2022: ESO's Worst Year, A Retrospective

ForumBully

There will always be those that enjoy it, I'm sure, but it's the year I stopped subbing and playing regularly. Logged in the for the first time in a month today, and after 10 minutes in Cyrodiil, I wondered why I was trying to like it...so I logged out.

rpa

I was on break first half of the year playing instead a total disaster of new mmo which was typical so-much-lost-potential-beutiful-unfinished-buggy-no-content-grind-every-update-adds-dupe-exploit-and-more-grind experience. So in my perspective while AWA, main feature card game, nerfs and bugs were problematic, it was not that bad. I have to admit u35 nerf almost made me to quit. For some reason u36 made combat (except blocking) feel easier than before u35 for me. Dunno why, if it is a bug or a bug fix or some mysterious adjustment. I expect its a bug and gets fixed destroying my char again but I hope I'm wrong.

BalticBlues

Dekrypted wrote: »

To the OP, we'll said.
I've been playing since launch and the game is in a state where I can't even recommend it to anyone.

+1
Since launch, I recommended ESO to all serious RPG and PVP people I meet.
Since 2020 and especially 2022, ESO has become very different from its inital design.
With the new hybrid build/combat design, all fruits now taste like the same jam.
Moreover, scaling healing with damage in spring 2022 ruined roles, gameplay and balance.
In this state where I have hardly fun with this "jam", I cannot recommend it anymore.

Faulgor

I only disagree on hybridization. In fact, it reinvigorated the game for me at the beginning of the year. It offered so many new build options for all my characters, which made me engage with dungeons and especially PvP again.
Update 34 was a bit of a hickup, with the new mythics changing PvP a lot, but it was still kinda fun, despite the chapter content feeling lackluster.

Then Update 35 blew the legs off the game. Besides the changes themselves, the handling and communication of the situation around it and everything since have made me lose all faith in the game and the studio. I'll be listening should they ever decide to talk to us again, but they'll have to rebuild trust from the ground up.

Pepegrillos

I wonder if in a few years we will look back at U35 as ESO's smaller scale equivalent of Star Wars Galaxies NGE patch.

For reference: https://massivelyop.com/2015/08/22/the-game-archaeologist-star-wars-galaxies-nge/

BahometZ

Agree all the way with OP. Long term player here who engages with all content. Worst year of the game easily. So much broken content. AwA, half-baked hybridisation, poor game performance, u35 and out of touch combat devs, weaker and weaker writing, all of these are driving me and others away. Many experienced guilds are collapsing and being replaced by casual, low expectation players. If you're solo and low-intensity I can understand being happy enough. The game is pretty and there's a lot to collect, fashion and housing are neat.

Art design and crown store seem to be the focus now. Anything competitive or collaborative is suffering.

FeedbackOnly

Just want to say we still love the game that's why we complain. We aren't asking for a redo but we want better this year.

Mini games are fine but it's time for new combat addition. We are thirsty for new gameplay with existing classes.

I just hope you listen to us. We are hurt this year. While well attended, you still hurt some of us. You changed things not to a simple flavor of month but entire system felt different. You took away what we loved

I believe a group finder for combat is what we need. Help people enjoy old content via a new grouping tool for harrow storms and such

New tools to play aith classes even skins...

I just want to say most of us love this game and we do thank you for many great memories just let's not do this year again

amig186

I don't understand the argument that account wide achievements detract from the game's replayability. If you enjoy a certain bit of content, you'll do it again for fun. If you don't, then you only have to do it once for the title/dye/whatever and never again. Is it not like that? I certainly wouldn't want to grind the holiday event achievements on every single character, not to mention things like Cyro skyshards or Cyro angler.

Personally I liked the hybridisation a lot since it allowed me to use sets and abilities on my characters that I wasn't able to prior, on account of them giving the wrong type of damage or the wrong buff. When it comes to the highest level pve and pvp, I'll have to defer to your judgement on the matter, but I wouldn't want the game to go back to just pure magicka and pure stamina. It would absolutely kill most of my fun.

