Deltias's Gaming - State of ESO

seebra

https://youtu.be/_T5qWM_t35o

He have some great thoughts and I agree with him on many things. They should be more open with community, Stop the 3 months gear nerfing, improve their servers and bring some great stuff in 2023.

SPR_of_HA_community

He say a lot of right thingth.

The same times nerf of builds that was midfle tear and were in game from start whyle not nerfing top tier OP builds shows no balance.

Skills do not press.

Skills are buged and even skills with same effect work different.

Skills ignore its own text.

Lags !

Constant nerfs

...

Pepegrillos

This has probably been ESO's worst year.

They have dropped the ball all across the board. After the expansion launch and the massive twitch campaign they ran, it seemed like the general player base was somewhat hopeful about what was to come. Then they turned everything into a dumpster fire with U35. Since then, all the numbers are down (population, twitch viewership, general interest).

What's worse, you can already see in some corners the idea that decline (maintenance mode) has settled in. Nothing is worse for an MMORPG than the belief that it's going downhill (because barely anyone wants to invest time in a declining game).

_Zathras_

I don't normally listen to the entirety of opinion videos like this, but I found Deltia's perspective to be compelling, and accurate.

They may lock/nuke this thread because it doesn't showcase ESO in the best light. However, they can't take the video itself down. Nor can they erase the sentiments that have arisen in the last year.

The video isn't surprising in its message. It is nice to hear someone else publicly share the same thoughts ..without being moderated, especially in regards to the ongoing communication problems.

blktauna

Deltia loves this game deeply and I'm sure this was not a pleasant task for him, but it was needed.

But like all of us, we love playing and want to continue to play. I just don't understand why TPTB keep trying to throw giant spanners in the works.

IncultaWolf

It's funny how fast the Tales of Tribute game died, like, most of the player base doesn't even acknowledge it anymore, and there's only like a dozen people left who still play it. And then there's the fact that they destroyed templar dps specs, ruined jabs and backlash, made nightblade and warden god tier in pvp, meanwhile sorcerer is still waiting for buffs. A lot of my friends have uninstalled the game, or just barely log in once a week now. The writing for the newest chapter/dlc is not the best, honestly was very disappointed in how it turned out and I hope next year brings something a lot better than what we got in 2022.

omnidoh

IncultaWolf wrote: »

It's funny how fast the Tales of Tribute game died, like, most of the player base doesn't even acknowledge it anymore, and there's only like a dozen people left who still play it.

Now imagine how many billable hours were spent on its development, which could have been invested elsewhere into things that the playerbase actually wanted.

These things come in cycles, as with all human endeavors.
Humans have a real problem with flourishing, especially where capitalism is involved.

boi_anachronism_

IncultaWolf wrote: »

It's funny how fast the Tales of Tribute game died, like, most of the player base doesn't even acknowledge it anymore, and there's only like a dozen people left who still play it. And then there's the fact that they destroyed templar dps specs, ruined jabs and backlash, made nightblade and warden god tier in pvp, meanwhile sorcerer is still waiting for buffs. A lot of my friends have uninstalled the game, or just barely log in once a week now. The writing for the newest chapter/dlc is not the best, honestly was very disappointed in how it turned out and I hope next year brings something a lot better than what we got in 2022.

Yeah well night blade is either on par with other classes in pve and way over tuned in pvp or it is complete garbage in pve and balance in pvp. That's just the nature of the class because one side (stealth) is less then useless for pve so to bring it up for pve they can only buff damage - hence our problem. So yeah until pvp and pve are separate.. welp

Jaimeh

boi_anachronism_ wrote: »

IncultaWolf wrote: »

It's funny how fast the Tales of Tribute game died, like, most of the player base doesn't even acknowledge it anymore, and there's only like a dozen people left who still play it. And then there's the fact that they destroyed templar dps specs, ruined jabs and backlash, made nightblade and warden god tier in pvp, meanwhile sorcerer is still waiting for buffs. A lot of my friends have uninstalled the game, or just barely log in once a week now. The writing for the newest chapter/dlc is not the best, honestly was very disappointed in how it turned out and I hope next year brings something a lot better than what we got in 2022.

