What has caused you to quit the game or barely play any more? What would bring you back?

El_Borracho · December 17

Subclassing has made the PVE side of the game boring. The power creep is ridiculous. Melting everything that moves, even on vet, has turned this into a modern-day Contra after entering the cheat code.

PVP? Thoroughly unplayable.

Vulkunne · December 17

I'm fine with the game itself. My only issue is with Cyrodiil PvP.

ZOS_Kevin · December 17

@Veinblood1965 Thank you for starting this thread and constructively expressing your frustration. And thanks to those who have shared their opinion. We are taking a look through this and sharing this with some folks internally for their visibility. Just wanted to note that this thread has been seen.

Veinblood1965 · December 17

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

@Veinblood1965 Thank you for starting this thread and constructively expressing your frustration. And thanks to those who have shared their opinion. We are taking a look through this and sharing this with some folks internally for their visibility. Just wanted to note that this thread has been seen.

Thanks ZOS_Kevin, I'm glad there's been a lot of helpful replies instead of a lot of bashing which was what I was hoping for. I think the reply that resonated with me was someone mentioned releases like Summerset were when the game was at it highest peak. That's when I started and Wrothgar was also impressive.

PathosDante · December 17

The subclass system is a complete disaster. It makes it almost impossible for new players to adapt, and it completely ruins class identity.

I have all classes at max level, but unfortunately the game’s PvP/PvE revolves around just 3–4 skill lines, so there’s little to no real variety. What’s ironic is that this system was supposed to add diversity.

In my opinion, the subclass system should either be heavily nerfed or removed entirely.”

Alaztor91 · December 17

Subclassing. It's not really the first time that build diversity has been reduced, I remember in the past when Mag DPS would use LA and Staves, when Vigor was exclusively used by Stam builds, etc. It's quite different now after the hybridization/homogenization of skills/passives and other stuff like Scribing and well... Subclassing. The reason why Subclassing was a dealbreaker for me is because none of the previous changes invalidated my Class choice.

When I created my character and selected ''Necromancer'' it was because I wanted to play as a Necromancer, and right now the options are to Subclass and change 2/3 of my Class skill lines, becoming some sort of weird hybrid with zero visual cohesion and also completely ditching the whole Necromancer theme that I planned for this character OR to stay Pure Class and keep that identity, but also play with a massive disadvantage. Both options suck.

One would have expected this to be addressed with the U47 Patch, since players warned ZOS that this would happen literally the first day of the U46 PTS and because it's a number tweaking issue for the most part, yet here we are.

Apollosipod · December 18

Something I would have loved (and may have reduced some of the negative feelings about subclassing) was to have really made it about class identity. Classes have no real lore behind them which I'm sure is to provide some open territory for players to form their own backstory, but had we ever been given some class based quests that would have really helped make it easier to connect with them. Then subclassing could have either required those quests to learn a new skill line from another class or a have added a subclass specific series of quests to really "earn" those skills. As it stands, going to an NPC and saying "yeah, make me a God knight now" just feels unearned.

The added effort to really make us care about what the classes are is what helps players connect with the why we may choose one skill line or another. Then the obvious buffs to underperforming skill lines wouldn't obviously help prevent the same three lines from being used constantly

Destai · December 18

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

@Veinblood1965 Thank you for starting this thread and constructively expressing your frustration. And thanks to those who have shared their opinion. We are taking a look through this and sharing this with some folks internally for their visibility. Just wanted to note that this thread has been seen.

Thanks dude! I'm really happy it's stayed open.

I was thinking about this, since I've taken most of 2025 off from ESO.

The only real thing that's brought me back was a new chapter/release/whatever - which I was already hesitant about given the PTS feedback and later release opinions. I'll do the quests once, probably skipping most of it just because of the writing quality, and chase whatever gives me some thing. I'll also pop back in here occasionally for Golden Pursuits and Events, more so the former.

For me, it comes down to this, if whatever new activity has some fashion that aligns with one of my 18 character's themes, I'll probably play a little bit. But then, I'm right back out the door. As it stands right now, it feels like you guys want player to treat your game like it's a daily task. There's too much competition.

I think to keep people like myself engaged long term, there needs to be more rewarding tentpole systems. After playing ~10 years, my stickerbook is full, most of my characters have done skyshards and whatever. I'm going to be looking for some cool new reward and a fun new build.

