A senior citizens warning list of frustrations.

Harold_Hedd · October 2022

I did finaly decide to give ESO a try - I have played Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim previously and loved them all. I have also played The Witcher 1, 2 and 3, KOTOR and KOTOR II, Never Winternights 2, Half-Life and Unreal Tournament - and several other games.

My current set-up is a Mac mini M1 wirh 8 Gb memory, a Philips 40" HD LED TV, Logitech MX 3 mouse and Logitech MX Mechanical mini keyboard. I run the game with Maximum settings in graphics.

My first computer was a Compaq with a 600 mhz processor and 256 mb memory - that was a long time ago - and I began to assemble my own computers. I joined 2 hardwaretest sites and began to overclock the processors and the hunt for finding the best steppings, and spent a lot of time soldering under a microscope and burning BIOS.
I also spent some years with protonic.com doing general support.

I parted ways with Windows computers a few years ago and was happily surprised when I learned that ESO can run on Mac.

This is also my first MMO game ever.

After the intro and the obligatory excersices in moving and pressing keys, I ended up in a Nord country and was set free to roam the wilderness.

It has taken a bit of time to get used to the game and to get familiar with it and it has brought a lot of frustration. There is some good help to find in the forum and from other players, but here are some of the frustrations that you also might meet.

The map is absolutely terrible, it is small and lacks a proper zooming ability. I have spent a lot of time trying to find out where to travel to to follow the quests. Often you open your journal and presses m to show on map and gets a city. Hmmm, you can then right click on the map to go to the region. Hmmmm, if you right click again to get to the world map. And that doesn't really help much.
You can travel free through the Wayshrines - if you have discovered them - and that means, you can stand 10 feet away from a wayshrine and it will not show on your map. You litterally have to run all the way up the wayshrine for it to be visible on the map - and that does also include cities. It would have been very very nice to have the wayshrines showing up on the city map when entering a city, since all the other crafting tables and stations and inns and guilds and fences do show up.

The compass bar is also confusing since it by default shows all markers to questgivers and quests, dungeons and delves but still no wayshrines.
I had to go into settings and change it to only show focused quests to at least get a little less confusing compass.

As of now I haven't been able to figure out why the wayshrines have to be so secret. It makes no sense to me. If it is to force you to explore the world, it could mean thet you are spending days running around trying to find the right location - and you will ofcourse be sidetracked and could end up with a massive amount of active quests or be really really bored.

And when exploring you will encounter a lot of giant bats, wolfs, bears, lions, spiders, scorpions, beetles, and nasty brooding mosquitos along with scavengers, ravengers, bandits, mages and other hostile npc's. And this is where you have to be prepared for the hack/slash element of the game. Sometimes it seems like you are constantly flooded with enemies, no matter which way you turn. And if you don't engage in the combat you can try to run/sprint pass them - but then again, where is the exploring in that......
It does seem though, that when your level gets higher, you can go pretty near them without provoking their attacking.

In the previous games I developed a liking to sneak around in the delves searching for teasures. This is not very much fun in ESO, and I am almost always being passed by other players, sprinting for the skyshard location and the delve boss. And I can understand them better now - the looting is terible with tons of food items that you can collect and craft and sell for 1 gold. It doesn't feel like it is worth the time, there is so much more to gain from the skyshard point and the boss killing.
So I have learned and accepted the hard way, that this will never be like the previous games, this is a totally different game, and not that it per se is bad, it is just not what I had hoped for or expected.

The quests I have finished so far has all been very very time consuming with tons of travel and hack/slash delays and trying to figure out where to go and running around in cities to make sure that the wayshrines are discovered. There is also a nasty habit of loosing the marker in the compass bar within a few feet and again no help in the map, and the distances you have to run compared with the map does not correlate either.

