Perhaps ESO could learn a thing or two from other contending MMORPGs?

WikiMeister · December 2022

As we may know, the 2022 Golden Joystick Awards for Game of the Year (GotY) took place not too long ago, featuring many flagship publications hailing from both single and multiplayer game titles. As a preface, MMORPGs as a whole have historically occupied and appealed to a much smaller demographic of the gaming landscape according to both old and recent statistics compared to its contemporaries, with much of this population averaging around 40 years of age, employed, married, and/or with children.

Newer gamers have generally flocked to fast paced and arcade-like team objective genres, which chiefly are comprised of shooters and arena (MOBA) games. As such, the MMORPG player demographic tends to recycle itself: trying out new and upcoming titles to get a feel, before deciding whether or not to commit their limited leisure time to. Once they have found a handful, or even just one title that they enjoy playing, they can find enjoyment in it for as long as a decade at a time.

Ultimately, the titles which they find themselves coming back often embody a number of important aspects, including but not limited to factors such as: plenty of reliable and enjoyable entertainment, a healthy dose of interaction with other players, and feel like their needs, concerns, feedback, and desire for fresh content, are adequately addressed by the game masters/developers.

A growing concern has been brewing among much of ESO's player base of late from both long-time and newer players alike, about the direction the game has taken as well as the presumed vision or lack thereof by the development team, from: insufficiently addressed bugs, radical seasonal combat overhauls instead of constant weekly/bi-weekly fine tuning, and on some occasions, unheeded feedback from the player base. Referring to the previously mentioned factors for an MMO's longevity above, much of the faithful, experienced (often involved in endgame activities), veteran players may be starting to feel dissatisfied with the product and or gaming experience as a result of this disregard, and choose to move on to other titles.

When it has come to community responsiveness and feedback, one of ESO's competitors, Final Fantasy 14 (FFXIV) has claimed yet again the Golden Joystick award for Best Gaming Community for two years in a row, which can be perceived as definitely not being an accident. Developers work closely with the community's feedback without pretense, and transparently lay out their goals and development roadmaps. Proposals to gameplay are rigorously tested in PTS by both testing staff as well as players prior to implementation, and even then, are not final as they are later reworked live when necessary. Personally speaking, I have played this title previously, gave it all the due respect and thoroughly enjoyed my brief experience, though it never truly stuck as much due to the Elder Scrolls franchise being something much closer to me, as well as the mechanics and pace of the game being far more appealing.

The MMORPG market is constantly growing, and longtime players may rightfully be feeling that ESO is squandering its strong and loyal fan/player base, built on a foundation of sentimental memories made from the franchise's single player titles, rich lore and worldbuilding, as well as unique, fast paced combat with some of the richest and most diverse set configurations/theorycrafting of any other MMO. What is, or could ESO be doing wrong that is making players lose faith in the game and those who handle its growth? How can the game learn from its competition?

If you got to the bottom of this block of writing, I both thank and commend you for hearing out my thoughts/rant, as a concerned player who's stuck by the title for 7 years and going. Now, I would like to hear yours as well!

TL;DR: ESO appears to be at a point where many players may be worried about the game's health/considering moving on elsewhere. What can ESO/its devs learn from what other MMOs have done well?

Vulkunne · December 2022

WikiMeister wrote: »

As we may know, the 2022 Golden Joystick Awards for Game of the Year (GotY) took place not too long ago, featuring many flagship publications hailing from both single and multiplayer game titles. As a preface, MMORPGs as a whole have historically occupied and appealed to a much smaller demographic of the gaming landscape according to both old and recent statistics compared to its contemporaries, with much of this population averaging around 40 years of age, employed, married, and/or with children.

Newer gamers have generally flocked to fast paced and arcade-like team objective genres, which chiefly are comprised of shooters and arena (MOBA) games. As such, the MMORPG player demographic tends to recycle itself: trying out new and upcoming titles to get a feel, before deciding whether or not to commit their limited leisure time to. Once they have found a handful, or even just one title that they enjoy playing, they can find enjoyment in it for as long as a decade at a time.

Ultimately, the titles which they find themselves coming back often embody a number of important aspects, including but not limited to factors such as: plenty of reliable and enjoyable entertainment, a healthy dose of interaction with other players, and feel like their needs, concerns, feedback, and desire for fresh content, are adequately addressed by the game masters/developers.

