In short, there was a major bit of change fatigue that happened which you likely either just missed or left at the beginning of and then a lot of people upset over not enough happening.
Overall, I thought it was a good, but admittedly light year. However, they told us to expect that, so I am fine.

The U35 PTS started out with some major DPS nerfs that didn't really hit the mark of increasing accessibility. PVE endgame guilds protested or quit.

U35 launched with a fair number of changes from the initial PTS notes, but a good portion of endgame guilds weren't having it. Add in some unpopular changes like Templar jabs' new animation and Oakensoul getting nerfed 3 months after it released, and a fair number of players were dissatisfied.

U36 launched with a lot of bugs. Some were fun bugs, like DK standards stacking millions of damage or siege weapons not despawning in Cyrodiil. Others were not so fun bugs, like block not working, ecounter logs not working (which won't being fixed til early Dec.) But hey, we got a free guar pet.

U36 is also the culmination of the Legacy of the Bretons storyline/Ascendant Lord mystery, which means that players are evaluating how well they think ZOS did on their premise of a politically-focused, smaller stakes story. YMMV.

Zuboko wrote: »

In short, there was a major bit of change fatigue that happened which you likely either just missed or left at the beginning of and then a lot of people upset over not enough happening.
Overall, I thought it was a good, but admittedly light year. However, they told us to expect that, so I am fine.

Don't forget the bugs, performance issues, not to mention it wasn't just change but rewriting entire rotations.

I did not see how this helped people

All started with U35. they tried to "nerf" weaving and reduced damage thinking it would help newbies. hAHa l0lz .

Change fatigue, change fatigue, change fatigue. It came with some nerfs to classes. Others are just tired of going to grind new gear and learn new rotations just to maintain a status quo and not actually gain any ground. The tweaks don't alter gameplay in any compelling way, only contribute to a very cynical and predictable gear churn, and the direction they're going in remains unfathomable.

Monetization is also the worst it's ever been, with continually escalating prices and the additive costs of convenience items like armory slots. While this is going on, the QA of items seems to be slipping, with DLCs and Crown Store items alike dropping with bugs, missing assets, clipping and texture problems.

But, you know, we can decorate with gourds now. 🥑✨

I will say that whole U35 nerfed power across the board from the good place it was in with High Isle, I still think if you last played in Fargrave that you're overall better off on the low end. The way they handles Oakensoul disappointed a lot of people, but it's still something many casual DPS players are better off having than not.

short of it is,

U35 nerfed everyone and failed to achieve the stated goals of raising the floor and making the game more accessible to the newer/more casual players.

U36 didn't bring any changes or any obvious directional explanation for the game warping U35 nerfs and has had the most game breaking bugs of any recent patch (possibly of any patch) including bugs with core combat mechanics such as blocking which has made a lot of content either extremely hard if not impossible to actually complete.

This has compounded with a lot of change fatigue that has caused a lot of frustration lately and some less than favourable comments directed at the player base which did not help the situation.

FluffyBird wrote: »

Bouldercleave wrote: »

Nothing - Nothing went wrong with the game, just simple evolution degradation

Fixed for ya. If evolution worked like that, I'd be a patch of mold.

There was nothing to fix because @Bouldercleave was right. Nothing went wrong with the game, just simple evolution.

u35 gutted a bunch of builds- some needed to be gutted, other sets were put in the line of a long row of forgotten and neglected red-headed step children. This caused a wave of players quitting, but it wasn't so bad as people made it out to be.

u36, however, broke block and added three new mythics with buggy leads. Due to the prevalence of this block bug no meaningful feedback can be collected about game's difficulty or if any change has been impactful. Block is to be broken for half of an entire patch cycle. and one of their responses was to give a guar pet and make it available for a few days- which has been met with much criticism when placed up against what other games offer.

Much ado about nothing. Yes there were much needed nerfs. The execution and rationale behind those nerfs are a little suspect. Did it increase accessibility while nerfing the top end players? Jury is still out. If you spam the strongest class spamable only while wearing proc sets you probably got stronger if if you heavy attack with a lightning staff and sprinkle in a few skills maybe you hit 500 DPS more. Overall the endgame is now about timer management and burst windows. Some trifectas are off the table now for all but elite players but that’s OK, I guess.

Mythics this year are unbalanced but due to the imbalance of PvP be PvE. The devs want it both ways and that cycle of robbing from Peter to pay Paul continues with the back and forth between balancing to one player base or the other. Until things change expect the same results next year.

The High Isle chapter is neat, interesting story, nice looking zone, interesting quests. A nice break from the usual plot lines. Haven’t played Galen yet, will get into that in the coming weeks during the holidays.

The card game you either like it or hate it. I’m in the second camp. It’s too long of a game for my tastes and I’m not into collecting all the best decks. That’s a total miss for me.

U36 like all previous updates launched with game breaking bugs. Stop me if you’ve heard this before. It’s getting ironed out. Late, but better late than never.

There is one positive from u36 and that is frost warden is now a viable option for endgame, but sadly every group only needs on so don’t put your DK on the shelf until the inevitable nerf next year.

Speaking of next year, I’m pretty sure we are in line for another Daedric Prince mucking about in Tamriel. I’m ok with that as long as it comes with a new class or a new skill line. Things are getting a bit stale. Whatever they release let’s hope it’s balanced and not ridiculously OP only to be nerfed later as seems to be the cycle around here.

That’s my assessment of the year, nothing outstanding, nothing terrible other than a little bit of change fatigue.

Aside from being rightly upset at very buggy firesong release (as well as a still existing block bug) the forums overreacted to change as per usual.
U35 lowered overall dps which honestly needed done. Power creep had gotten way out of hand and it was past time to reign it in.
Tales of Tribute got released and like was said earlier you either love it or hate it. I play it pretty rarely but it's fun every once and a while.


TLDR- nothing really happened aside from an admittedly bad firesong launch and forum users echo chambered themselves as per usual.