I've been having a blast with one tamriel. Gearing up my 8 max level characters in much easier now and I'm actually enjoying the process of doing so.

I'm still a huge fan. Loving the buzz of OneT, and population in all zones.

Felt a bit of bar swapping lag since OneT, and am nervous about the dumbing down of PvP with Proc sets when I return there. But to be honest I play solo alot or PvE

Karacule_Fairystar wrote: »

Since 1Tamriel, the demand and supply ideology takes place when it comes to upgrade materials and the economy. So I've no problem with that, except for a slight inflation.

Since 1Tamriel, the PvP has shifted from Skill-based action to EZ-Proc meta. So I guess you don't feel the satisfaction, just as I am btw.

But the thing I lack when I don't enjoy the game is the lack of socializing in game in terms of doing trials, 4man dungeons and poking around cyrodiil.

well said respond, and i agree whit you. also whit the social aspect. the proc meta might give new pvp players a good chance. i remember how long pvp took me to get decent at. but put those sets on a player who knows what he is doing, is just no fun for anyone. i actually felt like pvp when to ***, when the heavy armor meta started. when the sacrifice u made for a damage build, wasnt the upperhand anymore. like all your damage went into a shield. small scale went less and less existnence.

Overall, I feel like the game is getting better. At the moment.

But I do worry for the future. With RNG Boxes incoming and the team having a person who is specialized on Free-To-Play transition, how could I not? When I finished Orsinium one year ago, I wasn't expecting that the story line started by it wouldn't be touched upon for so long. And although ZOS said not every DLC would be big like Orsinium, I certainly wasn't expecting the DLCs to get so small.

I need Vvardenfell to be announced and to blow me out of the water to make me worry a bit less.

I'm actually liking it more since 1t. The only thing I hate(with limited play time) is when you try a different character and the gear is for sub 50. I do NOT want to start a level 50 character(i enjoy learning the character) but I wish there was a way to level gear. You can go anywhere and do anything but that drop or crafted gear is useless in a few levels until you hit 50 with your cp. Give our crafters a new skill to upgrade.

Every time they do a big patch, especially an overhaul like 1T, they have balance issues. Things will change as it always does as they work on balance.

Other than that issue, which IMO is ongoing and always will be in a game like this, all the other stuff with 1T has been pretty good.

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

I can't say the game is going downhill.

Here's what I'll say from being around since 2012-2013

Major changes like DLC being scaled and One Tamriel have finally gone back to what many would agree are the best suggestions given during closed beta given TES context in ESO.

Also there has been to date approx. 2 years in total of delays on new content as results of having to rework, redo, or make large sweeping changes by platform (consider things like console delayed release and DLC seen in 2013 Quakecon that's not released)

I believe that there is one more major change and that's the existence of VR within the CP system. No idea if that's going to go away totally BUT it causing issues as seen from thread feedback which often touches on a specific topic rather than the VR impacts today. Topics like crafting and nodes or how balance plays into PvP or PvE and things like race or class changes and suggestions.

The games identity is also in question because is it a typical MMO or is it what it began as, an online TES with 200 or so friends in mind. We've seen MMO types of additions in the UI but others are absent (this is good) but that also confuses the games focus going forward.

I also will speak to the many ongoing bugs and even console specific horro stories whether it's a payment concern, a subscription concern, crashes or connection issues. ZOS is not seemingly staffed and up to date on how to effectively manage all three platforms as they still are trying to push PC and lag consoles instead of slowing down and making quality updates that hit all platforms the and weeks because the updates are very polished and certain.


In total, no the game isn't going downhill but it's also not getting better in some respects and as you and others write, it's getting easier but lacks meaningful progression.

I'd say it's coming to another major hurdle that begs a change and major direction shifts.

We will see what the future holds with their 2017 year ahead article in a few months.

thanks for your reply, great insight in the game. in a lot of ways the game is better today, whit some major issues still haning, as you say. i guess its deficult to put how you feel down in words sometimes. im a pvp player mostly, and it must be where my frustration comes from, and makes me feel like its overall going downhill.
we will have to see what is coming to the game in the new year yes.

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

One Tamriel was a good update. It's how the game should have felt at launch in my opinion. That being said:

PvE - Good

PvP - Suffering from these proc monster sets.

I wouldn't say the game is going down hill. Some balancing tweaks are needed.

The only monster set that is too powerful right now is scrubscale....oops sorry i mean "tremor" scale. (Yeah im salty)

And then we bring ourselves too Eye of the balanced storm or flame.

/sarcasm. The destro ability with Vicious death and proxy det and other things is just making it impossible to enjoy pvp right now because of the absurd people running around zerging farming for AP. Boring as hell. I rarely see sieges anymore.

Cant fault the players for using the sets and abilities. Can fault the devs for releasing things so completely unbalanced.

