Endgame - What ESO lacks. (compared with WoW)

Vrienda · December 2016

The raiding community is a dying breed in MMO's. It requires too much commitment.

As for dungeons: ESO has been releasing quite a few. And yes I would count the duplicate dungeons as separate dungeons as many of those dungeons take place in different areas despite the same name (City of Ash II is 90% new area compared to City of Ash I, it's only called City of Ash II because it continues the story of the first dungeon).

ESO also has a different business model, it's main player base consists of elder scrolls fans looking for something to fill the gap until TES:VI, thus why most DLC is solo story/lore content.

Oh and one other thing. WoW has MASSIVE content droughts at the end of every expansion. The last one had no new content for over a year and released with only two patches, one of which contained nothing more than a selfie camera and social media integration. WoW is on the decline.

Vicentius · December 2016

I am SUPER done with raiding. I don't want to deal with it or its people anymore. I did it for over a decade and now I'm on a solid "nope" pedestal. I don't mind working with smaller groups and frankly its a bit more logical and nostalgic of my AD&D days. I like story which this game delivers. I like going at my pace, which this game delivers..exploring.. pvp.. crafting, stealing, assassinating "netches".. It's fun and raids seem silly at this point.

Now with that said, I wouldn't mind some huge ass, 'GW2/what rifts "rifts" should have been like,' world bosses like Molag Bal dropping into the world and *** *** up for a minute. That would be cool. Random army of Daedra attacking auridon or something similar that makes the world even more interactive. It's not endgame content I know.

Tandor · December 2016

ESO lacks nothing, compared to WoW.

It's not WoW. Live with it, or play WoW.

BlackEar · December 2016

Tandor wrote: »

ESO lacks nothing, compared to WoW.

It's not WoW. Live with it, or play WoW.

Ah, the good ol' "if you got anything bad to say you can *** right off." Yes, that has always helped improve..

Voicing concerns or wishes is valid and part of being a community. If you can't acknowledge this then what are you doing here? You contribute nothing.

Kolache · December 2016

BlackEar wrote: »

Yes, it has helped WOW immensely. Focusing on other stuff is what made the numbers decline. MMOrpg and raiding is intertwined and is the cornerstone of the MMOrpg genre. I disagree that they are not important. Pvp is important too, but is inherently second place to pve.

I agree with the PvP taking a back-seat to PvE revenue, but I just don't see traditional raiding as a successful model these days. Maybe at the root of the disagreement is the definition of raiding. In vanilla I did 40-man raids, so that's mostly what I think of. Ever since then they made raiding easier and more accessible to people, (can't argue with that, don't want to spend a lot of work on something most people won't see). LFRaid is about as close to what I think of a raid as going into a packed public dungeon or swarming a GW2 world boss. They could add 10x health to dolmens and add a couple aoe's to avoid and it'd be close to that kind of "raid".

Vaoh · December 2016

Tandor wrote: »

ESO lacks nothing, compared to WoW.

It's not WoW. Live with it, or play WoW.

Except..... endgame content.

This has nothing to do with "being WoW". WoW simply has a ton of endgame content and a massive, successful endgame community because of it.

Coincidentally, ESO has barely recieved any endgame content in the past year (beginning with near nothing as well) and the endgame community is practically dead now. PvP was neglected and now that community is almost dead as well.

You can find only a handful of guilds on a server, consisting of many of the same players, who can complete vMoL. It's not looking good at all. Content drought is a big reason for it.

Foxic · December 2016

Riejael wrote: »

TotallyNotVos wrote: »

Because the endgame raiding community in all mmos is at an all time low. Most of the top wow raid guilds have all disbanded as well.

Having come from Legion myself, I can say this is false. If anything, the expansion put raiding at an all time high.

With that said however...

While I personally would like to see more and bigger raids, eso does not have the community to warrant zenimax spending all of that time on multiple raids per year.

A very very small percentage of eso raid guilds have even cleared maw hardmode

This unfortunately appears to be correct. You don't have to go far to see where the skill of the average player is in ESO. Frequently I've been in the queue with 600+ CP DPS players who still fail to take out adds when they spawn. Little things that should be automatic and damn near muscle memory. Half the time you can remind them and it goes smoothly, the other half and it goes on deaf ears.

And that's just on normal. If they're failing on normal, they're not doing vets. And sure not doing trials.

But there's another issue too. There's no incentive to doing trials. There's a couple pieces of jewelry for some builds. But most times you're using purple or gold gear of sets you put together for trials. And the gear that does drop isn't better than the gear being used.

