Server merge or crossplay because of Low population!

KV_Tootn

Hello.
Last of months the game has become unplayable because player count is lower and lower.. It takes 2 hours to make a pug trial gear run. No one runs veterans , because they get same reward as on normal. Because they have the helms, and they dont even care for motives and stuff... This should change , the drops on Veteran should be different from normal. People just log in to get the hireling stuff or do few dailies. NO fun. The population shrink is sick, and its stupid we cant play with the people on Europe server, because we need to grind everything from 0,if we go there. Wouldnt it be better to merge the servers so the dungeon runs and trials are more done and fun with more people. What about Crossplay with other consoles? I was in few big guilds.. we had fun.. But 3 of them , just left the game... Half of my friends are not playing anymore too... Some left for other games, and some just left eso till the game improves. Its hard to see all of them to leave, because we all love this game.. As one of them said : " It feels like all the devs have left the ZOS and the AI is doing what they should do.. Thats why everything is so broken and no one cares about us the players." Even talking to people randomly in zones they say the same thing....... Its just sad. Plz do something.......
Sorry about my rant.And poor English , not my native language. Im sad.

Radiate77

Crossplay is being worked on, and if I was a betting man, I’d say it will be here in 1-2 years.

valenwood_vegan

Yeah they're working on it. They have not given a timeline other than to say that it's a long process that requires a lot of development time because the game was not originally designed to support crossplay. I very highly doubt we will see crossplay in 2026, but I expect we'll at least start to hear more details about it and perhaps some backend / preparation work for it. Late 2027 or sometime in 2028 would be my guess if I had to guess.



But imo at best it's going to be a band-aid solution that does nothing other than buy some time, unless they also fix various issues that are causing people to leave the game.

lostineternity

Swimming mounts took 6 months so crossplay will take around 10 years

SkaiFaith

I'll throw a wild guess: Game Awards tonight - next-gen Xbox revealed; it will launch in November 2026. So, 2027 Zos will implement crossplay together with a newly optimized update for the game graphics, while simultaneously abandoning PS4/XBOX ONE era hardware.
Bet XD

RedBranch

I’d noticed the low population before, but finishing the Easter Solstice quest line really drove it home. Just a couple of weeks after the zone launched, I was wandering around almost entirely alone, talking mostly to NPCs. That’s never happened to me before—usually, for weeks after a new zone drops, you see tons of players exploring and questing everywhere. This time, I only ran into four other players the whole time I was there.

Nomadic_Atmoran

RedBranch wrote: »

I’d noticed the low population before, but finishing the Easter Solstice quest line really drove it home. Just a couple of weeks after the zone launched, I was wandering around almost entirely alone, talking mostly to NPCs. That’s never happened to me before—usually, for weeks after a new zone drops, you see tons of players exploring and questing everywhere. This time, I only ran into four other players the whole time I was there.

The burn out was very real here. Players were thrown into a 24 daily quest grinder. No surprise that a good chunk of the population didn't want to continue to spend time in that zone after that herculean effort to drop the wall. On top of that you have the fact that it was really disappointing as an event over all so you likely have people questioning if finishing the zone is a worthwhile endeavor.

blktauna

its the leadup to the holidays and adults need to be doing holiday prep, some on hols, some recovering from back to back events.., Its alot and breaks are needed.

Necrotech_Master

Nomadic_Atmoran wrote: »

RedBranch wrote: »

I’d noticed the low population before, but finishing the Easter Solstice quest line really drove it home. Just a couple of weeks after the zone launched, I was wandering around almost entirely alone, talking mostly to NPCs. That’s never happened to me before—usually, for weeks after a new zone drops, you see tons of players exploring and questing everywhere. This time, I only ran into four other players the whole time I was there.

The burn out was very real here. Players were thrown into a 24 daily quest grinder. No surprise that a good chunk of the population didn't want to continue to spend time in that zone after that herculean effort to drop the wall. On top of that you have the fact that it was really disappointing as an event over all so you likely have people questioning if finishing the zone is a worthwhile endeavor.

this

6 weeks of lackluster daily grind to get access to the content led to a lot of burnout

the eastern half of the zone being just as small as the west half (as a whole zone, its sized pretty good, but each half individually are maybe hews bane or gold coast sized), so a lot of people who did do quests probably finished it fairly quickly unless they are taking it REALLY slow (it took me a single weekend to finish all of the associated content in east solstice to get the savior of solstice achievement)

there is also no dolmens on the eastern half, as all of the siege camps (for those who still do them) are all on the western/central solstice area

i was in east solstice when it was first available after the wall hit phase 3, and ive gone back a few times in the past month to dig up leads or treasure maps and its about the same level of activity that i remember

xR3ACTORx

According to steam the number of people who play the game via steam is on a All time low.

