I have had ESO for 3 weeks, this is my very first MMO in almost 20 years, the last one being Ultimate Online. I am an avid gamer, however, some of my favorites are XCOM, Fallout, Darkest Dungeon, and Skyrim.
So I decided to try an MMO for once and I chose ESO. I went "all in" and bought the full game along with the plus membership. Please note my impressions are based on a total outsider coming to an MMO for the first time in years.
I am an absolute noob.
There are a lot of good things to say about ESO, it is highly polished and clearly the result of thousands upon thousands of manhours of hard work. I will touch up a little on the good things, but the bulk of my post I want to highlight the things that frustrate, confuse, and baffle me about my experience so far.
Im currently level 38 after 3 weeks in.
THE GOOD:
1. I felt welcomed when the game began.
2. The quests make me feel important. As a new player I literally was worried about joining a game that has been out for many years and feeling useless in the world.
3. It is easy to learn. I picked up most of the mechanics fairly quickly.
There are more goods, but now I want to focus on the things that make me scratch my head. Sorry for the bad being longer than the good, I commend the devs for making a fine game.
THE BAD:
1. I began as a crafter. There is absolutely nothing I can craft that isn't inferior to drops I can get through questing. I now realize that crafting is useless except at master levels. This sucks. The entire approach to crafting is as follows: "Crafting is about reaching the destination of being a grandmaster. The journey of crafting will have no utility or usefulness. Only when the player achieves master level crafting will it be useful." This is too bad. The Devs really blew this aspect of the game. I love the journey of a game, I play for the journey. I am not here for the destination. There is absolutely no usefulness to anything I can craft as I play. There is a 0% probability that at level 15 I can craft an awesome "level 15 weapon", so everything I craft gets sold or deconstructed. Even if there was a 1% probability of a level 15 character crafting an awesome level 15 weapon would be great incentive. But instead, the system is useless to me. Too bad.
2. 5 skills with a ~ key rotation. I have no problem with only being allowed 10 active skills. What is not rational to me is forcing me to press the ~ key in between them all the time when logically I should just be able to map them 0-9. instead, I have to micro-manage which "set of 5" is on the screen the moment my experience points trigger. It is inefficient gaming to me to have to press three keys (3, ~, 1) when I could press two keys instead: (3,6). Over the course of hours of play, thousands of keystrokes of the ~ key could be avoided just by allowing me to map 0-9.
3. Attributes. Who puts points into health? The game is designed for "ALL STAM" or "ALL MAG" this seems to be a little bit of a poor design. There is no incentive to put a point into health. And because the amount of damage/healing done always is determined by MAXPOOL size, it encourages players to never balance out stats, it is an immature system oversimplistic and stripped of tactics. The only choice a player really has is "STAM OR MAG". So binary and it shouldn't be.
4. Attributes (again). As I level up, I found myself getting debuffed. This is incredibly disheartening for a new player. Every time I increase in level, I loathe my drop in stats. It is counter intuitive and completely lame and disheartening.
5. No danger. I can literally run around the world nekkid and fear almost nothing in the overland. I was one of those players who started in Vvardenfell thinking how large it was and accidentally zoomed out my map and nearly fell off my chair. Of all these zones and provinces, you would think at least a few of them could be wrought with danger for a noob. Nope. At level 15 I was running around indiscriminately from zone to zone in my slaver jerkin and sandals and there was no danger. I understand the need for casual play, but with so many provinces, I would have thought at least some overland zones (heck even one) would be deadly for noobs to run around in. In many ways, the game is just too easy and not challenging. And before you say "raids/trials", etc. I'm a casual gamer. I don't want to join a big raid. The only danger in this game is danger that you seek out. So unless I seek danger, I am always safe, no matter what zone I am in, even if I'm buck nekkid. Even as a casual gamer, I wish there was more challenge. So I say this from the perspective of a casual gamer- things are too easy and the overworld lacks danger.
6. The "quick" key requires rotation when you want to use different items, which sucks. When I'm in PVP, for example, I may want to use a potion, then quickly use something else. It would be nice if I didn't have to "rotate" but could just press a key, say on my numpad that will instantly use items in my Quick wheel.
7. The crown store...I am pretty financially secure and can afford to spend money on in game stuff if I want, but I have to admit, at level 30's, the crown meals are superior to anything I could possibly craft. Again, this makes me feel like cooking is garbage. I don't like that crafting has no utility or practical function beneath max level. The whole point of having fun is in the adventure, not the destination. I want to enjoy crafting as I level up, but it's all so inferior to what I can easily get either from drops or from the store.
8. Quests. I feel that many quests are simply poorly written, lacking depth of story. I love a good story. The quest "memory stone" is superb, fantastic. I have found many quests are simply saving the world over and over again and lack depth of story. I hope as I do more quests I will be proven wrong.
9. Lack of questing choices. In doing quests, I sometimes want to play the bad guy. I found myself saying "yes, my queen" over and over in a quest and actually wished I could join the Veiled Inheritance because I grew weary of the ruling class and thought it would be fun to join the outcast class, but the quests force me to bend my knee to the ruling class which is fine, but I do admit it would be fun to have the choice.
The game is fun, but also leaves me wanting. The one thing ESO has done for me is caused me to love MMO's again. I'm going to keep playing for now hoping I get drawn in further, but truth be told, I will constantly have my eye out looking for other MMO options.