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A Look at Accessibility in ESO, How to Boost Participation and Maintain Balance
Stamicka
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I was participating in another thread about voice chat and the topic of accessibility came up. I figured I would make a post about accessibility as a whole because I feel like ESO has a great approach in some ways and can improve in others.
First, I think we see the word accessibility used a lot here on the forums. In recent years we've seen the word used more and more by the developers, especially in relation to their goals for the game. So I'll start by defining what I mean by accessibility.
Defining Accessibility
A lot of the time when someone thinks of the word accessibility, they think of accommodating those with disabilities. I think that that's one big part of accessibility, but I think it's broader than that. I would define accessibility as: having as few barriers to entry as possible for people of all abilities and backgrounds. So in other words, accessibility is about getting the widest possible audience into a game with relative ease and excluding as few groups as possible. This applies to not just the game as a whole, but different activities within the game.
One important part of looking at accessibility this way is that it's about getting people's foot in the door and making sure there aren't things that prevent them from playing. This is completely separate from a game's difficulty. Accessibility ensures that people can get their foot into the door and play the game, it says nothing about how well they will do when they are in the game. This is perfectly okay because as long as people can play the game, they can learn to improve. In fact, maybe it's even a little condescending to assume that to make a game accessible, it needs to be easy. I think this is where ESO goes wrong sometimes and I will get to that later.
Having a widely accessible game is a great goal and a good idea for a game's long term success.
Barriers
Part of the way I defined the word accessibility involved the word "barriers" which can be a lot of different things. Disabilities/Physical Differences can create barriers to access for a game, but so can other things such as: finances, hardware, background, and a lack of knowledge/poor tutorials.
A highly accessible game would be a game that can be played by almost anyone regardless of disability, free or cheap, playable on many different types of hardware, and offers a variety of input methods. So an example of a poorly accessible game would be a game that doesn't have settings to accommodate others, costs a lot to play, can only run on new hardware (live Nvidia 40 series graphics cards or something), and only supports keyboard and mouse or only one input method.
ESO's Accessibility
I think in many ways ESO is doing a great job with accessibility. It can still be played on old hardware, it's available on console, it has native controller support as well as a keyboard and mouse option, it's relatively cheap to pick up and try (also included with Xbox Gamepass), and Accessibility Mode provides many great accommodations for a variety of people. There are a few things related to monetization that may be a little bit of an issue, but for the most part it doesn't directly create barriers for people to play.
There are some major places where ESO needs to improve however. I think that the game's built in tutorials, guides, and early game mechanics do a poor job of educating players and lead to massive knowledge gaps. There's also a "bandaid" approach that is often used in an attempt to address accessibility issues. It often takes the form of decreasing difficulty or adding broken sets/mechanics into the game. Then there's PvP which has some accessibility issues in the form of barriers that prevent players from easily getting into PvP and enjoying it.
Accessibility and Difficulty
Earlier in the post I mentioned that accessibility and difficulty aren't necessarily related, but it often feels like ESO is designed as if they are. I think that a good example of this is Valorant. I consider Valorant to be a very accessible game in a variety of ways. It's a shooter that is very accessible to the deaf/hard of hearing (many aren't), it's free, it can run decently on old hardware, it now has Xbox support and can be played with controllers, and the tutorial/onboarding process is very good, effective, and straightforward. It is a game where a player can very easily get their foot in the door, but it's also a game that is hard to master and has a very high skill ceiling. So Valorant is a highly accessible game, but certainly not an easy/low skill game. It gives players the tools needed to learn and lets them improve as they play.
ESO often nerfs content, mechanics, and core combat design and keeps overland content as easy as possible. I don't think that this is the best approach and paradoxically, I think it actually prevents improvement. Designing a game with the mindset of: "some players will never be able to learn and so everything must be as easy as possible" kind of insults the intelligence and abilities of the players. Now this isn't a "make the game harder" thread in any way, but I do think that ESO's endgame PvE and PvP communities could get much more participation if accessibility was approached differently. How will players learn the importance of blocking, rolling, doing damage under some pressure, breaking free and other important concepts if they aren't reinforced in the game? If you think about it, there's actually very few places where players need to utilize the core combat mechanics that I mentioned outside of PvP and some of the newer veteran content (you can just eat a lot of mechanics from old veteran content). Overland doesn't need to have one shots and super punishing mechanics, but somewhere in the game whether it's a tutorial or early content, these core mechanics should be reinforced. I think that often the transition from overland/normal content to newer veteran content and veteran to veteran hardmode can definitely be improved by teaching core combat mechanics somewhere along the way.
