Six Month Report Card from a veteran MMO player - warning, long.

eventide03b14a_ESO · September 2014

kewl wrote: »

Fantastic write up, x2 insightful and +5 bacon! I think you nailed all the points. But I would have graded them a little higher.

Some of them I would have graded lower personally.

reften · September 2014

Where else can you siege with other people like ESO? Where else can you come up with such awesome group tactics in PvP?

Show me a game like this...the closest is DAoC

AlexDougherty · September 2014

Rylana wrote: »

Total Rating - 46/100, one of the lowest ratings I have ever given, and the lowest I have ever given for a game I put real money into. You have potential Zenimax, your players want to love your game, we do, we WANT YOU TO SUCCEED, please hear these words, take them to heart, and wow us. Show us you mean it. Your subscriptions may very well depend on it.

Sincerely,

Rylana, 20 year MMO veteran and Sanguine Beta tester, lover of the TES franchise since it began.

This is a personal opinion, but the 1/10 for the console shouldn't be included in that total.

My reason? The rest applies to the version of the game we are currently playing, the Console score is independent of that.

So I think your total should be 45/90 with a 1/10 rider for the console.

eventide03b14a_ESO · September 2014

Tandor wrote: »

A detailed and well written review, but overly critical in my view, probably because it is coming from the PvP and min-maxer perspective (the former is openly stated, the latter is given away by the reference to casual players completing 1-50 in a week or ten days).

Despite constant claims to the contrary, this game really isn't aimed solely or even principally at those crowds, and from anyone else's perspective the overall rating may well be very much higher.

I 100% disagree with this statement. If you split this game into it's three main components crafting/PvE/PvP you will see that they have screwed up each of them equally. I am only a casual PvPer myself and I find PvP in need of a lot of work. I am certainly not a min/maxer either and I tried to follow the story and do all the quests and found myself needing to skip large portions of the map just to make sure that I was fighting mobs that were appropriate to my level. Once you hit V1 you get virtually no benefit from doing the quests you missed at the appropriate level. Getting to V1 is easy to achieve with little effort.

I fully recognise that PvP'ers have a major performance problem in Cyrodil and that definitely needs fixing asap. The usual balancing and other complaints that we see here the whole time are typical of games with PvP and can largely be left for now, especially as everyone has the chance to choose whichever weapons, armour and skill sets they wish. The "stick and cloth for everyone" brigade are the min-maxers and balancing shouldn't revolve around their demands.

Please tell me how you can even justify this statement. I honestly want to know.

We already know that grouping is being worked on, both in relation to the forming of groups and optimising the way they run together. I believe the same is true of guild improvements.

It's great that you believe this, but where is the evidence? They haven't even mentioned improvements so you must be relying on blind faith. Sorry but I see no evidence of them improving the guild experience in any way.

As I said, from other perspectives the game may be rated very differently. As a solo (but co-operative) un-guilded PvE casual player taking my time to "smell the roses" (which is a different but equally valid perspective as the OP's), I'd probably give it an overall 9.5/10 as the game has run flawlessly for me since launch, I've only encountered a single bug (easily fixed), and the whole TES lore/storyline is as great as the game-world which is simply stunning. That rating may drop when I reach the present veteran levels as I don't intend to do the alliances other than through separate characters, but I am hopeful that by the time I reach that stage there will be additional alternative content for higher level advancement.

This is the problem with the forums. People like you who defend this bug laden game and allow them to ignore the fact that they have a lot of work to do. As long as you continue to give them a free pass to continue with business as usual they are going to continue to do just that. The OP had valid arguments in every category. Her assessment was flawless and honest and it needs to be taken seriously by ZOS. I grant that your personal experience might be different and I'm glad that you had an awesome experience, but the majority of us have not. Please stop coddling them.

I would like to see the Q-wheel changed, otherwise the UI is fine, and I don't see the need to use any addons for my style of play. I'd also like to see some form of proper trading system, probably a regional auction house or near equivalent. Those are really my only criticisms of the game itself, although I would additionally like to see a lot more developer-player interaction here on this, the official, forum.

I just can't even....

eventide03b14a_ESO · September 2014

poodlemasterb16_ESO wrote: »

There seems to be complaints about lag etc. Now I'm talking PvE here but the game is smooth, responsive and lots of fun. There are some situations which appear to generate some lack of responsiveness but they are rare for me. Perhaps once in, say 6 hours, or so.

I'm convinced a lot of people have poor connections and perhaps less than stellar machines. Try going direct, no router. Try turning off a pile of junk that may be running in the back. I always game on a fresh reboot, but that's because I only game in Windose, the rest is on my Linux install.

I'm pushing 2560x1600 with a GTX 780, so perhaps my machine has little problem running this game, because all the hardware is golden.

The problem with the PvP is that it can get very dull and repetitive at times. PvP would be a great break from that if it worked.

Paske · September 2014

Well I partially agree ...

Veteran ranks are horibad idea, we all agree on that.
Champion is coming, but it has been coming for months now. We are kinda tired of it.
Changing vet level to 14 and making it group only feature was a bad idea. Personally I simply grinded Hircine to 14. No fun, just work.

Still, Im having fun in game. Its one of top MMOs out today.
Sadly technical part of the game seems broken...

They have plenty of content in pipes. Content patches come in very good rate. And content is generally fun. That being said the technical part of the game is where it all falls apart.

