10 Major issues with ESO that if fixed I would actually play the game

Renato90085 · December 8

1 bar tank/healer sound a meme in pve...
How about 6+ weapon can swap or 20+ skill can use like other mmo?

valenwood_vegan · December 8

This strikes me as essentially just a list of personal preferences. For each one you'll likely find some folks who agree, some folks who disagree, and some folks who have a completely different idea about how that aspect of the game should be changed. We get lists like this all the time.

It may be more effective to limit a post to a specific suggestion or area, to focus the discussion... as these lists tend to lead to an assortment of "I agree with X but not Y" and it ends up not really going anywhere... and is probably difficult for the devs to gain much insight from.

I will say that although change and improvement can be good, it's risky to make major changes to fundamentals of the game this late in its cycle. There are players who are currently playing who might leave, with no guarantee that new players will replace them, or that the change will be implemented properly. So I don't think bar swapping should be eliminated and combat re-done from the bottom up after ten years, for example... though additions such as oakensoul and velothi, that open up different combat styles for players who prefer them, are welcome.

Also imo there is just no way they are going to make the investment in a brand new OCE server under current conditions. The game is way down from its peak population during covid; many indications are that eso is suffering from cutbacks and reductions in development resources. And that is a major investment in time and money. It took months if not years to upgrade the existing servers. It's not like someone can run down to walmart and grab a couple machines off the shelf and start a new megaserver. It sucks for players on that side of the world, but I would not hold out hope for a new server.

xXCJsniperXx7 · December 8

If these problems are keeping you from playing the game, then why still here on the forums? If someone doesn't like a game, just move on.

Elsonso · December 8

lynix112 wrote: »

1. No OCE servers, There's really no point to not have at LEAST OCE instance servers for PvE content. Yes you can do content with the current setup but you basically have to be a complete sweat lord to get anywhere close to max potential.

2. Weapon swapping is and always will be, imo, a bug. It needs to go and player power needs to be adjusted accordingly. Such a poor choice for devs to leave the game like this.

3. Mount Training should be account wide... Seriously nobody wants to get on their alts and deal with a slow mount.. It's anti alt design and we all know it's just so you can sell training books.

4. Progression in ESO is so mid. At the very least being able to add more stats to our gear through enchanting (more than currently) by using mats only obtainable in higher content.

5. Sprinting past everything in dungeons should be dealt with, it's an unfun way to play for a lot of people and completely destroys immersion. By removing 1. max level rewards from normal content and 2. removing mob tethers so they don't ever reset while someone is inside the dungeon we can at the very least minimize the amount this happens improving overall player enjoyment.

6. Make crafting more robust and interesting, allow us to do crazy things like having a trait that reduces the max level required to put on the gear.

7. Double the housing furniture (yes this includes the eso+ bonus, that should be double too)

8. Make guild traders zone based, if you get a spot in the zone you just have to go to 1 guild trader to sell/buy not check 10 to find the best price or use addons.

9. Map completion should be account wide for discoveries. (if I have the wayshrine on 1 characters I should have it on all)

10. refer to number 1.

Aside from #1 and #10 being not even a possibility on a cold day in hell, my comments are as follows.

"Alts should have everything" ideas. This will be gleefully accepted by some people, while removing reasons to play for other players. The real thought here is whether leaving it as it is now, or making alt progression irrelevant, will be better for the game, long term. Personally, if they remove the need to progress alts any further, I will have even less to do. Eventually, I won't stick around to see if it was a good idea or a disaster.

It would be interesting to see what players would do if weapon swapping were, say, prohibited in combat. End the dual weapon rotations and DPS numbers. It would probably tank the game, simply because the "player power adjustment" would probably not be enough. Like "animation canceling", this is a "problem" that will never be addressed, if ZOS is smart.

Crafting is largely irrelevant except for writs, giving new players something to do, and Alts that might be leveling and need gear. I say just leave it alone.

Sprinting past stuff in dungeons (Delve and above) and shortcuts are a pet peeve of mine. I know that getting left behind or simply dying in the dungeon, when players do this is real. I would guess that the [snip] moment is negative for those players. That said, maybe what ZOS needs to do is put an NPC at the start of the dungeon where all of the players in a 4-person dungeon can just "Skip Dungeon" and get a bundle of gear and XP instead of actually doing the content.

