There will always be players spouting doom and gloom, but the thing is: The game is still massively populated. Yes, the most recent update(U35) wasn't received well by some players, but it's not like the next update (or the one after that) couldn't change that. (Maybe they nerfed our overal damage, as a new system which increases it might be coming up) MMO's are always evolving, but they suffer from the same issue as movies and tv-shows. Players always consume content faster than the game developers(producers) can make it.

Your friendslist players being mostly offline, some players try the game and never return. Or they play through the game once, and leave again. The game isn't for everyone, as not everyone is into MMO's. Guilds are mostly the place for players that stick around.

And I wouldn't look at gear not selling in guildstores as a sign of anything, due to the stickerbook noone needs to buy gear anymore. Lesser players in Cyrodiil doesn't mean anything either, especially as most players are not into PvP. In fact, the MMO mindset actually conflicts with the PvP mindset. So barely any PvPers are even attracted to this game. (Cyrodiil is getting old as well, most pvpers are hoping for new PvP content)

Another sign the game probably isn't dying, is the fact ZOS still releases content on a quarterly basis. Which means they are making enough money from the game, to keep pumping more money into it. I would only get worried if they didn't.

Everywhere I go I see dozens of players, even in old zones and in old DLC zone. Just because some people see/feel the game is dying, does not mean it is. People are just being overly negative about everything lately. But as long as ZOS themselves do not post about the game dying, I am going to assume it is not. Neither should anyone else.

PS: Youtubers and other content creators will scream about anything just to get more viewers.
PPS: Playernumbers don't mean much, it is about how many paying players ESO has/can hold on to.

PapaTankers wrote: »

Sarannah wrote: »

There will always be players spouting doom and gloom, but the thing is: The game is still massively populated. Yes, the most recent update(U35) wasn't received well by some players, but it's not like the next update (or the one after that) couldn't change that. (Maybe they nerfed our overal damage, as a new system which increases it might be coming up) MMO's are always evolving, but they suffer from the same issue as movies and tv-shows. Players always consume content faster than the game developers(producers) can make it.

Your friendslist players being mostly offline, some players try the game and never return. Or they play through the game once, and leave again. The game isn't for everyone, as not everyone is into MMO's. Guilds are mostly the place for players that stick around.

And I wouldn't look at gear not selling in guildstores as a sign of anything, due to the stickerbook noone needs to buy gear anymore. Lesser players in Cyrodiil doesn't mean anything either, especially as most players are not into PvP. In fact, the MMO mindset actually conflicts with the PvP mindset. So barely any PvPers are even attracted to this game. (Cyrodiil is getting old as well, most pvpers are hoping for new PvP content)

Another sign the game probably isn't dying, is the fact ZOS still releases content on a quarterly basis. Which means they are making enough money from the game, to keep pumping more money into it. I would only get worried if they didn't.

Everywhere I go I see dozens of players, even in old zones and in old DLC zone. Just because some people see/feel the game is dying, does not mean it is. People are just being overly negative about everything lately. But as long as ZOS themselves do not post about the game dying, I am going to assume it is not. Neither should anyone else.

PS: Youtubers and other content creators will scream about anything just to get more viewers.
PPS: Playernumbers don't mean much, it is about how many paying players ESO has/can hold on to.

When you say you see dozens of people everywhere you go it is not saying much due to zones beeing instanced. I personally play alot in the morning time and see very little people.

Over a hour long dungeon ques at prime times is also a pretty good indicator that this particular type of content is not doing very well and I think it is directly tied to the ingame rewards versus crown crates and crown store, which is the biggest point made in the videos by these creators.

I think the overly negative nature recently is very much deserved. The problem is that this forum seems to treat it like some kind of a war between people that just enjoy questing and housing and people who enjoy more challenging content.

I do not think the game is dying. I just think that it is about time players stop supporting unfriendly business strategies and instead try to push for a change to make the game good for everyone. Wether it be questing, housing, dungeons or trials.

Agreed.

PvP has less Guilds and fewer people. Many core vets have left the game and its noticeable.

Sarannah wrote: »

There will always be players spouting doom and gloom, but the thing is: The game is still massively populated. Yes, the most recent update(U35) wasn't received well by some players, but it's not like the next update (or the one after that) couldn't change that. (Maybe they nerfed our overal damage, as a new system which increases it might be coming up) MMO's are always evolving, but they suffer from the same issue as movies and tv-shows. Players always consume content faster than the game developers(producers) can make it.

