The sad thing is this, with some major fixes to the game, ESO COULD BE THE #1 MMO EACH YEAR.....

The things ESO does really well are
1- The graphics on this game are incredible!
2- The Game Play Mechanics are incredible!
3- The quests/story line are really fun and immersive!
4- Dungeon/Delves are a lot of fun

The things that need major improvement:
1- Cyrodil Lag....THIS MUST BE A PRIORITY. There have been SOOOO many people that have left due to this.
2- Broken Skills/exploits need to be fixed WEEKLY, not Quarterly IF they are fixed AT ALL.
3- Class/Balance. There shouldn't be such a huge gap in class balance. CP and Gear should be the only thing that really gives someone a big advantage. With such huge differences, people flock to the "Meta" of the month and flip back and forth more than a fish out of water
4- Server Stability. If you can't log on, you can't play.

When @ZOS decides that the improvements listed are more important that weekly Crown Store updates, that's when our population explodes and ESO becomes the #1 MMO year after year....

I love how its the best game of the year AND the most underrated game.
I didnt play enough of the nominees to have a legit vote but i voted based on the fact that eso is one of only 2 games I played seriously in 2015 so I figure if it kept me busy for the year its gotta be good lol.. Grats to ZOS tho..

M

Personal thoughts.

ESO is pulled through by the strength of the Elder Scrolls Lore and the quality of the questing and large scale PVP.

Functionally, in terms of quality and features of the user interface ( specifically the console version) , support and stability of the platform.... FFIV is way superior.

Ez

Bloodfang wrote: »

ESO was Players' Voted as the Best MMO in 2014 as well. With the Updates coming in 2016, I don't see a reason why ESO shouldn't win "The Best MMO" for the 3rd time straight too. As far as I'm concerned this was the hardest year to win, as GW2, FFXIV and SWTOR all had a new Expansion.

Othervise I agree with you. ZOS really needs to get better at fixing issues. Here's to a great 2016, I have a good feeling about it.

I'm going to agree with you, however Pathfinder is still on the edge of the radar. In it's P&P format it has hurt D&D, a lot of my friends have moved over to that system. If Goblinworks got their act together in the first place and not used.... Probably be liable what I intend to say next, so I'll leave it to your imagination...

However, we as players should be a pack of howling hyenas, and be prepared to keep the devs on their toes in order to keep them on top of their game. Give credit where credit is due, but go for the throat when they do wrong.

I don't know what kind of rose colored glasses those reviewers had on. This game isn't worth an MMO of the year. In fact if it got one legitimately, it says a lot about the state of the industry in general.

What exactly occurred in ESO this year?

Buy to play - Game would likely be completely dead if not for this.
Champion system grind - Abysmal failure. It completely imbalanced the game while reducing the game to nothing but a zombie grind. Caused a huge amount of players to quit
Failed Imperial City - Worst DLC ever. Caused even more people to quit and unnecessarily enraged a good chunk of those who stayed.
Successful Orsinium - The only thing truly positive about ESO last year.

Cyrodil lag is still around after a good year of it being in the game.
Cyrodil death bugs - Unable to interact after death, Unable to click left attack or CC break, etc,etc are still in the game and have been there since launch.
Class balance - Nightblades and sorcs are still the best thing since sliced bread
CC still rules PvP - The game is player vs stamina due to the fact all hard hitting spammable attacks mindlessly CC. Probably the worst thing about ESO combat and will likely continue to be.
Cyrodil blanket 50% damage reduction, 50% healing nerf and 50% shield nerf rendered a good chunk of player abilities useless.

rofl OP I feel sorry for you. This is what happens when you dare to say you enjoy ESO on the ESO forums. People come out in force to *** talk the game (That most of those complaining continue to play). If I was as angry as most people seem to be at the game I sure as hell wouldn't be trolling the forums, I'd be off playing another game, or going out with friends. I mean this thread was started to show that, whether you like it or not, people enjoy this game. That doesn't mean you can't be unhappy with ESO, I have a lot of issues with the game as well, but you do need post you're unhappy in every single thread. Show a little tact. There are plenty of ways to show you're upset. Posting in a positive thread just shows you can't let others have fun.

dimensional wrote: »

iamnotweakrwb17_ESO wrote: »

I
Champion system grind - Abysmal failure. It completely imbalanced the game while reducing the game to nothing but a zombie grind. Caused a huge amount of players to quit
Failed Imperial City - Worst DLC ever. Caused even more people to quit and unnecessarily enraged a good chunk of those who stayed.

