I first time encountered real Pay to Win in Silkroad Pots Repair ( Very expensive and terrible drop rate in game forcing people to cash shop) Often After 1 hour of Farm you could end with less money because all farmed gold and what you had was going for that 1 hour of farming ..... Max lvl Enchant with no fail Enchant making super strong weapons Dmg Buff and other OP pvp Buffs Also Cosmetics with exclusive stats ....
They are coming out with the updates like crazy on this game I for once am not disappointed or angry at the time frame. For example, World of Warcraft just now released their latest after waiting for a long long time, and GW2 is releasing tiny bits of updates with no real consequences or changes on the game. It's one of the few titles where they actually do what they say.
Oh I know, and coming from swtor it stuns me how much content they are creating and how fast!
If they had a more traditional Auction House structure, and better inventory management, I'd be tempted to dive back in.. Unless those area's have been tackled already?
If they had a more traditional Auction House structure, and better inventory management, I'd be tempted to dive back in.. Unless those area's have been tackled already?
If you subscribe to the ESO Plus ($15/month US) you get access to The Crafting Bag. All crafting materials automatically go into the bag and are accessible to all characters.
For me, this alone is worth the price of subbing.
The bank has not seen a similar overhaul. You're still stuck at 240 slots, maximum. You can create mule characters though and max out their personal bag space by (expensive) cash upgrades and upgrading their riding skills to include storage.
Personally I have not had to use mules since the Crafting Bags came out.
If they had a more traditional Auction House structure, and better inventory management, I'd be tempted to dive back in.. Unless those area's have been tackled already?
If you subscribe to the ESO Plus ($15/month US) you get access to The Crafting Bag. All crafting materials automatically go into the bag and are accessible to all characters.
For me, this alone is worth the price of subbing.
The bank has not seen a similar overhaul. You're still stuck at 240 slots, maximum. You can create mule characters though and max out their personal bag space by (expensive) cash upgrades and upgrading their riding skills to include storage.
Personally I have not had to use mules since the Crafting Bags came out.
Ninety percent of what I had in storage before that update was crafting mats. My shared storage hasn't needed an upgrade since (it's not maxed).
You obviously don't suffer from chronic altitis as I do. All 240 slots of mine are full of set items for all different level ranges for stamina, magicka and health-focused potential future characters to use.
I knew when I cleared out my mats into the crafting bag I would still fill it up again. I periodically go through it and put things up for sale in the guild stores just to make room... and it hurts each time I do
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
I still don't get what "back to its root" and "everything is free" has to do with this update at all.
TES games have traditionally ( see: always, apart from in the MMO ) had scaling, where it didn't matter what level you are... you could go anywhere and do anything, and the mobs scaled with you ( there's nuance to it, but this is the basic idea ). That's what the MMO is moving too now, hence "going back to its roots".
As for the "everything will be free", I have no idea what the hell this is about. I can't find any other mention of anything similar anywhere else, so I'm guessing this is just an overzealous author getting it wrong coupled with the usual amateur hour nonsense from MMORPGs editorial staff. No wonder they're going out of business.
If they had a more traditional Auction House structure, and better inventory management, I'd be tempted to dive back in.. Unless those area's have been tackled already?
If you subscribe to the ESO Plus ($15/month US) you get access to The Crafting Bag. All crafting materials automatically go into the bag and are accessible to all characters.
For me, this alone is worth the price of subbing.
The bank has not seen a similar overhaul. You're still stuck at 240 slots, maximum. You can create mule characters though and max out their personal bag space by (expensive) cash upgrades and upgrading their riding skills to include storage.
Personally I have not had to use mules since the Crafting Bags came out.
Ninety percent of what I had in storage before that update was crafting mats. My shared storage hasn't needed an upgrade since (it's not maxed).
You obviously don't suffer from chronic altitis as I do. All 240 slots of mine are full of set items for all different level ranges for stamina, magicka and health-focused potential future characters to use.
I knew when I cleared out my mats into the crafting bag I would still fill it up again. I periodically go through it and put things up for sale in the guild stores just to make room... and it hurts each time I do
Those are starting to stack up. I've been trying not to notice that my storage is a black hole that sucks stuff up the moment I make room for it.
It will be interesting to see how scaling affects the different level sets. Will several level range sets be required anymore? That's the one part of the new scaling that I'm unclear about; how will it affect gear.
Your gear use is still restricted by your "true" level.
At least I don't need to keep anything between level 50 and CP 150 since all my alts go straight from level 49 to CP 300+ and can all use max gear. That helps my bank storage a bit.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
While I don't necessarily like it, I can live with, even use, non-intrusive cash shops. I never found SWTOR's to be intrusive once I subscribed. The game never did slide down that P2W slope either. All in all, I have to admit, It's probably has the most benign cash shop, I've seen in the industry followed by GW2. Shops such as those, where I can play the game without having monetization shoved under my nose, where paywalls are overcome by "items of convenience". This business model will not deter me from playing said game(s).
