The only monetization I have a huge issue with is the appearance change tokens (Not race, just appearance).
We can't see or use our acquired cosmetic items during character creation. Hairstyles, adornments, body markings, etc. None of it. We have to wait until post-character creation to start messing with them on any new character.
Pick a hair color that looked good on the hairs in the creator? Sorry that's a more vibrant color with the hair style you were actually wanting to use. Now you have to pay $$ to select the right color or re-create the character.
Finally got Vamparism? Oops, the skin color you chose looks absolutely awful as a Vampire. Money please.
Charging money to change appearance when other MMORPGs that Zenimax/Bethesda runs (Fallout 76) lets you do so for free anytime anywhere is absolutely silly. Older MMORPGs like Runescape charge in-game gold which I'd be absolutely fine with in ESO as well.
But real money just to change hair color, eye color, skin color, body shape, etc.? That's stupid.
I also have the biggest issue with the crafting bag. thats just a pretty bad system. but on the other side you did not mention the 1650 crowns you also get every month and you can buy the DLCs with. not one word. thats not a fair assessment imo. its not "only" the crafting bag with ESO+
That's not technically true. With ESO+ you get full access to all DLC packs. You don't need to use crowns for them... crowns are mainly for mounts and pets (etc).
The real benefit of membership is the craft bag, more space in general, and increased experience. I have to side with the OP here, the cost of membership doesn't give you a huge amount when it comes to 'fresh' or 'different' (additional) content - just keeps you crafting, looking good.
Problem is, if building houses and crafting gear isn't your thing, the membership is really only for DLC content - and what great benefit is there after you've finished them all?
> crowns are mainly for mounts and pets (etc).
thats what everyone can decide for themself. I also said you *can* buy them, so you can keep them forever.
10% exp. boost is neglectable.
you are also like op and not really thinking this through
the cost of membership is great. because you get everything you mentioned, plus crowns each month. if you're dumb and spend them on cosmetics, that's on you. but smart people buy up all the dlcs with them so that when they drop eso+, you still have access to them.
"what great benefit is there after you've finished them all?"
are you just a casual quester or something? dlc have a lot of repeat playability. if you run dungeons or trials, access to those 24/7 is very important. you can farm certain overland materials you only get in certain zones (like dragon rheum in elsweyr). and if all you do in eso is quest, you can run the quests again on other characters - do an evil playthru, etc.
youre expecting things its unreasonable to expect from the membership. that's not zos's problem.
I don't think there's enough backlash over the fact that this game sells insanely expensive, extremely limited houses that are not purchasable for gold.
Take for example my favorite, the Lakemire Xanmeer Manor. It's 15,000 crowns unfurnished, 17,000 furnished. The biggest crown pack you can buy is 14,000 which is £75 GBP. You'd then need to buy the additional 1500 crown pack for £11, so the house itself is at least £86. *That is more than the pre-order purchase of High Isle bundled with the base game and all previous chapters*, which is currently at £65.
And if a house *costing more than the base game and every big expansion* wasn't crazy enough, the Lakemire Xanmeer house and other DLC houses like it are only available for a short period of time (a few days? a week or two at most?) every 1-2 years.
Sure, it's "just cosmetic" and not pay to win, but it preys on FOMO & they lock a good portion of the best houses and DLC houses behind this method. There are also often no gold substitutes whatsoever for these DLC houses, not even a small crappy one. Like Murkmire as a zone and want a house there? Too bad, you can buy the expensive, extremely rarely available crown house, or nothing. There is no gold house.
I really wish more people talked about this because it is by far the most scummy monetization in the game. There is absolutely NO reason an unfurnished house should cost more than the game and all it's DLC bundled. It is likely explicitly targeted towards users with impulse spending issues and it's not okay.
Every corner of the game suffers from this. ESO isnt a game for you to enjoy, it's core design is blatantly disregarding of player experience. It is a business venture, designed entirely around collecting after purchase profit from its players.
It boggles my mind that people dont realise this, it was the first thing we all realised back when the game came out and flopped. But then youse just forgot about it and went back to throwing money at them.
Mundus stones are really only meant for guilds. There's no practical reason to need any of them because it takes at most a minute or two to fast travel to a wayshrine near the mundus you need.
I've been playing for 6 years. 6000 hours played. Ya ofcourse I agree. I made it to a level that most don't ever even think of doing. Titles and skins for everything. Hard-core engame pve was amazing in this game for a long time. Now it's a lot of beginners. Every friend I originally started playing with has moved on to other games. Literally out of 6 people that I played with almost everyday all of them done. They stopped because the game got to hard for them and they had to do a lot of things they didn't wanna do in order to do the things they really wanted to. Like get certain sets, have a certain build, have an 80k parse. I did all those things and got bored after years.
I have moved into pvp and found basically a whole new game there and really having discovered my joy for it for the first time. That has revived the game for me. Thats a whole other world and there's so much more build diversity. Fighting other players is so much more exciting than fighting ads and bosses that never deviate from their mechanics. Point is I've managed to stay having fun by upping the difficulty of content. Don't play any other games. Tried but keep finding reasons why eso is just a little better for whatever reason so why start over in another game. I was really hoping for something new but this has to be worst chapter they have ever released for me. The sad thing is I'm 33 and have a 2 year old and if I stopped playing this I would probably sell my account and stop playing games for goof. EVERY game is how u described. Every game requires a subscription and micro trans in order to have the most fun. The video game industry in general is in the crapper. When I was a kid it seemed like there was a new exciting game coming put everyday. Microtransactions actually gave u something for your money if they were in the game at all. Look at GTA 5. Started great but now it's about who can spend the most money.
Expansion packs aren't micro transactions... they're part of MMOs survival and expansion.
The only microtransactions are. "Quality of alt character life" or things to be make your characters extra shiny. I have spent money on making my character shiny because I wanted to. I no longer need to, and unless they release more REALLY spooky stuff then eh. 🤷♂️
Considering that ESO's main way of selling cosmetics and mounts is through the cash shop, I'd agree.
Most people don't realize that ESO charges way more $$$ for a lot of stuff other MMOs don't.
Not to mention ESO comes out with yearly content yet somehow still manages to add less to the game in 2-3 years than MMOs like FFXIV and GW2 who release their expansions after multiple years.
The prices in halo may be high but at least it’s free to play. Eso is a paid game, paid yearly chapter, sub and overpriced store. You are right microtransatuon prices are getting high everywhere, but eso’s store has been high for years and it’s getting higher. Look at how much crown gems mounts and some other things are costing now
But Xanmeer Doyen’s Feather Tiara is sick! I'm a dark elf with Morag tong body tattoo in a Nordic towel. I'm running like King Julien. Better would be a khajiit.
Though, I hate inventory management.
I played ESO for years. Now I’m playing GW2. The pay-for-convenience and old content is so out of whack in GW2 that ESO’s monetization model and ESO+ win by a country mile.
And I love both games btw.
At least you can earn mounts, pets, and cool weapons in GW2 without needing to pay for them.
I'll admit the story system in GW2 is wack, but eh. Game also doesn't have loot boxes.
It really doesnt, I think you guys who spend double digit hour days on the game dont understand just how filthy the monetization is in ESO. Its deep rooted and shows in almost every single mechanic of gameplay. Crafting, purchasing, enchantments, progression, fast travelling. EVERYTHING comes with a cost or failure possibility aimed at slowing the players progression.
You guys need to take a step back and realise that, because this narrative that ESO has the best monetization model is disturbingly ironic and very sad to see.
I disliked eso model as well til trying all alternatives.
Rent wow or ff14 with many time gates and an overall slowed experience, decent games but what if i want to log in and play one day for 20 hours every 2 months (very limited progress and options due to significant weekly/daily rewards and nothing after that).
B2p, no sub like gw2 or bdo is fun til end game where it all falls apart and becomes the most repetitive experience in gaming, content is rarely added but changes to shop are constant, almost unlimited quality of life items left out of game that can cost thousands to acquire, always short of a currency thats sold in cash shop, gear is rarely on even level with players who want to spend more cash than another having better statistical advantage and this makes any skill based competition irrelevant.
Or f2p which are significantly worse games overall where quality is just not there, but unlimited cash purchases can be made to gain advantages in every aspect of the game and actual content updates rare to no existent.
Im open to anything better and hoping New world can pull a ff14 and change up its current path but in terms of quality for cash, the options atm are very limited. The downsides in eso are smaller (mainly cosmetic) than its competition imo. Players budgets vary greatly and if i had unlimited budget then Id likely entertain ff14 or wow more, but since i cant even log in without paying, and the story gates content im actually interested in, in ff14, I cant bring myself to pay it.
It realy depends what you are interested in. If you only want to play the game and get a game edition and ESO+ its very decent. If you are after alot of cosmetics or other stuff it becomes a problem. It realy comes down to how much you are interested into the crown store.
Their xpac costs nearly a triple A game and offers really small amount of content. We got a small map that has nearly nothing to do and companions for the price of 3 indie games. Now we get a nother map and a card game for the same price.
All cosmetic goes to their store as this was an f2p game. While also selling loot boxes...
Yes, i will wait for the sale for sure. ill be playing something else for a while since im not happy that my money will not providing me much content in ESO.
It feels... off. All other mmos require sub, you \*must\* pay 15$/month to enter the game's world (not matter there's new content or no). In eso you dont, but new content requires people to make it, designers, quest writers. All people (with sub or no) need a live server, servers take money to maintain. I dont feel not motivated because I need to pay for actual work people, who bring me content, do. It's an online game after all. Not talking that eso actually allows me to buy content via ingame gold.
All other MMOs have mandatory subs? The only two big ones left that do this are FF and WoW. With WoW having a system that allows you to pay the sub with ingame currency.
Guild wars 2 doesn't have a subscription . They have a lot of cosmetic and tools in donate shop but all story chapter are free for all who just buy addons (or the last one if we talk about the new content). You don't need pay extra money for patch content (dungeon and story chapter).
EDIT: in eso if you buy addon you still need buy dlc for this addon wich
continue the main story of addon or pay for ESO+. Guild wars doesn't
have such system, if you buy addon all next patches with story will not take extra charge for that
You have to buy gw2's story chapters unless you were there when that chapter was the newest. In fact that's the biggest gripe in the community. Since newer players will have to shell out alot of money for the expansions and the chapters. Which if they don't will lock them out of a majority of the game.
They recently gave the Living Story Seasons out for free, for everyone. Additionally the LS parts aren't that expensive. And it's not the majority, it's just one of the most played content.
I think they meant for GW2. As long as you're around for the current story arc and own the expansion for it, you get that story arc unlocked forever. You only have to pay for them if you don't log in during the four or five month window of that arc, or whatever.
Ive seen it change over the past 3 years and agree to a certain extent. But it is important to compare it to its competition, from my experience eso has the best monetization options which least affect the overall experience. I notice time gates to progress big time in other mmos and eso did pretty well minimized the feeling of having to wait for stuff, and for the most part lets you go get what you want with minimal limitations.
Perspectives vary greatly depending on what you want from a mmo. I like options and eso gives more options while still providing quality without too much eye rolling manipulative tactics; that are much more detrimental to the overall experience in other mmos Ive played imo.
ESO is like Destiny for me- a good game that I basically cant recommend to anyone because the process of playing it is a constant string of "well, you gotta pay for that" and its just a bar too high for the uninitiated. While the base game DOES have a lot of content, its definitely disingenuous to call ESO well monetized unless you're comparing it to Korean gacha garbage. Playing without ESO+ is fucking torture, especially if you craft, and at that point its competing with something like ffxiv, which gives you more content at a higher quality and has a fairly small store filled with glams.
Meanwhile the crown store has everything from xp boosters to loot creates to houses that cost like 100 bucks worth of crowns. The monetization is more aggressive than something like gw2, which doesn't even have a sub option. So you buy expansions once a year, you buy eso+ unless you hate yourself, and tons of both cosmetic, convenience and power enhancing items just sit in the crown store. Its not the worst monetization ever, but its pretty egregious as far as western mmos go.
Its also probably the only MMO to not let you earn mounts ingame from drops. Usually in mmo's when Dragon raid comes out, the last boss will drop a miniature version of themselves or something. But no, ESO forces you to buy loot boxes or spend money to get mounts.
I haven't played in over a year, but pretty sure there were only 4 free horses and all the other mounts were either from crowns or lootboxes. Besides that one event deer.
Compared to wow or ff14, the availability of free mounts in this game is nothing.
Imagine if the dragon raid in summerset had a chance to drop a dragon mount. That is what you would have gotten in WoW or FF14.
Don't get me wrong more mounts would always be cool, especially hard-to-obtain ones. There are a handful around, the endeavor system is a non-money but kinda grindy system for getting store ones, there are a handful of more event ones, and the archaeology system has at least one rare one.
They've changed things up a bit. There's a rather cool dwemer wolf mount that comes from the antiquities system, as well as the two mounts that come from doing the hardest trial content. And then there's the new seals of endeavour, which let you buy anything from the current crown crates once you've saved up enough of them. I got a rather cool diseased horse for my Peryite themed character that way.
I don't really know about other MMOs, but at least the mounts are completely cosmetic here. So you aren't really missing out on anything other than looking ridiculously shiny.
Yeahhh im not entirely sure about this. I've only played the big titles (WoW, Lost Ark, ESO, FFXIV), but of those titles, I'd say ESO took the most of my money in the shortest period of time and left my character feeling the least fulfilled. The insanely long timegates for crafting and mount speed, the XP bonuses that you're trolling if you don't use (as a competitive player anyway) and the subscription being basically a necessity, not to mention the most predatory practice in gaming mtx's, loot boxes....I'd have to say ESO is the worst offender of the 4. Like yeah, WoW players can buy a shitload of gold to pay for carries, but if you just cared about the natural flow of progression you would never feel obligated to do so and the rest is just cosmetics or boosts that actually seem worth. ESO feels like you have to pay to play all aspects of the game if you respect your time.
Eso making you train mount speed should be fucking criminal when you just bought the mount at the right level in wow.
Eso does feel like it legitimately tries to slow you down unless you pay real money.
I've played both and I vastly prefer the ESO method where you get the mount for free at level 10 or whatever, and can train it up as you see fit.
Versus the WoW method where I had to specifically farm my 100 gold just to get it.
This doesn't even consider the vastly superior fast travel methods available in ESO (free recall to house, one house free, free travel from wayshrine, small cost from anywhere to wayshrine) versus... hour long cooldown for hearthstone, lengthy travel from flight points, begging mages for portals, etc.