Yeah well night blade is either on par with other classes in pve and way over tuned in pvp or it is complete garbage in pve and balance in pvp. That's just the nature of the class because one side (stealth) is less then useless for pve so to bring it up for pve they can only buff damage - hence our problem. So yeah until pvp and pve are separate.. welp

Agreed, and they messed it up plenty on pve as well, having to slot a concealed weapon just to have it there passively taking a space on the bar, and use silver shards as a spammable (and there is a noticeable difference compared to just using surprise attack, so it's not debatable). Also, besides templar jabs, the animation for rapid strikes is awful, you can't tell when the animation finishes and the LA hits they way it is now... it boggles my mind how they thought these new animations were improvements.

rootkitronin

He does a great job covering the state of ESO in this video, and despite being an opinion piece, he presents a fairly objective critique - definitely gives voice to what a lot of people are currently feeling.

What frustrates me the most, is that every one of the poor decisions ZOS has made for ESO over the last year (and beyond) have received significant and informed pushback from the community in opposition to them.

Yet time and time again this feedback was at best ignored or at worst dismissed as just a bunch of whiny players having knee-jerk reactions to change. The fact is, every blunder this year, the community saw coming from miles away.

The combined community not only knows more about ESO than any other single group, they are ESO. ZOS would do well to listen to them more, take the time to engage with them more, and have a little more respect for the people who buy and play their game - the continued success of ESO depends on it.

Faulgor

Yeah, pretty much spot on. Update 35 really broke the guar's back for a lot of people.

IncultaWolf wrote: »

It's funny how fast the Tales of Tribute game died, like, most of the player base doesn't even acknowledge it anymore, and there's only like a dozen people left who still play it.

I mean, most people said they had no interest in it from the start.
I actually did. I bought the chapter because if nothing else, I could jump into ESO without a sub and just play a few rounds of a TES themed card game like I used to with Legends. But nope, the rewards spam my inventory so fast it's impossible to play without ESO+. And most of them are trash as it is.

Matches are also way too long for a quick game in between other activities. And because it is mostly RNG based, there is very little competitive incentive to play ranked, especially considering the lackluster rewards.

I don't know who this is for, but I don't expect it to get improved.

Reverb

IncultaWolf wrote: »

It's funny how fast the Tales of Tribute game died, like, most of the player base doesn't even acknowledge it anymore, and there's only like a dozen people left who still play it. And then there's the fact that they destroyed templar dps specs, ruined jabs and backlash, made nightblade and warden god tier in pvp, meanwhile sorcerer is still waiting for buffs. A lot of my friends have uninstalled the game, or just barely log in once a week now. The writing for the newest chapter/dlc is not the best, honestly was very disappointed in how it turned out and I hope next year brings something a lot better than what we got in 2022.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed ToT. But it was something I liked doing while logged into a game enjoyed playing for other reasons, rather than being a reason to play in itself.

After U35 I stopped finding much enjoyable about the game, and I’m certainly not going to log in just to play a card game. So I’m yet another person you used to see in the ranked matches that you don’t anymore. If they hadn’t broken gameplay so badly in general, there would be far more players at the ToT table.

Billium813

I think the lesson to learn here is:
stale content + aggressive, unappealing changes = mass exodus

High Isle was a wet fart of unique, mechanical design. Players are bored by the "copy/paste, new coat of paint" zone design. ToT is too niche and parasitic by design (it doesn't feedback into the main gameplay loop and just bloats the game)! I don't think ZOS realized the precarious position they were in with the lackluster, uninspired High Isle release. Then, the U35 changes were the 1-2 punch for many players.

Whatever they do next, it better not just be a new zone with 4 WBs, 5 delves, a public dungeon, a new harrowstorm event, dirt paths crisscrossing the zone with quest givers standing around asking for help. If they think the answer is to just add a new zone event (like WWBs or some harrowstorm thing), they will only see more disinterest and less player involvement.