Your an old SWG player, aren't you? You never got into "collecting" back in SWG? I did and TCG ruined that space of the game for me completely. It would seem that the term P2W has several connotations that could be applied. P2W is not just about PVP no matter what the small PVP community and developers in ALL of these games would like everyone to believe. Developers call it just PVP P2W so they can install this crap and state for the record, "it's not P2W" and that is self serving to the max. Back in Galaxies since the PVP community was about 8%, according to SOE's own metrics, I might venture to say that collecting might have been a larger part of the game than PVP ever was, even tho I was 1 of that PVP community. Or you didn't like the new paintings they kept putting into SWG and just never bothered to go get them,. grab the freebies?
Having played ESO for the last 6 months or so, collecting was a part of the game for me, even tho most of the new opportunities for collecting came straight out of the crown store. Was looking forward to housing, if they did it right, to proceed with that part of the game. However, like TCG, as soon as "crates" were announced, I knew then that this part of the game was a non-player unless I wanted to pay more than I was comfortable with.
Personally, I'm sick and tired of paying a sub for a MMO and then having to "gamble", with actual cash v RNG, to play ANY part of the game. F2P was about the worse idea that MMORPGs ever came up with. I put it right up there with the NGE and SOE was the grandfather of this with TCG.
So, I'm out of AAA MMORPGs and it appears, for good. I'm now starting up a SWGEMU server, SWGCHOICE.com which should be up sometime next week. If I'm going to outlay large amounts of cash, just to play a game, I believe I'll keep control of what can and will go into that plan. And, I can assure you that "lockboxes" is not and will never be a consideration. As with ANY EMU, a sub is also out, so this is totally out-of-pocket for me at least. Your more than welcome to "review" our server. And your comment of "waiting till it's done", I've seen MMORPG.com "review" many games not completed. In fact, a normal MMORPG is NEVER completed so I would imagine you should wait a long, long, time to "review" anything.
If you are subbing to ESO as you say then you would know you wouldnt be paying " cash " for Crates because you get 1500 crowns per month for free.
Also people are forgetting that there is nothing in the Crates than anyone needs. Only something that someone could want and depending on how much you want it will determine if you think it is worth the price.
Easy.
But you don't know what the price is as it depends on how lucky you are.
At 400 crowns a crack, 1500 crowns will only buy you 3 chances at getting something you might want.
If you are subbing to ESO as you say then you would know you wouldnt be paying " cash " for Crates because you get 1500 crowns per month for free.
I think you mean they give you 1500 crowns for subbing. Saying it's free sounds nice though but it's marketing.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Of the many features that I find most agreeable in the One Tamriel update, I utterly loathe the idea of the Crown Crates.
While these can't in any way be construed as "Pay to Win"---because the only real boost any item currently sold in the Crown store offers is an experience boost, which can also be crafted in-game only with a shorter time limit---the Crown Crates touch upon another undesirable feature with potentially harmful side-effects.
Dangling a carrot of "unique to crate" cosmetic items in a gambling-style lottery system is sinking to the lowest common denominator of the pay model system, used by other unsavory game companies that knowingly contribute to a gambling mentality. The prime motivator behind these types of pay models is to land what they call "whales", and that strategy has every intention of targeting youth with unapproved access to their parent's credit cards, and those with gambling addictions.
I appreciated the system currently in place, with the exception of the "Limited Time" offers that seem far too short---once again prey upon that manic spending mentality---but adding a gambling system in the form of Crown Crates reminds me of the disgusting system they have in place for Neverwinter, with the only difference being that Neverwinter's cash shop definitely contains items that could be construed as "Pay to Win".
It's a turn-off to support a game company that entertains the idea of this type of gambling-style pay model, and it's what drives me away from other games that use similar models. I know I'm not alone in this either.
If you are subbing to ESO as you say then you would know you wouldnt be paying " cash " for Crates because you get 1500 crowns per month for free.
I think you mean they give you 1500 crowns for subbing. Saying it's free sounds nice though but it's marketing.
I sub for the crafting bag and not having to pay for DLC. So yes I get 1500 crowns for free.
I'd agree, SlyLoK. When you compare the current ESO Plus pay model to existing subscription-based MMOs, you're basically paying a sub for a game that offers you access to their latest content updates already included in the price for your support, only with the added benefit of the crafting bag which is an invaluable bonus.
Great news. My wishlist for the near future:
- Meta-events like in Gw2 would be REALLY fun. It would add so much to the game.
