Saturn wrote: »

As was proven during the Morrowind Beta ZoS cares more about new players than veterans, and would rather ESO turns into the revolving door kind that a lot of MMOs end up at, where the endgame community (pve/pvp both) ends up being swapped out nearly every new content cycle. Granted it's not as bad as that yet, but I have noticed a huge exodus of players on the PC NA, and I can't help but feel like all these big events are just to buff out the active player numbers, since they are steadily dwindling.

Personally I think one problem with ESO is its eclectic updates that cater a little bit to one part of the community, then the next update caters to another part, etc. meaning you have to wait a long while for new content that may interest your particular style and when it does come it's not a lot (e.g. 2 new dungeons ever year). Don't get me wrong this is obviously very common with MMOs, but none of them tend to do ESO style updates (every 3-4months) but rather one big update ever 1-2 years, which adds a lot of stuff that caters to everyone, meaning everyone is catered to at the same time, and such large updates are generally also better thought-out and QA'ed.

Further, I think the biggest problem, at least from my perspective, is a reason to keep playing. I'm not a big fan of trials and prefer 4man content more, but I did spend several months progressing through Maw when that came out, though I spent the most time on the game when vDSA was new (and even 6 months after).
If you have done either of those around their launch, you will know they weren't easy and honestly those kind of challenges are rare in ESO nowadays. The new trial is just a boss with a bunch of health, but less so a challenge than a marathon, and I get the feeling ZoS doesn't know how to cater to players who want a challenge anymore, or that they are scared to make actual difficult content, because it may turn away casual players (as seen with the constant nerfs on the dlc dungeons).

I think if you want a game that thrives, you focus on the endgame community in such a way that newer players have something to work towards, instead of the other way around, because a skill curve that doesn't curve loses its appeal immediately and when there's no room for improvement, the combat becomes stale and boring. Of course it's important to focus on other aspects and other parts of the game than simply endgame, but at least in terms of PvP and PvE I think it's wrong to focus on accessiblity and ignore the veteran players almost entirely.

I honestly think that ZoS are adding a lot of really good features, like the re-trait system we've all wanted for years, but for many players the nice additions don't outbalance the negative aspects anymore. I also think that the intense focus on the crown store is a seriously bad decision, and it makes me wonder what they intend to do if suddenly loot boxes are considered gambling (which seems likely considering the *** EA caused with Battlefront 2). It's also very disheartening that the game's performance has come to such a low point that it makes the memory-leak days of Update 3 seem good by comparison.

All in all I think ZoS has done a horrible job with ESO. It seemed like it was heading in a good direction after Orsinium (which honestly saved the game after the long content drought), but then they got greedy and neglected the care that the game deserves. Now it's nothing but focusing on the crown store and hoping enough people will cling to their sinking ship for a while longer.

Don't get me wrong, I love ESO, I just don't play it very much anymore for the reasons stated above. You can bet your a** that I'll be right back as soon as they figure their s**t out. "If" they figure it out, I should say.

raviour wrote: »

Dat 25k ward, dat 25k ward. A sorc with 3 shields up has like 80k hp and sick damage.

laksikus wrote: »

@raviour what happened to your plan to buy out ZOS to influence the game development?

raviour wrote: »

Cyro NPC [...] nerfed since 1.7.