High Isle exposed a flaw in ESO but what is it?

Vhozek

The "trailer knight" guy from High Isle became viral and I see him everywhere. Surely people eventually found out where he's from, right? Well, what happened then? Why did nobody play ESO cause they wanted to see the "trailer knight"? And if they did, why didn't they stay?
This was ESO's chance to nearly double its playerbase.

There's something in this game that's unappealing to a wider audience, something players notice very early on as data from all other video games suggest that majority of players obtain very early game achievements like "reach level 10" and less than half of those obtain achievements like "reached level 25".
What do you think it is?

High Isle exposed a flaw in ESO and I think we should really try to figure out what it is. This was THE chance for the game to blow up and there could be other chances, but for now, it looks like the game isn't going anywhere with the way it currently operates.

Foxtrot39

Likely the combat system isnt to their liking

Vhozek

Foxtrot39 wrote: »

Likely the combat system isnt to their liking

I can see that. I personally enjoy the skills part of the game but not the light attacking or heavy attacking part. Blocking is also fine.

I remember seeing a lot of threads about how combat needs to feel more impactful and my threads shortly after purchasing the game were about it too. It needs that exaggerated anime slashing feel for light and heavy attacks, at least.
They need to feel like Reverse Slash at all times.

Sluggy

I'm sure most people that are familiar with Elder Scroll come in expecting exactly what other games in the series have offered - namely an Adventurer Lifestyle Simulator and roleplaying game. And instead what they find is a bog-standard MMO with all the trappings of a such a game from the early 2000s. Personally I hated the game when I first played it. The combat was the only shining beacon of light. If it hadn't been for my discovery of dungeons and later pvp I would have probably quit within the first week of release.

As mentioned above, the combat system isn't to everyone's liking. It requires a specific taste for fast-paced action with split-second application of mechanics that most ES players simply aren't looking for. In the case that they don't care for the one shining portion of the game (imo) I don't foresee them sticking around. And even for the ones that do in fact enjoy the combat, the idea that they have to spend weeks grinding it out to get to the exciting parts of it are only for those with plenty of free time and a wilingness to spend it doing activities they dislike before they can get to "the fun".

Northwold

The game is almost impossibly difficult to understand for a new player.

You are bombarded with content, that you can play in random order even though some of it is serialised. You'll then find you've broken the stories. The very existence of the main quest isn't advertised, even though it's *designed* to take players by the hand and get them to level 50. Zones like Craglorn are instadeath for a new player but nothing tells them that. Some of the stories plain don't make sense, referring to not being able to get to a zone that the player can literally pop in a wayshrine and go to in minutes, because of the game's history. Nothing is clearly explained (I remember trying to walk into a trial at level 10 or something).

It's an utter, utter mess. I started with Morrowind after Summerset released and I gave up twice within a couple of days each time because playing it was just unpleasant and alienating. I literally sat there thinking "how can people play this it's empty, random and incomprehensible". There is no structure to it, so you pop from meaningless story to meaningless story because you've never had the grounding that players early in the game's life had by being led to the main quest, feeling more and more confused and uninvolved.

I only came back -- almost a year later -- when I found out online the main quest existed, and then under protest because when I'd asked online people who'd been playing the game 100 years said "duh Google it" as if you're an (i) diot for expecting a game to explain itself properly without having to trawl the internet.

So if you want to know why so many players drop out, that would be my guess. It is a horrible experience for new players. And every effort they make to improve it just tinkers round the edges and refuses to establish a true, linear introduction to the game that would enable players to get to grips with it.

Even basic features like not having every single quest, whether primary or completely pointless, use exactly the same quest arrow took years to get implemented. And the one truly beneficial change they made was not the portal cavern but the zone guide, which tells players that zone stories have a start, middle and end. That should have been common sense. But it wasn't even there when I started.

