I'm Surprised More People Don't Play This Game

LeifErickson · December 2016

Yes I know this game has its problems, but I feel like this game offers something very unique, competitive, and fun. I have never played a game with such a fantastic combat system that (balance aside) is highly skill based and competitive. What is it that makes this game so unpopular?

wayfarerx · December 2016

Early reviews were (rightfully) bad, it's not TES in the traditional sense, not really an MMO in the traditional sense either. ESO is its own thing and can be pretty challenging to get into when you're brand new. I know that a combination of the above is mostly what has turned off my RL friends.

SneaK · December 2016

LeifErickson wrote: »

Yes I know this game has its problems, but I feel like this game offers something very unique, competitive, and fun. I have never played a game with such a fantastic combat system that (balance aside) is highly skill based and competitive. What is it that makes this game so unpopular?

LAG > Power Gap > Poor Publicity

caeliusstarbreaker · December 2016

wayfarerx wrote: »

Early reviews were (rightfully) bad, it's not TES in the traditional sense, not really an MMO in the traditional sense either. ESO is its own thing and can be pretty challenging to get into when you're brand new. I know that a combination of the above is mostly what has turned off my RL friends.

They have basically removed the challenging aspect from the game though. I'm not trying to totally knock the game I spend far too much time in it. However, PVE was never challenging, and they have more or less removed most aspects of skill from PVP. You either hit r to win or jam another ability and gap closer to win. Cyrodiil is basically the bridge and both mile gates. Then there are two sides to the argument of small group vs organized group pvp... Which again is more rush into each other and mash buttons.

I agree with you that it is not TES and not MMO. I'll also agree that when functioning properly, there are brief Windows where it's truly fun and engaging, but in my opinion, the game has more or less devolved into and electronic slot machine, where we all mindlessly tap a button in hopes of flashing lights and AP numbers scrolling across our screen. My friends I've made and the now about nonexistent rush I used to get from playing are the only reasons I log in anymore.

Added: Honestly having played this long I'm more surprised that not more people have left the game.

zyk · December 2016

IMO, most serious PVP gamers consider things like easy memory hacking and poor developer support to be immediate deal-breakers.

It's a fun game to play casually until the frustration builds up, but if I was a very competitive PVP gamer, I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole.

Pirhana7_ESO · December 2016

Cyrodiil is a time filler for most at this point. Most the seige warfare crowd is waiting for Camelot Unchained next year.

Balance has always been an issue. Classes that can use any weapon or armor will always have that issue, especially with no cool down timers. Also the engine was more made for PVE and has problems with large seige battles. CU will have 30 defined classes and a crafter class. Aswell as an engine created to support massive seige battle and PVP only progression

bellanca6561n · December 2016

wayfarerx wrote: »

Early reviews were (rightfully) bad, it's not TES in the traditional sense, not really an MMO in the traditional sense either. ESO is its own thing and can be pretty challenging to get into when you're brand new. I know that a combination of the above is mostly what has turned off my RL friends.

Pretty much this.

It has to decide what it is, I think, and it can't be the former.

I'm a retired game developer and have to keep my interest in ESO a secret from all of my former colleagues....all...of....them. The industry does not respect this game and the hundreds of millions who purchased Skyrim are not interested in an MMO at all.

JDar · December 2016

LeifErickson wrote: »

Yes I know this game has its problems, but I feel like this game offers something very unique, competitive, and fun. I have never played a game with such a fantastic combat system that (balance aside) is highly skill based and competitive. What is it that makes this game so unpopular?

This is not the board where you post about how much fun you are having. This is where you point fingers, blame others (ZoS and players alike) and complain pathologically about the game that has made you miserable for all the hundreds of hours that you play it. This board is just one big competition to see how hardcore you can make yourself look by trashing something you enjoy. Try posting this in General Discussion.

The game is fun. I don't know why I keep coming back to this board when so many people have such miserable attitudes.

kevlarto_ESO · December 2016

LeifErickson wrote: »

Yes I know this game has its problems, but I feel like this game offers something very unique, competitive, and fun. I have never played a game with such a fantastic combat system that (balance aside) is highly skill based and competitive. What is it that makes this game so unpopular?