There's no endgame progression. That's the real difference between WoW (or most MMORPGs) and ESO. There's no dungeon you do for gear to be able to do the next one. I mean how it is now you can literally gear a character out in normal (since you can upgrade many pieces) and vets and be done. Depending on build sometimes trials aren't even needed. And in that case your character is 'done' until a patch nerfs a piece a gear, adds a sidegrade that might squeeze out more performance, or a patch changes the class up.

But no patch is going to bring 'better' gear in harder content.

Should that change? I think it should, it might encourage players to be better. It might actually do that. Part of the reason people aren't doing trials is mostly because they don't really need to. Risk/Effort vs Reward doesn't exist.

I haven't played wow in awhile so I'll have to take your word for it. But I have heard through friends who still play that even the sponsored raid teams are done competitively raiding.

Personally I agree that there should be some sort of gear progression but not as strict as some games. Eg each class gets very specific gear from a raid that they NEED to complete the next raid. But with the way mmo communities are now a days, I don't think that would fly in a game as new as eso

Korah_Eaglecry · December 2016

Vaoh wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

ESO lacks nothing, compared to WoW.

It's not WoW. Live with it, or play WoW.

Except..... endgame content.

This has nothing to do with "being WoW". WoW simply has a ton of endgame content and a massive, successful endgame community because of it.

Coincidentally, ESO has barely recieved any endgame content in the past year (beginning with near nothing as well) and the endgame community is practically dead now. PvP was neglected and now that community is almost dead as well.

You can find only a handful of guilds on a server, consisting of many of the same players, who can complete vMoL. It's not looking good at all. Content drought is a big reason for it.

Youre the one that started this whole conversation about how WoW does it better. Had you left WoW out of your OP you wouldnt be seeing these sorts of comments. WoW is 12 years old with multiple large expansions behind it. Of course it has a better selection of end-game content. To compare a 3 year old game, still maneuvering itself into what it wants to be and offer, to a game that is now a senior citizen in the industry is just asking for an argument.

ThePaleItalian · December 2016

I played WoW for a very long time. Vanilla through Lich King, Warlords... I stopped after that.

It took them what, 8 almost 9 years to update their graphics.... no voice acting..

I get this is about content, but lets not forget how big of a studio Blizzard is... StarCraft, Hearthstone, WarCraft, Diablo, Overwatch, they have a massive amount of money to throw into development. But yet, they still had almost 2 YEARS... yes YEARS in Warlords with no substantial content... yet you are upset because of a game that has been out for 3 years has lacking content?

I get it, raids and trials are a blast. I loved to raid in wow with bunch of my friends. But you cannot compare both of these studios to each other. Its nothing against ZoS, but they do not have anywhere near the resources that Blizzard has.

Side Note: we should have kept it a sub model... Just saying.

souravami · December 2016

Ever since ESO has gone b2p I think the main direction of the game has changed. It doesn't care about player retention anymore. All they care about is casual players, who buy the game, play it for a bit, and then leave as there is no viable endgame. It is much easier to profit from selling crown crates to casuals who like shinyyy things than actually creating an intricate endgame and cater to old players after all.

Vaoh · December 2016

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

Vaoh wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

ESO lacks nothing, compared to WoW.

It's not WoW. Live with it, or play WoW.

Except..... endgame content.

This has nothing to do with "being WoW". WoW simply has a ton of endgame content and a massive, successful endgame community because of it.

Coincidentally, ESO has barely recieved any endgame content in the past year (beginning with near nothing as well) and the endgame community is practically dead now. PvP was neglected and now that community is almost dead as well.

You can find only a handful of guilds on a server, consisting of many of the same players, who can complete vMoL. It's not looking good at all. Content drought is a big reason for it.

Youre the one that started this whole conversation about how WoW does it better. Had you left WoW out of your OP you wouldnt be seeing these sorts of comments. WoW is 12 years old with multiple large expansions behind it. Of course it has a better selection of end-game content. To compare a 3 year old game, still maneuvering itself into what it wants to be and offer, to a game that is now a senior citizen in the industry is just asking for an argument.

Maybe a game that is 3 years old should not be confused as to what it wants to offer? How long do you think players stick around on a game like this? Had "Elder Scrolls" not been in the title it would've failed already.

Take only WoW's first expansion and you'll find that it completely tears ESO apart in terms of endgame content. That is actually a comparison in favor of ESO timewise. There is still no contest in the slightest.

