Time for a Classic ESO server

Stamicka · March 2022

Quality of life improvements have come a long way. Playing with friends is easier than ever, and some added PVE content has been fun. In terms of in game mechanics, class identity, difficulty, performance, and feel? ESO classic all the way. I’m glad that the Vet system was done away with, but I wish ZOS built on their original ideas. Cyrodiil battles used to be massive, difficult content was rewarding, classes felt unique. Current ESO is way too easy and casual. I just have no reason to play.

Lysette · March 2022

Stamicka wrote: »

Quality of life improvements have come a long way. Playing with friends is easier than ever, and some added PVE content has been fun. In terms of in game mechanics, class identity, difficulty, performance, and feel? ESO classic all the way. I’m glad that the Vet system was done away with, but I wish ZOS built on their original ideas. Cyrodiil battles used to be massive, difficult content was rewarding, classes felt unique. Current ESO is way too easy and casual. I just have no reason to play.

Rich Lambert pretty much said, why they changed it - people don't like difficulty in their story. And as far as massive battles in the past go, that was because they computed a lot of stuff on client machines, which leads to easy cheating, so they had to change this as well and do those calculations on the servers now. It's choking the servers with mass amounts of players and so far any attempt to deal with it more or less failed, because the core server code was not designed for doing all this on the server. That is why ZOS is now rewriting part of the core server code to address these issues - Matt sounded pretty confident, that this will lead to a drastic improvement - I hope it will be like that and you guys can have fun with mass pvp battles again.

Stamicka · March 2022

Lysette wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

Quality of life improvements have come a long way. Playing with friends is easier than ever, and some added PVE content has been fun. In terms of in game mechanics, class identity, difficulty, performance, and feel? ESO classic all the way. I’m glad that the Vet system was done away with, but I wish ZOS built on their original ideas. Cyrodiil battles used to be massive, difficult content was rewarding, classes felt unique. Current ESO is way too easy and casual. I just have no reason to play.

Rich Lambert pretty much said, why they changed it - people don't like difficulty in their story. And as far as massive battles in the past go, that was because they computed a lot of stuff on client machines, which leads to easy cheating, so they had to change this as well and do those calculations on the servers now. It's choking the servers with mass amounts of players and so far any attempt to deal with it more or less failed, because the core server code was not designed for doing all this on the server. That is why ZOS is now rewriting part of the core server code to address these issues - Matt sounded pretty confident, that this will lead to a drastic improvement - I hope it will be like that and you guys can have fun with mass pvp battles again.

Some people love difficulty (I am one of those people). I mean look at the success of Elden Ring. The ESO population is much more casual now than it once was, but this is only because people who like challenge get bored or have nothing to do, so they don’t play. I had much more reason to play when there was something that would take some work to achieve. Now everything is handed to me. Also difficulty isn’t mandatory in ESO. If you want an easy game, don’t do vet content. But now, even Vet content is unbelievably easy. Why is this?

In terms of the client side thing, it’s not as simple as that. There’s other work arounds for cheating in a game like this. Also even after everything was moved to the server (like 2016) Cyrodiil was still much better than it is today. It’s a bit of a mystery why it’s so bad today.

ESO classic just felt much more like an MMORPG and I was excited to log on everyday. Now? Not so much. They’ve made some improvements but in doing so, they’ve gone backwards in so many ways. If we could somehow combine ESO classic’s combat, balance, and difficulty with todays quality of life improvements it would be an amazing game.

barney2525 · March 2022

Ummm... Just No. " Classic " is not necessarily Classic. It generally means ' Original '. And Original ESO was Not enemy balanced. I Hated starting the main quest, struggling through it, only to be told I was not able to complete it - come back in 10 levels and we will contiinue.

No Thank You.

Actually... Just No.

Ragnarok0130 · March 2022

Khami wrote: »

xclassgaming wrote: »

I want a launch day classic, purely to play it and understand why people hated it.

It was bad and it didn't take the devs long to figure out the players hated it and took months and months to change it to what we have today.

You started in your faction's starting zone and wouldn't see another person not of your faction until you got to Craglorn. Cadwell's Gold and Silver were a huge slog to go through being the vet zones like Craglorn were designed for players to be grouped up. Wasps would roll you quickly if you didn't pay attention.

Ask anyone who played beta about trying to kill Doshia.

@Khami I still compare any boss I meet to Doshia!

Marginis · March 2022

xclassgaming wrote: »

I want a launch day classic, purely to play it and understand why people hated it.

Honestly, not many people "hated" it, if any did (I never met anyone who hated OG ESO, anyway).

It was mostly just a bit barebones compared to what we have today, with a LOT of room for the the QoL improvements that we have today. Add-ons were practically a requirement on PC as they came out, and there was no PTS, for example, so a good number of things were buggy and they stayed that way for a while.

ZoS is even still working through a lot of the mechanical things, if not bugs, that were just straight up unintuitive. Even now a lot of the ways the game works is more opaque than it should be in my opinion, but it was moreso back then, even if some people are nostalgic for that.

There were also some pretty significant changes that made for a different, though not necessarily better or worse, game. Think being one hit by mobs in areas where you were underleveled, or not being able to interact with different alliances without making a different character.

But most of all, I think, the game was a lot more about the community than the game. The people that were there were by and large really kind and generous people, just there for the love of the community. A lot of those folks are still here, but sometimes these days it's overshadowed by the trolls and tryhards that every game attracts as it becomes more popular. This also may have something to do with the fact that the game was subscription required at the time, but hey that's probably the most positive difference between ESO now and ESO 2014.

But like a lot of people here have said, you're not missing much. The game is, I think, the same game as it's always been at its core. It just has a lot more to do these days, and much better ways to do those things. I mean, think - that's almost a decade of improvements. I've played this game longer than some of its players have been alive, and I'm sure I would have a hard time tolerating them 7 years ago too XD.

SilverBride · March 2022

Marginis wrote: »

xclassgaming wrote: »

I want a launch day classic, purely to play it and understand why people hated it.

Honestly, not many people "hated" it, if any did (I never met anyone who hated OG ESO, anyway).

I hated it once I reached the veteran levels. Being forced to go through veteran overland zones was a huge challenge and not in a good way. I know some will say they didn't find it difficult but for many of us it definitely was, and dying all the time was far from enjoyable.

Then when there was nothing left to do after Cadwell's Silver and Gold except for the forced grouping zone of Craglorn that was the end for me. I left and didn't come back until after One Tamriel.

Heartrage · March 2022

It’s just not a good idea. Eso’s beginning wasn’t the success and doesn’t have the nostalgia that classic wow had.