Forums » Off-Topic and Casual Chatter

    • 384 posts
    October 12, 2017 8:55 AM PDT

    To help pass the time til Pantheon releases, a friend and I decided to give Elder Scrolls Online a try (it's only $16 on amazon).  Neither of us has ever played before and we're playing casually, just exploring the world and story lines.

     

    I was just wondering if anyone here is already playing and to invite anyone who might be interested to join us.  If you wanna, post here or you can message me in game @malsirian.  /wave

    • 201 posts
    October 13, 2017 5:48 AM PDT

    Has it changed at all?  I played at launch and it was zero content, zero actually MMO play ability in it.  It was just a awful online version of ES.

    • 384 posts
    October 13, 2017 6:51 AM PDT

    It's really hard for me to say. I think I tried beta but I didn't pay it any attention until a few days ago. I've really had the itch to play an mmo and ESO kept popping up and it was cheap. I read it was a mess at launch so I stayed away. From what I've seen lately they have turned it around pretty well. 

    It's still a themepark mmo with actiony combat. So, you know what you're gonna get but there is a lot of lore and a ton of areas to explore, with interesting story-driven quests, the world itself it pretty beatiful. Lots of character advancement and I don't think I could get through all the content for a long, long time.

    I don't think it is a very social mmo - I haven't talked with anyone - but I do see people and overall the community seems welcoming. I'm primarily playing with a friend so we've duo'd (or solo'd) everything so far. The fact that it doesn't require a lot of teamwork (at this point anyway, but I'm still only level 8 or so, basically one night of playing) is one of the reasons I posted here. I don't think I'll meet people in game (don't really wanna, heheh) and thought it would be nice to have the opportunity to maybe play with some folks who will be in Pantheon also.

    I'm not sure how long this will keep my attention... but it's something to do until I get a crack at Pantheon.

    • 40 posts
    October 13, 2017 9:15 AM PDT

    ESO kept my attention until level 10.  Then I realized I could just stay in the same zone forever and level up there since everything scales to me.  And realized that's another gimmick that prevents people from being social as it caters to the solo play.  I haven't touched the game since.

    Graphics are great and I liked that the quests are a lot more involved than just "kill 8 wolves", but there was something cruelly lacking while playing.  I had zero sense of accomplishment for anything I did.  Maybe that would have changed had I attempted some of the group zones, but by then my will to play had already been completely destroyed.


    This post was edited by Ludek at October 13, 2017 9:16 AM PDT
    • 2886 posts
    October 13, 2017 9:36 AM PDT

    Tbh, I wouldn't expect it to hold your attention for that long. But I suppose it doesn't hurt to try. I was in the beta for ESO and it was really exciting for the first couple days but quickly got boring - it's just so repetitive. Ultimately, it's just another game. Not an engaging world. I'm sure a lot has changed since then, but I was left so unimpressed, that I haven't felt the need to check back in on it. (Even though this may not be the best way to approach it, the unfortunate truth is that most players think this way. And that's why VR is making sure Pantheon is an interesting game before it goes out to anybody.) Anyway, based on what other people are saying, it sounds like ESO hasn't really changed enough in a meaningful way. So I guess my intuition was right in this case.

    • 384 posts
    October 13, 2017 11:19 AM PDT

    Ludek said:

    I realized I could just stay in the same zone forever and level up there since everything scales to me.  And realized that's another gimmick that prevents people from being social as it caters to the solo play.  

    This really bothers me too. One of the things that's great about being in an online world is revisiting those places you started out - where the mobs were sooo scary - and now you don't even have to give them a second thought. Definitely takes away from that feeling of accomplishment. otoh, it does allow you to group with others who aren't close in level. Unfortunately, there's no need to do that. 

    Bazgrim said:

    Tbh, I wouldn't expect it to hold your attention for that long. But I suppose it doesn't hurt to try.

    That is pretty much my expectation. I just wanna play an mmo so badly, I thought for $16 it doesn't hurt to try.  