Very little thought -- or no thought -- seems to have been given to two important elements:

1) What would happen if a new players does the "go anywhere, anytime, do anything" philosophy *when they first step into the game*. The answer is: incoherent story chaos that the player isn't in a position to understand and will make them hate the game. (This is how I had seen the Silvenar married before I'd even met the Silvenar, and they were talking to me like I was their best mate -- seriously, if you want to give new players a headache and make them wonder if your game has bugged out, that is how you do it. Or by letting them meet Darien for the first time not at the beginning but when he's in full himbo mode, again, chatting to you like he's your best mate, when his introduction to your story has been not far off "you must like this person who is not that far from being a (r) apist".)

There is a fix to this that, even with ESO's engine, should be achievable: if a player tries to start a story out of order, give the player the option and the quest marker to go to the beginning of it. In main quest stories, giving the player the option to start the main quest.

2) What happens to new players when they run up against DLC content as *a new player*. The game doesn't explain that Wrothgar is a DLC zone, that Craglorn has no connection to the basic world, that if you follow the nice lady in Daggerfall she will take you, not to the fighters guild quest, but to a DLC zone. Quests are named with semi-poetic, meaningless titles rather than saying "This is the starter quest for the Greymoor DLC chapter". For a new player, it, again, creates an incoherent nightmare. I started, after dabbling in Morrowind, in Craglorn because it was pretty and for a fair time I thought the entire game was nothing but group content.

(You will also note another problem with this -- if players start in the latest chapter, they may play 20-30 hours without ever leaving it because that is what they think they're supposed to do. And the game used to FORCE players to start in the new chapter, and still makes that possible. So why would they ever even IMAGINE that there even *is* a main quest when they have already played what they thought was the start of the game??)

The way the game plays almost feels institutionalised -- in the sense that the developers are so familiar with their own creation, that they know every nook and cranny, that they forget that new players are not in that position. It plays fine for players who have been playing for years. Existing players don't walk into an alliance capital and face a fractal pattern of quest arrows. Existing players don't need to worry about quest orders because when they get a new chapter it's the only new content they have. Existing players don't need to be told the difference between base and DLC zones and its significance because they already know (how is a new player supposed to know that Auridon existed at the beginning but High Isle came last year, for example?? And that actually matters in terms of knowing which zone content you can play without breaking something.). But put a new player in that experience and the game just collapses.

phaneub17_ESO

This game can be both underwhelming and overwhelming all at once. The a new player experience there's a lot to take in and you're heavily disadvantaged when you come across older players with new characters who are doing insanely higher outputs than you without any visible reasons as to why. CP doesn't show up on a character display until post-50 even then trying to explain it is futile. There are people who have played for a while and may have only learned about Boatswain NPCs months after or already reaching level 50 with their first character while playing on their second or third. Until then their only actions to getting around is hitching a ride from another player thinking that's the only way.

Light or Heavy attack weaving doesn't get explained at all, for some they believe that is also the only way combat exists and sure if you want the numbers then you better learn it. However its not the only way to do combat, I know how to do it but I don't ever utilize it because it's not a necessity, but to some they believe it is. The description on abilities aren't always clear on their intent and they do a poor job on how things are explained. An example watching someone spam Wall of Elements repeatedly is a failure of explanation as it never ticks any damage because they keep over-writing the ground effect with a new one before it could do anything; don't tell me you haven't seen someone do that.

New player experience is forcibly holding them back on purpose, I wouldn't want to jump into this game if I had to start from scratch, its a horrible starting experience without all the crap I already obtained beforehand. A inventory guidebook that breaks the fourth wall on explaining the game would be nice, that Help menu is way too complicated, that I don't even know where nearly half of it is at. Things like suggested quest orders for those who want that experience of following the story in order while seeing where other content starts off. There's too many NPCs in town that take a different path without any warning they go to another place entirely, namely using NPCs who are notable in other existing quest chains. Explanations on different modes of travel from Wayshrine network, Boatswains, the many carts filling up the outskirts of towns like taxi cabs at an airport. Where to obtain skill points is a big one, if you're not an explorer type person you'll feel limited in your growth if all you get is skill points from leveling, and for some that may be where the bulk majority of their points come from because they just don't know.

chessalavakia_ESO

High Isle and Firesong Spoilers:

In the case of the Knight in the trailer part of the issue is that the experience the trailer suggests does not at all match the reality and if people ask about it that's what other people tell them. In High Isle we didn't face an awesome Knight, we dealt with his mage that was a bit of a failure. When Firesong came around, we were fighting another mage. When we finally get the face the Knight it turns out he's just a Mage.