So it is a bit like running around with no purpose and being passed by a lot of other players, sprinting into somewhere, and it is easy to feel lost. I hope my character levveling is on the right track and I am currently on level 21.
I have bought 180 days of ESO+ membership, but I haven't realy used it yet, but if you can afford it, the unlimited crafting bag is a huge help. It gives a lot of room to loot and collect without constantly being in danger of running out of storageroom.
And I have spent a lot of time reading the forum posts, writing forum posts, searching the internet and watched youtube videos.
The one truly overwhelming positive experience is the community and the amount of help provided by other players and the love shown for the game. I am also beginning to fall in love with the game and the landscapes and the memories and the flashbacks and I have decided to live with the sily and frustrating and time consuming elements.

The things that helped me the most was to turn the graphic settings to Maximum. That gave a much clearer picture. To switch from FPP to TPP, to install the Map Pins mod and to only have focused quests shown in the compass bar.
And don't be afraid to get killed - you can not loose your game, you are simply transported back to the nearest wayshrine or entrance point. And this is a good thing once you get used to it. It was a nightmare in the previous games to loose a game, espicially if you forgot to save for some time....aaaarrrrgghhh......

boi_anachronism_ · October 2022

One thing to note for food crafting. You can get the chef and brewer skill on the skill line which allows you to craft 4 at a time. Then craft the food that sells for 5 gold, 5 gold per 25 crafts. That said if you want to make good money from crafting so the alchemy skill line and craft poisons. You get 16 per. If I craft 100 I usually get about 8k gold. Good luck 😊

whitecrow · October 2022

The wayshrines should appear on your compass and your map when you are near enough, but you don't have to be less than 10 feet away.

I agree about the relentless mobs. They've toned that down in recent expansions, since Blackwood. There is more unoccupied space to explore peacefully.

JARTHEGREY · October 2022

And if you think YOUR Map is bad ... you should see it on Xbox. Trying to navigate a way around (or over) the mountains in front of you is a 'mini-game' in itself.

ellmarie · October 2022

I understand where you're coming from. This was my first mmo game as well. Although you are familiar with the mmo play style, I was not. I tried playing it years ago and found it difficult. This was also before One Tamriel, where everything was zoned leveled. I thought the process of crafting was inundated. I was used to Skyrim, where crafting was easy and leveled and learned quickly. ESO is not so quick with crafting, So I quit for a time.

I returned a couple years ago because my husband was playing alot and I was watching him, and I wanted to get back into it. We got another console, and we were able to play together. That made it sooooo much easier. Then I joined some guilds and that was extremely helpful. I agree with you on the community. I watched many YouTube videos on builds, and also came here to get suggestions. Of course, just when I think I feel comfortable with my builds, they make some changes, and I have to make adjustments, that gets annoying. So I get your frustrations. Hope you join some guilds though!

Harold_Hedd · October 2022

I am currently exploring Blackwood, and it is much more to my liking. I tried the Start-Gazer quest in Craiglorn just before Blackwood, and I had to leave it unfinished and go and look for Mirri to get some help. It is really difficult to play alone with the group play involved. And DO NOT use the Rift.......

I have also come to terms withh hooking up on others as a third wheel sort of feeling. Some delves are totally over run and theres is no point in sneaking around. Anyway it might actually be that you get more rewarded when running straight up to the npc's to kill them, rather than trying to snipe them from afar.

It does still feel rushed and fragmented, and sometimes childish. I mean you run around trying to keep some sort of pace so you do not need to fight the same guys multiple times, and then out of nowhere you have suddenly entered the correct area and have solved the quest, or have picked up the quest item without doing anything or have found the right person, but there is noone in sight. That feels totally empty and unfinished.

But so far I am level 31 and are doing okay in the game. There are a lot of things to figure out and learn, and I have no idea what comes next. This game wil never be my favorite and it is a mix of stubborness, curiosity from my side and some really good elements and story lines and the progress of your character, that keeps me in there. I wil never come to like the strange respawning of a boss - last happened to me when I was in dialog with the Dark Brotherhood leader in Blackwood. It is so bad.

whitecrow · October 2022

As long as there aren't more than a dozen people there, there should be no difference in reward depending on what kind of hit you get on the enemy.