I think its got a lot better since One Tam and most of the performance issues were fixed (the constant loads in PVE zones, I appreciate PVP still lags when there's a lot going on).

Stopnaggin wrote: »

1T that's harder to say, yes it has helped the new player base, which is good. But it's not as challenging if you're already maxed. The opening up of Craglorn I liked. But the trials have definitely dropped off, player wise. There was a point where you could make a profit from trials with boe equipment, but now they are a gold sink, ie having to buy or make pots everytime you want to run, with no way to recoup your gold.
Now that there is no reason to run trials, other than for score, the better players don't want to group with lower levels because it is expensive.

its about the challange. once i run malestrom, got myslef a malestrom bow, that was my 3 weapon out of 10 runs. i was pretty high from that. it was awesome.
this week i got 4 bows from malestrom. the drops are constant now, and obviausly whit 2 drop week, its explains why it even more easy to get. but my point is the when work behind it drops, the value drops whitit. getting malestrom weapons today is not something i get high over.

i agree in what u say mate. and what anyone else say in this thread. the base of the game is better. the pvp gotten real bad, and as you tell, the challange for a maxed out player is fallen down aswell. i guess whit the pvp let down and my trying to get dayly thrill in pve, is making me feel this way. you are right about i prob should take a break from the game

Good question.

I took the PvE part of this game very slowly that I just recently (about 2 months ago) started to regularly do pledges and thought about how it might be, if there still were veteran ranks instead. Now that things are more easy in terms of completing content has probably to do with the amount of champion points available. Of course, it's inevitable for things to get easier the way we have it now.

As for PvP: I remember in another game, where we had open-world PvP and at times there were events being arranged (perhaps even as we speak now), where players signed in at the forums and then participated - there were certain rules and so on. This sort of play can be very fun, because there is more of a balanced chance of winning for each of the teams. Not so as I see our open-PvP (AkA Cyrodiil), there the opportunist rules, quite literally. Really few have some sense of "sportsmanship", which was mentioned in another thread I remember. So in the end, it's the player's fault in that part of the game, because they refuse to be the change, they want to see. How ironic, that it's the same sort of problem we have in reality...

On the other hand I also see some problems with the management of the game, which has been mentioned quite some times aswell. And I don't expect this to change very much, because of a similar sort of opportunism, that I mentioned above.

If people never demanded organic food for example and always were content with junk quality, certain companies had never considered to go in a different direction. The same goes for every other product - stop buying junk...

Keep in mind this is coming from a console player's perspective. I'm going to list what has transpired in the game since release June 2015.

Pros:

1. Built-in addons like damage numbers, name plates, guild names, etc.
2. Removal of veteran ranks. Newer players nowadays don't know the tedious process of grinding out new toons with the old VR system.
3. Retooling of CP trees. Yes, one can argue it's still pretty bad, but we used to not have phy dmg reduction passive and some of the passives were in the wrong tree and did not make sense at all.
4. Complete removal of faction border outside of pvp. This, for me, made the game seem populated and finally gave ESO that MMO feeling to it.
5. Addition of massive PVE related content such as MA, MOL, rescaled old trials and vdsa, dungeon modes, and group finder.
6. Adding RELEVANT loot outside dungeons/trials.

Cons:

1. Worsening game performance overall. Pre-DLCs, I'd always run into 20v20 zergs in AS and my fps wouldn't even stutter. Loading screens only took about 5 seconds, and you didn't get all these constant blue screen, disconnect, and long load times.
2. Adding set gears with terrible mechanics such as proc sets.
3. Poor class balance. Magicka and stamina basically take turns on who's OP every major patch. Pre 1.6 was arguably the closest thing to balance this game has seen, but even then, the game still had some major issues.
4. Lack of pvp content. In 18 months of console play, we paid for an unfinished IC as a DLC, capturable towns, dueling, and.... yea that's about it. For PC, basically a year of just cyrodiil, and nothing else.
5. Bugs and glitches. Bugs. Glitches. And more bugs and glitches.

Let me say this: ESO has ALWAYS been casual, PVE oriented MMO.

When players first started this game, it was more of a "barebones" style because we didn't have much in the game just yet. For pvp, you had to rely more on your skill rather than your setup. However, as the game got older, new gears are introduced, class changes are made, and characters get innately stronger (such as gaining more CP). And that's just the normal progression of any MMO. However, these things became 'training wheels' for many players. You can now make more misplays and be punished less, and your success, more often than not, is predicated on RNG/luck rather than your skill.

As much as I love PVE (and I'm gonna get beat up for this), there's no real competition involved other than leaderboard score. PVE is linear. You are going up against AI. A raid boss isn't going to adjust to your play style because you've figured out his mechanics. That raid boss will play out the same way on the 500th attempt as the 1st.

So is ESO on the decline? In my opinion, no. I believe it was always meant to trend this way. It just wasn't as apparent before as it is now that the game is older.