Maintaining Balance
There are certain mechanics and sets that have been introduced into the game to accommodate others, but often these are overtuned or poorly designed. The first iteration of Oakensoul was a nightmare and heavy attack builds have definitely been overtuned at certain points. I completely understand the problem that these items were meant to address. ESO is a fast paced game. There's no cooldowns outside of the global cooldown, weaving has to be done manually, and there is a lot of room for differences in "Actions Per Minute" (as much as it was memed). Some people do actually have issues that prevent them from being able to press buttons quickly and I think accommodating them is a great idea.
I think that accommodating players who aren't able to engage in fast paced gameplay while keeping ESO's combat identity is a tough task. However, I still think that Oakensoul, Heavy Attack builds, and the Arcanist could have been handled better. Arcanist for example was given an extremely high damage AOE beam that shielded the player while it was being channeled. Paired with Velothi, Arcanist required significantly lower APM than other classes, but we all know what happened next. Everyone started using Arcanist, new records were made in every trial, and there wasn't really a reason to use anything else. Oakensoul in its first patch was similar and it even spread to PvP, and heavy attack builds have been similarly as strong.
In PvP it's currently possible to run a Knight Slayer based lightning heavy attack build which allows the player to deal unrollable, auto targeting, unavoidable damage. While this type of build provides a low APM way to engage with PvP, it's incredibly broken and unhealthy for the game.
So there is a middle ground here. Having low APM build options is fine, but they shouldn't be way better than all other options. They should still require skill, just in a different way than high APM builds, and in PvP there should be good counterplay against these builds. So far, this has not been the case when these low APM playstyles have been added.
PvP Accessibility
I think that PvP in ESO has way too many barriers that prevent it from being easily accessed and enjoyed. For one, PvP should be self sustaining. There should be a potion merchant that sells different types of potions for AP so that players don't need large amounts of gold to continue to PvP. I also think that all good PvP sets should be either craftable or directly purchasable with AP (to be fair we aren't super far from this). Being able to upgrade gear at a special table by using AP would be a nice touch as well.
Players should be given a more in depth tutorial that triggers when they enter Cyrodiil for the first time on their account (not character), cause there's a ton of things that the current PvP tutorials miss. I also think that there should be a free special mythic or set of special mythic items awarded for completing this tutorial (or otherwise easily obtained somewhere when entering PvP) that resembles Torc of the Last Ayleid King. I actually think that the idea behind Torc of the Last Ayleid King is great and not used to its full potential. What I picture is a one piece item or group of one piece items to choose from that turns off all item bonuses and possibly traits, but gives the player a fixed amount of health, damage, recovery, and critical resist that is at least viable in PvP, but not necessarily best in slot. Of course this item would be optional to equip, but it would give players who don't have the knowledge or resources to create a viable PvP build more of a shot/better experience in PvP. It would also just be a more easy and convenient option for players that just want to try PvP out. They wouldn't have to research builds or spend time putting anything together, they could just equip this easily obtained 1 piece item.
Related to my previous point, the knowledge required to build for PvP just isn't easily available. There's so many unnecessary set options and unclear set interactions that it creates a barrier for players. The knowledge for making a PvP build should be either more intuitive or more available in the game.
Some Final Miscellaneous Suggestions
I think one easy way to dramatically improve the knowledge gap (other than tutorials) would be to add classifications to skills under where the cost of and range of the skill are listed. I've been asked the question "what is considered direct damage?" a surprising amount of times. There's also some skills that don't intuitively fit nicely into the game's damage categories. One example is Engulfing Flames, it's an ability with a direct AOE initial hit that puts a DOT on all targets hit. Is it buffed by AOE CP? DOT CP? Direct Damage CP? Single Target CP? It's not super clear because that skill has components that could fall under any of those categories. A skill classification section would clear things up. It would just list out everything the skill is considered or buffed by, for example: "AOE, Direct Damage, Charge, Martial, etc.". Also what is considered a "blink" ability? I've been here 9 years and still don't know honestly. A skill classification section would fix that.