I agree that the timing of events could be better, but maybe it's just unavoidable in an MMO where anyone could be coming through at any time.

Androrix · October 2022

Ha ha. Great post OP.

Kotor and Witcher FTW! (Oh, and Dragon Age)

Love this game too, but just a warning--you may soon be surprised to learn there is a main quest you knew nothing about. The tutorials don't tell you about that at all, and they should.

Memory_In_Motion · October 2022

Harold_Hedd wrote: »

My first computer was a Compaq with a 600 mhz processor and 256 mb memory - that was a long time ago - and I began to assemble my own computers. I joined 2 hardwaretest sites and began to overclock the processors and the hunt for finding the best steppings, and spent a lot of time soldering under a microscope and burning BIOS.
I also spent some years with protonic.com doing general support.

my first pc was a tandy 100 with cga graphics that was eventually upgraded to ega. played pools of radiance on it. 8088 processor.

Tandor · October 2022

I think a lot of your problems are down to it being an MMO, which for you is a new experience. Respawning mobs, for example, are down to it being necessary for other players to engage with so you just need to move on perhaps a little quicker than you are used to doing in an offline single-player game.

It's nothing to do with your being a senior citizen of course, it's more a question of gaming background. I say that as a player in my 70s who has been playing MMOs for 25 years and to whom some of the issues you raise came as second nature. Persevere and adapt from the offline single-player approach (whilst perfectly free to play solo of course, whilst there will be other players around you at times) and your enjoyment will grow.

zaria · October 2022

whitecrow wrote: »

The wayshrines should appear on your compass and your map when you are near enough, but you don't have to be less than 10 feet away.

I agree about the relentless mobs. They've toned that down in recent expansions, since Blackwood. There is more unoccupied space to explore peacefully.

Yes one tips is to mark the target on the map.
Doing the Dark Brotherhood quest line gives an passive who make mobs less likely to agro if riding close but with high horse stamina they will not pull you off your horse. Not even world bosses can unless you stay around until half dead.

Dropping an AoE, typical wall of element or rain of arrows behind you tend to get chasing mobs to disengage.
It also tend to works for the you are in combat error, but if you hit something like an mudcrab with the AoE you are in combat

Memory_In_Motion · October 2022

vampire level 10 with all passives gives you invibility after sprinting for 3 continuous seconds. Very handy in cyrodil while collecting skyshards. In general it makes the mobs not see you at all. I can run through any dungeon that doesnt have a locked door without a mob seeing me if i wish it.

AcadianPaladin · October 2022

@Harold_Hedd I think your observations are about what I would expect if just starting ESO. I started so long ago that things were quite simple. I can imagine it feels a confusing mess to a new player. That said, I also enjoyed several of the games from your game history so I expect you might eventually like ESO. Be patient and allow plenty of time. The confusion will gradually come into focus with experience and you will learn how things work. I prefer single player games but ESO has been my elf's exclusive home for 10k hours of gameplay and 7 years. That it has managed this in spite of being an MMO is impressive. What keeps me here is the sheer mass and scale (that dwarfs Oblivion and Skyrim combined), and the beautiful game world. It is also quite solo friendly.

Castagere · October 2022

I don't get why wayshrines and just about everything not showing up on the top of the screen compass area.

SeaGtGruff · October 2022

Androrix wrote: »

Ha ha. Great post OP.

Kotor and Witcher FTW! (Oh, and Dragon Age)

Love this game too, but just a warning--you may soon be surprised to learn there is a main quest you knew nothing about. The tutorials don't tell you about that at all, and they should.

There's an NPC in each alliance's first zone who gets you started on the Main Quest by directing you to go talk to a mysterious benefactor. IIRC, the NPC has the fancy "zone questline" quest pointer, but it might help (as far as assisting new players who are having trouble figuring out how to begin the Main Quest) if the quest pointer were a special color, such as golden.

