Casuals & PvP/vet PvE

FelisCatus

The devs seem to think "casuals" whom this game is now marketed toward from their POV. Would not like PvP just like they don't like End game PvE like hard vet trials/dungeons/challengers/trifectas. It's "too difficult" and "stressful" So the devs decide to focus on casual forms of gameplay like quests/exploration. Instead of just catering to one group and only ever releasing content for that one group.

How about make the end-game PvE and PvP in general easier to get into without over reliance on guilds whom gatekeep content with dps checks. How about the game teaches you how to play the game rather than other players? Instead of focusing on one group how about broaden that one group's (casuals) game modes by making them more enticing and less daunting to jump into.

I believe this was what U35 was an attempt at (from a PvE standpoint at least) but poorly implemented. All it did was penalise those already in the end game scene and not really make much more of a difference for casuals and in some cases made it harder for casual as their damage went down across the board too.

I think the devs need to make sure all players are having fun and have something to do or progress to. This would retain players and bring back old ones or invite new ones. When you've completed all quests and story content (like me) what else is there to do? PvP/PvE.

PvE - vet trials/dungeons. Although even then you'll get bored of them because it's so linear and monotonous and you'll need competent group members but the game doesn't teach newer players or casual players how to do vet trials/dungeons. You must rely on guilds. Which is terrible by design because guilds aren't ideal for everyone. Could be time zone could be that they only run content when you aren't available. Could be that updates like U35 cause lots of players to leave the game and then it's harder to find experienced players to teach you, let alone have the patience to teach you.

PvP - however was always more dynamic and flexible in "what could happen" I always believed that you could be more fluid with your build, really make it your own and you're always on the move instead of standing and parsing on a boss after the main mechs are done. Where as in PvE is the same mechs, the same strategy the same dps check, with maybe once a year new meta gear sets that everyone runs and all that translates to is different visual effects and maybe a slightly higher 1-2k difference in overall dps per player. PvP is quite stale now and it's honestly disgusting that the performance of Cyrodiil has been allowed.

Misc - Housing, Tales of Tribute (which doesn't appeal to most), Fashion, and Gear/mythic farming?

So really I think the devs need to re-evaluate how they approach implementing future updates and the main features they make the "selling point" of the year long chapter formula. Whether or not they should continue the chapter formula or not is a different question. If the devs want to make the game more casual friendly and still retain players and make it accessible then they need to implement tutorials that teach these players how to do endgame content like vet PvE or PvP without having to rely on guilds. I bet most casuals don't even join guilds because according to the devs they are "solo questers/explorers". So perhaps like how they have tutorials for crafting / tales of tribute they should add tutorials for vet PvE and PvP. Yes I know there is a siege weapon tutorial and one for volendrung but I mean general PvP tutorial not just mechanics for items. Perhaps make these tutorials "quests" in themselves to draw in the casual solo questers.

TaSheen

Eh, I don't care if they make any of that easier - I'm not ever pvping or raiding again. Been there done that, not ever going there again.

But I'm only one person, so whatever the devs do won't affect me much. - unless the game stops being fun for me. And when that happens, I'll just quit playing and paying, like I did with WoW and RIFT. Left them years ago, never been back.

Kingsindarkness

I'm not going to speak for the devs, but from reading their Twitter accounts and looking at the hateful nature of the forums over the past two years...plus looking at the direction the game is going, this is my take.

The company like most companies will do whatever is most profitable and causes the least amount of conflict. PVE players who are not into Vet Trails Or PVP seem to spend the most and complain the least, it's kinda hard to want to do something for a group of people who appear to absolutely loathe you.

When you have to delete Tweets because you're afraid of what might happen...you just don't want to do much for that audience...I mean I wouldn't.

Again my opinion

I just see the game going towards the group of people that complains the least and spends the most, call me mercenary but I would much rather make content for someone who really liked the last story and loves to buy and decorate houses, than someone who is demanding that the game be solely catered to them while telling me how horrible I am 24/7...especially if that group is the smallest demographic in the game.

Will Zenimax stop making Trials? Probably not...but look for less and less and look for that content to end up with a story mode that gives halfway decent gear. Will Zenimax kill PVP? Nope, but I have a feeling that the war is going to end and that huge swath of land is going to end up PVE.

That's how I see it going down...I could be wrong, but the last couple of patches tell me I'm probably right.

BlueRaven

This is all my opinion.