Lastly it's been discussed in another post, but in game voice chat support on PC would improve accessibility in several ways. One big way is that it can provide speech to text transcription that appears in the HUD for the deaf/hard of hearing so they aren't excluded from voice chats. Discord doesn't support this natively and the work arounds are absolutely awful. I also think that it would just make things easier for others. Maybe it won't be used as much as Discord, but it should be an option. Of course it should be off by default/opt in.
Conclusion/ TLDR
This has been way too long of a post, but the key takeaways are:
1. Accessibility is much more than accommodating those with disabilities
2. ESO does a good job with most aspects of accessibility, but struggles with tutorials/providing necessary knowledge
3. Difficulty and Accessibility are not really related and should not be treated that way
4. I think that ESO can improve when it comes to keeping the games balance and identity, but expanding accessibility
5. PvP has too many barriers to entry and should be self sustaining. Utilize the idea behind Torc of the Last Ayleid King to provide optional easy PvP access.
6. Add Skill Classifications
7. Voice chat can improve accessibility
Edited by Stamicka on March 31, 2025 7:06AM First, I think we see the word accessibility used a lot here on the forums. In recent years we've seen the word used more and more by the developers, especially in relation to their goals for the game. So I'll start by defining what I mean by accessibility.
Defining Accessibility
A lot of the time when someone thinks of the word accessibility, they think of accommodating those with disabilities. I think that that's one big part of accessibility, but I think it's broader than that. I would define accessibility as: having as few barriers to entry as possible for people of all abilities and backgrounds. So in other words, accessibility is about getting the widest possible audience into a game with relative ease and excluding as few groups as possible. This applies to not just the game as a whole, but different activities within the game.
One important part of looking at accessibility this way is that it's about getting people's foot in the door and making sure there aren't things that prevent them from playing. This is completely separate from a game's difficulty. Accessibility ensures that people can get their foot into the door and play the game, it says nothing about how well they will do when they are in the game. This is perfectly okay because as long as people can play the game, they can learn to improve. In fact, maybe it's even a little condescending to assume that to make a game accessible, it needs to be easy. I think this is where ESO goes wrong sometimes and I will get to that later.
Having a widely accessible game is a great goal and a good idea for a game's long term success.
Barriers
Part of the way I defined the word accessibility involved the word "barriers" which can be a lot of different things. Disabilities/Physical Differences can create barriers to access for a game, but so can other things such as: finances, hardware, background, and a lack of knowledge/poor tutorials.
A highly accessible game would be a game that can be played by almost anyone regardless of disability, free or cheap, playable on many different types of hardware, and offers a variety of input methods. So an example of a poorly accessible game would be a game that doesn't have settings to accommodate others, costs a lot to play, can only run on new hardware (live Nvidia 40 series graphics cards or something), and only supports keyboard and mouse or only one input method.
ESO's Accessibility
I think in many ways ESO is doing a great job with accessibility. It can still be played on old hardware, it's available on console, it has native controller support as well as a keyboard and mouse option, it's relatively cheap to pick up and try (also included with Xbox Gamepass), and Accessibility Mode provides many great accommodations for a variety of people. There are a few things related to monetization that may be a little bit of an issue, but for the most part it doesn't directly create barriers for people to play.
There are some major places where ESO needs to improve however. I think that the game's built in tutorials, guides, and early game mechanics do a poor job of educating players and lead to massive knowledge gaps. There's also a "bandaid" approach that is often used in an attempt to address accessibility issues. It often takes the form of decreasing difficulty or adding broken sets/mechanics into the game. Then there's PvP which has some accessibility issues in the form of barriers that prevent players from easily getting into PvP and enjoying it.
Accessibility and Difficulty
Earlier in the post I mentioned that accessibility and difficulty aren't necessarily related, but it often feels like ESO is designed as if they are. I think that a good example of this is Valorant. I consider Valorant to be a very accessible game in a variety of ways. It's a shooter that is very accessible to the deaf/hard of hearing (many aren't), it's free, it can run decently on old hardware, it now has Xbox support and can be played with controllers, and the tutorial/onboarding process is very good, effective, and straightforward. It is a game where a player can very easily get their foot in the door, but it's also a game that is hard to master and has a very high skill ceiling. So Valorant is a highly accessible game, but certainly not an easy/low skill game. It gives players the tools needed to learn and lets them improve as they play.
