How would You rate year 2022 in ESO? PvE edition.

axi

As the title says. Since 2022 is going to an end how would You rate Your overall PvE experience and game changes throughout the year?

SkaraMinoc

7/10

High Isle and Firesong were mostly good and Oakensoul was a win in my book despite the nerfs. I don't run trials so I can't comment on that. U35 seemed pretty bad for others but it didn't affect me at all really.

FluffyBird

2/10

How could I rate the year when I basically dropped the game?
Changes and promises tiring, story bland, farm tedious, ToT is OK, but for some reason I didn't enjoy it.
Dungeons were fun, a couple of other nice things, but for the year as a whole? If all 2022 updates just never happened, I would be ok with that.

Edit to add: I'm very looking forward to seeing the range of opinions, though.

TaSheen

10/10

Game works fine for me (questing and overland, writs and events). Really enjoyed High Isle, going to start on Galen after the holidays. Still love the game, we'll see if I still love it after the devs do whatever next year.

Bo0137

8/10

Does questing get in this category? Voted for the story. There's been better ones. ToT was a very very very cool thing though, perhaps the best system yet for me

Lady_Galadhiel

8/10

Love ToT.

ice34697

7/10

SkaraMinoc wrote: »

High Isle and Firesong were mostly good and Oakensoul was a win in my book despite the nerfs. I don't run trials so I can't comment on that. U35 seemed pretty bad for others but it didn't affect me at all really.

It's almost like you took my words out of my mouth.

I agree 100% with the PvE side. I really haven't dived into High Isle & Firesong yet other than to simply get Oakensoul and do the High Isle dailies during the High Isle event...but Oakensoul made my PvE experience overall just more enjoyable. I feel accomplished completing PvE content, especially WBs, solo now. And I finally gathered the courage to venture into Maelstrom Arena, so I was quite happy with that.

AzuraFan

7/10

I gave it a 7. High Isle and Firesong were decent enough, which is mainly what I spent my time on. I didn't rate higher because the zone formula is stale (6 delves, 6 WBs, 6 group events, ...). Also the card game didn't really capture me, which meant that the annual feature was a bust (for me).

heaven13

2/10

I dropped the game for a substantial amount of time due to AwA. Came back just to wander around, solo quest. Felt confined to very few characters due to the way I play and no motivation to start new ones, hybridization changes made my build feel really off, story writing in both High Isle and Galen were uninspired, predictable, and downright insulting in some cases. It felt cobbled together, as if there were great ideas that never got the attention they deserved (Maomer, druids, knights, alliance leaders, Ayrenn is now a Mary Sue but it all was shallow enough that it didn’t feel strongly linked and just there to be there). The rich lore for Bretons that was promised never materialized. No new houses were offered other than the standard inn room and a giant, limited crown house. The changes in all quarters drove most of my friends away so when I did come back it was to quiet guilds and dark lists of everyone offline. Add in the contempt and disdain shown towards players by certain devs and then the lack of meaningful communication and follow-through and you’ve got, in my opinion, probably the worst year in ESO’s history.

Only reason it’s not a 1/10 is because I’m sure it could be worse.

robwolf666

9/10

I've enjoyed the High Isle/Firesong chapter, might not have been the biggest fan of some of the changes, but in terms of the story etc, I've enjoyed it. Elder Scrolls has always been about PvE stories and lore, and while ESO is a mmorpg, I think that should remain it's primary focus, ES fans will thank ZoS for doing that.

chessalavakia_ESO

3/10

Positives:

Oakensoul opens up new and interesting possibilities.

The Empower changes make heavy attack builds more of an easy option on a wider array of classes.

Visuals of the new areas are quite good

Many of the fluff npcs are amusing.

I liked some of the characters in the Galen main story.

Negatives:

I felt the main story started off pretty weak and I felt the ending was really bad.

I felt the majority of the side quests on Galen were bad enough on the PTS I have no plan of doing most of them ever on live.

The combat changes seemed to be a bit extreme at times and even the ones I liked such as Empower and Oakensoul could use some tuning.

It felt like much of the content was buggier than it should have been and that the response to bug reports lagged heavily which doesn't work well when the game doesn't get patched much.

It felt at times the design approach failed to really learn from mistakes in the past such as putting high popularity leads on locations with limited spawn points.

Warden was my favorite class in the game and the changes to it over the year have removed it from that position. I feel like the design approach to changes put too high a priority on the feedback of a vocal minority.

