FMPOV: What does ESO need to cater the casuals

Arundo · September 2015

FMPOV: What does ESO need to cater the casuals

I’m a casual, 36 years old played through most big MMO’s over the last 10+ years. I was not a casual when I was 18 but real-life catches up on you and at some point you become a casual. One thing for me of being a casual is that I tend to choose a MMO for the long run as I don’t have the time to play multiple. So last year March or April I had chosen ESO as my MMO for the future, to play on a daily base (evening hours 20:00-0:00) and get as much out of it as possible. Been subbed ever since.

Now over a year and half later I do not regret that decision… yet. But there are some things lately which makes me wonder if I made the right decision. I had a short affair with FFXIV since July and I have to say it’s a fun game and more so a game which has the features a 2015 MMO should have.

Anyway back to ESO, I still hope ESO gives me as a casual more than it has currently to offer. IC was just released and as casuals are maybe not that much into PVP (FMPOV). IC does not really give me stuff to do, again my limited time. I don’t want to spend that running around not being killed by someone who has the time to be a topnotch PVPer. There are times that I logout at the end of the evening and think “WTH did I do in the 3 hours I was online” with nothing achieved at all. Which kind of sucks the fun out of a game pretty damn fast. So I do hope the next DLC’s give more to do as a casual. But there are more things which would make life more easy as a casual, some suggestions…

Quality of life additions:

Groupfinder: Current one is of poor quality that it hardly is used.
- Look at how FFXIV made it, I can get a group as a DPS, Tank or Healer within 5 minutes (FFXIV has the same group layouts).
- Add all factions in one pool so that groups form up even faster.
- Make it possible to search groups on specificquest (Craglorn quest are a pain to get done if you did not join the first surge at launch).
- The ability to put comments to make groups for “other” things, Dolmen groups, World Boss groups, PVP groups, etc.
• Problem with the current way to find a group is that you have to be in a zone to see the groups being advertised, which means you just have to do nothing until you find a group. As a casual I want to have the most out of my 3 to 4 hours of playtime during the day. I don’t want to be wasting time to find a group.

Ingame Guildfinder: Idea from @JoshenReborn
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en-GB/discussion/213159/suggestion-of-in-game-guild-board#latest

Classes:
Add all class trees together so that every character can be the class they want. ESO already has the option to use any weapon and any armor in the game. Why not just open up all the classes in the skill tree so that it’s possible to switch from Templar to Dragon Knight etc. Instead of going through the hours of leveling another character with the huge pile of work to get what you had on your other character.

Dailies and events:
Bring more dailies to the currently game world not just in the PVP areas. It will bring back life to the empty zones and it gives casuals something to do other than to wait for dungeons, dodge others in Cyro or IC. Add more random events to the game as Guild Wars 2 has or the Fates from FFXIV. Make them scale to the people participating in them.

Craglorn:
Sad to see this great zone go to waste. As mentioned in the groupfinder part, make the groupfinder so that you can find groups for the Craglorn quests easy. Or make it soloable as getting a group for Craglorn is very very hard at the moment. Even before IC came out you hardly find any groups there.

Dungeons:
Make them shorter or make more paths so you can decided , running around a dungeon for one and a half hour or more is tedious. For example those packs you fight before the last boss in City of Ash. Not needed at all to make it so long. Perhaps make the normal ones shorter and keep the veteran ones the same.

Extra additions:

Housing:
There are numerous request for housing on these forums so I don’t go into that but yes please. More stuff to do are always welcome

Farming:
Make it possible to have your own plot of land to grow things.

Boats:
Let’s sail the oceans, ESO has lots of water why not use for those who have a boat/ship. Perhaps add the ability to have a guildship.

