Studio Director’s Letter: ESO’s 2022 Retrospective & the Future

Billium813 · December 2022

Carcamongus wrote: »

Just because people keep doing it doesn't mean they're having fun, e.g. antiquities being nice, but that infamous Murkmire lead being, well, not nice. So, will it be something new that's fun to do, thus rewarding on its own, or just more grinding?

You shouldn't condemn the whole Antiquities system just because 1-2 Leads are difficult. They COULD improve the drop rate logic (based on % participation or achievements), sure. But I'll defend Antiquities being a great system. It's not really "repeatable" content though like PvP is. You reach a point where you have all the leads... then what?

FatnissEverdeen1 · December 2022

Between 2016 and 2019 ESO expended considerable effort fostering a loyal, veteran playerbase from the One Tamriel update by introducing all sorts of new systems (e.g. justice, housing, BG's, transmutation, & jewelry crafting). In that same time-frame, they also introduced 2 new classes and the psijic order skill line.

Looking forward, however, ZOS may have anticipated a world where TES VI was a long way off and more Skyrim SE (RPG) players would migrate to ESO. Thus between 2019 and 2022, ESO expended considerable effort into attracting new players, especially Skyrim migrants, via tutorial quests, year-long stories, companions, & language localization. The cost, however, was that ZOS would have limited flexibility to address unforeseeable challenges when they released content since they required at least one year in advance to develop a chapter (e.g. 2020 High Isle pre-production -> 2021 High Isle developed -> 2022 High Isle released). How could ZOS have foreseen, let alone address, players' reaction to update 36 all the way back when update 32 (or its predecessors) was the newest live content.

Consequently, when the focus shifted around 2019, veteran players increasingly felt neglected. In PvP, PvPers noticed that they hadn't received new content since 2017 and by 2020 Cyrodiil's campaigns stopped being renamed. On the PvE side, the 4 dungeon + 1 trial annual setup along with the item set collection and armory systems kept the game fresh, albeit predictable/stale. However, when concerns about the new content (or sometimes lack thereof) were brought up in the community, ZOS appeared unresponsive because of their commitment to a rigorous content release schedule (which is about as precise as Japanese trains), which focused on the year-long story narrative.

Complicating matters further, the pandemic brought both opportunity (tons of new players) and challenges (remote work, remote team coordination, and burnout). Given that the Gates of Oblivion and Legacy of the Bretons years, developed in 2020 and 2021 respectively, were the most criticized in recent memory, it may be correct to assume that the pandemic and the year-long story format compounded ZOS' inflexibility to respond to player feedback. Furthermore, the pandemic limited ZOS' hardware supply chain, delaying server upgrades.

That brings us to the current moment, player feedback has become louder, especially among veterans, and ZOS wants to maintain a regular content release schedule, albeit a schedule that is more flexible/responsive to player feedback. Time will tell how this strategy will work.

I have hope that it will succeed, and perhaps, the following quote from Matt encourages this belief more than anything: "Looking back at ESO's evolution since 2014, you can see that we often shake things up, try new things, and make changes as needed. So, we will assess how this new cadence is received—both by the development team and in the community. If we have to make more adjustments, we will."

Carcamongus · December 2022

Billium813 wrote: »

Carcamongus wrote: »

Just because people keep doing it doesn't mean they're having fun, e.g. antiquities being nice, but that infamous Murkmire lead being, well, not nice. So, will it be something new that's fun to do, thus rewarding on its own, or just more grinding?

You shouldn't condemn the whole Antiquities system just because 1-2 Leads are difficult. They COULD improve the drop rate logic (based on % participation or achievements), sure. But I'll defend Antiquities being a great system. It's not really "repeatable" content though like PvP is. You reach a point where you have all the leads... then what?

I apologize for not being clear. I love antiquities, enough to level it on 2 toons. I just used that as an example of a repeatable system that could involve awful grinding.

Sure, you can get all leads, same as you can get all PvP achievements. Besides, new content is added periodically (the same sadly can't be said about PvP). That being said, at least to me the system is repeatable, as I never complain when I get another lead for the beacon of Tower Zero or vampiric stained glass (maybe one day I'll actually build a house with those).

React · December 2022

Stamicka wrote: »

React wrote: »

DuckFayth wrote: »

I'm glad we got some acknowledgement and see that there will be at least some adjustments going forward. It's been clear that there were struggles meeting the demanding release schedule that has defined the last several years not so much because of a lacking team but because of a challenging environment that started suddenly in March 2020 and has continued to affect the world since.

