History YMMV / TheElderScrollsOnline

** If you spend any amount of time dealing with Harrowstorms, you will learn to ''hate'' Harrowstorm Shrikes. They seem to merely be a boss-level [[FeatheredFiend Wraith-of-Crows]] at first, until they spew their Carrion Swarm, which starts as a slow [=AoE=] that inflicts massive damage, especially when they spew it when a player's in melee range, but then starts shooting crows that do obscene amounts of damage (i.e. a ~24,000 damage per second one-shot on anything that isn't an absurdly beefy tank) unless players keep moving; any pause is a death sentence, not helped by other Harrowstorm mobs that can stagger or stun players. They have less health than other Harrowstorm summons, but when the difference is 1.3 million health to 1.8 million, it's no consolation.

*** Also at stage 4, you have 0 health regeneration. '''Period'''. Any sets or food buffs that provide health regen are thus wasted; this includes the Corrupting Bloody Mara, reducing it to, essentially, a Savoury dish that also gives an instant state 4.

** Losing terribly in a match-made game of Tales of Tribute? Thinking of conceding to save both your opponent's time and yours? Guess again, because the so-called "concede" option is apparently equivalent to an "abandon" option, as it carries a deserter penalty, like the other Activity Finder, well, activities. The difference between those and Tribute, though, is that there's no team to be dragged down by you leaving early, and in RealLife tabletop games, it's actually considered ''courteous'' to concede when you have no chance of winning. Not to mention that conceding already deprives the early leaver of the participation rewards, making the inability to queue again for a time feel like an unnecessary kick to the teeth that drags out the "Dueling Tributes" daily even longer.

** Wuyuvus from Sulipund Grange in Vvardenfell. It starts off as a relatively normal world boss... until it spews its Torpor, summoning four hallucinated Hungers, and after 25 seconds, it displays how it painfully averts NoCureForEvil by pinning down the player that held its aggro when it used Torpor, then sucking them dry while healing itself. This makes the boss literally impossible to beat solo, and makes fighting it with other players a LuckBasedMission, as the victim cannot break free themselves, but the other players are very likely opt to try [[ShootingSuperman (futilely)]] to outdamage its healing instead of interrupting it.

** "Plucking the Crow", a new daily added in the Witches Festival from 2021 on. First, you're tasked with collecting feathers from Plunder Skulls, each skull dropping 5-8 feathers each. Tedious, but doable. Then, you're tasked with fighting the Crowborne Horror, which is basically a Harrowstorm Shrike (see DemonicSpiders above) with beefed up health, invincibility phases, and add spawns that can quickly become an unbearable flood, so the game itself recommends bringing a group. To make things worse, the only reward you got after that experience during the first year was 3 ordinary Plunder Skulls. '''That's it.''' No outfit style, no hat, not even a title, '''[[DudeWheresMyReward nothing]]''', but 3 Plunder Skulls you could've just gotten from public dungeons. Later years gave it its own unique type of plunder skull.
** Dueling Tributes, the second of the Tales of Tribute dailies, has an excruciating process. You have to play Tribute against other players by matchmaking, which can eat up time by itself, and you only gain progress by winning. Depending on the player you get matched with, the game can take an agonizing amount of time by people who draw out the game and end up driving you to concede (which causes its own frustration, see ScrappyMechanic). As a result, the quest, depending on luck (or lack thereof), can take ''hours'' to win the Master's Purse.

* TierInducedScrappy: This game has quite a few, that if we were to list every single one, it would take all day.
** Among the ten playable races, Bretons are widely considered to be one of the weaker picks due to their racial bonuses. When it comes to racial traits, Bretons are the poster children of CripplingOverspecialization, in that they are blessed with superb Magicka regeneration and resist, cheaper spell costs...and nothing else, making them very magically defensive, but not so strong offensively. As they are, Bretons have subpar health, no Stamina or Health bonuses, and their spell damage is okay at best, [[SquareRaceRoundClass making them powerful healers, but unfit for most "aggressive" playstyles]], though they can be rather serviceable as Magicka DPS mains, and Breton tanks can be surprisingly strong in content with a lot of magical damage (e.g. Cloudrest). Still, even then, there are still so many other race choices that would do their job far better than they can (e.g. Argonians can theoretically achieve far better sustain than they can as either healer or tank, and they also have an innate bonus to healing strength, while High Elves can [[NotTheIntendedUse wield their naturally-high spell damage for insane healing bursts instead]]). As a whole, Bretons are not objectively bad, but they are so well placed into their niche that they are virtually OvershadowedByAwesome by just about anyone else in any other field. If there is such a clear-cut example of the SquishyWizard in ''Online'', the Bretons would fit this to a T.
** The Wood Elves are the Bretons' diametric opposite, being so highly specialized in stamina damage-dealing that they aren't good at anything else. In fact, most of their racial passives seem to be geared towards solo or PvP play, since stealth detection is pointless in most group content, and poison resistance is cool but niche at best given the rarity of such damage type. While they have good stamina sustain, their peak damage potential was hit hard with the {{Nerf}} bat in Update 29, which removed dodge-rolling as a trigger requirement but also slashing the buff strength by half, in response to Bosmer players being ''too strong'' in PvP. Without any other bonuses to magicka and health, Bosmer players would basically be stuck doing sub-par damage as Stamina DPS and nothing else, while Bretons at least can tank to a degree and are amazing at healing.