ESO often nerfs content, mechanics, and core combat design and keeps overland content as easy as possible. I don't think that this is the best approach and paradoxically, I think it actually prevents improvement. Designing a game with the mindset of: "some players will never be able to learn and so everything must be as easy as possible" kind of insults the intelligence and abilities of the players. Now this isn't a "make the game harder" thread in any way, but I do think that ESO's endgame PvE and PvP communities could get much more participation if accessibility was approached differently. How will players learn the importance of blocking, rolling, doing damage under some pressure, breaking free and other important concepts if they aren't reinforced in the game? If you think about it, there's actually very few places where players need to utilize the core combat mechanics that I mentioned outside of PvP and some of the newer veteran content (you can just eat a lot of mechanics from old veteran content). Overland doesn't need to have one shots and super punishing mechanics, but somewhere in the game whether it's a tutorial or early content, these core mechanics should be reinforced. I think that often the transition from overland/normal content to newer veteran content and veteran to veteran hardmode can definitely be improved by teaching core combat mechanics somewhere along the way.
Maintaining Balance
There are certain mechanics and sets that have been introduced into the game to accommodate others, but often these are overtuned or poorly designed. The first iteration of Oakensoul was a nightmare and heavy attack builds have definitely been overtuned at certain points. I completely understand the problem that these items were meant to address. ESO is a fast paced game. There's no cooldowns outside of the global cooldown, weaving has to be done manually, and there is a lot of room for differences in "Actions Per Minute" (as much as it was memed). Some people do actually have issues that prevent them from being able to press buttons quickly and I think accommodating them is a great idea.
I think that accommodating players who aren't able to engage in fast paced gameplay while keeping ESO's combat identity is a tough task. However, I still think that Oakensoul, Heavy Attack builds, and the Arcanist could have been handled better. Arcanist for example was given an extremely high damage AOE beam that shielded the player while it was being channeled. Paired with Velothi, Arcanist required significantly lower APM than other classes, but we all know what happened next. Everyone started using Arcanist, new records were made in every trial, and there wasn't really a reason to use anything else. Oakensoul in its first patch was similar and it even spread to PvP, and heavy attack builds have been similarly as strong.
In PvP it's currently possible to run a Knight Slayer based lightning heavy attack build which allows the player to deal unrollable, auto targeting, unavoidable damage. While this type of build provides a low APM way to engage with PvP, it's incredibly broken and unhealthy for the game.
So there is a middle ground here. Having low APM build options is fine, but they shouldn't be way better than all other options. They should still require skill, just in a different way than high APM builds, and in PvP there should be good counterplay against these builds. So far, this has not been the case when these low APM playstyles have been added.
PvP Accessibility
I think that PvP in ESO has way too many barriers that prevent it from being easily accessed and enjoyed. For one, PvP should be self sustaining. There should be a potion merchant that sells different types of potions for AP so that players don't need large amounts of gold to continue to PvP. I also think that all good PvP sets should be either craftable or directly purchasable with AP (to be fair we aren't super far from this). Being able to upgrade gear at a special table by using AP would be a nice touch as well.
Players should be given a more in depth tutorial that triggers when they enter Cyrodiil for the first time on their account (not character), cause there's a ton of things that the current PvP tutorials miss. I also think that there should be a free special mythic or set of special mythic items awarded for completing this tutorial (or otherwise easily obtained somewhere when entering PvP) that resembles Torc of the Last Ayleid King. I actually think that the idea behind Torc of the Last Ayleid King is great and not used to its full potential. What I picture is a one piece item or group of one piece items to choose from that turns off all item bonuses and possibly traits, but gives the player a fixed amount of health, damage, recovery, and critical resist that is at least viable in PvP, but not necessarily best in slot. Of course this item would be optional to equip, but it would give players who don't have the knowledge or resources to create a viable PvP build more of a shot/better experience in PvP. It would also just be a more easy and convenient option for players that just want to try PvP out. They wouldn't have to research builds or spend time putting anything together, they could just equip this easily obtained 1 piece item.
Related to my previous point, the knowledge required to build for PvP just isn't easily available. There's so many unnecessary set options and unclear set interactions that it creates a barrier for players. The knowledge for making a PvP build should be either more intuitive or more available in the game.