A growing concern has been brewing among much of ESO's player base of late from both long-time and newer players alike, about the direction the game has taken as well as the presumed vision or lack thereof by the development team, from: insufficiently addressed bugs, radical seasonal combat overhauls instead of constant weekly/bi-weekly fine tuning, and on some occasions, unheeded feedback from the player base. Referring to the previously mentioned factors for an MMO's longevity above, much of the faithful, experienced (often involved in endgame activities), veteran players may be starting to feel dissatisfied with the product and or gaming experience as a result of this disregard, and choose to move on to other titles.

When it has come to community responsiveness and feedback, one of ESO's competitors, Final Fantasy 14 (FFXIV) has claimed yet again the Golden Joystick award for Best Gaming Community for two years in a row, which can be perceived as definitely not being an accident. Developers work closely with the community's feedback without pretense, and transparently lay out their goals and development roadmaps. Proposals to gameplay are Personally speaking, I have played this title previously, gave it all the due respect and thoroughly enjoyed my brief experience, though it never truly stuck as much due to the Elder Scrolls franchise being something much closer to me, as well as the mechanics and pace of the game being far more appealing.

The MMORPG market is constantly growing, and longtime players may rightfully be feeling that ESO is squandering its strong and loyal fan/player base, built on a foundation of sentimental memories made from the franchise's single player titles, rich lore and worldbuilding, as well as unique, fast paced combat with some of the richest and most diverse set configurations/theorycrafting of any other MMO. What is, or could ESO be doing wrong that is making players lose faith in the game and those who handle its growth? How can the game learn from its competition?

If you got to the bottom of this block of writing, I both thank and commend you for hearing out my thoughts/rant, as a concerned player who's stuck by the title for 7 years and going. Now, I would like to hear yours as well!

TL;DR: ESO appears to be at a point where many players may be worried about the game's health/considering moving on elsewhere. What can ESO/its devs learn from what other MMOs have done well?

I would say this and will leave it for others to reply.

There's always room for improvement and I've also posted some of my considerations for ESO on here over time, which is why I made this account.

However, even with ESO's room for growth, its opportunities for improvement, to me this game has already won MMO of the year because I am still here. Its good to be honored by the industry for various things however I don't play Final Fantasy anymore, certainly not the one given in the example above. I don't play many of those games because they are not what I like.

In many ways ESO was ahead of its time when first released and has not been bent over and broken by time. There is no reason whatsoever for this game to die, not anytime soon of course. I am not behind the scenes and cannot direct any changes the game needs. My advice (for what its worth) is for the ESO Devs going into 2023 to please relax, have fun and enjoy your Holidays but then please try to focus on what the game needs while also keeping what we like about it without catering to any group(s) of players who want changes made at the expense of things the majority of the player base like and that majority having no say-in or representation. Its like, I don't weave, I don't care about weaving just like some out there don't care about Medium Attacks.

We are all different, yet those differences alone should not justify a change in the game, especially one that turns differences in interest into division between player base. So what the game needs to do is focus on what can be proven needs to be done and relax from being taken for a ride by authorities and others out there just looking to get what they want out of it, making bizarre changes that may benefit a select few in the short run, yet the same causes problems for everyone in the long run, because there is no real justification for them with no substantial benefits to the people who play this game as a whole.

And so with that said, I'm outtie. Take care and thanks again for listening, I appreciate your time and best wishes for all.

Very Respectfully,

~Vulkunne

Happy Holidays Everyone

Everaen · December 2022

IMO, they need to start updating animations and character models. Do like WoW did a few years ago. Revamp of character models/sliders, update customization options, make the combat animations smoother and/or more epic/impactful. Also, open up more character customization -- for example, finally allowing a player to hide the hip plates, or even adjust the hip plate position so they don't float. Or any number of other things.

New players are more likely to pick a new buggy game with amazing graphics/animations than an aging buggy game with aging graphics/animations.

ESO still holds up pretty well graphically, but just look at character creation for recent MMOs. Look at some of the combat animations of recent MMOs. Heck, even GW2. Look at the smoothness of the strafe animation in GW2 versus strafe in ESO.

There's a lot of fun to be had in ESO, as is, for a new player. But new players may never even give it a shot if it starts looking clunkier and more out-dated compared to every new MMO coming out. I know there's only so much that can be done with a game this old, but a little would go a long way.

