Population shrinking, PLEASE do something

Tandor

AzuraFan wrote: »

Syldras wrote: »

There had been claims that ESO had too much content, it would be overwhelming, people would never get everything done anyway - it don't think that's accurate. 40 hours are 2 weeks or so. Even if the game has 8 chapters, that's done in 4 months. Of course, there are also smaller dlc zones and the base game, so another few months can be added, but still, that's probably all finished in under a year. What then? What to do the whole year until the next chapter drops?

As far as gamers who primarily quest go, ZOS shot themselves in the foot with AwA. It meant that some players (like me) who would have repeated the story content on alts now stick to only one character, so once that character has done the new zone, that's it. I keep myself busy with achievements and hunting lore books, but I have to admit that I've been asking myself lately why I keep logging in, when I have a Steam backlog of games to play and there are quite a few games coming out in the next year that I'm looking forward to (later today I'll start Starfield's latest DLC, and I've preordered a game coming out at the end of October, and there's one I want to play coming out in December, one in February, and the list goes on). I'm already spending more time playing other games than I do in ESO.

That's my position exactly.

AzuraFan

Tandor wrote: »

AzuraFan wrote: »

Syldras wrote: »

There had been claims that ESO had too much content, it would be overwhelming, people would never get everything done anyway - it don't think that's accurate. 40 hours are 2 weeks or so. Even if the game has 8 chapters, that's done in 4 months. Of course, there are also smaller dlc zones and the base game, so another few months can be added, but still, that's probably all finished in under a year. What then? What to do the whole year until the next chapter drops?

As far as gamers who primarily quest go, ZOS shot themselves in the foot with AwA. It meant that some players (like me) who would have repeated the story content on alts now stick to only one character, so once that character has done the new zone, that's it. I keep myself busy with achievements and hunting lore books, but I have to admit that I've been asking myself lately why I keep logging in, when I have a Steam backlog of games to play and there are quite a few games coming out in the next year that I'm looking forward to (later today I'll start Starfield's latest DLC, and I've preordered a game coming out at the end of October, and there's one I want to play coming out in December, one in February, and the list goes on). I'm already spending more time playing other games than I do in ESO.

That's my position exactly.

I never thought I'd type these words, but running dungeons has made the game fun for me again for a while. Since I got over my hesitation to pug, I've been doing daily pledges and having a blast. Eventually I'll have done them all and filled the sticker book, but for now it's fun. I even have something to look forward to in March (if they release a dungeon DLC), rather than having to wait until June (or Sept/Oct, if I decide not to preorder because of the price).

Having said that, AwA was still one of the worst things ZOS has done in the way they implemented it. If they'd done it thoughtfully and done it only for those achievements that made sense, rather than using a sledgehammer, it might have been okay. But I've noticed that ZOS often implements the easiest option and players are left having to deal with it.

Parasaurolophus

@Tandor @AzuraFan Tell me honestly, did you really plan to get 45k+ achievement points on each of your characters? What's the point then?
AwA was requested by high-end players who participated in raids. Since the raid meta is a combination of several roles and classes, many players could not progress because they raided on characters other than their mains.
And despite this, achievements are such a false incentive. I understand striving for rewards that are locked behind these achievements or having trifectas in trials. But worrying that my new character will no longer receive an achievement is like pissing under a bush, well, that's clearly not worth it.
And even more so, this cannot be the reason for the population decline.

AzuraFan

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

@Tandor @AzuraFan Tell me honestly, did you really plan to get 45k+ achievement points on each of your characters? What's the point then?

No, but it would have been nice if story achievements weren't automatically completed, and if the map wasn't already partially complete for new characters.

If you read my post, you'll see that I said that if they'd done it thoughtfully, i.e. only made some achievements account-wide - the ones that made sense - then I would have been okay with it. But instead they made pretty much everything account-wide and ruined the map too.

It sounds like it made sense to make the raid-related achievements account-wide, and it also would have made sense to make all the achievements associated with dailies, too. But not quests, and not the map. I can't even tell which character has done what now.

Also, for you, achievements might not be worth it, but they are for me. Trials and vet content aren't worth my time, but I don't dismiss them because of that. I just don't participate in them, and I don't ask that they be removed, either.

alternatelder

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

@Tandor @AzuraFan Tell me honestly, did you really plan to get 45k+ achievement points on each of your characters? What's the point then?
AwA was requested by high-end players who participated in raids. Since the raid meta is a combination of several roles and classes, many players could not progress because they raided on characters other than their mains.
And despite this, achievements are such a false incentive. I understand striving for rewards that are locked behind these achievements or having trifectas in trials. But worrying that my new character will no longer receive an achievement is like pissing under a bush, well, that's clearly not worth it.
And even more so, this cannot be the reason for the population decline.

