ESO's biggest problems: bugs and difficulty

It is time to acknowledge that, while I still love to play it, ESO is a problem-child MMO. Several factors contribute to this diagnosis, but the two that stand out are the myriad of bugs that are still prevalent two months out and the ruthlessness of veteran content. I fear that ZOS may have missed the mark with this game.


I have already posted about how much I enjoy the difficulty of the game, and I do not really see that changing, but I will readily admit that ESO is the hardest MMO that I have ever played.  Take World of Warcraft, for instance.  In terms of solo content, it is a breeze.  Mobs die easily, there are no bosses, and there are few puzzles.  Leveling is just a time sink.  There are also different echelons of difficulty that can be experienced by players of the same level. Hard mode dungeons too hard? Switch it up and play on normal mode.  Raids cater to a select group of players and hard-mode raids are more exclusive still. Granted, WoW did not get this way overnight but even in its infancy, before hard modes, everyone could still find their niche.


ESO on the other hand, is brutally difficult.  As a veteran gamer I have fought solo fights that seemed impossible on early attempts.  They remind me of hard-mode raid bosses in WoW.  You have to devise a strategy and execute the mechanics perfectly.  A recent boss fight was so difficult that I had to spend every gold piece in my bank before I finally downed it!


In fact, that boss fight was so difficult because it was bugged! The boss would summon two adds during the later stages of the fight that had massive hit bars. I suppose that the object of the fight was to kill the boss before the other two could overwhelm you, which would have been a fair challenge.  However, the adds would remain if you died during the fight and would be present on subsequent attempts!  I had to 'cheat' to get through the fight by using agro management tactics to break the adds up.  My point is, of course, that bugs make a tough challenge insurmountable.  


So, where does this leave ESO?  Balancing difficulty follows a predictable pattern in online gaming: release content that is difficult and then modulate the difficulty so that you appeal to the bulk of the community. I doubt, however, that the developers are capable of doing this since they are rampantly fixing bugs.  I expected a nerf when Craglorn was released but the game is still as difficult as it ever was. This suits me, but I understand that it may not suit everybody and after encouraging patience for months I am starting to lose mine.