I have to say that just maybe the reason that ESO gets poor ratings on both steam and metacritic is because the game earned those reviews. You can say what you want about time played but it doesn't take long for the games glaring shortcomings to show.

There are always the haters who review games harshly but there are fanbois too who give a perfect score because they want the game to succeed. In between is the average and that's where the players average score comes in. In my opinion the metacritic players score of 5.7/10 is harsh but accurate.

Seraphyel wrote: »

The Steam reviews are totally fine, look at MetaCritic, it's a similar rating there.

Critics gave the game 71 / 100 (poor rating for an ES game, worst in the whole series)

Customers gave the game 5.7 / 10 (even worse than Steam)

I think ESO console version gets another round of reviews when it launches but I doubt it will be anywhere beyond 75-79 at best.

ESO just isn't a game that deserves a rating beyond 75, that's it. It's not a bad game but it isn't a great one either.

This. I love the game, but it's not yet in the place needed to earn a 90% or 9/10.

Once again good reasons for me to not pay attention to numbers and reviews, like in the past I have played games that were suppose to be awesome, high fan ratings and critics raved they were the best thing since sliced bread, I played them through most of the were terrible, shallow and just not fun, I have played games with less than stellar reviews and found a lot of them of fun and some were bad, but it all comes down to personal taste, I think a lot of the bad reviews on ESO were butt hurt folks over the sub, I like ESO, even with it's issues, it is fun to me, and that's all I care about.

UrQuan wrote: »

eventide03b14a_ESO wrote: »

By other TES games I mean.

1. Sandbox.
2. No classes. Skill based only.
3. A justice system that is more like the other TES games.
4. NPCs that have better AI akin to the Radiant AI used in other games.

Those things would be a nice start.

1. OK, granted. I'd like that too.
2. Um, the only one of TES I-VI that didn't have classes was Skyrim. Some were more restrictive in what class dictated than others, but Skyrim is the only one that wasn't class-based.
3. It would be incredibly difficult (at best) to make an MMO justice system that worked more like previous TES justice systems (which were actually pretty different from each other), and which allowed for other players in the system at the same time.
4. Again, I'd like that too.

You're right that Skyrim was the only one that officially had no classes, but the others only used classes as a basis for XP and didn't actually give any restriction to spell use. For instance in Oblivion I could create a character that used one handed, heavy armor etc but that didn't mean I couldn't also learn and use mage spells. In ESO sorcerers are the only ones who can summon daedra, nightblades are the only ones with fear and invisibility. That's my issue.

nearly all of those negative reviews are from a long, long time ago when the game was pretty broken. If ESO launched now, as is, the reviews would be much better.

In answer to various posts I don't want to quote for readability's sake.

Imo the metacritic reviews (especially the user reviews but also some of the "professional" reviews) for a far too big part boil down to: It doesn't look and feel like Skyrim, thus it isn't a true ES game, thus it deserves a 0/10 rating. Same goes for Steam. Sure there are negative reviews that bring up pretty valid points (like the PvP problems). But I can easily see how the average rating for the game without those baseless biased reviews would easily climb by a point or two.

As far as dull and repetitive combat goes: Go name one MMO or game in general that is not repetitive in it's combat. I think what you are trying to say is that NPCs outside of bosses in the dungeons aren't a real challenge. Especially not before hitting level 50. And even less if you play through the faction content in a group. The learning curve is not steep enough, thus by the time NPCs slowly start to become a bit more of a challenge (and they sure do in the Veteran Rank content) most enthusiast gamers are pretty bored. I have to admit myself that the only thing that kept me hooked was the awesome storyline in the Daggerfall Covenant.

As far as class and skill system go: Yeah it isn't as freeform as Sykrim. That does NOT make it bad. If there is one thing that ES games should be recognized for then it is that every title so far made changes to the combat mechanics and character progression. Oblivion wasn't Morrowind and Skyrim was different all over again. And if I expect one thing from TES 6 then it is another round of changes to how character progression and combat mechanics work.

Actually judged from a MMO standpoint (and I think I can make an educated judgement here since I have played I think any major AAA MMO except for GW 2 in the past 8 years) ESO offers the most freeform and encouraging character progression system so far. Yeah there is a framework of classes, but you can (at least as far as PvE goes) make any class a tank, DD or Healer. Which is pretty awesome in my book.

Another thing that in my view sets ESO apart from the rest of the MMO riff raff is that if you manage to break people out of their mindset you can actually beat dungeons in any group setup. Something the devs were promissing and delivered on. The trinity still makes things easier but it is nowhere near being a necessity. I've beaten any dungeon in 4 DD setups.

And now upon the sensitive topic of whether ESO is a true ES game or not: Lore shenanigans and the stupid "It isn't Skyrim" (I covered that above: ES games have never been the same compared to each other) argument aside ESO managed to immerse me in the world of Tamriel on a whole other level: The voice work in this game (at least in english, haven't tried german) is superb. Especially when it comes to racial identity. In none of the former ES games could you tell the race of a character by their way of speaking and use of pro-verbs. And in my view that totally makes up for their twist in storytelling away from a world in shades of grey towards more of a black and white world (speaking about the severe lack of good intentioned Daedra worshippers and similar stuff here you found in the other ES games).

