In 2024 ESO is still the best MMO

[Lowbei]

For reference, I have been playing MMOs since 1997 in both endgame PvP and PvE, and I have 10+ years of experience with ESO.

I will detail some of the reasons why ESO is still the top of the MMO scene.

Combat : Active blocking and dodging puts full control of your defense in your hands, instead of relying on RNG.
The ability to weave light attacks between your skills, along with a large amount of skill variance, results in a sizable skill gap that sees inexperienced players doing literally less than half the dps of skilled players.

Progression : In most MMOs, you have vertical progression, resulting in each new dlc outdating all the gear from previous DLCs, resulting in an endless grind and a yearly gear purge.
ESO has horizontal progression, which means that new dlc doesnt necessarily mean better gear, resulting in gear sets from up to 8 years ago still being meta in endgame.

Crafting : Materials in ESO are always relevant and never outdated by new DLC, and some of the best gear is crafted. You can easily craft gear that is useful from early game all the way to the end. New players arent stuck behind some arbitrary mmo gear level, as you can craft gear to any level. You also have hundreds of visual styles of gear to pick from, complete with detailed color dying of armor and weapons. You can also change what you look like via dozens of earnable skins, costumes, transmogs, mounts etc.

Endgame : PvP is always available, and the endgame PvE has a wide range of skill levels and accomplishments, with titles and skins that generally equate to skill level.
There is a lot of 12player content as well as 4player content, and even duo and solo arenas for people to test their skills in, complete with weekly leaderboards and rewards for ranking on it. There are also 4v4v4 battleground instances for those who want PvP but arent looking for large scale open warfare, also with leaderboards.

Leveling : Experienced players can get a new character from 1-50 in an hour or two, however for those who enjoy the old fashioned route, the game scales you to the mobs level resulting in people able to play with their friends anywhere at any time.

The Shop : The crown store ingame shop contains no pay2win elements, only cosmetics. The daily log in rewards also sometimes contain ‘loot boxes’ from the store, so even people who never drop a dime on it will open some boxes, which again mostly contain cosmetics or potions.

I could go on, but I will stop there. Have a great day!

[mimizukari]

i'm a player of nearly every MMO and i'd say ESO ranks either 2nd or 3rd depending on my mood but never 1st. World of Warcraft is still in the game, very strongly, has a better leveling experience as well with OPTIONAL scaling, so you can still feel weak/very strong in the world like an actual RPG, or you can scale all the way to max level similarly to ESO. Progression is also way better, horizontal progression just feels bad, it's why i can't really go back to guild wars 2, ESO at least allows you to do that horizontal progression from level 3, even being able to get trial gear from the start which makes it a little more enjoyable but it's still nowhere near the level of WoW's gear progression.

Don't get me wrong, ESO is a great game, like I said, I'd probably rank it around the 3rd best MMORPG right now, but thre's a reason FFXIV and WoW maintain such high playerbases, it isn't just hivemind, they're actually better games 9 times out of 10 when compared, but ESO is good for a casual/chill MMO.

[Lowbei]

Sorry but horizontal progression is simply and objectively better than vertical progression, and anyone who has played it knows that.

the leveling experience in wow is grindy with fetch quests galore, while in 2002 graphics with roblox animations and effects.

I would rank WoW at maybe 10th or so.

[Hayley]

wow is better.

[Lowbei]

lol not even close, which is why no details were given, but youre entitled to your opinion :)

[123]

copy pasta

[Xetelian]

ESO is the one I'm playing now

Its fun

My favorite combat style is more in line with this and Guild Wars 2

Honkai Star Rail, Genshin, Wuthering Waves, these are the top MMORPGs if you count them in since they're making hundreds of millions or billions a year

Guild Wars 2 is one I've played that this reminds me of when it comes to mtx for inventory and bank and build slots and nickle and dime you to death for every little thing either with gold sinks or real money but only one of them has the base game free (not that the 5$ on sale is bad but Freemium is better as Freemium and shouldn't cost and upfront fee)

The MMORPG of yesteryear is not popular

WoW is never going away in my life time but it isn't top the charts like mobile games

The open world with little clusters of monsters and npc hubs between has been stale for a long time

During the MMO gold rush we got weird games like Allods and mid franchises like Conan and even Marvel and DC tried to get in on it (way too late I might add)

