Studio Director’s Letter: 2025 & Beyond

tsaescishoeshiner

RomanRex wrote: »

How does this indicate any improvement over 2024?

U42: A paltry new zone (West Weald) that is empty compared to previous zones. Scribing was introduced, but many felt it didn’t live up to its potential.

U43: Housing tours that most people weren’t asking for and didn’t want. Companions you buy from the crown store.

U44: Big PvP update! BG’s that are unpopular.

We have had complaints all year about bad server performance and even experienced the longest outage in ESO ever (that I am aware of). We need a letter that accurately takes into account the state of where we are and where we are going.

It has been a depressing year in ESO and nothing about this letter makes 2025 seem better.

I don't think everyone sees it that way. Not trying to change anyone's mind, but here's another perspective on it:

U41: Two new DLC dungeons like usual. Bedlam Veil was very atmospheric with nice storytelling.

U42: A zone with the same number of delve and location-based quests as other Chapters, a longer main quest than Vvardenfell, plus a whole guild questline with a new skill system attached that is now very widely used. (In fact, so well-used that players called for ink drop increases to experiment more and some have called for nerfs for Scribing in PvP lol)

U43: Home Tours that were requested so much for years that people had made addon workarounds and script libraries to share houses. I know lots of people who have engaged with Home Tours, and found some great stuff from the community there.

U44: Two new Companions and a BG rework that had been requested before by some players who wanted new PvP maps and BG mechanics, and some even specifically wanted 2-sided battlegrounds (not me). Cool new maps, but the switch to 2-sided and competitive queues has gotten mixed reviews. Even though I don't think I prefer it, I've been playing more BGs and seeing more players in BG than I have in years. 8v8 is lots of fun.

Personally, Zerith-var and Scholarium questlines are two of my favorite and most memorable of any in ESO so far. And I like the diversity and options that Scribing has added to my characters. 2024 has been a solid year for me, but I do miss having a big Q4 zone. I don't miss Q3 dungeons, and I really liked having two companions instead of a main story quest about saving the world. So, mixed bag, overall good, but not the most inspired I've been for ESO.

StarOfElyon

VixxVexx wrote: »

Anyone else getting maintenance mode vibes from reading this? I read this as restructuring/downsizing.

Or a renewal. Which I'm cool with.

Rkindaleft

ZOS_MattFiror wrote: »

Freeing up the dev team from needing to adhere to a strict annual cycle means we will be able to have teams launch content when it is ready throughout the year and not work to a date in June – this will let us focus on a greater variety of content spread over the year. This supports the new Seasons model, and will enable us to release content, updates, fixes, and systems in a more efficient manner.

I'm trying to reserve judgement as I am somewhat hopeful but in a way I feel like we've gone down this road before with Q3 and Q4. This is phrased as a super good thing but I'm not so sure it isn't just going to mean that we're going to get less than the minimum amount of content we have already been getting with chapter releases + then have it just be sprinkled out throughout the year in order for people to claim we're getting "consistent" updates.

Also to give attention to the "fixes" word, I thought the point of removing content from Q3 and Q4 updates was so that the team was able to work on QoL and do bug fixes. There are *major* bugs that have been in the game for years that have had hundreds or even thousands of bug reports that still exist to this day (Castle Thorn last boss circle not moving anyone?)

MJallday

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Juomuuri wrote: »

Woah, I'm blown away by how cool all this is! I just wanna know if the "Seasons" are behind a paywall, or if they can be obtained for free within some time window when they're new? No other burning questions here.

edit: fixed a typo

My guess it will be basically tiered season pass. Basic with ESO+ and additional behind another form of sub or payment, while Story DLC zone (most likely smaller than right now) will be at the end of they year. I don't think I like where this is going....

They’d loose 95% of their players overnight with that. Can’t see it happening

averyfarmanb14_ESO

AScarlato wrote: »

Perhaps I'm just pessimistic but I fail to see the excitement in this announcement, let alone mentioning store products as something to look forward to in a game already heavy on overpriced microtransactions.

This wasn't meant to excite, I think.

If their fiscal year runs July to June, we're at their midpoint. We won't find out about the first "season" until the last quarter of this fiscal year, in April, and the release of the first "season" would appear to correspond to the start of the new fiscal year. The letter's vague, in a way that allows for escape clauses, and suggests much while committing to very little.

I'm having John Smedley flashbacks, and I find that concerning.

averyfarmanb14_ESO

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

Just to be clear, they announced "seasonal content" to replace one big Chapter per year, not "battlepasses" lol. People might be jumping to conclusions just to make themselves disappointed.

