Current ESO from a veteran player perspective

BrentBlemish

The current state of ESO from the perspective of someone whose been playing for over 6+ years that spans across PlayStation 4 to PC with collectively around 300+ days of playtime.
Here we go...

In the post I'll touch on many aspects of the game from what it used to be to what it is now. From what drew me into the game to what is making it difficult for me to want to log in each day. I've gone back and forth about making this post because I know it will touch on many highly debated features and maybe even alienate certain players. Also this is not a "im quitting" post. More or less just how I feel and what I would like to see change from the perspective of my experience.

First I'd like to talk about the type of player I am and what I enjoy doing the most. I am an end game player who does parse for over 100k. I have been for a while. Although I do trials from time to time, they arent my favorite activities in the game. I do them for the gear I need and once I've done that I'm finished. My true enjoyment comes from 4 man content and solo content. I do a lot of vet dungeons and achievements. I enjoy learning to do vet 4 man quickly so when new motifs drop I can farm them up to make plenty of gold. I also do crafting and I enjoy a bit of PvP with earning emperor numerous amounts of time.

I get a lot of enjoyment on finding new ways to progress my character in meaningful ways. In 4 man content, solo and PvP. Progression and farming has always been something that has kept me coming back to ESO.

Lets talk about one of the first major changes in ESO during my time of playing... Maelstrom and Master weapons only dropping from vet.
This is something to this day I wish was never changed. I understand the need to make something more accessible. But back then if you were someone with maelstrom or master weapons it meant something. It was a journey and a strong sense of accomplishment. I remember when I got my first maelstrom bow. I remember when I got a maelstrom dagger and axe dual wield drop. These are some of my favorite moments in ESO. Long before the "sticker book" and "curated drops". The overwhelming sense of achievement and satisfaction. Knowing you are now part of a smaller % of players to have such items was so rewarding. Then when the change was made and none of the maelstrom or master weapon I acquired werent even grandfathered into perfected version even though they dropped from vet. Now everyone was walking into normal maelstrom and dragonstar and getting the same items I spent so much time and energy working to get. I felt like my sense of accomplishment was stripped from me.

Now lets talk about the "Sticker Book"...
Another feature people enjoy but I also feel like is damaging to the longevity of the game. Back before this feature, drops felt so much more meaningful. It was painful to spend so much time not getting what you wanted but then when it did... oh man did that feel good. Another sense of accomplishment. But what has the sticker book done for the game in terms or replayability and longevity? It also means people are spending less time in content. once your sticker book is full, why go back and farm for more? The Sticker book has also had major damaging impacts to value of items in overland... Mothers sorrow and Briarheart are now a dime a dozen. There is little reason to farm overland sets for value. The sticker book has stripped that value away in every possible way. Which is one less thing to enjoy doing. Does anyone remember the large groups running together to farm 3 world bosses for spriggans weapons? Those days are long gone.

Which leads us to curated drops...
Another way that item drops are now less exciting. Its taken the fun out of farming and grinding for that "WOW, YES!" moment. It's completely gone. I dont get excited about loot drops anymore. Because I know what I want is coming. Now you have people picking every item up from a set except for the most desired one to sell its guaranteed drop to someone. It's just that easy.

One of the things that has kept me playing for sooo long has been the item hunt. Grinding out dungeons, arenas and overland for what I need and getting excited for when it finally drops. I have no reason to farm anything anymore. It's all in my collection and as cheap as 25 transmute to reconstruct in any trait I want. And with 10 transmute per random dungeon per character, its a cake walk to reconstruct. The whole sense of accomplishment and excitement has been completely stripped away. I get some people dont like farming, but you have to remember what kind of game you are playing, this is an MMO RPG with loot. loot hunting is a core staple of that experience and something that adds incredible longevity to your play time.

Speaking of rewards and accomplishments, lets talk about skins and personalities...
I remember when a new dungeon DLC would drop, we would have to work hard to get several achievements to earn skins and personalities. A carrot at the end of the stick. Something for you to work towards. What has happened to that? Well... The Crown store happened. They stopped releasing them in 4 man content and now almost all skins and personalities are behind a pay wall. That sucks man. That really, really sucks. The rewards from all the new dungeon DLCs are so lack luster. Another carrot you've taken away from players to work towards earning something cool. One could argue that the trial mounts still hold that value, and that is true, but we are talking about a very less then 1% of player base to earn this.

And lets talk about ZOS completely predictable release pattern of content that has become incredibly stale...
Every year before they even do a stream to reveal what we have in store for us this year, I cant already tell you what we are going to get. It hasnt changed since Morrowind. 1st a DLC dungeon with 6 new sets and 2 new monster sets. Then a Chapter with a new zone with 3 new overland sets, 3 new crafted sets, new trial sets and some new "system". then another dungeon DLC with 6 more new sets and 2 more monster sets and then a smaller zone DLC with a smaller system, 3 more new overland sets and 3 new crafted sets and sprinkled in between all these are some new PvP sets that people complain about because it ALWAYS finds a way to break PvP. This has been the formula for years now. It hasnt changed at all...

Lets talk about the over saturation of sets in this game...
If your still reading then you know how I just pointed out how many new sets we get each year. Its actually absurd how many sets exist in this game and just how many of them are completely useless. Meta will always Meta. Im not sure why ZOS feels like new content always has to mean "MORE SETS!". At this point the sets we get are just remakes of other sets but for their magika or stamina counter parts. So speaking of magika and stamina....

Lets talk about hybridization...
This is something I'll never stand behind. Everything scaling off of everything makes builds and class identity feels almost irrelevant. I miss before when I had to put thought into how I built a character. what abilities I used, how they were scaling off of what. Now none of that matters. You have Spell/magic damage characters using dual wield daggers and you have stamina based characters using destruction staves. There really is no identity anymore. And because of this every ability in the game now needs to follow all these damage rule sets and everything feels the same. Everything needs to be on an even playing field. The personality, flair, uniqueness of class, weapon, skill identity is going out the window. I'm sure some people will disagree, and thats fine, but this is some level of truth in this. even if you dont agree with all of it. And you have to realize the direction ZOS is taking this...

Even now with all the celebration events and holiday events, they all feel the same. New Life and Witches Festival have remained the same for years. All the celebration events are basically "double drops and double nodes" These havent changed.

The current state of the game has been a lot about making everything simpler, easier and not changing the formula in terms of content. I have a hard time getting on and playing each day because I log on and I think "okay.... what am I going to do today? What do I need to do?" and the answer always seems to be "Nothing". Besides farming resource nodes all day and doing the same crafting dailies over and over... There's nothing for me to do. There's nothing for me to grind out. No sets for me to farm. The longevity has been stripped and simplified for the casuals that I struggle with finding meaningful content to do. As each patch and update goes live my character and damage gets more nerfed and nerfed.

