ESO vs Other MMOs (My thoughts)

washbern · February 2023

I would like to preface this post by saying that while I am not playing right now at the bleeding edge of difficulty in any game or mode, I used to. My first MMO was FFXI back when it was first released and available via import and only in Japanese. I fell in love with the game not just because it was pretty but because it encouraged teamwork and did it’s very best to help those who did not speak the language to still participate. From there, the flood gates were open and WoW came out. Within the first year and a half of the game I have reached rank 14 in pvp and had well over 150 days played on a single character.

I think ESO is a great game that suffers from lack of funds and identity. I wanted to write this post because I, like many others, have quit when update 35 came out. When the patch released I felt almost betrayed by the devs who (and I still believe this) had no idea the damage they were about to do to the game and it’s community. Since then, I think they realized the error they have made and patch notes to update 37 speak to that effect.

I have left ESO in U35 and I went back to FF14 and WOW. I played those games and I felt empty inside. I felt like my time was literally being put into the trash can. Why do I say that? Well, I am probably one of the rare few people who would say this, but I thought that the story in both games was terrible. WOW barely has a story and FF story (again, in my opinion) is so awful and dragged out that I wanted to punch my screen every time a new cut-scene started. Any book, movie, tv show or game that has to say “hey! It’ll get good after you invest 200 hours into it” is a failure. What I enjoy about ESO storytelling is that it is full of many different stories. Some of them are good. Some of them are not. But I am not stuck investing hundreds of my hours into a single story that I do not like.

The next reason why I felt my time was wasted in those other MMOs was the gear grind. Again, to bring back update 35 as an example. Update 35 took things away from us. It took our power (not to mention trust…) and pretended like we should be ok with that. But let’s think how FF and WOW do the same thing. WoW and FF completely invalidate our time with every new raid tier. We spend months farming our BiS in those games and when we finally get it… new patch hits and all the gear is trash. In ESO I can still use Siroria with Mother’s Sorrow build from a few years ago and be viable. Yeah, I won’t be great... but I’ll be viable. The time I spent grinding for gear and filling out my sticker book is not wasted. That gear is always there.

Difficult content is the next point I want to make. ESO actually has a very good variety of content you can do if you want something challenging. You have solo arenas, dlc veteran dungeons and raids. The good things about these? You go in, you do the thing, you get loot. The bad? There is not enough of them. Dungeons, perhaps there is plenty of but raids and solo arenas? We need more of those. This is the point of the post where things start to slide a bit down hill for this game. While it is absolutely awesome that raids like Sunspire and Maw still offer a challenge to even the most skilled players, they fail to offer any incentives to revisit them. Why do I want to run veteran Kynes Aegis for the one billionth time if I do not need the title or the clear or the gear? WoW and FF are better at this by saying “run our stuff, you get loots…. IF YOU’RE LUCKY!” ESO gives us loot and I can fill out most of my necessary sticker book in probably 5 runs to a specific place.

And now we reach PVP. OH BOI! Should ESO have PVP? My answer would be a hard and definitive MAYBE. Why do I say that? Am I a PVP hater? No. I love PVP… just not the way ESO does it. Lack of incentives is one flaw of PVP but the other is that it contradicts too hard with PVE. The game is balanced around PVP so that the battles would be fair, but what ends up happening is that PVE side of the equation sees massive homogenization and nerfs. The other reason this is bad is that there has been zero PVP content over the last few years. Those die-hards who love that form of gameplay are likely to seek their fix somewhere else where this game mode sees a lot more love and balance. Unfortunately WOW and FF do not shine in this area either. FF stuck PVP into their game like a plastic horn on a donkey at some carnival to call it a unicorn. WOW’s PVP is so convoluted that you need to be super human just to understand what’s happening and keep up with it. I think ESO would win this battle quite easily if they would stop balancing PVE against PVP, figured out a way to release fresh content for it and provide better incentives. Until that happens, I would suggest to stop balancing PVE against a game mode that has not been touched for over 3 years.

Lastly I would like to bring up modernization. Both FF and WOW have taken steps to modernize their game for the current century. ESO needs this as well. I have been lead to believe that the biggest things which hold ESO from moving forward are old gen console support and terrible spaghetti code that seems to be blamed for many of ESO’s problems. I am not a developer, but if we remove these shackles from this game, I believe there could be so much more that it can achieve. More skills, better build diversity, less bugs, better graphics, etc… I love ESO and I think that it is an absolutely brilliant game. I always get very excited whenever they say how much content they have in store for us and can’t wait to see it. I truly hope that they invest their time this year into doing the right things and flushing out this game’s true potential.