Every patch its game breaking bugs for some 2 weeks.
Weekends are hard to play in PVE on alts, impossible in Cyrodill and iritating in Craglorn. Lag, warp arounds, constant crashes...
Performance issues that have been fixed in 1.4 and are now partially here in 1.4.4

Simply put - they can make great graphics and fun game. But programers behind it are unable to make a solid code.

Also server in EU is simply too weak for large number of players. I am looking for third PVP guild. Simply people leave due to Cyrodill lag/crashes. Exploits we can plow through. Skill > exploits. But when you crash and lag and your computer dies with 30 people in Cyro... That is when you throw in the towel.

We agree its a good game but they are still ironing out the performance of the game itself. Also the servers that are simply lacking power .

gladen5rwb17_ESO · September 2014

Totally agree.

I have not logged into the game now for over three months.

I have put up with this nonsense long enough. I feel today's game developers are making the investors happy, not the players. I was saying just yesterday about games which include ESO that they are in the corporate interest, not in the interest of the players. If ESO is the example of future online games I want nothing more to do with them.

In future I shall be one of those that waits for the game to have been released, played and evaluated by the people before I ever buy into it again. Getting mounts and other fluff pre-orders has shown time and again that those same items will be offered somewhere else or at a later date to new incoming players. It is simply not worth it to buy into a buggy and unpolished game.

Have a polished and ready to play product before release, not a paid version of Beta with the fixes and balances to come at some point in the future.

Kungfu · September 2014

tl;dr - Cyrodiil is STILL broken - this fanboy is finally throwing in the towel. I gave you guys 6 months and an Imperial Edition's worth of $$. Now, [snip].

@Rylana‌
A very nice post and well formed. I happen to agree with most of it. Not all, but most.

TBH I'm on my way out the door here and popped in to try and muster up the strength to write something similar as mature recommendations for ZOS from the perspective of one beta-tester turned Imperial-edition fanboy who is now finally accepting the facts and unsubbing. But I'm afraid I can likely never come off as balanced and mature as you did. I'm way too emotionally involved here for that.

You said it all very well and your points on Cyrodiil are my reasons for leaving. I backed these devs and argued for this game in here and TamrielFoundry in a very large number of posts.

@ZOS -- (@ZOS_JessicaFolsom‌ cuz I want someone to read this...) -ZOS' single greatest mistake was (and still IS) putting crap like graphics and more content at a higher priority than balance, stability, and bug fix.

Your game is GORGEOUS! I will admit that it absolutely has no competition... ANYWHERE in the MMO genre. But only the smallest minority of PC MMO gamers care about that MORE than they care about stability, balance, and bugs. Want examples? The popularity of games like Minecraft, Subspace (or Continuum), Diablo II, Runescape, and Ultima Online all prove that there is a massive playerbase who cherishes balance, player control, and stability over pretty lighting effects and premature content add-ons.
The deaths of games like Warhammer, AOC, LOTRO, EQ1, DAOC, Diablo III and the rapid decline of games like Wildstar and now ESO are proof of the following:

Players today prize WORKING over PRETTY and FUNCTIONAL over CHALLENGING
Players expect more than ever before. You cannot simply deploy to live because your investors have itchy butt syndrome. You HAVE to make it work and work consistently.
Living up to the hype isn't good enough anymore. You have to surpass it. It's unfortunate and I don't even like it, but it's true.
Inventory management and travel time are HORRIBLE money sinks in-game. All they really do is cause undue frustration that casts a pall in the user's eyes over other parts of the game they actually enjoyed. For example, conquering a dungeon and getting really good loot is a blast. But that "blast" is ruined during the 1+ HOURS required for a lower level / poorer player to bank, shuffle, sell, upgrade, & decon all of that loot.

For those that come in here ranting about posts like mine, two things: I don't threaten to leave - I just do it. So I won't be reading your little retorts here. Secondly, this is NOT a pro-F2P post. I'm not a fan of pay-to-win or F2P because both models are horribly flawed even more than sub business model.

In today's gaming industry, you have to GET OFF THE FENCE! Stop trying to make ESO a weirdass amalgamation of WoW, DAOC ... AND ... Elder Scrolls. If you want the PvE to be stunning - FOCUS on it and announce that PvP is secondary or tertiary on the priority scale. If you want PvP to work - you'll have to have battlegrounds or some form of short-term quick get-in-get-out-get-rewarded kind of PvP AS WELL as your (albeit awesome) version of Cyrodiil. Better to choose PvP, PvE, or PvE with Arenas. Players will LEAN on those declarations and those players will stick with you.

You also have to be honest. When you told me ESO was a game in which I could play any role with one character, you LIED to me. You USED the Elder Scrolls name to conjure images

I am unsubbing because Cyrodiil is still broken - for the past two weeks I have had full raid groups just disappear on me and I crash in the middle of raid groups. I am leaving because there is no player economy. Not that I was promised one, but you CANNOT make it so easy for small groups of players to get awesome equipment AND have a player run economy. You just can't have both... and I prefer a global AH with items of great worth. I am leaving because the executive team at ZOS cannot get it through their thick skulls that they would make MORE money for MUCH LONGER if they would just... FIX CRAP first and enhance & add stuff AFTER today's material works.

@ZOS - Please - reprioritize function over form and replace the current class-based CRAP system with a REAL Elder Scrolls ability system and I would LOVE to come back.

