What is the player opinion of the state of the game?

pelle412

CLASSES
I enjoy all classes. I feel they are all well rounded and fun to play. Build identity however took a nose dive with U35 hybridization. A lot of people love hybridization. I guess I'm in a minority that feels wizards best weapons shouldn't be daggers or barbarians best weapons being magic staves, but I digress.

WORLD
The world is beautiful and interesting to explore. It does lack some in terms of replayability. If I did it once, what's there to do then? The amount of things you can collect in this game is virtually non-existant compared to other MMOs. It's crown store or bust.

STORIES
I think the best story I played through was definitely soul shriven in coldharbour. Definitely A grade. All stories after that gets grades from B->D. High Isle for example felt really bad.

ENDGAME PVE
ZoS does a very good job designing encounters and dungeons. I have truly enjoyed them all and their difficulty feels appropriate. Trials are in a similar boat. Engaging encounters and difficulty. I do think ESO lacks a layer of difficulty that can engage the top teams for more than 30 mins after a new trial is released. In other games it can take days or sometimes weeks to finally clear the hardest difficulty, but in ESO it's over with a whimper.

CRAFTING
The crafting system is quite good. No complaints there.

GEARING
The gearing system is also quite good, but it can get confusing when there are literally hundreds and hundreds of gear sets in the game now. Some are good, most are not.

CrazyKitty

As a PvP player I see nothing but lower pop caps, less communication and less support coming from ZOS.

It feels like and looks like ZOS is giving up on what was and still should be the premier aspect of ESO.

iiRenity

I want to thank everyone for all the input that they are giving! I am reading and considering each reply. I appreciate everyone making sure to keep the criticism constructive and polite, obviously don't wanna stir up anything but I do want the honesty. I appreciate that I am getting a variety of perspectives, too.

I love PVE and PVP equally, so I'm happy that there are PVPers making sure to chime in. A few more questions and thoughts that have come up:

• I'd love to hear from Healer Mains and Crafters. How have things been for you all?
• Have they made any improvements for meta breaking to encourage class variety? Example, Nightblades meant for DPS. Using it for TANK/HEALS is possible but not necessarily friendly.
• Has their been any alterations to the crown store endeavors to make rewards more obtainable?

Thanks again for everyone who has been taking the time to answer!

Warhawke_80

There was a time during Orsinium when the game was fun...folks couldn't wait to log in ...all I know is it's not like that anymore...that is all I can safely say about it.

BlueRaven

Necrom basically destroyed my love for the game.

A full year of nothing for me to do after the initial quest chain was finished, was terrible.

Is 2024 going to be more of the same? My yearly eso+ is up in a week, I stopped the auto renewal. I am waiting for more info on Gold Road, because if 2024 will be like 2023 then I will just renew eso+ on a month by month basis if there is actually content worth doing.

It’s a shame as I had been here since beta, but right now even the 10th anniversary has no draw for me.

Vevvev

For me it's indifference. I don't love or hate it anymore as I just don't care. I guess some part of me still does, or it's muscle memory or curiosity that gets me checking the forms so often and logging in for the login rewards each day.

Ever since my RP guild died there wasn't anything chaining me to the game, and as the state of PvP and the quality of the PvE stories went down I just kind of cancelled my subscription and moved on.

KlauthWarthog

It is not bad enough to drive me away, and also not good enough for me to stay invested on it. So I just stopped taking it seriously.

UGotBenched91

As a PVP player game is losing my interest. No real PvP additions in years and PVP population dwindling.

The community is very introvert and lacks the social togetherness I enjoy. Despite the many people running around it often feels like playing an mmo with bots. I’m part of 5 guilds with usually 30+ people on at once and yet guild chat doesn’t move and only on occasion do people use discord.

Events are redundant and have lost appeal and feel like a grind. I hear a lot of people talk about how great the events are in this game. They are always the same of repeating quest's mostly to kill a world boss. I wish they’d think outside of the box and make more unique events.


