Everyone is wearing the exact same armor, using the same weapon, using the exact same abilities... the same build - there is just no diversity when it comes to character build... The combat metrics is of such a nature that irrespective of class, your build is EXACTLY the same as all the other players. If I want to start a new alt (same class as my main), I will eventually end up with the exact same build - a 100% duplicate of the original. The lack of character (build) diversity is what is killing this game for me...

• Lore, talking NPCs, a (relatively small) number of quests that truly compel you to see the end of them. In example, Wrothgar. Wrothgar imo is a very nice DLC (deserving the "expansion" name more than the "real" expansion we got) with a nice story. The plot is fairly linear, but it's good and includes some "wow, did not expect that!" moments. Like a good book.
• No "tab-target", no "lock player -> fire -> 100% hit chance" potato mechanic like in WoW or SWTOR.
• Dark Brotherhood + Thieves guild. The combo provides (to suitable mindset players) lots of fun. It gets boring after a while though. But it's certainly a well made game feature.

All the rest is mediocre at best.

ESO:

• started with flawed but nice PvP. Then they dropped the ball. As a (former) pure PvP player in real PvP MMOs (DAoC, Warhammer, DFO, GW2) I am disgusted seeing how it degenerated. Less performance in 2018 than 2014, cheesy gimnicks, lag galore, endless loading screens. The fix for endless loading screens? Fix some non PvP issues, then unstick the relevant sticked thread and hope people forget about it.
• started with unbalanced (nothing that could not be easily fixed) classes that had a clear identity. Nowadays? Remove the class icon and you almost cannot discern a DPS class from another.
• comes with plain, bland, limited abilities. Are you a sorc? 95%+ of the builds involve repeating 4 skills. Yay! But HEY! we get "purists" saying you can still show your skill by exploiting a (former) bug and animation cancelling! No, thanks. I look at basically... any other MMO... even GW2 went for the "few abilities" route but gets more and better than that.
• features ZOS concept of balance: make so that - except few unfortunate outliers - wearing one DPS set is more or less like wearing another. Change weapon trait... the result is more or less within 3% same throughput. Change race... ah. No. You cannot.
• is a BiS based game. Even races have a clear winner: Altmer. Anyone playing anything else for ranged DPS is basically a pityful poor thing. BiS gear set. Despite what said above (you can swap gear sets and the result is same), you still get those 4-5 sets out of 100 that are "the good stuff" and that's it. Pet sorc without Necropotence? LOL. No MD/Necro/MA jewelry? Bad. A nice guy proved (with repeated parse) that vet mode acquired AA gold jewelry on a sorc gives worse DPS than blue MD acquired in normal MOL.
• difficulty tuned as in: "raise boss hitpoints and make it 1-shot". hm HRC and hm AA are sort of happy exceptions, with quite different tactics involved (HRC is especially well done).
• Absurdly awful ultra-RNG based loot system. You really have to see planets align well, in order to get the Good Drop with proper traits. For what I have read, ZOS actually tuned the drop chances so that you get an abnormal, huge amount of "training" and "well fitted" stuff instead of the few, decent traits. "Well, I can always decon the trash loot". No, dude. 2 years ago you could. Now you can do it and get back close to zero materials. It's just better to vendor the trash loot and go chop trees if you want materials.
• classes rebalance thought with the butt and with an axe. "You know what? We tune DKs and sorcs by stripping them off their signature skills they had since day 0". Hell, yeah! Even my 6 old nephew can do that!. "We found out Templars have skills multipliers broken. Let's make them wait forever."
• drug / gambling addict mindset exploiting for the crown crates. I hate that and some nation should actually outlaw ESO until they make it "just" a cash shop, not an addiction victims "straight-in-your-face" exploit.

PrayingSeraph wrote: »

I love investing into the lore of every series I get into. Elder Scrolls has my favorite fantasy game lore, period. I love how ESO shows us the lore like no other TES games before it.

Plus I LOVE how the Deadric Princes play an active role in the game!

ahem, Daedric* Princes, ahem.

It's very close, because I love all the aspects mentioned, but having a map full of tangible goals to go through and complete is fantastic. It's very satisfying to see all the icons filled in.

Other than that, my actual answer would be the stealth and criminal system; lockpicking, pickpocketing, breaking and entering, theft/burglary, murder/assassination, fencing/laundering. It's just a really nice additional layer that's missing from a lot of MMORPGs.