** One of the most common complaints about the game is the idea that Bethesda will not have any time or energy to make a new single-player ''The Elder Scrolls'' game if they are busy with an MMO. ''The Elder Scrolls Online' is handled by Zenimax Online, Bethesda Game Studio's sister studio under the Zenimax LLC group. Bethesda themselves were busy throughout the 2010s and early 2020s developing ''VideoGame/Fallout4'' and ''VideoGame/{{Starfield}}'' with ''The Elder Scrolls VI'' not scheduled to leave pre-production until ''Starfield'' is released.

** One of the most common complaints about the game is the idea that Bethesda will not have any time or energy to make a new single-player ''The Elder Scrolls'' game if they are busy with an MMO. ''The Elder Scrolls Online' is being developed by Zenimax Online, Bethesda Game Studio's sister studio under the Zenimax LLC group.

** The factions and the entire Three Banners War in general have split reactions from fans of the lore. Detractors state that the war was [[{{Retcon}} never referred to in any lore]] prior to this game and decry that it's unbelievable that some of these races would work with each other. The Redguards, Orcs and Bretons, as well as the Dummer, Argonians and Nords, have particularly heated territory disputes amongst themselves that still invoke bitter feelings by the time of the original games. Other fans think the detractors are taking the lore too seriously, and that the main games have also changed lore to fit their own stories, anyway.

* GrowingTheBeard: The game had a really rough launch, but it gradually gained traction through positive changes, such as the addition of the Justice System and no longer requiring a subscription. The "One Tamriel" update in fall 2016 - which made everything scale to your level like the downloadable contents were doing, enabling you to travel anywhere - was the main turning point that changed former naysayers' opinions on the game. Overall opinion went from mixed at best at launch to [=TESO=] becoming one of the most popular [=MMOs=] on the market.
** Additionally, since the release of the ''Morrowind'' expansion, the opinion of the TES lore community on the game, once very hostile, has become much more positive; ''Morrowind'' for bringing more focus on fan-favorite locations (and the patches shining light on characters previously little-seen) and ''Summerset'' and ''Elsweyr'' giving a ton of focus on areas that TES fans had wanted to see fleshed out for ''decades'' (both areas were last playable in ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsArena Arena]]'', back in '''1994'''!)

** "Homestead" introduced Master Writs, crafting writs asking for a weapon with a certain trait, set attached to it, quality and style. What is the "Scrappy" part? The Master Writ has no problem asking you for an item from a crafting set from a [=DLC=] you do not have. Fortunately you can choose to sell them to those that have access to the crafting sets; when introduced, it was not obvious one could decline accepting the writ.

** The design choice where city guards are made ''invincible'' wasn't very well-met. While it's ostensibly meant to deter wanton crime, since players can't just kill their way out of a bounty like in other titles, it also made it extremely annoying to maneuver around if someone caught you in the act, as any and all guard who see you will attempt to arrest you. Paying your fine gets rid of them, sure, but most of the time, you'll be carrying too many contraband on you to afford letting them take all of those away, which leaves fleeing the only other option, and you can't always get away easily, either, since guards have root abilities that immobilize you and cause you to waste a lot of stamina just to break free. Also, trying to evade a guard indoors is a nightmare, since there usually isn't enough distance between you and them for them to break pursuit, and the Eight Divines help you if you run into more than one at once inside a small building. To further rub salt into the wound, trying to flee guards also increases your bounty, making it very expensive to pay off at fences. There really is no way out of a fight if you don't have the Clemency skill from the Thieves Guild line, which takes some thieving around to unlock and will only work once a day, and only for one minute.

** All the fishing achievements require you to sit still and hopefully catch all the various rare fishes in a zone. And you must repeat this over fifteen times to get an achievement furnishing.