Your friendslist players being mostly offline, some players try the game and never return. Or they play through the game once, and leave again. The game isn't for everyone, as not everyone is into MMO's. Guilds are mostly the place for players that stick around.

And I wouldn't look at gear not selling in guildstores as a sign of anything, due to the stickerbook noone needs to buy gear anymore. Lesser players in Cyrodiil doesn't mean anything either, especially as most players are not into PvP. In fact, the MMO mindset actually conflicts with the PvP mindset. So barely any PvPers are even attracted to this game. (Cyrodiil is getting old as well, most pvpers are hoping for new PvP content)

Another sign the game probably isn't dying, is the fact ZOS still releases content on a quarterly basis. Which means they are making enough money from the game, to keep pumping more money into it. I would only get worried if they didn't.

Everywhere I go I see dozens of players, even in old zones and in old DLC zone. Just because some people see/feel the game is dying, does not mean it is. People are just being overly negative about everything lately. But as long as ZOS themselves do not post about the game dying, I am going to assume it is not. Neither should anyone else.

PS: Youtubers and other content creators will scream about anything just to get more viewers.
PPS: Playernumbers don't mean much, it is about how many paying players ESO has/can hold on to.

First of all, let it be said I’ve played ESO for many years and have never had any issues with contributing to the game over time through my subscriptions, in game activities and numerous Crown Store purchases. This being an MMO I understand things can change over time and as I see it, meaningful change takes time and needs to be done for the right reason. Determining the reason itself can take time.

Because it seems like your intention is to speak for all of us by using language from your post that is dismissive towards the thoughts and feelings of a large portion of the player base, as one of these players I cannot speak for everyone however I think its important to add my own considerations so that for anyone else reading this there can be no misunderstanding. Now you say we are all "spouting doom and gloom" and then saying other things like, "we're being overly negative about everything lately" and other posts as well saying that nothing is wrong. Ok if that is how you feel I can respect your feelings on the matter however I don’t think you understand, others too, that is -not- how many of us feel about many of the recent changes, including but not limited to U35. By saying we’re all just being negative, that tells me that anyone who views us in this manner is not listening. Ok. And if people who look at it like this aren’t listening then you can not understand where we are coming from or why we look at things this way. So people who don’t understand why we are pissed, why we don’t like the changes are now I would say almost passive-aggressively labeling us as being just a bunch of kooks. Just a bunch of salty, hateful folks who are negative about everything. And that is completely wrong.

We are pissed because no one is listening anymore. So let’s start there. No one is listening. I can sit here and tell you a hundred ways ESO has made life better for me, the really awesome people I’ve met and experiences I've had with ESO and what a privilege it was to play this game before U35, especially, before they nerfed Templar Jabs and Duel Wield Flurry because those skills were the 'center piece' to many builds for a very long time. Those are horrible changes, they look awful, they don't feel appropriate, and they don't work as well. Its not the same, they made it worse. Again, I have never had any issues with someone who likes the changes. Fine. Great. Like ‘em. But there was a reason why many of us loved ESO and contributed so much to the game. It brought us joy and fun times and happiness and was what we wanted ok. If I can find numerous reasons why someone should still play ESO and the many many good things ESO has done, not just for myself, then we're not being negative about everything. You can think what you will, but if you or anyone else feels that way then then that just tells me no one’s willing to listen. We are in part, spouting doom and gloom but only regarding certain bad changes and not over the game as a whole. We are trying to stop ‘them’ from continuing to make changes which changes the game fundamentally from something awesome and iconic to something no one cares about.

Surely if they took away something that you like or made a change which ruins I dunno, maybe a Character you enjoy or your favorite house or even a server that you call home... if they made a rule change there so that you were no longer comfortable playing I'm sure you would have something to say about it. Cause it would be that or you'd have to leave, and I do know from past experiences, some players out there are big on instructing others to leave the server if they don't like the way things are, which is not very nice and neither is it ‘their place’ to try and act like ZOS. And similar to such a scenario, we are just making our voices heard here because we don't want to just leave the game, its not nice for us to be forced out of a game we used to enjoy playing and contributed heavily to because maybe there’s a certain party or interest out there that wants changes made that only benefit them. However, make no mistake, if no one cares anymore, if they continue to cater to a small group of people who want to weave easier? or whatever the silly reason was for the change I guess, then there can only be one solution for that problem. I say silly reason cause I don't feel confident in many explanations provided to us, (if they're provided) regarding patch notes or changes.