Thank you for reading!
PS: Housing is great. Love the housing.

WiseSky · February 2023

Asked Chat GPT to simplfy

The writer used to play MMO games at a high level of difficulty and started with FFXI. They think ESO is a good game that struggles with lack of funds and identity. They quit the game after update 35, but went back to FF14 and WOW and found those games unsatisfying. They believe ESO's storytelling is better because it's full of different stories and their gear grind is not wasted like in other games. ESO has a good variety of challenging content but needs more of it, and PVP in ESO lacks incentives and is balanced around PVP but hurts PVE. The writer suggests ESO should modernize and provide better incentives for PVP and fresh content.

gepe87 · February 2023

MORPG player who has played FFXI, WoW, and ESO. Reached rank 14 in WoW PvP and has over 150 days played on a single character. Quit ESO in update 35 due to lack of funds and identity. Went back to FF14 and WoW but found the storytelling and gear grind unsatisfying. Enjoys the variety of content in ESO but wishes there were more challenging content and better incentives. Has mixed feelings about ESO's PvP and believes it needs better content and incentives. Feels that modernization is a weakness in both FF and WoW.

I can agree, usually all MMORPG work in similar way. Game industry follows what is established because it's more secure, reliable and predictable in a marketing point of view (sales over game experience).

Sarannah · February 2023

Some players massively overreacted to U35, and quitting the game you love over it was not needed in my opinion.

Something is massively wrong with light attack weaving, where it does so much damage that players can't do without it. Skills are supposed to be our most powerful attacks, yet light attacks matter so much damage-wise where we notice when it is missing. ZOS should flat out remove light attack weaving completely. Reverting most of the damage loss from U35's light attack weaving still leaves the game in a broken state, where light attack weaving is too important. Yes, ZOS might get the overreacting players back(which is good), but at what cost? The game and light attack weaving will still be in an almost similar state to how it was before. Where light attack weaving is making too much of a damage impact.

In my opinion our primary source of attacks and damage should be our skills. This should be where about 90% of our damage comes from.

Other solutions to light attack weaving making such a major damage difference, would be to increase skill damage by 40% when not weaving or by having the game automatically light attack weave for the players. Maybe someone else can come up with other ideas to solve this issue.

PS: I think light attack weaving is simply spamming buttons and therefor I never use it, as I feel stupid for smashing buttons like that.
PPS: I agree that PvE and PvP should be balanced separately.

washbern · February 2023

Sarannah wrote: »

Some players massively overreacted to U35, and quitting the game you love over it was not needed in my opinion.

Do you think if people didn't vote with their wallets, U37 would look the way it does now? Me being one of the people who left, I am not sure if what happened was an over-reaction. The patch made absolutely no sense and the stubbornness of the devs made it that much worse. The issue was not really divisive either. It was one of those rare times where the community joined as one and said "ZOS Please don't let this go live." It was not the content of the patch as much as the fact that ZOS did not listen to their players.

I hope that this breaking of the community was a good learning experience for ZOS. U37 is a first step on a road to redemption. If more such updates come, ZOS may bring people back. Partially why i made the original post. I hope that they embrace what's good and never do U35 again.

Tensar · February 2023

TESO really got bad animations and effects, the game is rigid and in comparison to other MMO (mostly asians) the combat is not good.

The only thing who save this game is the TES lore. And yes the housing is very good (but we need higher item limit)

But really if the feeling of the skills and the animations in general were better it would probably change a lot.

Heartrage · February 2023

One thing they are bringing this year that might add a lot of content for late game players is the endless dungeon. We don’t have much information on it right now but, if done well, I could see it be fun repeatable content.

AcadianPaladin · February 2023

I agree to the extent that U35 was a total dumpster fire and did significant damage to the game's credibility. I love many of the features that have been incorporated into the game (T1, outfits, style stickerbook, companions and more) but I have been trained by ESO to absolutely dread patch changes to combat and U35 was the best example since I've been playing of why.

Darkstorne · February 2023

Sarannah wrote: »

Some players massively overreacted to U35, and quitting the game you love over it was not needed in my opinion.