Some Final Miscellaneous Suggestions
I think one easy way to dramatically improve the knowledge gap (other than tutorials) would be to add classifications to skills under where the cost of and range of the skill are listed. I've been asked the question "what is considered direct damage?" a surprising amount of times. There's also some skills that don't intuitively fit nicely into the game's damage categories. One example is Engulfing Flames, it's an ability with a direct AOE initial hit that puts a DOT on all targets hit. Is it buffed by AOE CP? DOT CP? Direct Damage CP? Single Target CP? It's not super clear because that skill has components that could fall under any of those categories. A skill classification section would clear things up. It would just list out everything the skill is considered or buffed by, for example: "AOE, Direct Damage, Charge, Martial, etc.". Also what is considered a "blink" ability? I've been here 9 years and still don't know honestly. A skill classification section would fix that.
Lastly it's been discussed in another post, but in game voice chat support on PC would improve accessibility in several ways. One big way is that it can provide speech to text transcription that appears in the HUD for the deaf/hard of hearing so they aren't excluded from voice chats. Discord doesn't support this natively and the work arounds are absolutely awful. I also think that it would just make things easier for others. Maybe it won't be used as much as Discord, but it should be an option. Of course it should be off by default/opt in.
Conclusion/ TLDR
This has been way too long of a post, but the key takeaways are:
1. Accessibility is much more than accommodating those with disabilities
2. ESO does a good job with most aspects of accessibility, but struggles with tutorials/providing necessary knowledge
3. Difficulty and Accessibility are not really related and should not be treated that way
4. I think that ESO can improve when it comes to keeping the games balance and identity, but expanding accessibility
5. PvP has too many barriers to entry and should be self sustaining. Utilize the idea behind Torc of the Last Ayleid King to provide optional easy PvP access.
6. Add Skill Classifications
7. Voice chat can improve accessibility
PC NA and Xbox NA
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Stamicka✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭I think that this is especially relevant right now given that Vengeance showed just how much accessibility can improve PvP participation.
I think improving accessibility, especially in PvP should be heavily looked into.PC NA and Xbox NA4 -
colossalvoids✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Absolutely agree here, especially on PvP and accessibility not being equalised with difficulty, which is often getting thrown together for some reason and resulting in real issues as a result. The easiest band aid though.1 -
Rungar✭✭✭✭✭
✭Eso is already very accessible. Eso's problem is retention.
this requires changes to the new player experience
making sure players are matched up with similar skilled players
making sure the advancement system doesnt look like a mount everest climb
better designed dungeons that promote teamwork and communication as opposed to roles, dps and "do this now or die" mechanics.
seperation of vet players from new players in pvp so tey can learn and fight those of the same caliber.
that would go a long ways.Old Rungar always gives what's needed.
Current ideas for ESO improvement
Rungar's Mystical Emporium of Ideas junkyard1 -
Stamicka✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Renato90085 wrote: »in pug vdsr run:wipe in bash mech
me: chat link F1 teaching>bash
Yea there are in game guides for certain mechanics in the game, I don't feel that they do a good job of explaining everything though. I also think learning by doing is often better than learning through reading when it comes to gameplay and mechanics.
In reflecting on my own time in ESO, I think it was actually Veteran Maelstrom Arena that taught me the most important combat mechanics. Completing vMA back then was dependent on using the core combat mechanics correctly. I think now something like vMA is a lot less of a learning experience due to power creep and other changes that made the game easier.
I would guess that most newer players now don't even know or haven't even seen half the mechanics in older dungeon content because either things are killed too quickly, or the mechanic does so little damage that it's not noticeable. Power creep has kind of interfered with learning a lot of important concepts that are needed in endgame PvE and PvP naturally.
Now when it comes to making builds and PvP in general, there's basically nothing in game that helps players at all. In fact the game traps you by having a ridiculously large set space where many sets are horrible options with alternatives that are better in every single way. This is something that reallllly needs addressing.Edited by Stamicka on March 31, 2025 8:24PMPC NA and Xbox NA2 -
Stamicka✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Eso is already very accessible. Eso's problem is retention.
this requires changes to the new player experience
ESO is accessible in many ways, but not at all when it comes to providing players with the knowledge that they need and the tools to improve. ESO's retention problem is a side effect of that accessibility issue. Do you think a player who shows up to PvP with 20k health, no impen, and no idea where to start to improve will stay in PvP or return? In veteran PvE do you think a player who doesn't do much damage and doesn't know core mechanics will have a good time?