I think that's the fault of the letter, not the readers. Matt used a term that already has conceptual baggage attached to it, in a way that the term isn't typically used in other games, and readers ran with what they knew.

I apologize if this seems blunt, but, the letter appears to be here more to satisfy notification requirements than to communicate potentially significant upcoming changes. It's causing churn instead of informing, and the "stay tuned" approach has only served to disappoint in the past - using it here, for what appears to be changes that could be as significant as One Tamriel, is baffling.

SilverBride

If there are no chapters to purchase how are we going to fund this game? This is something players need to know before it goes live.

abaker013

LunaFlora wrote: »

I know it'll be a test, but i hope that "Increasing the difficulty of standard overworld combat" will have options instead of being an increase for everyone.

This is my only real concern with the changes. I am skeptical of overland difficulty changes, and I can see this concern being a big enough issue for me to walk away. I am a strictly solo PVE player. If I will be forced to change that, I'd rather walk away. Having said that, I am willing to see how the adjustments play out before making a decision. I've invested a great deal of time and love in ESO and appreciate the work the Devs do enough to give them a chance to wow me.

sarahthes

SilverBride wrote: »

If there are no chapters to purchase how are we going to fund this game? This is something players need to know before it goes live.

Well, the content they release certainly won't be free.

BasP

I'm definitely interested in seeing how this all pans out! I liked a lot of what I read, in particular the experiment with more difficult Overland combat, improvements to the feel of combat (though I did immediately think of the changes to Jabs), and the creation of more difficult zones. The focus on change and experimentation in general seems like a good thing to me.

I'm on the fence about the loss of Chapters, however. On the one hand, it was nice to have a new large zone to explore (along with everything else that came with the Chapter) and it was something I looked forward to. On the other hand, getting new quest content more regularly throughout the year doesn't seem bad either.

spartaxoxo

sarahthes wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

If there are no chapters to purchase how are we going to fund this game? This is something players need to know before it goes live.

Well, the content they release certainly won't be free.

I wouldn't be surprised if the new companions were a test of the concept. Free for Plus, paid for by everyone else.

Ingenon

Thanks for the Studio Director's Letter!

I'm not excited about what I am reading.

Currently, I enjoy doing all the quests in each zone with another player. Turning the Page on Chapters sounds awful to me. No more new zones, just some themed story content every three to six months with a new season.

Besides quests, I enjoy PvE Trials in guilds. I do not see the word "trial" anywhere in the letter. No more new trials? Previous DLC trials (and DLC dungeons) had an underlying story that tied in with their chapter. But chapters are no more. I did see the word "dungeon" in the letter, so perhaps there will be one or two new ESO dungeons in 2025.

How will ZOS make money from ESO? Since the Morrowind DLC, I have paid money every year for the new chapter. Will ZOS charge money for each season? If yes, it sounds to me like more money for less content I like, because in other online games, seasons do not have as much new story content as prior year ESO chapters.

Harder overland content? Why? In West Weald, I'm already looking for other players to help with world bosses and mirrormoor incursions. Compared to base game zones like Auridon, where I solo world bosses with my leveled alts, and solo dolmens with baby alts that I am still leveling. And the wandering world boss in West Weald required me to get help, and it still took a long time for multiple players to burn it down. One and done. Got the achievement, never going back again to fight the Minotaur War Party. Are you going to make overland so hard that I need to get help from other players to finish a delve?

Belegnole

VixxVexx wrote: »

Anyone else getting maintenance mode vibes from reading this? I read this as restructuring/downsizing.

Very first thing I thought.

kiheikat

I like the idea of harder overland. I enjoyed the feeling of overcoming obstacles when I first played in Elsweyr and the thrill of defeating hard bosses at the end of quests. Now it's a couple of button taps and the big scary monster is dead or waiting through numerous invulnerability phases to tap the button again.

I think the game is in a better state to handle harder overland with new options for solid heavy attack builds to bring up the power for folks with limitations. Heavy attack builds let me complete West Weald content with a broken wrist/cast and severe limitations on movement, targeting and button pressing.

I'm excited about needing to group up to do content other than vet trials and dungeons.

Cooperharley

DUDE

DUDE


…..

DUDE

THIS. Is what I’m talking about!! LETS GO ZOS!!

RomanRex

kiheikat wrote: »

I'm excited about needing to group up to do content other than vet trials and dungeons.

There is content like this already such as Bastion Nymics.

They aren’t popular and you can’t even get a group together with the group finder most of the time. I end up solo-ing them after waiting between half an hour to an hour with no one joining in my listing.