Also, while I have seen him around a bit I would note the actual views on the video aren't that high which might suggest the actual pull to try ESO might not be that high if they aren't even looking up the full video that he's in.

With that said, I would say ESO's big issue is the combat experience. It's too flashy to play in first person for many people. The game leans too much on burst damage for how casual much of the audience is. Players that are equipped well enough for PvP/Group PvE are overly geared for most of the rest of the content. Buffs are powerful enough that lots of people run them that don't necessarily want to be running them.

kargen27

"There's something in this game that's unappealing to a wider audience, something players notice very early on as data from all other video games suggest that majority of players obtain very early game achievements like "reach level 10" and less than half of those obtain achievements like "reached level 25".
What do you think it is?"

Players with multiple accounts. Some have more than one account so they can take advantage of the events that give rewards for crafting. You get to about level ten getting a character ready to craft. Others have 2nd accounts to hold inventory and I know some players that bought ten accounts so they can have their own guild bank.

rpa

I suppose some part of new players quit at lv 10 when they get a horse and find out about 6 month horse fattening silliness.

FluffyBird

If I were a new player, I'd most likely think that High Isle has nothing to do with Elder Scrolls and is horribly boring. And if that was my first zone, I'd think that ESO is some generic mediocre MMO.

Danikat

kargen27 wrote: »

"There's something in this game that's unappealing to a wider audience, something players notice very early on as data from all other video games suggest that majority of players obtain very early game achievements like "reach level 10" and less than half of those obtain achievements like "reached level 25".
What do you think it is?"

Players with multiple accounts. Some have more than one account so they can take advantage of the events that give rewards for crafting. You get to about level ten getting a character ready to craft. Others have 2nd accounts to hold inventory and I know some players that bought ten accounts so they can have their own guild bank.

That's a good point, especially if you're taking this data from consoles where it's free to create additional accounts. I have secondary profiles on both the PS4/5 and my Switch specifically for restarting and experimenting with the very early parts of games, so I can delete all the data and start over without losing my actual saves. Breath of the Wild is one of my all-time favourite games but as far as Nintendo's stats know I'm 1 person who loved it and 3 or 4 who never got past the intro.

I only have 1 ESO account but if I had it on Xbox or Playstation I'd definitely have made others just to mess around with restarting.

PrincessOfThieves

I'd imagine that alt accounts and bots affect the statistics quite a bit.

colossalvoids

Honestly I perfectly understand people who doesn't care a dime about such stuff, I'm one of them and can't even comprehend in a way how you can be hyped with some random animation of pretty low quality that doesn't bear at least any lore significant stuff. It's just bland, it's not in any way relatable, it has nothing to do with the actual game or lore. It's just a visuals of random personages that gets never matched with what portrayed in game. Same was with Summerset, in Morrowind also so it's nothing new really. Last one even disregarded tes race portrayal of the main character which was kinda hilarious. At least Naryu had an actual dark elf appearance and garb.

Game wise there's not a single game that's catering to everyone and gets everyone, but it can lose way more of their core audience because their focus is on getting as much new users as possible without caring about retention.

FeedbackOnly

Lack of group content and grouping tool

Treselegant

Vhozek wrote: »

There's something in this game that's unappealing to a wider audience, something players notice very early on as data from all other video games suggest that majority of players obtain very early game achievements like "reach level 10" and less than half of those obtain achievements like "reached level 25".
What do you think it is?
.

