Elder Scrolls Online - What Keeps Us Coming Back? - MMORPG.com

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Elder Scrolls Online - What Keeps Us Coming Back? - MMORPG.com

I’ve been playing Elder Scrolls Online since the game was released, longer if you count playing the Closed Beta. We’ve recently celebrated the game’s 4th anniversary. It’s kind of shocking that it has been that long already. With the next Chapter upon us in Summerset, I wanted to look back on my adventures in Elder Scrolls Online and ponder on why I keep coming back.

Read the full story here

Tyr216

Plenty keeps me coming back, but nothing gets me to stay. Something about this game just doesn't click with me, no matter how much I want it to.

Scot

An overall impression of post levelling content would be interesting. The range of what you can do, how much time the various activities could potentially take. What sort of pattern of activities after "end game" do most players do?

Octagon7711

It's like taking a vacation.  Nice places to visit but who would want to stay there?  Lots of other good games to play also.  Plus with their model you actually save money by waiting for their content to go on sale now a days.

Lenox

well if they fix the spaghetti code so the stupid animation canceling does not affect the dps... maybe i will come back.. fix the ping issues for the players outside of US... there are soooooo many issues with the game that one would thing 4-5 years would be enough time to fix... but i guess its just wishful thinking..

azarhal

I love TES, but I just get bored real fast when I play ESO. I really like the look of the game and the world design, but something is just not doing it for me.

I think the main difference is that ESO is mostly an overland game with a few tiny dungeons while the single player games are more cave/tomb/mine/dungeon explorers with more down to earth side quests (ex: find out why that merchant can undercut us).

Xiaoki

The thing that keeps me playing games is the gameplay. If a game does not have interesting gameplay then everything else is useless.

Gameplay is not mentioned at all in this article.

If you play these games for stuff like "community" then there is always stuff like IMVU. All of the community socializing and dress up without any of that nasty gameplay to get in the way.

Sovrath

Tyr216 said:

Plenty keeps me coming back, but nothing gets me to stay. Something about this game just doesn't click with me, no matter how much I want it to.

I love the elder scrolls lore but the mmorpg always loses me. I think I've yet to find a class that works. It's very disheartening to be going through a dungeon, having issues with mobs and then suddenly someone just blows through and wipes everything out.

The new class helper has "helped" but I just can't get a templar to work. I have a nightblade that seems to fare better so trying that.

If worse comes to worse maybe I just need to give in and be a mage that blows everything away and that will be that. I think hating the combat is a huge part of it.

Chaserz

What keeps me away: 1. Levels mean almost nothing. 2. Champion level differences are miniscule. 3. Factions and their respective zones are completely meaningless now.

Mikeha

Plays too much like a WoW Clone. Anything else that is good about it does not matter. The core game is flawed.

Albatroes

Personally, I dont feel anything really changes once you hit level cap. You get access to a couple of new things but you're essentially doing what you've always been doing from the beginning, just slightly harder in some cases. That's not really a major thing that keeps me away though. The lack of a global economy keeps me away personally. Their monetization is clever enough to not really "need" it past a certain point but the benefits are pretty huge and fair for the price compared to other games, this depending on what type of player you want to be of course. If the economy was globalized across the board, I'd feel more comfortable with the game but then again with its current system, I think it clamps down on RMT a good deal too. I have the cake but I just can't eat it I guess.

MrMelGibson

lenox said:

well if they fix the spaghetti code so the stupid animation canceling does not affect the dps... maybe i will come back.. fix the ping issues for the players outside of US... there are soooooo many issues with the game that one would thing 4-5 years would be enough time to fix... but i guess its just wishful thinking..

Just curious.  Do you mean servers like EU not getting the same attention as the US servers? Or do you mean players across the pond accessing the US servers?  Because if it's the latter, I have no idea why they would prioritize fixing that. I know I wouldnt if it was my game.  I would focus on the issues of that region. 

alkarionlog

what makes the OP return to this game? the money they get to make articles like this

MrMelGibson

alkarionlog said:

what makes the OP return to this game? the money they get to make articles like this

Wait?  Are you saying the writers on this site get paid for their work!?  How despicable of them to pay their bills.  Don't worry, I'll alert the media and let them in on this conspiracy! ..... Unless they are in on this having a job and expecting to be paid for said work nonsense.  

Hashbrick

alkarionlog said:

what makes the OP return to this game? the money they get to make articles like this

Trust me it's not much, I used to do it for Lotro and mmorpg.com covered my monthly subscription to play the game and nothing more. So there is no bias here.