I recently started playing a Lineage 2 private server and forgot how good a real open world game feels. In comparison ESO feels like a sandbox with loading screens.


I find myself rarely logging in now adays. I know I’m in the minority but I seemed to enjoy the game more before one Tamriel. I’ve enjoyed some time in ESO but I believe my interests are now elsewhere.

Uvi_AUT

My personal opinion?

Where ESO shines:
-The Story is not too convoluted, it has a certain flow to it and you can follow it without playing the game constantly.
-The graphics are still the best of any mmo (not that much of a competition since all other mmos have either comicgraphics or are 20 years old)
-The Combat when it works feels intuitive
-The voiceacting is a big reason for me to play this game. It completely spoils most other mmos for me.

Where ESO fails (hard)
-The Ingamestore. Most houses are gated behind enormous paywalls. And LootCrates are the most greedy, predatory and in some countries downright illegal forms of ingame gambling out there. Every company that utilizes that FOMO-Cashgrab should be ashamed of themselves.
-The Difficulty. 90% of the game can be played by a 2 year old child. Seriously, the game has been played through by naked characters only using fists.
In most fights you wont even be able to fire more than three skills before every enemy melts. They cant even do their abilties.
-The Gearbloat. There are hundreds of Sets, most of the museless. But you want/need to utilize them anyway. So you will have at least 100 Inventoryslots dedicated to Gear. And its a pain to manage.

Overall the game is still worth playing, since no other mmo steps up to the plate at the moment.

BenTSG

I'll throw my voice into the mix. I've been playing this game for 8 years, and since then ESO has come a fair way and added a good few decent features that I like, but for what I like to do, it doesn't have enough or even lost some things. I'm pretty much a solo player most of the time, but recently I'm not really anything because the game holds very little of my attention anymore.

I like to do the questing, and the occasional PvP, but PvP is such a absolute mess and a joke that I haven't touched it in ages, only ever going to Cryo to mindlessly farm mats, or to IC to mindless farm Stones. I want to like it, but PvP is in such a bad place that I'm not even going to remotely bother.

The questing as well has got extremely boring. This year's story sounds pretty interesting and I want to do it, but I've not even finished Necrom yet and I am having a hard time even finishing exploring the zones, let alone *beginning* to quest any further then the one part of the main quest. There is no challenge at all in the Overworld, so stories and everything about it become mindless. So, all I end up doing is *mindlessly* farm. Get mats, do an endeavour or two that's easy, fill the sticker book. I know some people like Overland as it is and that's fine, but as many have said, I want an *optional* difficultly tweak somewhere to make questing and overland a little less mindless. As it stands now, I've long since dropped my ESO+ that I had been paying for since starting the game, with no desire at all to even consider getting it again, and honestly, I'm going to give the new expansion a miss too, me thinks.

So, TL:DR, I find ESO has added a good few things over its lifetime, but it has become very mindless and the PvP is a complete joke. I'm just going to stick with Infinite Wealth.

Xuhora

heyo @iiRenity
Like you i did 5 Quests in High Isle and then stopped playing ESO, until i got a new PC 2 weeks ago and i installed ESO and logged in this Weekend
Now i was never a Player that enjoyed endless questing and story, i was there for endgame PVE like Trials, Trifectas, DLC Dungeons and Arenas, take that into account when reading my story.

So after downloading the whole game and hearing the awesome loadingscreen music i found myself in wayrest and felt, like home. that is after the big Pop-Up for daily login rewards was closed.