The problem with implementing tutorials is that they have to update the tutorials every time combat changes. Which means they are tying themselves down flexibility wise. And then what exactly are they teaching you? Is my bow build character going to have the same tutorial as my dual wield, and my mag sorc? Do they need a tutorial for every possible class/spec?

I keep thinking back to the original ES games, they never really taught you how to do combat other than "hit this key to sneak", and "hit the mouse button to swing a sword". I would love it if ESO's combat could be that intuitive, but with animation canceling/weaving it will never be.

dmnqwk

There is a large mistake players make in that they believe because their circle of friends has a similar idea, that a LARGE PERCENTAGE of the player base has the same one.

If you are a high end raider, doin' your thing, raidin' your raidz you will often hang around with high end raiders. Oh you'll go 'but my one friend over there is just a casual' and believe that 95% of the players WANT TO RAID.
After a while you branch out, try new things, hang out with a larger circle of friends and see this is not the case. But the mistake that gets made is you believe that 'hmm well 50% of the players wanna raid' or 'okay, so maybe we're a minority but a LARGE ONE of 20%' and you never quite reach the conclusion that, at most, 3% of players wanna raid.

I've been playin' MMOs for a couple of decades and I usually gravitate towards raiding in them. What I also do, however, is something many people simply refuse to do - PUG. And by pugging, I get an insight into the truth that a lot of people just dont wanna do it. You can try to help them, offer them tip, think they'll get better but many of them either cannot (lack of skill, lack of time) or wont (no interest, other things are more important).

When you run in a guild group you see people of a similar focus, ilk, design and you think to yourself 'this is much better because I feel confident/comfortable asking them to see things my way' When you PUG, you have to see everybody's viewpoint at the same time and end up being like that Doctor Strange who viewed those hundreds of other worlds at once.

If ESO is focusing on casual play, it's because it makes it more money. If ESO does nothing for PVP, it's because PVP makes it no money. It's very obvious, but a lot of people refuse to accept that fact and come up with ways of 'hey ESO, if you do this I betcha all those dozens of high end raiders and PVP players will come back and then I'll have all my friends here and be able to play again even if it might make 100'000 other players leave!'.

I feel sorry for people who lose their in-game friends, it sucks. I have one guild who stopped playing and I had to find another one to enjoy instead. But, it happens (and has happened enough over the years that players come and go, you get used to it. Just like when family members start to leave reality).

Loss never gets better. You just get better at coping - and a lot of forum posts focus on 'I HAVE LOST AND I NEED IT BACK' but the fact is - you want it back, you rarely need it back (the people who need it back at those who at on the edge and cannot mentally live with it, which is way rarer than you might be thinking).

ZOS are doing what they think will make them money - if they get it wrong, it'll be reversed.
My only hope is that they raise the floor so the floor to ceiling ratio is not 10 times, or 5 times but 3 times - so that new players have more power behind them and things can be more enjoyable (I mean - imagine if every time you pugged everyone in the group could do 20k instead of 7k)

endgamesmug

Through all the guild ads i read either in zonechat or the guildfinder it gives me the impression that raiding is the most popular activity in the community, so i havent bothered with guilds for the most part. I tried vet raids back in 2016 and didnt enjoy it at all, and the people i did it with were terrible. That was my experience and i havent changed my mind since, when i came to pc i thought id pull finger and improve my dps which made for some great vet dlc fun before u35. I dont do any of that anymore but im still hanging around, seeing whats around the corner all part of the journey. Maybe its time to give this heavy attack trend a go 😁

Everest_Lionheart

The biggest problem on the PvE side is the community gatekeeping content behind unreasonable requirements. Just tonight I saw in one of my guild chats “LF 3DD for vKA. 100K min DPS and multiple clears on role.”

Why must we set the bar so high for no reason. The long term health of the endgame will suffer if people continue to shun the mid tier players. The PvE endgame needs a larger pool of players to choose from but until those mid tier players get the reps and improve at the content it will be the same raid teams running the same things over and over again until they move on from the game.

Nobody wants to prog anymore, people only want to clear. Prog is a necessity. Lack of opportunity to prog only hurts endgame, stop the gatekeeping, take a couple 70-75K DD’s into vKA and teach the mechs, everyone will be better for it.

SeaGtGruff

I've yet to attempt any trials ever since the first couple of disastrous attempts several years ago. I'd like to get into them one of these days, but I'm not in any hurry because there's still so much other content I haven't done.