[edited for profanity bypass]

ApoAlaia · December 8

Besides the whole mount training conundrum - which is an inconvenience very much left in place to sell the solution - the rest would, as has already been mentioned a few times in the thread, be very polarising and I personally doubt it would increase the overall satisfaction.

I personally don't think it needs to be necessarily account-wide though, just remove the 'once a day' limitation and let people buy all the upgrades in one go as with the backpack if they wish to.

Or commit to the inconvenience by removing the ability to purchase the solution with real money.

On a side note, although I accept that I am in the minority and I need to get my fix elsewhere, I do sorely miss power creep vertical progression.

With the current model the hamster wheel is way too obvious; breaks my immersion and leaves the itch unscratched.

kargen27 · December 8

The very last thing this game needs is for anything else to be made account wide. Forcing account wide achievements on players was by far the worst decision ZoS made in ESO.

I still think for players to get rewards in a dungeon they should have to kill all bosses and 98% of all mobs. Would be 100% but sometimes one gets stuck in a wall or something and can't be killed.

All the critters and evil doers in zones level as the player levels so putting in vertical progression would be just adding numbers to add numbers. To make this type of leveling have an impact they would need to go back to before Tamriel 1 and that got silly quick as by the 2nd zone you were leveled above the content and either had to skip most the zone to go where you could gain XP or trudge on through the zone knowing you were no longer gaining anything but minute bits of XP.

The complaint about weapon swapping is really a complaint about performance. Performance could be better especially in Cyrodiil but asking for a sweeping game change isn't really going to help. What would help is improving performance.

Rkindaleft · December 8

I think they're should've been Oceanic (or Asia) servers from the start but they're definitely not going to add that now.

Maybe it would be different for PC but they are going to be dead for anyone outside of the overland questing experience, this is coming from someone who plays in South Korea. You certainly wouldn't be getting full groups for endgame content or PvP and I play peak Asia time zone and that's how it is on PS/NA and PS/EU.

Metafae · December 9

You know, originally, mount training was per mount.

Can you imagine having to train the mounts and not the character?

It was changed to become the character itself being trained. So why would other alts get training for something they didn't train for?

SilverBride · December 9

The only thing they need to do to mount training is make it so we can put 1 point in each of the 3 categories once a day, instead of just 1 point total. This would cut it down from 6 months to 2 months and would be way more reasonable.

katanagirl1 · December 9

#2 and #8 are a big no from me.

I don’t understand these type of threads. As a new player of a game that has been here for 10 years, you either learn the game and adapt or try to understand how it works rather than make wholesale changes as suggestions.

Artem_gig · December 9

play with oak soul ring if you don't like 2 weapon bars. For me personally, this is one of the key things why I prefer this mmo. The only problem I see with this is that the second panel is only additional to the first, and not an alternative way of fighting. It would be better if it was just a way to change the fighting style during the fight itself, rather than using a second panel as an addition to the first. (Although with the addition of scribing I somehow solved this problem for myself...)

Artem_gig · December 9

Although I agree with the daily bonus for completing dungeons... It should be an adventure, not a grind. But alas, this was done so that those players who would like to farm some kind of item could always find themselves a group of random players, whose only motivation is the daily bonus.

spartaxoxo · December 9

Weapon Swapping is not a bug. I have no idea how what was even determined.

1. IDK, sure
2. ABSOLUTELY NOT. If you want a one bar build so bad, use Oakensoul.
3. Agreed
4. Disagree. The gap between floor and ceiling is already too high. There's plenty of progression, but a lot of it is skill based
5. I disagree. It's not a problem. They should make a story mode with no rewards for those that want to hear the story. But most of the people in group finder are doing dungeons for daily quests or loot, and both of things are things people want to do as fast as possible. This game has been around 10 years. Nobody wants to still slog through fungal grotto except people new to it.
6.I don't like that particular idea. But, sure, crafting could have something new added to it.
7. Not possible on a technical level
8. Console has a healthy economy because of the current trader system and I'd like it to stay that way
9. I agree about way shrines but not the rest of the map discovery.