    I do think they've made some pretty significant changes over the last few years. Not sure those changes are gonna appeal to most people who are also interested in Pantheon. For the most part I think they took out some complexity and made it more accessible. ah well, I'll give it some more time and see how it goes - if nothing else there are some fun quests to explore with my buddy. 

    So ready for Pantheon =)

     

    • 769 posts
    October 13, 2017 12:27 PM PDT

    ESO was really the last nail on the coffin for me with MMO's. I remember following it so avidly during production, posting every day on the forums and getting way over excited about it. The direction it ended up going (all the points brought up here) really turned me off of MMO's for the longest time. It wasn't long after this that Vanguard also shut down. Twas a dark time.

    I mean, they had the opportunity for something REALLY great and unique, and I think they did try, but fell very short. It's almost like they tried to be unique, while also still catering to this casual crowd (trying to become the next big title), which resulted in just repetitive gameplay and no community. 

    I can't help but think that, if they had just taken Skyrim/Morrowind/Oblivion as they are and simply made it multiplayer, that it would have been a huge hit. No changes needed, just make it friggin' multiplayer. It would have amounted to the same community as ESO (a singler player game touting itself as an MMO) but with much better gameplay. 

    You have a formula, and that formula works, then don't deviate from the friggin' formula. Simple as that. 

    • 159 posts
    October 13, 2017 7:59 PM PDT

    I played ESO for 2 1/2 years, from open beta to about a year ago. It was very different from what I expect Pantheon to be, but there was a lot of fun to be had, until at some point the bad stuff overtook the good stuff. If anyone's on the fence about trying it out, here are a few pointers (note that these reflect only my personal opinion).

    It has an extensive story that works best in solo play, thoug it's not the friendliest game for hardcore role playing, such as always being in character. You can solo the main story and some of the group content if you're good enough. I think the developers either lost focus or tried to cater to everyone, so exclusive soloers complained about content that requires groups, while people who like to group up complained about much of the game being too easy in order to be soloable.

    Combat is action-based and can be quite intricate. You often need to block, interrupt or move out of the way at the right time. Classes, skills, and gear were often grossly unbalanced, so you would often see the same cookie-cutter builds everywhere. Using the current meta min-max builds allowed players to cheese through group content,"burning" bosses and ignoring their intended mechanics. The complexity of combat led to huge nerfs of enemies early on as many players struggled with some content, even the parts that were meant to be soloed. This in turn led to people jumping into group content unable to play their class/role effectively, generating a great deal of frustration, name-calling and rage quitting, especially in pick-up groups.

    In order to appease more skilled players and increase difficulty, some of the later group content started to rely heavily on dumb wipe mechanics tied to DPS races, meaning even if your group did all the right moves and always stayed alive, they would wipe automatically if they didn't have the DPS to down a boss within a given time.

    PvP is restricted to certain zones, namely Cyrodiil (a huge map for three-way alliance warfare) and the Imperial City (a smaller part of Cyrodiil, better suited for small-scale skirmishes). At one point I was very much PvP-focused, but abandoned it due to lag, bugs, cheating and exploiting. You could still have some fun, but more so if you didn't play it competitively and if you joined a PvP-centric guild. Many, if not most, of the class, skill and gear balance changes stemmed from loud protests from PvPers and were very negatively received by the PvE players.

    I left ESO for a number of reasons, including going F2P with heavy focus on shop sales (even if mostly cosmetic), progressively smaller content updates, and inability or unwillingness to deal with cheating and exploiting. Because it has microtransactions, which I hate and boycott, I can't really recommend the game, but there are worse games out there if you're just looking for a filler.

     

    • 384 posts
    October 13, 2017 8:35 PM PDT

    Thanks for your input, daemonios and Tralyan. I remember being disappointed after trying the beta as well. But didn't really recall any specifics.

    What you described, daemonios, all sounds very frustrating. Cheating is especially bothersome in a pvp setting and seems to be a problem in a lot of games I've played recently. So annoying. 

