Just can't get into the game. Not an ESO problem it's a me problem. Need role playing ideas.

Davor

This is not an ESO problem so not complaining, but a me problem. I have been playing lots of ESO on and off for the last 4 years. I did stop playing for the last few months and took a break from just being overburnt from playing so much when I did. I tried replaying again and I just couldn't get into it. It just seems more of a chore since I just go to A to B just to complete quests. Daily bonuses are off putting since if I don't want to play it seems like it's "needed" to log on. So it's not really a reward for me, but a gimick to go into the Crown Store. So that makes ESO even more off putting so I gave up on Daily Rewards and that helps now. If I don't care, I don't miss anything.

What I am trying to do is get back into ESO and play like I use to, just for fun. So I thought I would try roleplaying a bit more. I do not feel like starting a new character since I have done that many times before. I already have some new characters that I thought would help me, but alas don't feel like redoing same quests over and over again.

For some reason I am having brain farts and can't think of some role playing reasons to play as I use to. Guess life just sucked out my creativity right now. So I am asking the community here for some ideas to restart playing again.

I usually play an Altmer mage that is about CP200+. I tried using him, but all I think of is trying to get gold and just makes the game not fun but more of a chore. Why do I even need gold? Need to stop reading forums on how easy it is to get gold. I don't even care for it lol. So now that I am not worried about getting gold, how should I start any of my characters that I feel like playing? One day I want to be a mage, another a dragonknight another something else. So how should I role play it?

I was thinking of doing the "start all over" amnesia gimmick so I don't start at level so I still have all my skills but how should I act? What should my goals be? Or maybe not being amnesia but just like in real life, I took a long break and getting back into Tamreal after some event made be do battle once more, even though I am not good enough?

Just like to read some ideas to see what I like what someone suggests or maybe even what they say inspires my thinking again. Would like to play ESO again but sadly it just has been a chore and want to play for fun again like I use to.

Davor

FierceSam

Hey Davor,

My gut feeling is that maybe you should extend your break. Because much as we’d all want you to get back into the game, there’s no point in doing it if you’re not going to enjoy it.

If you want to get an ESO fix, but don’t feel enthused to play, there are many streams, YouTube channels and podcasts out there to get you in the mood for the game. I really enjoy the Loreseekers’ podcast.

Take your time and come back when you want to, not because you feel you should.

Good luck and have fun

Davor

I don't feel as I should @FierceSam I do want to come back. I guess because of life events, I just can't get my creative juices flowing in my brain.

I tried the YouTube videos but it's always comes to what is "best" that turns me off. Again makes it a chore. I will try Loreseeker's podcast as you suggest.

I want to use my CP200 character but how can I use him/her in a new way? Like I said, pretend they have amnesia? This way it's like starting over but not redoing the quests again from level 1? If so what direction should I go in? If not amnesia, what should I try thinking of?

I really want to play ESO again. Just don't want to think the game is a chore so want to role play ESO more and lost my way of doing it.

Langdon64

Sadly, you can't go home again. I have played RPG games for almost 40 years and I've learned that you can never re-capture that feeling of discovery and amazement you get when playing a great game for the first time. My advice is to find a new game entirely.

FierceSam

For me the game is increasingly the other players I enjoy playing with.

Once you get back in, find a guild that is doing things you like, whether that’s questing, role playing, housing, trading or dungeons and progression groups.

If you don’t know anyone, like I didn’t, you can use the guild finder to find potential ‘right’ guilds. Don’t be afraid to join and don’t be afraid to leave if it’s not right and try again

But, again, don’t come back because you feel you should, come back because you want to play.

Good luck

StormeReigns

Davor wrote: »

I don't feel as I should @FierceSam I do want to come back. I guess because of life events, I just can't get my creative juices flowing in my brain.

I tried the YouTube videos but it's always comes to what is "best" that turns me off. Again makes it a chore. I will try Loreseeker's podcast as you suggest.

I want to use my CP200 character but how can I use him/her in a new way? Like I said, pretend they have amnesia? This way it's like starting over but not redoing the quests again from level 1? If so what direction should I go in? If not amnesia, what should I try thinking of?

I really want to play ESO again. Just don't want to think the game is a chore so want to role play ESO more and lost my way of doing it.

Going Amnesia route is a bit cliche, but could work well if you have a solid grasp of how you played in the past. It is a fresh start with a nice control to develop into what you want with a unique take on the world we have and what you create for yourself.