Zos didn't implement AwA because a very, very small portion of the population wanted an unpopular feature. They did it because "performance might get better."

Elsonso

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

@Tandor @AzuraFan Tell me honestly, did you really plan to get 45k+ achievement points on each of your characters? What's the point then?
AwA was requested by high-end players who participated in raids. Since the raid meta is a combination of several roles and classes, many players could not progress because they raided on characters other than their mains.
And despite this, achievements are such a false incentive. I understand striving for rewards that are locked behind these achievements or having trifectas in trials. But worrying that my new character will no longer receive an achievement is like pissing under a bush, well, that's clearly not worth it.
And even more so, this cannot be the reason for the population decline.

The achievements were used to track character progress. Before AwA, it was easy to tell what an Alt had accomplished. After AwA, not as easy.

As for population decline, it impacted me negatively. I don't have as much reason to be in the game, or be spending as much money on it, and that is directly attributed to AwA. It isn't the only reason, because ZOS has proven to be creative when it comes to coming up with reasons for me to not pay them, but AwA was where it started.

I dropped ESO on PC because of connection issues, bad interactions with Corsair iCUE, and they keep rooting around in my process table hunting for my task manager replacement from Microsoft. Things are better when I am not playing ESO on PC, and Witches Festival confirmed it. I have ~60GB of prime NVMe space available to other games now, too!

tomofhyrule

XSTRONG wrote: »

Stafford197 wrote: »

XSTRONG wrote: »

MISTFORMBZZZ wrote: »

[snip]

Didnt you have a thread recently where Kevin answered they are looking into crossplay? Im pretty sure Zos are working on crossplay and might even announce it on Console 10 year anniversary

[edited to remove quote]

Crossplay would be interesting but there’s a whole lot of concerns to consider as well. If we are talking PC to Console crossplay then just forget it. The disparity caused by addons is so drastic I won’t even waste my time on the details.

But Xbox to PlayStation does have potential - it would be a question of how it is handled. Will megaservers be merged? Will we just have the option of switching to formerly Xbox-only or PS-only servers? Has ZOS found a way to move accounts safely between server databases?

Merging the Console populations into a single NA megaserver and a single EU megaserver would be cool for sure. Population-wise the servers can certainly handle it too, since they used to handle having way more players anyway. I highly doubt we will see crossplay but will be pleasantly surprised if proved wrong!

Or they could just merge Psna with pseu and xboxna with xboxeu.

Im from Sweden but in other games I play with people from north America so why not possible in Eso.

No, they can't. They've said so many times why they can't.

Each megaserver is its own thing. The Megaserver architecture is different from every other MMO (which use much smaller server shards), and as such something that owrked in other games inherently can't work here. It's why we can say that every single person on PCEU can interact with every other PCEU player, unlike in other MMOs where you have to find out what world someone's in.

They've also said, again several times, that it's impossible to merge servers. What they can do is copy accounts to an empty server, which was how the console servers were set up the first time (the PC accounts were copied to an empty console database) and how PTS works every cycle (the PTS is wiped clean every update at the beginning and in the 3rd week). It is not possible for them to mesh two servers together though, and that's why PTS even goes NA and then EU instead of having both at the same time.

If they want to do crossplay, the way they'd have to do it based on their architecture is to make a brand new (empty) megaserver, and then copy everyone into the empty database. But even then, what do you do when you go to copy a player with a character named "Bob Smith" on their account, when someone else already has that name? ESO's architecture requires all characters to have unique names, so who's the one who's forced to do a name change? Would it be the person who's played longer? The person who's more active? The person who's more likely to leave if you change their name?

Tandor

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

@Tandor @AzuraFan Tell me honestly, did you really plan to get 45k+ achievement points on each of your characters? What's the point then?
AwA was requested by high-end players who participated in raids. Since the raid meta is a combination of several roles and classes, many players could not progress because they raided on characters other than their mains.
And despite this, achievements are such a false incentive. I understand striving for rewards that are locked behind these achievements or having trifectas in trials. But worrying that my new character will no longer receive an achievement is like pissing under a bush, well, that's clearly not worth it.
And even more so, this cannot be the reason for the population decline.