I agree the combat system is fun despite the balance issues, bad word of mouth spreads like wild fire, about cheaters, exploiters, broken game mechanics, broken armor sets, proc off a proc that proc'ed off who knows what, and ZOS is slow to correct issues when they are introduced, along with hyperbole over these issues, ESO gets somewhat of a bad rap, some is deserved.

Me and my friends still have fun and as long as we do we will be here, hope 2017 brings some knew things and some fixes and balance to the force, guess we will have to wait and see.

God_flakes · December 2016

1. Eso being it's own thing...is a good thing. It is unique and very, very fun when there is an absence of lag. Even with the proc-cheese and imbalance and blob meta.

2. People have been waiting for CU for two years now and keep saying they're waiting for it. CU's delay doesn't speak well for their development. They seem to be having issue after issue. So everyone keeps "waiting".

3. No Skyrim fans bought the game? Ummmm horse crap.

Manoekin · December 2016

I'm only here because it's an easy game to come back to when everything else gets boring.

Publius_Scipio · December 2016

Somewhere Angry Joe is angry that ESO still lives.

Ishammael · December 2016

LeifErickson wrote: »

Yes I know this game has its problems, but I feel like this game offers something very unique, competitive, and fun. I have never played a game with such a fantastic combat system that (balance aside) is highly skill based and competitive. What is it that makes this game so unpopular?

You are absolutely right.

The problem is/was the first nine months.

The game was heavily advertised around its PvP. It succeeded brilliantly... And failed utterly. It failed for several reasons: absolutely atrocious botting which forced a net code fix which never again delivered the scale and performance from launch. The class balance was horrendous. Skills were broken. And itemization was abysmal.

Despite all of that, players showed up in droves. Cyrodiil was incredible. It still is. All early reviews said it was amazing. Even "angry" Joe.

Except that players realized the veteran rank grind which was so time consuming at the beginning. Then there was craglorn which was a complete joke. And then... Nothing for six months. By the end of 1.5 most of the excitement was gone. Nothing promising was on the horizon. An emergency guild summit was held. Nothing became of it. Does anyone remember that huge Delethereous post basically saying it was all over?

Then the champion point system was introduced. How is an endless grind supposed to attract new players? It wasn't. Then IC came out more than a year.... Supposed to save PvP. Except that it was a PvE zone, not even connected to cyrodiil.

ZoS failed to realize that the excitement of the game is in cyrodiil which they haven't updated in two years.

Kutsuu · December 2016

Honestly the early months of the game reminded me a lot of Age of Conan. There were lots of gamebreaking bugs - the kind of bugs that wouldn't let you progress to veteran levels. There were giant PVP imbalances, gamebreaking pvp imbalances like zero cost bat swarm. AoC also had very similar issues - gem stacking, duping of said gems, and game breaking bugs.

Both games took a HUGE hit in playerbase in those early months. Thankfully Elder Scrolls has such a huge following that this game survived.

Rohamad_Ali · December 2016

It still gets bad reviews . I don't know if you read Steam forums or PlayStation forums but players go by word of mouth more then IGN or Franchise game websites .

The PvP reviews are the harshest . People think PvP communities are small but when Swtor lost 500k subs , they never recovered . PvP players are the most fickle and demand more . Sub par doesn't cut it in most of those communities .

Let's not forget Meteor Gate . This games PvP needs way more attention before numbers get back around launch size and staying consistent ever again .

It can not be an after thought .

Manoekin · December 2016

Ishammael wrote: »

LeifErickson wrote: »

Yes I know this game has its problems, but I feel like this game offers something very unique, competitive, and fun. I have never played a game with such a fantastic combat system that (balance aside) is highly skill based and competitive. What is it that makes this game so unpopular?

You are absolutely right.

The problem is/was the first nine months.