Im begging you ZOS to take a hard look at your game. Think about longevity of the player experience. Think of new exciting ways to shake up the player experience. The community has given you so many great ideas from spell crafting to higher difficulty tiers for overland. Maybe a new PvEvP zone. Or a new legit end game zone for players. Craglorn 2.0 Bring back "Entering a group area". I know you are so afraid to alienate new players but you need to stop coddling them and give them something to chase. You need to give them a carrot at the end of the stick to keep them coming back. Just making the game easier for them and more accessible is only going to shorter their time invested into the game and hurt your dedicated playerbase who has been here for years.

Ksariyu

Well here, I'll give a somewhat mirrored opinion just as something to think about. I'm also a "veteran" player; I've been around since beta, on and off, though I'd say I'm much more in the "casual" camp. I've invested untold hours into this game, both in and out of the client, and also like to engage in the occasional vet Trial, but most of my time is spent just doing whatever I feel like doing that day. Arenas and 4-man dungeons are my favorite activities as well, though crafting and story content are nice deviations from time to time (Neither gets the attention they should in my opinion).

Starting with the Arena weapons: I do believe it was the best decision to make the normal arena weapons drop from normal mode, while adding the perfected versions for vet mode. At the end of the day, people do have to buy the game outright, as well as the DLC related to the weapon they want to get. This doesn't mean they necessarily should get the weapon on login, but I think it's fair that the average player should be able to get access to all the mechanics they've paid for. This is why the perfected weapons were a good thing, so that players who did want to go above and beyond could get something with a slight statistical advantage, but it doesn't make the set as a whole exclusive to hardcore players. I do understand why people who got the weapons originally were annoyed by the choice to make those players re-grind for the perfected versions - I don't think there would have been an issue if they were just automatically upgraded when the change was made. But overall, I'd rather see all players able to access all of the sets in the game, at least at their basic level.

For the stickerbook/curated drops thing, I'll just combine my responses. Potentially endless grinding is not fun. Period. Personally, I've always had awful RNG in games, and honestly the effort has never been justified in the result for me. More often than not, I'll burn out on the content I had to grind, and then I'll never want to go back. It literally ruins that part of the game for me when I feel forced (I know nobody's actually forcing me) to repeat content so long after I stop getting enjoyment from it. This is especially true when the thing I'm grinding for isn't even a rare or powerful item. Like I'm literally just trying to get Knight's Errant or something equally mediocre but I still have to run this dungeon 20 times? No thanks. Of course, all that said, I still think the implementation of the stickerbook combined with the transmute system is awful, mostly because it seems like a missed opportunity to make crafting actually useful for endgame players.

As far as things like titles/skins/personalities, I do agree with you there. Cosmetics are kind of the epitome of "bragging rights" in games like this I feel. They are the badges you get to show off that say, "Hey, I did this thing." As a player who doesn't have those, I don't feel like I'm missing out on part of the game, but it's also nice to see something cool and be like, "Well if I really want that I know what I have to do to get it." That to me seems infinitely better than putting everything in the crown store, doubly so when those items are "limited time exclusives." To that end though, I don't get how your comment about trial mounts fits in. If it's really around 1% of the population getting these things, isn't that the exact kind of exclusivity you're saying you miss?

Content releases, yeah, I mostly agree. I've always advocated for quality over quantity, and while I can't disparage the writing/design of newer content (I haven't bothered to get it in a while), I will say that the focus on just churning out more "stuff" to do has seemed to negatively impact the quality of the rest of the game. I see this especially with the excess of sets, as you mention. With so many sets already being near-useless, constantly adding new sets feels like a waste. They want to talk about database bloat, maybe start there. Personally, I say if they really want to keep adding sets, let's see some non-combat related ones, like sets for crafting or gathering. At least that would actually feel new and beneficial, rather than just another source of some buff we already have ten sources for (Or paywalling easier access to a unique buff like they did with Major Vuln). Again though, the fact that players like you constantly say the need something to grind to keep playing the game is exactly why ZoS constantly puts out new sets to grind for.

Which brings me to the final point about hybridization, which I'll just say up front I think a lot of people use as a scapegoat for the real issues with the game's skill system. Things like, "I miss having to pay attention to what skills I used and what scaled with what," shows a major case of rose-colored glasses here. Sorry to burst the illusion, but a simple, arbitrary split between stamina and magicka does nothing to make the game more intricate or complex. Once you get past that very basic distinction, you realize that all it does is cut the number of choices in half. Every character started to play the same long before hybridization came into play. Remember cast times longer than 1 second? Remember weapons having unique attack speeds? Fact is, tanks and healers already basically had the same builds between every class. DPS was pretty much the same minus the needless split, and honestly the difference in how a stam DPS played vs a mag DPS was miniscule in most cases. How many fights do staff users stand directly behind the boss, in melee range? All of that has nothing to do with hybridization.

Finally, for your last bit about "coddling new players" and "simplifying the game," I think a lot of endgame players forget what it is to be new to this game. There is a LOT to do: even just touching on every element of the game would take months for the average player, never mind if they actually decide to delve deeper into anything. All that gear you complain about not having to grind anymore, they still have to grind. All those transmutes you've collected over time, they don't have. Skyshards, PvP skill lines, crafting, dungeons, trials, BGs. . . It makes sense that at some point the devs would reduce the amount of sheer grinding involved in each activity. Players just starting the game at this stage have a lot to catch up on, and most of them aren't doing it with a friend to coach them and give them gear. Ironically enough, it's the expectation that everyone should have done these things already that leads to players kicking other players from groups, which then feeds into why group zones got so much hate at the beginning, and why they still don't gain a lot of traction. The community is the issue there, not the game.

UnabashedlyHonest

I think this video nails all the main points about ESO from a veteran players perspective.

If you've been here from the start, you've seen how the game has gone from a competitive PvP and end game trial focus to only catering to the most casual of questers who have no interest in competition, they just want a casual questing game with an Elder Scrolls skin on it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgidwlwpJBE

Stamicka

BrentBlemish wrote: »

Now lets talk about the "Sticker Book"...
Another feature people enjoy but I also feel like is damaging to the longevity of the game. Back before this feature, drops felt so much more meaningful. It was painful to spend so much time not getting what you wanted but then when it did... oh man did that feel good. Another sense of accomplishment. But what has the sticker book done for the game in terms or replayability and longevity? It also means people are spending less time in content. once your sticker book is full, why go back and farm for more? The Sticker book has also had major damaging impacts to value of items in overland... Mothers sorrow and Briarheart are now a dime a dozen. There is little reason to farm overland sets for value. The sticker book has stripped that value away in every possible way. Which is one less thing to enjoy doing. Does anyone remember the large groups running together to farm 3 world bosses for spriggans weapons? Those days are long gone.