That said Elder Scrolls Online never caught me, I never made it passed the tutorial level because I just can't stand the way it feels and plays. It never felt Elder Scrolls to me, now that might change if I suck it up and grind through the pain of the game and reach Morrowind. Then it will look like an Elder Scrolls game but still not feel like it. Few mmorpgs can capture and tell lore at an exceptional level and sadly TESO is not one of them.

Panther2103

Hashbrick said:

alkarionlog said:

what makes the OP return to this game? the money they get to make articles like this

Trust me it's not much, I used to do it for Lotro and mmorpg.com covered my monthly subscription to play the game and nothing more. So there is no bias here.

That said Elder Scrolls Online never caught me, I never made it passed the tutorial level because I just can't stand the way it feels and plays. It never felt Elder Scrolls to me, now that might change if I suck it up and grind through the pain of the game and reach Morrowind. Then it will look like an Elder Scrolls game but still not feel like it. Few mmorpgs can capture and tell lore at an exceptional level and sadly TESO is not one of them.

While you are entitled to your opinion, you based the lore telling off of the tutorial of the game? I would say that one of the few things ESO does right is great storytelling. Doing each quest made me want to continue in a chain because you could see stories unfold in the world. Plus it ties the stories in the games in and is done in a relatively good manner. 

The combat and skills on the other hand are what makes it difficult for me to continue. I don't like the weapon swap system, and it feels like in the start of the game a lot of skills just don't mesh well together until you get better ones down the line. The auction house system also breaks it for me as I don't like the internal guild auction house, mainly because it promotes guild joining just to be in a trading guild which kills the point of a guild. 

Alomar

For the average gamer, ESO has truly become a good mmo and been polished/shaped to be a natural fit. The game's main grab now is ESO-centric fans in the form of casual pve'ers and rp'ers, which was a smart move from their original hardcore intention at launch. Unfortunately for me, my guilds, and friends who are hardcore pvpers it's become more and more not the game for us, as hardcore players in general are now a fraction of the costumer base.

It's the fact I can list 30+ bugs that I encounter on a weekly basis where many have been in the game for years, the never-ending game-breaking lag, and the self-admitted only yearly attempt to balance that leads to this. Still had plenty of fun with it and a good chunk of the pvpers I met in ESO will encounter each other in Crowfall and Camelot Unchained in the near future, where friendships shall continue and rivalries will heat up again.

eddieg50

what keeps me coming back? The same thing that keeps me going back to other mmo's-I play for awhile, get bored leave and play another mmo, somewhere along the line I remember a few good things about the mmo I left so I go back and play again untill I get bored-it is a vicious circle

Iselin

Sovrath said:

Tyr216 said:

Plenty keeps me coming back, but nothing gets me to stay. Something about this game just doesn't click with me, no matter how much I want it to.

I love the elder scrolls lore but the mmorpg always loses me. I think I've yet to find a class that works. It's very disheartening to be going through a dungeon, having issues with mobs and then suddenly someone just blows through and wipes everything out.

The new class helper has "helped" but I just can't get a templar to work. I have a nightblade that seems to fare better so trying that.

If worse comes to worse maybe I just need to give in and be a mage that blows everything away and that will be that. I think hating the combat is a huge part of it.

All classes work as long as you stick to the basic principles that enable that.

I've tried literally for years to pass on what I have learned about the basics of building a character. It might be off-putting to some because it tends to sound like min maxing meta advice that runs contrary to the implicit ESO promise that you can use any armor with any weapon... which is true in a sense but it's also an advanced way to build that is best left until you know why the basics work.

It's also tough to gauge yourself against other players near you when you're playing. They may be a level 20 just like you but due to the way CP passives are account wide, that level 20 that seems so much better than you could easily be a level 20 that has 720 CP and that makes him/her a lot closer to a full CP720 than it does to a no-CP level 20... yes, the difference is huge despite the typical noob gripe that level scaling means you never level.