I would also recommend to ESO making cosmetics easier to attain, and not gating so many cool things behind loot boxes. Giving more players more access to cool things for their characters. But I know that would never happen.

Amottica · December 2022

I agree with the premise of one of the posters that there is always room for improvement.

I will note that Zenimax has probably already learned a thing or two from other games. That starts with being true to yourself vs copying what other games do since ESO is not those games.

YandereGirlfriend · December 2022

Amottica wrote: »

I agree with the premise of one of the posters that there is always room for improvement.

I will note that Zenimax has probably already learned a thing or two from other games. That starts with being true to yourself vs copying what other games do since ESO is not those games.

Right, but like the example that the OP provided about Final Fantasy 14 - listening to their players and shaping content based upon what they are hearing from them IS something real that sets that particular game apart from how ESO has been run over the last several years.

There isn't much argument to be made that the extremely rigid and hierarchical: "These divisive changes are a fait accompli - deal with it!" style that has held sway in ESO is better for anyone than the more cooperative style employed by FF.

So that is an easy example of something that can be emulated without worry that ESO will simply become a copy-cat version of other MMOs. There is very low-hanging fruit in terms of best practices that can safely be adopted and that have nothing to do directly with the actual style or content of the game.

DirtyDeeds765 · December 2022

Everaen wrote: »

IMO, they need to start updating animations and character models. Do like WoW did a few years ago. Revamp of character models/sliders, update customization options, make the combat animations smoother and/or more epic/impactful. Also, open up more character customization -- for example, finally allowing a player to hide the hip plates, or even adjust the hip plate position so they don't float. Or any number of other things.

New players are more likely to pick a new buggy game with amazing graphics/animations than an aging buggy game with aging graphics/animations.

ESO still holds up pretty well graphically, but just look at character creation for recent MMOs. Look at some of the combat animations of recent MMOs. Heck, even GW2. Look at the smoothness of the strafe animation in GW2 versus strafe in ESO.

There's a lot of fun to be had in ESO, as is, for a new player. But new players may never even give it a shot if it starts looking clunkier and more out-dated compared to every new MMO coming out. I know there's only so much that can be done with a game this old, but a little would go a long way.

I would also recommend to ESO making cosmetics easier to attain, and not gating so many cool things behind loot boxes. Giving more players more access to cool things for their characters. But I know that would never happen.

I agree. The entire game could really benefit from a facelift. And as much as people don't like to hear it, the LAST-gen consoles need to go ASAP. They are almost 10 year old machines that are surely holding ESO back. Graphics need to be updated overall (although on PS5, they are pretty sweet), animations need to be improved - moving and fighting feels and is clunky (from players to NPCs) - NPCs need more and improved animations when working, talking, etc.

Honestly, the game needs to be more "singeplayer-ized" - as in, the world needs to feel more alive. That was my brother's main complaint when coming from TES5 and TES4.. it just didnt feel like an ES game to him. Now, I get that with it being an MMO, there's only so much you can do, but still. I'd love to see non-essential NPCs have schedules, maybe make a trip to another location in the zone, for example.

@DirtyDeeds765

kargen27 · December 2022

I think the best thing ESO can do is stay true to their own vision instead of looking towards others for inspiration. Never hurts to see what others are doing but usually best not to stray.

" ESO appears to be at a point where many players may be worried about the game's health/considering moving on elsewhere."

I strongly disagree with this statement. The population ebbs and flows. The game is still a healthy game.

Nightowl_74 · December 2022

I think drastically increasing the amount of cosmetic and "fluff" items earnable in-game would be a good idea. More than one of my friends has been turned off even trying the game because my answer to "Thats cool, where is it from?" is almost invariably "Crown store."

Some festive decorations around a few of the major cities during events would be another way to show players that they're valued. Minor QOL improvements (or lack thereof) really add up. They're not likely to make someone with a long history who's finally decided to move on, return, but they're something prospective players look for in a game. Particularly those coming from other MMO's, in my experience.

UntilValhalla13 · December 2022

Over the last few years, zos has just kinda ignored most customer feedback from pts cycles, and just stubbornly railroaded through whatever changes they already had planned; whether functioning or not. If they hope to remain relevant, they can't keep following those trends. They'll keep alienating the few remaining players until it's just a wasteland. They really need to turn things around this next year if they want to keep subscribers.