Which leads us to curated drops...
Another way that item drops are now less exciting. Its taken the fun out of farming and grinding for that "WOW, YES!" moment. It's completely gone. I dont get excited about loot drops anymore. Because I know what I want is coming. Now you have people picking every item up from a set except for the most desired one to sell its guaranteed drop to someone. It's just that easy.

One of the things that has kept me playing for sooo long has been the item hunt. Grinding out dungeons, arenas and overland for what I need and getting excited for when it finally drops. I have no reason to farm anything anymore. It's all in my collection and as cheap as 25 transmute to reconstruct in any trait I want. And with 10 transmute per random dungeon per character, its a cake walk to reconstruct. The whole sense of accomplishment and excitement has been completely stripped away. I get some people dont like farming, but you have to remember what kind of game you are playing, this is an MMO RPG with loot. loot hunting is a core staple of that experience and something that adds incredible longevity to your play time.

I can relate to so much of what you wrote. I've made many posts about this stuff as well. I want to talk about this part specifically though. Item transmutation and the sticker book are actually good additions to the game in my opinion. They essentially put an upper limit on how many times you have to grind a dungeon. There is definitely such a thing as being too "grindy". There was a meta that required both a sharpened Burning Spellweave inferno and a sharpened Maelstrom inferno before you could transmute items. This was absolutely MISERABLE. Trying to get just one of those weapons wasted hours of my time, and without them I would hit significantly less than other DPS. Also, when it comes to grinding for specific PvP weapons, I wanted to be in Cyrodiil, not running the same dungeon over and over again. The sticker book combined with curated drops combined with item transmutation makes each dungeon run feel like I'm progressing towards getting what I want. Before those features, there was no upper limit on how many times I might have to run the same dungeon, which is an awful feeling. Something that current ESO does well is reducing the annoying time-wasting grinds.

Everything else I pretty much agree with. Normal Arenas should also not drop weapons, I totally agree with that as well. The game now has a much different feel than it used to. Unfortunately, it seems that the game will continue to become more casual.

Dr_Con

I believe some of the implementations occurred because they want to encourage their players to touch some grass, specifically regarding the grindy nature of farming out traits and gear (farming training traits takes a LONG time unless you're spending obscene amounts of crowns)

vMA should have been seen as another challenge for you to conquer, instead you wanted your non-perfected gear to become perfected? I am not seeing the connection here.

you make many points, some of which could have been voiced during PTS or right after an implementation, but they are not going to go back and undo things.

it still takes skill to solo PVP. Often times, 2 skilled players against 2 skilled players results in a stalemate. I don't think this is how the game should be and they should do something about tankiness and ability to outheal evenly matched numbers in pvp other than through seige equipment.

It's also unfortunate that they ignore older sets and keep popping out new sets, then nerfing a combination of sets once someone finally figures out how to untangle the mess being created with set overload. But you are blasting them for QOL improvements they made in this game that no other game has attempted.

MaraxusTheOrc

If you put over 7,200 hours into a singular game, it’s okay to feel less interested in it than you were at say, 100 hours.

UnabashedlyHonest wrote: »

I think this video nails all the main points about ESO from a veteran players perspective.

If you've been here from the start, you've seen how the game has gone from a competitive PvP and end game trial focus to only catering to the most casual of questers who have no interest in competition, they just want a casual questing game with an Elder Scrolls skin on it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgidwlwpJBE

MMOs that prioritize “Competitive pvp and endgame trials” above the casual player experience don’t tend to survive very long. Seems like a lot of the hardcore crowd tends to ignore this observation.

Kingsindarkness

I guess he makes some points....I mean yes end game players spend a lot of time and demand to be catered to...but the spend the least amount of money....especially when you put them up against a lot of the crown store patrons.

I just don't see the payoff for the developers...the devs could easily retool DLC dungeons and Trials to fit the PVE overland game...they can make them epilog's....and they wouldn't have the small vocal group of people telling them how horrible they are all the time.

But the devs did clearly say that they wanted all play styles in the game...so I don't think any one style is going anywhere.

BahometZ

Dr_Con wrote: »

you make many points, some of which could have been voiced during PTS or right after an implementation, but they are not going to go back and undo things.

Many of us did exactly that to no avail.

I sympathise with OP. The game has become very easy to enable new players to expedite their advancement. I think they had to, the game is a behemoth, and vets maybe forget how much of a slog everything is. I don't begrudge QoL improvements like stickerbook. And while changes like this and AwA have drastically reduced replayability and removed motivation to play for older players, it probably makes it less daunting for new ones. And ZOS seem pretty set on lowering the bar for entry.

But in-game rewards have definitely become watered down. It really feels like there's less value in achieving difficult things by learning and adapting.

I too have many days where I log on and wonder what am I doing, crafting writs or grinding for some insane and unnecessary rng drop?

A lot of old timers maybe need to reassess their attitude towards the game. Consider helping new players for a time, play less, or try something completely different.

SaffronCitrusflower

Kingsindarkness wrote: »

I guess he makes some points....I mean yes end game players spend a lot of time and demand to be catered to...but the spend the least amount of money....especially when you put them up against a lot of the crown store patrons.

I just don't see the payoff for the developers...the devs could easily retool DLC dungeons and Trials to fit the PVE overland game...they can make them epilog's....and they wouldn't have the small vocal group of people telling them how horrible they are all the time.

But the devs did clearly say that they wanted all play styles in the game...so I don't think any one style is going anywhere.

How on earth can you possibly think that end game players, the players that have been around the longest, "spend the least amount of money" on the game? It's the end game players that spend the most on the game. Not the newbie casuals.

kind_hero

I partially agree with what the OP said.

From a casual perspective, all the anti-grinding measures are great (sticker book, curated drops, etc). But they do destroy the market value of desired sets and desire to replay content. To be honest, I would rather keep this system than return to how it was.

I strongly agree with your take on vMA weapons. I also had a few such weapons before the patch. I put so much effort to clear that arena, that I was very happy when I finished and got my first drop (an infused storm staff). In my opinion, the mistake wasn't to allow "normal" weapons to drop on normal difficulty, but not to upgrade the existing ones to perfected, and by this making the players farm them again. This was very annoying, and because of that, I stopped doing vMA. I don't care about those perfected weapons now. They also ruined an important part of the game by merging achievements for PvE content, like arenas and dungeons. I was for merging the grind achievements, but not for everything. People should be able to link achievs from other chars, and that would have been fine.

