Official Feedback Thread For 2026 ESO Reveal

virtus753 · January 8

@ZOS_Kevin

With Imperial City now becoming base game, do we know the details yet on how its dungeons will be impacted?

While IC has been free for a long time now, it is still currently counted as DLC. New accounts do not get automatic access to any part of the DLC (Imperial City PvP zone, Imperial City Prison, or White-Gold Tower). Thus, until the DLC is claimed on an account, the two dungeons cannot come up in the random dungeon pool. Once the DLC is claimed, those dungeons are permanently added to the list of eligible dungeons on that account. They also count as DLC dungeons: their pledges are picked up from Urgarlag, they are part of the DLC pledge rotation, and they follow the higher DLC reward scheme. The dungeons' monster shoulders are also among the much larger pool that Urgarlag's mystery coffers pull from.

With IC's transition to base game in Season Zero:

Will the dungeons now be in everyone's eligible pool for randoms?
Will the pledge quests be incorporated into the base game pledge rotation? If so, will they be split between Maj and Glirion?
Will the dungeons' monster shoulders move over to Maj's and/or Glirion's pool as well?
Will the pledge rewards change to the lower base-game scheme?

(Apologies if this has been answered. I haven't been able to find it yet.)

SerafinaWaterstar · January 8

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

HappyTheCamper wrote: »

So after reading the Tamriel Times article, my question is if my 12 month sub resets in July, do I have to wait and get my 12 automatic premium tokens then? If the season 0 stuff starts in April, am I going to get compensated for waiting?

Apologies for lack of phrasing in the last sentence. I’m not trying to sound entitled, I’m just wondering since this all starts in April, and I’m already locked into subbing every July, do I get anything for the remains months until then? It would be nice if I at least got 3 premium tokens, but I suppose I understand if not.

This is a good question. We will ask the team and get specifics on timing based on when your ESO Plus was purchased.

Yes, some clarity would be appreciated.

I’ve subbed for years, but pay on a monthly basis as it’s easier for me to do so - would past subs take effect once this starts, i.e. I have subbed every month for the past year & so I get a freebie, or is it measured as a year from the start of Season 0?

And would I be at a disadvantage for subbing monthly then?

ginkys · January 8

2/10. The QOL improvements are nice but no new real story content apart from something with Sheo (yawn) makes me think you will never make any more new zones for the game - which is why I like ESO so you tossing it aside like it doesn't matter is insulting. I have nothing to look forward to for the next year or possibly ever again in ESO.

irstarkey57 · January 8

Really was hoping to see more ofwhat the balance change ideas are in order to compete with subclassing. All we saw on the dragonknight were skill style changes. Most of us DK's watched to hear how its class identiy and skill lines can be put more inline with nightblade, sorc, templar.

irstarkey57 · January 8

CASH GRAB 2026!

irstarkey57 · January 8

i_azazei_i wrote: »

This is the worst reveal you've done in years.

"Oh our players asked for"

No. Nobody asked for 30$ battlepasses when industry standard is 10.

Nobody asked for seasons

Nobody wanted fomo zones

Nobody wanted more ways to drain wallets

Nobody wanted eso+ to become worthless

Throw it all out and try again cause the only things I saw that players wanted was overland difficulty, crossplay, and class reworks and by the look of thing those are years away cause ypu focused on greed.

Yep. 100 percent

No_Escape725 · January 8

I’m really excited about all of the changes, however there is one thing that I feel needs to be readdressed.

A huge benefit to the ESO+ subscription was the DLC chapters being included after a year and dungeons being included immediately. With no future paid DLC content coming out and many of the preexisting paid DLC being added to base game, this has greatly reduced the value of the already-too-expensive subscription. Adding one single free season pass after an entire year of being subscribed does not equal the value lost with the removal of paid DLC content.

I’d like to see the $15 season tier be included with an active subscription as choosing to wait for a DLC to be added to plus did not really cause players to miss out on any rewards, however choosing to wait for the free coupon after one year will result in a lot of missed rewards. Alternatively, seeing a price reduction in the subscription would also be acceptable. $140/year minimum is a lot of money for the minimal benefit it now provides and I envision a lot of players unsubscribing. I, myself, am looking at how I can create my own craft bag and buy 21,000 crowns on sale to save $50 and put towards the premium tiers.

ESO seems to have adopted Fallout 76’s season model which also features a version of points earned through gameplay, page unlocks, and premium rewards. However, Fallout gives the choice to subscribe to get those premium items OR purchase a season pass and I’d love to see that here as well. $185/year to get the full experience on a video game is very expensive and for console users that have to pay a subscription to even access the game, it is even more. ESO has more dedicated players than Fallout and shouldn’t need to milk players for every dollar they have in order to turn profit.

That is my only complaint! I’m very excited for the rest of 2026

Pauwin · January 9

SilverBride wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

And only a few people want Overland Difficulty? You realize that it’s the most requested feature from the last years, by a huge margin?

If you look at the overland thread, it's mostly the same handful of players on both sides of the discussion for most of the thread.

I see a lot more requests for increased housing slots and storage space than difficult overland.

These are completely different things. One is QoL and one is system / feature / content.

And guess what, we‘re also getting increased housing slots. So it’s not mutually exclusive.

No matter what we call it, overland difficulty was discussed by the same handful of players for most of the pinned thread. I do not consider that a huge margin.