Even Fallout 76 has higher Steam numbers.

But yea, I guess that's all just because players all swapped to native eso launcher and people do more holidays this year /s

moderatelyfatman

KV_Tootn wrote: »

Hello.
Last of months the game has become unplayable because player count is lower and lower.. It takes 2 hours to make a pug trial gear run. No one runs veterans , because they get same reward as on normal. Because they have the helms, and they dont even care for motives and stuff... This should change , the drops on Veteran should be different from normal. People just log in to get the hireling stuff or do few dailies. NO fun. The population shrink is sick, and its stupid we cant play with the people on Europe server, because we need to grind everything from 0,if we go there. Wouldnt it be better to merge the servers so the dungeon runs and trials are more done and fun with more people. What about Crossplay with other consoles? I was in few big guilds.. we had fun.. But 3 of them , just left the game... Half of my friends are not playing anymore too... Some left for other games, and some just left eso till the game improves. Its hard to see all of them to leave, because we all love this game.. As one of them said : " It feels like all the devs have left the ZOS and the AI is doing what they should do.. Thats why everything is so broken and no one cares about us the players." Even talking to people randomly in zones they say the same thing....... Its just sad. Plz do something.......
Sorry about my rant.And poor English , not my native language. Im sad.

Crossplay is not a solution to a declining population, only a temporary band aid.

ZOS need to address the issue of a declining population by winning back the long term players that left while offering enough to mid-game players to stop them from leaving.

moderatelyfatman

lostineternity wrote: »

Swimming mounts took 6 months so crossplay will take around 10 years

The way things are going with Microsoft, crossplay is going to be Windows 10 and Window 11 users playing together.

antihero_kazuma

The way I see it, they stated they're working on it. They also stated they gave the teaser years ago that they're working on elder scrolls 6. Now the question of which will come first... The cross play or the death of ESO?

fizzybeef

People asked for Cross play here in the forums for years and got regularly forum pvp´ed and mocked.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/666306/population-shrinking-please-bring-crossplay-quick/p1
A example, after 54 paiges it was closed and OP who was keeping the discussion active was banned from the forums (im not discussing it).

Now while the game is on a all time low population wise on all plattforms, ZOS all over a sudden wakes up, but given the developement of swimming mounts taking 6 months, i have literally no hope for cross play to come in time, to safe the game
Hard to not find this comical..

Pops_ND_Irish

Seems fine to me. People come and go especially if they dont get their way, but most of them seem to come back.
I have no issues with this game, its great

ceruulean

The population is low because subclassing was a terrible release..it's clear that ZoS spent more effort on the voice acting for some random subclassing NPC than on the balancing portion. That's extremely backwards. Like yes, ESO is an mmorpg about freedom and roleplay but like, it's also a multiplayer *game.* The #1 point of a game is to have *fair fun.* Without fairness, multiplayer games are not games anymore, we call those casinos, gambling, a reflection of real life that you're trying to escape. Thinking that balance doesn't apply to casual players is terrible. So all the new players who see arcanist outperforming them leagues ahead in overland, bosses, and dungeon, won't get a sour taste in their mouth as they play? People notice unfairness. They need to fix this fundamental unbalance instead of having this "single player game" mindset where being overpowered is more acceptable, because in a multiplayer game, fairness and balance should be the main concern, not a side concern.

fizzybeef

Pops_ND_Irish wrote: »

Seems fine to me. People come and go especially if they dont get their way, but most of them seem to come back.
I have no issues with this game, its great

While its a good thing you still have a good time, can you explain how you get to this statement :

Pops_ND_Irish wrote: »

but most of them seem to come back.

?

Do you mean people from your friendlist or something? Because the data´s and average player experiences, wich are becoming more - are saying the opposite - that people are more leaving then joining / returning.

Sarannah

Think this population 'drop' has more to do with the most recent events, and with how grindy they were.

Personally I am barely playing right now because the most recent events burned me out completely, even though I love doing daily quests. Months of dailies does that to a person, and I am guessing I am not the only one. Besides that, my PC EU account reached 3600 CP a while back and doing anything there feels like a total waste of my time now(please massively increase the CP limit ZOS).

