I play only an hour a week lately and that is just cashing in endeavors. I have nearly 60K, so I will probably even stop doing that in 2026. Same with the events, I still want the new house I already have unlocked partly, but after that...I don't know.

Since the beginning of this year, I finished all quests on my main, I have 100 percent completion bar in every zone, have all companion keepsakes, have almost a full sticker book, have all the subclass lines etc.

So, when I reached that point, for me it felt like 'I completed the game'. The only thing that can make me invested again is a spectacular new zone with all new assets, with a good story and lots of interesting side quests and a new system as a bonus on top. But I don't think this would happen because this kind of content costs the most to make and ZOS lately only seems to be committed in doing all small scale stuff here and there. Even the last zone and subclassing is lots of reuse and repurpose existing stuff.

But it is what it is, I play also a lot of other games, and I have been wanting to revisit some single player games lately that I haven't played for a while.

I think that I would reinstall ESO to visit an interesting sounding new zone. But I've got to a point where that's not enough to entice me to play at other times of the year or even buy the new DLC. Apart from the exploration, I just don't enjoy a lot of the gameplay.

To honest, a lot of what makes ESO worth still playing for me is accessible on PTS. But I then I'd have to install the game twice and that leaves little space on my hard drive.

Just a little game called where winds meet. Take some notes zos, thats how combat and gameplay should be done.

I haven't hard-quit the game, but I definitely need a break. That wall event definitely was a big catalyst as to feeling like why. The communication, the promises, the "just wait and see" with no extrapolation. I want to support the company, but it doesn't feel like the company wants to support us. I haven't even done any part of Eastern Solstice (despite my love for Argonians) since the wall came down.

Ignoring feedback and customer relations is what's souring me on ZOS. If vengeance is mandated I think ZOS is finished as a viable company going forward. Their credibility will be unrecoverable at that point.

Subclassing.
It killed built variety in end-game PvE by removing weaknesses from classes. We already saw what a class without weaknesses does to the game when arcanist was released, except now it's even more of a nightmare to fix and I just simply have zero expectations that ZoS will pull it off effectively.

I've taken many breaks over the years.
Reason 1: it's healthy
Reason 2: there are plenty but mainly it's always been pvp related

The patch going into Murkmire caused a small break (I was a sorc main and I was salty). Hybridization and the intro of Dark Convergence started a long break. And now sub classing will probably ensure I never return because it killed class identity for me.

Mix between Nerfs, class changes, The wall event, and just over all content.

My main got smacked with class changes and nerfs, to the point it just wasnt fun anymore. Damage loss and sustain issues were SO noticeable, that I swapped to a new toon, pimped it out like my main... And had no sustain issues.
This brought me to believe it was the stam bug again.

Anyways

Then the wall event came around. It gave me constant headaches trying to play and kill Dolemns at less then 10 FPS. Not to mention the fact that I couldnt even see the mobs half the time and had to rely on AOEs and the floating numbers to tell me if I was hitting anything since I couldnt target or use direct damage.
So many people complained about this once they found out it wasnt just them >.<

And finally! I farm furnishing plans because I build stuff... and the new ones had insane drop rates like the other random zone ones, DEAR LORD! I was almost caught up on the last zone drop batch and then they drop a 100 more. Or whatever it was. I spent what amounted to a full time job farming these things.

Im tired of it.
30000 furnishing plans in the game and Iv farmed most of them.
So tired of it.
Trying to give the farmers something to do and they over killed it?
Maybe if they dropped easier then I wouldnt have to speedrun all the dialog so I could get to work on running around zone for 8 hours trying to get a .1% drop rate on a plethora of blueprints.

OH! I almost forgot... The crown store. It feels like the game itself is now just a front window to the crown store. 2 years ago counted up some numbers and they came out to over half a million in REAL MONEY in the crown store. This year, its worse.
Bloated explosive shiny cosmic items that sell for anywhere from 10 to 50 bucks (Not including the new Crown gem items that are separate from the crown crates!) To the 150$ homes.

It wouldnt be to bad if they didn't direct you to it for mundane quests. But when you have to flip threw 5 pages to get to your one free item? PFFT, whatever.

Sorry, I forgot to take my meds today (Cracks open a box of crayons}

NOT to mention that none of this stuff except a very VERY small hand full of items can be farmed in game. I just bought a mount! Now I farm endevors for a year to get another.
Can I please use them for a home at least? GOSH!

