The Feeling of missing out

Avrael · July 2018

First of all, i know write a lot of rants. This is not a rant, this is just an observation and my opinion.

Last month, if you logged in every day you got 5 crown crates at the last day, which in itself is pretty nice. Also, the last 2 days i was away and was not able to log on, ofc that means i didnt get this big last reward. Which also is not a big problem in itself, i was against daily rewards from the beginning and still dont like or need them.

But man, the feeling of missing something where youre required to do something even very small every day of one month for the chance of something thats actually worth a bit at the end, and then not getting it because the LAST day your real life was more important and you were nowhere near a PC... that feeling is pretty shhhhhhbad. Imagine your boss wouldnt pay you because on the last day of the month, something important popped up and you had to take the day off. And yes, this is exaggerated, ofc its not that serious here Mr. Obivious.
Again, not that i need the crates or anything from the rewards, most of them just waste inventory space and are worthless/annoying, its really just about the feeling. It doesnt feel good, doesnt matter at all what its about in the end, when you get this big of a middle finger rubbed in the face, its no fun.
And every game should be about fun, especially MMOs where you probably spend a lot of time and even work. But this isnt the only thing i wanted to say something about.

I personaly also feel pretty buried by all the things you can-/have to do in this game. Dont get me wrong, variety and content are good things, but sometimes too many options are not that positive. If you cook something and just throw every seasoning (possibly even in low quality, more on that later) you have into it, it wont taste very good. The right amount and quality is important, and with games its a very thin balance.
In most games you have not enough content to fill the time you wanna spend on the game, but with a few like Eso, you have so many things that you will probably never be able to do even close to everything.

Im a completionist, if its realistic i like to do everything in every game, as a challange and just because i like doing it. In Eso i also wanted to do this, for the last years even, but i really had to realize that i cant do it. Even Blobeso the streamer, that plays since beta i believe, tries to do everything, every achivement etc., and wasnt be able to do it so far (last i checked), even if he is really close, and he plays probably every to every other day. I dont even have half as much time, but the more important thing is, i dont WANT to spend that much time on this game. Because for me its not enough fun to be worth it to try to 100% complete it. And that ofc means for me its not enough fun to even play it at all atm, at least not active. And no this is NOT an "i quit" message, i wont quit, dont even think about turning my words.

Another thing that contributes to not being able to do everything is that you have to catch up first. Eso got a lot of new content in the last 2 years, even if you WOULD be able to do everything up to that point, you cant complete a dlc before the next one arrives already. Again, its good for games to get new content, but the paste at which Zos shoots out DLCs is... not healthy for the game imo. Because they lack quality, and im not saying they are bad or have no quality at all, but theyre not as good as they COULD be. Eso isnt nearly as good as it COULD be, and probably never will. Which is sad, because i would rather have the game improve in quality (meaning bug-fixes, quality-of-life changes, Engine updates as far as possible etc.), then have a new DLC every month.
Eso would be pretty much the perfect and best MMO on the market if it would be at the point where it could be with a bit (a lot) of work and a bit LESS new content, because new content ofc means new problems too. If you didnt fix the old problems, and then bury them under new ones, no wonder you cant get to them anymore. As i said, i just feel like this game is one of the very few that has TOO much to do if you want to fully experience it. You just HAVE to make a lot of cuts if you want to enjoy the game, and thats just not as... enjoying for me personally. This also is a huge feeling of missing out, to hint at the topic of this again. The first part with the crown crates just was the famous last drop that made me finally write something about all this.

Like every time i wrote a lot more then i intendet to, but oh well, maybe that shows how much i care, or would care, for the game.

The last thing is a question to all of you, how do you feel about this? About the amount and the quality of content, if you like things like daily rewards, daily quests etc. and what you do or want to do and accomplish in this huge game, if you only do PvE, only PvP, are a crafter, care about recepies and motifs, if youre a big trader, and so forth. I would love to hear what other people do in this game and where they have to make cuts in the content, what interests them and what not, what they find important and what can they do without.

Thanks already and please remember, this is not a rant. I dont mean this bad or extremly negative, its just how i feel about it and my opinion on it. Again, feel free to write yours too, thats what this forum is for after all.

srfrogg23 · July 2018

Too many words. Brain hurty bad

sudaki_eso · July 2018

Last month, if you logged in every day you got 5 crown crates at the last day, which in itself is pretty nice. Also, the last 2 days i was away and was not able to log on, ofc that means i didnt get this big last reward. Which also is not a big problem in itself, i was against daily rewards from the beginning and still dont like or need them

We got a 6 day buffer last month, even if you missed two days you should have still gotten all the rewards. I guess you missed a lot more days then just 2

I dont really care about the rewards, lets face it, there are 2-3 days with good rewards, the rest is, well nice but meh - not complaining tho lol. I will be on holiday this month and gone for 3 weeks, yup i will miss out the pet and the crates but is it a game changer for me that i missed those? Not at all.

zaria · July 2018

Yes is suck a bit.
However you had around 7 days slack.
I think the reward is to make causual players who just play a few days a week log in and probably play more.

