Unstable servers, frequent and puzzling balance changes, and lack of challenging content.

Just look at how many posts pop up on Reddit about new players joining during one of the many server crashes this summer and being turned off immediately.

It also takes VERY long to catch up, which can turn off new players. It took me about 12 months (1000 hours) to reach max CP. I can see a lot of people giving up before that though. There simply isn't enough content to level through. Overland is extremely easy and loses your interest quick, and dungeons and trials aren't a good source of XP.

A lot of their changes lately have also been very unpopular. Coupled with the insane grind associated with having to re-gear, I can see a lot of people quitting.

I don't know about trends or graphs and what not but only what I see and feel as a player. On Xbox NA, when I started a little over 2 years ago, it felt quiet. Myself and a buddy could play for a long time and not see other people. He soon lost interest but I stuck around and continued to do the quests. Hit VR12 I think before the 1T change. It then felt much more populated and for a long time. I was enthusiastic about learning more and getting better, got better and with some socialization, to the point of completing vMoL. But over the last 6ish months I felt it decline, many new friends and guild mates left, guilds felt less alive and morale of the, and in the, game declined. After what I felt as the first big change, with (morrowind) different aspects of the game became less popular even if the overall population seemed to increase again but now its gone back down to lull. I've dropped to playing casually, log in for maybe an hour or 2 a day, don't really accomplish much but some dailies. maybe join a pug normal trial to try and score some gear Once a week. Dabbling in PvP, though its not my thing, to try and find entertainment. It's starting to feel like a mobile game where you log in to collect stuff, and then when something good comes out, you play with those saved up resources for a little while and then repeat. NOW, that's not to say what has been done is wrong or bad. Some of the changes have been beneficial, some have been questionable and some just stupid, and I'm trying see the "balance" form. Yet, you can't go reinventing the wheel so often and expect people to want to relearn how to drive.

dwemer_paleologist wrote: »

please increase sneak speeds,
and cut sorcerer damge and shields in half,
and listen to the customers requests and game will increase subbs.

Nerf sorcs requests are sounding pretty pathetic these days. After HotR they're not even all that great anymore. Listening to their customers is a good call just not to bad ideas with no valid reasoning behind them

GDOFWR420 wrote: »

They catered to the casuals and not the vets, you know the ones who kept this game alive by subbing and grinding, running trials to sell or gear up a guildy with the rewards. Not to mention they nerfed all classes except nightblade and sorc. There has been no promised balance at all.

I myself haven't played more than 5 hours in the last month.

^This guy isn't wrong with the fact that catering to casuals is not a long term way to keep a game healthy. You have to make the game easy to get into of course for casuals and new players, BUT you don't have to also make it not fun for end game players or they move on.

If people are leaving, and it wouldn't surprise me as I know a bunch who have quit over the last few months, its probably because of the lack of PVE content. Once you've done everything if you don't like PVP there's really nothing to do and its time for a new game.

maboleth wrote: »

Some people are internally frustrated, negative and ignorant and reflect that on their views of the game (and life). And most are smarter and wiser than the entire team of dedicated professional developers that work probably more than 10 hours a day.

Yeah, the sky is falling, we are doomed.

Morrowind is a great chapter, so full of little details, lore and rich fantasy. ALL content DLCs to date have been great, in fact. The entire game is full of details - IF you care or want to look.

Graphics is fantastic, the last two updates have been great in terms of CP points, monster sets, mundus stones and various quality-of-life game changes.

I can find Battlegrounds matches even at 4am EU time within 5 or so minutes, sometimes even in less than 2 minutes.

But to whom am I talking? People believe what they want to believe, and this thread is - we are doomed, take cover.

The numbers are concerning. No reason to dismiss them.

This game has serious problems. For example, what good are all the little details in Morrowind if veteran players have no reason to play through the chapter?

ZOS has abandoned long time players (there is a criminal lack of endgame content in this game), while not giving new players adequate means to reach end game (grinding to max CP can take over a year, while there isn't nearly enough interesting and challenging content to last you through it). They've failed both player bases.

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

xaraan wrote: »

GDOFWR420 wrote: »

They catered to the casuals and not the vets, you know the ones who kept this game alive by subbing and grinding, running trials to sell or gear up a guildy with the rewards. Not to mention they nerfed all classes except nightblade and sorc. There has been no promised balance at all.

I myself haven't played more than 5 hours in the last month.

