ESO Revival Strategy 2025

Einar_Hrafnarsson

Jestir wrote: »

I think being a top 3-10 MMO for a decade means it has already achieved step 8

I guess people do believe them when they say "ESO has Millions of Players!"

ESO only has Millions of accounts but a small, active player Base compared to WoW or FF 14

Heck, even some Niche Games like Star Citizen or Elite Dangerous have more active players. (Estimated by activity)

I guess at least marketing does their Job

Pevey

Vrelanier wrote: »

HatchetHaro wrote: »

Rungar wrote: »

Step 1: Transfer ESO over to whatever new engine the new game they are working on runs on and upscale the existing graphics.

[snip]

Most of us should probably then stop posting altogether.

Combat is terrible in ESO though. The light attack weaving, animation cancelling, and two action bars were imo really terrible ideas to begin with, but what makes it worse is that a quarter of the hits don't land at all. It's always a guessing game whether the game registers my key presses or not. It's decent paced sure (wouldn't call it fast though), but that's because I'm pressing keys twice or thrice or more, and watching my character stand still on the screen. Overall it feels like a dice roll, and not fluid by any means.

[edited to remove quote]

I actually enjoy the combat in ESO, but I still agree with this quote to a large extent. There could be a lot of improvements.

The thing is, no one who has been around in this game long enough trusts anyone at ZOS to make combat changes to the game. Update 35 is cited a lot, and sometimes people ask what that was all about. Why players were so upset. It wasn't just that there were changes. The stated goals of the update were actually laudable, IMO, and change can be a very good thing. Sure, as players, we don't always love it when a skill we use is changed, but usually that doesn't cause massive numbers of players to get upset and leave. The issue was that the changes MADE NO SENSE and did not meet the stated goal. In fact, they did the opposite. This caused players to cast a vote of no confidence, with their feet.

In more concrete terms: One of the things I actually liked about ESO combat was the variety of skills. But U35 nerfed AEO dots so much that they are now useless for the majority of content. It is an actual damage loss to cast anything other than a pre-buff or spammable in any overland content, any normal dungeon, or any vet base-game trash fight. Simply because stuff will be dead before you get enough benefit from other skills. In vet content, one thing that changed this equation a little was azureblight. Despite AOEs being nerfed to the ground, azure made it worthwhile to use them, but only if stuff had enough HP for it to be worthwhile. The majority of players don't even do that content, so effectively U35 rendered a lot of skill just totally useless and a dps loss for them. RIP to raising the floor. (And then the devs started messing around with azure, bc again, no understanding). When people lose hope and feel like a random change could come any patch that sets them back on progs for no good reason, they stop playing.

ESO could use changes to combat, even--I daresay--some major changes. I have zero confidence in anyone currently at ZOS to make those changes. It would have to be someone from the outside, and that person would first have to immerse themselves i the game, running content with the community, really understanding the combat system as it exists today.

Another game series I play a lot is the Borderlands series. I play every new game that comes out-- love them. It's a different type of game, to be sure. But the things that always strikes me about it is how clear it is that the devs love the games and make decisions based on, "Will this be fun? Is there some other way we could do it that would be more fun?" Of course, they have to monetize it, but that is what comes after. First, you make something that people really enjoy. Then you monetize it. Without that priority, it would be a very different type of game. The CEO and his family play the games together, and you can tell. With ESO, it always feels different. With combat, there needs to be a lot less focus on spreadsheets and a lot more focus on fun. That indirectly helps address balance changes, because unfairness is ultimately not fun. E.g., when everyone and their brother is playing sorc in PVP, maybe it's because playing anything else is less fun rn.

As for the OP, I stopped reading after "Just port everything to a new game engine."

LadyGP

To your first point...

It's not just a copy everything over to a new engine. There is no magic script that just ports everything over. There is ZERO chance anyone in leadership would sign off with a migration to a new engine without another 10 year plan for this game (and I don't see this game being around in this scale for another 10 years - I hope I am wrong though). The insane amount of resources, both time and money, would make it near impossible for this effort to happen. It would be a multi-year process to make this happen and if the only thing they were going to do was push out the usual content updates then I don't really see a new engine getting signed off on.

Now - one can hope - say Cyro test goes well and there is this grand vision to make a spin off/cyro 2.0 game/content... then I could see a chance (although super small) on a new engine.

The engine conversation comes up every week and @ZOS_Kevin has commented on it multiple times. It's just not in the cards in this games lifecycle.

Amottica

Quoted post has been removed.

Not the case. It is really a question of if it makes sense. Business sense. In this case the suggestions do not make good business sense. In fact Microsoft has stated as much on the first point. Keven's statements are defacto Microsoft statements.

Everyone here agrees that Zenimax does need to change what they have been doing the past couple of years and find the success they were having before COVID. The majority of us agree that it makes no sense to drive away long term core players which is what the suggestions would do.

Rungar

the problem with your strategy is that pre covid success came from an agressive update schedule which they wont be doing anymore. Eso has always been good at bringing players in as its pretty pretty close to free and no sub. The problem ESO has always had is keeping people here.