And don't do stuff you hate or is bored silly off a lot, it just get you quit, pretty pointless to grind to cp cap if you just quit for a year after doing it:)

Danikat · July 2018

I know what you mean.

Oddly enough the game where I've been having most trouble with this feeling is Pokemon Go. It started off as something I could do on my way to/from work or whenever else I wanted to kill some time. Now there's 1 day events and 3 hour events and daily rewards (which get better as you do them on consecutive days), daily challenges, special raids you unlock by completing normal raids and then you get told when and where to go...It's feeling increasingly like they expect me to plan my life around the game rather than playing it when it's convenient for me. Which is absurd for a free-to-play phone game.

I don't feel like ESO is as bad, but that might be because a lot of the daily stuff has been around since the beginning so I've learned to ignore it. Also the rewards are the same every time so I don't feel like I'm really missing anything if I don't do all the daily quests, I can always do them another day.

That's what bothers me about the login rewards. No it's not as bad as some games where if you miss a day you lose all your progress and have to start over. But for people like me who are almost never at home every day in a month it's still a matter of losing the rewards because you can't/won't play on the schedule the developers have set for you. (And before anyone mentions it I mean literally not home at all - I leave early in the morning on day 1 and I don't come home until day 3 or later. So it doesn't matter if it would just take 5 minutes to log in on day 2, it's physically impossible because I am not in the same room, sometimes not even the same country, as my computer.)

I understand why they do it, even with the subscription being optional now ZOS need people logging in regularly, because if you don't log in you don't see crown store offers, you're less likely to buy new content and other players don't see you in the world so it feels a little bit emptier, so the entire game is built to encourage that. But it's still annoying.

It can end up feeling like they're saying if I don't play on their schedule I'm not welcome here, and then I start thinking why am I wasting my time playing a game where the developers don't want me? Why don't I spend that time and money on something which makes me feel happy instead of constantly telling me I'm not good enough to meet their expectations?

Hopefully once the novelty of the login rewards dies down that feeling will die too and it will become another thing which might be nice to have but I don't really care about either way. It seems likely since most of it is trash items and crown crates which give...more trash items.

But then I feel like if your reward system is only acceptable to players because they don't care if they get the rewards or not then it's not a good system. It would be far better to have something which makes everyone feel rewarded and incentivised to keep playing. IMO the easy way to do that here is to keep the login rewards going instead of restricting them to one month. So everyone will eventually get the 5 crown crates, even if it takes a few extra days, or another month (and they can then move on to the next set) instead of some people getting them and some missing them completely.

NeroBad · July 2018

For the first section, it is very similar to a hard dungeon where you go through all the lesser bosses, and then the hard one stops you from completing it. Maybe you spent 2 hours to get there and then 1 hour trying finish the last one, then you have to go because of real life, and all the 3 hours is gone without any reward. Every dungeon should be easy (so nobody experience this kind of feeling) or should they restrict players whom statistics not good enough to achieve it with ease?

For the other parts, I play ESO since 2016 november, I have a job, I have a fiance, I do have hobbies outside ESO, but with that I have 22k achievement points (around 67%) Im getting closer and closer even with the new content. I loved nearly every new content, and Im eager for the future updates.

Im a completionist but I can seperate like I want to have every quest achievement points, and every non fishing exploration points. I have a fantasy for a 100% but I can get satisfaction finishing every points in a dlc also wiht the new subdivisions I can exclude all veteran content (sadly Im still not good enough for that).

My recommendation is if you feel overwhelmed but you want to play ESO somewhat as a completionist, don't buy the new DLCs (or anything you don't own right now), or as me focus on subdivisions

Avrael · July 2018

I tried Pokemon GO for a week or so, and i too felt exactly that, its too much stuff you only get with Events, at specific times or places etc., you have absolutley 0% Chance to get everything there. Like in ESO. I dont think we will ever get the Frostcaster Motif again, so at least one thing noone that doesnt have it already will get. I dont have it, so i cant complete 100% anyways, so i dont even try, and if i cant 100%, then this game is sadly not worth playing by itself for me. If i want to drown in Bugs i play... another game from Bethesda... that i can mod and dont have to pay monthly for a crafting bag (which is the only thing for me thats worth the subscribtion).