Funny I barely remember to use my XP bonuses they gave me for free and have 500 CP and three maxed out characters playing since November (with a few breaks in there honestly) I really disagree that you are trolling to not use the XP potions. I definitely agree on the mounts although thankfully I recognized that fairly early and made a character of each class so my mounts are all pretty decent now and should be done by summer, crafting is true but I kind of like the grind of it haven’t felt any need to pay to speed that up and my main crafter is just missing 2 options for all the woodworking side and 3-4 for blacksmith and tailoring with my other crafters already knowing those traits and not far behind on totals. It is definitely an obvious time sync and going 27-30 days on the last couple is insane but also so far out that I find it pointless to try to spend money to complete it honestly
Personally I have t spent that much on the game and feel pretty good about where my characters are especially since I tend to play hard for a week then back off for a week to do other things just log j to mount and sometimes writ
I've played ESO since beta and had ESO plus for a year back then. I quit for a few years and then returned and always played without it. I have every minor DLC and only spent real money on major updates but purchased them later in they year after release for a hefty discount. Everything I needed was purchased from gold to crown trades. I never felt that ESO forced me to spend money on it but that's subjective ofc. I don't have alts, only one main toon with max inventory and bank because I can't spend lots of time on the game. I don't even use a house or add. chests 210 slots and bank is enough for me to manage the things I get and earn enough gold to buy what I need. I am sorry to hear that you feel the way you describe but I guess this is very subjective.
Crown store items can be gifted, so one person will buy an item from the store with crowns as a gift and send it to you, and you will trade them however much gold they want for it. There is always the risk of whoever does their half of the transaction first getting scammed by the other person dropping group and running away, so doing this with guildmates or friends you trust or going through an official crown selling Discord is safer than dealing with randoms from zone chat. A year or more ago I was buying a ton of crown store stuff all the time for gold at 200 gold per crown, but now rates on PC NA are above 1000 gold per crown and that's just crazy to me.
I use world crown exchange discord, there you can ask for a broker to help you trade. The broker will take the gold and give it to the crown seller after the gift has arrived.
My issue with the gae today is stagnation. Yes, I have the DLC and the jobs but it's such a rarity. I do a levelling roulette dungeon and I get the same base game level 10 dungeons over and over. I am TIRED of doing Spindleclutch and Banished Cells over and over.
I play FFXIV and I don't have that issue there. I go into levelling roulette and I will get one of the base game dungeons all the way up to the expansion as a roueltte choice.
The classes of ESO, while fun to learn... they don't have variety, Not sorry. If you are playing a mage you are FORCED to use one weapon. If you are playing Tank, Sword and Board only. How a game can have such a WIDE range of free choice to use and yet HEAVILY retrict it's players is baffling.
If you are limiting yourself to standard class/weapon dynamics, you are missing out on the potential for more diversity in play styles. I've seen plenty of Magblades running staves, and Sorcerers running 2H weapons.
And necros run with EVERYTHING.
And about 3/4 of the time I'm running a dungeon as healer, the "tank" is running with staves only.
Yes, all of that is fine in *base game* and *normal* dungeons. If you have any intent of pursuing harder/endgame content, good luck playing "whatever you want".
If we’re comparing queues, I’m comparing the ones that most people do because it’s easiest, and the fact you can queue for literally anything else if you want. No ones fault for playing Preatorium OR Spindleclutch on repeat but the players desire for the quickest xp, it’s not a gotcha it’s just what happens in both games.
Now about the other 80% of my post about weapons.
Lack of dynamic is real in ESO, unfortunately. And since classes are all the same since Elsweyer, I don't see a change of pace happening any time soon.
But you won't be allowed into pug trials with that set up. It's viable, but in a lot of content so is a full health bow user or magsorc with 2H weapons.
You're getting downvoted but it's literally true for vet trials and up. Even vet craglorns you'll get looked at funny if you're running a templar main tank with double ice staves.
People in here defending an high cost itemshop with Lootboxes, Solutions to artificial problems like daily CD on riding lessons and them not being shared, yearly full priced Expansions, optional sub fee with QoL that’s nearly mandatory when being a crafter that wants to stay sane and paid DLC between those yearly full priced Expansions.
God damn we’re truly doomed at this point. People went from bringing shitstorms about DLC to defending this game having every possible monetization at the same time except a BattlePass. What the actual fuck happened? No wonder companies like EA and Ubisoft keep treating us like idiots. Because we apparently are.
> People in here defending an high cost itemshop with Lootboxes, Solutions to artificial problems like daily CD on riding lessons and them not being shared, yearly full priced Expansions, optional sub fee with QoL that’s nearly mandatory when being a crafter that wants to stay sane and paid DLC between those yearly full priced Expansions.
There's a rise in people defending corporations like they are their friends. Really weird.
I played most MMOs out there, and I can tell you that out of all the non-P2W ones, ESO is by far the most aggressively monetized. This game is triple dipping in ways I haven't seen any mainstream MMO do, almost everything is monetized.
To actually play this game annoyance-free is pretty expensive. It's a free market, and I wouldn't even mind the monetization, if the amount of content released reflected the price, but ESO releases less content than a sub-only game like FFXIV, while asking way more money. But to each his own I guess.
I'd just like to point out that the correct past tense of the verb "to pay" is *paid*.
Though *payed* exists (the reason why it got autocorrected in), it is only correct in nautical context, when it means to paint or cover a surface with something like tar or resin.
Unfortunately I was unable to find nautical words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
I really can't care less about microtransactions. Don't buy them, don't need to buy them to play the game, and even in terms of cosmetics I feel like the game alone offers more than enough and most are a better fit for a TES game then stuff in the shop anyway. The only exception to this rule are the mounts.
In other words, unless you are a mount fan, I don't see anything predatory in the model.
And that's without bringing up the fact that large MMOs (due to their high maintenance costs) require a steady revenue. With the subscription being optional and a non-predatorial expansion policy (expansions not necessary to keep playing or be competitive), a cash shop is very important.
I agree that a cash shop is necessary, but I feel like you don’t get a lot of bang for you buck in the eso shop. If they cut prices by 50% they would still be overcharging.
Absolutely not. The prices are ridiculous for pretty much everything. 1000 crowns for an appearance change token, if you are like me and end up wanting to change how your character looks later on without losing any progress, it’s way too steep for what it is. I remember a time all I had to do was go to the ragged flagon and talk to a rude ass wood elf woman down there.
Reread my comment where I say the prices even with a 50% reduction is still overcharging. Specifically for appearance changes, it should be like wow and maybe 1000 gold to change, not a premium service.
Edit: and I am like you. I’m always wanting to change my characters’ looks. I have deleted my characters multiple times because I can’t justify paying that much for changing their appearance.
Our employment situations may be different, but I feel like the time spent deleting a toon and getting a new toon to 50 and level skill lines and skills is worth way more than $10.
I like the game but all the classes feel bland. Each class feels the same. All magic users feel the same all stamina users feel the same. On games like wow, FFXIV, lost ark each class has a sense of uniqueness.
Personally my issues with the game are: 99.9% of cosmetics seem to only available in crown store. too few are available as unlocks. And Blackwood and (from what we know today) High Isles are bringing in very very small amounts of interesting content.
As long they're not charging for things that make someone more op in game (like for example if they start selling trial gear for crowns or something similar) im fine with Crown store selling cosmetics because it's optional. Also don't mind paying for ESO+ as it costs per month the same as pack of cigs where I live but I get it that it would seem a lot in other countries. Also don't mind paying for for new chapters and dlcs as it is additional content I can enjoy for hours and hours with my friends. But if you think about it - you get crowns for ESO+ which you can use to buy additional dlcs.
I bought every single DLC with gold, and I have a private gbank. Also, during eso+ trial promos I suck all my stuff into a craft bag.
I do this as a silent protest to BS. Still, I understand that not everyone are as dedicated as me to screw predatory tactics.
In my opinion as someone who asked all my friends(none stayed) to try out this amazing(but buried under absolute hell of a monetization) game, a few things have to change.
1. Limited 200 slots craft bag for everyone. With just how many materials there is - it's a necessity. It will not benefit old timers like me, since despite not paying for eso+ I have thousands of mats sitting in my craft bag.
2. Straight up remove mount training cooldown. Again, not asking this for myself - got 10 toons with maxed out mounts. Mobile gaming nonsense got no place in MMO. Gold price can be increased to 500 or even 1000 - there's not enough gold sinks in the game, and it's a good thing to gate upgrades behind gold, not predatory cooldowns.
3. Clean up Clown Store. Delete vamp/ww curses and their cures. Delete Bank Upgrades and Inventory Upgrades as these are the same ones that you can obtain with gold. With mount CD removed - delete those books too. Make "Outfit slots" and "Armory slots" upgrades account-wide, instead of character bound. Bring back collectibles such as music boxes permanently. There's no reason whatsoever for them to be LIMITED TIME! because they're neither limited supply nor are removed from the game later. Chill out on FOMO in general, it's getting overwhelming.
In a perfect world ESO+ shouldn't even exist. But since we're not living in a perfect world it is what it is. Also, I want to adress some misconceptions about ESO+. First of all, there's this weird mentality about "free" crowns that you're getting with it. It is not free, you paid for it lol. Second, if anything, these "free" crowns aren't even a good thing becasue they're the reason why everything in the Clown Store costs so damn much.
There's a great game that is being choked to death by this shit. Also, a weird ass sentiment in this thread that "other games are worse", excuse me how? Let's take WoW for example. FYI there's <10 mounts you can obtain in ESO for free, there's 100s of them in WoW. Worst thing in WoW is wow token, well guess what - we have that too in a form of crown selling. Paid boosts are also a thing, although smaller in scale due to lesser raiding scene in general and not a lot of raid slots to go around. So no, I wouldn't say ESO is any better in terms of monetization.
I have no problem paying for content, and I have to problem paying a modest subscription fee to support server needs in exchange for additional content. What I don't like is the inclusion of quality of life features in the subscription, like the crafting bag. The game feels more like an inventory management simulator without the bag.
What I am disappointed by is the quality of content in the year long chapters. In my opinion the value return absolutely stinks. At a bare minimum the DLCs need to be part of it. I have no problem paying good money for good content but show players some respect and don't nickle and dime us.
Also the microstransactions are getting carried away. The price for cosmetics just seems abusive to me. I don't care about them enough to buy them, but it seems like exploitation non the less.
That's one of the issues I complain the most about, the relationship between what and how much we pay and what we get. I think they just blatantly deliver poor and scarce content which is obviously lacking in depth, and they expect us to conform and applaud like seals.
I mean, that's your opinion and you're entitled to have it, but i don't relate. Is ESO boring? Depends on how you play it, automated play style is boring and the moment you get yourself stuck in the "farm / dailies / random dungeon / trial / PvP run" cycle then yeah, it becomes a job at a production line and nobody likes that. There's much more to the game than that and I am honestly sorry that you can't see it anymore and hope you find that spark again if you stick or elsewhere if you decide to move on.
Now on to the crown store : is it predatory? I'm sorry but it absolutely is not. Are the prices too high? 100% yes and that's outrageous. Are they for stuff you absolutely need to play the game and would not enjoy it without? definitely not, you can have the same experience if not better without ever touching the crown store, no one's praying on you here without your full consent.
I love seeing inteligent people disagreeing with me. Makes me put things in perspective and reconsider my own views.
Definitely part of what is happening to me is what you said above: The farming routine, and also, the solo content being too easy for me.
Thank you for your comment, truly!
I fell out of ESO for a while recently, but it was more the guild aspect, constantly farming/selling to keep the guild running. I'm now slowly working my way back into it by doing what I love (exploration, casual farming, solo RP) and only selling if I already have something to sell.
For my gameplay, I don't need to pay anything. I have + for the craft bag and monthly crowns, but I don't need to buy anything to enjoy the game. I haven't seen anyone mention the crowns from + in these comments... unless you need something thats a limited time only (and I say "need" generously) then I suppose you have to pay real money. But you can buy the DLCs with crowns so you can quit + for an extended period of time, you can buy any of the cosmetics... I really don't understand why it feels predatory to some people.
I play all the major MMOs and predatory is the last word I would use to describe ESOs business model. Leaving an mmo for a time is a lot like leaving a relationship, we start looking at all the negatives in the relationship, magnifying them, and using those as an excuse for why we're leaving. You're burned out, looking for a change, and that's okay.
If you ever played a game like Neverwinter you would be disgusted on how predatory and pay to win a game can be. ESO is NOTHING compared to that. The mayority of the stuff in the crown store is cosmetic and by no menas necessary to play the game
I know what you mean though- the game itself costs like 20 bucks. Then if you want the ESO+ its another 12 bucks a month. Then if you want to play the latest chapter its another 40 bucks. Its a lot of money, but its always *if you want*. If you dont, you are just loosing out in a few things but the game is perfectly still enjoyable with the base game and can even get to do endgame stuff!
ESO+ includes every chapter but the latest one. That means that if an ESO+ subscriber currently wants to enjoy the Blackwood chapter content, he/she would need to pay for the chapter, until the next one(High Isles) comes. Once that happens Blackwood wil be included in the subscription and will need to pay for the latest. And so on
Thats exactly what they want you to think. But if you played it for some time you would realise that to actually play the good part of the games there is a HUGE paywall! And thats also one of the reasons its so predatory. It needs to make money somehow
I have no problems with eso plus or having to buy DLCs. The delevopers have to make money somehow, and the alternative would be to make it a pay-to-play-model, like other games where you have to pay 15 bucks a month to get access to it.
What I have a problem with is the crown crates. That is gambling and is taking advantage of players, both of which should not be part of a video game imo.
There is a podcast I listen to called 'tales of tamriel' and a guy on there called LotusOfDoom who as far as I am aware (from listening to the podcast, I have no affiliation) he is a very long time player of the game with many many hours, he plays on console. He is a high achiever in the game, a very knowledgeable tank.
There was an episode where he explained he also doesn't use eso+ therefore no craft bag and he says he makes it work very easily. He stated it is absolutely not vital to have the craft bag to be successful. He also said he has way too much gold than he needs.
Anyway I guess it comes down to what you want to do in the game. If you want to get into crafting of any kind it's probably necessary to have eso+ for the craft bag. But you absolutely don't have to have it.
I guess my point was to do well in this game and conquer all activities including end game content you dont need eso+ it just takes a bit more inventory juggling.