If players have the knowledge and tools they need before entering content, they will have a much better time and they'll be more likely to stay.making sure players are matched up with similar skilled players
seperation of vet players from new players in pvp so tey can learn and fight those of the same caliber.
I think the only environment in ESO that benefits from matching by skill levels is battlegrounds. In other places it's good when helpful Veterans teach things to the players that the game doesn't.
Cyrodiil is an interesting environment. I don't think matching by skill level is necessary there because the numbers aren't balanced. So it's possible to outnumber more skilled players and win. On the flip side more skilled players can sometimes win while outnumbered against others.
The problem with Cyrodiil is that so many players are gimped without realizing it. The only place to learn how to build for PvP is really the internet, and unfortunately there's a lot of bad or outdated builds there. The number of sets and the fact that they are poorly balanced with each other makes it easy to make poor build choices. ESO's set system is an accessibility issue at this point.
PC NA and Xbox NA3 -
twisttop138✭✭✭✭✭I think accessibility is great. I am curious though on the matter of older hardware and last gen consoles. Correct me if I'm wrong, which I very well could be, but haven't we been told that the need to be able to run on last gen stuff is the reason we don't have things like higher slots in our houses etc. What might be possible using current gen tech only?0 -
spartaxoxo✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I don't think Oakensoul needs yet another a nerf and neither does Arcanist, especially not as a way to improve accessibility
Edited by spartaxoxo on March 31, 2025 8:42PM5 -
Stamicka✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭spartaxoxo wrote: »I don't think Oakensoul needs yet another a nerf and neither does Arcanist, especially not as a way to improve accessibility
I don't think they need nerfs either. I was just giving examples of when items to improve accessibility ended up causing serious balance issues and lower skill ceilings. The point is more so that we can maintain a high skill ceiling and a balanced game while keeping the game accessible since accessibility, difficulty, and skill are all different things. We can have slower playstyles that are competitive with higher APM play styles, they should just require skill in a different way and should not be better than everything else.The original implementations of Arcanist and Oakensoul missed the mark in that regard.twisttop138 wrote: »I think accessibility is great. I am curious though on the matter of older hardware and last gen consoles. Correct me if I'm wrong, which I very well could be, but haven't we been told that the need to be able to run on last gen stuff is the reason we don't have things like higher slots in our houses etc. What might be possible using current gen tech only?
Yea we have been told that older consoles limit what can be added to the game. I don't think all games need to run on old hardware, but when you support a variety of hardware then you improve access to the game. I think it's good that there's so many ways to play ESO, although I'm not sure how I feel about ditching old consoles.Edited by Stamicka on March 31, 2025 9:02PMPC NA and Xbox NA3 -
Pepegrillos✭✭✭✭✭I think people underestimate how bad the entry point for new PvP players is in this game.
Imagine you are a new PvP player looking to try out some of the bigger MMORPGs just for the sake of pvpving. What kind of obstacles should you expect to find? I can think of two, without drawing further distinctions.
(i) A knowledge gap. Veteran players know things that you don't. I include here know-what (there are such-and-such systems that do these and that, which are intertwined with these other systems, there are items of some sort,...etc) and know-how (which pertain to the mechanics of the game, such as knowing how to light attack weave, anim cancel, and the like).
(ii) A power gap. Veteran players have more power than you. Typically, this is because they have levels, items, and currencies you have yet to acquire.
Now, if all the bigger MMORPGs have similar knowledge and power gaps when it comes to PvP, ESO wouldn't have much to worry about. This is so because any new player looking to try out the game would be faced with a set of equivalent alternatives. The problem is that this isn't the case. Out of the bigger MMORPGs (WoW, FF14, GW2), ESO has by far the worst entry point for new PvP players, and it's not even close.
In all of these games there are knowledge gaps. You can't bypass those simply because they have been running for years, implementing new systems that players have learned. However, they have all tried to reduce the power gaps that stem directly from in-game grinds.
