A few weeks ago I saw the "Open Letter" thread by the Noore and after reading their thought out comments and criticisms of the game I thought their format was currently the best way to express our sentiments here at Axios Nekrous. What follows is mostly my own opinion, but as a guild leader it expresses my hopes for my guild in ESO.

After spending much time on the forums here I have seen enough repetition on certain topics to know what ZOS has and has not seen as far as feedback. I have two topics to address but my limiting this discussion to two topics does not mean that I think they are of the utmost importance in the development of the game. I by no means think that ZOS should stop what they are doing currently to focus on what I suggest here (nor do I think they would anyway). Bug fixes, class fixes, PvP fixes, end-game content, and balancing are but a few of the many things that should take precedence over what I list here. I do, however, think these topics merit discussion because I feel they would contribute to the longevity of the game.


Point One: Loot

PvP Drops

Whats ESO does right: The green crates (not just mailed gifts with gold) are a great feature. Even in PvP sessions where nothing is gained (prolonged and failed sieges for instance) rewards still come for those out having fun. This is great and helps keep interest in the PvP aspects of the game.

What we would like to see change: The items that come from the green drops are getting close to trash now. A complete Heartland set, for instance, can be bought from a guild store for 500g a piece and a be found in less that thirty minutes of searching. Its overflow on the market is causing it to be worthless, not to mention the green non-set item drops; most of which are vendored instantly due to their inherent worthlessness. To fix this we suggest doing a few things to changes item distribution. First, make the loot drops less often; 10-25% would do the trick. In their place make a loot chest appear in every acquired fort. For example, after every successful siege of a fort a chest would spawn between the two flags that would drop a single, instanced, blue drop item (green for common resources). This mechanic would be similar to the chests that spawn after dark anchors and magical anomalies. This would vary the drop pool since blues have their own sets that drop and it would make the standard PvP sets slightly, but not drastically, more valuable.

Hirelings

What ESO does right: Hirelings at their base are a great idea. It provides incentive to log in often, a chance to get high quality items, and the amusement from the mail messages is its own reward.

What we would like to see change: As of right now getting Epic and Legendary upgrade materials is too... boring really. Although we like Hirelings and mail, we would like to see other options in terms of getting rare materials. To remedy this we suggest that common dungeon bosses be given a 5% chance to drop an epic material and a 2.5% chance to drop a legendary material. Double those chances for group dungeons and Trials. This would create an increase in the number of materials on the marked so a 5-10% nerf in the hireling drop rates for the same materials would be in order. This would encourage more dungeon grinding and running of dungeons of all levels.

Loot drops for NPCs

What ESO does right: Dolmen boss drops.

What we would like to see change: Do what you're doing right more. Current drops from dungeon bosses are cute. They have the little note that says something clever about them. They're usually blue or higher quality. That's about it. We suggest making them like Dolmen drops and make them unique sets only obtained by that means. For example: every VR zone would have a unique set that can drop from every dungeon boss and another unique set that can drop from every world boss. By replacing the current unique boss drops with this new system players would have motivation to return to and even grind on boss and dungeons they would otherwise have no motivation to return too. This theory could be applied to the game in multiple other ways.

Point Two: Guilds

Social sites

What ESO does right: Five guild spaces. Although often a topic of debate on these forums, we like the current system. It allows smaller guilds who do not have the membership to consistently take on larger aspects of the game to stay solvent. In a single guild worlds many members would move onto the biggest guild possible because the smaller guild that he/she may have liked could not support their larger end-game interests.

What we would like to see change: ESO provides us with the foundations for excellent community building but leaves out a lot of the tools. Guild halls and the like have been talked to death on the forums and in game and we won't go further than saying "Yes please" here. But, what we do want to reinforce, is that development times into otherwise useless things (IE horse racing ect.) would not be wasted at all if they provide Guilds more chances to interact together and build community. As stated before, there are lots of ideas floating around the community as far as application examples for this, so I wont list any here. What we do, however, want to say is that we would like to see more interest in these ideas as the direction of the game continues to evolve.

Social Integration

We have nothing here to define what this point talks about. Instead, here is an example.

Make guilds earn a profit for each day a keep is owned. Nothing outrageous. 100g a day for each day owned. If a keep is held for a week, or alternatively the duration of the campaign, the gold is moved to the guild bank. If the keep is lost before the time is completed 50% of the gold earned is dropped into the loot chest previously mentioned in this post to be divided among the attackers.

Closing

Why loot? Why guilds? Well as we said at first, bugs and progression are talked to death on these forums. So much so that we fear the direction of this game might devolve into a never ending patch. We want to instill the spark that there is more to be had in ESO and we have chosen to express that here because we ZOS are listening and truly want ESO to last as long as we do.

And boy do we...

Speaking for myself now, instead of for Axios Nekrous, I want to have fun here. I want this game to be here years from now. I don't care if it has a million subs or not, I just want enough people to group with and enough to fight against in Cyrodiil. When I think of games that brought me back to the keyboard again and again, far beyond the end of new content, I think of games that brought me loot and friends. Games like Borderlands and the Battlefield series brought me back long after the games themselves were old. Reward us for our time spend and our desire to bring our friends and we will all win.

I understand that you have an untold number of subscribers with their own individual expectations of what ESO should be, we just hope you will take a moment of you time to listen to your fans who want to be right here with you five years from now.

-Axios Nekrous-