Everytime I see someone wanting overland difficulty, I see your name pop up. You've been fighting against it since at least 2020, I would check the forums every three months or so to see if the topic would get anywhere, seeing people ask for it above all else, and every single time your voice would come up to say "no". From what I've seen outside of this forum (which is very much an echo chamber sometimes), a very large amount of people in Youtube comments, Twitch chats or content creators themselves, ask for this overland difficulty increase

SilverBride · January 9

Pauwin wrote: »

Everytime I see someone wanting overland difficulty, I see your name pop up. You've been fighting against it since at least 2020, I would check the forums every three months or so to see if the topic would get anywhere, seeing people ask for it above all else, and every single time your voice would come up to say "no". From what I've seen outside of this forum (which is very much an echo chamber sometimes), a very large amount of people in Youtube comments, Twitch chats or content creators themselves, ask for this overland difficulty increase

I haven't posted in that thread for quite awhile. But I have supported difficulty for a few years now as long as it was optional and the rewards weren't a lot greater than they are on normal. And I posted that several times. But that doesn't mean I think a huge number of players want it.

AllenaNightWood · January 9

thought to the Battlepass type system is to let us unlock what ever we want in any order because their will be tons of stuff ppl dont want but others we would rather just B line it for

zenonuk · January 9

SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

HappyTheCamper wrote: »

So after reading the Tamriel Times article, my question is if my 12 month sub resets in July, do I have to wait and get my 12 automatic premium tokens then? If the season 0 stuff starts in April, am I going to get compensated for waiting?

Apologies for lack of phrasing in the last sentence. I’m not trying to sound entitled, I’m just wondering since this all starts in April, and I’m already locked into subbing every July, do I get anything for the remains months until then? It would be nice if I at least got 3 premium tokens, but I suppose I understand if not.

This is a good question. We will ask the team and get specifics on timing based on when your ESO Plus was purchased.

Yes, some clarity would be appreciated.

I’ve subbed for years, but pay on a monthly basis as it’s easier for me to do so - would past subs take effect once this starts, i.e. I have subbed every month for the past year & so I get a freebie, or is it measured as a year from the start of Season 0?

And would I be at a disadvantage for subbing monthly then?

This does seem odd and smells iffy to me.

You need a 12 month sub in a one-off purchase* to get enough tokens for the free premium+ for season 0. The only way to achieve that would be to buy a 12-month sub* in April/May (or at some point before season 0 ends) to get all tokens necessary in one go. If you're on a month-by-month sub, you'll only have enough tokens after 12 months (you'd get 1 token on each sub renewal) ... by which point we're into 2027 and you'll have had to pay for seasons 0 to 3 if you wanted the premium+ experience.

@ZOS_Kevin This does need to be considered a lot more. My recommendation is to reward the previous 12 months. For all 12 months in 2025/6 (prior to the point of season release) everyone who has eso+ gets a token for each month... that way, if people are eso+ subbers... they can get premium+ from day 1 of the release for season 0. Or something similar. There needs, somewhere, to be some recognition of the overlap.

(* or the equivalent in multiple purchases)

SilverBride · January 9

I'm not subbing for a year all at once for some unknown thing I probably won't even want anyway. We need to see what these rewards are and how much better the premium rewards are if we are going to be able to make informed decisions.

ZhuJiuyin · January 9

I'd like to ask if the Class Identity Refresh plan includes class masteries and class sets? The new class refresh might cause existing class masteries and class sets to become incompatible or difficult to use, and class masteries and class sets are essentially part of Class Identity.
According to statistics such as log, it is obvious that both class masteries and class sets need to be readjusted to align with the standards of the subclass era, otherwise they will still be difficult to use, at least in the PVE end game.
I think other players want to know if class masteries and class sets will also have a chance to be updated later?

Fruity_Ninja · January 9

Fantastic announcements. A battle pass system and more in game rewards are a fantastic idea, they work so well in other games.

Investment in PVP and the combat balance is great!

Huge QOL changes are awesome 👏

And the new content you are delivering looks fire 🔥, so excited for PVE that actually takes some effort (instead of the braindead PVE that exists at the moment)

Well done ZOS, feels like the start of a new era.

And remember, there will always be negative people who are never happy. Try not let them get you down, your announcement showed you are truly listening to what your core players have been asking for over the years. Execute with confidence!

metheglyn · January 9

Fruity_Ninja wrote: »

Fantastic announcements. A battle pass system and more in game rewards are a fantastic idea, they work so well in other games.

Investment in PVP and the combat balance is great!

Huge QOL changes are awesome 👏

And the new content you are delivering looks fire 🔥, so excited for PVE that actually takes some effort (instead of the braindead PVE that exists at the moment)

Well done ZOS, feels like the start of a new era.

And remember, there will always be negative people who are never happy. Try not let them get you down, your announcement showed you are truly listening to what your core players have been asking for over the years. Execute with confidence!

People who are disappointed in the reveal are not 'negative people who are never happy'; they just wanted something different from the game they enjoy.

Vampryss · January 9

Some of the things that were announced were pretty cool. However, I am very confused. I do not play other games online. I've been playing Elder Scrolls since 2003, ESO since 2019. I'm here for the lore. Not cosmetics, "things" to collect, or the Disco party most all group fights have turned into.