Artim_X · December 9

1. I agree that there should be an oceanic server.

2. Animation canceling is fine and necessary to keep the game fast paced (blocking, dodging, weaving, etc.)

3. I agree Mount Training should be account wide and imo all training books should be automatically converted to gems.

4. I disagree. This is an MMO and the horizontal progression is fine. Adding new ways to play via sets, skill lines, classes, etc. Can keeps things interesting. If more progression is needed, they can just permit one or more slottable champion points.

5. I agree somewhat. Dark Souls esque fog walls or any barrier type system that prevents progress till regular mobs are killed would be great to curtail experiences where one person drags the whole dungeon shipping everything. The exceptions are secret out of the way encounters that are missable. The rewards for normal and vet can stay as they are.

6. Crafting is fine as is. ZOS has put in a lot of quality of life systems (sticker book/transmutation).

7. I 100% agree that they should double the housing furniture slots in houses.

8. I somewhat agree with this. Perhaps as you say a zone based trading system. This would create a minor auction house system that still encourages people to check other zones. ZOS will like that you’ll still need to own a zone to check those traders.

9. I agree. More things like map completion should be account wide.

10. I agree that there should be an oceanic server.

lynix112 · December 9

SilverIce58 wrote: »

lynix112 wrote: »

Wiseau wrote: »

Regarding bar-swapping, how exactly is it a bug and what do you mean when you keep saying "like this"?

'like this' refers to the complete jank state the game is in with bar swap, They are not going to change it because some people seem to like it for god knows what reason (It is literally just awful awful design with the implementation they went for)

Bar-swapping was originally not meant to be this way, as someone who has been playing since the very first beta testing I remember when it was considered a bug that was going to get fixed. But then tryhards decided it was fun and so zeni left it the way it was and because of that we get the terrible state the game is in today.

Players in the US don't have an issue with it because it's more smooth and actually works for them. But for anyone on the NA realms outside of the US it's like 50/50 if your bar even swaps regardless of how you bind it. The state of the game now is a perfect example of how players do not understand what good design looks like.

The only reason the community is so resistant to change now is because they've all got used to the crappiness.

So your issue is more lag because you live far away from the NA servers, and less "this feature is actually a bug." Gotcha.

No the issue is 100% that this "feature" was originally a bug and it's honestly just a bad design choice. If it was seamless (ie we could press a button from our other bar and the change happened automatically) swapping I wouldn't have a problem but the fact that it requires an input is terrible. 99% of players only bar-swap to put short buffs on anyway which is why I have no idea why people like the system. It's literally just an extra input for no reason other than the fact consoles need to be compatible with the game.

Tandor wrote: »

To be honest, I'd rather listen to the views of those who are playing the game because they like the way it is rather than those who say that if the game was changed to how they would like it to be then they would play it.

I've been playing the game since beta 10 years ago. I play on and off because the game is not as good as it could be and it's just so so easy to get bored with it in it's current state. This is a terrible take, you don't get more players playing by catering only to the people who already play... that's how you get nothing but attrition.

Desiato wrote: »

lynix112 wrote: »

2. Weapon swapping is and always will be, imo, a bug. It needs to go and player power needs to be adjusted accordingly. Such a poor choice for devs to leave the game like this.

If you don't want to bar swap, you don't have to. It's a pretty easy game and they've made it so players who don't like to bar swap can basically do everything.

But I love bar swapping in ESO and will never play another mmo with traditional mmo bars like wow again.

The issue with this attitude is that it excludes people who don't enjoy bar-swapping from reaching maximum potential. This applies even more to players who are not based in the US and have to deal with high ping (usually 300 - 500 on a good day). With how unresponsive weapon swapping is; sometimes it literally doesn't even work.

AzuraFan wrote: »

I agree with 2. Dumb mechanic.

I don't agree with 5. Punishing everyone who only runs normal dungeons isn't the way to go. Max level rewards should be available in normal dungeons, otherwise you'll be drastically decreasing the enjoyment (and the motivations to do dungeons) for a subset of the playerbase. I don't know how to solve the speedrunning problem. There may not be a fix for it. But I've been running dungeons daily for a few months now and I'd say it's not a huge problem. Maybe 5% of the time I end up with a speedrunner in a pug. I think when you're pugging, you need to be willing to accept what you get and go with it.