Until then... I have way too many other options in this industry to entertain me to waste my time and money PRETENDING your game is making me happy.

oren74 wrote: »

Where else can you siege with other people like ESO? Where else can you come up with such awesome group tactics in PvP?

Show me a game like this...the closest is DAoC

Show me where you can do this in Cyrodiil now for more than one hour without crashing or getting wrecked by some tentaporting zerg.

So many people here are trying so hard to convince themselves that they're NOT frustrated with this game and its lacking development. I totally understand!! I was one up until 1.4. But when my bastion of mediocre-entertainment finally broke beyond usability (i.e. Cyrodiil crashes and causes infinite load screens), I forced myself to re-evaluate:

Are you really enjoying the game you play?
Or are you forcing it and convincing yourself of it?
When you log out, do you do so with a feeling of elation thinking "wow, THAT was fun / cool / exhilarating" or are you actually frustrated having been forced to log out when you did not want to or quit some event / activity you wanted to continue or forced to apply your final hour (or however long) to some artificially enforced inventory management?

Nope. No more.
I wish...

I WISH ESO was what I thought it was... what I've been telling myself it was. But, it's just not. It's frustrating more often than it is fun.

So, my apologies to all those with whom I argued in the past that said exactly what I'm saying now. I was just trying to defend my own pride.

With humility, I wish you all the best ZOS. Good luck and I really hope to see the day I can come back and call myself all kinds of stupid names for having left today!

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Rude and Insulting Comments]

Stratti · September 2014

I have 4 days to run and due to those issues and the lack of active players I don't think I will resub . I think update 4 was a fail and will probably kill the game .

Drjones501 · September 2014

I agree with the OP, great write up. I don't want to agree, but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. I am seriously hoping the problems get fixed and I can get back into this game, but for now taking a break and joining my friends who have gone back to fallen earth for the sand box goodness, even with its own issues it's still more fun than TESO currently.

Stratti · September 2014

Martinus72 wrote: »

That's very thoughtful but very bitter view on the state of this game and definitely reason is that it comes from pvp player who probably is spending several hours a day on playing as part of that bitterness I could put on being burnt out side as well.
From my point of view as pve casual player having full time job and gf who's tolerant to my escaping into Tamriel but still my playtime is somehow limited (clocked 18 days /played and I'm vet7) I'd give this, basing on my 10 years of experience of playing several MMO's good 80/100.
There's need for lots of polishing yet but it is like rough diamond with huge potential, it is still in toddler's phase of MMO lifespan so giving all credit of trust to devs that they will use this potential to its full in the future and their plans do look promising.
For now tho what matters to me is the fact that it's the sixth month of playing ESO and still every time I just love to immerse myself into Tamriel again to have great fun because after all it's just a game and relax in free time, simple fact many are forgetting here and treating this like matter of life and death...

That's the issue right there . The developers are in la la land. They have all these dreams and goals, they haven't fixed any real concerns and want to go slow in their improvements. Problem is while they are going slow people are going out the door and that is what is hurting us.

I've also been in MMO for 10 years and when you log in your main who is a tank at max level and there is nothing solo to do. Check your guild and the usual people have dropped off. Check zone and no one is there to group , try group finder nothing happening . So you go to Cyrodill and that is ok but very linear and very repetitive low on tactics and very homogenised . You get bored very quickly.

The developers made a beautiful game but they are missing the massively multiplayer part

Drakoleon · September 2014

I agree with the OP with some additions plus my "point system" is more "punishing" after 6 months

PVP 0/10
For me PVP its a circus and the top clown is the one who s exploiting the buggy and unbalanced skills faster and better! (I have a templar and a DK Vamp...i know)
Lag issues conflicting commands name it...For me is no fun running around killing 100s cause i have the best "buggy" build or dying just because my command didnt respond on time

UI/..etc 0/10
Luckily there very good addons and hopefully zeni's masterminds will adopt some. Bank space? with 3 VRs all crafts and all items needed upcoming toons 230 bank slots i have now are insufficient!!! next 10 slots upgrade 85k...

Game mechanics 0/10
Totaly unbalanced races/classes/skills/attributes Gamers that they have tryed different builds they know exactly what i mean That s far from the initial announcement and that "all can do all" and "choose" what you want to be in a sense that all are so very balanced...Well after 6 months...they are still a...mess
In addition we have conflicting skills that they either dont work or....godmodes
Stamina builds are still a jock, while mages DKs are still OP, High elves too...etc etc (i play them all i can compare)

Infrustructure ?/10
Are those MEGA servers really "mega"? Why so many lag spikes roll backs freezes etc? Is it bad programing? Dont know ain't any expert The fact is that ESO is the only MMO that i have this problems All other online games i play (EU) i get 40-60ms max

I do believe that this game should be beta and instead of loyalty pets and crap like this we should get a month free sub for our game time wasted due to bugs lags etc! (I had a VR toon stuck for 3 weeks in Auridon)

Dont know if i ll be in game when all those corrections are done But... yes its the best game ever played and i loved it! Thats why am still here and waste my game time to post our comments/complains like everybody else i quess

I have to admit though that after 1.4 lots of quest bugs have been corrected and running around with my new toons i haven t find new ones...so far! That s really a good sign and it looks like that they are finaly moving to the right direction

