Elder Scrolls Online - Finding Comfort in Tamriel - MMORPG.com

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Elder Scrolls Online - Finding Comfort in Tamriel - MMORPG.com

I've been playing Elder scrolls online since closed beta and have been a subscriber since. There are some days I still struggle to login and play a continuous 3-5 hours. Granted I have had a couple of new games / DLC drop for some other games but yet I still have an itch for some Elder Scrolls Online.

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Albatroes

Yeah, my new years resolution is going to try and get into this game again. No real auction house still bugs me but when you look at the overall of the game, it has more depth than most mmorpgs on the market today.

klash2def

tbh ESO is one of the best options if not the best for people looking for a mmo to sink time into.

For those concerned about the AH try Guild traders. its basically the same thing and has different items depending on the city your character is in.

EDIT: the number one thing i see people having issue with is the combat. It is less WoW and more like "Skyrim The MMO" but again there is a whole bag there to explore, like how traditional trinity system does not really work because the game was designed for class freedom. I always tell people to look at the classes as your "base" class and go from there. I know people like "metas" but the game is much more fun when you find something that you personally enjoy. You arent really pigeonholed into anything. 

klash2def

my fav ESO moment was for sure the morrowind xpac

Iselin

Vvardenfell was the big, most hyped addition of 2017 but for me the best moment was following the introductory quest and walking into the Clockwork City for the first time.

They really nailed the CwC feel and its quests in a way that far exceeded my expectations.

Kajidourden

Mars_Orbital said:

I'm cracking out on BDO. Couldnt ever do that with ESO.

Yeah, that endgame AoE farming and economy sim is RIVETING mmo action.

Miniz1

Kajidourden said:

Mars_Orbital said:

I'm cracking out on BDO. Couldnt ever do that with ESO.

Yeah, that endgame AoE farming and economy sim is RIVETING mmo action.

I agree that the end game in bdo needs something.. but maybe they aren't there yet. The leveling and combat in bdo is great fun. Then it hits you when you really start to try to enchant things and fail over and over and it takes weeks to get half a level. You then start to lose interest if you are someone like myself.

As far as eso.. I really got into it at first but there is just something about it that I struggle to log in and then stop playing. Been that way every time I tried it since release. It's probably me and my tastes.

I think the questions you ask apply to every game not just eso as you said a number of times mmo or not or even single player. I really struggle with single player games. What usually keeps me logging in is friends and helping others. I really enjoy teaching others what they need to know and helping them become more powerful.

Sovrath

Kajidourden said:

Mars_Orbital said:

I'm cracking out on BDO. Couldnt ever do that with ESO.

Yeah, that endgame AoE farming and economy sim is RIVETING mmo action.

I'm pretty sure for some it is. I know I enjoy what I do there.

Renoaku

It's still a good game but it lacks so much content that could be there, I find more comfort playing Arche Age than I do ESO, because of the housing, and Farming features which ESO still doesn't have like you can't do anything with the furniture really can't buy cash shop items like even in Black Desert for that matter and that is a big turn-off.

The graphics are not awful they are decent compared to Star Trek Online / Knights OF The Old Republic, but the character models, and amount of cosmetic options could be improved to be like that of GW2 / BDO.

This is why I am still leaning towards other games which have these features.

Sovrath

Renoaku said:

It's still a good game but it lacks so much content that could be there, I find more comfort playing Arche Age than I do ESO, because of the housing, and Farming features which ESO still doesn't have like you can't do anything with the furniture really can't buy cash shop items like even in Black Desert for that matter and that is a big turn-off.

The graphics are not awful they are decent compared to Star Trek Online / Knights OF The Old Republic, but the character models, and amount of cosmetic options could be improved to be like that of GW2 / BDO.

This is why I am still leaning towards other games which have these features.

I'm not sure why you say that, Elder Scrolls Online has many more cosmetic options than Black desert and Guild Wars 2.

My memory of Guild Wars 2 was hating my look, looking in the cash shop and finding one item that wasn't over the top acceptable.

Black Desert has a handful of "styles" that then have different looks depending on class. But there are still only a few "styles".

Guild Wars 2 has some better looks for women but the men are horrible. I don't think we've played the same Guild Wars 2.

Black Desert has better avatar customization and definitely allows one to save a face/body (why the f*** developers who create a robust system where one can make unique looks don't all have this feature is beyond me) but the Elder Scrolls Online system is very good. Is it really worse than Guild Wars 2? I don't see how.

