Most accounts don’t last longer than six weeks. Those are Rich’s words.

The fact this lasts 36 seconds tells you all your need to know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91DKpFGKjCk

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

I honestly can't fathom why developers try so hard to make their own game unattractive to the existing player base, to people who have invested years and thousands into their characters. The same crap happened in the other game I used to play STO, now it's dead, only a tiny handful of the thousands we had in our guilds ever login.

The devs should be doing everything to ensure the gaming experience isn't one of frustration and anxiety. I mean, what's the point in introducing subclassing, letting people work out builds for it then ripping them to bits a few weeks later? This is bad ZOS, very bad, it's also weird and makes me wonder if they asked ChatGPT to work out how to balance their game.

Revert all the changes and then go back to the drawing board and fine-tune it, stop swinging the nerf hammer because the only thing you're really gonna end up nerfing is your customer base.

Part of what made World of Warcraft so appealing is how stupidly simple and accessible it was. Doing the opposite is NOT a good idea.

I simply don't understand why they keep saying that they want "pure" and "subclassed" characters similar strength but then don't do that.

I play meta, and I agree that Relentless Focus (or Merciless Resolve) was too strong, but it wasn't completely overpowered outside of Subclassing. Subclassing was the thing that made it too powerful. Pushing out nerfs to base classes because some of the setups are too powerful with Subclassing literally makes zero sense.

If Relentless Focus is too powerful when Subclassed but isn't problematic outside of it why don't they just tone down the skill when Subclassed only? I don’t think this balancing is particularly hard to do. I thought y'all wanted "pure" and "subclassed" characters to be roughly the same power level. Wouldn't this reduce the gap while not giving an unnecessary nerf to pure PvE Nightblade when it already isn't very good?

---

And there's no way it ends there. The Assassination passives or Dawn's Wrath is probably on the chopping block next.

I believe there are 2 different aspects: A generic one common to all ageing MMORPGs and an ESO specific one.

Generic to all ageing MMOs:
The 2 standard main categories of players (simplified: casual and hardcore), have each the same main 2 sub-categories: Newbies and Veterans.
That's 4 groups of players with each different expectation, atop a giant game content heavy to be modified, versus an available development budget decreasing over time.
The challenge is enormous and sort of lost in advance.

Specific to ESO:
Compared to block buster MMOs, ESO has the handicap of a small variety of activities (no water content, no flying content, no mount concept, and so on...), a smaller budget and a powerful limitation: a middle-age type of world to be respected, restricting creativity for new adds. That comes in addition to the previous points, so that the challenge is even bigger.

All in all, ageing MMOs have to set priorities. They can't satisfy everybody and no matter the choices made, a part of the players will be happy and the other part not.

Aside from that, I believe that another difficulty for game owners is that a vast majority of players are silent. They don't post in forums, don't complain, just play as long as they like it and when no more, leave the game. To keep those players is difficult, because what interests them is unknown and can only be a best possible guess.

I was always wondering why, when a player has been offline for a certain amount of time, game owners don't send an email asking for "reason to leave" and "intention to return yes/no" with a list of pre-selected reasons like private/bored/ whatever, with a possibility to follow up on pain points.

Now, my personal point of view is that probably, a lot of players lack a sense for reality of what it means to implement changes into an old game. They're wishes are often out of reality because the development/implementation costs would be by far too enormous and in no way compensated by what the declining population of an old game is ready to pay for.
So many complain that everything is too expensive in crown store, as well as subscription and yearly pass: They should realize that without that, there is no cash income and then no budget for any changes.

It's a difficult situation that has no ideal outcome possible. It's needs to juggle with all the boundary conditions. That must be terribly hard.

Sorry, that was incredibly long now, my bad.

Avalon wrote: »

So... why might new players only play 6 weeks? 6 weeks seems to be long enough to get into pretty deep gameplay... so... hmm, wonder... possibly unnecessarily complex combat methodology? Just a thought...

Not really, it took me years to figure things out. I did end up quitting for a few years to play other MMO's but the game isn't very intuitive. Many of the content creators I watch for other games that give ESO a try often don't get the hang of it and leave after a week or so. Often they try to balance their stats and such like a normal RPG which is suboptimal at least for dps typically. Heck I didn't even figure out what to use event tickets on or even bother getting them for like 3+ years I think. I sat a dolmens watching tv shows and stuff very casually leveling at first.