I have no idea what a battle pass is. But it doesn't sound like it gives me more lore content. I asked a friend, and we are wondering if this is going to be managed through battle net. A third-party company? Will I have to pay extra for this battle pass on top of the ESO+ Subscription?

I pay annually for ESO+. My subscription renews on June 1st. What happens to the Crowns? I didn't hear one mention of that.

Lastly, I heard the word crossplay mentioned only once. At 41:52 on the stream, the word crossplay was mentioned with no follow up. At the end of the stream there was a notice about the most requested and talked about feature in chat and it was crossplay. What is the go-forward plan with this?

I'm excited for some things, but it just feels like this game is turning into a transactional experience vs a fun submersible fantasy game that I fell in love with so many years ago.

omegatay_ESO · January 9

Where is the New Explorable Areas, Stories, Dungeons, Houses, and all the STUFF that comes with said content? Is this not what ESO was, has been for years? It's what i signed up for. If I want to do BATTLE PASS stuff, I will go play Diablo 4.

opethmaniac · January 9

I don't understand why so many players are complaining about the Battle Pass. Tier 0 is completely free and offers far more value than the previous login rewards (e.g., 8,000 Seals of Endeavor) and other stuff we don't even know about yet.

Tiers 1 and 2 offer (of course) even more rewards, but these are completely optional, from everything I've seen. Everyone can decide for themselves whether they want to spend the money, for example, on the new mount.

Pay-to-win expansions like new Mythics or the Scribing (at the time of release) are eliminated, and you're not forced to always buy the latest expansion for them (we'll see what the future holds).

The only thing that really bothered me were the vague hints regarding PvP. In my opinion, there's still a lot of potential here to make PvP more attractive (e.g., levelable PvP sets with progressive skins or new prestige ranks). Let's see what else comes along.

Northwolf5150 · January 9

Seeing as there's no new story zone, would it be possible to have a small pond next to the Gold Coast Bazaar with some new fish to catch?

Pleeeease?

L_Nici · January 9

zenonuk wrote: »

SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

HappyTheCamper wrote: »

So after reading the Tamriel Times article, my question is if my 12 month sub resets in July, do I have to wait and get my 12 automatic premium tokens then? If the season 0 stuff starts in April, am I going to get compensated for waiting?

Apologies for lack of phrasing in the last sentence. I’m not trying to sound entitled, I’m just wondering since this all starts in April, and I’m already locked into subbing every July, do I get anything for the remains months until then? It would be nice if I at least got 3 premium tokens, but I suppose I understand if not.

This is a good question. We will ask the team and get specifics on timing based on when your ESO Plus was purchased.

Yes, some clarity would be appreciated.

I’ve subbed for years, but pay on a monthly basis as it’s easier for me to do so - would past subs take effect once this starts, i.e. I have subbed every month for the past year & so I get a freebie, or is it measured as a year from the start of Season 0?

And would I be at a disadvantage for subbing monthly then?

This does seem odd and smells iffy to me.

You need a 12 month sub in a one-off purchase* to get enough tokens for the free premium+ for season 0. The only way to achieve that would be to buy a 12-month sub* in April/May (or at some point before season 0 ends) to get all tokens necessary in one go. If you're on a month-by-month sub, you'll only have enough tokens after 12 months (you'd get 1 token on each sub renewal) ... by which point we're into 2027 and you'll have had to pay for seasons 0 to 3 if you wanted the premium+ experience.

@ZOS_Kevin This does need to be considered a lot more. My recommendation is to reward the previous 12 months. For all 12 months in 2025/6 (prior to the point of season release) everyone who has eso+ gets a token for each month... that way, if people are eso+ subbers... they can get premium+ from day 1 of the release for season 0. Or something similar. There needs, somewhere, to be some recognition of the overlap.

(* or the equivalent in multiple purchases)

Yeah, imagine someone renewed ESO Plus in January for an entire year, they won't get a single token until next year, because that was obviously not included yet.

Apollosipod · January 9

SilverBride wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

And only a few people want Overland Difficulty? You realize that it’s the most requested feature from the last years, by a huge margin?

If you look at the overland thread, it's mostly the same handful of players on both sides of the discussion for most of the thread.

I see a lot more requests for increased housing slots and storage space than difficult overland.

These are completely different things. One is QoL and one is system / feature / content.

And guess what, we‘re also getting increased housing slots. So it’s not mutually exclusive.

And you have been on the other side of that. You're suffering from confirmation bias on this issue. The threads aren't the only place this is discussed

Sarannah · January 9

So, I just read through the entire ESO+ battle pass benefits article and wanted to know more about this:

Existing ESO Plus members can benefit from this immediately. If you continue, start, or renew a membership any time this year, you’ll get Tome Premium Tokens and Caches of Tome Points (more on those below!) for every month of membership in 2026 delivered when Seasons go live later this year.

Questions: As I bought a full year of ESO+ in october I will have roughly 6 or 7 months left on my ESO+ subscription when the new battle pass system goes live, will I from the point of transition receive these tome premium tokens and caches of tome points? And will those also be granted for the earlier 2026 months, as the article states for every month of membership in 2026, so does that include january/february/march?
I'm assuming I will, as I continue my subscription. And the months before the transition are 2026 membership months for me.