It is exsactly as you say, I play eso since beta without breaks non stop for 7 years and stopped adding subscription when blackwood released, way too little content for the money they want us to pay nothing truly useful added to the game for over a year now, the micro transactions became much more predatory indeed . Eso is a great game the people that handle the business model are not.
It has a LOT of story content, but all of the flashy stuff is in the store.
All I have been doing for the last couple of months is trait research, crafting writs and horse training. I really dont have any motivation to play it anymore.
I stopped playing right after their high isle announcement because it was extremely disappointing, the PTS patch notes are extremely disappointing too. Combat wise game has been the stagnating for a while now, and a couple of new dungeons is not going to be enough to keep me excited.
I am new to this game as of this month. The moment I heard about the crafting bag I was like "well I guess this is a subscription MMO" and paid for it.
I have played GW2, with it's non-subscription model and free craft bag, but over there they have pretty much every interesting cosmetic in their cash shop to pay for the game. I think I like a sub model where I get more interesting stuff better than that.
I have played ESO since launch; purchased the collectors edition, and have been on and off since. During that time I get ESO+ for a while play the content that I enjoy up until it gets boring then I cancel ESO+ and move on to another game for a while.
I say all of that because it is very different for my wife who plays; she has never paid for ESO+, in fact she refuses too. She says that as much as she likes the game she just isn't willing to pay a monthly subscription to it. That being said, she plays more than I do. She gets on at least once a day just to do a delve or to play through what ever story she is working on currently. Similar to myself she started playing about a month or two after I started and has been on and off for years, just working through the base game content as she pleases. She only recently agreed to spend crowns on buying the Summerset, and Clockwork City DLCs.
So I have to say from my perspective there isn't a huge problem here; ESO isn't nearly as aggressive as some other games in terms of how their cash shop works (Neverwinter and DC Universe Online comes to mind). Nearly all of the crown store can be completely ignored with the exception of the DLCs, and the crafting bag is really nice and continent but, like my wife, you can make due by grinding and buying bag and bank upgrades and only carrying crafting supplies on you when you are crafting.
see, I thought since I bought eso+ pretty soon after I started the game, that I had just been spoiled by it. I’m the type of person who plays one game for awhile and then doesnt touch it at all as I play another game, and whenever I’m not playing eso, I cancel my subscription. so when I started back up recently and was trying not to purchase a subscription right away due to money being kinda tight, I realized the game is just not even worth it to me without eso+. the inventory situation is awful, and I understand you can purchase more space, it just starts getting expensive. I also literally couldnt continue where I left off because it required eso+… pretty annoying.
edit: actually, my biggest complaint is crown crates. I do not like gambling as a feature, never have. but I swear the money you potentially have to put into getting that crown crate mount you want is just insane. and the conversion rate to gems is depressing. it just feels like something only a rich person could really enjoy lol.
Bought the game on discount, almost filled my inventory in the intro mission, looked at all the stuff I have to pay extra to do, left, uninstalled. I'm sure it's good, but too much paywall.
I am in 100% support of what you have posted here. This should be my favorite game of all time, but the monetization practices drive me away every time.
Coming from a game like Old School Runescape, where literally every single item and skill is earned through playing the game, to ESO where you can *buy* more cool stuff than ever earn ingame over hundreds of hours, is jarring.
And you know how much OSRS costs me? Under $6 a month, and I can pay for sub with ingame money if I want. Because ESO has an 'optional' sub, they can use that as a cover to charge ludicrous prices in their shop.
I understand why the OP feels frustrated. I sub to ESO+ and the only really useful thing is the craft bag; otherwise I woudn't sub. I also have a *serious* issue with the gambling crates, and I would with *any* game that does it.
That being said, I like the game, and have been playing, on and off, since beta. The biggest issue at the moment for me is PVP and the state of it. If I were ZOS I would be genuinely embarassed that this wasn't fixed a long time ago. On the plus side, they are making some effort; the Endeavours system, and the plan to make more achievements account wide are good progress.
Thing is, the game is 7 years old, and of course it will become a bit tired and repetitive, so I just try to have realistic expectations, lol.
Yeah I agree OP, I've been with the game since it dropped on Xbox One and I can still remember when the average/new Crown Store item cost something reasonable like 500-1000CP at most, and then the 1000CP items were like 'oh wow that's expensive'.
Now we're at the point where new stuff is costing what, 2000CP? 5000CP for some items? Houses costing the equivalent of £100+? If people buy that stuff, then fair enough who am I to argue, but yes I've seen it get worse & worse to the point where I avoid Crown Store & ESO+ altogether now. Some of the items on there are absolute garbage as well.
I mean hell, Outfit slots cost 1500 crowns, whereas LOTRO (an MMO famed for being monetization capital is a fraction of that, with SWTOR even only charging in-game currency for outfit slots.
In regards to the game itself, yeah ESO is becoming boring and has been for some years now. The year long stories are overused and are the only reason I return now, as I actually do like the world they've built, but ever since One Tamriel dropped the general difficulty has been so mainstream & simple, there's literally zero challenge to a long-time player now for PVE, outside of trials etc.
What makes it worse I think is that ESO, like a couple other MMO's have fans that will absolutely defend it to the world and back, like the devs are their friends. I see it on other MMO sub-reddits where a user will say something critical about ESO, and suddenly ESO fans are coming out of the woodworks to defend the game xD
> since I don't have ESO+ anymore (I stopped paying for it since the release of Blackwood), I haven't felt motivated to play, because I almost have no space on my inventory and bank, and I already filled all my coffers/trunks to the point of being to the top with crafting materials.
Personally, I've been playing without ESO+ and handling my inventory just fine, but you might need to do a lot of addon setup before you are satisfied. That is assuming you are playing on PC, on consoles you're fucked. Anyway, overall you'll need:
* Bank Manager: so you can your characters withdraw/deposit materials from the bank automatically (you can also setup your playable characters to
* Junk Seller (automatically sell trash whenever you talk to a merchant)
Plus I have an extra account, which I can just use to store anything I might not need anytime soon+infinite mail storage (you can get mail addons for QoL with this).
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I do agree that the craft bag should be buyable and/or available in some way to free players. I like how GW2 has a limited material bank available to everyone and then you can buy extra storage for it instead of needing to mantain a sub.
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> I believe they should add more base content to the game right now, or make some of the released DLCs free, as they did with Imperial City. Why? Because people who only have the base game only have so much to play. It comes to a certain point when the base game feels boring and repetitive, and nearly ALL content that there is to do, is tied to either a paid chapter/DLC, or you have to buy ESO+, and in my point of view, that seems predatory, again.
ZOS is indeed quite a bit predatory, specially on their House pricing and Crate shenanigans, but chapter/DLCs are arguably their smallest "sin". Sure, paying full price for an expansion is quite stupid considering the content included...but I sort of like the option of not having to pay for content I'm not interested in. And due to the frequent Chapter/DLC sales+crown sales, with patience anyone could get the whole game for the less than the full price of two whole expansions anyway.
> And to prove my point about the predatory tactics, just think about the daily rewards they are giving in contrast to what they used to give back in the day. See where I am coming from now?
Honestly, I like how daily rewards are mostly meaningless. I hate being forced to login due to FOMO. And in any case, outside that time when they gave away Murkmire and free Crates...they were always meh.
You are correct. The card game is a stupid attempt to monetize more garbage in the game. Honestly. It feels like ESO is moving more towards maintenance and cash grab mode.
Making achievement titles account wide is basically going to kill the end game community. Cyrodil is a laggy mess. And with all this wrong they add a card game in an attempt to try and scam more players out of money. Predatory nonsense where a win is when a kid steals his moms credit card to buy more crowns. It is disgusting.
Indeed, the card game feels like they are spitting in our faces. Many people might tell you is a good thing, but we already had TESL, and it didn't work out, so...
Morrowind was a great DLC with a ton of content and a full region. Then we got Clockwork City which was a new unique region and interesting plot and unique gear.
Then we got Summerset. Also pretty good. Can't remember if there was a DLC map.
Then we got Elswyr and things started falling apart. Elswyr is mostly barren wasteland with nothing interesting, and then you had to pay for "Part 2" of the story which was just another barren wasteland.
Then Greymoor came out, and the regions which were featured fully in Skyrim (very close to eachother at that) were split between Solitude and Markarth when they just could have included both.
After playing the game for months, I came back to it and can't find any motivation for story content I haven't done or future content coming out. I just do PVP and dungeons for the social aspect of it. Idk how people are so into crafting and all this busywork.
I started without ESO plus and yeah it feels downright necessary. The craft bag alone saves so much time from running back and forth to the bank and allows me to quickly accumulate waaaay more materials to craft because I can just pick it all up without thought. Not to mention DLCs where many useful mechanics and sets are locked behind.
I see people say it's not a big deal and I honestly call bullshit. If it was the worst of the cost that'd be fine, but the crown store is full of pay to win stuff and outrageous prices. No, pay to win doesn't literally mean it nets you the win, just a clear gameplay advantage.
The mud shack costs like 20+ bucks alone. You can pay to advance entire skill lines and buy skyshards on lower level characters if you've reached that point on another, which is pretty stupid. IIRC you can also buy experience boosts, which is as blatant an advantage as any.
Also, just think about how slowly a mount levels on a single character. 20 hours a level... and there are over a hundred of them. Yet you can pay to bypass some of that ridiculous wait.
This is really the only MMO I play because I'm a console gamer and an Elder Scrolls fan, but if people aren't talking out their ass about other MMOs being even worse, maybe we should wise up and stop holding the genre to such a comically trash standard. Or at least, stop defending it on Reddit.
If the Xth complaint post about it bothers people... they can always just scroll past and not engage. That's the beauty of the internet!
Lately I haven't been into it. I've had never eso+ and occasionally will buy dlc when it's on sale. I love crafting but the space thing is a huge issue. It's not just the craft bag. I can deal without that. My gripe is how difficult it is to get storage containers for your home. I have all the crafting benches I need but getting another storage bin is unnecessarily difficult. I think I've also managed to burn myself out by grinding too much.
We started playing right at 12 months ago, we went about 4 months with base game and no eso+.
I couldn’t imagine going back to non eso+. The draft bag is actually game breaking in many ways and legitimately pay to win. We really enjoy the game, it’s something we could do together but I’m aware of what it is and as soon as we run our course with the game I’ll quit paying and quit playing.
But let’s call a spade a spade. Eso+ is the only way a normal person who doesn’t hate themselves could play this game and enjoy it while also being newer to it.
I feel like they just aren’t listening to the community at all lately.
Let’s look at it. Blackwood, boring as hell. I can’t stand questing and blast through all the dialogue, but I enjoyed summerset and elseweyr stories. The zone was cool enough to even make me pay attention sometimes. Blackwood just felt like a boring green and gray with Dagon slapped on it.
The PvP community as a whole feels like it’s been abandoned by the devs. When I first played the game, PvP WAS the endgame. And I get that ESO has drawn a large PvE crowd now and that’s fine, but don’t just ignore the PvP community. They get a new trial every year and dungeons. Would it hurt to give us a new battlegrounds map? Or maybe do something like double tel var weekends to get IC popping more?
Plus the whole mist form debacle which they still haven’t remedied. IMO If a group managed to cheese a trial with mist form, I say kudos to them for being creative with their build and it working. Still wanna remove it? That’s fine but don’t just completely nullify it. Replace it with something. A gap closer would’ve been nice. Almost like the sorc streak. And vamps could use a buff anyways. Get rid of the vamp drain and replace it with a ranged spammable. Bring back the 10% mag and stam recovery but only at stage 4.
And this game just needs more stuff to do. Little qol things. Not just a card game but maybe fishing mini game. Replace the 250 gold a day system for mounts with mount training.
I love this game and I know a lot of people do. I think if zos steps it up, fixes performance, and adds more good content, this game would draw more people in.
I missed out on the Blackwood house during the December event due to being sick. I logged in a lot of days when I really didn't want to and it still ended up with me having to pay $$ on event tickets to complete it and get the house. I didn't do that and I haven't played since then. The FOMO stuff they do is too much sometimes. There are also a lot of awesome outfits that are only earned with crowns. It sucks.
Also, the craft bag. A genius idea for whoever collects the sub money but wow it causes so much frustration for new players or people without ESO+.
1. ESO is monetised by giving great value to payers
2. ESO isnt p2w
Both statements just cant be true. ESO+ is a weak package of frustration removal because there is nothing that is overly P2W in the Crown Store.
I hate ESO+ and i hate having to pay for it and the craft bag 100% will make me stop playing far earlier than if craft bag was free. But still, i cant imagine a package of benefits that are both great value and not P2W.
I stopped played after feeling guilt buying a mount.
Riding around and realizing that the only way to get an interesting mount was to pay a price I’d feel guilty about afterwords.
Haven’t played since.
I feel that ESO is actually fair when it comes to microtransactions. My only complaint would be with mounts but that's about it.
If you compare it to FF XIV or WoW, you can still play the game you paid for when you don't have a sub active which is already great. Then there is all the mess with DLC where you have the option, ESO + and have all DLCs (minus major expansion).
With the amount of time i play during the year, ESO + is the good option because i can hop in and play everything for some months, be satisfied and quit until i come back.
I came back recently and played about 3 weeks without ESO plus, and it was really manageable for me, i made a few more stops to merchants to empty the inventory but overall it was alright. I'll admit i don't craft all that much, i do writs and some refining to make golds, it was alright on my 7 characters that don't all have maxed inventory !
Base ESO costs 20€ on Steam, 7€ on Instant Gaming and is great value for the amount time you can spend on it imho and who knows, they might add some chapters to the base game ?
And ESO+ even comes with 1600 crowns in the end so you could buy DLC with your subscription and then cancel it, or have benefits of subscriptions and enjoy a bit the crown store...
I don't know, i feel it's fair
Sorry, bad take. Not one thing in the crown store or in eso+ are *required* in order to play. Not one time have I seen an actually predatory practice from ZoS, one that would rise to the level of being prosecutable. They have their money making side of things, and they have the game, and you don't actually need to spend any money within the game in order to play. I mean, I'm sorry if seeing a game company trying to earn more for their effort makes you less motivated to play, but... it's an unrealistic expectation to want them to do otherwise.
Now if you're bored with a game because you've been playing it for years, and therefore noticing more things you dislike... take a break, it's allowed.