- a better trading system. I don't mind the guild traders but there should be made easier to browse and search for items (being able to "lock" your search terms when you switch between traders is really important). Non-guild members should be able to "rent" a few slots with a specific trader for a fee (or the guild should be able to have this as an option).
-jewelry crafting! Feels odd that it isn't in the game already
- at least two more weapons, particularly a magica-focused close range weapon (suggestion: fighting staff) and a stamina based ranged weapon (addition to bow, suggestion: spear)
- many more style options (hair, markings, color, clothes etc)
- housing (I know - it is coming, but still)
- At least one more large zone like Orsinium (the best DLC so far)
- a yearly event where non-pvp players get to visit IC (like a few days a year when there is no pvp-fighting; christmas?).
Every ESO article published by MMORPG just sings praises of this game, while ignoring its many many flaws and lacking. Granted this game has some outstanding features but that doesn't erase/cover/excuse its critical failures. Just focusing on positives and turning a blind eye to the negatives is the definition of bad journalism and makes these articles look like paid advertisements.
Let me try to shed some light on some of the imperfections and deficiencies, since MMORPG won't.
The first thing to address would be the lack of communication between the devs and community or the disregard of player-base feedback. One look at the forums will give you a clear picture of what the situation is like. The time it takes for the devs to post a simply reply of acknowledgement after an issue is brought up (not by one person but by a major portion of the community) can range anywhere from 30 days to never. Most of the time the best you get is a moderators reply telling everyone to keep it PG13.
There are times when feedback feels pointless as changes are made and systems are introduced, even after majority of the community expresses their disapproval and polls reflect the same with votes displaying an infinitesimal bar of yays next to an enormous bar of nays.
The loot system of ESO can easily drive anyone to the brink of insanity. The RNG drops from endgame content means you will have to do the same dungeon/trial hundreds of times until you get right set piece with the right trait of the right type, which is an absolute necessity to remain competitive.
Some items are locked behind a hybrid RNG-token system where you farm artifacts by killing certain mobs. Sixty of these artifacts can then be forged into a key which in turn unlocks an item-set-vault that has a CHANCE of giving you a jewelry piece or weapon of a random type with a random trait in a random style with the set bonus. Imagine the number of times you would need to open the vault with the forged keys in order to get the right item of the right type with the right trait and style. And then think about the countless hours you would need to spend farming artifacts to forge enough keys in the first place.
Every new update introduces broken item sets and bugs (which remain for months or even years), easy buttons to lower the skill ceiling and cater to casuals and the enormous disparity between magicka and stamina builds and classes.
There are no weekly/monthly small incremental patches focusing on balancing issues but rather huge balancing changes implemented after long periods of time which introduce more imbalances and issues than they fix, giving rise to useless/nonsensical abilities, frustrating combat bugs and overpowered builds that remain until the next major update at the end of the year.
These affect both competitive PVE & PVP.
Zenimax and their negligence on these matters will become even more apparent with the launch of dueling and further discourage a solo competitive scene, essentially making Same-faction dueling pointless just like the current Cross-faction dueling.
Since ESO launched, it has barely seen two PVP updates :
1)Imperial city
2)Dueling
In the begining the devs, specially Paul Sage & Nick Konkle (who are no longer part of ZOS), promised rich PVP contents such as the Justice System where you could act as law enforcers or outlaws, protecting or plundering across Tamriel. But the devs decided to abandon the idea and stop its development Q4 last year.
When asked about Imperial CIty, Matt Firror said that its actually a PVE update with PVP enabled, hence the countless mobs littered across the map and lack of objectives, leaderboards or contribution to the Alliance war and motive to fight. Therefore it can't really be called a true PVP update.
Just an unfinished zone with an identity crisis.
The community has been crying out loud since beta for some form of structured competitive update like Battlegrounds or Arena and after two and a half years, the devs have finally agreed to discuss about it next year, meaning it wont be out until 2018 or end of 2017.
Moreover, Zenimax has yet to deliver a lag free environment for PVP. When massive battles ensue, which is a frequent sight in cyrodill during peak hours, the so called "mega server" is brought to its knees and players experience crippling ping (1k+) followed by frustrating crashes, disconnects and infinite loading screens.
These just a few issues within this game but all of them are important and severe enough to prevent ESO from fostering any kind of proper and enjoyable competitive scene, PVE or PVP.
In a nutshell, its not all flowers and sunshine as depicted by these articles. Update 12 just brings more features and potential problems to the table. It does nothing to improve the quality of gameplay or the integrity of competitive play.
To Ara_Valleria, I'm not going to quote that nonsense, but does your gaming intellect come from a superior range of MMO's ? Wipe those tears away, and take a look at the Tamriel map. From there you will see ESO is nowhere near an Alpha release, and what MMO ever claims that title ?