I just dont know if i ll have the patient to wait until this ...ugly cygnet turns into a swan

Lazrael · September 2014

This was a very nice, and thoughtful review. Agree or disagree, I think the conclusion really drives how a lot of players are feeling home. I don't want to keep thinking "maybe I should just unsub," but I do. I love this game. I want it to do well. But it's becoming hard to justify paying for a service, that doesn't function on par with its competitors. If Zeni spent more time owning up to the issues, addressing them in a meaningful way (Devs talking to us), and showing that they appreciate us for sticking around, then at least I could feel like they were building good faith, and that I am giving my money to folks who really do care about this product as much as I do. But I don't get that. I mostly just get bugs, broken promises, and another copy paste response from a community manager.

whiteshadow711jppreub18_ESO · September 2014

Kotaro agrees with the OP review, but he still loves ESO and only wants it to get better..

smassareub17_ESO · September 2014

Sadly, I totally agree with the game assessment. Ironically, I believe a lot of the game design was to accommodate console controls. Five skills; one Ultimate; a "Q" ring; a key that flips to another weapon set. Honestly, there are so many skills why have access to so few? That explains it imho. Also, they punish the loyal players by lowering the drop rate of rare items!! I love ES and have played it for almost two decades. But this game is so frustrating! I am tired of such a lack of skill/key response, repetitive Vet content, having to use most of my character slots for mules to hold my hundreds of mats, PVP inequities, yadda, yadda, etc....
I play now because I have two friends that still do.....how long though? I have no hopes that any of it will be fixed. Don't give me facial animations and a silly vanity pet, give me a game that functions and is fun!!

TheSaphyroth · September 2014

This is my first ever post. Ry I agree 99% with the things you have mentioned the 1% is my own personal issues with the game. What I'm about to state in this post has occurred once before. Right now I'm am going to my subscription window and canceling it. So I should have about 3 weeks left.

I hope that by the time it runs out or shortly after the PvP content will be playable (preferably before hand).

When it comes to these sorts of problems I am a very patient person. But for my own self respect and the need to not to become an utter fool and blissful ignorant midget I shall put out an ultimatum with a deadline attached.

More to myself than Zenimax. Mirror: "Hey dude enough is enough."

If it wasn't for my gaming crew I would have been gone long ago so they kinda made my patience grow to be honest.

I just came from an attempt to PvP which did not go well at all, again!
So I do want to curse like a crazy midget on steroids who has been made fun of by a group of giants and simply can't take it anymore. BUT I WON'T!

On top of all the PvP issues they are happening on my brand new powerhouse rig. So yeah that is the cherry on the top for my nerdy gaming rage mode cake.

My hopes of someone within the higher ups of Zenimax reading this or what Rylana wrote are none what so ever. I just thought it be better to chill and write this down. The other option would have been to assault my brand new rig, no sir we can't have that!

I honestly hope they get their you know what in order, I really do. So I will cross my fingers and hope. :'(

Rylana is a part of the "Yaman Party Man" Vice Squad so Zenimax might as well thank him among others for keeping me here this long.

Rylana...

Right on the money dude.

"So where was that account sub link, ahh there we go!"

Rylana · September 2014

Like I said in game man, its regrettable but not surprising. I am getting close to that myself, as are a couple of others in Vice.

Zenimax take note of this, there are only about 10 active members of Vice left, one is leaving, and two or three more are considering it.

Small sample but thats 1/3 of our guild about to call it done because of inaction. Wake up, before you lose more people. From what I understand, the large guilds have lost literally hundreds of players since launch, its proportional.

Vahrokh · September 2014

I'd have strongly disagreed with this review...

... until I experienced it all.

As long as a guy is levelling up, gorgeous graphics, voiceovers, atmosphere (well, before level 50 that is) and just the apparently sheer amount of stuff to do make forget a lot of the big issues.
Only the armies of bots and quest bugs would detract from true enjoyment.

So, in the end, I can't honestly say my money was wasted.

But once experienced full VR levels, PvP, trials and Craplorn...
... I have to say the review is too generous.

Today I played the "failure" called Warhammer Online (one of the very few AAA titles to ever have completely shut down). It never left early beta quality status. It only got a single expansion (something like a Craglorn patch).

The gameplay of that game, on a PRIVATE alpha server is more responsive!
The interface I set up is slick. No clunky, constant weapon swapping.
Did I mention I can actually drink a potion pressing an hotkey without getting an headache with a circular toy created to make your swear while you (attempt) understanding which kind of "usability" they studied for it?
The PvP was FAR more fun than ESO. The community was close knit (even enemies!) and often awesome. With grudges etc, but still...

Gear, using a 2006 era engine, looks awesome and can be customized by color but also by graphic appearance.

And this is a failed game.

See, I tend to play pure PvP with various degree of hard core (WoW outdoor and arena, SWTOR outdoor and "battlegrounds", DAoC / Warhammer unforgettable RvR, GW2 PvP region. EvE Online... where you are in unconsensual, brutal PvP 24/7 once you leave a station (I am skipping older titles).
I really have tried to also play ESO PvP.
It's just terrible.

