Why can't ESO appeal to the general TES fan or the greater gaming public?

hcbigdogdoghc

It is clear that your average skyrim fan is the one and only audience ZOS is trying to attract at the moment. You can see this clearly by the direction the game's heading, braindead easy content with YA fanfic writing is pretty much 99% of what we get now.

And they are willing to sacrifice and screw over PVPers, endgame PVEers, etc to get that audience. Sure, ZOS might throw us a bone or 2 once a year or so, but casual skyrim fans are what the devs want.

But the general TES fanbase still pretends that ESO don't exist, just look at the elder scrolls subreddit (r/elderscrolls). Pretty much zero ESO coverage there.

ESO's not popular with the greater gaming population as well, having practically zero YouTube or twitch presence, etc.

What do you think ESO did wrong? ZOS tried so hard to get that audience.

rpa

Because it's a MMO. Other genre audiences overlap a bit but are definitely not same.

Bobby_V_Rockit

Yeah, the “expansions” seem totally bogus now when compared to the full ones we used to get like Orsinium and Morrowind. I think they lazily just cut the story in half so we have to buy the ending after the next dungeon pack when the “finale” dlc is released. That said, what else can they really do for endgamers? They release a trial and 4 dungeons a year for them

ADarklore

hcbigdogdoghc wrote: »

It is clear that your average skyrim fan is the one and only audience ZOS is trying to attract at the moment. You can see this clearly by the direction the game's heading, braindead easy content with YA fanfic writing is pretty much 99% of what we get now.

And they are willing to sacrifice and screw over PVPers, endgame PVEers, etc to get that audience. Sure, ZOS might throw us a bone or 2 once a year or so, but casual skyrim fans are what the devs want.

But the general TES fanbase still pretends that ESO don't exist, just look at the elder scrolls subreddit (r/elderscrolls). Pretty much zero ESO coverage there.

ESO's not popular with the greater gaming population as well, having practically zero YouTube or twitch presence, etc.

What do you think ESO did wrong? ZOS tried so hard to get that audience.

Considering the huge success of ESO... I think their success comes BECAUSE they decided to focus on one group, which was already the majority of their player base. Rich says that ESO was a failure at launch, not just because of the myriad of problems, but also because the game lacked focus, lacked a true 'identity'. So with One Tamriel, they decided to focus on the players who wanted "Skyrim with friends" as that was the majority of players... and it has become extremely successful because of it.

ESO is an MMO and while sharing lore, is also quite different from traditional ES single player games. Many players don't have the time to invest in an long-lived multi-player game and as for PVP, ESO was never a PVP-focused game... as Matt Firor says, 'internally they consider ESO to be an online RPG with MMO elements'.

As for ESO not being popular with YouTube or Twitch... so what. ESO IS successful... and games that appeal to streamers tend to be very different from ESO. I've played FFXIV and have a love/hate relationship with the game... I loved the quests and storyline, but HATED being forced into group content. I believe that is why ESO is so successful with the player base it has... because they offer great storylines IMO and they can all be done solo. No stress, no drama, just playing the game at your own pace.

VaranisArano

I'm not sure reddit is the best measure, considering that ESO has its own subreddit.

Endgame PVEers are getting 4 dungeons, 1 trial, and sometimes 1 arena per year. What more do you want.

PVPers, now...that's stickier, because ZOS can't add much until they fix Cyrodiil's performance issues and that's the one thing they apparently can't do. IC and BGs are niche content that appeal to a relative few. Still, we get two Midyear Mayhems each year now and this year we're getting a big shakeup: no proc set PVP. It doesn't appeal to everyone, but don't pretend like some PVPers haven't been begging ZOS to do this for years.


Also, not gonna lie, I don't understand the appeal of watching ESO streams unless it's PVP (see the aforementioned performance issues for why that has its issues). Why would I want to watch someone else quest when I can quest for myself?

