My approach is to treat the content passes like expansions: I'll decide if I'm going to buy it based only on what's been announced so far (for a pre-order) or what's actually out. Anything I get after that is a bonus.

So far the 2025 one hasn't been worth the price (even when it was 30% off). I'll get it at some point, probably after it's added to the crown store and there's a crown sale.

I'm waiting to see what's announced for next year and will decide on that once I know what I'm getting and what it costs, and again any vague promises they make about stuff coming later on won't factor into it until it's actually happening.

And it's all in buy-to-play title, having a premium sub, paid expansi... a "content pass" and an in-game store which is... quite predatory, to say the least.

Stay sane.

Furyous wrote: »

Has the shift in how content is sold fundamentally changed the quality we can expect?

ESO used to sell expansions that were complete before asking players to pay.
You knew what you were buying.
You could evaluate the content, the scope, the features, and decide if it was worth your money.
That model rewarded effort, polish, and transparency.

Now we have “content passes.”
We prepay for content that hasn’t been created yet.
There’s no roadmap, no feature list, no accountability.
Just a vague promise that something will arrive eventually.

And when it does?
We get events like Writhing Wall, marketed as a “once in a lifetime” experience:

• The biggest threat the game has ever faced
• A massive, mysterious wall
• A fanatical cult
• A realm-threatening incursion

It was framed as the pinnacle of narrative and gameplay, something that would define the year.

And how do we fight this ultimate evil?
We spend weeks knitting sweaters to finally unlock Phase Two, only to find it just added socks to the knitting list.
This is the real reason people play fantasy games full of dragons and demonic gods, to gather supplies for months.
What’s Phase Three going to be? Sort the sweaters and socks by color and size?
Gods, what I’m really hoping for is to finally realize my lifelong gaming goal of washing and folding the laundry.
I mean, world threats are only won by neat housekeeping practiced over months of daily repetition.

The gameplay loop:

• Housekeeping
• Underwhelming and minimal rewards
• Weeks of chores with no payoff

What really confuses me is that there’s clearly talent involved.
The graphics are solid.
The story setup is compelling.
But the delivery feels sloppy, lazy, and uninspired.
It’s like the event was planned under the old post-paid model, and then halfway through, the monetization changed.
Once the content was prepaid, the structure fell apart.

So here’s the question for the devs and the community:
If the content is already paid for, what incentive is left to make sure it’s good?
Where’s the pressure to deliver something compelling, complete, or even coherent?

The failure of this event, and likely future ones, is baked into the model.
When content is prepaid and undefined, quality becomes optional.

I’m posting it because I care about the game and the community.
We deserve better than vague promises and post-paid disappointment.

I had a strong feeling this would happen so I decide to keep the wallet shut. as a pvp player I will spend money but it needs to be a 2 way street

exactly. Ill pay for good game content but eso has been failing the pvp community for years. I know its because that group of players usally spends as little as possible but its mostly because the state of the game. If they would give us good content everyone will pay but this isnt it

To be fair. The content was actually created beforehnd. It's just not very much of it, and (IMO) not impressive work.

It's not like they just started working on the 2025 content only after announcing the change to a seasonal release model and selling the content pass.

I'm not defending the new release model, as I feel extremely let down as many others here do. Even so, any critiicisms do need to be acccurate.

DenverRalphy wrote: »

To be fair. The content was actually created beforehnd. It's just not very much of it, and (IMO) not impressive work.

It's not like they just started working on the 2025 content only after announcing the change to a seasonal release model and selling the content pass.

I'm not defending the new release model, as I feel extremely let down as many others here do. Even so, any critiicisms do need to be acccurate.

You're absolutely correct. They don't take the money and then create the content. Stuffs planned out the year before or even more I've heard. I don't know why but solstice feels half finished. Like they had planned it, built it, started doing it but stopped half way through and did like a weird pivot. It feels...empty. So unlike a chapter. So sparse on side quests. I get this weird feeling that it's completely unfinished when I travel through and see almost no quest markers. Compared to say blackwood. I was on a multi year break, back 7 months now and just getting into what I missed. I was just in blackwood yesterday and it seems everywhere there's a black quest starter. Papers on the ground, people etc. I don't know. Very disappointed, but we'll see what's coming

I am a little suspicious of where the team intends to go from here.

