Honestly the changes are too little too late.

The disaster that was the writhing wall event, the regular massive changes made to combat that continue to make staying relevant in endgame for new players difficult, including driving away the experienced endgame players.

Some of the features in the road map have been requested for years, I've been playing since beta and overworld difficulty options have been requested since one tamriel released.

I just don't understand why it takes the player population to fall to this level, the issues with events to hit what they did for writhing wall and general worry about future updates to get so high for you to actually implement what the community wants.

Class balance changes have been needed since arcanists release (using buffs instead of nerfs to balance so no class feels left behind), and while this does inspire hope in the future of the game, the amount of issues lately makes many players doubt this will be done in a way that guarantees a healthy population for the game, and relationship between players and ZOS.

Quality of life changes like free respect from ui, scribing anywhere, making mount training not an absolute grind and slog. Why wouldn't you want to implement these? Why haven't these been done a long time ago. Why only when players are leaving in droves?

I've loved ESO for years and always return at some point, but at some point there is a limit, and I'm afraid for many players that limit was the 2025 pass, which really could have balanced population throughout the year, and provided more for players, but was implemented poorly, and the awful writhing wall fiasco.

I really hope you can pull this back, but like many others I'll need to see it to believe it.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

What was the criteria for getting the survey? Was it random?

It was posted in the twitch chat:

Moobot:Take our 2026 ESO Reveal survey here: https://beth.games/4psQgNA

I'm quite happy with the stream.

On plus (+) side:
- all the QoL updates: all of them. Very new user friendly and also gives a lot of things to the old players
- Fargrave! Its one of my favourite zones and I think it is underdeveloped. With all the possibilities of doors connecting to other places and maybe times...
- everything free for everybody - that's great. At least I can show my friend around, who never had an urge to purchase ESO plus.
- actually less super-new-and-vast content would be nice for a year. I feel overburdened sometimes. And some small but of greatest quality content (like Thieves Guild or Dark Brotherhood) would be nice. Without tons of new furnishings, collectibles, crafting stations, etc. I like it!
- ability to solo Dungeons! I hope all dungs will be made that way! And the ability to replay the Dungeon quest would be nice... All those quest lost to RNG groups speeding up through them...

On minus (-)
- the extra currency. Right. Because we need one another currency to fight confusion among new (and some old) players.
- battlepasses and FOMO. I'm sceptical about this. I understand that you guys need a way to keep the game alive (with all the greedy overlords at M$ and their Shareholders, especially with all their other problems)... but...
- no cinematics (I know it costs a lot of money, but please, please continue the tradition of doing cinematics for the reveal, that we can put together into one long movie).


What I would like to see:

- Permanent content. Please do not make The market accessible only through events. Make a "Story"-level zone (with usual one tamriel difficulty, but without extra rewards, competition, etc.) and keep it in the game for people to experience in their own pace. As with other content up to date. This is what makes ESO ESO.

- QoL: fix rng tables in many places.

You have done a lot of good work recent years, but one or two last years were terrible. Putting a lot of leads in treasure maps (the number of possible treasure maps grows, so hitting the right ones is statistically less probable, and the inflation on their cost does not help). Also, putting there bound furnishings is warse than putting Motifs, as with motifs you can re-finance some maps.

Then the rng on collectible fragments form ToT games - totally terrible. The furnishing plans? I started 5 years ago and I was able to catch up with almost everything (Im kind of completionist), but recent additions... they ruined everything. I was like 30 recipes away from collecting them all, now Im more than 101. Up to Weast Weald I was able to collect everything.... now, impossible.

Also the combined probability: you have 5% chance to get a box, then 5% chance to get an item from it (like Algea ladden sacks), that is less than 0.25% chance to get an item...

But that's just a rant by a stupid completionist. But please, do less bound-on-pickup items rare items! And re-adjust the items you are putting in weekly vendors to fight the inflation on some items! :P

baratron wrote: »

However, ZOS need to make it VERY clear that an ESO Plus membership already includes the first tier of the Premium Tamriel Tomes. I saw a ton of people in the stream chat, and a few people in this thread, who don't understand that and think they're being asked to pay two separate subscriptions. I saw a lot of people complaining about having to pay US $30 a month from now on instead of the $15 a month they are accustomed to.