The game was heavily advertised around its PvP. It succeeded brilliantly... And failed utterly. It failed for several reasons: absolutely atrocious botting which forced a net code fix which never again delivered the scale and performance from launch. The class balance was horrendous. Skills were broken. And itemization was abysmal.

Despite all of that, players showed up in droves. Cyrodiil was incredible. It still is. All early reviews said it was amazing. Even "angry" Joe.

Except that players realized the veteran rank grind which was so time consuming at the beginning. Then there was craglorn which was a complete joke. And then... Nothing for six months. By the end of 1.5 most of the excitement was gone. Nothing promising was on the horizon. An emergency guild summit was held. Nothing became of it. Does anyone remember that huge Delethereous post basically saying it was all over?

Then the champion point system was introduced. How is an endless grind supposed to attract new players? It wasn't. Then IC came out more than a year.... Supposed to save PvP. Except that it was a PvE zone, not even connected to cyrodiil.

ZoS failed to realize that the excitement of the game is in cyrodiil which they haven't updated in two years.

Guild Summit was all role play and pve guilds. There was only one hardcore pvp guild from NA there, and some of the other "pvp" guilds there weren't active anymore in cyro. The whole thing was more of a show and tell than gathering feedback. Also of note that IC was completed and shown to those players, and this was way before it came out.

Rohamad_Ali · December 2016

Manoekin wrote: »

Ishammael wrote: »

LeifErickson wrote: »

Yes I know this game has its problems, but I feel like this game offers something very unique, competitive, and fun. I have never played a game with such a fantastic combat system that (balance aside) is highly skill based and competitive. What is it that makes this game so unpopular?

You are absolutely right.

The problem is/was the first nine months.

The game was heavily advertised around its PvP. It succeeded brilliantly... And failed utterly. It failed for several reasons: absolutely atrocious botting which forced a net code fix which never again delivered the scale and performance from launch. The class balance was horrendous. Skills were broken. And itemization was abysmal.

Despite all of that, players showed up in droves. Cyrodiil was incredible. It still is. All early reviews said it was amazing. Even "angry" Joe.

Except that players realized the veteran rank grind which was so time consuming at the beginning. Then there was craglorn which was a complete joke. And then... Nothing for six months. By the end of 1.5 most of the excitement was gone. Nothing promising was on the horizon. An emergency guild summit was held. Nothing became of it. Does anyone remember that huge Delethereous post basically saying it was all over?

Then the champion point system was introduced. How is an endless grind supposed to attract new players? It wasn't. Then IC came out more than a year.... Supposed to save PvP. Except that it was a PvE zone, not even connected to cyrodiil.

ZoS failed to realize that the excitement of the game is in cyrodiil which they haven't updated in two years.

Guild Summit was all role play and pve guilds. There was only one hardcore pvp guild from NA there, and some of the other "pvp" guilds there weren't active anymore in cyro. The whole thing was more of a show and tell than gathering feedback. Also of note that IC was completed and shown to those players, and this was way before it came out.

All the stuff we will be getting as "New" was already produced in 2014 . All of it . Paul Sage showed Clockwork City almost 3 years ago .

Elsonso · December 2016

LeifErickson wrote: »

Yes I know this game has its problems, but I feel like this game offers something very unique, competitive, and fun. I have never played a game with such a fantastic combat system that (balance aside) is highly skill based and competitive. What is it that makes this game so unpopular?

I would not say that the game is "unpopular". It won an MMO of the Year for 2015 from one website, and is currently in third place for the same title in a 2016 contest running on a different website. This is not really a trait found in unpopular games.

It is a lot more average than it should be, for an Elder Scrolls title, that is for certain. On top of that, the Studio itself is not one to endear itself to the players. They seem more comfortable when they are creating dissent than when they are creating excitement. I think that all of this serves to make the game seem like it is more unpopular than it really is.

Taylor_MB · December 2016

Lag. Almost impossible to play during peak US time coming from an oceanic time zone. Even in AS I'm sitting at 380 right now, which is why I'm whining on the forums.... except it's always worse then it shows, I don't really understand the technical side about why ping is only 380ms but the actual different in what I'm seeing on my screen is sometimes up to a second delayed and often animations (my own) not even showing.