I have never expected to get that many achievement points on any of my characters, but I have never chased achievement points in that way. I simply want to play my characters as equal individuals, not as " a main plus alts", but with different characters pursuing different paths through the game and completing achievements along those paths, not having them automatically granted because another character had completed them.

I don't recall there being an endgame argument for AwA apart from the desire not to repeat content with alts by those players who only roll alts for endgame, but I do recall a lot of endgame PvEers being opposed to AwA because it removed any benefit from repeating that content as a way of teaching others the mechanics as they no longer had any reason to run alts through content when the achievements were already held on the account. Previously their alts gained from running the content. It's clear from other discussions here that it is a contributory factor in the decline in the endgame population which was already evident long before the May increase in performance problems.

Jaraal

alternatelder wrote: »

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

@Tandor @AzuraFan Tell me honestly, did you really plan to get 45k+ achievement points on each of your characters? What's the point then?
AwA was requested by high-end players who participated in raids. Since the raid meta is a combination of several roles and classes, many players could not progress because they raided on characters other than their mains.
And despite this, achievements are such a false incentive. I understand striving for rewards that are locked behind these achievements or having trifectas in trials. But worrying that my new character will no longer receive an achievement is like pissing under a bush, well, that's clearly not worth it.
And even more so, this cannot be the reason for the population decline.

Zos didn't implement AwA because a very, very small portion of the population wanted an unpopular feature. They did it because "performance might get better."

They said achievements were hogging data space and slowing down performance and that they needed the space for 'new systems and new achievements.' So, logically, the new systems and achievements rolled out since then that took the place of the old achievements has gotten us right back where we started, as far as server performance goes.

Rkindaleft

Tandor wrote: »

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

@Tandor @AzuraFan Tell me honestly, did you really plan to get 45k+ achievement points on each of your characters? What's the point then?
AwA was requested by high-end players who participated in raids. Since the raid meta is a combination of several roles and classes, many players could not progress because they raided on characters other than their mains.
And despite this, achievements are such a false incentive. I understand striving for rewards that are locked behind these achievements or having trifectas in trials. But worrying that my new character will no longer receive an achievement is like pissing under a bush, well, that's clearly not worth it.
And even more so, this cannot be the reason for the population decline.

I don't recall there being an endgame argument for AwA apart from the desire not to repeat content with alts by those players who only roll alts for endgame, but I do recall a lot of endgame PvEers being opposed to AwA because it removed any benefit from repeating that content as a way of teaching others the mechanics as they no longer had any reason to run alts through content when the achievements were already held on the account. Previously their alts gained from running the content. It's clear from other discussions here that it is a contributory factor in the decline in the endgame population which was already evident long before the May increase in performance problems.

You have quite literally hit the nail on the head and are exactly correct.

AwA for a lot of PvErs largely ruined the appeal of repeating challenging PvE content in order to get the title or achievement on other characters or another role. People liked doing that and it actually extended the lifespan of PvE content on the whole. It was also useful in order to gauge the experience level of a particular person on different roles. Just because I got Planesbreaker on a DPS doesn't automatically make me an experienced enough player to get Planesbreaker on a tank, for example. I'd have to significantly practise more, it felt rewarding to put in the effort to do it to say "I got X title on multiple roles" which AwA has disincentivised.

It's definitely not the only reason, but AwA was just another thing in an increasingly longer list of dissatisfaction among the PvE community.

Jaraal

Rkindaleft wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

@Tandor @AzuraFan Tell me honestly, did you really plan to get 45k+ achievement points on each of your characters? What's the point then?
AwA was requested by high-end players who participated in raids. Since the raid meta is a combination of several roles and classes, many players could not progress because they raided on characters other than their mains.
And despite this, achievements are such a false incentive. I understand striving for rewards that are locked behind these achievements or having trifectas in trials. But worrying that my new character will no longer receive an achievement is like pissing under a bush, well, that's clearly not worth it.
And even more so, this cannot be the reason for the population decline.

I don't recall there being an endgame argument for AwA apart from the desire not to repeat content with alts by those players who only roll alts for endgame, but I do recall a lot of endgame PvEers being opposed to AwA because it removed any benefit from repeating that content as a way of teaching others the mechanics as they no longer had any reason to run alts through content when the achievements were already held on the account. Previously their alts gained from running the content. It's clear from other discussions here that it is a contributory factor in the decline in the endgame population which was already evident long before the May increase in performance problems.

You have quite literally hit the nail on the head and are exactly correct.