Im a Healer main, so i gathered with some friends, from the guild and we did some DLC dungeons, no adjustments to my gear, my skills anthing. First we accidently did the Trifecta for The Cauldron (powercreep maybe?), then we did 4 of the DLC Dungeons i missed.
i had no trouble healing at all, it felt the same and i was fine. the DLC dungeons are the same formula we know. Big Dungeons with Bosses and 3 mini Bosses to collect some Buffs that help with the incredibly lengthy Dungeons. There are some Dungeons that have puzzles now, like actual puzzels with switches that have to be activated in the right order.
While maybe fun the first time, i dont think i would enjoy them in future runs.
Some endbosses have cool mechanics, like juggling airbubbles or shapeshifting into a bear that charges a player, but when dodged destroys AoE Pillars.
Again, nothing that invents the wheel new.

Logged on my Tank and again with no changes to any setup we did some more DLC Dungeons with some of the bosses on HM.

What stood out to me was the fact that everyone including their parrots seemed to play the new Arcanist as DD, Tank, Healer, Support, PVP, everything. My friend told me that in her Raidteam at times there would be 8 Arcanists. So maybe this is to consider about your question of the Metashift. I was told that other classes are still viable, but min-maxing seems to mean that you have to setup an arcanist.

Next day i tried the new Endless Archives i read about, which was advertised as so new and inovative and challaning and what not.
Its ok, i guess. First Arc a breeze, after that a slogfest with enemies having too much HP. No really new mechanics, since you are encountering raid and worldbosses from the whole game.
there is a endboss after each arc, which is splatters you with AoE and Adds, nothing new, nothing challaning other than the fight is dragging on for ages because of big health pool.

Could be fun thou if i get the hang of it and start progressing into later Arcs. if you played WoW, think of it as tower of mages or thorgast.

The Crownstore and the Endavours seemed exactly the same like they were as i last logged in. Crowncrates pricy with nothing worthwile in it other than shiny mounts.
i bought nothing, aside from a new character slot because i jumped on the arcanist bandwaggon and created one, unfortunatly they didnt give a new free character slot for everyone as they introduced the arcanist.

TL;DR:
There are some new features, a new class and Dungeons and raids. But it is still ESO, for the good and the bad.
i think if you grew tired of it with High Isle, you will grow tired of it again.

fizzylu

I'd say the state of the game is just as bad and just as good as it was with High Isle, chapter content wise I'd say Necrom is definitely worse though. If it wasn't for housing, the fact that I don't have to constantly worry about upgrading my gear, and can basically just do whatever I want when I want.... I probably wouldn't play ESO. As much as I love parts of the game and how dear my Khajiit sorcerer is to me, I find it really hard to see ESO as something worth it's price tag more times than not.

What makes me not want to give my money to ESO:
-Chapters are tiny and you can burn through what's supposed to be a years worth of content like it's nothing
-They seem to be sticking with the "one big new feature" a year setup and it's usually a miss
-There is not nearly enough in-game rewards to actually earn and too many things that are crown store only (seriously, there's so many time consuming achievements that don't even reward something as simple as a title)
-No new weapons (or any combat oriented guild/world skill line)
-Zenimax kind of seems stuck in their ways with their approach to ESO and there are no signs of that changing, meanwhile other MMOs seem to be evolving
-The disregard for player feedback and opinions

These were very much issues I had during High Isle, now with Necrom, and Gold Road looks to be more of the same.

svendf

A former Eso player and Healer main here.

My main problem with Eso is the unbalance between roles and how deep it have been rooted into dungeons, and affected the game play and community across the board.

I am trinity player, which was one of the reasons, why I changed MMO. It was not love a first sight, when I started to dig into that MMO, which is my main now.

I got exhausted by all the changes over the years. The lottery, when queing a random normal dungeon for a skill point - do I get it on first run, or do I have to run it more than once. I felt, I couldn´t really bother my guild mates with a trival matter like that, they have their own bussines/things to do in Eso. After all I was queing for something I thought most was queing for as well, or at least could accept, why I was in the dungeon.

The healer got pushed more and more aside in "easy" content, it became more a race against time, when I leveled my alts. Yes I know, many have run these dungeons over and over again. I have 10k+ in Eso, split between PS4 and PS5 and I have run these dungeons a lot, still I did not do, what I have seen many other players have done in dungeons.

