The Gold Road Chapter – which includes the Scribing system – and Update 42 is now available to test on the PTS! You can read the latest patch notes here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/656454/
Maintenance for the week of April 22:
• [COMPLETE] PC/Mac: NA and EU megaservers for patch maintenance – April 22, 4:00AM EDT (08:00 UTC) - 9:00AM EDT (13:00 UTC)
• Xbox: NA and EU megaservers for patch maintenance – April 24, 6:00AM EDT (10:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EDT (16:00 UTC)
• PlayStation®: NA and EU megaservers for patch maintenance – April 24, 6:00AM EDT (10:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EDT (16:00 UTC)
• [COMPLETE] PC/Mac: NA and EU megaservers for patch maintenance – April 22, 4:00AM EDT (08:00 UTC) - 9:00AM EDT (13:00 UTC)
• Xbox: NA and EU megaservers for patch maintenance – April 24, 6:00AM EDT (10:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EDT (16:00 UTC)
• PlayStation®: NA and EU megaservers for patch maintenance – April 24, 6:00AM EDT (10:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EDT (16:00 UTC)
2022: Holy crap Nirn is so vast
SeanBlader
✭✭✭
Hell if I know how good of a year this has been for the game, I've been an off and on player since launch... more off than on.
What type of player am I?
I used to be a roleplayer, but I don't have the investment time to do that in ESO, nor have I made the effort to find a compelling group to play with. So in ESO I'm more of an explorer. I play to see the sights and enjoy the stories. I'm not planning or expecting to play with anyone else in game, I'm just old enough to not want to tolerate dealing with people online. I just don't need the drama. I play in bursts wanting to accomplish a few zones or a character build for a few months before taking another few months off. If the game forced any PvP I'd not have invested hundreds of dollars or hours playing. I've not got the tolerance or interest to go after the most extreme challenging content
The Launch Experience
Bleh, I had a hard time wanting to play in 2014, the combat felt slow and tedious, the stories were scattered and distant. Everything felt like so much effort compared to Skyrim or Fallout 4. I took a few months break and managed to come back to finish the main story, but never got a build I felt fit me. What I wanted to see was the depth of content in each zone that we had in Skyrim's zone.
I came back and played Orsinium well after it launched which was fun. I can't be bothered to rush into new release content when there's hours upon hours of existing content I want to play through. Honestly the longest run I had playing is when I got a high powered laptop and committed myself to doing a bunch of crafting research, as well as maxing a character's riding skill.
Hybridization
As a solo player, this has been nice to be survivable and not take hours to do any of the staggering amount of content around the world. Adding more DPS as a tank to go a little faster, adding a bit more survivability to a DPS, it's been great. Having an off-type build is fun, like being a DPS but dropping to be off-tank is handy. I've been hoping to make a tank I can solo with while also dropping into healing if a pick up group is available is interesting.
A card game?
Look if I wanted to play a card game, there's a bunch of them that are free, even Bethesda's was a thing for a while, maybe still is? I've got no interest in figuring out the intricacies of those rules when I'm still working on a build for my playstyles.
Future stuff I still need to do
I'm still working on jewelry crafting, which might just all take way too long to actually be accomplished at doing. The whole Psijic portal thing, another huge amount of depth, and now there's some antiquities system to figure out. All of that doesn't count that I've literally done very little of the Ebonheart Pact zones.
I am probably not going to bother doing any housing either, but I knew people who would seriously love having a really in depth settlement system like Fallout 4 had.
Conclusion
Honestly I came to write about HOW STAGGERINGLY HUGE the game has become, it's impressive. But then I saw Stamicka's post about how he's disappointed in the direction of the game. He and I have a little in common and then a lot we can't play together. I also noticed the stability issues. Maybe my gameplay is the reason why Stamicka is having a hard time. I'm so sorry dude, I might not have made the balance decisions that led to where we are. The only reason I care if people leave is because Zenimax might shut down the servers at some point when I haven't finished stuff I eventually want to experience. Honestly I'd prefer if this was a single player game, but then we'd never have the continual add-ons that keep coming. If Skyrim had just kept adding continual DLC's every 6 months, I'd have spent money on them all.