VaranisArano

ADarklore wrote: »

hcbigdogdoghc wrote: »

It is clear that your average skyrim fan is the one and only audience ZOS is trying to attract at the moment. You can see this clearly by the direction the game's heading, braindead easy content with YA fanfic writing is pretty much 99% of what we get now.

And they are willing to sacrifice and screw over PVPers, endgame PVEers, etc to get that audience. Sure, ZOS might throw us a bone or 2 once a year or so, but casual skyrim fans are what the devs want.

But the general TES fanbase still pretends that ESO don't exist, just look at the elder scrolls subreddit (r/elderscrolls). Pretty much zero ESO coverage there.

ESO's not popular with the greater gaming population as well, having practically zero YouTube or twitch presence, etc.

What do you think ESO did wrong? ZOS tried so hard to get that audience.

Considering the huge success of ESO... I think their success comes BECAUSE they decided to focus on one group, which was already the majority of their player base. Rich says that ESO was a failure at launch, not just because of the myriad of problems, but also because the game lacked focus, lacked a true 'identity'. So with One Tamriel, they decided to focus on the players who wanted "Skyrim with friends" as that was the majority of players... and it has become extremely successful because of it.

ESO is an MMO and while sharing lore, is also quite different from traditional ES single player games. Many players don't have the time to invest in an long-lived multi-player game and as for PVP, ESO was never a PVP-focused game... as Matt Firor says, 'internally they consider ESO to be an online RPG with MMO elements'.

As for ESO not being popular with YouTube or Twitch... so what. ESO IS successful... and games that appeal to streamers tend to be very different from ESO. I've played FFXIV and have a love/hate relationship with the game... I loved the quests and storyline, but HATED being forced into group content. I believe that is why ESO is so successful with the player base it has... because they offer great storylines IMO and they can all be done solo. No stress, no drama, just playing the game at your own pace.

Minor nitpick that actually proves your point: ESO initially was a very PVP-focused game. Originally, Cyrodiil was supposed to be the only endgame.

In listening to their actual audience of TES players, the Devs realized that their players didn't want to eternally PVP. That's why we got Cadwell's Silver and Gold.

Snowstrider

Well I think its too late to be able to attract the larger gaming ans TES audience because the game wont change dramatically any time soon and what people expected was a normal TES game but with multiplayer

Girl_Number8

They’re are making money and people seem to be having fun....

Not so much the game I remember when the Vet system was around. PvP was very different but I am still playing the game. Only difference for over a year now I have been playing other PvP games, as well. I am grateful for that because before I just played ESO. I feel a lot more happy with my gaming time....


What pushed me to other games was

•The performance
•All the drastic changes
•The constant testing of PvP like a guinea pig
•The lack of direction. With that I mean, to Proc or not to Proc.
•They devalued the DLCs by these changes, so it makes you think should I buy it, really.

What keeps me playing

•I spent sooooooo much on this game
•Friends
•They still put a lot of passion into ESO in so many directions.
•It’s a beautiful game, nothing like it. The amount of content is staggering.

People have always been complaining and somethings are justified....some are not

phaneub17_ESO

Would you like a starter intro where you make out of a cave/dungeon with no stats left?

Alucardo

As it stands, the casual crowd is their biggest income, and they aren't going to sabotage that by making the game hard [snip]
What I'd love is an eso spin off but maybe in a path of exile/Diablo style. Make it a lot more difficult with more RPG aspects.

[edited for baiting]

Mitaka211

I think it has to do with how the mmo player base is split tbh. The majority of mmo players still prefer the old model of what an mmo should be, which is in the gameplay style of WoW. If you look at GW2 for example, it's also not as popular as other mmos or even ESO.
I personaly don't like mmos like WoW and FFXIV, i think they are boring and they neglect everything except raiding and pve not to mention it's clear that slowly but surely action combat is becomming a must in new MMOs. WoW started the trend of a theme park MMO but i feel the trend has been shifting in the other direction over the years and more and more people are looking for a sandbox style MMO. I personally think that New World will be a failure and Ashes of Creations is still on the scale. Make no mistake if New World or Ashes of Creation live up to this crazy hype train ESO will die if things keep going like this. We have been getting lazy expansions that are not worth their price, in my opinion Blackwood is a massive failure and a boring mess. The devs are more interested in maintaining the game and not inovating it, which is why we get what we get and honestly they don't even bother promoting their game or engaging with the community in any way so how do you expect to have social media coverage or content creators.