The new builds is really where you guys struggle. New playstyles get introduced, only to get squished. It's happened with Oakensoul, Bash Builds, Frost builds, whatever. It's going to happen with subclassing now too. So knowing that my build has limited shelf-life, if I don't have the sets for it, I don't see a reason to work towards it. I haven't even touched the last four dungeons - why bother. Meanwhile, I logged back into GW2 and the sets I had 12 years ago were still viable. Think on that.

I'll also keep harping on the rewards. Imagine the engagement you'd see if you had a game mode that had a reasonable (key word here) chance of dropping whatever crown crate was in season. Sure, you'd get the salty folks who's RNG is bad, whatever. Now, further imagine, being able to earn a crown crate once per day in said game mode. The marketing folks who so tightly control the direction of the game can lean into this, people can chase a reward, and you can see more engagement. Furthering that idea, you'd also have a chance for actual crown crate contents to drop in said game mode. Take it back to the powers that be. See if it's something you guys can squeeze in.

Oh and maybe charging 2000 crowns for one skin is something that can be re-evaluated.

Tariq9898 · December 18

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

@Veinblood1965 Thank you for starting this thread and constructively expressing your frustration. And thanks to those who have shared their opinion. We are taking a look through this and sharing this with some folks internally for their visibility. Just wanted to note that this thread has been seen.

Thank you for the response!

As for me, the biggest reason I’ve been spending less and less time is the lack of meaningful difficulty.

ESO has lots of amazing stories with high stakes and powerful emotions. But as someone mentioned not too long ago, gameplay is a make or break for many.

No matter how great a story or writing is, I cannot fully invest in it if I know in the back of my mind that the boss will feel just like any other encounter. And I’m not the only one.

I say this because I was not able to fully invest in stories like Rivenspire, Wrothgar, Deshaan, the entire Planemeld storyline. There was no sense of danger and threat. Thus, there were no stakes.

As a result, I have put a pause on all my questing. The last quest I’ve done was about a year ago.

A huge majority of ESO players prefer to treat this like a single player Elder Scrolls game. As such, I feel it is paramount that an optional Overland difficulty slider is added to give players more agency and freedom to experience the stories their way, just like the single player games.

I know you guys are working on an Overland/questing difficulty slider and I want to thank you for that. I just want you to know that I’m rooting for y’all.

laurajf · December 18

Mine happened over a period of the last couple of years, I think. It wasn't just one thing. It was a culmination of frustrations that finally added up to me being more frustrated with the game than enjoying it.

I have limited play time each day and sometimes none at all, so I need to get the most "bang for my buck" for this hobby.

Brief list:
1. Quest writing went downhill. Questing was my favorite thing to do. Loved the stories, main and side quests. Some got me emotional, some made me laugh, some were disturbing, etc. Somewhere around High Isle, maybe even starting in Blackwood, my interest in the quests started waning. I was no longer engaged in most stories. I didn't even finish High Isle. Bought Necrom on sale but never even started it. Didn't bother buying Gold Road and have no plans to even on sale at this point.
2. Bad RNG for aspects of the game I enjoyed, creating a need for grinding (housing recipes, mats), artifact hunting. Limited play time means grinding with bad RNG means I was rarely getting anything I was after.
3. Crown store prices, good stuff in crown crates (used to buy them, learned my lesson and stopped).
4. FOMO tactics.
5. Rewards never felt rewarding. I never got excited about finishing a quest because I knew it would just be a handful of change and a piece of gear I would either vendor or turn into mats if I felt like breaking them down, but I even got to the point of not bothering to do that because there was no point in crafting after a while. Vendor prices are terrible, too.
6. Loud, bright, blinding mounts. I just don't enjoy seeing them or hearing them, and it takes away from the environment/atmosphere of the game that I enjoyed at one point when there was a bit more realism (as much realism as a fake pixel world can have, anyway). Would have just hung out in my house to avoid them, but couldn't afford the crown store house prices, furniture prices, and couldn't make the furniture I wanted because I couldn't get the recipe or certain mats were too hard to come by. Sigh.