Bat

1/10

It wasn't bad until it was. For those of us that mained Dragonknights it might have been even worse.

They promised to show Dragonknights some love.

And then proceeded nerfing them because they overtuned them, and then nerfing them again with U35 on top of ultimately destroying them with the nonsense "costs stamina and magicka" decision regarding the class spammable.

As I mained a Dragonknight on both PC-EU and PC-NA up until this, I felt betrayed and dismayed and it didn't help that old friends who are more casual players were laughing and cheering these nerfs on and mocking those of us who were left outraged. People who used to enjoy challenges no longer felt it was rewarding let alone fun or even achievable in some cases. This was the most unnecessarily divisive and downright disappointing year of all the years I've played this game. I'm giving it a sour 1/10.

starkerealm

1/10

heaven13 wrote: »

Only reason it’s not a 1/10 is because I’m sure it could be worse.

Honestly, with the casual cruelty they showed to the prog community, I'm not sure it could be much worse. I'm sure the combat team will be happy to prove me wrong in the coming year, and the reduced PvE content output will make 2023 even more disappointing, but, for the moment? Short of pushing the original U35 PTS build live it really couldn't have been much worse.

Hapexamendios

5/10

Positive: like the look of the new zones, Dreadsail is fun trial, like new dungeons

Negative: combat changes are abysmal especially to templar, ToT was an unwanted POS feature

heaven13

2/10

starkerealm wrote: »

heaven13 wrote: »

Only reason it’s not a 1/10 is because I’m sure it could be worse.

Honestly, with the casual cruelty they showed to the prog community, I'm not sure it could be much worse. I'm sure the combat team will be happy to prove me wrong in the coming year, and the reduced PvE content output will make 2023 even more disappointing, but, for the moment? Short of pushing the original U35 PTS build live it really couldn't have been much worse.

Fair enough, really. I just hate to set the bar at the bottom and have my low, low expectations exceeded. Lol

I haven’t done group content seriously (couple no sweat, no worries dungeon runs with a few remaining friends is all) since I came back and can’t even fathom trying to get back into trials. Too much work just for everything to change again. Maybe we’ll see what the new year brings but at this point, so few people are running and online that I know that the chances of even getting the updated gear is super slim and my time is precious and limited. So I can only, from an outside perspective, really see the lasting consequences of U35. I don’t blame those of you more impacted for how you’re feeling now. If U33 hadn’t driven me away through the first 9 months of the year, I’m sure I’d be right there with you!

colossalvoids

4/10

The only piece of content I'd say was good were dungeons, not much to say apart from that, so half the content drops. Story content might look bit more pretty and polished compared to blackwood but it's even more uninspired writing, which is an achievement on its own. Won't even comment on various changes made this year as it was pronounced loud enough by the large part of the community already, nothing surprising but it had domino effect on everything else the game had to offer.

HertoginJanneke

9/10

Bat wrote: »

It wasn't bad until it was. For those of us that mained Dragonknights it might have been even worse.

They promised to show Dragonknights some love.

And then proceeded nerfing them because they overtuned them, and then nerfing them again with U35 on top of ultimately destroying them with the nonsense "costs stamina and magicka" decision regarding the class spammable.

As I mained a Dragonknight on both PC-EU and PC-NA up until this, I felt betrayed and dismayed and it didn't help that old friends who are more casual players were laughing and cheering these nerfs on and mocking those of us who were left outraged. People who used to enjoy challenges no longer felt it was rewarding let alone fun or even achievable in some cases. This was the most unnecessarily divisive and downright disappointing year of all the years I've played this game. I'm giving it a sour 1/10.

I have 3 DK's. The only use my Imperial DK had was being my 9-trait crafter, I tanked an occasional dungeon with my Nord DK, and my khajiit DK was taking a nap the moment when VR ranks were replaced by CP en she reached level 50. The changes made me return to DK's. Today, this khajiit DK is my main character. I love playing DK and I hope she'll get my account before the end of the year to cP 2.000. Not sour at all. 9/10.

Syldras

2/10

AwA was a catastrophe.

I didn't like the card game much either, as it's rather boring, slow-paced, the matches are too long (I don't mind long matches in card or board games in reality, but it just feels like a waste of time when I'm in Tamriel, because there are so many much more interesting things to do there), and also the levelling progress is so slow. At first I thought I'd give it a try and at least level it to max, but in the end I stopped at level 4 or 5 and never touched ToT again for months now (except the one obligatory match within that one Galen quest - which I found cheap, by the way, basically using an unrelated story quest as an ad for the card game).

