It gets a lot of shit for being an MMO but it's actually pretty decent as a standalone TES title.
I'd probably still play it if there was a way to play open world content at a higher difficulty
Isnt ESO completely levelscaled? Like not even like in Skyrim, but more like Oblivion - you level up -> enemies level up?
How on earth could any decent gameplay exist in such a system?
It wasn't to begin with, they did the level scaling as an expansion years later. People like it because all it really does is mean you have 10000x more content. So say you are level 15 and you reach a fork in the road and you take a left up through a valley, and you find a village with some quests. Before level scaling you could get there and find that it was all made for level 8's so you would have to travel all the way back to the fork in the road and take a different direction and hope it leads to somewhere level appropriate. With level scaling, everywhere you go is perfect for your level. Just head in any direction and anywhere you choose to stop and get quests or kill people, will be suitable. There is less running around looking for something to do, and gaining levels doesn't instantly make all lower level content obsolete.
And a few mobs don't scale so you can still 1 shot a passing mudcrab or whatever to feel that sense of progression, sorta. There are downsides of course, like you don't get the fun of taking on content a few levels higher for the extra challenge and fun. And you don't get a feeling that the world is consistent because you are level 50 doing chores in a primitive village surrounded by newbies doing the same quests. It kills a lot of the sense of progression though, and you don't get the fun of reaching a high level area with only a few other l33t players around and feel like you really achieved something and took your character on an epic journey from bashing wasps at level 1 to fighting huge drakes at level 50.
Overall I would prefer a game to not have level scaling but it isn't really terrible and it suits this casual sort of game.