AwA for a lot of PvErs largely ruined the appeal of repeating challenging PvE content in order to get the title or achievement on other characters or another role. People liked doing that and it actually extended the lifespan of PvE content on the whole. It was also useful in order to gauge the experience level of a particular person on different roles. Just because I got Planesbreaker on a DPS doesn't automatically make me an experienced enough player to get Planesbreaker on a tank, for example. I'd have to significantly practise more, it felt rewarding to put in the effort to do it to say "I got X title on multiple roles" which AwA has disincentivised.

It's definitely not the only reason, but AwA was just another thing in an increasingly longer list of dissatisfaction among the PvE community.

Exactly, and not just PvE. After AWA, there are lvl 2 crafting mules running around with Former Emperor and Grand Overlord titles. It definitely cheapens the whole achievement system. But ZOS felt that freeing up the data space was worth killing replayability for many players. I know I definitely stopped doing content on my alts once they "earned" the titles and achievements without actually doing the content.

Stafford197

Jaraal wrote: »

Rkindaleft wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

@Tandor @AzuraFan Tell me honestly, did you really plan to get 45k+ achievement points on each of your characters? What's the point then?
AwA was requested by high-end players who participated in raids. Since the raid meta is a combination of several roles and classes, many players could not progress because they raided on characters other than their mains.
And despite this, achievements are such a false incentive. I understand striving for rewards that are locked behind these achievements or having trifectas in trials. But worrying that my new character will no longer receive an achievement is like pissing under a bush, well, that's clearly not worth it.
And even more so, this cannot be the reason for the population decline.

I don't recall there being an endgame argument for AwA apart from the desire not to repeat content with alts by those players who only roll alts for endgame, but I do recall a lot of endgame PvEers being opposed to AwA because it removed any benefit from repeating that content as a way of teaching others the mechanics as they no longer had any reason to run alts through content when the achievements were already held on the account. Previously their alts gained from running the content. It's clear from other discussions here that it is a contributory factor in the decline in the endgame population which was already evident long before the May increase in performance problems.

You have quite literally hit the nail on the head and are exactly correct.

AwA for a lot of PvErs largely ruined the appeal of repeating challenging PvE content in order to get the title or achievement on other characters or another role. People liked doing that and it actually extended the lifespan of PvE content on the whole. It was also useful in order to gauge the experience level of a particular person on different roles. Just because I got Planesbreaker on a DPS doesn't automatically make me an experienced enough player to get Planesbreaker on a tank, for example. I'd have to significantly practise more, it felt rewarding to put in the effort to do it to say "I got X title on multiple roles" which AwA has disincentivised.

It's definitely not the only reason, but AwA was just another thing in an increasingly longer list of dissatisfaction among the PvE community.

Exactly, and not just PvE. After AWA, there are lvl 2 crafting mules running around with Former Emperor and Grand Overlord titles. It definitely cheapens the whole achievement system. But ZOS felt that freeing up the data space was worth killing replayability for many players. I know I definitely stopped doing content on my alts once they "earned" the titles and achievements without actually doing the content.

I feel that AwA could’ve been great if the game launched that way. But to add it so late into the game’s life? It could’ve been handled with a lot more care for sure.

Pelanora

I like AwA. but I don't like toon based horse riding skills or the skill lines which are massive location-tied grinds. They should both be AwA.

Normal get- good- over- time skill increases should be toon based.

AzuraFan

Rkindaleft wrote: »

AwA for a lot of PvErs largely ruined the appeal of repeating challenging PvE content in order to get the title or achievement on other characters or another role. People liked doing that and it actually extended the lifespan of PvE content on the whole.

Character-based achievements were a great repeatable system. ZOS says they want more of those, but they trashed one of the best ones they had.

Surtalogic

It would be nice if ZoS could share a vision of the game. Where are we going to? What are you going to do to address the concerns mentioned in this topic and what are you not going to do? Modern MMOs are communicating with their players. Please get management out of their ivory tower and share some insights. I just want to know if it makes sense checking back here in hopes of seeing some improvements. The silence is killing my motivation to even log in let alone actually doing something in game.

Cooperharley

I’d prefer account wide mount training or account wide research for instance more so than account wide achievements

DeadlySerious

Surtalogic wrote: »

It would be nice if ZoS could share a vision of the game. Where are we going to? What are you going to do to address the concerns mentioned in this topic and what are you not going to do? Modern MMOs are communicating with their players. Please get management out of their ivory tower and share some insights. I just want to know if it makes sense checking back here in hopes of seeing some improvements. The silence is killing my motivation to even log in let alone actually doing something in game.