I've been playing final fantasy instead of ESO over the last month, but I only can play it in hour or two chunks. I'm not overly a huge fan of busywork quests, so I'm just chipping away at it. The endgame raiding looks awesome though, so I'm trudging through it to get there. I will say, final fantasy LOOKS amazing in almost every regard, and I have yet to encounter any stuttering in super crowded city hubs.

ESO was always more enjoyable regarding combat, though that's suffered heavily to due to bugs and just having them compile on top of each other, year after year.

Amottica · December 2022

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

I agree with the premise of one of the posters that there is always room for improvement.

I will note that Zenimax has probably already learned a thing or two from other games. That starts with being true to yourself vs copying what other games do since ESO is not those games.

Right, but like the example that the OP provided about Final Fantasy 14 - listening to their players and shaping content based upon what they are hearing from them IS something real that sets that particular game apart from how ESO has been run over the last several years.

There isn't much argument to be made that the extremely rigid and hierarchical: "These divisive changes are a fait accompli - deal with it!" style that has held sway in ESO is better for anyone than the more cooperative style employed by FF.

So that is an easy example of something that can be emulated without worry that ESO will simply become a copy-cat version of other MMOs. There is very low-hanging fruit in terms of best practices that can safely be adopted and that have nothing to do directly with the actual style or content of the game.

And Matt's letter shows that Zenimax has listed to their players and shaped the content based on hearing them. That does not mean they do everything asked for, nor should they even try. Even Square Enix does everything their player base asked for.

In the same token a comment like "A growing concern has been brewing among much of ESO's player base of late" is really speaking more to the vocal minority which is the small population in the forums and those we play with. Granted, that is much of the feedback Zenimax gets but we do not represent the player base as a whole and we are not "much of the ESO player base".

Silversmith · December 2022

ESO is a unique game. It's not a top winner at all; but it is unique.

DMuehlhausen · December 2022

Or other games could learn a thing or two from ESO...

The point is no game is perfect. People will always like and dislike different things. The key is are things you dislike more than what you like and do you still enjoy your time playing the game? If yes keep playing...if no then take a break

AScarlato · December 2022

DirtyDeeds765 wrote: »

Everaen wrote: »

IMO, they need to start updating animations and character models. Do like WoW did a few years ago. Revamp of character models/sliders, update customization options, make the combat animations smoother and/or more epic/impactful. Also, open up more character customization -- for example, finally allowing a player to hide the hip plates, or even adjust the hip plate position so they don't float. Or any number of other things.

New players are more likely to pick a new buggy game with amazing graphics/animations than an aging buggy game with aging graphics/animations.

ESO still holds up pretty well graphically, but just look at character creation for recent MMOs. Look at some of the combat animations of recent MMOs. Heck, even GW2. Look at the smoothness of the strafe animation in GW2 versus strafe in ESO.

There's a lot of fun to be had in ESO, as is, for a new player. But new players may never even give it a shot if it starts looking clunkier and more out-dated compared to every new MMO coming out. I know there's only so much that can be done with a game this old, but a little would go a long way.

I would also recommend to ESO making cosmetics easier to attain, and not gating so many cool things behind loot boxes. Giving more players more access to cool things for their characters. But I know that would never happen.

I agree. The entire game could really benefit from a facelift. And as much as people don't like to hear it, the LAST-gen consoles need to go ASAP. They are almost 10 year old machines that are surely holding ESO back. Graphics need to be updated overall (although on PS5, they are pretty sweet), animations need to be improved - moving and fighting feels and is clunky (from players to NPCs) - NPCs need more and improved animations when working, talking, etc.

Honestly, the game needs to be more "singeplayer-ized" - as in, the world needs to feel more alive. That was my brother's main complaint when coming from TES5 and TES4.. it just didnt feel like an ES game to him. Now, I get that with it being an MMO, there's only so much you can do, but still. I'd love to see non-essential NPCs have schedules, maybe make a trip to another location in the zone, for example.

@DirtyDeeds765

Also agree. And also the base game zones could really use a lot of love. A lot of them I try to avoid as much as possible because they are so jarring in their dated appearance compared to more recent zones. Going back to them for prologue quests ... *shudder*

Especially since these are the zones new players will probably be limited to if they are just trying out ESO on a trial basis.