For me Eso have it´s MMO concept upside, down looking at some of the more popular MMO´s out there.

I unsubscribed my Eso+ and fel in love with FFxiv and gained more player satisfaction in xiv, I ever had in Eso.

The monetisation have become a problem for some, and not so much for others. For me it´s a bit too heavy, and I have spend a lot on Eso. I can live with that, as I have moved on to something else.

Today I simply love FFxiv to bits and have to force myself to take breaks.

On the side I play GW2. I got a new PC and tried out WoW, which remind my a bit of FFxiv - It will not be a prefered MMO, because of the addons situation it have.

I am happy, where I am now. I felt, I got pushed out of Eso with everything going on. Today that does not matter anymore.

I do still visit the forums to have a look, and feel nothing have changed. I still follow some streamers and see their passion for Eso. They have people around them, they get along with. Same as I have in FFxiv now and enjoy so much - I got everything I want from an MMO.

It´s all about finding the right MMO for You.

TaSheen

Xuhora wrote: »

The Crownstore and the Endavours seemed exactly the same like they were as i last logged in. Crowncrates pricy with nothing worthwile in it other than shiny mounts.

i bought nothing, aside from a new character slot because i jumped on the arcanist bandwaggon and created one, unfortunatly they didnt give a new free character slot for everyone as they introduced the arcanist.

Actually we got one free character slot (from 18 to 19) and then there was another to buy in the store with crowns.... for a total of 20 possible slots.

Serpari

After playing Arcanist it's so clear it's the new darling. I want them to bring all other classes to the same level of thoughtful, cohesive design. I love Necromancer, but the coming changes have me very ???, I love Nightblade but it feels so underwhelming in comparison to Arcanist, I loved Templar then they changed my jabs, DK is DK, etcetera. Feels like the game is railroading me into playing Arcanist when I don't vibe with it all that much because the VFX gives me a headache if I play it too much.

Another thing that drives me insane is the lack of customization in the character creator. Why can't I make a black-haired Altmer, why don't Imperials get to have silver-white hair? Why is the eye patch and jewelry color tied to hair of all things? Why does vampire whitewash Redguards, why does it look so terrible with some skin tones but just fine with others, why can't I adjust the lighting and/or the background while in CC? It's infuriating, forces me to use Appearance Change Tokens more than I like, which I suspect is the idea.

The game is in dire need of a graphical update, particularly for its character textures, because some textures are appalling. WoW got an update and FFXIV is getting an update. Why not ESO?

duagloth

still waiting for this game to come out of beta, in so many areas i could mention. sadly, it stills falls on deaf ears and blind eyes. maybe send out another survey you wont read. LOL

Xuhora

TaSheen wrote: »

Xuhora wrote: »

The Crownstore and the Endavours seemed exactly the same like they were as i last logged in. Crowncrates pricy with nothing worthwile in it other than shiny mounts.

i bought nothing, aside from a new character slot because i jumped on the arcanist bandwaggon and created one, unfortunatly they didnt give a new free character slot for everyone as they introduced the arcanist.

Actually we got one free character slot (from 18 to 19) and then there was another to buy in the store with crowns.... for a total of 20 possible slots.

ah okay, so i just didnt get that extra free one because i wasnt arround. thats kinda allright then i guess

FluffyBird

I dropped the game in the middle of Firesong because I realised that I don't give a guar's butt about characters and their fate.
I watched Necrom's main quest on YT and it seemed a tad better but still very meh. The relationship between characters was less believable than Firor's end-of-the-year letters.

My second-hand impression since?

Communication is still bad, same promises, same inconsequential "we'll pass the feedback", same crickets in some threads. We just got more of it, but it's not better. ZOS is still secretive enough to make Shadowheart proud.

