Sticking to the end

I just did

I agree. I shall remain, until the end. Had a lot of fun times!

I may take some ESO "breaks" here and there. But I always return to Tamriel, eventually.

Sidereum wrote: »

Among a sea of "dead game", "I can't login", "ZoS is bad" and "I'm paying for this", I just wanted to express my infinite love for this game and the appreciation that I have for its creators. Thank you. While I understand that in-game issues can be frustrating, I will never forget the emotions and the fun that I experienced playing this game, and I will never ignore the fact that there are human beings working behind the scenes, and not bots. They love the game as much as we do. I will love this game forever and I will stick with it until it actually dies (and not "die" as some certified analysts are saying).

Other perspectives and feelings towards the game and the recent occurrences are legitimate, and with this post I am not implying that people who are complaining these days never in fact loved or appreciated this game or its makers, I hope this is clear, I am just expressing my own approach to ESO and its developers.

I brace myself. I am ready for the backlash and the cancelling. Hit me. Thoughts?
(Oh and if you're wondering, I wasn't bribed by ZoS to open this thread - I happen to be actually speaking my mind right now).

Boy, sunk cost fallacy is one hell of a drug.

In all seriousness though, I have never been on the "Dead game" camp, but lately I have been getting that feeling for the first time that this game really is on its last leg and if they do manage to keep it running for "10 more years" or whatever ridiculous expiration date they want to give ESO, it's just gonna be a bunch of dressing for a cash shop, which is already starting to feel like.
And I don't think anyone is seriously mad at ZOS employees directly rather than at the decisions they take as a company. Also I am personally finding it harder by the day to believe that they still love ESO like they once did. Everything in this game feels trite, repetitive and uninspired; hell, I know a lot of people seemingly liked them (and I think this speaks to the taste of the average ESO player), but we legit had the same base story of "Oh my goodness the world/province is gonna end/be completely annihilated!" every year, back to back, since Morrowind. How can anyone say, with a straight face, that the writing in this game is even remotely above average, let alone inventive or original? And don't even get me started about combat balancing.

Look, the main issue I take with how the game is right now is that it feels like ZOS is catering to the casual audience and the casual audience alone. And when I say casual I don't mean people that genuinely at least try to engage with most, if not all, of the content that this game has to offer. I am talking about the people that play an MMO as if it were a sandbox RP game. That's totally fine, but when that seems to be the only people you keep churning out content for, the game just becomes this vapid, iterative hodge-podge of half-baked ideas. Like, seriously, PvP players haven't gotten anything besides misery for who knows how long now; instanced PvE is just boring asset-flip dungeon after boring asset-flip dungeon which amount to maybe an afternoon of content; trials are a joke without hardmode and with hardmode they are just a mess of annoying mechanics which work correctly maybe half of the time. Aside from a lack of funding, I legitimately don't understand why ZOS can't at least try to make updates that cater to all groups of players. And please, just drop the "year of" formula, it doesn't work, it's too limiting on writers, and it's what makes us have to wait a year for a half-assed story, four boring dungeons, a disappointing trial, and whatever fire-and-forget gimmick the wheel of fortune decides the game "deserves" every year.

Also, as a side note, it really irks me that you put complaints about technical issues like not being able to log in alongside what are personal grievances with the game and/or ZOS. I'm sorry, but to have your game not be playable or just barely playable after a supposedly performance-enhancing update and during a week-long event is just inexcusable. The technical state of this game is beyond ***, but sure, let's just keep drinking the Kool-Aid and believe that ZOS is maybe, eventually, possibly gonna do something about performance. They have shown that they don't care about it, and it's just a bargaining chip to throw in whenever an update isn't hyped enough. They have been promising performance updates every single year for the past, what, three years? Yeah, it's really showing ZOS, keep up the good work.

It doesn't matter what I type anyways, this is gonna get snipped into an even more unreadable mess than it already is, because this is the type of company we are supporting, feedback is always welcome as long as it isn't negative.

I love ESO, make no mistake. Crashes, load screens, problems with zoning, I've seen it all before as a player since Beta. True maybe not to this degree, but this is something I KNOW the team is working on and will continue to work on. They've communicated about it, it's going to get done. I would not be angry about this. I understand these things take time to fix, and most importantly, there has been communication about it.

What made me take a break and pull my sub is the way AwA was released with documented bugs to live without any communication or even acknowledgement of those bugs that have made achievements really intrude into how we play. The lack of communication about it was the real deal breaker. That alone was a slap in the face to the players who felt loss over individual character data, and then having the game world lose functionality and NPC interactions bugged or their quests lost was like a backhand to the slap. I would have been fine with ANY communication on those issues, a footnote in the patch notes mentioning what's still not working, a message about how things will be fixed in future patches, a message that acknowledges our concerns and looking into ways to improve the game experience, anything.