Could been a home town hero being pulled into a hard life of crime and a growing paranoia sets in as you rob familiar places. Or other way around. Harden infamous Criminal, doing heroic deeds, but confused why the civilians are treating you with distance, not remembering the actions you've done in the past.

(My Magcro, is similar in that aspect, mid level cult leader who doesn't understand their past or powers.)

Would suggest to search for heavy friendly RP guilds and groups to take you in, and work with ya.

jircris11

Davor wrote: »

I don't feel as I should @FierceSam I do want to come back. I guess because of life events, I just can't get my creative juices flowing in my brain.

I tried the YouTube videos but it's always comes to what is "best" that turns me off. Again makes it a chore. I will try Loreseeker's podcast as you suggest.

I want to use my CP200 character but how can I use him/her in a new way? Like I said, pretend they have amnesia? This way it's like starting over but not redoing the quests again from level 1? If so what direction should I go in? If not amnesia, what should I try thinking of?

I really want to play ESO again. Just don't want to think the game is a chore so want to role play ESO more and lost my way of doing it.

What type of rp. Typical rpg rp or actual character development rp?

FrancisCrawford

Are you burnt out on dungeons? If not, maybe you could do those for a while. The Undaunted have an ethos of doing things for the pure challenge of it, which creates pretty good alignment between character and player mindsets.

Just don't do random dungeons; queueing for specific ones is less stressful. And queueing as a healer usually leaves you in a short queue (5-10 minutes is typical for me on PC/NA, and it's often faster). I almost always queue for the pledge(s) I have active, whether I picked them up that day or earlier. And of course never queue for a vet dungeon until you find it straightforward in normal mode.

Sorcerer healing, by the way, is pretty simple. Run one restoration staff and one destruction staff (lightning and fire are both OK). Skills include:

• Twilight Matriarch x 2
• Elemental Drain or (my preference) Siphon Spirit
• Combat Prayer if your group is decent.
• A few attack skills, such as a Wall of Elements morph, Crushing Shock, and Crystal Frags
• Whatever personal defense, sustain or buff skills you feel like. (I favor Empowered Ward.)
• Radiating Regeneration, especially if you ever get gear that procs on heals.

When picking your armor sets:

• Necropotence is great, because your main heal scales solely off of max magicka.
• Whatever you have of Mother's Sorrow, Seducer or other general stat bonus sets is fine.
• All monster set choices are questionable. Don't let that bother you.

belial5221_ESO

You probably need to get your rl in order and stable first before trying to jump back into a fantasy game with a clouded mind,not healthy and makes you feel bad about yourself or the things you try to do if they don't work out.

I usually make a new char when I feel there is a need,and I don't rush it to max level.Power leveling,using cp on new char kinda kills the freshness,but in another way it helps remove the tedium of slow progression,so you need to find a median.Just casually do quests and explore,slowly level and take in the lore,and level skills at a normal rate,play as you think the char should play(altmer is snootier,nord is carefree,argonian is submissive,khajit is sneaky,etc).

FrancisCrawford

Are there any zones where you haven't done the quests? I like Summerset and Clockwork City a lot. I liked Wrothgar when I did it too. People say good things about Elswyr, but I haven't done it yet.

I hate Murkmire. Not everybody agrees.

ArchMikem

I dont mean to insult, but a Roleplayer is a Storyteller, and if you're relying on other people's ideas, then you're not much of a storyteller. You should always roleplay what comes to yourself.

Your character is a person. Take a good look at them. What do you see? Are they friendly or intimidating? Intelligent? Athletic or lazy? Can you imagine their life if you met them face to face? Would they be your friend? Your enemy? A lover? Are they content or adventurous?

Stovahkiin

FierceSam wrote: »

Hey Davor,

My gut feeling is that maybe you should extend your break. Because much as we’d all want you to get back into the game, there’s no point in doing it if you’re not going to enjoy it.

If you want to get an ESO fix, but don’t feel enthused to play, there are many streams, YouTube channels and podcasts out there to get you in the mood for the game. I really enjoy the Loreseekers’ podcast.

Take your time and come back when you want to, not because you feel you should.

Good luck and have fun

I agree with this. I got burnt out on the game *really* hard over the last couple years because I kept coming back and tried to make myself enjoy it. I’ve now been away from the game for about 10 months and I’m finally feeling interested in playing again, so I’ll probably come back in March.

When I was really burnt out, I kept making tons of new characters in the hope that I’d make one that I really liked and could enjoy the game again, but that just made things worse. If you’re feeling like you need something fresh, it may be better to find it in another game until you specifically feel the urge to play ESO again.