Finally, so much yes regarding the one year pattern and the inflation of useless sets. Like it was mentioned above, why not have sets for crafting, harvesting, exploring or thieving, whatever... Instead we get some weird buff/effect that none really needs.

The one year chapter is a bad idea because if you don't enjoy the theme, you might want to wait for the next year, or play very casually. The problem with the new chapters is that they can't keep a regular player busy for a whole year, unless you really want to farm the new motifs and do the two dailies every day on multiple chars. The new expansions get stale pretty quickly, and they get some fresh vibe when there is a 2x loot event.

I also agree that it has become boring to see each ability is made symmetrical to others from different classes, and it doesn't really matters much what class you play or if it is stamina or magicka, it just feels off, chaotic. Also, so many changes to combat and sets made me switch to casual play. I just can't keep up, and don't want to keep up with this nonsense. We can clear normal dungeons with almost any set or gear combo, with or without cp. So, unless I want vet content, there is little reward in putting effort in builds and gear sets.

Which takes me to skins and cosmetics. Unfortunately, the new motifs or outfits are mostly the same old. The new Daggerfall Paladin is such an example of a bland reward. There is little diversity, even though we go to a different place each year. Cosmetics are behind pay wall which is fine I guess, but there are very few ways to get nice cosmetics from bosses or doing stuff other than grinding (piling up seals to buy from the cash shop).

There is so much to be said... To me is like this game is on a lower priority and the studio is working on something else.

ewateo

Can agree with most of the things discussed by you, BrentBlemish, though got a slightly different opinion on some aspects.

I play ESO since august 2015 (PC EU) so I also perceive myself as a veteran player. Play mainly solo or small-scale 4-men content too, both pve and pvp.

First, you mentioned the change that ZOS made with master and maelstrom weapons. I was happy that more casual players could get at least a normal version (to finish VMA you need a...maelstrom inferno staff in almost every build designated). And the same time mad 'cause I had all of them farmed in vet, yet they became the normal version so I had to farm them again (still do not have master's and not planning to). Mind that not all trial sets got a perfected version that time which is a pity.

The transmutation thing is great imao. I remember, like Stamicka wrote, that farming eg. BSW or maelstrom inferno staff was miserable. And you can get nirnhoned within a set that does not drop in this trait. What worries me more is an easy way of obtaining transmute crystals. Getting 10 for random daily normal puts aside all other activities in which players participated more - like trial runs or pvp. Now to run a trial as a casual player you need to stay a whole day in craglorn hoping that maybe there will be enough players to form a group. PVP is quite dead too.

Rewards as a unique skin/personality were nice (or titles like flawless). Have had them achieved with multiple characters. But ZOS destroyed it with one patch. I was devastated cause it happened after 7 years, not like a year or two. Took many efforts and granted a lot of satisfaction, but for some time it feels like I do not care about anything coming with a new dungeon 'cause skin/pet/markings or whatever is almost for granted (trifecta titles are not bad but still I prefer solo titles that can not be bought via carry run)

Release pattern and set overhaul - it is what it is. For me it's fine, though as Ksariyu wrote, quality over quantity would be better. And the majority of sets are useless unfortunately. And the main cause was the...

Hybridization - I do not like it too. Not only it destroys a class identity, but also a specific build playstyle. All into one meta. I have all classes (in stam+mag) but do not wanna make&play all of them the same style and build. Moreover, it affects pvp too "lowering the skill ceiling", UnabashedlyHonest attached a video by steadyedyy where he speaks about the issue - "you can be tanky, have a lot of damage, sustain and healing", no more sacrifices with choices. Btw seeing a "stambuild" running with a restoration staff is just silly imao at the top of that.

And yes, there are days you log in and it feels like wanna do... nothing. Maybe time for a few months break? As I have had few in the past.

To sum up what are my feelings about the game after 7+ years of playing, where the change is the constant, I would make the analogy to the companion's rapport as it increases or falls. Generally, it would be cordial (or even friendly), but with one team (yes need to separate the team I hope everybody knows I think about) definitely disdainful.

PS. I doubt ZOS will be repairing the rift that they have created. Never seen them reversing something that already has gone live.

PrimusTiberius

[snip] they're catering to the players who place a higher priority on how their characters looks vs how it performs, resulting to said players complaining about how they can't reach higher level activities.

[snip]
[edited for bashing]

Tandor

SizanLopkniht wrote: »

Kingsindarkness wrote: »

I guess he makes some points....I mean yes end game players spend a lot of time and demand to be catered to...but the spend the least amount of money....especially when you put them up against a lot of the crown store patrons.

I just don't see the payoff for the developers...the devs could easily retool DLC dungeons and Trials to fit the PVE overland game...they can make them epilog's....and they wouldn't have the small vocal group of people telling them how horrible they are all the time.

But the devs did clearly say that they wanted all play styles in the game...so I don't think any one style is going anywhere.

How on earth can you possibly think that end game players, the players that have been around the longest, "spend the least amount of money" on the game? It's the end game players that spend the most on the game. Not the newbie casuals.

I won't comment on who spends what, not least because it's pure speculation, but you're wrong to label end game players as the players who have been around the longest. There are plenty of us old-timers who've been playing continuously since launch in 2014 who have never touched the end game content and have no interest in doing so. We're still veterans, just not in the sense some players choose to define themselves. There are also end game players who rushed through the game very quickly as that's the only content they're interested in.

It would probably be more accurate therefore to say that many end game players are among the players that have been around the longest.

Similarly, not all newbies are casuals, and not all casuals are newbies.

Those sorts of generalisations don't really strengthen anyone's case in a discussion like this, not least because they tend to be false.

Ragnarok0130

Beta player here who does mainly 4 man vet dungeons and vet trials for content with an occasional trip to Cyrodiil. Personally I think the sticker book, the curated drops, and the transmute station are some of the best additions to the game since launch. I personally love ESO's flat gear progression so my gear isn't completely washed away and irrelevant with each new expansion like I experienced in SWTOR so I can gear up and then focus on progressing through new and existing content instead of having gear farming be my real end game. Given I may have to farm a new set or two and maybe a mythic with each expansion if the meta changes but it's a palatable feat with aforementioned sticker book and curated drops compared to the never ending nightmare of "I got the piece I wanted but it doesn't have the trait I need...darn" treadmill from back in early ESO. And with the sticker book I don't need to trash gear and re-farm it or store it if it goes out of style...I can reconstruct it if the meta changes again, and again, and again like it always does. That's a very good thing in my book as one who likes to get back to the task at hand.