Sources? Other than just reading people whining here on the forums or making up "facts" on the spot. I'd like to see an actual poll of people who quit the game listing the reasons why, to validate these above claims.

It's just the way people are on the official forums.

I know Steam ain't the best source for ESO player numbers, as multiple polls showed that less than 10% of all players bought ESO through Steam/or Launch ESO through Steam. However if you compare the numbers between December 2014 and December 2015, you'll see that ESO has grown 288% in 1 year.

Either way, ESO might have lost some players, but they've at least tripled their numbers on PC in the last year.

Bloodfang wrote: »

Eztrelle wrote: »

Personal thoughts.

ESO is pulled through by the strength of the Elder Scrolls Lore and the quality of the questing and large scale PVP.

Functionally, in terms of quality and features of the user interface ( specifically the console version) , support and stability of the platform.... FFIV is way superior.

Ez

Yet those strengths of ESO, are the biggest weaknesses of FFXIV. You won't find great quests there, stories, or PvP. It's all of a very abysmal quality. Though most MMOs can't brag about that either.

The fact is that FFXIV is running on the old school MMO concept -> filler grind content to max level + forced group endgame progression. FFXIV IS a WoW clone, though an anime eastern version of it. Yet I'd still say it's better than WoW today.

It's just not what an RPG is supposed to be. It's also not what MMO gamers want today anymore. So it's not a surprise really that ESO outsold FFXIV on PS4 by a huge margin, while it also outsold FFXIV on Steam, even though FFXIV launched with Steam and had almost 1 year of headstart from ESO there.

Besides when you show someone a picture of ESO user interface and the FFXIV one, they will tell you they don't want to see all that crap on the screen. Yes FFXIV might have more functionality as far as user interface goes, but who really wants that? Casuals/Majority for sure not. I'm all for more options, but if it's forced like there, it's plain ugly.

Also FFXIV is definitively not a game for everyone. If you're looking for an adult game, then FFXIV is definitively not one of them. Those cute anime faces turn most of the Western players away instantly.

Nice answer and I do agree with most of what you say. FF14 is a WoW clone and agree that ESO is a fresh look at the MMO genre. I still maintain that there are three issues and I am talking about the console version as I have no experience of the PC version, that ESO suffers from that stops making a good game absolutely great.

1.) The UI should have had options. If you want buff bars to help you min/max just switch them on. If you want to socialise effectively inside the game .. Just turn text chat on. Voice chat for playing a four man dungeon is very good. Voice chat for socialising and making friends is impossible the way it is set up in ESO. Voice chat for organising large scale PvP is not possible the way it is set up. Just give us the option to turn it on if the player wants it.

2.) Stability and infrastructure. This is very poor. I cite the lagging and log on issues. Not seen an MMO like it since Age of Conan was first released.

3.) Support and Communication. In game through GMs and phone. It again is poor.

These three points FF14 excels at.

Ez

reften wrote: »

Jura23 wrote: »

Most laggy PvP MMO of the year. Well done, you earned it.

So, name another MMO with PVP that features hundreds of players at once that isn't laggy?

ESO at PC launch.When there were actually "hundreds of players" and there was no lag.

dimensional wrote: »

There most certainly was lag.

No . There wasn't . There were some fps drops on older machines and the usual performance issues when raining but the absurd lag came a few months after launch.

dimensional wrote: »

Yes. There was. There were many moments in 100+ man battles where the lag was unbearable during launch.

I have never seen that. However a few months after you didn't need 100+ to get the lag. From then on, you just needed ~20.

ESO only won the award because there's no other good MMO in 2015, this won't happen in 2016, since there are better MMO coming soon.

dimensional wrote: »

AllHailFred wrote: »

ESO only won the award because there's no other good MMO in 2015, this won't happen in 2016, since there are better MMO coming soon.

...such as?

I assume he's referring to Black Desert, or Blade and Soul. Not sure which other MMO is anticipated next year off the top of my head.

AllHailFred wrote: »

ESO only won the award because there's no other good MMO in 2015, this won't happen in 2016, since there are better MMO coming soon.

2015 was one of the best years for MMOs actually. These 4 MMOs had a huge year:

- ESO -> Update 6, PS4 and Xbox1 Release, Tamriel Unlimited + IC and Orsinium DLCs
- GW2 -> Heart of Thorns Expansion
- SWTOR -> Knights of the Fallen Empire Expansion
- FFXIV -> Heavensward Expansion

As for the future it doesn't look good. No new MMOs that are really AAA.
The most hyped is Black Desert which is basically Archeage 2.0.
Star Citizen doesn't look that good.
While there are no news regarding EQ Next.