ACaptiveMind

I've noticed that the more efficiently I try to play a game, the less fun it gets, and that I have tendency to try to be more efficient over time. When that happens there is no way to brute-force the game into being fun again; I have to relax and do less, not more, to fix things. If I were in your position I would try playing with the game, rather than playing the game, to figure out what I want.

My role-playing in games tends to be nothing but my character as an avatar or servant of a traveler who moves from world to world (or video game to video game, as mortals call it) to go on adventures and whatnot. It's a consistent and low-effort RP that satisfies the desire for an over-arching story or timeline, which I can make as high-effort and complex as I want but have no obligation or pressure to maintain.

Also, you have a natural human tendency to get bored or less excited with stuff, and that's okay.

VaranisArano

We can offer character concepts, but I find that the most interesting ones are the ones we come up with ourselves.

I tend to start with a race and an interesting character concept. At it's simplest, I use:
Race
Reason for adventuring (the more interesting, the better)
Attitude about the adventure

One method I use is to ask "Do I want this character to happily go along with the questlines? Or do I want this character to be disagreeable in how they approach the questlines from an RP standpoint?"

For example, my main Vestige is a fairly standard EP hero who fights to protect the people she cares about from the Covenant, Dominion, and the Worm Cult. As she got older, she gets a lot more tired and bitter in her attitude as all her deeds seem to change little about the selfish conflicts that spring up over Tamriel.
My DC hero is a Dark Brotherhood Silencer who moonlights as a secret agent for Queen Maryah, so she was happy to kill the enemies of the Covenant.

My disagreeable characters, on the other hand, include:
(Replaying the AD Questline): An AD Kinlord who happily backed the Veiled Queen's bid for power until she let the Maomer invade his home island and got him killed by the Worm Cult. Now he wants revenge, even though he thinks Ayrenn's ideals are the stupid dreams of an incompetent child queen.
(Playing Elsweyr): A Dunmer Slaver who's gotten himself stuck in Elsweyr and the only way out seems to be defeating a rage of dragons in the company of a bunch of Khajiit. His catchphrase is pretty much "You have got to be kidding me," when he's not complaining that "Necromancy on beasts isn't illegal in Morrowind, you uncivilized cats!"

The key to playing those characters that have a very different viewpoint than what the game expects is to take time during and after the quests to imagine their reactions and how that impacts their story and character arc. ESO isn't going to let my Kinlord be as jerkish and arrogant as he is in my imagination, so I have to make the time to imagine that...along with his steadily growing suspicions that his much vaunted Altmer superiority might not be all its cracked up to be. If I just rush through the quests and don't allow time for the imagination to work, I quickly get bored of redoing content I've already seen.

Bottom line, there's no character concept that's magically going to make redoing content you've already see more interesting. Your imagination, on the other hand, is boundless especially when you give it the space to work.

Tandor

It's nothing to do with role-playing, but one way some people find of getting back into a game just for fun is to start over completely. That means either with another account, or by creating a character on a different server - in the case of ESO, the other regional server for your platform. It's not the same as simply rolling another character as by playing on a different server you start with nothing - no CPs, no crafting materials, nothing in the bank.

If you're on PC and use add-ons, you might also find it fresh and more interesting to remove them all - but especially the ones that show you what to do and where to go.

Artemiisia

Langdon64 wrote: »

Sadly, you can't go home again. I have played RPG games for almost 40 years and I've learned that you can never re-capture that feeling of discovery and amazement you get when playing a great game for the first time. My advice is to find a new game entirely.

That's so true, and have been one of the hardest parts for me to get back into the game as well, the whole nostalgia around discovering the world, learning skills, playing 8 hours in a row in a raid with a close bunch of friends and getting that first clear. Moments like these are amazing. Replicating this and knowing how much time and effort it takes, which with real life coming "in the way", makes it harder to get invested in the game.

Neoauspex

Make a roleplaying goal with a couple friends in Cyrodill. That'll make it really challenging to complete.

zvavi

The most fun for me is playing with friends. Try finding a likeminded guild that operate at the times you can and play with people, you know, quests etc etc, but just with others, i know it isnt the same, but more people is usually more fun.

SpankinDamob

I find it enjoyable if I get burnt out on my daily routine to do everything in first person view. I don’t worry about getting gear, dailies or getting my character to max performance. I take my time exploring, making sure to check all the corners, looting all the barrels and boxes. Take the time to read all the books scattered around the land.