I switched to single-player games, and I'm enjoying myself and relaxing as I game because I feel like I'm actually progressing and getting rewarded for the things I do even when I don't have a lot of time to play. There is no store shoved in my face with expensive items. Housing is fun because I'm not having to spend tons of real money, and there is not an endless grind hoping to get something related to housing. There is no unreasonable housing item limit. Nothing is locked behind content I don't enjoy. There is no FOMO going on. RNG may be present, but I haven't felt "hopeless" like I do in ESO because I can get what I need/want in a reasonable amount of time.

It might just be that MMOs are no longer my thing, which I guess I'm okay with as I was never a group player kind of person, but I have always enjoyed the constant background with other people and enjoyed fighting world bosses with other people (and then going on our way to do our own thing), and there are some aspects of MMOs you just can't get in single-player games.

I don't really know what would bring me back, if anything. Even if they turn some of my frustrations around and change or introduce things I would enjoy, sometimes it's just too late.

Syldras · December 18

Recently, all the bugs feel off-putting. It's hard to be confident about next year seeing this development.

Apollosipod · December 18

@ZOS_Kevin

Please have the team that performed the animation update revert it. I can't even go back and enjoy old content without sound and animation glitches, stuttering, etc. My Internet is excellent. If this was done to save memory, there has to be another way. I've already cancelled my sub because of this and the last year's content. This has been a negative turning point all around

AzuraFan · December 18

laurajf wrote: »

2. Bad RNG for aspects of the game I enjoyed, creating a need for grinding (housing recipes, mats), artifact hunting. Limited play time means grinding with bad RNG means I was rarely getting anything I was after.

Yes, yes, yes! The only time I've come close to shutting down the game and uninstalling is when I've been chasing a lead for ages and it just won't drop. I'm not asking for easy, but if someone has done something a crazy amount of times and they still aren't being rewarded, why would they keep trying and playing? A pity system might be difficult because of having to track so many items, so maybe improve the drop rates? Or have a regular rotating time period where leads and such have an increased chance of dropping in a set of zones? Anything to make players feel that they'll be rewarded within a reasonable amount of time for the effort being put in.

Another way might be to consider the amount of time and effort involved to get a lead, and make the drop rates proportional to the effort. The greater the effort, the higher the drop rate. So end boss leads in dungeons - high drop rate. Delve boss leads - lower drop rate than leads from dungeon bosses. Etc.

Historically, this game has had a problem with rewarding players for time invested. It would be nice for that to ease up a bit.

Ugrak · December 18

Tariq9898 wrote: »

As for me, the biggest reason I’ve been spending less and less time is the lack of meaningful difficulty.

ESO has lots of amazing stories with high stakes and powerful emotions. But as someone mentioned not too long ago, gameplay is a make or break for many.

No matter how great a story or writing is, I cannot fully invest in it if I know in the back of my mind that the boss will feel just like any other encounter. And I’m not the only one.

Yeah I second this.

I try to do all quests on my main character just for the completionism, but there's not much sense of adventure. Challenge is basically a simple and good gameplay loop in it's own right and I wish ESO had more of it outside the group instances.

Personally I'd prefer something like world tiers such as implemented in other MMO type games, where you'd for example interact with something like a scroll of glorious battle at the undaunted camps to toggle your world tier. Mainly because the difficulty is more than a difficulty slider could fix, such as the sheer size and complexity of the enemy groups. Simply put, otherwise lackluster enemy mechanics begin to synergize with each other when there is sufficient variety going on at the same time.

That would potentially turn every zone into an adventure zone like Craglorn used to be, but without forcing it on anyone.

James-Wayne · December 18

The Paladin in Diablo 4 is so much more fun to play than Templar right now

moderatelyfatman · December 19

James-Wayne wrote: »

The Paladin in Diablo 4 is so much more fun to play than Templar right now

How can you say that when the Paladin in Diablo 4 doesn't have a green beam?

Thumbless_Bot · December 19

The abomination that is 2 team bgs. But cyrodiil being like loading a 50gb disc image on a 56k modem in 1995 is what made me go to bgs to begin with... that and ball groups. ... all joking aside.

