Players are leaving ESO - here's why

shadyjane62 · October 7

I'm not leaving, but this is first time in 10 years I have decided to cure my craft bag addiction.

Jaraal · October 7

SilverBride wrote: »

Those may be reasons that some leave, but it doesn't speak for everyone.

Players come and go in all MMOs but it doesn't mean they are leaving due to issues they perceive. Players get burned out and take breaks. Or they find a different game that matches their play style better. Or they leave to follow their friends to something different. But many of them come back, and new players join. ESO is fine.

However, there are many MMOs (some even older than ESO) that show consistently increasing participation, unlike the recent stagnation and decline of ESO players. So, if it were just a case of 'players getting burned out and taking breaks,' then that would be occurring evenly across the board.

Jaraal · October 7

DinoZavr wrote: »

...seeing how many characters are on Vivec's "crafting" square ingame, there is no significant players churn.

You do realize that the game spins up new instances of zones once the previous instance fills up, don't you? There could be ten instances of Vivec City active and you are in number five, and it looks full. There could also be just two instances of Vivec City, and you are in number one.... and it still looks full.

It is literally impossible to judge the game's population based upon the specific instance you are currently playing in. The only exception is Cyrodiil and Imperial City, as their respective campaigns are single instances because of the scoring involved. And Cyro and IC are ghost towns compared to what they used to be.

Rishikesa108 · October 7

Pelanora wrote: »

I recall one of the last long threads on this, the whole thread wasn't just closed by Zos, they removed it entirely.

Really? Is it possible ??? Do they entirely remove long threads? Those with 50 or more pages ? I can't believe it...

SilverBride · October 7

Jaraal wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Those may be reasons that some leave, but it doesn't speak for everyone.

Players come and go in all MMOs but it doesn't mean they are leaving due to issues they perceive. Players get burned out and take breaks. Or they find a different game that matches their play style better. Or they leave to follow their friends to something different. But many of them come back, and new players join. ESO is fine.

However, there are many MMOs (some even older than ESO) that show consistently increasing participation, unlike the recent stagnation and decline of ESO players. So, if it were just a case of 'players getting burned out and taking breaks,' then that would be occurring evenly across the board.

I don't care what other games do. This is a forum for ESO and ESO is not dying any more than it was a month ago, or 3 months ago, or 8 years ago.

Franchise408 · October 7

I think the main reason is because it's a 10 year old MMO at this point. Plenty of games have come in that time and have surpassed it.

There's also the fact that the game does a lot of things, and it does a lot of things well, but it doesn't stand out as the top of the mountain in any area.

It lacks the freedom and customization of the mainline TES titles, so fans of TES are not going to get an experience they are looking for. In that regard, Fallout 76 is far closer to Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 than ESO is to Morrowind, Oblivion, or Skyrim.

The combat is very weird with the whole weaving and animation cancelling thing. It probably has the worst combat I've ever played in an action RPG.

It has a very awkward difficulty gap, with overland content being way too easy, and some of the dungeon and trial mechanics being way too overly complicated and gimmicky.

Dungeons are fun, and probably my favorite part of ESO, but it's nothing that isn't also available in other games.

The game is needlessly tedious in sooooo many ways, like not being able to interact with anything if a mob is in combat with you (doors, gear, mounts, etc.), tedious skill leveling like the psyjic line, scrying, etc.

Game is 10 years old, doesn't really do anything in the genre the "best", and wasn't exactly groundbreaking even when it was new. There's a lot of reasons why people would be leaving.

I also don't think the population is any threat to the game overall. It's still one of the more successful MMO's on the market right now.

Xandreia_ · October 7

SilverBride wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Those may be reasons that some leave, but it doesn't speak for everyone.

Players come and go in all MMOs but it doesn't mean they are leaving due to issues they perceive. Players get burned out and take breaks. Or they find a different game that matches their play style better. Or they leave to follow their friends to something different. But many of them come back, and new players join. ESO is fine.

However, there are many MMOs (some even older than ESO) that show consistently increasing participation, unlike the recent stagnation and decline of ESO players. So, if it were just a case of 'players getting burned out and taking breaks,' then that would be occurring evenly across the board.