No name / guild plates to foster some sane competition. Massive, usually bugged (doors or whatever) castles where you barely see your enemies. Zergs, zergs and more zergs spamming 2 abilities that - unlike decent PvP games - don't have solid counters.
PvP bugs, BUGs, BUUUUUGS, exploits, crashes, memory leaks, deserted campaigns.
PvP is always 1, 2 or 3 steps behind PvE, even at simple things like XP rate.
The best Cyrodil feature? The PvE delves (!!!). They look very cool and unique and they weren't dumb-nerfed into the ground.

PvE: honestly awesome experience prior to level 50. I found every faction to be very engaging (some more inspired than others, but still...) as long as you don't pass level 50.

Then it all goes so "plastic": replay as a betrayer BUT with dialogs still calling you "soul-less" despite you got the soul indeed. Absolutely anti-climactic Cadwell Siver and Gold "rewards" for saving empires.

Super - over nerfed VR levels where you can solo everything and you have even to be glad you can, because finding a single player around is an exercise of frustration as soon as you are out of full prime time.

Anyway it's just wrong that a solo player can solo everything including group content like public quests, outdoor bosses (bar 1 storm atronach boss) and dolmens. Yes, apparently some builds are less viable... so... fix the builds, don't destroy a game to avoid fixing them.

Specific class skill lines: the more you play the more you discover that many are just worth being called "filler". NBs are a living example, yes. But even "overpowered" classes like sorcs have class flavour skill lines like summoning being totally useless at high level. Pets won't survive a single AoE and their "AI" consists into mindlessy charging in and sitting in the damage areas. And, of course, uncontrolled AoE abilities being constantly cast so to break players crowd control.

Craplorn. This abortion would deserve 50 tomes worth of shame. It's exactly what they teach in game design courses to avoid at all costs. Locked quest steps? Got it. Bugs? Got them. Inability for party members to help the others? Only recently partly fixed. A completely extraneous story vs the previous areas? Check. Bland and unimaginative and grindy? Check. No acceptable rewards whatsoever? Double check. Group tool being even more useless in there, if possible? Check. Exploitable and NEVER FIXED dungeons (i.e. Hircine): check. Korean mode bosses grinding heavily trumping any alternative? Triple check. Even at 3am there are boss grinding groups of 12, wheras at 10pm you stop finding groups for the actual content.

Trials: short, pathetic, reward-less small instances where the most interesting boss can perhaps compare with the most boring Molten Core 2004 boss. Minus depth of course. Trials, like 99.99% of the other content enforces the same heavy AoE tactics, the same builds, the same gameplay.
Trials were (too) quickly put on farm (the current one... nobody wants to even reply when you ask them to join). Despite this, despite not having lockouts you still WON'T get usable gear for months to no end. I have an Amazon sized collection of Aether gear. ALL useless to me except 1 pair of bracers. No other MMO just keeps spewing useless gear like this. Others used tokens, or let a raid leader choose who to get drops (so one could look forward getting in line and ask what he wanted). But trials don't work like this, you get random garbage and that's it.

Achievements: come on, it's 2014 and we still see stuff like: "killed 1000 x <creature>".

My rating: before level 50 and pretending to ignore what comes next: 8-9. I really REALLY wish I never got past 50.

VR levels: 4, only because the quests are nice, with voice overs and gorgeous graphic effects. The concept is garbage - and I am being generous.

PvP: 2. Because of the nice PvE delves (!!) and because you can finally put that Ferrari horse to good work

.

End game, that is post VR10-11: 1. And I still have to justify where that point comes from.

Lazrael · September 2014

What amazes me is that this particular forum is full of well stated, honest, critiques. Not a single post I have seen has come from a place of meanness or rage, so much as exhaustion. Yet there has not been any sort of response at all. Not even from the usual community reps. Maybe anyone who could respond in the way that we would hope is on weekend, I don't know, but it does offer further discouragement.

gamerlucretiusb14_ESO · September 2014

The only saving grace this game has is that its an Elder Scrolls game and the brand loyalty and love for the franchise, the potential of the game itself, has such promise, if only you would harness that, reread this entire post, and really get a feel for that.

This is the same thing that kept most people playing games like Warhammer Online, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and Lord of the Rings for so long... love for the franchise. All of those games died too, so it isn't like Zenimax didn't have plenty of examples of how NOT to do things.

Some of the ratings were a bit too harsh, particularly with regard to customer service. A lot of that is based on unrealistic expectations from spoiled players who have a hard time with perspective. The amount of improvement in the game in the first six months is very promising. Although I will admit, the game is less polished than some of the more recent MMO releases (GW2, Rift, Aion) but the questing is infinitely better.

Sapphy24 · September 2014

Thankyou for your report. I agree. It's so sad that the powers that be don't seem to take any notice. No communication re problems means loss of player base and this game has soo much potential. :'(

wafcatb14_ESO · September 2014

our alliance/guild had over 1300 at launch , now we are down to 450 ish now .

kewl · September 2014

Tandor wrote: »

What you need to understand is that if you're not a PvP player, the game has very few issues.

The forums prove otherwise.

GamerzElite · September 2014

My score would be 60/100. Some points are very accurate. I am playing this game with its first beta/alpha. Whenever I need clarification or asked help from Customer Support "They always suggest same resolution and ask same info from u".
Game has many bugs and every major update added new bugs but "WE" the "PAID" players always misinformed by what going on for fixing these issue. Some are existed from more than 2 months and still having these issue.