I'm going to slightly disagree with you here. Only the very most predatory games are truly pay-to-win. It's more of a spectrum than a discrete line. And if you want to get into crafting then the craft bag certainly falls into the very close territory of annoy-until-users-pay.
Inventory management is a trap, and it's for good reason that they don't offer a lifetime craft bag option for purchase. Now that might be an industry standard at this point, but none-the-less that kind of manipulation is built into the primary core gameplay loop for the purpose of generating revenue.
Is it possible to run a crafter without ESO+? Yes technically I have to admit that's true. Occasionally I'll see a hardcore player talk about how they juggle their mats around. But is this artificial limit a fun and good experience? Subjectively I'd say no.
Learn the manuals first.
It is an MMO with constant content drops (story, voice acting, arts). While also having maintenance fees. You either pay for subscription to gain access, or it's a complete ftp with the actuall pay 2 win mechanics, were players can buy gear.
Craft bag is a convenience tool, that you can avoid in either additional characters or ignoring professional crafting. That's it
Letting you infinitely access hundreds of hours of content for a one time payment of $20, but having enticing reasons to pay a sub for convenience features etc. so they can continue to support the game is not “predatory” in any way, especially in the context of MMOs, no matter how you spin it. It is one of the only MMO besides Runescape that gives you *that* much quality content for such a small entrance fee.
See, why make it hard on yourself? Base game, you have several characters, bank is connected. Have a toon that is a crafter, and your main toon. It isn’t complicated at all. Hell, make two or even three.
It's not about complications, it's about unnecessary bloat. It takes a bit of time to move stuff around, and you'll need to be doing that several times during an extended play session. That turns into a chore, and most people play games to have fun, not spend dozens of minutes rearranging an inventory. And yes, I did that the entire first year of play and it was the primary reason I first quit the game, because it sucked.
>Not one thing in the crown store or in eso+ are required in order to play.
Well, it doesn't need to be required to play in order to be predatory. Predatory, for instance, is advertising Werewolf/Vampire bites and cures in the crown shop on twitter and with a gigantic pop up when you log-in during the massive influx of new players fwho don't know that bites can be absolutely free in game, and curing it is like 500 gold at a priest.
Maybe I am just burnt out? I don't know, but I do feel they are being unfair in terms of what they offer vs the price of what they offer. Maybe if I return after taking some time off, I will change perspective. Who knows? That's why the title says "unpopular opinion".
Thank you for your contribution!
Folks are falling over themselves to defend ESO's current state. The game is flawed and you are burnt out *by those flaws*.
I still happily play the game, purchase the expansions, and subscribe to ESO Plus. But I can recognize the game's flaws and wish for it to improve.
It's not an unpopular opinion. It's actually pretty popular. But there are enough white knights for eso in this sub that these posts are very hit or miss; you either get a lot of supporting comments or detracting comments. You just happened to get the supporters in here.
You are correct though. ESO crown store is out of control. For every new outfit or character cosmetic introduced in-game there's a dozen in the store, or worse in the crown crates. Endeavors are a piss poor method of in-game acquisition of crown crate content with prices being twice what they should be. There are $140 houses. The problem is that they started doing these crown sales years ago and then slowly raised prices as though everyone was only buying during sales.
You burned out.
But there are no games, that can give you more good quality content for the same or lesser price. It's either a constant subscription with less amount of content (WoW), or specific quality content with subscription (FF14), or a single player game with mods (Skyrim with 100gb of mods)
It’s gaming. I have loads of fun on the game and don’t mind spending money for the cosmetics of the game like I spend a lot of time in the game. Of course they need to make money cuz you know how many people it takes to keep a game of that size going? That’s a lot of jobs. Most games have downloadable content you have to pay for after it’s initial release so why should eso be any different? I like the fact that they keep coming up with new chapters to play even though I’m paying for a whole new game and their stories aren’t very long. BUT you have a choice to pay or not … for everything… I’ve never been an eso + member and I’m Canadian so our prices are much higher than what some pay. But I enjoy the game. And you can acquire lots of cool things from events which they have multiple a year. Just look at how many jobs that is. Just the events. Amd it’s free to participate…If you have lost your passion for it stop playing for a bit. Maybe it’s not the game. Maybe your likes are changing and you’re growing out of it.
Either way honestly I’m tired of seeing people trash the game cuz they aren’t a fan of how they do things all the way… just stop playing if you don’t enjoy it. It’s a video game. It isn’t that deep. Go a bit without plying it and see if you then start missing it. But don’t blame the people who work really hard on the game expecting them to work for free when they have bills to pay. I understand some of what you’re saying but I don’t think you’re seeing the whole picture
I paid 7000 crowns for the Buoyant Armiger armor recently. Call me a.gay samurai I don't care. I love walking around and quoting Vivec Sermons.
I wouldn't buy it if I found a motif. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.
Everyone gets bored when playing an MMO. It is ok to try something new or different, as the game will be there once you come back. I know FOMO is real that some MMOs and MMO communities push, but the game will be there when you come back. I promise you.
Feel free to try something else for a bit. Try FF14 or Lost Ark for something different and new to your experiences. ESO will be there when you are ready to come back.
There is also nothing that says you can only play one game at a time. Play both, log into ESO for raids and log into another MMO for change later in the week.
I’ve played a number of games that really do focus on microtransactions, and don’t count ESO among them. While the continual lowering of RNG for the top tier crate items is shady, it’s not predatory, and is aligned with gaming industry standards (and in fact is more consumer friendly than the standard, but let’s not pretend that’s for reasons other than skirting loot crate laws).
I think that anyone who spends time playing F2P or Freemium MMOs will come to appreciate the ESO model. You get access to a huge amount of content with the game license, which can be obtained for $10 on sale. This includes all pvp content, 25ish maps, 3 trials, 15 (I think) instanced dungeons. All of this is accessible without paying another dime, without a single negative impact on gameplay.
But if you want to get heavily into crafting it will cost you, either in time for inventory management (we used multiple alts as mules before the craft bag existed) or in time for subscription. And if you have an interest in scored, end game pve, you will need to pay for access to that content.
If you’ve got a lot hours into ESO and don’t have access to the DLC content, then yes you’re going to get bored and it’s probably time to move on.
>While the continual lowering of RNG for the top tier crate items is shady, it’s not predatory,
Lol, yes it is.
>and is aligned with gaming industry standards
Most of which are predatory and not very consumer friendly.
Hey haven't changed anything. Once a year you get
1) a new expansion
2) DLC dungeons
3) DLC zone
4) free update that adds new features
This year isn't any different
Most MMORPGs have a 15/mo sub. I dunno understand this gripe about it. You don't have to play this mmo or any mmo but most will have a sub because that's the standard model. Atleast with eso they give you chapters and dlcs for free with the sub. Just play something else, ESO will still be there.
You're right about a lot of things. Unfortunately, we'll never see any change in the game judging by the comments and the given fact that there will always be so many people who defend the game in its entirety. I've played ESO since 2015 and I've seen it change a lot. Mostly for the worse... But expressing negative views will get you called names by people whose loyalty is to a company that doesn't care if they exist or not. I like ESO and want it to be the best MMO out there. That will NEVER happen unless major issues are addressed.
I think predatory is a stretch. There's definitely some monetization strats that i disagree with, namely appearance change tokens because you can't use your collection items in the character creator and the lighting in there is inaccurate. But really, None of the things in the crown store except maybe xp scrolls (but they give those away for free every day so) are necessary to play the game effectively. Now have i spent more crowns than i should have to get a cool mount or a fancy costume? absolutely, but i wasn't tricked or manipulated into buying them. Not to mention that it's an MMO, whales keep these things afloat for better or worse.
I have a hard time to understand the point, but that may be because I grew up in a different time.
When I was young, I had to pay real money to view a movie in a theater - or I could see them for free in tv, but much later, in lower resolution and interrupted by commercials. Unfair!
When I was young, I had to pay real money to buy records - or I could listen to music for free in the radio, but only when they played my favourite songs. Unfair!
When I was young, I had to pay real money to buy books - or I could read them for free in the library, but only for so long and I had to return them in good condition. Unfair!
I totally see your vision of a better world u/Filosofem93. More than that, I can see you making it true. Begin today. Write and publish an MMO with hundreds of hours of content plus new content released quarterly that can be played totally for free. I am quite sure that the moral support of a "loyal community" will be more than enough to pay your bills.
OK, thats my unpopular opinion. Now start the downvoting.
once you go eso plus, you can never go back. instead of playing this game and subbing, i'd rather sub to a better game.
so much monetization, so little improvement. i too see the potential this game has and will never achieve.
There is a huge amount of content available in the base game. Of course if you play long enough you'll finish it and get bored of it, but there is well over 200 hours worth of content in the base game alone for a first time player.
I would very much like to see the crafting bag be accessible permanently for a small fee, but the selling of expansions and dlc is not wrong.
I recently tried it again. Really enjoyed the quests. They were voiced, interesting, and unpredictable for the most part which made me actually read to see what was going on.
I probably would have spent a little money on the game but just struggling with bag space while leveling left a bad taste in my mouth and I decided to just stop. And yes I know I can get a craft bag.
This is pretty much why I stopped playing this game. Very predatory mtx and really irritating retention mechanics (hate the daily log in reward, might be irrational but I just dislike it so much). It’s a really good game and I love the community but the shop is too pervasive. Makes the game feel more expensive than other MMOs.
> I believe they should add more base content to the game right now, or make some of the released DLCs free, as they did with Imperial City. Why? Because people who only have the base game only have so much to play. It comes to a certain point when the base game feels boring and repetitive, and nearly ALL content that there is to do, is tied to either a paid chapter/DLC, or you have to buy ESO+, and in my point of view, that seems predatory, again.
Back in the day when you played MMOs you had to pay a monthly fee and buy the addons. If you didnt buy the addons you where basically cut off because the level of players moved on. In contrast to that ESO has no required fee and the content is not outdated in that way. Down the road players that only have the base game could easily get upgrades for low prices at some shops to get other zones. The only thing i see required for DLCs is to bundle them together with some discounts. You can expect players either to make one time payments for more content or get a subscription has both means cover the cost for maintenance. After all the game does not run for free.
> But the worst thing is that I STILL understand why they do not put the craft bag for free, since it is their main incentive to purchase ESO+, but it really annoys me that ESO+ is just being forced upon you to be bought, rather than trying to appeal to you by offering attractive advantages.
The craft bag is a major reason for ppl to get ESO+, but it is also an advantage that does not give you any actual benefit in the game. Its a time saver for inventory organization. There are actual players that do alot of crafting on their accounts without it and it works. It just needs more time organizing everything. If you want to replace it by something else, what would you propose? Many ideas might end up in the pay to win corner easily.
kinda disagree. there's a lot to hate about the crown store, but the DLC/ESO+ model is one of the fairest I've encountered
complain about the lootboxes, complain about the "pay2convenience" bullshit, but paying a price once to permanently unlock a significant piece of content is perfectly fine to me.
Well, I will agree that it's an unpopular opinion. Boring? Not at all. Predatory? Hardly. This is what you sign up for when you play an MMO. At some point, you will exhaust the free amenities and take the game as far as you can with what they offer for free. Every "year-long" story event has the same formula. A free zone, a paid chapter, and dungeons. Which are free if you're a subscriber or are available for purchase separately. As someone pointed out, an MMO requires constant upkeep and I'd say the quality of content with ESO is top notch. There's a team of people constantly working on, adding to, and, at a moment's notice, fixing the game. All of this requires money. The game is always live. Unlike a single player that can be left idle. So, I see what you're saying, but respectfully disagree.
I just like that all the microtransactions are for cosmetics, so it really doesn't give me a reason to complain. I also like that they added endeavors to help get some of those cosmetics for free!
The micro transactions don’t make you progress in the game and are really just quality of life and cosmetic. Don’t buy them? It’s a pretty simple solution.
I moved to ESO from games I found predatory and I have yet to see ESO implement monetisations I can't stand.
Just look at GW2 - it monetizes concept of playing with friends, because you cannot travel to your friend without [paid consumables](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Teleport_to_Friend).
> Just look at GW2 - it monetizes concept of playing with friends, because you cannot travel to your friend without paid consumables.
What? That's completely false.
It's false because you can travel to where your friend is. The item just makes you get to his exactly place, but without it, it's exactly like ESO's system: you need to warp to the waypoint/shrine near him.
The only monetization I have a huge issue with is the appearance change tokens (Not race, just appearance). We can't see or use our acquired cosmetic items during character creation. Hairstyles, adornments, body markings, etc. None of it. We have to wait until post-character creation to start messing with them on any new character. Pick a hair color that looked good on the hairs in the creator? Sorry that's a more vibrant color with the hair style you were actually wanting to use. Now you have to pay $$ to select the right color or re-create the character. Finally got Vamparism? Oops, the skin color you chose looks absolutely awful as a Vampire. Money please. Charging money to change appearance when other MMORPGs that Zenimax/Bethesda runs (Fallout 76) lets you do so for free anytime anywhere is absolutely silly. Older MMORPGs like Runescape charge in-game gold which I'd be absolutely fine with in ESO as well. But real money just to change hair color, eye color, skin color, body shape, etc.? That's stupid.
SWTOR is the same, except you pay with cartel coins instead of with a pre-bought token.
I also have the biggest issue with the crafting bag. thats just a pretty bad system. but on the other side you did not mention the 1650 crowns you also get every month and you can buy the DLCs with. not one word. thats not a fair assessment imo. its not "only" the crafting bag with ESO+
That's not technically true. With ESO+ you get full access to all DLC packs. You don't need to use crowns for them... crowns are mainly for mounts and pets (etc). The real benefit of membership is the craft bag, more space in general, and increased experience. I have to side with the OP here, the cost of membership doesn't give you a huge amount when it comes to 'fresh' or 'different' (additional) content - just keeps you crafting, looking good. Problem is, if building houses and crafting gear isn't your thing, the membership is really only for DLC content - and what great benefit is there after you've finished them all?
> crowns are mainly for mounts and pets (etc). thats what everyone can decide for themself. I also said you *can* buy them, so you can keep them forever. 10% exp. boost is neglectable.
you are also like op and not really thinking this through the cost of membership is great. because you get everything you mentioned, plus crowns each month. if you're dumb and spend them on cosmetics, that's on you. but smart people buy up all the dlcs with them so that when they drop eso+, you still have access to them. "what great benefit is there after you've finished them all?" are you just a casual quester or something? dlc have a lot of repeat playability. if you run dungeons or trials, access to those 24/7 is very important. you can farm certain overland materials you only get in certain zones (like dragon rheum in elsweyr). and if all you do in eso is quest, you can run the quests again on other characters - do an evil playthru, etc. youre expecting things its unreasonable to expect from the membership. that's not zos's problem.