Bugs are still abundant, many changes still seem aimless, game still doesn't respect players time.

xHotguy6pack

Pvp balance is some of the worst I've seen in a video game. Overall performance is above average and End game PvE is ok at best. PvE is on a decline. Look at arcanist. 40%+ of their damage comes from 1 skill( that should never happen). Hybridization should have never took place because now every class runs the same exact setup in PvE for DPS and it's incredibly boring and there is absolutely no class identification.

Warhawke_80

I never participate in these anymore...like most forums it's just filled with ChatGPT answers...

So why bother?

moo_2021

Lag isn't fixed. I can still charge and end up ahead of mobs.

It got worse in bg since the update. In one game literally none of my opponents could break free. And one got stunned after flying 7 meters to my back.


Also their changes seem to cause serious delay in AUI's buff list on targets. I frequently find my targets missing debuffs that they are supposed to have, but a second later they'd pop up.

TaSheen

Xuhora wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

Xuhora wrote: »

The Crownstore and the Endavours seemed exactly the same like they were as i last logged in. Crowncrates pricy with nothing worthwile in it other than shiny mounts.

i bought nothing, aside from a new character slot because i jumped on the arcanist bandwaggon and created one, unfortunatly they didnt give a new free character slot for everyone as they introduced the arcanist.

Actually we got one free character slot (from 18 to 19) and then there was another to buy in the store with crowns.... for a total of 20 possible slots.

ah okay, so i just didnt get that extra free one because i wasnt arround. thats kinda allright then i guess

Well, I *think* you should have got the free one if you bought the Necrom chapter? If that didn't happen, you might want to ask customer service if you should have got it when you bought the chapter - because you must have bought the chapter as you couldn't have created the arcanist without it.

Destai

I'm going to amend my statement following this weekend's event.

Positive
On one hand, the feature list for this year looks quite strong. We'll have another chapter, some new systems like Scribing, a new PVP system, and some kind of housing update. We're getting two new dungeons, which are usually pretty fun, so that's exciting. If they can deliver all of that well, I think it could be ESO's best year. We've also got Infinite Archive, which hopefully will continue to mature with this year's release.

Negative
On the other, we've had two events this year with some big issues, so I'm worried the major releases will be similarly problematic. I'm not feeling confident the appropriate teams are fully getting or understanding our feedback. Communication still - 10 years in - seems to be something they've yet to fully figure out.

TLDR. It's the same game it's always been. For better, for worse. The stories seem to follow the same rhythm and the zone will have the same features as every other zone. The crown store is still the focal point for a lot of the attractive cosmetics. I'm still enjoying the game, albeit playing quite less often than I used to.

AScarlato

I think ESO is in decline, and felt that way since the announcement that they were reducing production output last year.

Things like 4 dungeons down to 2 per year, less story content due to there being no additional story-zone and epilogue quarter, features that I believe would normally be released with the expansion delayed so they have something to release in Q4, and an entire quarter of "nothing" now when it comes to new content.

I'm bewildered that this year's companions were pushed to Q4, for example, rather being released with the expansion. This kills any hope of mine that they will be able to participate and have dialogue for the story. Oh well. Despite this being a 10 year anniversary, what we are getting this year is vauge. I can't really get all that excitement over vague hints. I was hoping instead for 10 years they'd go all out and really wow us with additional resources and development budgets.

The game is dated. Every time I leave for a while to play current gen games and return, I have to adjust to what an eyesore I find ESO to be until I get used to it again. The storytelling is often mid, with single-player story focused games really being a lot stronger for plot, acting, and writing. A lot of characters have to have...well, strong personalities because there isn't much cinematic about the storytelling. They have to make up for the fact that a lot of story is long exposition dumps as the character stands still and stares at you motionless.

I love the voice acting and housing system though, along with my characters that I feel attached to. I love the lore and setting. But I waited for a sale for Necrom and did every quest in the overland for both zones in less than a month. Already on break again waiting for Gold Road, which I did preorder.