I hope ZOS thinks about the casuals as they are a large group of a game and mostly a paying group as they have jobs to support their hobby after work.

pjwb16_ESO · September 2015

This game decayed so much by catering to the "casuals", they rather should revert what they did already to cater for them and stop doing it aswell

AngryNord · September 2015

pjwb16_ESO wrote: »

This game decayed so much by catering to the "casuals", they rather should revert what they did already to cater for them and stop doing it aswell

Enjoy your elitist-only game dwindle to a few hundred players and get shutdown after a couple of months.

Arundo · September 2015

pjwb16_ESO wrote: »

This game decayed so much by catering to the "casuals", they rather should revert what they did already to cater for them and stop doing it aswell

Or you read the post first before burning it based on the title ?

Aett_Thorn · September 2015

I agree with most things the OP said except for the idea about Classes. As another casual player here, I want MORE classes, not to just play the same character all the time and just switch out his class from time to time. Granted, I am a bit of an altoholic, so for me, the desire is to make new and different combinations. Right now, I basically only have two real choices to make at character creation: Race and Class. Everything else can be switched out already for enough gold. Want to switch role: just pay gold to respec. Want to level up a new weapon. I can do that without making many changes. New armor or skill, just swap it in and level it up.

I really just don't want to have one character, and then 7 mules or crafters that do nothing but writs all day long.

What I would be fine with is just allowing us to create more free-form characters at the start, where we can choose any three skill lines from the current classes as a mix and match. Could you get some overpowered/underpowered combos? Probably, but then that would show the Devs that it's not necessarily classes that are overpowered, but individual skill lines.

BuggeX · September 2015

Agree with near anything, exept all class skill for all charachters, if you would do this.
Anybody would Slot

Bolt Escape - Cloak - wings

anybody would be unkillable

and dungeons, they are fine as they are

BlackEar · September 2015

I like most of the these ideas.

Love the housing, farming, sailing.

I strongly disagree with merging classes and making dungeons shorter. More content is better.

Also, VCOA already has a lot of shortcuts. I am surprised you are not aware of them?

Skip over mobs by running near lava and over lava.

Arundo · September 2015

BlackEar wrote: »

I like most of the these ideas.

Also, VCOA already has a lot of shortcuts. I am surprised you are not aware of them?

Skip over mobs by running near lava and over lava.

I know them

but then I still think before last boss "zzzz mobs", and maybe its because of the shortcuts those mobs are boring as most of the rest is skipped.

Paradox · September 2015

pjwb16_ESO wrote: »

This game decayed so much by catering to the "casuals", they rather should revert what they did already to cater for them and stop doing it aswell

Catering to casuals by implementing the Champion system. Making tanking much more difficult. Making people think before roll dodging. PvP centric DLC... Yes all very casual catering type stuff.

Pallmor · September 2015

I think a Craglorn fix to make it more solo friendly would be pretty easy and wouldn't hurt the grinders/groupers one bit. You could just split the mobs up a little to where they're not overwhelming. Instead of one 6-wasp group, split it into two 3-wasp groups. Now its soloable, but the grinders and groupers don't lose anything. Instead of one crazy-powerful enemy, make two or three soloable ones in the same area. You could still keep some group areas and challenges in there, but open it it up to solo PvEers too. If you can mix PvE and PvP in IC, then surely you can mix solo and group PvE in Craglorn.

Thecapeo · September 2015

I wouldn't even call what you're asking for "casual ". It's just content which this game is sorely lacking. As someone who also came from FFXIV the lack of polish and basic MMO functionality and content is pretty striking. Even the simplest things like a functional group finder. FF's is so customizable you can always find groups to do exactly what you want even if it's something as simple as grinding. There's tons of daily stuff to do. The crafting is extremely deep, so much so there are people that do only that. What keeps me here currently is the combat and PVP. When I left FF the PVP was a joke. Don't know if that ever improved. The other thing about FF that got rough after a while is that the endgame content was brutal and not casual friendly at all so it got harder and harder to find people in my FC willing to push. You can't just brute your way through it and it's especially hard on tanks and healers. One screw up means a wipe nine times out of ten and it's always clear who screwed up. After a few times of causing wipes more casual gamers tend to not want to be responsible for it.

