Are we even playing the same game?

Like sure, questing is not something you need other people for, but questing in general is better done solo if you want to pay attention to the story. But there are a ton of things you can do with friends, like world bosses, dungeons, PvP, general exploring, fishing, you name it.

Get a bunch of friends on discord, get very drunk and then take on some Vet HM content. Hilarious! Seriously though I get that overland PvE is too easy with other people, but then it's not hard to solo either since 1T. I am a traditional lone wolf so it can be refreshing to actually join with other people for a while and do some dungeons, IC stuff, fishing, sky-shard collecting or just farm Dolmens whilst judging everyone else's skills and fashion sense Although I love the fact that (mostly) I am not forced to group to clear content.

Being older making friends in video games is not as appealing to me as it used t be.

Not to say I don't still make some it's just that I don't look for it as much as I used to and my hectic schedule often makes it more difficult to have a regular playtime in which to meet those I enjoy playing with.

On top of that due to the job, I worked the last 20 years in which I moved around a lot I have only 2 really close friends in real life. One of those just isn't into the same type of games I am into and the other currently has a rough schedule almost opposite of mine.

That being said, however, I really do enjoy playing with someone I know and can share in-game experiences with. The joy of overcoming those in-game challenges with close friends never really went away.

Over the last 20 years or so of playing MMO's I have come to realize that the community plays a larger part of how inclusive or exclusive a game is sometimes even more so than the mechanics the developers create. As a game ages, its community is less supportive as a whole and begins to develop large divides between those who are more skilled or have more experience and those who are new or less skilled.

There isn't anything wrong with that, it is just something that develops as MMO's age.


Do some games have mechanics that lead to a greater need for participation in mass? Certainly and some games less, however, ESO still has plenty of content that requires group participation for "new players" and as far as long-time experienced players they simply outgrew that requirement.

The social mechanics are still here its just that the community decides how much time they as a whole want to put into those mechanics and develop new relationships to replace the ones lost.

I quest with people all the time. You practically need to

The problem is quest drops ...

Say I do a question my own then a friend is on it later and he struggling and asks for help

So I join them, I can't see the quest markers or sometimes the enemies

Apart from solo quests when grouping up we should get instanced into the crown's sessions so we can do their quests, also with each person in group enemies should get a multiplier making them harder n more challenging

Friends are over rated..

Personally I find it much more fun with friends.

When I came back to the game after a break I had no friends playing any more, no guilds and just did solo questing and farming which got dull fast.
Now I have a number of friends who returned and made new ones who I do content with almost every night, without them I probably would have left the game again.

Weak synergy or combo-able abilities

Most of my Friends prefer to play Animeish/Cartoonish looking MMORPGs or FPS....

I absolutely have more fun playing ESO with my friends, both RL and friends I've met in game. I think they make conscious efforts to enable this, for example using megaservers instead of having 100 different realms in each region, like WoW does (or used to do at least, it's been awhile since I played WoW.) I would be happy to hear they are considering more features to enable and enhance group play and camaraderie between players.

I think the overland content is just to easy. Hey look a group of 2 mobs you one shot one I’ll one shot the other.... and as someone else pointed out no way to actually tell what quest the people in my group are doing.

Now I do think they have done a good job putting in more bosses which do encourage you to group up. But really there isn’t a whole lot of reason to do them unless you are on a daily quest. Of course most of them stand still in a very specific location so you don’t have to worry about accidently having to need help... how very boring.

I know people will bring up the failure of craglorn. But that was a failure in design. First gate content behind quest and make it so unless you are on exactly the same quest step at the same time, you can’t work together. Then nerf all the rewards so they are worse then you get in easier content... last wonder why no one groups up to go there... well played Zos you destroyed your own area.

I think its entirely dependent on the content. I can say that questing specifically is a chore in any mmorpg you play. Well, i take that back: its usually pretty awesome leveling with one other person - i did that in two other mmorpgs and it was really fun. We saw some crazy stuff, and took on quest levels we shouldnt have and laugh about it to this day.

anything more than 2 and it turns into a patience murdering chaotic mess of everyone at a different point in their quest.

ESO especially had this "instancing" problem early on that i dont think was fully addressed - you literally could not quest with friends as areas would become "phased" to "reflect the decisions of your character".

sounded good on paper i suppose.

I will say, after playing about 3 hours of TERA, recently - ESO is still the best in the biz when it comes to quest structure and overall game design.

Because i lack time I usually don't complain about being able to solo most of the stuff. But...

Overland is to easy for most part. I do like to do dungeons with guildies and I think it is major fun if people don't aim for speedruns and take their time and don't rage quit.

Crafting in this game is to easy. You can master all on one character. I loved games like SWG or Vanguard where you at least had to choose one or maybe two branches you would be able to master. The road was long and hard (took me 2 years dedicated crafting to be master carpenter in Vanguard) and not many people had alts with other crafting branches.

This way you make people depended on each other or guildies. ESO crafting is very easy to master. Only researching traits takes a long time (but still takes no effort).

So the interaction for PvE with other players is almost zero if one chooses for this (except vet dungeons and trials).

I find social interaction in PvP way better in this game then in PvE if you try to achieve something. Even in some guilds, and is the reason i am only part of one guild. (imho one of the friendliest i seen on the server)

It is more fun with friends, regardless of whether you actually know them irl. I don’t think I would have stuck with ESO for this long if I hadn’t found a great guild to hang with on literally my first day of playing. ESO’s single player content is pretty decent, but it isn’t enough to keep me entertained on its own.