Even base game WoW had more dungeons/raids than ESO currently has. When you look at the size of the endgame community in ESO compared to WoW it speaks for itself. Facts are facts. ESO is doing very poorly in endgame and WoW is doing fantastic. Releasing significantly more content than ESO does in the same timeframe is why our endgame community is almost gone now.

Korah_Eaglecry · December 2016

Vaoh wrote: »

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

Vaoh wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

ESO lacks nothing, compared to WoW.

It's not WoW. Live with it, or play WoW.

Except..... endgame content.

This has nothing to do with "being WoW". WoW simply has a ton of endgame content and a massive, successful endgame community because of it.

Coincidentally, ESO has barely recieved any endgame content in the past year (beginning with near nothing as well) and the endgame community is practically dead now. PvP was neglected and now that community is almost dead as well.

You can find only a handful of guilds on a server, consisting of many of the same players, who can complete vMoL. It's not looking good at all. Content drought is a big reason for it.

Youre the one that started this whole conversation about how WoW does it better. Had you left WoW out of your OP you wouldnt be seeing these sorts of comments. WoW is 12 years old with multiple large expansions behind it. Of course it has a better selection of end-game content. To compare a 3 year old game, still maneuvering itself into what it wants to be and offer, to a game that is now a senior citizen in the industry is just asking for an argument.

Maybe a game that is 3 years old should not be confused as to what it wants to offer? How long do you think players stick around on a game like this? Had "Elder Scrolls" not been in the title it would've failed already.

Take only WoW's first expansion and you'll find that it completely tears ESO apart in terms of endgame content. That is actually a comparison in favor of ESO timewise. There is still no contest in the slightest.

Even base game WoW had more dungeons/raids than ESO currently has. When you look at the size of the endgame community in ESO compared to WoW it speaks for itself. Facts are facts. ESO is doing very poorly in endgame and WoW is doing fantastic. Releasing significantly more content than ESO does in the same timeframe is why our endgame community is almost gone now.

Maybe you need more experience with MMOs.

Plenty of MMOs, including your glorious WoW was still finding its legs 3-4 years in. Youre also confusing ESOs end-goals with WoW. WoW released when MMOs still catered to the endgame crowd. Back when subscriptions was the method of maintaining the game and adding new content. It hasnt been that way since 2007 or so. Free to Play and Buy to Play changed all of that. Casuals are now the focus. No amount of end-game content is going to change that. The idea that players wont stick around because there isnt WoW amounts of end-game is sad and obviously misinformed. ESOs playerbase has steadily grown since late into its first year. And there was even LESS end-game content then.

But obviously you have a narrative so by all means, continue on with the scare tactics. Im sure ZOS is shaking in their boots that if they dont do something about that end-game theyll lose all the players.

Vaoh · December 2016

To be clear - I don't say any of this because I hate ESO. I even stated at the end of my original post that I love this game.

This thread was created because I couldn't understand why the endgame community is so utterly close to dead. That's when I looked to WoW due to its success and noticed that ESO releases (in the same timespan of WoW expansions) comparably nothing at all.

People played ESO and had a great time. Then they saw the imbalanced PvP, breakdown in performance over the course of a patch, and lack of endgame. They left in large numbers and ZOS has still never fixed any of these issues (hopefully balance is fixed Q1 2017).

On PS4 NA, ESO has recieved 4 dungeons and 1 trial since launch. That's terrible, and so is the PvE endgame population. There just isn't nearly enough endgame content releasing to maintain a decent amount of players for endgame

Vaoh · December 2016

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

Vaoh wrote: »

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

Vaoh wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

ESO lacks nothing, compared to WoW.

It's not WoW. Live with it, or play WoW.

Except..... endgame content.

This has nothing to do with "being WoW". WoW simply has a ton of endgame content and a massive, successful endgame community because of it.

Coincidentally, ESO has barely recieved any endgame content in the past year (beginning with near nothing as well) and the endgame community is practically dead now. PvP was neglected and now that community is almost dead as well.

You can find only a handful of guilds on a server, consisting of many of the same players, who can complete vMoL. It's not looking good at all. Content drought is a big reason for it.

Youre the one that started this whole conversation about how WoW does it better. Had you left WoW out of your OP you wouldnt be seeing these sorts of comments. WoW is 12 years old with multiple large expansions behind it. Of course it has a better selection of end-game content. To compare a 3 year old game, still maneuvering itself into what it wants to be and offer, to a game that is now a senior citizen in the industry is just asking for an argument.