The game has a big problem holding onto the new players it heavily advertises to. Usually following a new expansion I end up with new players friending me because I always go out of my way to help them and in the months after I typically lose over half of those as they stop logging in. After High Isle came out, all of those who added me stopped playing and that was unusual. Their characters abandoned not even half way to level 50. Now, this is just my observation over the last couple of years but it does seem to track with what others are noticing.

There are so many ways the game can do a better job of helping out new players as the current experience must be horribly confusing. Entering a main city is such a bewhildering experience even for me playing a new character - there are barkers on every corner advertising content. Even I'm taking those quests to shut them up and ending up unable work out which prologue belongs to what expansion. Particularly the recent ones as they're just so banal and lacking in identity. You're just bombarded with advertising in this game.

Beyond the sheer amount of advertising thrown in your face there is little to show you what you're supposed to be doing and I get so many questions from new players that really should be explained by the game. How the original story is supposed to go, how to engage in combat beyond: "this a heavy attack, this is a light attack, this a block, great you've got it, welcome to the game!", even where to find a companion and how companions work in practice. What's there currently doesn't seem to be doing it's job and new players are getting overloaded by content without rhyme or reason.

I'm starting to feel very cynical about the situation, it does not seem that much of a concern to those up top whether they keep players, no need to keep them engaged or happy in the long term, the only thing that seems to matter is that they pay the entrance fee.

Braffin

I think there are several issues causing this phenomenon:

- Newer players experience is outright confusing the very moment they set foot in any major city. There are even questgivers around, which are imprisoned in coldharbour at the same time. Not exactly incentivising if you're interested in story.

- Overland is basically a walking simulator at present to ensure players may start their journey wherever they want to. This leads to an overland experience both meaningless regarding storytelling and braindead easy when it comes to combat.

- Group content like dungeons (especially in normal mode) is heavily characterized by an overdrawn farming culture due to the reward system. The first impressions newer players make when doing their first runs are most likely speedrunners killing off the final boss while oneself is still dying to some trashmob which said speedrunners didn't bother to eliminate.

- Veteran players were pushed out of this game for literally years now, so there are increasingly fewer people left, which are explaining the various mechanics to newcomers. And we all know, the game itself doesn't do it either.

I play this game since launch, so I can enjoy it besides all this flaws. But I surely wouldn't stay if I just started and meet someone in the fighters guild which I left imprisoned in coldharbour minutes ago

Vhozek

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

High Isle and Firesong Spoilers:

In the case of the Knight in the trailer part of the issue is that the experience the trailer suggests does not at all match the reality and if people ask about it that's what other people tell them. In High Isle we didn't face an awesome Knight, we dealt with his mage that was a bit of a failure. When Firesong came around, we were fighting another mage. When we finally get the face the Knight it turns out he's just a Mage.

Also, while I have seen him around a bit I would note the actual views on the video aren't that high which might suggest the actual pull to try ESO might not be that high if they aren't even looking up the full video that he's in.

On the Bethesda main channel, the video has 3 million views, the video where the guy appears for a few seconds has 1.4 million views, and a later video where the fight starts early on has 4.7 million views. No other video around the same time frame, including about ESO, has anywhere near those views except for the Skyrim Anniversary Edition concert video and Starfield Gameplay Reveal (5 Million).

It sounds to me like they need to capitalize on this "trailer knight" guy.
I was thinking he could still come back since tyrants always have a double and escape death a thousand times. I heard he was depicted as a mage ingame so he could also go through all 3 major classes, ending his reign as a combination of all 3 (4 expansions about him effectively).
It just needs to be done correctly so people don't dread having to put up with whatever they didn't like about High Isle, since I hear not many people liked it.

Kendaric

To answer the question:

> Badly written storyline with every twist being obvious long before they happened.

> Badly written NPC dialog that often felt too modern, also a lot of times much of the dialog and character writing felt driven by a certain agenda.

