Casuals should avoid ESO.

[AuldWolf]

Okay, so this is something I need to get off my chest.

When ESO was a subscription-based game, it was much more friendly to casual players. The management even seemed to understand that casual players is where a lot of their money even comes from. They're not going to need regular new content, nor complain about constant balance changes.

One Tamriel was a bit clever because it brought in casual players with the idea that they could go anywhere. It also changed world bosses so that they now required a group or a very specific cookie-cutter build with good gear in order to beat them. It also changed group dungeons. Whereas group dungeons used to scale to the level of the leader entering the dungeon, allowing very casual play of those dungeons, they now automatically scale to level CP160.

These changes are all to spite casual players in favour of very competitive, toxic players who shout on the forums. The only reason I can think of that brought about this is a change of management. They've changed their focus.

The forums have had a lot of complaints about this, which have been deleted, with threads locked, and people banned. There have also been complaints about stealth nerfs, which then mysteriously disappeared. The most recent instance of this was a thread talking about how an upcoming change to Radiant Destruction (a Templar skill) hurts casual PvE players where the ability isn't overpowered and normally would be a great skill to help round out conceptualised casual builds. It's being nerfed to suit PvP, of course.

The balance team didn't use to do this. For the longest time they would nerf very carefully, they preferred to buff, and they always kept the casual players in mind. Lately? That's changed. So the thread about Radiant Destruction gets pruned by the community team from seven pages (when I last checked) down to three. They're doing serious damage control to shut down casual players, making it clear they no longer want casual player money.

This is baffling and bizarre. Why? Casual players, as I said, tend to have altitis. They can also be extremely loyal to the MMO they play, and they love to roleplay and they'll buy plenty from the cash shop. The largest demographic with the most money in any gaming scenario is casual players. And when ESO was subscription based, it understood this.

Other changes have occurred, too. Since crafting is casual and doesn't require a lot of grind, they changed that. It used to be that you could craft better gear than what dropped, and they promised up and down that that would remain the case. This has been nerfed into the ground, with crafted gear now objectively worse than everything you can find. It also used to be a level higher than what dropped from grinding dungeons, it's now the same level with worse stats.

You're now encouraged to grind for sets, a la WoW.

This was a great game way back when. I even have multiple copies of it, and I got it for my partner and paid for their subscription too. I bought stuff from the cash shop...

Now I just feel betrayed, deflated, and utterly defeated. There's no changing this. Corporate greed says that they can make the most money from toxic, competitive end-game PvE and PvP people. I'd say... good luck to them with that.

All they've done lately is alienate casuals with patch after patch, and done no end of damage control on the forums. I wouldn't even be surprised if this gets deleted.

So it's up to you. Get the word out, don't let people be duped. This was a casual game, but that's very much not the direction it's going for now.

[Krigarstam]

WolvenDevilClaw님이 먼저 게시:

So was me buying this when it was on sale a mistake then? Never played ANY of the games from this series before, this will be my 1st foray into this series. I was always interested in playing it and didn't really know if I should have got this or that new special edition skyrim game. Bought this because it said it was't like other mmos and was very casual single player friendly. I bought the Gold edition. Seeing this post though I've become very hesitant and worried about playing. Any help is very much appreciated! Just got out of Coldharbour with my elven nightblade, now on some roost area of some domino place? LvL 4. Don't get much more casual than myself, LoL! Especialy as such a noob LvL here.

dont just read the post, also try to read the comment here, the only people said that casual need to stay away is the poster

[Adara'hai]

♥♫† Cybermancer †♫♥님이 먼저 게시:

Anthony Campbell님이 먼저 게시:

No, the game is more casual now than ever. Which is great.

I HATE MMO's, but I LOVE ESO, it's the only one I play because it's more relaxed and my style.

Just because you've had negativity towards the game doesn't mean you shold be trying to convince people to stay away. You may or may not have good intentions here, but this SEEMS TO ME, like you just want casual players to stay away from the game, because you're more of a hardcore player that doesn't want casuals interfering.

+1

+1

[Sly-Scale]

As a Templar DPS you've still got access to healing nukes like Breath of Life, have no problem maintaining Major Mending, when Eclipse is going to be buffed to work on any amount of enemies, and you also have Backlash and Dark Flare to work with.