Maybe a game that is 3 years old should not be confused as to what it wants to offer? How long do you think players stick around on a game like this? Had "Elder Scrolls" not been in the title it would've failed already.

Take only WoW's first expansion and you'll find that it completely tears ESO apart in terms of endgame content. That is actually a comparison in favor of ESO timewise. There is still no contest in the slightest.

Even base game WoW had more dungeons/raids than ESO currently has. When you look at the size of the endgame community in ESO compared to WoW it speaks for itself. Facts are facts. ESO is doing very poorly in endgame and WoW is doing fantastic. Releasing significantly more content than ESO does in the same timeframe is why our endgame community is almost gone now.

Maybe you need more experience with MMOs.

Plenty of MMOs, including your glorious WoW was still finding its legs 3-4 years in. Youre also confusing ESOs end-goals with WoW. WoW released when MMOs still catered to the endgame crowd. Back when subscriptions was the method of maintaining the game and adding new content. It hasnt been that way since 2007 or so. Free to Play and Buy to Play changed all of that. Casuals are now the focus. No amount of end-game content is going to change that. The idea that players wont stick around because there isnt WoW amounts of end-game is sad and obviously misinformed. ESOs playerbase has steadily grown since late into its first year. And there was even LESS end-game content then.

But obviously you have a narrative so by all means, continue on with the scare tactics. Im sure ZOS is shaking in their boots that if they dont do something about that end-game theyll lose all the players.

Scare tactics

Of course ESO grew into its first year. Content was still fresh and things were much more balanced. 2015 ESO and (soon) 2017 ESO are very, very different.

ESO does not need to release nearly as much endgame content as WoW does. They need to simply release more endgame content. There's almost nothing right now and the guilds/communities have already left.

You can believe anything you want about this tbh. We all know how big the population was compared to what it currently looks like. PvP took the biggest hit due to recent issues (1 full campaign tops per server -_-).

Apparantly I'm wrong though and ESO is thriving

7 million players! Keep believing things are great. If ZOS steps it up in 2017 they will be. Catering to pure casuals seems to be the main if not only focus though unfortunately.

Viscous119 · December 2016

I recently came to ESO from playing WoW since its inception. They used to do produce very polished content in expansions because the developers were also avid WoW players. However, after the atrocity expansion that was Draenor, which had players leveling skills without ever leaving their in game home was stupid. Not only that, but after coming from the Pandaria expansion, with all kinds of flying mounts, they decided to discontinue flying until the final months of Draenor. The population dropped from 10million at Draenor's beginning to 2million. That's a 80% reduction in population where the players rated it as the worst expansion in WoW's history.

This was moreso compounded by the fact that the developers that produced the earlier expansions were leaving because of the direction WoW was going. What is that direction you say? Content gating pure and simple. This started in draenor, and has been increased in Legion. The amount of content gating is ridiculous. For example, to be able to fly again (which isn't in the game now) you will have to complete the 'Pathfinders Quest' which means you have to do almost all of the content to be able to fly. What is the purpose of flying when you've done all the content already.

The ability of getting alts up to speed is also a disaster. In legion you are better off not rolling any alts for these reasons:

1) You only use an artifact weapon that you get for free. Sure, you could use another regular weapon instead, but why?

2) Leveling up your artifact weapon to a reasonable effectiveness is a major grind (on top of the grind you have to do for gear). People don't want to roll alts because of the artifact grind. Btw, the new developers have already stated that the Artifact weapons will be removed in the next expansion, so there will be no keeping them after all that grinding. Sure, artifact knowledge helps but its just not worth it to even consider rolling an alt.

3) More importantly, the last developer who loved WoW since the beginning has left and the new developers are going in an entirely different direction with WoW..which will lead it to its demise in the near future. Most players are claiming (and myself as well) as being as bad..or worse.. than Draenor.

I wouldn't compare ESO to WOW in content as WoW has it beat by a mile, but what it does have is your ability to enjoy leveling up alts and contributing multiple roles in a dungeon or raid. With the new developer team, that does not play WoW, means its days are numbered. You see a lot of people coming to ESO and are undoubtedly coming from WoW.

Vaoh · December 2016

Viscous119 wrote: »

I recently came to ESO from playing WoW since its inception. They used to do produce very polished content in expansions because the developers were also avid WoW players. However, after the atrocity expansion that was Draenor, which had players leveling skills without ever leaving their in game home was stupid. Not only that, but after coming from the Pandaria expansion, with all kinds of flying mounts, they decided to discontinue flying until the final months of Draenor. The population dropped from 10million at Draenor's beginning to 2million. That's a 80% reduction in population where the players rated it as the worst expansion in WoW's history.