^This guy isn't wrong with the fact that catering to casuals is not a long term way to keep a game healthy. You have to make the game easy to get into of course for casuals and new players, BUT you don't have to also make it not fun for end game players or they move on.

The problem is, they kind of got it wrong both ways.

The game is by and large designed for new players (overland content, which is the bulk of the game's content, is extremely easy), but the grind to get to end game is VERY gruelling. I mentioned earlier that it took me 12 months to hit max level (and the cap keeps rising). Not everyone is going to put up with faceroll easy questing for 12 months just to hit max level. The 1-50 grind is acceptable. Beyond that, it's extremely tedious.

On the other end of the spectrum, once you reach end game, there is nothing to do. 5 raids (with no way to earn income from them due to BoP) just doesn't cut it. There is no reason for veteran players to quest due to how insanely easy that content is (you kill overland mobs in 1-2 hits with endgame gear).

I can agree with you that it's not handled right from either direction.

Don't know about the whole "grind" being harder though. I guess if you look at 'end game' as only being at CP660 it could take a while, but you don't have to be at that point to do much of the end game content, especially if you know what you are doing (in as much as having the ability to play smart and learn mechanics, most groups will give you a chance if they play with you some to know you pay attention to stuff - that makes a bigger difference than an extra couple hundred CP).

After remembering how long it used to take to level up ten characters to vet 10 (then 12, then 14) each individually. And how much harder the content was for less reward XP wise, (less XP and no catch up mechanic) it is WAAAAAAAY easier to level now than it used to be if you plan to level multiple characters. If you only want to focus on one character, then maybe you'll see less benefit to the way leveling is now, but it's still easier. We have a guy that has been playing with us for a few months now (casually too I should say) and he already is at CP330+ and has four different characters that all got to be CP330 as soon as het got them to 50 b/c he kept changing his mind on his class. That's worth more IMO to a new player than just making the grind faster.

I guess to me, you make it easier and easier to achieve/complete stuff (from just leveling, to content itself) and it means less and less to actually achieve/complete it. So there is a balance there and it's weighted a bit too much toward the casual/new player than vet player. I'm not even a player that likes things hard core, I don't mind nerfs to things that needed it (like Cradle of Shadows, it was way too RNG based and didn't rely enough on simply skill, but more luck on what would happen when. Or the ridiculously overpowered snaky-daedra-chicks at launch that were harder than dungeon bosses.) So I don't think things need to be hard mode all the time, but they should be more challenging than they are now.

I also think that the way they upscale stuff for Vet versions isn't handled well. Like they just run an algorithm and don't actually test stuff. The new released dungeons are ok, but like the original 4 man dungeons that didn't used to have vet hard mode versions all have these one shot mechanics that aren't really "mechanics" in the way you adapt to them, but just RNG one shots b/c they've just ramped up the power level without testing.

Mostly things just aren't handled well for the vet end and things are so face roll easy in questing b/c they've made it that way for super casual new players. In leveling up my warden (I level by quests, not grinding) I saw countless players almost dying to random quest mobs just standing there light attack spamming with a bow. You make the game easy for these people and those that actually learn to play well will find it too easy to enjoy. PLUS, if you actually had harder content, those players will get frustrated b/c they've never had to learn to play well to complete anything. I had a player we were taking through WGT dungeon call me elitist b/c I tried to explain mechanics of the Flame Atro boss to him (and I was doing it pretty generically, not like frustrated or anything weird) but you gotta know the mechanics to do the fight. This same player was also spamming NB's sap on single targets to do DPS with no weaving of light attacks or other abilities. You'd think this was an anomaly of a player, but the more and more new players we try to run with or help it doesn't feel that way.

In order to do successful identity marketing, you need to have a strong brand identity.

ESO has struggled to find an identity for years. It meanders too much. In their naive journey to be a "game unlike any other" they've become an imitation patchwork of a dozen or more better ones. So they can fill ESO+ with perks and the crown store with stuff. But because the game's turning into a casual wallet-shaker with side quest filler, those purchases don't say anything about my identity. It's just digital stuff I don't need, in a world that grows more and more bland. They're not a magical ingredient. A new hat or mount will not automatically correct everything the game needs to improve, nor will they compensate in the meantime.

So in the long run, I'm kind of glad Bethesda pulled in a manipulative charlatan to try to boost ESO's revenue. It shows they value revenue over branding. But they don't have a revenue problem. They have a branding problem, and all the crown crates in the world won't fix it.