But there's always tons more stuff for them to do hence the subscriber base has remained so high. I wouldn't want ESO to copy FF really. They're two totally different styles of game. But they do need to take some cues in the sense that they need to devise some systems of progression beyond what they have now.

Merlin13KAGL · September 2015

Absolutely nothing at all, regarding difficulty, at least. If it gets much more casual, they game will play itself.

Casual does not equate to automatic ability to do and clear all content. There is plenty to do in this game for the casual player, especially since the casual is likely going to take their time even more.

There is more in this game that does not require grouping, or often, even medium of skill to survive. It hardly needs simplified or dialed down any further than it already has been.

Some content, you have decided, is not for you, and that's both reasonable and fine. All content doesn't have to cater to all types - adjusting it so it did would take away from much of the allure of the game.

They took so long to make the delves/dungeons larger and the group dungeons semi-challenging, now you want them to dial it back so anyone can do it at their leisure?

You don't have to be l33t to get better. You don't have to be "hard core" to improve your skills and understanding of the game, the skills, and the mechanics. Plenty of people that are hardly top notch PvPers than manage IC with a reasonable amount of success. Heck, some of them are people that swore an oath against PvP of any kind, and are finding out it's a part of the game that they've been missing this whole time.

Do what you wish, at your pace. If you're having trouble with certain aspects, ask for help.

But please do not ask for the game to be simplified even further than it already has been.

There's something for everyone now. Cater to one extreme or the other, and the game will become much less than it currently is.

The other additions you mention, housing, gardening, sailing etc are excellent alterntatives, but overall, game balance is manageable for the majority of players now, without the hardcore gear or CP grind.

Dial it down too far, and your ability to clear content and find groups to interact with may be ever worse than it currently is now.

Find like minded, similarly skilled individuals, and proceed at your own pace, but please don't ask to vastly reduce it for the rest.

Arundo · September 2015

@Merlin13KAGL did you read the OP or did you post in the wrong topic ?

There is absolutly nothing said about difficulty of the game.

AlnilamE · September 2015

Pallmor wrote: »

I think a Craglorn fix to make it more solo friendly would be pretty easy and wouldn't hurt the grinders/groupers one bit. You could just split the mobs up a little to where they're not overwhelming. Instead of one 6-wasp group, split it into two 3-wasp groups. Now its soloable, but the grinders and groupers don't lose anything. Instead of one crazy-powerful enemy, make two or three soloable ones in the same area. You could still keep some group areas and challenges in there, but open it it up to solo PvEers too. If you can mix PvE and PvP in IC, then surely you can mix solo and group PvE in Craglorn.

The wasps in Craglorn are soloable. As are several of the Welwa groups with the right strategy. I have trouble with the orc groups, personally.

OP: I disagree with the idea of not having classes, but I like some of your other suggestions. And yes, a better group finder would be awesome. Craglorn should get better now that they have upped quest XP.

Merlin13KAGL · September 2015

Arundo wrote: »

@Merlin13KAGL did you even read the OP or did you post in the wrong topic ?

There is absolutly nothing said about difficulty of the game.

@Arundo, I did, and I disagree wholeheartedly.

Arundo wrote: »

IC was just released and as casuals are maybe not that much into PVP (FMPOV). IC does not really give me stuff to do, again my limited time. I don’t want to spend that running around not being killed by someone who has the time to be a topnotch PVPer.

Per my post, this is simply not true.

You don't have to be Emperor to become successful in PvP and/or in IC. It's a hard lesson at first, which is why many avoid it. Once you've gotten past that, it has benefits and enjoyment to offer on its own.

Doesn't mean you have to grind out 10 Alliance ranks every weekend.

Group with people that are more experienced in it and improve, and learn how to increase your survivability.

Heck, group up with people that are terrible at it, improve, and learn how to increase your survivability.