Here again I see someone speaking on behalf of the community about how their PC lags and they disconnect from the server. Sorry, but I don't share this view. Huge improvements have been made to Cyrodiil PVP over the last year. My game is seamless and I don't run off and equip a bugged DLC armor set to exploit it at first chance like certain individuals do.
The game is there to be enjoyed... not analyzed for flaws in an epic software program hosting tens of thousands of players all day, every day. Maybe Zenimax would acknowledge your type of critisisms when you don't blow a fuse and insult the moderators of forums like many people do.
Really, give it a rest and let them fix their bugs at their own pace. Too much more negativity could result in a spontaneous bad patch.
ESO must still be in early access, it still isn't worthy of playing and clearly needs to focus on being less starbucks and more Fantasy RPG.
Level scaling is ok, but I still want the open party thing to go away - so many times have I gone through the game not having to do anything because someone already finished the quest for me.
Also the quests are pretty ridiculous and come across as a joke all the time, not to mention soulless NPCs.
Everything I have experienced in ESO is like a generic poster board excuse of stale cupboard ingredient fan fiction. Easily replaced but never different, familiar but always tasteless no matter how much you eat.
To Ara_Valleria, I'm not going to quote that nonsense, but does your gaming intellect come from a superior range of MMO's ? Wipe those tears away, and take a look at the Tamriel map. From there you will see ESO is nowhere near an Alpha release, and what MMO ever claims that title ?
Here again I see someone speaking on behalf of the community about how their PC lags and they disconnect from the server. Sorry, but I don't share this view. Huge improvements have been made to Cyrodiil PVP over the last year. My game is seamless and I don't run off and equip a bugged DLC armor set to exploit it at first chance like certain individuals do.
The game is there to be enjoyed... not analyzed for flaws in an epic software program hosting tens of thousands of players all day, every day. Maybe Zenimax would acknowledge your type of critisisms when you don't blow a fuse and insult the moderators of forums like many people do.
Really, give it a rest and let them fix their bugs at their own pace. Too much more negativity could result in a spontaneous bad patch.
I'm basing all my criticisms on the basis that I have played this game since the first beta till today and also from the insights of the frustrated competitive gaming community. I'm not comparing ESO with any other MMO, but merely pointing out all that is wrong with the game, all that was promised but not delivered and all that remains unbalanced & neglected. ESO has been fully released for the past two and a half years and is not in alpha status, regardless of the missing zones in its world map, so i have no idea what you're talking about.
The latency issue isn't an isolated factor. Everyone faces the same issues during peak hours and it still isn't fully fixed. It is true that latency has been improved slightly but its nowhere near when compared to how flawless the latency was before the Lighting Patch. A few days ago, NA Truflame came to a halt with EVERYONE in the campaign experiencing unplayable lag before being kicked to the login screen. Every weekend during peak hours players across the board suffer from borderline unplayable ping whenever there is an attempt at dethroning, on any of the poplocked campaigns.
Your lack of desire to run bugged/broken/FoTM sets doesn't dictate others inclination to take the path of least resistance to victory. Its human nature to always find the easiest and fastest way to success and hence a majority of the player-base use these broken sets. But.... Is it still the players fault for cheesing using these sets ? -- YES. But is ZoS at a GREATER fault for putting them on the live servers even after receiving overwhelming feedback and then continuing to keep them unchanged all year long ? -- YOU BET YOUR A** YES.
Everything in life is to be analysed and criticized, specially when you pay for those things. It doesn't matter whether you serve 10 consumers or 1000, unless your product is flawless it will always be criticized. Criticism and feedback is there to help perfect products. Its up to you whether you decide to use those criticisms/feedback to polish your product or ignore them or consider them as insults or "negativity".
ZoS and their current pace/reason for debugging/fixing depends on only one factor : Community Outcry.
Example: The use of CheatEngine (used to alter in game stats to allow things such as speed hacking) and the infamous "blinxy" tanking was well known since launch. But the developers did nothing even when presented with video evidence, until recently when people took matter into their own hands and started using CE to endlessly spam ultimates and set fire to the forums demanding ZoS to do something. ZoS responded within a week. In contrast, the willows path set has been bugged for longer than a year and a half. ZoS is aware of the bug but since there isn't an overwhelming negative reaction from the community [as everyone is more concerned about the more recent overpowered sets], this well designed and balanced set remains bugged to this day. There are countless similar examples which clearly show that unless there isn't constant backlash from the community, it just isn't a priority for ZOS.
I hope i was able to address all the arguments/points you put forward, including your condescending remarks.
Remember kids, "fanboying" doesn't help solve issues, specially when nothing else is being done to solve them.