IMHO Steam Players (or the ones I know) seem to suffer from Gaming ADD. Furthermore, if I took the advice of most of the steam player reviews...I would never play a game, ever again - they seem to hate them all.

Bottom line, I wouldn't use Steam players as a baseline when making these type of assertions about a game's popularity.

We can't have argonian slaves. plain and simple

xaraan wrote: »

Mostly things just aren't handled well for the vet end and things are so face roll easy in questing b/c they've made it that way for super casual new players. In leveling up my warden (I level by quests, not grinding) I saw countless players almost dying to random quest mobs just standing there light attack spamming with a bow. You make the game easy for these people and those that actually learn to play well will find it too easy to enjoy. PLUS, if you actually had harder content, those players will get frustrated b/c they've never had to learn to play well to complete anything. I had a player we were taking through WGT dungeon call me elitist b/c I tried to explain mechanics of the Flame Atro boss to him (and I was doing it pretty generically, not like frustrated or anything weird) but you gotta know the mechanics to do the fight. This same player was also spamming NB's sap on single targets to do DPS with no weaving of light attacks or other abilities. You'd think this was an anomaly of a player, but the more and more new players we try to run with or help it doesn't feel that way.

To me, they could make the questing/overland content harder if they just had a better way of teaching new players how to play. That seems like the most obvious way to raise the floor. Here's my idea:

The tutorial starts and your character has 2 chests in front of them. One has 2 sets of end-game magicka gear that work well together and the other has 2 end-game stamina sets. At this point the general differences between stam and mag are explained in a pop up. It will tell you what resource each chest is based on when you look at it and you can only choose one. What those sets are gets determined by the class you choose.

Zos could easily use their data to provide combinations that are actually used. Likely one sustain and one DPS would be what you get. The weapons are generic and you can take whatever you want from the chest. This allows the player to switch between different weapons and unlock skill lines right away so they can have an idea of what they want to use before they ever leave the tutorial.

Once you've equipped the gear and get a pop up explaining 2-5 piece armor bonuses, you move into the next room and you get 2 weapon bars with skills unlocked and set up with a standard end-game build. Again, Zos could use their collected data for this. (Now I know many builds are different especially between classes but for the most part they have a spammable, an AOE, a buff, a heal, an execute, secondary damage, etc) The weapons currently equipped would also determine the skills used and changing weapons would change the skills. It should be a set up that gives the player a feel for the class but is still functional. The player can change these skills if they wish but they can't be morphed yet. Here the player gets another pop up explaining the types of damage done in the game (Direct Damage, Dots, AoE, etc).

As you progress through, your enemy encounters will call for certain attacks and the hints will offer suggestions for what to use (Example for MagSorc: When encountering large groups use the Lightning Splash skill to damage multiple enemies at once). The player gets put through various scenarios where they would learn how and when to use their skills culminating in a boss fight that requires using all of them. They get hints on weaving in light attacks and how to use heavy attacks to regain resources.

After the tutorial is complete, they go into the real world, they keep the weapons but the gear reverts to slaves rags and such. They lose all the skills and gain 3 skill points. They are then asked if they'd like to do it again.

Then the player would start in the same place as they do now except they have an idea of what they can get to after working for it, the types of damage and when/why it's used, how to create a useful build and why, the differences between stam and mag, how the different weights of armor affect a player and why. The game difficulty could be turned up a bit overall due to players being more informed.

It would also be useful because if you play the tutorial as mag and then decide maybe you'd like stamina you can play it again right then or if you feel like you didn't learn all you wanted to or want more practice you could. Side note: it should also show you the passives for each race at character creation to help with the tutorial process later.

Boom! Floor is raised

A lot of my friend left they can't keep up with the Constant changing of playstyle + nerfing and the last dcl patch killed most of the intrest

You can't expect people 2017 to read patch notes + fig wtf happens to my character now.

It's more then a work it's insane and respect cost

I remember a time when you played a char for over 15 years without reading or looking at guides how to make your character playable again in eso this happens nearly every month

@ZOS_RichLambert

Morrowind development and marketing followed the same bait and switch tactics that the video game industry is becoming infamous for.

Do you want this game to become another famous failure? (Look at Mass Effect Andromeda)

Are you willing to take responsibility for such an occurrence?