The first zones for each alliance are as follows:

Aldmeri Dominion -- Auridon (quest giver is in Vulkhel Guard)
Daggerfall Covenant -- Glenumbra (quest giver is in Daggerfall)
Ebonheart Pact -- Stonefalls (quest giver is in Davon's Watch)

WiseSky · October 2022

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Androrix wrote: »

Ha ha. Great post OP.

Kotor and Witcher FTW! (Oh, and Dragon Age)

Love this game too, but just a warning--you may soon be surprised to learn there is a main quest you knew nothing about. The tutorials don't tell you about that at all, and they should.

There's an NPC in each alliance's first zone who gets you started on the Main Quest by directing you to go talk to a mysterious benefactor. IIRC, the NPC has the fancy "zone questline" quest pointer, but it might help (as far as assisting new players who are having trouble figuring out how to begin the Main Quest) if the quest pointer were a special color, such as golden.

The first zones for each alliance are as follows:

Aldmeri Dominion -- Auridon (quest giver is in Vulkhel Guard)
Daggerfall Covenant -- Glenumbra (quest giver is in Daggerfall)
Ebonheart Pact -- Stonefalls (quest giver is in Davon's Watch)

If you have not been to the player alliance the hooded figure will be at :

Talk to the Hooded Figure:

[ALLIANCE_ALDMERI_DOMINION]="near by the Vulkhel Guard wayshrine in Auridon.",
[ALLIANCE_DAGGERFALL_COVENANT]="near by the Daggerfall city wayshrine in Glenumbra.",
[ALLIANCE_EBONHEART_PACT]="near by the Davon's Watch city wayshrine in Stonefalls.",

If you have visited the alliance and left by not talking to the hooded figure they will be :

Talk to the Hooded Figure:

[ALLIANCE_ALDMERI_DOMINION]="who is relaxing on the deck of The Interim Suitor ship at the Vulkhel
Guard docks in Auridon.",

[ALLIANCE_DAGGERFALL_COVENANT]="who is feeding the chickens near the southeastern gate in the city
of Daggerfall in Glenumbra.",

[ALLIANCE_EBONHEART_PACT]="who is fixing a wooden cart by the bridge that arcs over the two ponds in
Davon's Watch city in Stonefalls.",

blktauna · October 2022

@ZOS_GinaBruno this is why folks are clamouring for decent tutorials.

@Harold_Hedd, If you are familiar with youtube, there are many good base line informative videos.

markulrich1966 · October 2022

I play ESO since four years, while Skyrim maybe half a year, twice (SE and VR).

You are level 21, and maybe expect such a level is comparable to a level 21 in Skyrim, when you have finished already 1/3 of the game.

But 21 is nothing, you reach level cap at "champion 1400" or so.

I found Skyrim boring once I had "finished" it, while ESO meanwhile gave me 4 years of fun.
I often smile reading such complaints, remembering when I had no clue myself, and how proud I was once I found out yet another cool thing that helped me to do content that was too hard/understandable in the beginning.

It is this long term learniing, exploring, advancing, that makes this game so much more interesting. I never had such a long term motivation in any other game.

If you are not open to continuous exploration and learning, such kind of game might be wrong for you, and you might prefer to play another medival RPG instead, one after the other. Some months where you become expert quickly, finish, and turn to the next game. This is absolutely ok, because every player is different, but I don't want to go back to such content.

(as someone wrote before: learn the benefits of becoming a vampire to hide, or a thief using darloc brae and night mothers gear, you can sneak right through mobs. Or a nightblade with the skill to become invisible. Or use invisibility potions. Many options. It is quite satisfying when you found out such things).

Amottica · October 2022

Memory_In_Motion wrote: »

Harold_Hedd wrote: »

My first computer was a Compaq with a 600 mhz processor and 256 mb memory - that was a long time ago - and I began to assemble my own computers. I joined 2 hardwaretest sites and began to overclock the processors and the hunt for finding the best steppings, and spent a lot of time soldering under a microscope and burning BIOS.
I also spent some years with protonic.com doing general support.

my first pc was a tandy 100 with cga graphics that was eventually upgraded to ega. played pools of radiance on it. 8088 processor.

