For years I've tried to convince hundreds of players to play ESO. Results might surprise ZOS

Surgee

Let me start off by saying that I'm a big ESO fan. Despite its issues, I think it's the best MMORPG Sandbox out there. I've played it since beta on PC, and moved to Xbox on console release. There are not many games that can compete with ESO but the player base is still far from where it should be, considering how massive the game is. So of course, because of how much I like the game, I always try to get my friends or relatives to play it. The results are not surprising to me, but might be surprising to ZOS because at least from my experience, it shows the money is put into the wrong place. I'll put it in bullet points to make it easy to digest, with the most mentioned to the least mentioned.

It's important to note that ALL of the people I asked showed interest in trying the game and did give it a shot.

Reasons why the people I ask didn't stay with the game for long or don't want to return:

The animations are awful, especially the running animation

Yep! This is the number one reason. This was mentioned by almost every single person that tried the game. You might think that' its a non-issue, but you' be surprised how many people don't want to play ESO just because they can't stand looking at their character run. It's especially stark when you come right away from a different game. There's a very good reason companies focus now on the presentation of the playable character. I think just redoing some major animations that players spend looking at 90% of their play time, such as walking or running, would make a massive difference and YES it would bring some people to the game.

The graphics are bad

2nd most mentioned reason. I think It's a pretty MMORPG, but I agree some things such as lighting can be improved. I believe most of the comments about graphics were a result of bad animations though. World of Warcraft has fantastic animations and that's what makes it look "nicer" compared to ESO. Anyway, whether you like it or not, visual presentation is what makes people try the game, and content is what makes them stick around.

Imperial City needs a refresh, Cyrodil needs a refresh

This comes from the PVP players that quit, or PVP-focused players in general and that player base is massive in any game that respects PVP. Cyrodil is boring, There's no attachment to castles. It's just constant running from castle to castle without caring if you'll lose it or not. Black Desert Online has much more interesting systems that keeps players involved. Imperial City is great but depressing and needs a rework. Arenas are great, but matchmaking is awful. People sometimes wait few hours for a single match. Some love for PVP would bring a lot of players.

Why they keep adding new zones and quests? It's overwhelming already!

Ok, now this is a massive issue and I share that view. The game has so much PVE content (and most of it behind a paywall) that new players are right away overwhelmed. And you know what? Adding even more zones and quests is ZOS's absolute focus. It honestly scares every single person I talked with. People are mind-blown that this is where most of the money goes. And it doesn't help that the zones are extremely boring because of lack of challenge. You do this super long questline to defeat a boss that dies from a slap in the face. Many suggested VETERAN VERSION OF ZONES. The same zone, veteran server, much harder and requires a group like in a dungeon, but rewards are of much much better quality. This would make it exciting to explore a new zone in a group.

In the 1st hour of gameplay i don't have space in my inventory...This game is a chore! Oh wait.. I have to buy a subscription

We know it won't go away, but new players being greeted with inventory management within the 1st hour of the game is not great. It really discourages people from continuing before they discover what the game really is.

Conclusion:

So here it is. I know that this will not align with the opinions of the majority on these forums. You are on these forums because for the most part I assume you like and play the game. The opinions I've listed were gathered over the years by me from people who quit the game or gave up after a short run. I agree with most of it and it made me realize that some general improvements to the game's presentation and mechanics would bring much more players than adding another 100 quests. There was not a single person who complained that they don't play ESO because there's not enough content. It's the opposite. It's too much.

Anyway, I don't want to argue on whether this is right or wrong. I simply gathered some opinions directly and wanted to share my findings. I hope this will be useful to ZOS and they'll consider it, when planning the future of ESO.

jcaceresw

Craglorn was a veteran only zone when first appeared. My experience was a toxic place where already v16 players did not allow newly level 50 players to join in their groups and monopolizing all places with their high DPS and thus leveling got a lot harder to do when doing solo or in a newbie group.

