ESO feels like a modern Far Cry game, for better and worse.

Wing

there is a lot of "content."
but nothing to "do."

there does not feel like there is a vision or a direction for this game and its future.

everything feels like a bog-standard checklist of features and content in response to data / statistics / the industry. and nothing actually exciting to do or look forward to.


here are the dailies you do if you want to do a little quest chore:
-here are the couple for various zones so you can pick one.
-slight variation so you don't get to bored too fast.
-and here is your reward.

oh you want a little sneaky heist style content?
-over here, there you go!

here are your classes, these are their colors.
-here is your aoe damage color,
your single target damage color,
your self heal
your armor buff
your aoe heal
your support skills
oh dont worry they are all different but only slightly different, we want everyone to have fun after all.

oh you want to explore?
-here is the content, they are little eyes things, when you finish exploring, we will give you an achievement! so go do the exploring thing!

oh you want crafting materials? oh well i guess you could go maybe look around and engage with the world a bit. . .BUT! we have also designed crafting content for you! here are some dailies! they are a bit of a chore and your only clicking boxes and navigating menus, BUT it REWARDS you with all kinds of crafting materials AND money, plus you can make alts and just farm these! who needs a world to explore when you got all this content!

want to spend money on us for all this content btw?
we got a sub fee you can pay for
we have a cash shop where you can buy stuff
paid expansions of various levels.
we have loot boxes everyone loves loot boxes.
dont worry we rotate them and say things are "on sale" or "discounted" or "limited time" to trick people into thinking digital items have scarcity and we are not still trying to get top dollar for an outfit we had an intern whip up for 5$ before we fired him 7 years ago. . . people still pay for it even now XD btw, its great.


oh whats that?
the motif from the expansion dailies is still not in the dailies?

no we know, gotta drag this out

ill check a little "active" box in a couple months when they get bored, gotta make this last or the might start looking at other games.

Kendaric

Yes, that sums up ESO in it's current state pretty well.

But then again, most MMORPGs are in a similiar state.

Twig_Garlicshine

Most mmos these days aren't mmos.
They have followed the leader in turning into:
The world is just a queue lobby for dungeons/raids/pvp.
Devs in any game just do what they are told to do by creative directors who are told what to do by marketing departments.
And marketing departments value only one thing, hint it isn't creativity.

ESO_player123

Wing wrote: »

there is a lot of "content."
but nothing to "do."

What would you like to "do" in ESO (or an MMO in general)?

RicAlmighty

Your signature says "ESO player since beta". That's almost a decade ago. Of course you're going to "run out" of things to do. I think Necrom is the best Chapter they've released since Elswyr. I take it that you've completed the entire thing? I didn't see you mention anything about running Trials/Dungeons with friends or Guildmates (the very core of MMOs).

You've described MMOs in general, if that does not appeal to you any longer then perhaps a new genre may spark your interest.

SeaGtGruff

I've been playing ESO daily for nearly 6 years-- since late August, 2017. I've missed only 1 day of play during that time-- earlier this month, when workers digging in our neighborhood cut through our line and we were without service for 2 days. There are days when I log in and do little more than my daily routine-- as in real life, when there are days that I don't feel like doing much of anything-- but I'm never without something to do. There is still plenty of content I haven't touched yet, or haven't done again on my alts, so there's still a lot for me to do in the game. And I love that there's a variety of content available in the game, so I can do something totally different every day of the week if I want to.

Could things be better? Certainly! There's always room for growth and improvement. And if you're feeling burned out, it's okay to take a vacation, or even to move on to other pastures entirely. But if you don't want to move on, but don't want to be burned out, you might reconsider your overall playstyle and whether you could benefit from changing things up a bit, either the types of content you're focusing on, or the level of intensity you're approaching it with.

Alharion

with a PVP call of duty and for the worst of call of duty especially in BG...

Wing

RicAlmighty wrote: »

Your signature says "ESO player since beta". That's almost a decade ago. Of course you're going to "run out" of things to do. I think Necrom is the best Chapter they've released since Elswyr. I take it that you've completed the entire thing? I didn't see you mention anything about running Trials/Dungeons with friends or Guildmates (the very core of MMOs).