ArkadiaReaper

This is... interesting. I wasn't pleased when they went away from year long stories that gave us a zone and a mini zone regularly, and this kinda sounds like even less new content. But I shouldn't get too pessimistic with this little information. GW2 makes regular content additions work smoothly, maybe ESO can too. I just hope the monetization doesn't get weird with not having one yearly chapter release/purchase.

WildRaptorX

Overall, looking forward to the changes, especially:

•updated base zone textures & quests
•Overland difficulty increase
• Returning to guild DLC (I posted about a Thieves Guild Part 2, years ago on the forums)

However, my only concern is the ‘splitting large zones across multiple updates’. PLEASE DONT MAKE A ZONE AND UPDATE IT A YEAR+ LATER. If you’re going to do this, please make the next part be within the next 3-6 months. People will lose interest/forget potential key moments from the zone/story.


RIP chapters

Sarannah

After having read it all, I am glad we are getting content still, though it does seem 'maintenance'-like.

Not a fan of seasons, personally I love ESO most when there isn't a list of things to do, so I can do what I want without missing out on anything else(FOMO). Because I don't want to miss tickets, styles, eventrewards, endeavours, daily rewards, and golden pursuits already. Add seasons to that, and the daily load is just too much. (Maybe lower the daily load, by removing daily endeavours and adding those rewards to the weekly endeavours, by removing the dungeon/BG daily rewards and make it a seven times per week completion reward, etc)
My guess is, that in the end paying for each part of the new season's content separately will cost us more than one full chapter would have. Which would point to 'maintenance'-mode and nickle and diming players.

The list of things coming does not excite me at all:
-Cyrodiil: Personally I do not PvP, don't care at all.
-Overland mob difficulty increase: Waste of development time. Everyone skips overland/delve/public dungeon/groupdungeon mobs anyways, always running their mob trains through my aoe's, leaving me with their mob mess. (Add the guard's pull/stuck abilities to ALL mobs before even thinking about increasing difficulty in overland.) Add to this that everyone has a different idea of the difficulty and what it should be, and this just becomes a huge waste of development time, no matter how you look at it.
-Improving the feel of combat: The game is in a good spot combat-wise, any changes will only mess things up(like U35 did). Best to just fix performance and add new classes/races to expand the combat experience instead.
-Craglorn like groupzone(s): Even though I love new content/zones, I heavily dislike the focus on grouping/groupdifficulty. If these zones are just going to be a one and done like Craglorn, it is not worth the development effort.
-Guildtools: Not in a guild, don't care at all.
**I'd rather we get more new systems, fixes to the performance issues(don't have any myself, but seeing players leave in droves because of this is not a good look, not to mention the bad press/advertising this places on the game itself), fixing groupdungeons for the new player experience by removing speedrunning and fake roles, an expanded/larger database(more character slots/more races/more classes/more inventory space/more bankspace/more furniture slots/more world skilllines/more anything like survey bags and furniture bags and such), expanding the CP system to the millions(with current exp curve). Just in general expand and fix the game's real main issues so everyone can have a pleasant experience, new, returning, and existing players.

"Concentrating on new and returning user experience"- As an existing max account player, this means nothing. It is good that you are doing this, but does this also mean we get more character slots and more ways to enjoy the new player experience as existing veteran players? (rebirth system/resetting quest zones/anything?)
Note: What would help the new/returning player experience most, is different color quest arrows for each separate DLC. Very simple, very easy to understand for new and returning players, suggested like a million times before by many different players. Why isn't this implemented yet? (Earlier this year there was development time spent on thinking about and placing different level requirements on each different questcontent, which felt like a major waste of development time and made it even more confusing. Including for me as a veteran.)

What does sound promising is the visual rework on the older zones, but I do hope this is done right. If it is going to look like a mix between half old and half new, it is going to look bad. In that case it would be better not to touch these older zones. In that case I would rather have this development time be spent on expanding game systems, like mentioned above**.

Overall based on this letter, not much seems to be going on. While at the same time it feels like 'maintenance' mode, combined with more FOMO content instead of chapters, and nothing for veteran players to really be excited about.

PS: Give us an option to completely exclude ourselves from other player's add-ons.

Reginald_leBlem

Some things being chatted about in guild chats:

COST: How will it be handled? The big concern is that the cost per year will be split up over the seasons, but will ultimately result in more money for less content over the year.

CHAPTERS: People like a new story, and exploring new zones, and are skeptical about being charged for content they already own (see above)

DUNGEONS: If there are not new dungeons when people are accustomed to getting them, I fear you shall see riots in the streets.
Is @ZOS_Kevin or @ZOS_GinaBruno able to comment on any of these specific fears.

