With the recent patchnotes getting a horrible reception, the topic of ESO needing improved combat tutorials has been discussed a lot. Which made me remember my first char, who was an utterly useless heavy armor nightblade without any active set bonuses, because I didn’t know sets existed back then. So, getting better without the help of other players didn’t work for me back then and by the time of my second char I had a guild to help show me the ropes. But that was long ago, at the time of veteran ranks. So how does it look like now?
Surprisingly, there is a lot more help for newer players than I initially expected.

The little question mark in the menu bar has all the basics from the tutorial written down plus a lot of extra stuff that I knew but always looked up on third party websites.

For example, the chances of abilities causing status effects, a list of all ability-based synergies and so on. There is a lot of information to be found about interaction, key binds, justice system and so. Honestly a lot better in terms of quantity and quality than I expected. This for example:


Didn’t know that classification existed. Not incredibly useful but neat.

My only gripe would be that it took me 10000+ hours to find this section. I don’t know if a new character gets any form of hint to look there for information but that I only found out about it now is telling in its own way, I guess.
Back on topic: the focus of this post is to see how effectively ESO teaches you the basics of combat and this is where the first problems start to show.

Obviously the topic of animation canceling is nowhere to be found, which was expected.

There is no mention of penetration or resistances, while being arguably THE most important stats for PvE and PvP.

One thing that stood out to me was the lack of explanation on ultimates. Not a word about how to gain ultimate power. A single line that light and heavy attacks or healing allies generates ultimate would be really important.

Coming to the main topic of why I’m writing this: There is ZERO explanation about the three roles. I want to focus not solely on DPS like ZOS did for some reason, because if you want to close the skill gap only doing that for one role won’t do it. Why their focus is so narrow on this eludes me entirely.
So, back to what the game teaches you: Not a single word about what is expected of you if you call yourself a tank or a healer. A common complaint on these forums are fake tanks in the dungeon que, and there are a lot of players that just flag themselves as tanks to skip the quetime. But there is also a decent number of players who actually try to heal or tank and have just no clue how to do it. Mainly because there is no explanation whatsoever. As leader of a rather large social guild, I can’t count the number of times people came asking for help because they were thrown out of dungeons, not because the were unwilling to do their job properly but because they just didn’t know how. It reached a point where I just wrote a document with the most fundamental basics for every role. For example, the priority list for Tanks:

1. Stay alive
2. Keep boss aggro with a taunt
3. Keep the boss in one place, facing away from your group
4. Pull and cc smaller adds
5. Buff your groups damage

Just a little orientation like that goes a long way and why it is not done by the game itself is beyond me. No need for extensive talk about BIS sets, buffs, debuffs etc. just the bare basics. If one wanted to do a bit more: a training dummy for tanks and healers would help tremendously. Just a small challenge along the lines of “heal x dmg in x seconds” or “tank x damage over x seconds”. Don’t put it in the crown store, just make it part of some advanced combat training hosted by the undaunted or something like that. Super basic stuff. If you really want to do something for the dungeon finder, make the tank and healer dummys a little challenging and a requirement for vet DLC dungeons. I would welcome any incentive for players to engage with their class and role but I do understand that not everybody wants to and a requirement like that would be very out of character for ZOS and thus be highly unlikely.

I left out the DDs until now because that problem is not as easily addressed, even on a basic level. I think that there is a desperate need for an advanced combat tutorial for all roles that includes animation cancelling, uptimes, penetration and so on. It is necessary because for a DPS it increases their effectiveness by a lot more than it does for a tank or healer. The recommended skills for every class that get shown to you while leveling already go a part of the way but are not enough. Because what many people in ESO have to learn is this: how well you use your skills is much more important than the actual skills and gear could ever be. Many expect the right build to do the work for them but in reality, the difference between a good and a bad player is almost exclusively in front of the screen and not in the build. ESO seems to be the outlier in this regard and many players coming from other games have misleading expectations about that aspect of the game, yet it is the main point that makes ESO stand out and makes an advanced combat tutorial all the more important.

Interestingly enough, ZOS said in a recent stream that the topic of and advanced combat tutorial has been discussed and postponed because they would need to update it every large patch. Which is quite the ironic statement considering that the player base has been begging them for multiple patches now to stop with the huge changes that completely turn combat upside down every time. Seems like quite an easy fix. So simple, if one were to listen to one’s players. But I digress. Apart from that, it is completely possible to write a guide that teaches the basics and stays relevant over the different patches, simply by sticking to the fundamental core mechanics. I know that for sure because I did it myself for the newcomers in my guild.

In conclusion the ESO is not terrible at teaching players the game, just at teaching the combat. And even there, a few small improvements could help A LOT to finally “raise the floor” as ZOS likes to put it. Much more than any Oakensoul or light attack nerf ever could. It seems like a lot to gain for very little effort. At least much less effort than to rework combat 8 years into the games life cycle and getting justified criticism for it.