My concerns are that while there's promises to do better and the beginning of a plan, I don't see much of how the team will adjust, and that at surface level there's no plans for those adjustments for the first two quarters of the year. I'm disappointed by the June release date for the chapter, I feel like it would benefit from a 2-3 weeks longer PTS and slightly delayed release. That would really help instill confidence that time is being made for the right things. If Q3 will be focused on QoL and bugfixes anyways why not hold out a little longer and avoid the same mistakes? If U36 didn't get enough time to properly QA and release in a proper and whole playable experience how will the players have confidence an entire chapter is getting the time it deserves? The easiest answer to that, to me at least, would be building in more wiggle room.

My final question is what happened to the re-architecture? We haven't seen any sort of update on this since about October (source below), and it feels like if the team knew anything they would provide it in such a letter as this. I know the pvp crowd, and to a lesser extent some of the pve crowd, has been holding their breath over the server hardware but there was supposed to be so much more.

Last update I know of from the server re architecture: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/617464/code-rewrite-server-re-architecture-is-there-any-update-on-this
Original Post about the re architecture: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/595442/eso-pvp-update-updated-june-2022/p1

Matt (mistakenly?) refers to the re-architecture as "multi threading" work in today's post. He references the November 17th update from GinaBruno when speaking about the work, and says that it will begin deployment in Q2 (and will be released in chunks across following patches).

It is quite confusing, given that ESO received a "multi threading" update in a touted performance patch years ago, which did nothing for performance. Since this "server re-architecture" has been touted as the savior for server performance, I certainly hope it is more significant than more multi-thread work. Even more confusing is that Matt is referencing a difficult to find update from Gina that is buried pages deep in a player made thread, when in reality these updates should be coming in pinned posts as "announcements".

Matt did after all promise us periodic updates in last year's "January PVP post", which he never delivered upon

ESO's multi-threading work did have noticeable benefits on the game's performance, but only for the client side. I noticed huge FPS improvements almost everywhere I went in game. I do not think that Matt is mistaken here, they are doing multi-threading work on the server side this time. There are no inconsistencies here. This is exactly what Matt said in the initial post:

ZOS_MattFiror wrote: »

In short – just like we did for the client a year or so back when we introduced multithreaded rendering to increase client frame rates – we are going to rearchitect our server.

Thanks for this. Misreading on my part, then. Here's to hoping that we see an increase in server performance with this.

duagloth · December 2022

people still believe this? lol

duckdown · December 2022

I played this game for the last 4 years and STILL NO NEW battleground map...

SimonThesis · December 2022

The first bit of hope we've had in a long time.

I am cautiously optimistic, especially given Zos' track record. Breaking away from the traditional tired format is a very smart move that I hope helps the game.
I am also cautiously excited for the highly requested feature, Zos can be like a Genie sometimes and make us regret our wishes but I am excited nonetheless. This game has so many bugs we really needed a patch that works to solve them so I am very glad to see that. We still have to see actions tho, the past has led to us to doubt words, but we're all hoping for the best.

@ZOS_MattFiror Please make fixing stuck in combat in Cyrodiil a priority for the Q3 bug fixes, it would mean a lot to the PVP community. @ZOS_Kevin If they don't read these can you pass this one request along?

maxjapank · December 2022

No mention of the terrible combat changes introduced in Update 35. No mention of affected sets that are now of no use. No mention of the terrible tank meta in pvp that we must suffer through for another 5-6 months. And lastly, no mention of the terrible animation change to Templars jab ability.

Can't say I'm surprised.

propertyOfUndefined · December 2022

I'm excited and optimistic. June can't come soon enough.

Fata1moose · December 2022

So the cynical side of me says they're just producing less content and the game is going into maintenance mode which is probably right but there could be some positives as well. The smaller zones really had no reason to return other than events or to grind style motifs, they lacked features such as daily writs and broke up the map more. Chapters were becoming more and more watered down (locations in Morrowind had quest lines with multiple quests while now they are one quest per location) and also generally featured less land mass than Morrowind. I would not expect a chapter to be Q2 + Q4 in size but if we can get something closer to Morrowind and slightly bigger zones than I would welcome the change.

In terms of new systems I hope we finally get a veteran overland because it's so brainless now and I find myself not having fun going through it at all. It does not help that the writing has gotten worse, moving on a treadmill waiting on Q4 DLC for actual story progression may have contributed to the poor writing. But having more of a challenge could definitely help with engagement.

New classes don't excite me but I'd love to see new weapons (spears, sword and spell), mounted combat and hopefully even improvements to how it feels reducing how floaty and lacking in impact it is currently.

I'd also like to see better dialogue trees moving forward. Essentially every piece of dialogue is either one option to progress or just a series of questions. You cannot inject personality, decisions or flavor in dialogue trees it would be nice to see some better roleplaying here with skill checks, class options, having characters react to your opinion, etc.

Another thing that would be nice is a visual overhaul to vanilla zones, they are ugly and look worse and worse compared to new chapters with each passing year. It's not just texture quality either but detail density. Maybe even combine vanilla zones together where you can so there's less loading and the world feels more continuous.

