Increase the willingness of players to bring new players into their groups.

ZhuJiuyin · January 30

ESO lacks clear guidance on many aspects of the game, requiring experienced players to teach them. However, this has created a gap between new and veteran players. Especially when experienced players encounter new players in random groups, some impatient experienced players may get angry or simply quit if the new player performs poorly. This is a bad experience for new players, but also for experienced players who want to farm gear or don't want to waste time.

In the long run, this could escalate conflicts between new and veteran players, which is detrimental to the harmony of the game community. Therefore, I hope ZOS can address this issue, especially since ESO has a long history and many patches, and online guides are sometimes outdated, requiring experienced players to provide assistance.

In a game I've played in the past, there was a "New Player Incentive" feature. It provided each character who had just reached the maximum level with a 20-stack buff that lasted for one month, increasing the character's maximum health by 2% and attack power by 1% per stack. Each time a raid instance is completed, it lowers the level by one, and every player in the raid (including the new player) receives an additional set item or rare item from that instance.

I think ESO could borrow this concept to develop a system that encourages experienced players to mentor new players, providing additional rewards to incentivize team play.

KalevaLaine · January 30

Totally agree - and wow - that system sounds nice to me!

Our guild tries actively to get new players. We also got a 73 year old player.

Our guild is widely mixed with progress groups, world bosses, raids both normal and veteran or just pledges, or just chill company in the DC.

But to be fair I must say that many new players left the game after a few weeks, overwhelmed by a lot of things and no useful tutorials. Even our happenings and support doesn't help every time, sadly.

Rungar · January 30

they would have to change both the combat system and the dungeon system to make this work and they have refused to do this so it will continue on as it always has.

Players lasting about a month or so and quitting when they start getting into the dungeons ( linear dps based, mechanic based bosses) and complexities of the combat system (which isnt deep, just busywork with endless barswapping, high apm rotations and animation cancelling/weaving to maximize it all). The only way to resolve the disconnect is to change the reasons why it exists in the first place.

Angnos · January 30

First and foremost it is ZOS job to learn players the game. This game still doesnt have a proper tutorial. Also thanks to the powercreep everything till you do HMs is very easy. And you learn nothing. Also the playerbase has changed a lot. We have more casual players who are not interested into group play or doesnt understand what it entails. Had some discuusions with players about their build and not adapting towards what is being asked for the group. Also a lot of new players are not sticking around for that long. So putting energy into them is a waste of time.

The game is not what is use to be. The playerbase has changed and we lost a lot of endgamers. And the rest wants to play the game with their friends in their closed off groups. It is a shame but it is what it is.

Rungar · January 30

Angnos wrote: »

First and foremost it is ZOS job to learn players the game. This game still doesnt have a proper tutorial. Also thanks to the powercreep everything till you do HMs is very easy. And you learn nothing. Also the playerbase has changed a lot. We have more casual players who are not interested into group play or doesnt understand what it entails. Had some discuusions with players about their build and not adapting towards what is being asked for the group. Also a lot of new players are not sticking around for that long. So putting energy into them is a waste of time.

The game is not what is use to be. The playerbase has changed and we lost a lot of endgamers. And the rest wants to play the game with their friends in their closed off groups. It is a shame but it is what it is.

id wager players are not interested in what zos offers as group play or the combat system. They want to continue to play the game, zos just goes out of their way to make it no fun to do so to please a very tiny and loud minority of players.

so zos solution is to sneak in changes in the backdoor but new players never get to that point where theyll have these builds and items that override the crappy combat system to some degree.

even getting rid of barswap or having a no barswap revamped ui option ( from the start) would improve the game but they wont do it. Of course you dont really need to barswap or have a specific rotation to do regular content, so its not an issue until its required, just like weaving, and this is when you see the big dropoffs.

BardokRedSnow · January 30

Id say this game is super friendly to new players tbh, and the community is only harsh to new players trying to be lazy and do end game content when they're not ready yet, I.E. dlc vet dungeons, especially obviously with hard mode activated, PvP where they are totally fodder and really can only siege and repair stuff, unless its someone thats experienced enough with the game to build and kill with low cp, but those are pretty rare, etc.

There's also the problem of people forcing them to try things they're not yet ready for.