People are not dumb and personally I am more hopeful than negative however from dealings with people in the past, I have learned to be prepared to accept what I already know to be true. And many of us are sitting on the fence now thinking should we go with what we know or will things change for the better, if only in the slightest of ways.

What I don't get is this artificial player-made divide between players who "just" quest, roleplay and pick flowers, and those that raid/etc. I see it referenced all the time, as if it's impossible to play things on both ends of the imaginary fence.

I can only give myself as an example, and I honestly have no clue in which group I would belong. I consider myself a roleplayer but I could be called an endgame player as well, since I love difficult/veteran content in general. I know how to make a build that works, I know how to make gold, but at the same time I couldn't care less about meta.

But I think in general the whole arbitrary divide is just that, arbitrary. Believe it or not, there are roleplayers who hate questing, time-wise there are hardcore roleplayers, casual roleplayers, high ranked pvp roleplayers and everything in between. And I kind of assume every subcommunity/segment of ESO is like that, since the game has a lot of variety in general.

IMO being an endgame player (or having a stream channel) doesn't always mean someone has a more legit voice in regards to endgame content, just as being a roleplayer doesn't always guarantee someone understands the setting and lore better than someone who doesn't roleplay.

Ragnarok0130 wrote: »

Cazador wrote: »

As for what you said about gear sales, you kind of answered that one yourself. That gear used to be best in slot, but no longer is, plus with the stickerbook the need to farm gear has decreased considerably.

Except that most BiS gear is and has been non-tradeable for a long time so that wouldn't explain the trader slump while end game players leaving the game would explain it because they don't need to improve their gear or get perfect Roe for food anymore. Pre-U35 we saw people tirelessly running normal Rockgrove for Bahsei and Black Drake Villa for Kinras to get the current BiS gear. Post U35 we've seen only a slight uptick in nCR groups running when the meta shifted back to to relequen and Falkreath hold to get pillar of Nirn and hardly anyone farming Graven Deep to get Whorl of Depths. People running this content from what I've witnessed as an end game player is nowhere near as prevalent as nRG/BDV farming was under U33 and U34. Some of that can be explained by the sticker book, but not the dramatic drop in farming nCR/nFH when taken in conjunction with many guild traders reporting sales slumps which would indicate end game players taking a break until things shift back in a direction more friendly to raiding. For many end game players U35 has been a bridge too far, while those who just quest,roleplay, and pick flowers likely haven't noticed a lot of difference.

The prevalence of farming nrg and bdv could also be explained by how recent it was. It makes sense that there would be a lot of people regularly farming gear that had only been out for a year. Cloudrest and falkreath have been out far longer than that and rele has pretty consistently been the meta for stam since it's release. The stickerbook actually explains why so few would need to farm a set they may well have had since 2018.

Seems fine on Playstation.

Guilds have seen ‘end gamers’ return, and am in 2 vet trial prog groups that are doing well. Guys in guilds posting dummy parses of over 100k.

Maybe because we were adults & did not jump on the hype train & waited until we saw for ourselves then adapted.

But hey, no, sorry, forgot myself.
“It’s all rubbish, game is dying, yadda yadda yadda.” 😘

Cazador wrote: »

Ragnarok0130 wrote: »

Cazador wrote: »

As for what you said about gear sales, you kind of answered that one yourself. That gear used to be best in slot, but no longer is, plus with the stickerbook the need to farm gear has decreased considerably.

Except that most BiS gear is and has been non-tradeable for a long time so that wouldn't explain the trader slump while end game players leaving the game would explain it because they don't need to improve their gear or get perfect Roe for food anymore. Pre-U35 we saw people tirelessly running normal Rockgrove for Bahsei and Black Drake Villa for Kinras to get the current BiS gear. Post U35 we've seen only a slight uptick in nCR groups running when the meta shifted back to to relequen and Falkreath hold to get pillar of Nirn and hardly anyone farming Graven Deep to get Whorl of Depths. People running this content from what I've witnessed as an end game player is nowhere near as prevalent as nRG/BDV farming was under U33 and U34. Some of that can be explained by the sticker book, but not the dramatic drop in farming nCR/nFH when taken in conjunction with many guild traders reporting sales slumps which would indicate end game players taking a break until things shift back in a direction more friendly to raiding. For many end game players U35 has been a bridge too far, while those who just quest,roleplay, and pick flowers likely haven't noticed a lot of difference.