    We're still gonna play for a little bit. Very casually. The world is pretty =) and fun to explore so I'll stick around as long as that's enjoyable. I know it won't be what I'm really looking for (that's Pantheon) but perhaps it'll fill the time a little bit until Pantheon is ready.

    • 18 posts
    October 14, 2017 3:43 PM PDT

    If you are looking for a casual style guild to hang out with in ESO send me a message. I help run an online community that playing in a few different MMOs and am the guild lead for ESO. As for feedback concerning ESO.

    I really enjoy the game and love the focus on it has on the story, there are a lot of side storylines that are great. As an EQ player originally the two games are hard to compare because they are two very different styles of MMORPG in my opinion, Daemonios gives a pretty good overall rundown.

    Things to know

    - The game has changed drastically from its first year of release.

    - Group size is 4. You only really need groups to complete world bosses, dungeons, and 12 man trials. Vet trials are all about the meta whereas everything else you can just play what you enjoy the most. The rest of the game's content can be completely solo, loot is individual so you also can feel free to help out other people when you see them running around the world, which is why people don't tend to group up too much while doing the general content.

    - Everything is level scaled so you can go to any area you like in the game and just start looking for quests/killing stuff. To find all the quests in a given area you need to actually travel to the points of interest and explore. Exceptions to this are dungeons which unlock for characters at certain levels... but if you have some buddies they can still take you into dungeons, you cannot queue for them is all, same with trials.

    - Once you hit 50th you will start to build up Champion Points... this is a pool that all your characters have access to. If you are familiar with EQ 2 think AA points but as the pool build up it builds for all your characters, each character can spend the points from the full pool in any way they choose. Any character you have at 50th can earn CPs for the pool and sub 50th character can spend the points for added benefits while leveling.

    - Endgame gear is rated at CP 160 and is all about combining 5 piece sets and/or 2 piece monster sets to maximize your benefits.

    - You do not need a sub to play and can buy the DLCs if you so choose for permanent access. With a monthly sub though you get access to all DLCs except Morrowind, 500 bonus crowns per month, double bank space, and unlimited crafting material storage along with a few other benefits.

    Overall I really enjoy ESO they have a decent rate of content release and there is quite a bit to do. We try to run dungeons a few times a week and do a normal trial once a week.

    If you enjoy a heavily story-based MMORPG or are looking for some RvRvR it is worthwhile, if you are a hardcore player you will most likely enjoy it at first but get bored quickly. If you are looking for something more EQ adjacent I would recommend checking out Project Gorgon so long as you don't mind the graphics and the alpha state of the game. Right now I am passing my time with ESO, Warframe, and Total War: Warhammer II till Pantheon is out and I can hopefully get my gaming community involved with it.

    Cheers,

    • 384 posts
    October 14, 2017 6:29 PM PDT

    Cool! Thanks, Xevrin.  

    I am enjoying ESO at this point, really like exploring and the story line so far - I subbed - thank the gods for unlimited crafting component storage!

    If I stick with it (still only level 9) a bit I may take you up on the guild. Casual sounds good. =)  And it would be nice to get to know some folks going into Pantheon. What's the name?

    • 839 posts
    October 15, 2017 11:28 PM PDT

    I came back a while ago to ESO after disliking it quite a bit at launch, the part of the game i really liked after coming back is tanking... To me dps is a bit boring but doing super high dps does take some skill... healing is a bit of fun but you dont actually have that much control over your healing with a lot of automatic target lowest health spells etc (which works for twitchy games but i am not as bigger fan)  All that aside I'd rate it as one of the better online games of late.. definitely a fan of the graphics, its super well polished now and I am enjoying playing around with various armour sets that have varying procs that yield in some circumstances... interesting results haha!

