Has ESO spoiled us?

VaranisArano

Mumbles_the_Tank wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

ESO provides quantity, the single player games provide quality.

Bethesda made their name on Swiss cheese hole riddled systems that they simply leave untouched forever and let the playerbase fix it themselves.

Funny definition of quality.

In terms of quality of story, lore, and regionality?

Yeah, the singleplayer games have a ton more depth and detail than ESO. That's what happens when you get to sink a full game's budget into one region as opposed to a quarterly release schedule. ESO has breadth going for it compared to the singleplayer games, not depth. And I say that as a fan of the singleplayer games.

Of course, to be fair to your interpretation, I've never seen an ESO bug quite as amusing as being yeeted into the sky by a giant or flying mammoths. The Crown Store transformation bugs maybe come close.

coop500

After going back to playing Oblivion, I'll have to respectfully disagree with the OP.
If anything ESO made us forget the magic of the single player games, by using flashy graphics and skills to 'wow' us.

jlmurra2

As I have been playing ESO over the years I have also been playing single player games concurrently. I find my activities during ESO game play are very different than my single player game play.

When playing ESO it is true there is so much to do, yet so much of the content is repeatable tasks on timers, and things I have to get on a schedule for. I have little time remaining to play the storyline, due to having many tasks I must complete so I don't miss out on cool stuff. So yes, far less immersion, I mean I cannot get lost in it, I would forget the timers.

The more I think about it the more I feel that I am managing an eso account, and my characters rather than "playing". Honestly though I have, and still do enjoy ESO, I feel that it will be the last MMO I will play.

Franchise408

jlmurra2 wrote: »

As I have been playing ESO over the years I have also been playing single player games concurrently. I find my activities during ESO game play are very different than my single player game play.

When playing ESO it is true there is so much to do, yet so much of the content is repeatable tasks on timers, and things I have to get on a schedule for. I have little time remaining to play the storyline, due to having many tasks I must complete so I don't miss out on cool stuff. So yes, far less immersion, I mean I cannot get lost in it, I would forget the timers.

The more I think about it the more I feel that I am managing an eso account, and my characters rather than "playing". Honestly though I have, and still do enjoy ESO, I feel that it will be the last MMO I will play.

I only play it because it is TES. If it were any other IP, I wouldn't play it. And even then, like I said in my previous post, it doesn't even capture any of the things I like about the mainline TES titles, so I don't even get a TES experience when I'm playing ESO.

I've had to completely revamp my expectations of what I'm looking for to allow myself to get into ESO. It's worked, because I've been playing ESO consistently for a couple years now, but I agree with you that MMO's become too much of a schedule and chores, rather than just being able to get lost in the game. My first experiences with MMO's was EverQuest and Star Wars Galaxies - my 2 favorite all time MMO's, the latter being my all time favorite - and the genre nowadays just isn't the same. Despite having large, open worlds, there's less immersion now as all the content is focused on tasks designed just to get you to log in. I saw something once from Raph Koster that said (paraphrasing) that games used to be designed around all the cool things you could do. Now, games (MMO's specifically) are designed around limiting player behavior and what you can't do.

ealdwin

ESO hasn't even given us a simple fireball spell. We're far from being spoiled.

EdmondDontes

No.

The customers have spoiled Zenimax.

People keep spending money on the product even when it's less than fully functional. The PvP side of the game, which was supposed to be the main selling point if you look at the box and game description, has been plagued by performance issues for years now.

moo_2021

Rampeal wrote: »

I love ESO. I dare say I love it more than the other single player titles. That being said I think that it has spoiled us. I mean besides the story of ES6 when it comes out I really don't see the point of investing as much time in it as ESO.

I mean the ability to instant mount, and not only that, but mount a unique and visually stunning mount. The vast amount of armor sets and weapons. The Many unique zone. Not to mention the classes and each having a unique feel to them.

I could go on, but you get my point. It just seems for (myself anyways ) that there really is nothing to really look forward to in ES6. And that bums me out.

You could compare it with non ES games:

AC allows me to climbing everywhere. I once fought off high level enemies by luring them to roof and kicking them off... Great graphics too.

Witcher has better quests and scenes. Many of them are unique and you wouldn't feel like "oh yet another X type delve I visited yesterday"

Dragon's Dogma has real companions that you can equip and train for the same gears and skills you have, and you can rent companions from other players.


I think the only advantage is combat... really complicated and deep in ESO compared to single player games.

Saxhleel

Let me just say it here: I prefer Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim over ESO, but in a different way. Same how Skyrim is a good game, but compared to Morrowind or Oblivion it is incredibly lacking and just bland. I like ESO, but all the feeling of it being a TES game just flies away once you see another player with their flashy probably lore breaking iron atronach frost Dwemer horse-indrik mount, or open the crown store. I like ESO, but the online part of it makes me feel it isn't a TES game. I like ESO best when I am in an unpopulated zone, no one is in chat, and it is just me and the game. I like ESO as an MMORPG, but really only the lore I like as a TES game, and only main things.

Even with the depth of the world and some of the lore. Cyrodiil is just there as a PvP arena, not as a lush temperate province with lots of history and culture like it is in Oblivion. Things are sacrificed for the Online part. I like the "one of many" feel in the main questline, but it makes no sense when the main questline is literally solo. Respawning NPCs after someone goes on a killing spree is another one. Actual story zones are the best DLC in my opinion, not dungeons. It adds to otherwise unheard of lore.

(Summerset lore is still meh for me however. I expected it to be as deep as Morrowind's.)