The game is feeling pretty rudderless this year. So telling us in advance what the plan is might not be an option.

Almakor

I've been a dedicated player since the beta; was premium too. Played almost every day, bought a mountain crown points whenever there was discounts. No exageration, hyperbole, or lie but Elder Scrolls Online really filled a huge void in my life. With Update 44 that void is now back. Now all I do is play Total War and pray for the day they undo this garbage, and fill the void once more.

Nerouyn

tomofhyrule wrote: »

They've also said, again several times, that it's impossible to merge servers.

I don't know how much technical experience you have but if they've actually said that then it's almost certainly false.

You only need a small amount of experience with databases - and I have more than that - to understand that as the name implies, it's just data.

Even if for some reason the present structure of the two databases is slightly different because eg. some additional data is legally required for storage on one of those servers, databases are fundamentally easy to change. It's akin to adding another column in an excel spreadsheet.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

It is not possible for them to mesh two servers together though, and that's why PTS even goes NA and then EU instead of having both at the same time.

It certainly isn't technically possible to mesh them so there'll be some other reason for the PTS alternation.

Possibly it's as simple as a cost saving or wanting to encourage more people to play on the EU servers which have always seemed to lag in popularity compared to the US. Or avoiding the appearance of having failed to attract a large enough EU audience.

Nerouyn

Surtalogic wrote: »

Modern MMOs are communicating with their players. Please get management out of their ivory tower and share some insights.

For my tastes and from my perspectives they got a long things wrong with their original design for the game but post release
I could see sense in most of their changes and don't think they've ever been arrogant.

The MMO space is brutal. WOW has seem some attrition but continues to dominate and much cheaper, smaller titles like Fortnite also suck up a lot of potential player time. Any change ZO makes to ESO has to balance where they think they need to get the game to in order to attract more players while trying to not to lose the players they currently have.

Sony Online Entertainment, who arguably birthed the first modern 3D MMO Everquest, botched that with Star Wars Galaxies' NGE (new game experience) and no longer exist. Sony sold them off and their shattered remnants now run a small handful of not completely awful but essentially failed MMOs based on big name franchises like Lord of the Rings and Dungeons and Dragons.

XSTRONG

I would guess investments are the only thing thats stopping Zos from doing crossplay in Eso, not technology

Nerouyn

XSTRONG wrote: »

I would guess investments are the only thing thats stopping Zos from doing crossplay in Eso, not technology

You know they're now owned by Microsoft?

XSTRONG

Nerouyn wrote: »

XSTRONG wrote: »

I would guess investments are the only thing thats stopping Zos from doing crossplay in Eso, not technology

You know they're now owned by Microsoft?

Yeah I know, I own stocks in Microsoft but not because of Eso lol

manukartofanu

The topic has practically died out. Meanwhile, according to Steam statistics for November, ESO has hit a 7-year low in activity. Considering the game's age, these are nearly all-time lows in its history. But the discussion somehow started in a thread about lags.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8229312/#Comment_8229312

dk_dunkirk

Jaraal wrote: »

Onomog wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

I feel like there is something holding them back.

I feel like this is the crux of it here. They aren't incompetent, regardless of what people may say, so there definitely has to be something.

And we're not allowed to speculate, because "conspiracy theories."

I don't think it's any big mystery, actually. I think there's a very-clearly-understood cost for the things we, the players, would like to see. For cross-platform play, it would be an ENORMOUS spend, and what would be the result? People play together. Would that make them more money? Maybe a little, but that's hard to quantify.

Xeroxing another zone? With another couple public dungeons, a group dungeon, a couple of mythics, another ToT deck, and another 8 sets that no one will use? Then charging $60-$100 for it? Those development costs are well known, and the effect on the bottom line is well known. That's what they're all about now.

The people running the company are making very calculated decisions on cost vs. benefit. The massive thread about lag and disconnects that's still going on? Will fixing it cost more than the revenue being lost by people leaving? Apparently so, according to their estimation, or else they would have prioritized it.

[snip]

[Edit for Conspiracy Theories and Misinformation.]

manukartofanu

dk_dunkirk wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

Onomog wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

I feel like there is something holding them back.

I feel like this is the crux of it here. They aren't incompetent, regardless of what people may say, so there definitely has to be something.

And we're not allowed to speculate, because "conspiracy theories."