Molydeus

Billium813 wrote: »

I think the lesson to learn here is:
stale content + aggressive, unappealing changes = mass exodus

High Isle was a wet fart of unique, mechanical design. Players are bored by the "copy/paste, new coat of paint" zone design. ToT is too niche and parasitic by design (it doesn't feedback into the main gameplay loop and just bloats the game)! I don't think ZOS realized the precarious position they were in with the lackluster, uninspired High Isle release. Then, the U35 changes were the 1-2 punch for many players.

Whatever they do next, it better not just be a new zone with 4 WBs, 5 delves, a public dungeon, a new harrowstorm event, dirt paths crisscrossing the zone with quest givers standing around asking for help. If they think the answer is to just add a new zone event (like WWBs or some harrowstorm thing), they will only see more disinterest and less player involvement.

I really enjoyed High Isle.

Onomog

I thought this was well said, too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeKj4V8vkVY

shadyjane62

Molydeus wrote: »

Billium813 wrote: »

I think the lesson to learn here is:
stale content + aggressive, unappealing changes = mass exodus

High Isle was a wet fart of unique, mechanical design. Players are bored by the "copy/paste, new coat of paint" zone design. ToT is too niche and parasitic by design (it doesn't feedback into the main gameplay loop and just bloats the game)! I don't think ZOS realized the precarious position they were in with the lackluster, uninspired High Isle release. Then, the U35 changes were the 1-2 punch for many players.

Whatever they do next, it better not just be a new zone with 4 WBs, 5 delves, a public dungeon, a new harrowstorm event, dirt paths crisscrossing the zone with quest givers standing around asking for help. If they think the answer is to just add a new zone event (like WWBs or some harrowstorm thing), they will only see more disinterest and less player involvement.

I really enjoyed High Isle.

I did High Isle on the PTS. I disliked it so much it's the first chapter since day one I haven't bought. I agree wholeheartedly with Deltia and am only playing out the regretted year sub.


I will never spend another penny on anything this company makes. AWA No-Proc and Update 35 were all considerations, but I hate companions and I hate card games so if the future holds more of the same I'm outta when my sub is up.

SammyKhajit

That was a very thoughtful and comprehensive review by Deltia. Doubt much notice will be taken.

Also, ZOS overcooked the card game. It could have been a quick, fun game to interact with other players but as he pointed out, the mechanics, the deck building and the low level rewards make it pointless to pursue.

_Zathras_

SammyKhajit wrote: »

That was a very thoughtful and comprehensive review by Deltia. Doubt much notice will be taken.

Also, ZOS overcooked the card game. It could have been a quick, fun game to interact with other players but as he pointed out, the mechanics, the deck building and the low level rewards make it pointless to pursue.

They should have just integrated TES: Legends into the game. Done, and done. It would have been fantastic.

NoxiousBlight

_Zathras_ wrote: »

They should have just integrated TES: Legends into the game. Done, and done. It would have been fantastic.

Man that's what I was hoping for and then we got... ToT. What a waste of an expansion feature. And what a waste of dev time.

Deltia is right about everything. My guilds turned to ghost towns after U35. Tried to grab a trial in Crag and couldn't even get 12 people together during prime time. Firesong came out and I just uninstalled. I couldn't be bothered to farm ANOTHER zone that adds absolutely nothing to my experience. The game really is stale.

Looking on Twitch the past 2-3 days, all my favorite ESO streamers are playing games that are not ESO. Really doesn't bode well considering the new content came out a mere two weeks ago...

Now to get me back they need to release an absolute banger of an expansion next Summer. But I do not have high hopes for next year. It will just be another non-combat mini game which will inspire no one to come back.

Such a shame. I loved this game for so long. Still do - but it is a shell of it's former glory.

SerafinaWaterstar

In the spirit of the upcoming festive seasons shall bite my tongue & not respond to some on this thread in the way I would like to. 😘

I play on ps5, for clarity.

High Isle was not a bad chapter; the story was more interesting than Blackwood/Deadlands big bad daedra tedium. And there was no annoying bosmer to drive me mad. (But I understand that the dlc quest drops the ball hugely when it comes to non-obvious baddies & plotlines you can see miles off, which is a real shame.)