NoTimeToWait

As a person who played since PC beta and invited dozens of players to the game (gifted a bunch of ESO keys too) I could mostly corroborate the arguments above.
I also received the same reasoning for ppl not staying in the game (plus I would add another major one: people simply didn't like the combat, switching bars and active targeting)

Additionally, compared to most other MMOs, I don't think that ESO has a "return back" system and a referral system. Meaning, there are no incentives to invite people to play ESO for a person who does this (or maybe I didn't look thoroughly, but in other MMOs its obvious and there are usually events for this). Also, there is no incentive for players to return to the game (I think I received a letter with an exp scroll for returning after a pause once?), no come back system that would put returning players on track.

And these systems are pretty established and well-researched by devs in other MMOs.

Also I would strongly disagree with "too much content" argument. While it is present, and people do feel overwhelmed with content when playing TESO first time, I would say it is a normal situation, which I have seen happen in multiple other MMOs that have been around for some years. To resolve this, TESO has a Guide system, which actually works pretty great nowadays, compared to how it was when it was introduced

Araneae6537

An insightful post. I definitely agree that how my character looks and my ability to define that is a HUGE reason why I play ESO and not other games that dictate how a character can look based on some combination of race, class, and gender (donn’t even get me started on that last one). But there are areas with a lot of room for improvement, including more options for how our characters move (personalities are a great start, but I don’t think they alter running and some of the personalities are too exaggerated/ridiculous) and then changes that have been very negative for many longterm players, including templar jabs (now vampiric shovel) and grim focus (I have deleted characters because I cannot stand this irradiated eye sore). Optional updates for animations and character models might be good, but I hesitate given how bad many of the enforced changes of the past two years have been.

miguelcura

I add 2 more:
-Server performance sucks when you have to play "seriously"
-They later discover that "All classes all roles" is a lie since the viable DPS are DK, Sorc and Arc

fizzylu

I've had quite a few people I know that like MMOs and/or competitive gameplay try ESO, and their reasoning for not sticking with it was always the same thing.... the combat in general. They all said things like: there's no real spellcasting, the classes suck, bad animations, bad physics, bad endgame progression, not enough weapon options, why so many sets, smart heals, too much sustain isn't fun, it's spammy and clunky.

Tandor

It doesn't concern me that this game isn't for everyone who tries it, the same is true of every other game and I've personally tried and rejected a number of games myself, including some of the really popular ones. ESO has nonetheless been a hugely popular game and remains so.

I can understand someone new to the game feeling that the amount of content is overwhelming, but that's what happens when you come to the party a few years late. Suggesting that new content shouldn't be added isn't what people who've been playing the game continuously for up to 10 years are going to find very convincing.

Inventory management is quite simple, just avoid hoarding and early on sell what you don't need to merchants, or don't pick up every single thing you come across in the first place. The crafting bag and inventory slots from subbing weren't in the game at the beginning and everyone coped perfectly well as they do in any game that adds in extra inventory and bank slots as you progress.

It's a subjective view always, but I don't consider the animations to be awful or the graphics bad, some of that may depend on your specs and settings, but every game has its detractors and its supporters where graphics and animations are concerned.

Dax_Draconis

I never realized the running animation was an issue that keeps people from playing the game.

Insightful.

IncultaWolf

Most people I know irl that couldn't keep playing eso was because overland/questing difficulty was too easy, you can light attack your way through most story content at level 3

Jedi1josh

My buddy comes and goes from this game. His biggest reason for constantly leaving is he wants the 120+ GB free space it leaves behind when he uninstalls it.

I left a few times due to toxicity but I've learned how to deal with it. I won't let others keep me from having fun.

Pixiepumpkin

Tandor wrote: »

It's a subjective view always, but I don't consider the animations to be awful or the graphics bad, some of that may depend on your specs and settings, but every game has its detractors and its supporters where graphics and animations are concerned.