Big Simple Text on a website that we can point people at when they are confused, please!

I think you are mistaken on this.I went back and listened to the stream about this and heard nothing about the first tier of the Premium tomes is included in ESO+. I think both tiers are extra costs in addition to ESO +

Faltasë wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

johnjetau wrote: »

So is this new Tamriel Tones system a one off payment to cover the full year or is it a payment each season - thus 4 times a year.

I ask because it says that the $29.99 version is in USD. As someone living in Australia that converted to AUD at the current exchange rate is approx $45.00 AUD.

And if we pay for each season - 4 Seasons - than that is going to be almost $180.00 p/year.

You don't have to pay for the tiers if you don't want to; you can just participate in the free one. But I believe each tome/season will cost separately.

Locking this amount of cosmetics behind paid content while still saying there is free content is just realistically a copout. No matter how you look at it, chapters were cheaper and we got more free content that way. This is just an excuse to bar more cosmetics behind a paywall and for them to have to put less effort into making challenge related unlockables.

How exactly did we get more free content with chapters when the amount of free content we got with each chapter was 0?

ceruulean wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

What was the criteria for getting the survey? Was it random?

It was posted in the twitch chat:

Moobot:Take our 2026 ESO Reveal survey here: https://beth.games/4psQgNA

Oh! Thanks. I wasn't paying attention to the chat because I talked about it here. Much easier to talk here. I appreciate the link

DragonRacer wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

What was the criteria for getting the survey? Was it random?

It's in the OP:

"We also have a longer survey for those interested in giving us feedback on how you feel about the stream generally and the content plan for 2026. You can fill that survey out here."

Thanks! That's what I get for skimming lol.

Faltasë wrote: »

metheglyn wrote: »

johnjetau wrote: »

So is this new Tamriel Tones system a one off payment to cover the full year or is it a payment each season - thus 4 times a year.

I ask because it says that the $29.99 version is in USD. As someone living in Australia that converted to AUD at the current exchange rate is approx $45.00 AUD.

And if we pay for each season - 4 Seasons - than that is going to be almost $180.00 p/year.

You don't have to pay for the tiers if you don't want to; you can just participate in the free one. But I believe each tome/season will cost separately.

Locking this amount of cosmetics behind paid content while still saying there is free content is just realistically a copout. No matter how you look at it, chapters were cheaper and we got more free content that way. This is just an excuse to bar more cosmetics behind a paywall and for them to have to put less effort into making challenge related unlockables.

What free content did we get with chapters? We had to pay for chapters. We don't have to pay for seasons. You don't have to pay for the battlepass if you don't want to. I haven't seen exactly what the battlepass offers or what we have to do to earn the items on it--hopefully they talk about that some more in the upcoming days. However, ZOS has to make money somehow, and since I really didn't like the price point of Season of the Worm Cult, I'm willing to give the battlepass a chance to fund the game.

This stream did not really make me any more excited; in fact I'm very uncertain of everything now.

My major concern is the monetization. It's incredible (too incredible...) that everything is going to be free, and that so much is being converted to free content. Having said that... is the "premium" version of the Battlepass going to be able to sustain this all? Especially if Crate items are also going to be free (and Passes will also essentially give more Endeavors per quarter than the current Endeavor system). That is where my cynicism gets in the way. If players aren't expected to pay for basically anything, then what's keeping the servers online?
I was always under the impression that ESO was not doing well financially, considering the surprise cancellation of the NA anniversary meetup and the recent cuts across the industry. And now with 2025 going the way it had, it seems many players were also cutting their subscriptions.
Will the new model be able to sustain the game long-term if there are even fewer reasons to pay? Especially considering that we're getting no new systems or zones this year?