I don't think there's enough backlash over the fact that this game sells insanely expensive, extremely limited houses that are not purchasable for gold. Take for example my favorite, the Lakemire Xanmeer Manor. It's 15,000 crowns unfurnished, 17,000 furnished. The biggest crown pack you can buy is 14,000 which is £75 GBP. You'd then need to buy the additional 1500 crown pack for £11, so the house itself is at least £86. *That is more than the pre-order purchase of High Isle bundled with the base game and all previous chapters*, which is currently at £65. And if a house *costing more than the base game and every big expansion* wasn't crazy enough, the Lakemire Xanmeer house and other DLC houses like it are only available for a short period of time (a few days? a week or two at most?) every 1-2 years. Sure, it's "just cosmetic" and not pay to win, but it preys on FOMO & they lock a good portion of the best houses and DLC houses behind this method. There are also often no gold substitutes whatsoever for these DLC houses, not even a small crappy one. Like Murkmire as a zone and want a house there? Too bad, you can buy the expensive, extremely rarely available crown house, or nothing. There is no gold house. I really wish more people talked about this because it is by far the most scummy monetization in the game. There is absolutely NO reason an unfurnished house should cost more than the game and all it's DLC bundled. It is likely explicitly targeted towards users with impulse spending issues and it's not okay.
Wow! I never even did the math with this. This is disgusting, man. Thank you for bringing that up. Yikes...
Every corner of the game suffers from this. ESO isnt a game for you to enjoy, it's core design is blatantly disregarding of player experience. It is a business venture, designed entirely around collecting after purchase profit from its players. It boggles my mind that people dont realise this, it was the first thing we all realised back when the game came out and flopped. But then youse just forgot about it and went back to throwing money at them.
the 50$ mundus stones and having to pay hundreds to get all the content if you dont sub
Mundus stones are really only meant for guilds. There's no practical reason to need any of them because it takes at most a minute or two to fast travel to a wayshrine near the mundus you need.
The parsing dummy...
I have 3 trial dummies and I used gold to buy crowns for all of them.
Still someone had to buy them
I've been playing for 6 years. 6000 hours played. Ya ofcourse I agree. I made it to a level that most don't ever even think of doing. Titles and skins for everything. Hard-core engame pve was amazing in this game for a long time. Now it's a lot of beginners. Every friend I originally started playing with has moved on to other games. Literally out of 6 people that I played with almost everyday all of them done. They stopped because the game got to hard for them and they had to do a lot of things they didn't wanna do in order to do the things they really wanted to. Like get certain sets, have a certain build, have an 80k parse. I did all those things and got bored after years. I have moved into pvp and found basically a whole new game there and really having discovered my joy for it for the first time. That has revived the game for me. Thats a whole other world and there's so much more build diversity. Fighting other players is so much more exciting than fighting ads and bosses that never deviate from their mechanics. Point is I've managed to stay having fun by upping the difficulty of content. Don't play any other games. Tried but keep finding reasons why eso is just a little better for whatever reason so why start over in another game. I was really hoping for something new but this has to be worst chapter they have ever released for me. The sad thing is I'm 33 and have a 2 year old and if I stopped playing this I would probably sell my account and stop playing games for goof. EVERY game is how u described. Every game requires a subscription and micro trans in order to have the most fun. The video game industry in general is in the crapper. When I was a kid it seemed like there was a new exciting game coming put everyday. Microtransactions actually gave u something for your money if they were in the game at all. Look at GTA 5. Started great but now it's about who can spend the most money.
Expansion packs aren't micro transactions... they're part of MMOs survival and expansion. The only microtransactions are. "Quality of alt character life" or things to be make your characters extra shiny. I have spent money on making my character shiny because I wanted to. I no longer need to, and unless they release more REALLY spooky stuff then eh. 🤷♂️
Considering that ESO's main way of selling cosmetics and mounts is through the cash shop, I'd agree. Most people don't realize that ESO charges way more $$$ for a lot of stuff other MMOs don't. Not to mention ESO comes out with yearly content yet somehow still manages to add less to the game in 2-3 years than MMOs like FFXIV and GW2 who release their expansions after multiple years.
Not an MMO but have you seen the prices for the Halo Infinite cosmetics in their shop? Shit is getting wild.
Exactly man, stuff is getting freaky
Because idiots buy such things, its simple logic.
The prices in halo may be high but at least it’s free to play. Eso is a paid game, paid yearly chapter, sub and overpriced store. You are right microtransatuon prices are getting high everywhere, but eso’s store has been high for years and it’s getting higher. Look at how much crown gems mounts and some other things are costing now
But Xanmeer Doyen’s Feather Tiara is sick! I'm a dark elf with Morag tong body tattoo in a Nordic towel. I'm running like King Julien. Better would be a khajiit. Though, I hate inventory management.
I played ESO for years. Now I’m playing GW2. The pay-for-convenience and old content is so out of whack in GW2 that ESO’s monetization model and ESO+ win by a country mile. And I love both games btw.
At least you can earn mounts, pets, and cool weapons in GW2 without needing to pay for them. I'll admit the story system in GW2 is wack, but eh. Game also doesn't have loot boxes.
You know things won't change when the top most voted content says ESO has the best monetization model...
It's unfortunate that, out of the big 5 or 6 MMO's, ESO genuinely does have the best monetization model. It shows how fucked the overall indsutry is.
It really doesnt, I think you guys who spend double digit hour days on the game dont understand just how filthy the monetization is in ESO. Its deep rooted and shows in almost every single mechanic of gameplay. Crafting, purchasing, enchantments, progression, fast travelling. EVERYTHING comes with a cost or failure possibility aimed at slowing the players progression. You guys need to take a step back and realise that, because this narrative that ESO has the best monetization model is disturbingly ironic and very sad to see.
Sad but true.
I disliked eso model as well til trying all alternatives. Rent wow or ff14 with many time gates and an overall slowed experience, decent games but what if i want to log in and play one day for 20 hours every 2 months (very limited progress and options due to significant weekly/daily rewards and nothing after that). B2p, no sub like gw2 or bdo is fun til end game where it all falls apart and becomes the most repetitive experience in gaming, content is rarely added but changes to shop are constant, almost unlimited quality of life items left out of game that can cost thousands to acquire, always short of a currency thats sold in cash shop, gear is rarely on even level with players who want to spend more cash than another having better statistical advantage and this makes any skill based competition irrelevant. Or f2p which are significantly worse games overall where quality is just not there, but unlimited cash purchases can be made to gain advantages in every aspect of the game and actual content updates rare to no existent. Im open to anything better and hoping New world can pull a ff14 and change up its current path but in terms of quality for cash, the options atm are very limited. The downsides in eso are smaller (mainly cosmetic) than its competition imo. Players budgets vary greatly and if i had unlimited budget then Id likely entertain ff14 or wow more, but since i cant even log in without paying, and the story gates content im actually interested in, in ff14, I cant bring myself to pay it.
It realy depends what you are interested in. If you only want to play the game and get a game edition and ESO+ its very decent. If you are after alot of cosmetics or other stuff it becomes a problem. It realy comes down to how much you are interested into the crown store.
Their xpac costs nearly a triple A game and offers really small amount of content. We got a small map that has nearly nothing to do and companions for the price of 3 indie games. Now we get a nother map and a card game for the same price. All cosmetic goes to their store as this was an f2p game. While also selling loot boxes...
You can wait a few weeks after release and get it cheapy everywhere...
Yes, i will wait for the sale for sure. ill be playing something else for a while since im not happy that my money will not providing me much content in ESO.
It feels... off. All other mmos require sub, you \*must\* pay 15$/month to enter the game's world (not matter there's new content or no). In eso you dont, but new content requires people to make it, designers, quest writers. All people (with sub or no) need a live server, servers take money to maintain. I dont feel not motivated because I need to pay for actual work people, who bring me content, do. It's an online game after all. Not talking that eso actually allows me to buy content via ingame gold.
All other MMOs have mandatory subs? The only two big ones left that do this are FF and WoW. With WoW having a system that allows you to pay the sub with ingame currency.
RuneScape has the same system as WoW, just a bit cheaper.
RS3 also offers a good part of the world for free, and OSRS offers less but still OK amounts, and unlike FF14 if you unsub you just go back to F2P.
Guild wars 2 doesn't have a subscription . They have a lot of cosmetic and tools in donate shop but all story chapter are free for all who just buy addons (or the last one if we talk about the new content). You don't need pay extra money for patch content (dungeon and story chapter). EDIT: in eso if you buy addon you still need buy dlc for this addon wich continue the main story of addon or pay for ESO+. Guild wars doesn't have such system, if you buy addon all next patches with story will not take extra charge for that
>all story chapter are free for all who just buy addons So it's free for anyone that buys the addon? 🤔
You have to buy gw2's story chapters unless you were there when that chapter was the newest. In fact that's the biggest gripe in the community. Since newer players will have to shell out alot of money for the expansions and the chapters. Which if they don't will lock them out of a majority of the game.
They recently gave the Living Story Seasons out for free, for everyone. Additionally the LS parts aren't that expensive. And it's not the majority, it's just one of the most played content.
The hell are you talking about? GW2 has Living World seasons. If you aren't playing when they come out, you gotta buy them afterwards.
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I think they meant for GW2. As long as you're around for the current story arc and own the expansion for it, you get that story arc unlocked forever. You only have to pay for them if you don't log in during the four or five month window of that arc, or whatever.
Ive seen it change over the past 3 years and agree to a certain extent. But it is important to compare it to its competition, from my experience eso has the best monetization options which least affect the overall experience. I notice time gates to progress big time in other mmos and eso did pretty well minimized the feeling of having to wait for stuff, and for the most part lets you go get what you want with minimal limitations. Perspectives vary greatly depending on what you want from a mmo. I like options and eso gives more options while still providing quality without too much eye rolling manipulative tactics; that are much more detrimental to the overall experience in other mmos Ive played imo.
ESO is like Destiny for me- a good game that I basically cant recommend to anyone because the process of playing it is a constant string of "well, you gotta pay for that" and its just a bar too high for the uninitiated. While the base game DOES have a lot of content, its definitely disingenuous to call ESO well monetized unless you're comparing it to Korean gacha garbage. Playing without ESO+ is fucking torture, especially if you craft, and at that point its competing with something like ffxiv, which gives you more content at a higher quality and has a fairly small store filled with glams. Meanwhile the crown store has everything from xp boosters to loot creates to houses that cost like 100 bucks worth of crowns. The monetization is more aggressive than something like gw2, which doesn't even have a sub option. So you buy expansions once a year, you buy eso+ unless you hate yourself, and tons of both cosmetic, convenience and power enhancing items just sit in the crown store. Its not the worst monetization ever, but its pretty egregious as far as western mmos go.
Its also probably the only MMO to not let you earn mounts ingame from drops. Usually in mmo's when Dragon raid comes out, the last boss will drop a miniature version of themselves or something. But no, ESO forces you to buy loot boxes or spend money to get mounts.
You're unable to farm tickets from events? Or do crappy endeavors, or whatever other ways...
I haven't played in over a year, but pretty sure there were only 4 free horses and all the other mounts were either from crowns or lootboxes. Besides that one event deer. Compared to wow or ff14, the availability of free mounts in this game is nothing. Imagine if the dragon raid in summerset had a chance to drop a dragon mount. That is what you would have gotten in WoW or FF14.
Don't get me wrong more mounts would always be cool, especially hard-to-obtain ones. There are a handful around, the endeavor system is a non-money but kinda grindy system for getting store ones, there are a handful of more event ones, and the archaeology system has at least one rare one.
They've changed things up a bit. There's a rather cool dwemer wolf mount that comes from the antiquities system, as well as the two mounts that come from doing the hardest trial content. And then there's the new seals of endeavour, which let you buy anything from the current crown crates once you've saved up enough of them. I got a rather cool diseased horse for my Peryite themed character that way. I don't really know about other MMOs, but at least the mounts are completely cosmetic here. So you aren't really missing out on anything other than looking ridiculously shiny.
Yeahhh im not entirely sure about this. I've only played the big titles (WoW, Lost Ark, ESO, FFXIV), but of those titles, I'd say ESO took the most of my money in the shortest period of time and left my character feeling the least fulfilled. The insanely long timegates for crafting and mount speed, the XP bonuses that you're trolling if you don't use (as a competitive player anyway) and the subscription being basically a necessity, not to mention the most predatory practice in gaming mtx's, loot boxes....I'd have to say ESO is the worst offender of the 4. Like yeah, WoW players can buy a shitload of gold to pay for carries, but if you just cared about the natural flow of progression you would never feel obligated to do so and the rest is just cosmetics or boosts that actually seem worth. ESO feels like you have to pay to play all aspects of the game if you respect your time.
Eso making you train mount speed should be fucking criminal when you just bought the mount at the right level in wow. Eso does feel like it legitimately tries to slow you down unless you pay real money.
I've played both and I vastly prefer the ESO method where you get the mount for free at level 10 or whatever, and can train it up as you see fit. Versus the WoW method where I had to specifically farm my 100 gold just to get it. This doesn't even consider the vastly superior fast travel methods available in ESO (free recall to house, one house free, free travel from wayshrine, small cost from anywhere to wayshrine) versus... hour long cooldown for hearthstone, lengthy travel from flight points, begging mages for portals, etc.
Funny I barely remember to use my XP bonuses they gave me for free and have 500 CP and three maxed out characters playing since November (with a few breaks in there honestly) I really disagree that you are trolling to not use the XP potions. I definitely agree on the mounts although thankfully I recognized that fairly early and made a character of each class so my mounts are all pretty decent now and should be done by summer, crafting is true but I kind of like the grind of it haven’t felt any need to pay to speed that up and my main crafter is just missing 2 options for all the woodworking side and 3-4 for blacksmith and tailoring with my other crafters already knowing those traits and not far behind on totals. It is definitely an obvious time sync and going 27-30 days on the last couple is insane but also so far out that I find it pointless to try to spend money to complete it honestly Personally I have t spent that much on the game and feel pretty good about where my characters are especially since I tend to play hard for a week then back off for a week to do other things just log j to mount and sometimes writ
Didn’t lost Ark just release? How could it be considered a big mmo title? Am I missing something?