I like the concept of battle leveling & unlimited travel opportunity, regardless of faction (on the surface of it) however, I still strongly feel that 'faction pride and loyalty' in an MMO is crucial to keeping the excitement and edge to the game.
Right now, the edge in PvP is already diluted since players who have multi faction toons simply jump to their other faction toon and come into the very same campaign they just fought in on another faction. NO sense of faction community/team building for many.
Despite the rush to embrace One Tamriel by many ESO players, a lot of upcoming MMOs, e.g Camelot Unchained; Crowfall, etc. will actually return to faction pride-based gaming. PvP 'zeitgeist' is directly based upon the game's factions being at odds to fight for the Ruby Throne and claim ascendency.
All factions simply roaming free to co-mingle together throughout all the world doesn't even jive with faction storylines!
I feel that there will be a deep sense of' 'emotionally disconnect' for players and the game storyline will lose its main strength: Storyline immersion.
Just my thoughts, but I hope I'm wrong. I really enjoy ESO and fully support our community and devs constantly moving to improve the game. I'm hoping for the best!
To Ara_Valleria, once again... I agree you can look deep and find faults but that's meant to be pointed out in a constructive way... not destructive. I know people look down on true fans of the series, calling them fanboys, but are you aware how many bugs Skyrim had until it needed to go online for update patches ? Even Morrowind in the day was bugged, sometimes making a saved position completely useless. This was Elder Scrolls back in the day and now a Massive Multiplayer version is getting a bad reputation because some people don't have new gen PC's - I swear to that - and gossip rises up so entire groups are repeating the same thing over and over.
My point of writing my previous message was that no MMO is perfect and maybe there's an entire generation who don't see that.
I'm really thankful to be playing it, and I'm not going to abuse a software company thinking my own opinion is correct against theirs. A lot of the critics continue to play and continue to criticise. As a player who tries to enjoy my time on ESO it's a sad thing to listen to in zone chat.
To Ara_Valleria, once again... I agree you can look deep and find faults but that's meant to be pointed out in a constructive way... not destructive. I know people look down on true fans of the series, calling them fanboys, but are you aware how many bugs Skyrim had until it needed to go online for update patches ? Even Morrowind in the day was bugged, sometimes making a saved position completely useless. This was Elder Scrolls back in the day and now a Massive Multiplayer version is getting a bad reputation because some people don't have new gen PC's - I swear to that - and gossip rises up so entire groups are repeating the same thing over and over.
My point of writing my previous message was that no MMO is perfect and maybe there's an entire generation who don't see that.
I'm really thankful to be playing it, and I'm not going to abuse a software company thinking my own opinion is correct against theirs. A lot of the critics continue to play and continue to criticise. As a player who tries to enjoy my time on ESO it's a sad thing to listen to in zone chat.
You don't have to look deep to find faults if you're into the competitive scene. Just take a look at the tremendous disparity between magicka and stamina in the game. This is an example of an extremely visible and obvious surface level fault that is undeniably ruining competitive endgame content.
Everything I have said so far has been put forth in a constructive manner in here. On the forums, hundreds have also done the same and still continue to do so. Go have a look at some of the posts with 50k+ views regarding AoE Caps Removal, state of Magicka Dragonknights etc. They are filled with constructive feedback, polls & pleas. Bottom line, there is an extremely high amount of constructive criticism that have been downright ignored/dodged leading to more imbalanced updates contributing to the deteriorating health of competitive play.
Being a hardcore fan of the lore rich world of the elder scrolls series is different than being blind to the developers incompetence and negligence. Calling yourself a true fan of the series doesn't excuse your ignorance when you come to argue/debate/discuss about the state/issues of the game and its endgame contents.
You're comparing single player games to an MMO that has a longer life cycle with continuous patching and meta shifts. Apples and oranges. Fixes are released much faster in the form of incremental patches for online games specially MMOs and specifically MMOs with subscription plans. Moreover, the flaws that i have stated over the last couple of posts have NOTHING to do with how good your PC is including ping/latency. lol.
Are you seriously calling issues, that are bright as day light, gossips ? /facepalm
Sure nothing in life is perfect. But there is no reason why we shouldn't demand/strive for perfection. Its the only way to even get close to an ideal product. But that's not the point. 90% of the major issues persisting in the current competitive environment can be resolved just by working with the well informed and educated community and having a transparent open line of communication and discussion. ZOS has repeatedly failed to do so.
I too am thankful for getting the opportunity to play this game. I have played and supported ESO since its inception and will continue to do the same through its highs and lows. But that doesn't mean i'm going to sit in silence when so much wrong is happening to something I care for and invested so much time in. Because this is the right way of being a hardcore fan of something you love.