So the opportunity exists that this could be a good shift but the game is probably just getting less. I guess we'll see.

Jaraal · December 2022

RevJJ wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

" will contain one of the most requested new features."

Interesting, only a handful of things to choose from I think.

Not being stuck in combat in Cyrodiil?

Let’s not forget that “one of the most requested features” is a PvE Cyrodiil. Hopefully their fix for this persistent problem is not to actually remove PvP combat from the zone.

kratier · December 2022

For me the game is unplayable without the craft bag. There is way too much inventory bloat. Simply making that a f2p feature would go a long way.

SimonThesis · December 2022

kratier wrote: »

For me the game is unplayable without the craft bag. There is way too much inventory bloat. Simply making that a f2p feature would go a long way.

I think a way to buy the craftbag for a month with gold would go a long way to the f2p folks. Wow has the sub Token that people can buy and then sell to others for gold. Zos could make something similar.

heaven13 · December 2022

I can't help but think that, at least for some of us, "repeatable content" meant being able to play the game through on different characters and earn achievements again, maybe even make different choices. The fact that ZoS is stating that as a goal for next year just hits hard. It might have been something you could only do on each character once, but it kept me motivated and interested. Some of that replayability and has been stripped down to once per account. We really have to ask: do they actually know what players want?

Elvenheart · December 2022

jaws343 wrote: »

" will contain one of the most requested new features."

Interesting, only a handful of things to choose from I think.

Could it be that we will finally get a “hide shoulders” option? 🤣

SimonThesis · December 2022

heaven13 wrote: »

I can't help but think that, at least for some of us, "repeatable content" meant being able to play the game through on different characters and earn achievements again, maybe even make different choices. The fact that ZoS is stating that as a goal for next year just hits hard. It might have been something you could only do on each character once, but it kept me motivated and interested. Some of that replayability and has been stripped down to once per account. We really have to ask: do they actually know what players want?

I personally was in favor of AwA, I agree the way they did it wasn't perfect. It has saved me from having to get the Emperor/Former Emperor, Grand Overlord, and vet trifecta titles on all on my toons, so I really appreciated that. But for me different toons are just tools, some content requires a Necro, others a Sorc or NB etc. I do agree there should have been a achievement sync button or opt out.

Lava · December 2022

I wanted to mention a few outstanding issues that may have been missed here, which are driving players away. It's probably too late for me, I've mostly lost interest by now, but I thought I might as well post some of my thoughts before going.

Broken quests

You say you're shifting focus away from "hand-crafted" content, but if so much time was spent on that content, then why does it work so poorly in groups? This is a multi-player game, and I always see players running through the same quests, but inviting friends to a party always seems to end in disaster when running quests. Nevermind the base game story quests that are riddled with solo dungeons and instanced maps to prevent players from helping eachother. Among the DLC story quests, their behavior when interacting with objects is inconsistent. Sometimes you have to stack up together when picking up or interacting with nodes, and if one person is too far away, they not only don't get credit for whatever the quest objective is, but then but the object disappears. Sometimes you have to disband the group at certain steps to keep the quest from getting stuck - anyone who has tried to run High Isle dailies in a guild will know what I'm talking about. Relogging doesn't help, stuck quests require you to drop the quest and start over, which if you're doing it as a group, that means everyone has to start over, and lots of headaches ensue. Less broken, but still obnoxious for someone who enjoys story content is that SOMETIMES if someone talks to an NPC, it advances the quest and then nobody else can see/hear the same dialog, but OTHER TIMES it doesn't. It's like multi-player wasn't even taken into account when writing these quests.

I play this game once a week with my colleagues and friends, running through story content and world exploration. Every night for 2-3 hours. More and more, hard as we try to make sure everyone is together, we're getting stuck on buggy quests that don't take parties into account, and even without the several crashes or stuck load screens that happen several times each night, the game has become more draining than fun because of how most our focus has to be on timing quests just right so we don't have to start over. We just ran into that with one of the longer Galen quests, which we had started the week prior, and now at the end of the night everyone rage quit when 2 of us got stuck on the Druidic Sconce in the Steadfast Manor Cellars, and after 20 minutes of relogging and troubleshooting, everyone had to start over. These kinds of things, not a shortage of content, are what ruin enjoyment for casual players. At this point, we are 1 or 2 weeks away from leaving ESO behind, if we don't drop it this week; we're already picking between other games.

End-game PvE

Lots of players have complained about this, so I'll try to keep it brief.

I was honestly pretty open-minded about most the combat changes in update 35. I didn't take the doomsaying seriously, and felt players were being melodramatic. 1-pad Rakkhat clears shouldn't even be a thing, and stuff like that is a symptom of serious power creep. Meanwhile, light attack weaving is counter-intuitive and create a significant learning curve for new trial players. Yes, I sympathize for those of you who are highly invested in the perfect LA ratio, but sometimes games need to rebalance and find a middle ground that still enables new players to progress.