Crowns question: As you changed payment methods drastically, and implemented a new paying way to get cosmetics outside of the crown store and outside of using crowns, will players be able to get refunds for recently bought crown packs? Namely those crown packs bought during the christmas crown pack sale.

Questions: Why the choice for a battle pass? And were any other payment methods discussed?

Seraphayel wrote: »

Sarannah wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

Everybody saying there is no new content, system or features coming:

Season 1 contains basically everything a regular Chapter for $40 would contain. And this time you get it for free.

Lets analyse that content:
-Group event zone: Events are not content. May or may not be available at times when you play. Content should always be available, events are temporary.
-Overland difficulty option... only few players want this. Personally I do not care about this at all. This is not content either, it is just a way to play old content(which I have already completed 100%).
*New stories & quest(thieves guild/sheogorath): This is new content.
*New system(sage's vault): This is new content, but no clue if it is anything good or how large/impactful it will be.
-Multi-stage cooperative events: Events are not content.
-New in-game event(high seas of tamriel): Events are not content. Though I am curious about this.
*New trial: This is new content.
-Large-scale world events: Events are not content.

Only the three starred things are actually content. Events are not content, they are two/three weeks of pastime. Not really sure why you are defending this, as this is nowhere near chapter level content or anywhere near previous yearly content(full zone+new feature+two dungeons+small zone). Someone posted the 2022 content pictures a few pages back, for comparison. Practically all outside sources are calling this maintenance mode and the end for ESO. Which is NOT what I want it to be, but I can't say they are wrong in thinking this. Battle passes are a negative thing amongst gamers for a reason.

PS: Would you consider the new life festival event content? Personally I don't. Events are lures to keep people in-game so they can check out the crown store and buy stuff. (which is probably why there is one placed in every season, and why we had so many events back-to-back on live recently)
PPS: Personally I do not care about what happens behind the scenes of a company, I look at the value of the service they are providing. Both the value of the service itself as well as their service compared to other similar services. And the correct value just isn't there from what I have seen, nowhere close even.

Seraphayel wrote: »

Sarannah wrote: »

Keep in mind, we are paying three times a normal chapter(expansion) price for this! Normally we get a full zone + new feature with a chapter for 40€, now we get practically nothing for 120€.

You don’t pay anything for the new content.

Yes, I know that tiny bit of content shown is free with seasons, never said otherwise. To have access to the entire game(including all cosmetics), one now needs to buy all the battle passes(tomes) as well. As those cosmetics are now behind three-monthly paywalls. Usually only the new chapter would be behind a paywall, and any deluxe cosmetics/pre-orders coming with that chapter would be. Nor would the crown store items be gone forever due to being on a cycle, while season's battle pass cosmetics will be gone forever once you miss out on paying for access to them.

Having many cosmetics(which I love to collect) behind multiple paywalls spread out over the year, is very different from a chapter paywall. As chapter(expansion) paywalls is what I expect from online MMO's. To now access the entire game, it will be 120€ extra per year, on top of the ESO+ sub fee. Whereas before, the ESO+ and the chapter itself would be the only things having to pay for. This is why I feel they are now squeezing me for every penny they can get from me, which is not how I want to feel when spending money. So I won't! (Note: I usually buy 5 to 8 of the highest 21k crown packs per discount period, which happens three or four times per year)

As I stated before, I actually don't mind paying more as I love ESO. But this isn't the way, as this feels like they are shaking me like I am a moneytree. And having been there as other games had battle passes, all I can say is that this does not look or feel good!

I think you completely missed the point of these events. We‘re not talking about things like New Life Festival or Jester‘s or whatever all these holiday events are.

This events will be either like Writhing Wall, incursions, dolmens or whatever. I guess they‘ll be scaled up to fit what world event narrative. So it’s beyond me how you don’t rate this as content when it clearly is.

And only a few people want Overland Difficulty? You realize that it’s the most requested feature from the last years, by a huge margin?

Can totally understand your point and 100% respect it! Personally I see events in online games to keep the players(me) playing and logging in. That is the reason they were invented in the first place, to keep players logging into the MMO's when there wasn't a major content release. So that we can view the crown store and sales and such, to keep us busy and not get bored with the game. Same with writhing wall, for me it was simply an event to unlock the Solstice chapter/zone, nothing more. Maybe these events are actually much much bigger in scope than I suspect they will be. For example if the dynamic storms is simply multiple harrowstorms active at the same time, I would not call it a special event. *Note: After last year's issues and the recent stream and now major changes in payment model, the burden of proof is on ZOS to show us what they have got and what they can do.*
Besides that, last year we practically had an event active all the time. Not making them sound special to me anymore. And I will never see those as content, but as basically the bare minimum an MMO needs to keep the playerbase active and in-game.

But as I said, I totally get your point and I for 100% respect your view on these events. Also, I hope you are right!

PS: I am happy those who wanted harder overland are getting it, no matter how many players wanted this feature. Personally I think not many did, and that it was a waste of dev time.

Thalmar · January 9

The stream was very short in regards how much information has to be given. But overall I really liked the presentation and how well the stream being executed and shared between departments, thanks for the stream and thanks for listening the community.

I also especially thank to Susan Kath for bringing on that she likes to see people around in game but prefer to do solo content more often, which really is very important to me to return and dedicate myself to only one mmorpg instead hoping between games. Most mmos just cater to group of social people who have no problem with jumping and playing with others while solo players like myself pushed out and has to be happy about little content they have. It is always nice to see experienced people on the decision making places.