I do like the admissions of communications breakdowns and the formation of a team to directly interface with players, including on the forums. But I'll believe it when I see it. Too often have we posted on PTS that something was broken, and it is not even acknowledged until it goes live. The whole big mess of Subclassing had so many warnings that it was not working as intended, and yet it was pushed through with the devs even dropping the infamous

We know the Subclassing system will infuse power into the player community. For example, players can drop their tank and support skill lines for more damage-dealing abilities and passives. However, there is a trade-off—by taking all damage skill lines, you are more reliant on your team for support healing, shielding, and protection. Also, there is no desire to reduce the effectiveness of pure classes and their ability to complete content, and overall, the system should make the content more accessible to all players.

And then coming back 6 months later with

As it stands, subclassing is objectively stronger than “pure” classing by a large margin for several reasons. This is mostly caused by the vast differences in individual skill line designs. ESO was not built from launch with subclassing in mind, and the system highlighted issues with the current class skill line design that were not previously a factor but are untenable going forward.

i.e. exactly what every single tester on the PTS warned about.
I will believe we're getting better communication when I see it, and consistently, and that starts on Monday with the PTS.

A lot of the things presented (like the new PvP mode and some of the stories and quests) never really got mentioned beyond just popping up on the infographic. As such, I can't say much about them, so it was odd that the survey asked specifically about our takes on these things.

There are some things that I am excited about - the DK rework looks cool and I really really like my main (and wish I didn't have to Subclass him for trials, but I doubt that's going to change until all 7 Classes are reworked). I'm loving that we're getting "hide slots" for everything, and the werewolf rework is very exciting (pls werebear skill style). But those are mostly smaller things, and I didn't see any of the major changes that really grabbed me.

I'm not excited about large-scale PvE events like the Writhing Fortress or the Night Market. I do like my PvE, but on a small scale - Dungeons are by far my favorite content in the game, so to see that we are getting zero new Dungeons this year (as amazing as Dungeons are) is highly disappointing. I prefer Dungeons to trials in the first place as they''re smaller and more intimate, which means that you're able to bring more of your personal style to the group instead of trials which force building for the benefit of all. Trials in a post-Subclassing world are significantly less fun since any build that doesn't min-max is inherently worse in every case (and I imagine that will still be the case after the refreshes), but the smaller group sizes of Dungeons means that running a favored build is not as problematic since there's not a list of buffs that everyone needs to bring and it's more conducive to small friend groups.

I was also scared for a while of the Class refresh being as major of a project as it was. Don't get me wrong, it's needed. But the fact that the devs are going to focus on one Class an update means that we'll end up with some Classes being balanced against fixed ones and some not just makes it seem like that's going to be a whole lot of bandaids until it's all finished... at which point the first one is now unbalanced again. The fact that it will take two full years makes me wonder if we're going to see any major new Combat features (e.g. new Grimoires up to a new Class) until 2028 at the earliest.

The new Class is a big point for me, since I do like playing with new skills. Being able to shuffle the same 21 lines is not the same has having 3 completely new skills to see in PvP, or to puzzle out in PvE, or even just enjoy overland. And if we're at the point where "green beam" is the newest skill for the next 2 years... well that's kinda getting boring, isn't it?

All in all, my opinion of "cautiously pessimistic" hasn't changed, except now I also get the disappointment of my favorite content in the game and the thing I wanted most not coming out at all this year, and probably not even the year after that.

Maybe I am in a minority but I was really hoping for new companions.

Gadamlub14_ESO wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

Gadamlub14_ESO wrote: »

Seminolegirl1992 wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi Everyone! Thanks for tuning in to the 2026 ESO Reveal Stream. If you missed the live show, the VOD is available to be viewed here.

With the reveal stream finished, we now want to hear from you! Let us know what you think about what's in store for ESO in 2026. The things you like, dislike, or have general questions about. This is your thread to communicate your initial thoughts about the new Seasons Model, New Systems (like Tamriel Tomes and Gold Coast Bazaar), Quality of Life changes, etc. with the forum community and ESO Dev team. We will use commentary posted here as a reference point for communication between now and Season Zero/ Update 49 release.

We also have a longer survey for those interested in giving us feedback on how you feel about the stream generally and the content plan for 2026. You can fill that survey out here.

Your constructive feedback* and questions will let us know what information we can better clarify leading up to launch and beyond. We look forward to hearing your thoughts on all of the 2026 content! Also feel free to participate in the poll as well!