For me there's more interest in between quest area's than I remember in 2014, there's more content in each individual zone, there's still a lot of depth and complexity in character builds and none of it is an effort in futility or memorization of where to step or what pixel on which you need to jump. There probably shouldn't be a level of power creep that a solo player can take out a world boss, but even without a highly optimized build I can make it through some of them. But that character complexity, the world exploration depth, the years worth of story content to play has made the game at this point to non-hardcore min-maxers a great experience 8 years after it's initial release.
Brad Bird once said something to the effect of, you can't have great moments of excitement without great moments of quiet. If everything is full on excitement, that becomes the normal. "How many super hero movies do you have 2 dudes sitting in a car talking?" So having the crafting, or decorating, or card games (bleh), in between the combat, raids, group dungeons, etc, makes doing your dolmen more intense when you just last hung a picture on the wall.
What type of player am I?
I used to be a roleplayer, but I don't have the investment time to do that in ESO, nor have I made the effort to find a compelling group to play with. So in ESO I'm more of an explorer. I play to see the sights and enjoy the stories. I'm not planning or expecting to play with anyone else in game, I'm just old enough to not want to tolerate dealing with people online. I just don't need the drama. I play in bursts wanting to accomplish a few zones or a character build for a few months before taking another few months off. If the game forced any PvP I'd not have invested hundreds of dollars or hours playing. I've not got the tolerance or interest to go after the most extreme challenging content
The Launch Experience
Bleh, I had a hard time wanting to play in 2014, the combat felt slow and tedious, the stories were scattered and distant. Everything felt like so much effort compared to Skyrim or Fallout 4. I took a few months break and managed to come back to finish the main story, but never got a build I felt fit me. What I wanted to see was the depth of content in each zone that we had in Skyrim's zone.
I came back and played Orsinium well after it launched which was fun. I can't be bothered to rush into new release content when there's hours upon hours of existing content I want to play through. Honestly the longest run I had playing is when I got a high powered laptop and committed myself to doing a bunch of crafting research, as well as maxing a character's riding skill.
Hybridization
As a solo player, this has been nice to be survivable and not take hours to do any of the staggering amount of content around the world. Adding more DPS as a tank to go a little faster, adding a bit more survivability to a DPS, it's been great. Having an off-type build is fun, like being a DPS but dropping to be off-tank is handy. I've been hoping to make a tank I can solo with while also dropping into healing if a pick up group is available is interesting.
A card game?
Look if I wanted to play a card game, there's a bunch of them that are free, even Bethesda's was a thing for a while, maybe still is? I've got no interest in figuring out the intricacies of those rules when I'm still working on a build for my playstyles.
Future stuff I still need to do
I'm still working on jewelry crafting, which might just all take way too long to actually be accomplished at doing. The whole Psijic portal thing, another huge amount of depth, and now there's some antiquities system to figure out. All of that doesn't count that I've literally done very little of the Ebonheart Pact zones.
I am probably not going to bother doing any housing either, but I knew people who would seriously love having a really in depth settlement system like Fallout 4 had.
Conclusion
Honestly I came to write about HOW STAGGERINGLY HUGE the game has become, it's impressive. But then I saw Stamicka's post about how he's disappointed in the direction of the game. He and I have a little in common and then a lot we can't play together. I also noticed the stability issues. Maybe my gameplay is the reason why Stamicka is having a hard time. I'm so sorry dude, I might not have made the balance decisions that led to where we are. The only reason I care if people leave is because Zenimax might shut down the servers at some point when I haven't finished stuff I eventually want to experience. Honestly I'd prefer if this was a single player game, but then we'd never have the continual add-ons that keep coming. If Skyrim had just kept adding continual DLC's every 6 months, I'd have spent money on them all.
For me there's more interest in between quest area's than I remember in 2014, there's more content in each individual zone, there's still a lot of depth and complexity in character builds and none of it is an effort in futility or memorization of where to step or what pixel on which you need to jump. There probably shouldn't be a level of power creep that a solo player can take out a world boss, but even without a highly optimized build I can make it through some of them. But that character complexity, the world exploration depth, the years worth of story content to play has made the game at this point to non-hardcore min-maxers a great experience 8 years after it's initial release.
Brad Bird once said something to the effect of, you can't have great moments of excitement without great moments of quiet. If everything is full on excitement, that becomes the normal. "How many super hero movies do you have 2 dudes sitting in a car talking?" So having the crafting, or decorating, or card games (bleh), in between the combat, raids, group dungeons, etc, makes doing your dolmen more intense when you just last hung a picture on the wall.