    As a lover of MMO's... the fact that the game is 95% solo is pretty stupid.. the community is thriving in numbers but almost dead as far as social capacity lol .. no griefers or trolls that i have met, but most are very withdrawn and disconnected from other people.  Most dungeon runners will hang around if one group member is not as experienced as they expect, although you have to expect impatient people to just disband groups if you are not as experienced at your dungeon role as people they have played with before. Dont take it personally, they are just "very special" people :p 

     

    side note: Veteran dungeon runs are usually more social.. probably somthing as simple as because there is more chance of death / failure and you have less players thinking they are heroes trying to run ahead of the tank and show everyone how cool he is by spamming AoE damage on a group of trash mobs and more people just focusing on their role and helping the group.

    and last note would be... Sorc Tank ftw! :)

     

    • 384 posts
    October 16, 2017 3:57 PM PDT

    From what I've seen they've come a long way since launch. I know it's not the mmo I'm looking for and it leaves a lot to be desired but it's been fun running through the quests with a buddy and progressing my character.  It's something to pass the time and most importantly, there aren't any other real choices right now from what I can see. 

    And now I wanna try a sorc tank.....  you're aggravating my altitis, Hokanu.

    • 839 posts
    October 16, 2017 8:22 PM PDT

    Malsirian said:

    From what I've seen they've come a long way since launch. I know it's not the mmo I'm looking for and it leaves a lot to be desired but it's been fun running through the quests with a buddy and progressing my character.  It's something to pass the time and most importantly, there aren't any other real choices right now from what I can see. 

    And now I wanna try a sorc tank.....  you're aggravating my altitis, Hokanu.

    Haha, Great! ;) They are lots of fun and the range of build options if you run a magica build tank like me (instead of a stamina build) you get to use all the fun sorc spells!  Of course i am sure running a DK tank has its advantages, but gotta push the bounderies of the norm! 

    Have fun on there mate, my tag is @mishmash81 if you are after any advice in game, but i am not on very often these days, but will get back to ya!

    • 159 posts
    October 17, 2017 3:13 AM PDT

    Hokanu said:

    Malsirian said:

    From what I've seen they've come a long way since launch. I know it's not the mmo I'm looking for and it leaves a lot to be desired but it's been fun running through the quests with a buddy and progressing my character.  It's something to pass the time and most importantly, there aren't any other real choices right now from what I can see. 

    And now I wanna try a sorc tank.....  you're aggravating my altitis, Hokanu.

    Haha, Great! ;) They are lots of fun and the range of build options if you run a magica build tank like me (instead of a stamina build) you get to use all the fun sorc spells!  Of course i am sure running a DK tank has its advantages, but gotta push the bounderies of the norm! 

    Have fun on there mate, my tag is @mishmash81 if you are after any advice in game, but i am not on very often these days, but will get back to ya!

    You've piqued my curiosity. In the early days magicka sorc tanks were viable even for group content, namely vet dungeons, but in my experience not really for trials. After some of the changes, e.g. the champion point system and some skill "balancing" (such as the magic shield and crit self-heal nerfs), and also for some of the later group content, sorc tanks didn't really pass muster. If you went for light armour for resource sustainability you lost far too much defense, you had to have your summons slotted on both bars, taking away precious skill slots, and pets were kind of... not good. Of course for story/solo play it was more than enough, but not so much for group content. Has this changed again?

    • 839 posts
    October 17, 2017 3:32 PM PDT

    daemonios said:

    Hokanu said:

    Malsirian said:

    From what I've seen they've come a long way since launch. I know it's not the mmo I'm looking for and it leaves a lot to be desired but it's been fun running through the quests with a buddy and progressing my character.  It's something to pass the time and most importantly, there aren't any other real choices right now from what I can see. 

    And now I wanna try a sorc tank.....  you're aggravating my altitis, Hokanu.

    Haha, Great! ;) They are lots of fun and the range of build options if you run a magica build tank like me (instead of a stamina build) you get to use all the fun sorc spells!  Of course i am sure running a DK tank has its advantages, but gotta push the bounderies of the norm! 

    Have fun on there mate, my tag is @mishmash81 if you are after any advice in game, but i am not on very often these days, but will get back to ya!

