tincanman wrote: »

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.