Something is massively wrong with light attack weaving, where it does so much damage that players can't do without it. Skills are supposed to be our most powerful attacks, yet light attacks matter so much damage-wise where we notice when it is missing. ZOS should flat out remove light attack weaving completely. Reverting most of the damage loss from U35's light attack weaving still leaves the game in a broken state, where light attack weaving is too important. Yes, ZOS might get the overreacting players back(which is good), but at what cost? The game and light attack weaving will still be in an almost similar state to how it was before. Where light attack weaving is making too much of a damage impact.

In my opinion our primary source of attacks and damage should be our skills. This should be where about 90% of our damage comes from.

Other solutions to light attack weaving making such a major damage difference, would be to increase skill damage by 40% when not weaving or by having the game automatically light attack weave for the players. Maybe someone else can come up with other ideas to solve this issue.

PS: I think light attack weaving is simply spamming buttons and therefor I never use it, as I feel stupid for smashing buttons like that.
PPS: I agree that PvE and PvP should be balanced separately.

It's a complicated issue to solve, because it has a few concerns to consider:

Weaving is enjoyed by many because it adds another layer of depth to combat. The level of depth is definitely up for discussion, but it does reward players who are more active with light attack / skill weaving management.
On the flip side, it is also objectively a terrible implementation of weaving, due to the absence of linking the damage-dealing portion of a light attack or skill to specific animation frames. Instead, ESO only does a range-check at the start of the animation, and if a target is in range then damage is dealt instantly. That means a player can cancel a light attack / skill animation immediately, and still deal damage even though no attack has visually connected. (for some examples of games that still reward timed animation cancelling / weaving like this but with proper animation frame data (so you can't cancel an attack too early, providing a much greater sense of reward and skill) see New World and For Honor).
A lot of ESO players are TES fans, who are accustomed to light/heavy attacks making up the bulk of their damage. There's an argument to be made that they should throw their expectations out the window on arrival to ESO and learn to play this game differently to TES, but that's hard to justify imo when it heavily markets as a TES game that lets you "play how you want". Maybe these players want a light/heavy attack focused build? Why should that be wrong?

I've often wondered if the solution here could be a stacking buff provided by light attacks:

After dealing damage with a light attack, gain a stack of Successive Strikes for 5 seconds, increasing your damage done with light attacks by 1,000, and damage done with heavy attacks by 2,000. Successive Strikes can stack up to 5 times. All stacks of successive strikes are lost after performing a non-light attack action.

Now light attack spam gets increasingly more impactful throughout an encounter, without raising the damage ceiling of weaving at all. It also builds in a powerful heavy attack spender too, since each light attack would increase the damage of the next heavy attack even more than it increases the damage of the next light attack, but being a non-light attack action that would then reset the stack count to zero in exchange for that powerful heavy attack you've built up to.

Or a new mythic item that changes gameplay systems up a bit:

Light attacks deal 5,000 more damage, but now consume 1,500 stamina and 1,500 magicka.

Almost zero thought put into the numbers there, just the concept of light attacks consuming resources to function more like abilities, for increased damage. So now light attacks are spenders and heavy attacks are still required for resource management. I think dual-cost would be important here so the item isn't as valuable to single-resource meta builds that could still weave effectively with this otherwise.

Necrotech_Master · February 2023

my first mmo was city of villains/heroes

and the only thing that game still has over eso is freaking travel powers, i despise mounts like in general but especially animal mounts

i miss super jumping/super speeding across a zone, or just hovering in the air blasting enemies below me and you know being able to move freely without needing a bloody mount to travel faster than a snails pace lol

i also believe that people overreacted to U35 (i could see people not being happy with account wide achievements from U33, that personally didnt bother me at all and in fact i liked that change lol)

duagloth · February 2023

WiseSky wrote: »

Asked Chat GPT to simplfy

The writer used to play MMO games at a high level of difficulty and started with FFXI. They think ESO is a good game that struggles with lack of funds and identity. They quit the game after update 35, but went back to FF14 and WOW and found those games unsatisfying. They believe ESO's storytelling is better because it's full of different stories and their gear grind is not wasted like in other games. ESO has a good variety of challenging content but needs more of it, and PVP in ESO lacks incentives and is balanced around PVP but hurts PVE. The writer suggests ESO should modernize and provide better incentives for PVP and fresh content.

Within 7 years,you can ask it too make exactly the game you want,just before it becomes skynet.

Araneae6537 · February 2023

Gear drops from dungeons and trials are one of the many GOOD things about ESO! It shouldn’t be that you only get the gear if you’re lucky. I really really hated that in SWTOR in addition to the advancing level cap that invalidates all the work you put in for the gear you do have.