I can't imagine how it must be playing with less then 100 ping. Most of the time it's just an added challenge, but right now it is making me hate PvP XD. I really want to say good fight back to the people who msg me, but they really are not good fights, haha.

Not to mention the repetitive, grindy and RNG PvE.
Inventory management mini game is a bore.
I know people say they can grind a lvl50 toon in 4hrs, but I literally get bored of grinding after 5mins. Would love to play more classes to keep me interested but nope.

Don't know what the usual ratio between nooby and long time players are for MMO's, but ESO seems to be way too heavily new players.

Edit: Lag is also one of the main reason my main is a ganking toon, reactive gameplay is impossible anything outside of 10 people on the server. Right now I just pull my combo's a hope for the best, dodging or block a dizzying swing is impossible let alone bashing a dark deal.

Esgameplaya1 · December 2016

Manoekin wrote: »

I'm only here because it's an easy game to come back to when everything else gets boring.

any other options or recommendations?

Knootewoot · December 2016

Kutsuu wrote: »

Honestly the early months of the game reminded me a lot of Age of Conan. There were lots of gamebreaking bugs - the kind of bugs that wouldn't let you progress to veteran levels. There were giant PVP imbalances, gamebreaking pvp imbalances like zero cost bat swarm. AoC also had very similar issues - gem stacking, duping of said gems, and game breaking bugs.

Both games took a HUGE hit in playerbase in those early months. Thankfully Elder Scrolls has such a huge following that this game survived.

Age of Conan also survived. It is still active.

geonsocal · December 2016

LeifErickson wrote: »

Yes I know this game has its problems, but I feel like this game offers something very unique, competitive, and fun. I have never played a game with such a fantastic combat system that (balance aside) is highly skill based and competitive. What is it that makes this game so unpopular?

I remember getting a buddy into the game - it was like trying to impart the whole encyclopedia to him every night for weeks and weeks...

thankfully, he stuck with it, and, has more cp than I do now

it ain't really such a "casual" just hopping on for thirty minutes and play kinda thing...early on - it's hard, really confusing and time consuming...

takes a big payoff to get people to stay...only some of us feel that it's worth it...not the type of game you can pick up for a month and then move on and get a whole lot out of it...

pjwb16_ESO · December 2016

The Anti bot system and the lightning patch in 1.2.x or 1.3 ruined the performance and made alot of people quit

Bashev · December 2016

I will speak for what is interesting for me and it is PvP. The problem with the population and ZoS just do nothing. There are exactly 2 vet campaigns one semi vet (no CP) and one full as hell and with terrible performance. There is no initiative for the players to spread between the campaigns. If you try to PvP in a dead campaign right now it so boring. No enemies and only PvEdoring. 6 months ago at least at prime time SB and EB (eu) had at least 3 bars and even locked. This is not the case anymore. There are long queues for TF and a lot of players dont wait, if you crash you have to queue again.....

Rosveen · December 2016

The first few months are critical for a game, if they go wrong it might never recover. ESO is fine, but not as well as it could have been. I blame two things.
Firstly, the insufferable grind of veteran ranks and later Craglorn completely failing to address the playerbase's preferences. Every MMO loses players a month or two after launch, but man, that summer was brutal for ESO.
Secondly, those of longtime Elder Scrolls fans who expected TES VI and went on badmouthing the game when they received something else.
Then the PvP started getting *** up and well, here we are.

covenant_merchant · December 2016

Bashev wrote: »

I will speak for what is interesting for me and it is PvP. The problem with the population and ZoS just do nothing. There are exactly 2 vet campaigns one semi vet (no CP) and one full as hell and with terrible performance. There is no initiative for the players to spread between the campaigns. If you try to PvP in a dead campaign right now it so boring. No enemies and only PvEdoring. 6 months ago at least at prime time SB and EB (eu) had at least 3 bars and even locked. This is not the case anymore. There are long queues for TF and a lot of players dont wait, if you crash you have to queue again.....