I am recharging for new life festival though!

xR3ACTORx

Some people just like to gaslight themselves.

"It's just the holidays and people are on vacation. People are burnt out of the event".

Yea sure...

Renato90085

This was actually the 6 months in which I received the most inheritance gold..

zenonuk

xR3ACTORx wrote: »

According to steam the number of people who play the game via steam is on a All time low.

Even Fallout 76 has higher Steam numbers.

But yea, I guess that's all just because players all swapped to native eso launcher and people do more holidays this year /s

According to Steam even Skyrim SE has higher numbers - older game, and still averaging ~20k (30-40k peak) - though I doubt they're all playing the original story line given the number of mods now available for that engine.

fizzybeef wrote: »

Pops_ND_Irish wrote: »

but most of them seem to come back.

?

Do you mean people from your friendlist or something? Because the data´s and average player experiences, wich are becoming more - are saying the opposite - that people are more leaving then joining / returning.

This also reflects what I've seen. Several guilds I'm in are pretty much dead - in terms of my friends list, there's very few who are still active. This is the second major desertion I've experienced with the game. From talking to people on discord, those that have left don't really have any intention of returning unless ZOS pull something really major and awesome out of the bag next year, and even then they're talking about looking once everything is released and they might - might - pick it up in the end of year sales before coming back. Most I know have also cancelled eso+.

Radiate77

Before people start inserting XYZ as the primary reason population is lower than ever, let’s take a look at 2025 as a whole for ESO.

This is the lightest content year we’ve ever had with ESO.

Every aspect of 2025 has been a rehash of existing assets, Solstice? Summerset + Coldharbour + Murkmire, except smaller… by a large margin. Main antagonist?… Same one from 2014. (though he did a great job, bless his soul) Main protagonist?… Same one from 2014 First 2 stages of the Writhing Wall? Rehashed existing dailies. Our “chapter” selling point system? Mixing pre-existing skill lines. Minimal balance patches, long-standing problems left to rot, new systems not expanded on like prior years… making Scribing free and part of the base game, does not qualify as continued support. We got Tales of Tribute decks and new companions for how many years in a row now? Did we even get those?

You can’t re-release content wrapped up with a bow on it and expect to maintain interest. So of course, population is lower than ever.
It should be.

If the necessary steps to keep you entertained are not being met, then go find something else to entertain you. Come back later and check up on the game to see how things are going, and if they are better, stick around.

Veinblood1965

NC

twisttop138

I'm not on the European servers so I won't pretend to know the issues there, though I have heard repeatedly it's quite dire for Xbox. For me here, Christmas is 13 days away. I've been putting in overtime, I'm burnt out and haven't had the time nor the inclination to do much in ESO the past couple weeks beyond prog and raid night. People can laugh all they want at people deflecting about the holidays but some of us that play have families, kids, jobs, responsibilities that come before video games and other people feeling the game is populated. Will the end of the holidays make your ques pop faster? No. I'm sure not, but some of us will have more free time for sure.

tincanman

I would not be happy with any merger of regional servers (eu/na) for pc; spent a lot of time and money on both over the years, including maxed character slots which I would NOT wish to see diminished or otherwise scrunched together; I'd rather they just hit the off-switch than suffer the wizened, mutant brat of AwA that would likely end up being.

But something tells me the driver for this initiative has less to do with satisfying the demands of a perceived diminishing console population and more about saving corporate cash by reducing overall server capacity by squishing everyone left together into an 'optimised' (aka overcrowded) hardware setup with truly legendary lag and performance issues beyond anything currently experienced.

tincanman

Maybe they could experiment with boosting the population with bots generated using their much vaunted AI's? It's not like anyone would notice the extra fingers or legs.

KV_Tootn

tincanman wrote: »

Maybe they could experiment with boosting the population with bots generated using their much vaunted AI's? It's not like anyone would notice the extra fingers or legs.

Hmm... Like Blizzard made with wow right now.. If you go into questing dungeon or in a quest raid , bots replace all players.
They still die if stand in stupupid...... But they do the job.. Raided dimensius with the quest and had a full raid group with AI , and i must say i thought first that they are randome players... we wiped few times, i wroti in groupcaht and noone responded.... after a while i got it that they not even real... We did the quest raid... It was intresting. BUT it took away all the bounding with other people, like to lift the spirits, make fun... Basic comunication LACKING.....