** "Plucking the Crow", a new daily added in the Witches Festival from 2021 on. First, you're tasked with collecting feathers from Plunder Skulls, each skull dropping 5-8 feathers each. Tedious, but doable. Then, you're tasked with fighting the Crowborne Horror, which is basically a Harrowstorm Shrike (see DemonicSpiders above) with beefed up health, invincibility phases, and add spawns that can quickly become an unbearable flood, so the game itself recommends bringing a group. After that experience, what do you get? 3 ordinary Plunder Skulls. '''That's it.''' No outfit style, no hat, not even a title, '''[[DudeWheresMyReward nothing]]''', but 3 Plunder Skulls you could've just gotten from public dungeons.

** On the official forum, patch notes are often called "Natch Potes", even by the developerss, due to a typo a user made (sometimes [[{{Flanderization}} flanderized]] as "netch poots").

* UnfortunateImplications: On a meta level. On the [[https://www.twitch.tv/zenimaxonlinestudios/v/3896614 ESO Live Podcast]] (skip to 00:35:20), it was admitted by Zenimax that lately, they have been using only one model for new armors instead of two. Previously, they would make two models - one male, one female - for every single piece, to keep the armor consistent with anatomy. Instead, they have been using only male models, and then morphing it to look "feminine" afterward, as a way of cutting corners. Cue a thread [[http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/257543/important-update-zos-please-reconsider-your-decision-to-no-longer-make-female-light-armor/p1 hundreds of replies long]] blasting Zenimax for cutting corners like this at female characters' (and players') expense, for the sake of MoneyDearBoy. Much like the debacle over ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedUnity'', female players feel cheated, and are actually offended that they did this to them but left male characters alone. Zenimax has already responded to the backlash by [[AuthorsSavingThrow promising to fix them]].

* IdiotPlot: Comes up in several quests and questlines.
** [[spoiler: Aelif behaves shadily throughout the Fighters Guild questline. It's mostly innocuous to start with, but by the end of it she's swearing by Molag Bal's mace and torturing ghosts left and right. Nobody, including the player character, questions her on this.]]

* TaintedByThePreview: Some fans got increasingly excited for new info and news about the game, whereas other fans got increasingly more disappointed.

* AuthorsSavingThrow:
** The [[MemeticMutation "transcription error"]] explanation for why Cyrodiil has a temperate environment (like in ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'') rather than a jungle, as it should be during the pre-Talos time period in which the game takes place according to canon, was widely mocked as a poorly thought out and canon-breaking explanation for the change. Zenimax later added a book to the game called ''[[http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Subtropical_Cyrodiil:_A_Speculation Subtropical Cyrodiil]]'', which both mocked said explanation and provided a much more reasonable one.
** Fans of ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind'' were disappointed that Sotha Sil, the third member of the Tribunal that includes Vivec and Almalexia, was [[spoiler:already dead]] and thus the least known of the three. As a prequel, the ''Clockwork City'' expansion finally features the character in the flesh.
** After ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'' pretty much made the government of the Altmer full of [[{{Jerkass}} snobs]] [[FantasticRacism who look down upon other races]] [[CategoryTraitor and even non-Thalmor Altmer]], the devs made sure to show that the Aldmeri Dominion of the Second Era is not the same:
*** For starters, the Aldmeri Dominion has had several incarnations throughout Tamriel's history, much like the [[UsefulNotes/FrenchPoliticalSystem French Republic]] and German Empire from RealLife. In Online it's the ''First'' Aldmeri Dominion while the one from the Fourth Era is the ''[[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything Third]]'' Aldmeri Dominion; the Second Era Dominion is basically UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany to the Fourth Era Dominion's [[PuttingOnTheReich Third Reich]]. Just because they [[NamesTheSame share a name]] doesn't mean they're identical.
*** The Altmer are still arrogant snobs because that's their racial [[PlanetOfHats hat]], but they ''do'' have sympathetic qualities, want to rule and guide Tamriel because they think they're most qualified to do the job, and make genuine effort to keep the bigots amongst their people in check because they actually ''value'' other races. Case in point: The Dominion's leader [[TheHighQueen Ayrenn Arana Aldmeri]] openly declared that "The Altmer, the Bosmer and the Khajiit share the common traits of intelligence, patience and reason", willingly consider allowing Covenant defectors and an Argonian tribe to join the Dominion as long as they follow Dominion law, and the faction's capital is a ''Bosmer'' city in the Wood Elves' homeland of Valenwood.
*** This continued with the second chapter ''Summerset'', which takes place in the High Elves' homeland. It allows players to experience the elves in their own elements, both their virtues and flaws within themselves.
** Another issue from ''Skyrim'' that was addressed in ''Summerset'' was that the Psijic Order was ambiguous as to why they need to safeguard the Eye of Magnus to the point where they seem to be ManipulativeBastard. ''Summerset'' shows that they make painful efforts to prevent reality from being destroyed as the faction quest for them has you stop the space-time continuum from being destroyed due to an apprentice abusing a powerful artifact in a misguided attempt to correct every wrong in history, thus justifying why they would help prevent the Thalmor in the Fourth Era from abusing the Eye of Magnus.
** There was some dissatisfaction when ''Morrowind'' came out and the Warden class had no role within the lore mentioned, as it felt like the class - like the base game classes - are not connected to the world. When ''Elsweyr'' came out, the Necromancer class is more involved with the story and lore, having been an element in stories for years, one of the main villains is a necromancer, and dialogue options may change or be added if you are a necromancer.

