Love the game, losing my desire to play: Here's why.
Well, I'm at 10 days, 5 hours played so I definitely gave ESO a good run. In my time played I reached VR4, so I definitely wouldn't put myself in the "rush to end-game and then complain" category.
I really love ESO, but every day I'm playing less and less (now down to about 30 minutes a day, if that). I've been thinking about the "whys" today and I'd like to share them in the hope that maybe they help make the game better.
Let me get it out of the way and say that I'm a PvP'er. My MMO history is UO, SWG, Darkfall Online, and now ESO. Most of my points here will be revolving around PvP in some fashion.
PvP server alliance imbalance: We're now a month past launch and it seems like all but 3 Cyrodiil campaigns are completely dead. With the exception of prime-time on the weekend, here's what the server pops look like. Auriel's Bow is 3 bars or locked for AD, 1-2 bars for DC and EP. Wabbajack is 98% of the time locked for EP, 1 bar for AD, usually 2 bars for DC. Bloodthorn caps out at 3 bars for DC and 1 bar for both EP and AD.
What this translates to is 3 servers, each of which is completely dominated by one alliance. I personally play on Wabbajack as DC...and while it's been fun to PvP for a month against the utterly massive EP zerg, it's starting to get really old.
Suggestion: Provide real benefits for players that choose to play in an "underdog" alliance. And no, I'm not talking about Alliance Points because AP is 99% worthless. I'm talking mats, gold, extra veteran points for kills, SOMETHING please...other than AP. Also, remove all but the top 5 populated Cyrodiil servers and force everyone onto those. Remove the guesting feature entirely (to keep players on their server) and change the home server change cost from 15k to 200k or more.
Extremely limited build customization: If you PvP a good bit, there's no reason to have any attribute setup other than 0/49/0. Then once you start putting decent gear together, you hit the softcaps for all 3 attributes anyways. The softcaps are too low and way too harsh. The curve at which the diminishing returns take effect needs to be smoothed out. As for skills...there's SOME customization here...but due to the laughable amount of bugged abilities and passives...most builds are 100% worthless. I can't speak to other classes, but I play a nightblade and it seems like there's more bugged passives and skills than ones that work.
Suggestion: Fix all your damn skills and passives. Having more bugged ones than working ones a month after launch is unacceptable. Raise the softcaps and make the diminishing return curve smoother.
The VR grind: I have literally no motivation to go past VR4. There is such a vast gap of nothing-ness from VR1 to VR10. There is absolutely no reason to blow mats on gear before you're VR10. You don't get any more attribute points. You don't gain any sort of special customization for your character. There's pretty much no reason to be anything between VR1 and VR10. Why not just make the level cap 60? Why call it something different?
Against high level players, you need to be VR10 in PvP. But I'm personally not going to grind thousands of quests to get there.
Suggestion: Make the VR1-VR10 leveling experience the same as the 1-50. A normal amount of XP for exploration, unlocking chests, PvP'ing, questing, crafting, grinding mobs, etc. Add more customization at each VR level to make you WANT to be VR2 instead of VR1, VR3 instead of VR2, etc.
Nothing important to fight over in Cyrodiil: We need the imperial city done and in the game yesterday. ESO has some really fun PvP and a great siege system. Unfortunately, there is literally nothing of importance to fight over in Cyrodiil right now. No center dungeon, no objectives other than "Capture X", no rewards for PvP'ing except minute VP gain (None at all if VR10). The lack of reasons to PvP probably ties heavily into the decreasing and lopsided campaign populations. The PvP in this game is really fun, which is why it has lasted a month with literally no objectives or reason to participate. But it's starting to get really, really boring.
Suggestions: After Craglorn is released, the Imperial city in the center of Cyrodiil should be the #1 absolute main priority. This needed to be in the game at launch. Add a system for players to put bounties on each others' heads. Give more incentive to PvP: better rewards, better VP gains, better/elaborate gear-sets and titles to work towards (and not just **** 1,000,000 players...more like "**** 3 players while under 10% health" reward = title: "The Comeback Kid" or something). Having whoever "captures" a keep be whatever person has the lowest ping and clicks the fastest is nothing short of stupid. When trying to capture a keep, each clan should earn points for killing players, helping take resources, and doing siege damage. Whoever gets the most points (view-able on a keep specific leaderboard) captures the keep. If your clan owns a keep, you should get increased VP gains in both PvE and PvP...that's a huge incentive.
I really love ESO. It's the most fun I've had playing an MMO in a long time. But we really need more stuff to do, especially for PvP'ers.
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