I get that this was a rough year what with all of the surprise layoffs, but as has been said, that was not the cause of the content being subpar. All of this was planned before those hit.

I do suspect there was a massive budget cut last year, and that would explain the surprise cancellation of the NA event. Still, I can’t imagine that 2025 was good for next year’s prospects.

I know that “more agile development” totally meant “we’re going to do less each patch,” but still…

My one last piece of copium is that this desire to reduce the animation footprint is to take account of the fact that older hardware can’t handle so much and they want to make something like a new Class that needs new attack animations.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

I am a little suspicious of where the team intends to go from here.

I get that this was a rough year what with all of the surprise layoffs, but as has been said, that was not the cause of the content being subpar. All of this was planned before those hit.

I do suspect there was a massive budget cut last year, and that would explain the surprise cancellation of the NA event. Still, I can’t imagine that 2025 was good for next year’s prospects.

I know that “more agile development” totally meant “we’re going to do less each patch,” but still…

My one last piece of copium is that this desire to reduce the animation footprint is to take account of the fact that older hardware can’t handle so much and they want to make something like a new Class that needs new attack animations.

Being on console I am not generally prone to suggest anything that would cause them to lose players on my server, but the truth is playing on PS4 became difficult years ago, about the time that the PS4 Pro was out and the PS5 was becoming available. You couldn’t run a trial because the adds wouldn’t load in for 30 seconds or more. You couldn’t PvP because you never came out of a forward camp alive. The performance was crippling back then. Just rolling up to a wayshrine meant black silhouettes of other players and some npcs weren’t where they were supposed to be.

If this is all being done to keep players on last gen consoles now and it is hurting the rest of the game, then it’s time to just move on. We are not in the middle of a COVID epidemic anymore, there isn’t a shortage of PS5s and XBox Series consoles that limits how many players can buy them. Some players may be holding back due to finances but that will always be the case.

My only fear about that is that I am starting to see the same performance issues creeping back in on PS5 now. So something is causing a strain in the game again. We have theories on what it might be but no concrete evidence. There are so many different aspects to the game now, ToT, IA, scribing, and subclassing. Perhaps the servers just can’t handle the load with the increased number of systems, skills, and the fact the many players run three permanent pets and a companion now. I guess something needs to be done, I just hope they are working on the part of the game that is really causing the problems.

Furyous wrote: »

twisttop138 wrote: »

You're absolutely correct. They don't take the money and then create the content. Stuffs planned out the year before or even more I've heard. I don't know why but solstice feels half finished. Like they had planned it, built it, started doing it but stopped half way through and did like a weird pivot. It feels...empty. So unlike a chapter. So sparse on side quests. I get this weird feeling that it's completely unfinished when I travel through and see almost no quest markers. Compared to say blackwood. I was on a multi year break, back 7 months now and just getting into what I missed. I was just in blackwood yesterday and it seems everywhere there's a black quest starter. Papers on the ground, people etc. I don't know. Very disappointed, but we'll see what's coming

I think that feeling is perfectly explained by the change in how they charge for content.

Before the shift to prepaid content passes, they had to build something worth buying.
The incentive was clear: make a great product and people will pay for it.
But halfway through this cycle, they pivoted to a model where the money comes first.
Once the content is prepaid, the pressure to deliver drops dramatically.

I'm sure the Microsoft acquisition and other internal factors played a role too.
But the bottom line is this: if you've already been paid, the urgency to finish strong fades.

If you don't believe me, try this. Prepay a contractor the full amount for a job in your home, then just wait for them to show up.
That's the dynamic we're seeing here.
And it shows.

I think we're in agreement about this years content. I get your analogy, I'm a diesel mechanic and we invoice after repairs are done. Even side work when I fix people's cars I get paid after. I just don't think that solstice wasn't completed (in the state we will find it in after phase 3) before we purchased it. I think they had a done 60% of a chapter and decided to ship it. It's good enough for government work, as we say in the trades. We'll never know why until a disgruntled dev does a reddit ama or gets interviewed by gaming media 10 years from now but why it's unfinished and sub par doesn't matter. It is. And it ain't getting better from here, I suspect. More agile development, what a joke. I'm almost getting sick of saying but this years a wash. Now it all rests on the end of year letter.

I believe it was announced 2025 would be a transition year from what we had to what is coming. Maybe I am remembering wrong but pretty sure 2025 was meant as a one off to get the game where they want it to end up.

