So I returned to Eso 3 weeks ago, I bought the latest expansion and added 30-days of Eso plus to my account.
And started revisiting eso, a game I haven't played since it's extremely disappointment during release.
And I'm surprised to say, the game feels more complete compared to what they first released.
Implementation that should have been there since the beginning are finally present in the game.
Though some of the features being locked behind DLC such as the Thieves guild and of course the darkbrotherhood, I'm this has been said many times before.
These 2 guilds should be a part of the base game and not DLC, and I totally agree on that, but I won't put any energy on that.
Let's focus on some positives.
The game still holds up visually, they added new item models and textures, though I do feel the vanilla models/skins could use a revamp, but they can still pass.
Further more, the new addition in content story lines, crafting skills, classes and even battle grounds are all fine and fun additions to the game.... to a certain extend.
I had fun leveling a fresh night blade from 1 to 50 and to cp 250, but sooner or later I started to lose interest, not due to a lack of content but due to a absence of a community.
All the quests apart from specific group quests are all solo content and don't require any interactions with other players. Pvp and Pve dungeons don't require a guild or a list of players you've meat during your adventures, nope just like world of faceroll you just queue up, sit and wait until your queue pops up and in tradition to world of faceroll once you're teleported to the dungeon, the group chat is dead silent, 0 interaction at all, with few rare occasions of people replying only saying hi back. Same for pvp battle grounds, just queue sit wait and enter and pray to the gods your team is focusing on the objectives instead of a world of faceroll alliance player farming the center of warsong gultch trying to get kills but failing every time.
Now let's focus a bit more on the battle grounds, the idea is great. The modes are fine, the map design and layout are all fine and amazing.
But it's imbalanced, not just slightly, no extremely imbalanced it comes down meta and gear skill and class knowledge? meh, hardly required, killing people in 5 blows that's not skill or a rotation, that's just imbalanced game play. Now on max level pvp this could be expected as it's the case with many other mmorpgs, but shockingly enough, this is also the case with pre 50 pvp.
Where many people who mostlikely lack the ability to win battles on their main, resort in to buying OP sets for their alts in order to finally experience a win, destroying any competitiveness in the battle ground pvp scene, he who has the biggest wallet wins, kudos! I'm better off playing a p2w mmorpg with an actual socially active community than hoping to experience any competitive pvp in Eso. Now I might sound harsh, salty but I'm actually only providing feedback.
For imagine new players stepping in to this game ( who's active player base is once again on a rapid decline ) and they get destroyed in 3-4 hits by players of their same level or even lower, what do you think they will perceive the pvp scenery as? that's right! a imbalanced mess. Will it motivate them to support the developers in extending any further funding in to the game? highly unlikely.
Now obviously many of the under performing players who finally found a way to have a moment to shine in a game with a shrinking player base by purchasing sets to out damage fresh new players. But eventually no one will be bothered to play, leaving only people like yourselves left in the game making the already rather dull pvp experience even more dull and eventually dead.
This has been the down fall for many mmorpg titles in the past and it could give eso the push it needs to join them.
So in my opinion the easiest fix for this problem, would be removal of set bonuses and grant every player base stats, rendering the game play based on their skill and class knowledge rather than cookie cutter set builds. Making the pvp scene more competitive when it comes to battle grounds.
Now PVE.... like I said before... the game feels like a single player experience.
For just like world of warcraft it became a online rpg with a public queue lobby.
Now people have said to join a guild, which I have tried but guild recruitment are so terrible slow and non existent it's hard to find a guild or at least a proper one.
I have been part of a few, where people spamming the guild chat LFM for veteran dungeon blabla CP 800+ link achie. And I instantly got flash backs to trash wow puggers in all blue gear demanding get boosted by people who literally have no need for the dungeon other than just 1 rare drop with a 0,000001% drop chance. And I just left the guild, if you're bringing anti-social standards and pricniples from a socially destroyed game, than I'm out.
Now this isn't just a problem I've encountered in guild chats but zone chats as well, I kina have a feeling a large portion of the BFA scrubs that dropped out for whatever reason ended up playing eso and brought their anti social behavior to eso, or maybe it's been a shift in mentality soon after I quit playing back at release I don't know, but I do know. it's disgusting and has no place in a mmorpg. If you don't have the patient or people skills to interact with other people and communicate, don't play mmorpg's, they're not your coup of tea, like the Elder Scrolls? fine, play the solo rpg's they're better and you can play them all by yourself! for if you can't explain simple mechanics of a combat system relying on a rotation set existing out of maximum 10 buttons than you're pretty much "special". Nasa has taught chimpanzees to man space shuttles and yet you can't explain a party how to perform a series of pre-scripted events of a simple boss encounter, truly the next step of human evolution.
So after all.
The developers did their best they added a lot of content to the game.
Most of which are all solo and hold no replay value.
Pve group content fun and interesting but can't be fully enjoyed due to a socially challenged community.
PvP as far as battlegrounds go, extremely imbalanced both due to under performing players and bad developer implementation. After experiencing the disapointing mess called battle grounds, I lost any interest I had in revisiting Cyrodiil which I heard is betteer and for your sake, I sincerely hope it is better, though I doubt it as it's a pvp on a mass scale and fights relying on large scale combat with people working in greater numbers and since the community interaction ( players amongst them selves ) is lacking, I doubt it will be any good.
Conclusion:
I did not like it.
Not the game it self, but the community.
With the majority being on the spectrum the game still feels like a solo rpg experience.
It's another case of the community killing the game them selves.
The game had potential, large region maps with many points of interest, group content and challenges. but in the end it's just like world of warcraft a online rpg lobby with a dungeon and pvp queue and community that rather sell one of their own kidneys than socially partake in a mmorpg.
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I'm merely sharing my experience with the game and the community.
I addressed positives, but mainly negatives for in my opinion and experiences there are more negatives than positives and this is mainly due to you, the community.
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You're contributing to the point I'm trying to make of the community being on the spectrum and lacking basic social skills.
For those who want to bring up, should have find a better guild or: My guild is super social and active. having a tight nit group and excluding the rest of the player base is contributing to the shirking community problem. If you're not embracing new players openly and or solely focus on yourself and your own personal character progression than why play a online rpg in the first place? [snip], the point of playing a mmorpg is to experience a RPG on a MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER scale and playing this solo or with a small exclussive group isn't the idea or intent of the mmorpg genre.
It's like buying a poker set only to use it to play solitaire by yourself.
You've been provided a great, living and breathing world ( events, content, dlc's expansions ) and all you do is focus on yourself.
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GL HF
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Edit for bait.