This was moreso compounded by the fact that the developers that produced the earlier expansions were leaving because of the direction WoW was going. What is that direction you say? Content gating pure and simple. This started in draenor, and has been increased in Legion. The amount of content gating is ridiculous. For example, to be able to fly again (which isn't in the game now) you will have to complete the 'Pathfinders Quest' which means you have to do almost all of the content to be able to fly. What is the purpose of flying when you've done it all already.

The ability of getting alts up to speed is also a disaster. In legion you are better off not rolling any alts for these reasons:

1) You only use an artifact weapon that you get for free. Sure, you could use another regular weapon instead, but why?

2) Leveling up your artifact weapon to a reasonable effectiveness is a major grind (on top of the grind you have to do for gear). People don't want to roll alts because of the artifact grind. Btw, the new developers have already stated that the Artifact weapons will be removed in the next expansion, so there will be no keeping them after all that grinding. Sure, artifact knowledge helps but its just not worth it to even consider rolling an alt.

3) More importantly, the last developer who loved WoW since the beginning has left and the new developers are going in an entirely different direction with WoW..which will lead it to its demise in the near future. Most players are claiming (and myself as well) as being as bad..or worse.. than Draenor.

I wouldn't compare ESO to WOW in content as WoW has it beat by a mile, but what it does have is your ability to enjoy leveling up alts and contributing multiple roles in a dungeon or raid. With the new developer team, that does not play WoW, means its days are numbered. You see a lot of people coming to ESO and are undoubtedly coming from WoW.

Interesting read but is Legion actually turning out that bad? I thought the population jumped up again by a lot.

Regardless, this doesn't relate to the point of this thread. ESO is lacking a lot in endgame content. So few players even bother with Vet trials and it's not just because of lack of BoE loot.

ESO doesn't need to do anything that WoW did besides release more endgame content. 2-4 dungeons/1 trial a year maximum is not good enough at all.

Jamini · December 2016

ESO - Dungeons until the first major gameplay adjustment (One Tamriel. 2 years past release)

28 Dungeons, 4 Raids

WoW - Dungeons unil the first major gameplay adjustment (Burning Crusade. 3 years past release)

36 Dungeons, 13 Raids

----

ESO has less than WoW did at this point in it's long lifespan, but not excessively less.

rimaxo14_ESO · December 2016

All of eso endgame raids are still worth doing when a new expansion comes out for wow the old raids are worthless for gear.

Vaoh · December 2016

Jamini wrote: »

ESO - Dungeons until the first major gameplay adjustment (One Tamriel. 2 years past release)

28 Dungeons, 4 Raids

WoW - Dungeons unil the first major gameplay adjustment (Burning Crusade. 3 years past release)

36 Dungeons, 13 Raids

----

ESO has less than WoW did at this point in it's long lifespan, but not excessively less.

In terms of dungeons right now ESO isn't bad. This gap will increase tremedously in a few years when only like 4-6 new dungeons are added. (assuming ZOS doesn't change pace)

The lack of raids is the main problem. Raids (trials in ESO) are the pinnacle of endgame content, but ZOS has stated they take 1 year to create trials. We have 4 trials right now and will have a maximum of 5 trials by 2018.

Many endgame guilds form solely around Raid content. ESO is very lacking in this regard unfortunateIy, which is interesting in comparison to WoW. Not that ESO needs to keep up with WoW's pace..... but rather that ESO very much needs to speed it up.

jarydf · December 2016

Voah - Why not play WOW and see if you enjoy it? Isnt that the real test? You can do that. It is totally fine plan to do so. You might get something out of it and also find the parts you like about ESO at the same time. We hear you that you are concerned about retention of the community that like to play group trial content and would like ZOS to spend more of their development time on creating more group content on a more regular basis. Comparing ZOS to WOW and Blizzard is probably not helpful as ZOS's strategy and capabilities are not the same. They are probably wisely trying to cater to a different audience. Trying to out "WOW" WOW is probably a flawed plan and not going to work out for them. All the best and thanks for spending the time to write a detailed post.

kevlarto_ESO · December 2016

ESO and wow are two different birds two different company philosophies, wow has been out for many years and much development, it was a different time and gamers were different when wow released and they create full expansions which is great.

ESO came along a lot more competition, free to play games app games, players want it now at a faster pace, really can't compare eso and wow, to much differences in our society, wow did not have much to compete against, no free to play cheese games were out at the time no app games on phones or tablets, was a different world.