FYI, Loot boxes have 3 times as much stuff in them as they did when they first came out. The drop rates stay the same. And I just got 300 potions and a motif book that I already had... weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

I haven't quit entirely but I'm playing very occasionally now. For me it was a combination of;

1. Lack of race and class identity. It used to matter what race and class you picked, I miss when classes had a stamina or magicka only variant too for example if i was playing a DK DPS I would pick dark elf and spec into magicka because dunmer used to have flame damage passives that were unique to dunmer alone. This identity always made me extremely curious to try out other races and classes too and always kept me playing the game and enjoying it but now it just feels stale and monotone.
2. No more chapters, but instead a season pass. This in my opinion was a huge mistake because of how ineffective Solstice was. Not once did I feel the urge to login during the writhing wall event, instead this event felt dragged out, unnecessary and simply boring. With the chapters I would always look forward to what was to come but I did not feel that way with Solstice and the writhing wall event.

I am happy enough with how everything but Eastern Solstice is running these days, but just burnt out from getting 3 accounts through the Writhing Wall fiasco, and not overly fond of events at the moment.

Now they want to improve housing to the standard we had in Elder Scrolls V Skyrim, able to display all our weapons and armor and many other things in our homes, with all those nice display cabinets, armor stands, mannequins, weapon racks and display plaques they already have in ESO, I might go back to house decorating and not worry so much about all the bugs in the game, the lag and especially the crashes during events.

I also have not quit but like many my play time on ESO is bare minimum right now. No more money goes towards this game until, well, until a product is produced that deserves it really. My list of pain points all have been covered by previous posts. And that's kinda what has brought me to this point in the game. I hope things can be turned around in 2026. But I'm not holding my breath.

1. Progressively worsening performance
2. Scribing
3. Subclassing
4. Guild mates leaving in droves for other MMOs like FFXIV
5. Lack of meaningful content
6. Needless nerfs (templar/tormentor)
7. Outdated engine/dated graphics
8. Player base toxicity (pugs)
9. Arbitrary "woke" garbage account name policies
10. Lack of QoL feature development
11. Too much focus on microtransactions and pitiful crown store offerings (just reskinning old garbage)
12. Removal of old battlegrounds, should have let people queue for old and new
13. The fact that mechanics now rely on blinding the players with too many effects on screen and basically whiting out everything so you can't actually see what's going on.

I mean at this point the only reason I keep logging in is to do daily writs to max out every skill line on all my alts. Once that's done, cancelling ESO+ and probably won't log in again unless they fix the game. Still holding out hope, but I mean every other MMORPG that has reached this point in the last 25 years has pretty much died off to a very small player base and barely still functions. EQ2 is a prime example of that. They had the same issues for the most part, ignored them, got sold off a few times and now is just clinging to life barely.

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom I was thinking about something reading this.

U35 is very often mentioned as a net negative since it happened. It also seems like the patch that introduced Subclassing (U46). When, if ever, is anyone going to speak to this fact? I get you guys can't respond to everything, but it seems like there's a few things that just keep getting brought up, and when you guys talk about how you learn from mistakes in interviews, it doesn't really seem like that reflection manifests in some candid conversation with us. What are your guys thoughts here? Did U35 result in a lower playerbase, did U46?

Destai wrote: »

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom I was thinking about something reading this.

U35 is very often mentioned as a net negative since it happened. It also seems like the patch that introduced Subclassing (U46). When, if ever, is anyone going to speak to this fact? I get you guys can't respond to everything, but it seems like there's a few things that just keep getting brought up, and when you guys talk about how you learn from mistakes in interviews, it doesn't really seem like that reflection manifests in some candid conversation with us. What are your guys thoughts here? Did U35 result in a lower playerbase, did U46?

Yes, U35 was when the player population dropped off a cliff. It was in slow, steady decline before then, but U35 ran off project vitality and most of the end game PvE community with it. Nefas even did a long video explaining why U35 was so bad and what the fallout would be. Turns out Nefas understood the game and it's players better than ZOS themselves do.

Vengeance and lack of effort put into Grey Host has driven off most of the PvP crowd.

ZOS has nobody to blame but themselves. They didn't even take the few minutes it would have taken to revert the jabs animation from U35. That's when the long term players realized ZOS doesn't listen to feedback.

The community of players that are aways complaining about balance because they won't take the time to learn how to build which is major part of the game and wanting nerfs and to take away modes from others who enjoy them.