FMPOV: What does ESO need to cater the casuals

Jultzy · September 2015

Some of the things seems nice. What I think would make the casuals stay is to make it easier to access group content, to make more people play with eachother. More player interactions. The play with friends experience is usually what makes people stay in MMO games and as a casual with no friends at the start it can be hard/take too much effort to make new friends the way the game is right now.

A better working group finder tool as suggested would be one step in the right direction for more player interaction I belive.

Blood_Oracle · September 2015

Arundo wrote: »

FMPOV: What does ESO need to cater the casuals

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.

ZOS, please heed the aforementioned ideas.

Leandor · September 2015

The point is less a lack of interest on ZOS' side, but more a problem of the players. You can see that some of the original proposals are actually not discussed a lot, which implies many (maybe even the majority of forum users) don't have issues with it. These are the proposals that may actually be picked up.

Others (e.g. like "accountwide achievements" or "remove classes") have caused so much disagreement in their past iterations, that ZOS is much better off ignoring them. Doing anything on those will result in a split in the community and a probable loss of many players.

In the end, we are playing the game as it is. We will continue to play this game, because it is what it is and we can live with the fact that it has not been changed like we want. But if the game changes in a way that we don't want to happen, then it is a sure reason to leave.

This is especially true for things like "remove classes", or opening all class lines to everyone. This is a change that may be something that could be expected from past ES games, but this often used and very central argument to those that want it completely omits the fact that there is a thing called balance when in a multiplayer environment.

Contradictory to what one may think, removal of constraints does not further balance, it causes the exact opposite. It causes even more FOTM thinking and a mandatory set of skills & playstyles will be found, removing any and all variability. This is not only true for PvP (though it may be strongest there) but also and especially for group PvE. The law of least resistance is something that is universally applicable in gaming, and those that say that "I purposely make myself worse at something so it gets harder" are either fairy tale heroes, flat out liars or very very special.

This is a long standing experience I have with playing "off-spec" characters on many MMOs, the best one being a tank paladin in classic WoW. That means prior to the burning crusade expansion. Those that know, will see what I mean.

As long as you have different classes, some deviations are acceptable, some things that are not perfect for a specific situation, because they are more useful in others. Remove that constraint and it will be expected that you do this in this situation and that in that situation.

If you think long and hard on this, you will come to the same conclusion as I. Exceptions to this general behaviour will be few and far in between and the game will be poorer for that.

Onto something different, Craglorn is a victim of the phasing technology. While this is a wonderful thing to have since it allows world progression on an individual player basis, it also rips apart groups if they can't keep the same hours. Combine this with the fact that quests are usually most fun if they tell a story and have a bit substance (as opposed to "get 20 orc heads, stat") thus take multiple steps and quite a bit of time, you have craglorn.

Either you have a group of people and run through the whole quest line at once, ignoring the story and all, or you do it in steps, requiring multiple sessions which will result in the group breaking apart as soon as they have slightly different schedules.

I am very sure ZOS has learned their mistake on that one and will not repeat something like that. In a game like ESO, group content is best handled by instancing it and limiting the steps to a couple hours, with little or no conditional interlinking of these steps.

Lastly, I would like to comment on your proposals in regards to the dungeons. I am split on this, since I do think that the group dungeons are absolutely fine like they are, but the push to "improve" the public delves by enlarging them was a failure. To most, these delves are a nuisance and only important for the completion XP and the skyshard.

Loot is much less attractive than group dungeon loot, much less attractive than crafted equipment, and if at all useful only for the blue upgrade material that you get from deconstructing the delve boss drop. There is basically no added benefit in going in there a second time, and except for with my very first char in the very first week of playing, I have never visited a delve twice with the same char.

The only remotely valid incentive is soul stone farming, and I haven't done that for ages. The 4 empty stones one can steal in Belkarth are more than enough for me to sustain a decent number. I never have less than 400 filled grand soul stones available.

So, on the aspect of public delves, I would agree, they are now too long and bothersome.