AuldWolf · July 2018

I have five primary compulsions. Directives, you might say.

1.) Experience the story;
2.) Meet and aid the characters;
3.) Collect the lore;
4.) Explore the land;
5.) Uphold the roleplay.

This usually isn't too hard. It's especially grating though when content is locked out and I'm not allowed to do it. I'm tweaked by the thought of how many books I'll never be able to get, or interesting characters I'll never have the chance to meet. My partner and I split crafting up between us and we do it at a lazy pace, only upgrading when we feel we need to.

We're not in a rush.

I find that this works for me whenever I feel like I'm not being told that I'm simply not allowed to do content. I don't see that as fair, but there you go. I long for an MMO that doesn't do that. I feel one will turn up eventually, or the concept of the MMO will be replaced by co-op games.

So long as ZOS does nothing to make me feel especially unwanted, though, I'm here for the long haul. I tend to be very loyal to the games I stick with, and they really are very few and far between. ZOS caught my attention with high-concept fantasy (including science-fantasy), damned good writing, minority (including LGBTQ+) inclusion, and werewolves.

Only a few things they've done have actually bothered me, some of which I admit are very abstract. I mean, one is that I dislike four-limbed dragons because they're someone's especially sick mutilated, amputated, body horror big-game hunt fantasy. It's like someone took six-limbed dragons, cut their forelegs off (to deny them their hands), lobotomised them and made them rabid (to deny them their minds), and set them loose. Since they're not sapient any more, and they're all monstrous, they're no longer intimidating and that makes it okay to slaughter them. Never liked four-limbed dragons. Really sick. And no, they're nothing like bats. They're nothing like birds, either, so let's not call them wyverns because that's unfair to and particularly nasty for wyvern nerds. As such, I didn't enjoy Dragon Bones. I was glad Peryite was present, though. Though likely as an antagonist. Sigh.

So, yeah, Dragon Bones was a thing. I didn't like that. There have been some other petty things I didn't like. I certainly don't feel like I'm especially missing out on Dragon Bones, though.

Anyway, the point is is that for the most part, I don't feel like I'm missing out and I feel comfortable playing the way I do. If that ever changes and I feel like I'm missing out on a lot of things I enjoy, which would make me feel unwanted, then I'd just saunter on. There are other games to spend my money on. So long as that feeling doesn't get out of hand, though? I'm here, and I will be here.

I'll certainly feel like I'm missing out though if Wolfhunter doesn't bring an updated werewolf form (with the new model). That might be a make or break thing.

Edit: I want to clarify what I'm getting at...

A game can make you feel unwelcome in certain ways. It can make you feel uncomfortable by including things that make you feel distinctly uncomfortable, and it can make you feel cast aside by excluding you from things you might genuinely enjoy. I think we all have different cut off points for this. Generally, mine is pretty high. I have a high tolerance for it, though there are a few missteps that count much more than others.

Players like myself don't leave a game because the content has dried up, we leave because we feel like we're no longer wanted. I left Champions Online because they kept appealing to the hardcore and ruining a game I loved in the process. I felt more and more excluded with each patch as flavour of the month builds were forced on me. It finally reached a breaking point and I left.

Guild Wars 2 got me out before it even launched, so I haven't played much of it beyond doing the jumping puzzles. The charr were initially meant to be the most technologically advanced race -- which was an incredibly exciting concept to me. I'm tired of fantasy racism because I feel that abstractly it provides a safe space for bigoted people, it allows them to build confidence in their hate so they can express it in reality. Usually beast races are dumb and there's someone smarter, so making the beast race the most intelligent... Oh, that's a bold move. That's going to make certain kinds of people uncomfortable. But no, they had the gnomes be the most advanced in the end, a trope that everyone is comfortably familiar with. Oh well.

What I feel I'm missing out on isn't always so easy for me to define. There is an air to it, though, of something I look for and hope that a game has. So far, ESO has enough of that magical je ne sais quoi that it keeps me here.

Waffennacht · July 2018

I disagree

Taleof2Cities · July 2018

MMOs are not really well-suited to completionists ... especially ESO.

It’s not a game that you can say “I beat it” and put in the finished stack.

On the upside, having so many things to do in the game allows players a lot of flexibility to choose what’s the most fun for them.

Graydon · July 2018

You certainly wasted a lot of game time posting your “I’m not complaining - but it sucks” thread.