ZOS needs to step up their game it's that simple. Their focus with new expansions should be around adding new ways to play the game.... and pls don't give companions as an example cause that is the most horrendous, lazy and poorly executed addition to the game and if i see that army of clone companions one more time i will vomit, it breaks the immersion so hard. Promote more player interaction, not this solo crap. If I wanted a companion I would play Skyrim not an MMO. When was the last time you were mindblow by something they did? The formula for their expansions can be summed up to this:
1. Player goes to new zone
2. Player does boring, low efford story for skill points
3. Player gets skill points
4. Player starts getting new mythic
5. Player does the new dungeons
6. Player is bored

I am so sick and tired of the way new expansions are the same, every single time. Just do something different for once jeez. That's why there were 10 people in your new zone and that's why there will be 5 in the next. This game is not bad, it's actually pretty damn good. The problem it has is that it has been stuck in the same place for the last 5 expansions.

Kiralyn2000

rpa wrote: »

Because it's a MMO. Other genre audiences overlap a bit but are definitely not same.

Yeah, that was my first thought when I saw the subject line - do MMOs as a genre appeal to "the greater gaming public" (whatever that is) in the first place?

trackdemon5512

Lack of Advertising.

Skyrim, Final Fantasy, World of Warcraft all had/have significant presences in advertisements and media. ESO has ZILCH.

More aptly, Bethesda and Zenimax are TERRIBLE at marketing. They eschew communicating not only with their own player base but also with engaging in active dialogue with gaming publications. That kind of thing may have been fine a decade ago but in today’s world where Steam, Microsoft, and Sony offer so many notable free/cheap game experiences ESO and other Zenimax games are overshadowed and lost.

You know what got a lot of casual people into Skyrim? The commercials with the Skyrim Main Theme. Much like Gears of War “Mad World” it captivated those who saw and made them want it. ESO has nothing close to a single definable social or media moment after seven years that can draw players to and corral them around the game.

Hurbster

WoW is bleeding subs at the moment and the only other MMO being mentioned as an alternative is FF14. I like both games but while I do feel the FF14 Mogstation is incredibly poorly designed and is a bad first impression, and I'm not a fan of forced grouping or gender-locking. ESO needs to be a lot more user-friendly generally.

In short, ZoS needs to try and get some of these people over our way, but they need to sort the game out as well.

To give an example, many of us recently lost the ability to use the website (all we could see was the background), it took ZoS over a week to sort this (apparently) simple problem out. Not a good impression.

Amottica

I fail to see OPs point as the game is successful which would require attracting more than mere TES fans, especially just Skyrim fans. I have seen a number of threads discussing various topics where players mentioned how something was done in different TES games showing Zenimax has attacked more than just Skyrim players. It is also clear that many players came to ESO from other MMORPGs and had no history with the single-player games from this IP.

Snowstrider

Mitaka211 wrote: »

The formula for their expansions can be summed up to this:
1. Player goes to new zone
2. Player does boring, low efford story for skill points
3. Player gets skill points
4. Player starts getting new mythic
5. Player does the new dungeons
6. Player is bored

I am so sick and tired of the way new expansions are the same, every single time. Just do something different for once jeez. That's why there were 10 people in your new zone and that's why there will be 5 in the next. This game is not bad, it's actually pretty damn good. The problem it has is that it has been stuck in the same place for the last 5 expansions.

Agreed! They really need to come up with something new and fresh with their so called "expansions" which is pretty much the same old design over and over again and brings very little new to the game and little content and size compared to expansions in other MMOs.