I don't think it's any big mystery, actually. I think there's a very-clearly-understood cost for the things we, the players, would like to see. For cross-platform play, it would be an ENORMOUS spend, and what would be the result? People play together. Would that make them more money? Maybe a little, but that's hard to quantify.

Xeroxing another zone? With another couple public dungeons, a group dungeon, a couple of mythics, another ToT deck, and another 8 sets that no one will use? Then charging $60-$100 for it? Those development costs are well known, and the effect on the bottom line is well known. That's what they're all about now.

The people running the company are making very calculated decisions on cost vs. benefit. The massive thread about lag and disconnects that's still going on? Will fixing it cost more than the revenue being lost by people leaving? Apparently so, according to their estimation, or else they would have prioritized it.

[snip]

[Edit for Conspiracy Theories and Misinformation.]

What about the cost-effectiveness of new battlegrounds? And what about the cost-effectiveness of home tours? And so on and so forth.

Personofsecrets

manukartofanu wrote: »

The topic has practically died out. Meanwhile, according to Steam statistics for November, ESO has hit a 7-year low in activity. Considering the game's age, these are nearly all-time lows in its history. But the discussion somehow started in a thread about lags.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8229312/#Comment_8229312

The number doesn't seem that much lower. We are down, through Steam numbers, only a couple of thousand players considering the quarter that we are in. The 2020 growth was obviously unsustainable.

We also don't necessarily know what non-steam numbers look like. Maybe they are fine.

fall0athboy

Theist_VII wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

On Steam, the player count is back down to what it was in 2018. I think it was a bad idea to make Plus lack so much value by scrapping story zones. The story didn't need to be a year long. They could have told more self-contained things like Thieves Guild and Murkmire.

Of course people are fed up.

We’re being charged a premium fee for services that have become near unplayable. And the only time we can play, we’re forced into arbitrary grinds rather than being able to enjoy our favorite aspects of the game.

When “convenience” is tied to the subscription, having less value of late tends to put how shady that is into perspective.

But you're not beign forced into grinds. You can just ignore those.

Parasaurolophus

fall0athboy wrote: »

Theist_VII wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

On Steam, the player count is back down to what it was in 2018. I think it was a bad idea to make Plus lack so much value by scrapping story zones. The story didn't need to be a year long. They could have told more self-contained things like Thieves Guild and Murkmire.

Of course people are fed up.

We’re being charged a premium fee for services that have become near unplayable. And the only time we can play, we’re forced into arbitrary grinds rather than being able to enjoy our favorite aspects of the game.

When “convenience” is tied to the subscription, having less value of late tends to put how shady that is into perspective.

But you're not beign forced into grinds. You can just ignore those.

If you ignore this, it may turn out that there is nothing to do in this game except crafting dailies ofc

Rkindaleft

fall0athboy wrote: »

Theist_VII wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

On Steam, the player count is back down to what it was in 2018. I think it was a bad idea to make Plus lack so much value by scrapping story zones. The story didn't need to be a year long. They could have told more self-contained things like Thieves Guild and Murkmire.

Of course people are fed up.

We’re being charged a premium fee for services that have become near unplayable. And the only time we can play, we’re forced into arbitrary grinds rather than being able to enjoy our favorite aspects of the game.

When “convenience” is tied to the subscription, having less value of late tends to put how shady that is into perspective.

But you're not beign forced into grinds. You can just ignore those.

I can’t think of a single kind of playable content in this game that doesn’t involve some sort of grind. Casual questing, maybe.

PvE at any level above overland and PvP you need to farm lots of gear sets, mythics, transmute crystals and parse. Housing requires a ton of gold and leads for antiquity furnishings. Even ToT has a grind because of deck fragments.

Personofsecrets wrote: »

manukartofanu wrote: »

The topic has practically died out. Meanwhile, according to Steam statistics for November, ESO has hit a 7-year low in activity. Considering the game's age, these are nearly all-time lows in its history. But the discussion somehow started in a thread about lags.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8229312/#Comment_8229312

The number doesn't seem that much lower. We are down, through Steam numbers, only a couple of thousand players considering the quarter that we are in. The 2020 growth was obviously unsustainable.

We also don't necessarily know what non-steam numbers look like. Maybe they are fine.

It is true we don’t have complete information, but I primarily do trials and I’ve never seen the population and participation level there as small as it is now. Whether it’s caused by bad updates or performance issues or both, I’ve seen so many people I know stop doing trials or playing altogether and there’s hardly anyone new coming in to replace them (at that level at least).