You've described MMOs in general, if that does not appeal to you any longer then perhaps a new genre may spark your interest.

believe it or not i dont play nothing but eso 24/7 and i do take breaks, sometimes months.

i bought the best edition of the expansion and have yet to do a single quest.
im just not interested in the story, high isle really broke me of ESO writing and questing and its just a chore at this point.


and then you start to notice that you dont really miss anything from not doing the content. . .


i was not anxious to get around to it, or needed to complete it for some reason.
there was no big story moment we had been building up to (like WoW or FF14)
nothing MY character was going to unlock (skill line, passives, etc.)
were not going to do anything to Hermaus mora, i have done all this in Skyrim, i know where this all ends up.
the world does not require or care about my character, sure we might know some people, but anyone could solve this problem really.
like remember western skyrim?
or Elsweyr?
or Blackwood?

its all just epic world ending event of the week, i know mehrunes dagon does not win, i know the dragons dont win, i know nobody else in the entire world of ESO aside from the expansion location does not care or notice about any of this crazy world ending stuff because surprise they are aware it does not matter, we dont matter.

and in the end now those zones are just a content / story islands.

they have no relevance on the rest of the game, story, or ESO once you complete them, to the point that if you skip them you realize how much they dont matter.

they are simply checklists of "content" that they need to check off at specific quarterly intervals to keep everyone hooked up to the revenue streams, its a weird kind of maintenace mode.


where do you think the next expansion will be?
and do you think it will matter?

_Zathras_

One of the signs for me that I am tired of a particular game, when I need a break, is that I just roll alt after alt after alt for days. It's like I'm trying to re-create a freshness that I can't achieve because I'm bored, and I feel the game has become stale for me.

For other people there are other signs, whatever they may be.

In this last year I stepped away from MMOs entirely, playing a lot of this and that, but not committing to anything in particular. The break was nice. I dipped back in here again recently, and haven't fully decided if it is sticking. Summer and outdoor activities are having a stronger pull than sitting inside playing games.

So I get how any game can become personally stale for an individual.

Up to you on what you want to do. It is your time. But if you're not happy doing something, whatever that may be, doing something else might just be what is needed.

wilykcat

Don't worry. World of warcraft is far more worse than modern ESO. Honestly this game isn't that bad and there are many many ways to improve and build up on it.

oldbobdude

Eso is nothing like far cry though.

GooGa592

I thought Far Cry was a first person shooter? ESO is nothing like a first person shooter game.

Enemy-of-Coldharbour

Far Cry is more fun.

Heartrage

I agree with most of what you said but the checklist has changed this year though. Q3 and Q4 is different and while Q3 might be a way to have more ressources to develop Q4 or a way to save money, but Q4 is actually a new type of content that we haven’t seen yet.

Alharion

it's even worse than far cry!

Since the arrival of the arcanist the game has become more toxic than ever, this class is an anti-game class, it seems the devs didn't even care that making such a WTF ray could be extremely unfair, on top of the worst immobilisation system I've ever seen in my life in an MMORPG.

Hurbster

If it was like a modern Far Cry game should we be randomly drugged/kidnapped every so often so they can progress the plot?

Sotha_Sil

I just hate it that instead of designing interesting things to do, ZOS thought it best to give us repeatable daily quests and events, systems (antiquities, mythics to farm) which bring nothing of interest. It's not a game, it's a chore. It's pretty standard in MMOs but it shows a complete lack of creativity and awareness of what it means to play. The solution is easy though : give players tools to create their own content inside the world. That's why housing is so popular. But every time they go that way, they think about how to monetize it and get the most money out of players, instead of letting them having fun.

Hopefully, I stopped doing those things a long time ago. I have the same feeling about quests. Even though, I used to like doing them. I get more and more tired of it. Furthermore, the stories get more and more disappointing : the way we defeated Mehrunes Dagon was the worst even though it could have been epic. Let's not talk about High Isle story which did not change anything at all. The main quest in Necrom got my interest thanks to Hermaeus Mora but it was the standard "save the deity" quest type we got in Morrowind, CWC for example. Nothing new here.