Update 35 was awaited with much trepidation in my guilds - we saw the complaints from pc & feared the worst - but it was in no way the dumpster fire it was made out to be. Have more vet trial prog groups doing stuff than seen for quite a while. People just adapted. Rather easily.

Tales of Tribute - do like the game, which surprised me. But the rewards need to be more selective/better, and there should be more allowance for skill - for example, find the patrons unhelpful, and just see players using them to win, not using any skill. Sometimes wish games were longer, especially when its a good game & you get your hand just right.

AWA - was a vocal opponent but as this went ahead, have just adapted. And haven’t really noticed all that much difference in my gameplay (but then I do monitor outside the game).

But the main issue is communication. This has been ongoing for the last few years - tho Zos Kev is a welcome addition.

I just wish they were more honest about what is going on.

AdamLAD

It's either the devs have absolutely no idea what they are doing or they don't care that the game dies. After all they are working on a brand new shiny mmo. The problem that they face though, is that who would want to play it after the disaster that was ESO in terms of terrible balance and performance and them constantly ignoring feedback. Alot of people will be giving it wide berth because of it.

SeaGtGruff

IncultaWolf wrote: »

It's funny how fast the Tales of Tribute game died, like, most of the player base doesn't even acknowledge it anymore, and there's only like a dozen people left who still play it.

Do you have any data to back up that claim? As someone who plays ToT every day on two servers, no matter what time of day I go there, I always see other players entering or leaving the Gonfalon gaming hall to pick up or turn in their ToT dailies, which leads me to believe that there must be a lot more than "only like a dozen people" who are actively playing ToT.

Now, if you're talking about people who play in the ranked matches, I have no idea how many there are. But there are still a lot of people who play against the NPCs.

YandereGirlfriend

On the Twitch topic, it IS absolutely true that basically all of the established "ESO" streamers (including most of the official Stream Team...) are now routinely playing games other than ESO, including direct MMO competitors Final Fantasy, New World, and even WoW. That is not a great look nor a positive omen for the direction of the game. But it is hard to blame the streamers because the audience for ESO content is, like objectively, decreasing.

It's also been interesting, as a primarily PvP player, to see more and more segments of the overall community coming around to the viewpoint that the game is stagnating and in a sort of malaise. PvP players have held this opinion for years (since our game mode has been in de facto maintenance mode since like 2017...) but now that sentiment is shared by PvE raiders, the housing community, and a growing number of casual players as well.

We all want the game to do well but it's getting harder and harder to keep the faith that it actually will. ESO needs its own version of A Realm Reborn where the collective aspirations of the community are finally addressed and incorporated. Failing that, it feels as though the path of gradual, but continuous, attrition will continue.

Dr_Con

I really don't agree with him on the changes to oakensoul not being justified for PVE, and I don't like how he says it's so good for solo players then emphasizes how comparable it was to trial builds as if they are the same thing.

solo players should not be receiving all the buffs at all times available from trial dummies, and yet that seems to be the expectation people want. many of the trial buff passives come from other classes being in your group and activating an ability.

It had major berserk, major force, and major heroism at all times. it still retains all the major buffs- specifically sorcery, prophecy, brutality, savagery and 2 bar builds have 1 source of minor force, and then 2 skills dedicated to the rest of the abilities on the backbar. This leaves room for 1 class ability and presumably stampede or unstable wall of elements with an appropriate arena weapon or a backbar to activate another set to manage their stacking effects. Unless the source of minor force was trap or major sorc/brutality was mage's guild entropy, the only way to account for a loss of dps is stampede/wall of elements, or another proc set, or a lack of skill or oversight on his part of what oakensoul really offers.

to put it into perspective, major berserk is available as a proc on a 5 piece set or from synergizing with a storm atronach for 8 seconds and major force is a 10 second buff with warhorn or available through 5 piece trial sets each time a group member uses an ult, duration scaling off of how much ult being used, or off of the healing staff ult for 8 secs. The major protection was unneeded, who 1 bar tanks in pve? But regardless, minor aegis and major resolve are on the ring, which is more than any tank can ask for as they don't need to sacrifice a helmet set or ability on their bar to provide it. All this really does is make the DPS unnecessarily more tanky. Additionally, they still get all forms of minor recovery, which is an effect from using tri-pots or an effect from a templar slotted passive.