I didn't feel too strongly one way or the other about account-wide achievements. I was a little sad I couldn't track clears on individual characters, but I'm not at a trifecta level so it didn't affect me that much, and to a casual player who cleared vSS hard mode on just a couple characters, I kind of felt sharing the title across my account was kind of neat. What did bother me though was the inconsistency of it. You said character-specific achievements were going away because the change was meant to free up space in your database. I can't imagine text and timestamps taking up that much, but whatever. But then, despite complaints about certain content not being repeatable, certain achievements like the Dragonguard Operative and Divine Magistrate ones, are still character-specific because sharing progress between characters and allowing the entire account to buy achievement furnishings is apparently a no-no? And yet, for most players seeking trifecta achievements, wouldn't some players benefit from splitting these across characters as well, since you're able to do that? It's not a big deal to me, personally, but I can see why some players far better at ESO than me might care. And with all the backlash over it, didn't anyone think to maybe consider an exception for certain achievements?

However, what we actually got in update 35/36 ended up worse than I could've imagined. Putting aside all the talk about no-healer groups where all the DPS put a restoration staff on their backbar (which is really discouraging for a healer main like me), some of the changes were poorly thought, and players' criticism fell on deaf ears throughout the process. Reducing healer output and ticks without reducing boss' damage output, for example, makes clearing content far less practical. Certain healer-check mechanics - tomb healing in Lokkestiz, for example, are now broken. I used to consistently heal tombs in hard mode, but now with a fully optimized build I can barely heal someone out in regular veteran mode before the tomb shatters. I used to casually run vet trials, with occasional hard mode progs (have all HM clears up to vCR+3), but now I haven't cleared a single vet trial since update 35, and I have given up. I used to enjoy them, and I was sad, but I've come to terms with the fact I don't run trials anymore. I have most the perfected sets fully collected anyway, so I'm just not going to dwell on it anymore.

Sometimes rebalancing needs to happen, I get it. Otherwise we'd end up like the anime Bofuri. But ESO seems to do this perhaps a little too much, and the goals or reasoning aren't always clear. Keeping track of which sets you need to bring into trials, which skills to slot, which rotations... I could understand if minor tweaks were needed but with so much significantly rewritten every year, it's practically a full time job just to keep track of it all.

Crashes and load screens

If I had to name one thing that drove me away from the game, this was it. Like other issues I've highlighted, I've been getting increasingly frustrated with long load screens, timeout/lobby disconnect messages 10+ minutes after going through a door that got particularly prevalent this year, but update 36 was the point where I lost almost all interest in the game. Between update 35 and 36, I couldn't get through all my characters for crafting writs without timing out, so I just gave up on the 2nd or 3rd once I got the inevitable "inactivity" message. Once update 36 happened, and I couldn't even stay logged in for a minute, and that was the first time I went a couple weeks without even trying to do endeavors. Then your public response of "we'll fix it in a few weeks, but here's a free (ugly) pet to show how sorry we are" was so insulting that I would rather your developers ignored it like you normally do when the game is broken. The friends and co-workers I play with feel the same way, and the day we read that post together and claimed the lizard-guar is when we seriously started talking about what other games to try out.

I have a mid-high end gaming computer, on a gigabit connection, and don't have networking problems with anything else except ESO. I don't know if it's local client bugs, or your infrastructure, but I'm convinced the problem is not on my end. I've mostly moved onto other games, only signing in for daily login, event tickets, and weekly gaming. I don't even bother with seals of endeavor or writs anymore, and might give up altogether once my weekly gaming night crew moves on in the next few weeks.

With the significant changes update 35 brought, I planned on returning at some point, once I worked up enough willpower to re-learn the game from the ground up. For that reason, I continued logging in for seals of endeavor, crafting writs, and daily login rewards. I've been losing more and more patience with this game, for all these issues, but the crashes from update 36 was the thing that pushed me over the edge, and I'm about done.

The game is usually unplayable for 1-2 weeks after any update, and it's tragic that this is accepted as the norm and many players simply try to plan around it. But these past couple updates feel even worse. And to top it all off, you still haven't fixed the block bugs. That's something fundamental to how combat in ESO works.