Concluding this wall of text I'd like to name the one thing that really makes me lower the score I'd give ESO to 8.5/10:

The game has too little group focus before you get to Craglorn.

Non-endgame, non-dungeon content not being really group-compatible is a problem in most MMOs. But at least you could solve it like SWTOR did. That is my gripe with ESO. My RL friends that used to play with me, stopped because the content was far too easy and dull in a group and on top of it you did all the dialogs and a lot of quests just solo without sharing progress (shared quest progress being fixed for most quests by now though).

SWTOR pretty much is a similar thing except for the fact that their group dialog system completely makes up for it. Selecting different answers and then seeing who's answer wins is a meta level of fun that shouldn't be underestimated. It became sort of an internal minigame to try and *** up the direction that your group mates want the dialog to take. And any MMO that fails to adopt that in the future will get a 1 to 2 points malus from me for it. MMOs should focus on groups and SWTOR's dialog system is exactly how you do that in the audiovisual presentation part of the game.

kevlarto_ESO wrote: »

Once again good reasons for me to not pay attention to numbers and reviews, like in the past I have played games that were suppose to be awesome, high fan ratings and critics raved they were the best thing since sliced bread, I played them through most of the were terrible, shallow and just not fun, I have played games with less than stellar reviews and found a lot of them of fun and some were bad, but it all comes down to personal taste, I think a lot of the bad reviews on ESO were butt hurt folks over the sub, I like ESO, even with it's issues, it is fun to me, and that's all I care about.

Sorry people but i very much aggre with this one

Yeah we talked about it like everyone else says.

ZoS acted really amateur at this round. All pc gamer base uses Steam. And with the launch of player rating and voting system , people started to make their game purchases according to player reviews.

All players who enjoyed ESO so far asked migration to Steam so they can get game cards , they can track how many hours they spent on game and other stats. People likes these things. Steam achievements ...

But ZOS said "NO" to this and missed a great opportunity. Why would people ask for free activation on Steam if they are not going to play or they didnt liked the game in the first place ?

ESO could've started with %99 of Positive votes at launch that could bring more and more players. But again , they said "NO". And the funny thing is , we people who is playing since beta , who pre-ordered all kinds of editions of game , ZOS just left us out. Steam players who started new did get different and new rewards which we didnt get. And this made people sad.

So , long story short. ZOS will never get the attention for ESO because how they behave and treat their playerbase.

jeevin wrote: »

I have to say that just maybe the reason that ESO gets poor ratings on both steam and metacritic is because the game earned those reviews. You can say what you want about time played but it doesn't take long for the games glaring shortcomings to show.

This post needs to be stickied somewhere just so anyone, anywhere, who has any doubt or misgiving as to the current state of this game can refer to it.

well, if our moderators could just be given steam admin privledges, they could edit up those reviews in no time so things looked better on the forum. 1 millon subs b2p's strong

Valnas wrote: »

the combat in this game is/was pretty remarkable at realease. What we lacked in itemization and polish we had in promise and foundation.

Then the megaservers (RE: WABBAJACK 1.0) crashed and pvp guilds sat in queues. PvE guilds watched as itemezation lagged, no new content came and 3 months in they said fukit. we can't wait for hours in a queue during primetime to pvp, or sit at endgame amassing gold and flowers.

Game breaking bugs have been introducted or past QA since beta (invulnerability, speed stacking that does not remove, non rendering objects you can wal thru, purge, caltrops vs siege, on, on on)

and Then you toyed with the visual aspects of the client and dropped our fps.

None of the pr staff you hire, or eso live carebear discussions will get past any of that besides in ZoS meetings.

Toyed with the graphics? Yes,they improved them.If it dropped your FPS then you(like me) aren't running a big enough video card,I had to turn it down to High,my FPS went back to 60 and it looks just like it did before they made the IMPROVEMENTS. I plan on adding another video card to be able to get the added PERK of running it on ultra. This is a NON-ISSUE,unless you see your glass half empty!

Chrithu wrote: »

Actually judged from a MMO standpoint (and I think I can make an educated judgement here since I have played I think any major AAA MMO except for GW 2 in the past 8 years) ESO offers the most freeform and encouraging character progression system so far. Yeah there is a framework of classes, but you can (at least as far as PvE goes) make any class a tank, DD or Healer. Which is pretty awesome in my book.

Although I agree with most of what you said this is wrong. I know TSW is completely freeform. I guess you didn't play it.

Ability Skill Wheel

Valnas wrote: »

well, if our moderators could just be given steam admin privledges, they could edit up those reviews in no time so things looked better on the forum. 1 millon subs b2p's strong

Yes, that worked for WAR Z and other devs. Noone ever notices when moderators start doctoring and/or silencing the critics.

If you feel you need your games reviews to be purged, your game failed, not the reviews.