    You've piqued my curiosity. In the early days magicka sorc tanks were viable even for group content, namely vet dungeons, but in my experience not really for trials. After some of the changes, e.g. the champion point system and some skill "balancing" (such as the magic shield and crit self-heal nerfs), and also for some of the later group content, sorc tanks didn't really pass muster. If you went for light armour for resource sustainability you lost far too much defense, you had to have your summons slotted on both bars, taking away precious skill slots, and pets were kind of... not good. Of course for story/solo play it was more than enough, but not so much for group content. Has this changed again?

    I am a very casual player matey, but... my sorc tank eats up vet dungs..  Trials, havent dont much.. my ping usually makes that a bit frustrating haha. Running 5 heavy, 2 light and a monster set. Tons of mitigation, magica sustain and self heal.. I am no cookie cutter obviously (I rolled a Sorc tank day 1 of launch lol) but I am having much more fun tanking as Sorc than any other class I tried in all roles lol.  Finished all DLC dungs on Vet.  I am sure a professional MMO number cruncher will be very unhappy with a sorc tank.. but that’s just not my bag baby :p

    Honestly if crit heals and damage shield worked any better for me it would be waaay OP... i cant comment on to what degree it is or isnt nerfed, just not following things like that closely enough.

    Your right, pets are terrible for tanking, even though on paper they seem like they would be useful... but they offer a bit of a distraction as your learning the ropes i guess. 

    The pulsing familiar dps pet is the only one i'd use on occasion when looking for a bit more low effort dps, too much given up on the bars tho!

    • 384 posts
    October 18, 2017 5:17 PM PDT

    What did y'all think about cash shop and subscription perks in eso?

    • 159 posts
    October 19, 2017 2:56 AM PDT

    Malsirian said:

    What did y'all think about cash shop and subscription perks in eso?

    Sub perks made me stay as a subscriber for over a year.

    Constant fluff in the shop and eventually the introduction of lottery boxes, tied to smaller and smaller content updates, made me quit.

     

    To add a bit of detail:

    - The myriad costumes in the shop are at odds with ESO's crafting and reward systems. There are dozens of crafting styles with unique looks in ESO, which you can mix 'n' match for diversity. Also, it used to be that certain quests would reward you with items that let you disguise yourself, e.g. turn into a goblin, or with a specific skin that would signify you had reached a certain checkpoint in progression. Yet put on a cash shop costume and all characters start looking the same, with no connection to actual gameplay (i.e. having learned the crafting styles or bought the gear from someone who has, or completed certain quests).

    - Speaking of crafting styles, each style used to consist of one book that dropped randomly from mobs or containers. Just before the introduction of the cash shop, new styles were added that were divided into several books, one for each armour piece and weapon type, and some were even divided into pages, of which you had to collect a certain number to get a random book. Because newer styles were tied to specific zones, including DLC zones, collecting all the style books became a huge grind. The reason for this became clear when you became able to purchase the styles in the shop. To add insult to injury, crafting a certain style requires not only that you've obtained the corresponding style book but also that you have the correct style material. For later DLC-related styles, style materials went from common drops to sometimes extremely rare ones. Again, this was done to drive the sale of cash shop "mimic stones" which substitute for any style material. If you're curious, purchasing every style in the shop will run you a bill of 65,500 crowns. The current best value pack in the EU is € 125 for 21,000 crowns, which means it would cost you some € 400  and change to buy them all. Sure you don't *have* to buy them all, but remember that these used to be earned by playing the game and were turned into an endless grind.

    - Riding skill lessons were also an obvious cash grab. You used to be able to level a horse's skills (speed, stamina and carrying capacity) by feeding it every day. Most people would have separate mounts for separate purposes, since different mounts started at higher levels in their specialized skill. It would take you about a month to train a speed horse to max, which you could do simultaneously with a pack horse for carrying capacity and a stamina horse to avoid being dismounted. After the cash shop was introduced, riding was tied to a character (not account, but individual character). A new character now started at 0 in all three riding skills and could only train once per day. The month-long process turned into a 6-month grind... unless you ponied up for riding lessons from the cash store.