For the past months, Ebony and Spellbreaker have been as deserted as Haderus. For one, they were and are constantly guild camped by a certain EP zerg cough *achu*cough.
And this patch made a lot of players quit PVP to go gear farming or otherwise be more productive with their time, and the remaining survivors went TF. As it is on PC EU, you have a queue of 70 on AD to get to Trueflame, and 3 empty campaigns standing by.
And on TF itself, it's worse than ever. I started PVPing with the release of the Imperial City, so I missed all the good times of dynamic ulti regen, 0 lag, huge smooth fights that cure cancer, and all this other stuff my guildies keep talking about. Nonetheless, after over a year of active PVP, it's never been as bad as this. Rage-inducing sets and playstyles combined with an even worse performance than pre-OT (maybe due to all the destro ulti blobs, idk), and empty campaigns. Hell, even Axe of Beltharza had more action than this, and it was removed...

Ishammael · December 2016

Manoekin wrote: »

Ishammael wrote: »

LeifErickson wrote: »

Yes I know this game has its problems, but I feel like this game offers something very unique, competitive, and fun. I have never played a game with such a fantastic combat system that (balance aside) is highly skill based and competitive. What is it that makes this game so unpopular?

You are absolutely right.

The problem is/was the first nine months.

The game was heavily advertised around its PvP. It succeeded brilliantly... And failed utterly. It failed for several reasons: absolutely atrocious botting which forced a net code fix which never again delivered the scale and performance from launch. The class balance was horrendous. Skills were broken. And itemization was abysmal.

Despite all of that, players showed up in droves. Cyrodiil was incredible. It still is. All early reviews said it was amazing. Even "angry" Joe.

Except that players realized the veteran rank grind which was so time consuming at the beginning. Then there was craglorn which was a complete joke. And then... Nothing for six months. By the end of 1.5 most of the excitement was gone. Nothing promising was on the horizon. An emergency guild summit was held. Nothing became of it. Does anyone remember that huge Delethereous post basically saying it was all over?

Then the champion point system was introduced. How is an endless grind supposed to attract new players? It wasn't. Then IC came out more than a year.... Supposed to save PvP. Except that it was a PvE zone, not even connected to cyrodiil.

ZoS failed to realize that the excitement of the game is in cyrodiil which they haven't updated in two years.

Guild Summit was all role play and pve guilds. There was only one hardcore pvp guild from NA there, and some of the other "pvp" guilds there weren't active anymore in cyro. The whole thing was more of a show and tell than gathering feedback. Also of note that IC was completed and shown to those players, and this was way before it came out.

You are correct of course. I was being a little loose with the narrative, but the larger point holds.

Cavarka · December 2016

Personally I think the tutorial does little to display the beauty of the game. I tried it ages ago and was put off. Persevered a year later and glad I did. But I know of others that didn't make it past the tutorial.

Manoekin · December 2016

Ishammael wrote: »

Manoekin wrote: »

Ishammael wrote: »

LeifErickson wrote: »

Yes I know this game has its problems, but I feel like this game offers something very unique, competitive, and fun. I have never played a game with such a fantastic combat system that (balance aside) is highly skill based and competitive. What is it that makes this game so unpopular?

You are absolutely right.

The problem is/was the first nine months.

The game was heavily advertised around its PvP. It succeeded brilliantly... And failed utterly. It failed for several reasons: absolutely atrocious botting which forced a net code fix which never again delivered the scale and performance from launch. The class balance was horrendous. Skills were broken. And itemization was abysmal.

Despite all of that, players showed up in droves. Cyrodiil was incredible. It still is. All early reviews said it was amazing. Even "angry" Joe.

Except that players realized the veteran rank grind which was so time consuming at the beginning. Then there was craglorn which was a complete joke. And then... Nothing for six months. By the end of 1.5 most of the excitement was gone. Nothing promising was on the horizon. An emergency guild summit was held. Nothing became of it. Does anyone remember that huge Delethereous post basically saying it was all over?