As to the other topics, I don't have much to say on those. I can live with them or without them since they are mostly "fluff" in the very best sense of the word. They add atmosphere but don't change base game principles. Things like these can be implemented without raising strong aversions. These are the ones that ZOS will probably look at and decide whether the demand is high enough to warrant the effort.

My €0,02 on this.

willymchilybily · September 2015

i played DCUO on PS4 because it was free and we didnt have many games at that point. I was not really enjoying it a great deal until i joined a guild. you need groups of people who can work together. and breath life and enjoyment into what you are doing as well as facilitate taking on the more difficult content to get the nice gear.

from OPs suggestion i agree with to be more casual friendly (and just a better game) ZOS should:

Improve the grouping mechanic.

Take the suggestion http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en-GB/discussion/213159/suggestion-of-in-game-guild-board#latest which has a lurk and run with it, work on it. having a group of players you can have fun with talk to and run content with makes people stay in game, makes people who may not otherwise continue the grind. it keep people engaged and playing the game. Anything that improves finding a guild that will speak and work together and is friendly is a big deal. and a big way to maintain the games player base. but also people should be able to apply to a guild, so simply seeing who the guild leader is and asking to join via PM in addition to the suggestion could really help the game.

For consoles there really aught to be text chat channels. If i want to form a PUG, look for a guild, or anything similar, there really has to be the ability to interact with more than just those players in your local area who haven't muted area chat. and although id worry about people spamming LF bite or WTS: XYZ. if they introduced it like they did in DCUO where you chose which chat channels you were in the size of the text box and even the colour/size of the text for each channel it would be possible to have without it being forced on people or spammy.

housing, boating, gardens also viable options but i wouldn't want it to detract from what the game is, and the complexity is where is the house will it cause major lag because everyone is going in and out of the same house/town/area? the only viable way i could see is if it was a solo instance when you went to house. or group instance if you had guild halls etc but not open to all.

Khaos_Bane · September 2015

I agree with the OP except for the allowing us to pick from all class trees and shorter dungeons. I would actually like more unique and longer 4 man dungeons. The IC dungeons were well done and unique. Keep it up! The more content the better, the more people you can serve.

I'm shocked they allowed an LFG tool that terrible actually go with launch. It's awful, fix it now ! It's like they didn't even know what an MMO is.

This is a great game and getting better because ZOS listens to the community. As ZOS keeps listening and making the experience better I will continue to sub.

RDMyers65b14_ESO · September 2015

I agree on most of the OP EXCEPT for the mixing of the skill lines. In fact, I wish they would be more restricted. As a Templar, I chose it because of the healing and it sometimes annoys me that anyone can whip out a restro and heal effectively. It makes me feel like I am superfluous.

And if any skill line was available, then the same three skills would be used to the exclusion of the rest. BORING!!!!!!!!!! There are too many cookie cutter builds as is.

And, if I may, a month ago, I hated PVP with a passion and was dreading the patch. I consider myself extremely casual as I am a 49 year old female and this is my first MMO. I also have arthritis in my hands which makes it difficult sometimes to type. I am so casual that if you ask me what my build is, I wouldn't be able to give it a name as I change skills based on what feels right. I am primary a RPer. I was barely logging on as the RP community had died due to people abandoning either the faction or the game itself. In desperation, I asked a friend if they could point me to a PVP guild. Since then, I have not only found a great guild to run with, but I have learned to appreciate PVP. It came as a complete shock the other night when I broke into the top 10 on on the leader board. It might be possible to happen on one of the dead campaigns.... Except that it is Azura's Star (PC - NA). You know the one that even after the new campaign was added, it STILL has a 100+ queue after 6 pm EDT. When IC was first pushed to the PTS, I was screaming at the screen "No! You can't lock the gates to the IC, I won't be able to get in with Team Orange taking the map." Yesterday, I was screaming at the screen, "Close the IC gates, we have to stop the Emp push and we need everyone up top fighting." Give PVP a chance. When you find a good guild it makes a world of difference. (And yes, the 1 fps and 999+ ping are so very annoying)

Gidorick · September 2015

Great post @Arundo, but pretty much all of this has been suggested before. ZOS knows we want these things. They are focused on other things.