My first computer was a Commodore 64. IIRC it connected to a TV. I played Donkey Kong on it.

Vevvev · October 2022

whitecrow wrote: »

I agree about the relentless mobs. They've toned that down in recent expansions, since Blackwood. There is more unoccupied space to explore peacefully.

I honestly think they overdid it. They actually started doing it in Greymoor and Western Skyrim's overland feels incredibly empty as a result, although I will admit back before One Tamriel Reaper's March was insanely annoying lol. There was a lion behind every single tree it felt like.

Harold_Hedd · October 2022

Thanks again for all the replies, it is so nice to read your feedback.

And as several of you has suspected, time has shown to be the best way to fall more in love with the game.

I am now level 34 and found a lot more freedom and calmness in the game when I switched weapons to staffs. I started out with one-handed and shield, then a bow, then two-handed batle axe, then bow again and fimally I found the benefits of stafffs.

I am a Nord Templar and I am having so much fun with a restoration staff with life draining enchantment, and as secondary weapon, a flame staff wirh poisons equipped.

This does mean though, that I am running around the npcs in crazy circles trying to navigate the given room/area and not being hit very much. But it has given me confidence in the delves and an almost certain success in beating the delve bosses alone.

I have also been rewarded with a skill distribution opportunity, and I am going to do some reading to figure out if my skills are disributed correct, or if I might be better of with moving some of them.

So, yes, all good comes to the patient ones, and thankfully ZOS throws some life savers in the game.

And I know a lot of my frustrations comes out as complaints, and I guess it was all just a little too overwhelming at once.

Still it would absolutely be extremely nice with an option to go for a beginners introduction or an experienced intruduction. That way you could get "nursed" in to the game and follow a quest to the end and experience the different environment, without being spammed with markers and other quests that you accidently mistakes for the one you try to follow. You know, sort of "this is the way we ( ZOS ) has intended the game to be like" or "this is how the game works corrctly", kind of thing to help guide you, when you are set free afterwards.
And I guess there are boat or caravan options when you have to travel to a region you haven't visited yet, but not all boats/caravans travel to your desired destination, and it would really be a huge help to have one wayshrine accessible in every region as a starting point.
And I don't know if there is an option to NOT set a new quest as active when it is picked up, but that would also be very nice.

I have received some links to helpful sites, thanks again, and I will continue to read and get more wise - but, man, I spent the same amount of time reading and watching videos about the game, as I do plying the game.

The next challenge for me will be to find a guild to help me in Craglorn. I have asked one via the in game guild finder, but had no response.
And to figure out how to use the chat window/function to maybe ask for help in a specific zone.
And how to communicate with other players, and how not to offend them accidently and if I need a microphone - well, I guess I do........

Dr_Con · October 2022

Have you played the games with add-ons yet?

Harold_Hedd · October 2022

Dr_Con wrote: »

Have you played the games with add-ons yet?

Yes, I have the Map Pins and the Greybind Quick Slot Bar installed.

I am thinking about the automatically crafting add-on as well, and begin doing the crafting writs.

old_scopie1945 · October 2022

As a player in my late 70s I have been playing this game since day one. When I started out, I found it very confusing, and in a lot of respects it was a very different game then. I got a lot of help from watching YouTube, and now there is no lack of information that you can find about ESO. I use addons extensively, which are a great help. Yet again you can get plenty of advice about this on YouTube. For one you can download a very handy minimap. There are two milestones in this game. Level 50 when you start to gain Champion Points, and CP 160 when your gear caps out. There is a lot to learn in starting out in this game, more so than Oblivion and Skyrim. I love this game, and in my opinion, I think the work involved is well worth it. In the end you will be running around like the other players and find the overland content a doddle. The only difference for us older players is that our reactions are not as fast as the younger ones. Otherwise, no problems.