Alinhbo_Tyaka

SilverBride wrote: »

I have no concept of what seasonal content even is.

In other games seasonal content is generally the completion of tasks that unlock rewards as you level through a fixed length season (i.e. longer term themed event). Frequently the leveling process also provides a currency that the player can use to purchase the unlocked rewards they want. Golden Pursuits kind of fits with this idea of seasons though in other games I'm familiar with seasons appear on a regular schedule with definite beginnings and endings. The thing with seasons is they don't really require much new content. They recycle existing daily/weekly task lists and rewards are frequently recolors of existing assets. My perspective is it is one of the things a game does as the company starts to gear down on new development.

RomanRex

Alinhbo_Tyaka wrote: »

My perspective is it is one of the things a game does as the company starts to gear down on new development.

There aren’t many other ways to interpret it.

They cancelled their 10 year celebration in the US. Then, they tell players content releases will be slower and often recycle existing content. What few popular streamers that were left (that I follow) have moved on.

Everything has reeked of slow-rolling into minimal support mode.

Wargrave

•  Increasing the difficulty of standard overworld combat

Please don't. Games like SWTOR are a chore to play because overworld enemies are damage sponges. It's a huge waste of time and gets old very fast. That's why players in that game do everything they can to skip overworld enemies as much as possible. 😒😒

GatheredMyst

This is some of the best news that I've seen from the game since I started playing it back at launch.

Why?

I have super fond memories of the time before the "Chapter Model" was introduced, and ZOS was throwing things at the wall to see what stuck. Those were the days that brought us the small but really well done Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood storylines. Those were the days that introduced the dye system that we have now. Those were the days that they did Player Housing. Heck, those were the days that they did Tamriel Unlimited (Which had its own issues, but I won't get into that here)

Cutting them loose from the yearly release schedule means that you can hopefully get your team back to doing stuff like this again, because... take it from a Final Fantasy XIV player...

**A Set Schedule is Not Always a Benefit**

Final Fantasy XIV is nothing if not consistent. We know exactly what we're getting every year and every patch cycle, because they've been following the same cadence that they have every year since Heavensward.

What's the problem with this? That schedule is so carved in stone that the dev team cannot pivot once issues arise.

XIV releases a new relic quest and people don't like how it's implemented? Sorry, but that's the way it's going to be for the foreseeable future up to the next expansion. Want to offer feedback on the current state of class design? Please wait until the next expansion to see how that comes to fruition, because the dev team isn't going to upset the applecart before then. Doing so would "throw off the entire design of their current patch cycle".

Sometimes these cycles are long, too. Final Fantasy players wanting to see some of their feedback being put in place are going to have to wait until *2027*. Hell, the feedback from the the latest expansion's story couldn't even be considered for their most recently released patch coming out months after Dawntrail's launch. Why? It was basically already done.

ZOS, to my understanding, works on a two year cycle. That means that *if* they get an idea they want to implement, the schedule is probably already set for *two whole years*. That's a *lot* of time that they can't spend pivoting to player feedback, and when the list of things they want to do gets long, that means they're staring at years of time before they can address certain pain points or design flaws of the game.

The best that a rigid content schedule does provide is an expected content release schedule for players, but even then, that's not a benefit anymore. Every expansion is being met with more and more of a shrug by the community and MMO Press. Heck, this year, Gold Road came out at the exact same time as three expansions from its major competitors. The result? It got buried underneath everyone else because of how "formulaic the release schedule has become", something that they really seem to want to address.

I also really don't get people who are saying the game is going into Maintenance Mode. It's like they didn't read the letter. We were just promised:

~A much requested change to overland content difficulty.
~A redesign of the game's UI
~An updated patcher
~Expansions to key functionality
~New art across the oldest content in the game.
~New combat feel/animation/effects/audio work?

All of that is a *ton of work*, and we're still getting new zones, new stories, and new quests? I think what people who are screaming about this are *meaning* to say is that "I don't know when i'm going to get new content that *matters to me*, so the game must be dying."

TLDR:

* Overland Content Difficulty Adjustments have been on my wishlist since Tamriel Unlimited.
* Decoupling PVP and PVE abilities not only allows for better balance in PVP and PVE, but an ability for them to experiment with their class/ability design without having to worry about how it might impact one game mode or the other.
* Having some open-world content that is structured around groups brings the social element back again without shoving us all into dungeons/trials. So long as there is solo content to support it, this is nothing short of a plus.

I'm very excited for what the future of the game might look like. Sure, ZOS still has to deliver on everything they're planning, but with how stale the current content release schedule has become, this feels like just the shot in the arm that the game needed.