Tandor · September 2015

The main problem with this topic is the lack of any definition of "casual".

Given that the OP plays 4 hours per day on a daily basis, I do not share his belief that he is a casual player.

I have played an hour or two most days since PC launch with multiple characters the highest of whom is in his mid-30s. I regard myself as a casual player, and as such I'm very happy with the game as it is.

Future additions like those proposed by the OP (housing, farming, boats) are fine but with no pressing need for them. I totally dislike the idea of merging the classes, and that idea has nothing to do with being casual or hardcore in my view and simply reflects the OP's desire to switch classes without rolling alts in those classes. Again, that doesn't sound like a casual player's approach.

There are some changes I'd like, including a viable solo PvE alternative to Cadwell's for VR leveling, but I'm hoping that by the time I get to that stage there'll be alternatives such as Orsinium.

On the whole, however, I think the game suits my casual solo/co-operative PvE playstyle very well.

kevlarto_ESO · September 2015

I have been playing mmo's since the late 90's do I play as hard now as I did then no, but I consider myself a core player I am between hardcore and casual, I play every aspect of the game and I play for hours everyday,

Regardless of what your opinion is on player types casuals are what keeps the doors open they are the players that stay for long periods of time, because they are causal they are not burning through the content and looking for the next shiny, never enough hard core or elite players to fully support a game, there should be balance of all types of players and play styles to keep an mmo going, look at wow when it came along there were no mmo's that catered to casuals, and we know the story of how wow went, founded on the causal player base that did not have time for games like EQ or UO.
For the most part I agree with OP, lets face it having your TV stones looted in IC is not really a casual mechanic, so they don't always cater to the casual.

jpatek0501ub17_ESO · September 2015

Shouldnt have to "Cater" to any one, devs just fail to sculpt a well rounded MMO.

They fail at making this diffrent and fail at common aspects.

There souldnt be any reason for Casual vs hardcore or PVE vs PVP.

And everything is on their fail ass mega server, better delete more deer and torch bugs.

newtinmpls · September 2015

Arundo wrote: »

One more thing to add.

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

No. Gads I still have problems with my charcters sharing a darn bank - there is no real reason for it.

newtinmpls · September 2015

Arundo wrote: »

What I think would make the casuals stay is to make it easier to access group content, to make more people play with eachother. More player interactions. The play with friends experience is usually what makes people stay in MMO games and as a casual with no friends at the start it can be hard/take too much effort to make new friends the way the game is right now.

I do agree that I am here to play with friends. The main reasons I tried it were to play with my husband, and that it was an ES game.

Mathius_Mordred · September 2015

I enjoyed Cadwell's silver and gold, finished all the quests which took me to VR11. Max crafted out on several areas including heavy armour and could solo a VR10 dolmen. Then I went to Craglorn and got murdered! Wtf I thought, then found out it's a group area only, I changed my build, made a tank, still couldn't get anywhere. Group finder didn't work and nobody in the guild was interested in Craglorning.

Tried Cyro but got wasted by groups ganking people trying to do the quests.

Found out IC was coming, YAY, then found out it was PvP (which I hate in this game).

Cancelled sub.

No longer play but have kept game on PC waiting to see if they bring back something for casual players.

We asked for housing, they didn't give it us
We asked for character customisation/barber, they didn't give it us
We asked for many things as indicated in OPs good post, we never got them.

They ask for my money, I'm not giving them any.

mrskinskull · September 2015

AngryNord wrote: »

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.

Yeah.

If the hardcore original vision had succeed they would likely still be on PC.

Plus after seeing destiny make money hand over fist by making complicated mmo mechanics simpler, they tapped into a whole new market.

Cheers to ESO for doing this.

Honestly most of the people I run into in game say almost the same thing, I used to play skyrim, and I've never played a game like this.

Those guys are saving the game.