The base game graphics are extremely dated compared to the newer chapter graphics. This could be one of the issues. I know it pulls me out of the game. Meaning while I am running around in high isle I am loving my time, the second I port to glenumbra, auridon or any base zone, all bets are off (deshan and stonefalls being the worst).

As far as animations. I think that one is harder to quantify because you have to first be in a place of coming from a game where the animations were done extemely well (wow is a shining example of this). WoWs character and mount animations feel extremely connected to the ground, either while running, mounted or in combat. This was the FIRST thing I noticed when coming to ESO. I actually laughed at contrast between the games. SWTOR animal mounts are the same, they feel bad. Speeders float so...meh no real animation happening there.

As time goes on, you get used to it and accept it for what it is but there is definitely a disconnect between the mount and player animations in this game vs her contemporatries.

On a personal note. I also hate that everyone runs the same. I miss that male taurens and female taurens have different run animations vs male and female humans or male and female gnomes or elves or orcs or trolls or goblins, or panderans and on and on.

It always felt cheap to me, like a develoment shortcut. I won't presume that was or is the case, but it has been done in other games so food for thought.

freespirit

Funny thing about the running animation, as a female in rl, who has almost exclusively female characters, I discovered very early on, if I make a "buxom" character there is an annoying amount of "side to side" swinging that goes on when viewing from behind!!

So all my girls are minimally endowed these days, it always seemed odd though, you would of thought any kind of protective gear would also provide some kind of "control" too! 😂

However other than that their running animation has never really bothered me BUT recently I made a male character, broad chested, narrow hipped, tall and quite skinny....... omg he runs like he has the Jester Personality active always and that account doesn't even own it!!

Atm it makes me giggle but I can see it getting old fast, so I do sort of understand the complaints!

Pixiepumpkin

Dax_Draconis wrote: »

I never realized the running animation was an issue that keeps people from playing the game.

Insightful.

I would guess its a first impression thing. If the first impression is "ohh man this is cheesy compared to XYZ game" then there might be a feeling of "how can this game be newer, put out by a AAA studio and miss something this obvious". That gives a bad gut feeling and they move on.

BetweenMidgets

The really janky physics that ESO has ran me off my first attempt to play this game.

My brother kept playing and eventually got me back into it, but jumping and careening off some random direction because a block of wood is one pixel higher than another still annoys me no end.

The physics are still ridiculously off-putting, even years later.

Pixiepumpkin

BetweenMidgets wrote: »

The really janky physics that ESO has ran me off my first attempt to play this game.

My brother kept playing and eventually got me back into it, but jumping and careening off some random direction because a block of wood is one pixel higher than another still annoys me no end.

The physics are still ridiculously off-putting, even years later.

Do you own any mechanical spider mounts? Those get SUPER propelled off pebbles. Its like pebbles are equipped with a Mariocart speed jump boost chevron powerup.

Surgee

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

It's a subjective view always, but I don't consider the animations to be awful or the graphics bad, some of that may depend on your specs and settings, but every game has its detractors and its supporters where graphics and animations are concerned.

The base game graphics are extremely dated compared to the newer chapter graphics. This could be one of the issues. I know it pulls me out of the game. Meaning while I am running around in high isle I am loving my time, the second I port to glenumbra, auridon or any base zone, all bets are off (deshan and stonefalls being the worst).

As far as animations. I think that one is harder to quantify because you have to first be in a place of coming from a game where the animations were done extemely well (wow is a shining example of this). WoWs character and mount animations feel extremely connected to the ground, either while running, mounted or in combat. This was the FIRST thing I noticed when coming to ESO. I actually laughed at contrast between the games. SWTOR animal mounts are the same, they feel bad. Speeders float so...meh no real animation happening there.

As time goes on, you get used to it and accept it for what it is but there is definitely a disconnect between the mount and player animations in this game vs her contemporatries.

On a personal note. I also hate that everyone runs the same. I miss that male taurens and female taurens have different run animations vs male and female humans or male and female gnomes or elves or orcs or trolls or goblins, or panderans and on and on.