Solo dungeons are amazing idea who wants to see story at their pace instead of rushing through it with a group of strangers. Solo players should not be judged as population boosters in a game while raiders or pvp guilds get the best part of the cake. If ZOS can keep up with the majority of the promises from the stream I have no doubt future is really looking great in the end everyone here even with all our disagreements agreed on sucess of the game.

My suggestion to everyone here, see the game from a wider perspective. Some elements you will like some you will not, but this is an mmo and not everything for everyone. Try not to fit the game for your needs, the more content for everyone the more people plays and companies earn more and puts more effort on development.

There are still lots of things are unclear for me, but the direction and effort the team in the stream put will not go unnoticed. I will wait till everything is more explained and understandable than ready to rumble, have fun everyone and dont forget to let others have fun the way they want it to.

twisttop138 · January 9

xencthlu wrote: »

That was way too much to cram into a 50 minute stream. Also, for what it's worth, my crates seemed to bug and only gave me the 15 minute reward in spite of being tuned in for the whole thing. Honestly, I don't know that it was a good idea to have a twitch reward that required more than 50% of the stream to be watched. That sort of begs for technical difficulties.

I've been reviewing the announcement pages and sitting with the news for a while, to make sure I'm really sorting through my thoughts and feelings and not just reacting on impulse. It's mixed. Everything is mixed.

For reference, I am the kind of player who pays a sub, buys crowns, and plays a few hours every day. I dabble in just about all kinds of content, everything from vet trials to battlegrounds to trading to ToT, though I consider myself more of a roleplayer type of player in terms of my game priorities.

The Good:
My top concern this year was furnishing limits, and those are getting increased across the board, with a gentle hint that notable homes are due for some love later. I said last year that increased furnishing limits would win my confidence back. Alright, I'm back on the bandwagon.

I didn't know I wanted a female werewolf model. I'll have to roll a werewolf now.

I don't play a werewolf (currently,) but for my friends, they're feeling how werewolf has been left behind by the new meta. I am happy they are getting improvements.

Weapon line refreshes weren't on my bingo board, but it's great to see Zenimax is getting ahead of development demands instead of playing catch up.

Account-wide outfit slots were my second highest concern and a drum I've been beating since I started playing. The entire outfit system is now functional content. There's a point now to all these style pages and crafting motifs and weapon skins. ESO is finally a dress up game. ESO finally has parity with other MMOs on the market. This was a major flaw in the game for the longest time, made especially bitter because the system was actually really well-designed, except for the total lack of slots. I wonder how badly the old system did that Zenimax was willing to make this change. I did not see this coming.

Backbar xp is a small tweak, but it shows an awareness of the actual friction that comes with playing the game. This very small improvement shows Zenimax understands something about the feeling of playing the game. It's savvy.

It sounds like incursions and seasonal events *might* get revisions along the lines of what GW2 takes for granted in its world content. That would breathe a lot of life into the game.

Are we getting legitimate own-a-ship, sail-a-ship gameplay with the High Seas of Tamriel? Some kind of sailing abstraction? BDO has this, and I love it desperately and wish for it in a better game. I would go feral if sailing was brought to ESO as a feature-complete system. I would spend obscene amounts of money. There are friends I have that would start playing just for this.

I don't strongly have an opinion on the length of guild trader listings, but a lot of my friends do, so I'm glad for this.

I've trained all my horses and am running out of character slots for new characters, so I'm not personally affected by faster mount training, but I'm glad for this for others who will be.

Transmute crystal limits are the bane of my existence. I love to see a boost here.

Were the antiquity lead times a problem for anyone? I mean, it's nice to get a boost, but I'm interested in knowing if anyone asked for it.

Not a (serious) guild leader, but my guild leaders get sanctioned all the time for trying to communicate via mails with their guilds. Happy for this for them. Ditto for the guild bank improvements.

Guild housing is another example of getting ahead of development demands. No, we don't have a pressing need for guild housing, but it is a bloody clever thing to add to the game, and guaranteed to make good money for Zenimax. Clever, clever, clever.

Wow, finally finishing hybridisation. The project was before my time, but I know a lot of people have a big chip on their shoulder about this. This feels like someone is reading the forums and giving serious considerations to the pain points of veteran players. Theoretically, I'm happy about this, too. One of the things that often kills me in solo content is running out of my secondary resource. Alchemy changes could fix this.

More mounts available for gold is great. We can stop dunking on the Vivec City stablemaster for selling horses when he's got a guar right next to him.

Removing the scammy vampire/werewolf curse purchases from the store is huge.The degree to which Zenimax is willing to take advantage of new, uninformed players for financial gain is indefensible. It's embarrassing. I feel just better about ESO and Zenimax as a company now that these straight up scams are getting removed from the cash shop. And making these systems, that are some of ESO's unique features compared to the general MMO market, more readily accessible is just clever. Savvy. Well considered. I have friends who don't play who are curious about ESO just because of the inclusion of vampire and werewolf as gameplay systems.

I've fully upgraded my storage, but I'm happy to see bag and bank costs getting reduced for newer players. The cost is genuinely prohibitive for someone in their first two months of playing. Also, again, super savvy to allow upgrades from player menus.