Developers can't take criticism

On top of all these issues, the consistent pattern of defensiveness or hostility from developers or other Zenimax staff leaves a bad taste in my mouth. A few examples, off the top of my head:

Infamous "waah-waah" quote from a developer in a live stream Q&A, mocking PvP players who asked for a resolution to long-time issues in Cyrodiil.
In a separate stream (maybe a year ago?), anything mentioning with "pvp" was filtered by moderators. I'm not big on PvP, and I know you posted a public response about this issue, but the fact Zenimax even considered treating customers this way suggests you never had any interest in fixing problems to begin with.
Developer lead openly mocking players when perfected staves were added to vet arenas, and players who previously farmed asked to have their existing staves converted to perfected. After many of those same players had asked for perfected staves in veteran modes when the content first came out.
A consistent pattern of ignoring or locking threads critical of bugs design decisions, sometimes banning players in retaliation. This post sticks out in my mind; even though the player was objectively misinformed about how triaging works, banning customers for criticizing you is one of the worst things you can do for your public image. I've been debating about posting this for a week or so, thinking I might get banned myself, but I guess if I'm done with the game anyway, it won't really matter.
How long has it been since you guys promised a Q&A about where you plan on taking the game and why many of these changes were made again?

If developers can't accept criticism from their customers, then I have little hope for any issues to ever get fixed. Maybe I'm pessimistic, and maybe it feels like I'm cherry-picking, but these kinds of things really stand out. When players like me struggle with bugs in a game we spend so much time in, those kinds of responses are really hard to forget. It feels like the game has gotten less and less stable over the years, and developers' attitude suggests that there is no interest in fixing them, and no improvement in sight. I hope I'm wrong come Q3 next year, like the announcement says, but it increasingly looks like I won't be around to find out.

Tales of Tribute

Amidst all these problems, it seems like the developers' top priority this year was promoting this new virtual card game. WTF? That just seems really backwards. Yes, it's mostly nerds playing, and many of us (myself included) have played collectible card games in our childhood and later, I'm signing into ESO to play an open world MMORPG, not virtual Yu-Gi-Oh. If Tales of Tribute were JUST a side thing I could completely ignore, that'd be one thing, but you guys have been pushing it HARD and it really gets on my nerves. After dialing back the intrusiveness for Stuga and many other obnoxious NPCs that nudge players into prologue quests, to which players complaining breathed a collective sigh of relief, you took a complete 180 with Sorinne Gaerard's "Hear ye, hear ye speech". Every character I log into for daily crafting writs, I have to listen to that at least twice before I log back out. And practically every stream leading up to the High Isle patch was focused almost exclusively on promoting Tales of Tribute, not on bugs, promised Q&As, or rebalancing any of the other concerns players were plagued with. It bodes ill for the future of the game. Perhaps in 2023, you could focus a little less on this "new system" you talked about and more on bug fixes?

BlueRaven · December 2022

"Q1: Dungeon DLC.
Q2: Full-featured Chapter in June. The 2023 ESO Chapter will be a complete story: you will be able to play all the way through it without a storyline that is broken out and reserved for later in the year. We will return to larger/better and more detailed Chapters by doing this. We are REALLY excited about next year's Chapter—for details, you'll have to wait for our Global Reveal Event in January. But one hint: this will be part one of a multi-year story arc and will contain one of the most requested new features.
Q3: Focus on Quality-of-Life improvements and bug fixes.
Q4: Rather than the usual zone DLC, we'll be featuring a new system. We are working on the concept and design for this now; we’ll give more details during our Global Reveal Event early next year. "

I am not sure what they mean in the Q4 part, but I really hope the Q2 chapter is bringing a year's worth of activities. All I am seeing here is Q2 content then "Cya next year!" from my perspective.

Xuhora · December 2022

i can only echo the sentiment that ZOS has to prove things, rather than just say things and it will be ok.
but one thing sticks out to me, actually it concerns me and lets me doubt the quality of whats going to happen in 2023...

Q4: Rather than the usual zone DLC, we'll be featuring a new system. We are working on the concept and design for this now; we’ll give more details during our Global Reveal Event early next year.

so you are in the concept stage of a new system, yet you should have it done in half a year by your own roadmap, since it should go on PTS then? Either the System is not as complex as we anticipate (spellcrafting in half a year..?doubt it) or it will be bugriddled beyond believe (again, spellcrafting in half a year)

What i am also reading from this is, that the decision to switch to this new model was made in haste. maybe the sales were not satisfying for you, or the dwindling playerbase is actually concerning from the companys point of view.

we will see how all this turns out, if we can take you (as a company) by your words again, fine. but until proven ill remain absent from ESO, no letters or words can fix my distrust

Hotdog_23 · December 2022

Guess I am pretty jaded about ESO right now because the letter didn’t give me any hope or gain any trust from me.

The complete lack of even mentioning update 35 is a big tell for me. More silence and it will go away mentality. Brief mention of update 36 releasing “with too many bugs and issues”, let's be honest every update has bugs and issue’s. Guess ZOS is ok then with them. It’s when it deals with a core function “blocking” it becomes too much.

Get work is hard and “difficult” but all jobs are at some point during the day for most folks are. Not getting a pass from me on it being difficult. At least you didn’t promise to do better this time, just that you “can be far, far better, and we know it” not that you will. Guess the first step to getting better is recognize that you have dropped the ball recently. Just hope you really have this year vs. the other times you said the pretty much the same thing.