Mondo · September 2014

60/100 i would say

Audigy · September 2014

This week marks the six month semi-anniversary of this game's live release (including early access). As a veteran MMO player of about 20 years (started MMO gaming back in the early days of Ultima Online), and a Sanguine Beta tester

That's not 20 years though

but 17 ^^

Visuals, graphics, sound, immersion (environmental) - 10/10
- This is the only time I have ever rated a game I have played a full 10 in this category, simply because ZOS you nailed this one. The lush full graphics, shadings, rendering, voiceover work (complete with celebrity voice cast), the sheer quantity of locale and diversity thereof, makes this game by far the most beautiful and visually pleasing MMO I have ever played. Bar none.

The immersion could be improved to be honest. To be put into solo dungeons a lot isn't a good idea for a MMO. You need to see others, need to be able to play with them and not tell them to wait because you are not going into a solo adventure.

UI/Interface/Controls/Bank/Inventory - 5/10
- The UI is glitchy and has been plagued with bugs since Beta. The ALT key being the menu key has always irked me, otherwise the controls themselves are standard fare, nothing amazing, nothing terrible. The interface can be quite annoying and is overly simplistic (even with addons you never quite get a feel for your characters' "real" stats without getting out a calculator and doing a ton of self testing).

I disagree strongly. This isn't a Esports title or a shooter, it simply put doesn't matter to know all the details. Its bad enough that DPS meters are in the game. ESO is about immersion and this only works with a simple UI that doesn't influence your gameplay.
As soon you start picking a skill because of meters and statistics the immersion is dead like we can see at WOW.

-
Guilds/Grouping/Social/Marketplace - 6/10

There are no real channels for communication to meet people besides zone/say (which are usually littered with market chatter), the grouping tool for dungeons/trials is an utter joke that no one ever uses anymore (the blind adding probably has something to do with this).

I disagree. I use the tool a lot and don't have issues. You might be just impatient or use it wrong?
That said yes it can be improved but to say you can not find people or nobody uses it is a lie.

Player advancement/balance/respec/leveling - 4/10
- As said before, the veteran grind is the worst part about this game, bar none. You take the same thing you already did (level to 50), and do it all over again twice, then you add four more veteran levels within six months of launch and youve turned the game into nearly a korean grinder. It breaks immersion of the main story, slows progression to a crawl, and adds what feels like arbitrary time sinks to even the simplest thing (making your character more powerful/better gear). A casual player can level a character 1-50 in about a week-10 days. That same player will spend the next 2 months in the vet system.

If you truly want this game to be "play how you want" then any build should be useful (if not downright viable) in any form of content, it should never just be about max DPS or max HPS or max CC, etc.

I disagree strongly. If you cant get further in the game then this is a L2P issue and nothing else. My chars are all very different and I get through just fine.

Besides that is the VR system great as it finally adds char progression past max level that isn't a silly gear grind like at WOW.
To me it seems like you just picked the wrong game if you want to grind a single dungeon on max level for weeks or months.

Its also utterly funny that you complain of having something to do in this game. Do you know how WOW is these days? You have zero to do except running a raid every week, do you want ESO to be like that? A boring grinder?

Cmon, take a chill pill and accept that ESO has long levity and doesn't give you purples upon logging in.

Player vs Player (PvP) combat - Cyrodiil/General Performance/Stability - 2/10

We want an Arena for 4v4v4 or something similar, we want more than just blob vs blob crash to desktop every 20 minutes, if the server can even handle it. I bought this game for the PvP,

We want nothing here, you want! WOW btw is that way --> enjoy.

ESO was announced as an open world pvp game and not a simplistic Esports title like WOW. You picked the wrong game.
Arena doesn't work in any MMO I know, you can not balance a game to make it work. Everyone will just pick the best class and that's it as we can see at WOW.

Bugs/Bug reporting/Customer Service/Issue Resolution - 3/10
Waiting three weeks to fix a game crippling FPS bug that lost half of your PvP playerbase is the shining example of how inept your problem resolution department is. This is the kind of thing that should have been worked on 24/7, hotfixed every hour until it was solved, not waited on and sat on for "developmental cycle time." Seriously, we see the same offenders day after day after day after day, with the same reports sent, day after day after day, and they are still there. Why?

I think you need to play a bit less and relax. Honestly, I don't see those offenders or bugs that you speak of. The game runs just fine, the bots from the first days are no longer and the FPS has been improved a lot since 1.2. That said we still need quad support that's for sure.

The console port - 1/10
This gets its own category, you pushed it back six months, some people are still waiting in preorder, and there is still no date for its launch. No communication since you said it was delayed (the original launch date was supposed to be around the same month as live launch). I gotta be honest here Zenimax, people are pissed off about this, have been for a while. When it comes to taking our money you seem okay with that, but we arent as patient with these things as you might think. We paid for a service as yet unrendered, and it is becoming tedious. Even a little update would suffice.

An MMO on a console is just as pointless as a Point and Click. I also don't know how you paid for the console already if its not even released. You exaggerate once again and insult a company for doing nothing bad to you.

Developer/Player relations - 2/10
- Gina and Jessica are great gals, and they work pretty hard on the forums, but that is all we ever get. Beyond the occasional forum mod locking a thread or enforcing forum rules, we never get any direct developer communication, and the communication we do get is lacking in details (I know it isnt the community managers fault, they can only say what they are told they can say), but you guys need to get in here and interact and really get a feel of what is going on. YOU ARE LOSING YOUR PLAYERBASE ZOS.