I don't agree with the direction ESO is taking I think the smaller dlc's more often suck they don't have enough content in them, I would like see at least the size of wrothgar or a full blown expansion.

Tipsy247 · December 2016

I must've missed the two dungeons that came out with Thieves Guild?

Wifeaggro13 · December 2016

Vaoh wrote: »

Everything here is based on research I did on WoW. If I got some facts wrong please let me know. Pretty sure it's all sadly accurate.

WoW is an extremely successful MMO. Though I have never played it, I'd hope someday in the future ESO could have nearly as many active players. Of course, the treatment of PvP balance and (more importantly) *game performance* has unfortunateIy crushed any hope of this ever happening. One thing that has come to my attention though recently was the sheer amount of group content in WoW - specifically Dungeons and Raids (aka Trials).

Upon doing some research, I found some shocking facts about WoW's PvE endgame compared to ESO.

This is with regards to just how many Dungeons and Raids you can run in both ESO and WoW.

ESO
Base Game + everything up until the first purchaseable DLC: 16 Dungeons (half have Tier I & II versions), 3 Raids
Imperial City: 2 Dungeons, 0 Raids
Orsinium: 0 Dungeons, 0 Raids
Thieves Guild: 2 Dungeons, 1 Raid
Dark Brotherhood: 0 Dungeons, 0 Raids
Shadows of the Hist: 2 Dungeons, 0 Raids
Total - 20 Dungeons (28 if counting duplicate dungeons via Tier I & II), 4 Raids

WoW
Classic: 20 Dungeons, 5 Raids (more than current ESO)
The Burning Crusade: 16 Dungeons, 8 Raids
Wrath of the Lich King: 16 Dungeons, 9 Raids
Cataclysm: 14 Dungeons, 6 Raids
Mists of Pandaria: 9 Dungeons, 5 Raids, 18 scenarios
Warlords of Draenor: 8 Dungeons, 3 Raids
Legion: 11 Dungeons, 3 Raids
Total - 94 Dungeons, 39 Raids

They also use different player counts for group content.....

In ESO:
Dungeons: 4 players
Raids(Trials): 12 players

In WoW:
Scenarios: 3 players
Dungeons: 5 players
Raids(Trials):
10 players only (two raids)
25 players only (seven raids)
10 or 25 players (nineteen raids)
10-30 player w/ scaling based on amount of players (four raids)
40 player (three raids)

I fully understand that WoW has been out much longer than ESO..... but why is ESO so lacking on endgame content!? This is not due to how much longer WoW has been out, but rather the pacing of ESO launching endgame content. We have 4 raids and the fifth is likely coming with our future Vvardenfell DLC, due late 2017 or even farther. In other words, we will have 5 raids (if not still 4) in ESO at the end of 2017.

On top of this, WoW has included all of their expansions (each of which are larger than all of ESO's DLC combined) into the base game for free except for the most recent "Legion" expansion. Sometime when the next expansion releases, they will undoubtedly make Legion part of base game WoW as well. ESO will never do something like this with their DLC.

..... I guess the point of this post is this - why is ESO so ridiculously slow at releasing endgame group content? This is why the player count is far smaller right now than it ever should've been. ZOS crippled game performance (most notably in PvP) and forced the endgame for most players into PvE since PvP turned into a mess.

We have only 4 Raids and they're all too unrewarding for most players to bother with. The Group Dungeons are all easy for endgame players except maybe some of the DLC dungeons. You also lose gold when you run Trials because there's no BoE loot and you need to chug Potions throughout your runs. How can ESO's raid content maintain a healthy endgame playerbase when there's so little of it and it serves as a gold sink?

Looking up the content WoW contains has definitely put ESO's endgame in perspective for me. The base game was perfect in terms of content, but since then there has been a miniscule amount of effort put into endgame. I can think of tons of good players I know who would've never quit if even a quarter of the amount of dungeons/raids were released to ESO in the same timespan that WoW releases them.

Please tell me I am missing somethimg huge in all of this. As far as I'm concerned, ESO would do amazingly well if it had 4x the current amount of dungeons and 10x the amount of trials including those with 2-3x the amount of players in them.

I love ESO, but it's no secret how poorly the endgame community is doing. Trials are as empty as the PvP population now due to lack of content and incentive. Personally, endgame PvE is all that's left for me. Please revive the endgame community and revise your policy of 2-4 dungeons/1 trial (max) per year. Add more and be serious about endgame to guarantee some longetivity for ESO. The "Elder Scrolls" name can only carry this game so much farther when content runs unbelievably dry and PvP is painfully neglected.