> The main feature of the chapter was a card game that not many people seem to be interested in.

> A highly annoying boss fight against the story's main antagonist's underling. Granted, that is subjective but at least for me the fight was so off-putting that I won't take any character through High Isle ever again (and yes, I could have made it easier by using CP but I wanted the new player experience).

> High Isle was a perfect example of why new players should complete at least one alliance first.

All in all, it was pretty forgettable as a chapter. Had it been my first exposure to ESO, I'd have quit in disgust.

valenwood_vegan

I think people who have brought up issues with the new player experience are on the right track.

I can't speak to exactly what turned them off, but every single newer player I've met in the last two years has followed a similar pattern...

1) starts out confused / asking lots of questions / wanting to try everything.

2) They rush to 160 cp, because they're told that's when they can start making a real build... but they do it without learning much about the game. They miss important steps / do quests out of order.

3) They start farming for gear to copy a build they've picked up somewhere (or that someone recommended to them). And they start needing to make gold and believing they need to run certain dungeons for the exact right gear before they can progress. And this I think is when it becomes overwhelming. They find out about needing to get set up to do writs/ research / joining a trading guild. They can't find people to run dungeons so they try the group finder and have poor experiences. If questing interests them, they start to learn that they did them in the wrong order / missed the main quest / etc. Perhaps they even learn that the race / class combo they chose are not optimal for the build they're chasing. Or, ZoS ruins their build with a knee-jerk combat change, before they've even finished.

They start to get frustrated.

4) They finally get that perfect build finished, but they don't really understand it. Their dps doesn't improve. Usually they're somewhere between 300-400 cp at this point. They maybe go for another build and suffer through the same experience with the same result, being around 400-600 cp by that point.

5) They have all then vanished from the game, never to be heard from again.

.. and keep in mind, these are players I've actually met (in dungeons / guilds / etc.). I wonder how many never make it past stage 1, because they are less social and aren't able to find answers to their questions?

Vhozek

Steamcharts doesn't show a spike in players after the release of High Isle, but that's only for the Steam playerbase.
It's certain the trailer turned some heads but seemingly none of those joined, for some reason.

RedRoomGaming

Northwold wrote: »

The game is almost impossibly difficult to understand for a new player.

You are bombarded with content, that you can play in random order even though some of it is serialised. You'll then find you've broken the stories. The very existence of the main quest isn't advertised, even though it's *designed* to take players by the hand and get them to level 50. Zones like Craglorn are instadeath for a new player but nothing tells them that. Some of the stories plain don't make sense, referring to not being able to get to a zone that the player can literally pop in a wayshrine and go to in minutes, because of the game's history. Nothing is clearly explained (I remember trying to walk into a trial at level 10 or something).

It's an utter, utter mess. I started with Morrowind after Summerset released and I gave up twice within a couple of days each time because playing it was just unpleasant and alienating. I literally sat there thinking "how can people play this it's empty, random and incomprehensible". There is no structure to it, so you pop from meaningless story to meaningless story because you've never had the grounding that players early in the game's life had, feeling more and more confused and uninvolved.

I only came back -- almost a year later -- when I found out online the main quest existed, and then under protest because when I'd asked online people who'd been playing the game 100 years said "duh Google it" as if you're an (i) diot for expecting a game to explain itself properly without having to trawl the internet.

So if you want to know why so many players drop out, that would be my guess. It is a horrible experience for new players. And every effort they make to improve it just tinkers round the edges and refuses to establish a true, linear introduction to the game that would enable players to get to grips with it.

Even basic features like not having every single quest, whether primary or completely pointless, use exactly the same quest arrow took years to get implemented. And the one truly beneficial change they made was not the portal cavern but the zone guide, which tells players that zone stories have a start, middle and end. That should have been common sense. But it wasn't even there when I started.