U35 sucked for me since I had only recently finished my first templar and was starting to enjoy it right before the class got nerfed to the ground. I still try to do what I can with it but I wish they'd reverse at least some of the nerfs. Maybe next year.

Overall I would say I enjoyed the first half of the year, the second one was decidedly worse.

INM

Well put, completely agree on everything, i would add declining quality of stories and bad writing of dialogues. That's a shame, previously i recommended ESO to people of various interests, now i won't recommend ESO to anyone, because degrading has affected every aspect of the game imo.

BlakMarket

Lauranae wrote: »

I usually dont answer to that kind of post, but today, i am just tired to see *another judgement post*. I am there since 2014.

Do i am aware of ZOS past and present, do i expect better for the futur, surely as some of us, BUT grass is never greener on the other side.

I dont blind me by thinking all is well here, but i play also another game for years, and they had over 200+ bugs confirmed at launch of a patch...

What i know, is that the staff working for us, do it. With the tools and the rights or permissions they have.

Personally, i would rather thanks the team for sticking with us, as we are starting to be a quite a negative crowd.
I would not feel motivated to do my job under such pressure.

Real life has been for the past years quite hard for some of us, and this game has been a great escape world of fun, allowing us to keep some smiles on our faces, and i dont forget that.

I enjoyed this little imaginary world, so thank you

You cant blame cant the community for becoming negative when the community is left in the dark & to their own devices. Communication is the key - they spoke of Q & A's, roadmaps & implementing new/better communication systems for the community to report bugs etc and look where we are. Close to no communication at all, we report bugs weeks before live but they still go live.

We've had MASSIVE constant sweeping changes to the game this year, and it feels as if we need to beg for information on why these changes are being made, and this lack of communication manifests negatively here, YouTube and Reddit.

Finally, its their job to make this game better not worse - I imagine they are paid well at ZOS, if you're a part of a team working on a company that generates 100's of millions of dollars & you dont feel motivated because of "pressure" from the community you're not right for the job, be replaced by someone who is motivated by "pressure" to make good changes.

This game has SO MUCH POTENTIAL, it's just sad more than anything of the direction its going in after spending hundreds of hours/dollars and making such good memories playing.

Edit: Just logged back in after a month or so break, it seems as if 70-80% of my friends list have left the game or on extended breaks. Jesus.

Gabriel_H

Kingsindarkness wrote: »

The game has had some patch issues, yes, but it's far from unplayable I think what most"Veteran endgame players™" are failing or refusing to see is the types of endgames that Zenimax chose for ESO just aren't that popular...other MMO's does raiding and PVP much much better which means that most of those type players have moved on.

WOW has awful raiding and PVP balance, and IMO a sub-par loot system. It also has 10 times the active player base. \o/

Gabriel_H

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

https://steamcharts.com/app/306130#All
October 2018 18,229 players
October 2019 21,527 players
October 2020 33,807 players
October 2021 29,949 players
October 2022 22,010 players

Steam players account for about 10% of the player base. 2020/2021 are high for one simple reason. People were at home more.

Soraka

Things have been meh for me. I don't like the card game, which wasn't an issue until I ran into a quest that requires me to play it in the new content.

I like the hybridization, but don't like the same-ness in builds it brings. I think it has renewed my interest in my character by opening up new things and I don't really meta chase anyway. It would be nice to see an addition of a class or weapon style.

Some new content feels soulless and I tend to not bother to read quests as much as I used to. It may be me being a little burned out, though. I have change fatigue from the back to back large balance changes.

I don't know. Things feel more empty (population and content), but it could be my perception.

SPR_of_HA_community

Gabriel_H wrote: »

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

https://steamcharts.com/app/306130#All
October 2018 18,229 players
October 2019 21,527 players
October 2020 33,807 players
October 2021 29,949 players
October 2022 22,010 players

Steam players account for about 10% of the player base. 2020/2021 are high for one simple reason. People were at home more.