In WoW retail PvP, for example, every season resets the gear-related power of all players. They have to go out and farm honor (alliance points) for about 6-8 hours to buy a pvp set specifically tailored by devs to leave everyone on the same footing. There are weekly capped currencies (conquest, bloody tokens) that can be acquired to buy further specifically tailored sets that leave everyone on the same spot power-wise. WoW is the only MMORPG with anything resembling a successful PvP scene. There is also GW2's RVR and Bgs. You pick some stats, pick your spec, and off you go. Again, power-wise everyone is on the same level: you just jump in and start playing. I've heard FF14 has a similar system for their PvP but I've never played it, perhaps someone else could expand on it. In ESO we have nothing like any of this. At best, you have PvP environments where you can bypass the CP grind. At worst, you have to grind CP and sets for hundreds of hours before you get to anything like an even footing. In ESO it's always seal clubbing season.
Now you might say: this is how old MMORPGs always did it. We all did the grind, so now it's your turn to join the hazing. The problem is that new players simply won't put up with that and we know it. We've seen it. Just look at overall PvP participation. Look at the average viewership of ESO's PvP streamers. It's just sad.
(What makes it all worse is that at the end of the grind you are faced with a terribly unbalanced scenario with a bunch of laughable playstyles. Who will put up with all of it to face one-shot gankers, bombers, ball-groups, and 1vxers?).
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Stamicka✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Pepegrillos wrote: »I think people underestimate how bad the entry point for new PvP players is in this game.
(i) A knowledge gap. Veteran players know things that you don't. I include here know-what (there are such-and-such systems that do these and that, which are intertwined with these other systems, there are items of some sort,...etc) and know-how (which pertain to the mechanics of the game, such as knowing how to light attack weave, anim cancel, and the like).
(ii) A power gap. Veteran players have more power than you. Typically, this is because they have levels, items, and currencies you have yet to acquire.
In all of these games there are knowledge gaps. You can't bypass those simply because they have been running for years, implementing new systems that players have learned. However, they have all tried to reduce the power gaps that stem directly from in-game grinds.
Good post, I wanna focus on the bold part though. I agree at some point, veterans just know more about the game because of how long they've been around. However, the knowledge gap in ESO is worse than it should be and it could be mitigated with better tutorials, reinforcing core mechanics, and better descriptions and clarifications on set interactions and stats.
In ESO, a lot of veterans aren't sure about a lot of ESO's sets and mechanics. There's certain things about sets or combat in this game that I'm not clear about and I haven't been able to find the answer online or in game. I also don't think many players know how to make their own PvP builds, even the veterans (they just depend on Youtube). There's so much that can be improved in terms of the knowledge needed for ESO.
PC NA and Xbox NA1 -
twisttop138✭✭✭✭✭spartaxoxo wrote: »I don't think Oakensoul needs yet another a nerf and neither does Arcanist, especially not as a way to improve accessibility
I don't think they need nerfs either. I was just giving examples of when items to improve accessibility ended up causing serious balance issues and lower skill ceilings. The point is more so that we can maintain a high skill ceiling and a balanced game while keeping the game accessible since accessibility, difficulty, and skill are all different things. We can have slower playstyles that are competitive with higher APM play styles, they should just require skill in a different way and should not be better than everything else.The original implementations of Arcanist and Oakensoul missed the mark in that regard.twisttop138 wrote: »I think accessibility is great. I am curious though on the matter of older hardware and last gen consoles. Correct me if I'm wrong, which I very well could be, but haven't we been told that the need to be able to run on last gen stuff is the reason we don't have things like higher slots in our houses etc. What might be possible using current gen tech only?
Yea we have been told that older consoles limit what can be added to the game. I don't think all games need to run on old hardware, but when you support a variety of hardware then you improve access to the game. I think it's good that there's so many ways to play ESO, although I'm not sure how I feel about ditching old consoles.
I don't know how I feel about it either. A raid lead and other friends and guild mates are playing on the PS4. My wife and I when we play together, one of uses the PS5 and one the PS4. I couldn't imagine excluding these people from the game. I am sure I'm not the only one. Im just curious about what could be achieved if it was different. Hopefully it's just an academic question.
As far as things like the oakensoul ring. I think these things can be a boon for players that have problems with movement etc. My wife who has carpel tunnel loves her ring, she's able to be a bit more powerful in her questing and public dungeons and WBs etc. She doesn't do dungeons or raids really but if she does I would certainly get her geared up and ditch the ring. I see it as a stepping stone, same as the pale order.1