Edaphon · July 2018

Avrael wrote: »

Like in ESO. I dont think we will ever get the Frostcaster Motif again, so at least one thing noone that doesnt have it already will get.

The frostcaster motif returns every year during the new life festival.

Beardimus · July 2018

Apologies, TLDR. However, they are giving away free stuff. And people aren't happy, that's what I'm hearing.....

Agree there's alot to do in this game. I only run one main and the list of PvP setups i want to test alone takes all my play time let alone everything else. But content options is a good thing no? Keeps us playing...

PlagueSD · July 2018

Avrael wrote: »

But man, the feeling of missing something where youre required to do something even very small every day of one month for the chance of something thats actually worth a bit at the end, and then not getting it because the LAST day your real life was more important and you were nowhere near a PC... that feeling is pretty shhhhhhbad. Imagine your boss wouldnt pay you because on the last day of the month, something important popped up and you had to take the day off. And yes, this is exaggerated, ofc its not that serious here Mr. Obivious.

Umm, if you look carefully at the daily rewards, you'll notice there are only 20. July has 31 days in it. As long as you log in 20 times in 31 days, you'll get everything.

NickStern · July 2018

This is NOT a Rant.....

Ummm LOL

starkerealm · July 2018

Avrael wrote: »

But man, the feeling of missing something where youre required to do something even very small every day of one month for the chance of something thats actually worth a bit at the end, and then not getting it because the LAST day your real life was more important and you were nowhere near a PC... that feeling is pretty shhhhhhbad.

Yeah, that's my biggest gripe about the login rewards for Elder Scrolls Legends. I'm really glad ESO didn't go that route, and we have almost a week of extra days that don't count towards anything. That's nice. I can't tell you how many legendary cards I've missed out on by one day.

Darkenarlol · July 2018

lol missed my agree with first reply about boooring wall of text and sended agree to OP =D

worsttankever · July 2018

You might be speaking a little bit about the feeling of addiction. Where you are still doing it (playing eso , logging in), even though it doesn’t feel good anymore.

Maybe evaluate in regards to a larger context in your life and consider taking a break.

For a while I felt I had to do all crafting dailies on 10 characters or I was “missing out.” Became a chore, not entertainment. Came back after a 9 month break and I feel much better. Pvping, still crafting a bit, but not nearly as obsessed about that daily grind.

DenMoria · July 2018

I'm just going to say "Agree" even though I didn't read more than the first few lines.

I don't mind getting free stuff and I understand why they do it, but, still...

ghastley · July 2018

Dammit!! I missed two rewards just reading the opening post!

Avrael · July 2018

AuldWolf wrote: »

Only a few things they've done have actually bothered me, some of which I admit are very abstract. I mean, one is that I dislike four-limbed dragons because they're someone's especially sick mutilated, amputated, body horror big-game hunt fantasy. It's like someone took six-limbed dragons, cut their forelegs off (to deny them their hands), lobotomised them and made them rabid (to deny them their minds), and set them loose. Since they're not sapient any more, and they're all monstrous, they're no longer intimidating and that makes it okay to slaughter them. Never liked four-limbed dragons. Really sick. And no, they're nothing like bats. They're nothing like birds, either, so let's not call them wyverns because that's unfair to and particularly nasty for wyvern nerds. As such, I didn't enjoy Dragon Bones. I was glad Peryite was present, though. Though likely as an antagonist. Sigh.

Just want to say something to this, i also love Dragons. But i hate the "Dragons" in the TES Universe. They are so... unimpressive, boring, ugly, and as you said the worst part is they have only 4 limbs. Skyrim and Eso are very successful games as they are, but my god they would be even MUCH more amazing with "real" Dragons. I always thought that Skyrim, THE Game about Dragons in the last 10 years, has only ugly Kinda-Wyverns. Good goddarn job. Nope/10

But ye, just wanted to say that, because im not going to say something on the topic i guess, i dont want to get set on fire the next few weeks because i write an opinion that noone shares. Which amazes me... but well, as i said in another thread already, diehard fans will even eat sh*t on a plate from developers and thank them for it. Thats why they can do what they want and dont have to care about players, they will make money whatever they do. No need for aiming for the best they could get out of the game.

Close pls.

Vaaza · July 2018

If you have time, then spend that time doing what you want to do. There is no such thing as things you "have" to do. The only person who decides that is you. If you want to be a completionist then you have to be a completionist. You are only competing with yourself so you decide how fast or how slow or how much time you want to invest.

I like this game because the demand to log-in daily and grind is not required. There is a lot of days you can take off and not feel pressured to re-update yourself simply because time has rendered you and your character irrelevant and outdated.