I think the only real way for Zos to fix a problem thats largely based on the community and how helpful and friendly the guild or group they find themselves in, is to increase the incentives of content in general across the board. There's pretty much no reason for a vet player to do normal content once they've filled their collection of the armor they need. The amount of rare loot worth selling in this game is so small.

My conspiracy brain tells me they don't want it to be too easy to obtain gold for people who aren't dedicated enough to make multiple craft toons because people buy crowns with gold, but I have no idea really. Its strange to me that they've left the game's economy suffering and dwindling for so long, its good if you have a lot of gold already now that everything is so cheap, but it makes it hard to continue finding reasons to play besides literally the love of the game.

TLDR there needs to be incentive for sure but it lies in making easy content worth doing at all besides this is what is accessible to you. I don't honestly believe Zos really knows what its like to play their own game especially from the two extremes of being a new player and being an end game vet.

BXR_Lonestar · January 30

In all the guilds I'm in, there is definitely a willingness to bring in new players to give them guidance and help along the way. The problem is sometimes new players don't want to join a guild. Or they want to find their own way through the game. Or they don't like to take instructions or guidance from someone else. Not all of them of course or the guilds wouldn't have grown to what they are today, but it works both ways. There are plenty of guilds who are willing to take in new players and help them out, but Those new players also have to be willing to learn and understand/respect that when players try to help you out, it is an investment on their end that needs to be reciprocated with loyalty (to the guild), respect, and appreciation for those who put in the time and effort to give guidance.

Rungar · January 30

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

In all the guilds I'm in, there is definitely a willingness to bring in new players to give them guidance and help along the way. The problem is sometimes new players don't want to join a guild. Or they want to find their own way through the game. Or they don't like to take instructions or guidance from someone else. Not all of them of course or the guilds wouldn't have grown to what they are today, but it works both ways. There are plenty of guilds who are willing to take in new players and help them out, but Those new players also have to be willing to learn and understand/respect that when players try to help you out, it is an investment on their end that needs to be reciprocated with loyalty (to the guild), respect, and appreciation for those who put in the time and effort to give guidance.

guilds tend to have a clique and drama problem which is why alot of players shun them. You can still be alone in a guild when you ask for help and get silence but a more popular guildofficer joe does the same thing and 20 people are ready to go. Yooull end up helping everyone else but when you need something.. silence. Access to 5 guilds makes it even more transactional. But just keep trying.. the next one will be the one..lol.

npc guilds would of solved this problem and are already lore for elder scrolls but i guess zos doesnt see what i see. Too bad.

WaywardArgonian · January 30

Have you tried helping newer players?

So many times I've had people ask me for advice, and then when I give it to them, they question every bit of that advice and end up running with their own botched build anyway.

Of course there are many people who do appreciate the help, but I've found the whole process to be quite draining and I can fully understand why some veteran players simply won't bother.

I don't see how a temporary buff would fix that since the core issue is that the 'play how you want' marketing angle fills players with the false idea that any approach is viable in all content.

Blood_again · January 30

Good news - it will work, and veterans will be eager to run with new players.
Bad news - it will be immediately exploited. So veterans will run with each other, creating/leveling a new char for that bonus and drawing lots who runs a newbie this time.

If you don't believe it will be exploited, check the current practice "RND with low level"

AlienatedGoat · January 30

Blood_again wrote: »

Good news - it will work, and veterans will be eager to run with new players.
Bad news - it will be immediately exploited. So veterans will run with each other, creating/leveling a new char for that bonus and drawing lots who runs a newbie this time.

If you don't believe it will be exploited, check the current practice "RND with low level"

Seems like this could be easily avoided by setting a limit. Such as limiting the bonus to the first character on an account, or setting a 'recent played time' limit, where if you haven't played for x amount of time you get the bonus. The second one would account for returners, who can be just as lost as a newbie (I've been that returner many times). The trick is making the limit so its hard to exploit but also not so rigid that it leaves people out who would genuinely benefit from the bonus.

Warhawke_80 · January 30

I dunno ESO is probably the easiest MMO to play (especially the Metagame) there are all kind of comprehensive videos on how to play properly .....there was even a effort by the end game community to teach people how to do Trials ...it just didn't go very far.

The amount of people who are into that type of Gameplay is really small these days...WoW is having the same problem since they have offered alternate things to do at End game not very many people Raid anymore...I just think this is all part of the evolution of gaming. As people are drawn more to singular pursuits and in a couple years your won't be able to tell AI from Real People.