So nerfing the damage of perhaps the longest-ranged execute in the game - when there's a set that directly increases the power of Channeled and Cast Time abilities and you could combine that with Clever Alchemist to replenish your Magicka, do more damage with that one morph for it, and then do even MORE burst DPS with the set effect - isn't too much to ask for. Especially when, as a ranged channel, it has a lot of range so it's hard for enemy players to bash you, and that one channel-interrupting poison arrow could take too long to reach a distant Radiant Destruction player. And you're safe(r) from bosses in PvE. After all you can't move as quickly.

And I'm saying all this when I have a Templar healer and a Templar healtank.

A shame you actually have to invest sets in the highest-level ability of Dawn's Wrath, now, instead of being some dumb one-trick pony.

[UNCLE STINKFISH]

I like the game, but at low levels (probably the casual domain) you are constantly bombarded with NPCs giving you quests. While you are carrying out one quest, two NPCs have popped up and given you 5 more...

It does not give you time to savor each area, and bond with the game and it's environments...

Turning it ito a casual throw away experience..

Early on.

[josseriot]

In some ways it's more casual. In many others, it's worse than before One Tamriel.

It's more casual in that you aren't locked into doing zones in a set way, or completing the Main Quest according to your level. Also, you can level up a bit faster now.

My gripes:

-- i think ESO loses something significant when Coldharbour and Craglorn has level 10 chars running around. The story loses a lot, in terms of progression, structure and achievement.

-- The combined factions and levels now mean you get immature jerks in every zone. You can't escape them like you could before by moving on to more advanced zones.

-- the scaling of mat harvesting by player level and crafting skill and not by zone is neat, in that you don't have to wait to move to the next zone to get the next level of mats, but it also means you get power farmers harvesting in every zone, including the newbie zones, which is incredibily frustrating for new players and people starting new chars.

--Mob farming/grinding has gotten out of hand. It was bad before when you ran into one jerk in a silver or gold zone who felt they could take over a quest area for their personal grind farm, but now anyone at any level can do it, and many are.

-- The attitude from PvP players is far worse than before. Before they were hyper competitive jerks, but now, they go into guild chats and talk about how much they hate this build, this class, this faction, etc, like everyone in the guild wants to hear this obnoxious postering. Dueling I think hasn't helped--it just makes these PvPers think every area in the game is theirs.

-- Dropped sets are making group dungeons, world bosses and trials little more than drop farms.I noticed in the zone chat for the Gold Coast tonight how people who trying to recruit only very competitive players who knew how the "game" these group events to get the best drops, and excluding more novice players who just wanted to get access to that content. Also, I've seen a lot of people complaining that the other people in their group rush through the dungeons and they are unable to really catch the story. And today with one dungeon, I got mocked by two other players for not doing a trick with the final boss to get it to drop purple (epic quality) drops--all I wanted was the bleeping skill point and XP for the quest, and I got neither because they started before I finished fast-traveling to the dungeon and I was unable to get the quest. These kinds of players don't care what others in the group might want--they just want those drops.

-- Grouping since I''ve come back to the game after several months break is worse, and it was really bad before. Today i grouped up with three groups, and one was a good dungeon run, we worked well together I thought, no one died, no bosses took too long, but the other people were like "We can do better than you" and ditched me. And it was teh my first chance to do a dungeon with this char--at level 45! That's how long it took me to get into a dungeon group with her!!! The other two groupings were way worse, resulting in me not getting bosses, achievements or skill points for my time and effort. Then I saw what grouping in the Gold coast was like--pinnacle of snobbery and BS. This is one big reason I stopped playing before, because grouping being such a nightmare made a lot of the game content I paid for inaccessible. Add to this that world bosses and public dungeons are too tough to solo now and a lot other things harder for soloing.

Admittedly, I'm pretty frustrated. I really like this game, I've put tons of time, effort and money into, and i want o do things like dungeons and other group content. But I don't know if I will, and I feel for soloing, the game's more limited than before.

STINKFISH님이 먼저 게시:

I like the game, but at low levels (probably the casual domain) you are constantly bombarded with NPCs giving you quests. While you are carrying out one quest, two NPCs have popped up and given you 5 more...

It does not give you time to savor each area, and bond with the game and it's environments...

Turning it ito a casual throw away experience..

Early on.

It's always been like this. Really, every Bethesda game has been like that. I personally don't mind this. You can pace things as you wish and the main story of each zone does chain those relevent quests together so you can follow them and ignore the side quests.