SeaGtGruff · October 2022

ESO is my first and only MMO, and when I started playing it back in mid-2017 it took a little while to adapt to the differences between a single-player offline game and an MMO. I did fall instantly in love with ESO because of the sheer size and variety of its game world, but the technical differences drove me crazy at first. But eventually I adapted, and now I even take a different approach to the single-player games.

WiseSky · October 2022

Harold_Hedd wrote: »

Thanks again for all the replies, it is so nice to read your feedback.

And as several of you has suspected, time has shown to be the best way to fall more in love with the game.

I am now level 34 and found a lot more freedom and calmness in the game when I switched weapons to staffs. I started out with one-handed and shield, then a bow, then two-handed batle axe, then bow again and fimally I found the benefits of stafffs.

I am a Nord Templar and I am having so much fun with a restoration staff with life draining enchantment, and as secondary weapon, a flame staff wirh poisons equipped.

This does mean though, that I am running around the npcs in crazy circles trying to navigate the given room/area and not being hit very much. But it has given me confidence in the delves and an almost certain success in beating the delve bosses alone.

I have also been rewarded with a skill distribution opportunity, and I am going to do some reading to figure out if my skills are disributed correct, or if I might be better of with moving some of them.

So, yes, all good comes to the patient ones, and thankfully ZOS throws some life savers in the game.

And I know a lot of my frustrations comes out as complaints, and I guess it was all just a little too overwhelming at once.

Still it would absolutely be extremely nice with an option to go for a beginners introduction or an experienced intruduction. That way you could get "nursed" in to the game and follow a quest to the end and experience the different environment, without being spammed with markers and other quests that you accidently mistakes for the one you try to follow. You know, sort of "this is the way we ( ZOS ) has intended the game to be like" or "this is how the game works corrctly", kind of thing to help guide you, when you are set free afterwards.
And I guess there are boat or caravan options when you have to travel to a region you haven't visited yet, but not all boats/caravans travel to your desired destination, and it would really be a huge help to have one wayshrine accessible in every region as a starting point.
And I don't know if there is an option to NOT set a new quest as active when it is picked up, but that would also be very nice.

I have received some links to helpful sites, thanks again, and I will continue to read and get more wise - but, man, I spent the same amount of time reading and watching videos about the game, as I do plying the game.

The next challenge for me will be to find a guild to help me in Craglorn. I have asked one via the in game guild finder, but had no response.
And to figure out how to use the chat window/function to maybe ask for help in a specific zone.
And how to communicate with other players, and how not to offend them accidently and if I need a microphone - well, I guess I do........

Open this List of Addons, go to Part 10 and look for SETTINGS -> INTERFACE ->HEADS-UP DISPLAY -> QUEST GIVER ICONS Section

Umm also try really hard not to get lost within that guide only use the parts you need.

Roukoru · October 2022

So, you named youself as the senior citizen, right? How about NetHack, Adventure, EoB1 or Knight Lore, yes?

Jokes aside, here are several things I would wish to know, when I started to play with ESO:
1. ESO timeline -- en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Chapters and en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Quest_Timing
2. After finishing IG tutorial, your PC should start and progress its alliance quest line (Khenarthi roost, Bleakrock or what-is-it-in-DC) and Coldharbour quest line (a.k.a. The Main Quest).
3. Craglorn zone story line for nirnhoned equipment
4. Lui Extended addon
5. All and any your PCs have to reach CP160 ASAP to prevent equipment leveling decay

Now, you will get broad picture of what and why all those thing happens here.

p.s. and Lutris GE iff you use GNU+Linux

whitecrow · October 2022

Glad you are enjoying the game more now. I had a rough time at the beginning too. This was my first MMO (not including a few unsuccessful months of Everquest 20 years ago.)