Rohamad_Ali · January 30

WaywardArgonian wrote: »

Have you tried helping newer players?

So many times I've had people ask me for advice, and then when I give it to them, they question every bit of that advice and end up running with their own botched build anyway.

Of course there are many some people who do appreciate the help, but I've found the whole process to be quite draining and I can fully understand why some veteran players simply won't bother.

I don't see how a temporary buff would fix that since the core issue is that the 'play how you want' marketing angle fills players with the false idea that any approach is viable in all content.

. Yes ^

AlienatedGoat · January 30

Warhawke_80 wrote: »

I dunno ESO is probably the easiest MMO to play (especially the Metagame) there are all kind of comprehensive videos on how to play properly .....there was even a effort by the end game community to teach people how to do Trials ...it just didn't go very far.

The amount of people who are into that type of Gameplay is really small these days...WoW is having the same problem since they have offered alternate things to do at End game not very many people Raid anymore...I just think this is all part of the evolution of gaming. As people are drawn more to singular pursuits and in a couple years your won't be able to tell AI from Real People.

The issue is that ESO has a bit of a learning curve that can't really be learned properly without consulting outside materials (videos, guides, discords, etc). So that inevitably results in a large portion of players not knowing how systems and game mechanics work, since they have little exposure in-game to that information.

That's where the experienced players are supposed to step in to teach them - but OP is right, and I've also noticed that over the past few years a lot of the helpful experienced players have left the game, for different reasons. We've hemorrhaged an important resource for keeping the game knowledge base healthy. To turn that around we have to find a way to bring our experienced players together with our new players, so they can continue passing on what they have learned and keep the flow of information going.

Desiato · January 30

Such things won't work in ESO because the player base is so diversified and there are HUGE gaps between players.

Arguably the worst mistake ZOS ever made was encouraging hardcore players to group with casuals in group finder randoms by incentivizing it with too good to resist rewards. We can see in these forums casuals generally do not like to be grouped with hardcore players and vice versa.

And it's obvious why. They like to play the game in completely different ways. Legit gamers are naturally motivated to seek out knowledge that is readily available on the web. They can't help those who would rather ask another person a basic question instead of asking google exactly the same thing.

With that said, the end game in ESO is pretty dead. But not from a lack of effort. Most end game players are desperate for new blood. Therefore ESO has incredibly small end game community that is incredibly supportive to those who are willing to listen and be taught. If anyone wants to go down this path, send me a DM and I'll point you in the right direction.

valenwood_vegan · January 30

Just something to add, as a player who's been around a while - I used to spend a lot of time helping newer players out with builds, advice, running content, etc., but I gave up because about 90% of them quit the game within weeks, in the cp 200-400 range. At one point over half of my friends list was filled with players who fell into this category. It seems like there's a lot of friction for players at this stage who are trying to put their first real build together and make the move into higher level content, stuck between trivial overland and base game dungeons and content that's overwhelming for them.

I honestly don't have a proposed solution, but to me this is a major, related issue - I mean we have fewer experienced players willing to help to begin with and they only have so much time and energy and it starts to feel like a waste when most of the players end up leaving after you've invested all this time into helping.

And like Desiato was saying above, the more motivated players who make it to endgame are often taking the initiative, seeking out information and connecting with groups and putting in the necessary practice and grinding. For more casual players who don't fall into this category, I'm not even sure what we as players can do to get them past the huge gap in playstyle and ability.

Frayton · January 30

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

In a game I've played in the past, there was a "New Player Incentive" feature. It provided each character who had just reached the maximum level with a 20-stack buff that lasted for one month, increasing the character's maximum health by 2% and attack power by 1% per stack. Each time a raid instance is completed, it lowers the level by one, and every player in the raid (including the new player) receives an additional set item or rare item from that instance.

I think ESO could borrow this concept to develop a system that encourages experienced players to mentor new players, providing additional rewards to incentivize team play.

This is actually a good idea. I played a game with similar incentive. Everyone was awarded extra currency that was needed for upgrades if there was a player who had never done the veteran dungeon before. No one abused it bc the progress and leveling required to make a character that could actually join endgame content was challenging and time consuming.

