I'm not going to throw a fit about ZOS wanting to dumb things down for new players. I do think they are going about it in an incredibly poor way.
Stats for Beginners
For new players, especially those unfamiliar with MMOs who are attracted by TES name, how damage/healing/mitigation in this game is calculated is pretty complicated. I played for over a year before understanding at all where my damage came from (max stat+wd/sd), and I only really understood after many youtube videos. I shouldn't have to go to youtube for the basic functionality of a game. It's like scaling for damage and healing abilities is a secret or something, and not all of it is intuitive, like whether a destro skill uses wd or sd. Things like this needs to be explained for beginners if you want to close the gap they have with veterans of the game because it can be hard to understand at first how one morph of a skill scales off of wd and max stam while the other scales off sd and max mag. Something could be included in the tutorial or make an extended optional tutorial to explain some of this.
Soft Caps
Bring back soft caps. It significantly closes the gap between new and veteran players because it lowers the ceiling. New players who don't understand anything will always be head and shoulders below anyone who has been around a while and will have a rough time no matter what. Once you begin to understand things though, the difference between someone who has perfected their build and rotation and someone with a good build who is still learning won't be as large as it is now. This wouldn't make much difference in the ability to complete, say, most group dungeons. But the difference in skill becomes clear in DLC dungeons and trials. This would make balancing easier as you would be able to balance the game in a way that most people can complete most content with decent gear, and the difference in skill and min/maxing really comes into play more with end game content. It helps to prevent builds that lead to imbalance like bs templars stacking 60k health and heavy armor builds who stack wd and max stam without regen. We could give sorcs their shield duration back since you wouldn't be able to stack 50k magicka. And the list goes on. Players can focus on getting better in PVP or with their PVE rotation rather than having to also learn how to optimally build to find the absolute best balance between max stats, wd/sd, regen, etc and then grind for that gear in order to be semi competitive. This also makes gear less important, so while finding the best end game gear will be important for min/maxers in PVP and trials, it is not the be all and end all for everyone.
Gear Grind
... is brutal. If you want to close the gap between the ceiling and the floor then players need to be able to find the gear they are looking for in a reasonable amount of time. RNG is miserable for dropped sets and weapons, both because of huge loot tables and trait imbalance. Then again if soft caps were in place then gear would be less important.
Champion System
Needs to be reworked. This PTS patch is a perfect example of what this system leads too. Nerfs being handed out left and right due to the power creep which is in large part due to the champion system. Honestly I am not super experienced with MMOs so I don't have a great alternative and would love to hear some ideas. That said, I have been around long enough that I can tell you the champion system is a huge contributor to this floor/ceiling gap that ZOS wants to close.
I don't necessarily completely agree with the desire to close this floor/ceiling gap, as I am all about rewarding skilled play. However
@ZOS_RichLambert if this really is your goal then here is a great place to start.
Edit: forgot resistances and damage mitigation in the first paragraph. To this day I still do not really understand how much mitigation a certain amount of resistance provides. I know roughly where resistances hard cap and how much you typically get on light/med/heavy builds but that's about it, don't know what the conversion is. Also just thought about weapon and spell crit, why the weird numbers on set, buff, and skill bonuses for those? I know roughly what they equate to since I've seen them enough but why can't there be a straightforward percentage?