Everest_Lionheart · October 2022

The game leveling scales with you to level 50 and for sure the first 50 levels can be a bit of a grind on your first character. When you get to CP levels the game will get slightly harder up to CP160 which is the gear cap. At that point you may want to ask around in game chat (or guild chat if you join any) in your alliance capital city for some crafted CP160 gear. You shouldn’t have to pay for most of it, possibly jewelry if you want it purple quality or higher or gold weapons. I make gear for new players all the time, purple quality body pieces, blue quality jewelry and will do gold quality weapons for guild mates (purple for randoms) plus drag them through a vet dungeon to get a monster helm.

Speaking of joining a guild, some guilds out there will taxi you from wayshrine to wayshrine and lead you to skyshards and lore books to help you build you character faster. This is especially helpful when trying to level up your crafting because it takes a massive amount of skill points to max them all out.

Beyond that you do t really need to rush anything in this game, you have literally thousands of quests and thousands of hours of content at your fingertips full of lots of quirky content, good stories and some great voice acting. Final piece of advice, just because an NPC doesn’t have a quest marker over their head doesn’t mean they don’t have something to say.

This is especially true after finishing big quests when there are lots of NPC’s standing around. There will be dialogue options as it relates to the choice you may have made during the quest or you can ask what they will do next. Some of these NPC’s you will meet several times in other zones for another quest which may also lead to more dialogue options before that quest such as, “What have you been up to since we last met?”

The more side quests you fill in the more details you will get in the story, and this rings even more true in the DLC zones like Summerset, Vvardenfell, Elsweyr, Skyrim, Blackwood and High Isle plus their other zones. If you follow the main quests only in those zones the story is decent but you will get so much more out of it seeking and completing the side quests.

Castagere · October 2022

ESO is a fine game for older players. My first MMO was Anarchy Online back in 2001. I also played a lot of shooter games too. But now at 65, I can't play shooter like I used to. And the grind in most MMOs is a turn-off and a waste of my time. ESO just feels different.

MidniteOwl1913 · October 2022

Harold_Hedd wrote: »

I did finaly decide to give ESO a try - I have played Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim previously and loved them all. I have also played The Witcher 1, 2 and 3, KOTOR and KOTOR II, Never Winternights 2, Half-Life and Unreal Tournament - and several other games.

My current set-up is a Mac mini M1 wirh 8 Gb memory, a Philips 40" HD LED TV, Logitech MX 3 mouse and Logitech MX Mechanical mini keyboard. I run the game with Maximum settings in graphics.

My first computer was a Compaq with a 600 mhz processor and 256 mb memory - that was a long time ago - and I began to assemble my own computers. I joined 2 hardwaretest sites and began to overclock the processors and the hunt for finding the best steppings, and spent a lot of time soldering under a microscope and burning BIOS.
I also spent some years with protonic.com doing general support.

I parted ways with Windows computers a few years ago and was happily surprised when I learned that ESO can run on Mac.

This is also my first MMO game ever.

After the intro and the obligatory excersices in moving and pressing keys, I ended up in a Nord country and was set free to roam the wilderness.

It has taken a bit of time to get used to the game and to get familiar with it and it has brought a lot of frustration. There is some good help to find in the forum and from other players, but here are some of the frustrations that you also might meet.

The map is absolutely terrible, it is small and lacks a proper zooming ability. I have spent a lot of time trying to find out where to travel to to follow the quests. Often you open your journal and presses m to show on map and gets a city. Hmmm, you can then right click on the map to go to the region. Hmmmm, if you right click again to get to the world map. And that doesn't really help much.
You can travel free through the Wayshrines - if you have discovered them - and that means, you can stand 10 feet away from a wayshrine and it will not show on your map. You litterally have to run all the way up the wayshrine for it to be visible on the map - and that does also include cities. It would have been very very nice to have the wayshrines showing up on the city map when entering a city, since all the other crafting tables and stations and inns and guilds and fences do show up.