DMuehlhausen · December 2022

DirtyDeeds765 wrote: »

Everaen wrote: »

IMO, they need to start updating animations and character models. Do like WoW did a few years ago. Revamp of character models/sliders, update customization options, make the combat animations smoother and/or more epic/impactful. Also, open up more character customization -- for example, finally allowing a player to hide the hip plates, or even adjust the hip plate position so they don't float. Or any number of other things.

New players are more likely to pick a new buggy game with amazing graphics/animations than an aging buggy game with aging graphics/animations.

ESO still holds up pretty well graphically, but just look at character creation for recent MMOs. Look at some of the combat animations of recent MMOs. Heck, even GW2. Look at the smoothness of the strafe animation in GW2 versus strafe in ESO.

There's a lot of fun to be had in ESO, as is, for a new player. But new players may never even give it a shot if it starts looking clunkier and more out-dated compared to every new MMO coming out. I know there's only so much that can be done with a game this old, but a little would go a long way.

I would also recommend to ESO making cosmetics easier to attain, and not gating so many cool things behind loot boxes. Giving more players more access to cool things for their characters. But I know that would never happen.

I agree. The entire game could really benefit from a facelift. And as much as people don't like to hear it, the LAST-gen consoles need to go ASAP. They are almost 10 year old machines that are surely holding ESO back. Graphics need to be updated overall (although on PS5, they are pretty sweet), animations need to be improved - moving and fighting feels and is clunky (from players to NPCs) - NPCs need more and improved animations when working, talking, etc.

Honestly, the game needs to be more "singeplayer-ized" - as in, the world needs to feel more alive. That was my brother's main complaint when coming from TES5 and TES4.. it just didnt feel like an ES game to him. Now, I get that with it being an MMO, there's only so much you can do, but still. I'd love to see non-essential NPCs have schedules, maybe make a trip to another location in the zone, for example.

@DirtyDeeds765

I'm sure there are legal reasons they can't just drop old consoles. Just like they have to get the Ok from Stadia for updates and fixes.

No it doesn't need to be more single player centric. You and your brother have single player TES games you can play. If anything this needs to be more MMO centric where most things even in the overland should require a group and playing with other people.

Beilin_Balreis_Colcan · December 2022

Nightowl_74 wrote: »

I think drastically increasing the amount of cosmetic and "fluff" items earnable in-game would be a good idea. More than one of my friends has been turned off even trying the game because my answer to "Thats cool, where is it from?" is almost invariably "Crown store."

Some festive decorations around a few of the major cities during events would be another way to show players that they're valued. Minor QOL improvements (or lack thereof) really add up. They're not likely to make someone with a long history who's finally decided to move on, return, but they're something prospective players look for in a game. Particularly those coming from other MMO's, in my experience.

Agreed. I recently fancied a polymorph and matching steed, which I would have loved to use together. The only problem is: I lack sufficient gems or seals to buy them with. I refuse to accumulate gems, because I won't support the gambling mechanics of this game, and I'm currently about 11,000 seals short of enough to buy these 2 items, which is pretty depressing. It will take me about half a year to save that much up, assuming I do about 60 seals worth of endeavours every single day (that takes into account 1 weekly averaged over 7 days). So it's arguable whether these items are earnable in-game, when it takes that long to get them.

kargen27 · December 2022

UntilValhalla13 wrote: »

Over the last few years, zos has just kinda ignored most customer feedback from pts cycles, and just stubbornly railroaded through whatever changes they already had planned; whether functioning or not. If they hope to remain relevant, they can't keep following those trends. They'll keep alienating the few remaining players until it's just a wasteland. They really need to turn things around this next year if they want to keep subscribers.

I've been playing final fantasy instead of ESO over the last month, but I only can play it in hour or two chunks. I'm not overly a huge fan of busywork quests, so I'm just chipping away at it. The endgame raiding looks awesome though, so I'm trudging through it to get there. I will say, final fantasy LOOKS amazing in almost every regard, and I have yet to encounter any stuttering in super crowded city hubs.

ESO was always more enjoyable regarding combat, though that's suffered heavily to due to bugs and just having them compile on top of each other, year after year.

People still confuse ZoS not doing what they want with ZoS ignoring them. Not the case. It is obvious we are not being ignored. Sometimes we don't get the answer we want but we were heard.
Few remaining players? Last time I did my surveys it was rare that another player wasn't on the same node. One node five of us were there all at the same time.
I started a new account and I see other new players in almost every delve I enter.