What is the best expansion and why? What is your least favorite?

Veinblood1965

I am on PS4 so and do not have access to High Isle yet. Read a post asking whether players where happy with High Isle. Most of the post did have the common theme of it being lacking in content and smaller. That being said it made me wonder if the price that was being charged was worth it compared to other expansions.

So what was the last expansion that you thought was worth the price. What made you enjoy the zone more than others?

Mine was Summerset. That was the first time I had played ESO was on that release and loved it. I still enjoy going back that zone. The reasons are the Architecture and the layout of the zone, the quests, the scenery and the background music. It all helped immerse me in the fiction of the zone. Seriously the Architecture in the main cities is amazing, ZoS took a LOT of time designing those and getting them just perfect.

My least favorites are without a doubt North and South Elswyer especially despise the North zone. The zones are not easy to get around in due to wayshrine positioning, chasing dragons for meager rewards, extremely boring quests many of which are run here, talk to this guy, then run there and talk to that girl , and the main thing I hate those zones are the amount of houses that you cannot enter. They are just there for decoration and you cannot open the doors. I love exploring the older zones and coming across a house out in the middle of nowhere and checking out what is inside, it makes it feel more real.

Oh and Murkmire just plain sucked IMO. It was free so can't complain too much though. The wayshrine positioning in that zone just sticks worse than a four day old dead skeever. That one world boss in the north east part of the zone is just plain horrible to take down without 25,000 people.

danno8

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/577729/poll-what-is-the-best-expansion/p1

Here is a poll from last year.

Wrothgar (Orsinium) was not listed but is frequently noted as a favourite in the comments.

fred4

I guess I would have to say Imperial City, which is now free. I love the mixed PvP / PvE and the quest ... so long ago ... was good.

As I don't quest anymore and judge zones purely by their landscape and architecture, Summerset came to mind for being beautiful and Elsweyr for being distinctive. Funny that those are both your most and least favorite expansions. I agree getting around in Elsweyr can be a pain for the elevation differences, but that's also what makes it so distinctive. Interesting to hear the quests are boring.

I suppose as I've become an entirely functional player, I should mention Vvardenfell. All my characters are stationed in Vivec City for item deconstruction and crafting writs. Good for shopping too.

Another mention goes to Craglorn - was that once an expansion? - for being the PUG trial place and for the grinding areas of Skyreach and Spellscar.

Finally Wrothgar for having Maelstrom Arena.

You do, of course, get around scrying and such, but if the game was limited to the above, I would probably not notice the difference .

Browiseth

as far as the actual content and the context of its release, i would say morrowind is pretty garbage. in hindsight (and even for the time if you weren't sucked into the hype...) it's pretty clear it rode off of the very obvious TES: III nostalgia despite not really adding anything meaningful to the game. i mean, why else do you think it's included in the basegame nowadays? it's not worth the price of admission and it's a great way to encourage the elder scrolls fans to check out ESO.

i'm gonna have to say the best expansion is blackwood just for adding companions. this was something i had wanted for years in this game, and after years of suggesting it be added to the game and being shot down by the "iT's aN mMo pLaY WiTh oTHeR pLAyErS" crowd i must admit i felt some amount of satisfaction finally seeing my prayers be answered

summerset is also really great though. great zone, great quests and redefined a meta for stam dpses everywhere

emilyhyoyeon

I really like altmer and I love springtime aesthetics, so I feel like I should be biased here, but Summerset to me really just does not live up to the hype that it gets. The stories were fine. The zone is shockingly small. The cultural aspects added to the altmer were good, although regarding their artictecture specifically, I like the tall white castles aspect but I think the altmer architecture would've been conveyed better if it was slightly more fantasy-esque instead of Disney-esque. I think Summerset is good, but not the best, when compared to Elsweyr.

I think the worst though is Greymoor. Without writing a book I just think it overall was kind of uninspired. The vampire aspects were good, but should've been focused on more instead of Blackreach which I really don't think was necessary (and felt forced in there for nostalgia). That decision I understand but it's still disappointing.

The best one is Elsweyr by far. The main story wasn't too incredible but the side stories were good. The environment design is impeccable, IMO the devs blew this out of the water. The culture aspects like cosmetics, geography, and architecture of Elsweyr were portrayed so well and was really fitting of khajiit--it fleshed them out perfectly and made them feel richly real and believable.

Elsweyr does have a lot of locked doors but so do every chapter after that point so eh. Considering Summerset/Elsweyr were both zones done without something for the devs to look back on, I think they portrayed the khajiit and their culture much better than they did for the altmer. I'm really into TES for the lore and when they properly flesh out a culture, it makes me really happy.