Destai · December 19

James-Wayne wrote: »

The Paladin in Diablo 4 is so much more fun to play than Templar right now

I love its Jab animation, maybe ESO can use it as inspiration.

moderatelyfatman · December 19

Destai wrote: »

James-Wayne wrote: »

The Paladin in Diablo 4 is so much more fun to play than Templar right now

I love its Jab animation, maybe ESO can use it as inspiration.

Jab animations on a templar? No way people will stand for that!

Amarlado · December 19

I've been thinking about this for a while and wanted to give my two cents.
I've been playing this game for years. I have tons of friends that ESO has facilitated my meeting, and I love them. But I'm semi-retired, and it isn't because the game isn't difficult enough, or I can't get the latest shiny, or whatever. It's deeper than that, and I don't know if it's fixable.

1. The user interface relies on the community for the most basic of tasks. You say, for example, that you're devoted to the idea of guild stores, but nobody really uses them that way. Instead, we have to use tools like MM, Tamriel Trade Center, etc to find items on it. Or the simple act of picking a lock, until, you know, you can bypass that entirely with force lock, having animations that are difficult to pin down. Or useful housing placement tools. Or fishing tools. Or a useful chat interface needing pChat. And when we do have these tools, they are often treated like red-headed stepchildren, where you are literally throttled from either providing or obtaining the important information with no real feedback as to what is going on. I guess I just sit around and wait for a while? ESO has long pretended that their goal for a UI design is complete simplicity, where you only have to press a few keys to get things done, but people don't play that way, and there's so many aspects to the game that you _can't_ really seriously play that way any more. Eventually, I just gave up waiting for anything to change, because it seems to be part of the actual design philosophy of the game to offload meaningful UX design, QA, and customer support to a devoted community.
2. Game-changing events in the name of efficiency in the back-end have had wide impacts in the economy and enjoyability of the game. Every time complaints are made, they are hand-waved. There is something wrong here. I kept waiting for the apparently huge problems behind the scenes to be addressed, but they never are.
3. So much in the game that is interesting or useful is encouraged by grouping, but grouping itself, with the defined roles that are needed, encourages grifting and callousness. I stopped wanting to enter dungeons just because PUGs were an exercise in "did we actually get the skills we needed?" and my friends slowly dropped off in playing.
4. There is a gigantic disconnect between merely average players and players who go for the "meta" or "GOAT", and trying to make both groups happy has led to a mix-mash of weird design decisions. Subclassing is just the absolute latest of a weird set of choices.

I mean. I'm glad that y'all are noticing your numbers are dropping. But people have been warning for years that something is rotten in the state of Denmark, from careening combat changes to unfortunate choices made for the sake of an efficient back end to simple UX decisions, and y'all's design philosophy seems to be so deeply embedded in each of these things that I don't know if you are actually capable of fixing things. Which is sad. ESO provided me years of delight.

Zallion · December 19

Subclassing. Ruined everything that was good about the game for a gimmick, caution to the wind, balance be damned. Quit when it was launched, and I pop on the forums once in a blue moon to feel vindicated about that decision.

That one update derailed everything for me as a pvper. Don’t have the play time these days to reinvent how I play to that extent, keep up with swinging changes, it’s not the game I liked playing anymore. Don’t want to be at a major disadvantage for not speccing a certain tree/skill. Took away what semblance of diversity we had for the illusion of more choices. Non-cohesive themeless nonsense. Quite sad, I had more playtime in this game than any other games I’ve played combined. Maybe one day they’ll launch an eso classic or roll it back. Probably not.

langewapper · December 19

ball-groups.................

DerethDawnblade · December 19

The primary reason I stopped playing for the last several months was just burnout.
Too many other things were holding my attention, and it seems ESO is also hitting a wall in terms of the limitations of last gen consoles that Devs are still trying to meet.
If they want this game to be a 30 year game as they have stated, eventually last gen consoles are going to have to go, because it's not going to be viable to continue holding the whole game back to those outdated standards when there are so many things that could stand to be updated.

On the subject of Subclassing:
I really enjoy it, as it allowed me to really flesh out the themed builds on a number of my characters and have a unique experience, but I can see where people are coming from with their complaints about it in regards to PvP. PvP would probably be better served to not allow Subclassing, though I know at this stage that probably isn't going to happen. Hopefully whatever pure class update they have planned will bring things back into an equilibrium.