Don't have to top the leaderboard or be able to 1vX to experience and enjoy Cyrodiil. (There's actually a huge terrain and PvE repeatables, side quests, and hidden gems/easter eggs placed by the Devs for that very reason?)

A group of 12-24 PvE'ers is normally going to be avoided, unless you're running into a fight or right in the line of a scroll run.

Safety in numbers, even casual numbers. Safety in stealth and casual exploration.

You're shorting yourself of some great content that does not necessarily have to involve sieging castles and killing hoards of enemy players.

Classes:
Add all class trees together so that every character can be the class they want. ESO already has the option to use any weapon and any armor in the game. Why not just open up all the classes in the skill tree so that it’s possible to switch from Templar to Dragon Knight etc. Instead of going through the hours of leveling another character with the huge pile of work to get what you had on your other character.

Any skill available to any person at any time would absolutely lessen the game.

It would take the skill, the tactics, and the enjoyment of the build and development of the character out of the equation. Balancing the game would be nigh impossible.

Accordingly, this would absolutely affect difficulty of the game.

Dailies and events:
Bring more dailies to the currently game world not just in the PVP areas. It will bring back life to the empty zones and it gives casuals something to do other than to wait for dungeons, dodge others in Cyro or IC. Add more random events to the game as Guild Wars 2 has or the Fates from FFXIV. Make them scale to the people participating in them.

Agree to an extent. Craglorn has quite a few dailies, actually, but you kind of slam the door on that with the post to follow:

Craglorn:
Sad to see this great zone go to waste. As mentioned in the groupfinder part, make the groupfinder so that you can find groups for the Craglorn quests easy. Or make it soloable as getting a group for Craglorn is very very hard at the moment. Even before IC came out you hardly find any groups there.

Most of Crag is soloable at a reasonable level. Grouping is not as easy in Crag, as it has not received as much love as it should have, but making it soloable is not the answer.

Making Crag (more) soloable absolutely reduces the difficulty of the game.

Dungeons:
Make them shorter or make more paths so you can decided , running around a dungeon for one and a half hour or more is tedious. For example those packs you fight before the last boss in City of Ash. Not needed at all to make it so long. Perhaps make the normal ones shorter and keep the veteran ones the same.

You speak to being casual, yet you want less to do by having shorter dungeons with fewer mobs and quicker completion?

If you're casual, what is your hurry?

How can you possibly not see this would be reducing the difficulty of the game?

Some of the achievements are to be just that, achievements, not something you automatically get handed because it's been simplified down.

When you do earn them, eventually, you'll feel pride, especially as a 'casual.'

I hope ZOS thinks about the casuals as they are a large group of a game and mostly a paying group as they have jobs to support their hobby after work.

I am also a paying person with a job, and other IRL responsibilities.

They're trying to offer something for everyone, at all levels.

If you are truly casual, what is your hurry to complete content, to level your character and skills at some predefined pace?

In your 'limited time,' there is more than enough to keep you occupied for 100's of hours, with new content to be added later for 100's more (again, at a casual rate).

Some of your statements seem to conflict themselves. You claim to be casual with limited time, yet you seem to want to hurry up and be done with certain aspects?

I fail to see how you cannot see you're very much asking for a reduction in difficulty to many aspects of the game.

Robbmrp · September 2015

pjwb16_ESO wrote: »

This game decayed so much by catering to the "casuals", they rather should revert what they did already to cater for them and stop doing it aswell

Ummm, all of the games redesign changes were NOT made for casuals. IMO they weren't made for players in general. They were made to "force" people to go with a cookie cutter build that someone at ZOS want's people to run with.

Alucardo · September 2015

Holy *** sailing would be so *** awesome. I want to be a *** *** pirate! *** YEAH!

DO IT ZOS. JUST DO IT.