It also doesn't help that builds usually require outside sources and the builds you do find are outdated most of the time. Sometimes the changes are so sweeping that they are not really viable at all. Light attack weaving and animation cancelling isn't the most friendly thing for normal players to pick up either. Velothi, Oakensoul, and Arcanist have helped I'm sure with newer players or those that just don't enjoy the weirdness.

Orbital78 wrote: »

Many of the content creators I watch for other games that give ESO a try often don't get the hang of it and leave after a week or so. Often they try to balance their stats and such like a normal RPG which is suboptimal at least for dps typically.

I have been playing MMOs since 1999, even worked for IGN managing one of their Vault Network sites, did gaming reviews for a while, too. So, I have done countless interviews of everything from pro players on up to top developers (including Brad McQuaid). No one who considers themselves professional enough, or beyond 'casual' splits their points. It always waters down your build. Tanks build into health or HP and mitigation. They leave the damaging to the DPS, who, likewise, always puts points exactly where is best for doing the most damage they can, the fastest, sustainably. They are dead if anything turns to even glance at them.

But, casuals? Sure, they split their points all the time. It's a large part of what keeps them on the casual level- they can't hack the non-casual content (either due to build, personal life keeping them away from it, or whatever else). To be non-casual requires a certain amount of faith in your fellow players to perform their roles to the utmost- and that means having the best build they can for those roles, so splitting points? No, not a thing in MMOs, even back in 1999 Everquest.

Also, the comment was 6 weeks being the average cut-off point for new players, so if those streamers are quitting after a week... newbie casuals are beating them 6-fold. That's not a good look. One of the biggest complaints about review writers (that I had to deal with a LOT) was how unfair it is to judge a game based one only 20-50 hours (depending on how much content there is in the game, with RPGs often being the ones needing the most time).

There's no way anyone playing the game for only a week can truly reach any semblance of an opinion worth valuing by others as a content creator. Heck, Josh (trying to not give any form of advertising) recently did 2 videos for an old MMO. The first one, he played the game for something like 50 hours I think, and did a REALLY in-depth go at it. He got LASHED by that game's community for all of it, saying he didn't do certain things, he didn't play long enough, and so much more. He's one of the most famous and watched content creators or streamers.

And HE was lambasted severely for only giving it as much as he did. So, if you're watching people who only do a week in one of the absolutely largest MMOs, with so much content it actually turns people away (they feel they will NEVER be able to complete even half of it)? A week?? LOL

But, 6 weeks... that's enough time to really only get grips on basics, like actually learning them, or trying to. Sure, not events, only have seen so much of the game, etc. But, they'd know how quests work, know how combat works (in general, maybe not weaving), etc.

So, the only things they could complain about, I'd think, would be those basics. And, most of them are pretty solid, better than other games. Combat? Way too overcomplicated for a game like this, and requires player skill and coordination that isn't called for. I play on console, so one thing I never understood: putting the weapon-swap on left-d-pad. This game requires a ton of constant movement and ready to maneuver in split seconds. The left thumbstick is your movement. To swap weapons, gotta take thumb off of it to hit left on d-pad.

This could be excused... IF the game featured customizable controls. It doesn't. And the console doesn't allow that level of customization either, and shouldn't be expected to. Customizable controls should always be part of the game, so that the changes do not affect OTHER games. But, just one thing that disturbs me about the mentality of ZOS devs, thinking left on d-pad was the right place to put weapon swap. Tells a lot about why they might have made other decisions... that same sort of mentality is what makes those other ones.

And, I could see new players, once they start really getting into the game, 6 weeks in, might go, "Nah... I don't think so" and go play a much simpler game where the focus is on having fun, not on finger gymnastics.

mocap wrote: »

Everyone got triggered over some banner/crux change and removal of WPD buff from NB bow? Guys, wake up — ZOS has been doing this since 2015 You should be used to it by now xd

That is neither here nor there at this point. Pleases some, displeases others, doesn't change the overall satisfaction levels IMO (which prompts the question, if it does not increase the overall satisfaction who is this change for? but that is a question for another thread I think).

However what they have done to ultigen, that is... something.

They have - by their own admission - watched us have fun with it, because I can't deny that it feels satisfying to get to the point of being able to effectively and repeatably coordinate ulti gen and ulti deployment in a group and gone: NO

I've barely logged in since subclassing came out. I started to set up one of my characters to use subclassing and just couldn't bring myself to do it. I've played this game since Summerset, have griped and moaned about changes here and there and adjusted each time. I LIKE my characters and the game play just the way I set them up to be played. While on the surface it sounded like a nice thing, being able to add skills from different lines to other toons it just became too much of a change. This is what is going to be the thing that broke my camels back.