PvP was scary for me at first, although I enjoyed going to Cyrodiil, and then to the Imperial City and Imperial Sewers. I love to go to IC to do the dailies or farm the stationary bosses in the sewers, but I generally try to avoid PvP there. In contrast, when I go to Cyrodiil I occasionally enjoy jumping into PvP even though I'm not much good at it and know I'm going to die a lot. But I have never tried the Battlegrounds and am very nervous about ever trying them.

I think the devs would love to get PvP (and PvE) working smoothly and trouble-free. For one thing, I suspect that they love PvP themselves. And they know that a large portion of the gaming community is very passionate about PvP.

Tornaad

There is a thread that is currently more than 4,000 posts where people are discussing the idea of trying to get harder overland content.
Some people like it, some people hate the idea.
I really do not think we need to make any content easier.
What I do think we need is to introduce a medium difficulty, one that better prepares players for the harder content.
PVP is just going to have to be a suck fest until you figure out how to get better. I am still at the suck fest stage and will be there for a long time.

CrashTest

ZOS already has made it easy to get into endgame. All dungeons and trials have a normal version. With few exceptions, all mechs in norm are present in non hm vets. If you watch the mobs and encounters, you'll learn the mechs. That's the game teaching you.

There's no one in endgame that magically knew what to do when new content got released. People went into the new content and died repeatedly until they learned the mechs.

That's the exact same thing anyone new to trials should expect.

If you make a genuine effort to forge into endgame you'd find that:

1. You don't need a guild to get into endgame.
2. There are trial guilds that have extremely low entry reqs like 40k or less dps for starter vets (that much dps can be done by just holding down your left click button).
3. DPS reqs are absolutely needed for harder content. That's why players set reqs. It's not bc anyone is gatekeeping anything. Don't believe me? Get a group of 45k dps dummy parsers and try a vDLC trial.
4. There are trial guilds that don't require membership to join their raids.
5. There are lots of guides and videos made by endgamers that you can find with a simple web search.

I'll help you get started - here's a post I made with info for anyone who's actually serious about trying endgame.

If none of that suits you, take the initiative and create a team of like minded players then just do it.

CrashTest

Everest_Lionheart wrote: »

The biggest problem on the PvE side is the community gatekeeping content behind unreasonable requirements. Just tonight I saw in one of my guild chats “LF 3DD for vKA. 100K min DPS and multiple clears on role.”

Why must we set the bar so high for no reason. The long term health of the endgame will suffer if people continue to shun the mid tier players. The PvE endgame needs a larger pool of players to choose from but until those mid tier players get the reps and improve at the content it will be the same raid teams running the same things over and over again until they move on from the game.

Nobody wants to prog anymore, people only want to clear. Prog is a necessity. Lack of opportunity to prog only hurts endgame, stop the gatekeeping, take a couple 70-75K DD’s into vKA and teach the mechs, everyone will be better for it.

That just looks like a standard silly pug lfg, nothing out of the ordinary and def not representative of most endgamers.

Agree with you tho about the lack of new progging raids for harder content forming. I think a big part of it is many endgamers left bc of recent game changes and other ZOS issues, so there's no one left to do it. Trial guilds advertise for raid leads but very few actually step up.

Toanis

IMO the gap between "casual" players and "hard core" players is absurd. When a top tier veteran does 10x the damage of a newbie while having the same skills unlocked and wearing the same gear, it's impossible to create content that both can do.

When a new(ish) player has to spend most of their time in PVP in respawn or on their horse, or their lack of dps causes a wipe and gets them kicked from the PVE group, they will quit playing once they run out of stuff they can do solo, and tell their RL friends to join them in another game. Meanwhile the "elite" will move on because the "game is dead" since they find nobody to play with anymore.

So yeah, if you want to stay in business you cater to the fresh audience, that appreciates your past and current content and recommends your game to their friends. Focussing on a hard-core audience that demands more and more challenging content, is a big gamble, and frankly, ESO has pretty bad cards for that kind of competition.

robwolf666

I've been playing since the game released on Xbox, I have completed all the story/quest etc stuff several times and now have 6 characters at CP 1800+... and I still have little interest in "end game" content like dungeons (although I have solo'd a few), and zero interest in group activities and PvP, it's literally been years since I was in a guild, or even had chat turned on. So for me personally, I'm happy with ZoS just adding new PvE zones and stories. I play for fun and entertainment, not for challenge or difficulty... they can give me a story that expands on ES lore over high difficulty battles and bosses any time.