That was a great time and this game would have stood out more in that time (2002 to 2010) but ti was a year or two late to the party and wasn't appealing enough to make a splash

At least they added another class, be nice if they touched up on a few of the classes in ways that I would want but I'll complain about Nercos in another thread

Final Fantasy 14 is basically the best Eastern aesthetic
WoW is the best Western aesthetic MMORPG

ESO is more fun than WoW for myself and the rest of us that are playing it more than WoW but ESO doesn't patch and drop content fast enough to keep up with games like Fornite where every week is a fun new thing almost and Helldivers 2 which is the same



Well, take care, I vomited that word salad and I feel a little better for it

[mimizukari]

Originally posted by Lowbei:

Sorry but horizontal progression is simply and objectively better than vertical progression, and anyone who has played it knows that.

the leveling experience in wow is grindy with fetch quests galore, while in 2002 graphics with roblox animations and effects.

I would rank WoW at maybe 10th or so.

Horizontal progression is only good if you have limited time to play. If you have 'unlimited' time, like spending 18+ hours a day on gaming, vertical is much superior ^^, I spend all day gaming, every day for the past 20+ years so I need VERTICAL progression that takes a long time, months even years to complete.

[Kruxxor]

Originally posted by Lowbei:

Sorry but horizontal progression is simply and objectively better than vertical progression, and anyone who has played it knows that.

the leveling experience in wow is grindy with fetch quests galore, while in 2002 graphics with roblox animations and effects.

I would rank WoW at maybe 10th or so.

So what are the other 8 MMOs between ESO (Your 1st) and WoW (Your 10th)?

[Lowbei]

Originally posted by 123:

copy pasta

huh? its literally not lol

Originally posted by mimizukari:

Originally posted by Lowbei:

Sorry but horizontal progression is simply and objectively better than vertical progression, and anyone who has played it knows that.

the leveling experience in wow is grindy with fetch quests galore, while in 2002 graphics with roblox animations and effects.

I would rank WoW at maybe 10th or so.

Horizontal progression is only good if you have limited time to play. If you have 'unlimited' time, like spending 18+ hours a day on gaming, vertical is much superior ^^, I spend all day gaming, every day for the past 20+ years so I need VERTICAL progression that takes a long time, months even years to complete.

thats simply not true. ive played for 10+ years and do endgame pvp and pve. horizontal progression is much more appealing to endgame players.

[Xetelian]

Originally posted by Lowbei:

Originally posted by 123:

copy pasta

huh? its literally not lol

Originally posted by mimizukari:

Horizontal progression is only good if you have limited time to play. If you have 'unlimited' time, like spending 18+ hours a day on gaming, vertical is much superior ^^, I spend all day gaming, every day for the past 20+ years so I need VERTICAL progression that takes a long time, months even years to complete.

thats simply not true. ive played for 10+ years and do endgame pvp and pve. horizontal progression is much more appealing to endgame players.

Progression in general for sure, number go up make ape brain release dopamine

We all have different flavors that we like and I think both is good but I can't post the both is good meme

[Lowbei]

Originally posted by Xetelian:

Originally posted by Lowbei:

huh? its literally not lol




thats simply not true. ive played for 10+ years and do endgame pvp and pve. horizontal progression is much more appealing to endgame players.

Progression in general for sure, number go up make ape brain release dopamine

We all have different flavors that we like and I think both is good but I can't post the both is good meme

i feel ya

[The Planar One]

Meanwhile, a small but not completely invisible portion of the Steam population can't play due to constant disconnects and server lag. 7 years of not a single issue; the last month has been. Atrocious honestly.

[Lowbei]

Originally posted by The Planar One:

Meanwhile, a small but not completely invisible portion of the Steam population can't play due to constant disconnects and server lag. 7 years of not a single issue; the last month has been. Atrocious honestly.

strange. i know a lot of players who use the steam client and they never mention this. hopefully that gets resolved tho.

[RadioNewVegas]

You start mmo last year imo, not a few décade ago

But Nice review, sad you are all wrong

Top 10 maybe

[Lowbei]

Originally posted by RadioNewVegas:

You start mmo last year imo, not a few décade ago

But Nice review, sad you are all wrong

Top 10 maybe

ive been playing this game since its beta 10 years ago lol

if you have any questions about ESO, let me know :)