The prevalence of farming nrg and bdv could also be explained by how recent it was. It makes sense that there would be a lot of people regularly farming gear that had only been out for a year. Cloudrest and falkreath have been out far longer than that and rele has pretty consistently been the meta for stam since it's release. The stickerbook actually explains why so few would need to farm a set they may well have had since 2018.

That is true the recency could play a factor, however whorl of depths comes from DSR (Not graven deep as I wrote...needed more coffee!) and I've haven't seen a lot of DSR farming groups running outside of the recent high isle explorer event. Overall farming trials and dungeons for the current BiS gear seems to be drastically down compared to what we witnessed in the U33-34 timeframe.

Kingsindarkness wrote: »

Vulkunne wrote: »

Kingsindarkness wrote: »

Jim_Pipp wrote: »

It's easy to dismiss all the doom-mongering as typical, but it really feels like players and content creators are being much, Much, MUCH more critical. Check out these video's from the last few days, from some of the biggest content creators (and this is not a complete list FROM THE LAST FEW DAYS!)


.

[snip]

Who should it center on? Raiders are PvE and PvPers are well... PvPers. Whose left? I know when I get tired of PvP I generally do PvE stuff. Raids, achievements runs etc.

[snip]

[snip]

As demonstrated by many replies across those threads, many people that enjoy exclusively the non-challenging aspects of the game (not that there is anything wrong with that) are in common understanding that the game is largely fine. It's good to hear that the game is meeting their needs.

Is it really so hard to comprehend that when some activities are left in the cold then you should not be anticipating overwhelmingly positive response from enjoyers of said activities? It does not mean they are making everything about themselves. They are voicing their conserns about the aspects of the game they like the most.

Please stop with dividing everyone into categories and subgroups of players. This is not a war or the case of "if they get what they want, I will not get what I want".

[edited for baiting & to remove quote]

Due to the nature of the game (solo mainly). It needs a regular influx of new players to replenish those who leave. summerset/greymoor was the highest point where people joined either as completely new or restarting from release.

You can't expect people to play this game forever and ever, there is a limit to what you do and despite what people think there is a point where you have reached a completed experience.

And im happy with that, it's a much satisfying experience than the hamster wheel of some traditional MMOs.

But even if the population shrinks there will still be enough people to find no matter what stage in your progression you are at you will always find other people, sure guilds may disband and consolidate into another guild but that's evitable. The game has definitely gone past it's peak but for it's age thats expected.

The only way I can see a new resurgence is some huge update. Not just balancing, but major system reworks, revamps and streamlining like Release -> One Tamriel.

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

"If you look around and google post U35 builds and how to's for new trials and dungeons you will see there basically aren't any."

Alcast, Hack the Minotaur, Dottz Gaming, Arzyel and skinnycheeks all have Lost Depths updates for builds.

You must not check those pages very often. Those are all the same builds that were posted prior to U35. They just changed the titles on their web pages.

In other words, there is no way to get back the dps/performance that was taken away with U35, so there are no changes to the pre U35 builds for the most part.

funny I got my DPS back on my Templar. I wasn't doing outstanding DPS before so maybe the players hitting 80k+ had a drop they can't get back. All it took for me was spending some time hitting world bosses solo and getting used to the new rotation timing.

kargen27 wrote: »

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

"If you look around and google post U35 builds and how to's for new trials and dungeons you will see there basically aren't any."

Alcast, Hack the Minotaur, Dottz Gaming, Arzyel and skinnycheeks all have Lost Depths updates for builds.

You must not check those pages very often. Those are all the same builds that were posted prior to U35. They just changed the titles on their web pages.

In other words, there is no way to get back the dps/performance that was taken away with U35, so there are no changes to the pre U35 builds for the most part.

Your premise was there were no updates because people are leaving the game. There is no lack of updates. We can find guides on the new content. Those of us on PC that use add-ons find they are still being updated. We've seen build creators in the past let us know an update would have little if any change in their builds. Not just 35. That they don't see a significant enough change in the game to change their builds doesn't mean they quit or are ignoring the game.
Your premise was they quit playing.

No. That is not what I said.

What I said is there are few to no new guides and build updates being posted because the majority of the end game community doesn't see the point anymore after U35. Please try to stick to accurately representing what I post.