Hiding any part of an outfit is excellent. Again, seems like low hanging fruit, but shows a shocking amount of savviness I just didn't associate with Zenimax. Now I can take off my gloves in the middle of a roleplay.

The length of crafting research is not super relevant to me anymore, but still, happy for newer players. This sucked when I did it.

Moving more expansions to the base game is great.

Treasure maps do need work. So... It's good Zenimax knows that.

I don't care about overland difficulty, but it's good it's coming for the people who do want it. I like that the only reward difference it offers over the vanilla difficulty is experience and gold, so I won't feel like I'm being punished for not engaging with it. I wouldn't mind seeing this system get title rewards for bragging rights, like in LOTRO.

Solo dungeons are long-requested and I'm glad to see them for the people who want them. I might actually be able to read dungeon quests now. That's novel.

Glad that there's some organisational changes in how Zenimax receives, processes, and delivers feedback. I know myself and a lot of people have felt like we've been screaming into the void about PTS problems. I hope it actually works.

Nick comes across very well when he communicates with the community. He gives concrete information. He seems both well-informed and well-considered.

With a wall of praise that tall, why are my feelings mixed? Well...
The Mixed:
What's the deal with notable homes? They're the homes most in need of higher limits, and many of them need more than a 100 furnishing bump. The psijic villa back this month realistically needs 1k or more furnishings to properly decorate.

I don't actually know what's up with High Sails. Nor if revised world events are intended to mirror GW2 zone events. Purely speculation on my part.

I'm trying to avoid criticising the things we'll presumably get answers about come Monday, but "improved treasure maps" tells me nothing. Are you going to put an x on the map so people can find them? Are their drops going to be better? Come on, you could have shared one concrete change. Why be this stingy?

Theoretically, the Gold Coast Bazaar is good because it makes currently unobtainable rewards available again, but practically, whether or not it's good or a gamekiller depends on the actual pricing. Yes, like everyone else, I disliked the event ticket system and the entire event system, but one thing you could say for sure about it is that it was transparent. You knew how long it would take to get a reward and how much work it would take. How can I be excited for 9k Trade Bars if 1) I don't know what 9k can buy me and 2) I don't know how much work it'll take to get them. Does 9k buy me a notable home? Four mounts? Does it only get me a handful of tripots? I bet you're still hammering out the whole pricing list, but come on. Will a notable home cost me, for example, 10 hours in trials, 20 hours in IA, and another 6 doing zone dailies? Banana for scale, people! All I know is that getting 9k from seasonal rewards makes the 100 each event ticket is worth look pathetic and ungenerous. Because that is my only point of comparison.

ESO plus membership free items should be sold for less than other offerings because you need to pay a sub to buy them. I don't know if you've done this because, again, we've been given no prices for scale.

Trade bars are not a "free" currency earned purely by in game actions if you can get a bonus amount of them by buying the whale passes. I'm generally suspicious of assurances about the fairness of "play to earn" schemes. I know Zenimax has a lot of data about how people use seals of endeavour and ouroboros crate gems, and what makes them eventually break down and pull out a credit card.

Seals of endeavour will continue to exist as a currency... But won't be tied to endeavours anymore. So why will they continue to exist? It seems like gems, trade bars, and tome points are intended to replace their general function.

Again, these news articles quote the generosity of "tome points" in terms of "you get 2000" for making purchases and subbing but these numbers are literally meaningless without a price to compare them to. What are crown tripots going to cost? 5k tome points per 20 tripots? Don't even bother implementing the system in that case. You might think that's a ridiculous supposition, but IA vision rerolls start at 500 archival fortunes and multiply upwards from there. Zenimax makes bad pricing decisions. I have no context to judge this system and I think you could have given me at least three examples for scale, even if they were still subject to changes.

I would have liked to have seen some news about the bugs you were promising to fix last year. I suspect you are doing the work on them, and just didn't include it in the news because it doesn't seem exciting, but I would have felt relieved to hear about it.

I'm still hugely concerned that this new development model will mean that secondary and tertiary systems in the game won't receive further attention. I would have loved to hear that a new TOT deck is in the works, or that IA is getting some new bosses on the boss list, just because they are lesser-loved systems with plenty of room left to grow and become the best versions of themselves. They're systems that help make ESO a unique MMO on the market. People have to come play ESO if they want the TOT or the IA experience. They can't go anywhere else to get that fix.

"A season could include a new zone, a new questline, a new class, a new skill line, *or* a new system?" Oh, so at any point, you might add some kind of content? That's not an announcement, my friends. At any point, I could win the lottery. These two sentences convey the same amount of information.

The Night Market could be good, but genuinely, it's one of those things where it's impossible to tell until it's out. The writhing wall should have been better than it was. It was somehow worse than holiday events nearly as old as the game itself. I sure hope it has a genuine self-contained story with no spoilers, because I hadn't caught up to Solstice when the WW event activated, and it sure gave me spoilers in spite of assurances it would not. I am glad to see Fargrave is getting more love. It is a very cool space in the lore, and we don't spend a lot of time there in the story. Theoretically, event zones could be very good. Other games have zones tied to specific recurring events, and they're very exciting and make the game feel bigger and more alive. (STO's winter wonderland, COH's ski chalet.) But that's just theory. Execution is everything here.