Very little thought -- or no thought -- seems to have been given to two important elements:

1) What would happen if a new players does the "go anywhere, anytime, do anything" philosophy *when they first step into the game*. The answer is: incoherent story chaos that the player isn't in a position to understand and will make them hate the game. (This is how I had seen the Silvenar married before I'd even met the Silvenar, and they were talking to me like I was their best mate -- seriously, if you want to give new players a headache and make them wonder if your game has bugged out, that is how you do it. Or by letting them meet Darien for the first time not at the beginning but when he's in full himbo mode, again, chatting to you like he's your best mate, when his introduction to your story has been not far off "like this person he is not that far from being a (r) apist".)

There is a fix to this that, even with ESO's engine, should be achievable: if a player tries to start a story out of order, give the player the option and the quest marker to go to the beginning of it. In main quest stories, giving the player the option to start the main quest.

2) What happens to new players when they run up against DLC content as *a new player*. The game doesn't explain that Wrothgar is a DLC zone, that Craglorn has no connection to the basic world, that if you follow the nice lady in Daggerfall she will take you, not to the fighters guild quest, but to a DLC zone. Quests are named with semi-poetic, meaningless titles rather than saying "This is the starter quest for the Greymoor DLC chapter". For a new player, it, again, creates an incoherent nightmare. I started in Craglorn because it was pretty and for a fair time I thought the entire game was nothing but group content.

The way the game plays almost feels institutionalised -- in the sense that the developers are so familiar with their own creation, that they know every nook and cranny, that they forget that new players are not in that position. It plays fine for players who have been playing for years. Existing players don't walk into an alliance capital and face a fractal pattern of quest arrows. Existing players don't need to worry about quest orders because when they get a new chapter it's the only new content they have. Existing players don't need to be told the difference between base and DLC zones and its significance because they already know (how is a new player supposed to know that Auridon existed at the beginning but High Isle came last year, for example??). But put a new player in that experience and the game just collapses.

I absolutely hate the quest markers everywhere in towns, I’ve been playing since release on PlayStation and they seriously *** me off, I know they’ll take me elsewhere but the constant “I’ve been looking for you everywhere” when you start a new toon. Just leave me be and let me choose quests when I want

Foxtrot39

So to sum up what I've read

-People read "The Elder Scrolls Online" and expect at first the game to be like your regular TES game but in multiplayer (kinda like Skyrim together) then see its somewhat your typical MMO in gameplay and cant digest it

-TES series is moslty a classless game, ESO isn't, kinda take away the feeling of freedom you get from the other game of the series

-Extremely disjointed story line:

1.You can start at a DLC area which chronologycaly wise happens AFTER the Planmeld has been stopped

2.There are no quest pointer or warning that you start the main quest of an area wich is part of a multi zone quest chain (base game areas) in the wrong order leading to very confusing dialogue

-Quest saturation :

Too many marker in town which also contain DLC zone starter quest leading to player break away from the chronological storyline as they may not realize they're getting pulled into DLC main quest

Also obnoxious dialogue everytime you go near them

-Cinematic trailer are all fine and dandy but the gameplay really doesn't match it in any way as it tells nothing about how it plays

Thing I may add

-Freedom of movement and RP is really nigh non existant here

Sneaking (as in loosing agro after breaking LOS),thieving and assassination (the justice system basicaly) are massively lackluster and the game engine only offer the most basic movement system when much older game allowed a lot more verticality

spartaxoxo

Everytime I have stopped to help a new player, they have felt overwhelmed. They feel the game is really difficult because they don't know how to build their characters. They don't understand the quest order. And they don't understand how to get nice cosmetics.

One of them asked me to link him a build. Then he started cussing when I linked to him. I asked if he needed help and the censored version was like "No. It's just everything in this stupid game has to be so complicated. Sorry, that's not your fault or anything. It's just I want to play. I'm gonna log out and try again later." He never came back.

joergino

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They don't understand the quest order. (...)

"No. It's just everything in this stupid game has to be so complicated."