I don't understand your grievance with the arena weapons. It sounds like you're mad that it's no longer a prestige thing, but there are many players who won't or can't touch arenas so it's still prestigious IMO and you got a better version of the weapon from the veteran mode with the perfected weapon so in my book you came out better in the end.

My perspective is that I don't run content to get gear, I get gear to run content at harder and harder levels. Gear isn't my end game, progressing through dungeons and trials is my end game and the gear helps me in that goal so the faster I can get back to focusing on running content instead of chasing gear the better.

Kingsindarkness

PrimusTiberius wrote: »

[snip] they're catering to the players who place a higher priority on how their characters looks vs how it performs, resulting to said players complaining about how they can't reach higher level activities.

[snip]

Is it any dumber than FFXIV, WoW, SWTOR, LOTOR, Neverwinter or any other MMO?

In FFXIV you can do all the content except savage with companions now...

And even if you have a group, I can literally Raid in my sleep in WoW and FFXIV in any MMO all you really have to do is watch a YouTube Video...so where is the difference?

Following any meta dosen't make you a "good" player...not wanting to follow a silly cookie cutter meta dosen't mean you're a "bad" it only means you don't want to follow the monotonous raid cycle.

If all you ever have to really do is watch a silly video to "Learn how to play" then the game is never actually complex and dynamic is it?

MMO's are more accessible because the people who spends hundreds of thousands of dollars to make them want more than just a handful a screaming Grognards that hardly spend a dime playing them.

Mainly ....because devs want to do things like pay their mortgages and eat.


What I think you're upset about is there is less and less forced grouping and the reason for that is because in general people are horrible in the 21st century...and that is a societal thing and not something you can blame the devs for, because honestly who wants to spend a crap ton of time and money to create this complex raid where only ten people show up?

I mean yeah you could make the overland content super hard ...but no one would play except maybe those same ten people.

[edited to remove quote]

zharkovian

I've been playing for almost six years, can't say I was there at the start.

I started a new character yesterday, the nice lady showed me what a skyshard was, then I met this masked chap, who was a sham, and I hade my soul ripped out (do Argonians have souls?) and subsequently I met this blind chap, who seemed oblivious that this big hefty amazonian woman, Lyris, swapped places with him, and then he showed me a skyshard, and my character acted surprised as though it had never seen one....

They should fix that.

BrentBlemish

I want to add a few things after reading some of the replies. I am glad that there a lot of players who are understanding my perspective. But I want to say a few things...

I took me 3 years to finally beat Vet Maelstrom. It took me longer to finally reach 100k plus parses and get to a point where I'm doing trifecta clears in 4 man content. I remember starting out and going through so much trial and error.. Spending hours farming the same dungeons. And honestly I have no regrets. The grind is what kept me logging in each day. The pursuit of the drop I needed, the carrot at the end of the stick, the chase... That's what kept me coming back more and more.

Creating new charecters and trying out their stamina and magika counter parts, theory crafting and discovering new ways to play. Now... It doesn't matter if it's a light armor set or a medium or a heavy. Spell damage and weapon damage is irrelevant. It's just about wether or not you can sustain the skills.

I specifically left out the transmute station from my post because I believe that system was the perfect middle ground between still having to farm and be grindy without being overly grindy. Now it doesn't matter.

I get people can get burned out on doing the same dungeon for so long that they never want to go back. But honestly after my sticker book is complete, I have absolutely no reason to go back. If I need another copy of the set, I'll just reconstruct. If you have the achievements and monster helms from the dungeon too... Why go back? What's the insensitive? What's the carrot at the end of the stick here? There is none....

As for how much money I've spent? I've spent A LOT of money on ESO. But I've spent far less over the last year then ever before. About 2-3 years ago I was buying stuff left and right. Houses, weapon packs, crown crates, mount speed, you name it... But with a lack of reason to log in each day I'm finding less and less desire to buy stuff.

I'll never forget my first few years playing ESO. Those were some of my favorite memories with the game. Before the sticker books, before hybridization, before the ease of access. You don't get an entire year of collective play time if you aren't enjoying your time in game.

I was there for the very first new life festival. Back when skonchanger first came out. I was there for almost all the first holiday events besides the witches festival. Before Morrowind came out. This isn't a case of rose tinted glasses because there are things that the game has done since then that I agree with. But far more that I don't that has made my experience with the game stale.

Chadak

I prefer things the way they are. I don't have to live in the game and farm VMA or vet dungeons for days/weeks/months on loop without end in order to still maybe never actually get the stuff I wanted to get.

Furthermore, I think that Elder Scrolls games were never about raids and PVP to begin with. The entire IP is built on casual solo questing, exploration and generally faffing about reading all the lorebooks and trying to find all the little lore tidbits and easter eggs scattered around.

If we're holding up time invested as a badge of authority and validity, I bought Arena out of a paper catalogue for $27.95 shortly after it released, and three weeks later, I realized that my computer couldn't run it with sound because I didn't have a compatible sound chip in my PC.

So, my first Elder Scrolls experiences in the summer of 1994 were faffing about in Arena with no sound other than the various cassette tape music I'd be playing in my room so I wasn't just sitting there in silence. To this day, there is a selection of 80's and early 90's songs that still take me right back to being 15 again and getting killed by random bugs, falling through the floor and dropping forever until the game would crash and cheesing the character sheet window something fierce to max out stats.

ES2: Daggerfall was much better. It had everything that made Arena great, did it better and offered more besides, including more ridiculousness, faffery, bugs and silly exploits, telling Shedungent's door guardian to Shut Up and trying, often in vain, to complete main story quests without crashing or having them bug out.

It was glorious. To this day, I will sometimes go back and play Daggerfall again. As much as Arena was a lifechanging chrysalis that laid the foundation for what I wanted a game to be, Daggerfall built a randomized dungeon in that foundation and littered it with Dwarven Left Pauldrons, Ebony Cuirasses and Daedric Dai Katanas.

Morrowind was a real shift in the wind, and I gotta admit that I actually didn't like it much at first because it wasn't Daggerfall-with-better-graphics. I learned to love it real quick as soon as the lore got ahold of me again and I found out just how much more coherent and navigable a game it was in various ways. It was also much more limited in scope and far less ambitious in many ways, which is a trend that held through clear to Skyrim...and was abandoned wholesale for ESO.

ESO is the first Elder Scrolls game that reminds me of the sheer audacity and ambition of Daggerfall. It isn't an Elder Scrolls game in terms of how the class structure or a lot of the mechanics work, and I will never *like* that about ESO, but I accept that it is what it is and I try to focus on the things I do enjoy.