5
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FluffWit✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭A card game?
Look if I wanted to play a card game, there's a bunch of them that are free, even Bethesda's was a thing for a while, maybe still is? I've got no interest in figuring out the intricacies of those rules when I'm still working on a build for my playstyles.
Right? I mean they could have just added bloody poker or something.
Maybe 5% of people have the time, patience and interest to be bothered with their card game. And they maarketed it has the big feature of the year.5 -
vsrs_au✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Yes, it's vast. I'm a newcomer, having played ESO for about 2.5 years and only on 1 character (a magsorc), and I haven't even touched crafting or housing. One day, perhaps.....PC(Steam) / EU / play from Melbourne, Australia / avg ping 3900 -
Stamicka✭✭✭✭✭
✭Well I am glad you’re having fun. That’s what it’s all about. Your playstyle sounds exactly like the type of playstyle ZOS has in mind when developing ESO. I only wish other playstyles (competitive/ multiplayer types) received similar attention from the devs.
Edited by Stamicka on November 30, 2022 2:28AM2 -
SeanBlader✭✭✭The trick is that a game developer once said, "an RPG can be any game genre, action, mystery, stealth, builder, and we have to try and build all that into the game." Ironically that game developer was Todd Howard. Unfortunately there are not just software/architecture complexities involved, but also business and funding issues, and if anyone in these forums thinks they can do better balancing all that, I'd bet money they were absolutely wrong.
Stamicka, I hope the revenue from your endgame gets better so there is incentive to strengthen it, because from my level there doesn't need to be more money invested since I can likely never finish exploring all of the game, and by then I'll probably be so burnt out I won't be up for anymore zones or new mechanics. At the same time it's impressive that they are on the verge of having actually built out the entire world.0 -
Toanis✭✭✭✭✭A card game?
Look if I wanted to play a card game, there's a bunch of them that are free, even Bethesda's was a thing for a while, maybe still is? I've got no interest in figuring out the intricacies of those rules when I'm still working on a build for my playstyles.
I wouldn't mind playing a card game on the phone and still getting rewards ingame, playing it ingame on the PC seems to be a waste of precious gaming time (and let's not forget energy...)2 -
BlueRaven✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I know many people question the addition of the card game, but in at least one of my guilds it’s pretty popular. Popular enough to hold guild tournaments over it.
While I am not as super into it, I don’t mind it. I actually like the rewards from the dailies so I do the pve one quite often.
It’s an activity that is cheap for zos to produce and add to in the future, while still being entertaining. It does not have to appeal to everyone, but I think it appeals to enough people for it to carry its weight budget wise.0 -
cave_troll✭✭✭I am always impressed how people can feel like overworld is exciting. I mean yea it's a me problem and it's great that you enjoy it so much but I just can't. It feels blunt and boring to me. I don't feel any character progression and the rewards are just barely existing. Don't need 1 Soul gem, 300 gold and 1 piece of 1000 useless sets, I play the strongest ones. Everything dies in a few hits and I am never ever in danger of dieing even if I pull a whole public dungeon or whatever.
Any normal content is a waste of time for me and the single player aspect is way too easy and doesn't feel like an elder scrolls game at all.
Build diversity? Why even have a build if you can just mash 1 button to kill any quest mob?
Sorry but builds only matter if you play veteran content or PvP and there diversity is a lie or you're holding back your group if you don't deal enough damage or buff properly with the right sets as supporter.
Your level doesn't matter at all, everything scales with you and you still 1 to 3 hit most things besides world bosses. Every open zone enemy is useless and just there to annoy you when you ride from point A to B or collect sth. My next point is: World Bosses for what? What do I gain for beating them? Nothing at all. No useful gear, no good resources or cosmetics.
Plus they are way to easy as well.
Yea for sure a me problem, I only login to do some daylies and progress trial trifectas. Still waiting for new dungeons, arenas, group content. Everything else in this game is just meh and boring once you learned the games mechanics.
Edited by cave_troll on December 4, 2022 8:20AM2 -
robwolf666✭✭✭✭✭I thought you meant the size of the game map, not the game as a whole. But, the size of the map, and having so many places to go, is one of the things I love about ESO. There's just so much to do and explore - even now after playing since launch on Xbox, I can still stumble across something I hadn't seen before. Less often now, but it still happens.0