The only thing Guild Wars 2 has over both games is a very good/unique aesthetic but that is just going to be "bad or good" depending on taste.

Scot

Sovrath said:

Renoaku said:

It's still a good game but it lacks so much content that could be there, I find more comfort playing Arche Age than I do ESO, because of the housing, and Farming features which ESO still doesn't have like you can't do anything with the furniture really can't buy cash shop items like even in Black Desert for that matter and that is a big turn-off.

The graphics are not awful they are decent compared to Star Trek Online / Knights OF The Old Republic, but the character models, and amount of cosmetic options could be improved to be like that of GW2 / BDO.

This is why I am still leaning towards other games which have these features.

I'm not sure why you say that, Elder Scrolls Online has many more cosmetic options than Black desert and Guild Wars 2.

My memory of Guild Wars 2 was hating my look, looking in the cash shop and finding one item that wasn't over the top acceptable.

Black Desert has a handful of "styles" that then have different looks depending on class. But there are still only a few "styles".

Guild Wars 2 has some better looks for women but the men are horrible. I don't think we've played the same Guild Wars 2.

Black Desert has better avatar customization and definitely allows one to save a face/body (why the f*** developers who create a robust system where one can make unique looks don't all have this feature is beyond me) but the Elder Scrolls Online system is very good. Is it really worse than Guild Wars 2? I don't see how.

The only thing Guild Wars 2 has over both games is a very good/unique aesthetic but that is just going to be "bad or good" depending on taste.

BDO wins hands down for graphics, ESO is quite good for graphics, I do not rate GW2 in that category at all.

KalebGrayson

I played ESO a lot this year. There's a lot to love about this game. I just could NOT get into the action combat. I tried for like 6 months, leveled up two different classes, but the action combat is just not fun for me. Maybe because I'm 41 now and play just for fun? Give me WASD and a mouse clickable buttons and I'd go to this game permanently like yesterday...

Coldren

KalebGrayson said:

I played ESO a lot this year. There's a lot to love about this game. I just could NOT get into the action combat. I tried for like 6 months, leveled up two different classes, but the action combat is just not fun for me. Maybe because I'm 41 now and play just for fun? Give me WASD and a mouse clickable buttons and I'd go to this game permanently like yesterday...

I was playing from beta until shortly after Shadow of the Hist when I reached the same conclusion (I'm 37 myself).

I. Can't. Stand. The combat. Aside from class balance and some itemization issues (Which every MMO has), I love almost everything else about it. The voice acting, the story, the graphics, the various systems, even their monitization model.

But the Bar Swapping. The Animation Cancelling. I'm not young, my machine is old-ish so I feel a lot of delay, and I never had great reflexes to begin with. Elder Scrolls walks a fine line between action combat and twitch combat - ESO is the latter, where factions of a second, smooth animation, and zero input lag matter way more than they should.

I'll probably try again, but man.. I know that combat is going to get my goat again. All opinion and my perspective, of course.

Dvora

ESO's lame combat and even lamer level scaling make it hard for me to tolerate the game much past lvl 15. By that time I feel like I have done or could do everything in the game, all the zones are the same difficulty wise, I cant take a buddy and go try some tougher open world area, and there is little sense of progression.

Kajidourden

Dvora said:

ESO's lame combat and even lamer level scaling make it hard for me to tolerate the game much past lvl 15. By that time I feel like I have done or could do everything in the game, all the zones are the same difficulty wise, I cant take a buddy and go try some tougher open world area, and there is little sense of progression.

Just shows how little you know.  There is level scaling, but it isn't nearly to the extent of your dramatic exaggeration.  

BeansnBread

Kajidourden said:

Dvora said:

ESO's lame combat and even lamer level scaling make it hard for me to tolerate the game much past lvl 15. By that time I feel like I have done or could do everything in the game, all the zones are the same difficulty wise, I cant take a buddy and go try some tougher open world area, and there is little sense of progression.

Just shows how little you know.  There is level scaling, but it isn't nearly to the extent of your dramatic exaggeration.  

Nah, it's pretty dramatic.

MadFrenchie

Coldren said:

KalebGrayson said:

I played ESO a lot this year. There's a lot to love about this game. I just could NOT get into the action combat. I tried for like 6 months, leveled up two different classes, but the action combat is just not fun for me. Maybe because I'm 41 now and play just for fun? Give me WASD and a mouse clickable buttons and I'd go to this game permanently like yesterday...