So here it is once again the very basics of building a (PVE... PVP builds are also more complicated) character in ESO:

• Do NOT try to build a tank as your first character. Tanks are hybrids that need to focus on all 3 stats: health, stamina and magicka. They are tough to build properly for beginners. And 1HD + shield is a tanking weapon: ignore it for now.
• The game favors magicka builds. This is still true although not as dominant as it once was. Try a magicka character first.
• Use all light armor for magicka builds and all medium armor for stamina builds. Ignore heavy armor completely. Armor (on a per piece basis) will determine how fast your key stat (magicka or stamina) regenerates and will reduce the cost of abilities that use that stat... this is key since ESO uses resource depletion instead of cool downs to determine how often you can use the better skills. Only your basic weapon attacks (LMB) do not use this pool as a resource and they do much less damage than the abilities that do have a cost.
• Your damage dealing is all about how high your spell damage and magicka pools (magicka builds) or weapon damage and stamina pools (stamina builds) are. For the purpose of dealing damage 1 weapon/spell power is worth 10 (closer to 11 actually but 10 is close enough and easier to do in your head) stamina/magicka.
• For solo play or 4-man dungeons AOE damage is best. ESO has a lot of AOE DOTs that are good enough damage for use even on single targets. Additionally, ESO will throw packs of enemies at you to ramp-up difficulty much more often than you will see single tougher enemies. Build for AOE. This is very important.
• Learn the basics of blocking, dodging and bashing and step out of telegraphed damage. If you do get knocked down or stunned, break out of it quickly (LMB+RMB) and if you're rooted, roll-dodge out of it. And yes, blocking with a staff or bow WILL reduce a lot of damage. Not as much reduction as tanks get with a shield but you will stil receive much less damage than if you don't block.
• The noobie Islands are there for a reason: their content is still easier even though the mob levels are the same everywhere. For one thing you will never see more than 2 enemies coming at you at once there. Public dungeons in other zones for example, will throw as many as 6 or 7 at you at once.
• Staves are the weapons for magicka builds and DW, 2HD and bows for stamina. Their respective active abilities will use the corresponding stats for their damage scaling. Additionally, heavy attacks with a staff restores magicka and heavy attacks with any other weapon restore stamina.
• Class choice is secondary to all of the above although some classes ARE definitely more beginner friendly because they have better low level access to good self-heals and AOE damage abilities: Warden, Sorcerer and Templar, especially the magicka types, are the 3 easiest classes to start with at low levels.

If all of that feels too restrictive to you, well I'm sorry but then we're back to "why is my _______ (insert class name here) not performing well."

Sovrath

Iselin said:

Sovrath said:

Tyr216 said:

Plenty keeps me coming back, but nothing gets me to stay. Something about this game just doesn't click with me, no matter how much I want it to.

I love the elder scrolls lore but the mmorpg always loses me. I think I've yet to find a class that works. It's very disheartening to be going through a dungeon, having issues with mobs and then suddenly someone just blows through and wipes everything out.

The new class helper has "helped" but I just can't get a templar to work. I have a nightblade that seems to fare better so trying that.

If worse comes to worse maybe I just need to give in and be a mage that blows everything away and that will be that. I think hating the combat is a huge part of it.

All classes work as long as you stick to the basic principles that enable that.

I've tried literally for years to pass on what I have learned about the basics of building a character. It might be off-putting to some because it tends to sound like min maxing meta advice that runs contrary to the implicit ESO promise that you can use any armor with any weapon... which is true in a sense but it's also an advanced way to build that is best left until you know why the basics work.

It's also tough to gauge yourself against other players near you when you're playing. They may be a level 20 just like you but due to the way CP passives are account wide, that level 20 that seems so much better than you could easily be a level 20 that has 720 CP and that makes him/her a lot closer to a full CP720 than it does to a no-CP level 20... yes, the difference is huge despite the typical noob gripe that level scaling means you never level.

So here it is once again the very basics of building a (PVE... PVP builds are also more complicated) character in ESO:

• Do NOT try to build a tank as your first character. Tanks are hybrids that need to focus on all 3 stats: health, stamina and magicka. They are tough to build properly for beginners. And 1HD + shield is a tanking weapon: ignore it for now.
• The game favors magicka builds. This is still true although not as dominant as it once was. Try a magicka character first.
• Use all light armor for magicka builds and all medium armor for stamina builds. Ignore heavy armor completely. Armor (on a per piece basis) will determine how fast your key stat (magicka or stamina) regenerates and will reduce the cost of abilities that use that stat... this is key since ESO uses resource depletion instead of cool downs to determine how often you can use the better skills. Only your basic weapon attacks (LMB) do not use this pool as a resource and they do much less damage than the abilities that do have a cost.
• Your damage dealing is all about how high your spell damage and magicka pools (magicka builds) or weapon damage and stamina pools (stamina builds) are. For the purpose of dealing damage 1 weapon/spell power is worth 10 (closer to 11 actually but 10 is close enough and easier to do in your head) stamina/magicka.
• For solo play or 4-man dungeons AOE damage is best. ESO has a lot of AOE DOTs that are good enough damage for use even on single targets. Additionally, ESO will throw packs of enemies at you to ramp-up difficulty much more often than you will see single tougher enemies. Build for AOE. This is very important.
• Learn the basics of blocking, dodging and bashing and step out of telegraphed damage. If you do get knocked down or stunned, break out of it quickly (LMB+RMB) and if you're rooted, roll-dodge out of it. And yes, blocking with a staff or bow WILL reduce a lot of damage. Not as much reduction as tanks get with a shield but you will stil receive much less damage than if you don't block.
• The noobie Islands are there for a reason: their content is still easier even though the mob levels are the same everywhere. For one thing you will never see more than 2 enemies coming at you at once there. Public dungeons in other zones for example, will throw as many as 6 or 7 at you at once.
• Staves are the weapons for magicka builds and DW, 2HD and bows for stamina. Their respective active abilities will use the corresponding stats for their damage scaling. Additionally, heavy attacks with a staff restores magicka and heavy attacks with any other weapon restore stamina.
• Class choice is secondary to all of the above although some classes ARE definitely more beginner friendly because they have better low level access to good self-heals and AOE damage abilities: Warden, Sorcerer and Templar, especially the magicka types, are the 3 easiest classes to start with at low levels.

If all of that feels too restrictive to you, well I'm sorry but then we're back to "why is my _______ (insert class name here) not performing well."

I've pretty much stuck with all medium for stamina. and I'm really good at the block, dodging, stabbing.

I haven't built for AOE so that's a possibility.

are you staying "two swords" or a two handed sword for melee damage?

That might make sense as far as the cp as I've yet to break the level 50 to get cp but I see level 20 somethings mowing things down.

Well, maybe I'll try my templar again. Thanks.

Iselin

Sovrath said:

are you staying "two swords" or a two handed sword for melee damage?

Either one.

Dual wielding two 1HD weapons has become the go-to weapon of choice for PVE and a single 2HD weapon for PVP but ZOS is aware and patch after patch you see little tweaks that blur that distinction. DW is still better for PVE but 2HD is definitely viable. The difference is subtle and not something that will gimp you especially 1-50.

Lenox

Iselin said:

If all of that feels too restrictive to you, well I'm sorry but then we're back to "why is my _______ (insert class name here) not performing well."

you forgot to mention that you doing more damage is because you animation cancelling into oblivion because incompetent programmers can't fix their spaghetti code for years.

Iselin

lenox said:

Iselin said:

If all of that feels too restrictive to you, well I'm sorry but then we're back to "why is my _______ (insert class name here) not performing well."

you forgot to mention that you doing more damage is because you animation cancelling into oblivion because incompetent programmers can't fix their spaghetti code for years.

Animation canceling is an advanced topic and neither here nor there with respect to anything I posted. Animation cancelling with the basics will still do more damage than animation cancelling without them.

But hey... obsess on that if you want.

Lenox

MrMelGibson said:

Just curious.  Do you mean servers like EU not getting the same attention as the US servers? Or do you mean players across the pond accessing the US servers?  Because if it's the latter, I have no idea why they would prioritize fixing that. I know I wouldnt if it was my game.  I would focus on the issues of that region. 

I am talking about the fact that 1000s of players from OC region had been literally cast aside since Morrowind because their ping went from being constant 200 ms to 300-1000 which makes it unplayable. And the answer they get is: "well its your internet connection.. has nothing to do with us."

They had years to fix their problems 100s of bugs that had been there since early days of beta are still in the game and for some reason no one seems to think its NOT normal. Well i dont know what world they are living in but in mine people get their asses fired for not doing their job.

Iselin

Deyirn said:

... but after I got jaded with WoW and MMOs in general, I saw that most, if not all other MMOs that don't have good storytelling aren't engaging at all for me.

Agree 100%. My son and I have a running argument about this. He likes killing and grinding and tends to ignore stories. Although I also enjoy killing and grinding, engaging stories of a similar caliber as books and movies make all the difference in the world to me.

If an MMO doesn't have that, I either totally pass or leave it very quickly.

marganculos

What Keeps Us Coming Back?

There is simple answer for this: HORRIBLE COMBAT SYSTEM...