The things I enjoy haven't changed since Arena, incidentally. Exploration, digging into the lore and yes, trying to dress my character up. Do you have any idea how hard it is to dress a character up to look nice in Elder Scrolls 1? The graphics just weren't that great. Tried anyway. Obsessed over it sometimes. Sacrificed character power sometimes so I could have the look on the character pane that really spoke to me even though you were stuck in first person while actually playing the game and never saw much of anything about your character except their weapon and their hands.

Gonna just lay this on the table and hope that ya'll understand what I'm saying, because I'm not sure I can explain it as well as I'd like - raids and PVP didn't exist back then. MMO's didn't exist back then. There was no such thing as a meta, and nobody that fell in love with the Elder Scrolls IP did so because of the competitive environments. There weren't any in these games.

We were still gnawing on the original Doom back then and gathering around at eachothers' houses to tag-team levels and compete about who could get the furthest without dying or who could get the furthest the fastest. That was the closest thing to PVP in a PC game that existed in my world back then.

We also had RC Pro Am on the NES that was our frequent go-to for competitive head to head gaming. It just wasn't a thing to talk about or think about very much, and I can honestly say that even now, long after PVP and raiding have become long entrenched things in the MMO community, I still don't care for them in most forms and I've never wanted them in my Elder Scrolls games.

I've always wanted Daggerfall back, with more to explore, more to do, more pretties to dress my character up in and more lore to fuss over. ESO delivers that, and I gotta be as candid as I possibly can be when I say that I hope they continue to do so even if it means that raids and PVP get neglected to death.

I never wanted those in my Elder Scrolls games to begin with. I've often felt like my Elder Scrolls game was compromised and made inferior to what it could be because they tried to make it a competitive raid and PVP game as well as an Elder Scrolls game.

That's just how I feel. I'm not out to condemn or ridicule anyone for liking what they like or wanting the game to cater to them more than it does, but I'm glad, in this case, that they've pointed themselves in the direction of catering to the Elder Scrolls fans that wouldn't care if raids and PVP got deleted completely so long as we could still get the cosmetics and titles and lore out of them some other way.

Because, speaking at least for myself, I still just want Arena and Daggerfall and Morrowind and Oblivion and Skyrim back, expanded on, prettied up, modernized and multiplayer.

Far more than less, that's exactly what they've offered me. That I have to put up with MMOification elements and class structures that have never made one faint lick of sense to me as they pertain to anything Elder Scrollsish at all is just the price I pay for Daggerfall Ultimate Edition Online.

me_ming

Chadak wrote: »

I prefer things the way they are. I don't have to live in the game and farm VMA or vet dungeons for days/weeks/months on loop without end in order to still maybe never actually get the stuff I wanted to get.

Furthermore, I think that Elder Scrolls games were never about raids and PVP to begin with. The entire IP is built on casual solo questing, exploration and generally faffing about reading all the lorebooks and trying to find all the little lore tidbits and easter eggs scattered around.

If we're holding up time invested as a badge of authority and validity, I bought Arena out of a paper catalogue for $27.95 shortly after it released, and three weeks later, I realized that my computer couldn't run it with sound because I didn't have a compatible sound chip in my PC.

So, my first Elder Scrolls experiences in the summer of 1994 were faffing about in Arena with no sound other than the various cassette tape music I'd be playing in my room so I wasn't just sitting there in silence. To this day, there is a selection of 80's and early 90's songs that still take me right back to being 15 again and getting killed by random bugs, falling through the floor and dropping forever until the game would crash and cheesing the character sheet window something fierce to max out stats.

ES2: Daggerfall was much better. It had everything that made Arena great, did it better and offered more besides, including more ridiculousness, faffery, bugs and silly exploits, telling Shedungent's door guardian to Shut Up and trying, often in vain, to complete main story quests without crashing or having them bug out.

It was glorious. To this day, I will sometimes go back and play Daggerfall again. As much as Arena was a lifechanging chrysalis that laid the foundation for what I wanted a game to be, Daggerfall built a randomized dungeon in that foundation and littered it with Dwarven Left Pauldrons, Ebony Cuirasses and Daedric Dai Katanas.

Morrowind was a real shift in the wind, and I gotta admit that I actually didn't like it much at first because it wasn't Daggerfall-with-better-graphics. I learned to love it real quick as soon as the lore got ahold of me again and I found out just how much more coherent and navigable a game it was in various ways. It was also much more limited in scope and far less ambitious in many ways, which is a trend that held through clear to Skyrim...and was abandoned wholesale for ESO.

ESO is the first Elder Scrolls game that reminds me of the sheer audacity and ambition of Daggerfall. It isn't an Elder Scrolls game in terms of how the class structure or a lot of the mechanics work, and I will never *like* that about ESO, but I accept that it is what it is and I try to focus on the things I do enjoy.

The things I enjoy haven't changed since Arena, incidentally. Exploration, digging into the lore and yes, trying to dress my character up. Do you have any idea how hard it is to dress a character up to look nice in Elder Scrolls 1? The graphics just weren't that great. Tried anyway. Obsessed over it sometimes. Sacrificed character power sometimes so I could have the look on the character pane that really spoke to me even though you were stuck in first person while actually playing the game and never saw much of anything about your character except their weapon and their hands.

Gonna just lay this on the table and hope that ya'll understand what I'm saying, because I'm not sure I can explain it as well as I'd like - raids and PVP didn't exist back then. MMO's didn't exist back then. There was no such thing as a meta, and nobody that fell in love with the Elder Scrolls IP did so because of the competitive environments. There weren't any in these games.

We were still gnawing on the original Doom back then and gathering around at eachothers' houses to tag-team levels and compete about who could get the furthest without dying or who could get the furthest the fastest. That was the closest thing to PVP in a PC game that existed in my world back then.

We also had RC Pro Am on the NES that was our frequent go-to for competitive head to head gaming. It just wasn't a thing to talk about or think about very much, and I can honestly say that even now, long after PVP and raiding have become long entrenched things in the MMO community, I still don't care for them in most forms and I've never wanted them in my Elder Scrolls games.

I've always wanted Daggerfall back, with more to explore, more to do, more pretties to dress my character up in and more lore to fuss over. ESO delivers that, and I gotta be as candid as I possibly can be when I say that I hope they continue to do so even if it means that raids and PVP get neglected to death.

I never wanted those in my Elder Scrolls games to begin with. I've often felt like my Elder Scrolls game was compromised and made inferior to what it could be because they tried to make it a competitive raid and PVP game as well as an Elder Scrolls game.

That's just how I feel. I'm not out to condemn or ridicule anyone for liking what they like or wanting the game to cater to them more than it does, but I'm glad, in this case, that they've pointed themselves in the direction of catering to the Elder Scrolls fans that wouldn't care if raids and PVP got deleted completely so long as we could still get the cosmetics and titles and lore out of them some other way.