This is exactly the way I felt when I started playing this game.
I only stayed because there was a group of people playing this game with whom I liked to play in my early days.
Not a single one of them is still in this game, everybody left and I'm basically left doing writs for no reason whatsoever.

valenwood_vegan

joergino wrote: »

Not a single one of them is still in this game, everybody left and I'm basically left doing writs for no reason whatsoever.

OMG I feel this so much!

chessalavakia_ESO

Vhozek wrote: »

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

High Isle and Firesong Spoilers:

In the case of the Knight in the trailer part of the issue is that the experience the trailer suggests does not at all match the reality and if people ask about it that's what other people tell them. In High Isle we didn't face an awesome Knight, we dealt with his mage that was a bit of a failure. When Firesong came around, we were fighting another mage. When we finally get the face the Knight it turns out he's just a Mage.

Also, while I have seen him around a bit I would note the actual views on the video aren't that high which might suggest the actual pull to try ESO might not be that high if they aren't even looking up the full video that he's in.

On the Bethesda main channel, the video has 3 million views, the video where the guy appears for a few seconds has 1.4 million views, and a later video where the fight starts early on has 4.7 million views. No other video around the same time frame, including about ESO, has anywhere near those views except for the Skyrim Anniversary Edition concert video and Starfield Gameplay Reveal (5 Million).

It sounds to me like they need to capitalize on this "trailer knight" guy.
I was thinking he could still come back since tyrants always have a double and escape death a thousand times. I heard he was depicted as a mage ingame so he could also go through all 3 major classes, ending his reign as a combination of all 3 (4 expansions about him effectively).
It just needs to be done correctly so people don't dread having to put up with whatever they didn't like about High Isle, since I hear not many people liked it.

Elsweyr's had three different videos with 10 million+ views. Greymoor had 9.8 million and 8.1 million. Gates of Oblivion had 7.2 million. Morrowind had three with three million views. The time it's been since and COVID likely helped those others some but, I wouldn't assume the Knight is that much of a standout.

Foxtrot39

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

joergino wrote: »

Not a single one of them is still in this game, everybody left and I'm basically left doing writs for no reason whatsoever.

OMG I feel this so much!

Same here, started with 3 friends (who pulled me in basicaly) but all droped before lvl 20, playing isnt really the same when alone

tenryuta

Vhozek wrote: »

Foxtrot39 wrote: »

Likely the combat system isnt to their liking

I can see that. I personally enjoy the skills part of the game but not the light attacking or heavy attacking part. Blocking is also fine.

I remember seeing a lot of threads about how combat needs to feel more impactful and my threads shortly after purchasing the game were about it too. It needs that exaggerated anime slashing feel for light and heavy attacks, at least.
They need to feel like Reverse Slash at all times.

RS and many other skills just dont feel right or good... "why is that guy/girl hop slapping that boss with x weapon"... i only use crit charge on my 2h'ers, it looks just right, and dw flurry used to feel right, now its many slaps in the enemies face, then we have puncture and low slash, the stab isnt terrible... but needs an epicification, like a quick spin into the stab or a stepback into the stab, low slash is slappy, deep slash is an aoe with no visible change to make it any less slappy(deep needs to be a spin clockwise slash to appeal the thematics of hitting more than one persons ankle), shield charge and bash work, but then we get to bow shot skills other than rain you dont have to aim up.. the arrows are.........sllooowww..<_<

i dont use staves at all anymore, bad muscle memory from before one tam.

Vhozek

joergino wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They don't understand the quest order. (...)

"No. It's just everything in this stupid game has to be so complicated."

This is exactly the way I felt when I started playing this game.
I only stayed because there was a group of people playing this game with whom I liked to play in my early days.
Not a single one of them is still in this game, everybody left and I'm basically left doing writs for no reason whatsoever.

I've invited like 5 people to play the game with me, they did for about 2 hours. Never logged in again.
3 of those 5 I asked just said it was boring.
That was the only word they used.
The other 2 I just didn't bother asking them cause they were actually heavily invested in other games at the time.