What would bring me back more frequently?
As stated above, the last gen limitations the Devs are trying to work around are a big sticking point for me. They shouldn't be held back by hardware that is that old.
If they can clear that hurdle, some things I'd like to see are:
Updated Character Customization - Please please please give us more polygons and face sliders. Unique Eyes really need to be separated from Head Markings as well.
Extended Housing Features - Construction parts that snap together Fallout 4 style, to more swiftly and cleanly assemble houses from scratch. Expanded furnishing limitations.
Crossplay - This is supposedly being worked on already.
Expanded Scribing - Give use more things to work with and more things to make. I don't even care if they're under powered, I want to summon atronachs and have oakflesh and flame cloaks like were originally shown off in the 2014 Spellcrafting demo.
Central Skyrim - I get that they want to hide where TES 6 might potentially take place, but we've had a playable full map of Skyrim for 14 years now, there's no excuse to keep hiding Central Skyrim from us.
A Dawnguard DLC - It's the 2nd Era; you can let us meet the original incarnation of the Dawnguard, which in the Dawnguard DLC for Skyrim was stated to have existed in the 2nd Era.
New Weapon Types - We need Spears, Halberds, just Polearms generally. I get that making new weapons for all existing motifs would be difficult, but all existing motifs have both Daggers and Staves, so in theory you could shortcut it by just replacing Staff tips with Dagger blades, or alternatively just not add Spears to those old motifs save for the core vanilla motifs, and have them on any new motifs to maybe be added to older ones later. Another good type for those who liked to play Spellswords in Skyrim, with a weapon in one hand and a spell in the other, make a Sword & Spell skill line. A Sword & Spell skill line wouldn't even require new weapon models, you just place a spell effect in the off-hand, and give the skill line some unique magic abilities revolving around whatever elemental type is equipped; think of it like a 1h version of staves. That could even be expanded into dual-wielding spells. An Unarmed Combat skill tree would also be a very nice addition, and could even be a non-weapon stamina tree, like having legs sweeps of shoulder bashes.
Expanded Interactive Mechanics - Hiding spots, guards with lamps, restricted areas, hidden caches in walls, Grappling Crossbows, etc. These seem to get used less and less with each new DLC, and it would be nice to see more world interactions like these. More Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood related stuff generally would be nice as well. Seems like we haven't heard from any of those characters since their respective DLCs. For Grappling Crossbows we are introduced to the device on multiple occasions only for it to vanish in the next zone. Do we just give it up after each of the expansions where it's used? Add grapple points across the world and give us more to explore with the Grappling Crossbow; make it a base game feature.

Radiate77 · December 19

Subclassing new unique builds, primarily for PvP, has been a huge motivator for me to farm gear and spend more time in general playing the game.

Without that system, I wouldn’t have been playing the game at all this year as nothing else has brought value to my experience.

randconfig · December 20

Issues in order of importance:

ZoS forced acceptance of the privacy policy/Data Mining practices
Censorship of player social interactions, especially with voicing criticism of certain policies... Also the messages from customer support/moderation being cold, automated, copy-paste.
Microsoft owned, ever-expanding cash shop with multi-year bugged cosmetics that never get fixed (e.g. personalities walk and run animations)
Necromancer being unable to summon 6 pets in PvP as the class was designed to do, because of introduced pet summon limits and bugs
Lackluster new content despite insane revenue
Staff layoffs/revolving door on leadership

Fix at least 3 of them and I'll consider playing again (which means I'd be spending $1000+/yr).

Reverb · December 20

I still haven’t subbed since U35 and have been playing and engaging a lot less than I used to.

Apollosipod · December 20

DerethDawnblade wrote: »

The primary reason I stopped playing for the last several months was just burnout.
Too many other things were holding my attention, and it seems ESO is also hitting a wall in terms of the limitations of last gen consoles that Devs are still trying to meet.
If they want this game to be a 30 year game as they have stated, eventually last gen consoles are going to have to go, because it's not going to be viable to continue holding the whole game back to those outdated standards when there are so many things that could stand to be updated.

On the subject of Subclassing:
I really enjoy it, as it allowed me to really flesh out the themed builds on a number of my characters and have a unique experience, but I can see where people are coming from with their complaints about it in regards to PvP. PvP would probably be better served to not allow Subclassing, though I know at this stage that probably isn't going to happen. Hopefully whatever pure class update they have planned will bring things back into an equilibrium.

