Is ESO in maintenance mode now?

ArchangelIsraphel

No

No. I'm sorry, but this is not what a game in maintenance mode looks like. Although I deeply dislike the direction the devs are headed, this game is far from being in maintenance mode.

I've played games in maintenance mode, and believe me, maintenance mode feels more like "life support" mode, as if any day they'll just take the servers down and give up. ESO most certainly does not feel that way.

ESO has many years of life ahead of it, and if the devs learn from their mistakes this year, I can see the longevity of ESO lasting far beyond any MMO currently on the market.

I say that as someone who has been very much against MANY of the dev decisions this year. This game is not in maintenance mode.

ghastley

Other

Yes, in the sense that it has reached adult stature, and is working on keeping fit. No, in the sense that development of new things is still continuing.

Nothing can grow at the same rate for ever, so the “new and shiny” aspect will always be a smaller proportion as the base you’re comparing against expands.

Maintenance is fixing things as they crop up, so ESO is in the same state of that as it always has been, just a bit short of what we’d like. The relevant point is that’s not new. Some stuff never does get “fixed”.

The amount of unreleased territory is shrinking fast. It is all adjacent to known areas, so we sort of know what to expect. We are getting harder to surprise, if that’s what we want from new content.

FelisCatus

opalcity wrote: »

I am not a fan of polls with an agenda or obvious bias.

This feels like just another 'eso is dying' thread with a different skin and some 'it's all console's fault' sprinkled in.

None of the poll answers are biased and I did not ask a loaded question. I gave my opinion and gave others the ability to tell me theirs via a poll and also a comment.

chessalavakia_ESO

Other

preevious wrote: »

Well, this is not an "is ESO in maintenance poll".

It's a PvP issue thread in disguise.

The problem with PvP is that there's only so much method it can be implemented and ways people can wack each others .

What new content could possibly be made?

Another zone? Well, have fun doing the exact same thing you do in Cyrodiil in a new setting. Also, you divide the population by 2, if you split it in 2 zones.

Other battlegrounds? Ok, but what rules? (not too compicated/unplayable, please)

New class? Absolutely uninterresting, there's variety enough. Also, everyone would complain it's "op", and every thread of the forum would devolve in "now, it's elder grapplers online" and other jokes we heard a million times and that wren't even funny the first.

New weapon skill line? Same as a new class, but even less interresting. Also, 9 traits crafters could take exception to that.

Seriously, appart from "fix bugs" or "buff me" or "nerf him" ... what new content could possibly made in PvP?

Disclaimer: I'm not a fan of the current PvP design and my thoughts on PvP likely do not agree with the majority that play it.

PvP doesn't really have medium to large scale instanced combat and is generally focused on three sided conflicts.

Theoretically speaking, one might be able to re-use assets from Cyrodiil to create instanced content that had both PvE and PvP options where you siege or defend a location in a two sided fashion.

I'm unsure if the interest would actually be high enough for it to be worth putting in the development time for something like that. You'd likely need to have limited availability on at least the PvP portion to ensure the player count is high enough.

You would also likely need to limit the size of groups that could queue together to avoid a ball group queing together and stomping people into quitting the mode.

Personally, I think the existing classes aren't really great for more mundane characters and the more magical ones can end up feeling less like a master of the arcane and more someone that just happens to innately be good at x type of magic.

You are absolutely right people would complain but, that is kind of par for the course.

I'd also like to see more weapon skill lines.

You are probably right that some people that craft would not be interested in needing to research another weapon. But, for others it'd be something new to make.

However, you'd have the hassle of making over 100 versions of the new item as you'd need one for every motif.

SaffronCitrusflower

Yes

When was the last time they did something to fix any of the issues in PvP? 3 years ago? 5 years ago?

It seems like, at least when it comes to PvP, they aren't even reaching the level of maintenance mode.

And the two selling points for High Isle was a card game and two companions. Compare that to Wrothgar, Summerset or Morrowind.

There is most definitely an undeniable trend going on here.