Look at zones as imperial city and craglorn they at least brought some new zone design gameplay to the game.

Tandor

VaranisArano wrote: »

ADarklore wrote: »

hcbigdogdoghc wrote: »

It is clear that your average skyrim fan is the one and only audience ZOS is trying to attract at the moment. You can see this clearly by the direction the game's heading, braindead easy content with YA fanfic writing is pretty much 99% of what we get now.

And they are willing to sacrifice and screw over PVPers, endgame PVEers, etc to get that audience. Sure, ZOS might throw us a bone or 2 once a year or so, but casual skyrim fans are what the devs want.

But the general TES fanbase still pretends that ESO don't exist, just look at the elder scrolls subreddit (r/elderscrolls). Pretty much zero ESO coverage there.

ESO's not popular with the greater gaming population as well, having practically zero YouTube or twitch presence, etc.

What do you think ESO did wrong? ZOS tried so hard to get that audience.

Considering the huge success of ESO... I think their success comes BECAUSE they decided to focus on one group, which was already the majority of their player base. Rich says that ESO was a failure at launch, not just because of the myriad of problems, but also because the game lacked focus, lacked a true 'identity'. So with One Tamriel, they decided to focus on the players who wanted "Skyrim with friends" as that was the majority of players... and it has become extremely successful because of it.

ESO is an MMO and while sharing lore, is also quite different from traditional ES single player games. Many players don't have the time to invest in an long-lived multi-player game and as for PVP, ESO was never a PVP-focused game... as Matt Firor says, 'internally they consider ESO to be an online RPG with MMO elements'.

As for ESO not being popular with YouTube or Twitch... so what. ESO IS successful... and games that appeal to streamers tend to be very different from ESO. I've played FFXIV and have a love/hate relationship with the game... I loved the quests and storyline, but HATED being forced into group content. I believe that is why ESO is so successful with the player base it has... because they offer great storylines IMO and they can all be done solo. No stress, no drama, just playing the game at your own pace.

Minor nitpick that actually proves your point: ESO initially was a very PVP-focused game. Originally, Cyrodiil was supposed to be the only endgame.

In listening to their actual audience of TES players, the Devs realized that their players didn't want to eternally PVP. That's why we got Cadwell's Silver and Gold.

I disagree. The original significance of PvP is often over-stated. The original box notes make it clear that their aim was to offer a varied and flexible game with both PvE and PvP having equal billing, although of course the TES aspect of the game's background was entirely PvE being single-player.

As for Cadwell's Silver and Gold, they were added in beta because players didn't want to have to create three different characters in order to see the whole of the PvE content. Those quests were an artificial way of allowing a single character to experience the whole game, and inevitably it led to One Tamriel.

Destai

Most people wanted this to be 'Skyrim with friends' and it's just not. It's an Elder Scrolls flavoured MMO. The best I can do to explain it is illustrate what my general gaming friends have said about the game and why they won't play it.

1. Questing together is too hard. This was a problem for my crew that actually got me into the console game. If you're not in the exact same phase of the quest, you can't see each other. So it makes it harder for earlier-game players to group, especially when they don't know there's public dungeons, delves, dolmens, and activity finder.
2. Zones rather than one world map. I don't feel like this is a big detractor, but it's not like you can go explore as easily as you could in Skyrim. Given that Skyrim was the entry point for many people into the series, their expectations were set.
3. Monetization. I had one friend laugh and dismiss this game once he saw the crown store. $40+ for cosmetic content seemed a bit steep to him.
4. Systems are poorly explained. My one gaming buddy actually got this game due to my request and everytime he gets in, it's just a million questions. Too much is thrown at New Players and they just live with it or leave. Well, they leave. It's a shame the new tutorial wasn't the solution to the New Player Experience that this game needs because I think it'd need it.