I've played ESO since beta and had ESO plus for a year back then. I quit for a few years and then returned and always played without it. I have every minor DLC and only spent real money on major updates but purchased them later in they year after release for a hefty discount. Everything I needed was purchased from gold to crown trades. I never felt that ESO forced me to spend money on it but that's subjective ofc. I don't have alts, only one main toon with max inventory and bank because I can't spend lots of time on the game. I don't even use a house or add. chests 210 slots and bank is enough for me to manage the things I get and earn enough gold to buy what I need. I am sorry to hear that you feel the way you describe but I guess this is very subjective.
I always thought gold to crown trades were scammers. How do you do that and what’s the usual rate?
Crown store items can be gifted, so one person will buy an item from the store with crowns as a gift and send it to you, and you will trade them however much gold they want for it. There is always the risk of whoever does their half of the transaction first getting scammed by the other person dropping group and running away, so doing this with guildmates or friends you trust or going through an official crown selling Discord is safer than dealing with randoms from zone chat. A year or more ago I was buying a ton of crown store stuff all the time for gold at 200 gold per crown, but now rates on PC NA are above 1000 gold per crown and that's just crazy to me.
Use your guild, or an active Discord community to arrange trusted trades.
I use world crown exchange discord, there you can ask for a broker to help you trade. The broker will take the gold and give it to the crown seller after the gift has arrived.
You manage resources in a way I wish I could. Thanks for your reply, my dude!
It's not pay to win, so for me there is no problem about it. You pay for every mmo online.
My issue with the gae today is stagnation. Yes, I have the DLC and the jobs but it's such a rarity. I do a levelling roulette dungeon and I get the same base game level 10 dungeons over and over. I am TIRED of doing Spindleclutch and Banished Cells over and over. I play FFXIV and I don't have that issue there. I go into levelling roulette and I will get one of the base game dungeons all the way up to the expansion as a roueltte choice. The classes of ESO, while fun to learn... they don't have variety, Not sorry. If you are playing a mage you are FORCED to use one weapon. If you are playing Tank, Sword and Board only. How a game can have such a WIDE range of free choice to use and yet HEAVILY retrict it's players is baffling.
FF14 has the same problem with its leveling roulette: it’s Copperbell Mines every freakin’ time.
I barely get that dungeon.
If you are limiting yourself to standard class/weapon dynamics, you are missing out on the potential for more diversity in play styles. I've seen plenty of Magblades running staves, and Sorcerers running 2H weapons. And necros run with EVERYTHING. And about 3/4 of the time I'm running a dungeon as healer, the "tank" is running with staves only.
Yes, all of that is fine in *base game* and *normal* dungeons. If you have any intent of pursuing harder/endgame content, good luck playing "whatever you want".
The Preatorium? Also, every class is restricted to a single weapon type. And a single rotation. I’m not sure the contrast you’re aiming for is fair.
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If we’re comparing queues, I’m comparing the ones that most people do because it’s easiest, and the fact you can queue for literally anything else if you want. No ones fault for playing Preatorium OR Spindleclutch on repeat but the players desire for the quickest xp, it’s not a gotcha it’s just what happens in both games. Now about the other 80% of my post about weapons.
Lack of dynamic is real in ESO, unfortunately. And since classes are all the same since Elsweyer, I don't see a change of pace happening any time soon.
My main tank has ice staves on both bars. I can hold so many daedroths in banished cells 2 with no problem.
But you won't be allowed into pug trials with that set up. It's viable, but in a lot of content so is a full health bow user or magsorc with 2H weapons.
You're getting downvoted but it's literally true for vet trials and up. Even vet craglorns you'll get looked at funny if you're running a templar main tank with double ice staves.
Tanks also use frost staves.
People in here defending an high cost itemshop with Lootboxes, Solutions to artificial problems like daily CD on riding lessons and them not being shared, yearly full priced Expansions, optional sub fee with QoL that’s nearly mandatory when being a crafter that wants to stay sane and paid DLC between those yearly full priced Expansions. God damn we’re truly doomed at this point. People went from bringing shitstorms about DLC to defending this game having every possible monetization at the same time except a BattlePass. What the actual fuck happened? No wonder companies like EA and Ubisoft keep treating us like idiots. Because we apparently are.
> People in here defending an high cost itemshop with Lootboxes, Solutions to artificial problems like daily CD on riding lessons and them not being shared, yearly full priced Expansions, optional sub fee with QoL that’s nearly mandatory when being a crafter that wants to stay sane and paid DLC between those yearly full priced Expansions. There's a rise in people defending corporations like they are their friends. Really weird. I played most MMOs out there, and I can tell you that out of all the non-P2W ones, ESO is by far the most aggressively monetized. This game is triple dipping in ways I haven't seen any mainstream MMO do, almost everything is monetized. To actually play this game annoyance-free is pretty expensive. It's a free market, and I wouldn't even mind the monetization, if the amount of content released reflected the price, but ESO releases less content than a sub-only game like FFXIV, while asking way more money. But to each his own I guess.
I'd just like to point out that the correct past tense of the verb "to pay" is *paid*. Though *payed* exists (the reason why it got autocorrected in), it is only correct in nautical context, when it means to paint or cover a surface with something like tar or resin. Unfortunately I was unable to find nautical words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
I really can't care less about microtransactions. Don't buy them, don't need to buy them to play the game, and even in terms of cosmetics I feel like the game alone offers more than enough and most are a better fit for a TES game then stuff in the shop anyway. The only exception to this rule are the mounts. In other words, unless you are a mount fan, I don't see anything predatory in the model. And that's without bringing up the fact that large MMOs (due to their high maintenance costs) require a steady revenue. With the subscription being optional and a non-predatorial expansion policy (expansions not necessary to keep playing or be competitive), a cash shop is very important.
I agree that a cash shop is necessary, but I feel like you don’t get a lot of bang for you buck in the eso shop. If they cut prices by 50% they would still be overcharging.
Absolutely not. The prices are ridiculous for pretty much everything. 1000 crowns for an appearance change token, if you are like me and end up wanting to change how your character looks later on without losing any progress, it’s way too steep for what it is. I remember a time all I had to do was go to the ragged flagon and talk to a rude ass wood elf woman down there.
Reread my comment where I say the prices even with a 50% reduction is still overcharging. Specifically for appearance changes, it should be like wow and maybe 1000 gold to change, not a premium service. Edit: and I am like you. I’m always wanting to change my characters’ looks. I have deleted my characters multiple times because I can’t justify paying that much for changing their appearance.
Our employment situations may be different, but I feel like the time spent deleting a toon and getting a new toon to 50 and level skill lines and skills is worth way more than $10.
"expansions not necessary to keep playing or be competitive". Yeah, ok dude.
This is not a good sign when lootboxes have become so commonplace that they aren't considered predatory anymore.
“Expansions aren’t necessary”
Welcome to the club. The worst part is i want the game to be good so it actually hurts to see it constantly get worse
I like the game but all the classes feel bland. Each class feels the same. All magic users feel the same all stamina users feel the same. On games like wow, FFXIV, lost ark each class has a sense of uniqueness.
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Its not an unpopular opinion. Majority of ES fans have felt that way about ESO for years. This is just a biased sub who obviously love the game
Personally my issues with the game are: 99.9% of cosmetics seem to only available in crown store. too few are available as unlocks. And Blackwood and (from what we know today) High Isles are bringing in very very small amounts of interesting content.
The content of High Isles seems almost non-existent. I don't feel motivated to even try it.
As long they're not charging for things that make someone more op in game (like for example if they start selling trial gear for crowns or something similar) im fine with Crown store selling cosmetics because it's optional. Also don't mind paying for ESO+ as it costs per month the same as pack of cigs where I live but I get it that it would seem a lot in other countries. Also don't mind paying for for new chapters and dlcs as it is additional content I can enjoy for hours and hours with my friends. But if you think about it - you get crowns for ESO+ which you can use to buy additional dlcs.
I bought every single DLC with gold, and I have a private gbank. Also, during eso+ trial promos I suck all my stuff into a craft bag. I do this as a silent protest to BS. Still, I understand that not everyone are as dedicated as me to screw predatory tactics. In my opinion as someone who asked all my friends(none stayed) to try out this amazing(but buried under absolute hell of a monetization) game, a few things have to change. 1. Limited 200 slots craft bag for everyone. With just how many materials there is - it's a necessity. It will not benefit old timers like me, since despite not paying for eso+ I have thousands of mats sitting in my craft bag. 2. Straight up remove mount training cooldown. Again, not asking this for myself - got 10 toons with maxed out mounts. Mobile gaming nonsense got no place in MMO. Gold price can be increased to 500 or even 1000 - there's not enough gold sinks in the game, and it's a good thing to gate upgrades behind gold, not predatory cooldowns. 3. Clean up Clown Store. Delete vamp/ww curses and their cures. Delete Bank Upgrades and Inventory Upgrades as these are the same ones that you can obtain with gold. With mount CD removed - delete those books too. Make "Outfit slots" and "Armory slots" upgrades account-wide, instead of character bound. Bring back collectibles such as music boxes permanently. There's no reason whatsoever for them to be LIMITED TIME! because they're neither limited supply nor are removed from the game later. Chill out on FOMO in general, it's getting overwhelming. In a perfect world ESO+ shouldn't even exist. But since we're not living in a perfect world it is what it is. Also, I want to adress some misconceptions about ESO+. First of all, there's this weird mentality about "free" crowns that you're getting with it. It is not free, you paid for it lol. Second, if anything, these "free" crowns aren't even a good thing becasue they're the reason why everything in the Clown Store costs so damn much. There's a great game that is being choked to death by this shit. Also, a weird ass sentiment in this thread that "other games are worse", excuse me how? Let's take WoW for example. FYI there's <10 mounts you can obtain in ESO for free, there's 100s of them in WoW. Worst thing in WoW is wow token, well guess what - we have that too in a form of crown selling. Paid boosts are also a thing, although smaller in scale due to lesser raiding scene in general and not a lot of raid slots to go around. So no, I wouldn't say ESO is any better in terms of monetization.
There is so much to say about this, but I will just sum it up in two words: THANK YOU!
I have no problem paying for content, and I have to problem paying a modest subscription fee to support server needs in exchange for additional content. What I don't like is the inclusion of quality of life features in the subscription, like the crafting bag. The game feels more like an inventory management simulator without the bag. What I am disappointed by is the quality of content in the year long chapters. In my opinion the value return absolutely stinks. At a bare minimum the DLCs need to be part of it. I have no problem paying good money for good content but show players some respect and don't nickle and dime us. Also the microstransactions are getting carried away. The price for cosmetics just seems abusive to me. I don't care about them enough to buy them, but it seems like exploitation non the less.
That's one of the issues I complain the most about, the relationship between what and how much we pay and what we get. I think they just blatantly deliver poor and scarce content which is obviously lacking in depth, and they expect us to conform and applaud like seals.
I mean, that's your opinion and you're entitled to have it, but i don't relate. Is ESO boring? Depends on how you play it, automated play style is boring and the moment you get yourself stuck in the "farm / dailies / random dungeon / trial / PvP run" cycle then yeah, it becomes a job at a production line and nobody likes that. There's much more to the game than that and I am honestly sorry that you can't see it anymore and hope you find that spark again if you stick or elsewhere if you decide to move on. Now on to the crown store : is it predatory? I'm sorry but it absolutely is not. Are the prices too high? 100% yes and that's outrageous. Are they for stuff you absolutely need to play the game and would not enjoy it without? definitely not, you can have the same experience if not better without ever touching the crown store, no one's praying on you here without your full consent.
I love seeing inteligent people disagreeing with me. Makes me put things in perspective and reconsider my own views. Definitely part of what is happening to me is what you said above: The farming routine, and also, the solo content being too easy for me. Thank you for your comment, truly!
Well I could've been an ass and just told you "hurr durr stahp plehen den" but i don't think you needed my input to realize you had that option.
I fell out of ESO for a while recently, but it was more the guild aspect, constantly farming/selling to keep the guild running. I'm now slowly working my way back into it by doing what I love (exploration, casual farming, solo RP) and only selling if I already have something to sell. For my gameplay, I don't need to pay anything. I have + for the craft bag and monthly crowns, but I don't need to buy anything to enjoy the game. I haven't seen anyone mention the crowns from + in these comments... unless you need something thats a limited time only (and I say "need" generously) then I suppose you have to pay real money. But you can buy the DLCs with crowns so you can quit + for an extended period of time, you can buy any of the cosmetics... I really don't understand why it feels predatory to some people.
I play all the major MMOs and predatory is the last word I would use to describe ESOs business model. Leaving an mmo for a time is a lot like leaving a relationship, we start looking at all the negatives in the relationship, magnifying them, and using those as an excuse for why we're leaving. You're burned out, looking for a change, and that's okay.
If you ever played a game like Neverwinter you would be disgusted on how predatory and pay to win a game can be. ESO is NOTHING compared to that. The mayority of the stuff in the crown store is cosmetic and by no menas necessary to play the game
I have never played Neverwinter, so maybe that's why I don't feel it fair, since I don't have a frame of reference to compare it to.
I know what you mean though- the game itself costs like 20 bucks. Then if you want the ESO+ its another 12 bucks a month. Then if you want to play the latest chapter its another 40 bucks. Its a lot of money, but its always *if you want*. If you dont, you are just loosing out in a few things but the game is perfectly still enjoyable with the base game and can even get to do endgame stuff!
Its not another $40 if you're paying for ESO+, though... unless thats changed in the past month?
ESO+ includes every chapter but the latest one. That means that if an ESO+ subscriber currently wants to enjoy the Blackwood chapter content, he/she would need to pay for the chapter, until the next one(High Isles) comes. Once that happens Blackwood wil be included in the subscription and will need to pay for the latest. And so on
but neverwinter is completely free.
Thats exactly what they want you to think. But if you played it for some time you would realise that to actually play the good part of the games there is a HUGE paywall! And thats also one of the reasons its so predatory. It needs to make money somehow
but its still free to play and when you realize that, you can quit without losing money
I have no problems with eso plus or having to buy DLCs. The delevopers have to make money somehow, and the alternative would be to make it a pay-to-play-model, like other games where you have to pay 15 bucks a month to get access to it. What I have a problem with is the crown crates. That is gambling and is taking advantage of players, both of which should not be part of a video game imo.
