Elder Scrolls Online is a game with huge potential that somehow went very wrong. If you are considering playing ESO your expectation will likely be an upgraded version of Oblivion or Skyrim with other players across the whole of Tamriel which fans of the series know is beyond huge. That is likely all the developers needed to do to make a truly legendary game, with a few additions to make it playable with a group. However the coming together of Zenimax for the MMO side and Bethesda for the ES side has resulted in a game with the worst parts of MMO’s and missing the best parts of ES.
To start with the class system… it should not exist. One of the things that makes elder scrolls great is that no skills or abilities are made off limits from the start, in this respect ESO fails before you have even taken your first step. Each class has 18 class specific abilities and 15 passive abilities. MMO fans will be in love with this as it ensures variety, as an ES fan it is a crushing disappointment and I feel as though Bethesda chickened out under pressure from Zenimax. There are abilities that all players have access to such as weapon, vampire or werewolf, mage and fighter’s guild abilities. But being a sorcerer who cannot use the healing of a Templar, the illusion of a Nightblade or the destruction of a dragon knight immediately removes the ES feel to the game.
Secondly magic, in ES there are separate skill trees for each class of magic, and hundreds of magical spells you can use. In Oblivion and Morrowind you could even make your own spells. This provides freedom for the players with a huge variety of magical abilities. ES possibly has the best magic casting system of any RPG I’ve ever played and I was very excited to see how it would play out with other players. Instead it again feels like Bethesda have been bullied and the magic system is now just that of a bog standard MMO. The majority of magic abilities is class specific as mentioned, after that there are two staffs, destruction staffs and restoration staffs, this takes the magic outside of the players hands, and only provides 10 abilities the majority of which are pretty useless and are never used by anyone. Also it means you can only use restoration magic if you have a restoration staff equipped, once again I expect the MMO fans are very happy at this as an ES fan this was a huge disappointment and something I’ve still not gotten over. There are also mages guild abilities but there are only 4 of them. Overall the joyful freedom and range of magic conjured by previous ES games is completely lost. As a quick addition to this there are now special abilities for other weapons as well, such as archery volley or flurry with dual wield, as you would expect from an MMO but for ES I was hoping Bethesda would avoid this and instead rely on what they have always done i.e. every so often an arrow would paralyze, or you could zoom with your bow.
Thirdly combat, overall it’s fine and perfectly acceptable but there are just a few things that take away its full potential. Such as weapon swapping there is a two second delay in swapping weapons which feels like an eternity and is very frustrating especially when in high stress PvP situations and you click again because you think you’ve lagged out and instead switch to your original weapon. Archery and magic abilities have been modified for MMO’s, the endless range is gone and targeting has been added in. You cannot hide behind objects or people to avoid being hit at range as the range abilities pass through solid matter so long as you’re targeted. Even dodging or running out of the way will cause arrows and fireballs to curve so that they still hit you. Some would argue this is a necessary compromise and that endless range and requirement to aim would make ranged combat impossible to deal with on an MMO scale. But I feel like Bethesda has chickened out and that another joyful aspect of ES has been taken away.
Fourthly the map, the graphics are quite poor and look as if it belongs in a game from a decade ago, but I’ve never cared for aesthetics so can get past this. Also huge swathes of Tamriel are missing; I can also get past this as making a map for all of Tamriel would have been an impossible task. What I cannot get past is the few bits of the map that are from the original ES games. They have the same names but bare almost no resemblance to previous incarnations of the game. For example majority of cities from Cyrodil are missing which is yet another disappointment, in itself not a game breaker but all of these things together are starting to add up. Additionally once you pass a bit of map, there is next to no reason to ever return to it, the higher levels of the map are next to empty due to the huge scale and dwindling population at those levels this means serious problems and waiting as it is extremely difficult to do anything solo in these areas. Finally interaction with objects is non-existent another nice part of ES which is missing
Fifthly levelling, feels very grindy and takes a long time, it is not fun but there really isn’t that much you can realistically do till you reach max level. I reached level 50 by doing endless quests it became a game of follow the dot (quest arrow) as I very slowly reached level 50. After that there are 12 extra ranks you need before you can join in end-game, this is nothing but a grind and completely unnecessary. Some say the game is levelling and the quests, but for me I find this dull in MMO’s I want to get to the end so I can join in end game PvE with my guild mates and compete in PvP.
Sixthly PvP, you cannot level up through PvP… you get exp but not enough to level up. You are 100% useless until you hit level 50 and even then you’re still pretty useless till you reach veteran rank 12. The loot you receive from PvP is very limited; ultimately this all means you can’t really do PvP till you done all sorts of other stuff on the PvE side. It is extremely buggy as an example if you invite someone to your group who is not in the PvP map, half of the group will crash this also applies to people who have crashed who are trying to re-join. If you want to play and not just die or run in random directions on your own you have to play with a group. There is no commander tag on the map or ability to place a marker over others heads to elect a leader. If you are in a group a small white star appears over your group leaders head, but this is indistinguishable from other group member markers. The compass and the map will crash often. Ultimately PvP feels completely broken and unrewarding and even with a guild group on Teamspeak it is harder to organise than it should be. There is room to improve PvP to an acceptable standard however… if Zenimax ever feel so inclined.
Seventhly PvE, the quest lines are just endless talking, and then more talking, with the same actors, in a monotone… you will end up skipping conversations for whole quest lines and just follow quest arrows and do whatever it tells you to do. This means you get to the end of a quest and won’t know what you’ve done or what’s been happening. Once you reach veteran areas you can’t do it solo this makes it difficult to proceed judging the fact most players have given up by this stage, especially if you’re not playing in peak time. Also the range NPC's run to before giving up and restoring to full health as they run back to spawn feels extremely limited. Other than that the PvE is pretty much what I’d expect from a MMO and ES its challenging and rewarding when you take down a boss or win a particularly tough fight. Also the dungeons are a lot shorter then ES which is excellent as they did tend to drag on in the games.
There are some extras to this game which are good additions, the crafting is better than it was in ES, the horse system is more complex and rewarding as you level up your own personal horse which you can mount at any time. Being able to instantly travel to a group member makes organisation less of a struggle. First person is nice and good for total immersion even though for serious fights you will likely used third person. Downloadable add-ons are a god send, the game would be borderline unplayable without them, but it does sort of feel as if developers are relying on the community to effectively finish the game for them.
Despite what seems like a rant I should add that I have given ESO 5/10 as it plays as a fine MMO, not the best and in my opinion not a premium product deserving of a subscription which I feel players will realise sooner or later and will leave, many of which already have. But the truly unforgivable part is the races are the same, and the lore is the same but that is where the similarity to ES ends.