What does ESO need to survive as a NextGen MMORPG?

The Elder Scrolls Online has been around since 2014 and is still played and developed with great enthusiasm. But what would the community have to do to keep the game relevant as a NextGen MMORPG in 2021 and beyond? We at DLPrivateServer asked fans and experts like streamer Alex0s.

The Elder Scrolls Online launched on April 4, 2014, and had to struggle to satisfy both fans of the single-player series and fans of MMORPGs. With One Tamriel's major update and console releases, ESO finally became the game it should be and still is today.

Since then, it has continued with constant updates, since 2017 even with new chapters every year, each of which features completely new regions and game elements.

But there are occasional criticisms that ESO brings more of the same each year and that there are no real innovations. But what does the community really want? And from the point of view of fans and gaming experts, what would it take to establish ESO as the next-gen MMORPG for years to come?

At InafGo, we have started a large poll on the German ESO Facebook group, in which many fans actively participated with more than 150 comments. Thanks again to the ESO Facebook community.

How can ESO continue to improve? It's not just Echsi who's asking.

We also asked ESO expert and streamer Alex0s (via YouTube) for a statement on the matter. You can find his opinion on the subject at the end of the article.

This is what fans want from ESO in the future.

There were numerous comments on the subject in the large German ESO Facebook group. The wishes of the community refer mainly to these issues:

Bug fixes, performance, and server
Comfort features like flight mounts, a global auction house, or more storage space
The more demanding combat system and more peculiarities in the classes.

We give some prominent opinions on these issues in the following paragraphs.

Performance and Co.

The top item on the community wish list is clearly performance. Because ESO doesn't always run smoothly on consoles, and there are often long loading times and delays. User Tanja Burri sums up many opinions:

I'm thinking of better (servers) or new mega-servers with more power and capacity.

As a player, you suffer a lot from game performance… Loading times are fine, but as soon as you have raids or a lot of effects in PvP, the performance drops.

Even if it sounds and turns off like this, the game should still look good in the future.

The problem also seems to affect consoles, which according to user Chris Löbelin are not designed for these types of games:

The biggest problem with consoles is not just the servers but the performance of the consoles themselves. I have bet on both the console and now on the PC; the difference with more computing power is huge. The consoles just weren't designed for the kind of games.

The weak Xbox One and PS4 performance criticized here should improve with the NextGen Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 consoles.

Comfort features

If you spend a lot of time in a game, you will notice at some point that everything is a bit bulky and uncomfortable. Therefore, comfort characteristics are important. ESO has been improving this for years, most recently with the new collection menu, but according to players, some things can be done better to make ESO more comfortable to play.

ESO has already implemented several comfort features in the home.

More storage space: By far, the most requested convenience feature is more storage space. Because in ESO, you can collect a lot of things, and at some point, even the extended space is full of things. That is why Sonja Kolthof, along with many other things, especially wants more space!

- flying mounts

- more space (I look forward to the console update on November 10)

- in some way a way to prevent the transfer of money (for example, in raids or dungeons)

- MORE SPACE!

The ability to send messages to players in a group from within the group.

- the possibility of classifying master deeds by sets

- Stack gold outfit style pages and save them to your own bank

- Information about the inventory of all characters in an account/server (!!!!!)

- AND MORE SPACE !!!!!!

Flight Supports: Also, at the top of many ESO fans' wish list are flight supports, with which you can quickly cross areas. They do bring with them some problems, though, so user Marc Henning has a specific suggestion here:

I would support fly mounts so far if that means you are optically in the air, but the hitbox is still on the ground ... so more floating than flying. Because nobody else would travel anymore, and I don't even want to start with cyro (PvP) and server loading.

Many would like to have Summerset faucets as flight mounts.

Global Auction House: Currently, game sales are made through special trade guilds that operate stalls in major cities. The system is whimsical and fits well into a medieval fantasy world, but some players would prefer that you could get goods quickly and easily through a global trade hub. User Jessie Vom Beek thinks "a global auction house would be a dream!"