I don't care what other games do. This is a forum for ESO and ESO is not dying any more than it was a month ago, or 3 months ago, or 8 years ago.

they lost 28% just on steam alone... in the last 2 months

just checked, the number has gone up to 41.2% on steam

Franchise408 · October 7

WitchyKiki wrote: »

DinoZavr wrote: »

Considering the Steam charts and seeing how many characters are on Vivec's "crafting" square ingame, there is no significant players churn.
And it is human to proclain "i quit", but stay on a second thought (considering invested theirs time and money). Those who quit for real not necessarily slam the door (though ragequit posts are removed).
"Players are leaving", but do they, actually? i mean some serious churn, not just an ordinary turnover, as new players also join, and there are many players who adore the game and will stay with ESO as long as it exists in a playable state.

i mean, what is the issue, once again?

This is a strange statement, considering a good portion of the population doesn't play on steam. I don't play on steam... most of the people I know in ESO don't play on steam. Steam isn't a strong indicator of the player population. People are observing their guilds emptying and friendlists becoming inactive, amongst other indicators that the community is shrinking.

People have become far too reliant on Steam for data about games, when Steam data is very regularly incomplete and inaccurate data because it only accounts for ONE platform being played on, and in many circumstances, it's not even the main platform used for the game.

ESO is one of those games that has a very heavy non-Steam playerbase. I do personally play on Steam, but I think I'm the only one in my guild who does. Anecdotal, yes, but ESO was not primarily released on Steam and continues to be available outside of Steam. The population that is not on Steam will be very significant.

SilverBride · October 7

Xandreia_ wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

I don't care what other games do. This is a forum for ESO and ESO is not dying any more than it was a month ago, or 3 months ago, or 8 years ago.

they lost 28% just on steam alone... in the last 2 months

just checked, the number has gone up to 41.2% on steam

I don't care about Steam, either. That doesn't take into account players that still play but no longer use Steam to access the game.

Jusey1 · October 7

Theist_VII wrote: »

Sure, pull up the activity finder and find all of them! 😂

The activity finder just doesn't really work for a game like ESO, if ye' ask me. Most ESO players I know are either already doing group content with guilds or friends, thus doesn't uses it, or just solos everything and thus doesn't uses it. Hell, I don't even know anyone who uses it myself. All the queue stuff seems to be working just fine, not having a hard time finding battlegrounds, dungeons, etc.

Now, a good look at the population is actually using a chart, like the steam chart for the steam version of the game... ESO's steam playerbase is lower than usually is. Currently for October, it's at 10K which last time it was near 10K was 2018, so that is a real sign of a declining playerbase potentially. However, I wouldn't use that as evidence of the game itself dying, many many games with much lower player count on Steam are still kicking after many many many years, so things are going to be fine overall. The playerbase numbers can, afterall, still increase and usually they do for ESO in November funnily enough. When checking all previous years on the steam chart, the lowest point of every year is consistently October or September.

Jaraal · October 7

Franchise408 wrote: »

ESO is one of those games that has a very heavy non-Steam playerbase. I do personally play on Steam, but I think I'm the only one in my guild who does. Anecdotal, yes, but ESO was not primarily released on Steam and continues to be available outside of Steam. The population that is not on Steam will be very significant.

1/3 of PC players log in through Steam.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/584393/pc-players-only-do-you-play-eso-through-steam/p1

YandereGirlfriend · October 7

Rkindaleft wrote: »

TheAgentNZ wrote: »

sarahthes wrote: »

I know of a lot of groups that are disbanding once azure and pyrebrand nerfs go live.

Seems like a case of throwing the baby out with the bath water. Sets have been nerfed and modified before.

And THAT causes burnout. Nobody wants to keep re-progging content they've already done or keep adjusting builds 100 times over because ZOS decides to randomly nerf something that was never a problem and made the content accessible. People are eventually going to fed up (many already have.)

Except that everyone should know better than to rely on overtuned "one weird trick!" sets to clear content. We've seen this story over and over again when something is overpowered. Word spreads around to "Get in while the getting is good!" and to get those easy clears while they're still on offer.