Then the champion point system was introduced. How is an endless grind supposed to attract new players? It wasn't. Then IC came out more than a year.... Supposed to save PvP. Except that it was a PvE zone, not even connected to cyrodiil.

ZoS failed to realize that the excitement of the game is in cyrodiil which they haven't updated in two years.

Guild Summit was all role play and pve guilds. There was only one hardcore pvp guild from NA there, and some of the other "pvp" guilds there weren't active anymore in cyro. The whole thing was more of a show and tell than gathering feedback. Also of note that IC was completed and shown to those players, and this was way before it came out.

You are correct of course. I was being a little loose with the narrative, but the larger point holds.

Wasn't trying to suggest you weren't correct. Just adding context to that fiasco.

RinaldoGandolphi · December 2016

I won't get into it too much, but long story short.

Before this game came out, TES fans wanted Bethesda to release a game that:

1. played exactly like Skyrim with a mix of Morriwind, Oblivion, and Skyrims level and skill system.
2. Was fully moddable like the single player titles.
3. Allowed them to play with a friend or two.

Thats it! Thats what the majority of the 18 million people who bought Skyrim wanted.....instead they were given just another theme park MMO with TES paint on it....don't shoot the messenger if you look at everything from late 2012 to ESO release, you can see the banter online...they didn't want an MMO, they wanted a moddable singleplayer game with the option to co-op with friends that played exactly like the singleplayer games down to the looting of corpses....That market spoke however...because ESO was unable to hold its sub fee....it barely broke a million sales total on 2 consoles after a month, PC launch was far less sales then expected....

Skyrim Special Edition on the other hand is the 2nd best selling TES ever only behind Skyrim original 2011 launch....that probably puts Skyrim Se sales around 7-9 million(Oblivion sold 7 Million)....

Ranking ESO soley as an TES title, its the worst in the series and I have played/own them all from Arena to present.

Todd Howard tried to tell them.....

https://www.engadget.com/2011/08/31/bethesdas-todd-howard-not-interested-in-an-elder-scrolls-mmo/

In talking with our sister site Joystiq at PAX, Bethesda's Todd Howard fields the question with blunt honesty. "I like this kind of game better," he said. "You know, it's what most of us are into. I'm not really an MMO guy. I respect them, I look at them, but I don't play them. It feels more real to me when I'm the hero and it's crafted for that. A community aspect to it, I recognize a lot of people would want that in a game like this, but it changes the flavor for me.

Howard tried to tell corporate...they wouldn't listen.....ahh well Howard will resurrect the franchise with TES 6 doing what he always does,...literally everything the guy touches turns to gold....

ESO not a bad game....as an MMO i'd rate it as average with a very bad RNG based loot system. I am not trying to be harsh here...im just telling you what folks online wanted a co-op game...all my friends in college were hyped until they found out it was an MMO..... they then had no interest.....I really don't know what else to say.....

I'll still play it, as long as its around. It has its good points and is worth logging in a few times a week to play.

If they could fix the lag problems and some of the balance issues with the game though, I think it would go a long way to helping its cause...the lag is a BIG one...it drove many people away...and it is still driving people away. Also, the 561 CP cap is such a barrier to entry to new players...no way i'd ever grind 561 CP if i was starting out new...i'd quit after level 50....most people simply don't have time for that, no matter what kinda XP helper you give them, or catch up mechanic....it still takes too much time....most of the traditional TES players won't do that...that kinda stuff is foreign to them....

at this point it is what it is....

olsborg · December 2016

LeifErickson wrote: »

Yes I know this game has its problems, but I feel like this game offers something very unique, competitive, and fun. I have never played a game with such a fantastic combat system that (balance aside) is highly skill based and competitive. What is it that makes this game so unpopular?

Basicly, the devs fail to balance the game, not just a little, but bigtime. Balance shifts from one way to play to another by every major update, and they leave the game pretty much broken everytime. And it takes 4-6months before they do anything about it, leaving players no other choice but to "enjoy" a broken meta for all that time. At the moment its "play in heavy armor abusing the *** outta proccsets" that rules. Light and specially medium armor is subpar to say the least. I could go on tho..