Potential returning player

Splat_86 · December 13

Hello everyone.

Recently I have been feeling this urge to leave World of Warcraft behind me, I have been playing Vanilla on the anniversary/fresh servers and honestly if it wasn't for this old version of the game I wouldn't be playing WoW.
I have been searching for another mmorpg that I could call home, I have looked into ESO but also SWTOR, FF XI, Albion Online, Everquest or even Ultima Online... it's not easy.

Now I have played Elder Scrolls before and that was in Skyrim, in that game I loved to explore the world, find new places, npc's, bits and pieces that would cover lore... I love exploring and much more in mmorpg's because it's the unknown, the risk, the road ahead.
About Elder Scrolls Online, how much the dev team has invested in exploration and verticality? By this I mean, how much exists in the world to explore underground like caves, crypts, catacombs and so on? So many games invest themselves with horizontal exploration... why not both? Let us adventure into some creepy crypt where we can find some very old lore. I think this would be awesome, plus Elder Scrolls being a franchise about lore and exploration I hope that the devs have put that into justice with the mmorpg.

I have read that recently is going through some rough patch, player numbers decreasing, questionable decisions... is this true? Are the devs trying to revert the situation?
I have played ESO before, I played it for around 10 hours so I didn't even scratch the game's surface and then I went back to WoW, I don't know why, it seems that WoW just draws be back in again and again... that's why I said that I'm also considering Final Fantasy XI which still to this day many consider a great mmorpg.
Going back to ESO, in terms of the gathering and crafting, do those matter in ESO and when I say matter means that can I craft items, potions, gear and so on that can be useful to my character but also to others? Is there an auction house or market where players can buy and sell to each other?

I'm really curious and trying to get into ESO but I want to know if it's worth to do so now.
About what I should buy, should I buy ESO+, the content pass?

I appreciate you all for reading this and providing valuable feedback.

Soarora · December 13

For your first question, Skyrim dungeons are carried over in the form of delves, public dungeons, and 4 man dungeons. We also have an expanded Blackreach that is under The Reach and Western Skyrim.

Yes, people are not happy with the game right now. I’ve heard the stream covering next year is next month and we’ll get more information then on what ZOS is going to do about that.

Yes, you should invest in crafting for gear/potions/food.

No global auction house but an array of traders that carry the stock of one guild. You need an external website like tamriel trade center to browse all the traders and find one that might have what you’re looking for (unless someone bought it already and the website hasn’t updated yet). This also means you have to join a trade guild to sell. Usually people are in several… I’m in two.

Since you already have the game, I’d start with just reinstalling it and poking around. If it feels promising then get ESO+. If you still like it, then you can consider buying the edition of the game that has all the DLC in it IF you don’t want to pay a subscription. That said, I’d suggest waiting until the next season pass drops as that will be relatively soon (coming months) if you’re going to buy the DLC.

ESO+ gives you a craft bag, which you can get around using storage characters and an addon (download Minion for addon management if you’re on PC). It also gives you bonus XP but we’re about to have a bonus XP event. If you’re interested in housing, you’ll need it as it doubles your furnishing slots. It also gives you crowns (the premium currency) depending on what length of sub you bought. Majorly, it gives you temporary (until you stop paying sub) access to every DLC (dungeon, chapter, story DLC) EXCEPT the most recent one (so you wouldn’t have access to Solstice until the next major DLC drops in a few months).

Edit: Oh, also, we might get an ESO+ free trial next month as well. I’m not sure. If we do, then you don’t get access to ESO+ deals in the crown store (premium store) but you gain access to every DLC ESO+ usually gives, the craft bag, the housing slots, etc.

tincanman · December 13

Splat_86 wrote: »

...Now I have played Elder Scrolls before and that was in Skyrim, in that game I loved to explore the world, find new places, npc's, bits and pieces that would cover lore... I love exploring and much more in mmorpg's because it's the unknown, the risk, the road ahead.
About Elder Scrolls Online, how much the dev team has invested in exploration and verticality? ...

I think the Greymoor chapter was released(2020) for Skyrim fans; it also has large underground zones to satisfy z-axis entertainment needs. Generally, throughout the game, delves < public dungeons < 4-player dungeons < trials for non-surface content in terms of complexity and difficulty, although dlc zones sometimes have more complex/larger variants. Greymoor also introduces the antiquities mini-game which arguably enhances exploration throughout the game or, at least, provides somewhat of a driver for it.

I think eso is probably still very good value for this style of (exploration) game-play.

Splat_86 wrote: »

...About what I should buy, should I buy ESO+, the content pass?...

Don't bother with eso+ unless or until you want access to dlc zones (such as included with the Greymoor chapter release, if you don't already have access through previous purchase) although you can also buy these via the crown store (but check out the various bundles if going this route as they may prove better value). Or go for eso+ if you find constant inventory micro-management painful; eso+, in addition to dlc access and other stuff, doubles bank and character inventory space and provides the craft bag which is essentially an infinite mats storage junk-box making a lot of those inventory issues vanish.

Content pass: hard no, for now. Currently, it includes 2 dungeons (which would be accessible via eso+ anyway) and a tiny 'new' zone that featured some once-and-done content which has passed; it seemed to me like the entire marketing of this comparatively lacklustre offering was predicated on FOMO, but others apparently enjoyed it anyway. If you find you are enjoying eso and likely to stay you'll be in a better position at that point to decide whether you want to go that route. It's likely to be on sale at the end of the year and you should get access to its content next year some time as part of eso+.

Splat_86 wrote: »

...I have read that recently is going through some rough patch, player numbers decreasing, questionable decisions... is this true? Are the devs trying to revert the situation?...

Regarding devs and player numbers, end-game pvp and pve have definitely suffered both in terms of population and, what is becoming increasingly more obvious as, unfixable performance issues. While the latter performance issues are now generally affecting all aspects of the game, they shouldn't impact too severely with an exploration play-style.

Long, waffly exposition...

Same-old, same-old development style is being re-marketed but still, unfortunately, seems predicated on "players don't know what they want" which seems to inform any feedback players choose to provide and it's hard not to conclude anything not resonating with the internal echo-chamber schema is being rejected or otherwise parsed to conformity.

Devs are fighting with an old engine, though, and its limits and for a number of years now, any sizeable new content seems to be contingent on stripping extant content or capability from other parts of the game. Content from recent years has been described by many players as lacking in scope and size with unsatisfactory story-arcs, although the latter is subjective; the release model and schedule has been downsized from last year to a season pass model and is significantly less in terms of quarterly releases leaving many players stating they are now paying a lot more for significantly less, at best, with the season pass model introducing an extra layer of uncertainty in the scope of what may be released in future.

Having noted that, there have been some dev innovations with re-using existing content such as Infinite Archive (kind of increasing difficulty dungeon for one or two players or one player and an npc companion) which has, I think, been generally well-received and subclassing (or mutliclassing, enabling mixing of skill lines from different classes) which has pretty much split player opinion. Overall development wise and legitimate criticisms aside, the devs seem caught between hammer and anvil of trying to work with an old engine that looks like it cannot support substantive new content without ripping out the heart of some other extant content (which will likely hurt everyone while the devs will be lambasted by affected players if/when they do this) and/or trying to innovate re-use of existing assets/content which will, of course, result in criticism that nothing new is being released.

And there's an overarching concern with microsoft(owners of zos) layoffs and shutdowns with a real possibility, with associated uncertainty, that they're not yet quite done with all of that.