It is not the main reason, you can compare it with different games. Whyle teso lose players some games get new members.

Yes 10-20% more players possible, but not x3 time than before.

Period from 2017 to 2020 was very good for the game it progressed a lot, get new players and new players regions with translation and localizations. Player speak very positively and call their friends to the game. But after summerset - problems start.

So if compare peak of 28k players to 13k - it is not "peoples stay at homes" - it is bad changes and wrong decisions developers did.

Pepegrillos

Gabriel_H wrote: »

FeedbackOnly wrote: »

https://steamcharts.com/app/306130#All
October 2018 18,229 players
October 2019 21,527 players
October 2020 33,807 players
October 2021 29,949 players
October 2022 22,010 players

Steam players account for about 10% of the player base. 2020/2021 are high for one simple reason. People were at home more.

What matters about steam numbers are the proportions, the degree of the fluctuations, not the actual numbers. It doesn't matter how many people use steam to play the game, as long as there are enough people in there to make reasonable inferences about the game's health as a whole.

ESO's numbers were not up for 'one simple reason.' It's never one simple reason. For example, in 2020 we had Greymoor, which was marketed by relying on Skyrim's nostalgia. That surely has something to do with the number of players who were willing to check the game out.

Following the idea that the pandemic is the single explanation of player variations in an MMORPG. Here is the evolution of FF14's population in recent years.

October 2018 9,691
October 2019 17,309
October 2020 26,240
October 2021 42,623
October 2022 37,718

How do we explain the growth here? Look at the comparison between 2021 and 2022. They didn't lose, on steam, almost a third of their peak concurrent players, as we did. What could explain that?

Kiralyn2000

Pepegrillos wrote: »

I wonder if in a few years we will look back at U35 as ESO's smaller scale equivalent of Star Wars Galaxies NGE patch.

Not even close. For all the DOOOOOOM posting, it's not remotely that bad. It's just that 1. the internet is for hyperbole, and 2. upset people are more likely to (doom) post. There's also probably a higher % of 'hardcore'/endgame players on the forum as opposed to the overall playerbase.

Lucozade85

Endgame player here and I agree with everything you have said, including hybridization.

It feels like the quality of the new updates has fallen dramatically where there is less to do and everything is more buggy with quests not completing or moving on to the next stage, game breaking bugs like the block bug and even targeting is off which can be seen in the below clip.

I now dread new patches, there's no excitement.

https://gamerdvr.com/gamer/lucozade85/video/168272306

G0K4R

Unfortunately gotta agree with everything you said aswell.

ZOS also said they wanna get better feedback from the user base and listen to it. But the opposite is the case.

Overall the communication between ZOS and the player base - or their customers - is really really bad. That's the most concerning and sad thing.

SPR_of_HA_community

I do not care if they do content slower but better.

As exampe if they would not do any changes in combat for last 3 years - I would not even care. Balance was good 3 years ago, so it would play good.

But they nerf a lot of builds, sets - including my favorite HA build.

They make game to complete mess !

It even they better do not do anything at all last 3 years than do this ... .

I do not even say that nothing becomes better.

It is better make thingth good but slow, than fast make some stinky content.

corrosivechains

ZOS_Psiion wrote: »

Greetings all,

After editing and removing some posts, we'd like to leave a reminder to keep discussion on topic and respectful. The forums are a place for everyone to share their thoughts about all things ESO but we ask that members refrain from personal comments about others. Per the Community Rules:

"It’s okay and very normal to disagree with others, and even to debate, but provoking conflict, baiting, inciting, mocking, etc. is never acceptable in the official The Elder Scrolls Online community. If you do not have something constructive or meaningful to add to a discussion, we strongly recommend you refrain from posting in that thread, and find another discussion to participate in instead."

Moving forward, please keep the Community Rules in mind.