Now, concerning the story content on the Systres... I hate to say it, but I found most characters stereotypical (it was most obvious with Jakarn of course, because in the old quests he wasn't an obtrusive idiot hitting on everyone and everything, but a clever thief using his charms to deceive his victims), the stories mostly uninspired and foreseeable (especially the thing about the main villain - it was obvious so early and I hated to be forced to play dumb to keep the story going, even sending some npcs into their certain death, already knowing how it will end), dialogues often really uninteresting (varying between stupid innuendo and the same simple story thing or quest instruction repeated like 5 times in a row), and the quest design wasn't that witty either. I especially hated the quest about the druid artifact found by some Maormer, not because it was about sex, but because it was about sex without consent (being mind-controlled by some magic item is definitively the opposite of consenting) portrayed as a "joke". The whole thing was tacky, both the story idea and the dialogues. There were also several absolutely obvious lore mistakes this year, which never happened before, and make me worried about the future quality of writing even more.

Landscape and music were really nice, so was the town design (including guards on horses and moving ships), a few dialogues, npcs and side quests were okay, and I liked that one situation where you could choose a dialogue option if you have reached a certain skill level (although it's a bit meaningless with a character of 7 years or so, because all skills are maxed out anyway - but the idea was good; I'm always for more dialogue options). But, yeah, that's not a lot, so the negative aspects clearly outweigh the positive ones. I'm sorry, I love TES, I basically grew up with the Elder Scrolls even, I absolutely adore the lore and really enjoy the stories normally, but this year was disappointing.

Necrotech_Master

7/10

my overall impressions:

weak spots:

• year long story creating short content and worse storytelling than previous chapters
• leads in treasure maps getting incredibly annoying
• 2 sec ticks on dots (makes them feel very weak)
• buggy releases (pretty much entire year something major has happened on each release)

positive stuff:

• account wide achievements (thank freaking god, best feature this year for me so im not shackled into playing 1 character all time or in content he was not built for)
• tribute (its fun, and much much much more enjoyable than doing crafting writs)
• new mythics/sets for more theorycrafting

neutral/no strong opinion

• combat changes in general (did not really change any of my characters, only redid 1 of my characters gear and some skills because i had gotten a better gear setup for him to begin with but overall nothing that was affected by u35, in fact one of dps toon actually went up in dps from u35)

Tandor

8/10

I've enjoyed the overland content including questing, delves and housing etc, but the year was spoilt for me as a result of the switch to account-wide achievements with the result that I abandoned my original accounts and characters so as to start over with a fresh account and characters designed to progress with the changes in mind from the start. I couldn't bring myself to log in my previous characters and jumble them all up with no proper record of what each had done separately from the others. Without that change I'd have voted 10/10 as nothing else (such as U35) has impacted me in any way.

Kirawolfe

6/10

There were just too many issues with upgrades and patches and patches to patches and bugs with the new content to go much higher than this.

The communication (outside of the folks who post to us here on the forums) had a high level of disdain towards players who had legitimate, proven, issues with the massive combat overhaul. That's not okay and weighs into this too.

On the plus side, the new zones were absolutely beautiful and I can tell a lot of love went into the design of the druid settlements and furnishings. Massive kudos to the design teams for that. Story so far has been pretty good. I don't think anything will ever grab me as much as Greymoor, and I've still got many of the previous DLCs to work though XD

I loved Shipwright's regret, and Dreadsail Reef is a fascinating trial. First one I've been through where we knew nothing about the mechanics and it was FUN figuring that all out

Bat

1/10

HertoginJanneke wrote: »

I have 3 DK's. The only use my Imperial DK had was being my 9-trait crafter, I tanked an occasional dungeon with my Nord DK, and my khajiit DK was taking a nap the moment when VR ranks were replaced by CP en she reached level 50. The changes made me return to DK's. Today, this khajiit DK is my main character. I love playing DK and I hope she'll get my account before the end of the year to cP 2.000. Not sour at all. 9/10.

Which changes are you talking about that led you to start playing DK? The buffs in U32? The subsequent nerfs in following patches? The changes to how a magicka dragonknight now no longer can dodge roll attacks in challenging contents without entirely sacrificing their ability to spam their class spammable?

I have 6 DKs, not that any such number matters more than the hours we've put into their developments, but I surmise from your reply here that you didn't have much experience at all with which you can fairly compare Dragonknights prior to U32 through U35 to where they are now. They were in essence nerfed back to pre-U32 in U35, and especially magicka Dragonknights are in a much worse state because of the decision to make the class spammable cost two resources instead of one.

