Top 10 Worst Zones in Elder Scrolls Online

Collection of my top 10 worst zones in ESO, from really difficult to navigate to the abandoned, empty zones and those that just frustrate.

The dungeon that inspired this worst zones post. It is not a particularly large zone, but it has many strong Daedric mobs and a teleport system between islands, making navigation difficult even to understand, let alone to move around. This dungeon rarely attracts players, and completing the two quests inside is a tough slog. One involves visiting various locations and sealing portals (which are guarded by mini-bosses). The other involves travelling around defeating mini-bosses before heading to the final boss and killing yourself by jumping off a tall cliff. It's not a fun zone and my least favourite place in all of Tamriel.

This whole worst zone was a never-ending slog through swamps where simple navigation around story missions resulted in getting stuck in water, stuck on vines or roots or just pulling in loads of mobs because there is no other way around. It wasn't a particularly fun zone for me, and I'd rather not go back.

Intended to be a group zone, Craglorn is a sparsely populated wasteland filled with very strong overland NPC and stronger delve and dungeon mobs. When I was doing the zone, there were few other players around, and nobody was interested in grouping, and soloing group content is very tricky. Sometimes, you'll be lucky, and a CP2000 player will help with a world boss, but mostly, they'll leave you to a mob of undead.

Good landscape but the bad story and quests were boring, at least to me. Much running from A to B and back to A to be sent back to B, and much content was either far from a waypoint or some annoying mountain or cliff was in the way, forcing a long walkaround. It's not the worst area, but it's not good.

The only zone to make me feel a little claustrophobic with all the running around dark forests and trees hanging on your head everywhere. That and the cliffs make getting from A to B particularly difficult and the boring quest line.

The capital city, Rimmen, frequently has very poor performance. For some reason, my frame rate (and that of others) drops from 70+ in the rest of the game to a paltry 15 in the main Rimmen area. The frame rate improves inside the building, such as the Catspaw Bank. Speaking of the bank, whilst you are busy doing banking stuff, an annoying NPC walks in front of the counter with the banker and pushes you out of the way, closing the bank dialogue. So frustrating!

Imperial City is a zone I've yet to complete. I'm not a fan of PvP battlegrounds or PvP in general. I've been to Imperial City several times and ganked each time. It's no fun trying to get somewhere and ganked by a bunch of kids, and it's impossible to get anything done there. Cheap PvP deaths are annoying enough, but there is another penalty in Imperial City - the players can steal what little Tel Var stones I've managed to acquire.

The huge volcano in the middle makes navigating from one side to the other time-consuming. The story isn't so bad, and the landscape is really good-looking, but it's a pain to go anywhere or do anything. I was glad to complete the zone and get out.

A group dungeon, and not a bad one, but it makes my list for the very poor drop rate on leeching plate set items. I spent over three months farming over and over and over again, at least 150 times, for the leeching bow. I even created a support ticket to confirm that the item still dropped and hasn't been removed from the game. Such a poor drop rate for a set piece. When it finally dropped, I vowed never to return.

I groan whenever this comes up on the random daily, along with ICP. Technically, it's not bad, but I find it a maze, and I never really know where to go, and the mob pulls constantly. The City of Ash II is much better, even if it is rather long and drawn out.