** With the release of ''Blackwood'' and the Rockgrove trial, Flame Herald Bahsei, especially with hard mode on. Granted, every boss in that trial can be a handful with or without hard mode, but Bahsei racks this UpToEleven with her undodgeable and uncleansable Death's Touch status effect, which she liberally applies to the tank holding aggro on her that deals upwards of ''27,000'' damage per second that scales with your max health, meaning that {{Stone Wall}}s will melt extremely quickly even with healers spamming their abilities like there's no tomorrow. The off tank doesn't get it any better in that fight either, as the Flesh Abomination adds that spawn also apply a nasty bleed on hit that does just as much damage over time to them as Bahsei does to the main tank. It's the one fight in the game where the oft-maligned vampirism [[SituationalSword becomes a massive crutch]], as the skill Blood Mist is absolutely vital for the tanks to survive such an onslaught of damage over time ticks, in an already high damage environment. The thing that annoys many endgame players the most about this fight though was that it was tweaked to become as hard as it is today, as the public test version of Rockgrove used to let you roll dodge away from Bahsei and her Abominations to avoid these [=DoTs=]. Such is the busted damage output of this boss encounter that the developers had to dial back a lot of numbers significantly with the release of Deadlands and Update 32, so that the typical raid group can stand a chance to beat it without having to resort to gimmicks like vampirism to get by.

** Regardless of your level, dolmens or Dark Anchors remain a reliable source of experience, Fighters Guild reputation, and minor loot. In fact, they're so efficient as an experience grind for starting characters that dolmen camping is the most commonly-recommended way to power level a freshly-made Vestige. One of the most popular grinding zones is the Alik'r Desert, even for players who aren't aligned with the Daggerfall Covenant, since all three of its dolmens are within spitting distance to wayshrines, letting people zip back and forth around the map in rotations and sweep up Dark Anchors as they respawn, netting huge amounts of experience and stuff to sell later on. Many long-time players will remain in this rotation for ''hours'' on end before leaving to do something else.

** On the official forum, patch notes are often called "Natch Potes", even by the developerss, due to a typo a user made (sometimes [[{{Flanderization}} flanderized]] as "[[http://s4.imgload.info/cydnz175yjjf254.jpg netch poots]]").

** The January 4 2018 episode of "ESO Live" that was meant to be the first preview of the ''Dragon Bones'' contentended up having some technical difficulties that prevented them from using their normal streaming software/equipment, and ultimately they just decided to grab a webcam to stream and a monitor to show the gameplay on. Early on, Gina Bruno and Mike Finnegan gestured to the monitor, which spawned a series of photoshops of different things being displayed on it (one of them was even [[https://puu.sh/yWVAx/afac74ba51.png used]] for the next patch notes header).

** If you're already in the late game, where your main concern is consistently clearing Trials and Dungeons on a regular basis, you're pretty much stuck with farming Cloudrest, Sunspire, and Hel Ra Citadel for their sets. As the current meta goes, damage dealers are basically required to have either Arms of Relequen (Stamina, Cloudrest) and Berserking Warrior (Hel Ra Citadel), or Mantle of Siroria (Magicka, Cloudrest) and False God Devotion (Sunspire), Claw of Yolnahkriin (Sunspire) is mandatory for tanks, and healers can't perform well without Vestment of Olorime (Cloudrest). Of course, there are many other sets that confer greater bonuses in certain aspects, but they tend to be more situational, while the aforementioned gear works well pretty much everywhere. While it remains to be seen if the meta will ever shift again in the future, the current base as it is has been pretty much maced into stone for ''years'' now, and any changes to it will likely cause a lot of uproar.