Vrienda

I hate PvP there really isn’t much they can do to make me like it outside of maybe MMR for Cyrodiil/IC which wouldn’t make much sense and would probably wind up exploited. IC was fun at launch because the PvE enemies were tough enough to scare off most solo pvpers looking for easy kills but a solo pve’r could make some half-decent progress clearing out the sewers or doing the admittedly rather good questline. Still wish it was PvE tho.

I also hate dungeons and trials, I’d much rather have a soloable alternative so I can actually see the story instead of being rushed through it by folks in their 10th run of the day.

Honestly the content that interests me most in this game is roleplay but due to there being no dedicated RP server or phase and the community of ESO being obsessed with how “great” souless megaservers are opposing such a phase it’s all guild and housing based. Which is lame. Tamriel is the main feature of Elder Scrolls. I want to roleplay out there not in someone’s very pretty but ultimately meaningless house.

Parasaurolophus

It is a big misconception that casual players spend more money on the game than other players.

Sarannah

When playing a game, I do NOT want to learn a rotation. The entire thought of a rotation bugs the hell out of me, especially barswapping, light attack weaving, and skill timers. No matter how many tutorials they put in, screw that, I don't want to do any of that. Not to mention the quarterly updates and having to relearn our skills, and maybe re-do our gear every time. Not gonna bother, no matter how many tutorials ZOS puts in. I'm perfectly happy being sub-optimal.

At the moment I am one of those solo questers/explorers. But I have pugged all major achievements in veteran dungeons, why? ... Because sometimes I feel like doing dungeons. Would love to try trials, but I can't.

For me trials are inaccessible due to the requirement of discord/guilds. My PC is in the middle of the family living room, so I can't listen or talk through discord. A trialfinder would help massively, as a trialfinder would let me access that content. And PvP is just messed up, not my thing to stroke other player's e-peens. So those two modes, I will never enter (unless they make a trialfinder like the dungeonfinder). But PvP is always a no-go for me, they would have to make PvP much more casualfriendly and fair(including no add-ons) for me to ever consider going there.

But I love doing all the other stuff: Companions, outfitting, housing, finding leads(not hunting for them), crafting(master writs), events, unlocking skills(blade of woe, seeing psijjic portals, ToT, excavation, legerdemain, etc), endeavours, stickerbook, and ofcourse questing through zones. Every time ZOS releases content I can't wait for ZOS to add new systems/companions/zones to the game.

The game does not need to learn anyone anything, it needs tools to help sub-optimal players like me further ahead. Tools like: Auto-barswapping, increased skill damage when not weaving, etc. To raise the floor, without letting anyone feel left behind, and without lowering the ceiling. Pro players would benefit from this as well, as players they encounter would be better than they would be without those tools. As someone mentioned above me: the skillgap between casuals and pro players should never be this big, maybe a 10% damage difference tops, not by a factor of 10 as it is now.

In short: Learning bad, tools good!

PS: Not in a guild (yet).

BlueRaven

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

It is a big misconception that casual players spend more money on the game than other players.

Individually they probably spend about the same. But due to the sheer volume of casual players, collectively they (probably) spend more.

Amottica

Most vet content has already been nerfed due to power creep. Recent changes have not brought us back to where things were years ago.

FelisCatus

Sarannah wrote: »

When playing a game, I do NOT want to learn a rotation. The entire thought of a rotation bugs the hell out of me, especially barswapping, light attack weaving, and skill timers. No matter how many tutorials they put in, screw that, I don't want to do any of that. Not to mention the quarterly updates and having to relearn our skills, and maybe re-do our gear every time. Not gonna bother, no matter how many tutorials ZOS puts in. I'm perfectly happy being sub-optimal.

At the moment I am one of those solo questers/explorers. But I have pugged all major achievements in veteran dungeons, why? ... Because sometimes I feel like doing dungeons. Would love to try trials, but I can't.

For me trials are inaccessible due to the requirement of discord/guilds. My PC is in the middle of the family living room, so I can't listen or talk through discord. A trialfinder would help massively, as a trialfinder would let me access that content. And PvP is just messed up, not my thing to stroke other player's e-peens. So those two modes, I will never enter (unless they make a trialfinder like the dungeonfinder). But PvP is always a no-go for me, they would have to make PvP much more casualfriendly and fair(including no add-ons) for me to ever consider going there.