VDoom1

Summerset!

I'm not saying the other expansions are bad, I enjoyed Elsweyr and the dragon story a great deal.

But Summerset, ahhhh....it feels like coming home. The zone is beautiful, it's not to large or to small. It's diverse and unique. The story is great as well as the characters. It's probably one of the zones I've spent the most time in, I also do all my crafting stuff there. There is just something about it, a very good expansion!

If anyone hasn't been there yet, I highly recommend it!

Least favorite....probably Greymoor or Blackwood. The zones look great, but the stories were not great.

It was so easy to figure out who the 4th ambition was in Deadlands. Felt like Deadlands had so much potential, but didn't hit the mark.

whitecrow

Summerset was beautiful and I loved the quests and the sense of continuity with previous expansions.

Elsweyr is my other favorite because Khajiit.

I don't really want to say a least favorite. I haven't been wowed by the last couple (not including High Isle which I haven't got yet) but I also think that after playing a game for so many years it is bound to lose its lustre.

Destai

Most Favored:
Summerset has seen the most attention from me over the years. Alinor is my main hub, I find me parking my characters there the most, next to Vivec. Maybe it's because I'm an Altmer at heart, but it's just a serene place to be

Vvardenfell is a close second place. Despite its challenging terrain, I rather enjoy the world-building there. I like how remote certain places feel - you can tell it's a zone from a different time in gaming. The side quests are some of the most memorable in the game.

Elsweyr is next in line for me, getting huge props for being a good hub and it's dynamic world design. The last truly great expansion, I thought the main story and side quests were all packed with loads of good lore.

Orisinium is gorgeous. Has great features - sweeping landscapes, well-written stories, and a cool arena. It has some of my favorite locales in the game, I love that climb up to Old Orisinium. My only complaint is it's not very useful as a hub.

Least Favored:
Greymoor is my least favorite. It came out during Covid, so it just harkens me back to shutdown. The release was the buggiest I've experienced in my time in this game. Over time I've come to appreciate it a little more - there's some cool delves and Blackreach was cool. Antiquities is a fun activity once you have it leveled, but it's not something I'd do on every toon. Markarth was a good conclusion and I think it had a much stronger narrative than Greymoor itself.

Blackwood isn't bad, but is my second least favorite. It's not bad, it just didn't wow me in the ways pre-Greymoor expansions did. Leyawiin is a cool hub though, and the delves are all pretty interesting. I liked going there on my nightblade and engaging in nefarious deeds. Other than that, feature wise, I just don't know what it has to offer me.

In general, I try to find fun things in each expansion. The game shines in world-building and side quests, so there's always something to explore.

EdmondDontes

Orsinium was the best expansion IMO. Summerset is really good too.

High Isle is by far the worst. It's just a scaled down, reskinned version of summerset. Card games and companions don't fit well with MMO's IMO and the time to dev them would have been much better spent on other things the game desperately needs, like bug fixes.

theendoftheriver

Summerset

Enemy-of-Coldharbour

Summerset was best for me. Blackwood would rank lowest for me despite the introductions of companions. It was just a bland zone.

Aardappelboom

Vvardenfell was one of my favorites but I have to say I recently played Greymoor and just started Markarth (and debuffed myself A LOT to get some more enjoyment out of the story) and I loved it to bits, the details in that zone are really astonishing.

Edit, I just wanted to say that while I get why summerset is a favorite, I didn't really dig the "beauty" it had, I enjoyed it a lot but it wasn't my favorite zone aesthetically, it looks a bit too dreamy for my taste.

Malthorne

Orsinium is the best. A beautiful zone. Varying landscapes. The main story was very well told and had good pacing. The side quests were very good to excellent as well, It really honed in on the orcs as a people, while exploring and adding to the many different aspects of their culture. It also added very interesting Dwemer lore over several different locations. Veteran Maelstrom Arena was 10/10 solo content.

Orsinium felt like it was a handcrafted piece of art that was the culmination of the many lessons the devs have learned since the games launch.

Greymoor is the worst. The main plot was terrible. Blackreach lost a lot of its mystique by allowing all these random people to know of its existence or even dwell in it. Blackreach should’ve remained a secret to everyone except the player and maybe a few extremely adventurous NPCs.

