Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

When I run out of things to do in an MMO I tend to log in, sit around one of the big cities or social hubs and just look at my character for a while before logging out. Without something to keep me moving forward and working on something Ill lose interest and eventually stop playing. It can be quite difficult to find a nice balance between too much grind and not enough. ESO seems to struggle with this just like every other MMO. But without the grind the game would die. People need a challenge, even if they dont believe they do, to stay interested in this sort of game.

AuldWolf wrote: »

Let's be honest... The only reason grind eoxists is to take advantage of people who have dopamine-related behavioural addiction problems. It's exploitative. That's why I don't touch the end game, my brain doesn't have that problem, so I'm not compelled to grind. So... Why do I play?

I enjoy roleplaying with my partner. I like exploring the world in my own time with my partner, smelling the roses however much I want, and reading all the lore there is. I'm in no rush to reach that mythical end-game because, after all, I don't have that problem. I feel that end-game grind shares much in common with how certain mobile games work, like Candy Crush. It gets your brain hooked on repetitive tasks, then you can't stop. And if you give Candy Crush your money, they make it harder so that you'll give them more. Thankfully, ZOS is nowhere near as unethical. In fact, I'd actually give ZOS the benefit of the doubt and say that they're a very ethical company. Often, with things like how they've managed the crown store and its in-world alternatives, I've been quite proud of them. Good for them, really.

So, I don't think ZOS is unethical, but I do think that key people at ZOS are outmoded. This is why we had the world bosses buffed up to appease a tiny hardcore. The thing is is that this isn't WoW '06 any more. That's not what the majority of players want. I feel that the majority is playing just to have fun. They're going to have a lot of alts, and the joy of the game will be exploring and fleshing out their characters. I'm actually pleased that a lot of the 'levelling up' in ESO is actually sidegrade-based. ESO is so close to being the perfect co-op Elder Scrolls game... If they could just lose a few outmoded ideas they're clinging to.

The further ESO moves from the likes of WoW, the more players they'll have. Consider, every change they made that is un-MMO-like netted them an increase to their population. However, everything they do that's too MMO-like hurts them.

Forced anything is bad in the modern MMO scene.

Forced grinding, forced grouping, forced anything. That's why I think they need to provide choices. Give people options to play their own way instead of being forced into an outmoded, Everquest-y sort of mindset that should have died in 2006. The group dungeons? Scale those to the size of the group. Public dungeons? Allow players to run those privately, if they can. By doing this, you maximise the content people can do. This draws in more people and keeps them playing for longer. By having 'exclusive content' just for special snowflake/last unicorn hardcore types, you're limiting your own profit margin.

Here's the thing: ESO doesn't need these crutches.

ESO doesn't need forced grouping. It's fun to play without it.
ESO doesn't need forced grinding. It's fun to play without it.
ESO doesn't need special snowflake exclusive content. It's fun to play without it.

These factors are openly detrimental to ESO's longevity and health. If ZOS removed the grind tomorrow, you'd only see a loss of about 2~ per cent of the community, which would be those with serious behavioural problems that force them to seek out unhealthy addictions (ZOS shouldn't be pandering to this, pander to mental wellness instead). The rest would find that they don't need the grind. Why? They'd be having fun just playing. And if people learned that the grind and exclusive content had been removed, the community would increase tenfold because you'd be tempting in all those single-player Elder Scrolls types.

ESO is fun to play. The crutches are detrimental at this point. It's like forcing a healthy person to walk with crutches just because you think their legs haven't healed yet, even though that overrelliance would actually harm them for life. it's a sad thing to see that ESO still has these crutches.

If people could play however they wanted, people would still play.

Because ESO is fun.

And when has a fun game ever needed forced grinding, forced grouping, or forced anything?