I have a hard time believing you played many MMOs in your life. The communication at ESO is ten times better than at any MMO I played with the exception of Ultima.

At WOW you don't get anything for months, EA just totally shut down their community program, Arena net does what it wants to do ...

I feel well informed at all times by the mods here, we have dev discussions, articles about the future of the game ... Its all there.

Value of Service - 4/10
- This game has a cost of 60 USD for the software, and 15USD/mo for subscription. This game is, frankly, not worth half of that in its present state. There are free to play MMOs in better shape than this game, there are Pay to Play MMOs in MUCH better shape than this game.

Then why don't you play those so amazing games? Fact is, if such games would exist then you wouldn't be here.

For me ESO is the best MMO I played since Vanilla WOW and its ranked in total on a good third spot with Ultima on 1.

Total Rating - 46/100, one of the lowest ratings I have ever given, and the lowest I have ever given for a game I put real money into. You have potential Zenimax, your players want to love your game, we do, we WANT YOU TO SUCCEED, please hear these words, take them to heart, and wow us. Show us you mean it. Your subscriptions may very well depend on it.

I don't want them to WOW us, I hate what WOW has become to. You are simply put playing the wrong game.

All what you want those spy tools for DPS, armory ... WOW has. It also has Arena that you want and an AH - please just go back to WOW, ESO will hopefully never be like WOW is these days.

Besides that I give you a total rating of 15/100. Reason being are your insults, the silly "we want" talk and your lack of experience yet saying you had it.

If you want to give ZO some feedback then do so without insulting them, spreading lies or exaggeration.

Frenkthevile · September 2014

Disagree, mostly. You are ignoring 5 months of updates...this is much more a point than <<the console port 1/10>>...and customer service/bug fixing is NOT as bad as you describe(mails i sent were always answered in 24h). Leveling is amazing because of lore and quests, and there is a great freedom in building you character...who the hell wants a game where there are no bad choices? ''respec'' needs to stay like it's now, so maybe you won't mindlessy make ALL the decisions during your leveling experience and then simply ''rollback'' at cap level, taking ''famous'' OP skills that obviously you didn't learn to use.
Bank space and inventory slots? These are ''problems'' now? Are you some kind of korean farmer?
And well, the part about F2P in better state...it's just pure trolling, yes? Wanna go to do some CoF-p1 in Gw2? or tame a reskinned-dragon in DP? or get the new OP legendary in NW, maybe, then come back here?
I don't want another WoW-clone just to make MMO jumpers like you happy for a pair of months, then move...the things you asked for would make ESO another game that can be played by anybody , for 15 minutes a day, with random pple, quite the opposite of the deep rpg mechanics it deserves and that i want to see ingame

fromtesonlineb16_ESO · September 2014

TheBull wrote: »

I disagree.

I disagree.

jeevin · September 2014

Audigy wrote: »

This week marks the six month semi-anniversary of this game's live release (including early access). As a veteran MMO player of about 20 years (started MMO gaming back in the early days of Ultima Online), and a Sanguine Beta tester

That's not 20 years though but 17 ^^

Visuals, graphics, sound, immersion (environmental) - 10/10
- This is the only time I have ever rated a game I have played a full 10 in this category, simply because ZOS you nailed this one. The lush full graphics, shadings, rendering, voiceover work (complete with celebrity voice cast), the sheer quantity of locale and diversity thereof, makes this game by far the most beautiful and visually pleasing MMO I have ever played. Bar none.

The immersion could be improved to be honest. To be put into solo dungeons a lot isn't a good idea for a MMO. You need to see others, need to be able to play with them and not tell them to wait because you are not going into a solo adventure.

UI/Interface/Controls/Bank/Inventory - 5/10
- The UI is glitchy and has been plagued with bugs since Beta. The ALT key being the menu key has always irked me, otherwise the controls themselves are standard fare, nothing amazing, nothing terrible. The interface can be quite annoying and is overly simplistic (even with addons you never quite get a feel for your characters' "real" stats without getting out a calculator and doing a ton of self testing).

I disagree strongly. This isn't a Esports title or a shooter, it simply put doesn't matter to know all the details. Its bad enough that DPS meters are in the game. ESO is about immersion and this only works with a simple UI that doesn't influence your gameplay.
As soon you start picking a skill because of meters and statistics the immersion is dead like we can see at WOW.

-
Guilds/Grouping/Social/Marketplace - 6/10

There are no real channels for communication to meet people besides zone/say (which are usually littered with market chatter), the grouping tool for dungeons/trials is an utter joke that no one ever uses anymore (the blind adding probably has something to do with this).

I disagree. I use the tool a lot and don't have issues. You might be just impatient or use it wrong?
That said yes it can be improved but to say you can not find people or nobody uses it is a lie.

Player advancement/balance/respec/leveling - 4/10
- As said before, the veteran grind is the worst part about this game, bar none. You take the same thing you already did (level to 50), and do it all over again twice, then you add four more veteran levels within six months of launch and youve turned the game into nearly a korean grinder. It breaks immersion of the main story, slows progression to a crawl, and adds what feels like arbitrary time sinks to even the simplest thing (making your character more powerful/better gear). A casual player can level a character 1-50 in about a week-10 days. That same player will spend the next 2 months in the vet system.