A huge NO to 9. There's already too much complete on the map for alts.

Anyway, this sounds like a personal wishlist more than a practical way to improve the game for everyone. There are bigger fish to fry, as others have pointed out. Tweaks aren't going to do it.

You don't like normal dungeons then. If you only play them to get a reward and would not do so if that reward did not exist, removing the reward is a good thing, it means you don't have to play content you clearly do not like anymore. Removing rewards gets people who don't want to be there out and you're just left with people who enjoy the content. The result is a longer queue time but at least when you get in you know you'll be doing the dungeon not getting 3 team mates with will sprint to bosnia the second they load in.

lynix112 · December 9

xXCJsniperXx7 wrote: »

If these problems are keeping you from playing the game, then why still here on the forums? If someone doesn't like a game, just move on.

I do play the game, which is why I am here. I'd play it more if these issues didn't exist.

Vonnegut2506 · December 9

Again, bar swapping is not a bug that they left in. That is animation cancelling as many people have already pointed out. I have been here since beta as well, and bar swapping has been a core part of the game since the beginning. Animation cancelling used to be complained about pretty frequently in the first couple years before ZOS decided they couldn't figure out a way to disable animation cancelling, so they decided that it was part of the game.

lynix112 · December 9

spartaxoxo wrote: »

4. Disagree. The gap between floor and ceiling is already too high. There's plenty of progression, but a lot of it is skill based
5. I disagree. It's not a problem. They should make a story mode with no rewards for those that want to hear the story. But most of the people in group finder are doing dungeons for daily quests or loot, and both of things are things people want to do as fast as possible. This game has been around 10 years. Nobody wants to still slog through fungal grotto except people new to it.

Weapon swapping is a bug turned feature. I will always call it a bug that's been there since beta. You can be a denier all you want but I wont shutup until it's bugfixed.

The 2 takes I quoted you in are the 2 biggest L takes anyone has ever said about this game lol.
I want to do fungal grotto normally. I enjoy dungeon content and the way ESO handles it is terrible for people who enjoy consuming content at the pace that was originally intended. Sure it can still be fast but sprinting past every mob is the place aint it my dude. If you don't want to do dungeons I think maybe a better thing for you to argue is for an alternate way to get the rewards instead of arguing that the experience stay the same for people not enjoying it how it is.

Skill based progression isn't progression, and nothing in ESO is skill based. ESO is probably one of the easiest MMOs on the market, even VET trials are a joke compared to other MMOs end game content. This game has literally no progression at all currently

TaSheen · December 9

Huh. My understanding is that bar swapping was an original design decision, and that "light attack weaving/animation canceling" is the assumed bug that was subsumed into the game as a "feature".

lynix112 · December 9

Vonnegut2506 wrote: »

Again, bar swapping is not a bug that they left in. That is animation cancelling as many people have already pointed out. I have been here since beta as well, and bar swapping has been a core part of the game since the beginning. Animation cancelling used to be complained about pretty frequently in the first couple years before ZOS decided they couldn't figure out a way to disable animation cancelling, so they decided that it was part of the game.

Bar-swapping was not supposed to be used in the way it's used and even if it was it's terrible design anyway so I still want it changed so I [snip] about arguing semantics, it's a bad mechanic and should be removed.

[edited for profanity bypass]

lynix112 · December 9

Artim_X wrote: »

2. Animation canceling is fine and necessary to keep the game fast paced (blocking, dodging, weaving, etc.)

If you think the game can't be fast paced without it you're wrong
if you think the game needs to be fast paced anyway, you're wrong

It blows my mind that people defend such a crappy design. I will never get it.

spartaxoxo · December 9

lynix112 wrote: »

Weapon swapping is a bug turned feature. I will always call it a bug that's been there since beta. You can be a denier all you want but I wont shutup until it's bugfixed.