But I love doing all the other stuff: Companions, outfitting, housing, finding leads(not hunting for them), crafting(master writs), events, unlocking skills(blade of woe, seeing psijjic portals, ToT, excavation, legerdemain, etc), endeavours, stickerbook, and ofcourse questing through zones. Every time ZOS releases content I can't wait for ZOS to add new systems/companions/zones to the game.

The game does not need to learn anyone anything, it needs tools to help sub-optimal players like me further ahead. Tools like: Auto-barswapping, increased skill damage when not weaving, etc. To raise the floor, without letting anyone feel left behind, and without lowering the ceiling. Pro players would benefit from this as well, as players they encounter would be better than they would be without those tools. As someone mentioned above me: the skillgap between casuals and pro players should never be this big, maybe a 10% damage difference tops, not by a factor of 10 as it is now.

In short: Learning bad, tools good!

PS: Not in a guild (yet).

Auto bar swapping? So you want the game to play itself?

Kingsindarkness

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

It is a big misconception that casual players spend more money on the game than other players.

Well if it is Marketing will know that...if it isn't, I think things will shake out like I said.


Time will tell.

Molydeus

I just wish Overland was more difficult. You don't spend much time in the lower levels and then suddenly you're lvl 50 and annihilating everything. After that the rest of the zones in the game are a complete joke for the rest of that character's existence. Enemies are just road bumps you barely notice.

Turtle_Bot

Sarannah wrote: »

When playing a game, I do NOT want to learn a rotation. The entire thought of a rotation bugs the hell out of me, especially barswapping, light attack weaving, and skill timers. No matter how many tutorials they put in, screw that, I don't want to do any of that. Not to mention the quarterly updates and having to relearn our skills, and maybe re-do our gear every time. Not gonna bother, no matter how many tutorials ZOS puts in. I'm perfectly happy being sub-optimal.

At the moment I am one of those solo questers/explorers. But I have pugged all major achievements in veteran dungeons, why? ... Because sometimes I feel like doing dungeons. Would love to try trials, but I can't.

For me trials are inaccessible due to the requirement of discord/guilds. My PC is in the middle of the family living room, so I can't listen or talk through discord. A trialfinder would help massively, as a trialfinder would let me access that content. And PvP is just messed up, not my thing to stroke other player's e-peens. So those two modes, I will never enter (unless they make a trialfinder like the dungeonfinder). But PvP is always a no-go for me, they would have to make PvP much more casualfriendly and fair(including no add-ons) for me to ever consider going there.

But I love doing all the other stuff: Companions, outfitting, housing, finding leads(not hunting for them), crafting(master writs), events, unlocking skills(blade of woe, seeing psijjic portals, ToT, excavation, legerdemain, etc), endeavours, stickerbook, and ofcourse questing through zones. Every time ZOS releases content I can't wait for ZOS to add new systems/companions/zones to the game.

The game does not need to learn anyone anything, it needs tools to help sub-optimal players like me further ahead. Tools like: Auto-barswapping, increased skill damage when not weaving, etc. To raise the floor, without letting anyone feel left behind, and without lowering the ceiling. Pro players would benefit from this as well, as players they encounter would be better than they would be without those tools. As someone mentioned above me: the skillgap between casuals and pro players should never be this big, maybe a 10% damage difference tops, not by a factor of 10 as it is now.

In short: Learning bad, tools good!

PS: Not in a guild (yet).

Soo... You want an Elder Scrolls movie?

FelisCatus

Molydeus wrote: »

I just wish Overland was more difficult. You don't spend much time in the lower levels and then suddenly you're lvl 50 and annihilating everything. After that the rest of the zones in the game are a complete joke for the rest od that character's existence. Enemies are just road bumps you barely notice.

Exactly, if exploration was supposed to be meaningful it would have challenge and danger and risk. Giving you a need to survive out in the wilds.

DMuehlhausen

I stopped after the first sentence. This and every game under the sun, that has been coded since around 2006 is designed, with a couple exceptions. Is 100% for casuals. Casuals with money now that loot crates are so huge are the biggest money maker companies have ever seen.

Honestly why are people surprised by this or think it's not this. This isn't a PvP game, this was never a PvP primary game. It was never a hardcore trial runner game. It was always based around the people that have 2 or 3 hours max to play a night and that's it. It's why dungeons are like 15 minutes. WoW at launch most end game dungeons were like 4+ hours for good 5 man groups. When they realized less than like 2% of their player base enjoyed that they made changes and basically every company in this genre has followed suit.