The compass bar is also confusing since it by default shows all markers to questgivers and quests, dungeons and delves but still no wayshrines.
I had to go into settings and change it to only show focused quests to at least get a little less confusing compass.

As of now I haven't been able to figure out why the wayshrines have to be so secret. It makes no sense to me. If it is to force you to explore the world, it could mean thet you are spending days running around trying to find the right location - and you will ofcourse be sidetracked and could end up with a massive amount of active quests or be really really bored.

And when exploring you will encounter a lot of giant bats, wolfs, bears, lions, spiders, scorpions, beetles, and nasty brooding mosquitos along with scavengers, ravengers, bandits, mages and other hostile npc's. And this is where you have to be prepared for the hack/slash element of the game. Sometimes it seems like you are constantly flooded with enemies, no matter which way you turn. And if you don't engage in the combat you can try to run/sprint pass them - but then again, where is the exploring in that......
It does seem though, that when your level gets higher, you can go pretty near them without provoking their attacking.

In the previous games I developed a liking to sneak around in the delves searching for teasures. This is not very much fun in ESO, and I am almost always being passed by other players, sprinting for the skyshard location and the delve boss. And I can understand them better now - the looting is terible with tons of food items that you can collect and craft and sell for 1 gold. It doesn't feel like it is worth the time, there is so much more to gain from the skyshard point and the boss killing.
So I have learned and accepted the hard way, that this will never be like the previous games, this is a totally different game, and not that it per se is bad, it is just not what I had hoped for or expected.

The quests I have finished so far has all been very very time consuming with tons of travel and hack/slash delays and trying to figure out where to go and running around in cities to make sure that the wayshrines are discovered. There is also a nasty habit of loosing the marker in the compass bar within a few feet and again no help in the map, and the distances you have to run compared with the map does not correlate either.

So it is a bit like running around with no purpose and being passed by a lot of other players, sprinting into somewhere, and it is easy to feel lost. I hope my character levveling is on the right track and I am currently on level 21.
I have bought 180 days of ESO+ membership, but I haven't realy used it yet, but if you can afford it, the unlimited crafting bag is a huge help. It gives a lot of room to loot and collect without constantly being in danger of running out of storageroom.
And I have spent a lot of time reading the forum posts, writing forum posts, searching the internet and watched youtube videos.
The one truly overwhelming positive experience is the community and the amount of help provided by other players and the love shown for the game. I am also beginning to fall in love with the game and the landscapes and the memories and the flashbacks and I have decided to live with the sily and frustrating and time consuming elements.

The things that helped me the most was to turn the graphic settings to Maximum. That gave a much clearer picture. To switch from FPP to TPP, to install the Map Pins mod and to only have focused quests shown in the compass bar.
And don't be afraid to get killed - you can not loose your game, you are simply transported back to the nearest wayshrine or entrance point. And this is a good thing once you get used to it. It was a nightmare in the previous games to loose a game, espicially if you forgot to save for some time....aaaarrrrgghhh......

I'm also a senior, in my late 60's. ESO is my first video game. Unless Gaia and Neopets count ;-) Neopets I joined mostly to make sure it was appropriate for my kid he was only 10 at the time...

My daughter suggested it as a retirement hobby, and I do enjoy it. She also plays so I'm lucky to have a source to ask questions of. Especially ones where no one mentions a thing because it's obvious to them. They have context that I lack because, first video, only video game... It took me a while for instance to stop walking into things. It's been a little over a year and I'm fine for the part now. I totally agree BTW about the maps. They are really terrible. I'm on console, so no addons for me. Especially in dungeons, if I lose the rest of the party I can wander a while before I find them. "Joining encounter" is a real help for me. I also really hate the blank places. There are areas that you just can't pass mostly mountains, but they aren't well marked on the map so from the larger view it looks like you can just go straight when in reality that's not possible. I try to just stick to roads now to avoid wasting time trying to find a way cross country.

I would encourage you to find a guild, I have two that I'm in that are very active and I really enjoy the company. I think the guilds are the best thing about ESO.