If you truly want this game to be "play how you want" then any build should be useful (if not downright viable) in any form of content, it should never just be about max DPS or max HPS or max CC, etc.

I disagree strongly. If you cant get further in the game then this is a L2P issue and nothing else. My chars are all very different and I get through just fine.

Besides that is the VR system great as it finally adds char progression past max level that isn't a silly gear grind like at WOW.
To me it seems like you just picked the wrong game if you want to grind a single dungeon on max level for weeks or months.

Its also utterly funny that you complain of having something to do in this game. Do you know how WOW is these days? You have zero to do except running a raid every week, do you want ESO to be like that? A boring grinder?

Cmon, take a chill pill and accept that ESO has long levity and doesn't give you purples upon logging in.

Player vs Player (PvP) combat - Cyrodiil/General Performance/Stability - 2/10

We want an Arena for 4v4v4 or something similar, we want more than just blob vs blob crash to desktop every 20 minutes, if the server can even handle it. I bought this game for the PvP,

We want nothing here, you want! WOW btw is that way --> enjoy.

ESO was announced as an open world pvp game and not a simplistic Esports title like WOW. You picked the wrong game.
Arena doesn't work in any MMO I know, you can not balance a game to make it work. Everyone will just pick the best class and that's it as we can see at WOW.

Bugs/Bug reporting/Customer Service/Issue Resolution - 3/10
Waiting three weeks to fix a game crippling FPS bug that lost half of your PvP playerbase is the shining example of how inept your problem resolution department is. This is the kind of thing that should have been worked on 24/7, hotfixed every hour until it was solved, not waited on and sat on for "developmental cycle time." Seriously, we see the same offenders day after day after day after day, with the same reports sent, day after day after day, and they are still there. Why?

I think you need to play a bit less and relax. Honestly, I don't see those offenders or bugs that you speak of. The game runs just fine, the bots from the first days are no longer and the FPS has been improved a lot since 1.2. That said we still need quad support that's for sure.

The console port - 1/10
This gets its own category, you pushed it back six months, some people are still waiting in preorder, and there is still no date for its launch. No communication since you said it was delayed (the original launch date was supposed to be around the same month as live launch). I gotta be honest here Zenimax, people are pissed off about this, have been for a while. When it comes to taking our money you seem okay with that, but we arent as patient with these things as you might think. We paid for a service as yet unrendered, and it is becoming tedious. Even a little update would suffice.

An MMO on a console is just as pointless as a Point and Click. I also don't know how you paid for the console already if its not even released. You exaggerate once again and insult a company for doing nothing bad to you.

Developer/Player relations - 2/10
- Gina and Jessica are great gals, and they work pretty hard on the forums, but that is all we ever get. Beyond the occasional forum mod locking a thread or enforcing forum rules, we never get any direct developer communication, and the communication we do get is lacking in details (I know it isnt the community managers fault, they can only say what they are told they can say), but you guys need to get in here and interact and really get a feel of what is going on. YOU ARE LOSING YOUR PLAYERBASE ZOS.

I have a hard time believing you played many MMOs in your life. The communication at ESO is ten times better than at any MMO I played with the exception of Ultima.

At WOW you don't get anything for months, EA just totally shut down their community program, Arena net does what it wants to do ...

I feel well informed at all times by the mods here, we have dev discussions, articles about the future of the game ... Its all there.

Value of Service - 4/10
- This game has a cost of 60 USD for the software, and 15USD/mo for subscription. This game is, frankly, not worth half of that in its present state. There are free to play MMOs in better shape than this game, there are Pay to Play MMOs in MUCH better shape than this game.

Then why don't you play those so amazing games? Fact is, if such games would exist then you wouldn't be here.

For me ESO is the best MMO I played since Vanilla WOW and its ranked in total on a good third spot with Ultima on 1.

Total Rating - 46/100, one of the lowest ratings I have ever given, and the lowest I have ever given for a game I put real money into. You have potential Zenimax, your players want to love your game, we do, we WANT YOU TO SUCCEED, please hear these words, take them to heart, and wow us. Show us you mean it. Your subscriptions may very well depend on it.

I don't want them to WOW us, I hate what WOW has become to. You are simply put playing the wrong game.

All what you want those spy tools for DPS, armory ... WOW has. It also has Arena that you want and an AH - please just go back to WOW, ESO will hopefully never be like WOW is these days.

Besides that I give you a total rating of 15/100. Reason being are your insults, the silly "we want" talk and your lack of experience yet saying you had it.

If you want to give ZO some feedback then do so without insulting them, spreading lies or exaggeration.

I don't really think OP wants ESO to be another WOW clone as you seem to suggest. Most if not all criticisms raised were valid and came with a genuine reason. Everyone will score their gripes and frustrations with the game differently but most will at least acknowledge the issues are there and are open to criticism. That does not mean we want another WOW clone, just a more polished play experience and better communication from the devs.

kitsinni · September 2014

I agree mostly with the OP. I would have given PvP some more points once you get in to it, it is actually pretty fun. It has more than its fair share of issues but I think it deserves at least 5/10. I would not have given questing as high of marks so we would have ended up with similar scores. Questing is fun in this game but once you get to the quests that you are constantly phased, can't do with a group unless you are all on the same exact point, or worst of all the Craglorn quests you have to have at least three people in the group on the same part to even progress the questing dropped big time.