Glad to see the break away from a year-long story arc. Just know that you need to knock it out of the park with it. Honest, after the dungeons released in the first quarter, I see no need to continue ESO+. Sure, we will have to purchase the summer DLC which I am fine with, but the update in quarter 3 and 4 sounds like it will be game wide and not require ESO plus. Glad you're going to focus on improving the game because it is needed, just don’t expect me to pay monthly for not new content. Turned off auto-renew and when it goes out so be it. The only reason I see for it really is the storage problem you created and sell a solution for.

No idea what the new system for quarter 4 is, just know that it needs to appeal to a lot of players and be incredible, since you are not adding a new zone for it. Because if it is something like ToT I will be greatly disappointed.

Please, in the “Focus on Quality-of-Life improvements” remember the console players don’t have add-ons to fix your improvements. Nor all the same basic functions you afford PC players.

Yeah, for the Hardware & Server Updates, but from what I hear from our PC brothers and sister the improvements have nosedived again from the initial fix.

The same goes for the ESO Fan Gatherings in 2023 for those that attend such functions, but I wish you would just spend that money and time working on fixing bugs and improvements instead. Like the Q&A you promised about update 35. PR is PR, I suppose.

2023 is the prove it year for me. Don’t need more hype, broken promises or lack of communication. You need to bring it because my faith and trust in you is gone now. Your words are meaningless, only your actions mean anything now.

Stay safe

Bhaalthazar · December 2022

Q1: Dungeon DLC.

Ok, nothing new for this one.

Q2: Full-featured Chapter in June. The 2023 ESO Chapter will be a complete story: you will be able to play all the way through it without a storyline that is broken out and reserved for later in the year. We will return to larger/better and more detailed Chapters by doing this. We are REALLY excited about next year's Chapter—for details, you'll have to wait for our Global Reveal Event in January. But one hint: this will be part one of a multi-year story arc and will contain one of the most requested new features.

Does this mean that what we had in DLC will be integrated into the Chapter or that the scenario will have the same lifespan as a Chapter alone but will have an end?
Same question for the zone... Will we have a new zone as big as a recent Chapter + DLC zone?

Q3: Focus on Quality-of-Life improvements and bug fixes.

Okay, so ZOS prefers to give up a DLC, and therefore a cash entry, to improve their game. I can only admire.

Q4: Rather than the usual zone DLC, we'll be featuring a new system. We are working on the concept and design for this now; we’ll give more details during our Global Reveal Event early next year.

With a Dungeon DLC less and a zone DLC "free" the last 2 years, look forward to knowing what new system they will offer us!

However, less paid DLC means more content in the crown store. I hope it will remain limited to cosmetics.

FluffyBird · December 2022

Glad to see year-long season gone, but have no faith in writers to do big arcs properly now. Looking forward to being proven wrong.

This year-long strategy was a huge success

Not for me

Q3 and Q4 look promising in the sense that it's something new and maybe will be more to my taste.

we often shake things up, try new things, and make changes as needed

And as absolutely not needed too.

I don't think suboptimal workflow and technical stuff are the cause for terrible communication, bland stories and low-quality cosmetics. I hope that

some process changes within the Dev Team

mean some people being replaced with ones caring and competent.

4/10, will keep an eye on ESO, but not getting my hopes up. Especially now, when I have no proper way of purchasing chapters, subs, or crowns.

kinguardian · December 2022

I am one of the players that is lucky to not have huge problems with the game.
If I have and had any lag for me that has to do with internet quality where I live.

I still love the game and enjoy making new characters. I like most things they do and come up with and am looking forward to what the future brings.

My hope of hopes are;
a new big quest for the thievesguild and dark brotherhood.
And I still hope for more interactions with our pets and mounts.
I loved that in the high isle chapters we could pet certain animals.
More housing slots for furniture extra slots for pets and companions, because I would like to finish my big house.

Stay positive peeps.

No doom and gloom here I look forward to what comes and found the letter Matt wrote very nice.

Happy Holidays everyone.

BahometZ · December 2022

I'm relieved by a change in content approach; the year-long strungout saga was crippling all content, forcing the story to align with a long list of system/lore/gameplay requirements. That's not how you write compelling stories. Having to make sure that prologue quests take you to places that haven't been used for anything else lately, shoehorning forgettable characters into dungeon quests, creating identikit organisations/cults with the obvious purpose of providing motifs to be farmed, and dungeons that thematically have to fit into the structure of the year-long narrative, rather than being developed afresh and freed from shackles.

Also every year the story had to be written to have an artificial pause due to the spaced out offerings. Not to mention the cookie-cutter characters, the predictable twists and cardboard villains, and the needless to-and-fro over the zone, as if the purpose of the story is just to make sure you go to every cardinal point in the map. I know the story takes place in this zone, but the story is so wafer-thin that it became obvious that we were simply being tugged around the map.