We should all remember when Oakensoul launched and was wildly overpowered and that there were All-Heavy-Attack-Sorc "OakenChad" groups trivializing Trifectas with minimal effort and doing like 95% of the damage of a sweaty two-bar build. That situation was clearly not tenable long-term and Oakensoul was adjusted... several times. Same thing happened with Thrassians and Pale Order (remember those All-Vampire meta patches) and probably a bunch more than I'm forgetting.

Moral of the story is that if a group is entirely reliant upon a single piece of gear to do something... that should probably be a warning sign that they're not actually ready for that content.

Syldras · October 7

Xandreia_ wrote: »

they lost 28% just on steam alone... in the last 2 months

That sounds like people who return solely to play the summer chapter and then leave again. Was the same thing visible in summer 2023?

ThoraxtheDark · October 7

The fact of the matter is the game has gotten really dull, it seems the devs are putting less content each year.

The pvp update seems devoid of any community feedback , it's just random 8v8 maps nobody asked for. Fix cyrodiil first

nathamarath · October 7

[snip]
[edited for baiting]

DoofusMax · October 7

Dang! I knew I should have come in and read the gripes on the official forums before I went and sank a few thousand hours into a game that I'm not supposed to be enjoying. Silly me.

pklemming · October 7

Azureblight is the final straw in a long disappointing series of nerfs and lack of communication.. No more money to ZoS, ever again. I will play it as free to play only.

There are plenty of other games I can spend money on. Places that actually value players and feedback, and do not use bait and switch tactics to sell poor quality content, or feel the need to nerf stuff for zero reason.

I am still waiting on the public apology from the creative director too. Apparently, it is ok to publicly insult the player base on Youtube, with zero repercussions.

SilverBride · October 7

Jaraal wrote: »

Franchise408 wrote: »

ESO is one of those games that has a very heavy non-Steam playerbase. I do personally play on Steam, but I think I'm the only one in my guild who does. Anecdotal, yes, but ESO was not primarily released on Steam and continues to be available outside of Steam. The population that is not on Steam will be very significant.

1/3 of PC players log in through Steam.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/584393/pc-players-only-do-you-play-eso-through-steam/p1

That is a poll that I started, and yes it shows that about 1/3 of forum posters that play on PC that choose to reply stated that they play through Steam. But we all know that this is only a very rough estimation and not guaranteed to be accurate. Only the real data will be conclusive, but we don't have access to that.

Franchise408 · October 7

Jaraal wrote: »

Franchise408 wrote: »

ESO is one of those games that has a very heavy non-Steam playerbase. I do personally play on Steam, but I think I'm the only one in my guild who does. Anecdotal, yes, but ESO was not primarily released on Steam and continues to be available outside of Steam. The population that is not on Steam will be very significant.

1/3 of PC players log in through Steam.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/584393/pc-players-only-do-you-play-eso-through-steam/p1

So the majority of PC players are not on Steam.

LesserCircle · October 7

Northwold wrote: »

aleksandr_ESO wrote: »

Dragonnord wrote: »

No one is really leaving.

According to charts...

September 2023 was:
Avg. Players: 11,037
Peak Players: 17,600

October 2023 is:
Avg. Players: 10,748
Peak Players: 17,131

sep 2020 - 19k
in 4 years, the game has lost 50% of players, and dropped to the numbers of 2018

That was Covid so all other points aside not an especially useful reference point. Doesn't really say much of anything that that was the total the game could muster *when people were literally sitting at home doing nothing every single day*.

Other MMO's gained a large amount of players during covid but they have retained those numbers to this day, so why is ESO losing so many?

Pelanora · October 7

Rishikesa108 wrote: »

Pelanora wrote: »

I recall one of the last long threads on this, the whole thread wasn't just closed by Zos, they removed it entirely.

Really? Is it possible ??? Do they entirely remove long threads? Those with 50 or more pages ? I can't believe it...

Yep

Pelanora · October 7

o_Primate_o · October 7

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Moral of the story is that if a group is entirely reliant upon a single piece of gear to do something... that should probably be a warning sign that they're not actually ready for that content.