Vhozek

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

Vhozek wrote: »

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

High Isle and Firesong Spoilers:

In the case of the Knight in the trailer part of the issue is that the experience the trailer suggests does not at all match the reality and if people ask about it that's what other people tell them. In High Isle we didn't face an awesome Knight, we dealt with his mage that was a bit of a failure. When Firesong came around, we were fighting another mage. When we finally get the face the Knight it turns out he's just a Mage.

Also, while I have seen him around a bit I would note the actual views on the video aren't that high which might suggest the actual pull to try ESO might not be that high if they aren't even looking up the full video that he's in.

On the Bethesda main channel, the video has 3 million views, the video where the guy appears for a few seconds has 1.4 million views, and a later video where the fight starts early on has 4.7 million views. No other video around the same time frame, including about ESO, has anywhere near those views except for the Skyrim Anniversary Edition concert video and Starfield Gameplay Reveal (5 Million).

It sounds to me like they need to capitalize on this "trailer knight" guy.
I was thinking he could still come back since tyrants always have a double and escape death a thousand times. I heard he was depicted as a mage ingame so he could also go through all 3 major classes, ending his reign as a combination of all 3 (4 expansions about him effectively).
It just needs to be done correctly so people don't dread having to put up with whatever they didn't like about High Isle, since I hear not many people liked it.

Elsweyr's had three different videos with 10 million+ views. Greymoor had 9.8 million and 8.1 million. Gates of Oblivion had 7.2 million. Morrowind had three with three million views. The time it's been since and COVID likely helped those others some but, I wouldn't assume the Knight is that much of a standout.

True, but there's a lot of edits of that High Isle fight from people outside of the TES community. That's what makes me think it managed to reach further than almost anything else ESO has done.
There's a lot of tiktoks and youtube shorts edits of the scene.

danno8

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

This game can be both underwhelming and overwhelming all at once. The a new player experience there's a lot to take in and you're heavily disadvantaged when you come across older players with new characters who are doing insanely higher outputs than you without any visible reasons as to why. CP doesn't show up on a character display until post-50 even then trying to explain it is futile. There are people who have played for a while and may have only learned about Boatswain NPCs months after or already reaching level 50 with their first character while playing on their second or third. Until then their only actions to getting around is hitching a ride from another player thinking that's the only way.

Light or Heavy attack weaving doesn't get explained at all, for some they believe that is also the only way combat exists and sure if you want the numbers then you better learn it. However its not the only way to do combat, I know how to do it but I don't ever utilize it because it's not a necessity, but to some they believe it is. The description on abilities aren't always clear on their intent and they do a poor job on how things are explained. An example watching someone spam Wall of Elements repeatedly is a failure of explanation as it never ticks any damage because they keep over-writing the ground effect with a new one before it could do anything; don't tell me you haven't seen someone do that.

New player experience is forcibly holding them back on purpose, I wouldn't want to jump into this game if I had to start from scratch, its a horrible starting experience without all the crap I already obtained beforehand. A inventory guidebook that breaks the fourth wall on explaining the game would be nice, that Help menu is way too complicated, that I don't even know where nearly half of it is at. Things like suggested quest orders for those who want that experience of following the story in order while seeing where other content starts off. There's too many NPCs in town that take a different path without any warning they go to another place entirely, namely using NPCs who are notable in other existing quest chains. Explanations on different modes of travel from Wayshrine network, Boatswains, the many carts filling up the outskirts of towns like taxi cabs at an airport. Where to obtain skill points is a big one, if you're not an explorer type person you'll feel limited in your growth if all you get is skill points from leveling, and for some that may be where the bulk majority of their points come from because they just don't know.

I spam Unstable WoE for the repeat explosion. It's actually a pretty viable front loaded AoE option. You can then use it as a dot as well if needed in other scenario. Saves bar space.