And it will still be wrong. Weapon Swapping is a deliberate design decision made by Zenimax because the game is on console. It's not going anywhere.

lynix112 wrote: »

The 2 takes I quoted you in are the 2 biggest L takes anyone has ever said about this game lol.
I want to do fungal grotto normally. I enjoy dungeon content and the way ESO handles it is terrible for people who enjoy consuming content at the pace that was originally intended. Sure it can still be fast but sprinting past every mob is the place aint it my dude. If you don't want to do dungeons I think maybe a better thing for you to argue is for an alternate way to get the rewards instead of arguing that the experience stay the same for people not enjoying it how it is.

They aren't going to force everyone to play one way nor should they. They created the group finder if you're looking for something specific. Story mode is something I support. The goal should be to give people options to play the way they want to play, not delete a playstyle just because someone doesn't like it.

lynix112 wrote: »

Skill based progression isn't progression, and nothing in ESO is skill based. ESO is probably one of the easiest MMOs on the market, even VET trials are a joke compared to other MMOs end game content. This game has literally no progression at all currently

If all you've played is Craglorn vet trials, I'm sure it feels that way. But, anyone who plays more difficult content knows that there is skill-based progression and there is a large gap between a top DPS and some "DPS" pulling 6k

spartaxoxo · December 9

TaSheen wrote: »

Huh. My understanding is that bar swapping was an original design decision, and that "light attack weaving/animation canceling" is the assumed bug that was subsumed into the game as a "feature".

That's correct.

ESO_player123 · December 9

lynix112 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

4. Disagree. The gap between floor and ceiling is already too high. There's plenty of progression, but a lot of it is skill based
5. I disagree. It's not a problem. They should make a story mode with no rewards for those that want to hear the story. But most of the people in group finder are doing dungeons for daily quests or loot, and both of things are things people want to do as fast as possible. This game has been around 10 years. Nobody wants to still slog through fungal grotto except people new to it.

Weapon swapping is a bug turned feature. I will always call it a bug that's been there since beta. You can be a denier all you want but I wont shutup until it's bugfixed.

The 2 takes I quoted you in are the 2 biggest L takes anyone has ever said about this game lol.
I want to do fungal grotto normally. I enjoy dungeon content and the way ESO handles it is terrible for people who enjoy consuming content at the pace that was originally intended. Sure it can still be fast but sprinting past every mob is the place aint it my dude. If you don't want to do dungeons I think maybe a better thing for you to argue is for an alternate way to get the rewards instead of arguing that the experience stay the same for people not enjoying it how it is.

Skill based progression isn't progression, and nothing in ESO is skill based. ESO is probably one of the easiest MMOs on the market, even VET trials are a joke compared to other MMOs end game content. This game has literally no progression at all currently

If all meaningful rewards (transmutes, sets, XP for random daily) are removed from normal dungeons why would anyone go there for the second time? Sure, you would repeat it for a skill point/initial undaunted XP chunk on an alt, but other than that 99% of players would not return there. The queue time will be looooong.
If you argue that the rewards should be in vet dungeons only then you will get an influx of people that are not ready for them and actually do not want to be there.
Adding a story mode is the way to go in my opinion.

valenwood_vegan · December 9

Well, the devs most certainly do not regard weapon swapping as a bug. See e.g., the combat deep dive, where it's specifically listed as one of the features of "active combat".

https://elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/63417

Taril · December 9

lynix112 wrote: »

If it was seamless (ie we could press a button from our other bar and the change happened automatically) swapping I wouldn't have a problem but the fact that it requires an input is terrible. 99% of players only bar-swap to put short buffs on anyway which is why I have no idea why people like the system. It's literally just an extra input for no reason other than the fact consoles need to be compatible with the game.

It's not just consoles that benefit from such a design of having 6 skills and a bar swap mechanic.

Many people dislike trying to set up and utilize large action bars. Reaching over to far away keys is inconvenient to most people (It doesn't bother me since I'm an old school MMO player, I'm used to reaching over to keys 6-0 and have even gotten used to utilizing all 12 function keys. I've only needed a small amount of physiotherapy to deal with the RSI such things have caused)

lynix112 wrote: »

This is a terrible take, you don't get more players playing by catering only to the people who already play... that's how you get nothing but attrition.