I was playing from beta until shortly after Shadow of the Hist when I reached the same conclusion (I'm 37 myself).

I. Can't. Stand. The combat. Aside from class balance and some itemization issues (Which every MMO has), I love almost everything else about it. The voice acting, the story, the graphics, the various systems, even their monitization model.

But the Bar Swapping. The Animation Cancelling. I'm not young, my machine is old-ish so I feel a lot of delay, and I never had great reflexes to begin with. Elder Scrolls walks a fine line between action combat and twitch combat - ESO is the latter, where factions of a second, smooth animation, and zero input lag matter way more than they should.

I'll probably try again, but man.. I know that combat is going to get my goat again. All opinion and my perspective, of course.

Those two were biggies for me too.

I dislike all "mechanics" that obviously start out as glitches that kind of just become "accepted" by the devs at some point.  Like the dragging mechanic in Chivalry.

Purposely circumventing/abusing in-game glitches to the point that the devs feel they have to leave them as is in-game is a pet peeves of mine.  I feel like devs should have more backbone about those things.

Keldor837

I got half way through the article. I was too annoyed with the sentence structure and punctuation. There's an over-reliance on using commata. When in many sentences, there's multiple-but equal, points that necessitate a semicolon. As well as many places where a period should be used instead of an additional comma.

klash2def

KalebGrayson said:

I played ESO a lot this year. There's a lot to love about this game. I just could NOT get into the action combat. I tried for like 6 months, leveled up two different classes, but the action combat is just not fun for me. Maybe because I'm 41 now and play just for fun? Give me WASD and a mouse clickable buttons and I'd go to this game permanently like yesterday...

So you've been playing with a game pad controller? If so You know you don't have to use a a game pad right?  ESO has WASD + Mouse. Thats the only way to play imo. 

Calaruil

klash2def said:

KalebGrayson said:

I played ESO a lot this year. There's a lot to love about this game. I just could NOT get into the action combat. I tried for like 6 months, leveled up two different classes, but the action combat is just not fun for me. Maybe because I'm 41 now and play just for fun? Give me WASD and a mouse clickable buttons and I'd go to this game permanently like yesterday...

So you've been playing with a game pad controller? If so You know you don't have to use a a game pad right?  ESO has WASD + Mouse. Thats the only way to play imo. 

So agree an MMO on pad.... wtf....

daltanious

There are no games in this world I could play continuously more than 6-7 months (record hold by Wow, Swtor, Gw2, Rift and FF14, now barely interested at all in Rift and Swtor, after original release that was great everything went more and more downhill). For the rest there are games I could play for less then hour before having enough or month to two. TESO is somewhere in the middle, it gets to me, I'm plaing 2 or 3 months ... then I need break. Not sure why but there is something that does not bring this game into club of 7 months.

daltanious

klash2def said:

KalebGrayson said:

I played ESO a lot this year. There's a lot to love about this game. I just could NOT get into the action combat. I tried for like 6 months, leveled up two different classes, but the action combat is just not fun for me. Maybe because I'm 41 now and play just for fun? Give me WASD and a mouse clickable buttons and I'd go to this game permanently like yesterday...

So you've been playing with a game pad controller? If so You know you don't have to use a a game pad right?  ESO has WASD + Mouse. Thats the only way to play imo. 

WASD is horribly outdated way of playing MMO games, belong decades ago. Not even sure how could I torture once myself. Once MMO appeared and moving around with mouse buttons become standard, ... WASD was just memory. The only way to play COMPLEX MMO is keys on keyboard for spells and abilities + top mouse with a lot of customisable keys, on throne for me since first day G700. At start I did not bother at all with TESO because I have read no support for mouse for movement. Not sure if intruduced later or was present at start, I'm moving in TESO my avatars without any problem with mouse buttons.

KalebGrayson

klash2def said:

KalebGrayson said:

I played ESO a lot this year. There's a lot to love about this game. I just could NOT get into the action combat. I tried for like 6 months, leveled up two different classes, but the action combat is just not fun for me. Maybe because I'm 41 now and play just for fun? Give me WASD and a mouse clickable buttons and I'd go to this game permanently like yesterday...