....that is all

Its not just wow , But out of the last 6 major AAA games released since 2004 all had triple the content at 3 years post launch. Even EQ2 which had smaller sales then WOW a smaller but dedicated player base. Had 3 full blown expansions , a multiplayered AA system 3 level cap increases . as well as adding 3 DLC's in that time . Each Xpac added 6 to 8 dungeons 3 raids and new starting zones. hell they even added a race as well.

ESO is not aiming for longevity its aiming for make as much money as possible in the shortest amount of time. Even Matt had some very interesting responses to Pax interviews when asked what they planned for adding content and life cycle of the game. He said " we will keep making content for the game as long as there were enough people playing it"

Vaoh · December 2016

Tipsy247 wrote: »

I must've missed the two dungeons that came out with Thieves Guild?

Good catch! fixed it

Dracane · December 2016

1 reason could be, that ESO looks amazing and is so much more detailed than WoW's potato graphics. The developers only need to move the pen a liddle and have created an entire WoW zone, because it lacks any details.

I doubt, that an ESO zone is nearly as simple as a WoW zone.
But I agree, I feel like the devs are not really working on the game as much as they should.

1 minor update every 4 months or so seems to be not enough. Especially all the imbalance, I don't see why they always have to wait forever to do something. There should be a significant patch every week, I feel like they are damn lazy and ignorant.

BossXV · December 2016

As I have read before, 1 tree in wrothgar has more pixels than all of vanila WOW, I can see ESO content taking longer to make honestly, but I seriously cannot justify the last 3 DLC being 5500 crowns for slim content,

This game may have a different pacing understandingly if that's what it takes to make breath taking new zones like wrothgar, but people will not wait forever, we need to know the plan, will we have endless shadows of the hist DLC, or can we expect meaty?

Personally I would be glad if they released 1 Orsinium project a year bundled with a few new dungeons and 1 new raid, (drool)

What I really wonder is.... Is ZOS greedy? Or do they not have the money to justify continued large projects?

Wolfshead · December 2016

Vaoh wrote: »

Everything here is based on research I did on WoW. If I got some facts wrong please let me know. Pretty sure it's all sadly accurate.

WoW is an extremely successful MMO. Though I have never played it, I'd hope someday in the future ESO could have nearly as many active players. Of course, the treatment of PvP balance and (more importantly) *game performance* has unfortunateIy crushed any hope of this ever happening. One thing that has come to my attention though recently was the sheer amount of group content in WoW - specifically Dungeons and Raids (aka Trials).

Upon doing some research, I found some shocking facts about WoW's PvE endgame compared to ESO.

This is with regards to just how many Dungeons and Raids you can run in both ESO and WoW.

ESO
Base Game + everything up until the first purchaseable DLC: 16 Dungeons (half have Tier I & II versions), 3 Raids
Imperial City: 2 Dungeons, 0 Raids
Orsinium: 0 Dungeons, 0 Raids
Thieves Guild: 2 Dungeons, 1 Raid
Dark Brotherhood: 0 Dungeons, 0 Raids
Shadows of the Hist: 2 Dungeons, 0 Raids
Total - 20 Dungeons (28 if counting duplicate dungeons via Tier I & II), 4 Raids

WoW
Classic: 20 Dungeons, 5 Raids (more than current ESO)
The Burning Crusade: 16 Dungeons, 8 Raids
Wrath of the Lich King: 16 Dungeons, 9 Raids
Cataclysm: 14 Dungeons, 6 Raids
Mists of Pandaria: 9 Dungeons, 5 Raids, 18 scenarios
Warlords of Draenor: 8 Dungeons, 3 Raids
Legion: 11 Dungeons, 3 Raids
Total - 94 Dungeons, 39 Raids

They also use different player counts for group content.....

In ESO:
Dungeons: 4 players
Raids(Trials): 12 players

In WoW:
Scenarios: 3 players
Dungeons: 5 players
Raids(Trials):
10 players only (two raids)
25 players only (seven raids)
10 or 25 players (nineteen raids)
10-30 player w/ scaling based on amount of players (four raids)
40 player (three raids)

I fully understand that WoW has been out much longer than ESO..... but why is ESO so lacking on endgame content!? This is not due to how much longer WoW has been out, but rather the pacing of ESO launching endgame content. We have 4 raids and the fifth is likely coming with our future Vvardenfell DLC, due late 2017 or even farther. In other words, we will have 5 raids (if not still 4) in ESO at the end of 2017.