It always felt cheap to me, like a develoment shortcut. I won't presume that was or is the case, but it has been done in other games so food for thought.

IYou're looking at it from a perspective of person coming to ESO from another MMO. The thing is, they either come from Skyrim (which still is heaps better) or other games that aren't MMOS. I play quite a bit of Conan exiles which is a very old game, and still the animations look generations ahead of ESO. The sprinting animation is just so bad it hurts to look at. I understand that for many here ESO is the only game you play, so you're used to it, but someone that launches the game for the first time gets automatically put off by the animations and visual presentation.

Actually, my girlfriend got into gaming a month ago. She played some single player games and then got totally sucked into Conan Exiles. She can't stop playing this game and loves looking at her characters animation and physics. I made her try ESO in hopes she likes it as she loves fantasy stuff. The first thing she said when the tutorial loaded is "oh my god she runs so awful...this is so bad". Then she proceeded to say the same thing every 2 minutes until she said she can't look at it anymore. "It's horrible". Her words.

Anyway, there's no excuse to not have better animations. MMO or not. I can't think of a single MMO or online RPG game with worse or similarly bad animations.

Surgee

IncultaWolf wrote: »

Most people I know irl that couldn't keep playing eso was because overland/questing difficulty was too easy, you can light attack your way through most story content at level 3

This. A separate veteran mode would make questing so much more exciting. Currently when we clear zones it feels like a boring chore. We talk about politics or whatnot and do the game on autopilot with one eye closed. The very few friends I have left playing the game say the same thing and hope for new zone difficulties.

spartaxoxo

I have personally haven't met many new players that complain about overland being too easy. In fact, it's the opposite. Overland was the only thing they liked.

The reasons new players I have introduced that quit cited these as the reasons...

1) The game is too complicated. They don't understand how to play it, they don't understand what's happening in dungeons, they don't understand what gear to use. They find building a character that feels good to use in group content is too frustrating.

2) PvP is too imbalanced. Everyone seemed to love the idea Cyrodiil but they hated how quickly they died

3) Inventory management

4) The story is confusing. They want to like the story because the enjoy the characters but it's difficult to follow. Characters they thought were dead are alive or characters they never met are speaking like they know them.

5) Everything nice is in the crown store. It's too expensive.

6) Lack of people walking around in the world outside of towns.

dem0n1k

I can only speak to the players I know that used to play ESO & no longer player ESO. Below are the reasons they left & won't come back...
1. Oceanic Lag. At around 400ms ping, you are at a severe disadvantage in PVP.
2. Inventory control. Requires constant management which no one likes.
3. Builds that require a lot of expensive upgrade materials being nerfed shortly after the build being complete.
4. Not enough local time zone friends still play to form groups.

Faulgor

What's more is that people have been complaining about the animations and clunky combat from the very beginning.
That's the #1 issue that keeps people from playing the game for 10 years.

Adremal

Those seem like minor issues compared to feedback being not only constantly ignored but... how to put it. It's as if we're being trolled. Necromancers have been providing insightful feedback and brilliant ideas for ages, only to always get changes they didn't want and they still don't want, the recent Blastbones fiasco is an appropriate example, just take a look at the poll's results.
Then there's quality control being... well, just take a look at the issues that happened before and after U41.
Last but not least, lack of communication and accountability. When such issues happen, there's at least an apology if not a gesture of goodwill in the form of a compensation or whatnot from the overwhelming majority of companies - from huge ones to indie ones. [Snip].

[Edited for Discussing Moderator Actions]

Sakiri

IncultaWolf wrote: »

Most people I know irl that couldn't keep playing eso was because overland/questing difficulty was too easy, you can light attack your way through most story content at level 3

Yet there was a discussion last night in one of my guilds about a necro that couldn't do overworld content because of the blastbones change.

ikzaa

The game is aging badly.

The people I recommended never came back.

I'm back now with the new DLC, but it's more of the same,

And I'm sure that the new chapter will have the same as all the previous ones, 6 dolmens, 2 public dungeons, recycled animations and recycled monsters with different skin, etc.