That's fine and all, but it shouldn't be ok to completely disregard and invalidate the playstyles of others and their frustrations, telling them that there are no issues at all and the game is "just evolving" when there very literally are a plethora of gamebreaking bugs and balance issues...[snip]

[edited for baiting]

corrosivechains

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

(though ditching the Chapter model for less frequent, higher-impact expansions would be even more welcome)

So much this! Go back to focusing on quality over quantity. And stop trying to reinvent the wheel every year. It's miserable having to relearn everything about your class year after year after year after year.

KlauthWarthog

From a trust point of view, yes, I believe that 2022 was a new low.
1. I do not trust the combat team to know how the game actually works (see the hurried changes throughout U35 PTS cycles to account for HA builds and ground DoTs as examples)
2. I do not trust the storytelling team to create an engaging story, and to respect the player's perception of character (apparently, my character took a very hard hit to the head sometime between Southern Elsweyr and Greymoor)
3. I do not trust the QA team to prevent the game from exploding with major releases (far too many examples here, but I'll just leave the word "block" hanging)
4. I do not trust the community management to engage with the community on any meaningful way. or to go through with promises (U35 Q&A, anybody?)

This is as far as I can go while staying somewhat polite, so I'll stop here.

AzuraFan

amig186 wrote: »

I don't understand the argument that account wide achievements detract from the game's replayability. If you enjoy a certain bit of content, you'll do it again for fun. If you don't, then you only have to do it once for the title/dye/whatever and never again.

For me, it's because I can't keep track of which character has done what. You enter a new zone and almost everything is already marked complete. I think AwA is a great idea for the grinding achievements, those when you have to do something 30 or 100 or 1000 times to complete the achievement. Those make sense account-wide. But just clearing a delve? Doing a dolmen? Those should be character-based. As I said up-thread, if they'd just decouple the map from achievements, so I could enter a zone and see what a character has left to do, I'd be happy.

Volckodav

Completly agree on this post.

Playing since beta and what I see is that ESO based game is a really, really, reaaly wonderfull game...BUT the original team is gone and what the current team is doing with this gem is killing me (and the game itself obviously).

• Fist lack of direction and vision, class and skills changing every time...on a 7 years + game! do you know what you want for your product guys?
• Performace is a nightmare in pvp now that we are only 75, before we used to be 300.
• No new content...a card game really??? for a paying addon on an already suscription game??
• Crashes and recurring terrible lanches, in 2022 as an IT guys given all the tools that we have out there that's innaceptable, again on a refine old product, that's not a beta right?

For one of the most expensive game out there in his segment, given this terrible results I'm ending up cancelling the sub of my most favorite game!!! that's really sad but cannot continue to pay for that

On a more positive note, if real changes are made and validated with concrete results I will be the 1st to come back and support as I've done for years.

SPR_of_HA_community

corrosivechains wrote: »

ZOS_Psiion wrote: »

Greetings all,

After editing and removing some posts, we'd like to leave a reminder to keep discussion on topic and respectful. The forums are a place for everyone to share their thoughts about all things ESO but we ask that members refrain from personal comments about others. Per the Community Rules:

"It’s okay and very normal to disagree with others, and even to debate, but provoking conflict, baiting, inciting, mocking, etc. is never acceptable in the official The Elder Scrolls Online community. If you do not have something constructive or meaningful to add to a discussion, we strongly recommend you refrain from posting in that thread, and find another discussion to participate in instead."

Moving forward, please keep the Community Rules in mind.

That's fine and all, but it shouldn't be ok to completely disregard and invalidate the playstyles of others and their frustrations, telling them that there are no issues at all and the game is "just evolving" when there very literally are a plethora of gamebreaking bugs and balance issues...[snip]

[edited for baiting]

Block do not work 1 month.

"Do not worry, it is just a new combat balance" ))

As example - HA of lightning staffs can just turn of !!! You can not activate it !

Or all your skills stop work and you need reload the game !

"Combat balance again"

So even some thing that already was nerfed now even DO NOT ACTIVATE !