** Aurig Mireh at Shivering Shrine. Definitely one of the more damage intensive and difficult world bosses in the game, mainly because of the small area you fight her in, plus the endless amounts of scamps and clannfear that all spawn near the boss to gang up on you. As if that was not enough, she can dish out an insanely high amount of fire-based damage.

** City of Ash II on veteran. Oh, where to even begin... in order to get the OneHundredPercentCompletion achievement for this dungeon, you will need to run it ''at least thirteen'' times to get all of the Flame Colossi, and that is not even counting the "Nobody Dies" achievement, which you basically be a team of ThatOnePlayer's to get. God help you if [[KryptoniteFactor you are a vampire]].

** Wayrest Sewers II, ''especially'' on Veteran. Nearly every single boss has a mechanic that instantly kills you unless you perform a specific action, and these actions are not always clear or are dependent on the rest of your group knowing what they're doing. Fail to disable Malubeth's altars in less than a minute? You die. Let Garron spawn too many Wraiths? You die. Don't interrupt the Forgotten One's casting animation? You die. Spend too long attacking one of the reanimated Pellingere siblings over the other? ''You die''.

** Doshia in one of the Fighter's Guild quests before she was nerfed. Doshia could be immensely difficult at low levels despite the quest being aimed for them. Part of the reason was because many players did not realize that they needed to kill her [[HealingFactor healing bubbles]] in addition to Doshia herself, but she still was not an ''easy'' boss to any extent.
** Gutsripper from the Mage's Guild also stood out as a giant pain before it got nerfed as well.
** [[spoiler: Mane Akkhuz-ri]] and his two Dro-m'Athra minions in the "Stonefire Machinations" quest. This fight is notoriously difficult mainly due to being in such a small and enclosed area with very limited space. This is a very damage intensive gank fight since there are two minions and all three of them gang up on you. This was also nerfed and much more difficult in 2014, but can still prove a decent challenge to this day.
** Lyris' Doppelganger pre-nerf was also right up there with Doshia and Gutsripper. She can still prove a mild challenge to this day, but nothing compared to back in the old days.

** Praxin in Spindleclutch II, particular on veteran. If you did not think SpidersAreScary before, ''you will''. The ZergRush of little spiders at the beginning is bad enough without the three more waves that follow. Sometimes, it will even bug out, causing all of the waves to come at once, essentially making this boss a LuckBasedMission.

** The Corruption of the Tree in the quest "Purifying the Wyrd Tree." God help you if you aren't anywhere near one of the Guardians when it hits you with the infamous Strike of Corruption attack, a devastating OneHitKill for most players. This quest also starts early in Glenumbra, so it's easy to stumble into this one at a very low level.

** One that also overlaps with CasualCompetitiveConflict is the issue of players faking roles to circumvent the dungeon queue system. By its design, the queue will attempt to put together a group of four players consisting of one Tank, one Healer, and two DPS, but considering the massive outnumbering of the third category compared to the former two, uncomfortably long queue times are to be expected if you're not a support player. This gives rise to the practice known as "fake tanking" or "fake healing", where DPS players will deliberately queue as tanks and healers to get an instant match, regardless of whether or not they're actually equipped to do the job, and this is where the main point of contention sits.

*** On the one hand, many DPS players simply want to be done with a random dungeon run as quickly as possible for the daily rewards of experience and transmute crystals, and sitting around for upwards of half an hour just to find a proper party is not very reasonable. This is also taking into consideration that even if a given player doesn't fake their role, there's no guaranteeing the queue won't just match them with one who did. Also considering the fact that many of the base-game dungeons aren't necessarily hard enough to warrant an actual tank, anybody with a slotted taunt will do. The general consensus among the reasonable majority of the community is that, while fake tanking is not very practical and certainly not considerate of your groupmates, it's not the worst thing in the world as long as you get the bare minimum right.

*** On the one hand, many DPS players simply want to be done with a random dungeon run as quickly as possible for the daily rewards of experience and transmute crystals, and sitting around for upwards of half an hour just to find a proper party is not very reasonable. This is also taking into consideration that even if a given player doesn't fake their role, there's no guaranteeing the queue won't just match them with one. Also considering the fact that many of the base-game dungeons aren't necessarily hard enough to warrant an actual tank, anybody with a slotted taunt will do. The general consensus among the reasonable majority of the community is that, while fake tanking is not very practical and certainly not considerate of your groupmates, it's not the worst thing in the world as long as you get the bare minimum right.