You also don't keep your current playerbase by doing massive changes or by listening to people who are out of touch with the game (Such as non-players, players who simply want to be playing another game, or your average executive)

It's incredibly rare for a game to actually survive any sort of significant overhaul in its core systems. The only example I can think of is with Fortnite when it shifted from the PvE horde battler to the PvP battle royale.

lynix112 wrote: »

The issue with this attitude is that it excludes people who don't enjoy bar-swapping from reaching maximum potential. This applies even more to players who are not based in the US and have to deal with high ping (usually 300 - 500 on a good day). With how unresponsive weapon swapping is; sometimes it literally doesn't even work.

Which is why we get things like Oakensoul and Velothi. Items that can provide individual players with the means to bypass these systems they don't like/can't utilize.

Sure, these items don't allow for "Maximum potential" but that's mostly a simple balance issue. Buffing these items (Also, things like being able to use multiple Mythics so that someone with bad ping can use both Oaken and Velothi so they can use a One Bar build without LA weaving) can help mitigate the gap in performance.

Which is an infinitely better solution than "Delete the entire thing I dislike/can't use"

lynix112 wrote: »

You don't like normal dungeons then. If you only play them to get a reward and would not do so if that reward did not exist, removing the reward is a good thing, it means you don't have to play content you clearly do not like anymore. Removing rewards gets people who don't want to be there out and you're just left with people who enjoy the content. The result is a longer queue time but at least when you get in you know you'll be doing the dungeon not getting 3 team mates with will sprint to bosnia the second they load in.

Again, there are better alternatives than "Delete this"

You can find guilds, make friends and use the Group Finder to find people who are more appropriately powered to facilitate a "Normal" dungeon run.

You know, the kinds of things people used to do in MMO's back before these dumb dungeon queue tools massacred the social aspect of the genre.

The dungeon queue tools are specifically designed to facilitate people jumping in with a random group of people, namely for content grinding (Which means people are trying to do it as fast as possible)

While the potential is always there to just... Manually make a group, that way you can ensure that everyone is on the same page about what the expectation is.

alpha_synuclein · December 9

lynix112 wrote: »

Lack of progression is one of the primary reasons that people avoid it as an MMO. Horizontal progress is literally one of the most boring implementations to the MMO genre ever created, the only people who enjoy it do so because they don't like to "start again" every time a new dlc or expansions releases. But if there is nothing to gain from doing the quests, dungeons or trials that get introduced, why would I do them if I'm not compelled by the story? Don't get me wrong here I do personally like ESOs stories and I do quests for that reason but you better believe most people do not do content without a reason.

Lack of the grindy treadmills that repeats every update is one of the reasons why I prefer ESO over other MMOs. To each their own.

Soarora · December 9

You can’t accidentally add in bar swapping, that had to be deliberately coded. It’s not a bug just because you don’t like it, thats not what bugs are.

Elsonso · December 9

Soarora wrote: »

You can’t accidentally add in bar swapping, that had to be deliberately coded. It’s not a bug just because you don’t like it, thats not what bugs are.

I recall that the intent was that the players would have two swappable weapon configurations, but not that they swap them every couple seconds. The "bug" would be that they did not lock the bar while in combat, or have a timer on the swap, although it was likely intentional that they don't do that, but for other reasons. Only the devs know for sure.

They fixed weapon swapping about 6 months after launch, allowing for instant swaps. This puts it in with "light attack weaving", where players did something unintended and ZOS decided to go with it.

noblecron · December 9

I'm not intending to sound rude but I'd rather have them fix bugs, upgrade the servers to handle the load and get better hardware than cater to a minority, especially one that says they wont play the game because of flaws that they are in the minority in.

That said, I do wish Mount leveling was account wide and I do wish the furnishign cap was increased. I also agree that sprinting past dungeons should be addressed. It annoys the crap out of me, especially when I'm trying to tank or heal. Even more so healing cuase then the person that sprinted to the end of the dungeon gets mad cause they died. Sprinting also has a tendency to glitch quests which sucks for new players.

I don't get what you mean by no OCE servers. Are you saying that folk in OCE region shouldn't be able to play the game? Or something else?

4 and 6 and even maybe 9 come of as lazy. Id also drive folk away than anything.

For 8 I think you misworded. You mean you want like a Wow, gw2 and FF14 auction house. I can get by an auction hosue. Guild traders are already zone based.