Ratzkifal · January 30

I see this issue being two-fold (at least). On the one hand the tutorials in this game are severely lacking, important concepts are not being taught and the max (gear) level is reached so quickly now, partly because of the adjusted XP curve for CP, that players at "max level" are ill prepared for the content that is now open to them. People used to have actual crafted builds on their journey from vet1 to vet16 because it simply took longer to level up. Now it makes barely any sense to even switch off your lvl50 gear because you'll reach 160CP in no time at all.

The other issue is cultural. In this game the mantra of "play the way you want" has been heavily used in the promotion of this game. The problem is that many people understand it as "nobody can tell me what to do" and that's true, right up until you enter group content that is too difficult to complete in a reasonable amount of time if you don't optmize your builds at least a little. People who insist on only spamming light attacks or people who run a restoration staff and sword&board on their "damage dealer" because they think it's cool - if telling those people to come back with a better build is considered harassment because in this game you can play the way you want, then the veterans simply stop bothering. It's a cycle that perpetuates itself. The veterans should be more patient and willing to teach and casuals/new players should be more willing to compromise, improve, adapt and overcome.

This is also why there are people wanting overland content to be more difficult. Players should encounter more friction as they level up, so they feel the need to improve. If not even quest bosses in overland can even threaten to get you below 50% HP, the lack of danger makes players complacent and stop improving, not to mention that it's a major letdown story-wise if the big bad that's threatening the region goes down in two hits.

sarahthes · January 30

The larger raiding discords, including ones more end-game focused, are very welcoming to new players.

The main issue is finding those discords, to be honest. An overhaul of the guild system would probably help quite a bit, as many of the discords do have associated guilds, and don't require guild membership to join their runs - you only have to join the discord.

Back when I still led a guild I had this policy. I also focused on teaching raids to newer players in a smaller environment than the bigger guilds, and it was quite successful. But, the vast majority of players also never progressed beyond vet trials. I think of the people I introduced to raiding, perhaps 3-5% went on to anything harder than vKA HM (I tended to focus on getting all vet trials, crag HM, vMoL HM, and vHoF HM for people).

Pevey · January 30

Purple Button Horde was great. I don't think it's a bad thing at all that most didn't go past vet trials. Every player has their own preference for how much effort they want to put into various parts of the game. It's important when helping new players (if that's something people want to do), to keep in mind that helping is not the same as trying to get them to play the game exactly the way that you play the game. I think people who want to tackle harder PVE content will seek out the communities that can help them with that, at whatever level they are. There are a lot fewer these days, but still there.

jle30303 · January 31

Hey Pevey. Are you the person who wrote the "Become A Bard" mod for Skyrim? Just to say I enjoy that a lot :-)

ZhuJiuyin · January 31

Ratzkifal wrote: »

I see this issue being two-fold (at least). On the one hand the tutorials in this game are severely lacking, important concepts are not being taught and the max (gear) level is reached so quickly now, partly because of the adjusted XP curve for CP, that players at "max level" are ill prepared for the content that is now open to them. People used to have actual crafted builds on their journey from vet1 to vet16 because it simply took longer to level up. Now it makes barely any sense to even switch off your lvl50 gear because you'll reach 160CP in no time at all.

The other issue is cultural. In this game the mantra of "play the way you want" has been heavily used in the promotion of this game. The problem is that many people understand it as "nobody can tell me what to do" and that's true, right up until you enter group content that is too difficult to complete in a reasonable amount of time if you don't optmize your builds at least a little. People who insist on only spamming light attacks or people who run a restoration staff and sword&board on their "damage dealer" because they think it's cool - if telling those people to come back with a better build is considered harassment because in this game you can play the way you want, then the veterans simply stop bothering. It's a cycle that perpetuates itself. The veterans should be more patient and willing to teach and casuals/new players should be more willing to compromise, improve, adapt and overcome.

This is also a difficulty our guild encounters when teaching new players. Many new players don't even know how to interrupt, nor do they know there's a built-in encyclopedia in the game.

ESO's tutorial really needs optimization, and many useless sets need to be strengthened to truly embody the "play the way you want" concept. Many new players I've met don't know how to properly combine gear because many pieces look strong but are actually very weak, such as Icy Conjurer, The Ice Furnace, and Overwhelming Surge. I've seen new players choose Netch's Touch + Ilambris, thinking they can create a lightning mage for PvE, but we all know his DPS will be...