More ideas from the community: There are some nice little ideas on these big topics:

Julia Fraunholz would like to be able to create a home garden and cultivate cooking resources there. A "gardening feature", so to speak.
Benedikt Spiller, in turn, would like the pets to collect the loot for him.
Alyssa Léon has a special concern: low-level creatures like Skeever should at some point turn "yellow," that is, not automatically hostile. Forced fights against such small creatures annoy them.
Charlotte Schneege, on the other hand, likes to explore Cyrodiil but has no desire for PvP. He wants a "passive mode" like in GTA5.
Several players, including Trevor Phillips, would like an option to disable animal companions such as twilight wings or bears optically. The creatures block view en masse.

Combat system and classes.

The combat system is not demanding enough for some users and needs to be reviewed. This is how Alrik Rotbart would like the New World system at ESO:

Then the combat system. Most of the time, you just hit some rotation on the keyboard/controller that hardly changes. I'd like to see a more demanding combat system, I'll say casually, "I can." I have already seen many NEW WORLD videos, and I actually find them very attractive.

The fights should be more dynamic.

Players like Nils Brömer would also like to have a better distinction between classes in the game:

More class identity. I find that classes generally play out similarly when you compare stamina characters to stamina characters. This could possibly be remedied with class-related weapon skills, but it would be a far-reaching change.

Other ideas and wishes

Besides these big issues, there are several other ideas about what should change in ESO.

More relevance in the making: Alrik Rotbart likes craftsmanship and would like to have more relevance:

The exchanges are too "unimportant". I think it's a shame that buildable sets are rarely used, with 4 or 5 exceptions.

You often analyze months until you've learned everything, and I think it's a shame nothing more was done.

Crossplay between consoles: Pia Lupa and other fans want crossplay, but only under consoles; otherwise, PC gamers would have advantages due to their add-ons.

Crafting should be more valuable.

Dare with something new! While most fans want to improve on existing things, user Benjamin Goldberg is taking a somewhat more radical course. ESO should finally dare to do something and not always drive scheme F:

Zenimax should dare to do something with THAT! Be more innovative. So far, all the plugins have been praised by the trade press, but the famous F scheme has been noted repeatedly. It is always the same process, still the same dish.

2 new instances

1 new area with a new raid, both stories technically good, but not always the absolute blast

And a little DLC at the end of the year

It's all good, it's fun and cool, but it's not innovative. FFXIV has the same problem. In the end, you already know what your playful year will be like.

What about the changes? What if known places in the world completely change, get redesigned, break features, and suddenly no longer exist? The status quo is completely nullified.

Just dare to do something and don't keep riding the old horse until it dies.

More interesting articles about ESO:

5 places where you can level up really fast
5 useful things in ESO that you can do when you are bored in the MMORPG
Here's how you play ESO "right" - the optimal order for all 17 DLCs and chapters
Where will the next chapter take us in 2021? That's what the fans say

That's what the expert says.

So far, the opinion of the community. To conclude our article on the desired changes to ESO, we asked YouTuber and ESO streamer Alex0s for their opinion on the matter.

Is it really new content that keeps an MMORPG alive? Do you need raytraying and other new graphic effects as a sales pitch?

MMOs are still relevant thanks to their "Games as a Service" status. That means they live regular updates. It seems that developers are often putting new paid content, such as search areas, raids, and new sets on top of the base game's further development. This is not the case with ESO.

In previous updates, ZeniMax Online Studios shows how you can significantly improve the gaming experience with simple "Quality of Life Changes". So they implemented a text search and new filters to simplify inventory management, especially for console players. The new collection of item sets, which can be used to duplicate or restore items in the set, was also welcomed with open arms by the ESO community.

Future "Quality of Life Changes" could be what it takes to make ESO a "NextGen MMORPG" success. Add-ons like "Dressing Room" or "CombatMetrics" already show what it takes to keep Tamriel alive. "Dressing Room" allows you to save various "equipment and skill" settings from being ready for any opponent.

The possibility of short keys for multiple computers is also a problem. CombatMetrics, on the other hand, is a damage meter to analyze the composition of damage. Both essential plugins should find their way into the game in the form of a similar implementation. This could be the key to making ESO on consoles and especially NextGen consoles even more appealing to would-be MMO players.

For him, it's not even great new content, but that ESO keeps the gaming experience enjoyable with significant "quality of life" updates. An opinion that many other fans also share.

But what do you think of the future of ESO? What should you still improve? Let us know in the comments!