Additionally, the frequency of add-on updates has gone down dramatically too. We used to have daily updates to one or more add-ons. Now we just get a few add-on updates per week.

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

moleculardrugs wrote: »

I have a lot of friends who stopped playing ESO but that might just be because life comes first and they’re higher CP so they moved on from the game or took a break like a lot of players do. But I have friends who have been inactive for more than a month on my FL…

A lot of people in Zone chat complain about the U36 update but then again, people will always find something to complain about.

Guild sales for are down for my guilds. The only thing that sells now are usually mats or items that can be resold by other traders for a higher price. Previously, things like gear were highly sought after but now it seems like people don’t want to buy gear that used to be BiS.

PvP in Cyrodiil has less people participating than in recent months. This may be because of the amount of people the server lets into Cyrodiil though.

I’m just wondering the state of the game?

I play on Stadia and recently it was announced that Stadia will close in January. I do have a PC but I will probably need to upgrade it for a better one to play the game with better visual settings.

What do you think? Is the game set for growth or are we seeing a decrease in player growth or participantion?

If you look around and google post U35 builds and how to's for new trials and dungeons you will see there basically aren't any.

End game players, for the most part, have given up on the game. ESO has moved too far toward being solely for casual questers who are not interested in challenging content. Now days ESO caters almost exclusively to crown store shinies for the rp'rs, casuals and not much else. Most end game trial and PvP leads have moved on. They still play some, but they don't take the time to write tutorials or posts builds. U35 was, in many ways, the straw that broke the camels back for the end game community.

It doesn't help that anyone who posts about this on the forum gets dog piled for pointing out this reality.

casual player (former anyway , i come back from time to time to see if ZOS will aknowledge that update was a massive mistake and are looking to undo the changes.....yes even alot of casuals found the update to be a pure abomination to the point they had an unholy amount of news sources agreeing with this (worse than how bad wows pr has been , if you look at steam charts , only one source we CAN get a read from , they have not recovered the player loss from that time , i can only imagine the hell of overall player loss/sub loss is).....and as for the people pointing this out and getting dogpiled? the community managers have been on a censor spree for any negative comments and labeling them as whatever they feel like choosing , bashing being the most common one (funny didnt realize constructive criticism was considered bashing on some of them XD the others just gave up on trying to be constructive because they saw this outright censorship) , and well yeah most of the players have left that were against the update stating how clearly bad it was. so only white knights/zealots left (and some who are just generally asking for information like this threads OP) , i have no doubt ill be a target again XD and i still wont care lol , they can say what they want , the whiteknights / zealots tried it for outriders and that game is dead (just no unplugged) , they literally fell back to "atleast the devs are transparent" as their last foot hold to try to use (pathetically) , and even then they eventually stopped because the devs even stopped being as transparent as the zealots claimed XD plenty of other games to play than ESO , to OP if all your friends no longer seem to be playing , trade guilds seem to be in a bad state to you , it may be time to move on.....research what other games may be your cup of tea or if you knew any of those ppl irl or on discord see what theyre playing. the way the devs respond to player feedback here is probably the worst ive seen in along time , while i wont claim the game will die off anytime soon , its definetely NOT gaining much life , itll just be a slow death which is sad because i looked forward to exploring other areas of tamriel......but not at the cost of devs treating players poorly , got tired of devs like that ages ago.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

PvP is in maintenance mode right now because it's getting a huge and very expensive string of fixes. It's not being ignored, it's just not going to get new content until performance is fixed. Nobody is saying you have no right to complain, but expecting new content when they can't add it right now and explicitly stated as much is just gonna lead to disappointment.

i think most of the dissappointment wasnt about "new content" it was about balance changes to classes and such just being a flatout mess for U35 and theyve been stumbling like a drunk to get back on their feet about it.

Tandor wrote: »

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

"If you look around and google post U35 builds and how to's for new trials and dungeons you will see there basically aren't any."

Alcast, Hack the Minotaur, Dottz Gaming, Arzyel and skinnycheeks all have Lost Depths updates for builds.

You must not check those pages very often. Those are all the same builds that were posted prior to U35. They just changed the titles on their web pages.

In other words, there is no way to get back the dps/performance that was taken away with U35, so there are no changes to the pre U35 builds for the most part.

Why did they retain the builds but change the titles? Perhaps it was because the changes complained about in U35 turned out not to be quite so game-changing after all, and the builds remained valid.

it was noticeable , thats on you if you dont wish to observe what your playing with.