At the end of the day, I think it does appeal to both demographics. It's a good game guys, and it's done quite well for itself. Compared to FF14 - whose class system makes no sense to me - this game is clean and straightforward. I think the game struggled at first, which led to One Tamriel and other major changes.

Tandor

"Why can't ESO appeal to the general TES fan or the greater gaming public? "

It already does.

That's why it's been so successful for 7 years, and continues to be so.

jle30303

Constantly nerfing stuff. Making it so that players with the same skills have less power today than they did yesterday.

Sarannah

ESO is an amazing experience for what it is: A relaxing MMO with hundreds of hours of content, with systems/guilds known from the singleplayer games and with MMO systems on top of it. And ESO does this well, the players who like this game... basically love this game.

In my opinion the only really bad thing about ESO right now, is the high end gamers who fake roles, and want high DPS parses. Simply because they want it all, and they want it now. If ESO were to cater to those players, the game would become toxic beyond believe. Even more toxic as to what PvP-toxicity brings out in some players. This is why I feel some enforcing needs to be in place, like for dungeonroles.

About monetization: The game is in no way pay-to-win. Yet many players seem to instantly dismiss the game's crownstore due to the prices... but this often depends on the country where players live. From my country's perspective, the prices aren't that extreme and in-line with most other F2P games. They are also fair prices, if you would consider them versus pay-to-win game prices. Keep in mind, players can buy the crownpacks during a 40% sale. And an ESO+ subscription often takes those crownstore prices down even further.

PS: All MMO's take getting used to/take time to learn, this isn't a problem any developer can fix. I played quite a few other MMO's before I started in ESO. Yet my first time in ESO I was lost beyond believe, and right now I can still see how I messed up my first character(missed skyshards, missed zone quests, etc). hehe

colossalvoids

To be recognised they need an actual lore coverage and not a fanfic level one we're getting nowadays mostly. But obviously more single player features people like, being more weapon types, spells untied to classes / more classes as a coverage and general atmosphere.

Myself I've came to eso just because was too much hungry for new lore and morrowind nostalgia when dlc was released. Thought that I'd just read books and quest but turned out endgame is my jam and it's what keeping me here still.

colossalvoids

Also crown store and eso+ making people to pass this game, those practices aren't even remotely fair for tes sp player, look at skyrim's "content store" even, it's a disaster.

Kendaric

For most TES fans it is too much like WoW or many other MMOs, with very little actual exploration and freedom. The extremely limited classes don't help and of course immersion in the game world, which is important to the TES games, is harder to achieve in the multiplayer environment.

While for most MMO players there's too much emphasis on story, too little grouping, etc.

Don't get me wrong, I like ESO for what it is but I'd never consider it to be a real TES game. Not without major changes to a variety of systems at least.

hakan

ADarklore wrote: »

hcbigdogdoghc wrote: »

It is clear that your average skyrim fan is the one and only audience ZOS is trying to attract at the moment. You can see this clearly by the direction the game's heading, braindead easy content with YA fanfic writing is pretty much 99% of what we get now.

And they are willing to sacrifice and screw over PVPers, endgame PVEers, etc to get that audience. Sure, ZOS might throw us a bone or 2 once a year or so, but casual skyrim fans are what the devs want.

But the general TES fanbase still pretends that ESO don't exist, just look at the elder scrolls subreddit (r/elderscrolls). Pretty much zero ESO coverage there.

ESO's not popular with the greater gaming population as well, having practically zero YouTube or twitch presence, etc.

What do you think ESO did wrong? ZOS tried so hard to get that audience.

Considering the huge success of ESO... I think their success comes BECAUSE they decided to focus on one group, which was already the majority of their player base. Rich says that ESO was a failure at launch, not just because of the myriad of problems, but also because the game lacked focus, lacked a true 'identity'. So with One Tamriel, they decided to focus on the players who wanted "Skyrim with friends" as that was the majority of players... and it has become extremely successful because of it.

