When the Game Stops You From Playing
Last night, I finally had sufficient time to log into The Elder Scrolls Online and check out the new Blackwood expansion. The plan was to go straight to the new zone and complete the relevant quests to obtain the two companions that have been added to the game. Unfortunately, life seldom goes to plan as Robert Burns alluded to in his famous quotation. As I haven’t played ESO for a while, I’ve missed several major game updates. Consequently all my champion points have been reset, along with all my skills. So, I had to spend some time trying to remember how my Dragonknight was previously set up. I checked a few screenshots to see what skills were on the hotbars but as they don’t display the name, plus the icons change after morphing a skill, it was tricky trying to reverse engineer my prior build. Eventually I just winged it and managed to blag my way through the two quests.
Today, I spent some time researching a DPS Stamina build for solo PVE play using a Dragonknight. I further had to refine my search to ensure it was intended for two handed weapons and a bow. Eventually I found something appropriate and copied it as best as I could. Some of the skills recommended I don’t have morphed as of yet. I then made sure I had an appropriate buff from a Mundus Stone, as well as some food that gave my character a stamina boost. All in all, this process took about 90 minutes or so to sort out. I also had to tweak a few addons as these had inevitably got out of date since I last played a year ago. Finally now that these changes have been implemented, I finally feel that I’m in a position to play through the new content. I have had to print out a key map to refer to as I’m struggling to remember what skills are assigned where.
This is the great paradox that comes with the MMO genre. The games are often predicated on complex systems and arcane mechanics. For many players, this is part of their appeal. If you are the sort of gamer that relishes intricate processes and likes to master complicated rules, then good luck to you. Players such as I rely on the likes of you to produce the sort of guides that I referred to today to get my Dragonknight up and running. But not everyone enjoys this aspect of MMOs. MMO monogamy is a thing of the past these days. People come and go, flitting between games depending upon their likes and dislikes. Hence many players will return to a game such as ESO after a period of time away only to find that they’ve forgotten how to play their class or that they’ve fallen foul of a system reset like the one I encountered. In such cases the game often does nothing to help these players, which upon reflection seems counterproductive.
Elite, competent and knowledgeable players do not make up the majority of the player base in ESO or any other MMO. Over the years it has been clearly established that many players do not visit forums, read wikis, research their builds or focus on getting the best gear for their class. They just log into the game and play in a manner that suits them, often just using gear that is given as quest rewards. Skill points are assigned via guess work or random choice. Simply put these gamers are content to potter about in a laid back fashion. Hence if confronted with a major barrier to progress when returning to a game, they will often take the path of least resistance to bypass it. Which is why so many players just roll a new alt when revisiting an MMO after a lengthy absence, as the game does not make it easy to pick up where you left off. The other option is that the player just becomes frustrated that they can’t do the thing they wish to do, logs off and goes and plays something else. Which is not good for business.
If game developers and publishers want to reduce player churn, then they should try and address the needs of the returning players. Often the solutions to the problems that they face are simple. Sometimes a player just needs a brief refresher course in their class skills and such like. This could be solved by having a tutorial that can be repeated at any point in the game. Alternatively having an interactive advisory service associated with all the games systems and mechanics would be beneficial. Something that could be toggled on and off that gives a simple overview when you hover your mouse over an active window. ESO currently provides build and skills advice. Having preset builds that could be applied at the click of a mouse would be the logical next step. They don’t have to be optimal, just sufficient to allow the player to undertake PVE content in the manner they prefer.
Now there will be a small percentage of MMOs players who will balk at my suggestions but I find “git gud” culture and the self flagellating mindset of such gamers both tiresome and irrelevant. If you want to impose some self improvement ideology onto a game for your own enjoyment, that’s fine. But you have no authority to impose your competitive and self aggrandising dogma on anyone else. Video games are ultimately consumer products and as such need to be accessible and accommodating. The player who is not playing due to the games systems effectively blocking them, is a player who is not happy or more importantly not spending money. If they leave in frustration, then that’s effectively a lost sale and in today’s competitive market, that’s an error you can afford to keep making.