On top of this, WoW has included all of their expansions (each of which are larger than all of ESO's DLC combined) into the base game for free except for the most recent "Legion" expansion. Sometime when the next expansion releases, they will undoubtedly make Legion part of base game WoW as well. ESO will never do something like this with their DLC.

..... I guess the point of this post is this - why is ESO so ridiculously slow at releasing endgame group content? This is why the player count is far smaller right now than it ever should've been. ZOS crippled game performance (most notably in PvP) and forced the endgame for most players into PvE since PvP turned into a mess.

We have only 4 Raids and they're all too unrewarding for most players to bother with. The Group Dungeons are all easy for endgame players except maybe some of the DLC dungeons. You also lose gold when you run Trials because there's no BoE loot and you need to chug Potions throughout your runs. How can ESO's raid content maintain a healthy endgame playerbase when there's so little of it and it serves as a gold sink?

Looking up the content WoW contains has definitely put ESO's endgame in perspective for me. The base game was perfect in terms of content, but since then there has been a miniscule amount of effort put into endgame. I can think of tons of good players I know who would've never quit if even a quarter of the amount of dungeons/raids were released to ESO in the same timespan that WoW releases them.

Please tell me I am missing somethimg huge in all of this. As far as I'm concerned, ESO would do amazingly well if it had 4x the current amount of dungeons and 10x the amount of trials including those with 2-3x the amount of players in them.

I love ESO, but it's no secret how poorly the endgame community is doing. Trials are as empty as the PvP population now due to lack of content and incentive. Personally, endgame PvE is all that's left for me. Please revive the endgame community and revise your policy of 2-4 dungeons/1 trial (max) per year. Add more and be serious about endgame to guarantee some longetivity for ESO. The "Elder Scrolls" name can only carry this game so much farther when content runs unbelievably dry and PvP is painfully neglected.

....that is all

Are you serious compare ESO with WoW when everyone that have play WoW know that expansion last over a year while 1 DLC to ESO last 3 month which basically mean that ESO dont have "end game" like WoW have. Serious it is like compare a formula car/race car to a family car like Honda Civic and wonder why your Honda Civic is go as fast as formula car/race car come on stop compare for it is just stupid to do.

Vaoh · December 2016

jarydf wrote: »

Voah - Why not play WOW and see if you enjoy it? Isnt that the real test? You can do that. It is totally fine plan to do so. You might get something out of it and also find the parts you like about ESO at the same time. We hear you that you are concerned about retention of the community that like to play group trial content and would like ZOS to spend more of their development time on creating more group content on a more regular basis. Comparing ZOS to WOW and Blizzard is probably not helpful as ZOS's strategy and capabilities are not the same. They are probably wisely trying to cater to a different audience. Trying to out "WOW" WOW is probably a flawed plan and not going to work out for them. All the best and thanks for spending the time to write a detailed post.

Ty! But again, I am not advocating for anything from ESO to be influenced by WoW. Also I don't want to play WoW.

WoW happens to have a massive community for endgame PvE and actually cares for it as well. ESO is the opposite, in that the endgame PvE community is very small and extremely unsupported. I want ZOS to focus on endgame PvE so the game can grow. The current direction of releasing a real DLC every 6 months for most people to explore for 2-3 weeks is not benefitting the longetivity of ESO at all. And the Crown Store lately? It's adding up and the direction this game is heading is worrying to say the least.

Sallington · December 2016

ESO's playerbase is far too casual for any type of classic MMO progression raiding.

This is an MMO of faceroll PvE content and cosmetics.

Vaoh · December 2016

Dracane wrote: »

1 reason could be, that ESO looks amazing and is so much more detailed than WoW's potato graphics. The developers only need to move the pen a liddle and have created an entire WoW zone, because it lacks any details.

I doubt, that an ESO zone is nearly as simple as a WoW zone.
But I agree, I feel like the devs are not really working on the game as much as they should.

1 minor update every 4 months or so seems to be not enough. Especially all the imbalance, I don't see why they always have to wait forever to do something. There should be a significant patch every week, I feel like they are damn lazy and ignorant.

Yep. I can agree 100% with the higher quality of ESO and such, but ZOS is definitely not trying at all to add anything in a timely manner. The Crown Store/milking casuals is #1. Adding lots of new trials and dungeons so huge PvE communities form and *stay*..... not at all.

Remember when we used to complain about lag in PvP? When that was all there was to worry about? Those were the days