I don't get excited about the announcement of free stuff......... I simply want to play an seamless open world MMORPG Elder Scrolls game with Elder scrolls combat. That's all Elder Scrolls fans ever wanted.
Comments
Silkroad
Pots
Repair ( Very expensive and terrible drop rate in game forcing people to cash shop) Often After 1 hour of Farm you could end with less money because all farmed gold and what you had was going for that 1 hour of farming .....
Max lvl Enchant with no fail Enchant making super strong weapons
Dmg Buff and other OP pvp Buffs
Also Cosmetics with exclusive stats ....
This is Pay TO Win
Kids these day have no ideas what Pay to Win is
Oh I know, and coming from swtor it stuns me how much content they are creating and how fast!
If you subscribe to the ESO Plus ($15/month US) you get access to The Crafting Bag. All crafting materials automatically go into the bag and are accessible to all characters.
For me, this alone is worth the price of subbing.
The bank has not seen a similar overhaul. You're still stuck at 240 slots, maximum. You can create mule characters though and max out their personal bag space by (expensive) cash upgrades and upgrading their riding skills to include storage.
Personally I have not had to use mules since the Crafting Bags came out.
I knew when I cleared out my mats into the crafting bag I would still fill it up again. I periodically go through it and put things up for sale in the guild stores just to make room... and it hurts each time I do
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
TES games have traditionally ( see: always, apart from in the MMO ) had scaling, where it didn't matter what level you are... you could go anywhere and do anything, and the mobs scaled with you ( there's nuance to it, but this is the basic idea ). That's what the MMO is moving too now, hence "going back to its roots".
As for the "everything will be free", I have no idea what the hell this is about. I can't find any other mention of anything similar anywhere else, so I'm guessing this is just an overzealous author getting it wrong coupled with the usual amateur hour nonsense from MMORPGs editorial staff. No wonder they're going out of business.
At least I don't need to keep anything between level 50 and CP 150 since all my alts go straight from level 49 to CP 300+ and can all use max gear. That helps my bank storage a bit.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Here's to hoping they can maintain the balance.
At 400 crowns a crack, 1500 crowns will only buy you 3 chances at getting something you might want.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
I sub for the crafting bag and not having to pay for DLC. So yes I get 1500 crowns for free.
Dangling a carrot of "unique to crate" cosmetic items in a gambling-style lottery system is sinking to the lowest common denominator of the pay model system, used by other unsavory game companies that knowingly contribute to a gambling mentality. The prime motivator behind these types of pay models is to land what they call "whales", and that strategy has every intention of targeting youth with unapproved access to their parent's credit cards, and those with gambling addictions.
I appreciated the system currently in place, with the exception of the "Limited Time" offers that seem far too short---once again prey upon that manic spending mentality---but adding a gambling system in the form of Crown Crates reminds me of the disgusting system they have in place for Neverwinter, with the only difference being that Neverwinter's cash shop definitely contains items that could be construed as "Pay to Win".
It's a turn-off to support a game company that entertains the idea of this type of gambling-style pay model, and it's what drives me away from other games that use similar models. I know I'm not alone in this either.
I'd agree, SlyLoK. When you compare the current ESO Plus pay model to existing subscription-based MMOs, you're basically paying a sub for a game that offers you access to their latest content updates already included in the price for your support, only with the added benefit of the crafting bag which is an invaluable bonus.
- Meta-events like in Gw2 would be REALLY fun. It would add so much to the game.
- a better trading system. I don't mind the guild traders but there should be made easier to browse and search for items (being able to "lock" your search terms when you switch between traders is really important). Non-guild members should be able to "rent" a few slots with a specific trader for a fee (or the guild should be able to have this as an option).
-jewelry crafting! Feels odd that it isn't in the game already
- at least two more weapons, particularly a magica-focused close range weapon (suggestion: fighting staff) and a stamina based ranged weapon (addition to bow, suggestion: spear)
- many more style options (hair, markings, color, clothes etc)
- housing (I know - it is coming, but still)
- At least one more large zone like Orsinium (the best DLC so far)
- a yearly event where non-pvp players get to visit IC (like a few days a year when there is no pvp-fighting; christmas?).
Let me try to shed some light on some of the imperfections and deficiencies, since MMORPG won't.
The first thing to address would be the lack of communication between the devs and community or the disregard of player-base feedback. One look at the forums will give you a clear picture of what the situation is like. The time it takes for the devs to post a simply reply of acknowledgement after an issue is brought up (not by one person but by a major portion of the community) can range anywhere from 30 days to never. Most of the time the best you get is a moderators reply telling everyone to keep it PG13.
There are times when feedback feels pointless as changes are made and systems are introduced, even after majority of the community expresses their disapproval and polls reflect the same with votes displaying an infinitesimal bar of yays next to an enormous bar of nays.
