Oh how I wish we still had Chapters

Skorro · April 4

Personally I prefer this new route - Elsweyr was the last real chapter I really enjoyed but the chapters all just felt essentially like a template with a bit of story:
- 6 WB and delves
- 2 PD with something you had to collect inside
- Trial (my highlight)
- some returning character
- collect stuff to make a random collectable
- kill the BBEG or (depending on the year), his no. 1 guy

And if you weren't a fan of the theme then 🤷
I like that we get (mostly the same probably) but not in a forced tired way and the potential for more

Lixiviant · April 4

Miss the chapters. Miss how the game used to be each year, and it kept me subscribing to ESO Plus.

I understand they felt the game needed a refresher, but the direction they are going in just isn't doing it for me. Still have a bad taste about the whole Solstice mess.

At least it gave me the push to stop subscribing and to put more time into other games. That is a good thing.

katanagirl1 · April 6

I miss the chapters too. I don’t think the lesser quality of the writing in more recent chapters is a reason to drop them completely. I’ll never understand the problem with the zone being formulaic either. I enjoyed doing the delves, public dungeons, world bosses, side quests, and exploring the zone. If you think the quality will improve by giving us smaller content, I’m afraid you are likely to be disappointed. I can appreciate the optimism but I do not share it. Let’s see where we are at the end of the year. I suspect it will be just like the year of improvements.

So far all I have now is a book with chores in it. I have to do a lot of them just to get to the point where I can buy something. Not an improvement in my opinion.

AllenaNightWood · April 6

im fine with no full blown new zone this year in all honesty

DoofusMax · April 6

I think I'll be contrarian here. For me, "chapter" means (1) three new craftable sets, (2) three new overland sets, (3) two new public dungeons (which I'll do once for the skill points and then forget about them), (4) three new motifs, (5) six new delves, (6) six new WBs, (7) an incursion event of some kind, (8) dailies to match #5-#7, (9) a Trial, (10) a zone story (maybe well written, maybe not-so-much) which is worth 3 skill points, (11) 12 fish to catch, and so forth. Nick was pretty clear that they were moving away from chapters, at least in part because they had become formulaic. You know what you're going to get (quality can vary) and when you're going to get it. Predictable and bordering on blase because of that. I'm pretty much OK with stepping outside of the chapter box and seeing what else can be done in smaller, bite-sized piece spread across multiple updates. Not gonna lie: predictability is comfortable, but I'm OK with stepping out of that comfort zone. Take a walk on the wild side (grow eyes in the back of your head because some of this stuff is going to unexpectedly smack you and maybe not in a good way).

Masteroshi430 · April 6

You guys don't miss chapters, you miss new zones (I do too) but the the game is a huge boat and it takes time to change direction, they are both revisiting outdated parts of the game and providing new content, I think new zones will happen less often but with better quality and with less predictable content.

Also the season / Tamriel Tomes system is just starting, they will improve it with time.

Destai · April 6

Chapters were nice because you knew roughly what you were getting. A new zone with the same checklist and some small features. While that did get stale, it set player expectations. We didn't need to be constantly informed, checking roadmaps and other official communications, to know when XYZ feature is coming out.

Now that we're in a seasonal model - the only takeaway I want is more packaging. So for this season, the features are being spread out in a confusing way. For instance, the art for the Season is focused around the Night Market, which isn't out yet. It's the flagship feature of the reason - right? - and didn't launch with the season opening. That's an odd choice.

There's a balance to be had and I think they're still figuring that out in yet another transition year. Season flagships should launch with the season. I'm fine with the class reworks releasing independently of that.

katanagirl1 · April 7

Destai wrote: »

Chapters were nice because you knew roughly what you were getting. A new zone with the same checklist and some small features. While that did get stale, it set player expectations. We didn't need to be constantly informed, checking roadmaps and other official communications, to know when XYZ feature is coming out.

Now that we're in a seasonal model - the only takeaway I want is more packaging. So for this season, the features are being spread out in a confusing way. For instance, the art for the Season is focused around the Night Market, which isn't out yet. It's the flagship feature of the reason - right? - and didn't launch with the season opening. That's an odd choice.

There's a balance to be had and I think they're still figuring that out in yet another transition year. Season flagships should launch with the season. I'm fine with the class reworks releasing independently of that.

Exactly. By saying you are okay with not getting chapters you (not you personally but the hypothetical “you”) are saying I’m okay with getting less. Less is not very quantifiable, it could be slightly less or it could be significantly less. The delayed timing also makes it feel worse right now. This game has been traveling down a rocky road for the last year or more, it really needs to get back onto smooth payment quickly.

