I used to be a happy-go-lucky guy. When I first joined the world of ESO I was... PVE only. Seriously though, I loved it. Everything worked great, the quests were interesting, there was an entire world for me to explore at my own pace. I just downright loved it, and you could see that in my comments.
Everything I wrote was about how great this game was, and I'd recommend it to all my friends, and even to my neighbours cat (therapy sessions still on-going but obviously not helping).
I tried PVP a long time ago for 5 minutes. I swore never to step foot in Cyrodiil ever again.
Eventually I became bored of questing and yearned for something more. My skills were definitely better and I was at 4 traits in crafting, so I whipped me up some Ashen grip, nights silence and gave PVP one last college try in Blackwater Blade seems I was still a nonvet. Hey, I said I was doing it my own pace.. and I'm slow. Don't judge.
I didn't really know any one at this point, so I joined a small group and ran around with them for a while. We absolutely ripped, and I loved it. I wanted more. PVP was so thrilling for me I didn't go into work for 2 weeks, seriously. I wanted to live in Cyrodiil for the rest of my life.
After some time I was feeling really confident and began solo PVPing. I was officially hooked, while a little confused as to why there wasn't much content for PVPers. There was just Cyrodiil.. it got a little boring running from keep to keep, wiping, capturing the flag. I guess the solo PVP made it a little more interesting.
Blackwater Blade, at this time, was pretty good for newer players and those getting their feet wet in PVP for the first time. The battle levelling system as we know it today wasn't yet in place and everyone had pretty much the same stats regardless of what sets they were wearing, what colour it was, what level it was, etc. I can tell you honestly CPs didn't seem to make that much difference, because even with zero I was still winning a lot of fights. It was a lot about skill back then on non-vet.
Orsinium drops and we get our new battle levelling system. This is where I, dare I say it, turned into a bit of an elitist.. if that's the correct term. I saw a chance to rise above the rest. My crafter was at six traits, so I was all about the Hunding's. I'd reroll new characters after my old ones reached vet, deck them out in purple gear. If my weapon damage wasn't around 3k and regen at least 2k, it was back to the drawing board until I got there. Recrafted gear so much I'm now officially broke, but hey, I'm competitive. It was worth it, right?
You'll notice I referred to myself as an "elitist". I'm not sure if I actually am, but in old non-vet, there's no way I would have even considered it. It's amazing some of the changes they make can also change a person.
It was at the time of the Orsinium drop that I also began noticing the flaws in PVP. All of its ugliness finally came to light. I'm talking about game breaking bugs, faulty mechanics, unbreakable CCs, and most importantly, class imbalance. I never noticed this while all of our stats were basically templated pre-Orsinium.
I grew resentment for other classes that had better survivability and could burst down targets in the blink of an eye. I started to question whether it was me. I was told "It's CPs man. It's all CPs".
This led me to finally level a veteran character. I wanted to be more competitive so decided to grind myself some Champion Points. After 100 or so I jumped back into Blackwater Blade. Things were looking better, but the class imbalance was still apparent to me, making that resent grow even stronger. I started follow updates from Zenimax closely, wanting to see that big change that never happened, you know, the one we still need to this very day.
This caused me to grow a little sour. Why didn't I have these problems in PVE? Why can't they just make it work as nicely?
Cyrodiil was also beginning to become a bore, so I decided to give Imperial City a run. I jump in and am immediately faced with a quest. OK, I guess even a PVP DLC needs a quest, I guess? I walk through the first door and I have groups of mobs pushed into my face. Where's the PVP, I ask myself.
I run through the sewers and find groups of my faction just grinding these mobs in herds, unable to find any actual PVP action. I make my way up to the Elven Gardens district and stand there to take a look around.
Not five seconds later I'm dead, so check my recap. Heavy dual wield attack from stealth, soul harvest, surprise attack. OK, we found a Nightblade.
The next 40 minutes is just me being killed by Nightblades. Fighting Nightblades in Imperial City is a lot different than in Cyrodiil, and takes some practice.
So basically our PVP DLC, to me, was made up of 90% PVE and 10% Nightblades. I wasn't exactly happy.
Since then I've found some pretty nice fights, but in general, this DLC was a huge flop, and it was our only DLC. Why couldn't it be as good as Orsinium I thought to myself. Why couldn't our content be as good as theirs. I used to be a full time PVEr, so I'm entitled to compare the two.
I couldn't live in Blackwater Blade forever and I wanted to earn more CPs, but didn't want to grind for it, so I decided to try a Vet PVP campaign. After finally finding a campaign that wasn't dominated by a particular faction I came across Azuras.
We're talking four second weapon swaps, gap closers where you start running in place for a couple of seconds before charging off, revolving doors and just all-round really bad performance.
Not to mention I didn't really enjoy the fights there as well. Groups would run into each other with prox det, steel tornado, bats, meteor.. it was a clusterf**k of AOE abilities, and still is to this day.
I went back to non-vet and just continued rerolling once I hit VR1. The PVP there is still generally good. It's like Vet but without all the meteor, prox det spam and terrible performance.
So because IC failed and vet campaigns sucked I was stuck with this one campaign. We also have no duelling, no arenas, no battlegrounds. Basically, PVP content is extremely limited. We have Cyrodiil and that's it.
PVErs started complaining they wanted their own version of Cyrodiil, and because I was overly jealous of the love they receive from ZOS and my bitter resentment of the poor content PVPers have, I didn't want them to have it. Why should they have everything handed to them when we're stuck with the dung heap known as ESO PVP. No, I wasn't having any of it.
PVP is an extremely competitive, fast-paced environment. You either adapt or you get out. It can change a person, sometimes for the worst. Some of you may come out unscathed, but I'm sure my story isn't unique.
Would I be as bitter as I am now if I had done this in a different MMO? Probably not. I played one before this for 7 straight years and I was fine. How could ESO turn me into a hateful assclown in such a short time? I'll tell you right now: Obvious PVE favouritism, lack of communication regarding PVP updates (Brian Wheeler seems to be changing that. Thanks man!), faulty mechanics that mostly affect PVP that they refuse or don't want to fix, lack of content (even simple things like duelling would have been great), and Nightblades. Yes, it's no secret I hate stealth gameplay, and these abominations revolve around that. Though it could be resentment because they have the most well-designed class of us all.
So whether you're a PVEr or Zenimax employee and think, "Wow, those PVP guys sure are a whiny, hateful bunch", just remember, they weren't necessarily always this way, like myself.
We make up a pretty large part of your game, ZOS. I hope you don't forget that. People are leaving, and rest are slagging you off. Me? I'll do it to your face in the hopes you'll change your ways and show us as much love as you give the PVE community. Just because an ability works great in PVE doesn't mean it's the same in Cyrodiil. If a lot of PVPers are complaining about something, maybe it's time you actually look into it. Here's looking at you AOE caps and class balance.
I'm sure I'm partly to blame for my personality change, but as I said, I played another MMO for 7 long years and never changed for the worst. That's saying something.
If you don't want to read all of this Zeni, then read this: Listen to your PVP community and maybe you'll see less forum accounts banned.
Now excuse me. I need to log into ESO so I can complain about poor performance and get 2 hit from stealth, because this game's so good.