The loot system of ESO can easily drive anyone to the brink of insanity. The RNG drops from endgame content means you will have to do the same dungeon/trial hundreds of times until you get right set piece with the right trait of the right type, which is an absolute necessity to remain competitive.
Some items are locked behind a hybrid RNG-token system where you farm artifacts by killing certain mobs. Sixty of these artifacts can then be forged into a key which in turn unlocks an item-set-vault that has a CHANCE of giving you a jewelry piece or weapon of a random type with a random trait in a random style with the set bonus. Imagine the number of times you would need to open the vault with the forged keys in order to get the right item of the right type with the right trait and style. And then think about the countless hours you would need to spend farming artifacts to forge enough keys in the first place.
Every new update introduces broken item sets and bugs (which remain for months or even years), easy buttons to lower the skill ceiling and cater to casuals and the enormous disparity between magicka and stamina builds and classes.
There are no weekly/monthly small incremental patches focusing on balancing issues but rather huge balancing changes implemented after long periods of time which introduce more imbalances and issues than they fix, giving rise to useless/nonsensical abilities, frustrating combat bugs and overpowered builds that remain until the next major update at the end of the year.
These affect both competitive PVE & PVP.
Zenimax and their negligence on these matters will become even more apparent with the launch of dueling and further discourage a solo competitive scene, essentially making Same-faction dueling pointless just like the current Cross-faction dueling.
Since ESO launched, it has barely seen two PVP updates :
1)Imperial city
2)Dueling
In the begining the devs, specially Paul Sage & Nick Konkle (who are no longer part of ZOS), promised rich PVP contents such as the Justice System where you could act as law enforcers or outlaws, protecting or plundering across Tamriel. But the devs decided to abandon the idea and stop its development Q4 last year.
When asked about Imperial CIty, Matt Firror said that its actually a PVE update with PVP enabled, hence the countless mobs littered across the map and lack of objectives, leaderboards or contribution to the Alliance war and motive to fight. Therefore it can't really be called a true PVP update.
Just an unfinished zone with an identity crisis.
The community has been crying out loud since beta for some form of structured competitive update like Battlegrounds or Arena and after two and a half years, the devs have finally agreed to discuss about it next year, meaning it wont be out until 2018 or end of 2017.
Moreover, Zenimax has yet to deliver a lag free environment for PVP. When massive battles ensue, which is a frequent sight in cyrodill during peak hours, the so called "mega server" is brought to its knees and players experience crippling ping (1k+) followed by frustrating crashes, disconnects and infinite loading screens.
These just a few issues within this game but all of them are important and severe enough to prevent ESO from fostering any kind of proper and enjoyable competitive scene, PVE or PVP.
In a nutshell, its not all flowers and sunshine as depicted by these articles. Update 12 just brings more features and potential problems to the table. It does nothing to improve the quality of gameplay or the integrity of competitive play.
Here again I see someone speaking on behalf of the community about how their PC lags and they disconnect from the server. Sorry, but I don't share this view. Huge improvements have been made to Cyrodiil PVP over the last year. My game is seamless and I don't run off and equip a bugged DLC armor set to exploit it at first chance like certain individuals do.
The game is there to be enjoyed... not analyzed for flaws in an epic software program hosting tens of thousands of players all day, every day. Maybe Zenimax would acknowledge your type of critisisms when you don't blow a fuse and insult the moderators of forums like many people do.
Really, give it a rest and let them fix their bugs at their own pace. Too much more negativity could result in a spontaneous bad patch.
Level scaling is ok, but I still want the open party thing to go away - so many times have I gone through the game not having to do anything because someone already finished the quest for me.
Also the quests are pretty ridiculous and come across as a joke all the time, not to mention soulless NPCs.
Everything I have experienced in ESO is like a generic poster board excuse of stale cupboard ingredient fan fiction. Easily replaced but never different, familiar but always tasteless no matter how much you eat.
ESO has been fully released for the past two and a half years and is not in alpha status, regardless of the missing zones in its world map, so i have no idea what you're talking about.
The latency issue isn't an isolated factor. Everyone faces the same issues during peak hours and it still isn't fully fixed. It is true that latency has been improved slightly but its nowhere near when compared to how flawless the latency was before the Lighting Patch.
A few days ago, NA Truflame came to a halt with EVERYONE in the campaign experiencing unplayable lag before being kicked to the login screen. Every weekend during peak hours players across the board suffer from borderline unplayable ping whenever there is an attempt at dethroning, on any of the poplocked campaigns.
Your lack of desire to run bugged/broken/FoTM sets doesn't dictate others inclination to take the path of least resistance to victory. Its human nature to always find the easiest and fastest way to success and hence a majority of the player-base use these broken sets. But....