It just occurred to me, the Season Pass was almost a year ago.
They’ve already been paid for this year’s content.
No matter what they do now, they can’t get more money out of it.
The only way to generate new revenue is to pivot all efforts into selling next year’s pass.

So now I’m wondering: how much of the current year will be rushed, cut short, or quietly skipped just to get next year’s pass on the market?

If the goal is to start selling again, the incentive shifts from finishing strong to pivoting early.

kargen27 wrote: »

I believe it was announced 2025 would be a transition year from what we had to what is coming. Maybe I am remembering wrong but pretty sure 2025 was meant as a one off to get the game where they want it to end up.

They did say this, you're correct. But a transition year doesn't exempt them from delivering quality content that we actually paid more for. They don't just get a pass from criticism because they were vague about what's to come in a letter last December. Be clear. Concise. Don't charge more for less then tell us it's a world changing once in a lifetime chance to save the realm.

They were also clear in that letter about what's coming. No more chapters. New stories in old zones. 3 months seasons, which will probably go something like this.The dark brotherhood faces a new threat from an old foe. Gather your allies as you journey across Tamriel, to beloved, iconic locations as you fight to stop this new threat. Culminating in a showdown for the ages. Will you save the brotherhood or will McGuffin destroy all you've worked so hard to build. What it really means though is we strung together some prologue length quests that we'll release a couple times throughout the season. Maybe some new pockets in old delves where you'll face an enemy. Maybe once next year they'll release this Craglorn lite adventure mini zone they talked about. Throw in some furnishing plans, a couple antiquity leads, something for the master writ vendor. Reskin some outfits and stuff as rewards for the season. Cap it off with a golden pursuit with a mount and or house and boom. You're done. There's your money, but they'll want you to pay for the entire year or maybe by the season but you'll have to pay. Still no confirmation that there'll be more dungeons, a new trial, a new class, companion. To say nothing of everything else we lose without chapters. New systems, side quests, delves, public dungeons, world bosses, exploration.

So I think it's entirely fair to tell them, loudly, now if you don't like it or what's been hinted at. The more voices raised the better. It'll probably make no difference, look at just the basics ignored this year. Class balance, crippling combat issues. Still though, I love this game. I want it to be a 30 year mmo. I've played for almost 10 years. I'll be here till the lights go dark. So I feel like we can't cut them any slack in this regard, though with the year they've had some stuff is perfectly understandable. Anyway, just one guys worthless opinion.

Your post was entertaining to read

Furyous wrote: »

So here’s the question for the devs and the community:
If the content is already paid for, what incentive is left to make sure it’s good?
Where’s the pressure to deliver something compelling, complete, or even coherent?

The solution is in the question.

The community should just band together and not pre-purchase anything so that they are eventually forced to go back to the old model of releasing complete content instead of live service drip feed.

After this year, I will not pre-order and wait until the content is complete and buy it in deep sale.

Usually, numbers are the only thing taken into consideration for companies. So not buying is the only thing I can actually do to show my disdain for the new formula. I gave them the benefit of doubt this year, but they have failed spectacularly when it comes to old asset reuse and a terrible event.

Usually when games start with tiny drip feed of content I usually lose interest quickly. It happened before with Destiny 2, Sea Of Thieves and The Division 2. I need 'expansions', not micro/mini-events that are basically filling progress bars and watching number go up.

Honestly, this whole situation reminds me of exactly the kind of thing EU consumer law was designed to prevent. Under European rules, especially the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive and the Digital Content Directive, companies aren’t supposed to sell “future content” with vague promises and no clear description. When you ask players to prepay for undefined digital goods, that can easily cross into misleading commercial practice territory, the same legal category as loot boxes and other opaque monetization schemes.

If the content you deliver doesn’t match what was advertised or implied, EU law says consumers are entitled to a refund or other remedy. Regulators like the European Commission or national consumer agencies can fine companies and force them to change how they market and sell digital products.

That’s basically what happened with loot boxes: the issue wasn’t just randomness, it was the lack of transparency and the false sense of value being sold. “Content passes” that promise big narrative experiences but deliver half-finished chores could absolutely be seen the same way under EU law.

Furyous wrote: »

And when it does?
We get events like Writhing Wall, marketed as a “once in a lifetime” experience:

One marketing promise I hope they keep!