This will never be a hardcore players game, or a PvPer game. When it becomes that ESO 2 will be out or the servers will shut down cause it will be no longer profitable.

blktauna

Honestly if bar swapping was decently reliable there's be less of a problem. Most of the issues stem from poor performance and are themselves not really awful.

I'm consistently running into pots not popping although I'm charged for it, Ultis simpply don't register as being hit and when I finally do get it to register, I get charged and nothing happens. Location cals are so far behind my targets are never where I am hitting. Skills simply don't go off and I never knwo if its lag, a bug or something else.

If the game functioned properly we wouldn't be having 90% of these conversations and development could really concentrate on making interesting and worthwhile adventures

Sarannah

FelisCatus wrote: »

Auto bar swapping? So you want the game to play itself?

How is the game auto-barswapping the game playing itself? The player would still have to use it's skills, time those, and avoid attacks. The only thing it would enable is the game would switch to the second bar automatically when a skill from that bar is used.

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Soo... You want an Elder Scrolls movie?

That makes absolutely no sense! Even with tools to help sub-optimal players, they would still have to play the game as usual. The same could be said for add-ons, they are tools as well, and often make the game look like a spreadsheet. That is not a reason to not have them.

Not related to the above quotes: Due to pro-player's attitudes, the game has declined a lot. While ZOS is trapped between a rock and hard place, due to pro-player's their stances on things.
Let's take a few examples(rock): ZOS created the oakensoul ring to raise the floor. Pro-players did not like this, as it placed casual players on equal footing with them. Instead of casual players being 10 times worse than them. But pro players do not want others on equal footing, they want to be better, no matter if it destroys the game itself. Due to the pro-player's stance on this, oakensoul was heavily nerfed, and pro players are once again 10 times better than everyone else.
Another example(hard place): ZOS lowered the ceiling in U35. Pro-players did not like this, as they now do less damage. They complained, threatened to quit, threatened to no longer spend money on the game. And some did do exactly that.

No matter what ZOS does, the pro-players complain, regardless of the impact it has on the game itself. Luckily ZOS is starting to realize this, and is aiming towards a more casual game now. Personally I just wish they would go all the way with this, including with balance. Pro-player's stances on things, are really dangerous for a game. A game that includes everyone, of every skilllevel. A game that should be fair towards all types of players.

In my opinion the best ZOS could do is create tools for sub-optimal players, and create many more mythics/systems like the unnerfed oakensoul provided. No matter the feedback from the pro-players. This would make the game fun/equal for everyone.

Turtle_Bot

Sarannah wrote: »

FelisCatus wrote: »

Auto bar swapping? So you want the game to play itself?

How is the game auto-barswapping the game playing itself? The player would still have to use it's skills, time those, and avoid attacks. The only thing it would enable is the game would switch to the second bar automatically when a skill from that bar is used.

So what you're saying is that instead of having 1 button to swap the bars and use the same 6 buttons for both bars, you want a system that has 12 buttons that you need to press and the game must then detect if the activated skill was on the back bar or not and then change the bar to suit?
That sounds so clunky, unnecessary and down right horrendously tedius to play, not to mention having all those extra buttons for every skill front and back bar be ready all the time would make it very hard to actually play the game and leave almost no room for other options such as interacting keys, convenience keys, keys for utilizing other mechanics in the game such as dodge rolling, blocking, sprinting, etc. Then there's the issue with game performance, do you realise how many additional checks would need to be ran to implement your suggestion? The game is struggling with performance already, the added checks and processes would ruin performance even more than it currently is.

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Soo... You want an Elder Scrolls movie?

That makes absolutely no sense! Even with tools to help sub-optimal players, they would still have to play the game as usual. The same could be said for add-ons, they are tools as well, and often make the game look like a spreadsheet. That is not a reason to not have them.

it makes perfect sense, you are saying you don't want to learn how to play even the most basic aspects of this game, let alone learn anything even remotely challenging or engaging, at which point, why even play a game at all, why not just watch a movie instead.