Jeeze, ESO+ is about to lose a lot of value in this new system as old content is added to the base game and no new content is specifically added for plus. They say they're going to be adding things to plus benefits in a later announcement, so... Again, it's another matter where I have more questions than answers, so I can't say it's a good thing, and I obviously dislike uncertainty about things I spend money on. Why was this incredibly important stream only 50 minutes? I feel for Gina and company.

Then The Bad.
Battle (whale) passes are going to be 30 USD, 4 times a year, for the right to do in game activities to earn cosmetic rewards? I am paying you to give me a to do list? You've done the math, and you estimate that people will be willing to spend 120 a year for battle passes and 140 a year for a sub, for a total of 260 USD a year? I don't think I've played a more expensive MMO in my life. Is the point of the highest tier of battle passes to make the normal paid tier look reasonable? Because 60 USD a year seems... fine... to me. I mean, it's not cheap, but everyone needed to raise prices because of inflation. The 120 price tag makes me genuinely worried for the game and its players. It is a number with no relationship to reality. And, look, I'm the person you're trying to sell the new system on! I'm someone who is comfortable spending money on the game!

What financial incentive does Zenimax have to develop actual content now? How long are they going to be developing content for free? When are we going to find ourselves in the SWTOR position, where we're getting 3 hours of story content every 4 years?

Three years for pure classes to reach parity with arcanist and multiclassing is hard to swallow. I mean, yeah, if that's all the resources and manpower you can allocate to it without harming other parts of the game development, okay. But it feels very much like a debt borne of ignoring everyone who told you that this work needed to be done before multiclassing was implemented.

What do you mean in addition to the new tome points currency and trade bars currency, we're getting a third premium tome token currency? We're going currency crazy. Players are going to get extremely confused.

Golden pursuits feel redundant when the game is adding a full battle pass. And, honestly, I expected to like golden pursuits a lot more than I did in practice. They have not given me confidence I'm going to enjoy the new system.

It was probably time for daily rewards to be retired, but... I don't think these new systems will do the job daily rewards did for a long time, which was helping newer players passively get resources of a kind with serious players, if over a longer timescale. I think I made my first cp160 gold equipment all with gold mats I earned from daily rewards. New players have no inkling of what's valuable and what's worthwhile in the game. They don't know it's worth going a little out of their way to get crown fortifying meals, and crown fortifying meals make such a big difference for someone's first and only level 6 character.

Really? ESO plus gets you so little in the new whale pass system? A single whale pass a year?

What's the plan if battle passes completely fail because you've priced out people like me? Is the game going to be kept afloat by crown purchases alone? Can the game be kept afloat that way? Will you consider a (perhaps temporary) return to chapters if this falls through? Look, I'm not happy, but I don't want the game to fail.

There's three different listed launch dates for the Gold Coast Bazaar on its announcement page. March 9th, March 25th, and April 2nd. You know this is going to confuse players, and confused players get upset easily. Don't explain it to me because I get it, but I get it because I'm the kind of self-important obsessive who will write an essay of this length on the forums. Today I had to spend 15 minutes explaining to a guildie that Zenimax isn't releasing chapters anymore. I still don't think she understood me in the end.

I don't think, ultimately, these systems are going to be that complicated, but the announcements aren't doing them any favours, and all of these changes hitting at once are going to overwhelm a lot of players. Even in a best case scenario where everything is implemented perfectly, I predict the community is going to be confused and upset immediately, and it will take work to recover from the bad first impressions.

Seriously, though, 30 USD 4 times a year? Where did you get those numbers from? How did you get those numbers?

This is so reasoned and we'll put. I have similar feelings. I wonder, now that we're on the age of transparency and communication, what Zos would say to players like this. To players who are feeling like the game is no longer for them. Story and exploration players, dungeon players. It's easy to get excited over the cool QOL stuff but that stuff Zos is supposed to be doing. It should not be the marquee for the year along with a battle pass that lets you pay to get cosmetics for doing old stuff.

Now, to be fair here. There is stuff that didn't even get touched on that was on screen. We don't know what we don't know. Crazy reaction is not warranted on either side of the spectrum. And yes. There is content this year, but nowhere near the amount that we have gotten. If you can't do it anymore you can't do it. But don't try to sell me beach front property in Iowa.

I also like how it gives multiple views. I don't know if anyone noticed but its getting to be a real knife fight out there. People have polarized and are being crazy to each other. Both sides. Hell, I saw a content creator posted yesterday that people who aren't over the moon about this are, well, the bad way to say mentally handicapped. Is this the way we're gonna treat each other over a video game?

Enodoc · January 9

Seraphayel wrote: »

This events will be either like Writhing Wall, incursions, dolmens or whatever. I guess they‘ll be scaled up to fit what world event narrative. So it’s beyond me how you don’t rate this as content when it clearly is.

Agreed, I think "large-scale events" or however it's worded will function like the Writhing Wall event one way or another.

Particularly the Event Zones like Night Market, as they sound exactly like the Writhing Fortress. But that's got to be the worst of both worlds - proper story-related content that's not just daily ticket quests, but time-limited to the period of the Event. Even if it comes back later, proper story content should never be temporary or transient, it should be permanent and persistent.

AzuraFan · January 9

Thalmar wrote: »

I also especially thank to Susan Kath for bringing on that she likes to see people around in game but prefer to do solo content more often...