And in a genius move, ESO hid the very hardcore stuff at end game.

Casuals might never see it to be scsrd off by it, and hard cores rarely come across an unknowing newb.

TheLastNabeel · September 2015

I want to be able to do group dungeons with players from other alliances. It sucks having to wait so long in group finder when the other two alliances have people who'd want to play with me.

Rikal · September 2015

Good thread. ZOS success will come from knowing their customers, and doing their best to serve the most customers possible. If a lot of the customers are casuals, absolutely they should be listening to them and providing them product that serves their desires.

My big question still is do they know who their customers are well enough? Because there are some easy traps to fall into. One is overvaluing one's own opinion (as a dev) and having it override what customers are telling you. It's human nature, but devs need to fight this tendency. Another is overvaluing opinions based on their volume. One opinion is still only one opinion, no matter how loudly it's given, or how much the giver thinks it represents others.

Sithisvoid · September 2015

Also it needs reindeer mounts at Christmas time. Casuals love reindeer

Elloa · September 2015

I've most respect for casual players, but there is just things I can not agree with, while some other ideas are nice. So this is my hopefully contructive reaction to yoru post.

Arundo wrote: »

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.

The problem with the group finder is not that it itsn't working, but it's not used. I never use it, even not when I decide to PUG. And I've the feeling most people aren't using it either. I always propose to group up with my guildies and friends before I ask in zone chat. I never find no one.
Another issue is the shortage of tank. In every game it's the same problem. But game without tank aren't as fun. i really suggest anyone struggling because they do not find a tank and be frustrated about it to make a tank.

The cross faction Dungeon grouping will be implemented soon, and it should help a lot.

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

That idea is a pretty good one if well implemented.

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.

That's a terribly bad idea. The game need incentive for players to make multiple characters. While I understand how it would be a convenience for a player that have very very little time, this would remove incentive for a lot of players that have a lot lot lot of time to play the game. Game need to keep a balance between all kind of gamers, and there is more sort of players than casual/hardcore.
In addition, this would be terrible in term of gameplay balance. Do you imagine a player with escape bolt, shadow cloack, breath of life and molten armor?

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.

This is a great idea. Would be nice to have reasons and incentive to go in lower level zone, for mini games, dailies or events. I've read very interesting proposition regarding this, unfortunately do not remember where are the threads.
What I mostly appreciated from GW2 was the fact that your character would scale down to the level of the zone. Making every zone "challenging" enough to be fun to play. It was removing the stress of outleveling a zone and not be able to clear it completely.
I would really love that Zenimax use that system so we can scale down to the level of a zone (of course we would still be more powerfull), allow us to disable Champion point (so we do not need to reset our CHampion point when we wish to weaken ourselves to have more challenging content), and make delve a bit more challenging, so it's more interesting.

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.

I disagree with the idea of making Craglorn soloable. But I think it would be ncie to give players some incentive to always go back 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.

I really disagree with this one. World of Warcraft did that and it was such a mistake, such a waste!
The normal Dungeons in ESO are very easy and the perfect lenght. A average group will finish them in 20 min or less. A bad group will take more time, but that's only normal.
The difficulty is scaled in such a way that you do not need to group with 4 players, or having a tank and a healer. Iæve done those Dungeons with 2 players below level, three players, a full group of caster. Obviously it was challenging, but that's the point of making unconventional group. With a normal group that include 1 tank, 1 healer and 2 DD normal Dungeons are very easy. To make those DUngeons shorter or easier will remove the pleasure and challenge that some players will want to meet while leveling their character, especially the first one.

What could be done however and what could be interesting is to have a difficulty slider that the group leader could choose. Easy - Normal - Hard - Hardcore In this way solo players could also attempt to do the Dungeons alone.

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.

Zenimax is currently working on Housing. Other ideas are complementary of the housing system and could be fun. However I do not wish Zenimax prioritizing something like boats, because that would not be easy to implement and would take lots of ressources.