I'm not alone either. We all know population has declined considerably since a few unhealthy changes were made this last year. I noticed that almost all my guild chats are dead and friends I used to see online daily have not logged on at all for days. I think this is it. These changes are NOT going to bring in more people that are leaving, I think we've all just had enough.

Avalon wrote: »

I know you think you are being clever... but, you don't realize that 90+% of your players are casual.

ZOS knows this very well. Did you play in 2014? This game was originally designed for all kinds of gamers, but mainly core and hardcore gamers. This is because development began in 2007.

However, after a failed launch, they pivoted to the ultra-casual skyrim fan. That is why 99.99% of the game is so trivial. This is why Matt stressed for years ESO is not a traditional MMO, but instead an Online RPG. The most expensive content -- voice acted quests included with chapters -- were designed to be played as a single player game. Because that's how the vast majority of ESO players play.

This game is SO MUCH MORE CASUAL than you seem to recognize. It is so casual the average player couldn't care less about even oakensoul or any balance change. The kind of casual you refer to is the casual enthusiast that plays somewhat like an MMO.

With all that said, this is a transitional period for ESO. Chapters are, at least for now, gone and they have expressed a desire to make the game more challenging again. They seem to recognize the enthusiast audience would prefer a greater challenge and may be pivoting in that direction. Only they know for certain.

They tried the Heavy Attack paradigm and it resulted in TERRIBLE gameplay. So after they introduced the beam meta via the Arcanist. It is between normal light attack weave gameplay and hold lmb 1 bar gameplay. They seem to want all 3 to be viable for different kinds of players. They have positioned beam builds for the casual end game player.

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

I honestly can't fathom why developers try so hard to make their own game unattractive to the existing player base, to people who have invested years and thousands into their characters. The same crap happened in the other game I used to play STO, now it's dead, only a tiny handful of the thousands we had in our guilds ever login.

The devs should be doing everything to ensure the gaming experience isn't one of frustration and anxiety. I mean, what's the point in introducing subclassing, letting people work out builds for it then ripping them to bits a few weeks later? This is bad ZOS, very bad, it's also weird and makes me wonder if they asked ChatGPT to work out how to balance their game.

Revert all the changes and then go back to the drawing board and fine-tune it, stop swinging the nerf hammer because the only thing you're really gonna end up nerfing is your customer base.

No the banner Change is needed. it was game breaking

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

The fact this lasts 36 seconds tells you all your need to know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91DKpFGKjCk

Not gonna lie, this sounds kind of baby-ish. If you are among the crowd of people enjoying subclassing, you should know that hitting 160k-170k DPS was never going to stay in the game. And if you are someone who truly cares about builds in this game, then you should be sad about the fact that the current U46 meta is nothing but Arcanist-NB-Templar using Banner Bearer - having every DPS build doing the exact same cheesy combo is somehow fun though?

I agree with the spirit of what ZOS is attempting to do by bringing that build back in line so that other kinds of builds get used, but I don't think they're looking in the right spots. The banner-bearer nerf was needed. The grim focus nerf is definitely an overcorrection that hurts pure class Nightblades more than it fixes the issues with Arcanist meta.

As someone who mains Arcanist, I have to agree that fatecarver is what needs to get looked at. Its fully buffed damage plus its cleave makes it insanely more powerful than any other DPS skill in the game. It's always felt like I'm making my life harder by choosing to play any dungeon or trial on any character other than my Arcanist, and I don't like feeling that way.

Fatecarver is the one skill that could receive a nerf without causing the Arcanist pure class to fall behind other classes. I'm really shocked that they haven't done anything to this skill yet.

Cellithor wrote: »

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

The fact this lasts 36 seconds tells you all your need to know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91DKpFGKjCk

Not gonna lie, this sounds kind of baby-ish. If you are among the crowd of people enjoying subclassing, you should know that hitting 160k-170k DPS was never going to stay in the game. And if you are someone who truly cares about builds in this game, then you should be sad about the fact that the current U46 meta is nothing but Arcanist-NB-Templar using Banner Bearer - having every DPS build doing the exact same cheesy combo is somehow fun though?

I agree with the spirit of what ZOS is attempting to do by bringing that build back in line so that other kinds of builds get used, but I don't think they're looking in the right spots. The banner-bearer nerf was needed. The grim focus nerf is definitely an overcorrection that hurts pure class Nightblades more than it fixes the issues with Arcanist meta.