So you've been playing with a game pad controller? If so You know you don't have to use a a game pad right?  ESO has WASD + Mouse. Thats the only way to play imo. 

Nah, I want to mouse click abilities, just like WoW or Rift or SWToR. I play with a keyboard and a mouse. I'm a middle aged person now...I'm not looking to play a complex game. I just want to have fun and relax. I asked around in game about being able to do it, but the responses I kept getting was the game developers want the game played their way only. Again, I can play the game the way it is set up, I just don't enjoy it, which is a shame because everything else about the game is awesome.

daltanious

KalebGrayson said:

klash2def said:

KalebGrayson said:

I played ESO a lot this year. There's a lot to love about this game. I just could NOT get into the action combat. I tried for like 6 months, leveled up two different classes, but the action combat is just not fun for me. Maybe because I'm 41 now and play just for fun? Give me WASD and a mouse clickable buttons and I'd go to this game permanently like yesterday...

So you've been playing with a game pad controller? If so You know you don't have to use a a game pad right?  ESO has WASD + Mouse. Thats the only way to play imo. 

Nah, I want to mouse click abilities, just like WoW or Rift or SWToR. I play with a keyboard and a mouse. I'm a middle aged person now...I'm not looking to play a complex game. I just want to have fun and relax. I asked around in game about being able to do it, but the responses I kept getting was the game developers want the game played their way only. Again, I can play the game the way it is set up, I just don't enjoy it, which is a shame because everything else about the game is awesome.

I do not think you can click with mouse (shame on them), but for sure you can at least use mouse to move around, just need to reprogram keybinds. Some games does not allow that with mouse buttons at least here is not problem.

DijonCyanide

I really enjoyed the leveling, the atmosphere, environment, & story lines, of my 1st character in ESO. I began playing approximately 2-3 months prior to that Warden class being released. After earning the top level though ESO quickly declined with my attention & I stopped subscribing. It is just too much of a grindfest for those Champion Points (CP). I earned up to 173 or something & then thought about whether it would be fun to earn the 600+ & decided no to that hamster wheel. I'll admit though I rarely take the most efficient route to leveling since I spend more than half my time soloing, but there is little to no sense of accomplishment when grinding those CPs. I didn't like ESO's economic set-up, it would be perfect for a Role-Playing (RP) server though, but I adapted to it. The higher level you go the less decent soloable options there are for adequate gear too, but that is nothing new with massive multiplayer online (MMO) games. In the end, for me, there wasn't enough incentive to remain subscribed since I wasn't progressing at a pace I enjoyed nor did I think beginning another character would revive enough interest to regain the fun. I played for another month routinely without a subscription till, like now, I just log in to do my mount skill ups a few times a week. I think ESO is a good game & I think it handles the microtransactions better than some other MMOs. For myself, I just wish there was more storylines & soloable options after top level along with all the PvP & raiding focus.

Iselin

DijonCyanide said:

I really enjoyed the leveling, the atmosphere, environment, & story lines, of my 1st character in ESO. I began playing approximately 2-3 months prior to that Warden class being released. After earning the top level though ESO quickly declined with my attention & I stopped subscribing. It is just too much of a grindfest for those Champion Points (CP). I earned up to 173 or something & then thought about whether it would be fun to earn the 600+ & decided no to that hamster wheel. I'll admit though I rarely take the most efficient route to leveling since I spend more than half my time soloing, but there is little to no sense of accomplishment when grinding those CPs. I didn't like ESO's economic set-up, it would be perfect for a Role-Playing (RP) server though, but I adapted to it. The higher level you go the less decent soloable options there are for adequate gear too, but that is nothing new with massive multiplayer online (MMO) games. In the end, for me, there wasn't enough incentive to remain subscribed since I wasn't progressing at a pace I enjoyed nor did I think beginning another character would revive enough interest to regain the fun. I played for another month routinely without a subscription till, like now, I just log in to do my mount skill ups a few times a week. I think ESO is a good game & I think it handles the microtransactions better than some other MMOs. For myself, I just wish there was more storylines & soloable options after top level along with all the PvP & raiding focus.

If you sub or have access to all DLC by buying it, there is more than enough quest/story content that if you do it while also running a few dungeons on the side you can easily get to CP300 or 400 without grinding. Add some crafted +XP pots to that and the double XP events and you can reach CP500 without grinding.

I can't think of anything more boring than focused CP grinding. If I felt that I had to do that, I'd quit.