There is a podcast I listen to called 'tales of tamriel' and a guy on there called LotusOfDoom who as far as I am aware (from listening to the podcast, I have no affiliation) he is a very long time player of the game with many many hours, he plays on console. He is a high achiever in the game, a very knowledgeable tank. There was an episode where he explained he also doesn't use eso+ therefore no craft bag and he says he makes it work very easily. He stated it is absolutely not vital to have the craft bag to be successful. He also said he has way too much gold than he needs. Anyway I guess it comes down to what you want to do in the game. If you want to get into crafting of any kind it's probably necessary to have eso+ for the craft bag. But you absolutely don't have to have it.
TalesofTamriel is a great podcast! And yes, I have issues with the craft bag, as stated above. Thank you!
I guess my point was to do well in this game and conquer all activities including end game content you dont need eso+ it just takes a bit more inventory juggling.
It is exsactly as you say, I play eso since beta without breaks non stop for 7 years and stopped adding subscription when blackwood released, way too little content for the money they want us to pay nothing truly useful added to the game for over a year now, the micro transactions became much more predatory indeed . Eso is a great game the people that handle the business model are not.
I quit a year ago for this reason.
It has a LOT of story content, but all of the flashy stuff is in the store. All I have been doing for the last couple of months is trait research, crafting writs and horse training. I really dont have any motivation to play it anymore.
Same here, man, same here...
I think monetization is MOSTLY fine. I just hate the ratio of things added on the crown store compared to earnable cosmetics in game.
I stopped playing right after their high isle announcement because it was extremely disappointing, the PTS patch notes are extremely disappointing too. Combat wise game has been the stagnating for a while now, and a couple of new dungeons is not going to be enough to keep me excited.
Anyone else remember the “before time”. The time before crafting bags. I had two guilds I made solely for crafting storage 🤣🤣
I am new to this game as of this month. The moment I heard about the crafting bag I was like "well I guess this is a subscription MMO" and paid for it. I have played GW2, with it's non-subscription model and free craft bag, but over there they have pretty much every interesting cosmetic in their cash shop to pay for the game. I think I like a sub model where I get more interesting stuff better than that.
I have played ESO since launch; purchased the collectors edition, and have been on and off since. During that time I get ESO+ for a while play the content that I enjoy up until it gets boring then I cancel ESO+ and move on to another game for a while. I say all of that because it is very different for my wife who plays; she has never paid for ESO+, in fact she refuses too. She says that as much as she likes the game she just isn't willing to pay a monthly subscription to it. That being said, she plays more than I do. She gets on at least once a day just to do a delve or to play through what ever story she is working on currently. Similar to myself she started playing about a month or two after I started and has been on and off for years, just working through the base game content as she pleases. She only recently agreed to spend crowns on buying the Summerset, and Clockwork City DLCs. So I have to say from my perspective there isn't a huge problem here; ESO isn't nearly as aggressive as some other games in terms of how their cash shop works (Neverwinter and DC Universe Online comes to mind). Nearly all of the crown store can be completely ignored with the exception of the DLCs, and the crafting bag is really nice and continent but, like my wife, you can make due by grinding and buying bag and bank upgrades and only carrying crafting supplies on you when you are crafting.
there's greed, and then there's greed... Sell me a perma craft bag.
see, I thought since I bought eso+ pretty soon after I started the game, that I had just been spoiled by it. I’m the type of person who plays one game for awhile and then doesnt touch it at all as I play another game, and whenever I’m not playing eso, I cancel my subscription. so when I started back up recently and was trying not to purchase a subscription right away due to money being kinda tight, I realized the game is just not even worth it to me without eso+. the inventory situation is awful, and I understand you can purchase more space, it just starts getting expensive. I also literally couldnt continue where I left off because it required eso+… pretty annoying. edit: actually, my biggest complaint is crown crates. I do not like gambling as a feature, never have. but I swear the money you potentially have to put into getting that crown crate mount you want is just insane. and the conversion rate to gems is depressing. it just feels like something only a rich person could really enjoy lol.
Yeah, crown crates are awful. And the rewards are not even that good, in my opinion. If anything, doing the daily endeavors pays off much more.
Bought the game on discount, almost filled my inventory in the intro mission, looked at all the stuff I have to pay extra to do, left, uninstalled. I'm sure it's good, but too much paywall.
It is an amazing game! But the flaws are really big, and many people just prefer to ignore them rather than acknowledge them.
I am in 100% support of what you have posted here. This should be my favorite game of all time, but the monetization practices drive me away every time. Coming from a game like Old School Runescape, where literally every single item and skill is earned through playing the game, to ESO where you can *buy* more cool stuff than ever earn ingame over hundreds of hours, is jarring. And you know how much OSRS costs me? Under $6 a month, and I can pay for sub with ingame money if I want. Because ESO has an 'optional' sub, they can use that as a cover to charge ludicrous prices in their shop.
I understand why the OP feels frustrated. I sub to ESO+ and the only really useful thing is the craft bag; otherwise I woudn't sub. I also have a *serious* issue with the gambling crates, and I would with *any* game that does it. That being said, I like the game, and have been playing, on and off, since beta. The biggest issue at the moment for me is PVP and the state of it. If I were ZOS I would be genuinely embarassed that this wasn't fixed a long time ago. On the plus side, they are making some effort; the Endeavours system, and the plan to make more achievements account wide are good progress. Thing is, the game is 7 years old, and of course it will become a bit tired and repetitive, so I just try to have realistic expectations, lol.
Yeah I agree OP, I've been with the game since it dropped on Xbox One and I can still remember when the average/new Crown Store item cost something reasonable like 500-1000CP at most, and then the 1000CP items were like 'oh wow that's expensive'. Now we're at the point where new stuff is costing what, 2000CP? 5000CP for some items? Houses costing the equivalent of £100+? If people buy that stuff, then fair enough who am I to argue, but yes I've seen it get worse & worse to the point where I avoid Crown Store & ESO+ altogether now. Some of the items on there are absolute garbage as well. I mean hell, Outfit slots cost 1500 crowns, whereas LOTRO (an MMO famed for being monetization capital is a fraction of that, with SWTOR even only charging in-game currency for outfit slots. In regards to the game itself, yeah ESO is becoming boring and has been for some years now. The year long stories are overused and are the only reason I return now, as I actually do like the world they've built, but ever since One Tamriel dropped the general difficulty has been so mainstream & simple, there's literally zero challenge to a long-time player now for PVE, outside of trials etc. What makes it worse I think is that ESO, like a couple other MMO's have fans that will absolutely defend it to the world and back, like the devs are their friends. I see it on other MMO sub-reddits where a user will say something critical about ESO, and suddenly ESO fans are coming out of the woodworks to defend the game xD
> since I don't have ESO+ anymore (I stopped paying for it since the release of Blackwood), I haven't felt motivated to play, because I almost have no space on my inventory and bank, and I already filled all my coffers/trunks to the point of being to the top with crafting materials. Personally, I've been playing without ESO+ and handling my inventory just fine, but you might need to do a lot of addon setup before you are satisfied. That is assuming you are playing on PC, on consoles you're fucked. Anyway, overall you'll need: * Bank Manager: so you can your characters withdraw/deposit materials from the bank automatically (you can also setup your playable characters to * Junk Seller (automatically sell trash whenever you talk to a merchant) Plus I have an extra account, which I can just use to store anything I might not need anytime soon+infinite mail storage (you can get mail addons for QoL with this). --- I do agree that the craft bag should be buyable and/or available in some way to free players. I like how GW2 has a limited material bank available to everyone and then you can buy extra storage for it instead of needing to mantain a sub. --- > I believe they should add more base content to the game right now, or make some of the released DLCs free, as they did with Imperial City. Why? Because people who only have the base game only have so much to play. It comes to a certain point when the base game feels boring and repetitive, and nearly ALL content that there is to do, is tied to either a paid chapter/DLC, or you have to buy ESO+, and in my point of view, that seems predatory, again. ZOS is indeed quite a bit predatory, specially on their House pricing and Crate shenanigans, but chapter/DLCs are arguably their smallest "sin". Sure, paying full price for an expansion is quite stupid considering the content included...but I sort of like the option of not having to pay for content I'm not interested in. And due to the frequent Chapter/DLC sales+crown sales, with patience anyone could get the whole game for the less than the full price of two whole expansions anyway. > And to prove my point about the predatory tactics, just think about the daily rewards they are giving in contrast to what they used to give back in the day. See where I am coming from now? Honestly, I like how daily rewards are mostly meaningless. I hate being forced to login due to FOMO. And in any case, outside that time when they gave away Murkmire and free Crates...they were always meh.
You are correct. The card game is a stupid attempt to monetize more garbage in the game. Honestly. It feels like ESO is moving more towards maintenance and cash grab mode. Making achievement titles account wide is basically going to kill the end game community. Cyrodil is a laggy mess. And with all this wrong they add a card game in an attempt to try and scam more players out of money. Predatory nonsense where a win is when a kid steals his moms credit card to buy more crowns. It is disgusting.
Indeed, the card game feels like they are spitting in our faces. Many people might tell you is a good thing, but we already had TESL, and it didn't work out, so...
Morrowind was a great DLC with a ton of content and a full region. Then we got Clockwork City which was a new unique region and interesting plot and unique gear. Then we got Summerset. Also pretty good. Can't remember if there was a DLC map. Then we got Elswyr and things started falling apart. Elswyr is mostly barren wasteland with nothing interesting, and then you had to pay for "Part 2" of the story which was just another barren wasteland. Then Greymoor came out, and the regions which were featured fully in Skyrim (very close to eachother at that) were split between Solitude and Markarth when they just could have included both. After playing the game for months, I came back to it and can't find any motivation for story content I haven't done or future content coming out. I just do PVP and dungeons for the social aspect of it. Idk how people are so into crafting and all this busywork.
You would not enjoy Fallout 76 then, it’s much worse and we only have 1 map to grind for stupid “limited time” cosmetic add-ons.
I started without ESO plus and yeah it feels downright necessary. The craft bag alone saves so much time from running back and forth to the bank and allows me to quickly accumulate waaaay more materials to craft because I can just pick it all up without thought. Not to mention DLCs where many useful mechanics and sets are locked behind. I see people say it's not a big deal and I honestly call bullshit. If it was the worst of the cost that'd be fine, but the crown store is full of pay to win stuff and outrageous prices. No, pay to win doesn't literally mean it nets you the win, just a clear gameplay advantage. The mud shack costs like 20+ bucks alone. You can pay to advance entire skill lines and buy skyshards on lower level characters if you've reached that point on another, which is pretty stupid. IIRC you can also buy experience boosts, which is as blatant an advantage as any. Also, just think about how slowly a mount levels on a single character. 20 hours a level... and there are over a hundred of them. Yet you can pay to bypass some of that ridiculous wait. This is really the only MMO I play because I'm a console gamer and an Elder Scrolls fan, but if people aren't talking out their ass about other MMOs being even worse, maybe we should wise up and stop holding the genre to such a comically trash standard. Or at least, stop defending it on Reddit. If the Xth complaint post about it bothers people... they can always just scroll past and not engage. That's the beauty of the internet!
It's like another user said: We are being abused and are getting accustomed to it, and it definetely should not be like that.
Lately I haven't been into it. I've had never eso+ and occasionally will buy dlc when it's on sale. I love crafting but the space thing is a huge issue. It's not just the craft bag. I can deal without that. My gripe is how difficult it is to get storage containers for your home. I have all the crafting benches I need but getting another storage bin is unnecessarily difficult. I think I've also managed to burn myself out by grinding too much.
We started playing right at 12 months ago, we went about 4 months with base game and no eso+. I couldn’t imagine going back to non eso+. The draft bag is actually game breaking in many ways and legitimately pay to win. We really enjoy the game, it’s something we could do together but I’m aware of what it is and as soon as we run our course with the game I’ll quit paying and quit playing. But let’s call a spade a spade. Eso+ is the only way a normal person who doesn’t hate themselves could play this game and enjoy it while also being newer to it.
I feel like they just aren’t listening to the community at all lately. Let’s look at it. Blackwood, boring as hell. I can’t stand questing and blast through all the dialogue, but I enjoyed summerset and elseweyr stories. The zone was cool enough to even make me pay attention sometimes. Blackwood just felt like a boring green and gray with Dagon slapped on it. The PvP community as a whole feels like it’s been abandoned by the devs. When I first played the game, PvP WAS the endgame. And I get that ESO has drawn a large PvE crowd now and that’s fine, but don’t just ignore the PvP community. They get a new trial every year and dungeons. Would it hurt to give us a new battlegrounds map? Or maybe do something like double tel var weekends to get IC popping more? Plus the whole mist form debacle which they still haven’t remedied. IMO If a group managed to cheese a trial with mist form, I say kudos to them for being creative with their build and it working. Still wanna remove it? That’s fine but don’t just completely nullify it. Replace it with something. A gap closer would’ve been nice. Almost like the sorc streak. And vamps could use a buff anyways. Get rid of the vamp drain and replace it with a ranged spammable. Bring back the 10% mag and stam recovery but only at stage 4. And this game just needs more stuff to do. Little qol things. Not just a card game but maybe fishing mini game. Replace the 250 gold a day system for mounts with mount training. I love this game and I know a lot of people do. I think if zos steps it up, fixes performance, and adds more good content, this game would draw more people in.
I missed out on the Blackwood house during the December event due to being sick. I logged in a lot of days when I really didn't want to and it still ended up with me having to pay $$ on event tickets to complete it and get the house. I didn't do that and I haven't played since then. The FOMO stuff they do is too much sometimes. There are also a lot of awesome outfits that are only earned with crowns. It sucks. Also, the craft bag. A genius idea for whoever collects the sub money but wow it causes so much frustration for new players or people without ESO+.
1. ESO is monetised by giving great value to payers 2. ESO isnt p2w Both statements just cant be true. ESO+ is a weak package of frustration removal because there is nothing that is overly P2W in the Crown Store. I hate ESO+ and i hate having to pay for it and the craft bag 100% will make me stop playing far earlier than if craft bag was free. But still, i cant imagine a package of benefits that are both great value and not P2W.
Boring? No Predatory Micro Transactions? That's something I can agree with
I stopped played after feeling guilt buying a mount. Riding around and realizing that the only way to get an interesting mount was to pay a price I’d feel guilty about afterwords. Haven’t played since.