P.S. ***

nimander99 · September 2015

Aett_Thorn wrote: »

I agree with most things the OP said except for the idea about Classes. As another casual player here, I want MORE classes, not to just play the same character all the time and just switch out his class from time to time. Granted, I am a bit of an altoholic, so for me, the desire is to make new and different combinations. Right now, I basically only have two real choices to make at character creation: Race and Class. Everything else can be switched out already for enough gold. Want to switch role: just pay gold to respec. Want to level up a new weapon. I can do that without making many changes. New armor or skill, just swap it in and level it up.

I really just don't want to have one character, and then 7 mules or crafters that do nothing but writs all day long.

What I would be fine with is just allowing us to create more free-form characters at the start, where we can choose any three skill lines from the current classes as a mix and match. Could you get some overpowered/underpowered combos? Probably, but then that would show the Devs that it's not necessarily classes that are overpowered, but individual skill lines.

The number of available classes was staggering in previous scrolls titles so it would certs be lore friendly to add more classes.

Kuroinu · September 2015

ZOS please use Arundo's initial post as your development road map, thanks!

Arundo · September 2015

@Merlin13KAGL can you stop trolling then ? I just said my post is NOT about difficulty but yet you still come at me with saying it is about that.

So once again my post is NOT to reduce the difficulty !

Its to up the quality of life in ESO for me and those who do agree with this post. You can have your fun in IC / Cyro now give us PVE / Casuals our fun with more things to do after we are done with leveling, doing all zones, dolmens, delves. And yes I did all PVE stuff in Cyro.

My statements about dungeons and free classes you can agree or disagree or even say something about balance issues. But removing trash or not or giving all classes to you available does not help with difficulty. Trash is already very easy, its just a waste of time imo and free classes might give imbalance so maybe not such a good idea it however does not affect the difficulty of the game as you can already play all classes you just have to reroll which can be seen as a waste of time.

And if you havent figured this out yet, im a PVEer not a PVPer.

BRogueNZ · September 2015

If I was anymore laid back id be horizontal. That's how casual I am.

I pvp lol and craft to a lol extent so I find plenty to do.
(probably too much. 2 v 4kids, stupid dog, annoying cat is OP.

I pick herbs in my free time. Chase butterflies and kill frogs just for their filthy guts.

My global eso ranking Is way down near just plain bad.

I have to craft my own beer and gear. Clean up after my own horse.

My casual mind tells me to just not care.

But I do. a little. enough.

*sniff*

Anyway.

Why am I here?

Like some of your ideas.

Don't like the class mixing. As you've noticed, the rich, the famous and their fat bankers don't mix well with us peasants.

That's not true. Some elitist jerks seem to be decent people. Online anyway.

Personally owning land and planting stuff doesn't appeal to me.
I prefer a couple of hours of action packed (yet a lot of the time not really very entertaining) life in Cryodil.

You didn't mention it but I'll bring it up anyway.
I'm glad there is no auction house, that would just become the mini game for me. Makes a lot of gold but you're not really playing the game itself. The guild trade system is just annoying enough to not fall into that trap.

Ah yes, I was a casual in World of Auction House and Altolism Craft too but for completely different reasons.

Group finder. Does it work yet? I haven't looked.

Aett_Thorn · September 2015

AlnilamE wrote: »

Pallmor wrote: »

I think a Craglorn fix to make it more solo friendly would be pretty easy and wouldn't hurt the grinders/groupers one bit. You could just split the mobs up a little to where they're not overwhelming. Instead of one 6-wasp group, split it into two 3-wasp groups. Now its soloable, but the grinders and groupers don't lose anything. Instead of one crazy-powerful enemy, make two or three soloable ones in the same area. You could still keep some group areas and challenges in there, but open it it up to solo PvEers too. If you can mix PvE and PvP in IC, then surely you can mix solo and group PvE in Craglorn.

The wasps in Craglorn are soloable. As are several of the Welwa groups with the right strategy. I have trouble with the orc groups, personally.

OP: I disagree with the idea of not having classes, but I like some of your other suggestions. And yes, a better group finder would be awesome. Craglorn should get better now that they have upped quest XP.