What I do hope however is that Housing and Crafting would go together. That we could craft furniture to place in our houses. This would give a big boost to crafting and replayability of the game, if some rare recipe and plans need to be found in the world. Would be nice to also have a chance to loot the head of a monster as furniture and stuff like that. Players would be happy to be able to show off the trophees of their feats.

Elsonso · September 2015

Elloa wrote: »

The problem with the group finder is not that it itsn't working, but it's not used. I never use it, even not when I decide to PUG. And I've the feeling most people aren't using it either. I always propose to group up with my guildies and friends before I ask in zone chat. I never find no one.
Another issue is the shortage of tank. In every game it's the same problem. But game without tank aren't as fun. i really suggest anyone struggling because they do not find a tank and be frustrated about it to make a tank.

The cross faction Dungeon grouping will be implemented soon, and it should help a lot.

A lot of people will disagree, but I think that the group finder would work better if they dropped the "Tank" completely and focused on DPS and Healer roles instead. The dungeons would have to change accordingly.

I have long thought that the idea of Tanking is a product of bad decisions made many years ago. It has become institutionalized out of habit. As a game mechanic, it should be close the end of life. The concept has gone through so many iterations of Tank vs Counter Tank over the years that sometimes I just have to roll my eyes. I was somewhat disappointed with ESO when I saw that they had included it. I mean, this is 2015 and tanking is like 20 years old now. Certainly we can make a game that does not fall back on Tanking.

SeptimusDova · September 2015

good post but the question is; will it make money? Can it be done? Will it make money? Maryland taxes are set to increase this year

NewBlacksmurf · September 2015

OP
The grouping tool prior to VR and dungeon changes worked just fine but some changes will be needed to get the bugs out. Other than the bugs it works based on participants so depending on your platform and level/faction, and time of day results will vary. Bug fixes are required at this point tho prior to them make any changes but it seems change will come prior to fixing the bugs.

The other suggestions I feel are good for you but not of any interest or desire for me so I'd rather ZOS not take those directions for future growth and development.

Lenikus · September 2015

Arundo wrote: »

One more thing to add.
Account wide achievements:
Make the achievements you earned on a character account wide.

Nop.
People forget this is still an RPG, an MMO, but still an MMORPG.
You can't have a savior or nirn that haven't ever taken out a dolmen walking around.

And an even bigger NOPE for the 'all class skill lines" thing, because do you really want to see cyrodiil full of people going dragonblood, breath of life, dark cloak, crystal frag, or god knows wat.
Also the other suggestions seem to pass the impression you believe making random world events such as rifts or dolmens or summoners or bandit fights (wich all happen and are there, if you walk around you gonna see a few) actually scale mid-combat to new participants, and also developing a housing system as well with farming and sailing are, to you, a simple thing, fast to make.
I'm not against it, really, i just give a heads out... 2 horrible shameful ideas, and the others, IF ever happening are not anywhere near as late 2017.

But personally i'd love to take a vr16 to Auridon and make the first dolmen scale to me and watch the noobs die, that'd be how i spent my free hours, but anyway.

TheLastNabeel · September 2015

Elloa wrote: »

The problem with the group finder is not that it itsn't working, but it's not used. I never use it, even not when I decide to PUG. And I've the feeling most people aren't using it either. I always propose to group up with my guildies and friends before I ask in zone chat. I never find no one.
Another issue is the shortage of tank. In every game it's the same problem. But game without tank aren't as fun. i really suggest anyone struggling because they do not find a tank and be frustrated about it to make a tank.

The cross faction Dungeon grouping will be implemented soon, and it should help a lot.

That's amazing but has it been confirmed by Zenimax? Also when is "soon"?

Xendyn · September 2015

TheLastNabeel wrote: »

Elloa wrote: »

The problem with the group finder is not that it itsn't working, but it's not used. I never use it, even not when I decide to PUG. And I've the feeling most people aren't using it either. I always propose to group up with my guildies and friends before I ask in zone chat. I never find no one.
Another issue is the shortage of tank. In every game it's the same problem. But game without tank aren't as fun. i really suggest anyone struggling because they do not find a tank and be frustrated about it to make a tank.