[James Howlette]

Personally, I find the game to be incredibly casual friendly. The interesting level scaling in the game means that you can tackle any dungeon or quest regardless of your level, and can even play with much higher or lower level friends without being too OP or UP. There are casual friendly PvE quests with unique and interesting stories practically every 5 feet. The overworld group bosses aren't too tough if you actually wait for a couple of people to come along and help with them and make for a fun challenge. All of the non-veteran mode group dungeons are fairly straight forward with easy to understand boss mechanics.

Of course there are a couple exceptions, but those exceptions are mostly due to bad members of the community rather than anti-casual game design like you suggest. The "dungeon finder" will often place you in groups with set farmers or speed runners, and some of the people in Cyrodiil and the Imperial City can be complete a-holes (For example there curently seems to be a trend of nightblades cloaking their way deep into enemy territory just to ambush and troll noobs). Overall, if you stick to doing dungeons with friends or guildmates rather than randoms, and avoid the pvp areas unless you're fully prepared to be pvp-ing, there's not a whole lot I've encountered that would deter casual players.

[Awakened Gamer]

AuldWolf님이 먼저 게시:

Okay, so this is something I need to get off my chest.

When ESO was a subscription-based game, it was much more friendly to casual players. The management even seemed to understand that casual players is where a lot of their money even comes from. They're not going to need regular new content, nor complain about constant balance changes.

One Tamriel was a bit clever because it brought in casual players with the idea that they could go anywhere. It also changed world bosses so that they now required a group or a very specific cookie-cutter build with good gear in order to beat them. It also changed group dungeons. Whereas group dungeons used to scale to the level of the leader entering the dungeon, allowing very casual play of those dungeons, they now automatically scale to level CP160.

These changes are all to spite casual players in favour of very competitive, toxic players who shout on the forums. The only reason I can think of that brought about this is a change of management. They've changed their focus.

The forums have had a lot of complaints about this, which have been deleted, with threads locked, and people banned. There have also been complaints about stealth nerfs, which then mysteriously disappeared. The most recent instance of this was a thread talking about how an upcoming change to Radiant Destruction (a Templar skill) hurts casual PvE players where the ability isn't overpowered and normally would be a great skill to help round out conceptualised casual builds. It's being nerfed to suit PvP, of course.

The balance team didn't use to do this. For the longest time they would nerf very carefully, they preferred to buff, and they always kept the casual players in mind. Lately? That's changed. So the thread about Radiant Destruction gets pruned by the community team from seven pages (when I last checked) down to three. They're doing serious damage control to shut down casual players, making it clear they no longer want casual player money.

This is baffling and bizarre. Why? Casual players, as I said, tend to have altitis. They can also be extremely loyal to the MMO they play, and they love to roleplay and they'll buy plenty from the cash shop. The largest demographic with the most money in any gaming scenario is casual players. And when ESO was subscription based, it understood this.

Other changes have occurred, too. Since crafting is casual and doesn't require a lot of grind, they changed that. It used to be that you could craft better gear than what dropped, and they promised up and down that that would remain the case. This has been nerfed into the ground, with crafted gear now objectively worse than everything you can find. It also used to be a level higher than what dropped from grinding dungeons, it's now the same level with worse stats.

You're now encouraged to grind for sets, a la WoW.

This was a great game way back when. I even have multiple copies of it, and I got it for my partner and paid for their subscription too. I bought stuff from the cash shop...

Now I just feel betrayed, deflated, and utterly defeated. There's no changing this. Corporate greed says that they can make the most money from toxic, competitive end-game PvE and PvP people. I'd say... good luck to them with that.

All they've done lately is alienate casuals with patch after patch, and done no end of damage control on the forums. I wouldn't even be surprised if this gets deleted.

So it's up to you. Get the word out, don't let people be duped. This was a casual game, but that's very much not the direction it's going for now.

I do not think you really understand the term casual, casual is a term for gamers who are not really gamers and only play occasionally and to be honest mmorpgs where never meant to be casual, hardcore is a term for people who do not mind spending more time to play their games and know there games, this competitive toxic side is another kind of player.

[dam]

well i just cant understand why 160 champion heavy tanks have no demage at all (2h weapon ulty suck too) and a 50 mage is immortal and have 5x life than a tank

[Void#151625]

DAM20 Salami MLG님이 먼저 게시:

well i just cant understand why 160 champion heavy tanks have no demage at all (2h weapon ulty suck too) and a 50 mage is immortal and have 5x life than a tank

i guess you place your attribut and sets wrong
but then again be happy with 2.7.x the revamp all skills and skill trees
and change buff and debuff mechanics