*Friendly reminder to keep the Community Rules in mind when replying. Thank you!
PC Players, remember you will be able to check out Update 49 on PTS this coming Monday! We look forward to hearing your feedback there as well.

a trending positive poll- a first in a while! very excited about the reveal Kevin- major props to you and Nick and Susan for hearing players out.

well of course its trending positive. there are no actually negative options to select.

I'd have thought the third option - wanting something different from the reveal - was pretty negative, and the last option wasn't exactly positive either.

thats a "i'd rather have something else for dinner" Instead of "i hate this" option

I can assure you that if I told Mrs Tandor "I'd rather have something else for dinner" she wouldn't take that as a positive remark...

Account-wide outfit slots.

Oh I'm so happy.

So - no more four player Dungeons? :-(

I am glad that you moved from the "Teams meetings" style of presentation to a live face to face with the developers format, which shows more commitment and is more respectful to the audience. This stream was very good, and I watched probably all of the big reveals streams. The attitude has shifted in a very good way.

There are so many announced changes! I am most excited for the housing limit increase. I also love that you finally have a QoL team, which combs the forums and surveys for issues or requests. That's very encouraging. I was active in the housing forum for years, and before I gave up posting there, there were no replies from any dev for years, except moderators. I hope this will change for all sub-forums.

As an ESO+ player, I didn't really understand how much will I pay for the content that replaces the annual "chapter". Maybe this will be cleared in the near future.

I feel the game is entering in a new phase (I am here since the beginning), and am hopeful. In my opinion, subclassing did more harm than good, and this is the big problem you need to solve in the next years. I don't mind there won't be any new big zone this year, like I see many people complaining about. I don't want a new Solstice mess or a new High Isle cartoon villain plot. I prefer you take the time to get the good writers you need to deliver an awesome Elder Scrolls story, with depth and that weirdness specific to the Tamriel universe. Then the zone will come out naturally from that story, not the other way around.

Thank you and good luck!

frogthroat wrote: »

Battle Passes - Higher prices for less value? 30 bucks for a Season, 3 seasons per year? That's 90 bucks per year. More than the deluxe editions for the expansions. Pay more, get less? This feels like it comes from Microsoft shareholders, not ZOS devs, because you must be a shareholder or at least higher up if you are so out of touch that you think battle passes are a good idea. Those kill games.

They certainly can kill games, though I guess...

If player numbers are low enough that expansion sales aren't expected to recoup development costs and Microsoft thinks that this game has enough zones now (16 full zones from the base game, effectively 3 training zones, 11 full zones from expansions, and 8 or so smaller zones) to keep people entertained for the foreseeable future with minimal user drop-off... maybe they're a sound strategy at this point. Depends on whether or not the minimal user drop-off figures are actually accurate.

Every time I log in, I do my three endeavors. Then I do the event ticket quests, which happen every two weeks because heaven forbid we get a month off. Then I do the Golden Pursuit checklists. Then I log off and play something else because I'm spent. When the Golden Pursuits are done, I do a quest or two on one of my characters and explore. I love it. Feels like a treat to be free of some FOMO for a bit. When no event is happening and my Golden Pursuits are done, I just have a wonderful time re-visiting old content on my alts. It's like having your chores done as a kid. Now you can play with Jimmy. A shame that my holiday events in this game are when holiday events aren't happening.

If the battle passes organically flow into just doing stuff and replace the chore list, maybe Microsoft isn't wrong. Maybe they're the way to go and will bring in enough money to keep the dividends flowing and the game chugging along. Release a new full zone when the drop-off hits certain milestones and aim for nostalgia bait when you do so. "Wonder where the Colovian legions were during West Weald? They're in Nibenay, annoying their Nibenese cousins while WHOOPING butt! HOORAH! Come back and see Bravil again. It's as sleazy as your member-berries remember."

Who knows? I don't want to be too negative. Again, I respect the team trying new things and they were delightfully transparent and relatable during the presentation. I get the impression that they are dedicated and trying. Benefit of a doubt never hurts.