I don't believe you've played Korean MMO's or any Asia based MMO in general. From the games I've played, you are allowed two days in a month to slack. Any more than that, you will not get the "BIS" item that the whole event was about. Content release unhealthy, you say? I guess that's subjective.
There's another game, also korea based, that has new and always better gear after every patch that renders previous gears from past patches useless and outdated. Craftable gear only. Mats are farmable and untradeable. Guess how often this patch occurs?

25 days. You get 25 days to farm up, upgrade, max out equipment. Only to repeat it again next month. and the next. and the next.

TL;DR Play at your own pace. ESO does not pressure you to play unless you want loot boxes that have less than 1% to drop quality stuff. If you are feeling pressured, then you need to ask yourself what you really want from this game. Everything will require time investment. Only you decide how it's done.

LadyLethalla · July 2018

I too am a completionist. My problem though is that I'm 8-9 hours ahead of I think all my ESO friends. I'm not going to PUG a DLC dungeon ever, let alone try to get every single last achievement for them. When my friends ARE online at the same time as me, I don't like to bug them for anything... but if I do find people who want to work at completing a DLC dungeon or something like Dragonstar Arena on Vet, then I want to keep trying, wipe after wipe, not give up after half a dozen tries.

This is an MMO and yes I belong to three guilds but I feel like 99% of the time I'm a solo player. When guild #1 only ever arranges vet trials on a Wed evening UK time, of course I can't participate... and feel excluded. If I PUG a normal Trial, my potato internet means I'll get disconnected at least once.
I'm not the kind of person who could run a guild either - not that there seems to be sufficient Oceanic players on PS4 EU to even manage a guild bank anyway.
So... yeah. There's a lot of achievements I won't ever get.

And please don't start on the "just make new friends!" I'm not good at that even IRL. I've found that if I'm not a part of a guild from its inception, I'll always feel on the outer. None of this is anyone's fault, nor the game's, of course... it's just how I feel.
It will eventually make me quit.

Runefang · July 2018

Your post proves they were right to introduce daily rewards. They want people to feel like they are missing out if they don't login.

Sylvermynx · July 2018

Heh. All too true. I'd be perfectly happy to "miss" some of them - if it didn't mean I'd never get any more....

Mystrius_Archaion · July 2018

srfrogg23 wrote: »

Too many words. Brain hurty bad

I just was looking for a summary line for the point of this.
It doesn't look they proposed a solution. It just looks like "I missed out and I have to catch up on other things and I feel overwhelmed" without any idea how to fix that.

Needs a "TL;DR" line.

Hmm, no wonder essays always needed a 5 paragraph format in school with the summary introduction and conclusion. Teachers and anybody reading essays want easy TL;DR parts.

Sylvermynx · July 2018

@Mystrius_Archaion - I LIKE you. Your posts make very good sense. That's helpful to someone very new to this game.

NoTimeToWait · July 2018

As for me, I started playing ESO not a long time ago, less than a year. I would say there was a lot to catch up (mostly in terms of gold, to be able to use those trading opportunities that arose during the year). Everything else I did in my own pace and I would say that I am in OK spot. I entered trials a few month ago, just started some PVP training and did some questing. I would say, that first 6 months I felt overwhelmed with amount of content. At this moment I feel satisfied. I have plenty to do but not too much, and don't feel bored or that I am missing out on something. I have everything I need and slowly progress towards my goals.

TLDR My solution was to get gold to spend as I please. Farming raw mats and thieving are the best for starters. Trading and farming DLC motif pages for later.

Knootewoot · July 2018

I read your post and concluded that @Zos has you by the balls.

That is the entire idea of daily rewards: To make you log in each day and hope they make you feel like missing out on something (insignificant) so you want to log in.

You said yourself you are also a completionist.So it must be even more of a challenge not to miss out on something.

I can easily take a 6 month break and feel like i din't miss out on anything. For me it's just the fun that counts. Virtual property is not important, escpecially the kind you don't even own but can use as long as Zos allows it.

Imza · July 2018

When they introduced housing, I was all for it. I started setting up my own shop and everything. Then they removed the skooma bubbler recipe...

At that point, I stopped. I looked at the game, I decided that there is stuff in this game that I would love to be able to do - but can't.

I heartily understand your point of view as I share it.

I would love to see one dlc and one chapter per year with fixes in between... but sadly I don't get to say how this game is pushed forward.

I have to daily make the decision regarding what I am going to try and complete, because, I can't complete everything. There is just too much.