Reasons to run content again are challenges and achievements, just for fun, and as a different role. playing different roles and classes in different content keeps things interesting for me.

ESO and GW2 absolutely got it right with not turning their games into hamster wheels. Yeah, the latest set/mythic might be BiS in ESO but good gear remains so and, importantly, never becomes under-leveled. For me, GW2 has the best mounts but ESO is best overall for me.

SWTOR had absolutely the best stories and companions, with options to play through stories and relationships in totally different ways, and make hard choices. The end game, while I really enjoyed some of the trials, was too much of a WoW-clone hamster wheel grind (from what other told me, never played WoW).

And ESO housing is BiS. I love playing with lighting and was overjoyed not to have to deal with furnishing hooks like in SWTOR. Still waiting for dancers though!

Destai · February 2023

I played the EQ and GW series, along with WoW, SWTOR, LOTRO, Rift, Neverwinter, and Wildstar (RIP). Of all the MMOs I've played, I find ESO the easiest to jump into. It's got a very strong IP obviously, but it also accommodates so many playstyles and moods, that 9/10 times it's the game I play every night. I think WoW has the strongest QoL, next to GW2, but ESO is close. I think the main problems with ESO are the over-reliance on crown-store for cool things like houses and mounts, some long-standing performance issues, and frequent combat changes. If they can address the rewards structure and performance issues, I think they'll be golden.

washbern wrote: »

Sarannah wrote: »

Some players massively overreacted to U35, and quitting the game you love over it was not needed in my opinion.

Do you think if people didn't vote with their wallets, U37 would look the way it does now? Me being one of the people who left, I am not sure if what happened was an over-reaction. The patch made absolutely no sense and the stubbornness of the devs made it that much worse. The issue was not really divisive either. It was one of those rare times where the community joined as one and said "ZOS Please don't let this go live." It was not the content of the patch as much as the fact that ZOS did not listen to their players.

I hope that this breaking of the community was a good learning experience for ZOS. U37 is a first step on a road to redemption. If more such updates come, ZOS may bring people back. Partially why i made the original post. I hope that they embrace what's good and never do U35 again.

I couldn't agree more.

There really needed to be a very loud "Enough!" from the community, and I'm happy it happened. How the whole thing was handled by leadership, developers, and community/forum managers felt very irresponsible. The initial changes proposed were baffling to start, the community was uniformly correct in their initial assessment despite certain tweets, and then U35 and U36 were catastrophic. All of this was made worse by the absolutely careless handling of the Q&A.

All of that directly impacted what would've been my usual year-end splurge. I can forgive a bad patch here and there - I get it, it happens. It's harder to accept that a studio under a billion-dollar company can't get people to engage players on their forums when it's needed most. I hope it's evident to them now that players don't just sweep things under the rug like they hope for.

I'm happy to spend on the game again following the most recent announcements, as it tells me they did learn from all that uproar. U37 feels sober. It feels like there's at least some better vision they're working towards. I just hope they can sustain the seemingly positive momentum they're building now.

Thee_Cheshire_Cat · February 2023

i didnt think we were allowed discussing/comparing other games to ESO here?

Gargath · February 2023

To me ESO uses very player friendly model of gaming, if not the best. I can pay for sub one time, and when cancelling sub I still keep most of the advantages of subscription like double inventory spaces, fully furnished home does not loose half of the furnishings even when it shows 400/200 slots, and so on. They just take away the craft bag and access to paid content like DLC/maps. But my characters are not hidden from me, my gold/credits stay with me without limits, I do not loose the ability to sell in stores. No need to make uneasy choices like pick 8 characters out of 30 you had, because you cancelled your subscription.
In ESO without subbing I can have as many character as I want, without limit in stored gold and in general have freedom of choice much greater than in SWTOR. There a number of restrictions sucessfully drawn me away from playing when I stopped paying. I left account with 20-30 million credits and 30 characters simply because I didn't want to make those choices and struggle with harsh limits everyday.
I was trying GW2 when the only mounts was the gliders. Without real mounts, forced to run vast distances slowly of foot, game became boring very fast and I abandoned it without subscribing. The nail to the coffin was probably inability to write on chat for non-subscribers, a limitation I'll never accept in any game.

washbern · February 2023

Yeah. I guess at the end of it all i think that many of us recognize how good and special ESO could be. I really hope for more positive updates.