I agree about the content in Craglorn overall. Most of the overland mob groups are completely soloable with a decent build. I can even solo many of the group delves with a bit of luck and some good strategy, even on an un-optimized build. While some groups give me trouble, most are just fine (I can deal with the wasps, orcs, nords, and welvas easily enough, but whatever that group is that has the illusionists in it kill me almost every time).

It's the quest designs that really get me. Certainly, this was designed as group content, but considering how hard it can be to get a group there to do quests, I really think they need to re-evaluate how many of the quests are designed there.

For instance, one that I am on right now needs me to bring three elemental charges to a woman. Can I do go and get her one, bring it back, go get another, etc.? No. I need a group of three people to get them all at the same time to bring back to her at once. Why? It's just to force grouping, even though I can do the content myself, I am stopped by a huge artificial wall in the way the quest works. Things like that need to go.

Merlin13KAGL · September 2015

Arundo wrote: »

@Merlin13KAGL can you stop trolling then ? I just said my post is NOT about difficulty but yet you still come at me with saying it is about that.

So once again my post is NOT to reduce the difficulty !

Its to up the quality of life in ESO for me and those who do agree with this post. You can have your fun in IC / Cyro now give us PVE / Casuals our fun with more things to do after we are done with leveling, doing all zones, dolmens, delves. And yes I did all PVE stuff in Cyro.

My statements about dungeons and free classes you can agree or disagree or even say something about balance issues. But removing trash or not or giving all classes to you available does not help with difficulty. Trash is already very easy, its just a waste of time imo and free classes might give imbalance so maybe not such a good idea it however does not affect the difficulty of the game as you can already play all classes you just have to reroll which can be seen as a waste of time.

And if you havent figured this out yet, im a PVEer not a PVPer.

First, not trolling.

Offered up indication as to why your POV is a bit more convoluted than you seem to think. You don't like alternate perspectives, which is remarkably ironic.

As such, I'll just skip being nice and flat out say "You're wrong."

Gratz on being a PvE'er. I'm both, mostly because I'm not so shortsighted as to count out content without making the effort.

If you have no issue with the "easy trash," it shouldn't be an issue for you, and not a dungeon in the game should be taking you an hour an a half.

So revising my original thought, not sure whether your just bad or confusing "casual" with "lazy."

You want more stuff to do? Already agreed with that part. Regarding the rest?

No need to dumb down any part of the game further because it's inconvenient for just you.

nevvt · September 2015

This game is already pretty casual, anymore casual and they'll just be sending gear to your mailbox for free.

Arundo · September 2015

Merlin13KAGL wrote: »

"You're wrong."

Ok.

Pallmor · September 2015

Thecapeo wrote: »

I wouldn't even call what you're asking for "casual ". It's just content which this game is sorely lacking. As someone who also came from FFXIV the lack of polish and basic MMO functionality and content is pretty striking. Even the simplest things like a functional group finder. FF's is so customizable you can always find groups to do exactly what you want even if it's something as simple as grinding. There's tons of daily stuff to do. The crafting is extremely deep, so much so there are people that do only that. What keeps me here currently is the combat and PVP. When I left FF the PVP was a joke. Don't know if that ever improved. The other thing about FF that got rough after a while is that the endgame content was brutal and not casual friendly at all so it got harder and harder to find people in my FC willing to push. You can't just brute your way through it and it's especially hard on tanks and healers. One screw up means a wipe nine times out of ten and it's always clear who screwed up. After a few times of causing wipes more casual gamers tend to not want to be responsible for it.

But there's always tons more stuff for them to do hence the subscriber base has remained so high. I wouldn't want ESO to copy FF really. They're two totally different styles of game. But they do need to take some cues in the sense that they need to devise some systems of progression beyond what they have now.