I'll come back and renew my sub when said bugs get fixed or we get communication that finally acknowledges these things and a promise to attempt to improve game functionality and immersion. Until then, I'll get my Elder Scrolls experience in the single player games, and my MMO experience in the handful of others that I actually liked but left for ESO.

I love so much of this game too, I've always loved the elder scrolls games, and feel like the worlds are just marvelous to explore, I also feel very much like you do @Molydeus - there is so much content to explore, and I love doing that, meeting the people of Tamriel, and getting lost in it. But I just also feel like there are some things that makes me so sad about the whole business model. @Northwold just made a comment in another thread about the housing business model for instance, that I agree wholeheartedly with.

I feel like the predatory business model; the cash shop that hides features relevant for gameplay, and not just cosmetics, behind large paywalls is making me feel like a cow to be milked.

On top of this I feel like the devaluing of:
- Daily login rewards trough 2018 yielded 4,4 crown crates on average pr. month (the login rewards are nicer this month than they have been for many months, which makes me hope they are changing login rewards to be better again).
- Endeavors that we get fewer and fewer of over time, except of course this week
- Smaller number of available free eso+ furniture pieces (those that used to be once a month but have now sneakily been changed to only renew every 1,5 months).
- Subscribers can no longer earn free crown crates when there are free eso+ weeks. It's been years since this was the standard and it made me feel like they cared about their customers.

Edited because I wrote this in word (because I can't spell well) and left first paragraph there - sorry. Also edited some more spelling, sorry for not being better at it.

Ilumia wrote: »

I feel like the predatory business model; the cash shop that hides features relevant for gameplay, and not just cosmetics, behind large paywalls is making me feel like a cow to be milked.

On top of this I feel like the devalueing of:
- Daily login rewards trough 2018 yielded 4,4 crown crates on average pr. month (the login reards are nicer this month than they have been for mamy months, which makes me hope they are changing login rewards to be better again).
- Endeavours that we get fewer and fewer of over time, except of course this week
- Smaller number of available free eso+ furniture pieces (those that used to be once a month but have now sneakily been changed to onæy renew every 1,5 months).
- Subscribers can no longer earn free crown crates when there are free eso+ weeks. It's been years since this was the standard and it made me feel like they cared about their customers.

Just an observation..

But do you realize you are saying you hate the Cash Shop, then lamenting how you aren't getting more Cash Shop items in your bullet points?

Jeffrey530 wrote: »

Ilumia wrote: »

I feel like the predatory business model; the cash shop that hides features relevant for gameplay, and not just cosmetics, behind large paywalls is making me feel like a cow to be milked.

On top of this I feel like the devalueing of:
- Daily login rewards trough 2018 yielded 4,4 crown crates on average pr. month (the login reards are nicer this month than they have been for mamy months, which makes me hope they are changing login rewards to be better again).
- Endeavours that we get fewer and fewer of over time, except of course this week
- Smaller number of available free eso+ furniture pieces (those that used to be once a month but have now sneakily been changed to onæy renew every 1,5 months).
- Subscribers can no longer earn free crown crates when there are free eso+ weeks. It's been years since this was the standard and it made me feel like they cared about their customers.

oh here we go again every game should have a business model like tetris in 1984

That is not what I am saying at all, but your comment is a nice example of the straw man fallacy
There are business models between tetris 1984 and eso 2022 - for instance eso 2018 was a bit more costumer friendly

@Sidereum you're absolutely right, of course.

I whinge incessantly about the problems with this game and the publisher, even to the point where I depress myself (lol) but it is such a wonderful product in many ways and it's almost the only thing I play.

I just hope the team at ZoS can really pull this thing back online. I know I am not alone when I say I am craving far better and more honest communication from/with ZoS, far improved performance especially in Cyrodiil, and fewer silly mistakes. I would also like to see a return to new content that is as awesome as Orsinium and Summerset, because recent paid content has been good enough in some ways, but mediocre by ESO standards.

ZoS has been gifted a magnificent asset in the Elder Scrolls universe. I'd like them to treat it as such.

ESO benefits from having such a unique combat system and pvp system. There’s nothing like it, and it’s such wasted potential. The lack of alternative keeps people around. Unfortunately the game has gotten so bad that I would just rather play nothing at all than to play ESO. I just hope one day I’ll have as much fun on a game as I had in early ESO.

I knew players who said they planned to play ESO for a decade but did not even come close to making it to the second anniversary. Why they left is something I do not know. i expect events in their life changed their priorities.

I am not knocking OP. I am just pointing out that our plans can change. Real-life is much more important than a game.

EdmondDontes wrote: »

SerasWhip wrote: »

just wait until you have a loading screen amidst a pvp fight.

Three days ago I got a 15 second rollback WHILE RUNNING A SCROLL. At least it confused the group chasing us just as much as it confused my raid group.

I used to get it a lot back when I was running for the emperor and actively competing with another player on the spot. The Mayhem event certainly didn't help the performance as well, really makes you wanna uninstall the game.