The cross faction Dungeon grouping will be implemented soon, and it should help a lot.

That's amazing but has it been confirmed by Zenimax? Also when is "soon"?

Yes, it was sometime in mid July or so? Too many announcements at that time, with IC, Quake Con and all but I think it was Rich Lambert that said it.

mrskinskull · September 2015

Rikal wrote: »

Good thread. ZOS success will come from knowing their customers, and doing their best to serve the most customers possible. If a lot of the customers are casuals, absolutely they should be listening to them and providing them product that serves their desires.

My big question still is do they know who their customers are well enough? Because there are some easy traps to fall into. One is overvaluing one's own opinion (as a dev) and having it override what customers are telling you. It's human nature, but devs need to fight this tendency. Another is overvaluing opinions based on their volume. One opinion is still only one opinion, no matter how loudly it's given, or how much the giver thinks it represents others.

Hmm. Good point.

I wish the Ui was simpler and maybe there was an AUTo equip feature for new players, who don't really want to crunch numbers.

I spend so long explaining these mechanics to regular people, ESO could bump their retention rate up by making it simple to just equip quickly and move to adventuring.

TheLastNabeel · September 2015

Is it going to come with the next patch? I have a friend in the Aldmeri Dominion that I really want to play with.

newtinmpls · September 2015

Someone suggested merging classes/opening all class trees

Elloa wrote: »

That's a terribly bad idea. The game need incentive for players to make multiple characters.

I disagree. I run two accounts and 15 characters (I have some re-rolling issues so my 16th slot is kind of fluid) and I would still pay for extra slots.

Sure, balance is needed - however without softcaps any given character must effectively choose between stamina or magicka for their abilities - and if they were brought back that would be it's own solution.

Xendyn · September 2015

TheLastNabeel wrote: »

Is it going to come with the next patch? I have a friend in the Aldmeri Dominion that I really want to play with.

No, it's on the "soon" list.

Austacker · September 2015

I know a lot of people like to take a dump on World of Warcraft for catering so much to the 'casual' market but take a step back for a moment and realise that WoW is a Decade old and STILL the #1 MMO in the world today.

It's one of the biggest gaming financial success stories in history & that's because of the way it approaches the MMO genre and gaming experience.

Yes, we can boast about 'harder to play' MMOs being more for the 'gamer' and there's been quite a few over the years that were all touted as the next 'wow killer' and yet, every single one of them failed to take the crown.

Step back for a moment and ask yourselves why that is.

I played WoW for over 8 years. From the Beta onwards. I remember the rocky early days when it was finding it's feet and stayed with it all the way through until my PC died and I switched to console.

I've copped a lot of heat for comparing ESO with WoW and noting that ESO comes up short in many places (especially on places like Reddit) but it's simply stating the truth from a lot of years of experience.

ESO has a solid foundation, but it's not in the same ballpark at WoW for a number of reasons both ZOS and it's zealot fanbase will accept or acknowledge. It honestly doesn't matter.

ESO's biggest plus is the fact it's got almost no market competition on console. FF on PS4 maybe, but on Xbox all we have is Neverwinter to compare it with.

Ironically, Neverwinter has a working LFG tool, text chat, a unified AH, can reach max level in about 2 days, seasonal events, dalies and a host of other quality of life / gameplay bonuses ESO doesn't... and it's a free-to-play MMO.

It's that level of arrogance in the design of ESO that undermines it IMHO and stops it from going to the next level.

So sure, laugh and point fingers at the 'casuals' all you like, but the reality is that unless you adjust your thinking to cater towards what the casual playerbase wants, you're never going to have the same sort of success as those who DO manage this effectively do.

Then in another 5 years from now when you're discussing 'whatever happened to ESO? That was a great MMO' because people have quit and moved on, the 'casual' MMOs like WoW will still be there chugging along and dominating the market.

Go figure.

NGP · September 2015

I like the Extra additions especially.