WinterHeart626

SizanLopkniht wrote: »

When was the last time they did something to fix any of the issues in PvP? 3 years ago? 5 years ago?

It seems like, at least when it comes to PvP, they aren't even reaching the level of maintenance mode.

And the two selling points for High Isle was a card game and two companions. Compare that to Wrothgar, Summerset or Morrowind.

There is most definitely an undeniable trend going on here.

You forgot the OakenSoul Ring.
That was probably one of the bigger selling points.

AzuraFan

No

I know it might feel like it's in maintenance mode because the yearly content formula feels stale, but they're still releasing new content and QoL enhancements.

To me, maintenance mode means they're fixing bugs and keeping the game running, but there's no new content.

Chadak

Other

No. This game is still very much in active development, and to say otherwise would be blatantly lying.

There's a big difference between maintenance mode and bad but active development. We've got a lot of development that keeps coming down the pipe, and rather a lot of it is pretty ok as far as I'm concerned.

I vehemently and passionately disagree with the overall philosophy demonstrated by the developers when it comes to class/power structure and design, but they're still very active in doing a lot of things I dislike in that regard.

I'm a big fan of the writing/story production side, however. I loved/still love the antiquities system, I've always appreciated the museum collections and while I will never, ever in a million years spend any amount of time playing the new card game, I think it's great that we've got that for people that aren't me to enjoy as well.

Not everything is for me, and I'm perfectly free to dislike things even if they might be objectively fine.

Update 35 for example. I'm not thrilled with it at all. I don't like how playing any of my characters feels here in U35 because everything feels just plain suckier than it did before.

Is it objectively a terribad update? Just leaning on my own opinions, I'd say no; I was able to adapt, but I'm quite tired of having to adapt like I'm some kind of animal on the highway that's going to get run over by something horrific if I don't get out of the way fast enough.

In the entire time I've played this game, which has been for about 5 years now, ZOS has demonstrated a consistent pattern of scorched earth development policies when it comes to game mechanics. It often leaves me feeling like every major update is going to be a new adventure in classes/skills being dramatically changed just to change things I guess.

I'm beyond exhausted with it. I long ago gave up doing anything so involved as gear farming because that kind of treadmill just doesn't interest me when I have to keep doing it over and over and over again two to four times a year.

I'll stick with my crafted gear and my vast array of monster sets, arena weapons and assorted mythics to deal with whatever the new update utterly trashes that was fun while it lasted.

Every update invariably winds up feeling like something to dread, hands down, 100%. I don't look forward to major updates. I find out we've got a major update coming and my first thought is 'What are they going to wreck now?' and I have never yet been left feeling like maybe I was being pessimistic. No. No sir, I have instead been proven every single time to have been completely justified in that knee-jerk instinct.

That's strictly in regard to the class/skill/gear issues though. When it comes to zones, questlines and the extra systems that keep getting added with new expansions, I've got two thumbs up for ZOS and very little criticism that I consider worth leaning into at all.

I've got nothing but criticism for the mechanics side of things though. God save us all but I feel like this is a game being mechanically designed by a room full of angry monkeys that agree on only one thing; the players must suffer. Fun is the enemy and if the game mechanics are being actively enjoyed by anyone at all, this is to be regarded as a total failure and the whole thing must be scrapped and redesigned from the ground up to prevent this.

That's how I wind up feeling anyway.

Andromea

No

Hello,

And clearly No.

People say there's stagnation and no "wow" effect. Well, it depends. The Tales of the Tribute for instance is a way better card game than I expected, the companions on the other hand I could do without. But it's a personal preference and not that there is nothing new in the game besides a new story and a new zone. FFXIV that was mentioned is far more repetitive for my taste. And then there is was this game Rift that I loved for different reasons... just have a look if you want to see a maintenance mode.

So maybe slowing down a bit ? But maintenance mode, not yet at least.

opalcity

No

FelisCatus wrote: »

opalcity wrote: »

I am not a fan of polls with an agenda or obvious bias.

This feels like just another 'eso is dying' thread with a different skin and some 'it's all console's fault' sprinkled in.