Galarthor

Summerset in terms of chapters - good story, amazing zone, interesting new skills, good pvp balance, classes still had identity

Imperial City in terms of expansions - loved the zone, the pvp, the risk of telvars ... until ZOS killed it

After Summerset it went downhill. Stories became duller, classes identity got watered down to the point where it basically doesn't exist anymore, and ZOS became incredible unimaginative (e.g. spending 2 chapters trying to capitalize on the Skyrim nostalgia). Elsweyr at least added necromancers - so at least there was that. High Isle is at least visually pleasing and the story somewhat interesting as it promises to continue the vanilla story.

Mesite

I've repeated more of Summerset than anything else. I liked Mirkmire and Northern Elsweyr but sort of lost interest in completing the content after Summerset. Haven't played High Isle yet, but not sure it's going to beat the past. I finished north and south Elsweyr, but can't really remember why I felt the need to kill those poor dragons.

Mesite

Forgot to mention the least favourite DLC...Thieves Guild. I felt like I had to get it just to open the Thieves Guild loot boxes.

FluffWit

Not gonna rate dungeon packs or Deadlands since I haven't quested there.

1. Thieves Guild
2 Orsinium
3 Elsweyr
4 Morrowind
5 Imperial City
6 Clockwork City
7 Dark Brotherhood
8 Craglorn
9 Summerset
10 Murkmire
11 Blackwood

1-9 were all decent. Murkmires not without its charms but its characters were horrendous.

Blackwood is just awful in terms of story, characters and new features. Environment wise what's there is nice but the zone feels half finished.

DarcyMardin

Summerset. The most beautiful zone in the game for me. Decent story, too.

After Summerset, I’d list Orsinium, Morrowind, and Elsweyr. Everything else gets a much lower score from me.

AzuraFan

Morrowind. It made me give ESO a try. I was curious to see how it compared to the original single-player game. I loved it, and I stayed.

After Morrowind, Summerset. I've actually enjoyed all the major chapters: Elseweyr, Greymoor, Wrothgar, Blackwood. High Isle is the first time I've felt like I'm playing a DLC, rather than a full-blown chapter. Still enjoying it, but the price needed to shrink along with the content.

xaraan

Probably Elsweyr was my favorite since it gave me a zone I love. New character slots and new class to level, which gave me more to do and gave me something to experience the zone differently with than my vet characters. Gave me a great home to build up over the year. And the DLC zone later was great.

Morrowind and Orsinium were both solid as well.

But my least favorite has probably been Blackwood, although High Isle is a close second so far.

Both of these chapters gave me features I don't use (yes, I realize some people like these things, but that doesn't do me any good). This locks achievements, rewards, sometimes furnishings and such, behind activities I don't enjoy doing that take a considerable amount of time. -- Those activities are Companion system and Tales of Tribute.

So instead of getting something that gave me a ton of playtime and enjoyment like leveling new classes/characters or even just new skill lines for existing characters, I got those. So right away that's the big main feature of a chapter that offers me little value compared to others.

Then we go into the chapter themselves and at least High Isle has a more enjoyable zone and better storyline. Blackwood had a boring story rehash with a new skin on it essentially. The DLC zone was bleh (I'm not fan of deadric realms past a quick questing visit, don't like to hang there so it's not a zone I have interest in going to unless I have to). And the Blackwood zone itself was a huge letdown. (Especially as a player that loves argonians). The new side island on High Isle feels more jungle-y in some regards than the swampy area of Blackwood (or even Murkmire). The land areas in this game just are not dense enough and that becomes very apparent in areas that are supposed to be very wild still.

No home offered in High Isle after doing quest, so another feature I'm missing out on in this chapter (first chapter to not have a house we could buy with gold since housing came out). But I still like the zone itself more than Blackwood.

High Isle was a little nicer zone wise and story wise compared to Blackwood despite the few things that let me down this chapter, so Blackwood gets the nod as worst for me.

Necrotech_Master

im not sure about my "favorite" zones since i like the variety, but there are 2 which i generally disliked

murkmire: i like the story but this zone has some of the most awful wayshrine placement known to the land of tamriel, there is almost nothing near any of the wayshrines in this zone outside of the one in the main town

blackwood: the zone looks neat and i like the "silent hills"-esque bell tolling in leyawiin, but i was not a big fan of the storyline, it actually made me hate eveli, and while i like companions, it started this ridiculous trend of having to run EVERY toon through companion unlocks instead of them being actually an acct unlock

Destai

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

im not sure about my "favorite" zones since i like the variety, but there are 2 which i generally disliked

murkmire: i like the story but this zone has some of the most awful wayshrine placement known to the land of tamriel, there is almost nothing near any of the wayshrines in this zone outside of the one in the main town

blackwood: the zone looks neat and i like the "silent hills"-esque bell tolling in leyawiin, but i was not a big fan of the storyline, it actually made me hate eveli, and while i like companions, it started this ridiculous trend of having to run EVERY toon through companion unlocks instead of them being actually an acct unlock

Murkmire is fun, I didn't find the wayshrines that, but the skyshards were oddly placed - especially the waterfall one. I especially enjoyed the music of that zone, super chill.