    - Consumables in the cash shop compete with crafted consumables, undermining a player-driven economy. Some are borderline pay to win, such as the XP scrolls.

    - Freaking lottery boxes. 'nuff said.

    - Paid DLC for subscribers. Originally, Zenimax pledged never to abandon the subscription model. When they did, they promised that subscribing would give you access to all content and expansions. Then they launched Morrowind and made subscribers pay for it. I was long gone by then, but it still shocked me that they would do it.

    • 384 posts
    October 19, 2017 7:17 AM PDT

    Wow - I didn't know all that about the cash shop and crafting. That really, really sucks!! Granted I haven't looked at the shop much but I it seemed like most of the stuff was fluff, just cosmetic stuff, and dlc but damn, I would have quit too had I invested a lot of time into learning different motifs and obtaining costumes or leveling up skills to make consumables only to have all that work get negated.

    I did sub, access to the crafting component space is pretty much required.  With the crowns that came with the sub I got a non-combat pet cause my little girls wanted a cat =) and a mount. All the dlc is nice too.

    I didn't realize you could buy riding lessons either. I thought the way it is now is the way it'd always been. From that perspective it didn't bother me that the mount training was linked to each character. I actually would have been surprised if it had been accound wide. I would probably care about the training more if I was involved in pvp but just to get around the world it's ok.

    Sounds like Zenimax got around their promise of not charging subscribers for dlc buy calling Morrowind a "chapter"....  I know there was a lot of complaints that it didn't offer enough content to justify the cost when it first came out. And again, I don't think I would have been very happy about having to buy it had I been a subscriber at the time, considering their previous promise. 

    I can kinda understand a company "needing" to do stuff like that in order to keep a game viable but ugh it's so frustrating and in the long run I'm sure there are many players like you who just quit. I wonder if it actually makes them money in the long run. I guess it does or they wouldn't do it.... 

    I am just so glad that Pantheon is not going down this path. I know they have said "Pantheon will not be ‘freemium’ or have ‘cash shops’..."  Buuut if they ever do have a cash shop (never say never) I at least have hope they will do it so that it doesn't ruin the economy or other accomplishments in game. 

     

    oh and yes - lottery boxes are the worst.

    • 839 posts
    October 19, 2017 11:11 PM PDT

    I just dont use the shop, so it doesnt bother me, if people want to bypass the work for their skill line or whatever in an essentially single player MMO i dont feel like I or the wider community / game would even ever be affected by their choices... however in a true mmo like Pantheon where there is so much importance placed on the community and economy working and sustaining, well then these sort of paid shortcuts would be very frustrating for someone who has worked to be a top tier crafter or somthing.

    Please note i wouldnt wish for any cash shop in any game if someone asked me to vote, but in a game like ESO where the greater community is largely just random strangers, i wouldnt even think twice about it causing any issues with the game.  ESO just doesnt need a true community to work, it doesnt seem to be that kinda game.

    • 109 posts
    November 4, 2017 7:09 AM PDT

    I picked up ESO after not touching it since Beta. It has changed a Lot. I really like. It's beautiful. I like the combat. I LOVE the Storyline, voice acted Quests, they are fantastic. 

    Someone said " I could just stay in one zone and level ..."  This is a pretty large world, who would Want to play that way?  I could go to Innothule swamp and Guk as any race and never see another zone until 50 in Everquest. (and I am sure some might have done that) but what a BORING way to play a game. .... You know, sometimes a game is what You make it. You can try to make things as boring as possible or you can embrace what a game offers and have fun.  

    I am a sucker for Story lines and Voice acting. That means I also like SWTOR. Epic, Fun Story lines that are Voice acted. 

     

     

    • 384 posts
    November 6, 2017 1:28 PM PST

    Naim said:

    I picked up ESO after not touching it since Beta. It has changed a Lot. I really like. It's beautiful. I like the combat. I LOVE the Storyline, voice acted Quests, they are fantastic. 