I looked at FFXIV for the PS4 and the gameplay looked nice. But then I heard the PS4 version doesn't have built in voice-chat and that killed it for me. Why anyone would design a MMO in 2015 for a console and not include built-in voice chat is just bizarre to me. It's one thing not to include it on the PC version (at least on PC a group can use Teamspeak--still needlessly kludgy IMHO, but workable at least). But not including it on a console version leaves groups with no effective way to communicate on raids, dungeon runs, etc. Forget that.

On a console, built-in text chat is good (and ZOS should add it to ESO). But built-in voice chat is ESSENTIAL.

You design a great-looking multi-million-$ subscription-based MMO and you can't spend a few bucks including a simple feature like that?? Really?

newtinmpls · September 2015

Aett_Thorn wrote: »

I agree with most things the OP said except for the idea about Classes. As another casual player here, I want MORE classes, not to just play the same character all the time and just switch out his class from time to time. Granted, I am a bit of an altoholic, so for me, the desire is to make new and different combinations.

I really just don't want to have one character, and then 7 mules or crafters that do nothing but writs all day long.

Speaking as an altoholic myself (2 subbed accounts, 15 character regularly played - I'm finally re-rolling my 16th). I would LOVE to see the class system dismantled. My characters would end up much more individualised than they already are.

I don't understand the appeal of "playing the same character" then "switch out his class" - gads - that would drive me buggy - what kind of weird character would do that? Doesn't make sense to me; but beside an altoholic I'm also a die-hard roleplayer; so many of my characters would have the daedric skill line from sorcery as that's the only way to get a functional familiar in this game.

Arundo · September 2015

One more thing to add.

Account wide achievements:
Make the achievements you earned on a character account wide.

Chermaine · September 2015

Arundo wrote: »

One more thing to add.

Account wide achievements:
Make the achievements you earned on a character account wide.

Yes to this and the OP

hope ZOS can get some of these in the next DLC love most of the ideas.

Mighty_oakk · September 2015

Good post. Sadly zos has no interest in anyone elses input

Pallmor wrote: »

Thecapeo wrote: »

I wouldn't even call what you're asking for "casual ". It's just content which this game is sorely lacking. As someone who also came from FFXIV the lack of polish and basic MMO functionality and content is pretty striking. Even the simplest things like a functional group finder. FF's is so customizable you can always find groups to do exactly what you want even if it's something as simple as grinding. There's tons of daily stuff to do. The crafting is extremely deep, so much so there are people that do only that. What keeps me here currently is the combat and PVP. When I left FF the PVP was a joke. Don't know if that ever improved. The other thing about FF that got rough after a while is that the endgame content was brutal and not casual friendly at all so it got harder and harder to find people in my FC willing to push. You can't just brute your way through it and it's especially hard on tanks and healers. One screw up means a wipe nine times out of ten and it's always clear who screwed up. After a few times of causing wipes more casual gamers tend to not want to be responsible for it.

But there's always tons more stuff for them to do hence the subscriber base has remained so high. I wouldn't want ESO to copy FF really. They're two totally different styles of game. But they do need to take some cues in the sense that they need to devise some systems of progression beyond what they have now.

I looked at FFXIV for the PS4 and the gameplay looked nice. But then I heard the PS4 version doesn't have built in voice-chat and that killed it for me. Why anyone would design a MMO in 2015 for a console and not include built-in voice chat is just bizarre to me. It's one thing not to include it on the PC version (at least on PC a group can use Teamspeak--still needlessly kludgy IMHO, but workable at least). But not including it on a console version leaves groups with no effective way to communicate on raids, dungeon runs, etc. Forget that.

On a console, built-in text chat is good (and ZOS should add it to ESO). But built-in voice chat is ESSENTIAL.

You design a great-looking multi-million-$ subscription-based MMO and you can't spend a few bucks including a simple feature like that?? Really?

Just about the voice chat most people usually use psn chat over any ingame chat. Some games don't have it simply because the majority of players will use psn party chat over it anyways due to its advantages.

Arundo · September 2015

Mighty_oakk wrote: »

Good post. Sadly zos has no interest in anyone elses input

I still have hope

they do implent things which are suggested.