I had the hots for Eveli until that expansion.

karekiz

If I would have to say one it would be Morrowind.

The least would be Greymoor. Companions are just terrible, and well that was that. Mythics I ultimately hate as they are typically sold power creep with annoying ways to obtain.

I have not bothered to buy High Isle as I see it as Greymoor 2.0. I didn't like greymoor, why would I buy another version of it?

wolfie1.0.

Morrowind and summerset are the only 2 chapters that I have completed the mainstream on..

AcadianPaladin

Best: Murkmire because of the wonderful and deep characters.

Worst: Morrowind because of the pompous Dunmer. Why would my elf possibly want to help such a bunch of disgusting and hateful low lifes?

Jaimeh

CWC->Summerset was my favourite arc. The story was great: on the one hand we had daedric princes working together and conspiring to bring down Sotha Sil inside his mysterious CWC, and then unleash horrors on the idyllic Summerset isle, and on the other hand, we had a very humane and heartbreaking story between Valsirenn and her husband, all that amidst political intrigue, the fantastical psijic order, the threat of the sloads, and with nods to the original main quest and mannimarco. It was awesome story-telling, we got to visit amazing places, all the zones involved (cwc, summerset and artaeum) were beautifully designed, and I think oberall it was the apex of a release quality-wise. Plus, that year we got the game-changing jewellery crafting, and the Cloudrest and Asylum Sanctorium trials.

eovogtb16_ESO

Any one that comes with a new trial. High Isle my fav so far DSR is pretty fun. I really really disliked Kynes Ages and after a few Dawnbringers never going back in there again, so skyrim is probably my least favourite even though harrowstorms and the open world were really well done. Then again I like pretty much everything about the game other than the whack combat changes. And stuff like leads, because they just ignore the community it feels.

Vaoh

Honestly they were launched in the order I’d rate them. Best to worst:

1. Morrowind
Beautiful and nostalgic. Massive zone. New class and PvP content (BGs). Imo this is the gold standard for a “Chapter” and I do not expect ZOS to always produce such quality content.

2. Summerset
A smaller chapter than Morrowind but with an absolutely beautiful zone. Psijic skill line and Jewelrycrafting. I liked everything about Summerset.

3. Elsweyr
Awesome chapter which is essentially a slightly worse version of Morrowind. Really cool zone and new class. This is the quality I hope ZOS is able to replicate for each chapter.

4. Greymoor
The first time a chapter seemed kin of “meh”. New system includes no combat changes (Antiquities). Still a great zone and good overall.

5. Blackwood
Disappointment. Another year without new combat features (Companions). The zone is not interesting this time and is halfway a murkmire recreation. Only good thing in this chapter was the new trial.

High Isle
I’m a console player so I can’t rate it yet. The fact we are going another year without new combat skills/classes/etc is a huge issue. The card game is something no one asked for (not a bad thing!) and will therefore receive huge backlash since once again, we’re now at 3 years without new combat stuff. Hoping I like the zone though.

grapedog

For me personally, Morrowind would be 1 and Elsweyr 2, if they didn't suffer from annoying geography.

Wrothgar gets my #1 because its geography isnt too annoying.

Otherwise all 3 were very fun. Good stories, decent overland gear, cool looking zones.

grapedog

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

Worst: Summerset because of the pompous Altmer. Why would my elf possibly want to help such a bunch of disgusting and hateful low lifes?

Fixed it for you...

joerginger

Orsinium is tis the best expansion because it's the one that predates the renaming of proper DLCs to calling them a "chapter" and thus lacks the now completely formulaic structure we see in all chapters.

If we're talking about the chapters only, I think Summerset is the best because it's beautiful and the story wasn't bad. It's also the last story thast doesn't suffer from the awful "year-long story" which turns the big expensive chapter into a tiny prologue to the tiny end-of-year DLC that is now the grand finale of the story.

The worst is Greymoor. That is, unless the writing in High Isle is even worse. (So far I haven't had enough time to really start its main quest.)