None of the poll answers are biased and I did not ask a loaded question. I gave my opinion and gave others the ability to tell me theirs via a poll and also a comment.

I didn't say the poll answers were biased, you asked the question "Is ESO in maintenance mode now?" and then the following two paragraphs were you saying Yes, it is, before asking what other people thought. There's your obvious bias.

If you wanted to ask a genuine question, you could have simply asked "Is ESO in maintenance mode now?" and then given a short explanation of what maintenance mode is.

I hope the yes votes give you the validation you were looking for.

Dracane

Yes

NoxiousBlight wrote: »

For example, in the latest stream, one of the "features" they showed us was the ability to purchase new animations. I mean, come on now. In most MMOs that would be a few short sentences in the patch notes and people would love it. But in ESO they have so little to show us that they have highlight in the ESO live. And putting markers over mobs? Okay cool, but that is an MMO 1.0 feature. This isn't the hype up feature that they think it is.

I had to log in for this, as I too have rendered this opinion. I wondered if someone else did.
It amuses me how Zenimax blows every tiny thing up as though it was the big highlight. It is both sad and petty.
Something insignificant comes; we need an article or a stream where they celebrate themselves for it.

Mainteinance mode; absolute maintenance mode.

PurpleScroll

No

FelisCatus wrote: »

We've been witnessing a decline and degradation in the quality of ESO chapter's I'd say since Summerset-Elsweyr

I don't agree. While Greymoor was not that good in my opinion, it was when the pandemic started, so I can understand the problems ZoS went through for that one. However, I really enjoyed Blackwood, and I enjoyed High Isle even more. I do not think they're declining or degrading at all.

Dracane

Yes

kind_hero wrote: »

The covid excuse doesn't hold much, look what other great games were developed in the past few years. It's not about we like the content or not. It is easy to compare with other years and see a drop in meaningful content. For example, I was excited for a Breton expansion, my main char and alt are Bretons, I started with Daggerfall (TES 2), but I did not find this chapter particularly exciting or memorable, compared to Markarth for example (the Greymoor chapter had a weak story, but the Q4 DLC compensated for it in many ways, including an arena).

But of course would they extract every slightest reason to excuse their hidden maintenance mode.
To what you said I wish to add, that all these studios are significantly smaller and with less funding than Zenimax Entertainment Studios and oh wonder: they do not whine and instead pushed through and flourished thanks to the growing number of players.

You can achieve everything with your game, if only you would want to achieve anything.
I fail to see the deal with threads like this, regardless. Obviously ESO is just intended to be a franchise machine until which time TES 6 comes out. That was the plan from the very beginning. If you want to know how much longer it will continue, look no further than the release of TES 6.

Living_Tribunal

Content is great. Op must be playing a different game

Remathilis

No

We don't get Major Updates because there isn't many places left for that kind of extension. We have the 10 common races and ZoS doesn't seem interested in having maomer or dremora players (excluding skins and polymorphs), any weapon skill line would mean farming 100s of sets and motifs again, not even factoring all the cosmetics from the crown store or events. And ZoS can't seem to get the six classes they have balanced, why do we want them to add a seventh? Couple on that there is nothing left to craft and new traits would lead to a crafter revolt, about all the got left is subsystems that don't upset the current structure. That's why they are adding more visual fluff and mini games.

I get it doesn't feel as impactful to have a card game or diggy-hole compared to necros or jewelry crafting, but I don't think they can make many more major additions like that. Then again, who knows?

JamuThatsWho

No

No. Maintenance mode would imply that there's no new content being actively developed and released.

barney2525

Other

This is nonsense.

Since when are there parameters like - Every New Chapter Must have a Greater WOW Factor - to ME Personally - Or Else It Sux.

How arrogant and spoiled have we gotten ?

ZOS_Volpe

Hi there,

As there is another thread on this topic and a forum manager has responded in that thread, we're going to close this thread down. If you would like to continue this discussion, you can do so here.

Thank you for your understanding.