Not related to the above quotes: Due to pro-player's attitudes, the game has declined a lot. While ZOS is trapped between a rock and hard place, due to pro-player's their stances on things.
Let's take a few examples(rock): ZOS created the oakensoul ring to raise the floor. Pro-players did not like this, as it placed casual players on equal footing with them. Instead of casual players being 10 times worse than them. But pro players do not want others on equal footing, they want to be better, no matter if it destroys the game itself. Due to the pro-player's stance on this, oakensoul was heavily nerfed, and pro players are once again 10 times better than everyone else.
Another example(hard place): ZOS lowered the ceiling in U35. Pro-players did not like this, as they now do less damage. They complained, threatened to quit, threatened to no longer spend money on the game. And some did do exactly that.

No matter what ZOS does, the pro-players complain, regardless of the impact it has on the game itself. Luckily ZOS is starting to realize this, and is aiming towards a more casual game now. Personally I just wish they would go all the way with this, including with balance. Pro-player's stances on things, are really dangerous for a game. A game that includes everyone, of every skilllevel. A game that should be fair towards all types of players.

In my opinion the best ZOS could do is create tools for sub-optimal players, and create many more mythics/systems like the unnerfed oakensoul provided. No matter the feedback from the pro-players. This would make the game fun/equal for everyone.

Your opinion could not be more wrong here. You have had all these amazing "pro players" such as Nefas, Skinny Cheeks, Hack, Deltia and countless others who have not only given up their own time and money into creating tutorials, builds, guides, organising carry runs to help others get achievements that would otherwise be impossible to get, hell even spelling out rotations and creating websites from their own money that explain in simple terms how to improve at the game. They have even gone out of their way to create dedicated discords to directly help players and guide them on getting better at the game if the players want it.

This mythical "end game toxic elitist that wants casuals to be infinitely weaker than them" that you assume every pro player to be, is the vast minority of that community.

Oakensoul getting nerfed is a completely different issue. The item was completely broken for pvp, but instead of listening to the pvp players who asked that certain buffs be changed to pve only buffs to keep it as it was for pve, but make it balanced for pvp, instead zos went ahead and gutted the item for everyone.

Pro players want this game to succeed, probably more than a casual player such as yourself ever will. They love this game and the fact they devote their own personal time, money and energy into trying to improve it for everyone as they have been doing for years now is proof of this, especially since they never had to do so, they could have just never shared any builds or created any guides at all and simply watched all the casuals learn the game the hard way, the same way these "pro players" did, through the harsh process of trial and error.

Casuals such as yourself that want the game to hand everything to them without them having to put even an hour of effort into learning the game has caused just as many issues for this game and pulled the development team in just as many horrible directions as the "pro players" that you are so vehemently against.

What zos should do is to create the tools (see tutorials) that help casual players understand how to do things in the game that would allow them to get better and actually improve at the game, but what would help even more, is for casual players to realise that if they want to remain as casual players and refuse to learn the game then they shouldn't expect to get the same level of performance as players who devote the time and effort to learn the game and get good at it, but if those same casuals want to learn and improve, then yes the tools should be there to help them improve.

It's the same thing as when you're at school or competing in a sport, you shouldn't expect to perform at the same level as a professional player of that sport just because you casually participated in it occasionally or expect to achieve the same level of a grade A student just because you spent 5 minutes studying right before the exam, life doesn't work that way. You should win or get the best results from devoting the time, effort and dedication to learn and practice the activity.

Zodiarkslayer

I think everybody should have his place in the game.
But the tricky part is to seperate them by gamemode, not gameplay.

The consequence of unlimited intermingling are players getting in the way of each other, blaming and shaming, and about 25 other kinds of toxic behaviour.

All with the result, that the playerbase is totally divided, fragmented even, because every single player feels he/she has to endure another player's playstyle.

The truth is that ESO's players are so diverse, that a definitive answer to that question if how to condolidate all players might be impossible.

Ragnarok0130

FelisCatus wrote: »

How about make the end-game PvE and PvP in general easier to get into without over reliance on guilds whom gatekeep content with dps checks. How about the game teaches you how to play the game rather than other players? Instead of focusing on one group how about broaden that one group's (casuals) game modes by making them more enticing and less daunting to jump into.

PvE - vet trials/dungeons. Although even then you'll get bored of them because it's so linear and monotonous and you'll need competent group members but the game doesn't teach newer players or casual players how to do vet trials/dungeons. You must rely on guilds. Which is terrible by design because guilds aren't ideal for everyone. Could be time zone could be that they only run content when you aren't available. Could be that updates like U35 cause lots of players to leave the game and then it's harder to find experienced players to teach you, let alone have the patience to teach you.