Until now I haven't found a reason to buy the new chapter.

Lady_Galadhiel

Some of my friends (most of them with 2k hours or more of playtime) quit because of:

1: Inventory managment without a sub.
2: Combat and class changes every 3 months what makes your current build and setup useless.
3: The high crown store prices. (People want to buy some cosmetics from time to time but don't want to spend a fortune on it.)
4: The maintenance downtimes being waaay longer and more often than in other MMO's.

UGotBenched91

So far only one I’ve managed to recruit to actually play the game quit after a couple of days.

Growing up my dad and I played Lienage 2. A lot of good bonding time.

I was excited years later when he agreed to try ESO. Unfortunately, he has a bad experience with the confusing quest system and kept getting lost and quit the game. Quest icons and identifying really need an upgrading. Way too many random npcs running up to you inviting you to do quests. Icons need more distinction

silky_soft

Procs, cp and insane imbalance of ping in recent years. Never used to be such a divide. Some bad NA players think they good but it's just server deliberately favouring lower ping.

I've played other games, but they die because of various things. New world was closest to holding people. But the constant duping was too much. Most of my pvp guild from here play shoot and loot or arpg now.

Game engine needs a full rework or a different one entirely. It's tierd. Time to move it on.

g0thiCiCecReaM

I've been playnig MMOs pretty much since MMOs came into existence. ESO has it's own issues, but overall the best mechanically that has been created. By mechanics, I'm talking about character progression. All of the MMOs preceding ESO have always been level based progression. It's very minimal in ESO and doesn't make much of a difference in being able to play with the rest of the population. All the other MMOs, the level caps have been repeatedly raised over the years to the point where you can't play with anyone until you're at the cap, and that takes FOREVER for new players. Eventually people in other MMOs (EQ2, WoW, etc.) get bored with no one else to play with, no ability to do older content (which you're locked to doing due to level caps) and quit. ESO has effectively been able to overcome that whole mess.

The mechanics for class skills is pretty good too, I'm not terribly fond of the CP part, but overall it's better than most MMOs. The fact that you can customize your classes so well is a big improvement over most MMOs

The crafting system is top notch compared to 99% of the MMOs out there. They did a good job with it for the most part. The only downside is alchemy and enchanting, but not terrible to figure out.

The bad:

1. The fact that you can't see ANYTHING when in combat, especially trials due to the fact that you can't disable player effects. I realize some things you need to see them, but having the entire screen filled with particle effects makes it super difficult to play (especially as a tank).

2. Forcing single target tanking - tanking is fairly difficult, especially when people expect you to tank full encounters and the fact there is no real good way to get aggro on everything. Many classes also lack any CC what so ever in their class trees (basically if you're not a DK or Necro you need to rely on Caltrops)

3. While the game is gorgeous, especially compared to older titles like EverQuest (1 & 2), WoW, GuildWars, SWTOR, etc - the clothing physics needs some help, there's a lot of clipping etc going on with the models

4. There are plenty of QoL things that should be addressed that other MMOs have had for a very long time like not having to remount every time you do something, mount training (this is just silly).

5. Paywalled inventory management - this is probably the biggest thing. I understand you want subscriptions, that's fine and I can see having things like inventory space and craft bag (which is also awesome, most MMOs make you take up inventory/bank space for that) somewhat paywalled, but not to the degree it currently is. Micro transactions should be limited to mostly just cosmetics (housing, costuming, pets, etc) - which it is, but there's a ton of mechanical things that are paywalled off too (build slots on the armory assistant etc)

6. I'm sure many people are going to disagree, but guild traders are NOT so great, centralized market is what people expect and want (the ones that don't currently play) - it makes it so difficult to find anything and you have to either spend hours looking for stuff or use outside services (ttc, eso hub, etc) just to find what you're trying to buy. Also for new players this is really hard to figure out until someone explains it. Having to be in a guild to sell stuff (if the guild has a trader) is also hard on new players too. Very much a turn off for new players and basically keeps wealth in the game gated off.