Users still got access to minor protection and minor slayer, which are available on 5 piece trial sets typically. If they weren't pre-buffing they'd still be doing the same damage as major berserk -> minor berserk was a 5% decrease and adding major slayer was a 5% increase, effectively cancelling eachother out. No real change there, but now they have to build kinras for major berserk. DPS for solo PVE players was untouched yet he makes it a big point in his video that it was.

Then they got access to minor force, which is 10% crit damage increase. Most people are forced to pre-buff this on their backbar which gets forgotten. Warhorn in trials/groups was less incentivized due to pre-nerf oakensoul as its main pull is allowing for 10 seconds of 20% increase crit damage to the group, allowing for burst phases to be more effective. a loss of 10% crit damage can be built around with khajiit passives or other gear/mundus stones, so no major loss here.

Major heroism is just not something you get in the game from many viable sets, and yet here it was as a seemingly extra thing that really has no place as ultimate generation should happen at the same pace as other players, not at an accelerated pace. This is really a case of tampering with something they wouldn't have done comprehensive testing with as all the classes would have to be balanced around this mythic. I would go so far as to say that even minor heroism isn't needed on this mythic as we can create potions that give us heroism, the cost of these alchemical reagents is high and minor heroism pots are used in many 2 bar top tier dummy parsing guides, it should be used in 1 bar top tier parsing guides as well. Still, it's not as bad as it could be, it's just superficial and unneeded. While I can be permissive of oakensoul having minor heroism in PVE, I will stand firm in saying it has/had absolutely no place in PVP as a major and minor variant, and only encourages prolonging fights, running around and staying in combat- further incentivizing this cheesy balorghs/vd/burst meta.

21 minute vs 20 minute on vet vateshran is basically nothing, he's performing basically the same with only a 5% time difference. if p =0.05 it still wouldn't be significant enough to show a difference in solo, and yet he is saying there's a 20% difference in dps with 2 bar vs 1 bar. Even factoring for time running there should be at least a 10% better time than using an oaken build (~2 minutes) (not factoring for time there should be at least a 4 minute better time). He also doesn't consider that he could be performing different based on the outcome he wants to see or how familiar with the build he is- if he was forced to use 1 bar his entire time playing the game, i'm sure he would get better numbers, but the fact that he performs so close to a 2 bar build with it only being released more recently is very telling.

the major to minor courage change is so minor it's not worth even talking about. Suffice it to say that both of these buffs are already provided in many trial as well as groups and it is unneeded, its only place is for solo. Major/Minor courage is even present in group dungeons so it's not a pain point to remove it off the mythic entirely and shift the bonus to something else.

maxjapank

Just a week or so ago, I let my guild know that I would be taking a break for a while. Largely for some of the exact reasons Deltia listed. I've been so tired of major changes every 3 months over the past year. Just as I began to feel comfortable with a new build, everything would be changed the next month with a new update. As a result, I have so many golded sets sitting in the bank collecting dust.

Update 35 was the nail in the coffin with yet more nerfs to Templar jabs. And the straw that broke this camel's back was the dumb-looking animation change to jabs. You don't change how a class feels after 8 years. And that's what they did. Regardless of nerfs, using jabs just doesn't feel right.

Likewise as Update 36 did nothing to change the current tank meta in Cyrodiil, it's just disappointing to know that we are stuck with this for the next 5-6 months. And though, my annual subscription just went through a couple months ago, I cancelled my subscription last night. No more money from me.

joseayalac

Do we really have to wait for almost half a year for ZOS to attempt fix the unsufferable gameplay that Battlegrounds are right now?

markulrich1966

Problem is:

if I understood former statements correctly, the U35 changes were just the start of an ongoing process. It was just a part, more to come.