Red_Feather · February 2023

World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XIV, Guild Wars 2 all have a better feeling of challenge to overcome. ESO is mostly a casual checklist. The new zone in the chapter will be a casual checklist.

You can tell when customers do not enjoy something when they try to reduce the number of actions needed to complete it. It's very telling.

XSTRONG · February 2023

ESO is a great game, and I trust the devs that they Will make this endless dungeon system great, I think they know whats needed in the new system to get players to play it.

The new class is fun for those Who want it...

rpa · February 2023

I believe whatever 'new system' they drop is something majority of players keep playing only when I see it. It's all about implementation and presentation. I'm sure players who had prior experience of playing deck building games found ToT interesting and easy to get into but I have never had any interest to that genre and found introduction too overwhelmingly incomprehensive to even bother with.

There is plenty of content in ESO I find interesting and in general it is more tolrable than other available mmos I have tried. As long as the bits I do not care about are not forced on me I likely keep playing until something better or at least new and viable gets released.

fizzylu · February 2023

100% agree with the OP. Especially the part about punching your screen because of FFXIV cutscenes and that ESO is held back by the lack of modernization. I quit during U35 as well, but I've always been concerned by the lack of care ESO seemed to get as a game when it came to performance+optimization. It shows even more now after playing WoW's new expansion and seeing all of the QoL upgrades it's gotten to be more modern.... and that game is actually ancient.

Brrrofski · February 2023

washbern wrote: »

I would like to preface this post by saying that while I am not playing right now at the bleeding edge of difficulty in any game or mode, I used to. My first MMO was FFXI back when it was first released and available via import and only in Japanese. I fell in love with the game not just because it was pretty but because it encouraged teamwork and did it’s very best to help those who did not speak the language to still participate. From there, the flood gates were open and WoW came out. Within the first year and a half of the game I have reached rank 14 in pvp and had well over 150 days played on a single character.

I think ESO is a great game that suffers from lack of funds and identity. I wanted to write this post because I, like many others, have quit when update 35 came out. When the patch released I felt almost betrayed by the devs who (and I still believe this) had no idea the damage they were about to do to the game and it’s community. Since then, I think they realized the error they have made and patch notes to update 37 speak to that effect.

I have left ESO in U35 and I went back to FF14 and WOW. I played those games and I felt empty inside. I felt like my time was literally being put into the trash can. Why do I say that? Well, I am probably one of the rare few people who would say this, but I thought that the story in both games was terrible. WOW barely has a story and FF story (again, in my opinion) is so awful and dragged out that I wanted to punch my screen every time a new cut-scene started. Any book, movie, tv show or game that has to say “hey! It’ll get good after you invest 200 hours into it” is a failure. What I enjoy about ESO storytelling is that it is full of many different stories. Some of them are good. Some of them are not. But I am not stuck investing hundreds of my hours into a single story that I do not like.

The next reason why I felt my time was wasted in those other MMOs was the gear grind. Again, to bring back update 35 as an example. Update 35 took things away from us. It took our power (not to mention trust…) and pretended like we should be ok with that. But let’s think how FF and WOW do the same thing. WoW and FF completely invalidate our time with every new raid tier. We spend months farming our BiS in those games and when we finally get it… new patch hits and all the gear is trash. In ESO I can still use Siroria with Mother’s Sorrow build from a few years ago and be viable. Yeah, I won’t be great... but I’ll be viable. The time I spent grinding for gear and filling out my sticker book is not wasted. That gear is always there.

Difficult content is the next point I want to make. ESO actually has a very good variety of content you can do if you want something challenging. You have solo arenas, dlc veteran dungeons and raids. The good things about these? You go in, you do the thing, you get loot. The bad? There is not enough of them. Dungeons, perhaps there is plenty of but raids and solo arenas? We need more of those. This is the point of the post where things start to slide a bit down hill for this game. While it is absolutely awesome that raids like Sunspire and Maw still offer a challenge to even the most skilled players, they fail to offer any incentives to revisit them. Why do I want to run veteran Kynes Aegis for the one billionth time if I do not need the title or the clear or the gear? WoW and FF are better at this by saying “run our stuff, you get loots…. IF YOU’RE LUCKY!” ESO gives us loot and I can fill out most of my necessary sticker book in probably 5 runs to a specific place.

And now we reach PVP. OH BOI! Should ESO have PVP? My answer would be a hard and definitive MAYBE. Why do I say that? Am I a PVP hater? No. I love PVP… just not the way ESO does it. Lack of incentives is one flaw of PVP but the other is that it contradicts too hard with PVE. The game is balanced around PVP so that the battles would be fair, but what ends up happening is that PVE side of the equation sees massive homogenization and nerfs.