The changes already are making the game feel less like Elder Scrolls to me. I hope they can do something to correct that. I used to spend a few minutes to crank out a few Endeavors and then go do something I want to do, now I look at this long chore list (kill 1000 enemies in 3 zones is just one of them) and think wow, I’d like to go do this other thing but I need to get started on these chores.

DMuehlhausen · April 7

There will still most likely be trailers and new musical scores etc.

Nothing really changes except the tempo of how things are released. I'm with you that I like the annual chapter release more, but I'm guessing they will still put out the same preview stuff.

Mathius_Mordred · 10:09AM

I wonder how they have calculated their income stream from this. Apart from ESO+ and the Buy to Play, their main income was from people buying the DLC, either the standard or the deluxe. They could work out the expected sales of these products based on previous experience and player numbers, and possibly the state of the global economy but especially in the US and the EU.

Now they are in unknown territory. There are no more DLCs, no more failed Content Pass. They seem to be relying on people buying premium tome caches (unless I've missed something). These caches unlock extra tome rewards that you can then earn tome points to purchase.

Here is the kicker, previously, in order to play a new zone with your guild mates or even solo you MUST have bought the DLC. This was a massive incentive to shell out cash when you might not have really wanted to. Now, you don't have to pay anything; everything you purchase from the tome store is a cosmetic item of some sort that has exactly zero relevance to gameplay abilities or locations you can visit. It would be possible for a player to never spend a single tome point and still enjoy the game everywhere with their guild mates; the incentive to purchase has gone.

The average player age in this game is around 35-55 years. Based on plenty of previous polls, I myself am 61. People in these age groups are not so attracted to shinys as younger people in my experience. This is not Fortnite. Maybe I'm reading it all wrong, but if they end up going back to Chapters in the next year or two, then we'll at least know why.

licenturion · 10:39AM

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

I wonder how they have calculated their income stream from this. Apart from ESO+ and the Buy to Play, their main income was from people buying the DLC, either the standard or the deluxe. They could work out the expected sales of these products based on previous experience and player numbers, and possibly the state of the global economy but especially in the US and the EU.

Now they are in unknown territory. There are no more DLCs, no more failed Content Pass. They seem to be relying on people buying premium tome caches (unless I've missed something). These caches unlock extra tome rewards that you can then earn tome points to purchase.

I wonder about this too. I always bought the pre-order deluxe version right after the year reveal stream every year and I usually play daily. I don't buy cosmetics (I have tons from chapters and events), I don't buy crates (I don't do gambling) and I don't buy ESO+ (I don't do game subscriptions). I also bought the dungeons which was usually 30 euro's each year.

So now with the battlepass tomes, I go from spending 100 euros each year to 0 euros for this game forward because all the actual content will be free and I don't need more cosmetic stuff. I use my ESO money on other games and their DLC now because if you have all the zones and dungeons like I do, ESO is now basically a free to play game.

I also didn't see a lot of people with the seasonal cosmetics/personality/weapons/mounts equipped so far. So I am wondering how well this is going from a financial standpoint. Usually the first season sells the most because it is new and people surf the hype wave. Time will tell... One thing is for sure, they can't switch monetisation model for a third time next year, because people seem already super confused this year.

Mathius_Mordred · 11:44AM

licenturion wrote: »

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

I wonder how they have calculated their income stream from this. Apart from ESO+ and the Buy to Play, their main income was from people buying the DLC, either the standard or the deluxe. They could work out the expected sales of these products based on previous experience and player numbers, and possibly the state of the global economy but especially in the US and the EU.

Now they are in unknown territory. There are no more DLCs, no more failed Content Pass. They seem to be relying on people buying premium tome caches (unless I've missed something). These caches unlock extra tome rewards that you can then earn tome points to purchase.

I wonder about this too. I always bought the pre-order deluxe version right after the year reveal stream every year and I usually play daily. I don't buy cosmetics (I have tons from chapters and events), I don't buy crates (I don't do gambling) and I don't buy ESO+ (I don't do game subscriptions). I also bought the dungeons which was usually 30 euro's each year.

So now with the battlepass tomes, I go from spending 100 euros each year to 0 euros for this game forward because all the actual content will be free and I don't need more cosmetic stuff. I use my ESO money on other games and their DLC now because if you have all the zones and dungeons like I do, ESO is now basically a free to play game.

I also didn't see a lot of people with the seasonal cosmetics/personality/weapons/mounts equipped so far. So I am wondering how well this is going from a financial standpoint. Usually the first season sells the most because it is new and people surf the hype wave. Time will tell... One thing is for sure, they can't switch monetisation model for a third time next year, because people seem already super confused this year.

Thanks for basically confirming exactly what I felt was now happening. I mean the devs have the metrics and must have crunched the numbers, so surely they can't have made such a monumental error? Time will very quickly tell I fear!