And that set is due for a nerf

SilverBride · October 7

LesserCircle wrote: »

Other MMO's gained a large amount of players during covid but they have retained those numbers to this day, so why is ESO losing so many?

What other MMOs? Where is the data that shows this?

darvaria · October 7

ESO offers incentives to get players to just log on. Endeavors, Daily Rewards and even Hirelings.

You notice the amount of QQ about endeavors that require much time? That's because a large portion of player base only logs on for these.

Plus, these numbers don't have to be subs.

Elsonso · October 7

Jaraal wrote: »

It is literally impossible to judge the game's population based upon the specific instance you are currently playing in. The only exception is Cyrodiil and Imperial City, as their respective campaigns are single instances because of the scoring involved. And Cyro and IC are ghost towns compared to what they used to be.

I have a theory on that. PVP has not seen love for a very long time, and ZOS announced PVP stuff for the end of this year. They rolled out a replacement for battlegrounds, or will be soon, and I am wondering whether more of the PVP crowd finally decided that ZOS is not going to be giving PVP love here.

WiseSky · October 7

2016 to 2021 ESO was on top out of these games
mid 2021 to 2024 FFx14 is on top

The difference between ESO and FF14 around 15K players on the average, except once every two years where they are around 50k

As of now ESO has has 9k players online less then the most popular MMO in the world, ff14 since we dont know Wows numbers.

Look at the data make of it as you will, ESO is not the top MMO anymore but lets not kid our-self that being Number 3 to 4 MMo in the world is a bad thing.

I only wish that the revenue ESO generated over the last 10 years went into ESO, Imagine 500K a day of improvement into ESO and not some other project.

dk_dunkirk · October 7

Despite lots of threads about malaise in the player base, people will complain that there is no data. Then people post data from Steam, and people complain that it's not fair to look at Steam numbers, because not everyone uses it.

Sorry, but Steam is a large enough portion of the player population to be indicative of what's happening with the game overall. That's just how statistics and the law of averages works. Unless you can cite some reason that ONLY Steam players are sloughing off, this assumption is valid.

Since this is a forum devoted to ESO, and I've seen comments about other games get removed recently, I won't bother to include any other games on the chart.

The fact is that we've lost about half the player count from the COVID shutdown time from 2 years ago. Heck, we've lost 40% from the high in April.

The question I'm asking myself is at what player count the game becomes unprofitable, and gets shuttered.

NotNi.ya · October 7

i have noticed that the game seems to be less populated recently. even finding fills for cores has began to get harder due to alot of people leaving due to the poor performance recently

Jaraal · October 7

SilverBride wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

Franchise408 wrote: »

ESO is one of those games that has a very heavy non-Steam playerbase. I do personally play on Steam, but I think I'm the only one in my guild who does. Anecdotal, yes, but ESO was not primarily released on Steam and continues to be available outside of Steam. The population that is not on Steam will be very significant.

1/3 of PC players log in through Steam.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/584393/pc-players-only-do-you-play-eso-through-steam/p1

That is a poll that I started, and yes it shows that about 1/3 of forum posters that play on PC that choose to reply stated that they play through Steam. But we all know that this is only a very rough estimation and not guaranteed to be accurate. Only the real data will be conclusive, but we don't have access to that.

33% of 500 respondents surveyed is far more than enough to establish statistical relevancy.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/curiosity/how-many-people-do-i-need-to-take-my-survey/

I mean, it's understandable that people choose to believe what they want to believe, but actual numbers are hard to dismiss.

dk_dunkirk wrote: »

Sorry, but Steam is a large enough portion of the player population to be indicative of what's happening with the game overall. That's just how statistics and the law of averages works. Unless you can cite some reason that ONLY Steam players are sloughing off, this assumption is valid.

Yeah I still don't understand the thinking that Steam players are somehow different from other players. Are they older, younger, richer, poorer, more have blond hair and prefer McDonalds to Burger King... or what? Every ESO player clicks "PLAY" on the launcher, just like the rest. But there has always been a movement to discredit the relevancy of Steam players for some reason.

I just don't get it.