Because, speaking at least for myself, I still just want Arena and Daggerfall and Morrowind and Oblivion and Skyrim back, expanded on, prettied up, modernized and multiplayer.

Far more than less, that's exactly what they've offered me. That I have to put up with MMOification elements and class structures that have never made one faint lick of sense to me as they pertain to anything Elder Scrollsish at all is just the price I pay for Daggerfall Ultimate Edition Online.

Don't understand why ESO is being compared to previous TES games, they are different genres. Furthermore, I think if you want to play the old games no one is stopping you. But to be on an MMO-RPG forum and tell people that TES games are not suppose to be about raids and PvP, you are complete misguided. ESO IS about trials (raids) and PvP. That's why it's called Elder Scrolls ONLINE, not Elder Scrolls 6.

TaSheen

@Chadak - I have to agree fully with most of your post. I'm less inclined to want the pvp and end-game areas to dry up and blow away, but otherwise I'm right there with you.

Kingsindarkness

me_ming wrote: »

ESO IS about trials (raids) and PvP. That's why it's called Elder Scrolls ONLINE, not Elder Scrolls 6.

I'm pretty sure if you asked Rich Lambert or Matt Firor they would disagree with you...and they are in charge of things currently.

You can play ESO many ways it's not about any one thing. The biggest issue that end game raiders have is that they demand to be catered to above everyone else, and they demand to treat players who aren't end game raiders abominably.

That can't go on...especially considering that end game raiders are a minority.

Tandor

BrentBlemish wrote: »

I want to add a few things after reading some of the replies. I am glad that there a lot of players who are understanding my perspective. But I want to say a few things...

I took me 3 years to finally beat Vet Maelstrom. It took me longer to finally reach 100k plus parses and get to a point where I'm doing trifecta clears in 4 man content. I remember starting out and going through so much trial and error.. Spending hours farming the same dungeons. And honestly I have no regrets. The grind is what kept me logging in each day. The pursuit of the drop I needed, the carrot at the end of the stick, the chase... That's what kept me coming back more and more.

Creating new charecters and trying out their stamina and magika counter parts, theory crafting and discovering new ways to play. Now... It doesn't matter if it's a light armor set or a medium or a heavy. Spell damage and weapon damage is irrelevant. It's just about wether or not you can sustain the skills.

I specifically left out the transmute station from my post because I believe that system was the perfect middle ground between still having to farm and be grindy without being overly grindy. Now it doesn't matter.

I get people can get burned out on doing the same dungeon for so long that they never want to go back. But honestly after my sticker book is complete, I have absolutely no reason to go back. If I need another copy of the set, I'll just reconstruct. If you have the achievements and monster helms from the dungeon too... Why go back? What's the insensitive? What's the carrot at the end of the stick here? There is none....

As for how much money I've spent? I've spent A LOT of money on ESO. But I've spent far less over the last year then ever before. About 2-3 years ago I was buying stuff left and right. Houses, weapon packs, crown crates, mount speed, you name it... But with a lack of reason to log in each day I'm finding less and less desire to buy stuff.

I'll never forget my first few years playing ESO. Those were some of my favorite memories with the game. Before the sticker books, before hybridization, before the ease of access. You don't get an entire year of collective play time if you aren't enjoying your time in game.

I was there for the very first new life festival. Back when skonchanger first came out. I was there for almost all the first holiday events besides the witches festival. Before Morrowind came out. This isn't a case of rose tinted glasses because there are things that the game has done since then that I agree with. But far more that I don't that has made my experience with the game stale.

A lot of us, including endgame players, tried to explain to ZOS as well as to those players who supported their decision, that switching character achievements to an account-wide system would remove a large part of the reason why experienced players repeat dungeon runs, including taking less experienced players through them. The incentive for them was gaining the relevant achievements on their other characters, and with that benefit gone there really was no reason for them to repeat the dungeons once they'd got everything done on their main character.

Chadak

TaSheen wrote: »

@Chadak - I have to agree fully with most of your post. I'm less inclined to want the pvp and end-game areas to dry up and blow away, but otherwise I'm right there with you.

I don't explicitly want them to dry up and blow away exactly, but if they'd never have been put in the game at all, I'd never have missed them or wished they'd have been put in. Not ever. Not even a little.

Raiding and collaborative group gameplay can work just fine in Elder Scrolls, I think. I'm not a fan of the mentality that Nightmare Mode difficulty should be the standard and that every trash mob in the world should be a Dark Souls fight to overcome, but the more hardcore PVE type experiences can, and I think do, work just fine in an Elder Scrolls environment. They're not particularly what I wanted, but they don't seem to fly in the face of the IP's foundational fanbase's reasons for liking Elder Scrolls either.


I like PVP in games that focus on delivering a good PVP experience. I also like casual social RPG's that are all about exploring, collecting and creating rather than overcoming extreme combat challenges. I do not like these things when they're smooshed together for much the same reason that I do not like ice cream in my bath water.

I love ice cream. I love a nice, hot, relaxing bath. Dump the ice cream in the bath water and you do not, in fact, make two great things even more amazing - you wind up with an infuriating mess and some very solid basis to interrogate whoever thought dumping ice cream into the bathwater was ever going to be a brilliant plan.

TaSheen

I came here after years in WoW and RIFT (but those were after ALL the years since Arena released in 1994 playing the TES games for thousands of hours) so I did rather expect the raids etc - but by that time I was so burned out on raiding in WoW and RIFT that I'll never do it again, and I haven't set foot in group content at all - not only for that reason, also I won't ask anyone to put up with my 999+ mega-ping.

I'm happy with overland, exploring and questing, doing the events I like for tickets for whatever I want to get. I'm not at all combat oriented any more - worry about racial passives? Oh HELL no. I've never made an orc, an argonian, a nord. I've never made a necro. Those races, that class don't fit in my "stable" at all.

Somehow or the other, U35 isn't as bad for me as I thought it would be - so I'm fine with things now. I'll play my game my way, and those who keep poking at folks like me to "get better" can take a long walk off a short pier.

Tandor

TaSheen wrote: »

I came here after years in WoW and RIFT (but those were after ALL the years since Arena released in 1994 playing the TES games for thousands of hours) so I did rather expect the raids etc - but by that time I was so burned out on raiding in WoW and RIFT that I'll never do it again, and I haven't set foot in group content at all - not only for that reason, also I won't ask anyone to put up with my 999+ mega-ping.

I'm happy with overland, exploring and questing, doing the events I like for tickets for whatever I want to get. I'm not at all combat oriented any more - worry about racial passives? Oh HELL no. I've never made an orc, an argonian, a nord. I've never made a necro. Those races, that class don't fit in my "stable" at all.

