More MMO players need to know how good this game is.

I have to say, I avoided the game at launch because of some negative opinions reviews. I bought it a month ago when I learned that it was going B2P.

I don't know how good/bad it was at launch but 1.6 ESO is one of the best MMOs I've played and I've played pretty much every major one since UO back in '97.

The first two days I got it, I was dismayed. I tried to play it like WoW, expecting a TES-skinned wow clone (much like SWTOR is a SW-skinned wow clone) and I put the game down. I felt like I wasted my money. On the third day the combat clicked and I discovered the most fun combat I've ever seen in an MMO. It's fast, it's tactical, it rewards quick thinking, it punishes you hard if you make a mistake. It's a real action system with RPG elements instead of a "do 5% more damage on keypress" slog that many mmos base their combat around.

Eat a strong spell from a humble npc caster and suddenly you're in danger. Eat a spell from a boss orcish mage and you're screwed. Interrupt and knock him down and he becomes a walk in the park. I love how transparent the RPG numbers become behind the actual combat. Not once do I think "do 10% more damage NOW!". It's always "smash this guy on the ground/ Bash the mage's head before he completes his hand gestures/ Throw jedi lightning on those suckers and watch them disintegrate. It's fun. Pure concentrated fun.

The classes also put me off until I got how the whole system works. I mean 4 classes? What is this dragon knight nonsense? I want a pure fighter ffs. Then I understood that classes are nothing more than 3 packaged skill lines and you're free to mix and match anything you like, however you like it.

Want a pure fighter? Just take all the skills that thematically fit into your idea of a pure fighter. The system is so great that after a month of play, I have:

A wild Breton from the reach who goes around wearing musty leather and fur armor. He goes berserk with a club in each hand and throws jedi lightning on people's heads when he gets really angry.

An orc with decked in steel armor wielding a two handed curved sword that throws his enemies on the ground and then stabs them with a knife for massive damage once they're wounded. Nightblade? What's a nightblade? This guy is an armored juggernaut that fights dirty.

An ashlander Dark Elf that uses bow and spear attacks and strikes from the shadows.

A thief that can three-shot you and dissappear.

A pure fire mage that lobs rocks.

Maybe I'm still in the honeymoon period, I don't know. What I know is that I haven't been excited about a game like this in a long time. I'm currently playing it like Skyrim, exploring delves, finding tomes, crafting things and taking in the vistas. The little touches like finding crafting stations in the wilderness that make various armor sets, brings me back to a time where MMOs were about adventure and exploration and not min-maxing "do it as fast as possible" efficiency. I'm really glad the game doesn't have any auto-dungeon queuer as that was the death knell of old "let's actually walk around the world and have spontaneous adventures" WoW.

I've enjoyed myself so much that I intend to buy stuff from the crown store just to support the game and that's saying a lot since I almost never care about vanity stuff. Judging by update 1.6, I can't wait to see what comes next.

/r/elderscrollsonline Thread