It just do not work ! As a lot of class skills before, that were buged for YEARS.

.... aaaahhhh it is just such "combat balance"

Why some classes can easely remove with class cleanse siege debuffs and classes like DK that only have good block and can not do anything can not even block it now by the way ?

amig186

AzuraFan wrote: »

For me, it's because I can't keep track of which character has done what. You enter a new zone and almost everything is already marked complete. I think AwA is a great idea for the grinding achievements, those when you have to do something 30 or 100 or 1000 times to complete the achievement. Those make sense account-wide. But just clearing a delve? Doing a dolmen? Those should be character-based. As I said up-thread, if they'd just decouple the map from achievements, so I could enter a zone and see what a character has left to do, I'd be happy.

Yes, I agree that the map shouldn't show white icons for things you did on an alt, frankly it seems like more of an oversight that just hasn't been fixed yet. Sometimes the opposite happens and delves/bosses you did on your current character show as incomplete on the map. A bit of a mess.

Arunei

Myself and numerous friends agree that this year has been probably the worst we've experienced in the game. Too many big issues and a lack of communication about u35 just makes the game feel bad these days. And to top it all off, we get nothing really substantial for the crapshow that was u35, but we get a Pet for the rocky launch of u36. Not that a Pet really means much in the long run, a "we're sorry" package with Crowns, Crown Gems, maybe some retired stuff like Mounts or Houses, some other stuff, something for every style of play, would have been a LOT better.

BlakMarket

Arunei wrote: »

Myself and numerous friends agree that this year has been probably the worst we've experienced in the game. Too many big issues and a lack of communication about u35 just makes the game feel bad these days. And to top it all off, we get nothing really substantial for the crapshow that was u35, but we get a Pet for the rocky launch of u36. Not that a Pet really means much in the long run, a "we're sorry" package with Crowns, Crown Gems, maybe some retired stuff like Mounts or Houses, some other stuff, something for every style of play, would have been a LOT better.

I could not agree more, while pets were cool at one point gifting them to us when they admit they could of done more this patch feels more like an insult.

In other words "yeah I know we [snip] this patch up, would could of done way better but didn't, here's a free guar lol".

While I really respect the honesty of what Rich said, the free guar pet just felt so disingenuous & out of touch with the player base who cares the most.

[edited for profanity bypass]

Roztlin45

As a 5 year+ player here at ESO, I have noticed the past two years were very lackluster and beneath potential. Many excuses have been made but in truth, there is none acceptable. [snip] Loss of trust in Zos has driven players away due to the larger investment of time needed for an MMO. (No one wants to waste time).
I did not care for the High Isle story or the Card game at all. Zero there. The only aspect of this year's "expansion" was the exploration of the new zone area but mainly the Oakensoul Ring. So when it was changed from my perspective it was a RUG PULL. In my perspective,I am never going to be the best, due to physical limitations with hands and age, however, the oakensoul ring opened new realms of content that was unobtainable before. The simple answer is to just not allow some sets in PVP. This separates PVP and PVE. Instead, a mass nerf and then update 35 was the final straw for many.
"Older" adults like me with disposable income tend to love ESO. Too bad it is hard to invest in a company that has no direction and treats the customers as adversaries.
Mods , I am not baiting or bashing. My comments are in hopes that positive change can happen by recognizing the gaps in direction.

[edited for bashing]

Tandor

UD35 had no damaging effect on me whatsoever, but UD33 with the AwA change certainly did, and the common link between them more generally is that in both cases ZOS failed to listen to its playerbase and engage properly with it. I've no idea whether numbers are going up or down beyond the reasons related to the pandemic, but if they do go down next year because ZOS continue to fail to listen and engage then that will be entirely their fault.

I've had to change my accounts and the way I play the game because of AwA, but I hope there won't be a repeat of the mistakes made this year when it comes to next year. That will almost certainly, however, depend on whether ZOS finally bring about the long and constantly promised improvements to communication. "Listen and engage" should be the company mantra for 2023.