I liked that too. That's also my predominant mode. I do dungeons with pugs, but because I have to if I want to fill my sticker book. Not because I particularly enjoy it. And I like going out on guild events occasionally. But 99% of my time is spent solo, so it was great to hear that we have a voice on the leadership team!

AzuraFan · January 9

Regarding 12 months of ESO+ getting a premium pass token, I agree with something said upthread (can't find the post at the moment). It doesn't seem quite right that someone who has been subscribed to ESO+ constantly for years, but their annual subscription renews before seasons go live, has to wait months to get a token, but someone who signs up for an annual subscription for the very first time in, let's say, June, gets a token right away.

It would have been a nice goodwill gesture to give a token to anyone who has been subscribed for the LAST 12 months, and whose sub is still active, when seasons go live, rather than making long-time subscribers potentially have to wait months to get one. This would be especially true for annual subscribers who renewed during the first few months of 2026.

BoloBoffin · January 9

L_Nici wrote: »

zenonuk wrote: »

SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

HappyTheCamper wrote: »

So after reading the Tamriel Times article, my question is if my 12 month sub resets in July, do I have to wait and get my 12 automatic premium tokens then? If the season 0 stuff starts in April, am I going to get compensated for waiting?

Apologies for lack of phrasing in the last sentence. I’m not trying to sound entitled, I’m just wondering since this all starts in April, and I’m already locked into subbing every July, do I get anything for the remains months until then? It would be nice if I at least got 3 premium tokens, but I suppose I understand if not.

This is a good question. We will ask the team and get specifics on timing based on when your ESO Plus was purchased.

Yes, some clarity would be appreciated.

I’ve subbed for years, but pay on a monthly basis as it’s easier for me to do so - would past subs take effect once this starts, i.e. I have subbed every month for the past year & so I get a freebie, or is it measured as a year from the start of Season 0?

And would I be at a disadvantage for subbing monthly then?

This does seem odd and smells iffy to me.

You need a 12 month sub in a one-off purchase* to get enough tokens for the free premium+ for season 0. The only way to achieve that would be to buy a 12-month sub* in April/May (or at some point before season 0 ends) to get all tokens necessary in one go. If you're on a month-by-month sub, you'll only have enough tokens after 12 months (you'd get 1 token on each sub renewal) ... by which point we're into 2027 and you'll have had to pay for seasons 0 to 3 if you wanted the premium+ experience.

@ZOS_Kevin This does need to be considered a lot more. My recommendation is to reward the previous 12 months. For all 12 months in 2025/6 (prior to the point of season release) everyone who has eso+ gets a token for each month... that way, if people are eso+ subbers... they can get premium+ from day 1 of the release for season 0. Or something similar. There needs, somewhere, to be some recognition of the overlap.

(* or the equivalent in multiple purchases)

Yeah, imagine someone renewed ESO Plus in January for an entire year, they won't get a single token until next year, because that was obviously not included yet.

What I heard is that any sub renewals from the start of the year do count. So, my Jan month sub will count for one Tome Token, and every renewal until Season Zero goes live is another token. Those will all be in my currency list when Season Zero starts (three tokens by my count). So, if you renew a 12-month subscription in January, 12 Tome Tokens will be in your currency list and you can swap them in for a free premium+bonuses tier upgrade for Season Zero then and there.

spartaxoxo · January 9

AzuraFan wrote: »

Regarding 12 months of ESO+ getting a premium pass token, I agree with something said upthread (can't find the post at the moment). It doesn't seem quite right that someone who has been subscribed to ESO+ constantly for years, but their annual subscription renews before seasons go live, has to wait months to get a token, but someone who signs up for an annual subscription for the very first time in, let's say, June, gets a token right away.

It would have been a nice goodwill gesture to give a token to anyone who has been subscribed for the LAST 12 months, and whose sub is still active, when seasons go live, rather than making long-time subscribers potentially have to wait months to get one. This would be especially true for annual subscribers who renewed during the first few months of 2026.

Wow! I didn't realize that was happening. That punishes the most loyal subscribers which seems really off. Anyone with an active renewal date in 2027 and beyond should get a token day 1.

Tornaad · January 9

Pauwin wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

And only a few people want Overland Difficulty? You realize that it’s the most requested feature from the last years, by a huge margin?

If you look at the overland thread, it's mostly the same handful of players on both sides of the discussion for most of the thread.

I see a lot more requests for increased housing slots and storage space than difficult overland.

These are completely different things. One is QoL and one is system / feature / content.

And guess what, we‘re also getting increased housing slots. So it’s not mutually exclusive.

No matter what we call it, overland difficulty was discussed by the same handful of players for most of the pinned thread. I do not consider that a huge margin.

Everytime I see someone wanting overland difficulty, I see your name pop up. You've been fighting against it since at least 2020, I would check the forums every three months or so to see if the topic would get anywhere, seeing people ask for it above all else, and every single time your voice would come up to say "no". From what I've seen outside of this forum (which is very much an echo chamber sometimes), a very large amount of people in Youtube comments, Twitch chats or content creators themselves, ask for this overland difficulty increase

Honestly, from my perspective, it is a few (extremely vocal individuals) who don't want a change to overland difficulty while a large number of people want something. In my case, I stopped going into that thread after it got too hostile and not because of my lack of interest in the topic.