Wing

oldbobdude wrote: »

Eso is nothing like far cry though.

GooGa592 wrote: »

I thought Far Cry was a first person shooter? ESO is nothing like a first person shooter game.

i was unaware this needed explanation but.


within the video game community modern far cry (and Ubisoft titles in general) are used as shining examples of soulless "triple AAA" games that simply meet a checklist of features on content that over time have led to the "downfall" of modern open world games.

and several tropes, such as the "climb the tower" exploration mechanic and "clear generic enemy base 162" world locations


to the point that former devs have come out regretting their part on what would lead to negative trends within the industry.
i could go on and about how Elden ring really caused a big shake up as well with its lack of these things, but i dont really care to.


its disappointing when you do play other games and you see passion and creativity shine through despite poor budgets and means and then you see ZOS sitting on ESO doing the bare minimum (and in all probability not really wanting to work on ESO anymore) to keep the game going and all the effort goes into microtransactions.

also props to valve for recently realizing that making a good game for everyone will earn you more money in the long run then making a game only for whales and minows right now at the exclusion of the actual game itself.




EDIT: and the "for better" in the tittle is that even though its a soulless machine, its still a machine, this checklist and cadence of content will continue to flow.
that content wont get better, the flow is still sludge and has all the same problems its always had and will continue to have:
-zone
-quest
-dailies
-companion or two
-a new class / skill line every half decade when you REALLY complain
-bugs
-aging engine

and a continuous update to the crown store, housing items, motifs, costumes, the new flavor of the month over the top mount)

anything they can double dip on their content generation (thats all stuff they have to make for the new zone anyway, thats why they make costumes even though players hate them, the NPC's use them and it saves code (a costume is a single line, a motif on an NPC is all the locations as code, remember in Skyrim how bethesda combined upper and lower into "torso" this was because the NPC civil war fights were to intensive and they had to reduce stress, the players lost options.


the same trend continues with ESO, its on its way out.
-more focus on monitization. (how do you like those new crown crate bundle costumes?)
-double dipping into the content its selling (anything you make for the expansion you can sell as housing items, etc.)
-less content / quality content (you guys all set till next year?)
-aging engine (zones keep getting split up, instances get smaller and smaller, pvp is a mess)


i have fun in ESO doing what i still can for fun, its nothing ZOS has designed, its things i have had to find despite them, and i have de coupled myself from their monetization methods, that's why it disgusts me so much, to watch them get away with it and watch their victims defend them.




also don't blame me for the game being this way,
I'm the one saying this is unacceptable,
everyone else is content with this treatment it seems.
why would they change it if your not only okay with it but defend it for them?!

Kite42

Hurbster wrote: »

If it was like a modern Far Cry game should we be randomly drugged/kidnapped every so often so they can progress the plot?

Give the main quest a go. Speak to the hooded figure to start it.

LunaFlora

Kite42 wrote: »

Hurbster wrote: »

If it was like a modern Far Cry game should we be randomly drugged/kidnapped every so often so they can progress the plot?

Give the main quest a go. Speak to the hooded figure to start it.

that only happens once though. it's the start of the plot

SeaGtGruff

LunaFlora wrote: »

Kite42 wrote: »

Hurbster wrote: »

If it was like a modern Far Cry game should we be randomly drugged/kidnapped every so often so they can progress the plot?

Give the main quest a go. Speak to the hooded figure to start it.

that only happens once though. it's the start of the plot

It's also a bit similar to the start of at least 3 other TES games:

Arena -- Thrown into the Imperial Dungeons, woken up by a vision of someone who tells you what's going on and how to get out of your cell and escape the dungeons.

Oblivion -- Thrown into the Imperial Prisons, surprise meeting with the Emperor who tells you what's going on and what to do after you follow him and his guards to freedom.

Skyrim -- Thrown into chains, carted to a planned beheading with other prisoners that's interrupted by a dragon attack, which allows you to escape.

I'm pretty sure that Arena came out well before Far Cry.

Kite42

And Morrowind: you arrive on a sort of prison ship.