I hope the ESO writers haven't forgotten how to write a story without such leaden anchors tying them down. Because I am tentatively excited to see what can be done narratively when they don't have so many constraints. Start with character, give them motivation, introduce conflict and provide a picturesque location. High Isle was a perfect opportunity to break free from their tired cycle and they flubbed it monumentally. People were hyped for classic knights and court intrigue and we got more of the same rehashed evil cult doomsday. There is so much potential in Tamriel, and what I am most sad about, is once the DLC is released, the story is done, it can't be patched. Bugs can be fixed, but you can't fix a bad narrative with code. Skyrim is done, Blackwood is done, High Isle is done. Those YA stories are what we're left with. I'm absolutely flummoxed that anyone has been taken in by ESO plotlines for the past 2-3 years.

If this new change leads to quality over quantity I am on board. We don't need more filler content, the game has too many sets that it can't balance appropriately, too many motif grinds that are tedious and artificially strung out, with cooldowns and staggered releases for the sole purpose of stringing out our playtime, showing lack of respect for our time.

In terms of visiting old zones, the base zones are still some of the best designed in the game, they are aesthetically top-tier. Stonefalls, Rivenspire, Grahtwood, Eastmarch, Auridon and others are iconic and memorable. I enjoy the roaming boss concept they introduced in the Deadlands, and wonder if they'll do something similar with base game zones, a roaming boss of the week perhaps, or even a rotating double drop zone. The roaming boss drops need to be about 20x better though, because besides antiquities there is no point to going after them. The rewards are trifling.

Rewards in general need a massive expansion. (The recent survey implied that gearsets were rewards, which they are not. I'm hoping that's just a terminology conflict, because gearsets are absolutely not considered rewards by any players. At all. Ever.) Zenimax need to drastically alter the imbalance between what can be earned and what can be bought. I'm going to be harsh here, because it needs to be drilled in, that it is pathetic how much better designed and enacted crown mounts and skins are than earned mounts and skins. They seem to have given up on skins as rewards for completing tough content, and in a list of the most aesthetically pleasing mounts, none of the perfecta trial mounts would be in the top ten. The dread sail mount is a reskinned flame atro, which is a garbage move, compare it to recent crown crate mounts that had fish swimming around it and rippling coral, y'know novel animations.

There is little incentive for players to revisit trials or dungeons. Once you've completed the achievements, filled the stickerbook, why go back? Account wide Achievements removed any sense of repeating achievements on other toons. Rewards for weekly trials are poor. Ten transmutes and a gold piece of gear. Woeful. Where are the farmable polymorphs? There's a reason why vAS continues to be the playground for endgamers. Where are incentives to repeat content? You know how often we have to negotiate with raid members who hate this or that trial? If you could farm polymorphs or mounts or other aesthetic items from doing veteran trials/dungeons you would see more activity. Half the crown polys and skins could thematically fit as rewards into content, the iron atro, anka-ra, spriggin polymorphs all could have been used to incentivise players but instead they are sold, because selling the game, and selling chapters, and selling subscriptions is not enough money apparently. And now you have a player base who has little to no trust in you.

On a similar note, personally I would also say the titles of late have been rubbish. There are titles for every level of roister's club. Who the ever-loving hell is using the Roister's Club Novice title? Or the Adept, or the Expert, or the Veteran?? Good grief. Swashbuckler Supreme is cringe, compare it to Godslayer, Dawnbringer, Planesbreaker. Give me a break. The latest dungeons have Graven Deep Champion and Earthen Root Champion. That's literally just the name of the dungeon with a champion slapped on it. The previous dungeon DLC had meme titles like Coral Caretaker and Aerie Ascender. Alliteration Overload. I will give kudos to titles like Cardsharp, Game Baron and Breathless but overall I give the title team a 2/10 for their recent efforts. Compare to so many other evocative titles like True Genius, Alpha Predator, Voice of Reason, Storm Foe, of the Undying Song, The Wretched, Bane of Thorns, Incarnate, etc., etc.

There is so much more that could be and has been written up by players here. So, so many bugs need to be recognised let alone fixed. Communication needs to be better. They need to reignite and genuinely engage with a player representative team. Because they've lost sight of what the player experience is. Update 35 was an atrocious gaff by the combat team that still hasn't been explained. Hybridisation is not complete, and the devs don't seem to want to acknowledge this? The playerbase tolerates continually degraded game performance, and day-to-day experiences are filled with micro-irritations.