However, they are not transparent, and it takes far too long.
You cannot simply start a change, release half of it, and then let the customers sit in uncertainty for half a year.
Nobody has an idea about the final state they are projecting.
And unless that state is reached (let's assume everything would be "perfect" then), you can't let people play with an unfinished and halfbaked change for half a year. Or longer? We don't even have milestones or a timeline.

There might be less protest, if people could understand what the vision is, but still this would not solve the time problem.

Just bought jewelry for 2 mio on console to get some of my characters back to a state they are actually playable. The millions I invested initially to optimize them: lost.
The millions I invest now might be lost, too, once the change is finished in some months.
This is far from encouraging, and sucks a lot of fun out of the game.

Sticking the head in the sand as ZOS currently does will make it just worse, everyones patience has an end at some point.

NeKryXe

I love the game, I agree with almost everything, but I love ToT too and I've been more on ESO because of it. Most of my time in ESL moved to ESO/ToT.

gamma71

I nerfed them today been playing since 2014 I hit the cancel button. Most of my friends left after u35 and rest with that joke we call pvp that they spend 0 time on fixing or adding anything was the last straw.

Bottom line is it's not fun anymore.

Billium813

NeKryXe wrote: »

I love the game, I agree with almost everything, but I love ToT too and I've been more on ESO because of it. Most of my time in ESL moved to ESO/ToT.

I feel like I hear this a lot. The players that play ToT seem to primarily play just play ToT... and I think that makes sense based on it's design. If you enjoy ToT, that's great. However, the gameplay of ToT has absolutely nothing to do with the main gameplay loop of ESO. It is in a completely separate UI, it has it's own rules, it doesn't use combat or skill lines or anything from the main game (yes, I'm going to call ESO the "main game" when compared to ToT because ToT is stapled onto ESO; it is a secondary game within ESO).

One of the biggest complaints about ToT I've heard, from those that play it, is that it doesn't seem to be a large enough game to stand on it's own. But yet it's also time consuming enough that other activities in ESO are pushed to the wayside. Queuing for dungeons or grouping for Trials or playing PvP or Arenas all kind of fall to the wayside when you play ToT. It demands all of your attention and also doesn't involve any other aspects of the main game. It requires separate knowledge to play; a "competitive" game with unique rules you have to learn.

So, now we seem to have players that log in, do their writs, then go off and play ToT... it's now its own subgame mode of ESO.

Compare ToT to some other thing that was added to the game: Arenas. These are side activities that take away from Trials and Dungeons and PvP too! Except... they reuse the main gameplay elements. They reuse skills and set bonuses and combat. They are solo content, but I would have much rather ESO added something more akin to a 1v1 Arena-style, instanced combat thing than a card game that uses nothing from the rest of the game. It's just bloat.

MidniteOwl1913

SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

In the spirit of the upcoming festive seasons shall bite my tongue & not respond to some on this thread in the way I would like to. 😘

I play on ps5, for clarity.

High Isle was not a bad chapter; the story was more interesting than Blackwood/Deadlands big bad daedra tedium. And there was no annoying bosmer to drive me mad. (But I understand that the dlc quest drops the ball hugely when it comes to non-obvious baddies & plotlines you can see miles off, which is a real shame.)

Update 35 was awaited with much trepidation in my guilds - we saw the complaints from pc & feared the worst - but it was in no way the dumpster fire it was made out to be. Have more vet trial prog groups doing stuff than seen for quite a while. People just adapted. Rather easily.

Tales of Tribute - do like the game, which surprised me. But the rewards need to be more selective/better, and there should be more allowance for skill - for example, find the patrons unhelpful, and just see players using them to win, not using any skill. Sometimes wish games were longer, especially when its a good game & you get your hand just right.

AWA - was a vocal opponent but as this went ahead, have just adapted. And haven’t really noticed all that much difference in my gameplay (but then I do monitor outside the game).

But the main issue is communication. This has been ongoing for the last few years - tho Zos Kev is a welcome addition.

I just wish they were more honest about what is going on.

U35 didn't have much of an impact on people *already doing trials*. It was supposed to help people get to doing trials! In that respect, it was an utter and complete failure of fairly massive proportions since with the PTS feedback they knew what was going to happen by the time it dropped.