Somehow or the other, U35 isn't as bad for me as I thought it would be - so I'm fine with things now. I'll play my game my way, and those who keep poking at folks like me to "get better" can take a long walk off a short pier.

I think a lot of people have come to that realisation re U35. Without the forum furore I wouldn't even have noticed the changes.

Casul

For me ESO just doesn't seem interesting to play (mainly PvP perspective). There are so few rewards to gain from PvP and the ones that do exist take months to grind with the 1 per day daily reward system.

There should be many more AP rewards to buy. There should be mounts and collectibles that you can earn with AP. Maybe even a house. It would have been a nice bone to throw to the PvP section considering we haven't had any content since Murkmire.

Chadak

me_ming wrote: »

Don't understand why ESO is being compared to previous TES games, they are different genres. Furthermore, I think if you want to play the old games no one is stopping you. But to be on an MMO-RPG forum and tell people that TES games are not suppose to be about raids and PvP, you are complete misguided. ESO IS about trials (raids) and PvP. That's why it's called Elder Scrolls ONLINE, not Elder Scrolls 6.

BuildMan wrote: »

For me ESO just doesn't seem interesting to play (mainly PvP perspective). There are so few rewards to gain from PvP and the ones that do exist take months to grind with the 1 per day daily reward system.

There should be many more AP rewards to buy. There should be mounts and collectibles that you can earn with AP. Maybe even a house. It would have been a nice bone to throw to the PvP section considering we haven't had any content since Murkmire.

I'm of the belief that PVP and PVE would both be much better served if skills and class balancing were segregated between the two game modes, so that they could focus on delivering a superior, focused PVE and PVP experience without having the needs of one disrupt the other.

I also think that there should be a PVP vendor that gives away Purple quality gear sets in most every variety there is in the game so that PVPers don't have to farm PVE to get gear in order to PVP. I think Gold quality PVP gear should drop off players and be for sale off AP vendors, and I think PVP should have a much more robust and varied array of events and stuff going on to engage and reward the PVP players. I think PVP gear should only work in PVP zones/battlegrounds and be functionally deactivated in PVE zones, and that PVE gear should similarly be of no use in PVP zones.

If we're going to have PVP, we should do it properly. Or not at all.

disintegr8

I started playing this game when VR14 was as the max character level, and you had to achieve it on each character separately. When Champion Points came, I was only 10 points short of the usage cap of 501. I've never completed Vet DSA or Vet Maelstrom Arena and stopped improving my DPS when I hit 47K, because I didn't need any more.

I'm only going to comment on the few items that I care about.

Making MA and DSA weapons available in normal mode would have been better received if any existing weapons people owned got converted to Perfected. Changes like these need to acknowledge the effort that players may have gone to in order to get the gear they want. This has been the same throughout the game's history, back when VR16 came in, everyone's VR14 gear was no longer the best and if you wanted VR16, off to farm them you went.

For me the Sticker Book was simply a solution to a storage problem. Before that you had to keep multiple pieces of the same items if you wanted to use them on multiple characters and storage was a pain. I had ESO+ for years but still had a full account of characters being used as storage mules, alt accounts and my own guild banks, all full. I only ever saw the Sticker Book as a solution to a problem.

Saturation of sets has been there for a long time and also applies to materials, recipes, blueprints and furniture plans. Most of them are only nuisance value but my only real issue with this was from an inventory perspective: your inventory capacity never increased with the growing number of items you could fill it up with. Most sets, both old and new, are rubbish and can really be ignored - at least the sticker book is here for that .

SaffronCitrusflower

Tandor wrote: »

SizanLopkniht wrote: »

Kingsindarkness wrote: »

I guess he makes some points....I mean yes end game players spend a lot of time and demand to be catered to...but the spend the least amount of money....especially when you put them up against a lot of the crown store patrons.

I just don't see the payoff for the developers...the devs could easily retool DLC dungeons and Trials to fit the PVE overland game...they can make them epilog's....and they wouldn't have the small vocal group of people telling them how horrible they are all the time.

But the devs did clearly say that they wanted all play styles in the game...so I don't think any one style is going anywhere.

How on earth can you possibly think that end game players, the players that have been around the longest, "spend the least amount of money" on the game? It's the end game players that spend the most on the game. Not the newbie casuals.

I won't comment on who spends what, not least because it's pure speculation, but you're wrong to label end game players as the players who have been around the longest. There are plenty of us old-timers who've been playing continuously since launch in 2014 who have never touched the end game content and have no interest in doing so. We're still veterans, just not in the sense some players choose to define themselves. There are also end game players who rushed through the game very quickly as that's the only content they're interested in.

It would probably be more accurate therefore to say that many end game players are among the players that have been around the longest.

Similarly, not all newbies are casuals, and not all casuals are newbies.

Those sorts of generalisations don't really strengthen anyone's case in a discussion like this, not least because they tend to be false.

The veteran players are, more or less by definition, the players that complete veteran content. It takes more than running normal level dungeons and casual questing for the life of the game to be a veteran player. You have to be good enough to have completed veteran level content on a consistent basis to be a veteran player; veteran Vateshran Hollows for instance. If a player can't complete the veteran content, they are not veteran level players.

In order to get good enough to complete veteran level content a player has to spend a lot of time in game and spent a lot of money on content to get gear, and almost certainly has purchased ESO+ for years. That means that it's the veteran level players that spend the most on the game overall. Sure, there are some whales that spend thousands per year on crown crates, but in general, it's the veteran level players that spend the most on the game. We don't have to guess or make assumptions to know this is the case.

VeryHairyKhajiit

Proper endgame ain't dead, Far from it. I am on PC EU Though.
I mean i am in a few trifecta trial groups and a variety of prog groups etc.
And i see many others as well in my adventures, To just come out and say Endgame is dead or "All/most endgame players are leaving" just isn't true!

SaffronCitrusflower

Kingsindarkness wrote: »

me_ming wrote: »

ESO IS about trials (raids) and PvP. That's why it's called Elder Scrolls ONLINE, not Elder Scrolls 6.

I'm pretty sure if you asked Rich Lambert or Matt Firor they would disagree with you...and they are in charge of things currently.

You can play ESO many ways it's not about any one thing. The biggest issue that end game raiders have is that they demand to be catered to above everyone else, and they demand to treat players who aren't end game raiders abominably.

That can't go on...especially considering that end game raiders are a minority.

This is a patently false statement. You make it sound like casual players who can't complete veteran content and don't understand the combat system extremely well are somehow victims. They're not. They just don't understand the game as well as those who have put in the time to understand it.

The players most qualified to comment on how changes should or should not be made to the game are the players who understand it best.