There is so much content to engage with on a casual level, the players who occupy this strata cannot begrudge other areas of the player base from getting some more engagement. PvPers have been ignored and screwed around with for years. Endgamers are getting the run-around on a range of issues. And these players also do overland, and quests, and dailies. So when I see players who want to treat this game like a crowded single-player experience, and dismiss other player laments, I'm disappointed. The content we want does not remove the content you want. There will always be zone quests and collectibles, houses, cosmetics.

I am hopeful that 2023 will have a new-found depth of experience that has been lacking.

Vrienda · December 2022

Chapters not being locked to a specific year long story is great. Losing a story DLC for it is less great. Dropping one of the dungeon DLC's I like a lot but I think most will need to see real tangible bug fixing improvements from that quarter to be satisfied.

Right now the value proposition for ESO+ is looking a bit dire. Should I just buy the DLC's I like and unsub? My craft bag has more than enough materials to last me a decade so I can just vendor everything else, I don't care about housing and I hate dungeons. The crowns are nice but given how oversaturated the store is I feel less need to spend them than ever before.

You should make chapters part of ESO+ and drop a discount on the collectors bundle for ESO+ subscribers. THEN It'd be worth keeping.

agelonestar · December 2022

I am the first to bemoan rubbish performance and, worst of all, rubbish communication to the people who aren't treated enough like paying customers.

However....

This is the update I have wanted for a very long time. I am so utterly delighted to see this change of cadence and more emphasis placed on quality of life improvements, fixes, and upgrades that I almost don't have the words.

I sincerely hope - and I really do! - that you guys can deliver. I've stuck with this thing since the beta and I'd love to stick around for another few years

Thank you.

EmilyElizabethESO · December 2022

I want to believe that next year will be great but I've been here since console launch and we've been getting the same promises every year. It sounds like it'll be a good year but I'll believe it when I see it.

FluffyBird · December 2022

EmilyElizabethESO wrote: »

I want to believe that next year will be great but I've been here since console launch and we've been getting the same promises every year. It sounds like it'll be a good year but I'll believe it when I see it.

Yes, lots of "water" (I don't know if there's a fitting expression for lots of meaningless filler words n English) and promises and as far I as remember, those aren't worth attention and are in no way indicative of next year's quality. The only substantial thing is change in updates pattern.
Which, to be honest, looks like we'll just get more "will be fixed in Q3 update"

Sarannah · December 2022

Now that we have hundreds and hundreds (and hundreds!) of hours of questing content, enough for four or five regular RPGs, we are hearing from our new players that the sheer number of zones and stories and characters is intimidating. And, on the other hand, our veteran players consistently tell us that they would like more content that isn't played through just once—they would like more content they can enjoy for years; content that utilizes our already existing zones to add new things to do, and most importantly, introduces some new gameplay.

Players have been saying for years that we need a better way to play through the story, as even seasoned players are getting lost. Give different DLC story starters/prologues different quest arrow colors(or DLC related icon in the arrow), to differentiate them from eachother. Add a clear and easy way to play through the entire story in chronological order, with a clear point where to start, and where/how to continue from where you were last. That alone would help massively!
That said: The game having this much content, and expanding content, is a good thing. But there should be something guiding the path to get through it all.

Wouldn't the issue about veteran players be solved if you make zones that are entirely replayable somehow(full zones of daily quests)?... like for example: a completely hostile zone with one small town left standing, this entire zone consists entirely of locked daily quests. As the zone is completely taken over by hostile forces, the more and more daily quests players do, the more of the zone becomes under player control again. The only dailies unlocked at first are a few in town. Once enough players do those town dailies, more and more of the town's surroundings become friendly, unlocking more daily quests in those now friendly areas. The further away from town, the more dailies need to be completed by the entire playerbase to unlock those parts. This way players can keep replaying entire zones, as the entire zone consists of daily quests. But only as long as players keep doing those dailies, as the unlocked areas are only unlocked for a specific period of time, unless more dailies are completed! (This would also open up the game to a new type of guild: zone guilds, aiming to unlock and keep unlocked entire zones)
TLDR: Make entire zones filled with daily quests.

Q3: Focus on Quality-of-Life improvements and bug fixes.

This is good, but do you have an idea of which QoL features to pick? And which players these QoL features are aimed at?
As when you add QoL which is already found in add-ons, or better in add-ons, many players will say "meh". While players without add-ons will be happy. Maybe it would be cool to make a stickied thread where players can suggest QoL features. After which you could create a poll(or multiple) to see which QoL features add-on and non add-on players most want.

and an update devoted to a large new tentpole system.

Really curious about this!

Not related to a quote: Nothing is mentioned about space: Inventory, bank, furniture, character slots, etc. Will there be any news on that?

Thank you for your post about ESO, here's to hoping we get many many many more good years of ESO!

tauriel01 · December 2022

I would very happily forgo an entire YEAR of new content to allow you guys to actually fix all the annoying bugs in the game. Not sure a year is long enough, but I eagerly look forward to next year Q3