I understand your intent and your intent isn't bad just like the dev's stated reasons for U35 weren't bad, but there are a few things that need to be addressed. First guilds don't "gate keep" people out with DPS requirements. DPS requirements are the bare minimum requirement to ensure that the group completes the content which is a direct result of the encounter team's intentional design choices. So guild requirements are a direct result of dev choices not of guilds being elitist. Newer raids also have many more mechanics so DPS thresholds aren't even a guarantee of completing content anymore which is why you see so many LFG posts in Craglorn saying clear required for vet trial PUG runs. Dumbing down trials to be "accessible" to everyone without preparation would kill raiding because everything would become a longer version of Fungral Grotto and those currently raiding would get bored and leave and the new players that change is aimed at would either quit out of frustration since they don't have any mentors or would also get bored of the ease of the content.

There are often other requirements to raid at vet level such as the common CP600 requirement and voice comms which also help ensure the group can complete the content by ensuring the player possesses all of the required skills, passives, and CP nodes required to contribute to the group. Just like one wouldn't have a middle school student try to take a college level calculus exam without adequate preparation you just can't throw a non-raider into a normal raid or a brand new raider into vet raids without adequate teaching and preparation or that person is just being carried and there's a limit to how many carries a group can have and still complete the raid.

Guilds provide build guidance, teaching of trial mechanics, and improvement of role competency to new raiders so guilds are actually vital to raiding in my opinion because "we don't know what we don't know" and frequently the rather talented theory crafters come up better ways of doing things...especially given the frequent combat changes in ESO every quarter. Guilds also provide more opportunities to raid than sitting in Craglorn if you want harder clears and the satisfaction of seeing a prog group come together and mesh as a team. I'm in 3 prog groups and there's a wonderful feeling of satisfaction when you see a boss just "click" for your group that you've been struggling against for a while and you down him consistently from then on out.

I also think that some players want to jump from questing to raiding without having done the per-requisite content escalation (ie training) of questing<normal dungeons<vet dungeons<normal trials<vet trials where you not only get required gear for your role but experience in basic raid mechanics such as blocking, dodging, LOSing, and interrupting. I know people today get impatient but it's important that they walk the path of learning, and one must want to improve in order to do end game content which requires homework and practice just like any sports team. End game players like Nefas and his 260 volunteer raid leads did a great job getting new players into raiding via Project Vitality until ZoS pulled the rug out from underneath the end game community with U35 and basically killed Project Vitality.

I completely agree that ESO does a horrible job of training players. The tutorial is the absolute bare boned minimum and doesn't even explain combat, which role uses sword/board, staff, melee weapons, or which role uses which armor weights or magicka vs stam skills. ZoS must better train players in the mechanics of the game - both intended and unintended like LA weaving before end game accessibility can be discussed with any seriousness since it's ZoS handicapping their own playerbase.

Anifaas

A normal-trial finder and a monthly endeavor to do a normal trial via the finder would do wonders for bringing up the mid-level players. Vets would be incentivized to participate as would those who would like to dip their toes into trials. People who have no interest could still choose another endeavor. But everyone else would have the opportunity to learn trials in a convenient manner. Both casuals and vets would have content they could to together.

A system like this could also be very helpful in recruiting for guilds and useful to small guilds who are just getting started and cannot form a full trial on some nights with just guildies.

Kingsindarkness

Rich has told us a couple of times that Marketing has said most people don't find overland too hard...so don't expect that to change any time soon. A metric ton of people play this game who aren't traditional "Gamers" They played Skyrim and Maybe WoW and if you have noticed leveling up in WoW has been easy since 2005, and let us face it anyone can be a hero in Skyrim... ESO gives anyone a chill experience that they can come home after work or school instead of this.

Look I don't know the future of Raiding or PVP in this game, I am seeing that it's becoming less and less prominent in most MMO's today, but it isn't like it's gone away entirely.... what boggles my mind are those who have this all-or-nothing philosophy where if the game isn't solely focused on raiding then it isn't worth it somehow.

Also..has anyone noticed that most Raid guilds have gone from being super selective to bargaining with how they can get more people into raiding and forming how to Raid schools?

That's not happening because of the desire to spread the joys of raiding...it's happening because there are fewer and fewer people that want to go through that ordeal.

I'm sorry but it's the truth.

There isn't a MMO left that just caters solely to Raiders...because if there was most of you guys would be playing it.

Food for thought.