If I could offer some feedback, though: Don't call it seasons :P Clearly it has a negative connotation. Think of something else. Maybe you can even keep the "Chapter" monicker, and call each little release in that "Chapter" a "Page".

And in the future, if you want to come out swinging with a big change like this, it might be a good idea to at least have some FAQ's answered to head some of the good questions off at the pass. It will save both the team and us a little headache, and make Kevin, Gina, and Jessica's life a lot easier as well.

(Edit to fix a few typos)

Lags

i think a lot of this is positive but two big concerns for me are combat and cyrodiil. I dont think you guys have a great track record when messing with combat and animations. Combat today feels much worse than it did 5 years ago, much worse. Performance aside, cast times on certain ults, messing with animations/cancels, changing certain animations for unknown reasons. Personally, i wish you would revert a lot of these changes and just update visual's on certain skills, but i know too well that you will never do that.

As for cyrodiil, this could be interesting but im not sure what the goal is. To see if people like it enough to completely remove the current cyrodiil from the game completely and replace it with this? Because other than that, im not sure how this would help you increase pop in cyrodiil the way it currently is. Im all for trying new things, but i wish you would just invest more into trying to get to the root of the issue. Why has performance only gotten worse over the last decade. Why does it never improve, or if it does its for a short time. Why did it used to work but now, for a while, it has not.

Look, if its fun its fun. But i think it would be a massive unprecedented failure, unlike anything we have ever seen from eso, to remove the current cyrodiil and replace it with another form of it where builds and classes are just watered down. Having both would be ok, but i guess then the old cyrodiil just gets left behind. Idk, i guess we will see. But again, i really wish you guys would ask these questions and try to get to the root of the issue instead of trying to work around it.

Oh and i nearly forgot. While a lot of this sounds great i see no mention of improving rewards/incentives in the game, espeically in the older zones/older content, and just over all in general. This is a huge issue for many people. You know it. You have heard it from players over and over again. Please dont ignore it. Things have gotten better, but it is still lacking in many areas.

Stafford197

Overly positive vibe about 2024 without addressing their glaring blunders, cutbacks in content, or lessons learned as a result of said mistakes? Check.

Solidifying how ESO’s reduced content and lower quality output is the new standard instead of a one off kind of situation? Check.

Telling us how they’ll fix Cyrodiil “for realz this time” for the millionth time, to keep addicted PvPers around even though nothing will actually change? Check.

Congrats on what you’ve all accomplished since 2014
- I don’t know how the next AAA game will do but I promise you’ll never have another golden opportunity like ESO. To those of you who plan to regularly play ESO in 2025, I hope the seasonal content cycle can keep you engaged.

Sleepsin

MattFiror used a lot of words to say absolutely nothing.

bmnoble

Any new story content better be permanent, if it is time limited, with fear of missing out, your going to lose a lot of players.

The_Meathead

"We need to seriously address Cyrodiil performance. Our (ambitious) goal is to return it to the concurrency levels we supported in 2014. So, we will be experimenting with a Cyrodiil campaign where all classes will have PvP-specific (and more performant) skills that replace the standard player skills with the expectation that we can support more players per campaign."

I went from cheering out loud with the first sentence to sweating bullets with the next.

"Templates" in other games that added them late have been tremendously ill received just to be abandoned in later Xpacs after the bad showing. This strikes me as something somewhat similar and further, after all the various Proc limitations or other attempts that didn't make a dent, is this really what's going to improve performance to 2014 standards? Color me very very dubious.

More importantly, though, as others have said - will you PLEASE address cross-healing and shielding? It's perhaps driven more players away from Cyrodiil over the years than anything related to performance.

Doozzer78

Well this is my first post in the forum and I will try not to take up too much of y’all’s time with my ideas.

Seasons: sounds good and I really hope it will be enough content (in the year time) that keeps all aspects of the game going ( Pve,PvP, housing, roleplaying)

ESO+ :: Some better rewards for having it would greatly add to the people that get it. There are tons of good ideas on the forums and I hope a Dev member is reading them and taking notes. I mean even allowing eso+ members get to train 5 times a day per character is just one little idea

I really do believe that the development teams and higher ups need to have large group meetings with content creators and even just long time players of the game.

Helping “New” players get caught up with friends already playing is another aspect that could be looked at. Maybe some sort of champ point boost up from cp10 and make it cp 160 or even 300. Every zone/main quest should give a skill point for a max of maybe 50-100 skill points when in base game zones would be awesome and would incentivize people to play those zones more.