What would bring me back more frequently?
As stated above, the last gen limitations the Devs are trying to work around are a big sticking point for me. They shouldn't be held back by hardware that is that old.
If they can clear that hurdle, some things I'd like to see are:
Updated Character Customization - Please please please give us more polygons and face sliders. Unique Eyes really need to be separated from Head Markings as well.
Extended Housing Features - Construction parts that snap together Fallout 4 style, to more swiftly and cleanly assemble houses from scratch. Expanded furnishing limitations.
Crossplay - This is supposedly being worked on already.
Expanded Scribing - Give use more things to work with and more things to make. I don't even care if they're under powered, I want to summon atronachs and have oakflesh and flame cloaks like were originally shown off in the 2014 Spellcrafting demo.
Central Skyrim - I get that they want to hide where TES 6 might potentially take place, but we've had a playable full map of Skyrim for 14 years now, there's no excuse to keep hiding Central Skyrim from us.
A Dawnguard DLC - It's the 2nd Era; you can let us meet the original incarnation of the Dawnguard, which in the Dawnguard DLC for Skyrim was stated to have existed in the 2nd Era.
New Weapon Types - We need Spears, Halberds, just Polearms generally. I get that making new weapons for all existing motifs would be difficult, but all existing motifs have both Daggers and Staves, so in theory you could shortcut it by just replacing Staff tips with Dagger blades, or alternatively just not add Spears to those old motifs save for the core vanilla motifs, and have them on any new motifs to maybe be added to older ones later. Another good type for those who liked to play Spellswords in Skyrim, with a weapon in one hand and a spell in the other, make a Sword & Spell skill line. A Sword & Spell skill line wouldn't even require new weapon models, you just place a spell effect in the off-hand, and give the skill line some unique magic abilities revolving around whatever elemental type is equipped; think of it like a 1h version of staves. That could even be expanded into dual-wielding spells. An Unarmed Combat skill tree would also be a very nice addition, and could even be a non-weapon stamina tree, like having legs sweeps of shoulder bashes.
Expanded Interactive Mechanics - Hiding spots, guards with lamps, restricted areas, hidden caches in walls, Grappling Crossbows, etc. These seem to get used less and less with each new DLC, and it would be nice to see more world interactions like these. More Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood related stuff generally would be nice as well. Seems like we haven't heard from any of those characters since their respective DLCs. For Grappling Crossbows we are introduced to the device on multiple occasions only for it to vanish in the next zone. Do we just give it up after each of the expansions where it's used? Add grapple points across the world and give us more to explore with the Grappling Crossbow; make it a base game feature.

I liked most of these ideas, but specifically masking motif staff shafts and dagger points to create spears. One of the most creative workarounds I've read for the motif problem

Ulvich · December 20

I have three accounts, one of which was started November 22, 2013.
During these past years I have seen a lot and done a lot. More then I care to mention.
The first time I quite was because my computer got destroyed. So obviously I had to get a new one. By the time that happened my new computer did not meet the game’s newer requirements. So I was stuck once again. Currently I am playing on a laptop which far exceeds the requirements, so I’m good for now.
Each day I log in on my three accounts to collect my daily rewards and crafting mats, then I am done. I have slowed down in playing for one simple reason…. I have nothing to do. I have done every quest in all the zones except Cyrodiil, and I have all the major achievements. I have milked this game for I want from it.
I am a die-hard, loyal fan of ESO. It has been a part of my life for 14 years. And while I do get frustrated at some of the idiotic decisions implemented into the game I deal with it.
When the battle of the Withering Wall began I felt that ESO was on to something. This was a battle I really enjoyed…. An open battle that anyone can join (or leave) at anytime, but waiting a month and half for that was a bit much.

Four_Fingers · December 20

Last gen consoles seem to be the latest forum "boogyman".
Funny how that works whether true or not.

Apollosipod · December 20

Four_Fingers wrote: »

Last gen consoles seem to be the latest forum "boogyman".
Funny how that works whether true or not.

Even when ZOS has directly stated that they have to work around older consoles and PCs? It's not a "boogyman" when ZOS has explicitly stated that older technology holds them back from implementing new ideas.