2021 wasn’t a bad year for ESO, but there are 3 major criticisms

The Elder Scrolls Online didn’t get the big attention in 2021, as it did in 2018 and 2019. Although there were again 4 major updates with new content, the players simply lacked real highlights. In this article, we from MeinMMO look back at the year 2021.

What happened in ESO in 2021? The Elder Scrolls Online released a few major updates at the regular pace in 2021. So a big patch appeared about every 3 months:

• It all started with the DLC Flames of Ambition. This appeared on March 8th and brought the two new dungeons “The Cauldron” and “Black Dragon Villa”. In addition, the update has completely revised the champion points.
• The new Blackwood expansion was released in June. This must be bought in addition to the basic game and brought the new and large area of ​​dark forest and the related story content. In addition, there were first glimpses of the Oblivion through the Oblivion portals, which can be found in the dark forest and, as a special feature, the companions.
• At the end of August, the Dungeon DLC Waking Flame continued. As usual, there were two dungeons there, as well as further adjustments to the champion points and changes to the Cyrodiil PvP area.
• Most recently, the DLC Deadlands was released on November 1st, which brought the Land of the Dead as a new and advanced area of ​​Blackwood, thus also bringing new story content and new mythical items.

In terms of the number of updates, there was no difference to previous years. But not every change made in 2021 was well received by the players. Overall, this led to some criticism and generally less interest in ESO.

Who is writing the summary? Alexander Leitsch has been actively playing ESO since 2019 and has just accompanied the Greymoor and Blackwood expansions very intensively for MeinMMO. MiezeMelli, an official member of the ESO Stream Team and a freelance writer at MeinMMO, was at his side with tips and corrections. She has put thousands of hours into ESO over the past few years.

Fans criticize the companions and too few innovations for veterans

What is criticism for? When Blackwood was announced, many ESO veterans had voiced their concerns. Because the “big” feature of the expansion was the Companions, and they sounded like they were aimed more at new players.

The companions are two NPCs, one of which can always stand by you in battle if you summon it. You can unlock the companions via a quest and then skill them as a tank, healer or DD. They can be used in the open world and instances, but not in PvP. However, they take a player seat in PvE groups.

A few weeks after the release of Blackwood it was clear that the veterans really had little to do with the companions. Because they managed most of the content alone or had their group for dungeons and trials. In addition, many considered the implementation to be weaker than with the companions in SWTOR or the heroes in Guild Wars 1.

Instead of the companions, the last additions brought content such as a new class (necromancer in Elsweyr) or a completely new game system including new equipment (the antique system and the mythic gear from Greymoor). Both were innovations that were also aimed at the veterans. The companions, on the other hand, are only an interesting feature for inexperienced players. Anyone who has been playing ESO for a long time will either use it out of habit or not at all.

Too little variety and too much grind with the new champion points

What is wrong with the new champion points? With the first DLC, the champion points have been completely revised. The number of points has been increased and, in addition to the smaller passive effects, larger stars have been built in, of which only 4 skills can be actively selected per tree.

According to the developers, this should solve several problems at once:

• Progress should be broader
• Players should have to make decisions about their build
• The performance should be improved, since with the old system every passive effect had to be calculated every time a skill was used

However, these changes did not go down well with many players, or at least they were seen as unnecessary adjustments. Because even after the change, roughly the same passive effects were selected as in the old system. There is also no real build variety, as all player types (tank, healer, magicka DD, endurance DD) always rely on the same 4 stars for themselves.

There are even bigger points of criticism of the new system, for example because an indirect cap was introduced after 1,500 champion points. Because then you have 4 stars and all other passive effects for all trees. You can now only distribute the remaining points in stars, which you then no longer want to take with you. The green skill tree is also criticized because too many useful effects have been turned into stars.

Many veterans would have wished that the development time would have been used more for other areas such as PvP or performance, instead of previously functioning champion points.

PvP hasn’t gotten any real innovation for years

What has happened in PvP? Very little. Throughout the year, the developers experimented and deactivated some proc sets. In addition, new sets for PvP have been released.

The latest adjustments have at least made PvP a little more fun again. But new PvP content or incentives to play were not given. Such content was also missing in previous years, which has made PvP fans very negative.

What about the performance?

What do the players criticize about the performance? Performance has been an issue in ESO for years. In 2019, some changes were announced, which were then partially implemented in 2020, such as memory management, fast loading of environments and characters, a frame rate improvement and a completely new group search system.

However, with the Greymoor expansion in 2020, there were also new performance problems.

In 2021 Blackwood itself did not bring any major problems into play, but there was little improvement in overall performance. Here, some players have expressed the wish that ZeniMax will continue to work on the promised adjustments for 2022.

New sets, a trial and the areas as highlights

What was well received by ESO in 2021? All was not bad about Blackwood. Many players liked the story about the mysterious deaths. The general excursion into the content of Oblivion also caused many nostalgic moments, for example when visiting the Lands of the Dead or the city of Leyawiin. Visually, these areas were also a pleasure.

For veterans, the highlight of the expansion was probably the new Trial Felshain. It is considered to be crisp in difficulty and also offered some graphical highlights, including the lava flow at the final boss. There were also some useful drops on the boss, which made the replayability better than the trial in Greymoor.

Those who also like to build builds will have got their money’s worth in 2021. Because Blackwood and the DLC around it brought some new sets and mythical items that are among the best equipment in the game. On a Mythic item, the storm at the release of Blackwood was so big that there was a fight for farm spots.

With the last DLC Deadlands, the collections of sets have also been revised so that you no longer get dropped old set items. In addition, the armory for storing builds was introduced, which was also received positively.

ESO is doing well at the end of 2021, but not outstanding

In 2021, ESO took a step backwards for many veterans. The overall revisions to the game are much smaller than they were in 2020, and some of the decisions made have been criticized, such as the adjustments to the champion points. In addition, many players missed a real highlight, because the companions tend to appeal to new players, but not to long-term fans.

To be fair, however, it must also be said that 2020 and 2021 were difficult years due to the pandemic. The ZeniMax developers had to move into the home office and develop new updates from there. For this circumstance, ESO is much better off than many other MMORPGs.

• WoW, for example, is struggling with a long content drought
• Guild Wars 2 had to postpone the new expansion for several months
• In a sense, New World has only struggled with problems since its release

In a direct comparison, ESO cut a good figure in 2021. Nevertheless, the interest in the MMORPG has declined noticeably compared to 2018 and 2019. This is also shown by Google Trends:

For 2022, the fans of the game are therefore hoping for major innovations that will also inspire the veterans again.

What would you like to see in ESO in 2022? And how do you see the year in retrospect? Feel free to write it in the comments.

However, the year is not over for ESO players. Because the New Year festival starts in mid-December. We have summarized everything about the events in ESO here:

ESO Event Ticker – How to claim your rewards by the end of 2021