Please please please.

We need to stop this narrative.

It's so false that the majority of nerfs and changes are PvP driven.

They both impact each other as much as the other.

Some of the more recent changes, such as light attack damage and dot timers where purely driven by PvE to lower the ceiling/raise the floor/whatever terminology they use.

Both had a significant impact on burst potential in PvP.

I don't have an opinion on the rest of your post. I haven't played those games.

I just wanted to point this out as it's completely false. They balance the game around both, often to the detriment of the other.

washbern · February 2023

Brrrofski wrote: »

Please please please.

We need to stop this narrative.

It's so false that the majority of nerfs and changes are PvP driven.

They both impact each other as much as the other.

Some of the more recent changes, such as light attack damage and dot timers where purely driven by PvE to lower the ceiling/raise the floor/whatever terminology they use.

Both had a significant impact on burst potential in PvP.

I don't have an opinion on the rest of your post. I haven't played those games.

I just wanted to point this out as it's completely false. They balance the game around both, often to the detriment of the other.

By no means am i suggesting that all the nerfs are because of PVP or that u35 happened because of that. But there are some cases where skills are dialed back, sets are nerfed and classes given specific abilities in the name of balance in PVP.

You can't say that DK shield suddenly starts scaling with Weapon Damage while at the same time providing passive healing that no one in PVP community would scream bloody murder. ESO has to balance classes against each other in the name of fairness so that players do not feel if they are a NB and they go up against a DK, their fate is sealed. If a single class / set gets too strong it does see a nerf. That (in my opinion) leads to homogenization. if they don't have to balance pve for pvp and other way around, there might be a bit more interesting things each class could do in both modes of gameplay.

Brrrofski · February 2023

washbern wrote: »

Brrrofski wrote: »

Please please please.

We need to stop this narrative.

It's so false that the majority of nerfs and changes are PvP driven.

They both impact each other as much as the other.

Some of the more recent changes, such as light attack damage and dot timers where purely driven by PvE to lower the ceiling/raise the floor/whatever terminology they use.

Both had a significant impact on burst potential in PvP.

I don't have an opinion on the rest of your post. I haven't played those games.

I just wanted to point this out as it's completely false. They balance the game around both, often to the detriment of the other.

By no means am i suggesting that all the nerfs are because of PVP or that u35 happened because of that. But there are some cases where skills are dialed back, sets are nerfed and classes given specific abilities in the name of balance in PVP.

You can't say that DK shield suddenly starts scaling with Weapon Damage while at the same time providing passive healing that no one in PVP community would scream bloody murder. ESO has to balance classes against each other in the name of fairness so that players do not feel if they are a NB and they go up against a DK, their fate is sealed. If a single class / set gets too strong it does see a nerf. That (in my opinion) leads to homogenization. if they don't have to balance pve for pvp and other way around, there might be a bit more interesting things each class could do in both modes of gameplay.

Yeh, and there are cases where things are changed because of PvE too.

It's a two-way street. Plenty of people who only play PvE are unhappy when one class outshines another, or when their class is useless. Just like in PvP. They also want other classes nerfed or their class buffed.

You mention homogenisation - the recent changes to dots was done because of PvE, to close the gap between players, resulting in things like shalks and other dots/delayed skills being really crappy in PvP

The narrative on this forum is that it's always PvP balance leads how changes are made to PvE. PvP balance always "ruins" PvE. That's simply not true.
.

Supreme_Atromancer · February 2023

washbern wrote: »

Do you think if people didn't vote with their wallets, U37 would look the way it does now? Me being one of the people who left, I am not sure if what happened was an over-reaction. The patch made absolutely no sense and the stubbornness of the devs made it that much worse. The issue was not really divisive either. It was one of those rare times where the community joined as one and said "ZOS Please don't let this go live." It was not the content of the patch as much as the fact that ZOS did not listen to their players.

The entire community absolutely did not join together as one, unfortunately the loudest get to dictate the narrative by virtue of their volume.

U37 is a first step on a road to redemption.

So the narrative continues. People left. Other endgame groups stayed, and thrived.

People started coming back. Before U37 was announced because they're bored of other games, not some ZOS redemption arc.

The posts regarding U35 by zos described what they hoped to do. The posts regarding U37 both reiterate what they'd hoped for U35, and what they're planning in the future.