    Someone said " I could just stay in one zone and level ..."  This is a pretty large world, who would Want to play that way?  I could go to Innothule swamp and Guk as any race and never see another zone until 50 in Everquest. (and I am sure some might have done that) but what a BORING way to play a game. .... You know, sometimes a game is what You make it. You can try to make things as boring as possible or you can embrace what a game offers and have fun.  

    I am a sucker for Story lines and Voice acting. That means I also like SWTOR. Epic, Fun Story lines that are Voice acted. 

    I'm still enjoying exploring and seeing new areas of the world - it's beatutiful - and doing the story driven content. The quest lines are (mostly) very well acted and interesting. It's a very engaging rpg. It's not a very good mmo. I can solo almost everything and never have to talk to anyone else. Buuut... the character advancement is cool and the story is great and it's also pretty fun to duo. Buuuut... there is never any risk in anything you do. If you die you just rez yourself and try again. Can I hop and and relax, spend some time running around the world exploring, seeing the sights and maybe knocking out a couple quests? yup!  Is it very rewarding as a social experience? No, lol not at all.  It's a good time killer if you're in the mood for an rpg and wanna play with a few friends. But.... I don't anticipate I'll still be playing by the time Pantheon comes out, if so, I'll drop it in a hot minute as soon as it is released. 

    • 3852 posts
    November 9, 2017 3:21 PM PST

    Maybe I should take another look - I tried it in open beta and although I was a fan of the single player games ESO struck me as TOO much like a single player game for a MMO.

    I don't need a game that will keep me interested for years I need one that will - Gods let it be so - keep me interestted for 6 months to a year.

    • 18 posts
    November 10, 2017 9:51 AM PST

    I like ESO for the fact you can pick it up when you feel like it and go back to it whenever. The storylines are enjoyable and I can solo or group depending on what I feel like that day. I have a number of guildies who are only leveling up by doing random groups now for dungeons. That being said like most MMOs the random DPS queues for dungeons is horrendous.

    So far as the cash shop, subscription perks, DLC and chapters go. The cash shop is cosmetic, convenience and exp/mount boosts you can buy. But I don't see much of a point since you can either get it all in-game at a slower pace or through crafting. If you want to support the game further spend some money and grab the starter pack or motifs for crafting otherwise eh. I think the biggest in-game benefit of the cash shop is you can buy the starter pack to unlock any race for any faction character creation option, again in my opinion this is mostly convenience since if I am not mistaken at the top end meta your racial traits count for less than a 2% different in damage output if you do absolutely everything else perfectly. Werewolf bite, Vampire bite, Exp Boost potions, and mount stats can all be gotten through in-game activities.

    I think the subscription perks with DLC access, crafting storage, extra bank space and house item limit is great for encouraging people to have a subscription, but it doesn't impact what content you have access to Zenimax was always upfront that DLC content could either be purchased for permanent access or played through using a subscription. I am disappointed about "Chapters" like Morrowind, I wish they had been upfront about them from the start but I can understand the need to cover additional development costs. I think that I would be more OK with it if they did something similar to GW2 where they made the base game free at this point and the box cost came from the most recent Chapter release. There does seem to be a mix of opinion on content within a Chapter and if it was enough, in my opinion, the base cost for Morrowind was about right for the amount of content I played through. New area with next starting character experience that took you to your 30ies, new class, and the storyline was very enjoyable. I have played single player games with about 8 to 10 hours of content vs Morrowind where I have easily doubled to tripled that playtime.

    Overall if you are looking for an online game with good story, great voice acting, fast-paced combat and an ability to choose what content you want to participate in at pretty much anytime ESO is worthwhile. The subscription perks are super convenient and give you access to all the DLC while active for even more stuff to do. If you want access to the Warden class and the Morrowind storyline, unfortunately, you will have to buy Morrowind (As an FYI at the moment Warden is underperforming DPS in the meta by about 5 percent but has great utility).

    If you do try it out I would also suggest looking at some add-ons from ESOUI. I personally found using some of them makes a huge difference in my enjoyment of ESO. Syshard, Lorebooks, AUI and a minimap to name a few.

    Cheers,