Is it still the players fault for cheesing using these sets ? -- YES.
But is ZoS at a GREATER fault for putting them on the live servers even after receiving overwhelming feedback and then continuing to keep them unchanged all year long ? -- YOU BET YOUR A** YES.
Everything in life is to be analysed and criticized, specially when you pay for those things.
It doesn't matter whether you serve 10 consumers or 1000, unless your product is flawless it will always be criticized. Criticism and feedback is there to help perfect products.
Its up to you whether you decide to use those criticisms/feedback to polish your product or ignore them or consider them as insults or "negativity".
ZoS and their current pace/reason for debugging/fixing depends on only one factor : Community Outcry.
Example: The use of CheatEngine (used to alter in game stats to allow things such as speed hacking) and the infamous "blinxy" tanking was well known since launch. But the developers did nothing even when presented with video evidence, until recently when people took matter into their own hands and started using CE to endlessly spam ultimates and set fire to the forums demanding ZoS to do something. ZoS responded within a week.
In contrast, the willows path set has been bugged for longer than a year and a half. ZoS is aware of the bug but since there isn't an overwhelming negative reaction from the community [as everyone is more concerned about the more recent overpowered sets], this well designed and balanced set remains bugged to this day.
There are countless similar examples which clearly show that unless there isn't constant backlash from the community, it just isn't a priority for ZOS.
I hope i was able to address all the arguments/points you put forward, including your condescending remarks.
Remember kids, "fanboying" doesn't help solve issues, specially when nothing else is being done to solve them.
Right now, the edge in PvP is already diluted since players who have multi faction toons simply jump to their other faction toon and come into the very same campaign they just fought in on another faction. NO sense of faction community/team building for many.
Despite the rush to embrace One Tamriel by many ESO players, a lot of upcoming MMOs, e.g Camelot Unchained; Crowfall, etc. will actually return to faction pride-based gaming. PvP 'zeitgeist' is directly based upon the game's factions being at odds to fight for the Ruby Throne and claim ascendency.
All factions simply roaming free to co-mingle together throughout all the world doesn't even jive with faction storylines!
I feel that there will be a deep sense of' 'emotionally disconnect' for players and the game storyline will lose its main strength: Storyline immersion.
Just my thoughts, but I hope I'm wrong. I really enjoy ESO and fully support our community and devs constantly moving to improve the game. I'm hoping for the best!
My point of writing my previous message was that no MMO is perfect and maybe there's an entire generation who don't see that.
I'm really thankful to be playing it, and I'm not going to abuse a software company thinking my own opinion is correct against theirs. A lot of the critics continue to play and continue to criticise. As a player who tries to enjoy my time on ESO it's a sad thing to listen to in zone chat.
You don't have to look deep to find faults if you're into the competitive scene.
Just take a look at the tremendous disparity between magicka and stamina in the game. This is an example of an extremely visible and obvious surface level fault that is undeniably ruining competitive endgame content.
Everything I have said so far has been put forth in a constructive manner in here.
On the forums, hundreds have also done the same and still continue to do so.
Go have a look at some of the posts with 50k+ views regarding AoE Caps Removal, state of Magicka Dragonknights etc. They are filled with constructive feedback, polls & pleas.
Bottom line, there is an extremely high amount of constructive criticism that have been downright ignored/dodged leading to more imbalanced updates contributing to the deteriorating health of competitive play.
Being a hardcore fan of the lore rich world of the elder scrolls series is different than being blind to the developers incompetence and negligence.
Calling yourself a true fan of the series doesn't excuse your ignorance when you come to argue/debate/discuss about the state/issues of the game and its endgame contents.
You're comparing single player games to an MMO that has a longer life cycle with continuous patching and meta shifts. Apples and oranges. Fixes are released much faster in the form of incremental patches for online games specially MMOs and specifically MMOs with subscription plans.
Moreover, the flaws that i have stated over the last couple of posts have NOTHING to do with how good your PC is including ping/latency. lol.
Are you seriously calling issues, that are bright as day light, gossips ? /facepalm
Sure nothing in life is perfect. But there is no reason why we shouldn't demand/strive for perfection. Its the only way to even get close to an ideal product.
But that's not the point. 90% of the major issues persisting in the current competitive environment can be resolved just by working with the well informed and educated community and having a transparent open line of communication and discussion. ZOS has repeatedly failed to do so.
I too am thankful for getting the opportunity to play this game. I have played and supported ESO since its inception and will continue to do the same through its highs and lows. But that doesn't mean i'm going to sit in silence when so much wrong is happening to something I care for and invested so much time in.
Because this is the right way of being a hardcore fan of something you love.