You didn't really give any other reason for your rating in this thread, so I must assume you believe in honesty that Dragonknights were benefited from this year's nerf patches, to which I would reply they objectively weren't. Please elaborate.

Azphira

7/10

It feels to me like Zos hired too many employees with something else consuming their thoughts more than making video games while at work.

Cazador

7/10

I liked the zone content overall, especially the art direction which was on point as usual. The new trial was pretty decent and I like the new mythics even if they can still be a pain to get. However the buggy firesong launch drops my score a fair bit.
7/10

UnabashedlyHonest

2/10

Too many bugs, too many changes that don't make any sense and were not asked for, virtually zero communication, some insults made toward the community so social media, poor balance and getting worse, U35, the gutting of the end game community....I guess I'll go ahead and stop there even though I could go on.

mandricus

2/10

Overland exploration and questing still ok. DLC Dungeons and trials out of reach for me after u35. I was at the bare minimum to do a vet trial before u35, the combat changes put that kind of content out of reach for me, as the ceiling didn't change much for top players, but the floor lowered a lot for mid/low tier players like me. Thank you Zos.

rexagamemnon

3/10

U35 was a crime against humanity

DreamyLu

5/10

It's difficult for me, because as several know, I'm in ESO only to chill solo, not touching much of the content. For this limited use of the game, I'm happy. However, ESO as a full game could never be my main because there are by far too many things I don't like. So, for me, there are two different ways to answer that poll:
- Restricted to the content I touch: 9/10, very enjoyable.
- Extended to whole game content: 2/10, no match for me.

Taking the 2 aspects in consideration for a honest evaluation, that results in an overall 5/10 (5+).

RevJJ

5/10

Good:

Oakensoul makes for some fun builds even after the nerf.

The four dungeons look great and are fun.

High Isle and Galen both look good, especially the wilderness areas. Random encounters with swinging monkeys or NPCs add life to the zones.

Bad:

The way AWA were implemented meant I lost most of my motivation to play with multiple characters because there’s no benefit anymore apart from different looks. I switched from actively playing on two accounts to practically abandon one account and continue on a fresh one. There’s no incentive to replay content anymore except to grind for gear.

U35 combat changes set me back a lot, and content I was previously able to barely do now became unachievable.

U36 launch with its very impactful bugs and multiple leads not working.

ToT would have been ok as a minor feature but as the main new feature of a chapter I find it very lacking. Games against other players take too long, the gameplay is very repetitive and although the rewards can be good I don’t find them good enough to keep playing now that I’ve got all ToT related achievements.
I do have to say that if they managed to find a way to play ToT on my phone while still getting the rewards on my regular ESO account I might play it more often (while I’m traveling, for example).

Overpowered sets still being introduced to pvp without listening to player feedback on the pts forum.

In general, the feedback on the pts forum being mostly ignored which led to bugs going live that were called out on pts weeks before launch.

The year long story was supposed to be about political intrigue but turned out to be just another end of the world story. And added very little to the “legacy” of the Bretons.

Ugly:

Less than six months after launch, High Isle was already practically deserted outside prime-time.

Dungeon queues seem to be getting longer and longer,

Both of these could possibly be due to players leaving or not having an incentive to re-run content.

bmnoble

5/10

Neither awful nor particularly good either.

Malkiv

2/10

I would never say that ESO pulled a 1 on PVE, because the combat in this game is really fun when you just want to run story content, or farm some stuff, and you're not putting effort into maxing out in overland-type of content. I really do like the combat style ESO uses, especially with all of the active part of combat - like rolling, blocking, breaking-free, etc.

But I rated it a 2/10 for 2022, because I'm also sweaty - a lot of things happened with the combat mechanic changes that made no sense, did not achieve their stated goals, and were simply passed off as, "trust us, bro," after - I guess - being told I just wouldn't understand anyway.

What makes it personally frustrating, is that the combat changes didn't have as much of an impact on me as it had on the players that weren't quite there yet where they wanted to be. There was sort of this "might as well play support" defeat that swept the aspiring DPS in the guild I was helping at that time in August. That was unfortunate to see happen, and while no one quit - the vTrials DPS sign-ups didn't fill for a few weeks. No one should feel like that, when they had already invested a lot of time into learning how to be good DPS. Yet, that's exactly what happened.