As someone who mains Arcanist, I have to agree that fatecarver is what needs to get looked at. Its fully buffed damage plus its cleave makes it insanely more powerful than any other DPS skill in the game. It's always felt like I'm making my life harder by choosing to play any dungeon or trial on any character other than my Arcanist, and I don't like feeling that way.

Fatecarver is the one skill that could receive a nerf without causing the Arcanist pure class to fall behind other classes. I'm really shocked that they haven't done anything to this skill yet.

Spoken like someone so-very-far removed from casual play that they only see the elitist meta-following mindset and playstyle.

Most casuals were bringing in 5-20K DPS. When the META was hitting 160-170K suddenly? Those casuals were hitting 40-60K!

Subclassing BROKE the elitist builds, but finally allowed the non-elitists to actually do more than overland and normal dungeons. Them nerfing these abilities? SERIOUSLY hurts the casual side of the game- All so that ZOS can maintain the 5% or so players who are ALWAYS going to find whatever ways they can to eek out even a single percent more effectiveness.

What they need to do is realize basic truths that by bringing DOWN the 'apparently' broken things, they really aren't doing anything for those elite level players. Sure, might bring them down from 170K to 150K, because they will find another way to achieve their goals.

But the casuals? They play theme-builds, they play stuff they find fun. They aren't actively chasing efficiency of any kind. They are playing either pure-builds, or mixing classes because the mix looks COOL. Nerfing the stuff that is suddenly making COOL also reasonable to play? It's just going to make them less interested in sticking around. Trying not to exaggerate things, so let's assume only 25% of those players leave... That's a massive loss in the base, because casuals make up 85-95% of the players.

This game is extremely hard to play COOL builds in anything beyond overland, questing, and maybe normal dungeons. Granted that's a decent amount of content... but, even Public Dungeons, solo, on those builds can be tricky. The Group Event bosses can be extremely difficult, if not impossible. That's the level of reality that I don't think anyone with the mentality of your response actually grasps.

And, is why you don't see why these changes are REALLY bad.

ZOS needs to BUFF other abilities to be in line with the ones that everyone is picking. As the poster above said: this is going to punish pure NB builds with 400-500 less weapon damage, and nada to make up for it. It's just LOSS. Sure, when you have 5K weapon damage, that gets buffed to 5400 due to that ability... yeah, it smarts a little. That's something like a 7% loss. It's noticeable.

But, when your weapon damage is 2000, getting buffed to 2400? Or 3000, because you saved up, got that purple gear, buffed to 3400? 12-16% loss. That's almost devastating. That's not just 'bad papercut', it's losing a limb. This is what these changes are doing. It's balancing elite meta by utterly crippling anyone NOT playing meta. These are builds not 'using stacking ulti-gen' because it really blows away past DPS levels... but, because those things happen to BE there in the abilities their fun build has.

But, oh, cool, now... for no reason they can understand without research, they will be getting their ultimates back WAY slower. They might even think something broke, or that they must have forgotten something, or lag, or all kinds of other things. MAYBE they go back and read their abilities, and MIGHT remember what they used to say- so who knows if they will even notice the ability went from a stacking extra X ultimate every Y seconds, that goes with some item they have that gives minor hero. Or, that they now have more abilities giving minor hero, so just a waste of skill points.

They MIGHT notice that. They're casuals, not pro players who obsessively read abilities and know what every version of those abilities have been through the years, so they'd notice if a 5 turned into a 4.

People really need to understand the game is played by a ton of people who are NOT that level, and they are going to suddenly find themselves back down to pitiful DPS levels only a little bit after suddenly being able to finally play the game beyond extremely basic content. Imagine if your entire veteran trial group (doing the highest trials) suddenly couldn't complete anything more than Normal Hel Ra or something, and everyone was just repeatedly telling them:

"Yo, it was necessary! You're just going to have to get over it"; "I don't see what your issue is, had to know this was coming"; "ZOS does this kind of thing, give it a year, you'll be fine"; etc.

You think those players are going to be 'ok' with that? Or will they be upset enough to maybe even quit the game if ZOS doesn't do something?

Vaqual wrote: »

This game has mostly horizontal progression. There is no level advancement that would cause a hard reset of power creep. If they want to keep all content somewhat relevant and balanced, they have to make sensible adjustments. Bringing up 85 % of sets and abilities and adjusting all combat encounters in the game isn't pragmatic, when they can just tune down the problematic 15 %. Nerfs are just as fair as buffs, there is no injustice. Bad balancing will always be bad in nature, even if it adds power. A belligerent tone and self-victimization don't change that.