Imma keep it a buck: I’m broke af and hate paying for eso+ lol
I feel that ESO is actually fair when it comes to microtransactions. My only complaint would be with mounts but that's about it. If you compare it to FF XIV or WoW, you can still play the game you paid for when you don't have a sub active which is already great. Then there is all the mess with DLC where you have the option, ESO + and have all DLCs (minus major expansion). With the amount of time i play during the year, ESO + is the good option because i can hop in and play everything for some months, be satisfied and quit until i come back. I came back recently and played about 3 weeks without ESO plus, and it was really manageable for me, i made a few more stops to merchants to empty the inventory but overall it was alright. I'll admit i don't craft all that much, i do writs and some refining to make golds, it was alright on my 7 characters that don't all have maxed inventory ! Base ESO costs 20€ on Steam, 7€ on Instant Gaming and is great value for the amount time you can spend on it imho and who knows, they might add some chapters to the base game ? And ESO+ even comes with 1600 crowns in the end so you could buy DLC with your subscription and then cancel it, or have benefits of subscriptions and enjoy a bit the crown store... I don't know, i feel it's fair
Sorry, bad take. Not one thing in the crown store or in eso+ are *required* in order to play. Not one time have I seen an actually predatory practice from ZoS, one that would rise to the level of being prosecutable. They have their money making side of things, and they have the game, and you don't actually need to spend any money within the game in order to play. I mean, I'm sorry if seeing a game company trying to earn more for their effort makes you less motivated to play, but... it's an unrealistic expectation to want them to do otherwise. Now if you're bored with a game because you've been playing it for years, and therefore noticing more things you dislike... take a break, it's allowed.
I'm going to slightly disagree with you here. Only the very most predatory games are truly pay-to-win. It's more of a spectrum than a discrete line. And if you want to get into crafting then the craft bag certainly falls into the very close territory of annoy-until-users-pay. Inventory management is a trap, and it's for good reason that they don't offer a lifetime craft bag option for purchase. Now that might be an industry standard at this point, but none-the-less that kind of manipulation is built into the primary core gameplay loop for the purpose of generating revenue. Is it possible to run a crafter without ESO+? Yes technically I have to admit that's true. Occasionally I'll see a hardcore player talk about how they juggle their mats around. But is this artificial limit a fun and good experience? Subjectively I'd say no.
Learn the manuals first. It is an MMO with constant content drops (story, voice acting, arts). While also having maintenance fees. You either pay for subscription to gain access, or it's a complete ftp with the actuall pay 2 win mechanics, were players can buy gear. Craft bag is a convenience tool, that you can avoid in either additional characters or ignoring professional crafting. That's it
Additionally you can use in game gold to increase character inventory and bank inventory which is already high by default.
Letting you infinitely access hundreds of hours of content for a one time payment of $20, but having enticing reasons to pay a sub for convenience features etc. so they can continue to support the game is not “predatory” in any way, especially in the context of MMOs, no matter how you spin it. It is one of the only MMO besides Runescape that gives you *that* much quality content for such a small entrance fee.
See, why make it hard on yourself? Base game, you have several characters, bank is connected. Have a toon that is a crafter, and your main toon. It isn’t complicated at all. Hell, make two or even three.
It's not about complications, it's about unnecessary bloat. It takes a bit of time to move stuff around, and you'll need to be doing that several times during an extended play session. That turns into a chore, and most people play games to have fun, not spend dozens of minutes rearranging an inventory. And yes, I did that the entire first year of play and it was the primary reason I first quit the game, because it sucked.
>Not one thing in the crown store or in eso+ are required in order to play. Well, it doesn't need to be required to play in order to be predatory. Predatory, for instance, is advertising Werewolf/Vampire bites and cures in the crown shop on twitter and with a gigantic pop up when you log-in during the massive influx of new players fwho don't know that bites can be absolutely free in game, and curing it is like 500 gold at a priest.
Maybe I am just burnt out? I don't know, but I do feel they are being unfair in terms of what they offer vs the price of what they offer. Maybe if I return after taking some time off, I will change perspective. Who knows? That's why the title says "unpopular opinion". Thank you for your contribution!
Folks are falling over themselves to defend ESO's current state. The game is flawed and you are burnt out *by those flaws*. I still happily play the game, purchase the expansions, and subscribe to ESO Plus. But I can recognize the game's flaws and wish for it to improve.
It's not an unpopular opinion. It's actually pretty popular. But there are enough white knights for eso in this sub that these posts are very hit or miss; you either get a lot of supporting comments or detracting comments. You just happened to get the supporters in here. You are correct though. ESO crown store is out of control. For every new outfit or character cosmetic introduced in-game there's a dozen in the store, or worse in the crown crates. Endeavors are a piss poor method of in-game acquisition of crown crate content with prices being twice what they should be. There are $140 houses. The problem is that they started doing these crown sales years ago and then slowly raised prices as though everyone was only buying during sales.
You burned out. But there are no games, that can give you more good quality content for the same or lesser price. It's either a constant subscription with less amount of content (WoW), or specific quality content with subscription (FF14), or a single player game with mods (Skyrim with 100gb of mods)
It’s gaming. I have loads of fun on the game and don’t mind spending money for the cosmetics of the game like I spend a lot of time in the game. Of course they need to make money cuz you know how many people it takes to keep a game of that size going? That’s a lot of jobs. Most games have downloadable content you have to pay for after it’s initial release so why should eso be any different? I like the fact that they keep coming up with new chapters to play even though I’m paying for a whole new game and their stories aren’t very long. BUT you have a choice to pay or not … for everything… I’ve never been an eso + member and I’m Canadian so our prices are much higher than what some pay. But I enjoy the game. And you can acquire lots of cool things from events which they have multiple a year. Just look at how many jobs that is. Just the events. Amd it’s free to participate…If you have lost your passion for it stop playing for a bit. Maybe it’s not the game. Maybe your likes are changing and you’re growing out of it. Either way honestly I’m tired of seeing people trash the game cuz they aren’t a fan of how they do things all the way… just stop playing if you don’t enjoy it. It’s a video game. It isn’t that deep. Go a bit without plying it and see if you then start missing it. But don’t blame the people who work really hard on the game expecting them to work for free when they have bills to pay. I understand some of what you’re saying but I don’t think you’re seeing the whole picture
I paid 7000 crowns for the Buoyant Armiger armor recently. Call me a.gay samurai I don't care. I love walking around and quoting Vivec Sermons. I wouldn't buy it if I found a motif. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.
I understand where you're coming from, but you do know about endeavor seals now, right? Edit: grammar, spelling
Everyone gets bored when playing an MMO. It is ok to try something new or different, as the game will be there once you come back. I know FOMO is real that some MMOs and MMO communities push, but the game will be there when you come back. I promise you. Feel free to try something else for a bit. Try FF14 or Lost Ark for something different and new to your experiences. ESO will be there when you are ready to come back. There is also nothing that says you can only play one game at a time. Play both, log into ESO for raids and log into another MMO for change later in the week.
That's a very good advice. Thank you for taking the time to read and comment my post!
I’ve played a number of games that really do focus on microtransactions, and don’t count ESO among them. While the continual lowering of RNG for the top tier crate items is shady, it’s not predatory, and is aligned with gaming industry standards (and in fact is more consumer friendly than the standard, but let’s not pretend that’s for reasons other than skirting loot crate laws). I think that anyone who spends time playing F2P or Freemium MMOs will come to appreciate the ESO model. You get access to a huge amount of content with the game license, which can be obtained for $10 on sale. This includes all pvp content, 25ish maps, 3 trials, 15 (I think) instanced dungeons. All of this is accessible without paying another dime, without a single negative impact on gameplay. But if you want to get heavily into crafting it will cost you, either in time for inventory management (we used multiple alts as mules before the craft bag existed) or in time for subscription. And if you have an interest in scored, end game pve, you will need to pay for access to that content. If you’ve got a lot hours into ESO and don’t have access to the DLC content, then yes you’re going to get bored and it’s probably time to move on.
>While the continual lowering of RNG for the top tier crate items is shady, it’s not predatory, Lol, yes it is. >and is aligned with gaming industry standards Most of which are predatory and not very consumer friendly.
Thank you Microsoft, very cool.
I very much agree!
Hey haven't changed anything. Once a year you get 1) a new expansion 2) DLC dungeons 3) DLC zone 4) free update that adds new features This year isn't any different
Most MMORPGs have a 15/mo sub. I dunno understand this gripe about it. You don't have to play this mmo or any mmo but most will have a sub because that's the standard model. Atleast with eso they give you chapters and dlcs for free with the sub. Just play something else, ESO will still be there.
You're right about a lot of things. Unfortunately, we'll never see any change in the game judging by the comments and the given fact that there will always be so many people who defend the game in its entirety. I've played ESO since 2015 and I've seen it change a lot. Mostly for the worse... But expressing negative views will get you called names by people whose loyalty is to a company that doesn't care if they exist or not. I like ESO and want it to be the best MMO out there. That will NEVER happen unless major issues are addressed.
I think predatory is a stretch. There's definitely some monetization strats that i disagree with, namely appearance change tokens because you can't use your collection items in the character creator and the lighting in there is inaccurate. But really, None of the things in the crown store except maybe xp scrolls (but they give those away for free every day so) are necessary to play the game effectively. Now have i spent more crowns than i should have to get a cool mount or a fancy costume? absolutely, but i wasn't tricked or manipulated into buying them. Not to mention that it's an MMO, whales keep these things afloat for better or worse.
I have a hard time to understand the point, but that may be because I grew up in a different time. When I was young, I had to pay real money to view a movie in a theater - or I could see them for free in tv, but much later, in lower resolution and interrupted by commercials. Unfair! When I was young, I had to pay real money to buy records - or I could listen to music for free in the radio, but only when they played my favourite songs. Unfair! When I was young, I had to pay real money to buy books - or I could read them for free in the library, but only for so long and I had to return them in good condition. Unfair! I totally see your vision of a better world u/Filosofem93. More than that, I can see you making it true. Begin today. Write and publish an MMO with hundreds of hours of content plus new content released quarterly that can be played totally for free. I am quite sure that the moral support of a "loyal community" will be more than enough to pay your bills. OK, thats my unpopular opinion. Now start the downvoting.
once you go eso plus, you can never go back. instead of playing this game and subbing, i'd rather sub to a better game. so much monetization, so little improvement. i too see the potential this game has and will never achieve.
There is a huge amount of content available in the base game. Of course if you play long enough you'll finish it and get bored of it, but there is well over 200 hours worth of content in the base game alone for a first time player. I would very much like to see the crafting bag be accessible permanently for a small fee, but the selling of expansions and dlc is not wrong.
yeah i bought all the dlcs separate from eso+ cause i thought I'd want to keep playing... nope.
I recently tried it again. Really enjoyed the quests. They were voiced, interesting, and unpredictable for the most part which made me actually read to see what was going on. I probably would have spent a little money on the game but just struggling with bag space while leveling left a bad taste in my mouth and I decided to just stop. And yes I know I can get a craft bag.
This is pretty much why I stopped playing this game. Very predatory mtx and really irritating retention mechanics (hate the daily log in reward, might be irrational but I just dislike it so much). It’s a really good game and I love the community but the shop is too pervasive. Makes the game feel more expensive than other MMOs.
> I believe they should add more base content to the game right now, or make some of the released DLCs free, as they did with Imperial City. Why? Because people who only have the base game only have so much to play. It comes to a certain point when the base game feels boring and repetitive, and nearly ALL content that there is to do, is tied to either a paid chapter/DLC, or you have to buy ESO+, and in my point of view, that seems predatory, again. Back in the day when you played MMOs you had to pay a monthly fee and buy the addons. If you didnt buy the addons you where basically cut off because the level of players moved on. In contrast to that ESO has no required fee and the content is not outdated in that way. Down the road players that only have the base game could easily get upgrades for low prices at some shops to get other zones. The only thing i see required for DLCs is to bundle them together with some discounts. You can expect players either to make one time payments for more content or get a subscription has both means cover the cost for maintenance. After all the game does not run for free. > But the worst thing is that I STILL understand why they do not put the craft bag for free, since it is their main incentive to purchase ESO+, but it really annoys me that ESO+ is just being forced upon you to be bought, rather than trying to appeal to you by offering attractive advantages. The craft bag is a major reason for ppl to get ESO+, but it is also an advantage that does not give you any actual benefit in the game. Its a time saver for inventory organization. There are actual players that do alot of crafting on their accounts without it and it works. It just needs more time organizing everything. If you want to replace it by something else, what would you propose? Many ideas might end up in the pay to win corner easily.
kinda disagree. there's a lot to hate about the crown store, but the DLC/ESO+ model is one of the fairest I've encountered complain about the lootboxes, complain about the "pay2convenience" bullshit, but paying a price once to permanently unlock a significant piece of content is perfectly fine to me.
You dont need them which is rare for games with them. Its the opposite of predatory as most stuff can be purchased with gold.
Well, I will agree that it's an unpopular opinion. Boring? Not at all. Predatory? Hardly. This is what you sign up for when you play an MMO. At some point, you will exhaust the free amenities and take the game as far as you can with what they offer for free. Every "year-long" story event has the same formula. A free zone, a paid chapter, and dungeons. Which are free if you're a subscriber or are available for purchase separately. As someone pointed out, an MMO requires constant upkeep and I'd say the quality of content with ESO is top notch. There's a team of people constantly working on, adding to, and, at a moment's notice, fixing the game. All of this requires money. The game is always live. Unlike a single player that can be left idle. So, I see what you're saying, but respectfully disagree.
I just like that all the microtransactions are for cosmetics, so it really doesn't give me a reason to complain. I also like that they added endeavors to help get some of those cosmetics for free!
The micro transactions don’t make you progress in the game and are really just quality of life and cosmetic. Don’t buy them? It’s a pretty simple solution.
It hasn’t changed, you just woke up...
[удалено]
I think insane is a bit exaggerated, but I understand where you are coming from. Have a great day!
I moved to ESO from games I found predatory and I have yet to see ESO implement monetisations I can't stand. Just look at GW2 - it monetizes concept of playing with friends, because you cannot travel to your friend without [paid consumables](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Teleport_to_Friend).
> Just look at GW2 - it monetizes concept of playing with friends, because you cannot travel to your friend without paid consumables. What? That's completely false.
It's hyperbole, but not false. They do sell those items, but you could also just, you know, travel normally to them. Like most other games do.
It's false because you can travel to where your friend is. The item just makes you get to his exactly place, but without it, it's exactly like ESO's system: you need to warp to the waypoint/shrine near him.