7. The limited skills and bar swapping - this whole mechanic is kind of pointless and makes things very cumbersome for play. I realize it's a core mechanic, but it just isn't very good honestly. That's why you have so many one bar builds with oakensoul, bar swapping and some of the weird mechanics that go with it are just bad (abilities that have to be on both bars: sorc pets, warden bear, etc).

I htink if some of these things were addressed you would be able to get more people to stick with it. I realize almost none of it will change, but I honestly think that if some of it were changed you'd get better retention of players. I also realize if you change any of what's listed above you'll have a huge revolt on the forums (not necessarily people quitting though) - that happened with Starwars Galaxies when SOE decided to revamp combat.

g0thiCiCecReaM

Oh yeah, one other thing, tying everything to account name, if I had known that I would have picked something else - no one should ever be seeing your account name. Also not being able to associate things like primary housing to a character instead of across the entire account, that's really annoying. Housing in particular, you shouldn't need addons to be able to set housing per character or have to fumble through the list of 1000 houses you bought to get your characters home

Also cosmetics like equipped mount and other collectables should be tied to the outfit style and/or armory build. Having to use addons on top of that to keep your cosmetics in sync with your outfit styles kinda sucks

Reverb

I agree with many points, here’s why nothing will be done to address them:

- The studio can not handle base game improvements and new content at the same time. It’s one or the other for them, or things crash and burn. I know other game studios manage it, but zeni isn’t one of them. Maybe it’s low staffing, maybe it’s poor project management, maybe it’s poor quality work and testing protocols, maybe it’s poor leadership from the top down, but whatever the reason, they honestly can not do it successfully.

- the player base melted down when zeni decided to spend one cycle focused on fixes and improvements instead of a new zone. Full on tantrums and daily posts threatening to cancel their sub and quit the game if there’s not new content every quarter

- pvp is not a priority for zenimax. They’d prefer pvp performance is better, they try things every now and then, but they are satisfied with the stagnant state of things. This weeks patch was supposed to have the first pvp changes in years. Not content, of course not, but 2 inventory management changes. One was pulled from the patch because it didn’t work, and the other went live but also doesn’t work right.

There are a lot of things to love about the game. I admit that most of my appreciation comes from having been here over the last 10 years, and enjoying it greatly despite the shortcomings. But I understand why those shortcomings are too much to overlook for new players.

AzuraFan

As a "new player" on a second account, what made me stop playing it was the lack of inventory space. I understand ZOS needs something to attract players to pay for ESO+. But it's crazy how fast 60 slots fill up.

Someone suggested upthread to just not pick up anything you don't need and to sell everything to merchants. I don't think a game is going to attract new players if they can't harvest resources to craft gear, or when they open some containers there are 6-7 items that fill an already busting inventory. You can just run around doing quests and levelling up and it doesn't take long to fill those 60 slots. Once you have 215 slots (if you're willing to buy the inventory pets from the crown store), maybe it's manageable. But not without a lot of fiddling around.

If I were ZOS, I'd provide a limited craft bag (can carry 50 of each ingredient or something like that) for free, and I'd add more bags to ESO+. Furniture bag, potions bag, etc.

But yeah, until something changes with inventory management for non-ESO+, my second account will collect dust.

ProudMary

silky_soft wrote: »

Procs, cp and insane imbalance of ping in recent years. Never used to be such a divide. Some bad NA players think they good but it's just server deliberately favouring lower ping.

I've played other games, but they die because of various things. New world was closest to holding people. But the constant duping was too much. Most of my pvp guild from here play shoot and loot or arpg now.

Game engine needs a full rework or a different one entirely. It's tierd. Time to move it on.

Unless ZOS is working on some super secret new MMO, their best chance to stay relevant in the gaming industry going forward is to rebuild ESO on a new engine that has better graphics and supports a healthy PvP population.