Hey @ZOS_RichLambert !

First, I just wanted to say that watching your streams recently has been great - its really positive move I think - your passion genuinely shows through and the opportunity for people to engage, talk crap, laugh and ask questions is fantastic.

Its my observation that for a lot of the requests - balancing, quality of life, performance, housing and future content - even when they do have disappointing answers, we're presented with good logic, and very little is ever "completely off the table, forever". The general vibe is positive, and it really looks like you guys are doing everything you can to make the experience as good as it can be.

What I'd like to know is how important is the lore and immersion to development. I see that a huge amount of effort has been put into fun systems like the recent antiquities and followers systems, and I think you guys have done a fantastic job on those. But at the same time, the core systems such as class and combat seem to be really struggling in matching the lore or mythology to the mechanics. Not all playstyles or core Elder Scrolls archetypes were available at launch, but even since then, the ones we have have moved further and further into abstracted territory as they are stretched to accommodate the demands of a more diverse, mechanics-driven meta. Newer classes such as the Warden have been called out as conceptually "hodge-podge" - again, the answer to the demands of mechanics is very obvious in its construction, but what its meant to be, conceptually feels forced and contrived to match mechanics rather than anything lore-based. We still can't play some of the core ES archetypes because the class system can't seem to handle it.

The same sorts of things might be said about the Champion Point system, which, again - is a direct answer to mechanics, but honestly feels like only the most superficial effort was put into making it feel like it actually means anything lore-wise.

There's also been complaints since forever about the map that keep getting brought up, though we've never had a response regarding it. It would be great to get some insight into whether you guys recognise that stuff is important to us. Having the zones feel a part of the world rather than disparate islands is important - making them feel connected (with plenty of physical connections that make sense) and seem like they fit in with neighbouring zones is very important too (props to the world builders who do an amazing job on the individual zones, though!)

And finally, the crown store stuff often feels inauthentic from a lore perspective. It feels like whatever random MMO stuff just gets pushed through and someone has the job of pasting on a random lore name. I think that working in the opposite direction, drawing inspiration from the many years of great Elder Scrolls content for new things would solve this, making it feel far more authentic.

Most of us recognise that core gameplay systems such as class and combat are very important, and the rule of cool, and the demand for balance and playability need to be given priority. We want you guys to recognise that the lore and mythology behind the gameplay systems is a huge factor for many of us, with us much enthusiasm as you guys seem to have for the mechanical aspects. I worry that the latter is thrown under the bus for the sake of the former, but I can't see any reason that the two can't be reconcilable in a creative way.

Again, I don't want to be too negative - you guys are doing a fantastic job. ZOS's Tanriel is beautiful and I'm excited about the future. I'm not trying to be an armchair developer, rather would love some insight into zos' thinking on these things, and wanted an opportunity to stress how important this stuff is for us!