The State of ESO

I have been gone for a few months and I was wondering how ESO is going.  I stuck around after the first droves of people left the game but I wasn't far behind them.  Have they made good attempts at fixing a lot of the problems that drove people away...horrible vet leveling enjoyment, lag fest PvP, etc.  How many people in the guild are still logging on every night.  Just curious as I was a huge fan and supporter of the game before and for a little while after release, I really wanted it to succeed, however I didn't see the same desire or commitment from the the devs.

Although not a perfect game, I have been enjoying ESO very much and I continue to be a daily player.   Most vet quests can be done solo by any class since they reduced the difficulty of mobs in vet zones a couple of months ago.  Also, if you don't enjoy questing you have the option to grind as a veteran in Craglorn or in other grinding spots.    I've been having a great time in PvP and there are still some performance glitches there, but as a comparison, I lag less in ESO than I did in the first year of GW2 WvW.

The game has dyes now and guild tabards and guild store kiosks.  I see a lot of improvement in the game.

Reddit has a great write up about changes to the game for those who left and are considering returning  http://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/wiki/returning

We still have a fair share of folks playing and a lot of the PvP issues have been resolved. Vet leveling has been tuned as well.

I'm still a family noob, but I'm playing and loving the game. To be fair, I've not done any AvA/PvP yet, so I haven't experienced those growing pains, but I've got so many alts that I'm always interested in running the PvE dungeons and dolmens, World Bosses and quests! I finally got a character with the guild tabard last night and he looks GREAT in his emerald plate armor with the tabard practically glowing ;)

Eh, by ~November it should be a lot better.  They're still having performance and stability issues, I've seen a lot of players questioning if they have anyone on staff anymore who can fix these problems, because these specific fixes are slow to come and sometimes make things worse.  Personally, I question which parts they outsourced for initial development, because it sure feels like they did exactly that with some areas of the game.  I know its a popular "thing" these days, especially with the corporate shops, so its definitely within the realm of rational suspicion.

That said, everyone has their own issues with the game.  Those couple just happen to be mine, so its hard to comment in general without knowing why people left.

I posted a video on this website from their Quakecon Q&A presentation.  Its 2 hours, but worth the time if you're truely interested.  http://www.gaiscioch.com/tavern/eso_discussion/post_85191.html

It depends on what you mean by horrible vet leveling experience.  If you mean that it takes forever to do it by completing the other faction's map zones, then yeah it's still pretty much like that.  They nerfed the mob hitpoints by around 10% but I never thought it was all that hard to kill the mobs before.  The upper vet map zones are quite barren still because a large number of people are probably using Craglorn to grind out the last 4-5 vet levels.

The PvP issues seem to be largely solved I think.  There may be random pockets of performance lag but I'm pretty sure any large scale PvP game has hiccups now and then.  With the campaign changes, I think it's helped with some of the population imbalances. 

Stamina builds still have issues versus magicka builds so that hasn't really changed.  But itemization has improved with the addition of extra set bonuses now.  Every set includes 2, 3, 4, and 5 set bonuses now I think. 

All in all, I think the biggest improvements have been to AvA, as it pertains to performance and gameplay issues.  If that's what made you leave then I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by the changes.  If the vet leveling stuff was driving you crazy, not much has changed in that department.  It might be slightly worse because the lack of population really affects some of the zones.  But even there, they have stated they are working on revamping the entire system in the future. 

» Edited on: 2014-08-19 15:29:49

To sum it up, the longer you wait, the better the game will get. "the only direction to go from the bottom is up"  :)

I'm really enjoying the changes as well as my 2nd character.  My first character (nightblade) i got up to V1 but decided to shelf him.  I restarted a Templar heal spec and really enjoying the class and a second time thru the zones.  I've even discovered a few things i missed the first time with the nightblade plus not having to deal with the constant bugs on initial release.

First of all, if you want to disagree with other people's opinion then go ahead and do that.  But to publicly tell people to disregard other guild member's posts just because you disagree with them is not very nice at all.

Secondly, Ironbars specifically asked if anything has changed from what he termed as 'horrible vet leveling enjoyment'.  The only major change to vet leveling since he has left the game is the 10% decrease in hitpoints to all vet mobs, I think it's not incorrect to say that little has changed in that regard.  If you want to argue that, in your opinion, the vet leveling experience was never that bad to begin with then that is your right.  But that's not the question he was asking.