So, your argument is that it is far better to ignore the overwhelmingly vast majority of content (IE- waste of coding, if this is the way, then they should just remove it from the game instead of adding game size and memory requirements for truly useless stuff) to focus on ONLY the '15%'?

That sounds like devs who want their game to fail.

However, in addition, think of your logic here... one of the biggest problems in ESO is lack of build diversity. Well, if they only ever focus on the '15%', that's going to be the limit. They nerf THIS '15%', but Meta people will always find the way to get the best builds, so they will find the NEXT '15%', which then gets nerfed. Eventually, everything sucks, and the NEW content is what becomes the best content for a while. Until even that gets nerfed.

How about, instead, figure out WHY that 15% is seen as better, and slowly work to bring UP the rest. Otherwise, the inevitable flow of things is just nerfing one thing after another to try and keep around 5-10% of the playerbase as within control as possible, while screwing over around 40-50% of the players. I'm sure that builds loyalty and numbers.

Oh, WAIT! ESO is losing players steadily, and has been for years. It's biggest competitor: FFXIV has been gaining players almost nonstop. Not a huge amount, but any gains for games like these, with their ages? Ought to look and see what THEY are doing, and follow suit. Oddly enough, they follow along the mindset I keep pointing out. They do nerfs, true... but, they do a LOT of buffing things that they see players staying away from, making those things more attractive.

They get kinda crazy about allowing players to have really powerful characters, they just make harder content based on the tactics and strategies they see being used. ZOS' approach is to not look at the numbers and build INTO it, that would require work, like REAL work. Instead, they go after keeping players within their grasps, so they don't have to actually put in any time at work concerning themselves with that stuff. Lazy devs just wanting to collect checks.

DreamyLu wrote: »

All in all, ageing MMOs have to set priorities. They can't satisfy everybody and no matter the choices made, a part of the players will be happy and the other part not.

See, I'd agree with this if it wasn't for the fact that I am active on multiple forums for MMOs.... ESO's is the most negative by far. But we'll focus one here: WoW.
You will see people happily discussing what's to come and what they would also like to see (and unlike here, they actually have quite a high chance of getting those things). You will see them just going over lore, contemplating the story. Just chitchatting about their good times in the game and with their characters. Even when people are talking more negatively about the game, it's not nearly with the level of hopelessness that you see here.... why? Because the players there know that they are being heard and things can and will change, and not always for the worse. And I promise you, there are still plenty of people defending whatever it is the OP of a critical thread is unhappy about there as well (I was just participating on one and it was about 50/50 on both sides of happy with the changes and not happy with them). This belief on this forum that the players on MMO forums are the unhappy ones, the discontented few.... I only see that here.

DreamyLu wrote: »

Now, my personal point of view is that probably, a lot of players lack a sense for reality of what it means to implement changes into an old game. They're wishes are often out of reality because the development/implementation costs would be by far too enormous and in no way compensated by what the declining population of an old game is ready to pay for.
So many complain that everything is too expensive in crown store, as well as subscription and yearly pass: They should realize that without that, there is no cash income and then no budget for any changes.

And WoW is also a game that has had huge fundamental changes done to it. AND without ever raising the sub price, and still with minimal cash store options (most things are still earnable simply by playing). It is possible, just seemingly not in ESO's case. It's all just an excuse.
Now yes, there are some things that would be impossible to implement.... but ask anyone and I'm pretty sure we all would have said mount swimming was one of those things because of the way Zenimax spoke about the engine and etc for years to us players, yet now it's an upcoming feature. It seemingly only took Zenimax breaking away from a flawed formula they stuck to for years in order to reach a point where they could tackle such a change.

DreamyLu wrote: »

I was always wondering why, when a player has been offline for a certain amount of time, game owners don't send an email asking for "reason to leave" and "intention to return yes/no" with a list of pre-selected reasons like private/bored/ whatever, with a possibility to follow up on pain points.

And it's funny, because there are other games that do stuff like this. Even WoW, right when you cancel your sub they ask you why you are. Even "I'm leaving" threads do not get closed or go against the community rules there.

So really, at what point do we finally admit that ESO has not been for it's player in a long time? That it's not an ageing MMO problem but a mishandling of the game itself? I understand that a lot of people still on these forums, and especially in game, are really attached to ESO.... but there is a bigger picture and it doesn't depict the story you're trying to tell here.