censorship, Crown Store being the End-All of this game's future, absolutely no respect for the community or any sort of apology that doesn't look like it has been copied from some random bureaucratic forum and pasted here just to make us shut up, blatantly ignoring the community's sugestions that would improve the game, regardless of how crappy the given idea might be, etc. etc. I could go on for a whole day, and that's saying something. Like I can't even list HALF of the crap that pisses me off without having to write a small book.

AND I'M NOT EVEN TALKING ABOUT BUGS!

Honestly, nothing much i can give to zos. The only 2 points ZOS gets from me is for the Music and Enviroment ingame that I had the chance to enjoy (and the only content i could properly enjoy - since PERFORMANCE is BAD). Ain't going to get anything else from me.

PvP Is a disaster, PvE is a disaster, Balance is in ruin, Idk what else to type really. It's ALL of it. And I don't wanna sound like a negative little ***, but i REALLY have to. I just can't allow myself to say a single positive thing.

Sorry ZOS, you done *** it up.

PS: DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE. GET RID OF THE LAG. TAKE ENOUGH TIME TO TEST YOUR CRAP. GET RID OF BUGS THAT HAVE BEEN AROUND SINCE LAUNCH. ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING RIGHT AND ABOVE ALL ADMIT YOUR OWN MISTAKES FOR ONCE!

PPS: Remove the bugs & Fix the damn performance. Seriously. I cannot stress this enough. Fix. Your. Servers. And. Your. Game. Make. It. Playable. Please.

PPPS: Did I mention the horrible performance? Yes? Well I'm saying it again. Fix the performance, ZOS. Lag, and memory leaks? Yeah?

TL;DR: Fix the MF game.

Kagukan

7

Good overall. Performance issues need fixed. Stop adjusting skills that don't need to be adjusted.
If I felt this game has below 5 I wouldn't even be here. Why bother with a game that I felt is trash.

DarcyMardin

3

Compared to former years, this one was pretty bad (sadly). I don't bother much with DLC dungeons, so the year-long story didn't work too well for me since I never saw the dungeon content. I admit that I'm not a big fan of either Argonian or the Khajiit lore, so I haven't felt much interest in any of the DLC or chapter stuff since the Summerset chapter. I did buy the Elsweyr chapter but haven't played most of it yet.

The excessive number of events, all pushing different versions of a mount I didn't need or want, wore on my patience, too. My favorite event remains the annual anniversary event, where the rewards are actually useful and/or valuable.

These factors, taken together with all the drastic nerfs and changes and the poor server and/or buggy code issues, have made this past year very disappointing for me.

Edit: The art work still gets a 10 from me.

Fiktius

3

I was investigating what I think about this ongoing year and my brain.exe was displaying login errors, so it took me awhile to polish this comment:

This year deserves solid: 3

For explaining why I think so, I'll first mention three things which I really liked during this year:

- Guild finder
When guild finder was released, recruiting for guilds became much more less time consuming and at first weeks applications were coming in from doors and windows. Even when over time application amount decreased, it's still major help every week and I thank ZOS for implementing that great tool.

- DRAGONS, DRAGONS AND MORE DRAGONS!
As someone may have already guessed, I really like dragons and seeing them returning to Tamriel felt fantastic.
Especially Southern-Elsweyr dragon fights were fantastic due their own mechanics.
Nothing was more amusing than seeing dragon using FUS RO DAH on unaware player and see them to fly high.

- Elsweyr zone design
Zone is gorgeous! I especially loved The Stitches area and how it was created. Since the zone design do not favor my style of mounting constantly forwards, that have caused several deaths of mine where I got hit via fall damage, but that's only something I found amusing.

And then things which did make me give very low rating for this year:

- Multi-bidding
I still dislike this feature with pure passion.

I'm not going to explain this part further here. If someone is really curious of reasons why I think multi-bidding is terrible, you can read more here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/6312848/#Comment_6312848

- Functionality of Necromancer
It was exciting thing to get playable new class to the game, but that's where this exciting part ends: Keyword "playable."
It's still possible to have fun and do great with Necromancer, especially in PvE environment. But trying to play with half broken tool kit in PvP feels like banging head to the wall at longer run. I did give this class a chance and played with my Stamina Necromancer in PvP till the beginning of November. Recently I reworked my Stamden's build and oh wow, it really feels good to play with a class which actually works.
#WhenZOSWillMakeDrunkbonesGreatAgain?

And last but not least:

- PC EU PERFORMANCE
It's frustrating to play ESO on PC EU platform. If we get lucky, we might get an evening without prime time server melt down.
Especially after recent events (Undaunted) I've came to the point where I started to think that I don't even want to see more events this year.
It's beyond my mind that why ZOS even thinks that creating more events is so fantastic idea, when PC EU server melts down even basic weekday evenings at prime time. It's like a guessing game:
"How many login errors you'll see before you'll finally login? The person who guesses right will receive another extra pack of login errors."

svartorn

4

4

Everything is beautiful.

When it works. This is the critical part of the equation.

redlink1979

4

I liked the stories/quests/npcs, the scenarios, the new class and the music (big props to Brad Derrick) Northern n Southern Elsweyr gave us. 8/10

Race/combat/mount changes - some were needed and some were discussable/unnecessary - 5/10

Old persistent bugs... 1/10

Performance since Elsweyr was released... We all know where it's at.... 1/10 (for all the blue screens and game freezes)

Nyladreas

3

The fact that currently, while typing this message, the number of people voting for points 1-3 is actually exceeding people voting 4 and above, is absolutely ridiculous and goes to show just how much ZOS *** up.

Sandman929

3

Played for 10 minutes last night before quitting in frustration with horrible performance in Cyrodiil. Experiences like that are becoming the norm. Off peak hours, most of the time it's ok as far as lag goes, but the constant disconnects are still there.