I'm sorry if you find anything even remotely critical of ESO as being intolerable to you.  I would understand the hostility better if what I said was entirely without merit.  However, not only have others said the same thing but Zenimax themselves have acknowledged these problems and have stated they are working on making them better.  There doesn't need to be this polarization about the game.  You don't need to love everything about the game or nothing at all.  It should be okay to like certain parts of the game and not be happy with other parts of it.

If you feel like this game is perfect in every way then that's great for you.  But not everyone in this guild shares your opinion and they should be allowed to voice that opinion without fear of being publicly attacked for it.  I am tired of asking people to be nicer and tolerant of others.  If you can't understand that the aggressive intolerance for opinions other than your own is scaring people away from the forums and the game itself, then I'm sorry but I have run out of ways to explain it.

I have watched us transition from Warhammer to Rift to GW2 and now to ESO.  Some people didn't play in the next chapter because they didn't like it for various reasons.  In Rift, some people didn't like that there was no world pvp available.  That was not being negative, it was the truth.  Others found the game too cookie cutter for their liking.  Again, Rift wasn't exactly reinventing the wheel so that was a valid point.  But I've never felt uncomfortable or known others to feel uncomfortable for voicing their opinion that wasn't glowingly positive about a game until now. 

It saddens me to say this but the cumulative effect has not only reduced my enjoyment for ESO the game, but also my overall comfort level of being in this guild. 

All I'm saying is that by November, I expect they'll have the game at the high quality that we expected from this "best in the business" veteran development team.  Yes, it is improving, albeit slowly.

Doreth, everyone is entitled to their opinions and it's ok to voice their issues with the game. Ironbars is looking for an honest opinion from people currently playing the game. Both Sek and Bentmer are and they both voice some of the issues that plague ESO. It would not do Ironbars justice if we just give him the fluffy sales pitch.

Bentmer & Sek are right on a lot of fronts. The good news is things are moving forward and each patch the game gets a little better. Usually with a fair share of new problems but at least it's moving forward.  A lot of us like Elth have been spoiled by Guild Wars 2 where we expect patches every 2 weeks and by RIFT where everything just worked. This is not the case with ESO they have the old 7 - 11 week development cycle of Warhammer Days for new patches. When it's a pay to play game that just hurts more than we would like. 

The key here is that we give ironbars a clear understanding of what he's walking into so that he doesn't come in expecting ponies and butterflies and gets piles of poo instead. High expectations only lead to heartbreak, realistic expectations can lead to astonishment.

Bentmer and Sek's assessment of the game was really good in my opinion and gave me some optimism for the future of the game.  Thank you both.

Their posts did not warrant that reply it got and in my opinion, they both give very knowledgable answers when they reply.  To dismiss them like that, is just wrong.

Edit: sometimes it's good to go and eat before pressing send, other times Ben posts while I cool down ;)

sorry I didn't mean to offend anyone,  I was just trying to be a glimmer of hope for those looking for it, I apologise I didn't realise I would offend anyone with what I wrote should have put in a smiley face in there ( English isn't my first language so forgive me sometimes how I think doesn't come off in my writing) ....

again im very sorry, was no hostilities intended post has been deleted....

@Ironbars take in everything from everyone, best decision are made with as much info as possible

As Fog stated - Sekk and Bentmer have valid opinions and as stated "Some people didn't play in the next chapter because they didn't like it for various reasons."  I for one never really cared for Rift and only stayed for 6 months - it just wasn't for me - and as Bentmer stated... that happens.

ESO appeals to me mainly because it satisfies the "explorer" in me and from surveys done, only about 20-30% of players are "explorers".  This is by no means saying anything other than... "some of the players like to explore some of the time and some of the players like to explore all of the time but not all players like to explore all of the time."  I love exploration and when a game adds in mechanics like finding lore books, finding skyshards, finding treasure chests and hiding quest givers... well, I can survive a long time in a game. BUT - that isn't for everyone.  Since it is what I enjoy most then I tend to overlook many of the things that might annoy, frustrate, and bother others. 

The thing I really like the most out of all of the changes is to have the non-vet rank campaigns.  It is a great place now to try out new characters and new builds without being run over by V12's.  Besides exploring - running AvA with the family is my next favorite thing - and the new non vet campaign is great for that.