ESO is an MMO and while sharing lore, is also quite different from traditional ES single player games. Many players don't have the time to invest in an long-lived multi-player game and as for PVP, ESO was never a PVP-focused game... as Matt Firor says, 'internally they consider ESO to be an online RPG with MMO elements'.

As for ESO not being popular with YouTube or Twitch... so what. ESO IS successful... and games that appeal to streamers tend to be very different from ESO. I've played FFXIV and have a love/hate relationship with the game... I loved the quests and storyline, but HATED being forced into group content. I believe that is why ESO is so successful with the player base it has... because they offer great storylines IMO and they can all be done solo. No stress, no drama, just playing the game at your own pace.

imo it succeeded because its mostly solo, has very little grind(yeah some parts of gear doesnt drop even after 50 dungeon/arena run) and your gear isnt really level based or hard to craft. all the progression is horizontal.

hakan

colossalvoids wrote: »

Also crown store and eso+ making people to pass this game, those practices aren't even remotely fair for tes sp player, look at skyrim's "content store" even, it's a disaster.

crown store is tame as *** here. you barely need anything except some dlcs. all the other mmos have so much worse crown store and subbing here actually gives you a lot more benefit and even enough currency that you can spend on anything.

SeaGtGruff

I disagree with the original assessment.

I think the main reason ESO doesn't appeal to many TES fans is primarily because "it's an MMO" (which I've actually heard TES streamers say), and secondarily because "it's not part of the main series" (which I somewhat disagree with).

Personally, I think the writing is very well done. I'm not specifically referring to the dialogue or story scenes, but to the overall storylines and the lore that they lay down. A lot of the complaints about the writing strike me as "Oh, great, just what we need, another strong female lead, how cliche," which I think is unwarranted. It seems to me that they put much love into the task of creating new lore within the boundaries set by Bethesda, as well as fleshing out existing lore.

Any real TES fan should be very eager to visit the many zones contained in ESO, explore provinces and cities which TES:Arena established but couldn't present adequately due to that game's design limitations-- by which I mean, for instance, the way that pretty much every province and city feels exactly like every other province and city save for a few graphical differences in the foliage and buildings-- and dig into the storylines featuring races that appeared in other games but weren't really explored.

But a lot of fans are convinced that ESO is "just an MMO, not a TES game." I, myself, avoided it for years because it's an MMO, although not for the second assumption-- I did think it was a TES game; I just wasn't interested in playing MMOs-- so I think I can understand where they're coming from, even though I now believe differently than I once did.

Klad

You know I was going to write a big response, but I just don't feel like dealing with the same 15 trolls that live on the forums today...

SilverBride

Kendaric wrote: »

...I like ESO for what it is but I'd never consider it to be a real TES game...

It's not a real TES game... it's based on TES games.

I don't think it would be possible to turn a single player game into a MMO without a lot of restructuring. I admit the only TES game I played before was Skyrim because I just prefer the social aspects of multiplayer games. But I loved Skyrim and was very happy to enter that world with others. I didn't expect it to play the same.

I think ESO has been very successful since One Tamriel and I love the flexibility it provides. If I want to fight mobs, I fight mobs. If I want to decorate my houses, I decorate. If I want to craft, I craft. There is something for all my moods and likes.

Orion_89

hcbigdogdoghc wrote: »

...YA fanfic writing...

This. I'm not against simple stories about simple people, but quests are simple more like: "Everything is bad, go save the world." Also there are more and more rl agenda, especially in Blackwood. I had to quit the game after completing the last chapter... *sigh*

colossalvoids

hakan wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

Also crown store and eso+ making people to pass this game, those practices aren't even remotely fair for tes sp player, look at skyrim's "content store" even, it's a disaster.

crown store is tame as *** here. you barely need anything except some dlcs. all the other mmos have so much worse crown store and subbing here actually gives you a lot more benefit and even enough currency that you can spend on anything.

It is when compared to other MMOs, but for single player peeps it's just abhorrence and keeping them away as you can still buy triple a games for a horse / dlc price.