This is not because its not a wonderful game. it is an amazing game full of content. The problem is that there is a disconnect that keeps new players from staying as follows:

Groupfinder is part of this disconnect, intro to pvp another part, like it or not the combat system is another part, guilds are part of this disconnect, dungeon content is part of this disconnect.

these are solvable issues but they can only be solved if you know theres a problem. New players arent going to tell you on this board they had a bad experience with the groupfinder, with guilds, with pvp, with the combat system, daunting cp system. Your not going to get that data.

do i think its a bad game, no. Is it anti new player, the game itself, not the worst, mixed with the players, very much so. Most bad experiences amount to mismatch. Mismatch in the groupfinder, mismatch in pvp, dont know the combat system which is a game limiting/ending mismatch.

i know your all bent up over the engine thing ( which is their best chance of reviving the game) but most of the other things i listed are specifically to ensure better new player experiences. New players should be around other new players in all aspects of the game possible. Eventually they wont be new anymore but unless they have good experiences they simply will not stick with it.

I really feel zos has never been able to get this part right and its hurt them considerably. Updating the starter zone just shows me that zos doesnt understand the problem.

Rungar

detailed:

1) groupfinder problem: the daily rewards for doing random dungeons actually hurt player retention. This is because people doing those dungeons for the rewards have done them 100 times. The new guy coming along trying to get into dungeons has not. So vet dude does his thing and speeds through the content and new player is like WTF? and has a bad experience. Mismatch. im being gentle here. it could go alot worse than that.

2) combat system/dungeons: All dungeons generally require dps to complete and most players are competetint enough to do some form of rotation of skills but will likely not be weaving or animation cancelling. If these players choose the dps role they will likely have bad experiences in their dungeon running. If they choose the tank or healer role they will often have a better outcome in the original dungeons.

while dungeons in eso are not bad they are based on dps checks for the most part combined with "dance moves" aka do this now or die so you have to learn the weaving system and the dance moves or stop playing the dungeons. I imagine alot of players end here at this point. I designed my radial dungeons to make the dps checks more optional and move the general challange to a goal based reward system. This lets player achieve goals in other ways such as stealth, splitting up, assigning weaker players to weaker objectives etc. Its just a better design with integrated challenge so players will want to come back because the top rewards are really hard to achieve as they promote teamwork as opposed to roles/dps.

3) Guilds problem: having 5 guilds means everyone has 5 guilds and none of the guilds are really that valuable. Some you just need to trade. So attachment to a guild is hard to get especially since eso has poor player retention. As a player you need the guild so you can get groups for pve and pvp and complete content you might not be able to do otherwise. Unfortunately the way player operated structures work this can be very hit or miss and relies alot onn luck. Even if you get a good guild you might still struggle to be in the golden clique, or even find similarly powered players to yourself to do things with.

I designed the npc guilds to overcome these limitations. Npc guilds would work based on your achievements and each one focused on something specific like undaunted focused on dungeons. Because its achievement and interest based you will always be funnelled toward other players similar to you. You dont need to be lucky anymore. You just have to show up like everyone else. If the interest aligns and the skill aligns whatever content you do together you will likely have a decent outcome. Even with poor player retention this strategy will work because whoever is left will still be there. No drama. Simple to implement and it literally already exists for the most part. It doesnt replace player guilds. It just brings the right people together effortlessly.

4) pvp problem. The under 50 campaign nd no cp does not mean a new player will have a good experience. Vet players infest these campaigns and prey on new players as they are low hanging fruit. This should never be. Account based highest alliance rank would keep these players separate from new players so new players can learn the game and have better initial experiences. Maybe only 2 campaigns are needed Novice and Master. combined with the npc guild for pvp players will find others like themselves and the result will be better outcomes.. at least until they graduate to the master campaign. lol. Still the initial experience goes a long way to keep players around.

5) trials and battlegrounds: First i think a game like eso, with reduced dev input cannot any longer support the trial based gameplay. This was weak even at the best of times and just spreads resources too thin. They should concentrate on dungeons and pvp which i believe is sustainable especially if they focus on reformats. My solution would be to combine battlegrounds with trials on 4v4v4 combat and retool all the 12 man trials to allow for this. This is what the game should of always had from the getgo. Its logical as it combines both forms of supported gameplay namely dungeons and pvp. This is also the best bang for the buck with limited resources as the existing trials would be kept the same but retooled for the group/pvp experience.

bulk stats, specialization and achievements: i imagine with the vengance campaign zos is learning that there is much better performance to be gained by replacing many useless calculations with bulk stats. The specialization system does the same thing. it improves the flavor of a cp system while making it an undaunting experience for new players. It simplifies to what you really want. Two specializations to choose among a number of useful damage types, armors, healing, and class thematic choices. Cp as it is has already proven overly complex, linked to poor performance and daunting for new players. This is very important for pvp because each specialization has a strength and weakness so if everyone chooses one thing. Something else can exploit that and also some builds should be weaker or stronger against other builds such as a poison build vs a healing build.

This can be done better. I also believe players love achievements and this game is full of them and they are underutilized and thus i believe the advancement system should merge with achievements for a better player experience since it lets players play the way they want and lets them work on these things from the first second they begin playing. They dont need to wait until 50.

If zos wants new blood, with reduced dev input its possible but you gotta be smart and innovative. The focus to pvp and retooling existing content to new formats is the best bang for the buck, combined with new tools to improve new player experience and thus player retention. At this point theres no harm in trying. Note that the retooling of existing content doesnt nullify existing content. Youll still be able to do it, but the option is there to do it a different way. Same as if you chose the 1 2 or vet versions of the content. However any new content might be more skewed to the new formats.