Shantu

Spoiled us? Probably not ESO, per se, but the people behind it have certainly spoiled my enthusiasm.

Soul_Soliloquy

Cirantille wrote: »

I will play anything TES related, I don't care

^^^ This 100%!

Celephantsylvius_Bornasfinmo

I don't think we can compare the online universe to the solo rpg universe.
Eso has it's qualities because it's an MMO and you share it with others.
Skyrim and other Bethesda RPG's have their qualities because it's an individual experience.

What I really hope won't happen is that they bring the cash shop elements to a solo rpg game, that would be kind of frustrating, right?

I truly hope they will make something for the fans who have supported the games for decades now and not make a cash generating machine.

Destai

I have my complaints, but I can say comparatively - yes. I've been playing Destiny 2 and Guild Wars 2 here and there. I've been reminded that many of my complaints - sales pop ups, repetitive and annoying dialogue - are so much better in ESO than some other games. I even downloaded Bless on PS5 and wow, again, ESO just shines as THE console MMO. There is so much content in this game and the experience is quieter relative to many other console MMOs. Gaming's an expensive hobby and I think ESO has done a good job of making sure you can afford it.

Rampeal

I don't know. As for myself it just seems that ESO does everything better than the Singleplayer games.

Classes and spells are better. The combat feels

Youyouz06 wrote: »

I don't think we can compare the online universe to the solo rpg universe.
Eso has it's qualities because it's an MMO and you share it with others.
Skyrim and other Bethesda RPG's have their qualities because it's an individual experience.

What I really hope won't happen is that they bring the cash shop elements to a solo rpg game, that would be kind of frustrating, right?

I truly hope they will make something for the fans who have supported the games for decades now and not make a cash generating machine.

They already did with the Creation Club for Skyrim and Fallout 4. Not to mention the DLCs that give you as much content as ESO offers.

Kiralyn2000

Or, to put it a different way - I play MMOs and single player games differently & for different reasons, and I expect different things from them. Nothing about ESO would keep me from playing single-player TES games.

Supreme_Atromancer

I love ESO, don't get me wrong OP but I will say that if ESVI manages to maintain aesthetic integrity does away with a thousand shiny glowy explosion reskins and has a class system that has anything at all to do with Elder Scrolls, it will be very VERY refreshing.

What IV will have a hard time doing though is the scope and such long-lived relevance. ESO has that in buckets!

SimonThesis

Try going into pvp or vet trials.

In pvp skills take 5 tries to go off, you're constantly crashing, you have 10+ debuffs stuck on your character screen, you're stuck in combat so you can't mount up even at the gate, the new sets are overpowered and are causing massive position desyncs and rollbacks, people are using Dark convergence to pull people off of and thru walls, etc. Then no acknowledgement by the company that any of this happening.

I wouldn't exactly say we're spoiled.

Supreme_Atromancer

Saxhleel wrote: »

I like ESO, but all the feeling of it being a TES game just flies away once you see another player with their flashy probably lore breaking iron atronach frost Dwemer horse-indrik mount, or open the crown store.

Um Riverwood iron atronach frost Dwemer horse-indrik mount, tyvm. Totally lore friendly!

But seriously - this highlights for me the attitude ZOS has towards control of in-world aesthetic. There's no genuine care or feel for the lore. They aren't making this for people who care about Elder Scrolls, they are designed for the typical MMO goer- being as shiny and attention-grabbing and ego-asserting as absolutely possible. I think if I see another promotional image of a dopey looking hero standing with pelvis thrust out and arms out like they are trying to hump the air, I'm going to throw up. At best you get the lip service of a random lore name slapped on to something. Have the designers ever even been into a dwemer ruin in one of the SPTs? Dwemer constructs aren't reskinned base-game fauna - you can't just put a mechanical skin over a wolf and a horse and a senche and call that authentic. They are abstracted and alien, obviously designed for function, with form only somewhat resembling the creatures they are named after. But the marketing eye is blind to nuance and sees only what can be rehashed and resold.

The class/power fantasy system feels like its essentially the plaything of mechanics-minded end-gamers, tbh, and is not designed for Elder Scrolls people. Its been pointed out that Sorcerers are one of the most played classes in the game and of course all the discussion is around mechanics and ease of play but what a revelation it actually turns out that many Elder Scrolls people just want to play a freaking Wizard, and Sorcerer is one of the only classes that actually gets anywhere close to mapping to something you might play in the franchise the game is meant to be based on. Want to play a Nord Barbarian who, as the lore tells us, eschews magic and overcomes her challenges with brawn? Uh.. well there's something called stamsorcs who use stamina to fuel personal hurricanes and summon storm atronachs... or you could um do a "stamplar" and create spears of light presumably with the power of your metabolism... I'm sure that you can ignore any magicka-based skills and be totally viable and useful in any sort of content, right? And who was the Warden created for, after all? I mean, they certainly hit all the mechanics checkboxes - an interesting amalgam of stuff that allow them to fill the trad MMO roles (within an extraordinarily narrow definition of each), but they're thematically completely borked. If I don't want to ignore a third of their essential toolset for literally any role for any content, I'm.. what? a frost-wielding, mushroom-spraying, cliff-racer-shooting mofo that doesn't really resemble anything from the mythology, and even if I WANTED to make a classic ranger, druid or ice mage I'd have to nerf myself to do so. There's just simply no effort in making these feel like characters that fit an Elder Scrolls power fantasy because the demands of the mechanics-minded community was so loud to them they just... literally gave up trying.