LamiaCritter

Overall pleased, in a lot of ways, despite having my own grumbles.
I love the new Arcanist class.
The Companion system has grown on me a bit andI'm excited to see what Scribing brings us...

...... even if I know that the meta-slaves are just gonna homogenize the heck out of Scribing and demand things get nerfed for simply existing.
I'm pleased with almost everything.
I wish weaving could be fixed somehow, and I despise how it's become so integral and "mandatory" just to complete content. Exploiting an animation bug should not be a sign of expertise or good design, IMO. Whether embraced or not.


Overall though? I'm content. A few things I'd change (or implement), but overall pleased. I'm curious about the future of ESO and what it'll bring.

BlueRaven

AScarlato wrote: »

I think ESO is in decline, and felt that way since the announcement that they were reducing production output last year.

Things like 4 dungeons down to 2 per year, less story content due to there being no additional story-zone and epilogue quarter, features that I believe would normally be released with the expansion delayed so they have something to release in Q4, and an entire quarter of "nothing" now when it comes to new content.

I'm bewildered that this year's companions were pushed to Q4, for example, rather being released with the expansion. This kills any hope of mine that they will be able to participate and have dialogue for the story. Oh well. Despite this being a 10 year anniversary, what we are getting this year is vauge. I can't really get all that excitement over vague hints. I was hoping instead for 10 years they'd go all out and really wow us with additional resources and development budgets.

The game is dated. Every time I leave for a while to play current gen games and return, I have to adjust to what an eyesore I find ESO to be until I get used to it again. The storytelling is often mid, with single-player story focused games really being a lot stronger for plot, acting, and writing. A lot of characters have to have...well, strong personalities because there isn't much cinematic about the storytelling. They have to make up for the fact that a lot of story is long exposition dumps as the character stands still and stares at you motionless.

I love the voice acting and housing system though, along with my characters that I feel attached to. I love the lore and setting. But I waited for a sale for Necrom and did every quest in the overland for both zones in less than a month. Already on break again waiting for Gold Road, which I did preorder.

This really is an excellent post and nearly everything you say I fully support. (Personally I don’t think the graphics are that bad.) I just wanted to riff off the housing bit in your last paragraph though.
I love the housing in this game as well, but from my perspective the way they put so much emphasis on putting housing items and material inside of IA has (in my eyes) really hurt the housing community.
I am really worried they may continue that trend this year, where casual players are basically cut off from a big chunk of the upcoming housing items, which may be again stuck behind an IA type activity.

Also why I am here I am glad to see that I was not the only one who thought their Gold Road presentation felt overly vague.
And I too don’t understand why companions got delayed, it feels very artificial. Unless they are doing something very different with the companions, it just seems like they are taking a thin chapter offering and just spreading it out even thinner.

Pixiepumpkin

BlueRaven wrote: »

it just seems like they are taking a thin chapter offering and just spreading it out even thinner.

This is why, in part, I have not pre-orderd it. Knowing that they are working on a new MMORPG, it would make the most business sense to put the talent on the new project, and keep a smal team for the current project (to keep it afloat). I think its about time (for myself) that if I continue to fund this project, I will do so only on sale. I am not thoroughly convinced I will get my moneys worth anymore at retail pricing.

SandandStars

pve is fine

pvp is in a coma, and population is dwindling (xbox na)

AngryOldMan

On EU PC main time I find PVP still fun. Many huge battles, sometimes EP loses, sometimes they win. Optimised groups got much hate, but I think these group makes an effort to play together, so even if those groups are AD or DC I respect the co-operation (makes killing them more rewarding).

I can understand figthing these groups can be frustrating, so a group finder with voice-chat for solo-players could be a good option. Fighting orginased groups requires organisation

RebornV3x

The game is in its best state its been in for awhile since at least 1.7/ or 2017 the game runs smooth very little lag outside of Cyrodill the PVE part the game is amazing and probably the best in years its just sad that most people have given up on this game.